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<blockquote data-quote="Theo R Cwithin" data-source="post: 5524800" data-attributes="member: 75712">It depends on your own style and what your group expects, really... and you only really learn that after playing with the group for a while.&nbsp; Imxp, it's a LOT of work to do a city in great detail, and much of that work is usually wasted.&nbsp; However, it's also overwhelming for many players if they're told they can do &quot;anything they want&quot; with no instructions or obvious hooks.Personally, I take a middle road.&nbsp; I usually have a very general map of a town with most streets and districts marked.&nbsp; Important buildings, and ones the PCs are likely to go to are indicated, along with a few notes on each (basic descriptions, main NPC names, possible encounters, etc).&nbsp; The rest is just vague and unfinished.&nbsp; Think of a traveller's guidebook, with a simple map and a few X's marking interesting things, and a few sentences about each X on the map.In addition to that, I have a few generic tac-maps and encounters on hand to refer to if the PCs do something unexpected: things like pubs, pier and docked ship, warehouse, office building, generic shop, guardhouse, graveyard, shrine, etc, plus a few generic NPCs to drop in them.&nbsp; And for everything else, I just improvise-- and keep notes!&nbsp; In the end, the town sort of &quot;builds itself&quot; from what you create explicitly, plus what the PCs decide to do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Theo R Cwithin, post: 5524800, member: 75712"] It depends on your own style and what your group expects, really... and you only really learn that after playing with the group for a while. Imxp, it's a LOT of work to do a city in great detail, and much of that work is usually wasted. However, it's also overwhelming for many players if they're told they can do "anything they want" with no instructions or obvious hooks. Personally, I take a middle road. I usually have a very general map of a town with most streets and districts marked. Important buildings, and ones the PCs are likely to go to are indicated, along with a few notes on each (basic descriptions, main NPC names, possible encounters, etc). The rest is just vague and unfinished. Think of a traveller's guidebook, with a simple map and a few X's marking interesting things, and a few sentences about each X on the map. In addition to that, I have a few generic tac-maps and encounters on hand to refer to if the PCs do something unexpected: things like pubs, pier and docked ship, warehouse, office building, generic shop, guardhouse, graveyard, shrine, etc, plus a few generic NPCs to drop in them. And for everything else, I just improvise-- and keep notes! In the end, the town sort of "builds itself" from what you create explicitly, plus what the PCs decide to do. [/QUOTE]

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