Great GM - Creating awesome unique cities in your role playing game - Game Master Tips GMTips
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- čas přidán 10. 10. 2017
- Learn how to create amazing and unique cities for your tabletop role playing game!
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1. Purpose of the city (Supply, Middle point, defense)
2. What are it's local resources
3. Personality of it's leader
4. Wealth of the city
5. Oddity
Oddities:
1. Physical
2. Spiritual
3. Laws
Thank you, friend. This shall be useful.
One little trick I came up with, entirely by accident:
I was running a campaign and didn't quite have the next city planned out for session, so I organized the adventure so the train arrived to the station after dark. This encouraged the party to make its way to an inn for some sleep and it was near the conclusion of the session anyways so I ended it there. This gave me enough time between sessions to add detail to the city and the adventure continued as the party woke up the following morning. Having the party arrive at night led to a realistic transition as, in the morning light, the party could see much more of the city they had just arrived in.
That's very smart, I'm going to use this. Thank you person from two years ago!
@@MrMatsudi how did it go
@@eaterofchildren_ It's a good method, my party were meant to travel by bus to their expected destination but stopped at a town along the way that I hadn't prepared for. Fortunately it was night, and near the end of the session anyway so I was able to employ this to give me chance to plan out some things of interest in that town. I told my players when they were done there about how I'd done it, and they hadn't even realised I was using it as a way of stalling for a week. So bonus.
@@MrMatsudi cool cool
Great idea!
"The gates are in disrepair, there's mud everywhere." - You're at my house
Lol
village -> town -> city -> metropolis -> megapolis -> megaplex -> city-planet -> Physical system network -> Dyson Sphere
Dyson Sphere is used for power generation i believe i think your think of a ring world
Halo
Multy vers
@dking no, a Dyson Sphere just means you're capturing all the sunlight - you don't have to turn it into electricity. A swarm of habitats full of living space, possibly with mirrors, is a Dyson Sphere. Also Ringworlds and solid Dyson Shells probably aren't possible/practical due to material strength.
Dyson sphere and ring worlds are inherently unstable. If there was a few more molecules on one side, say there's a flare for example, then that side of the sun has more mass and exerts more pull. It would get worse and worse until the sun hit the sphere/ring, however see Orbitals as uses in The Culture.
A city that seems to be built somewhere entirely senseless can be interesting too. I'm currently running a campaign in which the characters are about to find that the seemingly ludicrously located capital city they are in was chosen due to a convergance of lay lines. While the enemies of Tor'Nath believe it will be a walk in the park to sack the city, the Mages of the capital can tap into terrifying reserves of defensive power.
A seemingly untenable city might have been viable when it was built, but not so much now. Why and *how* is there a walled city on a mountain in the middle of salt flats? Well, when the elves built it, that was an island in the middle of an ocean. Now the place is a godsforsaken hellhole where they have to import everything, but it's too important to the salt trade not to maintain.
That’s a pretty cool idea! And of course, the fact of those ley lines is probably somewhat guarded.
Hey 4 years later can I use this as inspiration. My old west camp uses very little magic so a town like this would be awesome.
I'd say the oddest city I ever made was one that was originally built on a rocky bridge over a large gorge. Over the years the weight of the growing city, and people digging into the bridge caused it to collapse. Fortunatly by then the city had become so large instead of falling into the gorge it got wedged in.
Almost four years later and this video is still gold! Got so many ideas from it. Thank you!
4:50 Milford, Utah is a place like that. When passenger trains were the norm, they'd stop at Milford. What's left is a main street full of several multi-story hotels, all abandoned due to the utter lack of rail passengers. The people living there at present are alfalfa farmers or Union Pacific railroad workers. Freight trains still pass through daily, but the majority of the city is a ghost town. Nobody ever moves in, and those who move out to get married never return. As a result, the 2000 people belong to only five families.
The most important aspect of a Castle... Does it have...MACHICOLATIONNNNNS???!!! :D
The instant you mentioned oddities, it brought me back to the first city I made in my post-Medieval campaign; the Dwarven city of Epibjørd.
A city set in a tiered quarry, where you can go so far down into the city that you can be cloaked in darkness no matter the time of day.
