How to Build a City | TTRPG | Dungeons and Dragons 5e | Web DM
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ธ.ค. 2020
- This week we're talking about cities and how to build them! This is our no-nonsense guide for Game Masters in how to build effective cities for your D&D/TTRPG campaign.
Our sponsors support us, so support DUNGEON FOG! Use the code WEBDM and get 10% off an annual premium subscription! Click: www.dungeonfog.com/webdm/
For more on Tasha's Cauldron subclasses, supplements, tons of podcasts, and more, become a Web DMN at / webdm
Sign up for our mailing list: eepurl.com/gDXzGr
Listen to Web DM Talks, our New Podcast! Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
RSS: www.spreaker.com/episode/4142...
Thanks for watching! Don't forget to subscribe, comment & share.
#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #ttrpg #dmtips #rpg
Check us out on Facebook - bit.ly/2oGKLOg
Twitter - / webdmshow
Instagram - web_dm
Written & Hosted by Jim Davis and Jonathan Pruitt
Produced and Directed by Emma Lambert
Edited by Brandon Fraley
Web DM was created by Travis Boles, Jonathan Pruitt, and Jim Davis
Complete 5e Classes Playlist: bit.ly/2oGuhG1
New to 5th Edition D&D? Check out this playlist - bit.ly/2pbZN1K
Art by Thomas Tanner www.thomastannerart.com
Music by John Branch -branchoutguitar.com
Web DM Theme by Kyle Newmaster - kylenewmaster.com
Motion Graphics & Logo Design by Ryan Wieber - ryan-w.com - เกม
![อยู่ได้แล้ว - LIPTA feat. Mirrr [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-9-hpntNym4/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for watching! Use the code WEBDM and get 10% off an annual premium Dungeon Fog subscription! Click: www.dungeonfog.com/webdm/ Help us Make the Show and Get WAY MORE: patreon.com/webdm
The idea of a ultralopolis built by air, fire, Earth & water elemental monarchy in which the goal is to fuse the elements into a paradise......would it be a tropically shaded paradise of crystals? 🙃
19:00 minutes in about ripping off travel guides, I use the magazine " Better Homes & Gardens," and other house floor plane magazines to run haunted houses with. Or front door to back doors from one house to another to create mega dungeons with.
I like the idea of "roll a different die type for each faction, and see which numbers match", but if I was going to implement it, I would be tempted to reverse the order of die types. Powerful factions (government, powerful temples, primary mercantile concerns, etc.) get a d4, while less consequential factions (street gangs, minor guilds, etc.) get higher die types. This reflects the fact that the movers and shakers of the city interact with great frequency, while those of less import are less likely to rub up against other factions.
I love this implementation.
Yoink.
i'm literally in the process of trying to build a city for my session in 6 hours, lol. time to watch
Perfect!
Same boat
I'm building a city that may or may not be the entire campaign setting for my next campaign.
dont forget the continual flame street lights :-P
My players are two sessions away from making it to the main city of my homebrew campaign. This timing saved a lot of us lol🙏🏼
"We built this city of D6 rolls!"
Oh that's good too!
XD lolol
Or with how most of my groups go:
“We built this city on nat. One. Rolls!”
@@ConnorSinclairCavin see this is a good one the others were cringe 😂
@@garrettvise4732 thx for reminding me of this, i wanted to do the full song as a city’s theme
It seems like Web DM comes out with content just as I need help with the exact point they are discussing. This is by far my favorite channel for improving my games as a DM.
Thank you so much Sean!
This is awesome and great. You should try Matthew colville too.
@@dallenmeche6587 thanks for the reply, Matt is also great. His most recent video on when to say no is a breath of fresh air. It was nice to have someone with his experience and clout acknowledge that it is ok for the DM to push back against player ideas and ask for compromise when those ideas would significantly alter the tone, world, or plot of the game.
