Towns and cities play a crucial role in any DnD game. In the majority of campaigns, they are where the PCs first meet. They provide refuge from monsters and enemies encountered while traveling. They offer healing and an opportunity to buy and sell items. And they usually serve as the background for important scenes that move the plot forward in your game. In the 4E handbook, cities are defined as shining points of light surrounded by a world of darkness. I personally enjoy this concept and try to use it as much as possible. I like to give my PCs cities that are havens from the dangers out in the world. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t combat encounters or risks within cities in my games, but I try to keep them to a minimum.
When it comes to including cities in your campaigns, there are a few basic components to consider.
First off, what defines a city? Obviously, when we use a term like “town” or “city”, certain images jump immediately to mind. All DnD books paint very clear pictures of what to expect from a city. And every great sword and sorcery movie is packed with visuals of what makes a city. There are certain elements players expect from a city…things like taverns, inns, temples, and merchants. Depending on the size of the city, there may be a town guard or militia. Of course. these are just the components that appear within the city limits.
In the big picture, a city is more than these simple components. A city can be a character unto itself that is part of your campaign. When I build a city, I try to give it something that makes it unique and interesting to interact with for the players. Maybe the city is on the back of a giant creature. Or maybe it’s inside a creature. There could be special laws that are strictly enforced, like no fire magic, or no combat without a permit. The citizens of the city can be a source of uniqueness as well. People could speak in riddles or be open for business only between certain hours. Maybe the citizens stay locked in their homes and conduct business via animal familiars. Sometimes, it’s acceptable to just have a “standard” city with “regular” commoners so that your players can have a place to rest and recover. You want to have a good balance between both extremes in your game.
Once you have the format of city created, you need to stock it with goods and services for your PCs to make use of. Based on your campaign, you may have specific needs or restrictions for what is available. For example, if you are running a campaign where arcane magic is illegal, your city won’t have any shops that sell scrolls or magic items. But there may be a black market the PCs can locate. I have always relied on a chart on page 137 of the 3.5 DMG to help me decide what is available to my players when creating a city. This chart gives you a range of city sizes and a maximum value of products and services that would be available for purchase. Of course, the numbers are not set in stone. If I want to build a smaller city but I want to have an extremely powerful retired cleric living there in secret, I wouldn’t restrict what spells he could cast based on the size of the city. But I would create an interesting encounter for the PCs to play through to discover the cleric and win his trust and assistance.
In my games, I tend to be more on the vague side when it comes to available services. I don’t usually build specific shops and stock them with an exact list of available items. My players are quite experienced, and I can trust them to work within the limits I establish. When I say a city has a purchase level of 2000GP and no scrolls or spells available above 3rd level, they will follow those rules. Furthermore, if they are looking for a specific item or spell, they know they can ask me for a way to find it. This will lead to fun little side quests that are made up on the fly. Or sometimes, I can work them into the next bit of plot in the game. Your players may be different, and you may have a different idea when it comes to cities. I have played with GMs that had a specific list created of exactly what items were available for sale in which buildings and which merchants were selling them. In games like that, we had to roll skill checks to find what we were looking for. That is not my personal style of running a game, but it is certainly a viable option.
Of course, there is more to a city than just buying items. There are services that should be available to your players that are based on spell casting and skill usage. If you want to create a very detailed and exact city, you can actually build a few NPCs and determine their skills, feats, and spell lists. You can then give these NPCs homes in the city or even establish a schedule of where they will be at certain times of day. Your PCs can seek out the NPCs and you can create a skill-based encounter to bargain for assistance. Or maybe if the PCs need the NPCs to help them in the plot of your game, you can simply role play the conversation. In another set of articles, I’ll talk about some easy ways to quickly build NPCs like this.
When it comes to my personal style, I am fairly relaxed when it comes to specific situations like this in my game. If my players need a certain service available, I decide if it’s there based on the size of the city and the complexity of the request. If there is an item or spell related to the request, or maybe a unique spell component, I use its value to see if it fits into the city I have established. If a certain skill is needed, I decide if an NPC of the correct level and training is around for the PCs to find. I make up most of these decisions on the fly. But when I was first learning to run a game, I had exact lists of what was available for my players to utilize.
I had charts that established the population of the city (also found on page 137 of the DMG if you want to play around with it) as well as what types of classes were available to find and the levels of the NPCs in those classes. These were very useful to me as a new GM. But they took hours to calculate and build. And in the big picture, I never used them. I didn’t need a list that told me how many first level commoners lived in the town. However, it was good to learn how to create a balanced hierarchy of NPCs for my cities. But just like every rule in DnD, this isn’t something that needs to be followed exactly every time.
As I developed my skill as a GM, I learned to focus more on the elements of the story I was writing when it came to building cities. If the story needed a city that was populated entirely with wizards, I would build that. If the story needed a city that didn’t give the PCs what they need in order to facilitate the next leg of the plot, I would build that. As GM, you need to keep things interesting and engaging for your players. Cities are crucial to your game as they provide resources, plot points, and quest hubs. You can help define the world your story takes place in by how you create your cities. Cities can be very simple or incredibly detailed. There is no “right way” to build a city and no “perfect list” of what items, services, and NPCs to fill it with. What’s most important to remember is to focus on your plot and what is necessary to keep that story moving forward while providing an enjoyable game to everyone at your table.
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~Michael
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