Running a campaign in a large city

[Gwaihir]

Hello
My AOW campaign is making its way toward Greyhawk and im concerned about running the adventures set in the city.

There seems to be so much information available about whats going in the city. How do you keep it all straight in a timely manner

Any tips for running a campaign in a large city are appreciated.

Thanks

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

I think trying to focus on all of the little details is distracting. I've sort of specialized in GMing city games over the years, playing in Sigil, a few home-brewed cities (from low to high fantasy) and quite a lot of sci-fi cities, including Coruscant (a planet-sized city) and some of my own creation for my OMEN system.

I get organized in an "inside-out" method, focusing on the areas that the party will be traveling in or around. You don't need everything memorized, but the more familiar you are with each area the better you can kind of create things on the fly.

I prefer to focus more on the people and the more significant set pieces than every little street and alley. If it isn't crucially important, then the width of every alley doesn't need to be elaborated upon.

Developing your own or familiarizing yourself with existing factions, social goals, political groups, illegal groups, and key people are more important than knowing the perfect layout of the city. I usually make a faction chart in photoshop with the names and a one line blurb of what they are, and then draw different types of lines to the different factions. A red line connecting to a faction is an enemy, blue line is neutral, and a green line is an ally.

Once you become familiar with everything, pretty quickly plots and hooks will develop around certain factions. For example in my current campaign, the party is playing on a gigantic space station with over 20 million in population (I know, really big, I get it) but 18 major factions. The party has been hired as a crew of third-party contractor/specialists in their respective fields to help mitigate a growing violence problem in a certain sector of the station, which some of the PCs have a personal connection to the area.

Have I detailed every sector in the entire station? No. Do I have pages and pages and pages of information on every NPC they might meet? No. I build things locally around the PCs interest, and since we usually only game 4-6 hours, I don't have to go too crazy with expanding their influence. Since I understand the 18 factions pretty well (I've created all of them myself) and their influence upon and with one another, I can kind of use place-holder NPCs which represent that faction as opposed to making an interesting NPC for every single street corner.

So, to break it down:
- Familiarize yourself with the key, important parts of the city
- Create or know all of the factions (even the smaller ones)
- Create a few named, significant NPCs that the party will interact with immediately
- Focus on the "inside-out" local area that the party is likely to operate within
- Don't memorize every detail of every street, keeping it nebulous is fine for most players and easier on you
- Try to develop a "feel" for each neighborhood or area within the city, if you watch Game of Thrones, this show does a very admirable job at making every location have an obviously different atmosphere, color scheme, weather, etc. You can do this in neighborhoods in a city (just like Uptown NYC looks different than Brooklyn.)


Have fun and I'm sure you guys will love operating in a big city.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Chart events such as...

• A murder happens every 24 hours, double murder every 5 days
• A rape every 12 hours
• A mugging every 6 hours
• A pocket is picked every 30 minutes
• Smuggled goods come into the city every five days (this is the big stuff)
• Gang war once a year
• People get paid every 7 days
• Trash pickup is every Monday and Friday at dusk
• A caravan leaves the city every 3 days
• A caravan enters the city every 5 days
• Ships bring stuff in every day
• Ships ship out stuff every 3 days

What this does is create a schedule for you that the players then interact with. It is the every day talk, and lets you build random events and tells you when things are going to be busy. You can also break this down by wards / districts in the city to give a great level of atmosphere.

Also, work with the players to let them create a "contact" list, these can be NPC or locations that they may know of. People from their back story that they can call on. This is what I call "an Lando (it is what Han does)", players enter the city, finding a celebration and the inns full, the Wizards say, "I know of an inn; it is run by an old friend from the guild, maybe he can help us."

 

[Gilladian]

When you have a plot you want to run, list each location that the PCs are likely to interact with as you follow up on the various events. For example, if you set up a simple adventure based around catching a cat burglar plaguing a neighborhood in the city:

1) the burgled home(s) and their residents. What are they like, how do they react, what was stolen
2) the residences/shops around the burgled locations: not every one, but the one or two that are interesting or might provide leads
3) a couple of inns and taverns nearby that the PCs might be directed to (connected to the theives guild?)
4) the local watch captain and at least one crew of watchmen
5) a pawn shop/fence/jewelry store or two.

Then decide if these folks have links to each other, and how they feel about each other. What bigger organizations could come into the situation, and on what side? If one of the robbed people was a member of a craft guild, does it interfere on their behalf? Is the city council involved, or was a noble offended?

