Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 197 - Realistic Cities Part 1

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Description Even preparing cities that the party will pass through or only stay at temporarily requires some thought on the DM’s part. In this episode I’ll give you some tips for creating quick-use cities that can help ground your cities in a touch of realism.   #dnd #pf2e #DMTips #RPG #citydesign   Resources: Dael Kingsmill’s SPERM principle - https://youtu.be/sJd6g--Ok_A?si=G-PsffcBYYpTLRNl  

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. Is the city of Las Vegas of the area that lives almost exclusively or garners a lot of economic support by tourists? If so, it'll probably be garish and glitzy and have a number of ways legal and maybe not so legal to separate visitors from their hard-earned gold. their hard-earned gold. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 197, Making Realistic Settlements. I want to thank our sponsor, 3D Crafts and Curios. Head over to 3D Crafts and Curios on Etsy and check out the dice towers and initiative trackers and DM screens and the numerous other products they have for sale at their Etsy store. Search for 3D Crafts and Curios on Etsy or follow the link from their Instagram. Speaking of which, as a reminder, we have a contest going on

where the winner will be revealed during episode 200. 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 is being very generous with time and material, and he's supporting this channel because he likes me for some weird reason I can't figure out. Please follow 3D Crafts and Curios on Instagram for an additional five chances to win these wonderful mugs. By the way, I've uploaded images of some of the mugs that are made by 3D Crafts and Curios to my Instagram. You really need to check these out because they are intricate and they are gorgeous. The mug can securely hold a 12-ounce slim can, a 12-ounce bottle, and a 16-ounce can.

Get those NPCs in to me because you won't want to miss out on a chance to win one of these bad boys. I'm sorry, three of these bad boys. Thank you so much, Brenton, for supporting the giveaway and supporting the podcast. One other person I need to thank is Joe Goodwin. He donated very, very generously to the podcast over at ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast. Mr. Goodwin, thank you so much for supporting the podcast and for your kind words that accompanied it. I am so glad you've gotten back into the tabletop hobby, and I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I do. I also want to thank our sponsor, Doors. Did you hear about the huge suitcase so big that has a door on the side?

It really is an open and shut case. Do you have an idea for an episode you'd like to hear? Do you have a question you'd like to hear me answer? If so, please send it to me, feedback at taking20podcast.com, and I'll do my best to get you an answer, whether that's an entire episode or just an Ask Jeremy episode in the near future. whether that's an entire episode or just an Ask Jeremy episode in the near future. Cities. Ogramar.

Neverwinter. Absalom. Ankh-Morpork. Gnu Terry Pratchett, by the way. The Citadel. Baldur's Gate. Night City. If you've played certain RPGs, these names may be as familiar to you as the towns close to where you grew up here on Earth.

Players spend a fair amount of time in cities, and in certain campaigns, cities can become the focus of the entire game. Hell, some adventures take place entirely, or almost entirely, under or around a single city. Prison break campaigns, things around merchant groups, criminal masterminds,

Robin Hood-like games where the PCs are saving the common folk from being exploited by predatory groups, l masterminds, Robin Hood-like games where the PCs are saving the common folk from being exploited by predatory groups, lenders, etc. City sewers, stolen artifacts, haunted houses, solving murders. Wait a minute, this sounds a lot like plots from Scooby-Doo, and I would have gotten away with that list too if it weren't for you meddling kids. Even if that doesn't describe the adventure you're about to run, adventures commonly start in, periodically return to, or sometimes happen entirely in cities. So as DMs, one of the skills we need to hone is how to make a city that fits your world. This episode focuses on ways of making cities that are somewhat

realistic, i.e. somewhat akin to cities that we know on Earth. But my first bit of advice to all of my DMs out there is that you don't have to listen to a single damn thing I say in this episode. Do you want to make a city that sticks out over a waterfall, is halfway between the prime material and Feywild planes, or rides waves of lava on the plane of fire, floats in the clouds above Faerun, or contains doors to damn near every plane of existence like Sigil. It's your world. Physics doesn't have to be a thing in your world.

Your city could be balanced on the end of a long, thin outcropping of rock and, I don't know, spins on its axis once every day in an event the locals call the spin-a-nin-a-nin-a-nin-a-nin-a-ring. If one of your players is an engineer and wants a scientific explanation, just wave your hand in an arc shape and say, magic. However, having DM'd in more of my life than I've played, or not played for that matter, I tend to make the vast majority of our settlements somewhat realistic, with at least a foot in the water of realism, even if part

of it isn't explained by logic. To that end, I want to give some tips for creating cities, borrowing some material from Pathfinder 2e and other resources that I have available that I'll put a link in the resources of the episode. To start with, I'm going to be using the generic term city for what I'm creating, but these tips won't apply just to major metropolitan areas. It could apply to settlements all the way from megacities that span planets to tiny little lumber thorps at the edge of a sprawling empire. The only thing that changes is the scale of your decisions and how deeply you want to dig into creating a city. When I start creating a city, though, the first question I ask is, how much time do I think the players are going to be spending in it? It seems like a pretty basic

question, but the answer dictates how much time and effort I spend into designing the city. First of all, if the PCs are just going to be passing through, not likely to return, like let's say that logging thorp I mentioned, it'll just be a dot on the map where the PCs can eat and rest and I'll determine maybe the rough size of the city, a description of the city and what most buildings look like, any unusual features in the city, and maybe have one tavern, one shop, and one potential quest they could get in the city. There we go. Our logging thorp is Cherryden. It has about 55 people living in it, mostly human, but with a smattering of other ancestries scattered around.

