So I'm running an adventure I'm writing. My players soon will explore an abandoned underground Dwarven city, that is the site of essentially an ancient Chernobyl style Disaster. (The Ancient dwarves basically discovered Electricity and tried making a nuclear reactor and they had a meltdown either by accident or sabotage haven't decided which yet) So they will all be taking a special potion that will allow them to explore the ruins for a time without getting radiation sickness in the form of points of exhaustion. and while they are there they will deal with Duergar, mutated creatures, etc.
My issue is this.
In my lore Kilra is supposed to be this ancient Dwarven city center of learning and former hub of interplanar travel. But It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to map out an Entire city. Particularly when they will only be able to be there so long before they need to leave to avoid the radiation sickness.
I'm mapping out the dungeon but how do I make it feel huge though. Since this is supposed to be a large abandoned city.
You could take a map of an actual earth city of the appropriate size, rename the streets, and call it good. Preferably one none of your players have been too. And nothing with recognizable geography.
Are they going to see the map? If not, be vague. Even if they are, be vague. You don’t need a name for every street, square and building. It’s just, this area is the artisans district, over here is the government buildings, this is the university, this is the hill where the rich people lived, these are the slums. Over here is a statue, DC 25 history check to know who it is. Throw in a big, impressive building, like an Eiffel Tower/Golden Gate Bridge type thing that was a wonder, and it’s still standing somehow. It helps give a sense of place, and you can use it as a landmark to help them keep their bearings if they can see it from most of the town.
Tell them about the districts at the end of the session prior to exploring, and ask them where they want to go. Then you only need to fill in the details of that section, plus a little bit on the way to and from it.
Especially with it being a lost city, no one alive will know the names of the streets, or even really the neighborhoods. So actually, if you do use an earth city, you don’t even need to rename the streets.
In a campaign I just recently ended there was a 2 mile diameter island under which was a massive tunnel network. I only ever showed them small maps of certain sections and left the rest up to TotM and it felt hugemongous without me having to make more than a dozen small maps for combat encounters.
Cities aren't dungeons, and to treat one like the classical D&D dungeon is going to end up being tedious.
Make or steal a large-scale city map (since it's underground, unless it's "immense cavern with buildings", you'll probably have to make the map, but you can use a real one for inspiration). Let your players get hold of it early. Figure out what the major points of interest are going to be, and give them the high-detail treatment. (Note: your players will immediately want to go somewhere you didn't think of, so you're going to have to be prepared to wing it. Make some general-use stuff you can repurpose as needed. Be especially prepared for them to visit libraries, universities, city hall, and other places where there might be records.) Everything else is just neighborhoods/city districts/whatever.
The best way to make it feel huge is by narration. Emphasize the size of things, and their emptiness. Since they're on a clock, make sure there's loads of potentially interesting stuff that they just can't get to. (Museums, palaces, the neighborhood called "Goblintown" down near the docks, etc.)
I agree that it's best to treat this more like being in a large city in traditional D&D... maybe you have a map that shows the general layout, but you only need smaller maps for specific locations where a map will help. Similar to how cities might have a dozen buildings that are functionally empty... at best if the players insist on kicking in some random door you just roll on a table to determine how many confused civilians are inside. But important buildings could be mapped out, especially if there's any kind of major challenge inside... whether it's a place where a fight is expected to break out, or an area that's particularly crumbling and dangerous and needs to be explored carefully.
Theater of the Mind is your friend for exploration, and you can still use maps for combats or specific puzzle rooms. You don't have to map out the entire city. Come up with a list of locations of note, a bunch of encounters they might run into while exploring (monsters, rivals, traps, natural hazards, etc) and come up with city districts (market, residential, etc) so there's some sense of heading, and if they go too far in the wrong direction, they'll end up in a different district, which may take them to one of your other locations of note, just not what they were looking for.
Have the party decide where they're trying to go and use Survival checks to determine if they get lost (increasing the time it takes), and how many threats/challenges they run into on the way.
This lets you come up with a few grand set-piece combat scenarios, and any that don't get used here, you can save for use in another dungeon as long as you don't tell the party about them.
If you grabbed Acquisitions Inc. when it was free on DND Beyond you can use the first dungeon as an example.
It's set in ruins under the city of waterdeep. The maps are divided up into areas that represent openings as you make your way through crumbled corridors some times represented by skill challenges.
The other thing you might want to look at is the DMG for the random dungeon creation parts, and your might even be able to use some of the maps from that book as sections of the city.
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Use skill checks for navigation. Describe "In this part of the city you find such and such decour..." When using maps, have paths which extend to the edges of the space without terminating.
You could take a map of an actual earth city of the appropriate size, rename the streets, and call it good. Preferably one none of your players have been too. And nothing with recognizable geography.
