City Creation: The Fix-it Guild

Posted on 18 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Continuing our description of Meadowbrook’s notable citizens, we come to Barsus Tinner, the head of the fix-it guild.

The Fix-It Guild

First off, let’s give the fix-it guild an official name. As low-level arcanists, I can see the guild trying to give themselves a greater sense of status with a lofty-sounding name, something like: “The Noble Brotherhood of Magical Repair Workers”. That being such a mouthful, most of Meadowbrook’s citizens call them “the fix-its”.

The fix-its are low-level wizards and sorcerers who focus on mending inanimate objects. The guild does employ some non-spellcaster repair people, but they can’t become actual guild members until they’ve developed some rudimentary spell-casting ability (in 3.x AD&D, this would mean gaining at least one level of wizard or sorcerer). Since Meadowbrook isn’t a large city, there are only five actual  guild members (as stated in the previous post on Business Demographics). In addition to full guild members, Meadowbrook has three apprentice fix-its and six regular non-magical repair people.

Spellcasters (full guild members):

  • Barsus Tinner, guild head. An halfling wizard of mid-to-low ability (in AD&D terms, 6th level). Like most fix-its, Barsus focuses on repair magic, but with a particular talent for reparing metal items (in Ars Magica terms, Muto Terram specialist).  Apprentice: Tommy Tinthorn.
  • Kerwi Sorrell, assistant guild head. Human, mid-to-low level sorcerer (AD&D: 5th level). Her main talent is fixing wooden items (Ars: Muto Herbam). Apprentice: Brand Jolan.
  • Lyza Marybelle, halfling  wizard, low level (AD&D: 4th level). Especially talented at repairing leather and hide goods (Ars: Muto Animal).
  • Ace Ackerly, human sorcerer, low level (AD&D: 4th level). General, all-around fix-it, no particular focus. Apprentice: Tabina Tallflower.
  • Aerinlie Mouse Taitewyncoddle, gnome wizard, low level (AD&D 3rd). Very good with creating replacement parts for an item, especially metal parts (Ars: Creo Terram). Mouse especially enjoys fixing complex machinery. He is the newest full member of the guild, having just been granted full status after being Barsus’ apprentice for six years. Aerin likes to experiement and try new combinations and unusual applications of spells. He loves researching new ways of doing things, which has set him at odd with his former master, who believes in using methods and approaches that have stood the test of time. [Here’s our theme again — new growth vs. stagnation].

Each full guild member owns and operates their own shop and is responsible for the employees and appretices who work there.

Non-Spellcasters (Guild Employees):

  • Barret Dione. Human, employed by Barsus. Specialty: metal items
  • Lenah Maylinn. Human, employed by Barsus. Specialty: fabric items
  • Brandiwyn Fairweather. Halfling, employed by Kerwi. Specialty: wooden items. Brandi (as most folks call her), can also perform some minor magics (0-level spells), but didn’t have enough magical talent to progress beyond that. She was Kerwi’s apprentice for a short time, before concentrating on non-magical fixes. She is considered by many members (read: everyone by Barsus) as an unofficial guild member, but has no voting privledges or (officially) guild benefits. Kerwi makes sure she and her three children are well-cared for though and grants Brandi as many of the guild “perks” as she’s able.
  • Silas Strongbarrell. Halfling, employed by Lyza. Good all-around fix-it.
  • Meredith Danelyn. Human, employed by Ace. Especially good with children’s toys.
  • Langdon Roundcopper. Halfling, employed by Mouse. Very talented at fixing clocks and clockwork items.

Apprentices

  • Tommy Tinthorn. Halfling, apprenticed to Barsus. Strong potential with metal repairs.
  • Brand Jolan. Human, apprenticed to Kerwi. Strong potential with wood and other items derived from plants.
  • Tabina Tallflower. Halfling, apprenticed to Ace. Shows a talent for working with stone items.

Each apprentice is assessed by the guild as a whole, before being assigned to a specific guildmember for training. In general, the guild tries to match an apprentice’s potential with a fix-it’s particular specialty, though politics and bribery are not unheard of influences on placement.

All full guild members are also skilled at non-magical repairs. The guild charges more for magical repairs than non-magical ones, but in either case, the guild requires all fix-its to stand behind their work: if a problem reoccurs within a specified period of time (which varies, depending on the nature of the specific repair), guild members are required to fix or replace the item at no cost to the customer.

