Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 198 - Realistic Cities Part 2

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

Preparing to run an entire adventure out of or inside a city can appear to be a daunting task.  With a little preparation and some thought ahead of time, you can run an adventure that never has to leave the city walls.   #dnd #pf2e #DMTips #Pathfinder #CityAdventures #AdventureDesign   Resources: Drop Dice Build Cities - https://arcaneeye.com/all/dnd-cities-guide/   Dael Kingsmill’s SPERM principle - https://youtu.be/sJd6g--Ok_A?si=G-PsffcBYYpTLRNl   More city design goodness:  https://makeaskillcheck.com/creating-towns-for-dms/ Top Tips for creating towns and cities:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJd6g--Ok_A

This week on the Taking 20 Podcast. Sometimes these market districts are pop-up areas in parts of town that are more remote from where the shop actually is. So it allows the shop to carry inventory to a remote location and have maybe their apprentice or junior member of that particular shop selling on their behalf. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 198, part two of Making Realistic Settlements, this time focusing on whole adventures inside cities. I want to thank this week's sponsor, 3D Crafts and Curios. Head over to 3D Crafts and Curios on Etsy

and check out their amazing products they have for sale at their store. Search for 3D Crafts and Curios on Etsy or follow the link from his Instagram. As a reminder, we have a contest going on where the winner will be revealed during episode 200. That's two weeks from now. Send me up to 10 three-bullet NPCs to contest at taking20podcast.com for a chance to win three gorgeous 3D printed mugs. Brenton over at 3D Crafts and Curios has been so generous with his time and supporting the channel, so please follow 3D Crafts and Curios on Instagram for an additional five chances to win. Frankly, I've been very disappointed on how few entries I've gotten so far,

so if you want what looks like to be a great chance at winning three beautiful 3D printed mugs, please send me some three-bullet NPCs. I promise it doesn't sign you up for a newsletter and I don't send out emails begging for donations or anything like that. By the way, I've uploaded images of some of the mugs that are made by 3D Crafts and Curios to Instagram. Go check out my Instagram because they are intricate and gorgeous. The mug can securely hold two sizes of cans or a bottle. Please send me some NPCs. I'd love for you to take home three of these bad boys. Thank you again, Brenton, for sponsoring the giveaway and for sponsoring the podcast. For those of you who aren't interested in winning those mugs, but if you'd like to purchase something else from 3D Crafts and Curios, you can use the

coupon code TAKING20 to get 20% off your order through the end of the year. Buy some awesome 3D printed items to show off at your gaming table. I also want to thank Teddy Hayward for his generous donation to the podcast. Teddy donated a few weeks ago and I wasn't sure if he wanted his name used on the podcast. We've emailed a few times and he foolishly let me put his name out there. So Teddy, thank you so much for your donation to the podcast. I greatly appreciate your support. I also want to thank our sponsor, Soft Drinks.

Pop, soda, coke, whatever you call them. Look, I know they can be bad for you, but at least they let you have it in the can. Do you enjoy my little podcast? If so, I'd like to ask you to help me spread the word about it. If you like an episode, please link to it on social media or tell your gaming friends about it. I'd love to see the podcast continue to grow well into 2024 and beyond, but I'll need your help to do it, so please share on social media if you enjoy the episode.

If you thought last episode felt rushed, you would actually be right. I've only been doing this for 198 episodes now, so you'd think I'd know how to write just enough to fill 20 minutes of time, but no, your idiot host still can't figure it out. I started out going quickly to try to get everything covered, but at about the 14 minute mark, you can hear my spirit break and you hear me slow down because I had resigned myself to the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to cover everything. So, since I was a bit too verbose in my prep and in my writing, the episode is stretched to two weeks. Sorry about that. For

those who wanted something different, I promise something new is coming next week. Stay tuned to the end to find out what that is. For those who missed last week's episode, what are you doing? It's right there in the downloads. Look, it's probably right above or below this one, depending on how you have it sorted. Go, go, go, listen to it. In episode 197, I talked about some brief tips for running towns that would be brief stopovers for your PCs and what minimal information I'd have prepared and maybe just a quest or so where they can pick up while they're there. I went on to discuss cities that would be quest hubs. I talked about the additional prep work I do for these cities that will play a part in an adventure for an extended period of time. I talked about Dale Kingsmill's sperm principle when it comes to cities, the social, political,

