Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ClanBattlerage 05-28-07, 11:24 AM	First, let me say that I'm new to the forums. I've done some searching around to see if this has been addressed, and it appears that it has to some degree. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to dredge through 1000s of posts to find what I need. Thus, I beg your indulgence to answer the question once again. I'm in the midst of building a large, rather detailed D&D 3.5 world. I'm fleshing out my first larger-than-a-hamlet town (around 2000 people) and I'm having some problems getting a map designed for it. I have the basic shape and "ward" layout that I want, but as far as setting up streets and homes and businesses, I'm at an impasse. Obviously, I could just scribble a bunch of random lines and start dropping little boxes for houses and such. However, I want it to be relatively accurate concerning scale and layout. If my standard tavern is 30'x30', I want it to take up that much space on the map. Same goes for the houses and towers and such. The idea being that I can "zoom in" on a particular area of the map and print it out for the players such that I don't have to rescale everything every time they move to a new ward. Being a programmer by trade, I'm lazy. ;) I saw the City Designer Pro from ProFantasy software online and it seemed like a pretty good way to start. Unfortunately, I've played with CC3 a bit and it's pretty intimidating with what appears to be a rather lengthy learning curve. I'm curious if CDP is as simple as their propaganda writers make it out to be (i.e., is it worth the $40 bucks?) or is there a less-capable freeware product that does a similar thing? Note that I'm not interested in putting together details about the people of the town, just the geographical layout. Any suggestions about software that could make town-building easier, would be most appreciated. I've got no aversion to doing it by hand (I did the overland map by hand), but still need guidance on road layouts, etc. Thanks for any help that can be offered! Dave
Araes 05-28-07, 09:05 PM	Unfortunately, I can't give you too much advice on CDP. From their description, it does seem relatively powerful, but I don't see anything in the ad copy about premade road structures, which seems to be one of your main concerns. In general, I think that for a 2,000 person town, you might be well served by just performing the construction by hand with graph paper. You could basically set some length on the paper as 5' or 10' and then work from there. A search for "medieval town maps (http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2006-29%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=medieval+town+map)" on Google will give you quite a few different images to work from in terms of both walled and unwalled towns. In general, you'll probably have a few major squares or plazas, which will be located near major landmarks like churches and government buildings. These plazas will be focal points for most of the roads, and then from there you can just start drawing connection roads between any points where the plot size becomes larger than two to three buildings in width.
monrast 05-29-07, 10:20 AM	personaly, as i havent yet got the cash for the more expensive terain programs, i'm using photoshop to edit any existing maps i can come across to create a new environment (cut, paste, rotate). suggest you try the the maps section in wizards, stuff like waterdeep, cityscape and ravenloft should prove sufficent with a little work. my best resorce so far has been the maps published in the back of Dungeon. RIP :weep:
Electricbee 05-29-07, 10:24 AM	I've found another interesting way to start mapping a town is to search through college websites, pick a map from one of their websites and start modifying the map from there with single family houses.
ClanBattlerage 05-29-07, 01:15 PM	Thanks for the feedback, folks. The main reason I'm trying to dredge up ideas is because I've got roughly thirteen major (5000-10000 population) cities to build in the future and I'd like to make it as painless as possible. I figured I could practice on a smaller town (Polenia's got around 1000 folks in it) and work up from there. I like the idea of taking existing maps and tweaking them to how I want them. I'd actually already used Google Maps to bring up street maps of Salem, MA and Roanoke, VA. I snapped a couple of screenshots from there and cleared out the text, etc. VERY tedious work, but at least it gave me an idea of how street layouts work. Here's what I've drawn up by hand so far. It's not detailed at all and honestly, there ain't much there, but it's a start. :) http://bellsouthpwp2.net/d/a/david_lundy/Polenia%20Map.jpg Here's some background on the town: ============================ Basically, Polenia is a town in close proximity to the mountains, so they get raided by goblinoids on occasion. The town is around 24000 sq. ft. in size and houses around 1000 people. There is one entrance to the town; a 20' portcullis/gate to the south. The interior of