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Zonack
2009-10-15, 01:01 AM
So then, after long thinking about my background, my character, my combat style and everything else... it's time to build my town.

I am a Paladin son of a Lord of a small village... kinda like... Neverwinter Nights Port Llast nothing too fancy, my aim is to start easy and then turn it into a Ye Old Stereotypical Castle with a Cathedral to my God.

So well I thought of picking the Neverwinter Nights 2 module maker and make it... but... well too much work probably and I don't have access to a laptop to show it to my buddies when we are playing...

So is there any kind of... town building software? Or something like that? Hope I am making sense here :P

I know you guys know many dark secret spooky stuff!
Seriously I amaze at all the stuff I see everyday here....
Help appreciated, thanks in advance!

BooNL
2009-10-15, 02:41 AM
That depends how you want to go about it.

I can't really help you with a specific "town builder" (I'd be interested in one as well, though).

You could use the NWN1 or Warcraft 3 mapmaker to build a fairly simple town, limited to the engine of those programs.

Alternatively, if you're a bit computersavvy you could try SketchUp. It's a drawing program architects use. It's easier than things like AutoCAD and it works like a 3d drawing program. You'd need a couple of tutorials though, but once you learn it it's pretty easy.

elliott20
2009-10-15, 03:36 AM
I wouldn't bother with most town generator apps. Most of the ones I've seen just don't do a very good job at actually giving you something that is interesting.

And if you want to do a town generator thing, I think the easier method would be to do on the abstract. Instead of drawing maps and houses and structures, just make a list of notable things that are in the village.

I would start by listing the major groups within the village. (If there is any meaningful division) Chances are, since we're talking about a small village, you can probably just get away with cutting straight to the notable NPCs.

Just list the major NPCs in the region, describing their race/class comb, and any notable traits. Keep them simple.

you can then use that to create a list of notable locations in the village too. you don't need to get too detailed about it, just some general notes. This will also help you figure out the relative resource levels in the village.

Just make sure to update this every so often.

The tricky part is when your village gets large enough that individual location lists become too unwieldy to handle. At that point, I suggest you start a "groups" list to list all the major groups in the area and attaching the major NPC lists to them.

bosssmiley
2009-10-15, 08:47 AM
So then, after long thinking about my background, my character, my combat style and everything else... it's time to build my town.

I am a Paladin son of a Lord of a small village... kinda like... Neverwinter Nights Port Llast nothing too fancy, my aim is to start easy and then turn it into a Ye Old Stereotypical Castle with a Cathedral to my God.

So well I thought of picking the Neverwinter Nights 2 module maker and make it... but... well too much work probably and I don't have access to a laptop to show it to my buddies when we are playing...

So is there any kind of... town building software? Or something like that? Hope I am making sense here :P

I know you guys know many dark secret spooky stuff!
Seriously I amaze at all the stuff I see everyday here....
Help appreciated, thanks in advance!

You really, really don't need software for this. Just a terrain map and a few basic rules on inhabitant behaviour (if you want an organically-developed settlement), or some surveying rules (if you want a planned settlement). The layout of the settlement will naturally manifest as an emergent property of your chosen rules.

Example of organic development rules:

Roads will tend to follow existing tracks, or they will run almost directly from A to B.
Roads will stay on the same contour line where possible. People hate slogging up slopes when they don't have to.
People will try to settle near water, but not in the water meadows, and as near to the main road and/or their place of work as possible.
Most new houses will pop up at cross-roads or near existing facilities (the mill, the manor, the market, the temple, the watchtower, the bridge or ford, the nearest inn, etc.)
Polluting industries (flax retting, slaughterhouses, brick kilns, leather-tanning) will not be allowed to settle near to, or upwind/up-river of, the settlement.
Urban defences (walls, palisades, ditches, etc.) are expensive. People will take advantage of any existing terrain features where possible, and will tend to leave areas of low density/low value settlement outside the walls.

Develop the burg over time with random events (fire, raid, new trade route, new religion, market boom/bust, etc.) per year/decade until you're happy with it. Just treat settlers as rational actors, and you'll end up with semi-logical streetplans and settlement patterns.

You might even want to make a 'wet Sunday afternoon' mini-game of urban development, as did the creator of How to Host a Dungeon (http://planet-thirteen.com/Dungeon.aspx).

Another_Poet
2009-10-15, 10:00 AM
I have found that google image search can turn up some really cool stuff for queries like "medieval town" "medieal architecture" etc.

Consider getting a giant posterboard, drawing on the terrain/topography and using lots of cutout printed images to built the existing town. Just glue-stick them right on, and be prepared to rip them off and replace them with newer/better buildings as the PCs improve the place. Be sure to leave lots of blank space as unused land that the PCs can expand into.

If you're reasonably crafty this can end up looking cool (collage FTW!) and you might find that your players start hunting down their own cool images between sessions to represent the stuff they want to build.

ap

Zeta Kai
2009-10-15, 10:20 AM
The Cartographer's Guild (http://www.cartographersguild.com/) has many, many, MANY maps of towns for fantasy games, & they probably have links to all the others. It's the best site on the 'net for maps.

Zonack
2009-10-15, 02:16 PM
Ah nice thanks for the advice!

My town is settled in Nordic lands and it is next to the ocean so my DM told me my main income would be fishes and water for trading.

As for Urban Defenses... well the town is located near a powerful Fortress occupied by Dragons and Paladins and any other Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic Good beings.
My villagers would have to run there to ask for help tho... hehe