Are they going to see the map? If not, be vague. Even if they are, be vague. You don’t need a name for every street, square and building. It’s just, this area is the artisans district, over here is the government buildings, this is the university, this is the hill where the rich people lived, these are the slums. Over here is a statue, DC 25 history check to know who it is. Throw in a big, impressive building, like an Eiffel Tower/Golden Gate Bridge type thing that was a wonder, and it’s still standing somehow. It helps give a sense of place, and you can use it as a landmark to help them keep their bearings if they can see it from most of the town.
Tell them about the districts at the end of the session prior to exploring, and ask them where they want to go. Then you only need to fill in the details of that section, plus a little bit on the way to and from it.
Especially with it being a lost city, no one alive will know the names of the streets, or even really the neighborhoods. So actually, if you do use an earth city, you don’t even need to rename the streets.
Pretty much all of this.
Google for maps of ancient cities. Believe me, there are plenty. Use as much or as little as you want. You can simply describe what it looks like IF they can find a place from which to see it. If it's a Dwarven city there may not be a single point from which the party can see more than one large hall, vault, or chamber. If you're using a timed piece (you mentioned radiation), then they likely won't be able to see very much.
Be prepared for them to try and figure out how to stay longer (lead lining over armor maybe?). Also, be prepared for them to want to go back if there's even a hint that there might be more stuff they had to leave behind.
I would only actually map out the areas where there will be fights, puzzles, traps, or other activities where they have to make a decision based on what they see.
Generally speaking, when it comes to cities it's best to go with theatre of the mind or just having a general area map that players can reference.
Thaat having been said: by your own admission the city is a nuclear bomb site, so a lot of the ruins (even if they're made of stone) are likely to have collapsed into rubble thus reducing how much of the city the players have to explore (and which you need to map out).
So instead of worrying about a whole city, just focus on a couple of key locations that you feel are important to the overall goal of this leg of the campaign and go from there.
short answer Theatre of the mind and just have maps for the key encounters.
longer answer and explanation. For players as well as a DM it can get really boring moving through a map of miles of empty corridors and rooms just for those moments where something exciting happens. It can also get a bit dull having to constantly move through a maze, picking left and rights almost at random going back and forth trying to find the right way.
So to avoid this I will start out planning by picking out what the key encounters are going to be, that might be combat, social (meeting someone) or coming across an interesting feature or room that the party just want to have a nose around. Some of them might just be for flavour to help paint a mental picture of the area they are in.
Then I pick one of 2 approaches. If I want to make it a fairly linear journey without lots of back and forth then I will fid some way of making it obvious which way the party should go, maybe in game say they are passed a map with directions to the target, or have a contact explain that the local thieves guild use the tunnels all the time and have placed hidden markers as a form of sign post. Maybe, if it is a dwarven ruin, you reward the character with Dwarven as a language so they are the ones to decipher any signposts.
I will then TOTM the journey, describing various points along the way and simply describe how the characters find the marker and get the right direction. I might have them make an investigation check or perception, just to determine if they get a little lost and how much time that adds to the time to get to the next encounter if there is a time element to the quest but I won't make them get totally lost or tell me "We go right, we go left, we go straight on", that decision making is taken from them in order to get them to the cool bits.
I am not saying there might not be some choices.
"As you travel along the sewers you see on the other side of the passageway a shut door" The party might explore in that are, or they might just carry on. But generally they will take a linear route form start to finish dealing with the encounters along the way.
Alternatively if I want a bit more choice then I will flowchart out the journey using a decision tree. The start point at one side and the end point/s at the other and then simply sketch out each point where a decision has to be made and what that choice leads to. Again I won't map the space out in a real map, some of those decision points will be simple prose, others might lead to an encounter needing a map. This takes a bit more effort and, if your party are only traveling through the space to a specific end point, can feel like alot of wasted effort when they only take one route through so in this case I tend to put some really light descriptive stuff down and use my own imagination and creativity in session to fill in loads more of the blanks when describing each step of the journey.
I can't remember where I saw it (super helpful I know) but one of the best tips I saw was you only ever need two layers of explanation before your players accept there is endless lore somewhere. After that you point back to the first layer and make a loop.
E.g. why don't the vampires travel by day using the sewers? Because of the giant crocodiles. Why are there Giant crocodiles? Because a religious subterranean sect of nuns rears them as sacred to their God. Why are they sacred? They protect the nunary from vampires.
For your game I'd use this by saying that the ancient and rich city of Kilra has been the topic of obsession for centuries. It takes many forms, from arcane study to looters stripping away precious materials. This has made swathes of the ancient city impassable. Can we go left? It doesnt look safe. Why? Looters have removed the strange metals struts which support the ceiling where cracks spiderweb out from cave in. Why did they do that? It's extremely tough and hard to melt and therefore valuable.
