Designing enticing locations for your players is one of the most satisfying jobs of a Dungeon Master, but it's also one of the most complex. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is the perfect game to witness all kinds of places to venture, and cities can be as interesting💙 as even the darkest of dungeons. In fact, they can be more interesting than these places, with all the people, places to visit, and dangers not as obvious as a group of monsters lying around.
All that said, what makes a city work? Or how do you make your city feel alive and complete without having to design every detail necessary for a city to function꧋?
7 ꦯ What Is Your Goal?
Before going through the trouble of designing a complex location, think about your endgame. How relevant is this city to your overall story? If you need a small village for the players to visit, and one they'll likely not see again after this session, then you don't need to think about many details.
The size of the place matters a lot when it comes to the number of establishments, NPCs, or events in the city. A small village only needs a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:few important NPCs lying around, but a Metropoli🌸s will need a lot more going on.
Large cities will take🅘 time to create, so consider doing so only if this city will often appear, as a hub area for the p🔯arty to keep going back to after important story moments.
6 What Is The City Famous For? ﷽ 🦄
Before thinking about characters, let's do some reverse engineering. What makes this city a big deal in the first place? For example, The city may be a key religious place.
That means you'll need to create churches, temples, priests, and maybe even the head of an important religious group could have their base here.
Or maybe the city is known for a lot of criminal activity, meaning gangs will be central here, along with their ways of getting money. You'll need a justification for how they're running loose in the city, like having deals between them and corrupt authority figures.
A port city will need captains, merchants who deal with them often, pirates, and smugglers. A technological cit🐷y ♚would be a perfect hub for Artificers to meet, or maybe the city is known for its technological or magical Academies, attracting Wizards to it as well.
By creating these details, you'll see what is necessary for such a place to exist and what type of characters would appear in a city like this. Then, you can finally start thinking about the people your players will interact with.
5 ꧙ What Are The Key Figures In The City?
T💞he capital of a Kingdom will likely have a King in it, right? Or, as we said in the previous example, a religious city could have the leader of an important church living꧋ there.
These aren't necessarily characters who will be relevant to your story, and players may not even interact with them - A King won't ask the level one party for help - but their presence generates consequences and shows your players that there's more going on than just their plot, making your city feel more lively.
And who knows, the players might do something you're not expecting - as they do - and this information might become plot relevant.
Political figures, captains of the guard, priests from the main churches, local gang leaders, the nobles in the city, a famous merchant, perhaps. 🅺People who make 💎the city run, essentially.
4 What Are The Ke༒y Figures To Your Plot?
Now we're talking about the people your players will interact with. They can be the same as the previous entry if it fits the plot - maybe they need to speak to the King - but this is when you think about your story and what characters are required.
For example, if the mission is to find a missing person, you'll need the people who will hire the party, the culprit (or culprits), and the missing person, obviously.
Here is where you'll also think about likely interactions. For instance, most parties go to inns, so you need an innkeeper.
Maybe multiple people take care of the inn, in case it's a big place, and you can make the place feel more lively by adding a bard or regular customers. They don't need deep backstories unless that's an important part of the plot, so 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:you can improvise as you go.
You can also add details to th𝄹em 🦩as the sessions go, in case your players liked the NPCs and want to see more of them.
Essentially, apply the same reverse engineering fro꧑m before. Think of what plot you want to create and what characters are necessary to tell it.
Then, focus on characters who may not be as relevant but will likely appear and be easier to reach, like the aforementioned innkeeper, the local priest in case the church has easy access, small criminals, merchants, and things like that. Give them more depth if needed, or let that slide if the players don't care about them.
You can also have random characters ready, if appearances and names, but no plot whatsoev♓er. That way, ꦍif you need to improvise a new character, you can grab one of those.
3 Dangers Within The City ☂
Action is a big part of D&D, but random monsters aren't the best fit for stories that take a huge part within a city. Sure, you can have monsters attacking the city often, but that's something the whole city would fight against, and it would make more sense for the players to find their source, thus leaving the city. It could be a good plot, though.
Regardless, you✤ can create action that fits a city scenario with ease. For example, crime is a good 🍨way to do so.
Gangs can be a fun source of action, and having humanoid enemies create more drama and situati🐟ons with different solutions, such as negotiations or intimidation. Essentially, the players will have freedom in their approach.
There's also the tension of not letting the fight escalate because that would attract guards, and the players could become criminals.
Corruption is also an interesting fi🐼t, tur🥃ning guards themselves into villains and creating a more complex political plot.
Having to find a way to defeat the city's captain takes more than a brawl, as their corruption would have to be proven somehow. And you can still add monsters as pets or creatures in sewers, for instance, having the best of both worlds.
2 ꧃Random Encounters
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rando🎶m encounters are perfꦆect for big cities, making ⭕the place feel alive. Essentially, if your players are going to wander around the p🌟lace for a while, roll a random encounter.
They could run in a member from the gang they're after or a local bard making a public presentation. Maybe an orphan who pickpockets one of the players, or the local blacksmith, simply passing the time in the square.
These encounters don't need to be action-oriented; their goal is to show that things happen without the players, too.
You can also add NPCs they've already encountered to the random encounters, so it'll increase the chance of them actually doing an interaction. Or maybe that's the only way they'll spot the King; By randomly finding him wandering around.
1 🤪 Leftover Content ꦜ
One of the biggest concerns of creating so much content for the city is the players skip them. You've made a funny and powerful blacksmith to improve their weapons, but they didn't even think of meeting the local blacksmith, despite you having NPCs talk about this legendary metalworker.
Well, don't worry about your content not being used. If the players never met Smithy, you can relocate the guy to the next city they go to or use him whenever they decide to check that sort of thing by themselves.
Retconning informatio🙈n that only you know is fine. Smoke and mirrors are a big part of being a Dungeon Master, so throwing your work away would be too much of a waste.
Let your blacksmith have his time to shine, even if it's later than expected.