Big Cities In RPGs

[HumanFighter]

I'm talking specifically about the big cities in medieval fantasy-style settings (like D&D, but not necessarily only D&D). How do you deal with them? When I GM, the big cities are a huge blindspot for me. I usually try to stick to the small towns, because they are easier to deal with, but sometimes the story inevitably takes us to a big city, and then I draw a blank. Therefore, I usually just try to get done whatever business the PCs have there as quickly as possible and move on to the next dungeon or whatever. Works fine in the short-term, but I feel I am missing out on something when I do that. I've tried to exclude big cities from settings altogether, but that just feels weird and less believable. So, what're some of the things you fellow playgrounders do when your campaign takes you into a larger city in-game. Random tables? Rumors? Funny tavern names? I don't know, but I'd like the help.

[Mastikator]

What do you mean "deal with them"? It's just a town with more stuff. A big city should include all the extra ordinary stuff that is too expensive for normal towns and villages.

The cool thing about bigger cities imo is that you can put a whole lot more stuff in there and have it interact, like factions working against each other (and potentially with the party!). Big houses can serve as dungeons. It's just a town but more

[Demostheknees]

I think one of the things you can do is change perspective.

In a small town, you can kind of hold the whole thing in your head. All of the NPCs, buildings, services can be defined without being overwhelming.

In a city that's just not possible, and so rather than even attempt to try I "zoom out" my GM "camera" until I can see the city in the same way I do a town.

I think of the neighborhoods rather than buildings, and factions/organizations rather than NPCs, etc.

If I need to get granular, I can zoom back in to a specific thing (Neighborhoods of a city are essentially a town) and go from there.

The method is essentially to use the same framework for everything, but different levels of "zoom".

[Martin Greywolf]

This is partly a DnD problem. Big cities tend to have a big budget for problem-solving, so a lot of the stuff happening in them is political subterfuge and intrigue in the shadows, less Diablo 2 and more Dishonored. And DnD isn't really set up, as a system, to handle that sort of thing well.

A really big city should be approached more like a kingdom - you don't have individual, you have factions, and those have individuals and so on. Setting these up is... well, my method is not going to help you, I do it by having read an obscene amount of books and academic papers on how medieval cities worked, what with guilds and all, and go from there.


I've tried to exclude big cities from settings altogether, but that just feels weird and less believable.

About that. A medeival city rarely reached more than 5k people in it, you may have one or none that are above 10k and only a handful in all of Europe broke over 100k. There were maybe five cities in the world at one time that reached 1M at the same time, if that. Bad fantasy just likes to slap massive cities everywhere to make itself seem cooler than Minas Tirith.

Speaking of Middle-Earth, it had one confirmed large city in Minas Tirith, and that was pretty much it. Edoras was fairly small, Elven cities had declined massively and while Erebor and Dale may have been fairly large-ish, that is at most 3 major cities, two of whom are essentially one city segregated by race.

Point is, large cities should be extremely rare, to a point where not even half the kingdoms in a setting have one, if you're going for a traditional fantasy feel.

[MoiMagnus]

Don't see big cities as a single entity. See that as small kingdoms, in other words as entity that are too big to be homogeneous.

Describing a big city in its entirety is as pointless as describing the hundreds of small villages in an empire, instead you should have broad descriptions about how things are organised, and only focus on the few parts of the city that the PCs will directly interact with. And in the same way it's fine for PCs to only visit the capital of a kingdom, it's fine for PCs to only interact with the ruling class of a big city.

The main difference is that while you might put a focus on "material geography" while describing small kingdoms, "social geography" is much more important for big cities.

[Berenger]

Suggestion: Break up large cities into subunits of a size you can handle. For example a) The Harbor, with piers, docks, storehouses, the fish market and cheap taverns, b) The Mage's District with the academy, libraries, a park and shops for magical paraphernalia, c) The Citadel, with administrative buildings, guard barracks and a military arsenal... Then treat each ward just like you would treat one of the smaller towns you are comfortable with.

[Vinyadan]

I'm talking specifically about the big cities in medieval fantasy-style settings (like D&D, but not necessarily only D&D). How do you deal with them? When I GM, the big cities are a huge blindspot for me. I usually try to stick to the small towns, because they are easier to deal with, but sometimes the story inevitably takes us to a big city, and then I draw a blank. Therefore, I usually just try to get done whatever business the PCs have there as quickly as possible and move on to the next dungeon or whatever. Works fine in the short-term, but I feel I am missing out on something when I do that. I've tried to exclude big cities from settings altogether, but that just feels weird and less believable. So, what're some of the things you fellow playgrounders do when your campaign takes you into a larger city in-game. Random tables? Rumors? Funny tavern names? I don't know, but I'd like the help.

I guess you can use some sort of "fill the blanks" method.

Historically, big cities had three main ways to be ruled: by a ruler; by nobles; by the bourgeoisie. In general, you can expect the three to end up mixed, with a high noble at the top whose authority becomes more and more symbolic, and big families of nobles and rich peasants really ruling the city and openly fighting each other in evershifting alliances, unless the noble at the top is strong enough to stop them. Even if the top noble is the king of the land, it's probable that he will let someone else rule the city instead of him, so he can focus on wider matters. So, if the king's power isn't devolved to a parliament, you get competition to be the chosen one (although the presence of a king will propel any competition to the national level).

