Bump. I'm interested in some opinions on this as well.
to answer this question you need to decide its usefulness. if you are a new DM and need help fleshing out a city, it's great. if you are running a city based campaign, it is a good resource as well. need help designing a city? its all there in the book. the maps could use help though. they are far too small and the detail just isn't there like it is in many other city maps. they seem jumbled, and without any sense of planning. the roads run in curves and switchbacks and there seems no continuity. there is also too much space in between a lot of the buildings and a lot of neighboorhoods still have green grass and large parks. the capital city map for one is filled with wasted space that city planners would have been fired for allowing.
that's my biggest complaint. also, most of the information can be found in other places like the DMG. it will only really help those who want to create a city campaign, like a guild of thieves or political intrigue.
i would have to give it a b+. it had some pretty good ideas in it, but it is a niche product and the maps were less than savory.
Sorry to be a pain, but there was no city planning prior to the late 20th centruy. People just built stuff where ever. And I would hesitate to call Centrla Park a waste of space. Plus, people need someplace to graze thier anmimals, even in a large city. Just my $.02.
Nice post, Terrainmonkey. Thanks for sharing your opinion and doing so in a clear, supported manner. While reading your response I initially had the same thought as your repliant, "They didn't really have city planners back then,"; however, my very next thought was, "But that doesn't mean they built roads illogically or wasted space with many (if any) greenspace inside the city walls". The different emporers of Rome planned out the modifications to the city and architects/designers have been around almost forever. What I'm trying to say, Terrainmonkey, is that I think you have a legitimate complaint.
Still, I'm curious to hear more.
Has anyone else bought this item? Can anyone else add to the discussion?
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In a city where space is at a premium (i.e. those of considerable size, since small villages tend to have no shortage of space) I can think of two situations in which open space would be found within the denser urban areas:
1. Locations where the space is functional. This includes town squares and the like that are used for ceremonies, meetings, fairs, and the like.
2. Land owned by the wealthy. Owning unused space in a city is a sign of status ("He has so much clout he has space he doesn't even know what to do with"). It's sort of the equivalent of buying a Ferrari - a useless waste of money that shows off how easily you can throw your wealth around. Thus, I can see park-like areas in the neighborhoods of the aristocracy.
But in general, these are the exceptions that prove the rule. In congested cities, no space will go unused.
Sorry to be a pain, but there was no city planning prior to the late 20th century.
Incorrect. Archaeologists have found evidence of city planning going back to ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Mohenjo-Dara (2500-1700 BC, minimum).
Back to the topic at hand, I do want to get this book and compare it to Cityworks, by Fantasy Flight Games.
Sorry to be a pain, but there was no city planning prior to the late 20th centruy. People just built stuff where ever. And I would hesitate to call Centrla Park a waste of space. Plus, people need someplace to graze thier anmimals, even in a large city. Just my $.02.
No urban planning before 1950? That's a bit of an exaggeration. It is true that many medieval cities sprang up somewhat haphazardly, but certainly the authorities in large European cities took an interest in how their cities were laid out, at least beginning by the 1600s. Lillith mentions ancient examples of urban planning, but if you look at East Asian cities, especially capitals, many of them were quite carefully laid out, throughout history--with grid patterns on a north-south axis, careful placement of markets and other public facilities, sanitary fresh-water aqueducts and sewers or drainage canals, etc.
As for space, it is true that Central Park and other such "commons" are not wasted space, but it is also true that most parts of the largest cities, especially those with walls, were as covered with buildings as Manhattan is today, just not as tall. As a rule, townsfolk did not keep livestock where population was this dense, except horses, and these would be stabled and fed oats and hay. Remember that livestock take a lot of space and exacerbate the existing sanitation problems. Even smaller towns would tend toward crowding, to cut down on walking time around town and to conserve farmland. Yards and lawns are an artifact of the late 20th century (or at least late 19th), urban planning is not.
