Making a City

[Aldarin]

Hello to all of giantitp! As the title says, I'm creating a city for my players that they will spend much of their campaign in. I've never done this before, as I've never had players want a developed city, so I'm looking for advice. I've constructed a general government but I still need help. What businesses should I include? How should I construct the city's demographic? Should I include mansions and slums?
Thanks in advance!

[CaptainSarathai]

When I did this, it was "Gangs of New York" style, and I really just sorta worked my whole world down into a city. It's not difficult, really. Example:

Normal Campaign - Here is the forest which houses the Elven kingdom.
City Campaign - Here are the 'Knife-Ear Drops', a dockyard district and slum where immigrant Elves get off the boat and barely get 50' before the high cost of living locks them out, so they live along the water's edge, not far from where they landed, in tumble-down houses lining foggy coastal streets.
The Elves have their own shops, general stores, maybe a smithy and so forth. They could "self sustain" if they needed to, but it would uncomfortable. What they're good at though, is magic. When people can't afford a chirurgeon in the city, sometimes they head down to the winding streets of the Drops and try their luck with the Elvish healing magic.

Normal Campaign - Here is the mountain home of the Dwarfs, where they mine ore and create the finest works of metal-craft the world has ever known
City Campaign - Welcome to 'Hammerers' Row'. Built against the city's West Gate, the smiths vye for their choice of the first and best loads of metal coming in from the mines beyond the wall. Dwarf smiths have formed a cohesive guild, and have a stranglehold on incoming metals, and this - along with their natural skill - makes dwarven crafted metalwork the finest in the city. Nobles, high ranking military officials, and mercenary companies will come here to outfit themselves.

Normal Campaign - Look, Halflings, staying out of the way and yet still earning a living, somehow
City Campaign - Don't look over there. It's a Halfling Black-Watch, a lookout for the 'Small Bazaar,' the Halfling black market operating in the shadows of the city. If you need something, the Halflings can put you in contact with someone who sells it. If you're selling it, they'll find the right buyer. If it can't be bought, they'll steal it. All for the right price, of course. Rumors are, there are even permanent shopfaces in the disused sewer tunnels beneath the oldest bits of the city.

Normal Campaign - [I]Dwarfs and Elves have been allies since the dawn of time, and they'll never forgive one another. They go to war frequently, and can't stand to be in each others' presence.
City Campaign - The Elves have started to establish themselves, and have started to gain a foothold in the working-class sections of town. For the Dwarfs, this doesn't threaten their Smithing businesses, yet, but it does squeeze out their laborers and the other dwarfs who do more menial tasks - shoeing horses, casting nails for building projects, hauling metal out of the mines and carrying tools back in. The Dwarfs don't like it. The sons of the Dwarven landlords, calling themselves "Iron Guts" for their hammered metal belly armor, have started to intimidate the elven families struggling to live nearby. The Elves have responded, with young men joining the "Spire Hawks" - young elves who leap between rooftops, exacting vigilante justice with their shortbows.

Imagine each kingdom as a city block. Imagine each "army" as a gang of concerned citizens fighting for their neighborhood's interest. Make the government sprawling and bureaucratic, ineffective and corrupt. In a world campaign, there is no solidifying government; maybe a few alliances and confederations, but there is no central control. The city campaign is different - there has to be a major controlling force, but it needs to be felt as little as possible. Maybe the party works for a benevolent ruler of the city, who cannot get things done because he can't be seen getting his hands dirty fighting against the underground street gangs. Maybe, the government is corrupt, and your party is fighting in the resistance, trying to throw off the shackles of oppression. Maybe, the city has already fallen to a foreign power - perhaps Orcs are in charge, and the campaign is France, ca. 1940.
---

The big issue is that you can't be afraid to leave the city. Most "city campaigns" always will. The players think it's awesome when they suggest it on paper, but eventually they want to explore. Cities are heavy intrigue, limited combat. Lots of NPCs and roleplay. Make sure that you have it ready. Have charts, have tables of names by race and gender. Have the ability to quickly come up with some defining characteristics for random NPCs so that you can roll someone up on the fly if the players feel like talking. And then, write that guy down and be willing to reuse him! Give him a job later on. Maybe he works in a shop somewhere that they end up later. Maybe his sister works in a shop, and he can hook the players up with a deal. And then be ready to roll her, too.

[Notafish]

I think the important things to consider are the city's history and major factions in the city, as well as the goals of the campaign. These factors will undoubtedly be tied together. Is there a giant dungeon below the city that will be the focus, with the city being more of a home base/motivation? If so, why is there a giant dungeon below the city? Will the focus being on overthrowing a corrupt government? If so, how did that government come to power? What factions keep them in power? Is the city under threat from invaders? If so, why -- is the city important because it is a wealthy port, a strategic fortress, or a holy site?

