What can one do as a GM to make a city feel 'alive' and just full of options and hooks to keep the players there by their own choice - rather than forcing them?
I'm pretty new to the whole GM thing and I'm just not sure if my city they'll be be reaching next session is.. well good. Not sure if it's alive enough and has the options and everything to make them want to explore and talk to people and all that good stuff.
>>44424374
Make someone bump into a player to open a conversation. Maybe make him drop some things you want to repay him for.
Show your players a broken down cart in the middle of the road. Make them help and have the grateful merchant offer your party his goods or service.
Show your party a robbery they can interfere with... and so on
>>44424374
wow that is a terribly designed city. The first time there's any sort of heavy rainfall yuo're going to lose a dozen buildings to the encroaching waves, and thats just the river, let alone the bay. Nothing is set above the ground, and there doesn't appear to be any sort of industry for all that wood.
>>44424506
No industry for wood except those logs they're bringing in by water in the bottom left
>>44424531
ah, good point.
Still, two whole logs practically fills their little inlet.
Lots of preparation.
>>44424814
>>44424773
These are really useful, thank you guys.
>>44424773
>>44424579
There's a log stack right on the bottom and top edges of the town, and a lumberyard on the right hand side.
Aside from the logs in the inlet, there's five guys carrying planks towards some shipyard, and a couple of the boats are carrying wood as well.
The village is set on a tidal shelf and makes a natural harbor, as you can see from the fact that the villagers can dock right along the shoreline, and there aren't any waves breaking in the bay, because they're sheltered by the mouth of the bay.
>>44426413
Kids, that is obviously a trade port, and it is only just being constructed. Probably used to be three huts and a wood pile 5 years ago, before they found __ upstream.
>>44426413
>lumberyard
Holy shit, do you see a rick of firewood and think you're in a fucking clearcutting operation?
>>44429241
>full size planks being cut to size
>people shaving them down and shaping them to make boats
>rafts of logs being floated out to sea along the top edge
Try opening your fucking eyes dickwad. None of that is firewood. The logs are being seasoned.
>>44429241
Lumber yard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A lumber yard is a location where lumber and wood-related products used in construction and/or home improvement projects are processed or stored.
>blah blah blah, a site processing wood has to be a certain size for me to accept it
The only wood you know about is Jamals, which you take on a daily basis.
>>44424374
If the players spend more than 5 minutes discussing what they're going to do after entering a city I start having them bugged by various street people.
Rolling 2d6:
2 or 12: City Watch try to arrest them for loitering and/or vagrancy and then resisting arrest
3 it's a pushcart merchant with something for sale I know one of the PCs wants
4, 6, 8: a swarm of beggars (and if it's made from a paired roll, 2 2s etc..., the PCs get pickpocketed and lose one item from their gear without noticing)
9, 11: Out of control cart full of manure runs into them and the entire party's CHA stats is set to 10 for any characters of CHA greater than 10 until they've bathed or washed it all off. (double 5s and it's a cart full of swords and the party takes 1d8 damage each)
5, 7: Overly insistent street vendor with absolute nothing the PCs want or need
10: Wizard appears, changes everyone's gear to a strobing pink/orange color, then disappears. (on a pair of 5s it's a witch who polymorphs the entire party into chickens with the attribute scores of their normal selves, but the size and the same general capabilities of chickens e.g. unable to talk or use tools)
>>44424500
Yeah, things like these. A city isn't some place players walk around in, it's a living entity where others go around their business and where things change. It's difficult without preparation, but things have impacts, try to show the impact.
For example, in my setting a part of the most important trade city in the known world had an uprising alongside the river. Results: a few merchants the PC knew were worried about getting their supplies, one of them even explored alternative land routes, trade across the river came to an effective standstill, and of course there was an opportunity for the PC to get involved. When it passed, life resumed as usual. What I hope to succeed in like this is to make the player feel that his choices have impact on an organic world.
You could theoretically also do this without getting the PCs involved. You could start out by spreading a rumor (or having a newspaper report on) some council member's son choking on an apple. The next day you hear said council member proposed a bill to ban trade in apples. A few days later that bill gets passed and fruit merchants riot. The PCs try to buy an apple but nope, apples are banned 'round these here part.
It's a very silly example, but I hope you get the idea. I also meant to show that it doesn't need to make sense per se. I highly doubt players will explore plot hooks about trivial things like banning apples or grain prices rising or old politicians trying to control the length of women's sleeves and men's hair, unless your party barbarian has wicked manes he is very attached to.
>>44424374
play baldur's gate 2: shadows of amn
explore athkatla
God I love this fucking thread.
