I am currently building a very large city for my players to run around in. We ended our last session at the gates of this city, and when we next meet they will go exploring it. Now they have several friends in the city, and places to go. My primary question is how you all format your notes and organize them. Do you create zone in a city "in sector Z we have the triads, and the thieves guild at each others throats, there are a lot of magic shops here, and the main road through this sector is called Victory Promenade. How do you all do this kinda thing.
Use Greyhawk, Waterdeep, or any published city and then change the theme, vibe, and names (optional on names) is the easiest way.
Otherwise, you can build it however you like. Without knowing your schtick for the city, it is hard to give much advice other than look at how the city(ies) you envision the one you are building were built/came to be. Is it an Empire Capital like Rome, Alexandria, Istanbul, or a Fallen Empire Capital like Rome, is it a merchant city state like Genoa, Venice, Ulm, Lubeck, or Kiev, is it a rugged frontier outpost like St. Louis, Newcastle, or York, is it more Eastern themed, like the Imperial City, Kyoto, Baghdad, or Agra?
For me, yes. I basically do it the way you're describing. I'm currently building a huge city map. If i'm lucky I'll have it done in a couple days and I can share it. When I'm building a city I like to work on what I call 'the focus points' first and work out from them. For example The church was one of the first things built in the city with a fairly wealthy district around it. There is also the area where most nobles live, a slum/criminal area, a manufacturing area surrounded by worker housing, a market area which is near hotels and lodging. I think you get the idea :) I number the specific focal points and have a general blurb/points of interest breakdown within that area. Some areas have much more going on in them than others and in some cases I do a map for just that area because the party will be questing there. Hope that helps! Good luck!
When you're building a city, you generally want to start with some things detailed, but a lot of things left blank. Waterdeep, for example, appears to contain several thousand buildings (crudely eyeballing a map, looks like ~5k), which is completely unreasonable to try and map out (incidentally, the map of Waterdeep is way too small for the population D&D sources claim it has, it's an urban area of around 5 square miles and doesn't look super dense, which implies an urban population of maybe 200k). If you want a city with character you should probably fill out at least a half dozen neighborhoods and a similar number of landmarks, but you can add arbitrarily more. If you start out with a small number, you'll have to be well prepared to add new things while in play. New things can either be added at random, or by need (i.e. the plot calls for something specific, or the PCs go out looking for something).
The best way to track this is a digital map you can annotate.
Incidentally, you can just use a real city as the basis for your map, if you pick a mid-sized city that's not near where the players live it's unlikely they'll recognize it (large cities are recognizable, but there's thousands of cities with populations of 100-200k).
Hello everyone,
I am currently building a very large city for my players to run around in. We ended our last session at the gates of this city, and when we next meet they will go exploring it. Now they have several friends in the city, and places to go. My primary question is how you all format your notes and organize them. Do you create zone in a city "in sector Z we have the triads, and the thieves guild at each others throats, there are a lot of magic shops here, and the main road through this sector is called Victory Promenade. How do you all do this kinda thing.
Use Greyhawk, Waterdeep, or any published city and then change the theme, vibe, and names (optional on names) is the easiest way.
Otherwise, you can build it however you like. Without knowing your schtick for the city, it is hard to give much advice other than look at how the city(ies) you envision the one you are building were built/came to be. Is it an Empire Capital like Rome, Alexandria, Istanbul, or a Fallen Empire Capital like Rome, is it a merchant city state like Genoa, Venice, Ulm, Lubeck, or Kiev, is it a rugged frontier outpost like St. Louis, Newcastle, or York, is it more Eastern themed, like the Imperial City, Kyoto, Baghdad, or Agra?
For me, yes. I basically do it the way you're describing. I'm currently building a huge city map. If i'm lucky I'll have it done in a couple days and I can share it. When I'm building a city I like to work on what I call 'the focus points' first and work out from them. For example The church was one of the first things built in the city with a fairly wealthy district around it. There is also the area where most nobles live, a slum/criminal area, a manufacturing area surrounded by worker housing, a market area which is near hotels and lodging. I think you get the idea :) I number the specific focal points and have a general blurb/points of interest breakdown within that area. Some areas have much more going on in them than others and in some cases I do a map for just that area because the party will be questing there. Hope that helps! Good luck!
That's what happens when you wear a helmet your whole life!
My house rules
When you're building a city, you generally want to start with some things detailed, but a lot of things left blank. Waterdeep, for example, appears to contain several thousand buildings (crudely eyeballing a map, looks like ~5k), which is completely unreasonable to try and map out (incidentally, the map of Waterdeep is way too small for the population D&D sources claim it has, it's an urban area of around 5 square miles and doesn't look super dense, which implies an urban population of maybe 200k). If you want a city with character you should probably fill out at least a half dozen neighborhoods and a similar number of landmarks, but you can add arbitrarily more. If you start out with a small number, you'll have to be well prepared to add new things while in play. New things can either be added at random, or by need (i.e. the plot calls for something specific, or the PCs go out looking for something).
The best way to track this is a digital map you can annotate.
Incidentally, you can just use a real city as the basis for your map, if you pick a mid-sized city that's not near where the players live it's unlikely they'll recognize it (large cities are recognizable, but there's thousands of cities with populations of 100-200k).