Smaller Settings

[CleverName]

Anyone playing in smaller urban settings, such as a small city with only about 110k people?

What kind of adjustments are you making concerning the number of supernatural groups, etc? The presence of wardens, councils, etc?

[Papa Gruff]

Our campaign is set up in Bonn, Germany. It's more like 360k when you combine all the suburbs but it still is much much smaller then most US cities i have been in.

We did no adjustments what so ever. A small city can be just as relevant supernaturally as any other. Just make it an important power nexus and you'll have all the reason for a strong supernatural community you'd like and a great plot device on top.

[Archmage_Cowl]

my group is playing in our home city which is just over 16k people. Our city is secretly controled by the vampires who founded it years ago and because it's so small the warden presence is alot lower.

[Crion]

My players want to use our current location (Reading, PA) as our in-game city, and we only have around 80K people in the area. Even with a smaller-than-metropolis population, we can still see a laundry list of reasons and explanations as to why there would be a frakton of supernaturals in the city. I don't know if this population record includes the surrounding locales that are often clumped with Reading when it comes to mailing, such as Mount Penn, Wyomissing, Shillington, etc (each of these locations being more suburban communities outside of town than actual individual cities).

Additionally, I remember in other RPGs (I think it was the old World of Darkness line) that the "average maintainable" status quo was something akin to 100 mortals to 1 standard supernatural. Sure, while this means there can be 800 Red Court Vampires in town, it doesn't mean there needs to be. At least with this idea, I can feasibly say that in this general area of Reading, I can have one Black Court Scourge at a college campus and another at a blood bank, a White Court family with three households across "town," a few minor talents and Red Court Infected skulking with the gangs, and no one would be the wiser.

Personally, I think it's the HOW you blend in everything than the how much, especially with how "easy" it is for some of these entities to come in via the Nevernever.

Just my two cents, don't mind me.

[Nomad]

I go by the yardstick of 2 parts for every 1000. One heavy duty (1) (White Counci, Vamp, Scion, Mumy) and 3 light (.5) (Focused Prac., Hedge Mage, Kitchen Mage, Wiccan, Mystic, Changeling) on average. That way you can have enough new faces without hitting a supe every other step

[ahunting]

City creation shouldn't necessarily be about the population or size of the city. Just whether or not you can come up with a cool story and enough good locations for characters to play in. So if you were going to be doing a small mill town your probably only have 4 or 5 locations, The Bar, The Mill, The General Story, PC home, The Post office and maybe the sheriffs office.

The downside being that whatever is haunt this town probably isn't going to be bad enough to fuel a very long running campaign. But if your doing a one shot, or maybe starting small with a feat wet power level you could easily start here, and move up as the campaign progresses. You would probubly have to do city creation more then once under this theory but I don't see that as a downside personally.