What products (if any) bring you the best city-related experience?

[mearls]

1. City of Greyhawk Boxed Set: This formed the basis of almost every 1e campaign I ran in high school. What made it great for me was that it gave enough detail on the city for interesting adventures, but it also looked at the areas around the city. There was enough of a mix of dungeon, urban, and wilderness adventure that the city served as the centerpiece of entire campaigns that featured a broad array of adventures. I also loved the 12 (or more) adventure cards that it came with. Each card had a complete, one evening adventure set in or near the city, great stuff for starting up a campaign or filling in gaps. Minding the Store served to kick off at least three campaigns that featured the PCs going up against the Greyhawk thieves' guild.

2. Flying Buffalo's City Books: I really love the plug and play nature of these, plus each location has at least one cool, memorable hook. I'm blanking on the details at the moment, but I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the series.

3. Waterdeep: I never ran a game in Waterdeep, but I've played in several Realms campaigns and this was always a fun place for adventure. The City of Splendors boxed set was great. It was really cool for the DM to unfold an entire map of the city, and then let us run wild as we chased down various villains, cultists, and other threats. Undermountain is always a good venue for a quick dungeon bash.

4. Lankhmar: I've always had a soft spot for this city. It's a pity that it always had to be shoehorned into 1e/2e.

5. Thieves' World: I haven't seen it yet, but it's shaping up to be quite interesting. I'm looking forward to its release at GenCon.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Back in 1E and 2E both, I used Lankmar as the basis for a city-based campaign and crammed it with almost every entry in the City Books. Those were good campaigns, and so easy to run.

For 3E, I like bits and pieces from a lot of different city settings -- most of them listed above -- but the ones I like in large portions are Shelzar, which I am using for an extended adventure right now; Sharn; Loona; and Thieve's Guild.

I am really looking forward to the new Thieve's World setting.

 

[S'mon]

Best I've experienced was 1e Lankhmar: City of Adventure. If I were to buy one now it'd be City State OTIO which looks fantastic.

 

[S'mon]

2e City of Greyhawk Boxed Set - the adventure cards were great, the pack was full of dozens of pick up & run adventures, but the city's atmosphere suffered greatly from its "Greyhawkl Garden City" presentation, it came across as far too clean, spacious & pleasant, especially for European sensibilities (back then I didn't know Americans had never heard of terraced housing and had zero familiarity with what a pre-industrial city looked like, hence all these suburban-looking cities with free-standing buildings in their own grounds). This meant that the focus of Greyhawk was always the adventures, the city itself never existed as a character in the manner of Lankhmar. A big shame because EGG's presentation of Greyhawk in the Gord books oozes atmosphere.

 

[S'mon]

2nd Lankhmar, as another poster mentioned - (1) Great map; (2) innovative use of geomorphs to run detailed locales in back allies, side streets and neighborhoods; and (3) detail that seemed "fantasy real," probably because it used the source material particularly well and built on it in consistent fashion.

Worst City: City of Greyhawk Boxed Set - (1) Looked like a meadow, not a city; (2) didn't live up to the "reputation" of the city for being big, dense and full of dark intrigue; and (3) included some of the worst/silliest NPCs this side of anywhere.

Yup, agree 95% on all points, though Lankhmar was 1e. The map was great, though the grey blocks were a bit ugly. The scale was a bit off - should have been yards not feet, which would make the city ca 270,000 people rather than 30,000. The two 1e adventure packs CA1 & CA2 were also fantastic. Unfortunately in 2e it fell into the grip of idiots with no feel for Leiber's work, in particular the awful Dale "Slade" Henson. If you can get the 1e stuff they're real classics, but avoid the 2e stuff, some of it even has the Forgotten Realms logo on it!

Everything you say about 2e Greyhawk is true, however the box is so full of scenarios (some not too silly!) that I reckon I got my moneys' worth out of it.

 

[Erik Mona]

"Cities of Harn" is an excellent resource, although I fear it may be a bit difficult to come by. It came out in 1983 and the presentation certainly feels spot on for the era. Think Judges Guild's City State but broken over seven cities and far more obsessed with the minutia and historical simulationism. But whatever. You either buy into that or you don't (I don't).

You want this book because of the absolutely wonderful maps. The style is one of the few I've seen that accurately models the "packed with buildings" ideal so many of us seem to have when it comes to city maps. The approach is perhaps a touch anticeptic, but these are by far my favorite city maps in any RPG product ever.

I agree with the positive comments about the City of Greyhawk boxed set (mainly in terms of the product's scope and presentation) and also with the negative (it contains, among other crimes against humanity, a composer named Amadeus Wolfzart).

Anyone who likes the way maps were done in "Cities of Harn" would probably like the beautiful work Denis Tetreault did with a similarly styled rendition of the City of Greyhawk, as originally described in the eponymous boxed set. We published it in the now hard to find "Living Greyhawk Journal" #2, but you can take a peek online at http://www.melkot.com/locations/cogh/cogh.html.

I think the approach provided a good deal of the overcrowded feel of Gygax's city while still maintaining the general outline and locations from the boxed set.

--Erik Mona

 

[S'mon]

If I were to buy one now it'd be City State OTIO which looks fantastic.

In fact I just ordered it. *Damn* I'm buying way too much RPG stuff right now...

 

[S'mon]

"You want this book because of the absolutely wonderful maps. The style is one of the few I've seen that accurately models the "packed with buildings" ideal so many of us seem to have when it comes to city maps.

Any walled city will rapidly become packed with buildings within the walls, for the simple reason that that space is very limited (no one makes walls any longer than they need to be) and thus at a premium. Furthermore any pre-automobile city will be densely populated due to the need to be able to get around the city on foot.

 

[Hussar]

My all time favourite city resource is MEG's Urban Blight books. 20 or so very detailed locations that you can just drop into any setting (pretty much). I used and reused these locations time and again. Any supplement that I can buy and immedietely use about 50% of and, with a little tweaking, use another 25%, gets best rating from me.

I highly recommend these books to anyone.

 

[Arnwyn]

If you can get the 1e stuff they're real classics, but avoid the 2e stuff, some of it even has the Forgotten Realms logo on it!

What? Really? Do you know which ones?

(Yeah, I agree you on that Dale "Slade" Henson guy. He's the only one that I've ever heard was (relatively) publicly fired from TSR due to extreme incompetence... that may be an urban legend, but it sure would make sense...)