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View Full Version : DM Help How do you make Memorable Towns in your games?



codyleaderbrand
2015-07-20, 01:00 PM
I personally believe that memorable towns are just as important as memorable NPC's. If you don't have a town worth visiting then it really puts a damper on the return trip home from a long adventure. What are some things you do to make your towns memorable?

Tips and Tricks to Making Memorable Towns (http://bit.ly/1MpA3Ao)

dream
2015-07-20, 01:23 PM
Tips and Tricks to Making Memorable Towns (http://bit.ly/1MpA3Ao):smallsmile:

One of the rules of writing is when you have a great idea, revise it; no matter how much you like the idea, take it up another notch by adding to it.

So you say "Man, I have this great idea of an upside-down city that hovers at the peak of a living mountain!" Okay. And?

"Well, the people in the city exits on two planes of existence at the same time!" And?

"Uh. The mountain communicates with people telepathically via illusions!" And?

"Um. The city's kept in place by the power of an evil mage who rules the place with an iron glove!"

And?

BoardPep
2015-07-20, 04:54 PM
I think a memorable town needs 1-3 of these things.

Very memorable NPCs. Whether everybody is super friendly, or even extremely creepy. People will remember the town just because of the people who inhabited it. Always best if there's a good reason for it. If everyone is happy all the time, it's because their water is enchanted to keep them in a good mood constantly. Some of the NPCs might even struggle to be as unfriendly as possible, even though they feel compelled to be happy.

Very memorable location. A town on the back of a giant island turtle is awesome. Or a town on the ring of an active volcano. Or perhaps a town that is half underwater (something like Venice). The idea that the town can move (or could be wiped out at any moment) will often draw the party to want to return and check up on them.

Very memorable monuments. Maybe they have an amazing giant wall that keeps monsters at bay. Maybe the town is all one large tower, with each floor being a different building. Maybe there are statues lining the streets of the town showing off any hero that has done great things for the village (the players might think they can get one of themselves if they can find a good way to help the village).

The other thing I find really important is that everything makes sense. If there's nowhere in the town where people can get water, if there's no shops, if there is no jail or guard house of any sort, players might start to question whether or not you made this town up on the fly. Usually players are less interested in towns that seem hastily made, because they assume that you don't want them to care. So the more fleshed out your town is, the more likely your players will see it as a potential plot hook or "home base", and want to return.

Just remember though, not everbody likes everything. I've put crazy amounts of work into towns before, only to have the players be like "This place isn't that interesting, let's never go back there". So just roll with it and try again!

Keltest
2015-07-20, 05:12 PM
So far, the only town I have created that has stuck in the minds of my players is one that they spent significant time in and got invested in. It had a fairly unique structure, being built into the side of a mountain similar to Minas Tirith, and they also owned a Tavern there, because why not? Finally, it was run by an order of faintly racists priests of dubious moral character that they somehow got in good with.

And yet, amusingly, if I mention the mountain or priests, they all scratch their heads. Bring up the tavern and they all go "Oh, that place!"

JAL_1138
2015-07-20, 05:38 PM
Tips and Tricks to Making Memorable Towns (http://bit.ly/1MpA3Ao):smallsmile:

One of the rules of writing is when you have a great idea, revise it; no matter how much you like the idea, take it up another notch by adding to it.

So you say "Man, I have this great idea of an upside-down city that hovers at the peak of a living mountain!" Okay. And?

"Well, the people in the city exits on two planes of existence at the same time!" And?

"Uh. The mountain communicates with people telepathically via illusions!" And?

"Um. The city's kept in place by the power of an evil mage who rules the place with an iron glove!"

And?

I'd caution not to go overboard, though. Doing too much can make it that zany unbelievable place nobody wants to go back to because so much was piled into making it "cool" that it came off as over-the-top and trying too hard. "Why would anyone even live there? How does it even function? How do they get food or do business?" are the sorts of questions I got asked a lot when I overdid it. Good questions, too. It can work, sure--I remember the map of a ruined town in a Planescape module that looked like it was built on the corpse of a mutant conglomeration of dead gods in the Astral Plane--but it's just as easy to end up with one that's memorable for the wrong reasons too.

And if a town doesn't go over or they breeze theough it too quickly, the parts of the town the players don't get to can often be yoinked wholesale and dropped into a later town.

BoardPep
2015-07-20, 06:20 PM
And if a town doesn't go over or they breeze theough it too quickly, the parts of the town the players don't get to can often be yoinked wholesale and dropped into a later town.

I agree with this statement 100%. Not just for towns, but for anything in D&D. They didn't explore the crypt you left in the town? Copy/paste it somewhere else. They missed a cave? Copy/paste it somewhere else in your game.

