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Vahn Ardos
2008-03-03, 03:13 PM
Hey everyone. I've been DMing for a little over a year now, and I don't have very much experience creating detailed things like cities. For my next campaign, I find that I need to create a couple of large cities. I'm trying to make the capital of one of the more powerful kingdoms in my world. So far I've written up some interesting npcs, and where they fit in, but I don't have too much more. I was hoping I could get some tips about where to start and what else to do from some more experienced DMs out there. Much appreciated!

FatherMalkav
2008-03-03, 03:17 PM
I had a challenge like this when I did my Werewolf: The Wyld West game. I had to make four western towns distinctive.

I start with a history, town have to start for some reason and make money, what were the major exports of these places way back when? A mining town is going to be built very different then a coastal trading town, they will other also have totally differing feels. After you get that, think about the leaders (monarchs, council of elders, tyrants) and how they lead and guide their people.

Having an idea of the past helps you write for the present.

Dr Bwaa
2008-03-03, 03:31 PM
Do you have access to Cityscape? It's quite good for that; lots and lots of fluff, too.

Lizardfolk Lich
2008-03-03, 03:31 PM
What about maps? Designing a metropolis is pretty hard.

Dr Bwaa
2008-03-03, 03:43 PM
What about maps? Designing a metropolis is pretty hard.

Good point. I personally like to find roadmaps (thank-you Google!) of big cities that were built for the same reason as the city I'm designing (bear in mind Malkav's ideas about what the city was built for, I very much agree) or share some other important characteristic, and then use the main roads and such with as much or as little detail as is needed for my intended city size (since almost any modern metropolis will be much larger than anything you'll encounter in D&D (obviously there are exceptions though)).

Vahn Ardos
2008-03-03, 04:03 PM
Ok, I have a little history, like how it came to be the capital, what resource it thrived on, and some history on the leaders. I don't have Cityscape, unfortunately, but I've been thinking about getting it. And I've started mapping it a little.

So far I've made three taverns, upper, middle, and lower class. The upper class is partly made up of snobbish, pampered nobles who were born into money, but mostly consists of heros from the war 30 years ago who were given noble titles as thanks for their service. Unsurprisingly, the two groups don't really like each other that much. The war led to the unification of the kingdom under the most talented general.

I have the most important places: taverns. What else does a city need?

BRC
2008-03-03, 04:36 PM
The good thing about a city is that you don't need specifics except for a few things. You don't need to map out every street, buisness and home in the city. Only plan out places the characters will be, maybe a few maps of small street areas that you can grab if need be. Mostly describe the feel of the city. Get some good adjectives, Example
Highly religious City: The gleaming temple spires tower above the city, the canopy of roofs is broken by the lesser shrines.

Highly Mercantile City: You hear the Babble of a thousand voices speaking various languages waft up from the bazzar. Everywhere you go people are in the process of buying, selling, or transporting goods. As you take in the view two people carrying crates nudge you aside and three people try to sell you worthless trinket.

Highly Millitiristic city: The guards eye you suspiciously as you walk through the gate that is set in the massive walls. Inside the city you hear the clangs of blacksmiths making weapons for soliders, banners fly everywhere. You are standing on a main road built for parades, Statues of famous heroes and memoirals for campaigns line the boulevard.
Stuff like that, once you have established the mood, you don't need as many specifics.

Surgoshan
2008-03-06, 02:41 AM
Until the 14th century, most medieval* towns were centered on churches. This is evident from geography and archaeology. Human nature being what it is, people like to display social dominance by being close to the "center" of town.

I put 'center' in quotes because in the 14th century, new towns were built with the center focused on the market (because they were built for the purpose of trade so that the feudal lord in that region could make money and gain power). Thus many older cities centered on churches grew toward a new center based on a market and are hermaphroditic between the old religious centers and the new market centers.

D&D campaigns are largely based on feudal society with an emphasis on the points of light assumed by a small human population with discrete centers separated by large distances.