Barsus Tinner

Barsus has been guild master for almost 20 years. He’s very much focused on traditions and long-established methods for doing things. He views new ideas and approaches with much suspicion, which frequently causes him to butt heads with his former apprentice, Mouse. Tinner believes in a solid days work, reliable and timely repairs and frowns on guild members making “improvements” to a customer’s item — he believes that the item should be made as much like new as possible, but shouldn’t be given more features, functionality,  or capability than the item originally had — unless the customer wants to pay for improvements and “upgrades”, of course.

A widower after 40 years of marriage, Barsus frequently works 10-hour days. No one in town works harder at anything than Barsus does at his repairs. “Hard-working”, “predictable”, and “reliable” are three words he consideres compliments. Which isn’t to say he can’t relax and enjoy himself; after-hours will frequently find him at The Butter Churn, sharing a half-pint and a smoke with other locals.

Next time: Bryan Hartman and the town guard.

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City Creation: Character Class Demographics

Posted on 15 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Generally, I don’t detail numbers for the NPCs of my games. Unless I expect the PCs to pick a fight with one of them, I don’t even created stat blocks. I look at the NPC’s history, role in the game, personality and profession to decide what they can do, which is generally I need them to do in a particular situation. If the players start to interact extensively with an NPC, then I’ll create a character sheet for them.

It saves me work, as I only end up detailing the NPCs that need it: Joe, the butcher — who the PCs only see once when they beat him at a card game in the tavern — doesn’t need any details. Even critical or important NPCs don’t usually get more than the very cursory stat treatment, though I’m likely to have several pages of history, background notes, political ties, etc. written out for them. If I need stats, I tend to make them up on the spot, noting them down for future reference. In particular, I don’t sit down and figure out how many levels of Noble or Commoner a particular NPC has.

That being said, I do keep some notes of characters with PC class levels. Most residents of Meadowbrook won’t have PC classes and if they do, they’re not likely to be very high level. The most likely candidates for PC class levels are:

  • Our half-elf magic shop shopkeeper
  • The head of the fix-it guild
  • Head of the town guard
  • Head of the thieves’ guild
  • Clerics of the local shrines

Just for fun, let’s add some retired adventurers to the town residents:

  • The owner of one of the inns
  • One of the blacksmiths
  • The head of the dockworkers guild

A note about retired adventurers: I’ve never liked the profession of “adventurer”. To me, adventuring is something a character does, not something they are. So, in Meadowbrook, a retired adventurer is someone who went on adventures in their younger days, but has gotten the restlessness out of their blood and settled down. No one advertises for adventurers in my world; instead, you’ll see requests for “hardy souls” or “brave youths”.

That gives us some characters with PC class levels. To that, we can add “notable citizens” who, even without PC class levels, are important to Meadowbrook, to wit:

  • The mayor
  • The magistrates

Notable Citizens

Let’s create a brief background for each of our “notables”:

Darius Sunrunner
Darius is the only actual resident of Meadowbrook with any elven blood. While elves may stop occasionally for a night or two, they don’t generally like to live within towns; they prefer their own settlements, which they call “groves”. Born of a human mother and an elven father, Darius was raised outside of both cultures. Showing an early talent for music and a prodigious memory, he became a bard, spending almost 20 years as an itinerant musician and “troubleshooter for hire”. Eventually tired of travel, he settled down in Meadowbrook five years ago, just as the town became a trade stop. He opened a magic and “what-not” store he named “Darius’ Doodads”.

More gregarious than many “half-bloods” (who usually inherit their elven parent’s aloofness), Darius enjoys chatting with anyone who comes into his shop. He can frequently be found after hours at The Butter Churn — the favorite watering hole for the town’s residents — trading his songs and stories for dinner or drinks (though never to the point of becoming drunk). He’s free with information and will happily share what he knows with anyone who asks, provided they share their own adventures and stories. He likes Meadowbrook’s quiet and strong sense of community; he has made many friends in both Littletun and Bigtun, making him welcome wherever he goes in town.

Darius’ Doodads (called “Doodles” by the locals) sells magic items, paper goods, antiques, knickknacks and anything unusual that strikes Darius’ fancy. The magic items tend to the practical, as most of his business comes from the local populace, but occasionally he has a magic weapon or “adventuring” item.

Stats: (AD&D 3.5 ed): Male, half-elf, 10th level Bard. Neutral good. Very high charisma-type scores, high intelligence and wisdom scores, average everything else. Darius’ spell list covers a wide variety of spells, with no real focus in any one type. I’m not going to detail out his stat numbers or his spell list for two reasons:

  1. I can give him whatever I need him to have when I need it.
  2. I want to make these characters transferable to other fantasy games than D&D.