However, the city does have one major source of light in the center of it; The World Forge. The Forge itself is a fairly complex structure of iron and stone, but what is impressive about it is the flowing magma that comes from above it.
There is a volcano just outside the quarry, that has been mechanically pressurized to produce a constant flow of magma down a tube which flows over the city, and pours down into the Forge
My world may have been more steampunk than post-Medieval
remind me of my dwarf city New Doren thum deep it located in the extreme mountain and the dwarves build out of the deep dark creating a massive crack that let a large amount of light to hit the bottom of the Planet it has a small lake near by that the dwarves use for water and creating Aqua ducts.
it also has many tunnel leading out of it in complete darkness like the Metro games and the Deep dark itself is away dark but vast flat terrain with cave monsters and bio luminescent creature make it home there and a lot of the Tunnels have traps set up to stop invasion from the Orcs and vice versa
@@justagamingbulldog9246 yea I miss spelled
The idea of a city space born from the necessity of having a rest stop & resupply location for people travelling between two larger cities is spot on, in my opinion. I live in the midwestern USA, and we've got many of those here, but I have a pen pal in South Africa who lives near a town called "Halfway House", named after an old horse-drawn carriage stop where travelers in coaches would stop to trade the tired horses out for fresh ones and perhaps spend the night and have a meal. I gather from my pen pal that it is a smaller town than the next nearest destinations, just as you said. Thank you for this really useful video!
This singlehandedly turned my upcoming dreaded first city encounter into a wonderful slough of ideas that i am very excited to narrate and allow my players to discover, thank you!
That's a really interesting take on how to make cities unique.
But I like to add a thing, or better expand on the first point, what is the reason for the city:
Did your city change over time? Was it something else and became the city we know today recently or at some point in the past?
You get this advise for dungeons a lot: First it was a dwarfen keep, then it was overrun by Drow, who eventually abbandoned it and Goblins moved in. The lower levels are now inhabited by some cave dwelling nasties and somewhere is a gateway to the underdark...
Something like this.
One might incoorporate this, when describing a city too. It might be a reason for some oddities, it might form the tone and shape of your town, it could be reason for certain celebrations, or even the legitimation for the ruling family / house / class etc.
For example - it's from a computer game, but still - the city of Markarth in Skyrim was built in and upon dwemer ruins, which gives the place a very distinctive look and feel.
So thwrowing a few historical events in your city might help you get a good grasp on it
It's great how this video is not only how to create cities, but also on how NOT to name cities ;)
This is perfect timing. I'm just about to start my first campaign as a GM, and I'm just about to plan out my cities.
You might find this helpful:
watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
@@johnalbert2102 oh boy, this could be useful. Much appreciated.
There's a really cool concept that is going on in the game that I'm involved with and that is there is a city that is a defensive city that has the walls facing inwards as opposed to outwards because the whole city built up around a portal that could lead directly to the nine hell's not big enough for Greater demons to get out of but large enough so that it would be a problem for the surrounding areas so all of the other city States that are around this let's call it hell mouth have a total non-aggression pact against this city because they know that if they attack it could lead to big problems down the road the interesting thing about it is that it has three rings to the city you have an inner ring which is very heavily controlled by the military where most of the fighting happens you have an Central ring which is where all of the supply goes on say example Blacksmiths and all that kind of thing and an outer ring which where produce and that kind of thing is created because this city is in a place where there are lots of planes around them so they can grow their own food and as there is a non-aggression pact against this City it has managed to get to a ludicrously large size
firstly, periods. i sell them cheap. second, i LOVE that idea! mind if i adapt that into the rpg im making?
@@TheTransforcer There will allways be that "idiot" who "rules" over some kind of army and decides it will be a good idea to take over this city, Just so that *HE* is the "most important" around...
Cuz you know... he might "strike a deal" with someone from that "other world" assuming that sayd demons are not just mindless "idiots" who just want to kill humans to... eat them? And would actually have a bit of "brain" and recognise the fact that they, can indeed gain something from a deal with a lower race... ;P :D
I mean... Elves talk with humans so why not? ;P :D
I like the oddity idea
I would be very interested in a video about a much smaller section of a city. I run a 1920s campaign set in the real world. It's pretty easy for me to get a map of London or New York. But I have trouble with setting up a Chinatown or Little Italy.
