City Supplements: The Good, The Bad, and the Fugly

[Lofgeornost]

...D&D started to address this via skills relatively early, and many games do the same with some version of a Streetwise or Local Area Knowledge type skill. I never found that at all satisfying though.

When I have to roll a skill every time my PC wants to know something they should probably actually know not only is the chance of failure inherent in the die roll an odd fit, it also feels very divorced from what I think of as roleplaying. I can't make appropriate choices and decisions for my PC when all the knowledge is gated behind die rolls and coming from the DMs notes. You can run a game this way of course, and that game can even be excellent, but in this one regard it's always going to be sub par IMO...

I see your point, I think, but I think there are two separate issues:

• Asking for a die roll for something you feel your character should simply know. That can be a problem with lore-type skills, but I would say it basically comes down to the g.m. making an appropriate call. If it really is something that should be common knowledge to a local, then the g.m. should not be asking for die rolls at all, any more than she or he would ask for a check for driving or horse-riding for a routine journey.
• Whether the way to get around this is allowing the players to pre-design part of the city, at least in broad strokes, so that they feel ownership and have in effect local knowledge because they've helped create X or Y. I imagine you can get good results that way--I've never actually done it myself. But it doesn't quite deal with the problem that the lore skills do, of particular local knowledge, unless the creation has been farmed out to a considerable degree. Even then it only does if the player was responsible for that part of the creation process.

To give an example, since this has been rather abstract. Let's say the p.c. is a thief in city X. He or she wants to find a rooming-house, inn, etc. to lie low in for a few days. Someplace cheap and discrete is needed--lodging where there will be no questions asked--but it also needs to be someplace the p.c. doesn't normally visit or hang out, since whoever is chasing him or her will check usual haunts.

Now, the g.m. could either simply state, 'yeah, you know such a place--it's Z in Y district' or make the player roll the appropriate skill before giving the answer. (Frankly, I'd be inclined to ask for the roll, but to interpret failure as 'you think of a place, but it's actually not all that good a fit for what you want.') But I don't think participating in the original creation of the setting would help the player in that instance, unless by chance he or she had specifically created such a venue which has been placed in the city.

 

[Fenris-77]

Honestly, roll or no roll, my issue is playing mother may I with the DM about something my PC should know without having to ask anyone. It's unavoidable in some games, and I'm not judging those games (the systems and people playing it do the best they can) just pointing out a particular sticking point for me personally. Given the opportunity I'll write up a character who isn't local rather have to roleplay one who is without the information to really do that justice (IMO).

 

[Jan Paparazzi]

This isn't a 'better than' sort of argument, just an index to the particular reason I'd choose to use a method like the one I described for a particular kind of urban campaign.

Well, I liked it because it tied themes and threaths to areas and I already did that to every district in my city. So doing that wasn't a bad idea on my end. Especially doing the themes I like, because that makes it seem like there is something going on in that area. It provides some World in Motion. I also liked the divide between the factions in mundane and supernatural ones and faction who are pro status quo and anti status quo. Very good idea.

I never really have the problem you have, because I just tell the players what they know. We just raise our hands if we want to talk out of character. I would raise my hand and tell the player what his character knows. I also use streetwise just for knowledge about illegal stuff, criminal stuff, drug trade etc.

Yea, the local knowledge thing is one of the issues I have with urban adventuring. It's much easier with wilderness and dungeon adventuring to have the adventure happen out in the unknown.

Well, I just took some inspiration from the Masquerade board game Chapters and from this site with kewl Masquerade wallpapers and I thought to myself "The streets actually look pretty dangerous to me." and I also thought that making that distinction with other settings is mostly in your head. I also thought that most of the stuff you do in other rpg's is about exploration, trade or being a mercenary. Well, a hunter is kinda sorta a mercenary and an investigator is like an explorer and if you are selling artefacts and grimoires you are a trader.

 

[chuckdee]

Honestly, roll or no roll, my issue is playing mother may I with the DM about something my PC should know without having to ask anyone. It's unavoidable in some games, and I'm not judging those games (the systems and people playing it do the best they can) just pointing out a particular sticking point for me personally. Given the opportunity I'll write up a character who isn't local rather have to roleplay one who is without the information to really do that justice (IMO).

