D&D 5E What Makes a Good Urban Adventure?

[pogre]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st and 2nd editions have tons of urban adventures. They would be great templates for you. Converting the WFRP adventures to D&D isn't too difficult.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Dungeons in an urban adventure: yes or no?

Yes! Sewers, catacombs, ghettos, abandoned districts, ruined buildings, guild headquarters, citadels, prisons (the literal dungeon), hidden-cults' secret temples... cities are rife with dungeon-like environments. One of the cities in my old campaign world was built upon layers and layers of ruins, that formed catacombs beneath it with many 'levels.'

 

[77IM]

Get a copy of Blades in the Dark and read it through. It's purpose-built for urban intrigue. I think a lot of the ideas would translate extremely well into D&D -- such as faction status, progress clocks, downtime activities, rep, and crew advancement.

 

[S'mon]

I think it really needs to use the city, not just dungeons set in the city. Rival battling power groups are important - think Romeo & Juliet for a good model. You want duels in the street, roof-top assassins, bands of thugs lurking in dark alleys, that kind of thing. The city itself needs a starring role, so design with that in mind.

The first two books of "Curse of the Crimson Throne" do a good job of this, with lots happening in Korvosa itself.

Opposing groups can be:
Noble houses
Criminal gangs
Churches & cults
The City Guard
Rival sorcerers or mage guilds
Merchant guilds
Artisan guilds
Knightly orders
etc

 

[Demetrios1453]

Ensure there are nighttime rooftop chases and canal shenanigans! I once set a significant part of a campaign in Marsember in Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms, with is pretty much the Venice of the kingdom. It was a very memorable section of the campaign for all - masked balls to attend to gather information, late-night ambushes out of the fog while the party was traveling under a bridge in a gondola, and of course a big rooftop chase (which tend to be less fatal in canal cities if characters fail a check to jump from building to building - although the chance of drowning is significantly increased!)

 

[ExploderWizard]

Good suggestions! I note, though, that most of those are for low-level parties. Any ideas what you would have a high-level party do in a city?

The city represents civilization. In order for adventures to occur, the veneer of civilization needs to remain intact unless turning the city into an open war zone is the intended outcome. This means that when going about things, both the PCs and NPC antagonists need to operate at least seemingly within the confines of general law & order. Very high level characters can generally kill everyone in town if they wanted to. There needs to be a reason why civilization cannot be ignored by such a party.

This is why urban adventures work best when the scope of the abilities of both the PCs and the bad guys cannot afford to ignore the impact of the force of law. It is difficult to maintain intrigue scenarios when the party could just decide to cut their way through every problem and not get killed for their trouble. It will be likewise with the bad guys. If the forces of evil are that dominant that they have no fear of consequences from any authority then there wouldn't be much civilization or many normal folk to populate a city to begin with.

 

[RangerWickett]

ZETGIEIST: The Gears of Revolution is an adventure path whose setting is more technologically advanced than your typical D&D campaign -- think mid-1800s -- but the focal point is the city of Flint, which has a diverse mix of traditional druidic magic in the subtropical mountains that surround it, and contentious industry in the smog-choked heart of the city.

The second adventure of the series, The Dying Skyseer, sees the party investigating a murder at the consulate of a hostile government, which ties into crime, conspiracy, and prophecy, all with the backdrop of a culture clash between traditionalism and modernism.

The PCs get both pursue low-level criminals and are embroiled in politics, while their investigation takes them to every part of the city. Flint has character, with memorable locations and memorable NPCs, and it isn't a static place, but a city trying to figure out what it will become.

It's available for both D&D 4e and for Pathfinder. The campaign's also being converted to 5e, but so far only the Player's Guide has been released, which has setting information.

PF version of adventure 2: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...RPG?filters=0_0_0_0_44303&manufacturers_id=87

A review thereof: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_reviews_info.php?&reviews_id=63024&products_id=96300

The Patreon page to subscribe and get access to the 5e conversion: https://www.patreon.com/ensider

 

[77IM]

I just backed this Kickstarter, which seems to be very urban-adventure-oriented: Ebonclad: A 5E DnD Thieves' Guild Setting + 7 New Adventures

 

[Luz]

Can anyone point me to some good urban adventures that I might study for inspiration?

The City of Skulls by Carl Sargent is a good urban adventure for high level (9-12).

Frog God Games 'The Blight: Richard Pett's Crooked City comes out later this summer and looks very good. There is also a high level adventure in Quests of Doom called "Sewers of the Underguild" that could be used as the basis for an entire campaign. Its essentially a dungeon crawl in an urban setting, but a very deadly one for sure.

 

[GMMichael]

The Law. You need to figure out what the law has to say about adventurers, weapon-possession and use, spellcasting in public, killing/apprehending without a warrant, the need for writs to adventure in certain areas of the city, and to what extent the PCs can expect support (or hindrance) from the city guard.

This is the #1 thing. Players, and it follows - characters, do all sorts of stuff in the wild. A lot of it is simply because they're in an alternate universe where they can try and get away with stuff.

But gods be damned if the watch commander will let that happen on his watch.

What makes city adventures different from dungeon adventures is that PCs have to figure out 1) how to accomplish their goals legally, or 2) do it illegally and not get caught.

Good suggestions! I note, though, that most of those are for low-level parties. Any ideas what you would have a high-level party do in a city?

Cities have seen high-level parties before. And bad stuff happened. So it's 99% likely that the city has a policy on how to deal with high-level characters - pro- and antagonist. So if your PCs are high-level, they will likely be dealing with the city's countermeasures to them, or other high-level threats that have found a way to evade the city's response.

- the top clergy are all secretly vampires...
- it's not the watch that keeps people in at night, it's the were-tigers...
and since this looks like D&D...
- the watchmen have magical whistles that instantly summon the Brute Squad when high-level characters get out of hand. So bring an armageddon cloak...