"The Lord loves hunting-"
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. It could be something like "The Once and Future King," where the-
"-villagers at night!"
Oh.
tip: think of the food people in your created city eat, based on what they regularly eat/drink you can build up on what kind of city it is.
Where / how did you get that cloth map printed?
Right??
Took his image and went through some kind of vendor
I see that this is old, but if it's still any help, you can go to places like Walmart (if it has a Photo Lab) and have pictures printed on blankets. It's meant for like family portraits and other dumb cheesy stuff, but there's no rule saying it can't be a fantasy map.
Always good to hear the things one mostly already knows in an organised and complete summary...
Nomadic herders in the northern mountains built the city of Nordwyck in the valley, to have a fixed home and make trade with neighboring populations easier. The valley is one the herds' migration passed through on their way from the more fertile pastures of the north in summer (fed by rivers from higher up in the mountains) to more temperate climates to the south in winter. Their herd animals provide food and clothing, and after building the city they discovered iron and coal in the mountains. Nordwyck began to industrialize, built a railroad, but then war came. They had extensive natural resources, but when the valley was put under siege and winter was coming, all hope seemed lost. Then the war ended, their enemies surrendered to their more powerful allies. The city is nowhere near as populous or as prosperous as it was before the war, but has been mostly rebuilt, thanks in large part to the iron mines.
Nordwyck was the very first city I created when I first became interested in D&D.
A great first city. It's always so fun to think about how the history affects the culture affects the politics. What kind of music do they listen to? What god(s) do they worship? Do they deal with a lot of immigration and cultural influx, or are they relatively isolated? Did they repair relations with the attackers? Did their rescuing allies demand payment?
another aspect that can shape a city is history. who initially built the city that the inhabitants now live in or at what time was the city built and how has it had to change in that time to keep up with the times?
Yes! And the disconnect between the original builders and the current inhabitants. Elves grumpy about being forced into a dwarven fortress or stairs that are just the wrong height.
also depending on time how they have adapted to what is there or how much they have built over the old city. the history of the city adds flavor but the current inhabitants shape how it has developed since then. say the elves take over a dwarven fortress, if the elves are smart they should know what defenses are viable and worth keeping and what needs to be modified or augmented. more over how can they make it more suited to their preferences and tactics. it is best to keep the original structures at least suited to the size of the new inhabitance for it to be worth while for the new inhabitants to takeover. it would not make sense for men to start living in hobbit holes, hobbits are just to small and their holes are built for their proportions. but a dwarf would be able to live comfortably in a hobbit hole.
I am yet to watch but I must admit: I love this channel.
I've been working on a city and BUM!
13:56 that description gave me chills.
Great video and content, i enjoy your various approaches in capturing the pulse of the city by describing the way the players are greeted by towns folk.
Thank you for taking my suggestion. This is an amazing topic and I greatly appreciate your input! Thanks!
I took notes to help make my cities in my book. Thank You!
Awesome advice and ideas! I’ve been to Johannesburg and Harare, I have friends there and it’s beautiful! It’s awesome to see the love of world building and Roleplaying spanning across the globe. 😊
Very nice summary of ideas to think about when designing cities.
Simple festivals are a great way to make a village different from one to the next.
We drove down to Kentucky from Michigan on secondary highways (because that's how we road trip) and stayed the weekend in some random village because they were having their annual strawberry festival. That festival made our trip more memorable than most others.
In general, people tend to be more pleasant and more excepting of strangers during festival times.
Oh and your videos have absolutely inspired me to step away from the players shoes and jump into the massive role of a dm thank you for that!!
The idea of dwarves having "squarish" architecture is a relatively new innovation (basically since D&D 4th Edition), that didn't exist when I was coming up in the fantasy RPG space (late 80s/early 90s). I particularly LOATHE the "square dwarf" aesthetic.
I don't know quite what it is, but something tells me I should trust this guy's advice...
Y'know, you (and several other channels I've been perusing) are really helping me out. It'll be my first time GMing for my group (Thank the gods we're all friends with common sense so we can all really help each-other) and I've been worried about so many aspects of what I'd need to do, or what if I railroad them too hard, etc.
