Making places interesting/unique - DMing

[Jurble]

hey guys,
so my campaigns been going for awhile now and im finding it hard to flesh out places so they feel real. for instance in a specific city the players only go to the area i suggest they go to (ie the market ot buy stuff, the poor district for information, the town centre to meet with important people etc.)

Im worried about all these cities merging into one and im looking for ways to give cities individuality, a "vibe" and mark different areas for different uses. Any suggestions on doing so? Im fiarly new to DMing so soaking up as much help as I can get

cheers!

Day

 

[sukael]

Accents. Popular fashions. Street layouts—one might be rather chaotic, another could have intermittent but broad avenues, a third could have a strict grid of tiny streets, etc. Racial makeup—whatever the most common race is will have considerable effects on architecture and transportation. Primary industries—clothing, manufacture of armor and weapons, shipping, whatever.

That should help you get started.

 

[exile]

Names- I use this more with people names than anything else, but it can also work with place names. I have a huge book of baby names arranged by language/nationality. Keep the names of a place consistent, perhaps throwing in an oddly named visitor from time to time.

Environmental Hazards- Make the environment of the various cities have some effect on game play. Athletics checks to move from rooftop to rooftop of a towering metropolis. Acrobatics checks to keep footing on a flotilla type city.

Colors- I was always stricken by how the planets in Star Wars were always painted in distincto colors. Paint your cities the same way.

Reasons to visit different districts- Give your players a bunch of options as to which sections of the city they can go to.

Different Districts for each city- maybe a particularly prosperous city doesn't have a "poor district". Maybe another city has a particularly interesting halfling ghtetto.

Laws- Create different laws for various cities. Some may be as simple as "no killing, no stealing." Others may have complex legal systems that have grown out of trade regulations.

 

[cougent]

I use real world city distinctions (or even stereotypes) for my D&D cities. If you don't know that much about various cities then you can still pull details from the web and modify them to fit your D&D needs.

 

[Rechan]

Don't forget funny customs and superstitions. The ol' "Burping is a compliment to the cook" or "Salt tossed over the shoulder" type deals.

Tailor these to where your characters will be interacting. For instance, there might be certain customs in this place for business transactions. Merchants might not sell to the PCs until they do the right thing, otherwise the merchant might see it as an ill omen/bad deal.

Perhaps this city also has an 'untouchable' attitude to the poor caste; anyone who touches a poor person has to 'cleanse' themselves, or they can't interact with those of the other castes. So if the PCs go into the poor district for info, and don't 'cleanse', they might find themselves pariahs. (An easy way to deal with this is a spell or something as simple as a mark stamped on their clothes when they enter the poor district, one that can only be lifted from a designated cleansing area).

Other possibilites:

Nudist colony. You might laugh, but the origin of shaking hands was meant to show you have no weapon. In a fantasy game, innocent items could be weapons (or spell components). So to ensure everyone is not a threat, it's naked time.

Insulated religious community/commune. Think Amish. The locals won't give anything but the polite cold shoulder unless the PCs show reverence to the religion, dress like them, etc.

Intense Racial Segregation: One race (PHB or other monstrous race) is the vast majority of the inhabitants. Any non-members of this race are shunned or considered second class citizens, either by law, or by social custom. So the non-dominant race may not be able to talk, or be sold things, or whatever. (This works best if you pick a race that only one of your PCs is a member of. Even if that character isn't very social, it might make him feel special, or add extra tension if he's the only go between). This might also create an "Underground network", where the information or the "place to go" is the place between the cracks where the other races live.

Intense Political Segregation: Consider Post WWII Berlin; a city that's divided between 2-3 factions, of different tensions and temperments towards one another. This might make it very interesting if the PCs come in one section, but need something in a second section that they can't get clearance to enter.

Big Brother or Thieves' Guild: Maybe the area is under the ownership of an overly zealous government, or openly ran by criminals. In the former, the PCs must deal with the government, otherwise they have investigators poking their nose where ever the PCs go. In the latter, the players must "play ball" with the criminals in order to get anything done.