I use graph paper and flow-chart boxes to draw relationships and keep up with who allies with who.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Brahma

I created the City of Brahma at the edge of the vast Sind Desert well over 20 years ago. It's STILL being detailed out. My advice to you is look at a few of the old 1st and 2nd edition rules maps of cities and towns - you'll find that most of the detail is glossed over, and they give you the rich detail for the meaty parts. You can very VERY quickly get completely overwhelmed with trying to keep a detailed account of even a large household within the city - try a city block! If you're a DM who wants to be as fully prepped as possible - I recommend you do exactly as those older maps do: flesh out the key places, and put down a few general notes for the "areas" these fleshed out parts are in - and the other areas of the city, such as Warehouse District, Docks, Taverns and Inns, Temples, Garrisons, Housing - etc. What I have are lists of names of Inns, Taverns and various types of shops and differnt places - that I do not to reuse once used; and further annotate when I DO use them, such as The Green Dragon is in the City of Lowtower, Southern Allore, continent of Zar, World of Zarius. That way I remember where it is (even if my plays don't) - and know that it's used. The Green Dragon has been frequented so often by so many of my players, it now has a detailed write up of it's various NPCs - et al. If you have a list of names of Inns and such in advance, when our party goes "Looking for an Inn" you don't find yourself making the name of it up on the spur of a moment - and if you get stuck, it becomes obvious you have no clue what the Inns are named. But, if the peasant they stop in the street says, "Ah, yes kind sir, the Bent Bedpan lays on the left, just beyond that Fountain.." you get the picture.

Think about the movie Kung-Fu Hustle. Upwards of 90% of the storyline of this film rotated around one small apartment complex in a much larger city. You may not have to have too much detail anywhere else, if the compelling part of the adventure keeps them relatively stationary.

 

[Guest 85555]

I wuld recommend reading a couple of books are large ancient cities or good sized medieval ones. Any book that covers daily life is a good bet. You would be surprised how much this helps campaign.

 

[Desdichado]

I specialize in urban adventuring, but rather than keeping details straight, I mostly generate a lot of them on the fly. The benefit of the big city is that any given shop or NPC is basically disposible... you meet them, but then they disappear into the crowd to never be seen again. You only make notes of stuff that you actually mean to have repeat, either because it's already your plan, or because the players take so much interest in it that it would be a bad idea not to.

The best tool for running stuff in the city is a bunch of lists. Lists of names, so you can have NPCs be named on the fly. Lists of taverns and inns, or shops. Charts with urban encounter types to add color and flavor.

I actually create screen panels with this kind of stuff and have it on the GM side of my screen. I use it a lot more than rules references.

Other than that, knowing the city in broader strokes is better than knowing the details. What are the various neighborhoods like? Who are the important players--organized crime, City Watch captains, important delegations from other polities, etc. Some notes about plots, intrigue and skullduggery between the NPCs that the PCs can get involved with, etc.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Most streets will have the same businesses on them; pub, hat shop, pants shop, bath, sundry goods, knife store, magic shop, shirt store, cleaners, candle, barber shop, mapper, homes and more homes. Only the quality of the shop and goods will change, so you do not have to detail every street.

Landmarks - think about locations and how they are based around landmarks, each area of the city will have something...the hanging tree, the market, the keep, the docks, the leaky cauldron. When players hear the landmark, they can know the location or ask about it. Again, this can be broke down by ward / district to give a bit more flavor and knowledge of the city.

Think about smell and sights - this is what the players will be hearing from you. The poor partys of a city will have the smell of trash, of poor or no street cleaning, the streets will be darker, homes grayish in color. The weathy parts, wide lanes, parks and homes painted bright colors.

 

[gamerprinter]

Along with a chart or schedule of events as in Hand of Evil's previous post, for each neighborhood/precinct/quarter (depending on city size), I create the major public and private structures (the bigger locations), then a develop fairly detailed organizations and factions, requiring at least a couple statted NPCs per organization/faction. Once the factions are created I begin to develop relationships between factions and between major NPCs. I also create several street level NPCs as starting points to be introduced into one faction or other.

Faction and NPC relationships create the politics of a given neighborhood creating a web of activity that the PCs become embroiled in. The dynamic of factions and NPCs create most of the available activity in a neighborhood, unless the PCs overtly make actions that require the attentions of the locals, otherwise the locals determine the activity.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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