Magic and portability
Whenever Darius uses a spell, I’ll make a note of it, building his spell list as I go along. That way, he doesn’t end up with “useless” spells taking up slots and the spell list is appropriate to the game system being used.

As an example of portability, in 4th ed Ars Magica Darius’ magical arts might look something like this:

Cr 3, In 4, Mu 4, Pe 1, Re4
An 2, Aq 3, Au 3, Co 3, He 1, Ig 2, Im 3, Me 5, Te 2, Vi 4

and might include the following spells:

  • Discern Images of Truth and Falsehood
  • Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie
  • Veil of Invisibility
  • The Chiurgeon’s Healing Touch
  • Eyes of the Cat
  • The Gentle Beast
  • Rise of the Feathery Body

And, of course, he’d have the virtue Fairie Blood

[Note: these are just off the top of my head — I haven’t sat down to balance them out according to mechanics rules and the spell list is certainly not exhaustive].

Next time: Notable character continued — Barsus Tinner, the head of the fix-it guild.

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City Creation: Guilds and Guild Politics

Posted on 9 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Now that we know what kinds and how many of each type of business Meadowbrook has, we can work out how powerful each of those guilds are, how they relate to each other, what part they play in Meadowbrook politics.

We’ve already postulated a split of the town council between the merchant guilds and the craft guilds. Basically, every trade in Meadowbrook would have its own guild, but not all of them would be large enough to play an important factor in the town’s politics. We want the town council to be big enough to allow opportunities for politics, but not so big it becomes unwieldy for the GM.

Guilds and the Town Council

Based on sheer numbers, Meadowbrook’s most influential guilds are:

Merchant Guilds:

  • Dock workers (boat-handlers would fall under the jurisdiction of this guild)
  • Millers
  • Livestock dealers
  • Food vendors
  • “Hospitality” workers (inn-keepers, pub and restaurant owners, hostlers)

I put millers here, rather in the craft guilds. While millers do, indeed, produce flour, they act more as selling agents for the grain farmers.

Craft Guilds:

  • Leatherworkers
  • Barbers
  • Weavers
  • Clothiers
  • Masons (for simplicity, lets include all building trade workers here, including roofers, framers, etc.)
  • Coopers
  • Chandlers

Additionally, a couple of businesses would have more clout when their numbers would suggest:

Others:

  • Banks/moneychangers (after all, they hold most of the town’s money)
  • Fixits (because of their magical ability, minor as it is)
  • Magic shop owner (the owner would be a wizard with actual class levels)

Meta-Guilds: cutting the numbers down to size

That gives us 15 council members, not including the mayor and the two magistrates. That seems awfully large for a town of 4ooo people. We can trim it down some by creating a set of “meta guilds” — guilds made up of related guilds. For instance, we can have a clothing guild, comprised of shoemakers, clothiers, tanners, and dyers. Since this is a fantasy world, we can use history as inspiration, but we don’t have to slavishly follow how the real, historical guilds worked. So, by grouping the above listed guilds into logical “meta guilds” we have:

  • Dockworkers
  • Grocers (those who provide foodstuffs, comprised of millers, livestock dealers, brewers, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, etc.)
  • Hospitality (Inn, restaurants, pubs, hostlers — and lets add food vendors here, too, as a type of restaurant)

and

  • Builders (coopers, woodworkers, masons)
  • Clothing (weavers, tanners, dyers, shoemakers, milliners — let’s also include barbers here. Even though they don’t make clothes, per se, they still play an important part in developing fashion and appearance)
  • Metalworkers (blacksmiths, metalsmiths — let’s also include leather workers here, since they often work closely with the metalworkers to produce their goods of scabbards, harnesses, saddles, etc.)

Finally:

  • Magic-workers (fixits, the magic shop owner)
  • Bankers

This gives us a town council of 8, a more reasonable size. Add in the mayor and the magistrates, we have total voting council of 11 people.

Politics

Now that we’ve figured out who comprises the council, we can figure out the politics of it. Here’s where we can start to bring in our theme of stagnation vs. growth to flesh out the bare structure and give it some life.

Basically, the town council is split into two sides: the craft guilds and the merchant guilds. We can postulate that the mayor and magistrates’ sympathies lie with which of the two groups they belong to. Or they can attempt to form a third, neutral faction. The merchant guilds would have much to gain by increasing the town’s size, revenue, trade “clout”, etc. While the craft guilds would also benefit from this, lets say they’re the older guilds in the town and are, therefore, more conservative and would perfer things remained “status quo”.

