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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5400960" data-attributes="member: 3820">Another note that occurs to me: When I'm planning out a city bare-bones style, I try to come up with a small list of principal intrigues. These are basic conflicts going on within the city, that could theoretically get the players involved at any point. I aim for one intrigue per "sphere of interest" that players might have: military, religious, high politics, etc. The more I want to remind players that this is a fantasy world, the more fantastic intrigues I add (like "hidden supernatural threat/monster hunter" or "sorcerous rivalries"). This can mostly depend on your players: if you have a wizard, think about arcane intrigues. Fighters may be drawn to a more military intrigue, and so on.So for instance, when I'm planning a trip to a city that's one part Renaissance Italy but with a dose of "creepy almost-Ravenloft province with a Great House run by openly accepted necromancers," the list might be something like:Arcane Politics: The necromantic House's leader refuses to die, and three potential successors are getting kind of tired of waiting.High Politics: The Prince has a secret, tied to the necromantic House. The three would-be successors are vying for the Prince's support and favor.Great Houses: One of the houses is covertly trying to bring an assassin's guild under their controls so they can solidify their power.Religion: One god's church sponsors an order of religious monster-hunter templars, who have recently suffered a betrayal from within that's causing some crisis of faith and internal schisms.Military: There are rumors of a secret army of undead soldiers being formed, which makes the living soldiers nervous about job security.Organized Crime: A formerly tiny gang is gaining power rapidly by selling out curses-for-hire that have infernally alarming effects.Monsters & Supernatural: The necromantic House despises ghouls and tries to root them out, but a wily ghoul lord is experimenting on creating a form of infected half-ghoul that could pass for human and infiltrate other power groups, eventually bringing down the House.So that's a few minutes' work. Now, note that this is not all stuff I intend to deliver to the players as exposition, particularly if they don't ask: this is meant to be existing conflicts that I can mine for rumors, story hooks and the like. If the players start using Streetwise to gather information, or call on contacts in the appropriate social strata, they can find out about this stuff. If they're feeling passive that night, then I can have someone approach them to get them involved in whatever plot I choose at the moment: the cleric PC is approached by two different factions of the monster-hunting templars trying to win his support, for instance, or the House that's trying to control the assassins' guild hires the PCs to pull a raid against a suspected assassins' safehouse and steal a specific lockbox.If you feel you need more specific details, you can spend more time fleshing out these intrigues and hooks. But this is the kind of thing that can help you really get a handle on your city as a living, organic entity. And once you're comfortable with the idea, you can get your players comfortable with it as well.</blockquote>

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