-For modern/cyberpunk cities, I use Google maps to get rough ideas about travel times. Really adds to a sense of space and time. -I use "real" non-famous locations that I peep on Google Maps as analogues. They'll have real positions on streets, real alleyways, real rooftops, etc. The PC's never need to know that this is a real building and I don't have to invent stuff, just copy what's there. I even do this on the fly sometimes. -Seth is absolutely right about not over-populating maps. For the party, too much information is often worse than not enough, and its easy for a GM to overwork themselves. -I don't define specific buildings or surface streets unless the party is going to be adventuring on/in them in a way that needs a map. Important buildings will even have a floor plan, but I lean into conservation of detail. You don't need to specify a building the party may never enter. I use boroughs/neighborhoods/districts on the map, then just have a list of the important things that are in the district. Unless I have a specific need to show surface streets, I don't. Remember, movies don't show you locations where nothing happens either.
For fantasy games, historical city maps are a fun resource, and you don't need to draw it yourself. Some of them even give the broad strokes of what is where.
7:35 Daughter who was watching this with me: That's not true; I'd immediately ask him what his name was. Me: The elder lady who worked as a cashier in the 7-11 who keeps talking to you because you reminded her of her kids, the one who had to quit earlier this year; What's her name and what's the names of her kids. Daughter: (Grumbles)
Remember you can always ask your players on session zero to list 2-3 places they like to go to or hang out at and 1 place they hate. That'll help fill out the city and maybe give you some options for hooks. Do the same for NPCs. Who are the regulars at those places and why do you like/hate them?
If I'm designing a modern city, I always start with the economy. The economy tells you what is happening in the city, and therefore what kinds of people and what structures exist in the city. If I'm designing a medieval/ancient settlement, I always start with water and then food/economy. A settlement must have water access to exist, food can be imported or paid for through economic activity, but fresh water has to be accessible. Doing stuff like this really helps create characters and flesh out settings.
Yes, I have played a lot of VtM which is mostly city campaigns. I do not know KULT, but Seth's videos about it made me think it could be as good! Sad he cut it short.
I think blades in the dark has a really good description with the districts with the neighbourhoods, buildings, gangs and what the people there mostly work
For a modern or sci-fi city (or some kinds of fantasy) I recommend making a tube map! You can give an idea of the shape and layout of the city without having to laboriously draw out hundreds of streets, you can give your stations fun and evocative names that inspire districts and landmarks and you can always come back later and add a bunch of new stations along the new line that just got built without having to retcon your district layout.
I think a helpful way to view it is that if a city or other urban environment is going to be a focal point of a game, as in it's a place that the party will stay and not just pass through, the city itself functionally needs to be a character (or characters) in its own right. If it's just a location and little else, it'll be largely forgotten background noise until players are (possibly quite rudely) reminded that they're in a city and not in general adventure mode. If you view all the districts of a city like individual family members with their own personalities and relationships to each other, that I think can help it all come alive for players who might otherwise treat it all as just generic names on a map. Don't have them simply travel through it, have them interact with it.
Urban settings/campaigns are my favorite. When I first started playing dnd, I was told that it takes place in a world with safe places and dangerous places and that players take on the role of the characters that go into dangerous places. With an urban setting, it shows that not every place is safe and that danger lurks anywhere.
I like the thumbnail art. It reminds me of a video game where I noticed someone waving at me and then beckoned me to approach. I approached but then he moved away and beckoned again. I followed him down an alley and he told me to "Check it out behind the dumpster." I did and saw a dead body. When I asked if it was a friend of his he said it was the last chump stupid enough to follow him into the alley. Last chump indeed, my character decapitated him and his two Mugging partners waiting behind corners.
Cities (and kingdoms) can also be divided into factions by using the "Dominant, Minority, Enclave, Group, Individuals, Singular" system. It's relatively simple method of getting the basic knowledge of the setting to your players, planting the "mood" of the place. A city might have humans as the dominant group of people; they wield the most political power. Dwarves in the area might be populous but still fewer than humans so they could fall into the minority category; they might not be able to set the laws but their importance to the city's forge cannot be overstated so they have some leverage in the political dealings. The city can have an enclave of wood elves as ambassadors from the elven kingdom few hundred miles west or half-orcs, maybe a nomad tribe that has settled in the outskirts of the city. People also know of a group of deep gnomes who frequently come to the city to sell their wares, jewels and assorted items they have come across delving into the old mines at the quarry not far away; the gnomes rarely take part in the dealings of the city. Dragonborn usually don't come this far north but every now and then there can be seen one or two as they pass by on their way to their ancestral hunting grounds to perform coming-of-age initiation rites. Everyone in the city "knows" that in the old wizard's keep there "lives" a lich. How long has it lived there? No one knows but anyone too foolish to enter the keep, has been lost. The categories also work for megacorps and religious groups, as well. EDIT: I learned this system from Matt Colville.
Great video as always. One interesting historical fact about cities over time. While buildings change, roads once laid down often don't, unless there is a massive piece of civil works. Look at York in North England, the shop foot prints match the foot prints of the viking shops even today, because while a building may burn down.... those arround it may not, but even if they do, unless you're buying up someone else plot, you rebuild in the exact same space! So over thousands of years, the building may morph and change, but the space they occupy is pretty stable from the day they were originally built! So those wonderful random town map builders that don't label buildings are great, because you can change the buildings purpose, but its foot print in unlikely to change even over hundreds of years! You can probably see the same thing today, that Starbucks on the corner, that used to be a Pub, and was a bank before that, but is essentially the exact same building with a make over.
My cyberpunk campaign I ran with my kids over covid was laid out with the barest of bones because I used a series of charts to create locations and factions as needed. About 4 d6 rolls were all I needed to make a police force, gang or merc team. Non-combat NPCs were designed according to the needs of the game in that moment. I never worried about streets or places. Whenever the PCs went to a new street I'd roll to see what "the most interesting thing about this street is" and "the main attraction on this street is" charts. I was able to quickly create a location or faction as needed and my players never really noticed. It really helped that I knew the charts inside and out so I could tweak the result as needed or just draw the desired result from the chart without rolling dice.
Personal tips for settlements regarding flavor and lore based on just adding very small notes among the materials you are already building. Locational history... this doesn't need to be dense or deep, just a couple notes to give the community life bo matter how small or large. Great examples are a reason why this location was settled("it was the perfect place to grow a rare and expensive vegetable, but the city has been growing on those fields for centuries"), or how it got its name ("when the guilds decided to charter a new town the churches were the first to build on this cluster of hilltops, and there were originally just seven brand new temples as the only buildings here at all, so became known as Seventemples"), or a bit of color about long gone citizens ("our founder had a thing for cats and you can still see that in some street names like Calico Avenue near the market"). Concerning factions and "third places". Towns of any size will have several non political or powerful factions. These will be scene filling characters like the local sewing circle or the childrens unofficial neighborhood sportsball team. A third place for those who don't know is a place other than home or workplace where a person or group spends significant time. The local park could be the third place for a childrens faction just as the corner pub can be the third place for rowdy caravan guards or that sewing circle. Many of these factions are most likely functionally useless to the party but can bring flavor that the players remember or key in on, but sometimes their usefulness develops later("lets go back to that park with the kids who delivery groceries and see if they know the house we are looking for"). Small factions like this are easy to add to your notes and don't need to be woven into your political tapestry right away or at all. Some factions are insignificant enough to exist only in the notes about a location such as "this park is freqeunted by the children who delivery food for the merchants in the market around the corner". Its endless flavor for little investment as a DM. It provides context in your notes for populating the location when players travel there in a more organic feeling way. The pariahs and oddballs... when populating a town you must always consider the existence of pariahs within it. Those who are shunned by most of the rest of the community. I say consider because this could rapidly distract from other story elements with some parties, but a note like "a leper colony is just tolerated on the edge of town" can add a lot to player engagement. Additionally communities of literally anysize will have some within it that the others consider odd or weird but do not outright shun. This would be most similar to our modern memetic "crazy cat lady" types. Players are likely to remember that tiny village with the guy who walks around with 76 minature weiner dogs everywhere he goes. Either outcasts or weirdo you can really grab the players attention with a tiny note and a small town you didn't plan on being significant could be their favorite place. On the map lebeling topic... label as little as possible until forced to through player discovery is the best general rule at any scale. You can number locations on a map and keep a key of locations separately to lessen the load on dense maps and make parsing the information easier when looking for things.