This would imply that the merchants are a newer influence on town. Perhaps Meadowbrook hasn’t been a trade town for very long — it could’ve been primarily a craft town until something changed and caused it become a stop on the trade route (we can figure out the exact reason later) within the last 5 years, or so. This could’ve caused rapid town growth, say 30%, taking the town from a population of 2800 to it’s current population of 4000. This rapid growth would also cause resentment between “old-timers” — those who were born and raised in Meadowbrook — and the “newcomers” who’ve recently moved here.

Information about medieval guilds:

Next time: Character class demographics

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City Creation: Buisness Demographics

Posted on 8 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Okay, now we’ve got an idea of the kinds of business Meadowbrook might have, how many of each are likely to be there? S. John Ross has an article called Medieval Demographics Made Easy, which lists a number of medieval businesses. He gives each of them a “Support Value” — that is, the number of people it takes to support a single business of that type. I’ll be using that a guide line.

Even though 4000 people seems very small to us, it was a good-sized town in the Middle Ages, which means Meadowbrook would have many different types of businesses:

Millers –Surprisingly, this occupation isn’t listed in Ross’ article. But since even the smallest medieval towns had millers, I’m going to set this support value low. This means Meadowbrook could have as many as 20 millers. Most of them aren’t likely to be in town, though. Logically, I’d place them out closer to the grain fields; the millers could then bring flour into town for sale.

Beer-Makers (Brewers) — How prevalent these would be depends, really, on how safe the water is to drink. Given that magic can be used easily to purify water, people wouldn’t rely on beer as heavily as they did during history. Using Ross’ demographics information, we come up with 3 brewers, which seems about right to me.

Shoemakers — Using the statistics in Ross’ article, we come up with 27 shoemakers (rounded up). This seems excessive to me. Granted, shoes here are made by hand, so more shoemakers are needed than a modern town of 4000 would need. On the other hand, cantrip-level magic can be used to repair items, so shoes could last much longer than they did in reality. So let’s cut down that number to a more reasonable level — let’s say five.

Tailor/Clothiers — Technically, tailors created men’s clothes and dressmakers created women’s; I’m going to combine them and call them “clothiers”. Using the tailor’s SV value, we come up with 16 clothiers. That would seem about right, if Meadowbrook’s people were from the upper classes needing several types of clothing for many different events. But it’s a town of middle- to lower-class working folk and the comment above about magical shoe repair holds true for clothing as well, so let’s cut that number in half: 8.

Barbers — in Meadowbrook, temple healers would handle any doctoring required, so barbers are only required to cut hair. Ten barbers should be sufficient.

Tinkerers — In the real world, tinkerers were unskilled workers who mended things. Typically, they traveled around, rather than being settled in one place. With Mending and other such spells easily available, we can roll all repair-type jobs into “fix-its” who use minor magics to mend a variety of items. This profession would require some skill and study to learn, but still wouldn’t need the years of dedicated training most wizards require. They would be considered a respected tradesmen and, because of that, they’re much more likely to be established members of the community than their real-world counterparts would’ve been. Five of these professionals should should be a good number for a town of Meadowbrook’s size.

Metalsmiths (pot-makers, jewelers) — Blacksmiths work with iron, so metalsmiths would create all non-iron products, including jewelry, silversmithing and goldsmithing. They would be skilled artisans who create fine belt and harness buckles, jewelry, higher-quality eating utensils (everyday ones would be made from wood), serving dishes, etc.

Leatherworkers — These aren’t the tanners; they’re the ones who fashion items from the hides the tanners produce, including saddles, harnesses, ox yokes, straps, book hinges, etc. Some of more clothing-oriented leather goods, such as belts and belt-pouches are more likely to be produced by shoemakers.