The power of the main families of the city will mostly depend on wealth, but they will also try to occupy seats in the city's administration, and compete for the ear of the "top noble".
If there is no top noble, then you can assume that internecine wars will become worse and worse, with whole factions being sent in exile, until a single family accumulates enough power to rule the city without a real competitor and gains a new noble title to officialise the situation. Other families can choose between helping the new rulers and hope for compensation, or forming alliances against them.
These conflicts shape the administration of the city. In general, cities tended to be ruled by councils that collected representatives by the various guilds. The guilds collected the owners of workshops and were separated by trade (one for goldsmiths, one for bowmakers, and so on). The guilds weren't all equals and could divided in major and minor guilds; major guilds would get more power.
But a city could also decide to set strict standards for its magistrates: some cities were ruled by assemblies of nobles, others instead excluded all nobles from government (exceptionally beloved nobles could be de-nobled and turned into peasants, so they could become magistrates).

Then you can consider religion and local patrons. The city will likely honour a certain divinity or personality more than others, and identify with it. You will often see it pictured on walls, and there will be temples and religious orders dedicated to it. Some people will explicitly call upon its writings or stories as an example of how to behave. But it's a big city, and there will be many different orders existing together, with different membership (by quarter, or by class, or by faction), different access to the levers of power and slightly different philosophies (for example, giving different values to poverty) and different meeting places. The orders will have their own businesses and properties inside and outside the city. If there is a king, he might have elected to elevate an order above all others (or to destroy some pesky order).
Some orders, especially the newest, unestablished ones, will be seen with enthusiasm by some and suspicion by others. There will be debates at the dinner table or on the town square, and they might not all end amicably.

Then there are habits. People in a big city will likely be extremely proud and consider themselves superior to others, at the center of civilization, contrasted with the uncouth masses of the countryside and provincial cities. So you can choose some things that are done different in this city (like how you greet people, or how you sit at a table, or how you cook certain things). The bards will likely enjoy this...

Then you have economics. The city is likely an important trade hub; cities generally were the place where raw goods were transformed into finished products, so you can choose certain areas that are exceptionally important and productive, like the wool, or wine, or iron industry. The raw products are imported, which creates a connection with areas outside the city. Different families will compete with each other to control the market and find new buyers and selles, at all levels (from town fairs to dealing with kings and emperors). A town also likely will have a few banks; either owned by local family, or just as branches of banks owned by families from other, more financially developed cities.
This means that there will be a good lot of foreigners, many of them pretty rich: members of merchant or banker families, sometimes with their own districts. Sometimes, in times of great crisis, the populace will turn violent against them.
Of course, not everyone is an owner. Many people are just employees in other people's workshops. In large cities with huge workshops, these can be many, many people, enough to start revolts if something pushes them. For example, they could be excluded from the city council, and want representation, or they could want better wages.
And then you have the underworld whose home is in the streets: ragmen, travelling entertainers, pickpockets, occasional prostitutes... they will likely have their own dialect and know a lot of interesting people. And don't forget university students: young men with no one to supervise them, constantly busy wasting their parents money, getting drunk, pulling pranks, and creating trouble, only to find themselves in dire need of money (which leads to more mischief).

Working on the person level sounds like the best option. Take an NPC, flesh him out, elect him to questgiver, and use his quest to lead the PCs across the city and get to know it (as long as they want to be lead...)

[Mr Blobby]

Came in to this thread to... offer the very same advice as Berenger. Treat 'big cities' as more a series of smaller settlements which just happen to be next to each other - this is true in RL cities, and even more so when walking was the main means of transportation. On the organisational side of things, use computer game examples like Oblivion, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights II etc as your model - your big city is split into 'neighborhoods', each with their own vibe and 'places of interest'.

I disagree with Greywolf in that it's difficult to have traditional 'adventuring' within a Big City. Crypts, subterranean mysteries, slums and ghettos; even the most crowded of cities shall always have a few rotting, abandoned buildings or creepy ruins somewhere. The cities might have greater resource to takle problems, but it also means they'll have more problems. What's more, the city would also be too large for any one person to know everything about; thus meaning that it's not a complete ass-pull if the DM states X has 'appeared' nearby ['it was always there, ma'am. Just nobody important noticed until now...' etc]. Plus, population density in old cities is much higher than now; coupled with the small size of them, this means it was very possible to have breakfast in a tavern, ride out of the city and within a hour be in 'real countyside'. Now, there's a debate to be had about the general availability of 'dungeons' to loot [and viability of 'adventurer' as a career] in your world but that's a different topic entirely.

However, there is one 'use' of a Big City which has not been discussed yet; not as a location for adventures, but as a 'home base'. The place where the PCs live/work when they're not adventuring [perhaps answering the 'economics of adventuring' question; that it's more a hobby/side-hustle than a true occupation], sell off their loot [if they have any] store your stuff, shop, train and so on. Naturally, this would only be of more interest in a long-runner game. But even so, having your Big City to hit to pick up new PCs wouldn't hurt.

[LibraryOgre]

Some of this also comes down to assumed magic level. This board has long talked about 3e's "Tippyverse", where you use existing rules in unexpected ways to overcome problems (I think one of the simple examples is a self-resetting "trap" that casts Create Food and Drink... congratulations, you have a replicator), but there's other options, too.

