If you want to run a modern fantasy game set in a big city that neither you nor any of the players live in (because you run the game online and you yourself live in a boring rural area), is it more interesting to do the research and play in a real-world city like New York, London, or Hong Kong, or to play in a fictional city like Gotham, Los Santos, or Fuyuki?
Do which ever you are more comfortable with.
Real world
I think it'd be more interesting to make a city of your own but have some real world influences in it.
>>44088444
Depends, if you want fairies ruling Wall Street you have nothing to change, but if you want dragons you have to reshape the city for them.
>>44088717
I'd trust a dragon before I trust the fairies.
>>44088444
As always, it depends. Real world cities tend to mean you're fielding less questions about the city, because players either know it or can find the information themselves, but this can cause problems if you need to deviate from the layout / amenities / whatever that the city has.
Making up your own city means you're having to potentially field a lot more questions about the city, and will generally require a bit more prep-work and book-keeping.
I'd generally do what >>44088531 suggests, take the bits of cities you know that you like, but keep it as your own made-up sort of place so as to maintain a bit of GM control.
>>44089116
You mean "Like New York/London/Hong Kong/Tokyo unless otherwise noted"?
I just wanted to pass here and say that Ranko is the cuteest, period
>>44088444
>fuyuki
>fictional
Only name was changed. It is a real city.
>>44089136
Sort of. I'd go more with "what things in this real life location do I like?" and "how can I translate them into a fictional city?". I like the London Underground, even if it's a festering hell pit most of the time, so I'd take the sprawling messily laid-out underground railway and put it in my modern fantasy game. I'd take the river running through it, a mix of modern and old bridges crossing it. I'd have elf-based gentrification and angry half-orcs complaining about being unable to live in a city they help build and maintain.
Basically, take the flavour of the city, but don't explicitly go "it's like London unless otherwise noted", because I'm basically not good enough at reading the minds of my players to know when they're building ideas and plans on assumptions that are incorrect. Again, it all comes down to "it depends" though - the way OP's players tick might be very different to the people I've played alongside. I've been in a game where one player flat-out refused a game pitch because it was set in an area that I, the GM, was intimately familiar with but he wasn't. The rest of the group weren't either, but he felt that it'd give the GM an "unfair advantage" (?) and thus wouldn't want to play in it. So, yeah. Players are weird and it all depends on them.
OP, do you mean to ask which is easier to make interesting?
Because any non shit writer could work with a fictional modern city or a real world one and make it just as interesting as the other.
>>44088738
You are now aware of the true reason behind the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Economic Crisis of 2008-whenever it stops.
Fae.
OPEC? All faeries.
The markets stabilising is a sign of the dragons reasserting control. It doesn't happen very often but every few decades, the capricious little bastards manage to weedle their way into the system and bring it crashing down around our ears.
>>44090626
Heresy.
It's merely when we payed the tithe in raw materials.
World Wars where when we paid them in bodies.
>>44090534
Then how do you communicate what real-world city yours is based on?
>>44090626
>Fae market and Dragon market instead of Bull and Bear
I like it
>>44093095
Well I was referring to actual fae and dragons but that does put an interesting spin on it.
Original idea was a contemporary fantasy world where due to their vast knowledge of hoards, dragons control the global economy. Fae are the "entrepreneurs", for lack of a better term, that cause problems.