Here’s the whole list of businesses for Meadowbrook and how many of each kind there are:

  • Millers: 20
  • Brewers: 3
  • Shoemakers: 5
  • Clothiers: 8
  • Barbers: 10
  • Fix-its (tinkerers): 5
  • Metalsmiths: 5
  • Butchers: 4 (probably specialized at least between poultry and other meat)
  • Weavers: 7
  • Masons and bricklayers: 6
  • Coopers (barrell-makers): 6
  • Tanners (preparing hides and curing them into usable leather): 1. (They would’ve been forced to live outside of town, due to the smell the tanning process makes).
  • Leather workers (saddle, harness, scabbard-makers, etc.): 11
  • Fishmongers: 4. Meadowbrook’s river doesn’t produce a lot of fish; most of the fishmongers’ goods would be imported from other areas of the country.
  • Blacksmiths: 3
  • Woodcarvers: 2
  • Rope-makers: 2
  • Dyers: 1 (would also live outside of the town, for the same reason as the tanners)
  • Farmer’s Markets: 2 actual market areas, one in Bigtun and the other in Littletun. Each market would have a 3d10 number of vendors any particular day. More about them in a later post.
  • Food Vendors: 10. These are vendors who “patrol” the most popular parts of town, selling prepared foods, much like street “food carts” and “hot dog stands”  you see in major cities today.
  • Pubs/Restaurants/Taverns: 10
  • Chandler (candlemakers): 6
  • Boat-handlers: 20
  • Dockworkers: 30-40
  • Hostlers (stables): 2. Hostlers are used primarily by visitors, rather than residents.
  • Livestock sellers (horses, cattle, sheep, etc.): 20
  • Banks/Moneychangers: 1
  • Inns: 2
  • Bath-Houses: 1
  • Beggars: Variable. 2d10 for the number encountered by the PCs on any given day
  • Brothels: 0. Streetwalkers: 1d20 for the number encountered by the PCs on any given night/day
  • Thieves Guild: 1 small branch office. Most residents don’t even know it exists, though there are rumors
  • Assassin’s Guild: 0. There’s just not enough business in a town like Meadowbrook
  • Magic Shop: 1. Also doubles as the city’s papermaker and curio shop.
  • Temples: At least 1 small one for each of the major deities, plus a “general use” shrine for gods who don’t have enough worshippers in Meadowbrook to have an actual temple

These numbers are beginning estimates and the list of business shouldn’t be considered exhaustive. GMs may find they more/fewer of each business than are listed here, just as they may need to add businesses I’ve overlooked. As always, YMMV.

Tomorrow: Guilds and guild politics

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City Creation: Businesses

Posted on 5 June 2009 | Leave a comment

What kind of businesses does a town need? Despite what fantasy games might imply, towns are more than just the ubiquitous taverns, inns, weaponsmiths, armorers and magic shops we usually see. Most of a town’s business will be to support its own residents, not adventurers, which means that town the PCs are passing through likely doesn’t even have a weaponsmith.

So what kind of businesses does Meadowbrook have? Let’s make a list of businesses the town’s permanent residents are likely to need:

  • millers (everybody needs grain ground)
  • beer-makers (in medieval Europe, everyone drank beer, even kids. It was safer than the water)
  • shoemakers
  • tailors/clothiers
  • barbers (who also frequently functioned as town doctors)
  • pot-makers (tinkerers)
  • butchers
  • weavers
  • masons and bricklayers (and makers)
  • coopers
  • tanners
  • leather workers/saddle and harness makers
  • fishmongers
  • blacksmiths
  • rope-makers
  • dyers
  • farmer’s markets where town-dweller can buy fruits and vegetables
  • food vendors
  • pub or tavern
  • chandlers

A port town, such as Meadowbrook, would also need:

  • boat-handlers
  • dockworkers
  • hostlers
  • banks/moneychangers
  • inns (these are only necessary if the town gets many non-residents)
  • bath-houses (not actually a necessity, but certainly plausible in a fantasy game setting).

While the town doesn’t need the following, they tend to show up in urban areas anyway:

  • beggars
  • brothels / streetwalkers

And some favorite fantasy institutions:

  • thieves’ guilds
  • assassins’ guilds
  • magic shops

Next post: Business demographics

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City Creation: Government

Posted on 4 June 2009 | Leave a comment

I’m going to skip over the “City’s Look” category for now; currently, Meadowbrook isn’t developed enough for me to have an idea of how it looks like yet. Which brings us down the list to “mayor”, “police chief”, etc. What do all these positions boil down to? Government: who governs the city, what they do, and how they’re chosen. Unlike in a modern game setting, we can’t just look up Meadowbrook in an atlas or city website to determine what governmental structure it has. We’re going have to come up with it on our own.Since Meadowbrook’s world is based on medieval Europe, we can use history to help shape our town’s government.

It would be highly unusual for a medieval town to not have a mayor and a town council, so that gives us our first two government offices.