An idea for a fantasy medieval city: find out why there is a city there? and what makes it tick?. Trade goods or religious center etc and then incorporate this into the city image. Example: The city is known for producing the continent's best honey. The inn is therefore called The Drunken Bee, the players can discover inferior honey being smuggled into the city. There is a honey festival with the appointment of a "bee queen" etc 🐝
1890's London! I'm sure your players will make some great characters for that iconic setting. So many great books and movies to draw on like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Jack London's "The People of the Abyss" , or "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".
I use a list of the 100 basic sites found on any city from antiquity to the XVII century. Each site is a district, each district is a faction, and everything relates to the site. Just roll a d100 to see where something is happening that day, or what your players stumble upon and improvise!
As a foodie, I'd also like to suggest how the "flavor" of each neighborhood is impacted by the food served there. Using New York as an example, you'd find cornbread and greens in Harlem. Pasta and pizza and red sauce ("gravy") are found in the Italian sections, and China Town is home to Dim Sum, rice and Oriental noodle dishes. Pretty obviously your "docks" district will focus on seafood. You might have another district where the whole place smells of boiled cabbage. Maybe you have a "barbecue" district (possibly where cattle or pigs are stored/slaughtered. "Bread" in essence will be EVERYWHERE, but whether that particular bread is cornbread or Naan, pizza, tortillas or pumpernickel depends on the district.
18:50 About assigning random events in every districts. If you're like me, your dice sets are of many really distinctive colors. Assign a color to each district and juts throw the D6s all at the same time, with the colored dices representing the associated district color.
I run a campaign based in a city, and what has worked well for me is each PC has their own set of contacts. These contacts give the PCs info or rumors that are key points to the adventure. Each PC ends up having different motivations, and they all have agency as to what they reveal to the others. It’s worked very well.
I can't recall a more useful or inspiring video on running urban campaigns. A new DM could actually construct a functional urban campaign framework from this vid. After running Waterdeep I've not been tempted by another urban campaign, but then you reminded me of Lankhmar... I remember one of the AD&D books had Fafhrd and Mouser stat blocks, I loved Lieber but had no clue how to run something like that. Maybe I'll give it a shot now. To conclude, thanks.
Very nice video, Seth. Long time GM here but this did help, especially since I am running a "fantasy punk" city based game in Kobold Press Zobeck, which is a Lankhmar/Waterdeep analog but, since we moved over to Tales of the Valiant, seemed to fit better. It's a great city and these tips are going to help a great deal!
I find building in some history in (or under) your city. Things come and go, some are forgotten about, other remain vibrant or shift with newcomers. Main streets turn into skid-roads, city centers move with the money, but there is always a demographic. There is always room for ancient civilizations' tunnels, sewers, abandoned subways, these can house whole campaigns.
Not just Urban campaigns, but wilderness and any other kind of campaign if you put your mind to it. This is a very solid video I should keep on hand for referencing.
I love urban-centric campaigns & adventures in my fantasy role playing games! My last campaign, brief though it was, centered around my players all having grown up in the same dreary orphanage and formed a sort of mutual protection society against the harsh life of the city slums by joining one of the competing thieves' guilds. Not all of them were playing Rogues, but as you said in one of your earlier videos about campaign themes they were "rogues at heart" (which is where I got the idea; thank you for that) and it grew from there. It was a blast!
Great video. I LOVE urban adventures. I ran and played Waterdeep and Lankmar back in the day and those are some very fond memories. This will help me clean up my GM skills in an urban setting if I ever get to return to them. However, you are speaking my language with "Cthulhu by Gaslight" I just ran a one off for my daughters' group for Halloween that was CoC Gaslight & I loved it. I can't wait to see those videos ! (Unless it includes seeing Dweables in a corset ! I'll pass on that ! )
One thing I like to contrast with players in big urban environments is that communications are cheap and fast which is very different in space where systems are separated by weeks and months. No one should feel truly anonymous in a city if they've done something notable or noted.
Yes, I am puzzled as to why there are so many examples of the group starting out as being well-known, but as the campaign progresses the group fades from peoples' memories.
Brilliant stuff! I've been running city-based FRPG games for 10+ years. I had pieces of these ideas in place, but not as well thought out, not as thorough. I can use these tips to really breathe life into my ongoing city adventures. Thank you! Cheers!
So speaking of districts reminds me of the show Almost Live which was a sketch comedy show out of Seattle. One of their running gags was spoofing the show Cops in various sections picking on the stereotypes. For instance the one for Kent featured the Kent Big Hair ordnance where woman have to have their hair teased out (and cops carry tape measures to check), men have to wear baseball caps and the domestic dispute was over changing the channel off of Matlock. They are on TH-cam and now I have the urge to go watch again.
The AD&D setting I fell in love with is Birthright. There is certainly room for urban adventures in there. Of course, modern settings/games are a lot more open to those. I barely ever ran any however, so I have nothing to add to this one. :) "Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying - of course you don't."
many years ago TSR had a series of Gazetteers for the not-advanced-D&D realm Mystara (i think) each was a book with maps of a country, and each country was a bit railroaded and less than 3 dimensional at the time though, it was a huge step up in world building - the Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread were suddenly part of a bigger world included info on main cities, history, etc. i found the maps alone created hours of content from wandering adventures
If you're running a city based game, or more importantly, a faction based game, one good resource is the 5e D&D Ravnica setting book. That book took the bonds, backgrounds, and faction renown systems from 2014 5e and fleshed them out with the ten guilds the Ravnica MtG card sets are known for. The book is full of tables for npcs you know within your guild, npcs you have ties to in other guilds, minion npcs you gather as you rank up in certain guilds, plots each guild might be pursuing, ways to make each guild an ally or an antagonist, and typical combat encounter tables for each guild. The Ravnica book is full of DM tools that make running faction and city campaigns as simple as they can be. More importantly, the Ravnica specific references and tables are so clear and concise that you could easily use them as templates when designing similar tools for homebrew cities.
This was truly fascinating. Thank you, Seth! I've been toying with the idea of running a Skaven campaign in Warhammer Fantasy rpg, where the PCs are Skaven.. And I keep running into the problems of jow to manage the warrens and caves they would live in. Tjis is going to be hugely helpful in finally getting this underway
I've been running a City Campaign for 3 years now, and I love random encounters based on districts. I have a list of 20 vaguely described encounters, with 1 being very bad and 20 being a big benefit to the group. The list is the same throughout the City, but depending on the district, your die roll changes. If you are in the slums, you roll a d4- only the 4 worst encounters can happen. In the royal quarters you roll a d20+4 - the worst things can't happen here, but very good things might occur. Between that, all sorts of dice and several multipliers are present, corresponding to the "security level" of the district. However, I only use that chart as a last resort whenever there is a slog or things are dragging, which is rarely the case. Anyway, thanks Seth for another great video, especially because the topic is so near and dear to me. Greetings from Austria!