For example, I've got a small dwarven settlement that has a gelatinous cube at the bottom of their privies. Every so often, they throw some fire spells at it to reduce its size, but, otherwise, it eats their waste.

In a higher magic world, you might have water towers that are kept ever-filled by a portal to the plane of water. You might have continual light spells on every street corner and many houses. The city wall might be a protection v. evil spell. You might simply have druids who live outside the city and keep the city supplied with food by casting Plant Growth repeatedly, leading to very healthy oil and bumper crops.

Beyond that, though? How does everyone poop, and where does it go? That is pretty much the central question of large human settlements.

[Psyren]

Break cities into manageable districts. 3.5's DMG2 has great advice on this, as does Pathfinder's GameMastery Guide and Ultimate Campaign (the latter two are OGL and available here (https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Urban&Category=Adventures) and here (https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Kingdom%20Building&Category=Kingdoms%20and%20War)), though I recommend purchasing the PDFs as they are cheap and an easier read than the PRD.) Try to focus the "action" on a couple of districts to reduce the PCs' desire to wander to areas you haven't fleshed out yet.

You can also borrow from other media and games. Consider games that are centered around big cities like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Dragon Age 2's Kirkwall. In all those cases, the city is massive but you're not just turned loose in the whole thing at once, you typically get to explore it gradually over time. This even applies to sci-fi settings like Mass Effect's Citadel and Cyberpunk's Night City.

[Pauly]

I want to talk a little about shopping. As other replies to this thread have suggested you break the city into districts. Legal district in and around the courts. A temple district like the Parthenon and so forth. It doesn’t mean you can only find these services in this district, but that basic services are available throughout the city, but high level or specialist services are only available are concentrated in the appropriate district.

When this comes to shopping you won’t have a central market district of a small or large town where you can find everything in one convenient region. You will have shops selling basic items throughout the city, but for specialist items you will need to go to the specialist district. You wont have any department style emporiums where you can buy all your adventuring needs in one stop. People travel mainly by foot, so having all the specialty shops spread across the city is incovenient for the customers, and increased traffic of people looking for specialty goods is good for the stores.

For example a city might have a ‘marital’ district where you can buy weapons and armor. In this martial district you will have several small shops specializing in particular items. 4 or 5 sword shops, 6 armor shops, 3 bowyers, 4 fletchers, 3 shield shop, 4 shops for axes and polearms, 2 shops for hammers and maces etc. This will be the place to go if you want to buy a magic sword. But compared to towns and smaller cities the turnover of goods will be higher, so if there is a special item a character wants, it may not be available for them after they complete the next adventure. Prices will tend to be similar to normal pricing. The benefit of increased turnover and competition is offset by higher rents and cost structures.

Outfitting a party might take a week because the trip to the martial district is one day, the trip to the arcane district could be another day and so on. If there is a time limit for the current quest the party might have to decide on which member(s) get to go shopping in the good stores and which members have to make do with the basic stuff.

[Mr Blobby]

All true, Pauly. But I think you're missing the point; 'Big City' is a destination in it's own right. As a rule, a party IC wouldn't want to do a 'shop-and-run' on it unless they had no choice [as there would be stuff to tempt; from the cerebal to the fleshy.] However, it does depend on what kind of chronicle you're playing; I'm currently in a MtA one and while all the 'dungeon-raiding' is fun, if nothing else our PCs have amassed a decent haul of loot and would like to spend it on some cool stuff [and our ST knows this; we're heading to the Big Mage City of Horizon next.]

On the size of the place, I think you're wrong. Population densisty shall be high, and coupled with the small populations of a 'big city' mentioned above, well a 15k/km2 would be a generous level, which means a small city of 7.5k would fit in Boston Common, a large city of 125k in NY's Central Park and a super-city of 375k in London's Regent's Park. So not that huge. [And it could be more crowded; 1700 Edinburgh was about 35k/km2].

What's more, the city would have ways to counteract the size. The hiring of guides [official or not], faster transport for rent [where do you think RL taxis started out as?] perhaps even the publishing of city maps etc to encourage custom and so on. What's more, as you point out there shall be the more 'generic merchant' around too, allowing a quick shop-and-run if needs be.

Lastly, what says you have to keep the party all together? I may dungeon-raid with you, but it don't mean I have the same interests/goals as the rest of the party. This more fits the 'home base' use of the place; where now and then the DM will run a quick 'tidy-up' session in between adventures, where the PC's level up, re-equip, do other stuff etc.

[Eldan]

I think city games are fundamentally different from games in the wildnerness or small locations. Especially in modern games. I tend to stick to a few guidelines:

A) The player can get any legal resource they can think of that's not ridiculously rare or unique, if they can afford or steal it. No need to make a big quest out of it, if the players need a boat, a car, a gun, a computer, some kind of medicine, etc., they can get it within a few hours, no checks rolled, no questions asked. Same for fantasy games. You can get a fancy new sword, a horse, a cart, rent a lecture hall, twenty hirelings, etc. Everyone knows this, and playing it out is rarely interesting, so if there's no time pressure, they just get it.