Mayor

Let’s make the mayor an elected office — majority vote from among the town’s adult citizenry. It’s a form of government most players and GMs can relate to. We could have two mayors — one for the halfling quarter (let’s call it “Littletun”) and one for the human quarter (we’ll call that “Bigtun”) — but I feel there should be a single office for final decisions, a “buck stops here” position. But we could have two “submayors” — let’s call them magistrates — one for each quarter, who report directly to the mayor. Since the town’s population is split nearly 50-50 human- halfling, we can have the mayor’s office change hands periodically, say every two years, between the Littletun magistrate and the Bigtun magistrate. The “promoted” magistrate would have an assistant (his deputy magistrate) to take over his magisterial duties while he serves as the town’s mayor.

Town Council

Most towns were built on commerce, meaning that merchant and craft guilds often strongly influenced, if not outright controlled, the town’s government. Since we’ve already determined that our town is a trade city, that will work well for Meadowbrook. The town council, then, could be made up of the town’s most influential guild masters and split between the merchant guilds and the craft guilds. We could split these up between Littletun guilds and Bigtun guilds, but I’d like more integration than that — guild membership will be based purely on ability (and, probably, politics). So let’s state that guildmasters are the most senior member of their respective guilds, whether they’re human, halfling, gnome or whatever.

Below the town council will be the guildmasters, who have responsibility for maintaining and policing their guild members. Not everyone in Meadowbrook would necessarily be in a guild, but in a town ruled by the guilds, it wouldn’t be too far fetched for guild members to be the only people with a voice in the city’s government and policies.

Guilds could have their own courts for trying and punishing guild members who broke city and guild laws. Those not members of any guild would then have to appear before the town council (and any interested citizens), who would determine punishment (usually fines). Serious offenses by guild members could be escalated to the town council for determination, at which point the accused’s guild will provide legal council; non-guild members would either have to hire a guild counselor or do without.

So far, our town government consists of:

  • Mayor
  • Magistrates
  • Deputy Magistrates
  • Town Council
  • Guild leaders

This gives us a good overview of our town’s political structure. Obviously, we haven’t determined any details yet (like who is the mayor), but we’ll flesh that out as we go along. Since the guilds form the basis of our town government, we’re going to need to determine what guilds exist in this town and to do that, we need to determine what businesses Meadowbrook has.

Tomorrow: businesses

Sources for medieval town government:

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City Creation: Mood, Theme

Posted on 3 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Mood and theme may seem like something that should’ve been left behind in English Lit. 101. Yet, I’ve found them very useful for  game development; they give me a jumping-off point, particularly when I need to make things up on the fly.

Mood

Many cities and towns seem to have an overall “feel” about them. Think about it — how often have you heard the phrase “a sleepy little town” or a “bustling city”. These are over-generalizations, but they give you a basic idea of a location’s mood. I’ve lived in several states and many cities on both coasts of the US and every town I’ve ever called home has its own, distinctive feel. L.A. always seemed to be in a hurry — almost frenetic , while Seattle boomed with enthusiasm and optimism. Eugene, Oregon was reactionary, but with a strong sense of community and Fuquay-Varina, NC is friendly and open. Of course, everyone’s going to have their own impressions of an area.

I want Meadowbrook to have the feeling of a busy trade town. While not a major stop on the river’s trade route, it should have a enough business to make it a brisk — though not booming — “port of call”. The permanent residents would be used to having travelers coming and going, so visitors (like the PCs) should be treated courteously and welcomed in the “tourist areas” of the town. However, it’s still a small enough community that new people would stand out; it’s not a town a stranger could disappear into.

Most of the town’s residents would be farmers, craftsmen (and women), and dock hands. Hardworking, “salt of the earth” folk who still find time to sit down with their families. So let’s call the mood of the town “industrious”.

Theme

I like to think of a theme as an open-ended question or a pair of opposing keywords. Sometimes, I know exactly what theme I want to explore. For example, I might set up a kingdom in turmoil just for the purpose of dealing with questions such as “Is it possible to be gentle and still be an effective monarch?” Other times, such as here with Meadowbrook, some other aspect serves as the town’s inspiration and I need to figure out a theme that fits my concept so far.This is generally where I need some help.

As a visual designer, I find pictures extremely helpful. So, frequently, I’ll turn to a tarot deck, find an image that seems to fit, look up the card’s meaning an build a theme around that. For Meadowbrook, I decided to do a slight modification and pulled out the Fortune Deck from my Everway set. Looking through the pictures on the cards, I found one that captured the feel of Meadowbrook for me: Spring. (Here’s an alternate version of the card — very similar to the original for those of you who are like me and need a visual reference). Spring offers the choice between stagnation and new growth. We’ll need to figure out what “new growth” opportunities Meadowbrook has available to it. For now, though, we’ll just keep it in mind as we continue to develop the town.