economic, religious, and military aspects of a city to consider. Again, if you haven't listened to that episode, I strongly encourage you to do so before listening to this one, because this one builds off those topics. Do you have to go into this depth for each city? No, absolutely not. But I'll usually have at least one sentence for all five aspects at a minimum, and may even flesh out the details to a paragraph for each. For those of you who have already listened, I'm sure you're thinking, paragraph for each. For those of you who have already listened, I'm sure you're thinking, Jeremy, that's a lot of work for a city. I'm glad there's nothing else I have to do if it's going to be a major source of the adventure. Well, actually, if the city is going to be the main source of the adventure, besides all the above planning I've mentioned, there are a few other things that I

would plan out since the city is going to be a major part. It is going to be effectively a character in your adventure. I would definitely plan out some of the key locations in the city that the PCs will or likely will go to, like taverns or inns. I talked about this last week, but I would have more than one ready to go. Honestly, I usually prep about one to two nice taverns where the upper crust or middle class can rub elbows, meet, have conversations, and make deals that shape the fates of many. You know, the room where it happens kind of place, where warehouse owners and freebooting ship captains, entrepreneurs, suppliers, merchants,

and their representatives can get a drink, some food, and talk quietly about how they're all going to get rich. For each tavern, I'd have a brief description of the place, the staff NPCs, maybe kind of partially fleshed out, and maybe a list of possible visitors to the establishment who could be there when the PCs arrive. Don't go crazy, but just like one or two, maybe up to three bullets about each NPC

in case the PCs take a shine to the blue dragonborn with a mouth scar and the morning star on his hip. Because players, I'm going to fill you in on a little secret. A lot of the times when we're describing the NPCs in taverns, we're improvising. And you PCs will latch onto one piece of the description and make it your character's life mission to become friends with the scarred blue dragonborn because they have a white cat curled up asleep in their upturned hat in front of them. See? See? Some of you just went, aww, and want to get to know this dragonborn a little bit better, and mother f***, I'm gonna need a name and a backstory and why she's there and a motivation, and if we roleplay her surly,

that just makes you want to know her more because the cat obviously loves her, so why wouldn't you? Damn. Where did I go just now? Nice places, like the Fletcher's Flight, the Bishop's Landing, the Dowager's Dimitas. Places where there is a standard to enter and probably security at the door to enforce minimum appearance requirements if you want to go that far with the location. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. enforce minimum appearance requirements if you want to go that far with the location. Ma'am, a neck covering such as a tie, an ascot, or a neckerchief is required here at the Footman's Chalice. We are happy to loan you one to wear, but we will insist you stay for dinner. Dancing

lights cavort around the room, keeping even the remotest of corners well lit, so you begrudgingly accept your ascot and sit down at a table. Besides the one to two nice taverns I mentioned, I usually come up with one to two, let's just say, slightly less reputable, slightly rougher places where the common folk can meet and eat. These are the people who just got off work and are going to work or on lunch break or whatever. They could be the sots, the drunkards you spend all day there. Some place for the mass of us non-rabble-rousing, keep-your-head-down types to get some food and drink when we just don't feel like cooking. Hey, let's go to the Nixie and Pixie and get some fish tonight.

U-Enter has a beautiful tapestry behind the bar that protects the finer liqueurs behind it. It's been said that the tapestry is enchanted and will animate to put out any fires that start in the place. No one's been able to test that theory because Sternwig the half-ogre bouncer clobbers anyone trying to set anything on fire. But the food's good and Sternwig's an alright chap who lately has taken up pottery as a hobby. And of course you'll need one to two just pure dive bars where most of the clientele may not be on the right side of the law. And the place may even be a front for illegal activity or an underground group, or maybe just a place known by such people as a place to go when you're down on your luck,

or looking to prey on people who are desperate. The Lazy Durgar is a good place to go if you need something fenced, looking to buy something on the cheap, or find out someone who knows a guy, who knows a gal, who knows an orc, if you know what I'm saying. The floor is always dusty, but the tables are relatively clean, and there are plenty of dark booths and deep corners where the sound just seems to die. One thing to consider. The quality of the food and drink served at a place does not have to correspond with the type of place it is. Not all dive bars serve shit food.