As long as something isn't breaking, I let my players state what they know and add it to the world. It's a good way to continue the collaborative worldbuilding during play.

 

[Winterblight]

Regarding Lore or Knowledge Rolls - If players are putting valuable experience (game dependant) into upping skills or attributes that might impact said skills then they should get something out of it by using that skill. I handle lore rolls on a sliding scale, but most characters will know something basic but a lore roll adds to that basic info - a great lore roll gives them details that no other character would have giving them some kind of advantage.

 

[Caesar Slaad]

A couple of days ago Swords of the Serpentine, which I had long believed vapourware popped into my inbox. The setting, Eversink, is Lankhmar meets Venice. It is a very “coherent” setting - to use some old, possibly triggering - terminology. I’m not sure if it is a triumph of design or renfaire. Anybody have any thoughts?

It did remind me of a citybook I love - Heroes set in Triente (Venice again). One needs to be real BOSR to remember that. It was incoherent, amateur, but got its information and atmosphere over very efficiently, in a way that so many bloated modern designs fail to do.

Sorry for the delayed response, this just popped up during a search I was doing because I'm gearing up to start a SotS campaign.

I think that Eversink has a feeling of identity that lots of fantasy cities lack. The sinking city thing, implications of it (like the way statuary is how the dead are revered instead of burials because gravesites tend to have their contents show up floating in the canal), the triskidane, the goddess and the way sorcery is policed all sort of combined to give the city a set of unique defining characteristics that I don't think a lot of other RPG cities achieve without becoming unrelatable.

 

[robertsconley]

D&D started to address this via skills relatively early, and many games do the same with some version of a Streetwise or Local Area Knowledge type skill. I never found that at all satisfying though.

From years of playing GURPS, Hero System, and other skill based system I found Area Knowledge skills to be lacking as well.

So for my Majestic Fantasy RPG, I generally just provide the information. However amount of details I provide depends on the skill level. It different somebody with +1 in Area Knowledge( CSIO) versus +4 in Area Knowledge (CSIO). Attributes like Intelligence also play a role. Skill rolls are made only when the character needs to remember "right now". I will still tell them but only after the combat or encounter.

I found this way of handling to work out much better. After a few session playing this way, players are more apt to start acting as they would if they really were the character having lived their lives in the cities. They know when they are planning something that I will tell them any relevant details their character would know. That it won't be subject to a random dice roll.

Now I realize to some this sounds like an "easy mode" but after playing LARPS and having a more life experience as I get older, I think this is the more accurate way of handling area knowledge. You still have learned or lived in the area and that is represented by your skill in area knowledge. However once you learned it and you have the time you will remember the relevant details. But under time pressure it is a different story.

The results have been great and I intend to the same with GURPS and any other skill based system I run in the future.

 

[chuckdee]

Sorry for the delayed response, this just popped up during a search I was doing because I'm gearing up to start a SotS campaign.

I think that Eversink has a feeling of identity that lots of fantasy cities lack. The sinking city thing, implications of it (like the way statuary is how the dead are revered instead of burials because gravesites tend to have their contents show up floating in the canal), the triskidane, the goddess and the way sorcery is policed all sort of combined to give the city a set of unique defining characteristics that I don't think a lot of other RPG cities achieve without becoming unrelatable.

It was also one of the reasons I didn't run my playtest game in Eversink. There was just too much to digest for a short-form campaign.

 

[ffilz]

From years of playing GURPS, Hero System, and other skill based system I found Area Knowledge skills to be lacking as well.

So for my Majestic Fantasy RPG, I generally just provide the information. However amount of details I provide depends on the skill level. It different somebody with +1 in Area Knowledge( CSIO) versus +4 in Area Knowledge (CSIO). Attributes like Intelligence also play a role. Skill rolls are made only when the character needs to remember "right now". I will still tell them but only after the combat or encounter.

I found this way of handling to work out much better. After a few session playing this way, players are more apt to start acting as they would if they really were the character having lived their lives in the cities. They know when they are planning something that I will tell them any relevant details their character would know. That it won't be subject to a random dice roll.

