F Your F-ing Town: City / Town Development tips

Minas Tirith, Metropolis, the Shire, Melniboné, Frank Miller’s Sin city, San Francisco, and Castle Rock, Maine all have a commonality. From a description, a picture or drawing, or from the inhabitants you can immediately identify the place. A real settlement or city is a living, breathing entity in and of itself. There is a life and unique characteristics that set it apart from any other. Great or memorable works of literature and fiction are likewise just as famous for their locales as they are for their stories or protagonists. Whether you are a writer, a GM, or just a creative, having a memorable setting is paramount to creating a memorable story. Having an epic plot, amazingly twisted turns of events, and some larger than life characters is wonderful, but having a non-generic stage for them to act upon will propel your heroes and villains into the special place of immortality for your audience. No matter what you’re doing you want your audience, be them readers or players, to totally suspend disbelief and to feel as if they’re immersed in a real place.

In roleplaying games, one not need have each hamlet village and city mapped out and planned down to each inhabitant; but having a solid idea of the unique features of each place in your world allows you to easily give a true-seeming feeling of identity. In games, the players don’t necessarily want an hour long treatise on each and every facet of each and every place they visit, but they do want to feel as if the place is real, vibrant, and has a life of its own. As a creator/ author (yes, if you are running a game you are a bit of both), knowing these things helps you to make your real-time story telling accurate and interesting. If you know the basic features that give your settlement its own identity, you can convey pertinent information in a reminiscent and detailed manner, just as if you were describing your childhood home. While there are plenty of articles and entire books devoted to city/ town development, one can make some “F” notes to give you a solid foundation that helps each place become its own unique place that adds depth and detail to a vibrant story rather than some generic point that detracts from your setting by being a crest of blandness.

Features: Every real place has at least one (usually many more) notable features. Your imaginary space should also have some features that add to its individuality and set it apart from every other cardboard backdrop town. Minas Tirith had the tree of the kings as well as its unique design. The Shire had its gently rolling slopes, hobbit holes built into the landscape, and its serene and peaceful vibe. Some settlements are built around the natural features, some incorporate those into their structure, whereas some, such as ancient Roman cities were built according to a plan, but still evolved into having their own features. Even in generic small-town America each and every town, village, hamlet, and Thorpe has some unique identifying feature. It doesn’t matter if this is a structure, a general attitude they are famous for, a natural landmark, or anything else one can think of; each and every place has its own feature that makes it stand out from all the others.

When creating your world, think about what unique feature (or features) this place would have. How do they identify themselves, what are they famous for, what do others think of when the town name is invoked? Giving your settlements some features, some identifying characteristics, will immediately give you some context and insight as to all the other elements in the area. Geography, population, buildings, layout, architecture, and anything else can become a defining feature of every settlement. Try to make sure that your places have something that makes them wholly themselves; something that others think of when mentioned.

Feel: Each and every settlement since the dawn of time has had its own particular way of life and pacing. Your fictional place should be no different. Are the citizens caught up in the hustle and bustle of frenetic city life or are they laid back in a small village where everyone knows everyone. Are they outgoing and friendly, on the whole, or are they overly private and rude to outsiders? Are the townsfolk proud of their community or are they miserable and afraid? While everything else factors into the overall feel one gets in a city (or town), one can easily sum all the mitigating factors into a general feel. The architecture, layout, population density, and stereotypical attitudes the residents hold towards each other and outsiders all contribute to the feel.

Everyone on the planet is familiar with the typical rude United States Eastern city dweller and the larger-than-life, can-do, have-done attitude of the Texan, where everything is BIG. Each and every town and city has its own vibe, its own feel, and you should have a solid idea of how the pace and strength of that general pulse. Not only does this make it so much easier to give each locale its own unique identity and sense of realism, but it also makes impromptu encounters with ‘extras’ in your world so much easier. Not only that, but your players will soon get used to the feel of each and every settlement. “I don’t want to go to Port Delta. The people there are so suspicious and rude, they’re always trying to take advantage. Plus the city is famous for how grimy it is. Let’s go to Stronghold instead.”

