# City Design - best supplements? rpg cities? advice?



## Mercurius (Mar 8, 2009)

About a month and a half ago I got some good advice on city design in this thread for an upcoming city-based adventure I will be running (I plan on modifying Scions of Punjar to my homebrew setting), but I'd like to go a bit further with it. I've got a detailed map of the city (every darn building), a basic overview of the place and some random details, but I feel a bit lost on most of it--how deeply to plan out all the details, what is absolutely necessary to run a city campaign and what is just nice to have, etc. In addition to any advice, I am looking for two things:

1) A book that is the "best" guide to city design, even step-by-step. I own the old 2e World Builders Guide, which is pretty good, but not that detailed. What are the most useful city design supplements, both in terms of how in-depth they are but also ease of use?

2) Examples of great fantasy cities and their supplements. I own the 3e Waterdeep book, which is pretty good (although I miss the pull-out maps from the old box sets). I remember liking the 2e Greyhawk boxed set but must have sold it in one of my many ill-advised RPG purges. What are the best RPG cities to glean ideas from?

If it makes a difference, the city has approximately 20,000 inhabitants and is the second largest in the local region. The demographics are 60% human, 20% dwarves, 10% elves, and 10% various (halflings, gnomes, half-orcs, a couple other minor races). It is basically a crossroads/frontier city that boomed in a big way and became the center of an adventuring/exploring industry as well as the major trade hub. The world is very points-of-lightian: recovering from a magical apocalypse a few centuries before that pretty much wiped out memory of the previous ages. Civilization is just beginning to flower again, with humans, dwarves, and elves relatively equal in power, but all relatively weak compared to the "Wilds". The dominant power in the city is the Seekers Guild, which "oversees" the seeking out and exploration of remnants of past civilizations. There is also the usual thieves guild, a strong dwarven community and relatively nearby is a major elven city. The city rests on a hill at the confluence of three rivers; part of it is sinking into an encroaching marsh. 

I can provide more details if necessary, but wanted to give a sense of the place. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!


----------



## Kichwas (Mar 8, 2009)

My first severe complaint is the 20,000 number.

Populations like that from 3E were grossly off from history. You only saw major cities get that small in one place in the world during one specific dark period - Europe under the black plague. And even there 20,000 would be low. 3, 4 or more times that might be more normal.

At that same point in time, major cities around the world outside of Europe were in the hundreds of thousands to a million or more.

Europe itself had vastly higher populations before the plague and before the fall of Rome.

malnutrition, disease, and a breakdown in central authority all contributed to such low numbers. Most of those factors are non issues for a typical fantasy city with its magical resources. The typical pathetic excuse is monsters - but even in the depths of war, numbers don't go down like that. A monster population that severe would cause the city to resemble the black plague, with half eaten bodies in the streets and the monsters literally running around the city unchecked in mid-day.


Just looking at the maps of most fantasy RPG cities, even those produced under the 3E era, suggests cities in the low millions when you compare those maps to historic cities. Again, you might find more complex maps in some European cities, but you have to account for large portions being recently abandoned into ruin or full of rotting corpses and plague rats...

Even Rome, as it shrunk, also lost may of its buildings and took on a more simple map.

There are online sources that will show you populations and population densities at various points in history around the world. Also key would be to look at how fast populations can rise and recover after tragedy. Unless your disaster took place in the last generation, or is still ongoing, you should have a much more crowded city than a DnD game book suggests.


The best RPG related guide to building a civilization and cities is going to be "A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe Second Edition."

Its about the only book even worth bothering with. Pretty much every other source that's come out since 3E hit the shelves, even books completely unrelated to DnD, has been put out by authors that showed too much reliance on the DnD 3E DMG rather than any actual research.

That book alone marks an exception, but it tries to also work with the extreme flaws of the DMG. However it can be taken outside those flaws with ease.

I also suggest this:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

And the calculators it links to at its end that can do some of the work for you.


----------



## Wraith101 (Mar 8, 2009)

> The best RPG related guide to building a civilization and cities is going to be "A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe Second Edition."




Seconded.