Tomorrow: Town infrastructure

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City Creation: Name, Pop.

Posted on 2 June 2009 | 2 comments

This is the first installment of my fantasy city creation, using the Location Worksheet as a basis.

City Name

First off, our city needs a name. I want something that sounds reasonable for a fantasy world, but not so wacky it invites player jokes. Many real-world cities are based on some feature of the land around them or are taken from the name of a real person who either founded the city or was someone the city founders admired. This is the first location in my new world to be detailed, so it means I’ll need to make something up, whether that’s surrounding features or famous people. The name “Meadowbrook” comes to mind. I like the sound of it — it fits very well in a European-derived fantasy setting and should be easy for players (and myself) to remember.

The name “Meadowbrook” implies two geographical features — a meadow and a brook. The meadow is easy — the town’s build on what used to be meadow. This implies that the area is surrounded by forest, so we’ll go with that.

A brook is a small stream and it makes sense that someone would found a city near a source of fresh water. Since brooks aren’t very big, this is probably more of a village than a true city, unless there are other sources of fresh water near by or water can be brought in through magical and/or mechanical means. For the sake of the exercise, let’s say the term “brook” is actually a case of poetic license and that the source of fresh water is actually a minor river. This gives us the option of making the settlement more of a small town than a village, closer to my original intent. I want someplace that adventurers can use as a base to find food, lodging and supplies. Placing it on a small river means that Meadowbrook could be a stop on a trade route,  which could give adventurers access  to materials and resources that a more isolated town wouldn’t have. A boon, especially for mages who might need to replenish spell components.

Population

The next item on the Location Worksheet is “Mortal Population”. For fantasy game purposes, I’m going to change that to “Demi-human population”. This would cover humans, elves, half-elves, haflings, dwarves, etc. — most PC races. A quick search on the Internet turns up a document titled Medieval Demographics Made Easy, which gives population figures for kingdoms, settlements, towns, villages, etc. The numbers in the article seem reasonable; it lists towns as having a population of 1,000-8,000 people, with the average being around 2,500. I grew up in a town with a population of 4000 people, so I’m comfortable developing a town in that population range. Being a trade town, we can afford a somewhat higher population than the average, so we’ll go with 4000 permanent inhabitants.

Note, this is 4000 inhabitants total, including men, women, and children of all races. As far as racial composition goes, I want elves to be something of a rarity in this world, so we’ll say there are no permanent elven inhabitants. However, we can bring in something of their mystique by having a single half-elf. I want to stick with the tradition of dwarves being tied to stone and mines; a town called “Meadowbrook” just doesn’t sound appealing to hardy mountain-dwellers. So while dwarves certainly pass through here taking their goods to market, the town doesn’t have any permanent dwarven residents. On the other hand, a name like “Meadowbrook”, in my opinion, just begs for halflings. I want humans to be the most common race of this world, so this town seems perfect for a joint human-halfling settlement, with a “little” quarter (the halfling area) and a “big” quarter (the human neighborhoods), with the main trade and city centers catering to both. I want the gnomes of this world to be clannish, prefering to live in their own lands way from humans. Still, if there’s an gnomish population in the area, there could be a few gnome crafters living in the town — say five or so skilled artisans who live and work in the “little” quarter.

So here’s the population breakdown by race:

Total inhabitants: 4000
Human inhabitants: 2000
Halfling inhabitants: 1994
Elven inhabitants: 0
Dwarven inhabitants: 0
Half-Elf inhabitants: 1
Gnome inhabitants: 5

Tomorrow: mood and theme

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Location Worksheet

Posted on 1 June 2009 | Leave a comment

Note: all references in this article to World of Darkness games are to these game’s Second Edition, because that’s what I’m currently running 😉 .

All but the most causual “beer-and-pretzels” games need locations — cities, kingdome, what have you. Another tool White Wolf included in their first edition Storyteller’s Handbook was a city worksheet. It included spaces for you to fill in the city’s name, population, places of importance or interest, TV stations, newspapers, mayor’s name, city council members, radio stations, etc.