B) Conversely, finding specific people is hard. In your typical fantasy village of a hundred people, everyone knows Jeff, the Blacksmith's son, who is doing something shady, and probably where to find him, or at least three places where he might be hiding. 90% of people in a large city have never heard of even Glom Scarface, the largest drug dealer for a thousand miles around, nevermind your friend's lost daughter you're trying to find. You're going to need contacts, a good idea where to go and probably days of searching.

C) It takes time to get places. You can pop around to the village Blacksmith in ten minutes. Getting to Glom Scarface's villa might take half the day.

[Mr Blobby]

I think city games are fundamentally different from games in the wildnerness or small locations. Especially in modern games. I tend to stick to a few guidelines:

As a person who's both STd and played several such games, like the various World of Darkness, I have issues with...


A) The player can get any legal resource they can think of that's not ridiculously rare or unique, if they can afford or steal it. No need to make a big quest out of it, if the players need a boat, a car, a gun, a computer, some kind of medicine, etc., they can get it within a few hours, no checks rolled, no questions asked. Same for fantasy games. You can get a fancy new sword, a horse, a cart, rent a lecture hall, twenty hirelings, etc. Everyone knows this, and playing it out is rarely interesting, so if there's no time pressure, they just get it.

Yes and no. Stuff still takes time to organise. Payment may take time to clear, you will need to find someone who is stocking said item and more importantly is willing to sell you that stuff right now. This is even more pronounced in say, Vampire the Masquerade where your character's 'peak hours' are the ones where most stuff is closed. It's a bit easier if you're in a large metropolis than a mid-rank city but can still difficult. Does the items need any form of checking or legal paperwork done? Is the item really suitable?

Thus, the checks/rolls might be the character 'ringing around their contacts', trawling their streetwise knowledge for 'who might be able to sort us out', bargaining with someone who has that items but is loathe to sell or locating/stealing said item(s).


B) Conversely, finding specific people is hard. In your typical fantasy village of a hundred people, everyone knows Jeff, the Blacksmith's son, who is doing something shady, and probably where to find him, or at least three places where he might be hiding. 90% of people in a large city have never heard of even Glom Scarface, the largest drug dealer for a thousand miles around, nevermind your friend's lost daughter you're trying to find. You're going to need contacts, a good idea where to go and probably days of searching.

Well, yeah. That's like complaining an item is harder to find in a large field than your back garden. But it's less hard than it looks, just takes a bit more effort than simply going up to the first rando and saying 'where's Jeff?'.

Games like Vampire have 'backgrounds' [kinda like special merits] which you can work in this situation. You need to discuss something with Scarface, fine you don't know a direct line or lead. But... your sire might 'know someone who might know'. You know a small-time crook in which you might be able to 'work up the line' until you get to Scarface's lot. Your Streetwise roll might tell you that 'Honest Ron' is in Scarface's pocket and so asking him may work. Or if in doubt or a hurry, to go hit up that greasy Brujah who everyone knows up to their neck in the local drug trade and offer a Boon for the contact details.


C) It takes time to get places. You can pop around to the village Blacksmith in ten minutes. Getting to Glom Scarface's villa might take half the day.

Pointless point. Cities shall have generic 'blacksmiths' within short distances of wherever you are [or a grocery, or a tavern or auto shop...]. Scarface's villa is a special, one off building which may be close or far away. Just like in a rural area not every village has Lord Farquaad's castle right in the middle of it, but might be on the other side of The Shire and require a hard day's ride.

It all depends on what the PCs need/desire and where the DM puts said place on the map, that's all.

[VampiricLongbow]

I often find big cities to be difficult to DM because they, ideally, should have as many NPCs, adventure hooks, inns, stores, etc. as an entire geographic region, all immediately accessible by the players at a moment's notice. So personally, I like to start campaigns in the wilderness and slowly work inwards towards the big cities, giving me many weeks/months to slowly flesh the city out and make it genuinely feel bigger, denser and more inhabited than an average town or village.

[HumanFighter]

Thank you for the responses. I do like the idea of dividing up the big cities into manageable chunks.

What do you think of restricted districts though? Like, only the "esteemed citizens" are allowed in there? Guards, nobles, priests, etc. I want to use that idea because item availability is an important aspect of my game and to get access to the higher level shops you must travel to the higher level districts, which tend to be restricted. Is this a good idea? I don't know, maybe it would piss off my players and make them complain. Or maybe it would end up pissing me off because of the shenanigans they would inevitably pull to get past the restrictions. You know how players are. So, to avoid such GM vs. Player nonsense maybe just lift the restrictions on districts altogether, at the cost of making the world feel less realistic and/or balanced? I don't know

[Mr Blobby]

To be honest, I think you're overthinking this a bit.

'Restricted districts'... do you do restricted areas when playing out in the countryside? Do you railroad the party to make sure they don't spend their time tramping about doing whatever instead of the mission you've lined up? In my experience, if you have decent enough players they don't rip the piss [much], and that shall translate into urban areas too.

It also depends on why your party is in The City for. For example, our current MtA game, the party is on a vampire kidnap heist in Seattle. It is a mission. No, 'we' do not have time to go visit the Space Needle, go shopping at Pacific Place or go and chat to the sharks at the aquarium and our DM knows we know this and we're not A-Hole players.

Now, if there's going to be clearly more in-character time in said location, that's another story. But...