After having watched thee, I know not only what to look out for, but have an idea of how to run my campaign. And to that I say: Thank you.
Yes! This is so helpful, thank you
Amazing video with some great information, especially for something that can be daunting for new GMs!
Super helpful. Thank you.
Just had this realisation, Guy, I'd loveto play in one of your campaigns. I think it'd be quite fun!
Oddities can also be extremely useful in figuring out why a settlement HASN'T grown into a city. In a game I play in, we recently passed through a small town (if it could even be called that) called Durich built on either side of a road - the road was a major trade route to what is probably the mining and forging capital of the region, but Durich's only actual official business is a general store. The reason for this discrepancy? The people in Durich can't agree on how the name should be written or pronounced, as as such word never spread and outsiders have a tendency not to settle down to avoid being caught up in an argument that goes back generations.
It's called Dariz actually
This is really awesome, I’m not a GameMaster but it’s helped me with writing
I've been running an interesting "free-form" campaign and my PCs are about to reach their first city (they started in a nondescript town) and i want it to be one they come back to from time to time. i'll have to use this to make it Unique... even memorable.
Oh Draaskul. Shining beacon of the cinderlands of Draagomar, Thy bards are of great renown, and thy port is a safe-harbor for the Just. May the Wyrmskulls defend thee. Ever watchful!
I have been working on a setting for a bit and listening to this helped me fully flesh out one of my cities. One of the ways I let my setting stand out is that the dwarf clans are decided by craft. One that I hadn’t thought about much was the Glass dwarfs who inhabit the desert. I had the way this city stands out is 3 ways. It’s made of stained glass that’s hard as stone. It is built around a massive glass crater that has filled with water, the dwarfs there worship the sky god rather then the ancestral fire gods.
Thank you, sir, for these videos.
Thank you. This is fantastic
The lore for a city I thought of:
My idea for a city was that 5 other countries were incredibly tretchous to migrate and trade between due to their vast distence and INCREDIBLY dangarous terrain and wildlife. The five cities wanted to use teleportaion to make trading and life eaisier but with the powerful spells neeeded to cast tthat type of magic the cities founded a secret progect to study this.
The researchers were getting close when an accident riped a hole in space time ripping all five cities for their foundations and dumping them all in the same location. The cities were left marrooned hundreads of miles from home with thousands of displaced civians. As a matter of nessesity they all founded one giant government to try and salvage a new life.
Can I get a eecond opinion
Carlos Gutierrez, an idea for you is perhaps to have the lords of the five original towns fight over a specific resource, such as food, water, magic users, ect or even perhaps have something be born from the rampaging magic that the pcs will have to stop like a plague or even a demonic entity
In my setting of Aerleth, the major cities have the odd distinction of being away from coasts and rivers where one would expect cities to normally grow. This is an affectation of the previous regime under a despotic High King who wished to assert control over his lands by forcing all commerce away from natural trade/exchange points and to these central cities.
Now that the High King is gone and the land has slipped into a more natural distribution of power, these cities are emptying and becoming shadows of their former greatness even though many of them still house some of the great institutions (banks, universities, etc.) of the past.
And the economy's back on track, I bet?
Nope. Cities are emptying and falling apart as the people move to a more natural population spread. Without the authority of the high king, there is simply no means by which to maintain the flow of goods to the big centralized cities.
I don't know how you did it. Thank you very much, kind sir.
After watching this video on cities, I started thinking of a town/city that grew up in my world. It is called Fort Milmine. The basic Hommlet, then village, and finally town grew around a lumber mill and a silver mine at the base of a wooded area on and near a large hill with a river that ran down the hill and branched near the base of the hill. So they set up a mill to mill lumber to be shipped to other areas. Also they could float the mined silver down the river. After a while they ended up building a fort to protect the mill, lumber business and the silver mine. There is also a grain mill there now, to grind the grain grown now in the area.
Great video as usual! I really appreciate your thoughts and input
I had a thought for a topic I don't think we've covered on the GM or the PC channel. Can you speak on the relationships with the deities of role playing games? It's a big change to be operating in a world with a living tangible pantheon. What are your thoughts on the level of interaction with the gods and the mortal world, the relationship between Devine spell casters and their patron God, the level of direction given by the gods and the degree of influence on a player being in good standing with a deity has on a campaign
I can highly recommend using archaeology resources for inspiration. Maps of excavated sites can serve as useful inspiration, as can descriptions of interesting elements.