One of the flaws I see regularly in the urban maps generated using computer programs is how widely spaced the buildings are. So, I usually take the buildings as a representation of what areas are largely filled in with houses, and assume there are many more buildings in the space. An improvement might be to create shading to show areas that are built over, and plop down representations of individual keyed buildings to show the size and shape of those buildings relevant to the adventure.
I had a look at Cityscape the other day, and there is some useful stuff in there--particularly for people just starting out in designing urban settings for their campaigns. But I like designing my own cities, and I've kind of got my own approach now. I've designed three for my homebrew world in some detail, along with 4 or 5 smaller towns. I think the key is to come up with the underlying natural terrain, the districts or neighborhoods, and the key public buildings (temples, government installations, major commercial facilities, academic institutions, and fortifications) and main thoroughfares, leaving lots of unspecified space that is developed but where it's easy to plop down a private residence, a tavern, a shop, or whatever as the needs of the adventure dictate.
So, if I'm running Greyhawk, I look for a published city map (some of the city maps are cool, some are rather poorly thought out, but the point of running Greyhawk is doing minimal work myself). If I'm running my homebrew, I'll set the adventures in a city I've developed, or develop a new one.
Director of Narrative
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Since Central Park has been thrown out there a time or two, I figured I'd throw into this conversation. The main reason that Central Park is not covered by skyscrapers now is mostly geological. The area that CP sits upon has a relatively low dip in the bedrock where it would have been difficult at the time of rapid devolpment on the island for the engineers to anchor a building of that size. If the bedrock was as close to the surface as it is on all other parts of the island there would have been hunks of concrete and steel in the middle of that park right now.
For that matter, a huge amount of human development has been geological.
Sorry to be an off topic clown- But I need to send Lilith another module. Can you email me at agentfestaskull@hotmail.com
Cheers
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I haven't picked Cityscape up yet, but that's just because someone needed a good Xmas idea from me. I've looked through it in the store several times and I think it would be a really good resource for urban adventures and developement. Couple it with the supremely excellent AD&D Lankhmar boxed set I just got off E-bay a couple of weeks ago, and you have a hefty one-two punch of city planning assistence.
And, yeah, city planning has only new to the scene if you are talking in geological time frames. As Lilith said, the Greeks and Egyptians had strong civic development programs. Look up Hippodamus of Miletus, the designer of Peiraeus, Athens' harbor town...5th century BC. The Romans, a pedantically Lawful Neutral civilization if ever there was one, were planning and codifying fools. Heck, even in the New World there is lots of evidence for planned construction phases at the Greathouses of Chaco Canyon and it's outliers. Not only were the peoples there developing a plan on how the canyon proper would be growing, but also associated settlements scores of miles away...in relationship to each other. It's not exactly city planning like we would think in a Eurocentric way, but it was definitely planning of the civic entitiy, nonetheless.
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I guess where you had strong central control in ancient times you had planning: Rome, China, Greece, Persia. In less enlightened, later times in the medieval period you didn't get this sort of planning, particularly in Western Europe, where cities tended to grown organically.
If you look at the big medieval city I am reasonably familiar with, take the City of London (by which I mean the central square mile which is the equivalent of the area contained within the Roman walls). None of the Roman layout remains, as the city was abandoned after the Roman occupation (the Anglo-Saxon "city" is Westminster, immediately westwards down the Thames - ruined Roman citied tended to to be occupied by bandits and thus shunned in the immediate aftermath of the end of Roman rule). While it is filled with skyscrapers and other relatively modern buildings, the street layout is still the old medieval one. And it is full of funny twisty streets with odd names (Cheapside, Poultry, Aldgate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate ("gate" is actually "street" in Anglo-Saxon, I think), Cornhill) and virtually no open space. There is certainly no grid pattern and hard to even see a particular centre for the place, except possibly around St Pauls Cathedral or the Bank of England (again partly a function of the fact that government was in Westminster rather than the City).