the city consists of five "wards" and each is walled off from the others, both for caste separation purposes and for security purposes. In the past, during heavy raids, they can evacuate people from one ward back to the next and seal off the overrun one. Once the militia has been formed, they can go back and reclaim it. The Outer Ward is where the poor and lower-class citizens live. You'll find some of the more rough-and-tumble bars and inns there as well as some stables, warehouses, etc. There's around 300 people living there in houses that around around 10'x10'. Some are bigger, but most are just shacks. The Inner Ward holds the merchant district, the better inns and taverns, magic shops, etc. Think of this as the middle-class area. If you're a tradesman or merchant or anything other than a farmer or ditch-digger, you'll probably live here. The houses are bigger, around 20' square or 30'x40'. There are warehouses here too, as well as chapels of the more popular gods. There are around 450 people living here. The Noble Ward houses the Baron's Keep and the upper-class citizens. Around 125 people live here. The houses are big and expensive. Wealthy merchants, family of the Baron and high-level NPCs live here. The Temple Ward is where the major churches reside. The ward serves two main purposes: to centralize the deity worship areas of the city and to act as a buffer against intrusions (or extrusions) to the Necropolis. Grave robbings have been a problem in the past, as well as some undead activity. There are roughly 125 people living here, including priests, acolytes, some merchants and inns, and a few NPCs. The Necropolis is the graveyard of the city. Being in such close proximity to the mountains and away from other major cities, Polenia gets attacked fairly often. The 1500 graves in the Dead Ward attest to the danger of living here. Occasionally, a Nerull priest or necromancer will attempt to harvest from the Necropolis. Usually, these grave robbers are stopped and tried by the priests or the Baron himself. ============================ I intend to run myriad side streets off the main thoroughfare through each ward, throwing buildings around pretty much at random. Obviously, taverns and inns will be scattered intelligently around, but otherwise, I have little design in mind for how things actually lay out. Any suggestions on how to improve this map or the town in general? Thanks again for the previous suggestions. Dave
Lazulli 05-29-07, 11:47 PM	A couple of considerations (some, or none of these may apply, nothing is set in stone afterall): The walls of the Barons keep would probably be integrated into the city wall for cost reasons. It's cheaper and requires less stone. The Outerward, the poor citizenry that weren't provided accomadation by their employers (if they have any) would likely live in a fauberg outside the gate. They would only be labourers and such and wouldn't have a lot of business inside, because... ...the gate is where many people and at least the goods coming in are usually taxed in order to pay for the upkeep and running of the city. If this is indeed how your city gate and whatnot works, you may have a "lesser market" or few lower status shops outside the gate for people who want to avoid the tax on goods or who can't afford it. This may or may not go down well with the local Baron. You will also have an inn (and maybe even a tavern) outside the gate for travellers to stop in, usually when the guard have closed the gates for the night (gates tend to only be opened during the day for obvious reasons =P) Unless the burials within the necropolis were very high status, it's unlikely that the graveyard would be within the city walls itself. Graveyards are usually built on the outside of a city (then, when the city expands and they want to build over the graveyard, what often happens is they dig up all the bones and put them in a charnal house). This is for sanitation reasons and such most of the time. However, you mention that a priest often attempts to raise the corpses, so perhaps it is located within the walls to foil such attempts. You should consider where your city gets its water. There's no river running through the city and you said it is near the mountains, so the water table might be quite some way down, making sinking wells a pain. However, the nearby mountain is also very useful, as there are probably numerous springs and such running nearby, so they could be the source of an aqueduct. Probably an underground one though if your city is attacked often. Also, make sure to put your town square/market cross/forum or whatever. It'll be a focal point for the city, where announcements are made, where a big market usually is and where a lot of people gather (and where the Baron probably has people executed for all to see if he's that sort). The wealthiest merchant shops will also be located around it and along the main road leading from the gate to the square. Those are just a few things you could consider. None of them may apply in your world, but they might give you some ideas.
