city based ideas?

[Fodder]

Hi ya all.
my players want me to run a city based session and i have no ideas.. none. not one.


ok i lie.. guild vs guild.. but that's it i promise.

so if anyone has any idea's. anything at all.

we're paying 3.5 with an assassin, a barbarian, a sor and a cleric/wizard.
all at level 10.
hope that helps.
thanks in advance!

[TheCountAlucard]

If you've got Cityscape, take a good look in there.

What kinds of guilds are we talking here? Mages' Guild? Thieves' Guild? Assassins' Guild? I've heard some pretty suspicious rumors about that awful Carpenters' Guild... (shudders)

[Narmoth]

What about the city council, and all those who want to have power there?
Sure, there would be some guild masters, but there will also be the commander of the city guard, the merchant houses, the kings or dukes representatives, the church, the monastery and so on.
And that's in a medieval human town. A fantasy setting would have even more, like the dwarf stone masons union, the different temples clerics, the alchemist society, the mage council and so on

[elliott20]

you need to utilize the fact that you're in a city to make this work.

From the perspective of a large city denizen, what exactly makes the quintessential urbanite experience?

- anonymity
- there is something for everyone, if you look hard enough
- criminal elements are usually far more active in large cities
- if personal space is considered valuable, the fact that you are constantly compromising your personal space and how this effects everyone around you

so, taken from that, what kind of experiences would allow you to at least tap a couple of those?

off the top of my head, crime mystery that spans the whole city. Take the one most obscure group that you've wanted to use for a long time, but never got the chance, and make them one of the groups the PCs must seek out in the process.

have the murder happen in the opening, surrounded by a lot of buildings. there, somebody must have saw something. That utilizes the urban element that people tend to be packed closed together.

Make the murder about some kind of guild war that is almost akin to mafia turf wars. All this you can do by planning, as this is what the murderer would try to do to escape capture.

Now throw in some extra twists in it. On the surface, it seems like a mob hit, and it was probably DESIGN to look that way, but the player will somehow catch on (through whatever detail it needs to be flexible though, or else your players WILL miss it)

throw in some extra suspects, (if the guy who died had a long list of political enemies, you're half way there) throw in some ulterior plans that each involved party has(both suspects, the victim's organization, and the actual culprit), some machinations on what they plan to do about this murder, and bam, you got a game.

[Kol Korran]

an idea, a fairly simple one, but fun:
there is a great festival, spread over several streets, many celebrations and what not... the festival is to commemorate some natural phenomenon (eve of summer) or some historcal event (victory over the great horde). unknown to the population, a cult works in secret to perform some ritual that... well, i'll leave that to your imagiantion.
- strange things start to happen a few days/ a week or two before the festival, people found dead, objects missing and so on. this is the cult getting ready, but the evidence could point against various other organizations, including wizards, nobles, temples, guilds and so on. the party who investigates find there is more to it, and as the festival draws near, they find out realy what it is.
- an idea: in the festival everyone is masked (sort of like the festival of fools from the hunchback of notredam), so the characters find it hard to find out who their real enemies are, since they run away, shed some clothes, change masks and presto- they're gone. i suggest the use of changelings or dooplegangers. a street chase is a must.
- have the ritual take place in agreat cathedral, or some other massive place. also have them perhaps enthrall a lot of the populace (through mundane or magical means) that should add complications. some of the nethralled could be importent people from the city. with class levels of course...
- an idea: the ritual they cult is perfoming is transforming some of the populace to other creatures. this gives you the excuse of using strange creatures in them iddle of the adventure. i suggest lycanthriops, shadow creatures, or some sort of fiendish creatures.
- have the boos squad (and it should be a squad, not just one guy) perhaps interact with the PCs before the main event, and in the battle they will be masqued till they suffer serious wounds (half hp?) at that point they reveal themselves. could be high ups, or lower downs from the city.

hope this helped. no the most creative of ideas but it works, it's fun, and it could be tweaked and changed enough to fit most parties.
Kol.

[Garian]

I have been running my first city based campaign for five sessions now. So far everything is going really well. I had not meant to keep them in a city.
There is still a cave full of goblins waiting for the PC's just a few days from the city. I don't thing they are going to attend it anytime soon.
After their first mission they just kept doing wanting to get involved with the city's problems.