Now, a significant caveat to these comments arises from the fact that half of the city was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. However, even when they rebuilt the city, they still didn't really worry too much about grids, parks and so on - it's still fairly chaotic (and a nightmare to drive around) though the streets around St Pauls are reasonably wide. And, of course, there has been a lot of development since, which will change the pattern somewhat.
Where London starts to show an interest in open space and grids is in the sections put up in the Georgian period onwards - think (if you have been there) of the Georgian terraces around Regents Park, the parklands of Hyde Park, St James Park and Green Park. However, these would have been effectively "outside" London and Westminster (they are effectively west of Westminster Abbey) and would not have been subject to development until probably the beginning of the Industial Revolution and the big movements of peoples to the cities - and this would be when they might have been considered as necessary as public ameneties due to the increasing urban population (and affordable given the influx of wealth that early industrialisation gave to Britan). But, in London at least, I don't think you can really talk about urban planning until round about this period, at least on any significant scale. I may be completely wrong, but that is the impression I get walking round there.
Don't know if this is a threadjack or not, but maybe that was interesting in the context.
Peruhain wrote:
One of the flaws I see regularly in the urban maps generated using computer programs is how widely spaced the buildings are. So, I usually take the buildings as a representation of what areas are largely filled in with houses, and assume there are many more buildings in the space. An improvement might be to create shading to show areas that are built over, and plop down representations of individual keyed buildings to show the size and shape of those buildings relevant to the adventure.
I had a look at Cityscape the other day, and there is some useful stuff in there--particularly for people just starting out in designing urban settings for their campaigns. But I like designing my own cities, and I've kind of got my own approach now. I've designed three for my homebrew world in some detail, along with 4 or 5 smaller towns. I think the key is to come up with the underlying natural terrain, the districts or neighborhoods, and the key public buildings (temples, government installations, major commercial facilities, academic institutions, and fortifications) and main thoroughfares, leaving lots of unspecified space that is developed but where it's easy to plop down a private residence, a tavern, a shop, or whatever as the needs of the adventure dictate.
So, if I'm running Greyhawk, I look for a published city map (some of the city maps are cool, some are rather poorly thought out, but the point of running Greyhawk is doing minimal work myself). If I'm running my homebrew, I'll set the adventures in a city I've developed, or develop a new one.
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Great points, and great ideas here. This is exactly at I did while creating a map of Keoland's city of Gradsul. My players continue to return to Gradsul because they recieved maps with just such features as mentioned above. Only major landmarks and thoroughfares marked out, with the rest shaded to vaugely represent districts. This allows them to each picture the rest of the city how their own imaginations would like.
I am curious, does the new Cityscape book also contain these types of instructions? Or, does it suggest a more detailed level of mapping and planning?
-Roth
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Ok, Terrainmonkey and any others who've bought it:
If I have the Ptolus book (starting a new campaign in January) and being a DM who loves and mostly played city campaigns/adventures, is this book worth a look?! Is there anything I could use which might not be in a book with a very richly detailed city (Ptolus)???
I have now gaming store in my vicinity and can only order it through the internet. Buying it without taking a look is, well... I am sceptic! Any info is appreciated!!!
well, if you have ptolus, keep that. you don't need cityscape. everything in ptolus is far more detailed and outlined than the cityscape book is.
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For other examples of city planning more recent than Rome but well before the late 20th century, take a look at Paris and Washington DC.
The layout of Washington, DC was designed by Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the late 18th century. It was considered to be quite a showplace of city design, with streets rationally planned for easy access. (Note that the design doesn't work as well for cars as it did for carriages.)
Napoleon III massively redesigned the layout of Paris in the middle of the 19th century. The boulevards are as wide as they are explicitly to make it easy to march troops from one side of the city to another. As is the meeting of many such boulevards in each of several great plazas.