Some of the best food I've had in my life were in places you looked like you needed to be armed to go in. I had a friend in Iowa one time, and he took me to a place, I think it was called the Litterdale Country Store if I remember right. I checked, and it's closed, and they just do catering now but this place was run out of an old gas station at the time. You could see where the gas pumps used to be and it was in the middle of nowhere kind of a grimy little barely lit parking lot. It didn't look like the cleanest place in the world and I really had my reservations but the food was off the charts good. I had a steak that was so big it hung off the plate on three sides, and the side dishes were in bowls balanced on top of the steak when they brought it to you.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've moved since then. I live in North Alabama, and within five miles of where I'm sitting, there are nationally award-winning barbecue and pizza places that may look a little rough on the outside but have fantastic food. And on the other hand but have fantastic food. And on the other hand, I've been to some beautiful restaurants with white tablecloths and everything just so in Seattle and St. Louis and Chicago, where the food was... And don't get me started on Chicago deep dish pizza. It's not pizza. It's tomato sauce in a

bread bowl with toppings floating in it. I do realize that some of you may disagree with me about my deep dish pizza take, and that's your favorite. Hey, I've got no problem with that. You enjoy your hot tub pie machine while I enjoy my pizza where I can see the toppings and eat it without risk of drowning. Mix up the food quality, drink quality, and the quality of the establishment, and if you need inspiration, look to real-world restaurants. Like meh quality place with meh quality food?

Think Applebee's. Oh, hopefully that doesn't start a lawsuit. Fun food that tastes better than it should, but there's a chance you're gonna get a chair thrown at you? Waffle House. A place with fine dining and better food? Think of any place you've been where there's wine glasses, the white tablecloths. You're given different colored napkins for your lap depending on whether you're wearing dark pants or light. Those types of places. I can hear you now. Jeremy, that seems like a lot of work. I'll

agree. And I'll just remind you that this level of work really is only required if the PCs are spending considerable time in a city. And here's the kicker. You do all the work on taverns ahead of time and just have them ready to pull out of your notebook whenever you need it. I have a Google Doc with three or four taverns in it at any one time. When the PCs get a new one, I open the doc, pull out the one that I need, and they get ready to meet Mary Beth Blood Eye, a retired gnome adventurer who won't tell anyone why the left eye is the color of an unlit ruby. When asked about it, she'll ask for a silver to tell the tale and never tells the same tale twice. Everyone gets a slightly different story.

She owns the Tomlinson Arms and the bar has been retrofit to allow her to serve small and medium-sized creatures from behind the bar. It's said that one person who tried to grab her lost their fingers to her dagger, so you better be polite and you call her Ms. Marybeth, and she'll tell you the town gossip for good-paying customers, or if you can slip her some gold on the down low. Let's move on to shops. There needs to be places for the party to buy and sell shit. You can vary up the types and quality of shops as well as the inventory and quality of the inventory. But even in towns where supporting adventurers is relatively rare, there'd at least be a general store where you could buy pots, pans, home goods, spoons, things common folk generally want to have at their house. Even in these towns, these stores would likely have arrows and daggers

and scythes and pitchforks and common weapons that every farm worker would possibly need, as well as some simple weapons people may need to chase off stray coyotes or young swamp bully wugs or looking to make names for themselves. It's a good idea to have an idea of the inventory, but honestly, the way I handle it, most common stuff, I just hand wave and say, yeah, okay, you can find pitons and backpacks and belt pouches and arrows and sling bullets and oxygen canister refills or whatever is so common in the gaming world that someone's bound to have it for sale. Yeah, they can find it without any interaction with a DM or roleplay required for purchase at the standard amount. Let's just move on.

