I have a city named Millyford, it's a seaside port. I modeled it after my hometown in CT, I had so many fond memories and adventures there, several of the NPCs who live in Millyford are based on real NPCs from my hometown! I spend a good amount of time on towns and cities and so on, but Millyford is worked on the most and consistently. Thanks for another quality video and topic guys! And good luck to everyone for the Yawning Portal! Happy gaming everyone!
I know this video is pretty old, but it’s helped me a lot! I’m currently building my first town/city.. it’s been challenging on a different level though... the idea behind the world is that there is liquid that the players can consume and it changes the mood and environment or at lest what they perceive.. so the town they start in will be grungy and on the brink of decaying and if they choose to come back to the town after ingesting this liquid then the NPC will be smiling and happy and the farmland will be lush and it will look prosperous. The difficult part is dialog, if the npc encourages the players to stay they have to do it in a happy positive way and then once the liquid wears off they come back saying “thank the gods the poisons have left your veins, I’ve been begging you to not drink any more for hours” with tears rolling down her eyes.. when what the player heard for the last hour is laughing “come have fun and dance with me instead of drinking alone!”
Keeping it down to the basics fornnpcs on the flynreminded me of the Lazy DM and his 8 steps.... im nee to the podcast, so i hope you discuss the Lazy DM prep in the future. Keep up the great work. Love your show!
I love your show! You fellas keep up the awesome job! I listen to you all day while im at work, and I go back and re-watch them when I need a bit of info or inspiration for my sessions. You can't make these shows fast enough for me lmao.
I like looking at maps of different games I've played and just making note of what the designers did to make things stand out or make sense. If you observe for long enough, you'll realize why you absolutely know that's a blacksmith on the map, even without a symbol. Or that this shape definitely conveys a stretch of giant brambles.
Our DM gave those Magic Beans to our group Druid and she planted one and it sprouted out a Bulette and it almost wiped our team. My character was a halfling rogue, so i jumped in its mouth with my sword to wedge his mouth open and ended up telling the druid to throw one of the beans down its throat for it to explode. It was an amazing display of teamwork and it ended up wrecking that Bulette in the end. Just had to tell my Bean Story🤣
I really love the system I came up with to keep all 623 villages and 4 towns surrounding my one city (of about 15k people) on the same page. The city is run by a meritocratic technocracy, wherein candidates for office are given a test to determine their functional knowledge and aptitude regarding a particular field, so that the one who becomes the minister of that field is the most knowledgeable person about that field. I decided they each need a small council below them with 2/3 majority veto power, just in case someone got out of control, and to help design and approve the test for the next election. The only actually democratically elected individual is the Prime Minister, whose job is to communicate between the People and the Parliament. They attend council meetings, talk with the ministers to understand their positions, inform citizens of the goings-on within parliament, store written records of meetings and laws for the public to access, and most importantly, report to the citizens and parliament what is happening amongst the towns and villages. The PM accomplishes this because he has a much larger form of council below him. Each one of the four towns (which sit around 4,000-5,000 people with a total population around 19,000) elect a representative of their own who performs a duty very similar to the PM, but instead of attending meetings himself, he receives reports from the PM and spreads that information both verbally and by making it publicly available in writing. Along with this, he receives reports from each of the 12 or 13 constituencies he is in charge of, works to solve any issues he can at his level, and compiles those reports into a single report to send on to the PM informing him of the situation and requesting aid if the problem can't be solved at the town's level. There are 50 constituencies, each made up of either 12 or 13 villages (which can range in population from 25-1000 people with a total population around 280,000), and each constituency elects their own representative, a citizen from amongst those dozen or so villages who takes on the responsibility of traveling between those villages in their constituency (spending an average of about 2.5 days/month at each), getting to know the people as they go, taking note of any issues arising and problems that the town or city may be able to help with, spreading the news from the city and town to the villagers, and compiling his monthly reports to send back to the town's representative. I just love that the numbers worked out to break down into about a dozen or a baker's dozen of "properties" for each of the lower reps to manage and report on, and that on average they each have 4k-6k citizens as their direct constituency. It makes it so the village rep compiles a dozen village reports into 1 report for the constituency, then sends it to the town who compiles a dozen constituency reports into 1 for the PM, who then gets 8 reports (one for each town, one for each quarter of the constituency, with the option to request the more detailed original report if need be) which give him all the information necessary to keep the parliament informed and cognizant of the needs of their ~300,000 citizens.
