| City Concept, Definition & Creation | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 27 2007, 11:20 PM (174 Views) | |
| kismetrose | Jun 27 2007, 11:20 PM Post #1 |
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I was thinking the other night that cities can be given quick and dirty definitions based on overall functions or associations. Thinking about a quick definition / function for a city can give you an idea of what sorts of things might exist in that city, and can help set the location's tone. This can be especially helpful if the PCs travel a great deal and you don't want each city or town to feel like the same place. For instance, a city can be held up as a holy example and place of pilgrimage. Magnificent churches, the likes of which most places do not have, could be common and quite old in this city. There might be an abundance of trade in holy relics, miracle cures, and hospitality. It could be that higher-level clerics are in power in such a city, which is run by theocratic dictates. (Imagine if your leaders took major decisions straight to their higher power!) The city might be dedicated to one god or a pantheon; it could be one of the last bastions of a particular deity's influence. Pop in some magical possibilities and perhaps some races, and voila! A place with some instant definition and feel. In the web comic the Order of the Stick, a city serves as a padlock of sorts, guarding a site of mystical importance. The people in the city were not aware of this function, but the city was affected nonetheless. The place is very lawful good and an elite group of paladins was developed to stand guard. The strip describes this in detail from #273. There are a lot of places that can serve in similar capacities. First, there are cities that could hide and protect places of magical importance, artifacts, and so on. There are also cities that could have, at their heart, secret purposes that very few know about. These purposes can still affect things (and draw in the PCs). It should be said that cities tend to have multiple major purposes, and fantasy cities can, as well. But fantasy cities can more easily be shown to have one or two major purposes and still come across as "real." In any event, I thought this could be an interesting and possibly helpful shortcut to creating places. You could start with nearly anything as a premise and flesh it out with details appropriate to the milieu. Just looking around my desk, I get quick ideas, like: A city is a speaker. It broadcasts messages from the government to outlying places, producing some of the best bards around. In this city, bards have special privileges. Outside the city, bards on errands have the equivalent to diplomatic immunity. Or, perhaps the city is based around the broadcasting of music. The best instruments are made there, the best musicians trained there, and in order for one to become a truly famous bard, one has to play on the stages there. A city is a light. It is literally made of reflective materials and is full of beings that are not negatively affected by such brightness. The city also flies in regular routes. The world below is lit only by fires, magical light sources, and volcanic activity. The city of radiance produces enough light for hardy crops to grow by, and the heat from the planet provides enough warmth. Natural hot springs are very common, and the hot liquid beneath the crust is just closer to the surface. This causes problems but enables most people to be able to live. A city is a pain-killer - oh boy, there are too many possibilities there. But you get the idea. What do you folks think? |
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| HollowDes | Jun 28 2007, 01:16 PM Post #2 |
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Big Koala
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I really like it! I'm trying to flesh out some of the area surrounding the starting town I created, and I was falling into the trap of making my urban centers too similar. This little article explores a method to avoid this that I think could apply to dungeon-making as well as cities. It ramps up the diversity in a campaign and gives it a much more fantastical feeling. I think this will also greatly impact how memorable a place is to the players. I could imagine, "Let's go back to that city where everyone wore bearskin hoods." As opposed to: PC: "I want to go back to the city." DM: "Which one?" PC: "Uh...you know...the one with the inn, and the tavern, and the people..." DM: "That's all of the cities you've visited." PC: "Ummm." I realize sometimes I try too hard to imitate reality, where in America, most cities really are all alike. The only thing that changes is the size and types of fast-food joints. For the most part, only the oldest cities in America have a unique flavor, feel, or "scene" that it's famous for. Cities that have sprung up in the last 75 years or so are all just capitalism cut & paste. Great post, kismet! I'll put this method to use and maybe post my results for the region I'm working on. |
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| kismetrose | Jun 28 2007, 01:29 PM Post #3 |
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I'm glad you like it. I was really worried that it would sound too simplistic, but even if it is, I think it'll be of use to me. Although my PCs are sticking to their home turf for the moment, soon enough they'll be on the move again and probably encountering places we haven't been before. I want to be able to find some quick and dirty details to use for most places, if only to establish flavor, and that isn't always easy. I think this method will help me to gather ideas faster (or at least, I hope it'll be faster and easier). As it is, not all of the places my PCs been to have quick and dirty definitions. Thandell is difficult for me to describe in simple terms because I've been able to put more into it. Silverymoon, however, is easier to define: it is a city at the height of good and magic, trying to be a bastion of beauty and civilization for the whole North. I might try to go back and eke more details out for particular places, but most of the ones they've been to will continue as they are. In the future, I'm hoping to use this sort of method for other games, too. It tends to be the case that PCs get to travel more than most people, so it really doesn't matter what system you're working with - you'll need details for multiple locales. |
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| HollowDes | Jun 28 2007, 05:16 PM Post #4 |
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Big Koala
