City creation

[Tush Hog]

I'm really intrigued about the city creation process. I really enjoy little games within a game like house creation in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire and system creation in Diaspora. Dresdenizing my hometown sounds like a heck of a lot of fun - so how is it going to work? Does it happen before character creation, after or does it matter?

[iago]

I'm really intrigued about the city creation process. I really enjoy little games within a game like house creation in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire and system creation in Diaspora. Dresdenizing my hometown sounds like a heck of a lot of fun - so how is it going to work? Does it happen before character creation, after or does it matter?

The primary way we suggest it is as a "wrapper" around character creation. You start on the city, you get a high level view of the power dynamics at work in it, the themes and threats that exist, then do a quick writeup of locations that will matter in the game, and determine a "face" (NPC -- though possibly a PC in some cases!) for each of those locations. Then you do character creation with the shared understanding you have of the city where your story will be told established. Then you finish it up.

Cities will also advance, at least a little, much like characters do. It's fun stuff.

I'll let my developers know about this question in case they wanna come in and get more detailed.

[Tush Hog]

The primary way we suggest it is as a "wrapper" around character creation. You start on the city, you get a high level view of the power dynamics at work in it, the themes and threats that exist, then do a quick writeup of locations that will matter in the game, and determine a "face" (NPC -- though possibly a PC in some cases!) for each of those locations. Then you do character creation with the shared understanding you have of the city where your story will be told established. Then you finish it up.

Cities will also advance, at least a little, much like characters do. It's fun stuff.

I'll let my developers know about this question in case they wanna come in and get more detailed.

That does sound like a blast!

Hopefully, they'll drop by - I would really like to hear more about it.

[Tush Hog]

In anticipation of the game I've been doing some reading to prep for the game. Karl Edward Wagner set a number of his horror stories in the East TN area. Heck, it's getting so bad I was listening to Rocky Top (it's like the natiional anthem around here  ) and I caught myself Dresdenizing the lyrics. I mean, who couldn't do something with this:

Wish that I was on ol' Rocky Top
 Down in the Tennessee hills
Aint' no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top
 Ain't no telephone bills

Once I had a girl on Rocky Top
 Half bear, other half cat
Wild as a mink,
 but sweet as soda pop
I still dream about that.

Rocky Top you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top
Rocky Top Tennessee,
Rocky Top Tennessee

Once two strangers climbed ol' Rocky Top
Lookin' for a moonshine still
Strangers ain't come down from Rocky Top
Reckon they never will

Rocky Top you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top
Rocky Top Tennessee,
Rocky Top Tennessee


 

[Ihadris]

I beleive there was two Narritive Control pod casts that dealt with City Creation as it was in the beta tests. Im sure its changed since but its still an interesting listen!

[ClarkValentine]

Hi all,

I'm one of the developers who worked on City Creation. Feel free to ask me any specific questions!

Fred hit the major points; the big key is that City Creation is intended to be highly collaborative. Everyone, players and GM alike, should bring ideas to the setting that they'd like to see in the game, and then you work together to weave them into a coherent whole.

Once that's done you decide what characters you'd like to play. The classic D&D* "A ninja, a pirate, a paladin, and a psychotic necromancer all meet in a bar when a mysterious stranger hits you with a job offer" doesn't work as well in the Dresdenverse - people really need a connection to what's going on around them, so we encourage everyone to get a feel for the world you'll be playing in before you decide what you'll be playing.

I think one of the big challenges with city creation will be limiting the scope of things, especially if the players and GM know the city really well. Two or three big themes and threats are plenty, and sometimes it's hard to stop yourself once you get going!
- Clark

(*That's not to disparage D&D; I love D&D and play it all the time.)

[Tush Hog]

Hey Clark, thanks for dropping by!

I would like to hear a bit more on how cities can advance. Also, I was curious as to whether there are random elements to City Creation (roll the dice and consult a chart) or it's all a collabrative creation process.

