Urban campaign help

[Brawldennis]

Hey everyone, how does one make an urban campaign interesting?

I would very much like to run an urban campaign, a story in a big city bustling with people just really appeals to me. Though how does one handle them? Do you create a great deal of npc's or just a couple and have the rest be just a faceless mass? Also what kind of things would go well in an urban setting of course going into the sewers, a jail or the slums can quite easily look like a dungeon, though how do I mix it up enough?

Also any houserules for more acrobatic combat between buildings, I've got a couple nice ideas for some enemies that go around using buildings to their advantage, going from roof to roof.

Thanks in advance!

[sideswipe]

have you ever done improv acting? seriously in areas like this i have about 4 NPC's i have planned and the rest are improv.

have a few personalities in your head for random people (a crazy shopkeep, a funny drunk, a paranoid back alley dealer) and write down key notes as and when and IF they encounter them.

overplanning 50 npc's when they might meet 5 is more than pointless. put the effort into story and quality.

look at the book cityscape. it has sample npc's. so does the dmg. but they are a bit meh.

[weckar]

If you need inspiration, have a look at Ptolus. Not the best setting out there but man is it detailed for just one city.

Equally, have a look at the Sharn book.

[Larrx]

Hey everyone, how does one make an urban campaign interesting?

I would very much like to run an urban campaign, a story in a big city bustling with people just really appeals to me. Though how does one handle them? Do you create a great deal of npc's or just a couple and have the rest be just a faceless mass? Also what kind of things would go well in an urban setting of course going into the sewers, a jail or the slums can quite easily look like a dungeon, though how do I mix it up enough?

Also any houserules for more acrobatic combat between buildings, I've got a couple nice ideas for some enemies that go around using buildings to their advantage, going from roof to roof.

Thanks in advance!
Guild halls, noble estates, royal palaces . . . nice places can look like dungeons too. I like to seperate my cities into districts, sometimes with curfews (anyone is free to wander during the day, but it's illegal to be out of your home district at night. This can turn whole sections of the city into "dungeons."

I also like to populate my cities with various factions that want different, sometimes mutually exclusive, things. The player characters are typically seen as promising recruitment opportunities, and they can ally with whoever they wish (they always surprise me). What separates a city campaign, for me, from a more typical campaign is that every "quest" the players complete angers someone in the city while pleasing others. Everyone loves you when you clear out the undead tomb. When you burn down the apothecary, not so much.

Keep people faceless until the players interact with them, you never know what players will do, or where they'll go. But, every time they go shopping, every time the order a meal in a tavern, etc. try to make the people who serve them memorable. They're not just adding +'s to their sheets in between orc slaying, they live here, and they'll be back. Little details, and insignificant NPCs with personality make the city feel more real and makes the players care about the consequences of their actions.

Good luck!

[Brawldennis]

have you ever done improv acting? seriously in areas like this i have about 4 NPC's i have planned and the rest are improv.

have a few personalities in your head for random people (a crazy shopkeep, a funny drunk, a paranoid back alley dealer) and write down key notes as and when and IF they encounter them.

overplanning 50 npc's when they might meet 5 is more than pointless. put the effort into story and quality.

look at the book cityscape. it has sample npc's. so does the dmg. but they are a bit meh.

Never really done improv acting, I can think up what happens next in an adventure in a moments notice, though when I have to suddenly make up a blacksmith 90% chance it'll be a grumpy old dwarf, I find it is somewhat harder to think up interesting npc's on the spot. Also who published cityscape? Will be looking into that.


If you need inspiration, have a look at Ptolus. Not the best setting out there but man is it detailed for just one city.

Equally, have a look at the Sharn book.

Same question, where can I find these books?


Guild halls, noble estates, royal palaces . . . nice places can look like dungeons too. I like to seperate my cities into districts, sometimes with curfews (anyone is free to wander during the day, but it's illegal to be out of your home district at night. This can turn whole sections of the city into "dungeons."

I also like to populate my cities with various factions that want different, sometimes mutually exclusive, things. The player characters are typically seen as promising recruitment opportunities, and they can ally with whoever they wish (they always surprise me). What separates a city campaign, for me, from a more typical campaign is that every "quest" the players complete angers someone in the city while pleasing others. Everyone loves you when you clear out the undead tomb. When you burn down the apothecary, not so much.

Keep people faceless until the players interact with them, you never know what players will do, or where they'll go. But, every time they go shopping, every time the order a meal in a tavern, etc. try to make the people who serve them memorable. They're not just adding +'s to their sheets in between orc slaying, they live here, and they'll be back. Little details, and insignificant NPCs with personality make the city feel more real and makes the players care about the consequences of their actions.

Good luck!

Hmmm you've got a lot of good ideas there, I like the curfew one as it could change the face of a district within hours, from busy markets to empty street all the while being the same area. As for the causing conflict by solving problems, that's something I hadn't thought about before and I'll definitely use that. A great way to introduce new plot hooks.

