City Design - The Story so far. ************************** A Free City with a Population of 25000(ish) located on a river where it meets the sea in a temperate area of the world. Size of the city in terms of land, well that depends on how many buildings we the creators have to fit in, I suggest we let this one roll for a while and see how it goes. Loaction of academies ??? Location of monasteries ??? Current Political situation is stable with a Prince Regent as overall ruler ?, helped by a council of advisers (made up from other influential guilds, professions etc in the city) ie if you want your master of assassins on the council then give him a good reason for being there. Magic is not frowned upon at all here, the Prince Regent uses it quite regularly, and so do the local law, (well if I am allowed to do that bit they will anyway) this is a major factor for the city staying free for so long ? All professions are available at present, subject to users requirements. Most Races are allowed into the city although some rarely want to Use Text files for all building / character descriptions. GIF files for pictures/floor plans. Use each others PC's as inhabitants (great idea but what happens when your players kill my characters who are NPC's in your game) Building - require the following, floor plans at a scale of 5ft per square detailing the following doors,windows,fireplaces you know all the stuff you wish was on floor plans but usually isnt, openings should include a % chance of being locked and a difficulty factor for opening/picking said device. Will write a separate document about building layouts soon, any suggestions will be greatly accepted. Inhabitants should include a name, race, prof, appearance, outlook, stats ?, hits etc Will write a template for this also later. again suggestions please. ie what do you want to know about the inhabitants of the city, detail will probably depend on importance etc but all inhabitants should have a set minimum description suggest something similar to C&T creature descriptions plus narrative on appearance etc. Religion - yes it is in the city but it does not run it (it might want to though) the numbers suggest 55? temples IMHO I think this is a bit high even bearing in mind that each religion may have several temples, a better figure to agree on might be how many religions are thier in the city ? levels of inhabitants will vary greatly through the city , it is unlikely that a academy of magic is solely made up of 2nd or even 15th level sorcerers the levels will and should range from 0 to 20th at least going from novice to grand master. The levels in any organisation should be spread out evenly, unless of course it is a small band such as the 'Grey Brotherhood' (I think thats what thier called ?) from the city of Eidolon. Professions of people are important only if the inhabitant in question is a major player in the city, detail is required here to reduce the amount of work we Gms have to do, remember to much detail can be discarded and ignored, not enough and we have to do some work, as noted earlier we need to decide what details are to be incorporated into descriptions of both inhabitants, buildings and organisations. Somewhere someone (G Huber I think) said that with a city population of 50K we'd need 500K people to supply the city from farming etc from outside the city, I think we can get round this by saying that most of the city supplies come in by ship, after all we are at the seaside are'nt we, this is not to say that thier are no outlying farms etc at all of course their will be some, this will make Trade a major part of the city. Army - this could be made up of different units (what really, you dont say) each unit designed for a specific purpose ie Town Guard, Police, Wall Guard, Rangers, Scounts etc the options are limitless so lets have some suggestions for army units I will start you off with 'The Red Capes' the Prince Regents own unit, made up of sections of 5 men 1 of which is always a spell caster. I think we need to lay down some areas to be tackled and organised ie. Army Navy Trade Housing Politics Religion each area then needs to be detailed with respect to how it will work and what is needed Scott Herod suggested a 'Rogues Gallery' of characters, this might be a better place for peoples PC's to reside, this could be a list of sorts of the people come and go regularly in the city but dont actually live thier regularly it could include details such as % cahnce of finding said person in the 'Green Dragon' in winter and who thier associates are etc. Guilds - Steve Danielson (sdl8@conell.edu) recently added some stuff about guilds to the rolemaster list with suggestions about giving bonus DP's etc to members but at the same time making them pay dearly ; ) I think this is a good idea (why didnt I think of that) anyway a couple of guilds here and there wont go amiss thay should offer something that the PC needs and cant get anywhere else, then take all thier well earned GP's off them whilst doing so. People have asked for a lot of info regarding things in the city, as far as im concerned this is to be OUR city not mine so if you want something in it then make a suggestion and well see if it can be fitted in youve asked what areas does the city have ?, what role does magic and religion play ?, what realms are associated with the academies ? all I can say is its our city you tell me !. I put forward a suggestion and am willing to coordinate the project but I will not tell you what I want in the city, its not mine so I wont dictate what it looks like. But I will pass on the ideas/suggestions of others and myself. John W Curtis III (ICE) pointed out that the numbers I put forward included a number of professions that will cease to exist (does that mean all the existing characters of ours will just vanish) in the new edition. I say to this so what the majority of people out thier have the existing books and are unlikely to rush out and buy up all the new books then throw thier old ones in the bin and forget the old characters so we should leave them in at least for now. Who knows in years to come people will look at the city and say WOW look at that character he's great im not going to tackle him, all those extinct classes will become like gods in the eyes of the new ones (Oh if anyone does rush out to buy the new books please throw your old ones in my direction ;-) What did people think about the housing thing I posted earlier ?