Now I realize to some this sounds like an "easy mode" but after playing LARPS and having a more life experience as I get older, I think this is the more accurate way of handling area knowledge. You still have learned or lived in the area and that is represented by your skill in area knowledge. However once you learned it and you have the time you will remember the relevant details. But under time pressure it is a different story.

The results have been great and I intend to the same with GURPS and any other skill based system I run in the future.

Oh, I like this. I have never been happy with knowledge skills but I think this could work. There may still be a question of representation of ALL the knowledge a character SHOULD have within their skills. But some of that could be handled by making sure each character has at least some knowledge skill in each of several broad areas, like every PC should have a local, regional, and world knowledge skill with intermediaries between regional and world available for characters who are actually well traveled or have reason to know more about a wider area than their home region than implied by their world knowledge. Actually, some characters probably don't even need a regional knowledge, though most PCs will want that knowledge, but a farmer from a PCs home village might have never left the village and so doesn't even have Regional Knowledge level 1 and his World Knowledge might just be level 0.

 

[robertsconley]

There may still be a question of representation of ALL the knowledge a character SHOULD have within their skills.

A way to think of it is just in time knowledge. The simple fact is that while we are pretending to live our character lives there are logistical limitation resulting from it being a hobby using pen & paper. No matter how interested we are in character backgrounds or immersion it is impossible to have close to a 100% fidelity. However we can fake it.

It requires the referee to continually listen to what the player plot and scheme and then interject or coach a player or players if something their character ought to know is relevant. You will have to play it by ear the best way of imparting the information. But I found by doing this in small doses from the start of the campaign usually I only have to talk about one or two relevant points later one.

It not perfect because if the adventure was really happening with the characters then there are probably be making some deep connections in their mind with the knowledge they really would have. But we do the best we can with the time and resources we have.

Keep in mind there is a limit for any particular moment. A point where the decision is made and the players have to live with the consequences. Only if a serious misconception occurs with something that I should made the player aware of because of their character will I rewind things* and tell them to reconsider.

*I don't believe in mechanics for doing this. I just say, you are right, your character would have known and reset the action.

The benefit of doing this is that players will loosen up and more apt to interact with everything in the pursuit of their goals and adventures. And when the shit goes down, they more apt to trust that you were fair and already given what they needed to know. Realizing they made the wrong call or just missed things they should have thought through.

 

[Fenris-77]

It was also one of the reasons I didn't run my playtest game in Eversink. There was just too much to digest for a short-form campaign.

I can see that. The setting is marvelous, but it's not something you digest in a single reading.

 

[chuckdee]

And I don't know if I ever posted this -

City of Towers

Swords of the Serpentine Campaign in Eberron

write.as

My playtest notes. Earlier they didn't want me to post them, but with the PDF in the wild, they can't say anything about them now...

 

[ffilz]

Hmm, I need to go back through all the suggestions... Without really thinking about what I was doing I backed myself into a corner of running an urban campaign by starting my RuneQuest Thieves Guild campaign... I'm quickly discovering that while Thieves Guild has some neat scenarios, it really doesn't have enough content to fuel a campaign, at least not an urban one (tomb robbing you could easily scrounge across the RPG scene for additional adventures, the procedural content for banditry could easily be expanded). And only 2/3 of The Free City of Haven was published. And of course last night the PCs decided to go to a tavern on the city map that is in one of the neighborhoods covered by the unpublished 3rd volume... I managed to wing my way through things and got the PCs hooked up with a probable kidnapping but I'm going to need some solid procedural content generators to keep this campaign going. With the kidnapping I might try linking things into the Companions Streets of Gems module series.

So if anyone has any suggestions... I do have some stuff and will need to dig back through...

 

[robertsconley]

So if anyone has any suggestions... I do have some stuff and will need to dig back through...

I think Thieves Guild's gap is that while it excellent as generating stuff for thieves to do. It doesn't cover why they come up in the first place. They leave that to the referee which causes the problem you are observing. For example what you can rob on a highway (which Thieves Guild covers) versus why are you out there robbing people on a highway (which Thieves Guild doesn't cover).