Let's test this. For next week, you *really* need help picking winning lottery numbers... ;)
For Jim's question about a body that is a city, I kept thinking about 2001 Osmosis Jones and waiting for it to be mentioned, but it never was.
I was thinking of Pathologic, but nice reference. I loved Osmosis Jones as a kid.
It was mentioned in a previous episode when they were talking about a city they built inside of a dead God and I think they also mention Guardians of the Galaxy
I recommend cool names for the districts.
Instead of the "Mages District." You could call it something like "The Sonorous Spires." and have it be a bunch of stone shaped spires formed by Geomancers.
Or instead of the "Market District." call it "The Gildstreets." so named because of the sheer amount of money that changes hands each day.
Cool district names make for more interesting cities, they give em some character.
As soon as I read the title my brain said “on rock and roll” I’m so glad y’all used that in the intro, you are definitely my people lol
Welcome
I’ve listened to this on the Patreon podcast three times. One of the best conversations I’ve listened to on D&D in a while. Or maybe I just want to focus on urban campaigns more lately. It’s a very good discussion.
Thank you Jeff!
When you mentioned a bar for wizards, the name that popped into my head was The Wipsy Tizard.
Now I want to make a counselor sphinx that gives advice on people's problems.
I liked Pruitt's suggestion of joining a fight out of spite for one party and not specifically to help the other.
Great advice and tips, as always.
Nice
My Assassin's Guild has internal "Courts" based on their preferred methods. The Blades, the Flowers, the Arrows, and a few others
cool so i'm stealing that idea, it's going right into my games, because that is one of the coolest things I've ever read
@@josiebianchi3481 I share nothing online I dont want stolen. By all means use it! In my current game the party has one of the Flowers with them, the dice have consistently determined that she isn't great in combat but with 20 cha, Actor and specialization in deception and performance shes a brutal infiltrator (they may get to use her soon lol)
@@vallynblackleaf u should think about contribution to the whole community, they help GMs like us (younger and unwise) to become better ;)
"Welcome to the five courts of assassins." He gestures to the chairs assembled around a circular table. "There sits the lord of blades, there's the lord of arrows, and there sits the maiden of flowers. Next to her is the seat that bears the lady of snakes, and there..." He stops at the last seat. "Well. We don't really associate much with the lord of the barbed phallus."
@@greylithwolf "Wouldn't that just be a mace?"
"No, no. See, he also sometimes goes by The Lord of Gerbles."
26:05, “The Dogmatic Temple of Aughra”.... did Pruitt just drop a Dark Crystal reference? Solid.
As for Travel Guides, I wanted a city that was atop a plateau. I did some googling and found "Civita di Bagnoregio" in Italy and fell in love with the layout. The city is gorgeous. It's a HEAVY tourist destination.
I yoinked down the maps and rough ideas of what buildings were what and have been using it for the last three sessions. It's got all these cool narrow winding roads and has this "old village" feel to it. Go to Google Street view and look around the town, it's amazing.
You're always right on the pulse of what my group is up to and are constantly saving my hams with tips 😅. Love Web DM Wednesday.
Glad to help save hams!
I love building the city through many sessions as the PCs make allies and enemies, require services, hear rumors or need to seek out information or items. But, even more than building the city, I love it when the adventurers make contacts with NPCs and have an effect on the city with regards to business or politics. Great conversation, as always. Well done!
Thanks Wally!
Here's a quick map mking trick I learned that can scale up to a city: 1) draw a tic tac toe board, 2) draw a Tetris piece in the middle of each of the 9 squares, these are your 9 encounter locations. Now add one more tetris piece in any square you want that is your boss battle location. 3) draw the 'correct' path that leads from the starting point to the boss battle, this is your 'main path'. Make dead connections off the main path to make sure characters can reach each location and some will be dead ends. 4) Skin, scale and describe as appropriate.
I've been meaning to flesh out some of the cities in my homebrew world. This video has given me a lot to think about. Thank you.
"you need an earth elemental and a bard." This is how we get earth genasi
There's no way that doesn't hurt.