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I think that's part of its beauty, is that an extremely simple "trick" I'd almost call it, can really spark the imagination and just one little theme trickles down to everything else. Just to try it, I was looking around my desk at work, and I see: A stack of CD-RW's What springs to mind is a city with a "great library" of some kind where a good majority of the population are employed as scribes. Some facilities are public libraries, and others have limited access to certain individuals for various reasons. The place is a hub of knowledge where scholars of all kinds can gather to debate, and the government, law enforcement and other city-related things all spin out from this. Both murder and burning of any written material would be punishable by death. The idea being that each mind or written word is a thought or piece of knowledge worth something to someone. A true neutral magocracy would thrive here. A coffee cup Brewing is the first thing I think of, and this would fit a smaller urban community better than a large one. I imagine a town of rosey-cheeked, smiling, fun-loving people where brewing and "tasting" (throwing a party where everyone gets sloshed on a new brew) are favorite pasttimes. There could be families famous for a certain kind of brew, and stealing a family secret would be an outrageous crime. Except these people wouldn't murder someone. They might drag them out in the street and have a drinking contest or just brawl or some other, non-lethal bumpkin conflict resolution method (cherry-pit spitting anyone?). Throw in racial diversity, and you could have things like, "dwarven brews are dark and bitter to most human palettes, who prefer a pale ale with less hops." or something. Air duster LOL! Um... A city where everyone... dusts.. the air... Seriously I'm kind of coming up blank on this one. I think of a can of compressed air and random images come to mind. Purple, shiny hairspray cans and giant italian women with hair in the 80's. Dynamite and things blowing up. Batteries. Batteries? I guess the shape and deadly innards. I sort of get an impression for a tinker town, but that's a little too cliche' for me. Maybe a city where everything was really clean, but that's a lame thing to make a city unique for, especially since I don't go out of my way to describe other places as really dirty. I could see a region which was extra windy, and a town with lots of windmills, but that's more geographical. Whatever, the idea is it works for most things One potential drawback of this method, is that if you milk your theme too much, you end up creating a place that feels more like an amusement park than a place where people live. In my earlier post I mentioned a place where people wore bearskin hoods because I had a koala on my desk (I know they're not technically bears, fuck off). I took this step a thought further and chuckled when I imagined bear-themed architecture, furnishings, and even merchandise, where you go to a tavern and order a drink, and the mug has a bear's head on the side. Every city is always going to have its deviant cultures and groups too, who don't understand why the people in the place they live are so wrapped up in whatever they do. These outcasts make great candidates for PC backstories or NPCs the PCs whisk away from their dredgery. Hell, you could even spawn BBEGs from this. Using my library city from earlier, a scorned scholar trying to enact a mass arson plot would be a catastrophe.
I have a hard time imagining a place like this, and maybe it's me or the times we live in, but I couldn't make this place feel realistic, and wouldn't enjoy trying. I can't help but to picture a whole city of Ned Flanders. *shudder* I could definitely create a city that seemed like this on the surface, but was chock full of unspeakable evil behind closed doors. This might be a little too predictable though. I was a little disappointed with the Dales because it was kind of the opposite cliche'. People seem rough and unfriendly to outsiders, but the people turn out to be genuinely nice and trustworthy once you get to know 'em. I think in order for deceptions like those to work best, you have to let them simmer for awhile and immerse the PCs before you crank up the heat and boil them. I could only do this once or twice before I grew tired of it though. "Things are not always as they appear" is a very old, very played-out theme. Long enough post, I'm done. I hope this thread continues though, this is fun! |
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| kismetrose | Jun 29 2007, 03:43 AM Post #5 |
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It's helpful to have shortcuts for just about any job, but more than that, it's nice to have a simple way to generate ideas. And it seems to me that this method is ultimately scaleable - you can use it for places big and small, with some adjustments. It can be such a pain in the ass sometimes to think of how to make a location different, especially if it's one of the small burgs PCs pass through. Not all places are going to be noteworthy, but I don't want every small town to be the same inn-space.
That's a good point. I usually end up asking myself about the people in a location and how they get by, at least to get some ideas. It's definitely something that should be kept in mind, though. Unless you like amusement-park cities, that is.
I definitely don't fill Silverymoon with versions of Ned Flanders (though that can be a funny mental picture if you make a little cartoon of Ned in your mind. Flanders with elf ears and long hair, saying "Okely dokely"). I'm not sure a place like my Silverymoon ever existed on earth, but I'm still able to envision it. I think of it something like this. Silverymoon has been a magnet for good people, so its predominant alignment is good. The people there value life and freedom, yet they also support obedience to just laws and organization. They have had a continuing drive toward cooperation, especially between humans and elves. They also have had a dream, to be something of a Myth Drannor for the North - a place of magnificence, beauty, civilization, and history. But Silverymoon is not without its flaws and troubles. Criminals exist, to be sure, and the city is a target because of many of its goals. The city has also become heavily invested in the protection and guidance of Lady Alustriel. In my game she is ailing and has needed the Simbul's help to stay alive. Silverymoon has been unsettled throughout, and everyone dreads the big question: What is going to happen to Silverymoon if it doesn't have Lady Alustriel at its center? |
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