Also, for those common items, I never haggle. The price difference is going to be negligible anyway. Paying one gold versus one gold and one silver for something isn't worth 20 minutes of haggling at the table. Don't role play that mess. Just tell them the owner doesn't haggle. Here's the price. Take it or leave it. Rare and powerful magic items? Yeah, that's not hand-waved. When I generate a town, I usually generate a list of items that are definitely available somewhere in town, almost like it's a hoard of treasure. And you know what? Dealing with town shops is smelling like an episode all its own,

so I'm going to hold all the rest of my thoughts about them until I have time to cover it properly. But that being said, come up with at least a general goods store, someplace to buy and sell weapons and armor, an alchemy or potion shop, maybe a place to buy books and scrolls, and maybe any specialty shops where they buy, I don't know, rare herbs or monster body parts. After all, you never know when you'll need a good sturge spleen. And of course, you'll need to create any adventure-specific locations

that could feature in any quests you plan on giving the PCs in the city. Have a map, some NPCs, and the contents of the location ready to go so that when they descend into the sewers, you're ready with the map and the strange goings-on in the sewers under the town of Cherryton. If the PCs are going to be spending any time there, you'll also need a map or at least a rough layout of what the city looks like, whether it's a small elven village or the major metropolis of an entire region. The good news is, there's lots of ways to create maps of a city. You could draw it by hand. Nothing wrong with that, and you can make each city feel unique by adding your own touches. Me, I can't do that. I've tried. I pull out the hand-drawn maps and the rest of the table looks at me like

I'm a cat that's just brought a dead rat to their doorstep. My maps are, let's just say, not very pretty, so I tend not to hand draw. However, hopefully your hand-drawn map skills are much better than mine and this would be an option for you. Another option are pre-built maps that you can find online. You can search for images of the size of city that you need and use that in your home game. Alternatively, you can support a creator by buying one of their city maps. I found most of the map curators I follow are surprisingly cheap, and some even offer versions of their map that are already built for the VTT of your choice, like Foundry or Roll20 or whatever you use. It's a good option if you have a few dollars to throw their way, and by that I literally mean a few dollars. Some even offer free versions of their

map and just charge you a couple of bucks for versions at a different time of the day or night with different ground cover like autumn leaves versus winter snows and that type of thing. As a small content creator myself, I encourage everyone to support other creators out there. Another thing you could do is borrow cities from adventures that you own. Now, I wouldn't do this if I were producing commercial content, but for my home game, sure. I've borrowed maps from Pathfinder Adventures for a 5e game and vice versa. I've even used a town map from an advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventure for a game a few months ago. Another thing that you can do is you could use an online town map generator, and there are a ton of them. Pick your favorite. FantasyTownGenerator.com, DonJohn, WhatAbout.itch.io,

Kassoon.com, and a metric farkton of others. Some of them even generate shops, NPCs, and events to liven up their time in the city. Last method I want to talk about of generating maps is the dice drop method. If you've never heard of this, you make a map by picking up a handful of dice and dropping it onto a piece of paper. I've done this a few times when I needed to make a city map fast and either I wasn't online or connectivity was very slow. fast and either I wasn't online or connectivity was very slow. In short, the type of die that lands and the number that's on that die tells you what type of city feature is at that location. There's no way to describe this process very well in podcast format, so in the resources of the episode, I'm going to include a link to a website called the Arcane Eye that has a good tutorial on

dice drop maps. Even if you never use it, it's a neat skill to have in your back pocket just in case. Now I alluded to this in last week's episode, but if the city has grown to say town size or bigger, you'll almost certainly have districts in the city that are focused on one aspect of life. Think about the closest big town to where you are right now. Probably has one or more residential areas, a commercial area or two, and probably a few industrial areas that cater to large businesses. Why wouldn't your city of Cheriton or Port Royal be the same? The technology may be different, the occupants of the city may vary, but this tends to be a very common feature of city building, whether you're

in Paris, France or Paris, Tennessee. These districts could be completely homogenous, all buildings, all homes, all factories, but there could be scattered buildings or storefronts that are different than what it's normally zoned for. Corner stores in a residential area, owners' homes on the floors above or below their main shop, a restaurant or food court or food cart area among the docks or industrial areas that allow local workers to get a quick bite while they're working. Examples of common districts that I use in my bigger cities are, of course, a merchant or market district where things can be bought and sold from quick restaurants or armorsmiths or alchemists or gun runners. Sometimes these market districts are pop-up areas in parts of town that are more remote from where the shop actually is,

so it allows the shop to carry inventory to a remote location and have maybe their apprentice or junior member of that particular shop selling on their behalf. Another district I always think about are government or leader districts. These areas tend to be nicer, better defended, maybe even with harsher laws than other parts of town. But it's the grinding of the government gears that happens inside this district. A noble or high-income residential area where the Silver Spoon crowd can live among other Silver Spoon groups. And look down on the nouveau riche who have made their money by hard work and sacrifice. Basha, lovey, we got our money the old-fashioned way.