I have them tied up in a underground war between the currant government and the thief's guild. The thief's guild is filled with chaotic aligned poor of the city. They are fighting for the right to better living standards. "people our starving while others carry magic items that if sold could feed the whole city for a month. The goverment is lawful aligned, they are fighting to defeat what they seen as an irrational rebellion of the unlawful. Both partys are for the most part good aligned.

So far the best advice I can offer is lots of random encounters. I made my own table for random encounters in several different locations. Those being the docks, the market, the slums, the wealthy parts of town, the sewers and the castle.
Things like "you see an act of injustice", "someone mistakes you for someone else" and "someone tries to pickpocket you" have made the group take all sorts of side missions. The PC's have also brocken into a number of houses, sometimes whle the inhabitants were in at the moment.
I just enjoy leaving them bilnd sided as two who's side they should be on.
Hope some of this was helpful.

[Fodder]

awesome! i like the city councel vs the "lower class" or thieves idea, that sounds like something i would be able to run. =D so thanks for that Garian.
I might mix in a little of a masked ball or two, maybe the assassin has the asignement, thanks to Kol Korran for that.
And that's some really good and well thought out advice from elliott20, many thanks for that, it'll definitly come in handy.
I think i have a friend who has Cityscape so ill look into that. thanks TheCountAlucard
Narmoth just gave me an idea. maybe the leaders of one of the guilds could be blackmailing the councel, or prehaps running it.. maybe the leaders of the theves guild, or whoever instagated the fighting.. now all i have to do is work out why.

thanks again everyone! i have hope again. =D this is starting to look less like a chore and more like some fun.

many many thanks.

[Zaq]

Organized crime should be a lot of fun. Having a mafia-type group skulking around with their fingers in everything could be pretty cool. You could make them so powerful they don't care who knows about them, or incredibly secretive, maybe even tricking the PCs into working for them. You might also have two rival organizations vying for control of the choicest parts of the city.

It's also a good idea to sketch out what the police force is and isn't like. What do they really care about? How corrupt are they? How well can they cover the city? Are they more likely to ask the PCs for help, or to come to the aid of the PCs?

Another thing to remember about the city is that there are a TON of people. Cities are really, really crowded. Big empty areas to have fights in will be rare. Without magic, it'll be really difficult to make sure absolutely nothing is overheard. Crowds of people will block your way, interfere with what you're doing, and generally make obstacles of themselves, all from simply living their lives where they've always been. Almost no large area-of-effect spells will be a good idea, and may even be illegal. (I can totally see the laws of a city permitting Scorching Ray and banning Fireball, on the grounds that Fireball causes too much danger to the citizenry.) Also, unless you're in a crazy high-powered setting like Forgotten Realms, 99.885% of the population won't be as high level as the PCs are, and they won't be as rich as the PCs are. The PCs are going to attract a lot of attention. Sure, a lot of thieves won't be dumb enough to piss off high-level adventurers, but the occasional cutpurse or pickpocket will make himself a nuisance. More than that, though, people will want the PCs to give them help and attention. If the party is at all ostentatious about their wealth, swarms of beggars will follow them around pleading for some assistance. (This could be a fun roleplaying moment for any paladins or Exalted-types in your party.) For every problem the PCs investigate, there will be hundreds of others, and sometimes people are going to want to know why their problems were less important than the ones that the PCs were working on. The point is, don't treat the city as just another area with only a couple NPCs in it. There are tons and tons and TONS of people in the city. Have them get in the way.

[Fodder]

i was kinda thinking of making the police something like the city guards. so long as it doesn't threaten the counsel and doesn't happen to close to the counsel section they'd turn a blind eye, with anything really bad taken to the counsel or a designate thereof. I was also considering spliting the city into sections and having each section controlled by a guild and following the guild laws. i'm not to sure about that yet. Maybe after I get a better idea of what the guilds would be like.

As far as how may people there, that's a good point. I was thinking of after a fight starts you'd have to wait untill the area clears before you can use fireball or anything. between 2-4 rounds. No one want's to stick around a really good fight. But Laws would be a good idea, especially if you could take the risk of braking them without Always being caught. I shall have to list a few.

as far as organised crime I'm thinking of having a group just influincing the big decisions, and letting the counsel run it's normal corse most of the time. that'd also make it harder to find..

many thanks Zaq, you've given me more good idea's to think about.