Moral Relativism Run Amok: For the sake of commerce or political stance, all churches (including evil ones) are welcome. A few monstrous races are accepted (orc, hobgoblin, drow). This is best suited for a trading town, likely an out-of-the-way place or the "only place you can buy x in five hundred miles". Such a place is more like a Frontier place; disputes are settled mono-e-mono, but everyone piles on dangerous offenders for the sake of keeping a peace for the sake of trade.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I have always loved as suggested before in using environment to really add flavour to places.

One setting for instance is in what is essentially a "wet desert" so you have both desert climate and also what accounts to the Louisiana Bayou. I have integrated that into the people and cities by having things like Arabic silk, but it is moulding and usually a shade of green from algae from the wetnesses of the swamps.

Or, while things like bells and trinkets are common accessories in Arabic markets the reason has changed completely, it is now a means to be found in a swamp (sound and being shiny).

So just two little environmental differences can spawn a world of change.

Also as suggested above, COLOUR! It is something I emphasize extremely in both world-design and individual places (as a player I also find it handy since then in designing a character I find a colour palette can help decide a character, ie: a world of lots of blues and greys I won't make a Fire Genasi most likely).

 

[Gilladian]

When you are describing a city and trying to make it seem different from the other cities you've described recently, try to use all five of the players' senses; engage them with sights (ie color, clothing, architecture) as others have mentioned; sound (the music, accents, languages heard, how noisy people are, bells ringing or not, etc...), smell (is this a port? near a freshwater lake or river? are there large herds of animals inside the walls? do people bathe often? is there a favored perfume, spice, native flower, or such?). Taste and touch are a trifle more difficult, but describing a meal (the favored beverage might be a sour fruit juice in one city, or a dark ale in another; do they prefer salty fish stew or roasted fresh lamb?) is always good.

And remember, if the PCs take away ONE clear memory of your city, you've done your job. Whenever I mention Jerint to my PCs, they always say "oh, that's the city where the school of music is; (one pc) bought his magic flute there!". In contrast, they remember that Marig is a port city that stinks of rotten fish and has lots of legal complications waiting for them...

 

[VectorSigma]

Location, location, location.

Think about the features of the city - industry, architecture, culture - and try to throw in an event (even if it's a fight) that highlights one of these. That'll make the city (and the fight within it) memorable to your players.

For example, if you were in a modern setting (James Bond or Bourne, let's say), and some of the action took place in Venice...well, that just demands a gondola chase, doesn't it? Think back to "every movie you ever saw" that had scenes in a foreign city, and how that foreignness was highlighted.

PCs go to Mexico? Obviously, it happens to be a fiesta, with shooting in the air, fireworks, people dancing in the streets. At some point, there will be a burro.

PCs go to Hong Kong? Obviously, it happens to be Chinese New Year, with acrobats and a bunch of guys in a dragon costume.

PCs go to Pamplona? Must be running of the bulls. That courier has what you came for, and he's getting away...down the hill, and here come the bulls...

PCs go to London? Rooftop chase with chimney sweeps. Something involving a double-decker bus. A combat on the face of Big Ben's clock, with someone hanging desperately from the minute hand.

The Alps? Ski chase is mandatory (cello case is optional). Paris? We're not leaving til someone has to climb the Eiffel Tower. Can't do Monte Carlo or Vegas without a gambling scene in a casino, right?

It's all about scoping a location and highlighting the cool bits. You can't have a fight on a pirate ship without said fight moving up into the rigging, can you? Of course not! And why would you want to? Use the tropes. Even a feature which at first doesn't seem pulpy or exciting can be turned up to eleven. If the PCs are in upstate New York, and you look at your guidebook and all it says is "major production center for pencils", wow, maybe that sounds lame. But what about a fight in a pencil factory? With buzzsaws blazing, precariously-stacked boxes to climb on, and spilled pencils everywhere (good luck keeping your footing)?

Recall in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' (the first one) the fight in the blacksmith's shop. It's as though the writers sat down and said "okay, what cool stuff is in a smithy that we can highlight in the swordfight?" You should be doing it, too.

You can do the same thing with your fantasy cities - come up with a couple of 'gimmicks' to help flesh out what's different about each one, and make sure your players see those gimmicks when they first visit the town. It'll be a kind of foreshadowing. When PCs go to City X and you describe how City X is famous for having the world's largest hedge maze, the players should nod to themselves and say "hedge maze...that's gonna be awesome", knowing full well as some point they're going to have to chase someone through that darned maze. Once the pattern is established a little, you might be surprised to see your players steering things in a way that's actually to their disadvantage, just so that they can "use" the local feature.

 

[greyscale1]

Have a theme song for each city!

Other than that, maybe Ill just list some of my more exciting venues:


Dar'es'Balat (might have ripped the name from Dune, no longer sure):

A Dragonborn city built into the walls of a massive ravine, a great river runs along the bottom of the ravine. The whole city I describe as smelling thick and rich with spices, lit constantly by massive bonfires in what look like huge iron woks hanging from wooden beams laid across the top of the canyon. It is a city of reds and oranges. Herb sellers, whorehouses, a dwarven mead-hall, debauchery is thick but the mood stays light. Several prostitutes have gathered, sitting on their haunches and listening to a smiling paladin of Bahamet, flagon of mead in one proselytizing hand, the other gesticulating wildly. At the bottom of the ravine on the shores of the river is another city, Sanlaash, sister of Dar'es'Balat. Sanlaash is a halfling trade city, and is painted in more somber tones. The smell of the sea is always fresh here, as many boats sail up the river that leads to the ocean and moor in the ravines safe harbors; great water filled caves that were cut eons ago into the canyon walls at the base of the river. Sanlaash is almost all business, while a spralling city in and of itself, it has almost no non-laboring residents.

Karish

A great obsidian fortress sticks out of the Westfens like a broken ogres tooth. From far away the city of Karish is a fearsome sight. However, once you get up close to the city, its a different story. Many of the obsidian walls of the fortress have been painted over by young children, most of the interior and exterior walls have been painted in great strokes of bright colors. The obsidian walls dont hold pigment well however, so you often see flocks of children lead by their schoolteachers out into the marsh to gather flowers and berries, then heading back and slathering the parapets with fluffy clouds and crudely drawn stick figures holding hands. It is said that Karish was once a fortress of the shadar'kai in ancient days. Those days are long gone, and the terrible fortress of Karish is now filled with the heady smells of swampfruit, ale, and flowers.

Etc etc. If you want more I'll post more.

 

[Jurble]

Oh wow awesome, thanks guys! This is really really helpful! Im playing an SWSE game but this stuff translates well into Sci-Fi. I guess there arnt such huge differences between fantasy and scifi anyway

Some amazing advice there though im so copying this thread straight into my OneNote so i can reffer back to it later

Reasons to visit different districts- Give your players a bunch of options as to which sections of the city they can go to.

Different Districts for each city- maybe a particularly prosperous city doesn't have a "poor district". Maybe another city has a particularly interesting halfling ghtetto.

So i guess this is what id like abit more advice on. Im thinking planets like Nar Shaddaa and Coruscant, which for non-star wars geeks like are both completely covered in city. THe entire surface of both planets is one massive city. Coruscant is dingy and scary in places but beautiful in others, while Nar Shaddaa is dingy through to its core. The highest levels of Nar Shadda are like the lower levels of coruscant.

I guess theorising here, for Nar Shadda, I could have different areas of the planet controlled by different Hutt Kajidics (crime families) and having different focuses. In some they cater to offworlders whims, brothels, casinos, while another has alot of industry, illegal ship yards where you can get dodgey stuff done to your ship. Another might be known for its slave markets, and another say the Corellian sector has alot of corellians, bars, semi-legit businesses etc.

Any suggestions for fleshing out districts of a single city (or in this case planet-city)

thanks everyone! These threads really help me improve my GMing, thats for sure!

Day