We inherited it yes streets are cleaner we hire staff to make sure our lawns are manicured to perfection oh my is that a weed in our fescue a jenkins fix that at once until the lawn gnome he's fired oh yeah lawn gnome take that one home and use it in your game for a dry chuckle and lots of shaking of heads around your table. You might want a middle class area where people who work certain higher paying jobs all the way through business owners could live a relatively comfortable life. I tend to put this close to the upper class and nobility areas because some families are striving to become part of upper crust and they want to be as close as possible to them, not just financially, physically. Here, the houses may be larger, maybe with a small lawn if it makes sense for your city. Generally, the streets will be wider, well-lit, patrolled regularly by security forces,

whether town guard or private. You might want to think about an immigrant area or immigrant district. Now, hold on before you start throwing rotten fruit at me and calling me a racist. New York has Little Italy, which is known for its Italian population. San Francisco has Chinatown, and there's nothing racist about parts of your city having history and culture that are similar to one another. When immigrants came to the United States, they chose to settle close to people that are similar to one another. When immigrants came to the United States, they chose to settle close to people that were similar to them. So why wouldn't halflings, tieflings, or any other kind of ling do the same thing?

Especially if there was a sizable immigration of that common culture because of something like war, famine, or just a mass of people moving somewhere for a better life. You might need a lower class area, cheapest land, least desirable location, the slums, that kind of thing. You can go crazy with districts and cities, and the bigger the city is, the more likely it's going to have a district that exists because some reason relating to its history, or even just for arbitrary reasons. Rundown areas, entertainment areas, cemeteries, a necropolis if the undead exist in the city. Heck, as an example from Galarian, the city of Grey Dirge in the undead nation of Geb

has a small section of the city dedicated to the living called the Meat Market. Maybe there's an area of the city where monks come to train called the Barefoot Alleys. Let your imagination run wild, especially if you can tie it to the city's history somehow. For extra bonus points, and wow, this is going to be a long episode, remember the sperm method I talked about last week? It's entirely possible that each district would have its own answers for all five of those aspects designated by the sperm acronym. Maybe the ghouls in the necropolis take their orders from a high priest who holds significant sway over them.

They make their money as the city's morticians and coroners or something like that because they're very comfortable around the recently deceased. Of course, there are rumors that some of the coffins are buried full of bags of sand to simulate the weight of the deceased, and some of those dead become meals for other ghouls or maybe ghouls themselves. But I'm sure it's nothing, and you couldn't make an entire adventure around a secret cult of ghouls in the small necropolis who, I don't know, want to create enough dead to overrun part of the city with an alchemical device called the Plague Forger. Meanwhile, Tarragon, the public ghoul leader,

is fighting to keep the cult from causing trouble because the truce between the living and the dead is fragile. No, no, no, no, no. There's no adventure there at all. I'm seeing writing down plague forger. That sounds like a fun adventure to write. I'm starting to think I'd do this podcast just to see what ideas spring up while I'm recording. If so, thank you very much for being part of my weird-ass creative process.

I would encourage you to focus on the districts the PCs will spend the most time in, though. Designing a metropolis from scratch is a nightmare. There's so much to be done. It's a gargantuan amount of work, and it can become daunting very quickly. Treat a big city adventure just like any other one you're homebrewing. Start small, where the PCs will begin the adventure, and homebrew out from there. That way you're working on small, bite-sized chunks for each session, and before long, you have a city all your own with important NPCs and industries and ruler or rulers

and something your PCs can spend an awful lot of time in and never discover everything about it. Finally, 20-some-od odd minutes in, let me give you some tips to make your city realistic. One, break up your city to districts. Start designing the districts where the PCs will spend most of their time first and then branch out from there. Two, cities are usually diverse, so make sure you have some of the rarer ancestries represented. Halflings, gnomes, dragonborn, maybe even goblins and hobgoblins since they're core races in Pathfinder 2e now. Some cities could be exceptions, by the way, especially if they're xenophobic or generally hostile to outsiders.