Like with the Story Worksheet, I took White Wolf’s bare-bones sheet and expanded to fit my needs. I find that creating extensive location information helps me run better games; having it at my fingertips makes it much easier to determine the outcome of unexpected player actions. For example, if a group of Mage PCs decide (without warning) to attack the local Tremere Chantry, I already have the information about where it’s located and who it’s members are. These pieces of information alone can help me work up the Chantry’s defenses on the fly, based on the type of building, surrounding neighborhood, and the resources it’s local members have at their disposal.

The topics covered by my expanded World of Darkness city sheet are:

  • City Name
  • Mortal Population [number]
  • Kindred Population [number]
  • Wraith Population  [number]
  • Faery Population  [number]
  • Mage Population  [number]
  • Immortal Population [number]
  • Mood — the overall “feel” of the city
  • Theme — cities can have themes the same way games and campaigns can
  • Description of the city’s “look”
  • Places of interest/importance
  • Mayor [name] controlled by [faction]
  • Police Chief [name] controlled by [faction]
  • Precinct Captains [names] controlled by [faction]
  • Prominent Uniformed Cops [names] controlled by [faction]
  • Internal Affairs Detectives [names] controlled by [faction]
  • Newspapers [name] controlled by [faction]
  • TV Stations/Networks [names] controlled by [factions]
  • Radio Stations [names] controlled by [factions]
  • City Council Members [names] controlled by [factions]
  • Libraries
  • Museums
  • Mortal Information
    • Society of Leopold
      • Provincial
      • Local Cenacula
      • Abbes and members
      • Factions, orders, and sects
    • Arcanum
      • Chapter house
      • Chancellor
      • Local colonies
      • Lodges
      • Colleges
    • Other Prominent Mortals
  • Kindred Information
    • Number of Camarilla members
    • Number of Sabbat members
    • Number of other kindred
    • Prince
    • Prince’s haven
    • Primogen role (advisers to the prince, ruling body, figureheads, etc.)
    • Primogen members and clans
    • Tremere Regent
    • Tremere chantry members and ranks
    • Antitribu regent, if any
    • Antitribu chantry members and ranks
    • Archbishop
    • Archbishop’s haven
    • Bishops
    • Anarch overlord (if any)
    • Gangs and their leaders
    • Notable neutrals
    • Other Kindred of importance
    • Vampire “Town Hall”
    • Elysium
    • The Rack
    • Other places of importance to Kindred
    • Number of each clan residing in city
  • Changing Breed Information
    • Number of Gaian Garou
    • Number of Black Spiral Dancers
    • Number of Gurahl
    • Number of Bastet
    • Number of Corax
    • Number of Nuwisha
    • Number of Ratkin
    • Garou Information
      • King (if any)
      • Notable packs and their members
      • Caers and who controls them
      • Factions
      • Number of members for each tribe (including Ronin)
  • Mage Information
    • Number of Tradition mages
    • Number of Technocracy mages
    • Number of Nephandi
    • Number of Marauders
    • Traditions
      • Council members
      • Chantries
      • Number of each Tradition residing in city
    • Technocracy
      • Technocratic council members
      • Constructs
      • Number of each Convention residing in city
    • Nephandi groups
    • Nodes
    • Labyrints
    • Marauder groups

With some work, this sheet could serve as the foundation for any game, including fantasy games like D-n-D. For the next several days, I’ll take this sheet and use it to create a brand-new fantasy city. I’m going to try and make the city as game-mechanic free as possible, so that it could work for any fantasy game.

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Campaign Worksheet

Posted on 29 May 2009 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, I talked about the adventure/story worksheet. Today, I’m covering the campaign/chronicle/saga worksheet. The campaign worksheet is very similar to the adventure sheet, but expanded to cover the entire arc of the campaign. For my campaign sheets, I use basically the same questions and topics, but answer them from the perspective of the entire campaign. If you’re like me and your PCs shape the direction of your campaign, you’re going to find your campaign diverging from the plot ideas you wrote down at the beginning. That’s okay; I’ll frequently do three or even four versions of the campaign worksheet. I date them and keep them with the rest of my game notes. If I run the campaign again, the next group of PCs may develop the plot of the game similarly to the way I expected the game to originally, so I find having the multiple versions of the sheet extremely helpful.

I do add one thing to the campaign worksheet that’s not in my adventure sheet: a list of adventures. In games where I’m frequently using canned adventures (such as AD&D), I find this list invaluable for helping me remember what the PCs did over the course of the campaign. My Storyteller, Amber, and such games don’t usually end up with specific adventures; for these break the campaign up into logical sections and briefly summarize them.

Next time: The city/location worksheet.

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