Ah, I see what you mean. Well, if we're doing a step by step guide, no I don't think of the politics and economics first. Those were the areas where I thought I coould contribute here, since you'd covered everything else pretty well.
But, in terms of a step by step guide, I would think of the geography first. Then the geography will give you an idea of what resources the city has. That will then explain why the city is there.
After that you do the politics and economics because answering those questions gives you a broad 'feel' of how the city is going to be. For example, if the city is in ruins, you could just say 'it's in ruins' and leave the question of how it got that way and why it wasn't repaired up in the air. But if you say 'it's run by an old family who're now so inbred the current Doge has the IQ of a paperclip' you can understand that it will have fallen into disrepair.
After the broader aspects of the politics you need to get an idea of the city's plan (ie, a kind of street directory look at it). Is it a rabbit warren of windy streets made up on the spur of the moment like a lot of London still is, or a rigid grid pattern like Los Angeles aims to be? Is it clustered in closely like Manahattan (taking that as one city for the example) or spread out like Melbourne or Edmonton? If it's medieval and covers 5000 sq miles like Melbourne does, how do people get around in it?
Then you cram your streets with all the things a city needs—pubs, bordellos, grocers, blacksmiths, more pubs, some pubs, the odd tavern or two, possibly some places that sell or value magical items if you have those. Note that if the local politics ban drinking or prostitution you won't have those places in plain sight—but there might still be speakeasies or the equivalent.
(I think I've already mentioned the setting I did for aD&D where the locals wouldn't accept the standard gp, sp, cp etc, because the local government needed all those electro-conductive metals for a Special Project. I put it in again here to show that you can put in minor details like that to keep the readers interested. Also, I was quite proud of how frustrating it was for the players at the time :))
Distribution of Wealth I've never been a huge fan of 'the thieves' quarter'. Why would any town allow its criminals to gather into one spot and why, if they did, wouldn't they just storm in their occasionally and wipe the thieves out? For a game you need something like it so the player playing a thief has a setting to work in, I suppose, but for a novel you don't. Nonetheless, there will be slums in the city, nice places to live, middle of the road places etc. What do each of these look like? Where are they placed geographically in the City? Note that times and technology alter what is good and bad in a city. Being near a river or near the docks used to be a bad place to live%mdash;now try and pick up a house with river frontage! Hills are nearly always popular, but if you have monsters in the mountains who can occasionally raid the foothills they won't be. Slum areas tend to be poorly lit—or do they? Modern Melbourne now has good lighting in the slum areas to keep people safe on the streets, while the tree-lined nice suburbs are still comparatively dark. If the same is true for your city, how has the local government gone about setting this up?
This is getting inordinately long. To summarise, I think of the politics and economics second, after drawing the map. I almost never get into the fine details of each street because I know little about that sort of thing—like, what does a cooper's workshop look like, for example?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-13 10:35 pm (UTC)But, in terms of a step by step guide, I would think of the geography first. Then the geography will give you an idea of what resources the city has. That will then explain why the city is there.
After that you do the politics and economics because answering those questions gives you a broad 'feel' of how the city is going to be. For example, if the city is in ruins, you could just say 'it's in ruins' and leave the question of how it got that way and why it wasn't repaired up in the air. But if you say 'it's run by an old family who're now so inbred the current Doge has the IQ of a paperclip' you can understand that it will have fallen into disrepair.
After the broader aspects of the politics you need to get an idea of the city's plan (ie, a kind of street directory look at it). Is it a rabbit warren of windy streets made up on the spur of the moment like a lot of London still is, or a rigid grid pattern like Los Angeles aims to be? Is it clustered in closely like Manahattan (taking that as one city for the example) or spread out like Melbourne or Edmonton? If it's medieval and covers 5000 sq miles like Melbourne does, how do people get around in it?
Then you cram your streets with all the things a city needs—pubs, bordellos, grocers, blacksmiths, more pubs, some pubs, the odd tavern or two, possibly some places that sell or value magical items if you have those. Note that if the local politics ban drinking or prostitution you won't have those places in plain sight—but there might still be speakeasies or the equivalent.
(I think I've already mentioned the setting I did for aD&D where the locals wouldn't accept the standard gp, sp, cp etc, because the local government needed all those electro-conductive metals for a Special Project. I put it in again here to show that you can put in minor details like that to keep the readers interested. Also, I was quite proud of how frustrating it was for the players at the time :))
Distribution of Wealth
I've never been a huge fan of 'the thieves' quarter'. Why would any town allow its criminals to gather into one spot and why, if they did, wouldn't they just storm in their occasionally and wipe the thieves out? For a game you need something like it so the player playing a thief has a setting to work in, I suppose, but for a novel you don't. Nonetheless, there will be slums in the city, nice places to live, middle of the road places etc. What do each of these look like? Where are they placed geographically in the City? Note that times and technology alter what is good and bad in a city. Being near a river or near the docks used to be a bad place to live%mdash;now try and pick up a house with river frontage! Hills are nearly always popular, but if you have monsters in the mountains who can occasionally raid the foothills they won't be. Slum areas tend to be poorly lit—or do they? Modern Melbourne now has good lighting in the slum areas to keep people safe on the streets, while the tree-lined nice suburbs are still comparatively dark. If the same is true for your city, how has the local government gone about setting this up?
This is getting inordinately long. To summarise, I think of the politics and economics second, after drawing the map. I almost never get into the fine details of each street because I know little about that sort of thing—like, what does a cooper's workshop look like, for example?