[3.5] Building a City?

[WolfieDM]

I just started DM'ing and I've started my party as prisoners of a group of Orcs under a city, but they've almost escaped and now I need to build a map of the city they are under. It's the National Guild Hub.

I need to know how big, like how many miles long it should be, and how many Inns/Taverns/Shops/Brothels it needs.

I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks.

[slaydemons]

Here is a start (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_town.php?) the rest you might need to draw to taste as that I believe just gives npc

[WolfieDM]

Here is a start (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_town.php?) the rest you might need to draw to taste as that I believe just gives npc

Thanks, but like you said, that only gives me NPCs

[Zonugal]

One option is to imagine a comparable city, in real life, and find a satellite image of it. Copy that and than begin to photoshop/paint/draw over it. Soon you'll have a whole city system and can just decide what each store/area is.

[Laura Eternata]

Well, if you're bored and feel like laughing at some potentially stupid names, try this one. (http://www.beavervalleysoftware.com/rpg/randomtowns.aspx)

If you'd rather something more useful, I've found this one (http://www.rdinn.com/town_generator.php) beneficial. It's not perfect, but it does come up with the number of services in the town (inns, blacksmiths, even farriers -- no brothels, though), which is part of what you requested. As for the size, consider consulting history textbooks to find a historical look-alike to your city. Maybe Athens?

EDIT: And swordsage'd (sort of.)

[Crow]

I've had to do a similar thing in my campaigns, and the best bet is to only map particularly interesting portions of the city. The ones PC's are likely to want to visit or have to visit.

This allows you to work on a scale that is actually useful to your players, and where you can put in the amount of detail you're looking for without everything turning into "generic blacksmith 34".

[Jeraa]

When mapping cities, one thing to remember is that medieval cities (At least real-life ones) were usually a lot smaller in area than a modern city with the same population. Streets were narrower, buildings closer together, houses didn't have yards and were smaller. Medieval cities packed a lot of people into surprisingly small areas.

As for the businesses in the city, go here: Medieval Demographics Made Easy (http://www.zioth.com/roleplay/medievalDemographics.htm). It is mainly about making a kingdom, but if you scroll down to the Merchants and Services section, you can determine how many of each type of business would be in the city. Obviously, no one care how many shoe-makers there are, so only determine the important buildings like taverns and inns.

Also, that site linked above says there would be about 38,500 people per square mile of city, on average.

I don't know how accurate those numbers on the site are when compared to what the numbers would be in real medieval areas, but I love that site anyway.

[Tvtyrant]

Looking at maps and paintings of real cities helps to understand how badly put together they were; in a good city there was ditches to throw your garbage in by the street. In a bad city they simply pitched it in the street itself.

[Anderlith]

Make a townhall or Noble's Keep or a Common (center park with a well or fountain) first. Then make districts; Artisans, Noble, Merchant's, Foreigner's, Military, etc. Throw in a few alley's for the Red district & there you go. Just draw some roads in & around & about the districts & you should be fine

[Groverfield]

Make it cosmetically big, even the smart PCs won't call bull**** on you, unless they're purposefully being a nuisance. It's a good idea to just draw a city, and keep on drawing until you feel it's "Big Enough." If you're looking for rules on building cities, there's Cityscape, and a 3.0 book that I can't remember but a friend has on the topic. Code things on the main roads as what kind of establishment they might be: Inn, vendor, smith, etc. Have the rest be marked as Residential, or if there's a large industry plot, put that in its own area, but industry plots are almost non-existent pre-industrial era.

[Ravens_cry]

Such a city would be at a meeting point of many trade routes. I see it being at the mouth of a wide broad river with roads also leading further inland with an excellent harbour that shields from storms.
Such cities tend to be more cosmopolitan than other communities, been a meeting place of races and cultures that may be thousands of miles from their homelands.
Goods will be available that simply are not elsewhere.