@@nefarious905 Thank you! I'm honestly pretty proud of how it worked out, though I still haven't finished fleshing it out and have only run one session in the setting so far. I consider it a magnum opus of sorts, though. A constant work-in-progress to make something really special.
One suggestion I have for maps is maybe buying cheaply made ones from online sources. I'm part of this website that has stuff like that, and I was able to get hundreds of small maps for small areas for about four dollars. It's a bit of money out of your pocket, but then you're paying people for their work and then you get good maps!
Man I am late to so many of your guy’s stuff. Though I still kind of wanted to say that an idea for town or city I had for a while was this big sprawling city on wheels that is pulled around by like a pod of Bullets or just like huh dinosaurs and stuff and the city just circles this massive desert only stopping for maybe a week at certain stops
now i have an idea of a port type town that specializes in a magical napalm type of potion and magically infused alcohol that gives you resistance to fire until you drink too much then you gain fire susceptibility,Its a fisher town ;D (they get the supplies from the blood of cave fishers- Insert disappointment for horrible D&D pun now)
'Towns are generally smaller' well that is how they are defined. With urban areas size does matter. And it's called Civet poop coffee. The civets digestive system breaks down the bitter outside of the bean. So less roasting and 'better' flavour
Fascinating! Civet poop coffee will definitely be a thing in an obscure town in my current campaign. Maybe derived from Displacer Beast poop... we shall see!
I have a city named Millyford, it's a seaside port. I modeled it after my hometown in CT, I had so many fond memories and adventures there, several of the NPCs who live in Millyford are based on real NPCs from my hometown! I spend a good amount of time on towns and cities and so on, but Millyford is worked on the most and consistently.
Thanks for another quality video and topic guys! And good luck to everyone for the Yawning Portal! Happy gaming everyone!
I know this video is pretty old, but it’s helped me a lot! I’m currently building my first town/city.. it’s been challenging on a different level though... the idea behind the world is that there is liquid that the players can consume and it changes the mood and environment or at lest what they perceive.. so the town they start in will be grungy and on the brink of decaying and if they choose to come back to the town after ingesting this liquid then the NPC will be smiling and happy and the farmland will be lush and it will look prosperous. The difficult part is dialog, if the npc encourages the players to stay they have to do it in a happy positive way and then once the liquid wears off they come back saying “thank the gods the poisons have left your veins, I’ve been begging you to not drink any more for hours” with tears rolling down her eyes.. when what the player heard for the last hour is laughing “come have fun and dance with me instead of drinking alone!”
Keeping it down to the basics fornnpcs on the flynreminded me of the Lazy DM and his 8 steps.... im nee to the podcast, so i hope you discuss the Lazy DM prep in the future. Keep up the great work. Love your show!
I just found you guys along with dungeons and daddies! Thank you guys so much! I don't know how else to say this without exclamations......
this is really helping me with my adventures, thanks a lot!
1 to 3 inns, general store, blacksmith/stables, a few homes, guard shack, a few farms. boom there ya go.
Maybe throw in an enchanter who can enchant gear and sells magic items for mid game.
I love your show! You fellas keep up the awesome job! I listen to you all day while im at work, and I go back and re-watch them when I need a bit of info or inspiration for my sessions. You can't make these shows fast enough for me lmao.
I like looking at maps of different games I've played and just making note of what the designers did to make things stand out or make sense. If you observe for long enough, you'll realize why you absolutely know that's a blacksmith on the map, even without a symbol. Or that this shape definitely conveys a stretch of giant brambles.