ClanBattlerage 05-30-07, 01:06 AM	Thanks for the fantastic feedback, Lazulli...you've actually made me completely redesign the town. :) That's a good thing though, as every one of your points were perfectly valid. The town sits right near a river, so I'm going to run a small tributary off it, through the town proper as an aquaduct, then back out. That'll work as a natural "wall" of sorts to separate the castes of the town. This town was the starting point of a four part adventure. The premise being that the town had been overrun by goblinoids and undead, from INSIDE the town (the Necropolis, specifically). The adventurers would arrive with the daughter of the captain of the guard and find the town under siege from within. The local militia was unable to contain the attack and were beaten back to the outer ward. The adventurers were then to take it one ward at a time, clearing out set "bands" of invaders (no real organization...they're goblinoids!) in each ward, reclaiming the town ward by ward. Each ward was more populated with invaders as they delved deeper into the town. Each area recaptured would have a special NPC in it that enlightens the party further on what happened and what could be causing it. Regaining the inner ward, they find out that there's the possibility of a nobleman turning traitor on the town, thus allowing the invasion in. Heading to the noble ward, they encounter the noble holed up in his manor and find out that he's not traitor, but is friends with a secret priest of Nerull who had hinted towards some "big plans" concerning the town and his god. Heading over towards the temple ward, they interrogate the high priests of each of the temples, finding out more about the Nerull sect's plans. Once through the temple ward, they're tipped to the fact that all of the undead attacking the town are coming from the Necropolis. The party penetrates the dead ward, eventually coming upon a mausoleum housing the Baron's family. Entering the damaged structure, they encounter the evil baddie in charge: the Baron's dead son, who was resurrected as a vampire spawn. He possesses a magic runestone, which works as a dimension door when paired up with another runestone. The party is likely 3rd level when they start the adventure, so they MIGHT be able to kill the vampire spawn, but more likely they'll have to retreat back into the city to get help. By the time they get back, the vampire spawn will have escaped, but he'll have left the runestone intact (having used it to make his escape). This leads the party to the next step along the campaign as they go through the portal, or destroy it... It also makes some interesting political situations, as the party has to report that the mastermind of the situation was none other than the Baron's own son...that they either killed or "did something" to the body (since it's not there anymore). Thus, the reasoning behind walling off each ward was to give clear delineations concerning the scope of the party's task. I think what I'll do now is separate the town into "blocks" of 15-25 buildings. Each block will be a separate "adventure" of sorts. Rather than railroading the party along the plotline, I think I'll have key NPCs feed them just enough info to head to a different part of the town, clearing out invaders as they go. That'll give them the freedom to go wherever they want, while still giving them hints on where to find additional info. I'm getting seriously stoked about this. :) I love bouncing ideas off people in the know, yet who won't likely be going through my adventures. As I'm sure you noticed by now, I also like to mix combat with intrigue and moral decisions. I also like to throw in some no-win scenarios (the Baron's son, for example) where no matter what they do, they're going to be behind the 8-ball to a certain degree. In this case, they have to decide whether they can take the vampire in combat (probably not) or run. If they run, he gets away. If they fight and lose, he wins. Then, even if they kill him, they've still mutilated the Baron's son's corpse! Obviously, a distressed noble father won't take kindly to that, even if he was undead and they did save the town. The party could find themselves the focus of a minor civil war between the militia, who saw the party's heroics first-hand and the nobility. Perhaps an assassination attempt is in their future? Ideas? Feedback?
Lazulli 05-30-07, 02:17 AM	Well, you can still wall off certain parts and have it make sense, like the noble ward for example. The inner walls don't have to dissapear entirely. I think your foundation for the adventure is fine and it sounds like it will be very fun and exciting. I don't think it's too linear and makes for a good introduction to your campaign (this is for the start of it, right?), so it helps get the party together and offers plenty of chances to introduce some of the important NPCs and whatnot. If the Barons son does manage to get away (which is a good possibility), he might well become a main villain for the entire campaign, so it might be worth considering his personality in depth. And the Baron himself definately, as his actions could have a major impact on the PCs decisions. To add to the politics and intrigue side of things, you could introduce a bunch of characters, perhaps mentioned in passing by the militia or citizens, or seen by the PCs, such as the town Magistrate, Militia Commander, the Barons Seneschall, etc etc. They all could have their own motives and alliegences for after (or during) the invasion event. You could perhaps give a little indication of their feelings or views if the PCs take the time to look or ask. If there is an internal conflict, the PCs might be asked, or feel compelled to gather allies for whatever faction they decide to support. You could introduce a number of other groups too. Maybe the merchants guild or the citizens are angered by the damage to the city and blame the Baron (or maybe some think him a hero for having them beat back if that happens). The Baron might have his own house guard of very well trained men-at-arms too, which is seperate from the town militia/watch. In anycase, if the PCs do stick around after the attack, they are no doubt going to be knee-deep in the politics and disorder that follows. That should definately make for some fun RP. =P If they don't and decide to go follow the vampire, well, the city will still be doing its own thing. Perhaps if they do track him down and put him to rest once and for all, when they return to the city, it's in chaos. The civil-disorder did happen and the Baron has been deposed, or maybe there was an attempt and the Baron had lots of people tortured and executed (some of which may have even implicated the party in a possible coup too). Those are just a few ideas that immediately came to mind! I'm sure you've already got hundreds anyway, but there's plenty of scope for stuff!
