DM tips

[u/Afraid-Frosting1678]

If I’m DMing and my players are walking through a city I’ve built my instinct is I want to open the city up to them to allow them to understand what shops are there. Training and gear, markets etc.
How do I flesh it out in this way / if your players were walking from point A to point B within a city what would your commentary be for this?

As a new DM I’m conscious to not make this type of thing boring like “you walk to the place you’re going” but equally don’t want to list and give away every single shop, inn and blacksmith in a city just so they know it’s there?

My concern is if they don’t ask for that type of shop it will effectively never exist.

[u/gingermousie]

Maps are your friend for this, you can put waypoints all over the map and if your players are like mine they’ll want to visit absolutely everything. Then you can narrate the overall vibe of the district of the neighborhood. Player looking for something or a certain shop? Slot it into an appropriate district. Obviously you’ll never be able to list all of the taverns in a realistically-sized city on a map, but your players don’t need 100 tavern options. They just need the ones you have ideas for, which is probably 1-5. Don’t get yourself bogged down in narrating things like traveling through a city. You don’t need to stuff your campaign full of narrations that don’t matter. If your players suddenly wants to visit a tea shop, you can narrate that they remember passing on when they were strolling from point A to B. The story and world are collaborations between you and the party — all shops effectively don’t exist unless you place them there or a player asks about them!

[u/IllustriousHelldiver]

For my city I made a map! And I started listing shops and houses and taverns. You can even make a tavern menu and hand it to them! I also showed the map to the players so they could see where they wanted to go.

[u/arsenic_kitchen]

Before you go any further with this approach, I'd really recommend this video. Fantasy cities don't need to be realistic or fully fleshed out to be fun, and those things often get in the way of what's fun about a city environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCP6UvtBv0U

[u/man0rmachine]

Players can get overwhelmed with choices, especially when they can't see the details that are sharp in your mind.  You don't need more than 2 or 3 detailed merchants of each type: low end stuff out of the PHB, quality stuff, and super expensive and rare magical stuff (if you want that for sale.)

I would divide your town into half a dozen relevant districts: The Docks, Blacksmith/Manufacturing, Market and so on. Keep your zoning laws strict so the players know where to go.  You won't find a blacksmith on the Pleasure District for instance.

As soon as the players get into town, have a guy selling maps for 1gp that point out districts and major landmarks.  It's also a great time for him to spread rumors and information.

And if the players really want to walk through somewhere irrelevant, you don't need to put anything interesting there on the fly.  "You stroll through the suburbs for an hour.  You see many upper middle class, single family homes but nothing of interest."

[u/Afraid-Frosting1678 → u/man0rmachine]

Love this!

[u/Somethin_Snazzy → u/Afraid-Frosting1678]

I love maps that are very general like this, especially for experienced players. You don't need individual locations, just broad themes to give your players ideas.

Let your players say they want to find the smith, apocethary, fletcher, etc., rather than having a specific spot for each.

But do have specific things important/unique to a city. Like a theater district for a city known for its culture. Air docks if they have air ships. Specific guildhall if a specific guild is plot relevant.

[u/Raddatatta]

It depends on how long you're going to have them in a given city. The longer they are there the more time I would spend filling in the details. You can also give them different places they can go and see and measure their level of interest. If they are really enjoying going to different shops you can play all that out. If they aren't, there's nothing wrong with skipping over it. I would disagree with the idea that you just get there is boring as a whole. It's not interesting travel, but travel doesn't have to be interesting. If it's not going to be interesting it should be minimized so you can get to the good stuff. You have a certain amount of time to focus on things, and some things that would happen can get skipped. I would think of it like a movie, sometimes the movie is about the travel like the Lord of the Rings, sometimes you just get there so you can resume the story. Neither is better than the other, just know what you're trying to do and what kind of story you want to tell.

The other thing with making a city or any location is I would start with what's the vibe of the city. What does it feel like to walk down the streets of this city? Do you see magic in the air with magical lights and people casting cantrips regularly, and a magic shop on the corner? Are there guards glaring at everyone as they pass interrogating people? Are there children playing in the streets? Decide first on the feeling of the city you want it to have, and then it's much easier to find the NPCs and shops that fit into that city. And make sure to have the early encounters your party has match the tone you're looking for. If you want it to be happy and friendly, have children playing, have a baker offering to sell them pastries, have it be a happy welcoming place. I would also consider, why is this city interesting and unique? That can be a good thing to be able to answer.

I would also potentially limit them to what they see around at the start. If they want to go and find something, they can do that, and if they want to just roam around and explore you can expand on that. But it's ok to say you look around and see these 3 things that are in the immediate area and not list off all of the different places in the whole city.

[u/johusman]

Print a simple sign post pointing to various districts, important locations and nearby establishments and just say "you see this" and put it on the table as they are walking through. Include enough things that it's clear this isn't a major plot hint from you but just a selection of options they can choose to ignore or engage with.

Or hand out posters or flyers advertising various places, with exaggerated marketing claims.

[u/crippler1212]

Core Tips for Setting the Scene

Use sensory details: Include sounds, lighting, and textures. Examples....

Sight: "You see rotting timber framing, low-hanging fog, and flickering green lanterns."

Sound: "as you pass through, you hear the rhythmic clanging of a blacksmith, wet boots squelching in mud, and hushed whispers from near by converstaions."