Our DM gave those Magic Beans to our group Druid and she planted one and it sprouted out a Bulette and it almost wiped our team. My character was a halfling rogue, so i jumped in its mouth with my sword to wedge his mouth open and ended up telling the druid to throw one of the beans down its throat for it to explode. It was an amazing display of teamwork and it ended up wrecking that Bulette in the end. Just had to tell my Bean Story🤣
I really love the system I came up with to keep all 623 villages and 4 towns surrounding my one city (of about 15k people) on the same page. The city is run by a meritocratic technocracy, wherein candidates for office are given a test to determine their functional knowledge and aptitude regarding a particular field, so that the one who becomes the minister of that field is the most knowledgeable person about that field. I decided they each need a small council below them with 2/3 majority veto power, just in case someone got out of control, and to help design and approve the test for the next election.
The only actually democratically elected individual is the Prime Minister, whose job is to communicate between the People and the Parliament. They attend council meetings, talk with the ministers to understand their positions, inform citizens of the goings-on within parliament, store written records of meetings and laws for the public to access, and most importantly, report to the citizens and parliament what is happening amongst the towns and villages. The PM accomplishes this because he has a much larger form of council below him.
Each one of the four towns (which sit around 4,000-5,000 people with a total population around 19,000) elect a representative of their own who performs a duty very similar to the PM, but instead of attending meetings himself, he receives reports from the PM and spreads that information both verbally and by making it publicly available in writing. Along with this, he receives reports from each of the 12 or 13 constituencies he is in charge of, works to solve any issues he can at his level, and compiles those reports into a single report to send on to the PM informing him of the situation and requesting aid if the problem can't be solved at the town's level.
There are 50 constituencies, each made up of either 12 or 13 villages (which can range in population from 25-1000 people with a total population around 280,000), and each constituency elects their own representative, a citizen from amongst those dozen or so villages who takes on the responsibility of traveling between those villages in their constituency (spending an average of about 2.5 days/month at each), getting to know the people as they go, taking note of any issues arising and problems that the town or city may be able to help with, spreading the news from the city and town to the villagers, and compiling his monthly reports to send back to the town's representative.
I just love that the numbers worked out to break down into about a dozen or a baker's dozen of "properties" for each of the lower reps to manage and report on, and that on average they each have 4k-6k citizens as their direct constituency. It makes it so the village rep compiles a dozen village reports into 1 report for the constituency, then sends it to the town who compiles a dozen constituency reports into 1 for the PM, who then gets 8 reports (one for each town, one for each quarter of the constituency, with the option to request the more detailed original report if need be) which give him all the information necessary to keep the parliament informed and cognizant of the needs of their ~300,000 citizens.
Im a year late BUT HOLY SHIT THIS IS. . . . .good job
@@nefarious905 Thank you! I'm honestly pretty proud of how it worked out, though I still haven't finished fleshing it out and have only run one session in the setting so far. I consider it a magnum opus of sorts, though. A constant work-in-progress to make something really special.
One suggestion I have for maps is maybe buying cheaply made ones from online sources. I'm part of this website that has stuff like that, and I was able to get hundreds of small maps for small areas for about four dollars. It's a bit of money out of your pocket, but then you're paying people for their work and then you get good maps!
Man I am late to so many of your guy’s stuff. Though I still kind of wanted to say that an idea for town or city I had for a while was this big sprawling city on wheels that is pulled around by like a pod of Bullets or just like huh dinosaurs and stuff and the city just circles this massive desert only stopping for maybe a week at certain stops
now i have an idea of a port type town that specializes in a magical napalm type of potion and magically infused alcohol that gives you resistance to fire until you drink too much then you gain fire susceptibility,Its a fisher town ;D
(they get the supplies from the blood of cave fishers- Insert disappointment for horrible D&D pun now)
YAY i can't wait to play a wayward wyvern!
Great video
He’s right about the coffee. They use monkey poo
I definitely heard "weed or barley" too, so you're not alone. xD
'Towns are generally smaller' well that is how they are defined. With urban areas size does matter. And it's called Civet poop coffee. The civets digestive system breaks down the bitter outside of the bean. So less roasting and 'better' flavour
Fascinating! Civet poop coffee will definitely be a thing in an obscure town in my current campaign. Maybe derived from Displacer Beast poop... we shall see!
Is it a bedroom community for a larger local city? where a city councillor serves as the local government?
What program are you using to build the town in the background?
That is the map of Phandalin, from the starter set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver.