D&D General Not enjoying the urban adventure I'm running

[Todd Roybark]

Honestly, city adventures have about as many variables as a wilderness trek. If your players decide to go bounding off to the horizon, the DM is going to have to either repurpose what they have already planned or come up with something new.

The city adventuring life seems scary, but the skills needed to referee urban adventures really is not a different skill set.

Sorry, this is a bit of a tangent...back to our regular program.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nah, wilderness of a whole lot of nothing.

 

[iserith]

Urban adventures also have the added benefit of all those exciting shopping and tavern scenes, plus interviewing chains of quirky, cagey NPCs while running mundane errands. Those sorts of things can be harder to come by on hazardous journeys through uncharted wilderness rife with opportunities for discovery and when confronting deadly perils in forgotten dungeons for gold and glory.

 

[Oofta]

Urban adventures also have the added benefit of all those exciting shopping and tavern scenes, plus interviewing chains of quirky, cagey NPCs while running mundane errands. Those sorts of things can be harder to come by on hazardous journeys through uncharted wilderness rife with opportunities for discovery and when confronting deadly perils in forgotten dungeons for gold and glory.

A lot of people (myself included) enjoy the RP opportunities as much as or more than dungeon crawls and exploration. That, and there's just as much exploration in an urban environment, it's just different.

But there's no one true way, if a DM feels frustrated by the style of game required for an urban campaign then it's not going to be a fun game. Personally I'd find wilderness exploration/dungeon crawls kind of boring. To each their own.

 

[Knight Terrain]

Give the guard some sort of crisis to handle that makes them too busy to help out the players. Then add a clock of some kind so they need to act with some haste. See what happens.

I was thinking the same thing. This is exactly how I have handled things in the past and it seems to work very well.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was thinking the same thing. This is exactly how I have handled things in the past and it seems to work very well.

Playing out a game against a background of crisis is also pretty cool. Lots of knobs and dials for the DM.

 

[Knight Terrain]

Normally I would, but we’re just playing to the end of the semester, so not enough time to reboot. I’m going to try some of the recommended tricks noted above and try and things back to a good place.

As the DM you can always return to the narrative to steer your players.
DM: "After spending several months working with the towns guard, to clean up the town, your group decides to head ______ to do _____."

 

[robus]

As the DM you can always return to the narrative to steer your players.
DM: "After spending several months working with the towns guard, to clean up the town, your group decides to head ______ to do _____."

Yeah, but we're actually in the middle of an interesting situation, just their choice of addressing it is a bit unadventurous I think I'll be able to get it sorted thanks to the wise advice here.

It really does take a different set of skills to run an urban campaign. This has been a valuable learning experience if nothing else.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, but we're actually in the middle of an interesting situation, just their choice of addressing it is a bit unadventurous I think I'll be able to get it sorted thanks to the wise advice here.

It really does take a different set of skills to run an urban campaign. This has been a valuable learning experience if nothing else.

If you want anything done right, you need to do it yourself. Not only are the guards as corrupt as everyone but the PCs seem to know... by going to the guards for this... that interesting situation is now even worse with more problematic facets.

 

[TheDelphian]

I have a slightly different approach.

Adventurers are treated differently than most folk. First the characters should be gaining a reputation if they are doing anything unusual.

Second Adventurers while respected (they have a lot of power compared to most people) they are also feared (they have a lot of power compared to most people) and are thought to be a little crazy (They rush in or get involved in crap others ignore).

So a constables reaction is push it up the chain of command because adventurers get involved in stuff that will get us killed.

I prefer to play the constables mostly honest (yes! there is corruption but not blatant in most towns) and hard working, they help but consider adventuring stuff beyond them and a sure way to get killed. Doesn't matter if this is true that is how they see it. Imagine what fantasy knights go do questing, average soldier has no interest in going to fight dragons, rescue princesses from devils etc. That is for crazy folk.

while a lot of ideas presented here are good they make for a more adversarial role with the constables, authorities. No reason to go that route unless you have too. I have run long urban adventures (they work best when you have only 2-3 players, more fail states to work with) and tend toward the society/ community appreciating the adventurers overall as they Save the day. I also prefer more heroic good guy games, not goody too shoes but real heroes flaws and all.

The characters are sort of like firemen. People are glad to see them come when there is a fire, and sort of glad to see them go after cause this means they are safe and in the end they are not the ones who have to rush into the fire.