I think I may have made some of my cities too interesting. Players are like, "We will stay here" it has kinda turned into a urban campaigne. Im running more of a "sandbox" game.
Please teach me 😂😭
What a perfect episode for my needs, thanks guys!
A+ pun in the intro.
That dwarf pirate city sounds so coool! I wanna live there :)
I need to make sure I have a notepad available everytime I watch your videos. Even just some of your throwaway ideas I think sound very fun
I never watched a better more entertaining and knowledgeable D&D channel than Web DM. Thank you guys for all the videos you make.
Guys, I just want to say that I've yet to see a video of yours that I didn't enjoy thoroughly! These longer ones are definitely my favorite. I'm a trucker and y'all keep my (probably) ADD brain sane on the long runs that make up my job. Míle buíochas!
I'm always obsessed with pure urban campaigns! Doing Waterdeep, Dragon heist right now!
A brand new Web DM episode, what a perfect birthday gift! Thank you guys for all that you do!
Happy birthday!!!!
@@WebDM Thank you so much!
As a person of Budapest I really appreciate you pronounced it the right way! Thank you :)
My favorite method for Creating a quick random city is draw the shape you want square circle ect. Pick a general theme so commerce capital small ect. Grab dice assigned ideas to different colors so greens are temples red is criminal establishment. Blue is political ect. Number of dice indicated a how strong or powerful a given location might be. So a 1 green is maybe a minor cleric feeding the people. While a 12 is the main temple of a god ect. Generates a good scope for a city pretty quickly
Watching this is making me want to design a campaign and city where each district is built around a school of magic, and each district is capped by a tower in the inner ring of the city that houses that guild's arch mage...
Kind of sounds like ravnica
That intro joke put a smile on my face.
''Built this city on rock and ro-ooooool''
So such a cheesy joke it borders on genius.
Great video as per usual! Glad you mentioned Blades in the dark, it really is a master class city/faction game.
I LOVE real cities with the serial numbers off. I have one party in New Orleans (with a hill based on Geneva's old city), another in Aberdeen, and I regularly use Grado and Venice as locations. At some point, I'll need to put up an adventure in Kinshasa, which has wild looking geography if you ever get to visit.
WAIT, I THOUGHT THIS WAS AN OLD EPISODE
I was literally JUST researching medieval Italian city-states (Venice specfically) and got this as a suggestion and thought I had definitely seen it before but a refresher would be great.
But holy crap, what perfect timing lmao
I've wanted this episode for six months. Thanks so much!
Always spot on with the cold opens😂😂😂
Has Jim heard about the Willow series?
Yeah we had a big freakout
Thank you so much for this video, a huge help as a new DM building a city. I love the dung Gnomes lol
I, myself, am a new DM trying to find some players and time to play; but I must say WebDM has been an absolute gift for me with helping me out. I consider you guys to be an essential channel to follow. Thanks for all the help guys! Y'all are awesome!!
This is a great video... I tend to run high exploration games around my world, but I am finally running a campaign that focuses solely around a large city and the advice of this video has been immensely helpful
This is a wonderful topic that intersects with things I have going on in my current campaign. I love the content you all are putting out. I've been a long time listener but finally joined your Patreon just as soon as I could afford to. Keep rocking.
Geezer here....
LOL.. That intro described my settings greatest city to a tee. Basically its a human colony/arcology that was indeed built with earth elementals, magic and yes bards are key. They kept the colonists from going looney tuns along the way.
Game on.
that sounds wonderfully intriguing.
@@leem4386 Thanks for the encouragement. It seems everyone is interested in broken/dark world dystopia these days. I think a mega city with almost uncharted wilderness a few weeks away will provide more than ample opportunity for adventures.
I was literally just looking for a good city video the past few days. Perfect timing, thank you!
I enjoyed the idea of Cockatrice beak soup, I seem to recall a story about stone soup I read somewhere...