[Qaanol]

It might be fun to give your players more exp when they solve a problem without violence than they would get from fighting. All the more so if they use spells/feats/abilities to accomplish something cleverly, without causing harm. Reward them for being creative. There's lots of stuff to do in a city, and almost none of it involves killing, or even fighting.


No one want's to stick around a really good fight.
Au contraire! People love to watch fights. In school, in the street, even a real battle. Families went out picnicking to watch the first battle of Bull Run (Manassas). A scuffle in the street is sure to attract a crowd of onlookers.

[Dervag]

i was kinda thinking of making the police something like the city guards. so long as it doesn't threaten the counsel and doesn't happen to close to the counsel section they'd turn a blind eye, with anything really bad taken to the counsel or a designate thereof. I was also considering spliting the city into sections and having each section controlled by a guild and following the guild laws. i'm not to sure about that yet. Maybe after I get a better idea of what the guilds would be like.That's sort of in line with the way the middle ages worked. "Police" were really just the local government's professional legbreakers in most cases, and they were mostly concerned with maintaining the appearance of order and stopping anything from seriously inconveniencing the rulers. Not so much with whether a random hobo got stabbed to death in the middle of the night.

Giving districts to guilds makes some sense as an administrative thing. Another example of how city government could work back then is "tax farming." The city rulers collect taxes, but they give the power to do so to specific individuals who are only responsible for making sure that enough taxes get paid.

The practical upshot, of course, is that the power to collect taxes on behalf of the ruler can easily wind up in the hands of the sort of people who avoid public spaces and employ a lot of guys with crowbars and daggers.

In short, the power to govern often wound up delegated into the hands of people who really shouldn't be trusted with that kind of power, because the ruler had other things on his mind than keeping track of the details and setting up a bureaucracy that could be trusted not to go corrupt.
_______


As far as how may people there, that's a good point. I was thinking of after a fight starts you'd have to wait untill the area clears before you can use fireball or anything. between 2-4 rounds. No one want's to stick around a really good fight.Au contraire; plenty of people will want to watch... from a safe distance.


But Laws would be a good idea, especially if you could take the risk of braking them without Always being caught. I shall have to list a few.I'd just make the laws regarding general consequences, not specific spells, by the way. Setting the city on fire or killing random bystanders is just as illegal regardless of how you did it

[chiasaur11]

You read any Discworld?

Ankh Morpork (The city so nice they named it Ankh Morpork) might be good for a couple of ideas. Legal Assassin's guild and thieve's guild, a long stream of evil megalomaniacs as rulers, plots to kill said rulers...

Lots of good scuffles in the big wahoonie.

[Fodder]

I had Discworld in mind when i sugested that actually.. it'd make it alot easyer for the assassins guild to exist if they had a code of honnor something like that.. maybe thieves collect the taxes. :smallwink:

And as much as I don't want to admit it your right, Quaanol and Dervag, people do like a fight. I shall have to adjust my plans..

And as far as coruption of the city counsel I think i could work around that.. maybe it worked in the passed but the laws holding it out of the coruption gutter colapsed.. or were slowly pulled away.

And while there may be an awful lot of stuff to do that doesn't involve head bashing, I think my players would take it out on me if I denyed it to them.. Or hinted they should/could do it another way. Maybe if I make an arena for them to scrap in. That might sedate them for a little while.

As far as guilds (because i like that idea) I'm thinking a guild of
- travel
- accounting/scribes
- housing/hospitality
- all things criminal
- crafters/artasians/makers of stuff
- maybe a city guards guild. or something simmilar. these would have probably beeen brought out in the passed and of very little influence now.

thanks again to everyone.

[IM@work]

One idea that I have used for one of the guilds in my campaign was to disguise a guild as another, such as the artisans guild also being the assassins guild. The guild members themselves may or may not know all that their guild does...
This really throws in a wrench when players think they are dealing with a peacable guild. No one expects a huge mission when going to the "pottery guild"; they don't prepare and are caught off guard.

[elliott20]

Oh yeah, the Alexandrian has alternate rules for crowds (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/advanced-rules/crowds.html), which I think can come in handy if you're gonna end up running combat in crowded areas.

In fact, I say do it! Nothing makes the city landscape more relevant when you have to fight off the baddies AND mind the people cowering in fear on the ground.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

I've been considering running an urban campaign based off the concept of Neverwhere. I suggest you read it either way.