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Hhhm... You are certainly wrong about "unbuilt" areas inside city walls, if you refer to european cities. Take e.g. my favourite example, the city of Cologne. ;-)
Unfortunately I didn't find better pictures, but "a picture says more than a thousand words". ;-)
- City of Cologne in 1551 from the river side
- ... and a close up that clearly shows the fruit trees of the clerically owned fields inside the city walls
For those interested in more information:
Medieval Cologne was a free empirial city of the holy empire with about 100,000 inhabitants (making it Germany's biggest city during the dark ages), about 360 churches, chapels, and shrines, and lots over lots of fields, and enwalled gardens right inside the city walls (mostly owned by the clergy). An important part of city history was the upheaval and displacement of the catholic arch bishop (funny thing, Cologne stayed a catholic city for centuries, but it took centuries until the arch bishop of Cologne lived in Cologne again).
About the lay of streets:
Rectangular street layouts are a rather old/ new innovation in Europe. Roman cities often sported rectangular street layout, medieval cities (and most fantasy cities cling to that look) dispensed with that - even cities like Cologne which were founded by romans.
Actually some of the streets in Cologne followed rivulets, and some streets (even today) still clearly show the lay of the old roman city walls (which means about 2,000 years back).
Just my two Pfennige, :p
Günther
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For other examples of city planning more recent than Rome but well before the late 20th century, take a look at Paris and Washington DC.
The layout of Washington, DC was designed by Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the late 18th century. It was considered to be quite a showplace of city design, with streets rationally planned for easy access. (Note that the design doesn't work as well for cars as it did for carriages.)
Napoleon III massively redesigned the layout of Paris in the middle of the 19th century. The boulevards are as wide as they are explicitly to make it easy to march troops from one side of the city to another. As is the meeting of many such boulevards in each of several great plazas.
Doug, please take into account that you talk about post medieval Paris.
Citiscape and most other books on fantasy cities refer to medieval city lay out which is less ordered/ planned, but rather organically grown.
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Doug, please take into account that you talk about post medieval Paris.
Citiscape and most other books on fantasy cities refer to medieval city lay out which is less ordered/ planned, but rather organically grown.
Please note that I was replying to a claim that city planning was not done until the late 20th century. Lilith and others already addressed other, much earlier, examples.
While the default for D&D is something medieval Europeanish, there's certainly no requirement for that. In fact, one of the corrolaries of Clarke's law is that sufficiently advanced magic can substitute for technology. It's not unreasonable to assume similar responses to similar challenges, even though the responses are technological in one case and magical in another.
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Hhhm... You are certainly wrong about "unbuilt" areas inside city walls, if you refer to european cities. Take e.g. my favourite example, the city of Cologne. ;-)
Köln is an example of open space as conspicuous consumption of the sort noted by Celestial Healer above. The propensity of the church for amassing wealth without limit was one of the main complaints of Henry VIII (and pretty much every other royal in Europe) and Martin Luther and other reformers.
It's true that there was city planning to a large extent in many historical cities and cultures, but it is the level of planning that is an issue here. I think a lot of people are overestimating the level of planning that went into large cities (particularly early medieval cities which is the baseline "time period" for D&D). Sure, there was planning of various large scale projects (aqueducts, fortifications, some major roads) but a lot of cities were still terribly messy in the way they were put together. Indeed, a lack of proper town planning contributed to the two great outbreaks of the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages (well Middle Ages and Renaissance). The lack of public planning resulted in poor sanitation and allowed the plague to spread more rapidly (there were several other factors, but I'm focusing on just one).
A lot of these people talk about the cities found in fantasy settings by comparing them with cities from our own historical past. Now why that might seem like a logical thing to do, the typical fantasy world is a place where humans rub shoulders with dwarves, halflings, and elves, and is a place where magic has a very real presence and impact on the lives of people. Maybe the amount of open space in the cities is due to a heavy elven influence (elves do love their open spaces) or perhaps the propensity of enemy armies to use fireball-hurling wizards has made the city planners build all of their wooden buildings with space around them so that fires won't spread as easily?