I've had way too many DMs who told us AFTER we missed something ALL about the thing we missed.

"If you had of gone here, this NPC would have offered to do this for you."

Don't do it that way. Save your hard work for another time and keep the players guessing as to what they might have missed.

Mendicant
2015-07-20, 06:28 PM
One thing I've found helpful is tracking down artwork that is appropriate to a part of the city or town. It can be hard to impossible to get an image that matches 100% with your vision for a particular city, obviously, but a market, harbor, tavern or what have you can be easier to find. Once you've got that, it gives a palette for your players to start building other, unillustrated parts of that city in their mind.

Knaight
2015-07-20, 06:28 PM
I generally just pull from experience. Maybe it's somewhere I've been, maybe it's historical knowledge, and in science fiction games it can be scientific knowledge. There are a lot of sources that you can draw from, including some surprising ones, and they can get some interesting results. For instance, I have a science fiction mining town on an ice planet that came to being mostly because of a combination of my knowledge on nuclear fusion, years of chemistry and chemical engineering classes, some recent reading about thermo-electric generators, and the chapters on heating and cooling from a friend's textbook on greenhouse management; the last of these was probably the primary source. Pull from anywhere and everywhere, taking advantage of how the actual world is full of fascinating people, places, and phenomena.

prufock
2015-07-20, 08:06 PM
I think a memorable town needs 1-3 of these things.

Very memorable NPCs. ...

Very memorable location. ...

Very memorable monuments.
I would echo these three, and add Memorable Events. A peculiar festival, a tournament, or a tragedy makes a locale stand out as well.

BoardPep
2015-07-20, 08:34 PM
I would echo these three, and add Memorable Events. A peculiar festival, a tournament, or a tragedy makes a locale stand out as well.

Oh very true! Especially if that event is relevant to the players and happens in repetition. "You hear talk that the Dragon Festival in Ashabenford is going to be starting soon." Suddenly the players are excited because they remember the drunken events of the last one.

Having the town be the ONLY place the players can get something is a big help too. Players attach themselves to the strangest thing. I remember one character who was so devoted to drinking fine wine. There was a wine made only in this town, and because he had rolled a 20 the first time he tasted it, his character LOVED this wine. So he'd always make a point to stop into the town when they were nearby so he could grab another few bottles and visit the brewer to pay his admiration.

JAL_1138
2015-07-20, 09:35 PM
I agree with this statement 100%. Not just for towns, but for anything in D&D. They didn't explore the crypt you left in the town? Copy/paste it somewhere else. They missed a cave? Copy/paste it somewhere else in your game.

I've had way too many DMs who told us AFTER we missed something ALL about the thing we missed.

"If you had of gone here, this NPC would have offered to do this for you."

Don't do it that way. Save your hard work for another time and keep the players guessing as to what they might have missed.

Beware the Quantum Ogre, though--the situation in which there are two paths in the woods, and regardless of which they take, they have to fight the ogre anyway. Don't render their choices meaningless with it, just drop it in someplace it'd naturally fit later down the line. Let them take the safe path for now, and put the ogre under a bridge where you want to have a fight anyway, to save from having to prep a different one.

NichG
2015-07-21, 01:59 AM
In general, the things that are most memorable are the things which a person actively thinks about. Background description, no matter how awesome, will be forgotten if it never actually comes up in play. In the same vein, something that the DM explicitly brings up in play will be remembered less than something that one of the players spontaneously brings up in play on their own (e.g. in pursuit of some goal or scheme).

So one thing you can do is to try to make there be things which are in some way useful or functional. An example from one of my games, there was a city that was literally constantly building itself out of magic - turn off the ley line and all the buildings would quickly evaporate. The inhabitants would sculpt the buildings based on their needs, redirecting the flow of magic, etc. What ended up making that city memorable was that in the campaign house rules there was a custom PrC that was only taught at an institute in that one city, and one of the PCs wanted to take that PrC immediately upon reaching Lv6 (which was a tight fit to the timeline), so that PC was constantly trying to figure out how to entice the other players to go there. Even though it wasn't necessary, that city ended up featuring in the PCs' plans in the future because it was a place they had previously made use of on their own - it felt like a tool in their toolbelt, in a way.

That sort of moves the problem back, because now instead of 'memorable', the target is to make a place 'noticeable'. How do you get the PCs to spontaneously decide 'we need to go to X specific place!', even if there aren't plot hooks leading there and the GM isn't suggesting it, but because of something they heard about it or read about it in the setting materials. If you can do that consistently, then 'memorable' should be easy to follow with.

Telok
2015-07-21, 08:44 PM
I find that it really depends on what the players are interested in.

