Great GM - Creating awesome unique cities in your role playing game - Game Master Tips GMTips

[Music] hello and welcome to this episode of house it'd be a great GM well in today's episode as per a request on the channel and one of the comments we're looking at how to create cities and how to make them unique in your world now behind me you can see I've got this map of brassia hanging up here and racks here of course is the fantasy world that I have created over many many years with the aid of my players running around and exploring it now brassia features hundreds of cities I think at last count there are about a hundred and twenty-three of them and each one of those cities is as unique as the rest so how do you make cities unique within your own personal campaign setting and how do you make cities and existing modules that much more interesting now every city that you would visit here on earth or almost every city anyway is different from the next and there are many factors which make up that difference architectural II geographically the people who populated all kinds of things so I've jotted down the five areas that I look at when developing a or when developing a city on the fly because oftentimes my pcs will walk into a city and go we're going there rora stack what happens in Aurora star I don't know I've never been to rora stuff before it's a big world and my players just never got there so how do I make raw roster as different from say kin tada or Berlocq steak perhaps how do I make those cities different from one another or even if I go all the way over here go Toa how do I make that different from the other ones so it's all about looking at things and very first thing I look at is what was the reason for the city in the first place what was the reason for the city now our cities generally start off as villages which slowly grow up into little towns and then one day they go to graduation ceremony and they get to turned into a city and then eventually they get turned into a mega droppers megalopolis mega city whatever you want to call it one day they grow up to become one of those things but generally speaking cities are vast spaces that contain a significant portion of the population now this of course is entirely up to you as to how many it contains but generally it's a hundred thousand or more at least that's what I remember reading once very long ago so you look at the reason for the city was the city designed to supply something is it a breadbasket city do they grow crops around the city do they fish a lot do they mine do they have timber what resource does the city supply if any because the city that supplies something is only one type of city there many other types which I'll go through shortly so what is the supply of the city and doesn't supply anything if it does supply something then the cities usually are skewed towards that so there are cities where logging has always been important and the logging was done on the river so there's large amounts of docks for logs to docket and sawmills close to the rivers and the mentality of the people is that the river is the lifeblood and without it they wouldn't survive same goes for people who are heavily involved in fishing on those rivers coastal cities have a very strong ocean based focus depending on whether they supply magnificent catches of fish or not there are plenty of coastal cities who have nothing to do with fishing and there are reasons for that as well so does it supply something was it a midpoint so there are cities such as say here sang chess if you can just see it at the top of the picture which is right in the middle of the country and is right between Sahara and the north and Sheth Sheva in the south so Sheth said haha chef Sansa in the South is traveling north arguably and Chang's chess is just in the middle it's a mid point it doesn't supply anything it doesn't have vast resources that it can generate the only thing it can supply is water on route as well as bedding and accommodation so it becomes more of a resupply resort space than a industry-based space and that's a very big differentiate if you think of certain cities and I can think of many within South Africa that grew up to be a midpoint on a long journey and now those journeys are no longer taking long because of highways and flying and that sort of thing those towns those cities have devolved down into towns and their prospects of once being these mega spaces have faded into history they have now become these little spaces where people carry out their lives in a fairly mundane fashion and continue to do so as opposed to growing and that kind of thing so is it a midpoint is it something that developed at a crossroads and it's just with people it was an inn that started it and then the in slowly spurned more little communities around the blacksmith suddenly set up shop and then a seamstress and then suddenly there's a church that's been built and hand and hand and so the evolution of the city is based generally on its function then finally there are some cities and predominantly in the medieval kind of setting there are some cities that are purely built for defense now unfortunately on this particular map you can't see all across - Brax here up here this continent that's lost in the folds but right there where my finger is there is a castle known as Grafton keep which straddles a mountain range from one side of the continents to the other Grafton keep was built as a choke point it defends the the past quite literally but over time a community started to grow blacksmiths were needed Fletcher's were needed Cartwright's were needed all kinds of people were needed and they all needed loving and caring for and religion and study etc etc so those for me are the three areas I look for was it built for supply was a built for defense or was it built as a midpoint and that will help to determine the character of the town is that an industrious town as a defensive town or is it a enjoyment town basically a place of respite a place of merriment and a place of shelter from the dark now another thing to look at and you could argue that these things are interchangeable in terms of order and they are what inspires the other is geography what is the geography say if we look here we've got phenomenal mountain ranges all captain's snow over here we've got forests over here this island is just forest there's no mountains whatsoever over here there's a volcano as well as over here we've got lights planes with a nice big river flowing through it I don't know if you can see them as well as then lots of fractured little islands if we move over of course we get to the dwarvish territories in my world anyway and that's very few mountains lots of planes lots of forests lots of very big rivers how does that geography impact the city well a city that's in the sand is a very different type of city to the one that is obviously in a plain one that's in a forest is different one that's in a mountain and how those are different is entirely up to you although mountainous cities tend to have more staircases plane cities tend to