- If it's going to be more than a 'mission visit', allow the players to tell you OOC what their characters would desire to do in The City . Do this perhaps a couple of sessions before you hit The City, so it's not sprung on you and you can prepare. Within limits, 'accommodation' is much easier than 'containment'.

- Run more stuff off-scene. If you know the places the characters would [I]like to be and you know the plot-places they need to be, you can fade most of the rest into the background. The City might be a bustling place, but most of said bustle shall be of little interest to either the PCs or players.

- Consider giving them an NPC 'guide'. This will make it easier for you to keep 'the story' on the rails, as well as a handy infodumper. I'd say if you do this, be flat-out honest with the players - they are a passive character, following the PC's orders [within limits] as a hireling.

- Having 'random tables' for urban events wouldn't hurt [old VtM city books used to have load of these], though I do warn that some players may think every event is a plot lead to follow, that every mystery is worth investigating [but you can get that anyway]. Also a handy way of introducing a new PC/NPC if needed too.

- If using The City as a 'home base' or a locale for some serious IC downtime, allow the players some creative leeway. When it comes to a large settlement, it does not really matter if they make up a minor character, a strange little tavern the PC liked or a park they found creepy. As long as they get that they can't make anything big/important/unique.

Limiting high-end kit is a somewhat different question, but I'll field this one too. Put bluntly; like RL fine art, it's rarely on sale and when it does come onto the market it's via special auctions (or private deals) in which colossal amounts of cash are exchanged for it. The 'grandmaster' craftspeople who make them have waiting lists in the years - and yes, we shall need a massive deposit now to show you're serious.

Now, the more generic but good quality stuff... well, that's a different question. In this case, simply have a couple of 'good kit emporiums' in which the limitation is mainly 'you cannot afford this'.

[Telok]

Limiting high-end kit is a somewhat different question, but I'll field this one too. Put bluntly; like RL fine art, it's rarely on sale and when it does come onto the market it's via special auctions (or private deals) in which colossal amounts of cash are exchanged for it. The 'grandmaster' craftspeople who make them have waiting lists in the years - and yes, we shall need a massive deposit now to show you're serious.

In a sort of "life is stranger than fiction" one of the better spinning wheel makers in North America currently has about a 8 to 10 year waiting list and second hand wheels go for about 80% new value. The individual makes 2 or 3 a year, some are lost to relatives not knowing that a grandparent's favorite old wheel is worth $$$. Spinning wheels, good ones that are rarer & more costly than cutting edge top line consumer laptop comps. Just wood, bearings, fittings, and bits, no bling or fancy. Blasted things are that good.

More usefully, npcs. Standard variation templates. Make lists of 10 things that vary about the generic npcs, personality, goals, quirks, stats, resources, hair color, etc. Work it out to a die size of pairs of these tables. For any "new" npc roll your die size & a d10 twice. That gives you four things to be unique about the npc, choose two.

[Mr Blobby]

In a sort of "life is stranger than fiction" one of the better spinning wheel makers in North America currently has about a 8 to 10 year waiting list and second hand wheels go for about 80% new value. The individual makes 2 or 3 a year, some are lost to relatives not knowing that a grandparent's favorite old wheel is worth $$$. Spinning wheels, good ones that are rarer & more costly than cutting edge top line consumer laptop comps. Just wood, bearings, fittings, and bits, no bling or fancy. Blasted things are that good...

It might have no bling or fancy, but it was made by artisan(s) who amongst other things would need to know how to pick the perfect wood for the task and then get the raw materials to bend to their desires. Skills that shall take a long time to learn. And let us not forget the labour-hours gone into making it too; a small Persian rug can contain c150 hours while a rather simple hand-stiched suit of clothes could be c25 hours.

This was how the world was like before industrial mass production. And why 'manufactures' in general were both a) much more expensive relatively and b) why items had decent resale values.

Anyway, I was a bit wrong above. The grandmaster, when their 'people' are approached for a commission shall tell the PC 'I am sorry, X's order-book has been closed for some time'.

[Kurt Kurageous]

https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

Famous website. Will give you an idea of what might be in your big city (or hamlet!) based on population.

[KorvinStarmast]

Beyond that, though? How does everyone poop, and where does it go? That is pretty much the central question of large human settlements. In our current game with PhoenixPhyre as DM, that was the core issue of our first adventure arc; something was mucking up the centuries old (and somewhat magically empowered) drainage/sewer system and we had to solve it before all of the crappers backed up.

Break cities into manageable districts. D&D 5e Play test module Murder in Baldurs Gate is a nice illustration of this. They ported most of that into the "Avernus" published adventure.

Judges Guild "City State of the Invincible Overlord" was a great product for urban adventures.

[Mr Blobby]

https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

Famous website. Will give you an idea of what might be in your big city (or hamlet!) based on population.

Now that is a link worth keeping.

I had a little play, and while it more trends towards 'average' [the kingdom might be a peaceful island, so less castles etc] it does at very least gives you a starting-point regarding the situation.

[Berenger]

Since donjon was mentioned, there is also watabou's Medieval Fantasy City Generator for making maps: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

[Easy e]

The great thing about "Big Cities" in any RPG is that it has what it needs to have for a good game every time.