Features of any place can also lend to its overall feel. Dark and uncomfortable weather, oppressing or warm and open layouts and architecture, or the benevolent versus oppressive governance of its leaders all lend themselves to the vibe any settlement, no matter how large or small might give off.

Folks: People are the driving force in any community. Their attitude is very important and a contributing factor to the overall feel of the town. On top of that, what are they like? Is the average citizen disease-ridden and poor or are they healthy and wealthy? What people do, how they live, and what they enjoy are huge parts to consider. Without knowing how the common folk spend their time you really don’t have much to build upon. Once you know that they spend their time in the fields and then most go to their local respective public houses before returning to their humble, but charming, cottages to feast; you have a solid idea of what the industries are, how the social structures interact, and many more things.

Having a solid idea of how your townspeople live, how much time they spend working, what they do, and how they spend their free time and money (if any) goes a long way for making your towns stand out and to be memorable. Ask yourself, who are these folks, what do they do, how do they act, what do they like or dislike, how do they interact with outsiders and with each other, and what is their attitude like?

Factions: In addition to the people, the typical folks of any locale, who are the movers and shakers? It could be the people in charge of the main industries, the ruling class, the haves or the have nots. There could be guilds in operation, industry leaders, old and new rich, organizations, religions, or just about anything else that could hold at least some sway. If you put some thought into what sorts of people hold the most influence in the area, you can almost immediately see these differing factions being allies or opposed to others. It could be the ruling committee, a formal, informal, or secret organization, the power of the people as they control the industries, or anything else. This applies on the macro levels all the way down to the micro level of person-to-person or family-to-family. Having some idea about those that control or hold sway will give you lots of fodder for future plots in that locale as well as breathe life into your area. Outside of potential drama or how commerce and industry flow, having an idea of the ‘factions’ in your settlement will give your creation a more memorable impression on your audience.

Fabrication: Commerce and production drive civilization. While some small settlements are or can be autonomous, most places that evolve to more than a few score of people tend to produce and export something or be trading centers. The agrarian settlements feed the larger cities; the industrious ones supply raw materials and needed resources to the others. Even the smallest farming community produces something. While it may not factor into your story directly, knowing whether the city or town is a farming community, or a logging center, or if they mine or fur or trap, tells you more than a lot about the types of inhabitants, how they live, and how they interact with other pockets of civilization.

There are major differences between a laid back village that relies upon its fruit harvest from its orchards and an industrial complex that mills out steel and forges tools and transportation. Knowing what your place produces and what they need to import from elsewhere helps to flesh out your towns so everything is both realistic and coherent.

Finances: One must decide what level of wealth the town, on the whole, has. Are they wealthy or are they impoverished? Does the average citizen enjoy disposable income or are they poor, overtaxed paupers? Do their tithes go for the betterment of their settlement into things such as the common weal and defense, or do their leaders horde the money and keep the people living in squalor?

Knowing how the area creates its finances, how it is used, and who enjoys the fruits of one’s labors helps to create a believable atmosphere.

Fealty: while the term is medieval, it can pertain to general alliances, being beholden to another territory, a more powerful leader, and even religious or political alignments. What other towns, cities, kingdoms, territories, or even nations is this place aligned with? Are they a satellite settlement, a colonial region, do they actually have loyalty to another or larger region that they might be or not be a part of? Figuring out where the town’s, leaders’, and factions’ loyalties lie will help you to fit the settlement into the larger picture. This part commerce, part politics, part feudalism, and lots more rolled into one. If you want your towns to seem more realistic, knowing this will help you make more-informed choices when you describe things to your audience.

As I mentioned, one need not have every little bit of minutia mapped out. Your players or readers, your audience, doesn’t want you to narrate a 200-page gazetteer on the history and demographics of each little place the protagonists want to lay their heads for the night. But if you have a foundation of what makes a place unique, how it operates, and what the residents are like you can readily and easily disclose just enough of this knowledge to breathe life and vitality into each place, making it a unique feature in your world that becomes just as memorable as the heroics your protagonists execute.

When you're building your world, introducing it to your audience, or making a decision relevant to the settlement, remember to F Your Town and create a solid, believable, and real-seeming foundation. This allows you to have most of your common back-details already in place, which means that you can seamlessly flow in and out of the action of your story while making your places as memorable as any real place.