I have only the first edition but it is the best world building book that I know of.


----------



## Maggan (Mar 8, 2009)

Mercurius said:


> 1) What are the most useful city design supplements, both in terms of how in-depth they are but also ease of use?




Arcady listed the two best. For D&D I guess Cityscape (for 3rd edition) is useful



> 2) Examples of great fantasy cities and their supplements.




I won't list all the supplements, since that would take a while. But using Google you can probably dig up a lot of info on the following:

Ptolus - by Malhavoc Press
Freeport - by Green Ronin
Five Fingers: Port of Deceit - by Privateer Press
City of Brass - Necromancer Games

For Scarred Lands, there were a handful of city books:

Hollowfaust
Burok Torn
Mithril
Shelzar

Atlas Game relased a book called "Seven Cities", which could be interesting.

Also check out the following links:

The Bergsburg Project
The Altdorf Correspondent

And for real life cities with a cool feel, you can't beat Prague.

My own best advice: create districts that the players easily can remember, such as Merchant District, Tempel District and so on. That makes navigating in the city on a conceptual level a lot easier for you and your players.

And last but not least: for my city campaign, we have an agreement. The players get a detailed and living fleshed out city ... as long as they don't leave. 

/M


----------



## Aus_Snow (Mar 8, 2009)

Harn is another great place to look for guidance, info and plenty of fine examples. Well, Harn products anyway.


----------



## defendi (Mar 8, 2009)

I'd be remiss if I didn't plug _The Last Free City._  You can find it here:  EN World PDF Store - Final Redoubt Press - The Last Free City/The Festering Earth (OGL Version).  It's our first product to get a five star staff review.

It's a city supplement, not a book on designing cities.


----------



## Mercurius (Mar 8, 2009)

Thanks, Arcady, very helpful. 







arcady said:


> My first severe complaint is the 20,000 number.
> 
> Populations like that from 3E were grossly off from history. You only saw major cities get that small in one place in the world during one specific dark period - Europe under the black plague. And even there 20,000 would be low. 3, 4 or more times that might be more normal.
> 
> At that same point in time, major cities around the world outside of Europe were in the hundreds of thousands to a million or more.




I'm not sure why it is a "severe" complaint? First of all, you have to take into account the context of the world: As mentioned in the original post, it is still in recovery from a major magical apocalypse a few hundred years prior. I didn't mention that during those few centuries, there have been a couple major wars that have set back a couple attempts at recovery.

But even the link you provided describes a "big city" as 12-100,000. Given that this is the second largest city in the region, and civilization is really only just flowering, if anything 20,000 might be a bit much (I started out at 5,000 and have gradually brought it up...at most I wouldn't go higher than 30,000, although the city is rapidly growing).

Only a few pre-industrial cities have reached half a million or more: off the top of my head: Constantinople, Rome, the capital of Ancient China (Beijing?), maybe Teotihuacan. 

Now I haven't read through S John Ross's article (I will), but I'm not sure if he comes up with a building : population ratio. The city map I drew includes somewhere between 2-3,000 buildings; I figure about 10 people per building makes 20,000+ a good number.



> Just looking at the maps of most fantasy RPG cities, even those produced under the 3E era, suggests cities in the low millions when you compare those maps to historic cities.



I've noticed that city maps produced by WotC and TSR have varied widely in buildings per capita. Some look like there are literally hundreds of people per building, some only a few. 

I'll probably download the Expeditious Retreat book while there is still the GM's Day Sale.

EDIT: I just noticed that there is a free download for the city chapter. Convenient!


----------



## catsclaw227 (Mar 8, 2009)

I am not sure about the RL accuracy of some of the fantasy city information, but for me, that's all fairly irrelevant.  If I want a large city in a region to have only 20,000 people, that's fine.  It would still mean that it can't be totally self sufficient on it's own unless there are many square miles of farm and grazing land, forests, mountains, etc for food and raw materials.  There would need to be trade routes, taxes, etc.

That said, there are many d20 fantasy cities and d20 city supplements you can look at.