Off the topic of magic, maybe those spaces aren't empty at all? Maybe they are filled with small buildings too tiny to be placed on the map, or are taken up by temporary shelters (tents, huts, etc.). Who knows, but everything can be explained away. It's true that some medieval cities were very crowded, but others were a lot more open and filled with space for a variety of reasons (such as proper town planning or lack thereof, climate, wealth of its citizens, population, and industry). Some cities had no space at all, while others were quite spacious.
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Köln is an example of open space as conspicuous consumption of the sort noted by Celestial Healer above. The propensity of the church for amassing wealth without limit was one of the main complaints of Henry VIII (and pretty much every other royal in Europe) and Martin Luther and other reformers.
Hhhmm... Did I claim anything else? (see above, read the rest of what I wrote there).
If you need evidence of the important role the church had/ has in Cologne (german: Köln):
- Despite the destruction of 80% of the inner city during ww2, there are still dozens of churches and even abbeys in the rather small area of the historical inner city.
- There is the cathedral (1880, 1919, during ww2, and 1945 ) that still surmounts the whole inner city (= the former medieval part of Cologne)
- As far as I know the arch diocese of Cologne is still supposed to be one of the wealthiest of the catholic church.
If you walk through Colonge you can still see whole blocks which are engulfed by man high walls - former cloister gardens which were later covered by administrational buildings, kindergartens, nursing homes or simply residential buildings.
In one regard I disagree, though, when it comes to Cologne:
The unbuilt areas owned by the church were hardly empty. They were (at least in most cases) not luxurous gardens, either. They were used for agriculture, whereas the residential area largely stayed on the most inner area already settled by the romans.
But we are straying from topic. For those interested in drawing their own city maps, I found an interesting how to article which specifically aims on how to create more realistic looking medieval streets and building blocks: Maldin's Greyhawk -> A Guide to RPG Mapmaking.
Greetings from Cologne,
Günther
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It's true that there was city planning to a large extent in many historical cities and cultures, but it is the level of planning that is an issue here. I think a lot of people are overestimating the level of planning that went into large cities (particularly early medieval cities which is the baseline "time period" for D&D). Sure, there was planning of various large scale projects (aqueducts, fortifications, some major roads) but a lot of cities were still terribly messy in the way they were put together. Indeed, a lack of proper town planning contributed to the two great outbreaks of the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages (well Middle Ages and Renaissance). The lack of public planning resulted in poor sanitation and allowed the plague to spread more rapidly (there were several other factors, but I'm focusing on just one).
A lot of these people talk about the cities found in fantasy settings by comparing them with cities from our own historical past. Now why that might seem like a logical thing to do, the typical fantasy world is a place where humans rub shoulders with dwarves, halflings, and elves, and is a place where magic has a very real presence and impact on the lives of people. Maybe the amount of open space in the cities is due to a heavy elven influence (elves do love their open spaces) or perhaps the propensity of enemy armies to use fireball-hurling wizards has made the city planners build all of their wooden buildings with space around them so that fires won't spread as easily?
Off the topic of magic, maybe those spaces aren't empty at all? Maybe they are filled with small buildings too tiny to be placed on the map, or are taken up by temporary shelters (tents, huts, etc.). Who knows, but everything can be explained away. It's true that some medieval cities were very crowded, but others were a lot more open and filled with space for a variety of reasons (such as proper town planning or lack thereof, climate, wealth of its citizens, population, and industry). Some cities had no space at all,...
Hi there Phil,
nice thoughts of yours. Something that kept my mind busy, too. How would a magical city differ from a historical medieval city? I read the excellent book "A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" by Expeditious Retreat Press on that topic, but some topics stay uncovered.
How would e.g. city walls keep any wizard or enemies with flying ability outside? What about teleportation spells? (I think something about that topic was in AD&D 2nd ed. Castle Guide, but it didn't go very much into detail).
Just taking magic into account can cause quite a headache. Add the different D&D races (something purposefully staying uncovered in "Magical Medieval Society") and you face a challenging task... ;-)
I am lookin forward to input about how other DMs solved this problem - certainly not a capital subject for campaign development but still quite interesting and important for a believable mood.