ClanBattlerage 05-30-07, 09:55 AM	Indeed...you're actually barking up the same tree I am, more or less. This installation is actually the "second" part of a much larger story. The first part takes place in a much larger city, where there is some theological unrest. The 1st level characters have to kill off some minor undead. As they do so, they find out about a conflict/tension between the church of Wee Jas and an underground Nerull sect. They run through a couple more minor adventures, introducing a couple of major NPCs and building up the tension between the two churches. Finally, the party crashes a Nerull ritual involving the daughter of Polenia's captain of the guard. She's about to be ritually turned into an undead (vampire, wight, something) by the Nerull priest in charge (3rd level dude). The party has about 10 rounds to kill off the priests before the ritual finishes. Regardless of whether they succeed, they are charged with taking the girl (or her remains) back to Polenia and her father, thus leading into the second installment. I've toyed with adding a side-plot here, where one of the Nerull priests (being masked, of course) is found out to be the wayward son of one of the guild masters in the city. He takes it personally that the party killed the boy and will eventually shanghai them and sell them to a gladiatorial arena of sorts. Obviously, I wouldn't use this hook twice in two adventures. The one with the vampire spawn is more important to the main adventure thread, so I'll probably go with that. The arena tie-in was for a completely separate campaign when the party is closer to 5th-6th level. The end result of the entire campaign is that there's a high-level Blackguard cleric or Death Knight that has taken it upon himself to carve out a section of the human lands as his own. He's using a set of runestones to drop his undead minions into the cities from the inside out. Once the party figures out how the runestones work, they can use them to track down where the Blackguard/knight is and deal with him (when they're powerful enough, of course). Along the way, they uncover a lot of political intrigue, not only between members of the ruling factions of the human lands, but also racial tensions between their neighbors. I like the idea of making the party have to choose their allies in these conflicts, as it'll give me plenty of plot hooks to work in the future. I've already got an idea loosely based on Salvatore's Hunter's Blades trilogy, where a small town gets overthrown by its half-orc citizens because they feel they're unfairly treated by the dwarves nearby. The party gets to mediate the situation as well as take part in some (hopefully) non-lethal combat. That plotline will probably happen a bit into the future though.
ClanBattlerage 05-30-07, 10:22 AM	Re-reading your last post, I had an interesting brainstorm... Instead of a Blackguard/knight, make a high-level vampire the uber-baddie. Then have his "minions" be the ones who are instigating the chaos around the lands. One of those minions would be the Baron's son, who is very angry at having been turned into an undead and seeks revenge on his creator. He can maintain a "human" appearance during the day (staying inside most of the time, of course) and the party could meet him as they clear out the town. He could aid them in their quest to clean things up (thus striking back at his master) and use his own spawn as the fall-guy for the invasion. When the party disposes of the spawn, the Baron's son then helps the party figure out what they need to do to eventually overthrow his master. Naturally, when he is freed from his enslavement, he'll wreak his own chaos and vengeance on the world and set the party up to take the blame for it. There is NO better plot line than the ally-turned-villain. Especially when the party realizes that all the efforts they've made so far actually HELPED the real bad guy...hehehe My players are going to damn me to hell when they figure this one out. ;)
Lazulli 05-30-07, 01:51 PM	Yeah, the ally-turned-villain thing is always a nice twist and really strikes a chord with most groups, especially if they've gotten to know their former ally quite well beforehand. I'm considering my own groups main ally going down a path of villainy too. It sounds like you've got your main plot mostly figured out and you're just deciding on a few details. Whatever you choose, I'm sure it'll be good fun for the group. I was thinking a little about the city-attack part. If it's goblins backed up by a few undead, then I imagine it's not going to be a very organised affair on the part of the forces of evil. Probably a number of isolated street battles, and plenty of looting and such by the goblins. The goblins may well be split up into different bands led by their own "boss". You could throw in a number of "random encounters/situations" as the group moves into various areas of the city. Some of these things might have an impact further down the line. A few examples could include: A bunch of goblins trying to get into one of a guild hall. It might be quite well off and have a vault in the bottom. The goblins could be surrounding it, trying to get in while it is being defended by guild members. If the group help, they might win allies later. Or, the group might run into two seperate groups of goblins fighting over some loot. Who knows how that could turn out. Of course, it doesn't have to be just goblins doing the looting. Some of the more unscrupulous citizens might have formed small bands and are looting some of the shops and such before making their escape. There are plenty of chances to win the friendship of people barricaded into their houses who need help. Another group of goblins might be attacking the city grain silos/food warehouses/whatever. If the goblins manage to steal or spoil the food, it might cause issues for the city populace later on. Some could be trying to damage the outer defences, maybe compromising one the foundations of one of the wall towers. This could make the city more vulnerable to outside attack later. Or they could be trying to damage other parts of the city infrastructure. Perhaps the aqueducts or cisterns and such. Not every encounter has to be something special, some would just be straight fights. Although I think you've probably thought of these kind of encounters already. But I just thought I'd throw in some ideas! (and it's also helping me thinking of a few for my own game too =P)
