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KarmicHammer
2014-01-19, 10:33 AM
Ladies and Gentlegiants of the forums,

I come to you with a request for assistance.
In the coming months I will be starting a campaign in the Pathfinder system. This will be the first campaign any of my group has done in Pathfinder and my second campaign being GM at all. I need assistance with the setting.

I want this campaign to be set in a city supercontinent type thingy. I'm not sure if I want to go with city on a city on top of the remains of the tarrasque, or have a parallel city on a separate plane, or have there be another unexplored (to most folks knowledge) continent. The separate continent would open up the possibility of a ton of seafaring adventure and whatnot.

Point is, I'm not sure what would be too advanced a setting for an inexperienced GM (though I am an experienced player).

KarmicHammer
2014-01-19, 06:07 PM
Shameless bump cuz I needs help!

EnglishKitsune
2014-01-19, 06:45 PM
Okay, quick few questions, before we start looking at the city, because we need it to be interesting to the players, and therefore need to know what the players want. Also what you want.


1. What sort of Campaign is this? RP heavy? Dungeon Crawl? Hopefully the start of an Epic Saga? And What Level is it starting at? Magic Heavy or Magic Light? Is Magic Dark in this world? Or is it an accepted fact of life?

This will tell us where you need to start work on for fleshing out the city, while most people tend to like every little detail written down, I do barebones, and fill in the grey areas as the players explore. This allows me to not only cut down on prep time but also make sure that the theme of the campaign is still in-line with the players expectations.

2. What sort of characters (or tropes!) Do your players represent? Are they all Belkars, backstabbing and out for themselves?

If so you could go political, involve a thieves guild, and have the climax be a giant city wide riot. Chuck in a Mcguffin they stole and ancient creeping evil, and you have a pretty nice plot for a stealth campaign.

Or they could be members of a Temple/Abbey that have been sent on a mercy mission to one of the poorer slums, there they help the local populace by dealing with gangs, wiping out sewer infestations, talking to the merchants guild to help get some food. Before you know it they're local heroes and the Lord/Mayor of this City District isn't happy his "popularity" is being supplanted. (Let's say each district has a mayor, who forms part of a council.) Adventures and running from Assassins ensues.

3. What theme do you want this city to have, is it Ankh-Morpork? Surviving by being constantly rebuilt on top of itself, ending up with cities under cities? Is it something else entirely? Do you want it to be the Citadel from Mass Effect, crossed with that lovely Hive of Scum and Villainy, Mos Eisley?

Freeport is exactly that, the last Free Port in the world, no one knows who built it or when. But no one who lives here likes to look a gift horse in the mouth either. Stone Golems, the only remnants of it's previous Denizens, constantly build, repair, and expand the Free Ports Borders, and refugees, entrepreneurs, and other malcontents keep filling the new houses. The City, ever growing, grows out ever further into the Wastelands, an area of Devastation none have returned from exploring. The flow of traffic in Freeport is almost always headed east, towards the new expansions. While technically lawless, there are several self proclaimed lords and ladies who have managed to stake territories for themselves, and small scuffles often happen over any new key structures.



TL/DR

1. What is the Campaigns Theme? Dark/Light, Scum and Villainy? Political, Adventuring?
2. What are your players wanting from this campaign? Really get some feedback on what they expect. This will also make the first foray into PF more enjoyable, as they will be engaged in the story.
3. Seeing as the City is so big and mysterious, WHAT makes it big and mysterious? Or is it just dingy, dark, and dangerous?

As for the too advanced part, start small, lock it down to a single district/area of the city for whatever reason. Gang wars, Suppose Plague, Can't pay the Toll to get past guards. There's tons of ways this can be done.

KarmicHammer
2014-01-20, 09:02 AM
Those are all wonderful questions, and things I hadn't even thought of. I'll address it point by point.

1. Ideally it will be equal parts RP and combat. I have players that love both, so I need to keep a nice balance. So I was thinking, fights break out in political buildings because there's no other way (corrupt senate type dealy). Definitely hopefully the start of an epic saga. I'm gonna go standard/heavy magic, a lot of it maintaining the city. Think the keepers from Mass Effect replaced by magic.

Barebones makes sense because there's no use getting all caught up writing something that the players won't even touch.

2. Not sure what kinds of PC's I'm going to have. I was thinking about restricting alignment...but I don't like doing that. I tend to be the most outspoken *against* restricting alignment in a campaign (damn it feels good to be a gangsta).