A good real world example of cities that came about as waypoints and defense are the chain of Missions biult in California by the Spanish, they were built 1 days travel apart for safe haven and supplies.
Very interesting. Very helpful.
My favourite city i made was an underground wizards city. It was built into a massive cavern, and the city itself dangles from the ceiling. Spires and stalagtites hollowed out with homes and shops.
Everybody that enters the city needs to wear jewellry with a special magic ore ‘granituim’ these ores allowed them to stand upside down and change their gravity.
Another fun detail was criminals were banished from the city by the wizards simply deactivating their jewelry. ‘Coincidentally sending them to fall into the cities sky.
“each city on earth is different from the next” you’ve clearly never been to the american midwest
St luise is different from Chicago is different from Milwaukee is different from the twin cities. Idk about the south but those "four" cities were all different in my experience!
How to determine the main form of travel? Boats walking horses flying? how would you determine if maybe magical teleportation or strange underground transportation is the preferred travel for complex cities
This is excellent
Omg. I’ve been looking for weeks for something I saw with a castle filling a mountain pass. Have you shown an image of this before? The keep you mention in Braxia at the 6 minute mark??
Hi Guys ! Great video
excellent.
Getting ready to start a game in Ravnica. Really wish Wizards went over more lore of how the hell this place functions.
701468392523816070046289411368222507496286869371438642749038614J If you’re just going off of the D&D content, see if you can find some decent Magic lore for it. Looking at some cards can actually give you a better sense of how the different guilds work.
Omg!! 😂😂😂
Spoilers at 17:25. Be forewarned.. There's some brilliant deadpan Monty Python humor coming! 😂😂😂 The delivery is so hilarious!
Hail sir. You made me laugh out loud today. 😅😊
It's been over 15 mins now and I'm still laughing. 😂
I made a city subtitled the city of bells. Theocratic and superstitions of evil spirits driven off by bells, much of the architecture features bells which ring at all hours, causing sleeping difficulties for those unaccustomed and aiding in stealth checks not to be heard. Magic is highly regulated, and it is a rather cold, dreary place covered in grey stone from the nearby mountains. Provides a lot of religious artifacts and services as it was once a waypoint for religious pilgrimages.
matthewshimabuku sounds like the French church Notre Dame
@@benroedl113 yikes
This will be useful in making the complex.
Imagine if 20 cities were built ontop of eachother, deep into the earth and up into the sky, a kingdom's worth of citizens, supported by vast, advanced farms both above and below the ground, and functioning almosr entirely thanks to magic advancing an otherwise medieval city state into a form one could call a metropolis.
A city in which an entire campaign can exist in without ever leaving its direct jurisdiction.
My D & D 5th edition campaign I've been working on is set on a continent with a variety of types of biomes and cities, but I am still fairly new at DMing, and so is my singular player (My brother. We each run two characters, and I also play the role of the DM. We each run two characters in order to have enough in the party to survive most problems that I can throw at us.) I mostly use pre-made adventures that I find online, and insert them into the cities and countryside that I've been creating. I'm only ever a few cities or adventures ahead in planning, which has worked out fine so far. If we ever get outside what I have planned, I'll either come up with something on the fly, which I'm not very good at yet, or I'll ask him for some time to scramble and plan out something. Fortunately for me, he is very patient and understanding, for a twelve-year old.
I'm glad that Guy is here with his words of wisdom. My work so far on the setting has been dull and repetitive, but I can certainly spice it up and improve it with his sage advice.
Somting i tend to do when i have to make a city, is to have a one or two word description for the theme or atmosphere of the city, i have a steampunk game where they often change the city. So i have for every city some Buzzwords, most often name of citys or places in real live or fiction.
I have for example a industrial city with the tagline "Rapture" for that industrius but "no morals" feeling or a other one with "Arkham" for a very old city with secrets no one should know in every corner and strange people going arround. "Metropolis" for a city with big classchlashes and so on. Of course i always change it up a bit in every city, but it helps me personaly to get the players a feeling what the place is like.