I love this video! I've been dming for a long time, but haven't really done an urban campaign. I'm currently setting up a campaign that is almost exclusively going to be in one city, and I just happened to find this video. Wasn't even searching for ideas! Man, am I glad I watched! Some really great pieces of advice here.
Love it, Seth. Great advice. I've definitely fallen into the "too much information" GM bracket before. Where I have bombarded the players with so many places to visit and complexity that analysis paralysis sets in and they have no idea what to do or where to go!
Thank you so much Seth! I was kinda tiptoeing around the daunting premise of writting my mage city thingy, and this has given me a few structural things that really helped solidify a few things! Dividing it into Neighbourhoods and deciding what well known events would be especially! Means I get a better picture of what kind of city this is I'm building :D
Cities Without Numbers deserves a quick shout out for being one of the best systems I've seen for handling city and faction design, and it's largely system agnostic in how it does it. It also has an interesting take on factions, in that there are at any one time several groups with something they are trying to do, and which the players can be hired to aid with or stop. Plot hooks the players reject or ignore get resolved with a which dice roll between session, and the success or failure of whatever other team got the job instead can have ramifications for the ongoing plot. Dresden Files has it's own take on city design as a table wide effort, and introduced me to the concept of Faces. Every organization, theme, or major plot point has a Face; an NPC who's job it is to be a bridge between the players and that group/concept. That gives you a hook to start generating ideas for NPCs which I find very helpful. ACKS needs to be mentioned for it's crunchy thieves guild rules, though it's not much of a political intrigue game; there's not much in investigation or social mechanics.
Thank you for this video! I've been running Waterdeep Dragon Heist for my friends and wife, and as my first campaign I've had so much trouble keeping everything together. This video is already helping me organize my notes and how to run the city itself. Keep up the great work Seth!
Perfect timing to help out with my fantasy city campaign. We just finished our session zero, and I ran this setting last year, but giving the city more flavor is what I wanted to do more this time around. Thanks a ton for the video.
When I got started with BRP in the 80s, I used the map from the original City State of the Invincible Overlord. We played in that city (and under it) for years. I miss urban games. I've run a bunch of Call of Cthulhu that takes place in a city, but the city hasn't been a key element. Really gotta work on that.
I think Terry Pratchet had a great way of creating a city. Every book had different main characters but lots of repeating background characters, in other words lots of different player characters but the same NPCs, it gave Ankh Morpork a sense of existence, a separate ongoing identity separate from the activities in the current book.
The Pope? This is super helpful to me right now as my investigators are visiting Hlanith in the Dreamlands tonight. I probably don't have time to implement all this great information but I'll certainly remember some of it to try to give them a living city. Great stuff as always. Thanks!
I'm just coming to the end of a long (level 2-16) urban d&d game and it's nice to know I didn't make too many of the big mistakes. One thing I've included to give the place a bit more sense of being alive (and give out some potential plot-hooks) was an in-universe town-crier, including comments on how the PCs actions were being perceived once they became more noteworthy (local publicans slay mad artificer to protect beer-garden!).
The "Palladium Fantasy: Old Ones" book is a great resource if you are looking for cities, towns, and forts; even if it's just as a reference to make your own maps.
I love making towns and cities. I think I was the first one in our group to add things like a tannery, a pottery shop, clothweavers, etc. Cthulhu by Gaslight is the best! I've got the second edition book I think. It is one of the best sourcebooks I've ever seen.
I've always liked urban campaigns. Maybe some short missions to the wilderness or farmlands but 95% city stuff. Vampire the Masquerade games are naturally urban-focused. But we had a fun one in homebrew steampunk setting and one modern xfiles/supernatural/deltagreen-styled one. But now that I think about it, we haven't had a city game in a fantasy setting.
11:00 the district parts is pretty important. especially if you are doing shady stuff. Shadowrun has them divided into AAA, A, B etc,. zones. and if you do stuff there, depending on what zone you are in, the authorities show up faster and with more force. shoot a firecracker in a AAA mega con zone= pretty sure the tankpolice arrives in about 3 minutes. shoot your bazooke in a D or E district? well, that's probably just the cop from Die Hard, just coming out of a supermarket where he bought donuts. i tend to use that format for all my campaigns. and it works pretty well - especially in a fantasy setting, where that lone cop can just as well be storehouse guard with a baton instead of a helebardier with helbard and 4 friends.
Perfect timing as we're planning on running a Planescape adventure in future & a Discworld one too, both mostly focusing around the main cities. Thank you for this
I'm currently working on a city campaign for Shadowdark that I hope to run soon so this video is extremely timely. I highly recommend the book Into the Cess and Citadel for advice on laying out and fleshing out districts and NPCs in your city, especially if you're running a fantasy game.
This came at the perfect time. Im currently finishing up some Cyberpunk, and hopefully will be diving into Traveller in the next couple of months. So this is a godsend
I always have to watch your Running RPGs videos more than once because I keep on daydreaming about the changes I should be implementing to my own campaign while watching them. Great video as always !
This definitely highlights a lot of what I didn't do in my one and only city campaign to date, but listening to this, it is still a hell of a lot of work. Maybe moreso than any other game. I guess there is no getting around that.
What a great video. It's filled with good advice. Advice that I have followed and advice that I will follow to make my urban environments more immersive for my players. Way to go, dude!
I’ve started using I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic at the start of my campaigns to let players decide what their city looks like and who all is in it. As the gm, I’ll set some parameters based on the tone of themes I want to go with, but beyond that, I save my creativity for prepping each session
Thanks Seth, just setting up post apocalypse Albuquerque for my Rage across New Mexico Werewolf campaign, this video was just what I needed. Thanks for all your great advice over the years.
This wouldn’t work for all games, but The Between has a great take on making its Victorian London setting feel “breathing” by having short prompts the players expand on that describes something unrelated to the PCs happening in the city. The coolest part is that if the players expanding on the prompts manages to make a thematic connection with what their PCs are doing, they also get XP. So incentivized for cool fleshing out of the city!
Oh, this will at least be somewhat useful for my Brinkwood campaign. There are multiple cities on the same island with connected factions so this should come in handy.
This comes at the right time; I just started a city adventure. This is great advice. I am playing ttrpg for 40 years, but mostly avoided city campaigns.
best urban campaign I ever ran was in Glantri City for BECMI. Gaz3 was the best D&D setting book for good reason. running one in Arkham/M.U. right now for my wife. Having a LOT of fun fleshing out the town (hard to call it a city really lol)
Excellent advice as usual! I've been considering running a Planescape campaign (factions galore!), and that is largely all urban (with 5'ish districts) in Sigil, and more in the Gate Towns. Definitely need those landmark hubs, zones, and territories to build around - the party is probably gonna go beyond their home turf. Certainly leave room for growth. It can be fun when a PC takes a bit of narrative agency and tells of a relative's house (in some district on some street) where they'll be safe for the night. Applies to locations and some NPCs. Connecting the PCs and NPCs to the City, and the City to the PCs and the NPCs, can absolutely bring it all to life.
