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Hello, everyone. I'm currently in the middle of running a somewhat ad hoc campaign arc where the direction of content is dictated by the players' choices. Up to this point, it's been fairly easy to generate what I needed due to towns and dungeons being simplistic for one reason or another.
However, the party is coming close to entering a large city that is nestled between a forest and a river (Woodsedge, Galt to be specific).
While there is basic info on the population found in the Inner Sea World Guide, I have no idea how to make use of that bit of info in building a convincing city map.
Given the population of the city, what is a good metric for deciding how many square miles this city should sprawl out. I usually find these sort of details to be the most tedious to work out, and I fear that I may lose my interest in running this campaign over something silly like this. Any advice would be appreciated!
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The population density of New York City is 26000 people per square mile, but this is using high rise apartments. If you figure apartment buildings are about 30 stories tall in NYC and you want your fantasy city to be about two stories tall, then change your population by a factor of (2/30) to be about 1700 people per square mile.
So a city with a population of 17000 would encompass about 10 square miles, or have a diameter of about 3.5 miles.
A "wealthy" city would have a lower population density, while a "poor" city would pack the people in. Higher population densities mean more disease, crime, and unrest.
When you get much above a village or small town you don't really need much in the way of maps. Frankly their is too much to include every building and street as a point of interest such as you have in a small community.
Sometimes a basic town layout and dividing it into districts can be helpful to give some added flavor, but don't try to go into too much detail, it probably won't be needed and won't help play in any way.
This is especially true if you don't like doing it and find it so tedious that you would rather end a campaign then do it. If that is how you feel, then don't do it. A paragraph or two worth of flavor text should give your players enough to go on, and call it good.
If you feel you must have a map, and there isn't a published one provided, then steal one. Their are many fantasy settings out there, with many published maps and you can probably find one that is close enough. Another option is to google historical city maps and take one from their that will work.
And your players almost certainly won't care if your city is too big or two small in comparison to its population. They almost certainly won't even realize the discrepancy, so don't sweat things like that too much.
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Thanks for the replies you two. For the sake of argument, I have at least one individual who may or may not try to fudge time-based mechanics. Because of this, I needed a consistent way of measuring cities out for the sake of time travelled when the party goes about their business within a city. It also gives me a better idea of what time of day it will be by the time the party gets to a particular destination within town, which obviously has a big impact on what they may expect in certain parts of the city.
Ultimately, the more information I have on a city, the better I can work in reasons for events to play out the way they do in a way that makes sense.
For the record, I just need to know where sections of the city are located within and without its walls. I don't need to know each individual house, unless it's a particularly important building.
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I usually work off of a 10 people/home and 4/shop rule. I also like to locate key features obvious to the city; the market(s), the main entry points in the wall and the primary defense (simple keep, full castle, palace, etc). From there I spiral outward putting the different classes of folks together.
I would suppose that merchants and traders want to be as close to where the goods come in as possible; this puts the market on the river or near the main overland gate. There might be a secondary commerce center elsewhere but this'll be the biggest one. Near this you want businesses that serve transient clientele; warehouses, inns, cheap entertainment and livery care and storage.
The wealthy want the highest level of protection so I typically add them near the primary defense. These folks also want decency and culture, so they might also have outdoor space, intellectual or decadent entertainments, and dining experiences available nearby.
Most people live and work in the same place unless the business requires tons of space or is otherwise dangerous. Modest shops don't need to be placed on the map; assume they're right in the homes you're drawing. These would be weavers, simple smiths, cobblers and such. Think of any business you could run out of your home with hand tools without much risk to life and limb and you can understand what I'm saying.
This leaves highly skilled, dangerous work to be segregated away from homes. No one wants to live right above a poulter, abbatoir or a slaughterhouse. A tannery is not only stinky but might also have dangerous chemicals piled about. These kinds of businesses might either exist outside the walls, in their own district or perhaps cordoned off somehow and scattered within lower income districts.
Will the town have guilds? If so give them a place or places to meet. Churches also fall into this category and can be scattered or located near specific features. If you're using the Golarion core gods and following the traditions of the setting, chances are you have a single church or maybe only a couple houses of worship containing shrines to allied deities.
Finally you need to think about civic works and life. Do they have running water? How is waste handled? Street lighting, prisons and justice, pest control and charitable doles; all of these can shape the city depending on their prevalence.
There is no "formula" for crafting a city. As I started out saying, I use roughly 10 to a home and 4 to a business. My city blocks are usually about 10 buildings each, with 4-6 blocks making up a ward or district. Based on these numbers and my arbitrary location of the major features, I can usually sketch out a city in about an hour. It looks terrible (I'm not an artist by ANY stretch!) but it's enough to give my players a sense of where they are and what's going on. Hope all that helps!
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I'm fundamentally lazy, and not much of a cartopgrapher. I prefer to steal adapt other people's maps for my own use.
Check out The Cartographaers Guild for a gallery of fantasy and sci-fi maps.
I've plucked many a map from that site, and then filled in my own key.