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Templarkommando
2012-09-12, 11:39 AM
Something I've taken to in my spare time is populating one of the major cities in my campaign world. The city has something like 46 separate districts and I need some ideas of what sort of districts or buildings/houses/establishments belong there. My intent is not to fully populate the city (so that if I want to introduce a new building later in the campaign for a plot point I can do it, or if the party is looking for an off the wall store that should be there but isn't listed.

Let me explain why I want to do this. The party has real trouble with wanting to be there when another player is off by themselves in a city. One player will be doing a follow-up on a plot point and another party member will decide (hey, i want to be there and do something). Until this point it's been fairly difficult to say "No, you're back at the tavern. It's going to take you thirty minutes to get where you want to go and by that time they won't be there." The player generally finds some reason for their character to want to go to the place in question and then expects to suddenly show up half-way through a five minute conversation. It sort of kills the illusion of a huge sprawling city if the party is always just a few rounds away.

Rallicus
2012-09-12, 12:47 PM
Random encounters are your friend. Player #1 wants to get to Player #2? Well, they have to go through a bustling street filled with vendors and shoppers, and pushing through them takes some time.

However, the problem with this is, as you mentioned, Player #1 wouldn't logically still be there if he had no idea Player #2 was coming. Solution? Cellphones.

Judging from your post, however, you're not playing a modern game. Or maybe you are. "Tavern" always throws me off. In any event, if not cellphones, then some sort of item that is capable of relaying messages instantly to another person. If it's a low magic setting, carrier pigeons for all the group. If it's high fantasy, one of the Dragon Magazines for 3.5 has "Wolf Earrings," which are kind of like... cellphone earrings, I guess.

Keeping them connected even if they're far away will work wonders for your campaign. It'll allow for you to keep the immersion when it comes to city travel, all while making it reasonable for the party to meet up with each other on the fly.

Reltzik
2012-09-12, 12:55 PM
I'd advise you against doing more work than you have to, but that's what DMing is all about.

One trap I'd suggest you NOT fall into is giving every function of the city its own district. For example, don't have a Tavern District or a Shops District. Walking 30 minutes to get TO a tavern is irritating to every last commoner living in the city; if some foolish government passed a law like this, expect unauthorized speakeasies to be popping up in homes and after-hours shops inside of a week. Similarly, you might put all the major churches together, but in a truly big city expect there to be a few shrines outside the Holy District.

Instead, ask what makes SENSE to be defining a district. A major bazaar by one of the gates? The palace? Other centers of power? A magician's academy? A warrior's academy? Certain industries, like tanning or brewing? Where is there a benefit to congregating that outweighs being evenly distributed throughout the city?

Once you've got whatever defines the district, populate it with the appropriate support buildings and personnel. A palace district, for example, will likely be surrounded by embassies, homes for palace servants and barracks for palace guards, high-end inns and restaurants catering to the well-to-do, upscale gambling clubs, lawyers, heraldry designers, jewelers, perfumers, etc. A magician's academy might be surrounded by more than its fair share of coffee shops, brothels, curio shops, bookstores, bookbinders, ink-makers, arcane-component vendors, and firefighters. The brewing district will have lots and LOTS of public houses all with signature labels, but also housing, good wells, bottlers and barrelwrights, warehouses overflowing with hops and barley, and so on. A single large cathedral to the city's patron deity might be surrounded by housing for staff and religious students, libraries for scholarship, the most faithful commoners in the population... and probably quite a few things representing the foibles of the religion.

Divisions can also suggest or be highlighted by separate districts. If the local government shows a lot of tug-of-war between Crown, a House of Lords, the Church, and the Army, put the headquarters for these factions at different districts -- ideally on opposite sides of the city, or on hills where they can glower at each other across the gaps.

Note that not every industry need define a district, or vice-versa! For example, carpenters probably don't need their own district. They're needed everywhere, and don't much benefit from concentrated factories. Similarly for police and firefighters, midwifes and doctors (though one big hospital might be called for), et cetera. Furthermore, not every district needs a defining element! Make many of these districts overflow (suburbs). Because they're a long walk from anywhere important and don't have industry of their own, these will be the slums, with substandard tenet housing, a poor and disgruntled population, high crime rates and low hopes. Some of these districts will just have grown up that way, but others may have a forgotten or obsolete purpose -- say, a former market that used to be around the Old Wall before the New Wall was built further out, or a church that has since been banned.