Thanks for the ideas Seth! I was wondering lately how to make a city feel lived in or dynamic. I made 20 random encounters but wasn't sure when to trigger them or how to tackle exploration. Now I'll be making more for every district of Waterdeep because my goal is to run the Alexandrian Remix of Waterdeep Dragon Heist next year. So basically an urbancrawl with heists, intrigue/noir and pulp action elements.
"Random" is almost always a bad approach to make places "feel alive". It is far better to come up with events triggered by what has happened. This "A" caused "B", is what makes it feel alive. (Things have consequences!)
This is exaclty what I needed. I am going to be running a game where the players all small scale delinquints in a coastal town in georgian and this gives me so many ideas. Thank You Seth!
This is a relevant and useful topic for me! I've been procrastinating on fleshing out the cities in my setting (bronze age desert) and I needed the kick
I usually like urban campaigns myself (I prefer starfinder over d&d) so this is gonna be excellent for me. Especially since Traveller is coming to Brazil
“Aw, my character just bought tickets to that stadium concert.” LOL. I like the idea that some game offers a prestige score you can improve by buying concert tickets.
Maps? Did you say maps?! Maps and Dice are single handedly my two biggest vices. Many a time I nearly died because my DM didn't explain the location well enough or I didn't understand it. Hence why my maps can have a weird level of detail put in them. Not autistic enough that I have the total geographic details worked out, street names, etc but enough that I get a world map designed or a city with significant information. The city for my Call of Kidthulhu game that doubles as a sort of basis of idea for my Lovecraftian/Hunter: The Reckoning inspired world has entire districts and locations made. And I am slowly but surely creating district maps for it. I might not be a great map maker but I am at least a semi-serious one when it comes to my fun
An important aspect I have is who holds various aspects of power: Financial (banks, churches, nobles) martial (militia, police, gangs) Technological (guilds, craftswomen, engineers) Legal (magistrate, guilds, nobles, church) Magical (guilds, nobles, mercs) social (nobles, church, guilds) this will often dictate who the players will encounter and why.
All my campaigns take place in the same urban setting, wither I’m running 5e or Call of Cthulhu. It allows for some epic moments, when the “Artifact” in an Cthulhu auction, is an idol or magic item the players were given in the 5e campaign centuries/millennia earlier.
The one thing I keep forgetting about moving between neighbourhoods in my Cyberpunk campaign is the sense of entering some one else's area. Gangers seeing what you're up to on their turf, campus police hustling your shabby edgerunners off the quad, 'Border Patrol' solos being suspicious of you as you are trying to return home from a job in the combat zone.
Just what I needed, on the collapse of my first campaign I realized I needed to run in a smaller scope to keep things detailed so my setting I’m working on has only 3 populated locations. This will help a ton to run them as detailed and as engaging as possible.
A lot does depend on the system. Particularly in terms of conflict resolution. I like cities to have lots of reccuring NPCs, and for them to have direct and indirect conflict with the player characters. In games like D&D "conflict" is kind of designed to be resolved by combat. And D&D combat is deadly... the aim is to reduce an opponents health bar to zero and leaving them dead on the floor. If the DM hand waves that by having villains survive those sort of encounter, it becomes inevitable that after a few times a player is going to say, "How is this happening and why can't WE do that?" I'm currently running a Cthulhu campaign and recent months have been all around Arkham, and my "Shoot first, ask questions if we remember..." D&D group are now VERY careful about provoking anyone after a couple of gunfights left a couple of Investigators in hospital for a few weeks. (7E rules are a lot more forgiving in terms of players dying from a couple of gunshot wounds.) They've had a couple of major run-ins with New York mobsters, but are keen not to make a mess on their own doorstep. The same players have played a D&D campaign where they were happy to break into buildings without a plan, or antagonise a city official, because they have enough magic to murder someone and cover their tracks. Their actions directly led to their enemies effectively dropping a cliffside onto the city they live in, killing hundreds of locals, and their response was to hit back harder! In Arkham they politely knock on doors, and only seem to ever use lockpicking type activities if they are going out of town. Mythras is a fantastic game system for city campaigns. Combat is fast and rarely results in death unless you delberately kill an opponent. This means you can have a duel in the street, beat someone, or have them beat you, and both characters survive, one may be nursing a serious wound, or a very severly bruised ego and reputation, and this makes for great story opportunities. The "Fioracitta" setting is essentially a Rennaissance City-State campaign. It's part of the BRP family tree, so system is similar to Runequest/Call of Cthulhu, but has the best combat system I've come across. I can't wait for Cthulhu by Gaslight. my favourite setting for my favourite game. FINALLY getting the 7E treatment. I've been working on a mini campaign since I heard it was coming out, leaving a few gaps and spaces for some of the Exploration and Weird Science rules, and hoping to publish it on Miskatonic Repository sometime in the new year. Though I may need to wait for the Keepers Guide to make sure everything ties in mechanically. As someone who has been studying Victorian London and Jack The Ripper in particular for over 35 years, I am really looking forward to getting back into it. Anyone wanting to run the game in or around the East End/Whitechapel area of London during that period should read "People Of the Abyss" by Jack London. It's far and away the best "source book" that exists for that area in that period.
I've been reading the Over the Edge 2nd ed books before bed lately. Yes, having some odd dreams! But more relevant is that it is amazing how much the city has been developed as a living entity. So many things that I want to transplant into other campaign settings as a little bit of the odd.
Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code SETHSKOR at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: incogni.com/sethskor
But can they hide me from Scott Brown?
@@gbgamer9474 Get the F*** OUT! I GOT A SHOWIN'
No one can hide from Scott Brown!
Hey! No, "You know..." at the end!
I want a refund.
-For modern/cyberpunk cities, I use Google maps to get rough ideas about travel times. Really adds to a sense of space and time.
-I use "real" non-famous locations that I peep on Google Maps as analogues. They'll have real positions on streets, real alleyways, real rooftops, etc. The PC's never need to know that this is a real building and I don't have to invent stuff, just copy what's there. I even do this on the fly sometimes.
-Seth is absolutely right about not over-populating maps. For the party, too much information is often worse than not enough, and its easy for a GM to overwork themselves.
-I don't define specific buildings or surface streets unless the party is going to be adventuring on/in them in a way that needs a map. Important buildings will even have a floor plan, but I lean into conservation of detail. You don't need to specify a building the party may never enter. I use boroughs/neighborhoods/districts on the map, then just have a list of the important things that are in the district. Unless I have a specific need to show surface streets, I don't. Remember, movies don't show you locations where nothing happens either.
For fantasy games, historical city maps are a fun resource, and you don't need to draw it yourself.
Some of them even give the broad strokes of what is where.
7:35 Daughter who was watching this with me: That's not true; I'd immediately ask him what his name was.
Me: The elder lady who worked as a cashier in the 7-11 who keeps talking to you because you reminded her of her kids, the one who had to quit earlier this year; What's her name and what's the names of her kids.
Daughter: (Grumbles)
just cause she immediately ask does not mean she'll remember later
Remember you can always ask your players on session zero to list 2-3 places they like to go to or hang out at and 1 place they hate. That'll help fill out the city and maybe give you some options for hooks. Do the same for NPCs. Who are the regulars at those places and why do you like/hate them?
Yes! I love giving PCs the ability to create their world. Plus less work for the DM.
If I'm designing a modern city, I always start with the economy. The economy tells you what is happening in the city, and therefore what kinds of people and what structures exist in the city.
If I'm designing a medieval/ancient settlement, I always start with water and then food/economy. A settlement must have water access to exist, food can be imported or paid for through economic activity, but fresh water has to be accessible.