Basically players are hired to find someone, it can be any big wig's family member, friend, dog, etc, cuz they have disappeared. They follow hints and clues and think they find out what's happened. They tell the one who hired them and he has no idea what they're talking about. He's never seen them. Over the next few days they begin to realize no one notices them, or will pay attention.

They can steal to their heart's content, but what of it? No magical items work that they may take, and no one pays them any mind to trade with.

Then they notice someone who does see them and once he notices that they see him he tries to evade them, leading them down to the cracks.

That's when the main adventure begins, which is up to you.

Basically draw it out, give them adventures in the city first until they are comfortable there... then pull it all out from under them. Good fun :smallamused:


I've statted up quite a few templates, creatures and PrC's for such a setting as well.

In addition I've dozens of city-based creatures if interested, regardless of actual campaign.

[Fodder]

+1 cookie to elliott20 for the crowd rules. they shall come in most handy.

As far as going "down into the cracks" i'm not sure i could manage that just yet. but if this goes on for longer than I expect it could be perfect for leveling from 15-20. and it sounds exactly like the kind of think I would love to do. I shall definitly keep it in mind. Thanks The Vorpal Tribble

Good Idea IM@work, if the Pc's become to meddling the can be sent to give a message to the accounting guilds master, for assassination. or something.

[Dervag]

I had Discworld in mind when i sugested that actually.. it'd make it alot easyer for the assassins guild to exist if they had a code of honnor something like that.. maybe thieves collect the taxes. :smallwink:In a world that isn't a joke, Pratchett's guild of assassins wouldn't work well. Most people are relentlessly practical when it comes to keeping themselves alive, and one of the easiest ways to keep yourself alive is to rout out known dens of people who might try to kill you. Yes, having assassins around is convenient to you, but since not being killed is far more important to any powerful person than being able to kill their enemies, an organized permanent standing body of assassins doesn't work well.

Think about the real life Cult of Assassins. The key to their success was using impregnable fortresses as their bases of operation. Everyone became their enemy soon enough. The advantage of leaving them alive is greatly outweighed by the disadvantage of making it possible for someone to kill you at any time, either for pay or because you have displeased his organization. So they needed defensible hideouts tough enough that no one could simply charge in and burn them out casually.

The Assassins met their end when, in the words of Tamim Ansary, "the cult that could kill anyone met the army that could kill everyone," in the form of the Mongols. Hulagu Khan was determined and heavily armed enough that the "impregnable" fortresses turned out not to be so impregnable after all.

If an Assassins' Guild exists and does not have a strong fortress as its central hideout, it must be a shadow organization. They will be the subject of whispers and rumors, not of well-established facts. People won't be sure whether or not it really exists, or where it can be found, and the only way to get in touch with them is through layers of criminal contacts. Even then, you can never be sure that the hired killers you reach are actually part of a large organization, and not just a few murderers who have gotten creative with the trappings.

Things like ritual tattoos and brands identifying members of the Guild will be out of the question, for obvious reasons.

And on top of all that, dealing with true assassins will be a risky business, not like ordering fruit in the market. Anyone willing to murder powerful men for hire isn't going to think twice before cheating you if they think they can get away with it, and it's not as if you can complain to the police that the murderer you hired ran off with the 10000 gp in jewels that you paid him with.
________


And as much as I don't want to admit it your right, Quaanol and Dervag, people do like a fight. I shall have to adjust my plans..[quote]The problem is that while some people will run away, and other people will at least retire to a safe distance where you can reasonably handwave away the "innocent bystanders" problem, some won't- they'll think of "safe distance" as "out of sword range" and not "well beyond the theoretical range of the longest-ranged weapon in the fight."

Also, property damage remains an issue.

[quote]As far as guilds (because i like that idea) I'm thinking a guild of
- travel
- accounting/scribes
- housing/hospitality
- all things criminal
- crafters/artasians/makers of stuff
- maybe a city guards guild. or something simmilar. these would have probably beeen brought out in the passed and of very little influence now.

thanks again to everyone.Again, an explicit criminal guild is unlikely to operate above board for obvious reasons. Historically, it's hard to be sure how much of the medieval rumors about "thieves' guilds" was actually true and how much was myth, and it's quite apparent that the guilds never operated openly. They'd be too vulnerable to a brute force coup by powerful people in the city who don't like getting robbed or killed.

