Large Cities

[baud]

I'm working on a new spycraft game for my party and want to set it inside of a large city. I'm pulling my hair out over city generation. I've looked at some real cities and thought about using those but am not finding one that satisfies me. My buddy generated a small (by modern standards) city for a D&D game that worked well and he said it is probably too small for a spycraft game. Has anyone else here tried creating a large city from scratch? What kind of resources are available for this? Right now I am going with New York city. I'd use google maps but I don't want to rely on computers as not all the players have access to one. Keeping a whole city on paper sounds like a lot more overhead than it needs to be. Anyone have any management tips? Another problem with using a real city is that real cities don't have supervillians and such. Imagine New York politics if all successful politicians are spycraft NPCs (or, even worse, PCs!).

[Crafty_Alex]

Funny you should mention it - this is exactly what Ten Thousand Bullets has done/will do. As a veteran of many differnent iterations and start/stops, you have my sympathies

[Coyote0273]

Are you looking to have the whole game based within the same city? Like an urban type game, or just using a large city as a base?

[baud]

My other plan is to simply generate what I need on the fly and then take pictures of it for consistency. It isn't hard to think up a few buildings or even a block, hell even a city should be easy enough to design. More so the economics, politics, and important non-geographical features are what scare me.

Funny you should mention it - this is exactly what Ten Thousand Bullets has done/will do. As a veteran of many differnent iterations and start/stops, you have my sympathies

I am very excited about 10K bullets. Is it being built for the mastercraft system or as a supplement to spycraft 2.0?

Are you looking to have the whole game based within the same city? Like an urban type game, or just using a large city as a base?

whole game based within the same city, as such the city needs a bit of depth and variety without becoming too much for me and my players to handle with ease. We are working on getting less detail and more action out of our game.

[Crafty_Pat]

Funny you should mention it - this is exactly what Ten Thousand Bullets has done/will do. As a veteran of many differnent iterations and start/stops, you have my sympathies

I am very excited about 10K bullets. Is it being built for the mastercraft system or as a supplement to spycraft 2.0?

Ten Thousand Bullets will be an standalone game line powered by Mastercraft. It will be easily portable to Spycraft Third Edition.

[Coyote0273]

The easiest way on *you* to do it, is only build what you need to start. Figure out what type of city you want. Something sprawling and expansive like Los Angeles, or compact and vertical like New York. Figure out the major landmarks (ports, Central Park), and then flesh it out in game. Otherwise you overload yourself, and your gamers. That way, if you need a new park... woosh, there it is. If you need a night club in a spot.. woosh, there it is.

I've done the whole expansive world building from scratch, and I've burned out over it, so I feel for Alex and the other crafty guys and everyone else doing it, but I found this style worked best for me. Start small and add as needed.

[baud]

Funny you should mention it - this is exactly what Ten Thousand Bullets has done/will do. As a veteran of many differnent iterations and start/stops, you have my sympathies

This is an unrelated question, but will spycraft 3.0 have dramatic conflicts (fantasy craft doesn't  )?

The easiest way on *you* to do it... Start small and add as needed.

This is exactly what I plan to do, mostly I was fishing for already designed cities and other tips and it seems like I'm going in the right direction. Thanks for the pro-tips!

[Wolverine]

The easiest way on *you* to do it... Start small and add as needed.

This is exactly what I plan to do, mostly I was fishing for already designed cities and other tips and it seems like I'm going in the right direction. Thanks for the pro-tips!

Speaking of already designed cities, if you want a map to use as a reference then hit up Google Maps. Find a city that looks like the one you want (or has a suburb or district that suits your needs), zoom out far enough that you get as few place and street names as possible, then take a screenshot. It's a little rough, but you can use it as a starting point, as well as place your own buildings and landmarks on the map to suit your game. The other benefit of Google Maps is that it generally doesn't show topographical information (unless you want to it), so you could take a map of Central Auckland (which is very hilly) and treat it like Central L.A.

[Coyote0273]

I've done that as well. I've used Gotham from time to time in my games, and non of my players were DC Savvy enough to realize they were cruising Bat-Town.

[Crafty_Pat]

This is an unrelated question, but will spycraft 3.0 have dramatic conflicts (fantasy craft doesn't  )?

Dramatic Conflicts are in development in tandem with Spycraft Third Edition. They will return, though their exact form and placement is a little up in the air at the moment. However, we're currently hopeful you'll see the first of them back in our modern Mastercraft cores.

[baud]

This is an unrelated question, but will spycraft 3.0 have dramatic conflicts (fantasy craft doesn't  )?

Dramatic Conflicts are in development... we're currently hopeful you'll see the first of them back in our modern Mastercraft cores.

I was kinda disappointed to not see them in fantasy craft, but I do like the downtime checks. I made the post in the mega-request thread to see a gambling dramatic conflict. Any suggestions on house ruling it? I thought I'd change the flavor text, titles, and to a lesser extent the effects of either seductions or hacking to fit the bill. Half my players work at a poker house so I feel like I'm almost depraving them of it if I don't.

[Dace]

Generally when I build a city from scratch I model it after a city that has similar traits to what I have in mind. Sometimes I may even just take a city and re name it.

Otherwise like others I only build what I need as I need it. It's an easy matter to jot down in my GM notes what I'm adding and where.

I think the biggest things to keep in mind is

A. Is it a coastal or land locked city?
B. Are there any nearby geographic features of importance (IE large rivers, mountains, surrounded by lakes etc etc)
C. Where is the closest power plant. And of course what kind of power is it providing. 
D. Does it have any local tourist attractions. Knowing ahead of time if it has things like a major theme park or something that attracts a lot of out of towners is always useful
E. Design at least one mall. No matter what people always seem to go to the mall at least once. And having a mall prepared ahead of time is just one less thing to worry about.
F. Does it have it's own airport?
G. Does it have other major forms of transporation (IE subways, trains etc etc)
H. Is it city on the rise or suffering urban decay

That's generally where I start and then I build from there what I need as I need it.

[Mister Andersen]

Here's one thing you might care to include in your city: The Night Kitchen