As another fact, remember that until modern times, a city was supported almost exclusively by a population of farmers. A city was a dense pit of sewage and disease that maintained population only due to an unceasing influx of hopeful farmboys (and girls). Also, of any farm-based population, one-third is farmers and two-thirds more specialized non-farmers**.

Also, remember that without modern medicine, disease will run rampant and keep population severely in check. How widespread are the priests of your healing god? Remember that you want to strike a reasonable balance between piety (people with little hope will pray to anything) and getting stuff done. Jared Diamond didn't provide statistics for the number of useless priests/government parasites and the number of merchants, artisans and the like. Politics. Sheesh.

Now, drinking. Taverns. Everyone drinks, therefore a tavern has to be able to reasonably accommodate the population nearby. Thus a small community of 1000 people (333 farmers, 666 artisans, priests, and bureaucrats) will have 10 to 100 taverns. (assuming a one room building can hold 100 to 10 people) If you're building a capital of 10,000 people you'll have to assume thousands of pubs, whorehouses, churches, casinos, and outhouses.

So for a very large city (like a capital), do not even bother drawing a detailed map. Your party can only explore, at most, a neighborhood. More than that, they can only get a general idea of the city. Like Manhattan is full expensive society-whores; Brooklyn and Queens are more middle-class and family friendly.

Also, geology. Most ancient cities are built on rivers for the very good reason that they provide easy transportation. Thus your city should most likely be bisected by a river, and possibly be on a coast. In that case, the market will be at the mouth of the river. The churches will be clustered around the market. The wealthy will be clustered near the churches, but not too near because the bourgeoisie will be near the market. The poor will be right on the river. That last is backwards from nowadays because the ancient river was also the sewer. I've smelt a sewer and I wouldn't want sewer-front property. The wealthy tend to have hilltop property near the places of worship and not too far from the markets (*cough*Katrina*cough*).

So if your city is in the middle of a plain? It's not a capital unless it has a river running through it (seriously, water is important). If you've got hills, you've got noble real estate. If you've got taverns... the wealthy don't hang out in taverns. Their children hang out in bourgeois taverns. The wealthy have private clubs where women aren't allowed.


* A term I consider highly misleading, as it intends to mean something along the lines of "between the good times now and the good times then", referring to the 'modern' era and the Roman empire. The fact is that the Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of ignorant economy and that people continued to experiment and develop, as evidenced by the economic explosion of the 14th century that led to the literate age that gives us the fantastic legends that form much of the basis of D&D.

** This I get from Jared Diamond's excellent Guns, Germs, and Steel. You may assume an increase in efficiency based on magic, but be careful or you'll approach modern technological efficiency.

Jayngfet
2008-03-06, 02:50 AM
Try cityscape, it even has urban feats and prestige classes


and if you already have it...

...Read It Moar

Ganurath
2008-03-06, 03:13 AM
Boccob Theocracy / City with Arcane Academy: Lot's a vertical development. Linear structures, preferably square and rectangle for easy mapping (spell areas are like that) but with circular windows and towers (teleportation circles, summoning perimeters, etc.) There'll be a lot of smooth stone structures, since Wall of Stone makes the material abundant.

Elven City / District: If you're focused on elves being arcane, make it a curvier, greener version of the Boccob theocracy. If you're focused on elves being nature loving, simple huts on the ground with lots of parks. Odds are there'll be treehouses.

Ehlonna Theocracy: Rip off Rivendell from the movies.

Erythnul Theocracy / Evil Barbarian Town: Anti-charger spikes in front of the wooden wall surrounding a commune of black tents and crude stone warehouses. Make the most important building in the town be at the top if it's just an evil barbarian town for the tactical position, or at the bottom for Erythnuli so the blood will collect easier.

Fharlanghn Temple / Border Town: A stable, inn, and blacksmith of the cliche variety, an open air temple to Fharlanghn, and surrounding farms. Odds are there's open ground for halfling caravans to park when passing through.

Gnome Village / District: It's be kinda like the Shire, but with some surface structures designed for Medium guests much like in the Border Town, although the temple would be for Garl Glittergold. If it's a district in elven lands, there'll be lots of trees between the hills. If it's a district in a dwarven city, though, odds are it would look like dwarven stuff that happens to be near the entrance to the surface.

Orc Camp / Half-Orc Ghetto: A wooden wall surrounding tents designed to be picked up and carried off. Gotta move with the prey. If it's the ghetto, and it's unlikely that there's more than one on the Material Plane, it should look like a run down version of whatever the poor district is like, but the buildings have been crudely reinforced.

Heironeous Theocracy / LG City: White marble walls surround the palace, which is surrounded by the wealthy, white marble inner city that's dotted by fountains and temples, which is surrounded by a wall of white marble, which is surrounded by the poorer outer city where the wealthist neighborhoods are the racial ghettos, which is surrounded by white marble walls with barracks built into the gate(s) into the city, which is surrounded by farmland, which is surrounded by border outposts.

Hextor Theocracy / LE City: Like LG City, but the rich/poor divide should be more obvious, patrols and border outposts should be more numerous, and it would be gray stone instead of marble.

Kord Theocracy / CG City: Lots of racial districts, pretty much a smattering of everything on the list that isn't explicitly lawful or evil. Add on a big mercantile district and a coliseum in the case of Kord Theocracies, and you're there.

Kobold Communes: Build it like an ant colony filled with traps and dead ends, but instead of a queen's lair it's a big honeycomb of caves where the women and children live.

Drow City: A lot of vertical buildings designed in an octagonal (spider legs) shape, with hanging stone bridges interconnecting them in a convoluted crisscross pattern, like in Lolth's layer of the Abyss.

Dwarven City: Take Gondor, uproot the plants, make the stone a darker gray, make the archtecture more linear, and stick it inside the mountain.

Olidammra Theocracy / CN Town: Take the CG town, remove the city guard, and put the Thieves Guild in charge. Be sure to add racial districts for evil races, too. Mercadia City provides a lovely baseline.

Pelor Theocracy / NG City: Take the walls out of LG city, blur the wealth line by making the inner city buildings the same architectural style as outer city, and add more merchant squares for the open air feel.

St. Cuthbert Theocracy / LN City: Like LG City, but the stone is darker, and the architecture is more circular if it's a SC theocracy.

Halfling Caravan: Generally camp in a circular formation, with the opening folds and compartments on the halfling wagons facing inwards. Remember that one of the wagons is a temple to Yondalla.

Ellisande
2008-03-06, 03:54 AM
Now, drinking. Taverns. Everyone drinks, therefore a tavern has to be able to reasonably accommodate the population nearby. Thus a small community of 1000 people (333 farmers, 666 artisans, priests, and bureaucrats) will have 10 to 100 taverns. (assuming a one room building can hold 100 to 10 people) If you're building a capital of 10,000 people you'll have to assume thousands of pubs, whorehouses, churches, casinos, and outhouses.


Taverns and restaurants are certainly very important as social centres, and this certainly deserves note. However, as much as I like everything else you've written, I have to say that this number is ridiculously high; there's simply no way that 1000 people could support 100 taverns (at least not without a very, very odd economy--which could be intriguing in and of itself).

If the OP wants to populate his city with a historically accurate ratio of buildings, or just wants inspiration for worldbuilding, I'd look at this Medieval Demographics (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm) article; it's fairly well-researched as it goes, and covers demographic breakdowns of both states and cities. As far as taverns in particular, it suggests that the aforementioned 1000-person village would typically have between 2 and 3 taverns.

Farmer42
2008-03-06, 04:15 AM
Taverns and restaurants are certainly very important as social centres, and this certainly deserves note. However, as much as I like everything else you've written, I have to say that this number is ridiculously high; there's simply no way that 1000 people could support 100 taverns

Importantly, this is only true outside of Wisconsin...Or a dwarven settlement. Maybe his youth in Wisconsin is the real reason Gygaxian adventures seem to begin in taverns...