From my last campaign they only remember three places, the magic academy with low level magic items for sale, the town with the toll bridge, and the fort with the emerald pillar.

The academy was the first place to buy magic stuff in the campaign. It only had low level stuff because the wares were being produced by students. There were three other places where they could have gotten better stuff but they always either forgot about them or decided that they weren't worth going to and ignored NPCs telling them it was where they wanted to go to get what they wanted. There was lots of griping about not being able to buy better stuff because nobody there was powerful enough to make it.

The town with the toll bridge also had talking statues, corrupt officials, a criminal gang, the best food and wine for 1000 miles, and one of the three most knowlegable sages in the world. They remembered the toll bridge. They avoided the town so assiduously that several characters almost drowned crossing the river. They don't even remember the talking statues.

The fort was on the front lines of a war. A war where both sides had decent numbers of lowish level magic users. The emerald pillar was the only reason that the war stopped there and the whole human realm wasn't overrun, killed, and eaten. They hatched a plan to come back after their current mission, dig under the fort, cut the pillar off below ground and use the magic for themselves. Then they walked straight into the front lines of the enemy and were surprised when they couldn't fight through hundreds of troops backed up by dozens of magic users. Enough PCs died that the plan to steal power and doom human civilization to being food was never carried out.

The towns they don't remember? Biggest library in the world with info on everything, high level wizard with a wife dying of a magical disease they could have cured, a shrine with a direct line to a god for answers and a quest, the gladitorial arena that could have made them famous, the trade crossroads with the giant lizard rodeo and the ability to mail order anything and get it shipped to them in two to three months, the best magic shop ino the game.

The one I'm still hearing the most about two years later? A five gold piece toll bridge.

JAL_1138
2015-07-21, 08:58 PM
To be fair, the toll is more money than a peasant would see in years. Even in 5e, that's like a week's expenses for an affluent lifestyle iirc.

Brendanicus
2015-07-21, 09:18 PM
A town is only as memorable as what the players do in it.

If you want the town to be memorable because of its odd theocracy, have the players quest heavily involve the theocracy and its quirks. Is there a sizable Tiefling community? Include it in the quest. Is the town's guardian an ancient silver dragon? The party better meet her! Players remember what they are actively involved in a lot more than the lore that they passively receive from the DM.

The Fury
2015-07-21, 10:48 PM
A town is only as memorable as what the players do in it.


Not quite. I'd say a town is only as memorable as what happens in it, whether the players do it or not.

I realize that I'm probably on the wrong side of the DM-screen for this topic, but I can give some examples of towns/locations that I thought were interesting enough that I still remember them.

My favorite was this city called Drugir which was built into the walls of a narrow chasm which led to a lake. Both walls were connected at different levels by sky bridges too. On its own that's sort of unique but the city seemed completely abandoned when we got there, and plunged into perpetual winter. For me this was really interesting because it's not just a location that's sort of exotic, but there's also something unexpected and mysterious happening.

The same campaign also had a huge rope bridge between floating islands which were so large they actually had resting points in the middle. This was memorable because someone didn't want us following them and cut the ropes. We nearly died!

The first campaign I ever played in had a city called Restenford, which I liked very much because of the interplay between the NPCs and the PCs. Nearly every named NPC had some opinion, good or bad, about each PC. Honestly, if the entire campaign took place in just this one city, I'd have been OK with that.

Telok
2015-07-21, 10:57 PM
To be fair, the toll is more money than a peasant would see in years. Even in 5e, that's like a week's expenses for an affluent lifestyle iirc.

If you make assumptions about people only being able to make a penny a day and live off of a penny a day a and insist that everyone partake of a cash-only economy, that that may be true. However WotC D&D doesn't do anything resembling "economy" or have money "rules" that work for anyone but PCs. And if I were talking about NPC pesants who were so pathetic they couldn't make Porfession (Dirt Farmer) checks then those assumptions might even be relevant.

These were PCs with thousands of gold, in a fantasy economy where 90% of the population isn't too poor to afford to buy clothes.

BootStrapTommy
2015-07-22, 10:27 AM
Inevitably, I give the town a catchy name and then blow it up. Players never forget a town they had a hand in blowing up.

Keltest
2015-07-22, 10:29 AM
Inevitably, I give the town a catchy name and then blow it up. Players never forget a town they had a hand in blowing up.

True, but apparently they will forget a town that someone else blew up. They still remember not-minas-tirith-I-swear as the place where they own a tavern instead of the dozen other interesting things that happened there.

The Fury
2015-07-22, 03:37 PM
True, but apparently they will forget a town that someone else blew up.

Heheh. Yeah, I probably would. Though I'd remember the person that blew it up. As in "That jerk! I'm going to get her/him!"