You need a museum? Your big city has it
Need a faction of snake worshippers living beneath it? Your big city has it
Need an NPC to be of royal blood? They are in the Big City

Do not think of a Big City as single place. It is a setting.

[BRC]

Thank you for the responses. I do like the idea of dividing up the big cities into manageable chunks.

What do you think of restricted districts though? Like, only the "esteemed citizens" are allowed in there? Guards, nobles, priests, etc. I want to use that idea because item availability is an important aspect of my game and to get access to the higher level shops you must travel to the higher level districts, which tend to be restricted. Is this a good idea? I don't know, maybe it would piss off my players and make them complain. Or maybe it would end up pissing me off because of the shenanigans they would inevitably pull to get past the restrictions. You know how players are. So, to avoid such GM vs. Player nonsense maybe just lift the restrictions on districts altogether, at the cost of making the world feel less realistic and/or balanced? I don't know

If one of your issues is Item Availability, I wouldn't do anything as straightforward as "The shops that sell that stuff are in restricted districts".


Assuming we're talking about Magic Items beyond, like, scroll and potions, just say that the "Magic Item Mart" doesn't exist. Every piece of magical gear or wonderous item is a one-of-a-kind item.

You can walk into stores and buy magic items, sure, but even the leader of the city can't just walk into The Best Magic Item Store in the city and expect to find, say, a Flying Carpet.

Getting a specific magic item means either tracking one down yourself, hiring somebody to find one, or hiring somebody to make it for you.
In the first case, you as the GM can just say "You can't find any of that thing for sale".

In the second, while there are brokers who specialize in acquiring magic items, as well as artificers who can create them, they're not going to work for any random adventurer who walks into their shop and plops some gold down on the counter. Tracking down or making a magic item can be a very lengthy process. They're only going to put in the effort if they trust that the PC's will actually come through with payment on the other side.

This means that until the PC's level up, make some allies and build a reputation, there are plenty of items that they simply can't buy.


If you'd like, you could also say that sales of certain items are restricted, illegal without certain papers that can only be gained from making friends with the city leaders.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I have a broker who the party "earns" at one point in the campaign. NPC is based on personality of fictional character Mike Ehrmentraut from Breaking Bad franchise. I call him Michael Trautman. It's a nice device to allow the party to buy what they want (but the prices are from the ancient 'realistic magic items' pdf of years ago.

[Mr Blobby]

The great thing about "Big Cities" in any RPG is that it has what it needs to have for a good game every time.

You need a museum? Your big city has it
Need a faction of snake worshippers living beneath it? Your big city has it
Need an NPC to be of royal blood? They are in the Big City

Do not think of a Big City as single place. It is a setting.

Or one step removed; the snake worshippers may not be in the Big City, but there shall be a lead to them in it.

It means that spending some time 'constructing' the place pays off in the long run, for you'll keep on re-using it (which you may not with some rando castle/village/etc.

[Algeh]

For item availability, you can also have restrictions where only certain people are allowed to have/carry such a thing in the city (only nobles, only members of a certain guild, only town citizens, only members of a certain religion, whatever make sense for the item and also the power dynamics in the city/region). This could be for either dangerous items, items needed to conduct a certain profession, or status-marker type items. (Perhaps the finest dressmaker in town is very particular about only nobles wearing their creations, or the local jeweler's guild will not sell raw materials, only finished items, or whatever makes sense for your setting.) This, of course, doesn't mean that PCs outside of those demographics can't attempt to acquire a whatever-it-is through less straightforward means (and then try to hide that they have it), but that'd also be true of restricted districts or whatever.

[Mr Blobby]

You could do that, but to be honest it's more complicated rationing-system than a simple 'you cannot afford this' and/or 'it's really rare, and so never found on the open market'.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Suggestion: Break up large cities into subunits of a size you can handle. For example a) The Harbor, with piers, docks, storehouses, the fish market and cheap taverns, b) The Mage's District with the academy, libraries, a park and shops for magical paraphernalia, c) The Citadel, with administrative buildings, guard barracks and a military arsenal... Then treat each ward just like you would treat one of the smaller towns you are comfortable with.
Exactly - and to be honest, that's most likely how the city would have grown. You'd have a few settlements in very close proximity that would have merged together - trade of goods, mutual defence and so on - and while some areas would have become specialised (around places like the ruler's residence and the main temple for the over arching religion, or specific trades being moved to a certain area, be that where resources are more accessible to them and/or moving industries like tanning, slaughteryards and so on away from the residential areas of the upper class), most areas would effectively still have something of their original character, and they'd certainly have things like local markets and traders, parish churches/temples, and so on - effectively, the populace wouldn't really want to walk more than a mile or so for any regularly accessed location, anything bulky getting delivered would be an uncommon occurance that the vendor might need to hire a cart for, and only the upper classes would have either a carriage or a horse to be able to travel any further with ease.

So, anything you want to be distributed across the city can be, and everything else can be local. For instance, overall control of local law enforcement might be city wide, but actual guard patrols might only ever cover a square mile or less.