Of course, organized criminal groups will exist, but except in the most decadent and weakly-governed cities imaginable, you can only meet them (let alone enter them) by special means.
_______

City guards will not have a guild; they don't need one. They have the patronage of whoever they break legs on behalf of. Remember that guilds form as a way for people in skilled trades to exercise collective power that balances out the power of the nobility. Any one blacksmith is a pushover for any one noble, but the noble has to think twice about cheating a blacksmith if that blacksmith is part of a guild that has a monopoly on ironworking within the city limits.

But there will usually be many guilds, for many different trades, not one overriding "Craftsman's Guild." The guilds often look out for each other's interests, of course, but they can also be played off against each other.

And the flip side of this is that unskilled trades with a low barrier to entry usually don't form guilds. This is a problem with the idea of something like Pratchett's "Seamstresses' Guild." Just about any woman can become a... ah, seamstress, and most of the women who do so come from lower-class social backgrounds and do it because they don't have any good alternative. You wind up with a collection of people who would really rather quit the trade if they could, and who trigger all the class biases in society on top of the social taboo against what they do for a living. That's not a good base material for creating your own guild.

[elliott20]

to me, most criminal organizations probably would have a hand in multiple guilds, and the organization itself usually would have a proper legal front like a bank or some such.

[Gerion]

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/The_City_of_Ravens_Bluff

There you go with a source book for free.
I've played a campaign there and it was much fun.
with some little adjustments it works well in any setting. ( raise dead on the thieves guild, a permanent magic item shop, and the tempels should match the gods in your world)
As it is a seaport with some portals in the sewers its easy to place it in your world.

[Another_Poet]

Shoot, I thought I responded to this thread last night. Guess my post has been eaten :(

Ah well, check the link in my sig for a full campaign held in a city sewers. It's not just rats, let me tell you! All the encounters, hazards, traps etc are detailed in the campaign writeup. Enjoy!

ap

[Kol Korran]

just a quick thought: why don't you check books about famous DnD cities, like Sharn or Waterdeep? those should supply you with plenty of material and inspiration.

[Egiam]

-The old baron has just died, placing his eldest son (11-14 years old) on the throne. He proves to be an inane leader (the "let them eat cake" effect) . The city is on the verge or rebellion, but the "baron" is completely oblivious of the riots in the streets. Furthermore, many nobles are planning to exploit the situation to gain power for themselves. Also, at your discretion, his older sister's husband may use the baron's trust to betray the young ruler.

Can this Baron rid the streets of crime? Can he fend of invaders? Or will the streets crumble under the weight of corruption?

This hook doesn't even need to be used for an adventure. It could be background flavor. Or a backup plot. With a city you can do loads of fun stuff.

-Recent construction has revealed ruins of a previous building.

-Murder of a nobel.

-Travelling gypsies come to town, with acrobats, music, dancing, and mysterious magic. But are they as innocent as they make themselves out to be?

-Years in the past, the founder of the city's son found his realm surrounded by invaders. A demon came, promising to banish the invaders and bring about prosperity in the city for 33 generations... for a price. In his desperation he agreed to the pact. This price could be anything you want it to be, from an annual tribute (Think Perseus and the Minotaur) to a "soulsplice".

-A great plague has struck the city (easily compatible with the above hook).

- The Eberron Campaign Setting

[Fodder]

Dervag makes a good point, maybe I shall make an attempt to hide the thieves guild. and replace it with a Lawers guild? maybe just make the thieves guild underground. Like the mob. Or prehaps the Assassins are the lawyers. I shall have to think about this.
And if i have a big confruntational battle at some point the crowds can run the hell away, but if i can make the player's co-opperate I'd like to have combat with out the people in the street noticing much. Maybe an accasional backstab or something. So a mix of open area (because everyone's over there) and in the middle of a crowd. But thank you Dervag for making me think about that in detail.

Thank you Egiam for the list of ideas. I'm liking the ruins but i think my players want to stay in the city, maybe if i make the ruins populated by the slums or some such.. if they were discovered in the last year or two that make's them new enough to still have unfound death but old enought to have population.
And I think I shall use the barron's son as background flavor. On top of the guilds that should give me plenty to work with.
Combining the demon with the traveling gypsys sounds like it could be fun, and i've always wanted to run a "haunted curcuis" theme'd campaine.
and i'll look into the Ebberon setting.

Thanks to Kol Korran, Another_Poet and Gerion for the source idea's!

I think I now have enought to keep myself going for quite a while now so Thanks again to everyone who's posted idea's and comments!