Doing stuff like this really helps create characters and flesh out settings.
You are a GODSEND. I'm planning a KULT campaign located in Boston this weekend and this landed at the perfect time.
That's a setting that is challenging to run even when you have players willing to enter that genre. I love the horror genre myself!
Yes, I have played a lot of VtM which is mostly city campaigns.
I do not know KULT, but Seth's videos about it made me think it could be as good! Sad he cut it short.
KULT mentioned 🎉
WOOHOO! Skorkowsky upload days are the best. Thanks man, this is exactly what I needed for my upcoming session next weekend ❤
I agree! We all appreciate the videos.
Same but today 😂
I think blades in the dark has a really good description with the districts with the neighbourhoods, buildings, gangs and what the people there mostly work
For a modern or sci-fi city (or some kinds of fantasy) I recommend making a tube map! You can give an idea of the shape and layout of the city without having to laboriously draw out hundreds of streets, you can give your stations fun and evocative names that inspire districts and landmarks and you can always come back later and add a bunch of new stations along the new line that just got built without having to retcon your district layout.
I think a helpful way to view it is that if a city or other urban environment is going to be a focal point of a game, as in it's a place that the party will stay and not just pass through, the city itself functionally needs to be a character (or characters) in its own right. If it's just a location and little else, it'll be largely forgotten background noise until players are (possibly quite rudely) reminded that they're in a city and not in general adventure mode. If you view all the districts of a city like individual family members with their own personalities and relationships to each other, that I think can help it all come alive for players who might otherwise treat it all as just generic names on a map. Don't have them simply travel through it, have them interact with it.
Waiting for the "y'know" was the longest milisecond I've ever experienced.
Urban settings/campaigns are my favorite.
When I first started playing dnd, I was told that it takes place in a world with safe places and dangerous places and that players take on the role of the characters that go into dangerous places.
With an urban setting, it shows that not every place is safe and that danger lurks anywhere.
I like the thumbnail art. It reminds me of a video game where I noticed someone waving at me and then beckoned me to approach. I approached but then he moved away and beckoned again. I followed him down an alley and he told me to "Check it out behind the dumpster." I did and saw a dead body. When I asked if it was a friend of his he said it was the last chump stupid enough to follow him into the alley. Last chump indeed, my character decapitated him and his two Mugging partners waiting behind corners.
Fallout New Vegas.
I like to add "Welcome Centers" to large fantasy cities. places specifically for tourists and travelers to gain information.
Cities (and kingdoms) can also be divided into factions by using the "Dominant, Minority, Enclave, Group, Individuals, Singular" system. It's relatively simple method of getting the basic knowledge of the setting to your players, planting the "mood" of the place.
A city might have humans as the dominant group of people; they wield the most political power. Dwarves in the area might be populous but still fewer than humans so they could fall into the minority category; they might not be able to set the laws but their importance to the city's forge cannot be overstated so they have some leverage in the political dealings. The city can have an enclave of wood elves as ambassadors from the elven kingdom few hundred miles west or half-orcs, maybe a nomad tribe that has settled in the outskirts of the city. People also know of a group of deep gnomes who frequently come to the city to sell their wares, jewels and assorted items they have come across delving into the old mines at the quarry not far away; the gnomes rarely take part in the dealings of the city. Dragonborn usually don't come this far north but every now and then there can be seen one or two as they pass by on their way to their ancestral hunting grounds to perform coming-of-age initiation rites. Everyone in the city "knows" that in the old wizard's keep there "lives" a lich. How long has it lived there? No one knows but anyone too foolish to enter the keep, has been lost.
The categories also work for megacorps and religious groups, as well.
EDIT: I learned this system from Matt Colville.
21:51
"To fire! The cause of and solution to all tabletop players' problems!"
Great video as always.
One interesting historical fact about cities over time. While buildings change, roads once laid down often don't, unless there is a massive piece of civil works.
Look at York in North England, the shop foot prints match the foot prints of the viking shops even today, because while a building may burn down.... those arround it may not, but even if they do, unless you're buying up someone else plot, you rebuild in the exact same space! So over thousands of years, the building may morph and change, but the space they occupy is pretty stable from the day they were originally built!
So those wonderful random town map builders that don't label buildings are great, because you can change the buildings purpose, but its foot print in unlikely to change even over hundreds of years!
You can probably see the same thing today, that Starbucks on the corner, that used to be a Pub, and was a bank before that, but is essentially the exact same building with a make over.
My cyberpunk campaign I ran with my kids over covid was laid out with the barest of bones because I used a series of charts to create locations and factions as needed. About 4 d6 rolls were all I needed to make a police force, gang or merc team. Non-combat NPCs were designed according to the needs of the game in that moment.
I never worried about streets or places. Whenever the PCs went to a new street I'd roll to see what "the most interesting thing about this street is" and "the main attraction on this street is" charts. I was able to quickly create a location or faction as needed and my players never really noticed.
It really helped that I knew the charts inside and out so I could tweak the result as needed or just draw the desired result from the chart without rolling dice.
Personal tips for settlements regarding flavor and lore based on just adding very small notes among the materials you are already building.
Locational history... this doesn't need to be dense or deep, just a couple notes to give the community life bo matter how small or large. Great examples are a reason why this location was settled("it was the perfect place to grow a rare and expensive vegetable, but the city has been growing on those fields for centuries"), or how it got its name ("when the guilds decided to charter a new town the churches were the first to build on this cluster of hilltops, and there were originally just seven brand new temples as the only buildings here at all, so became known as Seventemples"), or a bit of color about long gone citizens ("our founder had a thing for cats and you can still see that in some street names like Calico Avenue near the market").
Concerning factions and "third places". Towns of any size will have several non political or powerful factions. These will be scene filling characters like the local sewing circle or the childrens unofficial neighborhood sportsball team. A third place for those who don't know is a place other than home or workplace where a person or group spends significant time. The local park could be the third place for a childrens faction just as the corner pub can be the third place for rowdy caravan guards or that sewing circle. Many of these factions are most likely functionally useless to the party but can bring flavor that the players remember or key in on, but sometimes their usefulness develops later("lets go back to that park with the kids who delivery groceries and see if they know the house we are looking for"). Small factions like this are easy to add to your notes and don't need to be woven into your political tapestry right away or at all. Some factions are insignificant enough to exist only in the notes about a location such as "this park is freqeunted by the children who delivery food for the merchants in the market around the corner". Its endless flavor for little investment as a DM. It provides context in your notes for populating the location when players travel there in a more organic feeling way.
The pariahs and oddballs... when populating a town you must always consider the existence of pariahs within it. Those who are shunned by most of the rest of the community. I say consider because this could rapidly distract from other story elements with some parties, but a note like "a leper colony is just tolerated on the edge of town" can add a lot to player engagement. Additionally communities of literally anysize will have some within it that the others consider odd or weird but do not outright shun. This would be most similar to our modern memetic "crazy cat lady" types. Players are likely to remember that tiny village with the guy who walks around with 76 minature weiner dogs everywhere he goes. Either outcasts or weirdo you can really grab the players attention with a tiny note and a small town you didn't plan on being significant could be their favorite place.
On the map lebeling topic... label as little as possible until forced to through player discovery is the best general rule at any scale. You can number locations on a map and keep a key of locations separately to lessen the load on dense maps and make parsing the information easier when looking for things.
An idea for a fantasy medieval city: find out why there is a city there? and what makes it tick?. Trade goods or religious center etc and then incorporate this into the city image.