There was Cityworks by FFG (mike mearls), Cityscape by WOTC, all the E.N Guild supplements by E.N. Publishing (pdf), World Building stuff by XRP.

For cities, in addition to what has been mentioned:  City State of Invincible Overlord d20 by Necromancer Games, Bluffside, Streets of Silver, Foul Locales by Mystic Eye, and the list goes on....  There are a lot of decent resources to draw from when making a neat city.


----------



## Lilaxe (Mar 8, 2009)

Don't bother with Cityscape at all.

I bought it as I thought it might help with city design and adventures and it really did neither.


----------



## ProfessorPain (Mar 8, 2009)

Lilaxe said:


> Don't bother with Cityscape at all.
> 
> I bought it as I thought it might help with city design and adventures and it really did neither.




I agree. Cityscape was pretty bad. Some nice maps. But no real insight into city design or adventures. Lots fluff that you just couldn't use, you knew before buying the book. It addressed the different kinds of city adventures. But most GMs I have spoken, have more difficulty managing and designing a city adventure. Everyone knows the different plot types. Its the details that customers were after.


----------



## Master01 (Mar 9, 2009)

Mercurius said:


> 2) Examples of great fantasy cities and their supplements.




You may want to check our Great City Campaign Setting and the related products here:

Great City Products

enjoy


----------



## meomwt (Mar 10, 2009)

There's two more great Necromancer Games cities: Endhome in _Lost City of Barakus_ has some great NPC's and detailed settings; and Dun Eamon, the eponymous city in _The Grey Citadel_. Both have good tips on running city-based adventures, sites, etc., so you can drop them into your campaign and look like things have been prepared...


----------



## TarionzCousin (Mar 10, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> There was Cityworks by FFG (mike mearls),



I really like this and have used it to help my city designs.

Review by Monte Cook here.


----------



## Fallen Seraph (Mar 10, 2009)

If you are fine with looking beyond fantasy then *Damnation City* for Vampire: The Requiem would be a fine book to pick up. While it is for the Vampire like there is enough good stuff in there for any game.

I am sure too lots of stuff from that book despite being in a modern city would fit into a medieval fantasy one as well.


----------



## Voadam (Mar 10, 2009)

Bits of the Boulevard by Tabletop Adventures. Descriptive read aloud boxed text for different areas in cities.

I've used their wilderness and cavern ones and love them.

Conceptualize your city in your head on a big level and you don't need a ton of specific details. Be ready to make appropriate stuff up on the fly and go from there. I did this with a planar city in Lord of the Iron Fortress which has about two pages detailing the city and three of adventure stuff. My PCs were there for months of gaming.

I am currently reading through Pirate's Guide to Freeport and really enjoying it. It has a great level of detail for getting a sense of things and atmosphere along with tons of flavor and adventure hooks without detailing every person in every building. No statblocks, every NPC is given race, sex, and a three tier competency evaluation (apprentice, journeyman, master). I started using the city with no problems before getting the guide however based on the background info from the module trilogy.

Old edition Lankhmar, Greyhawk boxed Set, and 3e Silver City, Bluffside, World's Largest City, and Ptolus are more of a detailed comprehensive breakdown for everything. I tend to find these masses of information unwieldy and overwhelming. Having Ptolus on pdf with search capabilities has given me a handle on it as well as having played in the city in the banewarrens module and another Ptolus game and having read the player's guide.


----------



## Bishop Odo (Mar 14, 2009)

Fantasy cities have always held a certain level of curiosity for me. While it easy to use the Roman or any historical model as a touchstone, the prevalence of magic, Devine or Mundane changes all we seem to know about medieval technology and life in a city. I would submit that a more accurate model of a Fantasy City would be London around 1700s, with all its problems and benefits. 

Also, I would point out that the medieval monarchy model would also be strained. With strong guilds such as, merchants, crafters, magicians, and religious sects, power would most like be shared even democratic. 

In some systems as, Rolemaster and Traveller, there are scales used for Technology levels, I would be interested if any product exits that uses a similar scale for magic use and technology in a society and how it would affect society in general. While I’m not into Steam punk, no need for guns, I sure I’m getting close to it. 

