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Post by cryceter on Sept 1, 2013 21:56:24 GMT -5
Ok so I am new to DMing and the same with my group they are to new to playing. We've only done 3 sessions so far and I would like are next sessions to take place in a town that they can call home, but I would like to incorporate a story. I also want to use DmScotty's dungeon method, but how could I make a convincible city without using to much material. Thanks in advanced for any input
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dmbrad
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Sept 1, 2013 22:25:34 GMT -5
In my current campaign that is going to end this coming week, I had the players based in a very small town. There were only about a dozen buildings, your basic inn, blacksmith, church, etc..I made dmscotty style cardboard buildings for all of them. I discovered that it was a pain in the neck to set it up every time they would come back to town. So I made a town map with posterboard, that way I could just slap it down on the table and they can run around and talk to npcs or whatever. It saves a ton of time setting up and would have save me a lot of crafting work had I done that first.
My next campaign they will be based in a much bigger city. There are 43 different buildings/locations and over 50 npcs. So I did the same thing and made it all on posterboard, the pcs will havea "group token/miniature" that they can move all over the city, when they go into a certain location I will pull out the npc mini for that one. I will be crafting some of the places but there is no need to do it all before you start.
I am charging my camera right now, I will put some pics up tomorrow to show them to you.
Hope this helps.
dmbrad
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thedmg
Room Planner
Posts: 327
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Post by thedmg on Sept 2, 2013 8:58:21 GMT -5
I use my modular tile system as the floor plans of each building. Eventually I will do streets and stuff, but it works quite well as buildings and taverns.
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dmbrad
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Sept 2, 2013 9:52:12 GMT -5
Ok, so here are my city maps. The first one is from my current campaign and is super simple. 9 buildings and a road that I just sketched a little icon on each to denote what they were. Please excuse my horrible drawing skills lol. This one is for my upcoming campaign, it is much more elaborate as you can see. Each building is numbered and I have a binder that includes exterior and interior descriptions of each building, npc names and details, and three different random encounter tables to be used dependent on which part of the city the pcs are I have also given each location a quest. For example if they go into the bakery, they have the option of taking doing a quest for the baker who asks them to go into the forest to retrieve some wild strawberries for her famous berry cakes. Once they get into the forest I have a table of random encounters that may happen there, complete with terrain. If they choose to ignore it, they can move to a different location where they might hear of a local goblin encampment that is raiding travelers on the road. I am using the pathfinder pawns npc codex box for all of the npcs. I have them organized so that I can just pull them out, pop them on a base and go. The beauty of this system is that it is a true sandbox style of gaming. They can wander around town all they want, talk to people, pick and choose their quests, and do what they want. It is also easily adaptable when they progress in levels, simply by changing the difficulty of the enemies that they encounter (swap out kobolds for orcs etc...). It is a lot of work to get this started but once you do it will save lots of time in the future. I hope this helps. dmbrad
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dmbrad
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Sept 2, 2013 10:03:09 GMT -5
I use my modular tile system as the floor plans of each building. Eventually I will do streets and stuff, but it works quite well as buildings and taverns. Yes, that is how I did it for my smaller town originally, and if you have only a dozen or so buildings its not that hard to set up. Larger cities however would be very time consuming to set up and tear down. If there is going to be an actual encounter with my system, I would simply lift off the city map, throw down a 2.5d building for the encounter, and once its finished pull that building off and slap the city map back down. That way you really only need to make a handfull of building tiles that can be recycled as different buildings.
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Post by dm1scotty on Sept 2, 2013 10:43:56 GMT -5
I usually just use a small map of the town local for reference and theater of the mind any interactions unless it is a combat encounter. Even with a combat encounter you could do what dmbrad does with his cool large map idea. The large map idea would also work to defend a fortress (map) against an invading force or flyover dragon attack.
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Post by dm1scotty on Sept 2, 2013 10:45:42 GMT -5
You could also make a mini 2.5D version that represents the area.
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dmbrad
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Sept 2, 2013 11:23:15 GMT -5
I usually just use a small map of the town local for reference and theater of the mind any interactions unless it is a combat encounter. Even with a combat encounter you could do what dmbrad does with his cool large map idea. The large map idea would also work to defend a fortress (map) against an invading force or flyover dragon attack. This is how I would handle it if the pcs went to a different city for a quest or something. Just do a small map with very basic npc notes ect... Because this city is serving as the home base of the pcs and they will be spending lots and lots of time here is the reason I have detailed everything to the extent that I have. In theory, they could get to level 20 without ever stepping outside of the city walls. It is not going to play out that way, but there is that much for them to do. And I have not even started working on tunnels or caverns that could be under the city. I honestly cannot wait to see how they are going to react when they realize all of the options that they have.
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