ClanBattlerage 05-30-07, 05:29 PM	As usual, really good stuff to think about. I tend to take a blitzkrieg approach to the design of this kinda thing, then fill in the devious details later. You bring up some good ideas though, which I'll jot down for future reference. Getting the thread back on track... What are the usual sizes for the standard building in a small town? For example, how big would a typical church or temple be? 30' x 50'? I imagine that would depend more on the number of parishioners in the church. How about taverns? Inns? Houses? Shops? I know most of this is dealer's choice, but I'm curious about what other folks are doing so I can get a baseline to work with. I'd hate to make my "nobleman"'s house be 30' x 30', when everyone else has them living in 100' mansions. Also, what would a typical road be? I figure a main thoroughfare through the city would be around 20-25' wide to allow for 2-way traffic of wagons, plus foot traffic. The lesser roads going into residential areas would be around 15' wide and alleys between blocks would be around 5' wide. Reasonable?
Lazulli 05-30-07, 07:39 PM	I'm going off of memory for most of these measurements, and I'll be rounding them up in increments of 5" for the sake of d20age. =P Well churches can vary very much in size. If you take a western church for example, you can get churches which are pretty much a tiny chapel (15 by maybe 25ft) up to really big cruciform churches, which can be over a hundred foot long, with an isled nave that is like 60ft wide (and they usually have a crossing tower too). And they can get bigger still. And then you have the really big ones which are usually cathedrals. Inns, well it depends on the inn. Shops too, but if it's based on the medieval type of house/shop, they will be lengthways with the gable-end facing the main street (because burgher plots were drawn out that way). Usually like around 15"-20" wide and varying a great deal in length. Roman plots are more squareish and standardized though. Noble houses again, vary considerably. But they will usually consist of a big Hall, with an attached living block, and a kitchen block too. They are often L or U shaped, and will probably have a courtyard and possibly their own well. Bigger houses would be square shaped with a central outside courtyard (the main limiting factor in big houses is roof span: you can only build a roof so wide). Each block could be 20-30ft wide (I'm just rounding up figures for d20 plan use here) and up to twice as long. The main hall could be even bigger. As for roads, 10ft wide is pretty typically, but again, it varies. Roman roads were built to a standard width (usually, but not always) and it might be worth looking them up. Wide main avenues could be very wide and are pretty much personal choice in my opinion (20ft sounds good), it just depends on your vision of your city. 5' for alleys sounds good to me, they may well not be paved either. Also, it depends on whether wagons are allowed in the city. In many roman cities for example, wagons were banned until after the evening. If the city doesn't have to serve big wagons and carriages, the roads may be narrower. If you live in England and in/near an old market town, you can actually measure the shopfronts on the highstreet for example to find the typical width of a burgher plot in that town (most will not have changed at all in like 800 years =P). You can also try finding a detailed plan of Pompeii or Rome with measurements on to get an idea of the size of public buildings (it depends on what kind of theme you're going for, for your city/town, they are two very different types).
ClanBattlerage 06-03-07, 01:03 PM	I think I'll check into the Pompeii thing for reference; that sounded like a pretty good idea. I've got my basic thoroughfare layed out, so I just need to put in individual streets and alleys. I'm on vacation right now, so the maps are having to wait until I have some free time. I'll post what I get done when I have a little more. I'm toying with the idea of changing the vampire to a werewolf or other lycanthrope. The lycanthropes seem to give a more flexible environment to deal with the characters. If they're dealing with someone only indoors or only at night, it might be a little suspicious. I'll have to chew that one over a while and see what comes out. Any opinions on what would make a good "mastermind" villain? One that would befriend the adventurers initially, then use them to further its own goals, then finally turn on them when those goals are realized, or when they become a threat to him? Dave
lochinvar_1971 06-30-07, 02:45 PM	I use a combination of sources for creating towns and cities. I have found that Cityscape is resonable enough to describe the particular areas of a city, but I also use a Third Party Product called Legends & Lairs:City Works by Mike Mearls, which has a very good format for how to put these areas together logically in a city, as well as how much space each area takes.