It consists of 15 single-family homes and five multi-family buildings. 90% of the town is made of wood, except for the town government and temple buildings, which are weathered stone on the first floor. There's one tavern, the Corded Axe, which serves as the local common room and a place to get a hot meal. The blacksmiths set up their shop on an outcropping of volcanic rock and it's said that if that rock ever cracks, it means danger for the town. Well, that rock just cracked three nights ago and the workers have reported hearing voices on the wind from the south. Boom! Done. One paragraph, few sentences, that's all I need to worry about if the party isn't going to spend a lot of time there.

Sure, they could change their mind, they have something to figure out, a quest to take on, and they can win local hearts and minds that way, but if not, stick the Whispering Wind quest in the back of your notebook and pull it out again some other day. On the other hand, if the PCs are going to be spending some time in the town, like it's going to be a quest hub or the PCs are going to be using it as a temporary home base, I spend a little more time thinking about the city and planning adventure within it. Besides what I've already listed, when a city is going to play a more major role in the game, I tend to think about Dale Kingsmill's sperm principle for cities.

Thank you, Greg Hahn. In this case, sperm is an acronym. It stands for social, political, economic, religion, and military. Those are the five aspects of a city that I flesh out just a little bit. Editor Jeremy note, I edited a lot of really inappropriate sperm jokes here, including one with the word flagella. I will leave it to your imagination to fill these jokes in here. I'm going to include a link to a video Dale made about the principle.

It wanders a little far afield every now and then, but it contains way more information than I have time to go over here. If you're watching on YouTube, there should be a little card in the corner with a link to her video, and if you're listening to the podcast, check out the resources for the episode in the description or go to taking20podcast.com. So let's take these five sperm letters one by one. S, social. What exists within the city to bring people together or set them apart, and then where do they meet? When you start thinking of the social aspects of your city, what striations or groups exist in the city? These could have their roots in one of the other letters. Religion. People tend to socialize in and around religious locations and ceremonies.

Or economic, where rarely do individuals from different economic groups rub elbows with one another. Those are just two examples, by the way. It easily could be based on families, neighborhoods, or maybe everyone muddles together at local markets around noon every day to get a slice and catch up on the latest gossip. Where do people go to get their social, to use a term from the Sims franchise? Once you have an idea on how that would look, make sure there are one or more corresponding areas of your town to serve as those social areas. So where do people meet and talk, and are there different ones for different groups in the city? That's social. P, political. First thing, what type of government is it? Is it autocratic? Is it a monarchy? Is it a democracy? Town council? And more importantly,

where and how do the wheels of government turn? Is it in one big central town hall or is the city big enough there are multiple boroughs and each one has its own edifice to the grinding of governmental gears? Once you know the government and where they are, start thinking about how rules get made. Are they decrees from a mayor, voted on by a council, or even full democracy where every citizen gets a vote on every proposed change? Now start thinking about how the government interacts with the people. Are the people tightly integrated into the ruling process, or do the elected tend to distance themselves from the common rabble a la the Roman Senate? How honest or corrupt are the leaders? Finally, for politics, what does crime and punishment look like? I tend to think of crime as three types of punishments that could be meted out. Minor

infractions like jaywalking, major infractions like burglary, arson, or theft of property, and then finally the big crimes like murder and arson. Each one of those different levels would have different levels of punishment associated with them. But not every city or kingdom works like that. Some are extremely strict with harsh punishments for the most minor of infractions, like shooting someone for chewing gum while waiting in line. Others may turn a blind eye to traditional crimes like petty theft with the logic of, hey, if you can't guard it, you don't deserve to keep it. E for economic. Why do people flock to cities? There has to be a reason to bring people there and make them want to stay. And the most common reason is money. Economies tend to be more active in larger cities with a bigger variety of ways to both spend

and make money. People come to cities for the jobs, to make money, and opportunities to live a more protected and comfortable life, i.e. to spend money to keep the economic engine humming along. Historically on earth, cities tended to spring up in three primary locations. On the coastline, because of proximity to fresh or salt water, usually means high availability of food like fish, mussels, shrimp, um, mermaids? Oh yeah, braised mermaid. The ocean ones are a little salty, but as they say in the south, them's good eating. For those of you offended by the thought of me eating mermaids, I can tell you I've never actually eaten a mermaid.

