Are good fantasy cities historically-accurate-with-grudging-mods-for-magic, or more like wave-at-the-history-as-we-drive-by Renaissance-Faire sort of things? Or something else? Do they have a lot of in-your-face "personality," or does a good city blend into the background? How big are they (the ones best for gaming in, not necessarily all cities in the gameworld)? ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
Karen Cravens wrote: >Are good fantasy cities historically-accurate-with-grudging-mods-for-magic, or >more like wave-at-the-history-as-we-drive-by Renaissance-Faire sort of >things? Or something else? My favourite fictional fantasy city has to be Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork, which is in many ways a modern city in fantasy clothes. >Do they have a lot of in-your-face "personality," or does a good city blend into >the background? I prefer a city to have a strong personality (which Ankh-Morkpork certainly *does*). I'm of the school of thought that believes a good game setting is effectively the GM's player character. >How big are they (the ones best for gaming in, not necessarily all cities in the >gameworld)? Depends whether or not you want the entire campaign to take place in one city. My Kalyr games are set in two cities, one, Calbeyn is quite small (a few thousand inhabitants, and a city map with every building), while the second, Filgeth, is much larger. -- Tim Hall, http://www.kalyr.com Read my blog! http://www.kalyr.com/weblog ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On 30 Dec 2002 at 17:26, Tim Hall wrote: > My favourite fictional fantasy city has to be Pratchett's > Ankh-Morpork, which is in many ways a modern city in fantasy clothes. That was my third possibility, but I couldn't think of a way to word it. Adrilankha (of the Vlad Taltos books) is something like that, too, though in a less, um, surreal way. Or maybe it's that it's less British, I dunno. > Depends whether or not you want the entire campaign to take place in > one city. My Kalyr games are set in two cities, one, Calbeyn is quite > small (a few thousand inhabitants, and a city map with every > building), while the second, Filgeth, is much larger. A medium-sized city, I think. If player-characters offend someone, they shouldn't have to leave town to stay out of the offendee's sight. That'd be too hard on the gamemaster, for one thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Mon, Dec 30, 2002 at 05:15:49PM -0600, Karen Cravens wrote:
> Are good fantasy cities historically-accurate-with-grudging-mods-for-magic, or
> more like wave-at-the-history-as-we-drive-by Renaissance-Faire sort of
> things? Or something else?
Yes, and yes.
Depends on the world and the context. Look at Harn for the former; look at
many other fantasy worlds for the latter.
Indeed, one world could have both sorts in it.
> Do they have a lot of in-your-face "personality," or does a good city blend into
> the background?
> How big are they (the ones best for gaming in, not necessarily all cities in the
> gameworld)?
All sizes-- but I'd say that if I only had one fantasy world to play in, I'd
like there to be a small number of *huge* cities. The places where you can
go to run into other adventurers and have no problem of finding something
for an adventuerer to do. A sort of "home base" where it's possible to have
entire self-contained adventures, but also where the players can find their
patrons, etc.
Sigil from the Planescape setting fits this description and more so.
Except for the very few very huge cities, most of the rest should be quite
small-- again, this is if I were designing the "only fantasy world I got to
play in". (If there are many worlds, I'm happy if each world is different
and does things its own way.) These ones should also be more "realistic" in
that they're less likely to have magicians setting up corner shop, they're
less likely to have modern (anachronistic) political structures, people
*will* look at you funny if you spend a lot of time hanging out in armor--
i.e., more Harn type cities, or things that could be better described as
"towns".
-Rob
--
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On 31 Dec 2002 at 7:48, Robert A. Knop Jr. wrote: > Depends on the world and the context. Look at Harn for the former; look at > many other fantasy worlds for the latter. I've looked at a lot of other fantasy cities (gaming and fiction), and I haven't been able to put my finger on what makes good ones. Some of them feel like a mishmash (each character/location might be interesting, but they don't really make a whole), others are Really Nifty, but I'm not sure what makes them that way. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