Super useful... currently 3 sessions in to running a long term campaign, and while I had bullet pointed landmarks/important areas, the layout was a huge mess. Still struggling with scale/mapping, but just hearing other humans mention their ideas helped spark a lot of the organizational stuff, districts and so-on. Thanks!
This is good stuff, im off to write my book, i will take advantage from these advices, you guys are the best!
Thanks for the kind words!
Perfect timing! I am starting a new campaign and it is my first "non-rails" campaign. I was looking for info on how to handle cities. Thanks, guys! =)
Glad to help, Blaine!
I'll never forget when my DM running Out of the Abyss told us about a "Deep Gnome City" and I instinctively said "WE DEEP GNOME CITY. WE DEEP GNOME CITY ON ROCK AND ROLLLLLL"
Holy shit, the discussion of the firefighter factions being the ones involved in the conflict, but their patrons have only a vested interest in their success, made me imagine it as a kind of cold war. You can just keep zooming out, faction by faction, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city, nation by nation, and you'll find the same interplay of power politics being acted out on a larger and larger scale. Those who are involved in a conflict, and those who have a vested interest in each side's success.
I just recently shared this with my buddy who is running an OWoD Dark Ages, Masquerade game. Tons of good information here. I like how y'all focus on the "why" the city is there; it's essentially a story element, or as y'all say, it's almost a Character in and of itself.
I love the idea of mephits changing based on their environment
I am about to run an Urban game, and it will be my first time DMing a full adventure. I had really hit a low point in my writing and afraid I was going to have to scrap the idea. Thanks to this and the Mystery videos, I'm back on track and more excited than ever. The long-form content is really helpful.
This is such perfect timing for me. Wrapping up the intro arc for my players right now, and its mostly been on rails. When we resume after the holidays, I'm taking the rails off after they're sent to the major capital of our world. So. this. helps. THANK YOU
Awesome!! Tell us what you think
@@WebDM loved it. Comparing it to human anatomy helps a lot. My custom world is based on the colonial philippines, so there's a lot here to lend to the idea of districts and the coming and going of different groups, migrant workers, etc. My players are dealing with the spread of a magical disease, so this helps me question how will that work in crowded areas, what conflicts come up between the districts and social classes? It also helped me link how this can connect to an arc after this- what outside forces are influencing politics and unrest in the city? Do the players venture out to deal with that, or do they hunker down and deal with the immediate problems? We'll see soon enough! Thank you so much for your content!
I have been listening to this and Poke & Chill, playing a Platinum nuzlocke, and it is... the best vibe.
As someone running an urban campaign (For two different groups!) this is good. I've already had Wintercrest as a working city for a long time and I love it
The PERFECT episode for my game tonight! 6 games into a magical noir mystery homebrew game set in a Silverymoon that I've fleshed out and mapped into distinct districts and neighborhoods, all with a mapped-out political and economic structure that can be seen and interacted with, set a few centuries past the contemporary timeline where advanced arcana-powered technology has only just begun to flourish in Faerun. Giving my players a lot of depth for their characters and their stories that are woven into the settlement and surrounding area and they are diving right in! And you guys are always in my ear during prep sessions! Thanks for all you do!
Thank you Anderson!
The travel guide/brochure tip is really helpful
I'm just about to start prepping an urban campaign and am so happy to have this video TT_TT
Glad to help!
I love the idea of body system as analogy for city building! Super helpful video as always
I'm only half way through but so far I'm finding this video very inspiring. I apologize if you guys already talk about it later in this video, but I would love some ideas for where and how to start a campaign in a city instead of in a small town which is what a lot of people tend to suggest.
Some ideas on campaigns in The Big City:
Develop a make-sense table for your PCs who will INEVITABLY say: "I duck down an alleyway." As a DM, that is a big challenge in a city, actually. What if there are NO nearby alleys? Is your map going to be so detailed as to include them? If no alleys, what do the residents do with their garbage, etc.? Have a "I duck down" table for each city district, if necessary. Trust me - it really helps and adds some randomness for you to enjoy as a DM.