That said, I don't think that you need to have everything figured out ahead of time -- you'll need to invent this stuff in response to the campaign. I'd start with the motivations for the first adventure (or campaign arc if you have one in mind), identify the specifics about locations and factions related to that one thing and then build the city around that leaving a lot of space on the map. I'd probably also figure out the rough population (20,000? 1 million? Larger?), whether the city is built on a river or the coast, and figure out where the market is. And yes, probably the rough location of the mansions and the slums (probably not next to each other). If the party will be spending a lot of time in the city, I'd also decide whether there is a dominant race and if there are ethnic neighborhoods or not. ("Forget it Jake, it's Teiflingtown")

[Notafish]

For thinking more about geography and verisimilitude, a historical atlas of medieval London or classical Rome might provide inspiration. If you want a larger port, maybe Venice or Alexandria? There are probably a number of non-European cities that I'm less familiar with that could provide other, less fantasy-cliche inspiration -- Tenochtitlan/Mexico City and Hong Kong spring to mind as particularly evocative due to their history and geography. Historical atlases are nice because they give you a sense of how different neighborhoods developed over time as well as the relationship between its history and geography.

Some other places I might look for inspiration are the fantasy cities in the Taltos novels by Steven Brust and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I remember the fluff for the Ravnica setting for Magic the Gathering being pretty cool and city-centric as well. I'm told that there are city settings in the official DnD worlds, too, but I've not read the sourcebooks for those, and I don't have much experience with the pre-written adventures so I don't know whether the cities in those places are dynamic or not.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If you're looking for a codified Offical city, 3.5e released "Sharn: City of Towers. The entire sourcebook is about that one city in Eberron.

[DarkKnightJin]

The first thing that came to my mind while reading the suggestion with the kingdoms as different suburbs, was Kirkwall from Dragon Age 2.
Sure, it's arguably the worst in the series (so far), but it did a well enough job of providing plenty of what most players want out of a campaign in and around the city itself.

Though I am keenly aware the party won't be able to just fight and kill members of any guard without some consequences down the road.

As was said, though.. Don't limit yourself to just the city. That can't end well. If your players end up never going beyond the city walls, that's okay too. But you should ALWAYS expect them to find a way to 'derail' your campaign in some unexpected way.

[Azgeroth]

so here is how i do it.

where is it?? is it a coastal(port?) city, a central in land city, a major city between 2 nations(close to a border)

or some other fantastical location, bottom of the sea, top of a mountain, underdark?

how did it come to be there? first settlement, rose due to trade (internal or international?), site of some historical importance?(cultural, militaristic, divine/planar?)

once you have that down you should have a general idea of what this city is.

i like to think of how it came to be, what that was like, and the natural progression that would have.

this way you get a solid picture of the city, its history, the districts, its citizens, its trade, and politics.

then prep as little of it as you have to. this way you dont pen yourself into a corner down the road, and can grow the city as the picture of the world grows.

[qube]

Hello to all of giantitp! As the title says, I'm creating a city for my players that they will spend much of their campaign in. I've never done this before, as I've never had players want a developed city, so I'm looking for advice. I've constructed a general government but I still need help. What businesses should I include? How should I construct the city's demographic? Should I include mansions and slums?
Thanks in advance!I've created a city myself. if you PM me your e-mail adress, I could send it to you (it's a 5MB, 32 page pdf)

[xroads]

Imagine each kingdom as a city block. Imagine each "army" as a gang of concerned citizens fighting for their neighborhood's interest. Make the government sprawling and bureaucratic, ineffective and corrupt. In a world campaign, there is no solidifying government; maybe a few alliances and confederations, but there is no central control. The city campaign is different - there has to be a major controlling force, but it needs to be felt as little as possible. Maybe the party works for a benevolent ruler of the city, who cannot get things done because he can't be seen getting his hands dirty fighting against the underground street gangs. Maybe, the government is corrupt, and your party is fighting in the resistance, trying to throw off the shackles of oppression. Maybe, the city has already fallen to a foreign power - perhaps Orcs are in charge, and the campaign is France, ca. 1940.


Wow! Nicely done. I think I'm going to have favorite this for future reference. :smallsmile:

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I would say be ready to make up stats for NPC's as needed. No need to roll them, they are your creations and if you want a bar to have a 18 strength, 7 intelligence bouncer go for it.

But know commoner stats for your world. I think most have about 8 hit points for example and should generally not be able to take on high level characters one on one.