3. It's not *just* dingy/dark/gross/etc. I actually did have an idea for what makes it mysterious. I was thinking that there's a giant council who presides over the city (mayors from each district, like you said) and a good portion of it is pretty corrupt. But not so much that the layman would expect anything.

I was thinking that the council could be in possession of The Hand of Vecna, and be seeking the eye. (Don't have the books for PF yet, so idk if Vecna is even a god in PF.) Regardless, I'd have them in possession of an incredibly powerful magical artifact, and seeking the other half of it.

For me what springs to mind for the council, in terms of how they act, think the Dimir and Orzhov guilds from Ravnica in MTG.

I want the city to be a giant amalgamation of the Citadel, Mos Eisley, and Ravnica essentially.

I also may or may not have had the idea of the whole thing being built on top of the tarrasque. >.>

TL;DR
I feel like I might be being a little too ambitious for my britches. Though I feel that if I pull this off, it will be an incredible campaign.

GybeMark
2014-01-20, 10:03 AM
Depending on how well this fits with the "theme" of your campaign, you may want to include alcoves of nature in your city. These could be official "city parks" that consist of dense forest, or maybe parts of the city have become so ruined that The Wild Things have taken over. two reasons for this -- one practical, the other thematic.

Practical -- many monsters in the Bestiary are designed/native to "the wilderness" and you don't want to have TOO much work creating entirely new ecosystems

Thematic -- sooner or later you might want some place where the players can go where they are completely isolated from other intelligent beings.

One other thing to consider about your super-city (from a "suspension of disbelief" standpoint) is "if the (presumably) many people living in the city, how do they eat? where is the food grown (or, if they primarily eat meat, where to the vegetarians in the ecosystem get their food?) Presumably those on the coats could eat fish, but... This could be a setup for one (or more) adventures -- corrupt leaders are producing grain in their magical grain factories, but are rationing it out in such a way that dissenters or political opponents starve, etc...

veti
2014-01-20, 04:12 PM
One other thing to consider about your super-city (from a "suspension of disbelief" standpoint) is "if the (presumably) many people living in the city, how do they eat? where is the food grown (or, if they primarily eat meat, where to the vegetarians in the ecosystem get their food?)

This is the central question you need to work out a detailed answer to. An answer that makes sense. Crunch the numbers, make damn' sure it stands up. If it involves spellcasters, work out how many spellcasters and where they all live, how they're organised and who pays them... and what happens when, inevitably, they go on strike. If it involves transport, sketch out the network. If it involves distribution centres, know who owns them and how they're secured.

This, and the one about hygiene. :smallbiggrin:

Historically, food supply has always been the biggest limiting factor on the growth of cities. When railways appeared, within a generation, cities changed character completely. (London in 1840 was full of green spaces; you'd find cattle grazing on the commons and parks, you'd see geese being driven across the bridges, you'd never be more than a couple of miles from the nearest agriculture. By 1860, those spaces were either gone, or they'd been converted solely to middle-class leisure. It was an enormous change - bigger than anything the internet has done in our time.)

If your city takes up the whole of its land mass, then there'll be a similar issue around water supply. Most cities have no problem sinking wells because they can effectively draw the rainwater that falls on lands around the city. If there are no lands around the city, then you're going to need some other solution. In our world, island-cities like Hong Kong and Singapore are dependent on importing water from the nearby mainland.

Politically: I have a lot of trouble imagining how a city like that would work. How much autonomy do "local mayors" and their associated councils have? Can they set their own tax rates, can they control who gets to live and build in their area, do they run their own watch/militias? What stops them from fighting each other, over territory or people or resources?

It's an interesting idea, but I think it needs a lot of work.

KarmicHammer
2014-01-21, 06:01 PM
Thank you all for your incredible input.

It could not have been more helpful. Now I know where to start in terms of what is necessary for the city to function, etc. I think I'm going to have designated sections for farming/livestock. But maybe using some kind of planar or time magic to accelerate the growth process.

Not sure about the water thing. Exceptional point though. Possibly a dedicated sect of clerics that casts a ton of create water spells? Maybe a gate to the elemental plane of water. Maybe even water merchants that are highly regarded and guarded.

Local authority and government would have a small council, like a city state. What would stop infighting for territory and junk is kind of a deus ex machina I suppose. I was thinking an elite security force kind of like the Ordinators from Morrowind that would sweep in to deal harsh, swift, indiscriminate "justice".

Either way, you guys have given me an excellent amount of insight to this campaign and I plan to begin serious work on it very soon.

Thank you all again!!