The way to avoid players pointing randomly at a map and asking what's there is giving them an inferior map with only the main cities (which you've prepared) and the towns in their home county (which you know the one differentiating thing about). Everything else they learn by traveling and seeing what the road signs and fellow travelers say.
Fisherfolk from Baloom in Sindh settled on the mouth of the Yoola river far to the west when there were no other humans in that part of the world. The old fishing village is still a small district in the great city of Old Meos. Naval forces from Baloom next established themselves in a harbor just west of the fishing village and farmers and others followed. That is just the start of a story that has lasted many centuries.
Awe man I didn't know he was from Jo-Berg. I bet that's an interesting place to live
Definition of you: Badass!
All this is fantastic but if my players suddenly say that they want to go to a city in the middle of nothing which I haven't created, what do I do? Do I just "throw" an adventure in their journey so that I can create it before the next session or do I try to improvise?
After that I have to say thank you for your videos this channel is amazing I discovered it a week ago and I'm in love with it now.
A Very interesting building material is coral reef. There is the city of Nan madol in Indonesia.
Now for a whole different question: How do you create a city that doesn't actually exist?
Can you please do one on artifacts? I know you did on magical items, but artifacts are supposed to be something beyond this. Somthing that is too powerful for the players to use for long and using it may even affect the entire world
Thanks!
Do you have any world building tips for a desert themed campain I'm finding the info very limited when it comes to this awesome landscape
Fucking hell m8. I wanted this one for a long time
In the campain i run, there are only three cities, as there is no cycle of day and night, light come from the arcane power and in the earth of each city are different gods and there domain which is the most powerful source of light, in the meantime these city are nearly (if not) infinite because they are constantly expending. Outside of the cities (which is call the three great capitals) there are small villages that rely on different ultra powerful artifact to keep darkness at bay. Furthermore as each city ''belong'' to a different god (which are the gods of lies, truth and time) they are each very different and have some sort of colour theme, for exemple green is the colour of the city of lie, where the streets are covered in flowers and gardens are everywhere (flowers that grows notably on corpses). Blue is the Arcanniss, city of time where the layout of the city change constantly. Each cities are divided in numerous districts which belong to different lords and so there can still be very riche distrcit and (mostly) very poor ones. So yeah i just wanted to share, have a good day people.
Are there any good midevil, non fantasy modules? Also, how would I go about adding small fantasy elements into my nonfantasy adventure?
I think a city with 100'000 people in a medieval setting is extremely rare. So a city for me starts around 1000 people living there. It also depends somewhat on the architecture (is there a wall?) , do important people live there (king?) and so on.
I was thinking the same thing.
I mostly have great Ideas for cities, vilages etc.. But beside the history they are all the same(for me).. They always have a Inn, few shops, leader house/castle and thats it.. I create some side quests etc but I have problens creating memorable events on the city.. Any tips?
i trust you
Awesome vid ! Hope you see this comment amongst all the others: I am creating a townsfolk miniature set, and have got some great input from the community. What would you such a townsfolk mini set to be composed of? Currently, based on feedback, thinking a multi-race, gender set of about 18 unique townsfolk/NPCs. Tiefling barkeep, goblin merchant, dwarf blacksmith, hobgoblin shopkeep, raven plague doc, etc, with maybe 30-50% of them being human. Thoughts? Input would be invaluable! Thanks again
I think you should add all the essential jobs ; (Blacksmith, cobbler, cook, carpenter, builder, miner, farmer, merchant, guard, Noble, and of course villagers. You could also add in more interesting jobs like exterminator, jester, or maybe a village shaman or tattoo artist. What would be cool is a set for each type of settlement; (Jungle City, plains, nomadic, medieval) Just my ideas, wish you luck!
In my fantasy world of Gondmora that my players and I have been working to make over 7 years we have come to a point that each kingdom is unique compared to the others and each kindom has its own terrain theme and climate with its own culture and people and so far that is the setting for the current homebrew we are playing in. For some examples the nordic viking cultured kingdom of Winterhaven where the barbarians are common peoples to encounter is vastly different compared to the desert and arabic themed kingdom of Sunspear and that is diffrent to the kingdom of its neighbors Merkish which is themed after greeks and is a vast kingdom of fishermen and some miners
Do you use any sort of mapping tool?