But hell, the elemental plane of fire is a city people can visit and trade. Why couldn't your cloud giants have the same? 3. Cities tend to adapt to the environment they're in. They take advantage of natural resources and in whatever environment is surrounding the city. An elf city could be in the treetops, especially if the woods have natural predators, for example, who can't climb or fly, but that same city could just as easily be on the ground. Cities in the mountain will likely be located in valleys or would have multiple vertical tiers. Underground cities like those used by the dwarves and located in cooler climates likely would have geothermal heating vents. Throw in some details about the city that might be unique for where that city is and the environment that it's in.

4. People in most cities just want to live a peaceful life and provide for their families. As I talked about in episode 186, the vast majority of people in most RPG worlds don't have class levels. They just want to go, put their shift in at the tavern or the coal mines or the apothecary or whatever, go home and spend their time with family and friends. Five, add details and imperfections to your cities. Not every city is a perfect grid. In fact, most aren't. Most have winding streets throughout them. Heck, if you zoom in on the city of Boston, you'll find Dorchester Street east of I-93 that cuts directly northeast. On one side of the street, the other roads mostly go north, south, and east-west in a grid-like pattern. But on the other side? Screw your

compass directions. We're rotating these roads about 45 degrees, and there is nothing you can do about it. I'm sure someone out there could tell me the history as to why that is, but the point being, do that in your city. Things like streets don't have to follow a consistent logic. Tip number six. If you're stuck for ideas on your RPG town, what to include, history, that kind of thing, again, use a version of a city that you know. Sticking with that city of Boston, for example, there was a famous tea party that happened a couple hundred years ago. Sorry to my friends in England who are listening for bringing it up.

But you can use that as a real example from history or a variant thereof. You can borrow city maps and histories and districts and holidays and any other aspect of real towns and use them in your world. I'd probably change some things up, like I don't think I'd have a beautiful building that looks like three overlapped shells that overlook the ocean and call it the, um, Idney Fopra House, because that's a little on the nose. But a location for a bardic college on a promontory point that regularly hosts musical performances? Oh sure, borrow, borrow, borrow, steal, steal, steal ideas for your world. Seven, have adventure or at least encounter ideas for the city ready to

go. If you're going to have an entire adventure take place in the city, then yeah, think about the encounters that will contribute to the overarching story, but also think of some side quests, side missions, things that the PCs can do that could build or destroy their reputation and standing within the city, making them famous or infamous. And then finally, have a pre-built list of NPCs available behind the screen, even if it's just a one or two word description, name, and attitude. The PCs will likely walk up to random NPCs and talk to them, and having this list helps you from being caught flat-footed, or as Pathfinder 2E Remaster now calls it, off-guard. I've run entire adventures taking place in, around, and under a city, and they are a ton of fun. If you're creating the city from scratch, try to make your settlements realistic,

with districts defined for larger cities, some inns, taverns, shops, and other buildings of interest, even if you just randomly generate them, come up with a rough map, and prep some main and side quests. Give the city one or two unique features and drop the characters into the story, I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Once again, I'm begging. Please send me some three-bullet NPCs, up to 10 of them, for up to 10 entries into the contest. Send those to contest at taking20podcast.com. I want more entries, please. And if you want to see what you could get, head over to 3D Crafts and Curios, and while you're there, use the code TAKING20 for 20%

off your entire order. Thank you again, Brenton and 3D Crafts and Curios, and while you're there, use the code TAKING20 for 20% off your entire order. Thank you again, Brenton and 3D Crafts and Curios, for sponsoring the Episode 200 contest. Tune in next week when we'll talk about how to run the two other pillars of RPGs, social encounters and exploration. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Softdrinks. Look, I tried to come up with two good puns for this episode, but I only came up with one that I used earlier. It's just soda pressing. This has been episode 198, part two of Building Realistic Settlements.

My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2023. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.