Short Circuit's Journal: RPG: City Detail Level

How detailed are cities in the games you play? Does your GM have a
description of the outside of most houses handy? Does the innkeeper
remember the last time you stayed? Do the shopkeepers try to push
their wares?

As a GM, what do you feel the benefits are of having a completely laid
out city available, complete with districts, NPCs, encounter tables
and political structure? If you roll your own, what kinds of detail
do you put in there? How do you make the city memorable?

Or are cities unimportant in your games, except as places to resupply and rest?

Have your own questions and subjects to talk about? Email me and I may post them.
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Played by ear

[FortKnox]

Obviously, if something important happens in the game, the town should at least be roughly mapped out. But if its just a place to stop, the GM should play it by ear. Most times, the party just rests and resupplies, but sometimes you get that unique character that goes and makes mischief. So either the GM has to have a good imagination and make the city on the fly, or have a couple 'backup cities' (cities drawn out in case he needs them) if a town ends up being a place for something other than rest and re

Persistance

[SeanDuggan]

Whether the DM keeps ready-made cities or makes them on the fly, it's important that he writes them down as he goes so that it will bear the same structure when they come back. (Well, partly at least. Shops could move around. There could be a traumatic fire/earthquake etc, but you get the idea. It keeps the DM from having to generate things quite so often, keeps the players happy because they've got things they can kind of depend on, and it provides a sense of history to the campaign as the players can come

Re:Persistance

[Short Circuit]

There could be a traumatic fire/earthquake etc

That sounds interesting...How about a city devastated by fire, then abandoned? It'd make for a great above-ground "dungeon"...

Re:Persistance

[cwaldrip]

Wow... that is an interesting concept. I'll have to 'borrow' that for my current campaign.

If it's a village I can usually make that up on the fly. You have to keep in mind that most villages will have standard businesses (ie - inn/tavern, stable, mill if in farming community or smokehouse if lifestock based economy). Larger cities though can be tough.

I've found that determining the footprint of the city is the first step. How big is it in acerage, is its size effected by the location/landscape (river, lak

Re:Persistance

[Short Circuit]

I wrote a Perl app that generates a city's stats. I'll post it tomorrow, if I remember. :)

It follows the rules for city stats outlined in the Dungeon Master's Guide. You can add the income/division/growth parts if you want.

Heck...it might be fun to write a self-run city simulator that watches growth.

Re:Persistance

[Short Circuit]

I forgot to grab it last night...darn it.

my opinions

[lithron]

Most cities I've been involved in aren't fleshed out much. A blacksmith, an inn or two, a constables house, the mayors house, some guard houses.. simple and obvious things like that are fleshed out. If the group has a cleric in it a temple might be fleshed out.

The DM rarely has a description of the houses.. or the streets (coblestone? dirt? cement paved?). The innkeepers will sometimes develope personalities, but the shopkeepers are often one sided, assuming we stop to roleplay that at all. Shopping 'a