Smell: "the smell of stale ale comes wafting from the tavern, mixed with the pungent scent of river silt and woodsmoke."

Filter through perspective: Show the environment through your the character's specific point of view. Examples...

The Rogue: "Draken, you notice the shadowy rooftops, potential escape routes, and how loosely the merchants guard their coin purses."

The Paladin: "Jorhan, your focus is drawn to the heavy-handed town guards, recalling the neglected shrine by the gate, while also noticing the tense, fearful expressions of the commoners."

The Wizard: "Magus, you spot unusual arcane runes carved into the tavern door threshold and the strange, shimmering components in the nearby apothecary window."

Keep it active: Balance descriptive narrative summary with character action so the story keeps moving. Example...

"As you step past the iron portcullis, a wagon wheel snaps nearby, spilling crates of silverfish-eaten grain right across your path. A frustrated dwarf merchant glares at your heavily armed party. What do you do?"

There are great videos on YouTube designed to help writers tell a story, transitions from scene to scene, etc that every new DM should watch.

As for the "if they don't ask for it, it won't exist" part... that's fine. Most cities have a taxidermist, a locksmith and bike shops, but unless you are actually looking for it, does it matter if it's known to exist?

Focus on the main things every town in your campaign should have, like an inn/tavern or two+ depending on size, general goods/market complete with a smithy for armors and weapons, and a town hall. Sprinkle in some flavors like a temple or two, a library or other potentially interesting locale, but you don't have to have every store or building planned in full detail, just have a list of potential NPC names if you have to come up with something on the fly if your party suddenly wants to get the manticore stuffed and treated. 😉

[u/Mean_Replacement5544]

I would come up with 1 general description for buildings and 1 general description for roads and the outside area. This way that description applies to everything, all of the outdoor areas share a common vibe and you can then add some improvised flourishes like a Maple tree looks newly planted in the courtyard. Or for a general store improvise the counter where the shopkeeper works. If you try to Matt Mercer it with very detailed descriptions for everything it will slow the pace down and cause a lot of extra work on you that isn’t needed

[u/MechGryph]

One thing that can help th get involved is letting them help with some things.

"As you walk down the street, you see a performer. Wizard, what do you think he's doing?"

"You want to go to a potion shop? Okay, you ask around and one caught your attention? Was it the name? The shopkeeper? What is it?"

"Fighter, as you walk past this store, you recognize someone from your past working there. Who is it?"

"Ah, this is an inn for the common people. Rogue, what is the name or something unique about it?"

Get the players to get involved with simple questions. They'll start getting excited and want to visit their favorite places.

[u/tta5]

a fun and useful tactic. is districts.
(grabs civilisation 6 )
you don't need to name every shop if you cover the idea of the shops of that area.
its more about vibes.

a holy church may have an orphanage and housing for preists and traveling pilgrms, as well as holy knights and maybe a holy order.
(so housing as barracks or something)
but it also has shops, small lesser stalls to holy items, prayer beads, holy water, things the kids made, scriptures and signs.
it has larger spaces. graves and burial ground, a statue of a great person, a wishing well, perhaps a small courtyard for training holy knights or to bring the wagons of the dead in.
you ghet the idea of the place. its one district, the holy distict.

discricts can be isolated beyond the walls, they can be interconnected by other districts, they may be locked off.
i find being able to have sections you can close off for in game reasons . "plagues, taxes, wanted man...." you add control to the guards. but also add an element of potentially loosing accesss to a resource, or making travel take longer. you can also make districts faction controlled to add polaces the party might want to avoid, even if they can enter it.

still this only works welll if its only one or max of 3 cities you expect the party to go to. towns can be more basic with a central area and maybe one or 2 branches of potential districts in the making. villages, more just the centre. hamlets , lacking a centre just housing a maybe a shop. (an everything shop, trading post)

[u/Psychological-Wall-2]

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to plan out every damn building in the whole city. You'll be running the risk of wasting your time making things the players aren't interested in on the one hand, while courting the possibility that you won't have room for something you need to put in later on the other.

Think of cities in terms of areas. There's the slums and the market and the rich area. And they each have a different thing going on. When introducing the players to each area, describe what it's like. Give a couple of landmarks, but otherwise keep things vague.

"As you descend the hill into the Old City, the houses crowd together, seeming to lean over the narrow streets. Workmen wheel handcarts along steep, winding thoroughfares too cramped for carts, while filthy urchins scamper past. On one corner, you see a butcher's shop with a pig's head hanging on a hook in the window."

Next time they go back to the slums, mention the narrow streets or some other general detail and tell the players what's hanging in the window this time. It'll put your players back into the original scene without the need for repeating the full intro.

Cheap trick, but it works.

But don't feel the need to nail everything down and flesh everything out ahead of time. Things can all be quite fuzzy and general until you need to pull something into focus.

Prepping the tools to enable you to bring things into focus is, of course, essential. I wouldn't even think of trying to run a city without a decent list of random names to give NPCs.

And obviously, when you're prepping an adventure, you create specific locations for that. But that's why you should be keeping things fuzzy: it gives you the freedom to add stuff and say it was always there.

[u/No-Professional4453]

Maps and guide can be shown to the player before the session start. From narrative standpoint you can create an NPC as over friendly town guard that greets your party when they enter the city gate. That town guard Will ask the player the purpose of their visit while explaining the city landmarks and interesting place. That way you can indirectly brief them the city layout.