Specific buildings or services? That's going to a little more ad hoc. Everyone may know where the king's menagerie's housed (the East side of the royal park right next to the palace, where they have the annual royal fair, any military victory celebrations and monthly public executions), the location of the court wizard's celestial observatory, how to get to the free maternity hospital run by devotees of the pantheon's fertility diety and so on - and of course, actually getting into that building's potentially another story entirely, but something like a magic item seller, an alchemist who can mix up a sleeping draught, a blacksmith who can work more exotic materials than just iron or steel and any other services you can think of would almost certainly need the person to go outside their local borough, and go through a chain of people who don't know exactly who they're looking for, but may know someone who might know someone...

[TalonOfAnathrax]

For example a city might have a ‘marital’ district where you can buy weapons and armor.
I see you favor the "stab him" approach to divorce, huh? :smalltongue:

[Pauly]

I see you favor the "stab him" approach to divorce, huh? :smalltongue:

My better half is a Latina. Nothing short of an M1 Abrams could protect me if things headed in that direction. She’d go through full plate as if it were tissue paper.

[Beleriphon]

A thought on cities per the Dresden Files RPG, since it pre-supposes using actual cities as the game setting.

General idea is you break a city down into locations, either neighbourhoods or single landmark, and assign a face to each one. So, the Palace District is represented by the Duke's Senschal (you can still have the Duke be an NPC, but you decide the seschal is representative of the whole district), the Docks might be represented by Pirate Pete, and the a specific location could the Blue Gryphon Inn represented by the dwarf proprietor Helmut Orcsmasher. The Blue Gryphon might be in a largely residential area with little to no other interesting people or places. From there you can build relationships and threats that each might represent.

This cuts down a lot on what you need to prepare, and helps focus on what you want the city to do in the game.

[Lacco]

One additional possibility how to "manage" big cities in play:
A dungeon.

I usually use big cities either as a base (which means the characters - not necessarily players - know the city, lived in the city, have a place to stay there, etc., or at least they know the inns) or as plot points (in some of my games, the city is just there to contain the plot & characters). However, when the players enter a big city they do not know, at least for one or two sessions, I use these as a dungeon.

Using techniques from pointcrawl/hexcrawl, I let the characters traverse the city, exploring and discovering the different PoI (shops, landmarks, taverns, districts...). I use random encounters (good source to start your own random encounter tables is Midkemia Cities book) with specific entries per each specific location (e.g. main street, alleys in docks, the market square, etc.), sometimes changing for the night.

First thing I determine is the hazard/empty/encounter/discovery ratio for each location. This is a d10 roll, where Hazard represents a dangerous encounter, Empty means that the players get just ambience/environmental information, Encounter means they get one of the randomized not necessarily dangerous encounters and Discovery means they find a PoI.

This of course assumes they are just wandering around the city, not searching for something specific: if they are searching for a specific PoI, the process is different.

So, the Main Street in our Ex'am'pel city is the Great Canal Lane (courtesy of a random name generator). It is basically a street that runs next to the major canal, with smaller ships traversing it. It's the busiest street, as it houses most of major guilds, shops and biggest taverns and inns. There are also bridges that cross the canal every hundred yards or so.

The street is busy during the day, but mostly safe.
Hazard/Empty/Encounter/Discovery = 1/4/9/10
So on a d10 you have to roll 1 to actually get a dangerous encounter (e.g. a box of goods falling from one of the ships releases a dangerous creature, or a rowdy band of mercenaries come out of a tavern looking for a fight). If you roll a 2-4, you do not meet anyone specific, but walk through the crowds, seeing the different races, bands of sailors walking aside wealthy merchants.
On a roll of 5-9 I check the random encounter table. I have several of these, but in this case I go for my "main street, merchant area" generic table and roll for another encounter. Let's say two merchants, shouting at each other, one of them brandishing a dagger. The party can ignore them, help one of them, or help them both to work out their grievances. If they ignore them, they later see town guard carrying a dead body and locking up the one who wielded a dagger.
On a roll of 10, they find one of the PoI, in this case they notice a narrow house, between two very posh looking buildings. It's actually a home to a local resident sorcerer, who will recognize them and attempt to get their services.

Now each city has its own laws, customs, different areas and different encounters - what I try to do is to provide the players both with the ambiance and the gameplay, so they can either wander the main street, loitering, waiting to observe something else, or they can move to another part of the town. Finding a good, cheap tavern, that serves good food and has nice beds can be an adventure in itself.

[Jay R]

I actually agree with the original poster, and not for any of the reasons people are addressing.

The "big city" is the center of civilization. If a problem comes up, it should be referred to the city guards or the magistrates or the nobles or the courts.

My image of a D&D world is that it's centered on the site of a great civilization that collapsed, or at least was pushed back by the wilderness. That's why there are ruins filled with treasure. The adventures are on the outskirts of civilization -- starting at the last village before the great untamed wilderness, and going into the wilderness to tame it, or to explore the ruins of civilization there.

Of course, my ideas were shaped by original D&D. No, not ADD 1e or Basic -- the three pamphlets in the white box. At 9th or 10th level the assumption was that you would clear all the monsters out of an area of the wilderness, build your own keep, and establish yourself as a Lord or Patriarch or something. The original game assumed that all the adventures were "out there".

I'm creating a new world now, and I started with the small village, the nearby Dark Forest to the west, and The Mountain twenty miles to the north. I'll eventually build a civilization to the east, but I'm starting on the part where adventures happen.

I realize that other people with other experiences think of it differently, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But there's nothing wrong with focusing on the uncivilized areas, either.