It has been a long time since I have read my Waterdeep books, but at the time I was not impressed by all the magical modern conveniences. Now, I think, I would be more forgiving. So, if you want to play in a medieval world use Harn. 

Where can I find the S John Ross's article ?


----------



## Ariosto (Mar 14, 2009)

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the classic *Cities* by Midkemia Press. Midkemia Press Products has not been updated since December 2000 -- but I got a copy by mail order just a year or so ago (and there are free PDFs of _Towns of the Outlands_ and _Black Tower_, in any case). A version titled _RuneQuest Cities_ differed but little if memory serves, and might be easier to find if Midkemia has sold out.

David Macauley's _City_ (not a game supplement) tells "a story of Roman planning and construction" in drawings and text.

Chaosium published a _Thieves' World_ boxed set depicting the shared-world anthology's setting of Sanctuary.


----------



## Wik (Mar 14, 2009)

As previously mentioned, Mike Mearls' Cityworks is a good place to start.  I used it in a farily recent city campaign, and it turned out great.

In regards to population/building ratio, I think Rome had one around one building for 20 people, keeping in mind the fact that servants often lived in the same building, and many buildings were tenements (some were six floors high!).  I think 10:1 is a good ratio to work with - though I wouldn't even bother with that.  Personally, my city maps are just a few grids on graph paper, describing where the districts are, and then lines representing the major roads.  I sort of build up from there, but I never go into major detail regarding specific streets and whatnot.

as for my favourite city sourcebook?  I dunno.  Probably one of the Shadowrun books, but that doesn't help much.  (Corporate Enclaves, maybe, or Runner Havens?  Both were good city sourcebooks).


----------



## RichGreen (Mar 14, 2009)

Hi,

I started designing my city just over a year ago (see this thread) and started running adventures in it just before Christmas. I've already used Sellswords of Punjar but probably won't be able to fit Scions in to my campaign.

I agree with other posters that Mike Mearls' CityWorks is one of the best "how to" supplements out there although I actually think the district information in Cityscape (itself adapted from the 3e DMG supplement Building a City) is pretty useful too. You can find locations, NPCs and all sorts from the dozens of city supplements and adventures available. I've used stuff from Pathfinder, Punjar, Forgotten Realms and Ptolus so far. Ptolus is, IMO, the best city supplement out there but there are lots of other good ones - Guide to Korvosa is one I like that hasn't been mentioned. 

The other bit of advice I'd give (which is from Ray Winninger's original Dungeoncraft columns in Dragon) is that whenever you come up with a location, NPC or whatever for your city, always come up with a secret to go with it.

Have fun building your city!

Cheers


Richard


----------



## Wik (Mar 14, 2009)

Personally, when thinking of 3.5E Wotc supplements, I found Races of Destiny more useful than Cityscape.  

But that's just me.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Mar 15, 2009)

Bishop Odo said:


> Fantasy cities have always held a certain level of curiosity for me. While it easy to use the Roman or any historical model as a touchstone, the prevalence of magic, Devine or Mundane changes all we seem to know about medieval technology and life in a city. I would submit that a more accurate model of a Fantasy City would be London around 1700s, with all its problems and benefits.
> 
> Also, I would point out that the medieval monarchy model would also be strained. With strong guilds such as, merchants, crafters, magicians, and religious sects, power would most like be shared even democratic.
> 
> In some systems as, Rolemaster and Traveller, there are scales used for Technology levels, I would be interested if any product exits that uses a similar scale for magic use and technology in a society and how it would affect society in general. While I’m not into Steam punk, no need for guns, I sure I’m getting close to it.




Out of curiosity, have you looked at Urbis?

The setting addresses many of these issues...


----------



## Funes the Memorious (Mar 15, 2009)

Bishop Odo said:


> Where can I find the S John Ross's article ?




Link at the bottom of post#2.

He also has a good recipe for General Tso's Chicken on his website


----------



## Bishop Odo (Mar 15, 2009)

oops, can't belive that I missed that link, and I will check out Urbis.


----------