Example: The city is known for producing the continent's best honey. The inn is therefore called The Drunken Bee, the players can discover inferior honey being smuggled into the city. There is a honey festival with the appointment of a "bee queen" etc 🐝
1890's London! I'm sure your players will make some great characters for that iconic setting. So many great books and movies to draw on like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Jack London's "The People of the Abyss" , or "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".
I use a list of the 100 basic sites found on any city from antiquity to the XVII century. Each site is a district, each district is a faction, and everything relates to the site. Just roll a d100 to see where something is happening that day, or what your players stumble upon and improvise!
As a foodie, I'd also like to suggest how the "flavor" of each neighborhood is impacted by the food served there. Using New York as an example, you'd find cornbread and greens in Harlem. Pasta and pizza and red sauce ("gravy") are found in the Italian sections, and China Town is home to Dim Sum, rice and Oriental noodle dishes.
Pretty obviously your "docks" district will focus on seafood. You might have another district where the whole place smells of boiled cabbage. Maybe you have a "barbecue" district (possibly where cattle or pigs are stored/slaughtered. "Bread" in essence will be EVERYWHERE, but whether that particular bread is cornbread or Naan, pizza, tortillas or pumpernickel depends on the district.
18:50 About assigning random events in every districts.
If you're like me, your dice sets are of many really distinctive colors. Assign a color to each district and juts throw the D6s all at the same time, with the colored dices representing the associated district color.
Lankhmar!!!
This was very timely, thank you. Currently having trouble running a large space station that is effectively a city :)
I run a campaign based in a city, and what has worked well for me is each PC has their own set of contacts. These contacts give the PCs info or rumors that are key points to the adventure. Each PC ends up having different motivations, and they all have agency as to what they reveal to the others. It’s worked very well.
I can't recall a more useful or inspiring video on running urban campaigns. A new DM could actually construct a functional urban campaign framework from this vid. After running Waterdeep I've not been tempted by another urban campaign, but then you reminded me of Lankhmar... I remember one of the AD&D books had Fafhrd and Mouser stat blocks, I loved Lieber but had no clue how to run something like that. Maybe I'll give it a shot now. To conclude, thanks.
The thing i like most is basically "A fallen, Tainted city"
Like Grim Dawn' Malmouth and Fallout BV "The Divide"
Perfect in how messed up it is.
Drakkenheim?
Malmouth is a city in Grim Dawn, i recommend you watch a playthrough to see the city structure
Feeding the algorithm, because Seth's stuff is ALWAYS amazing!
Very nice video, Seth. Long time GM here but this did help, especially since I am running a "fantasy punk" city based game in Kobold Press Zobeck, which is a Lankhmar/Waterdeep analog but, since we moved over to Tales of the Valiant, seemed to fit better. It's a great city and these tips are going to help a great deal!
I find building in some history in (or under) your city. Things come and go, some are forgotten about, other remain vibrant or shift with newcomers. Main streets turn into skid-roads, city centers move with the money, but there is always a demographic. There is always room for ancient civilizations' tunnels, sewers, abandoned subways, these can house whole campaigns.
Not just Urban campaigns, but wilderness and any other kind of campaign if you put your mind to it. This is a very solid video I should keep on hand for referencing.
I love urban-centric campaigns & adventures in my fantasy role playing games! My last campaign, brief though it was, centered around my players all having grown up in the same dreary orphanage and formed a sort of mutual protection society against the harsh life of the city slums by joining one of the competing thieves' guilds. Not all of them were playing Rogues, but as you said in one of your earlier videos about campaign themes they were "rogues at heart" (which is where I got the idea; thank you for that) and it grew from there. It was a blast!
Great video. I LOVE urban adventures. I ran and played Waterdeep and Lankmar back in the day and those are some very fond memories. This will help me clean up my GM skills in an urban setting if I ever get to return to them. However, you are speaking my language with "Cthulhu by Gaslight" I just ran a one off for my daughters' group for Halloween that was CoC Gaslight & I loved it. I can't wait to see those videos ! (Unless it includes seeing Dweables in a corset ! I'll pass on that ! )
One thing I like to contrast with players in big urban environments is that communications are cheap and fast which is very different in space where systems are separated by weeks and months. No one should feel truly anonymous in a city if they've done something notable or noted.
Yes, I am puzzled as to why there are so many examples of the group starting out as being well-known, but as the campaign progresses the group fades from peoples' memories.
Brilliant stuff! I've been running city-based FRPG games for 10+ years. I had pieces of these ideas in place, but not as well thought out, not as thorough. I can use these tips to really breathe life into my ongoing city adventures. Thank you! Cheers!
what's the F stand for? fantasy? or friendship since you only want to play TRPGs with people you like?
@stm7810 F = Fantasy. Cheers!
@@sgt-slag thanks.
21:50 It was a very _big_ spider!
This is something I've often struggled with and this is a great resource. I'll definitely be coming back to this video in the future!
So speaking of districts reminds me of the show Almost Live which was a sketch comedy show out of Seattle. One of their running gags was spoofing the show Cops in various sections picking on the stereotypes. For instance the one for Kent featured the Kent Big Hair ordnance where woman have to have their hair teased out (and cops carry tape measures to check), men have to wear baseball caps and the domestic dispute was over changing the channel off of Matlock. They are on TH-cam and now I have the urge to go watch again.
I was stationed at Fort Lewis in the 80s, and my favorites were "Sluggy" and "Speedwalker Man".
@@PaulCoyJR What about Mind Your Manners With Billy Kwan? :)
The AD&D setting I fell in love with is Birthright. There is certainly room for urban adventures in there.
Of course, modern settings/games are a lot more open to those.
I barely ever ran any however, so I have nothing to add to this one. :)
"Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying - of course you don't."
Thank you for a fantastic set of suggestions for running a city and city campaign. This will have immediate benefit.
many years ago TSR had a series of Gazetteers for the not-advanced-D&D realm Mystara (i think) each was a book with maps of a country, and each country was a bit railroaded and less than 3 dimensional
at the time though, it was a huge step up in world building - the Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread were suddenly part of a bigger world
included info on main cities, history, etc. i found the maps alone created hours of content from wandering adventures
If you're running a city based game, or more importantly, a faction based game, one good resource is the 5e D&D Ravnica setting book. That book took the bonds, backgrounds, and faction renown systems from 2014 5e and fleshed them out with the ten guilds the Ravnica MtG card sets are known for. The book is full of tables for npcs you know within your guild, npcs you have ties to in other guilds, minion npcs you gather as you rank up in certain guilds, plots each guild might be pursuing, ways to make each guild an ally or an antagonist, and typical combat encounter tables for each guild.
The Ravnica book is full of DM tools that make running faction and city campaigns as simple as they can be. More importantly, the Ravnica specific references and tables are so clear and concise that you could easily use them as templates when designing similar tools for homebrew cities.
This was truly fascinating. Thank you, Seth!
I've been toying with the idea of running a Skaven campaign in Warhammer Fantasy rpg, where the PCs are Skaven.. And I keep running into the problems of jow to manage the warrens and caves they would live in.
Tjis is going to be hugely helpful in finally getting this underway
I've been running a City Campaign for 3 years now, and I love random encounters based on districts. I have a list of 20 vaguely described encounters, with 1 being very bad and 20 being a big benefit to the group. The list is the same throughout the City, but depending on the district, your die roll changes. If you are in the slums, you roll a d4- only the 4 worst encounters can happen. In the royal quarters you roll a d20+4 - the worst things can't happen here, but very good things might occur. Between that, all sorts of dice and several multipliers are present, corresponding to the "security level" of the district. However, I only use that chart as a last resort whenever there is a slog or things are dragging, which is rarely the case. Anyway, thanks Seth for another great video, especially because the topic is so near and dear to me. Greetings from Austria!