 

[ffilz]

I think Thieves Guild's gap is that while it excellent as generating stuff for thieves to do. It doesn't cover why they come up in the first place. They leave that to the referee which causes the problem you are observing. For example what you can rob on a highway (which Thieves Guild covers) versus why are you out there robbing people on a highway (which Thieves Guild doesn't cover).

Well, the players have bought into being a gang of newly minted thieves looking to join the thieves guild, so my problem is more how to come up with targets for them that will play out with some interest. I pulled something from one of the Flying Buffalo City Books (the spa from book 6) and the PCs did some scoping out the place and then decided it was going to be too much hassle to try and be in during the day to steal from the patrons so they went looking for rumors and lucky me managed to cook something up and some interesting rolls led to one of the PCs being assumed to be part of the kidnapping gang giving them just enough to read between the lines... Now I have to come up with the actual plot for next session... :-)

 

[robertsconley]

Maybe use Thieves Guild for the type of thievery involved and Midkemia's City book to flesh any characters involved.

 

[Ravenswing]

Well ... look. When all is said and done, there are not only a lot of published RPG cities out there, but a lot of free material, and there's nothing available in greater carload lots than inn/tavern descriptions. So what you might want to accumulate is a database of sorts. Cut-and-paste descriptions to a file, save the file, have it handy when you GM. You can either arrange it by business, or have (say) a list of Twenty Generic Shopkeepers, and just go to the next one on the list when the players drop in on the neighborhood silversmith/perfumer/cobbler/alchemist/tomato seller. Or both: the way my parties bounce around, it's often just easier to do it that way, rather than hardkeying 100 different shopkeepers, only a dozen or so of whom the players will ever see.

And really, you can do this for most professions. Some symbols/ratings for things you can extrapolate over most professions: how pricey are her wares? How good is her quality? How broad is her selection? How fast can she whip X up from scratch? Roll 4d6 for the lot, with each die a different color: red's her price, blue's her quality, white's her selection, green's her speed. 1 sucks, 6 is great, etc.

Most everything else can stretch across the gamut -- if I told you (say) that the shopkeeper had three children, did extensive black market dealings, was dyslexic (but Numbah One Son hovers around to make sure Mama didn't miscount the money), and had a soft spot for obvious warriors from her own mercenary days (the sword hanging from the wall plainly has seen use), you could tweak any of that pretty fast for different professions.

A silversmith? Okay, she made a pile as a merc, retired to the shop, and the smugglers use her to launder coin. A tomato seller? Okay, she retired because she took a bad wound to the leg that never healed, but everyone in the neighborhood likes her, and the local crime boss pays her a stipend for the latest gossip. A cobbler? Man, she makes the best army boots in town -- she really knows what someone who needs to march thirty miles in a day has to have. Easy peasy.

 

[Bunch]

Whatever you find I highly suggest you fine tune it so it would be highly advantageous to be a smaller humanoid with dark vision. That's really the only way to make it fun for everyone......

 

[ffilz]

What's always challenging for me for urban adventures is tying things together.

For more traditional adventuring, I either use an interesting module (in which case it has some degree of organization) or if I do set up something myself, I'm at least starting from a map that I snarfed somewhere, and I may have a bit of a theme (or not).

But my brain can just freeze with urban adventuring.

And I found playing the random encounter table in CSIO ultimately frustrating (and it makes for a pretty dangerous city... the PCs almost got wiped out by skeletons in broad daylight once).

Ultimately I suspect I will have to entice the PCs out of the city... On the other hand, one player has made it clear she doesn't want traditional murder hobo adventuring and as a "Thieves Guild" game, I have no problem honoring that, but I do need to come up with good leads for the players to follow, and ideally present them with multiple options.

 

[Gringnr]

Apparently, Gamelords still has brand-new copies of Haven and several related products for a damn low price:

Different Worlds Publications - Gamelords - Haven

 

[Bunch]

Apparently, Gamelords still has brand-new copies of Haven and several related products for a damn low price:

Different Worlds Publications - Gamelords - Haven

That's who I bought Haven from.