be more sprawling simply because they have the room with which to expand desert cities tend to be more closed in so that the sand doesn't get in and of course snow cities tend to be clustered together and very very dome-like so that the wind blows over it and all the heat is kept inside that kind of idea and of course forest cities either consuming the forest or are built into the forest in which case the scale is lost amongst the trees and they start to work up the trees rather than away from each other for again for various reasons the safe city a defensive City of course is going to have a major dominating keep over the whole thing that looks down with city walls perhaps a trading city of merriment City might not have walls because well why would you want to attack you come for dinner and the rest and of course the supplier cities might originally have had to keep built somewhere to protect the flock or the grain or whatever it is but have grown so large with the number of workers that are required for supply etc etc that there are sprawling so we're getting some very interesting imagery here so I like to use the geography to help me to envisage the town so its purpose supply defense etc it gives me the the style of the town if you like then the geography helps to inspire me so that I can see the city in my mind because that always helps me when I'm describing it to my players if I can close my eyes and physically see the city set amongst the mountains and I'm sort of thinking of maybe a Nepalese type structure Nepal and those monks building into the sides there of the the Himalayas and things I started to describe it in that manner and it makes life a lot easier than trying to come up with something from the ground level now geography also talks to what resources are available now if we say look at the dwarves for example is the dwarves for example there's very little mountain range so that implies perhaps that stone might be a problem over here backwards met and that stone might be a problem there's lots of woods so maybe the dwarves focus for them to be using a lot of wood the ones of course that are in the mountains will use more stone that goes for most all races as a multi-species world even as a singular species world we use whatever resources are available to construct our buildings now it is the rare occasion that we will import materials from hundreds of miles away but generally speaking we use the local resources if there's lots of stone we use stone if there's lots of wood we use wood if there's not a lot of stone or wood we use wattle and daub or thatch mud those kind of things to construct our buildings so it's a mother of a necessity Nessa Nessa T as the mother of all invention another thing to look at in terms of geography is the labor that is available now if there's slavery then that problem is to a large degree solved but generally speaking one must look at the local natives and go well this area is very heavily populated fantastic so how and where do those people live and what kind of labour do they contribute to this city what do they live off of if you have this major city in the middle of a completely deserted space where does the food come from to feed all of those people where are the resources come from so that's an important question in terms of geography this city and I can never pronounce Shang Shang chess where does its supply come from where does all of the food come from it's surrounded by desert completely surrounded by desert in all directions for at least 500 miles in every direction there's nothing there so that becomes a central focus of the city it also allows you as the GM to then have supply problems the city starts starving maybe it starts getting covered up by sand who knows the geography can lead you down many many parts the ruling Lord or lady of the city what is she like is she benevolent is she malevolent is she greedy is she for the people as she against the people is she part of the community or aloof where does the Lord of the city where do they feature within this space and that will help determine the mood of your city if the Lord is a gregarious individual who helps load hay wagons and is affable and approachable that city is going to have a very different tone a very different mood to one where the lady of the keep is aloof and has one visitor a year and allows her chamberlain's and stewards and things to run around and organize and manage everything on her behalf alternatively a lord who likes to go out hunting villagers at night for sport is again going to generate a very different mood so that's something to bear in mind every religious leader for example will ensure that there is a lot of religious doctrine and space within the city and may favor priests over any other class so the Lord is very very important to determine early on in your city design what their role is and how it will affect the mood of the city the wealth of the city is the city rich is it surviving or is it starving is it struggling is it a poor City now again this just helps to determine the feeling that the PCs get when they enter into town it also allows you to determine whether those magical items that they're hunting down whether the mundane items that they're hunting down are available you walk into the city the gates are in disrepair there's mud everywhere and a general malaise it's about the people hundreds flock to you as you walk in begging for bread as they haven't eaten in days and they're cadaverous bodies can be seen all over the place what little labor you can hear is the occasional bang of a blacksmith's hammer though weak with hunger and the sound of a lone horse being slaughtered for food this is the city of Aachen more very bleak very very bleak space I haven't described the structures the geography the Lords mentality I've described the wealth of the city and what a different type of city it is to perhaps one where as you walk in brightly colored bunting hangings from the gate keep and the guards have all got Garland's of flowers wreathed in their helmets they smile and chair you and as that many others all flocking into the main gates of the city which have flung open wide allowing all kinds of traders and merchants to wander in freely this is a place of merriment and mirth very very different from Alcon war whatever so the wealth of the city is very very important in determining the the tone style the feeling that one gets from arriving in the city and the importance that the PCs have if they arrive with great amounts of gold and they start spending it everywhere there is going to be a lot of news that these very rich people have arrived and aren't just freely spending cash that means there's lots of people who are going to want to get that cash from them in a rich City well now in cares of you're spending three or four gold that's chump change in comparison to what the rest are spending so yeah you can get a low class accommodation for that then something that I like to add in and I think this is important especially in science fiction kind of cities but in general in most cities