Still looking for some input on the combat part, anyone experience with that? Also politics, how do you introduce those with them being easy to understand and something that pulls the players in altogether?

[Larrx]

Still looking for some input on the combat part, anyone experience with that? Also politics, how do you introduce those with them being easy to understand and something that pulls the players in altogether?
While it would be easy to create a city where there are exceptions, in most civilized areas combat is illegal. Combat in my urban campaigns tends to be short, brutal, and one sided. The challenge is not on the tactical grid. The challenge is choosing the right target, figuring out how to minimize collateral damage, and getting away unidentified. Tactical challenges are saved for the end of an arc, and are either inside or change the status quo of the campaign drastically. This isn't the only way to do it, but it works for me.

As far as politics goes, you need to give political ideas a face. Don't tell your players that the goblins in the slums might revolt. Introduce them to Bob, the archivist with a limp, and his adopted goblin son. Have him reach out to them to secure an audience with a high ranking noble to speak about injustices he has witnessed. Also let them meet Joe, the ex-soldier with the braided beard, who fears that if said noble gains too much influence it will negatively impact the struggle over the succession. Joe wants Bob to stay quiet. Then let the players decide a course of action. Boom. Your players are now involved in local politics no matter what they decide.

Hope that helps.

[BilltheCynic]

have you ever done improv acting? seriously in areas like this i have about 4 NPC's i have planned and the rest are improv.

have a few personalities in your head for random people (a crazy shopkeep, a funny drunk, a paranoid back alley dealer) and write down key notes as and when and IF they encounter them.

overplanning 50 npc's when they might meet 5 is more than pointless. put the effort into story and quality.

look at the book cityscape. it has sample npc's. so does the dmg. but they are a bit meh.

If your going to improv NPCs, make sure to have a small list of male and female names available. That way when a player wants to know an NPC's name and you didn't plan the NPC, you can immediately pull one from the list. Helps with immersion and the players won't know which NPCs are preplanned (read: plot related) and which ones were made up five seconds ago.

As for the city itself, check out the Tarrasque City (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?261519-D-amp-Dish-The-city-built-around-the-tarrasque). You could do quite a bit with that setting.

[daremetoidareyo]

Usually, in all of the D&D I had played, we started out as nearly nobodies. No money, no influence, just a bunch of lovable murder hobos traveling the world in search of tens to hundreds of gold pieces. In L5R, all of the PCs are samuraii, therefor political pawns, therefor can be assigned a government job in a city where they have to work together. It was really jarring as a DM to assign positions of authority and power to the PCs, but it made running a city campaign awesome. The PCs became a bit patriotic for their city, they had a location to stash their stuff, and what's best: they were assigned to be magistrates, so anything a sheriff or justice of the peace would have to handle combined with hosting/guarding diplomats etc. The plothooks all came to them, easily justifiable.

Based on this experience my advice is to give the PCs a little power within the city, don't start with them being outcasted highly equipped beggars. Ideas: Each of the guilds get to appoint one candidate for sheriff for a term of 5 years, this year x# of sheriffs all died because of disease/targetted murders, etc. The guilds all choose their candidates differently, but this can be used to really round out the PCs. Maybe the merchants guild wants a burly fighter who doesn't give a darn about rules but will protect merchants. The firemen guild (actually the thieves guild) wants a totally loyal toady.

The neat thing about PCs having authority is that they get a stipend. They are also held responsible for collateral damage. And the plothooks walk up to their face and slap them. Further, accountability is much easier, as you can give them a constant boss (or bosses) and the PCs have to figure out the intrigue between why they are there, what is expected of them by whom and why, and whether or not they care about a greater good.

[Hiro Quester]

We are playing a game that started in a small city, with guilds, districts, stores, history already laid out. (Sasserine, in the Savage Tide adventure--no spoilers, please).

The players guide to Savage Tide (https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/SavageTide/SavageTide_LR.pdf) (basically a history and description of the city and its guilds, organizatios, districts, stores, and prominent citizens and families) will give you some good examples of ways to lay out a city and its existing structures.

Anyway, the group of players were embedded in the city's history to various degrees. Some relative newcomers, some grew up there. Some from noble families, some recent academy graduates, etc.

We got together because the head of a noble house hired each of us to form a group to help her with some tasks that required our particular mix of talents. That task involves other noble families, some of whom are vying for a contested political office, a secret underground organization trying to exert influence,etc.

By being hired, were drawn into a world of political intrigue, but as a side-story of helping this noble deal with a problem that turns out relate to existing city politics and factions in ways we players have only half understood so far.

[sideswipe]

Never really done improv acting, I can think up what happens next in an adventure in a moments notice, though when I have to suddenly make up a blacksmith 90% chance it'll be a grumpy old dwarf, I find it is somewhat harder to think up interesting npc's on the spot. Also who published cityscape? Will be looking into that.

cityscape is a 3.5 wizards of the coast book.