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While the standard district map for Kingdom Builder settlements - 3x3 blocks subdivided into 2x2 lots - suffices for rules purposes, it bugs me that the square grid looks like no street map of any European town I've ever visited (and being German, I've seen quite a few). Most European towns - and the typical D&Desque fantasy settings that derive many of their tropes from European history - look much more organic, gradually growing out from a town center along a hub-and-spoke model (if you have never been to Europe, I recommend looking at a few city maps of European cities).
As it happens, my Cold Frontier campaign is nearing the phase where the player characters will found their first settlement. Thus, while I plan to keep the standard district grid for game mechanical/administrative purposes (mainly for the adjacency rules), I will also permit the player characters to map their settlements in additional way:
First, take a hex grid. Each hex has a side-to-side distance of 200 yards. Then, once you start building something, designate an arrangement of approximately 10 hexes as a "block". Feel free to vary that number a bit - wealthier areas might have more hexes while poorer areas will have less - but they should have an average of 10 hexes or so. Then you can start putting the "official buildings" from the normal district map into these hexes - but also minor buildings, streets, small rivulets, and anything else that strikes your fancy. Then, if you are starting on a new block, you can designate a new 10 hex configuration as a neighboring block - and so on.
The end result should be a settlement that grows much more organically, is more interesting to look at, and should be more atmospheric for encounters staged within the settlement. And frankly, if I could figure out a way of using the "adjacent building" rules with this map, I'd do away with the normal district grid entirely.
What do you think?
I think it'll work, but I also worry that it might require too much bookkeeping to be practical. What I'd *really* like to see is a visual example of this process in action.
I think it'll work, but I also worry that it might require too much bookkeeping to be practical. What I'd *really* like to see is a visual example of this process in action.
That might happen, depending on how our campaign works out.
I tend to view the grid mapping and city building as abstractions. I look at sample cities in Kingmaker, then look at the overview of the city map and they sometimes look vastly different (far more houses and small businesses not accounted for in the city building stat block).
It's also hard to see a one hex major city fitting all the houses for a city of 5000 people according to the grid.
So, this tends to enter in my mind that it is an abstraction. The grid represents where a city decides to prioritize investments. Having no taverns on the grid map does not mean that no taverns exist in your major city, it just means there are insufficient numbers of them to enhance trade or entice travelers. Having no homes does not mean there are no houses ever built, yet it would reflect that the city has a major shortage of living space. Building a lot of forts and barracks means that the town is highly militaristic, and may be built like some Lord of the Rings fortified city rather than a one for one representation of forts and barrack buildings. Just food for thought.
Placement is also an abstraction. The actual city might spoke out or form odd curves, yet the grid represents the "edges" and "central" locations of your investments in the city.
I'm along Kestrel's line of thinking. I see the grid as an abstract thing, just a convience for bookkeeping.
I am running a game were my players are serving the goddess of death and darkness. They are using the old ruins of a city that once belonged to her worshipers as a base. So much of the foundations are there already. I have an old copy of the City State of the World Emporer and having made a clean copy for me to save I'm erasing all my old notes and they are using it as the basis for their town. There'll be sections of walls I'll note that are knocked down and other areas that have crumbled over the centuries.
Saying the above they are still using the KB grid sheet to build their districts. Since 1 house/lot equals 250 people we are making that 1 house be a block of homes on the big map. The only limitations will be the stated ones per the book, For example, you want a tavern? Fine, but there needs to be housing nearby and so on down the line.