And of course, for a good DM, any challenge is an opportunity. How about the PC ducks into an alley, and randomly triggers ANOTHER encounter? Two encounters at once?
Also be ready for your PC's to open doors and climb walls. Do people leave their doors open? Locked? What about windows? Which buildings have balconies? Hanging laundry? Are there foot bridges? Climbable drainage pipes?
I'm so excited. I've been hunting for a video like this! Thank you
Awesome! Hope you find it inspiring.
Oooh nice to hear my hometown get a shout out! But yeah, it makes it very difficult to make old medieval streets sound exotic and interesting when all my players are from York too!
Faction interaction dice, I like that.
As far as wilderness factions, it makes me think of fortresses of colonizing soldiers, indigenous tribes, wizards and/or hags working and living in secret (unbeknownst to the soldiers and tribes), underground civilizations, goblin caves, kobold caves... including a sort of civilization vs. wilderness campaign where the player characters ran afoul of the law trying to get some spicy dirt on the local colony lords, and got ran out of town, but were already established enough to get enough footing with the help of the most relevant wilderness faction. This can be like a part gold rush, part 'psuedo' revolutionary war... part... Weird West pioneer campaign, but with DnD monsters, an Underdark, and other planes of existence.
Guess I have to watch a bunch of Web DM again :D
One of the major cities in my D&D world is called the Blue Coast. I created it in a game called Kingdoms and Castles. It's a nice little game for building cities and it's about $15 on Steam. I recommend it for anyone who wants a fun way to build a city and doesn't want to do a lot of work.
Another perk to the game is it has randomly generated names for all the people living in it, so you can just use that if you want to! It definitely helped me a good deal in my last game I ran.
Loved the shoutout to York. Gorgeous old town!
this video came out at the right time, i'm building a whole island with 11 kingdoms on it for my players to explore
This is nice timing. I've been mulling over the idea of running a City Focused campaign!
I think this is now one of my favorite Web DM videos.
And boy, do I think one could make a great worldbuilding game out of this. Think Microscope, but with rules focused on City Building and the City's History.
21:18 "Sweet basilisk meats and cockatrice hot wings" That is why we play this game, folks. Edit: All organic basilisk meats with no added artificial basil.
Great info! A city needs the guild/city council (same guys), bailiff (not mayor), county sheriff (constable in a town), county judge, arms merchant, & a few inns and taverns, plus a bad guy of some sort. Magic items should only be bought & sold thru a special dealer who is maybe only in the capital city. No public library, but maybe a sage, scribe, or priest with a few books. And a coroner.
Did some research on Blades in the Dark. Well, I ordered it and cannot wait to get my mitts on it.
Fun fact. My players, don't tell them, will get to build a city.
We actually have a similar thing right now! except we're the players and we were given a starting settlement by Mordekeinen, on account of being mid ranking members of his organization.
My evocation wizard has a backstory with the elementals and does conjury as a secondary profession, and plans on binding elementals for services within the city, for now mostly mining and construction via earth elementals.
@@jemm113 the game I'm a player in, we've been slowly building up an abandoned town that has a green dragon juvenile in it. We're not growing too quickly, I think. I'm unsure. It's from, I like it a lot.
One of the most useful questions you can ask to make a city feel believable is "why was this city built here?" You can come at it from a lot of directions too. You can start with a place and develop a purpose, or start with a theme and flesh out its surroundings. Might be for trade, maybe agriculture, maybe strategic defense, or religious significance, but people always settle in a specific location for a specific reason. The city doesn't even need to actively serve its original purpose either, it could be an ancient city from a long dead culture that has been settled again,
I'm running an Exandira campaign (explorer's guide to wildemount but a different continent), and I made a city that was an enclave/floating city that went into hiding before the calamity. Think a city of mages & clerics in a huge cave under a mountain. But its upside down because the mountain itself was the flying city (proctiv's move mountain esque)
I have a concept of city cleaning being done by an army of wizard apprentices with prestidigitation. As they study, they learn more, and finally take on their own apprentice to teach prestidigitation to, freeing them from having to clean the city an hour every day.