By the way, while all of these districts have some form of tavern, the character of the taverns will vary from district to district. Expect something appropriate for traveling merchants by the gates, with emphasis on lodgings and hot food for travelers who've been too long without. The palace, as mentioned, will have the upscale restaurants and gambling halls. The academies' taverns will be more like coffee shops, and a tavern near the headquarters of the City Watch will be a cop's bar. Decorate and populate each accordingly.

Thinker
2012-09-12, 02:19 PM
I concur with Rallicus and Reltzik.

First, come up with the focal point of each district so you can decide what sort of buildings, services, manufacturing, and populations live in each district. This is the only rigid decision you need right now. When coming up with a function, keep it simple; have a few district templates like governance, diplomacy, manufacturing, residential, commerce, nautical, military, etc. This is because many districts should overlap in function - after all, the Old Palace District might have a lot of similar establishments to the New Palace District. This helps for the next part you need to work on.

For ease and convenience, your next task involves creating lists and tables for different types of destinations. A sample table might look like this:

{table=head]Destination|Governance|Diplomacy|Manufacturing|Res idential|Commerce|Commerce|Nautical|Military|Other
Wealthy House|01-30%|31-50%|51-55%|56-70%|71-85%|86-90%|91-95%|96-100%
Fine House|01-20%|21-30%|31-40%|41-60%|61-80%|81-85%|86-90%|90-95%|96-100%
Foreign Item Shop|01-10%|11-40%|41-55%|56-60%|61-75%|76%-90%|91-95%|96-100%
[/table]

Roll a d100 to figure out which type of district your destination would appear in. Then, have a list of districts that would fit and randomly decide that as well. So, looking at the above, you might roll a 30 for figuring out where a wealthy house is. That gives us a governance district. This might include the specific districts of Tower Heights, City Hall, Seward's House, Palace Street, Old Elf Ward, and Prince Street. Roll a d6 to figure out which district the destination is in. This takes a bit of work up front, but in the long run it makes responding to destination searching much quicker.

You can also create a table for each district that generates random encounters for each district (most encounters in a city should be of the non-combat variety). With 76 districts, that many tables may be prohibitive, but they could also be fun to create.

Beleriphon
2012-09-12, 03:38 PM
The other thing to remember is that in real life cities districts weren't just based on trade, many were based on nationality or even more esoteric divisions (such as religion, or ethnicity). You can do the same in game, just apply to dwarves or elves or whatever. If you want to reinforce this just think of how Chinatowns in many cities look compared to the rest of the city.

Mando Knight
2012-09-12, 03:50 PM
Similarly, you might put all the major churches together, but in a truly big city expect there to be a few shrines outside the Holy District.

I wouldn't put them in one district. Religious buildings are usually peppered in and near residential districts and the older sections of the city. If rival religions exist in the same city, expect to put at least their primary temples further apart. The most major religions in the city may each have a large cathedral around the main business sectors, but due to the size they take, they'll be several blocks away from each other (and I'd limit it to one cathedral per 50,000-100,000 or so people in the city).

It might seem odd at first to put the cathedrals in the business sector, but it seems to me that that's how cities grow: the church is put in early in the city's life, then as the city expands the church eventually gets rebuilt into a cathedral, and the central city seems to become renovated into the major business sector.

TomPliss
2012-09-12, 05:38 PM
First things first :
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20030719a
It's the D&D official guided to create cities, and it's all about districts, as you may think of them.
You may already use it (I think I found a reference of it in this forum), but hey, everyone will have the same base.


Now, what about using a little plan of the city ?
I personally use a white-board, but anything could do, especially if your city is already set :
Draw it, separating districts with clear forms, and get your players draw some marks of places they know, from "Tavern" and "Magic shop" to "weed dealer" and "thugs district (don't go there)" !
Then, tell them it takes 1 minutes to go from one district to another, or something like this.

It's just an idea, I haven't played with this size of cities (but will begin with a medium city next month, and will use this, so tell me whether you use it ;) ).

Frenth Alunril
2012-09-12, 06:00 PM
I also recommend this random generator, you can put in ask on the districts and will make people up for you.

Check my sig below.

TheOOB
2012-09-12, 07:28 PM
Cityscape(D&D 3.5 supplemental rulebook) has some good info for populating cities. Basically it has you select a number of districts, and gives you details as to what would be in those districts. It also has you figure out what the cities power center(s) are.