[Mr Blobby]

....The "big city" is the center of civilization. If a problem comes up, it should be referred to the city guards or the magistrates or the nobles or the courts...

The PCs are the guards? I could imagine a whole chronicle being them in some 'special squad' which takes the more problematic raids etc that your average watch member couldn't handle in a big city.


My image of a D&D world is that it's centered on the site of a great civilization that collapsed, or at least was pushed back by the wilderness. That's why there are ruins filled with treasure. The adventures are on the outskirts of civilization -- starting at the last village before the great untamed wilderness, and going into the wilderness to tame it, or to explore the ruins of civilization there.

I think we need to remember that traditionally, even 'strong and stable' empires could - and did - have fair bits of 'disorder' within them at times. Plus, how does something get stable? By folks dealing with the issues [*looks at PCs*]. What's more, they'd still have large areas of 'wilderness' areas within it too; a country normally didn't know exactly where the borders *are* either [it would know whether a village/road/castle was theirs or not, but that woodland, uninhabited hills or scrubbly farmland is in dispute. Nor would it matter... right up to the point that 'worthless' land became valuable [then, let's fight for it].

[Beleriphon]

I think we need to remember that traditionally, even 'strong and stable' empires could - and did - have fair bits of 'disorder' within them at times. Plus, how does something get stable? By folks dealing with the issues [*looks at PCs*]. What's more, they'd still have large areas of 'wilderness' areas within it too; a country normally didn't know exactly where the borders *are* either [it would know whether a village/road/castle was theirs or not, but that woodland, uninhabited hills or scrubbly farmland is in dispute. Nor would it matter... right up to the point that 'worthless' land became valuable [then, let's fight for it].

Nations didn't know where their borders were with a surprising level of precision, the Romans had a bunch of interesting calculations for the Empire. Even really old maps show borders, but there is a good reason many of them were rivers. This side of the Pontas is Nilfgaard the other side is Temeria.

[Mr Blobby]

Well, drawing a border didn't mean you actually 'controlled' it. Well-defined borders were ones where the economic worth was fairly high and each side had firm control of 'their' regions. Other ones... well, it can get fuzzy. A RL example was the old English-Scots border where the 'Border Reavers' mocked both sides' attempts to pacify the region, most 'settlements' were armoured towers and the land was more akin to a microscopic version of Germany [with it's alliances, vassals-lord situations etc] than provinces of two relatively stable states.

[Catullus64]

My friend's current campaign of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has us in the city of Nuln, the second-largest city in the Empire, and I feel the DM has generally employed a pretty neat approach to help keep focus and a distinct sense of place in a large metropolis. This kind of story won't work for everybody, but it might be possible to glean ideas from it.

We started out in the Shantytown district by the city docks, where our party of characters met. No sooner did we roleplay meeting one another, but there was a commotion; the Templar Witch Hunters, with the cooperation of the watch, were sealing Shantytown off for unstated reasons. We spent several sessions just navigating this one district of the city, trying to find and gather up one PC's family, securing food and fighting with looters, teaming up with the local Sewer Jacks to try to find a way out through the sewers, running afoul of a Necromancer, fighting with sewer mutants, and just generally trying to figure out what was going on and how to get out of it. Through various plot developments and sewer exploration, we've opened up access to a few other districts of the city, but it's been gradual; the DM only had to think about prepping content for a few local areas at a time, and our adventures had a clear structure and bundle of objectives.

So if I had to extract a general lesson from that, it would be that city adventures need well-defined goals, and plot reasons to keep the player characters mostly staying in and exploring one district at a time. Let the broader expanse of the city enter piecemeal into the game, and it will help give a real sense of scale to the city itself.

(It also helps that this is Warhammer, a very old and detailed setting with tons of info available about its cities.)

[Jay R]

The PCs are the guards? I could imagine a whole chronicle being them in some 'special squad' which takes the more problematic raids etc that your average watch member couldn't handle in a big city.

Sure. I have no problem with that. I wasn't describing the only way to think about D&D; I wrote "My image of a D&D world is ...." That leaves open the possibility of any number of other images.

Having said that, I've occasionally seen PCs hired briefly to solve a specific, unique situation in a big city, but I've never seen PCs become the permanent employees of a city.


I think we need to remember that traditionally, even 'strong and stable' empires could - and did - have fair bits of 'disorder' within them at times. Plus, how does something get stable? By folks dealing with the issues [*looks at PCs*].

Sure, nothing wrong with that, either. I still generally run games in the outskirts of civilization or the wilderness, where there are ruins of an older civilization, uncivilized tribes, or various untamed monsters and animals roaming around.


What's more, they'd still have large areas of 'wilderness' areas within it too; a country normally didn't know exactly where the borders *are* either [it would know whether a village/road/castle was theirs or not, but that woodland, uninhabited hills or scrubbly farmland is in dispute. Nor would it matter... right up to the point that 'worthless' land became valuable [then, let's fight for it].

Of course. This is exactly what I said. You aren't describing the big city. It's in "the outskirts of civilization ... and going into the wilderness to tame it".

I'm not sure what position of mine you're trying to refute.

Most of the adventures I run, and most of the adventures I've played, have been away from big cities. I have neither said nor implied that other adventures aren't acceptable.