Minimum Viable Cities
Sam Sorensen is wrong about cities. He says that the only way to make a city feel like a living and breathing place is to spend a hundred hours re-writing City State of the Invincible Overlord (I’m paraphrasing, see footnotes for nuance1). First of all he's wrong for not considering that maybe some of us want something different from our cities than he does? And second of all, he's just wrong.
What's the least amount of work that can be done to make a city feel broad and deep enough to live in and keep coming back to? There isn't one answer. For Sam it's nothing less than however long it took to write City-State of The Invincible Overlord. For Big Dave all he started with was a page of notes and a map and he's been running a city in his basement for twenty years. For most people I think it's somewhere in between. Closer to a weekend or two of work than a year.
Elmcity. I dare anyone to tell me that Sandbox Settlements, Downtime and Faction Turns isn't enough to get a city up and running with enough stuff and moving parts to make it last. If you like procedures and great advice this one is for you.
Not-Duskwall. Cut out all the rules and pages of history and lore and we’re left with a very solid city template. Ten Districts—Scenes, Traits, Street Descriptions, Landmarks, Notable Inhabitants. Ten Factions—Goals, Turf, Leaders, Assets, Allies/ Enemies, and Quirks. Fill everything out with Ticking Faction Clocks, Contacts, an Events Table and a Score/Adventure Generator.
Tabletown. Cavegirl starts out with a sentence about evil space elves then it's tables all the way down. Factions, Debts, Gear Packages, Fashion Trends, Events/ Upheavals, Cloning Errors, Job Offers, Nightmare Dolls, Real-Space Raids and Hypertech all build towards an extremely cohesive and evil vibe. Keep Factions, Debts, Events, Job Offers and Gear then write ~10 more atmospheric tables.
So how do you make a minimum viable city? Decide what you want to prep then figure out what the least amount of prep you’re comfortable with doing is. Do the prep. Start playing. You can always add more. The real secret to cities is they become more alive the more time we spend in them.
Just kidding↩