Greetings,
Günther
i actually have just ordered both cityscape and city works, Lillith, i plan on putting a comment or two on this posting, and i'll be more than happy to do a side by side comparison on the two as i work through them in adjacent reads (Lillith, feel free to message me at liath@sbcglobal.net if you want to go over any of it, or any of the other weirdness i've posted hither and yon over the last age or two.) *smiles*
got cityscape, still waiting on the other, about halfway through cityscape. I'm enjoying it so far. like most of the environment guides, there are a lot of suggestions for springboards, and so far, not as many 'hard rules'. it does refer back to other books for places where ideas may overlap (the DMG, Races of the Wild, and Races of Stone, i recall off hand) So far, it's a very enjoyable read, and a very nice guideline. It's also got a few example cities at the start if you need to pull one off the fly. It does address different 'types' of cities, how cities can and should have at least to some extent their own flavor, something that i do think a lot of DM's let slide, every town very close to interchangable, let alone the cities. As is often the case with WotC books, new feats and spells show up, some of which, even on a casual read, i love.
It's not a 'pick this up and don't use your brain' book, but D and D never was that kind of game, and is less so now than before. I will give an overall review when i finish it, and go into the other book when it shows up, hopefully very soon.
okay, finished it. i will say it's a good source for ideas and samples. but if you're looking for charts to randomly determine a city's layout and construction, you may want to look elsewhere. the random charts in here are fine. i personally will be using this book, but you still have to do a lot of the work yourself
okay, finished it. i will say it's a good source for ideas and samples. but if you're looking for charts to randomly determine a city's layout and construction, you may want to look elsewhere. the random charts in here are fine. i personally will be using this book, but you still have to do a lot of the work yourself
Thanks! Good review.
-Roth
No urban planning before 1950? That's a bit of an exaggeration. It is true that many medieval cities sprang up somewhat haphazardly, but certainly the authorities in large European cities took an interest in how their cities were laid out, at least beginning by the 1600s. Lillith mentions ancient examples of urban planning, but if you look at East Asian cities, especially capitals, many of them were quite carefully laid out, throughout history--with grid patterns on a north-south axis, careful placement of markets and other public facilities, sanitary fresh-water aqueducts and sewers or drainage canals, etc.
Be that as it may, oft times city planning is for naught generations after they are conceived. Cities often outgrow their initial plans and carefully orchestrated layouts give way to expedience or changes in culture or technology.
Just visit Washington DC sometime and enjoy swearing as you zip through the roads and under bridges that were obviously meant to accommodate horses and wagons.
Edit: I see someone has beat me to the Washington DC example. Ah, well.
City Works finally came in, and i'm reading it when i'm at work (lunch breaks), and so far, i'm noticing a slight different tone. City Works is geared to help players as well as DM's, while Cityscape is definitely more a matter for DMs to use and then share parts with the players as events and DM fiat warrants.
i'm still early in the book, but for the most part, i am enjoying it, and it looks to me like the two books are going to end up being ones i will use as companion pieces in building my cities. I always try to keep the cities in my campaign each a bit distinct, even if that distinct different flavor may not be immediately apparent to players just looking for a place to 'cash in' their dungeon loot.
more soon
maybe it's just me, but having read almost all of both books, i think that the two are going to be very effective, complimenting each other. there is a slightly different approach in each, but neither approach to city construction, or their advice on the urban environment as a gaming environment is at direct odds with one another. One can use both at the same time to build the cities and adventures therein, and the overall flow of play.
i have to say that i know for sure i'll be using the two of them in a combined way to design my cities from here on in, even though i disagree with some points in both books, and occasionally using them in ongoing play. They both stress (and i have known more than a few dms overlook more than very rudimentary design beyond mapmaking in their cities, sad to say)
I have a tendency to lean towards a WotC product (even though a few of them, i have to admit, aren't as good as their 'same topic competitors' ) but speaking on this particular one....i have to stay right in the middle and say i am probably going to end up using these two as companion pieces.