Building towns

[Sajach]

Does anyone else dm and think that creating a large town is a huge hassle. Personally I do mainly because of creating npcs by the hundreds.
If you don't find it a hassle please give me tips.
P.s. My first thread.

[sana]

Try something like this

http://www.mathemagician.net/town.html

Just add a few things that seem important and you have a quick town with tons of NPCs

+3-4 stat blocks for the guards, priests and such. Just recycle those.

[JonRG]

Here's another generator.

http://www.rdinn.com/town_generator.php

Paizo's Game Mastery Guide also has some sample towns and a ton of sample NPCs. It's for Pathfinder, but with generic NPCs, it should be close enough for government work.

[bloodtide]

Well, you almost never need to make a whole town. You should be able to get by most of the time with just creating a couple of buildings and people. In general, only the places the players will go.

And old trick is to make up a bunch of generic stuff. For example, a dwarf fighter. Then whenever you need a 'tough guy' you just use that dwarf fighter.

You can also use the generic write-up and change it fairly quick during the game if you need too. An even better trick is to stall until the next game to give you a chance to make the character needed.

And another good trick, is just grab any RPG book that describes a city or town or such....and just use them.

[Sajach]

Thanks for the advice those links me out a lot.
P.s. I don't make named or detailed npcs up in the hundreds I just find it a hassle to randomly generate a lot.

[JonRG]

Thanks for the advice those links me out a lot.
P.s. I don't make named or detailed npcs up in the hundreds I just find it a hassle to randomly generate a lot.

Also remember that you can recycle material your players skip with a few tweaks.

One tip is to generate a whole bunch of names ahead of time and, when your PCs ask what someone's name is, just pick one off the top.