And if they push on anyway you get to have masonry falling if they start going a way you don't like or drop through the ground to another level when the floor gives way (putting them back on track) or many headed and deformed monsters (like flesh golems) who used to be scholars now claimed by the silent city. None of which is called railroading because its what they expect of the city.
So I'm running an adventure I'm writing. My players soon will explore an abandoned underground Dwarven city, that is the site of essentially an ancient Chernobyl style Disaster. (The Ancient dwarves basically discovered Electricity and tried making a nuclear reactor and they had a meltdown either by accident or sabotage haven't decided which yet) So they will all be taking a special potion that will allow them to explore the ruins for a time without getting radiation sickness in the form of points of exhaustion. and while they are there they will deal with Duergar, mutated creatures, etc.
My issue is this.
In my lore Kilra is supposed to be this ancient Dwarven city center of learning and former hub of interplanar travel. But It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to map out an Entire city. Particularly when they will only be able to be there so long before they need to leave to avoid the radiation sickness.
I'm mapping out the dungeon but how do I make it feel huge though. Since this is supposed to be a large abandoned city.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
You could take a map of an actual earth city of the appropriate size, rename the streets, and call it good. Preferably one none of your players have been too. And nothing with recognizable geography.
Are they going to see the map? If not, be vague. Even if they are, be vague. You don’t need a name for every street, square and building. It’s just, this area is the artisans district, over here is the government buildings, this is the university, this is the hill where the rich people lived, these are the slums. Over here is a statue, DC 25 history check to know who it is. Throw in a big, impressive building, like an Eiffel Tower/Golden Gate Bridge type thing that was a wonder, and it’s still standing somehow. It helps give a sense of place, and you can use it as a landmark to help them keep their bearings if they can see it from most of the town.
Tell them about the districts at the end of the session prior to exploring, and ask them where they want to go. Then you only need to fill in the details of that section, plus a little bit on the way to and from it.
Especially with it being a lost city, no one alive will know the names of the streets, or even really the neighborhoods. So actually, if you do use an earth city, you don’t even need to rename the streets.
In a campaign I just recently ended there was a 2 mile diameter island under which was a massive tunnel network. I only ever showed them small maps of certain sections and left the rest up to TotM and it felt hugemongous without me having to make more than a dozen small maps for combat encounters.
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Cities aren't dungeons, and to treat one like the classical D&D dungeon is going to end up being tedious.
Make or steal a large-scale city map (since it's underground, unless it's "immense cavern with buildings", you'll probably have to make the map, but you can use a real one for inspiration). Let your players get hold of it early. Figure out what the major points of interest are going to be, and give them the high-detail treatment. (Note: your players will immediately want to go somewhere you didn't think of, so you're going to have to be prepared to wing it. Make some general-use stuff you can repurpose as needed. Be especially prepared for them to visit libraries, universities, city hall, and other places where there might be records.) Everything else is just neighborhoods/city districts/whatever.
The best way to make it feel huge is by narration. Emphasize the size of things, and their emptiness. Since they're on a clock, make sure there's loads of potentially interesting stuff that they just can't get to. (Museums, palaces, the neighborhood called "Goblintown" down near the docks, etc.)
I agree that it's best to treat this more like being in a large city in traditional D&D... maybe you have a map that shows the general layout, but you only need smaller maps for specific locations where a map will help. Similar to how cities might have a dozen buildings that are functionally empty... at best if the players insist on kicking in some random door you just roll on a table to determine how many confused civilians are inside. But important buildings could be mapped out, especially if there's any kind of major challenge inside... whether it's a place where a fight is expected to break out, or an area that's particularly crumbling and dangerous and needs to be explored carefully.
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Huge underground Dwarven city makes me think of Blackreach that might give you some inspiration.
Theater of the Mind is your friend for exploration, and you can still use maps for combats or specific puzzle rooms. You don't have to map out the entire city. Come up with a list of locations of note, a bunch of encounters they might run into while exploring (monsters, rivals, traps, natural hazards, etc) and come up with city districts (market, residential, etc) so there's some sense of heading, and if they go too far in the wrong direction, they'll end up in a different district, which may take them to one of your other locations of note, just not what they were looking for.
Have the party decide where they're trying to go and use Survival checks to determine if they get lost (increasing the time it takes), and how many threats/challenges they run into on the way.
This lets you come up with a few grand set-piece combat scenarios, and any that don't get used here, you can save for use in another dungeon as long as you don't tell the party about them.
If you grabbed Acquisitions Inc. when it was free on DND Beyond you can use the first dungeon as an example.
It's set in ruins under the city of waterdeep. The maps are divided up into areas that represent openings as you make your way through crumbled corridors some times represented by skill challenges.