I'm literally planning/writing a city campaign, albeit fantasy, right now. This video couldn't have came at a better time.
I love this video! I've been dming for a long time, but haven't really done an urban campaign. I'm currently setting up a campaign that is almost exclusively going to be in one city, and I just happened to find this video. Wasn't even searching for ideas! Man, am I glad I watched! Some really great pieces of advice here.
Happy to be of help. Best of luck with the campaign
Love it, Seth. Great advice.
I've definitely fallen into the "too much information" GM bracket before. Where I have bombarded the players with so many places to visit and complexity that analysis paralysis sets in and they have no idea what to do or where to go!
Thank you so much Seth! I was kinda tiptoeing around the daunting premise of writting my mage city thingy, and this has given me a few structural things that really helped solidify a few things!
Dividing it into Neighbourhoods and deciding what well known events would be especially! Means I get a better picture of what kind of city this is I'm building :D
Cities Without Numbers deserves a quick shout out for being one of the best systems I've seen for handling city and faction design, and it's largely system agnostic in how it does it. It also has an interesting take on factions, in that there are at any one time several groups with something they are trying to do, and which the players can be hired to aid with or stop. Plot hooks the players reject or ignore get resolved with a which dice roll between session, and the success or failure of whatever other team got the job instead can have ramifications for the ongoing plot.
Dresden Files has it's own take on city design as a table wide effort, and introduced me to the concept of Faces. Every organization, theme, or major plot point has a Face; an NPC who's job it is to be a bridge between the players and that group/concept. That gives you a hook to start generating ideas for NPCs which I find very helpful.
ACKS needs to be mentioned for it's crunchy thieves guild rules, though it's not much of a political intrigue game; there's not much in investigation or social mechanics.
Seth this was awesome. Maybe not so much for OG refs like myself, but this kind of content really sustains the hobby. Please do more videos like this!
Thank you for this video! I've been running Waterdeep Dragon Heist for my friends and wife, and as my first campaign I've had so much trouble keeping everything together. This video is already helping me organize my notes and how to run the city itself. Keep up the great work Seth!
Perfect timing to help out with my fantasy city campaign. We just finished our session zero, and I ran this setting last year, but giving the city more flavor is what I wanted to do more this time around. Thanks a ton for the video.
When I got started with BRP in the 80s, I used the map from the original City State of the Invincible Overlord. We played in that city (and under it) for years. I miss urban games. I've run a bunch of Call of Cthulhu that takes place in a city, but the city hasn't been a key element. Really gotta work on that.
Wow! Fantastic video Seth! So many great ideas to chew on! That one block campaign sounds SO GOOD! So many ideas so little time, lol!
I think Terry Pratchet had a great way of creating a city. Every book had different main characters but lots of repeating background characters, in other words lots of different player characters but the same NPCs, it gave Ankh Morpork a sense of existence, a separate ongoing identity separate from the activities in the current book.
The Pope?
This is super helpful to me right now as my investigators are visiting Hlanith in the Dreamlands tonight. I probably don't have time to implement all this great information but I'll certainly remember some of it to try to give them a living city. Great stuff as always. Thanks!
I'm just coming to the end of a long (level 2-16) urban d&d game and it's nice to know I didn't make too many of the big mistakes.
One thing I've included to give the place a bit more sense of being alive (and give out some potential plot-hooks) was an in-universe town-crier, including comments on how the PCs actions were being perceived once they became more noteworthy (local publicans slay mad artificer to protect beer-garden!).
The "Palladium Fantasy: Old Ones" book is a great resource if you are looking for cities, towns, and forts; even if it's just as a reference to make your own maps.
I love making towns and cities. I think I was the first one in our group to add things like a tannery, a pottery shop, clothweavers, etc. Cthulhu by Gaslight is the best! I've got the second edition book I think. It is one of the best sourcebooks I've ever seen.
I've always liked urban campaigns. Maybe some short missions to the wilderness or farmlands but 95% city stuff. Vampire the Masquerade games are naturally urban-focused. But we had a fun one in homebrew steampunk setting and one modern xfiles/supernatural/deltagreen-styled one. But now that I think about it, we haven't had a city game in a fantasy setting.
11:00 the district parts is pretty important.
especially if you are doing shady stuff.
Shadowrun has them divided into AAA, A, B etc,. zones.
and if you do stuff there, depending on what zone you are in, the authorities show up faster and with more force.
shoot a firecracker in a AAA mega con zone=
pretty sure the tankpolice arrives in about 3 minutes.
shoot your bazooke in a D or E district?
well, that's probably just the cop from Die Hard, just coming out of a supermarket where he bought donuts.
i tend to use that format for all my campaigns. and it works pretty well - especially in a fantasy setting, where that lone cop can just as well be storehouse guard with a baton instead of a helebardier with helbard and 4 friends.
i was literally struggling with a city map for my campaign right now. Your vids are the best! Hugely underated!
Perfect timing as we're planning on running a Planescape adventure in future & a Discworld one too, both mostly focusing around the main cities. Thank you for this
I enjoy all of Seth Skorkowsky videos 🎉🎉🎉😂😂😊
Thanks for posting. This setting is challenging for me.
I'm currently working on a city campaign for Shadowdark that I hope to run soon so this video is extremely timely. I highly recommend the book Into the Cess and Citadel for advice on laying out and fleshing out districts and NPCs in your city, especially if you're running a fantasy game.
This came at the perfect time. Im currently finishing up some Cyberpunk, and hopefully will be diving into Traveller in the next couple of months. So this is a godsend
I think Cyberpunk is a better fit for city campaigns than Traveller.
I always have to watch your Running RPGs videos more than once because I keep on daydreaming about the changes I should be implementing to my own campaign while watching them. Great video as always !
I am a bit worried here, "daydreaming" and "should be" sound like good intentions that never become reality...
This definitely highlights a lot of what I didn't do in my one and only city campaign to date, but listening to this, it is still a hell of a lot of work. Maybe moreso than any other game. I guess there is no getting around that.
What a great video. It's filled with good advice. Advice that I have followed and advice that I will follow to make my urban environments more immersive for my players. Way to go, dude!
I’ve started using I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic at the start of my campaigns to let players decide what their city looks like and who all is in it. As the gm, I’ll set some parameters based on the tone of themes I want to go with, but beyond that, I save my creativity for prepping each session
Thanks Seth, just setting up post apocalypse Albuquerque for my Rage across New Mexico Werewolf campaign, this video was just what I needed. Thanks for all your great advice over the years.
Timing! I literally just started planning a city game this week. Thanks, Seth!
This wouldn’t work for all games, but The Between has a great take on making its Victorian London setting feel “breathing” by having short prompts the players expand on that describes something unrelated to the PCs happening in the city. The coolest part is that if the players expanding on the prompts manages to make a thematic connection with what their PCs are doing, they also get XP. So incentivized for cool fleshing out of the city!
Oh, this will at least be somewhat useful for my Brinkwood campaign.
There are multiple cities on the same island with connected factions so this should come in handy.
This comes at the right time; I just started a city adventure. This is great advice. I am playing ttrpg for 40 years, but mostly avoided city campaigns.