[ClarkValentine]

Nothing random about city creation (or character creation, for that matter). The players and GM are in control.

Also, note that just because the players are involved doesn't mean the GM can't pull out some surprises.

Cities advance when the PCs succeed - or fail. Their actions have impact, and the city changes for it. Maybe one of the themes of the city is "This place is a powder keg!" A whole lot of what goes on in town ties in with that theme (which is probably expressed as a city Aspect, if you're familiar with FATE.) A goal that the players might set for themselves is to defuse the tension that threatens to break out into chaos - if they succeed, maybe that theme changes into something a little less threatening, or goes away completely to be replaced by a new one.  If they fail, maybe it gets WORSE - it changes to "Blood in the streets" or something.

[Tush Hog]

Very nice!

[tonpa]

Thank you for coming and answering quiestions.

I could ask one:

If for example globetrotting campaign game is developing and the group would develope say string of two or three cities, would you imagine the city creation process be the same (only maybe a bit limited) or how would you handle connections between the cities, mystical or otherwise? Here I'm thinking of major conspirasies going from Seoul to San-Francisco and to say München. And, system wise, how would you handle a deepening plotline between the cities and the conflict* between player group and the conspiracy? 

Say Conspiracy of Yellow Sign wants to bring the Unspeakable one into Earth and therefore needs to bring visions and later manifestation of Yhtill to Seoul, Carcosa to San Francisco, and Alar to München.

Cheers

-Tonpa

[iago]

If for example globetrotting campaign game is developing and the group would develope say string of two or three cities, would you imagine the city creation process be the same (only maybe a bit limited) or how would you handle connections between the cities, mystical or otherwise? Here I'm thinking of major conspirasies going from Seoul to San-Francisco and to say München. And, system wise, how would you handle a deepening plotline between the cities and the conflict* between player group and the conspiracy? 

The city is just the basic model we're using, here. You could generate each city separately -- though I'd consider that to be a lot of work -- or you could develop a set of cities as locations, making the world itself your "city". Essentially you'd zoom out a little, and still use the same model, only City = World, and Location = City.  We've got a page or two that talks about non-city ways to do city creation in the game, including one that talks about setting up a game where your party is all about roving through the Nevernever.

[Tush Hog]

I beleive there was two Narritive Control pod casts that dealt with City Creation as it was in the beta tests. Im sure its changed since but its still an interesting listen!

Thanks, I'll check that out.

[Ancalagon]

I'm very happy to hear that this is part of the game.  I was slightly concerned when I first heard about this RPG that the setting would be Chicago centric, and quite frankly I would prefer running the game where Harry isn't.  In fact, running it in my home town could be entertaining...

[Bosh]

I'm very happy to hear that this is part of the game.  I was slightly concerned when I first heard about this RPG that the setting would be Chicago centric, and quite frankly I would prefer running the game where Harry isn't.  In fact, running it in my home town could be entertaining...

I think that running it in your hometown is what most people will take as the default option, with Baltimore included as an example of how to do that.

[SoulCatcher78]

I started to do some searching for information on cities that were close to me (my own zip code is far below 10k inhabitants although that might make for a good jumping off point or safe base*).  The playtest set up of Winipeg sounded great but I don't know if I can come up with that much (interesting) information about this area (Louisville, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati triangle).  Each city has a bit of interesting things going on at any one time but all lack the size and population of Chicago, Baltimore, New York.

*Going with the thought of small town creation and expanding out from there could be entertaining.  It gives all the characters reason to know each other (avoiding the D&Dism of taverns and shady quest brokers) and works as a great test bed (not to many sandboxy plot hoooks to choose from in rural America) for learning the system before you have to save the world.  Once the GM and players are more comfortable with the system we can move on to the "big city" enviornments (bringing some characters from the initial setting and replacing others that dont work so well (i.e. Farmer Ted works great in Small Town USA but not so well in Big City USA and will likely be replaced with someone who fits into the framework of the story more smoothly).

Sorry for the ramble...not sure if there was a point made in all of that.