The other thing you might want to look at is the DMG for the random dungeon creation parts, and your might even be able to use some of the maps from that book as sections of the city.
worth having a look at Dyson's Dodecahedron -> https://dysonlogos.blog/
His My Private Jakalla mega under city map sounds particularly relevant to your needs -> https://dysonlogos.blog/maps/my-private-jakalla/
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Use skill checks for navigation. Describe "In this part of the city you find such and such decour..." When using maps, have paths which extend to the edges of the space without terminating.
Pretty much all of this.
Google for maps of ancient cities. Believe me, there are plenty. Use as much or as little as you want. You can simply describe what it looks like IF they can find a place from which to see it. If it's a Dwarven city there may not be a single point from which the party can see more than one large hall, vault, or chamber. If you're using a timed piece (you mentioned radiation), then they likely won't be able to see very much.
Be prepared for them to try and figure out how to stay longer (lead lining over armor maybe?). Also, be prepared for them to want to go back if there's even a hint that there might be more stuff they had to leave behind.
I would only actually map out the areas where there will be fights, puzzles, traps, or other activities where they have to make a decision based on what they see.
Generally speaking, when it comes to cities it's best to go with theatre of the mind or just having a general area map that players can reference.
Thaat having been said: by your own admission the city is a nuclear bomb site, so a lot of the ruins (even if they're made of stone) are likely to have collapsed into rubble thus reducing how much of the city the players have to explore (and which you need to map out).
So instead of worrying about a whole city, just focus on a couple of key locations that you feel are important to the overall goal of this leg of the campaign and go from there.
short answer Theatre of the mind and just have maps for the key encounters.
longer answer and explanation.
For players as well as a DM it can get really boring moving through a map of miles of empty corridors and rooms just for those moments where something exciting happens. It can also get a bit dull having to constantly move through a maze, picking left and rights almost at random going back and forth trying to find the right way.
So to avoid this I will start out planning by picking out what the key encounters are going to be, that might be combat, social (meeting someone) or coming across an interesting feature or room that the party just want to have a nose around. Some of them might just be for flavour to help paint a mental picture of the area they are in.
Then I pick one of 2 approaches.
If I want to make it a fairly linear journey without lots of back and forth then I will fid some way of making it obvious which way the party should go, maybe in game say they are passed a map with directions to the target, or have a contact explain that the local thieves guild use the tunnels all the time and have placed hidden markers as a form of sign post. Maybe, if it is a dwarven ruin, you reward the character with Dwarven as a language so they are the ones to decipher any signposts.
I will then TOTM the journey, describing various points along the way and simply describe how the characters find the marker and get the right direction. I might have them make an investigation check or perception, just to determine if they get a little lost and how much time that adds to the time to get to the next encounter if there is a time element to the quest but I won't make them get totally lost or tell me "We go right, we go left, we go straight on", that decision making is taken from them in order to get them to the cool bits.
I am not saying there might not be some choices.
"As you travel along the sewers you see on the other side of the passageway a shut door" The party might explore in that are, or they might just carry on. But generally they will take a linear route form start to finish dealing with the encounters along the way.
Alternatively if I want a bit more choice then I will flowchart out the journey using a decision tree. The start point at one side and the end point/s at the other and then simply sketch out each point where a decision has to be made and what that choice leads to. Again I won't map the space out in a real map, some of those decision points will be simple prose, others might lead to an encounter needing a map. This takes a bit more effort and, if your party are only traveling through the space to a specific end point, can feel like alot of wasted effort when they only take one route through so in this case I tend to put some really light descriptive stuff down and use my own imagination and creativity in session to fill in loads more of the blanks when describing each step of the journey.
Hey
I can't remember where I saw it (super helpful I know) but one of the best tips I saw was you only ever need two layers of explanation before your players accept there is endless lore somewhere. After that you point back to the first layer and make a loop.
E.g. why don't the vampires travel by day using the sewers? Because of the giant crocodiles. Why are there Giant crocodiles? Because a religious subterranean sect of nuns rears them as sacred to their God. Why are they sacred? They protect the nunary from vampires.
For your game I'd use this by saying that the ancient and rich city of Kilra has been the topic of obsession for centuries. It takes many forms, from arcane study to looters stripping away precious materials. This has made swathes of the ancient city impassable. Can we go left? It doesnt look safe. Why? Looters have removed the strange metals struts which support the ceiling where cracks spiderweb out from cave in. Why did they do that? It's extremely tough and hard to melt and therefore valuable.
And if they push on anyway you get to have masonry falling if they start going a way you don't like or drop through the ground to another level when the floor gives way (putting them back on track) or many headed and deformed monsters (like flesh golems) who used to be scholars now claimed by the silent city. None of which is called railroading because its what they expect of the city.
Wanted to thank everyone for replying to this topic.
It Really Helped me out a lot. I now have a lot of paths and ideas of how to approach this.
All of you are awesome!