Best of luck with the city game.
best urban campaign I ever ran was in Glantri City for BECMI. Gaz3 was the best D&D setting book for good reason.
running one in Arkham/M.U. right now for my wife. Having a LOT of fun fleshing out the town (hard to call it a city really lol)
Thanks, Seth. This has given me the impetus to redesign Dragonlake, my underdark city for d&d. Rebuilding it along these guidelines should work.
Great topic. I love urban campaigns. Leaving blank areas is very important
Me too! I honestly like them better than getting out in the wilderness.
Excellent advice as usual!
I've been considering running a Planescape campaign (factions galore!), and that is largely all urban (with 5'ish districts) in Sigil, and more in the Gate Towns.
Definitely need those landmark hubs, zones, and territories to build around - the party is probably gonna go beyond their home turf.
Certainly leave room for growth. It can be fun when a PC takes a bit of narrative agency and tells of a relative's house (in some district on some street) where they'll be safe for the night. Applies to locations and some NPCs.
Connecting the PCs and NPCs to the City, and the City to the PCs and the NPCs, can absolutely bring it all to life.
Great vid, and timely as I have a group of adventurers visit their first big city. Thanks!
Thanks for the ideas Seth! I was wondering lately how to make a city feel lived in or dynamic. I made 20 random encounters but wasn't sure when to trigger them or how to tackle exploration. Now I'll be making more for every district of Waterdeep because my goal is to run the Alexandrian Remix of Waterdeep Dragon Heist next year. So basically an urbancrawl with heists, intrigue/noir and pulp action elements.
"Random" is almost always a bad approach to make places "feel alive".
It is far better to come up with events triggered by what has happened.
This "A" caused "B", is what makes it feel alive. (Things have consequences!)
This is exaclty what I needed. I am going to be running a game where the players all small scale delinquints in a coastal town in georgian and this gives me so many ideas. Thank You Seth!
I have the feeling that something fishy will be going on in that coastal town...!
I'm just about to run a City campaign, so this video is very timely.
This is a relevant and useful topic for me! I've been procrastinating on fleshing out the cities in my setting (bronze age desert) and I needed the kick
Happy to help.
I usually like urban campaigns myself (I prefer starfinder over d&d) so this is gonna be excellent for me. Especially since Traveller is coming to Brazil
I'm surprised they hadn't released in Brazil by now.
@SSkorkowsky yeah, the catase (brazilian kickstarter) launched just eight months and ended like three
“Aw, my character just bought tickets to that stadium concert.” LOL. I like the idea that some game offers a prestige score you can improve by buying concert tickets.
Maps? Did you say maps?! Maps and Dice are single handedly my two biggest vices. Many a time I nearly died because my DM didn't explain the location well enough or I didn't understand it.
Hence why my maps can have a weird level of detail put in them. Not autistic enough that I have the total geographic details worked out, street names, etc but enough that I get a world map designed or a city with significant information.
The city for my Call of Kidthulhu game that doubles as a sort of basis of idea for my Lovecraftian/Hunter: The Reckoning inspired world has entire districts and locations made. And I am slowly but surely creating district maps for it. I might not be a great map maker but I am at least a semi-serious one when it comes to my fun
An important aspect I have is who holds various aspects of power:
Financial (banks, churches, nobles)
martial (militia, police, gangs)
Technological (guilds, craftswomen, engineers)
Legal (magistrate, guilds, nobles, church)
Magical (guilds, nobles, mercs)
social (nobles, church, guilds)
this will often dictate who the players will encounter and why.
I've been formulating a monster of the week investigation campaign in a Warhammer Fantasy city, so I'll have to keep these tips in mind.
New Seth video? HOLD EVERYTHING I am busy the next 24 minutes...
I’m super depressed today in this swung my mood a little bit
Agreed. This video was great, so I felt obligated to do the like and comment to help with the algorithm
Excellent video, Seth! This is going to help massively for my next module
All my campaigns take place in the same urban setting, wither I’m running 5e or Call of Cthulhu.
It allows for some epic moments, when the “Artifact” in an Cthulhu auction, is an idol or magic item the players were given in the 5e campaign centuries/millennia earlier.
The one thing I keep forgetting about moving between neighbourhoods in my Cyberpunk campaign is the sense of entering some one else's area. Gangers seeing what you're up to on their turf, campus police hustling your shabby edgerunners off the quad, 'Border Patrol' solos being suspicious of you as you are trying to return home from a job in the combat zone.
Do not forget people who want to sell stuff!
"Ah! Finally! You figured out where the good stuff is sold. Here! Of course."
Just what I needed, on the collapse of my first campaign I realized I needed to run in a smaller scope to keep things detailed so my setting I’m working on has only 3 populated locations. This will help a ton to run them as detailed and as engaging as possible.
A lot does depend on the system. Particularly in terms of conflict resolution.
I like cities to have lots of reccuring NPCs, and for them to have direct and indirect conflict with the player characters. In games like D&D "conflict" is kind of designed to be resolved by combat. And D&D combat is deadly... the aim is to reduce an opponents health bar to zero and leaving them dead on the floor. If the DM hand waves that by having villains survive those sort of encounter, it becomes inevitable that after a few times a player is going to say, "How is this happening and why can't WE do that?"
I'm currently running a Cthulhu campaign and recent months have been all around Arkham, and my "Shoot first, ask questions if we remember..." D&D group are now VERY careful about provoking anyone after a couple of gunfights left a couple of Investigators in hospital for a few weeks. (7E rules are a lot more forgiving in terms of players dying from a couple of gunshot wounds.) They've had a couple of major run-ins with New York mobsters, but are keen not to make a mess on their own doorstep.
The same players have played a D&D campaign where they were happy to break into buildings without a plan, or antagonise a city official, because they have enough magic to murder someone and cover their tracks. Their actions directly led to their enemies effectively dropping a cliffside onto the city they live in, killing hundreds of locals, and their response was to hit back harder! In Arkham they politely knock on doors, and only seem to ever use lockpicking type activities if they are going out of town.
Mythras is a fantastic game system for city campaigns. Combat is fast and rarely results in death unless you delberately kill an opponent. This means you can have a duel in the street, beat someone, or have them beat you, and both characters survive, one may be nursing a serious wound, or a very severly bruised ego and reputation, and this makes for great story opportunities. The "Fioracitta" setting is essentially a Rennaissance City-State campaign. It's part of the BRP family tree, so system is similar to Runequest/Call of Cthulhu, but has the best combat system I've come across.
I can't wait for Cthulhu by Gaslight. my favourite setting for my favourite game. FINALLY getting the 7E treatment. I've been working on a mini campaign since I heard it was coming out, leaving a few gaps and spaces for some of the Exploration and Weird Science rules, and hoping to publish it on Miskatonic Repository sometime in the new year. Though I may need to wait for the Keepers Guide to make sure everything ties in mechanically.
As someone who has been studying Victorian London and Jack The Ripper in particular for over 35 years, I am really looking forward to getting back into it.
Anyone wanting to run the game in or around the East End/Whitechapel area of London during that period should read "People Of the Abyss" by Jack London. It's far and away the best "source book" that exists for that area in that period.
Presumably you've read Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell - how would you say that compares to People of the Abyss?
Perfect timing my first cyberpunk red campaign starts in 3 weeks. Thanks Seth!
I've been reading the Over the Edge 2nd ed books before bed lately. Yes, having some odd dreams! But more relevant is that it is amazing how much the city has been developed as a living entity. So many things that I want to transplant into other campaign settings as a little bit of the odd.
Great video Seth. I’ll be watching this one a few more times, for sure