>>44429483
>>44429241
A ship is being built, but those people in the courtyard appear to be hewing the tree trunks, possibly into beams. It might be for shipbuilding, but the construction in the village is almost all timber frame construction, so they might be building another home or building
I found the dresden files RPG to have a well written portion dedicated to building cities that are interesting and are kind of characters unto themselves.
If you enjoy torturing yourself as the DM, you can always have a myriad of other groups you keep tabs on and they do shit at specific times, irrelevant of where your group is.
Example,
>You keep track of schedules for all major factions in a campaign, some minor as well, including a band of anarchists is a major city.
>Party is in said major city
>You offhand mention while they're traveling or busy discussing that a minor explosion is heard somewhere in the west end of the city.
They could very well think it's a bait forward, when it isn't, or ignore it because it actually has nothing to do with them.
Or
>Major Faction A is planning to wage war upon Major Faction B
>Your party is coincidentally passing through their soon to be battlefield and is caught by Faction A because Faction B has no idea they are coming.
>The entire course of the game changes as they now have to escape a temporary prison shelter in the middle of a massive war camp more than four miles out of their way.
Honestly, go out into your own city, and look at all the things there are to do. Take buses and trains and carry notebooks. Look at restaurants and street vendors and businesses and the people that you pass by talking on their phones. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? How could I help?
>>44437240
"A fair warning, I would not take the main route to the Great Lord's Lair. The path is said to be cursed by fate itself. May I suggest going through the desert?"
>Guy 1
Nice try GM, you just want to pad out your campaign!
>Party goes the fast route and gets ambushed by a literal army of casters, warriors, and archers
>Gets thrown in prison and interrogated for a whole week
>Stripped of their gear, save a thin tunic and pants, which is all they are allowed to keep afterward
I mean, it works, but that sounds awful.
All roads lead to Rome. Just improvise until they get wrapped up in some kind of shenanigans (happens naturally with most groups, and doesn't take very long) and work your cool encounters and shit into the course of their shenanigans.
>>44438401
>I only need players to keep me company while I masturbate over my story.
>>44438459
that's not what he said at all
>>44438401
>>44424374
>City designed around square roads
Go away america, you don't know what you're doing.
>>44424374
I would suggest that every time they exit a building or travel to a different part of the city you give them a short description of the environment.
Describe the smells, the sounds, the people and the architecture.
Don't be afraid to just describe scenes from films or television, since you're just describing background details your players probably won't notice.
Give them choices, cities are all about choices and opportunities. If they need somthing give them multiple options, each with a distinct flavor.
If they need somthing encourage them to ask NPC characters for recommendations. Just like in real life the restaurant (or potion shop) you hear about from a local (an NPC) will feel more authentic than one your read about in a guide book (directly from you speaking as DM).
>>44424374
>DO NOT
start filling maps
collect pages of NPCs
write pages and pages of notes
Because that is not how stories work, you are not writing a setting book.
Instead take a beat to think about your game.
>CONSIDER
What player characters are experiencing this city, with what kind of glasses will they see it?
What matters to your story, for flavor and for plot?
What will matter to your players on a meta level, what kind of adventure are they anticipating?
Then take those and custom tailor the experience, using representative manifestations of flavor through scenery and NPCs.
>DO
1 Short description of each location you want to set a scene in, be it a tavern, a street, a residence, palace, or entire slum. 5 of these will probably fill a session.
3 random events per PC that play to their strengths or backgrounds, and that will interest the player.
5 central NPCs like the Lord, the Master of the Guard, the head merchant, the highest priest, and the King of Thieves - just authorities that rambunctious PCs might run into. These mostly appear through goons. Any surprise responsibility can always fall on one of their underlings.
5 relevant NPC that matter to your story, like the innkeeper plagued by a drunken guardsman, the street urchin who knows everything but understands nothing, the drunken guard in love with a whore, the ditsy whore actually in love with the guard, and her pimp.
10 sets of goon stats, just anonymous combat values starting well below and spanning to just above the party's level. You can plug these into whatever NPC the players see fit to attack. Clone as needed.
20+ NPC names that fit the setting without any description.
And depending on flavor 10 horrible secrets, 10 endearing stories of oppression, 10 lost family treasures, or 10 reasons to start a fight. Just stories that fit the flavor which you can tell when the party questions an NPC, spies on them, or casts a truth spell.
You can do more, but it'll be just for you.
>>44440869
Would you like to reconsider that? Behold, a grid plan in 500 BC, by the OG master of the grid, Hippodamus of Miletus. Whilst you're at it, check out Piraeus, by the same fella.
Other things you might want to check: the Roman castra-style towns (like Augusta Taurinorum, which is today Turin and still has the grid plan from the first century AD remaining), or Chang'an, China.