An hour of web dm? Fuck yeah! Advice on something I literally need asap fuck yeah! Merry Christmas to me
Great episode again. I drink every time Jim says "evocative"
City based D&D is my absolute favorite D&D so much to do
I recently began construction of what I plan to be the largest city in my first homebrew setting, well timed.
In my cities, I usually assign each shop a want or need on the fly. Like the potion master wants some giant clippings for something he is working on. Or the trinket shop, is need of large ocean shells to sell. Or the black smith is trying to work on something magical, but needs a patron to Sponsor it. Or the seamstress is looking for a particular silk. I’ve always felt that you can build a cool city lay out, cities by volcanoes, or sky fall cities, but it’s the people inside it that make it memorable, the settings just makes it a bit intriguing. I also believe that players that explore within the confides of DM knowledge always have more appealing games, versus just trying to wonder for wondering sake. But ya my cities for the most part are mapped out and usually I only have about 5 cities in an entire world because the are darn hard to create.
I am surprised it got to 36:00 before sewage was discussed.
That is where I begin all city development. City builders. D&D. War. Everything is based upon food intake and outtake. No food. no persons. no sewers. no food.
Just like Irl, always make friends with the people serving your food and those cleaning it up after you. because they hear everything as near invisible entities in society.
The Honeydipper was a lucrative business in medieval times. Separating uric acids and human fertilizer for their various purposes.
Preservatives such as alcohol, salts, ammonia all can be acquired utilizing human urine. You can make leathers and dyes.
And then obviously the seeds pregerminated from yesterday's lunch fueled the beginnings of the science of botany. Nitrogen for soils...
And if you let it sit and rot you get all sorts of plagues and disease outbreaks that could render the Cleric structure of your city overwhelmed...and now I somehow made it back to 2020. sorry guys.
I wish I had a group a guys like you to RPG with, Love the show!!
Have been playing on and off since 1984
Hey, you guys are awesome. Thank you for what you do.
Thanks Lance. Very nice of you to say.
I guess I should have expected a Starship reference from the guy running the Spelljammer game.
Also, and I know no one asked, the game Godbound has a free version on DrivethruRPG, and it includes somereally useful charts for building noble courts, crimminal organizations, and governmental bureaucracies that help you identify who the primary power players are in any organization that the PCs might have to deal with, as well as important but less powerful NPCs. Great stuff for city building!
Starship intro. Blank stare. Now the song is stuck in my head Pruitt !! Damn you !
HOLY SHIT! I'm currently building a city for my next game. Let's see how close this reflects my own methods xD
Love this video. Thanks guys
I love the opening skits lmao
I've been working on building a city-based campaign - I feel like lately I've wanted a campaign where the players can really get attached to the setting over time
I love York, the shambles is ace. Its so chaotic and winding
An excellent resource for how specific guilds can is the Livery Companies of London. There's 110 of them including separate ones for Wax Chandlers and Tallow Chandlers.
And another day passes that I miss web dm
I tend to build up from world laws to world shape to natural systems to life to sentience and then build my cities from stone one up, simulating the groups and individuals until i have everyone’s history and such... but thats a very in depth and slow way to do things X-p i do like the anatomy idea and the travel guide idea... using those together might allow for a pretty quick and easy mix and match system to be makeable.
I'm gonna be running a campaign with some homebrew cyberpunk-y rules (Technomancer's Textbook), and this video is perfect
This video is brought to by Sennheiser.
"Get that good Jim Davis ASMR with Sennheiser."
one of the most helpful videos yet
Talk about timing. I was pondering all last night about a city-based campaign, and when I went to start writing, BOOM this video appeared from the ether.
our scrying worked!!
This needs to be a series