Im havin trouble with my campaign
I need help with world building
Im having a hard trouble establishing a social Hierarchy Within the world
Firstly establishing between the difference in government of towns and cities
World builder proffesionals got any tips?
On how you differentiate the government of cities with towns
(I wanna give the world more depth for my players)
*explains how unique they are by comparing them to each other*
blossoms into brilliant purple for a week and then sheds into brown slippery sludge? thats a magnolia tree!
What is the significance of having cities or towns at all? I'm trying to do a critique on final fantasy 13 and I'm wondering everyone's perspective on this.
a settlement as small at 5000 was considered a city in Medieval europe.
I have been running a session for about a month now, and were starting to run into our villians. (My session is a homebrew war-fantasy campaign with home bases and social intrigue) I want my villians to be intimidating in dialogue, but they always come out... okay. How can I make a truly intimidating Villian that will make my players tremble before their foe?
Perhaps you should look at the Harry Potter universe:
I think Lord Voldemort is in your "come out... okay." -category.
Whereas Dolores Jane Umbridge is more in the "truly intimidating" -category.
I think some of the key elements of what make Umbridge so terrifying is:
She is competent!
She is empowered (By the ministry) and she empowers people (The inquisitorial squad).
Combine that with a nasty disposition!
On the surface Umbridge is seemingly nice, and that is important, as she need to gather followers: People who can vouch for her!
She uses her competence to point out flaws in people she want to dis-empower.
This way she divide the population up into two groups: Those who are "in" and those who are "out".
Being "in" brings benefits, and being "out" brings penalties, and thus hold the system in place!
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You find it in the StarWars universe too:
Emperor Palpatine "come out... okay.", but Darth Wader is "truly intimidating".
Again for approximately due the same reasons!
Study the dialogue in this clip:
czcams.com/video/k7k9_xuJG8c/video.html
Notice how Wader take Jerjerrod's side (A are you still "in"? Or are you on the way "out"?) by (pretend to) provide protection from the emperor, while at the same time point out how nice he (Wader) is (compared to the emperor)!
Do you know any book on this subject?
Question (possibly future video?): if i make a fantasy world, could i later use the same world, with changes of course, for a steampunk world, or a Victorian world, or sci-fi?
Why u couldnt?
What tools do you use to make your world map??
Running a pirate based campaign (got the big bads picked out) but was wondering how you run a campaign where they're on a ship for a good while between encounters/destinations.
Perhaps search the internet for "swashbuckling campaign" to find some inspiration?
That'll be stop #1 I think. I'm just concerned with them being bored from being stuck on a ship or with them not being on the ship and interacting with the crew enough.
dang ole doggo Make the ship and crew members really interesting then. The things players seem to remember most vividly are the characters. If the ship has their favourite characters, it'll be somewhere they will love to be.
Also, the sea can be a trecherous and sometimes mysterious place. Your adventurers might stumble across new lands, sunken treasures, sea monsters, or get stuck in a storm. Plenty of troubles and conflicts can happen onboard between crew members, too. Or maybe the crew decide to hold a celebration and festivities.
Just think of interesting things that can happen on board, or why the boat itself is interesting, and you might avoid the problem of their sea voyages being boring. :)
Zalman Schipp perfect timing as it's about to start back up! Thanks, I'm coming up with some encounters and fleshing out npc's now!
dang ole doggo Nice! Good luck!
how did you get that map made
The easiest way to make cities is to think of real life cities that fit your criteria. Landlocked, big city, not the capital. In the US alone, there's Las Vegas, Houston, Nashville, Salt Lake City, or Philadelphia. Philly is famous for its history, Salt Lake is next to a tourist destination, Nashville is a cultural center, Houston was a trade center between countries, while Vegas is famous for its entertainment. So there's five perfectly good models of cities.
Thinking that way, think of some coastal cities, not the capitals, and not super big cities like New York or Hong Kong.
6:05 A Castle known as what Keep?
does anyone know, where I could get a map of mine "overhauled" and printed?
I think this video might need a refresh