I add in oddities now oddities come in three different forms as far as I'm concerned one is the physical so structures buildings is there a tower that floats upside down is there a bottomless pit is there an arena where gladiators fight dragons what is the oddity about the city what makes the city just that much different from any other city the oddity of my home city here in Johannesburg is that we have more trees than anywhere else on earth as a matter of fact there are more trees in the city than there are inhabitants by a very small number we have seven or eight million trees and as population that's just under that also the trees that we have are Jacaranda trees and there are over seventy thousand of those scattered around the city and they blossom a phenomenal purple at the beginning of September somewhere around there and that phenomenal purple blossom lasts for a month and then it drops onto the ground it becomes this ridiculously disgusting brown sludge which is as slippery as you can possibly imagine and every year there are many many many people admitted to hospital for broken bits having slipped on the sludge of this brown flour which once was beautiful purple so there is a blessing and there is a curse that comes with those particular trees so that is an oddity of the city that one could use to describe the city in a certain way that's a physical oddity another oddity might very well be a spiritual oddity in terms of the act that the city commits does it periodically grab a person from the street and set them on fire in a public display of emotion does it have slaves does it abhor slaves does it like certain types of races but not others is there something going on as their festivals are their celebrations Rome for example had a celebration for 118 days that lasted with gluttonous festivities and wine drinking in back an alien activity what a wonderful place to be well depending on whether you like parties or not so the idea of acts physical acts is something that could be an oddity and then finally one looks at the spirt remember that was a sort of a spiritual act the act then one looks at legal acts at acts and laws are there's some strange laws in place like you can't use a longsword in public or you only eat with fork you know use a knife perhaps you only eat with your hands there's a culture that's in the one city that I grew up in using your hands to eat is considered the normal way and using a knife and fork is considered the most bizarre thing on planet earth and they thoroughly encouraged me to try and use my hands it was a custom that I just couldn't get used to so I have to stick with an avenue for anyway it is the idea of creating this uniqueness now we haven't touched on many other aspects which will make your city unique the people for example the elvish City as opposed to a drow City as opposed to a dwarvish City now we've all got preconceived ideas thanks to the plethora of illustrations and computer games and books and movies and things that are terrors that dwarves have a square root architecture elves generally seem to have this wooded type of ethereal architecture and humans have the medieval architecture that we're all used to that won't help you in creating two different elvish cities so the oddities allow you to separate an Alberta to you from another over city for example question which is over here it's just just the tip there quickly christen that elvish city is known as the city of Secrets and is built in traditional elver style there are a series I think it's five towers that are circumnavigate a central tower which lives the dow AI the dow AI is the ruler of the city within my elvish space the dow AI overlooks the other five and the other five are the houses that are responsible for different aspects of the city but within the city itself there are multitudes of races and people's going about their business and there's a harbour that runs right into the center of the city and then allows everyone to distribute out that actually sits underneath the tower of the dow AI so that he can look down over the ships and ensure that what's happening is all legal and aboveboard however secrets are the preference in terms of currency within the city of Quetta those secrets have very little value outside of quittin but within quittin the houses all want to know what the other houses are doing and there's all sorts of wonderful wonderful exchanges or I'll give you five silver review tell me what that chambermaid emptied out this morning and liked it it speaks to the health of the occupant doesn't it and those kind of secrets and everything else that goes with it and of course there's a vast underground network and subsequently my players discovered that there was an internment silver dragon beneath the city that was being used by the Dahlia as a source of information and that kind of thing what that determined was that every building that you walked into had all kinds of magical spells cast upon it zones of truth true seeing all that kind of stuff to make sure that there weren't that many secrets on the person asking questions as well as the person answering them that's an oddity to me and that's what makes it unique from say another city such as let's say here Deathwing days when we know supplies most of the fish to the elvish Empire and as a result has a strong fishing focus but it does also the South Seas Harbor for the elvish Navy and as a result there's a strong presence there of the military of the empire of a thin vassal my elvish Empire anyway I hope this has given you some insight into how to create cities even on the fly that have got a unique personality by just looking there's five different little categories and answering one or two questions from each or just one or two questions from one category will give you sufficient information to create a rather unique space and of course drawing on your own experience as to the cities and villages and towns and things that you have visitors now of course this also propagates down into villages and towns they're just on a much smaller scale and you don't necessarily need to answer all of those questions villagers might just be there because they tend the fields and as a result as small little community has grown up but they will still have their own little oddities every village that I've ever visited regardless of just how small or how big it is has got something that makes it odd to the rest of the world until next time I wish you and yours the happiest of gaming [Music]

Channel: How to be a Great GM

Views: 175,866

Keywords: dnd 5e, dungeon masters guide, Dungeon master tips, Game master review, Dungeon building, World building, Dnd gm tips, Game master toolkit, dnd, d&d, dnd gm tips, game master tips, Great game master, Tabletop Roleplaying, GM, How to GM, Roleplaying demo, How to be a great game master, Game Master, Great Game Mastering, How to, How to be a great dungeon master, DM Tips, Dungeon Master, RPG, Game Master Tips, Dungeon Master Tips, GMing Tips, DMing Tips

Id: XetdfyDlkzc

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2017