Hell, I've never even had one wink at me. Where was I before I got lost in the fantasy of mermaids singing me to my doom? Oh yeah, cities spring up on coasts because of food prevalence and ease of trade. They also spring up at major crossroads where travelers can be frequently passing by. And cities tend to spring up around valuable resources, whatever that resource is. Lumber, rock, gems, fresh water, delicious, delicious mermaids. If the city did spring up around a resource, there'd likely be multiple entities that exist to support that supply chain of whatever that resource is. For example, suppose the city is built close to

the largest marble mine on the continent. There would be companies that mine it, wash it, cut it, polish it, finish it, and then sell it. And I'm going to stop there because if I don't, I'll start sounding like the Daft Punk song. That's six type of companies for marble alone. You could make similar supply chains for horses, rubies, vegetables, magic services, extra planer services, or any other resource that's plentiful in this particular city. Besides the usual city services that occupants would need, like food and general goods, builders, laborers, what else brings money into the city? One thing I haven't touched on yet, What else brings money into the city?

One thing I haven't touched on yet, tourism. Is the city the Las Vegas of the area that lives almost exclusively or garners a lot of economic support by tourists? If so, it'll probably be garish and glitzy and have a number of ways legal and maybe not so legal to separate visitors from their hard-earned gold. The point being, the city needs some way to bring money in and to circle money around, or it probably won't last long. R. Religion. First question is, how religious is the city in general? Is it chock full of people walking around flagellating themselves in worship of Zon Kuthon? Or is it full of painters and artists dedicating their work to the beauty of Shalin? Or is it aggressively atheistic, seeking to punish those who choose to worship anything at all? Most likely it's somewhere in the middle, and you'll need to decide

where the town's religion lies along that spectrum. As an example, suppose a city was founded near a purported holy site to one religion or another. I would think that town would be based largely around that faith, and services would cater to those of that religion who are coming to the holy site. Lots of vendors selling potential offerings of food, wine, sacrificial animals, spiked chains with which to hit yourself, or whatever the worship of that particular deity entails. Assuming your world is polytheistic like most RPG worlds are, I would imagine there'd be open worship available to all gods that are legal to worship in the area,

whether it's a megachurch with thousands of attendees or a small shrine at the edge of town. There may even be hidden worship areas to gods that are illegal to worship for whatever reason. Maybe it's a god of murder whose religious rights violate local laws. The government could have a state religion and worship of any other deity is expressly forbidden. In those cases, there may be groups who meet in secret to worship that deity. These groups would be very close-knit and very wary of outsiders, especially if the penalty for such worship is very severe. While we're at it, another thing to consider is how entwined the religious worship is with the other letters, especially political. Sometimes worship and leadership are completely independent of each other, but there could be connections where religious leadership and political leadership

overlap or at least influence each other. Let's move on to M for military. This letter applies to both police who protect from threats internal to the city or nation and a standing army which usually protects from external threats. The two could be the same organization but that could cause problems. What do the police in the town look like? Are they city watch, town guards, standing constabulary, on-call like? Are they city watch? Town guards? Standing constabulary? On-call volunteers? Are there patrols at all? Are there guard stations scattered throughout the city?

Or is there one big police building that serves as the home base? Any of these would be viable. City Watch could be a full episode on its own, and maybe I'll make that one day if you all are interested. Let me know if you are, by the way. The patrols could be different depending on whether it's a low magic campaign or high magic campaign. Like, do they have larger patrols at night because they're scared of the dark? Do they have access to light magic?

Do they have access to other magic that lets them discern dangers around them? What long-distance communication ability do they have with each other in their home base, if any? Do they have walkie-talkies, sending spells, or do they carry whistles? PCs are going to PC, and I say that with all the love in the world. But you may want to think about how the police responds to crimes committed in the city. And then the Army. Are they stationed inside the city, or are they outside the city? Do they have dedicated training grounds and barracks?

In the event of catastrophe, does the army operate independent of local leadership or do they always report to the mayor or the baron or Lord Schmuckety Schmuck or the empress or whomever? How do they respond to threats and how are orders conveyed? At this point, I'm going to stop the episode. I have more to talk about and more to cover,

but I do not have time to cover it, and I want to get to that next week. I want to make sure I give it the care that this topic deserves. When PCs are just going to be passing through or using cities as quest hubs, there are some things you need to think about when you're designing the city. Things like the population and size of the city,

the description of the city and what it looks like, and any unusual features that may exist. Have a tavern, have a shop, have a potential quest that they could use to get into the city. And if it's going to be more common, think about Dale Kingsmill's sperm principle for the cities. Social, political, economic, religion, and military. Think about those aspects of a city before the PCs get there, and I'm willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it.

Thank you again to Brenton and 3D Crafts and Curios for sponsoring the episode 200 contest. Don't forget to send me your entries to contest at taking20podcast.com and follow 3D Crafts and Curios on Instagram. Tune in next week when I'll do part two of the series, Cities That Will Play a Major Role on Your Campaign. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Doors. Today I was walking up to a door and a man in a motley outfit held it open for me. It really was a nice jester. This has been episode 197, part one 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.