In a setting book for a fantasy city, what sort of material are you hoping it will contain?

Districts and their focus (This is the dock ward, so sailors and the like), government system, places of interest, some personages of interest without stats.  What type of city is it?  Is it a port town?  Is it a government town?  What's the guild situation like, if there is one, and why or not?

Also, Maps, Maps, Maps!  Oh, and did I mention Maps?

Vornheim be thy guide. I know Zak S is a touchy subject for many, but HOT DAMN he wrote a great city book.

The more I can make a fantasy city into MY CITY the more I useful that supplement would be to me.

Vornheim is one of those WTF books for me.  Random gibberish tables combined with pretentious artsy crap.  So of course it's the darling of the OSR, as it combines two of their favorite things (along with awful art)

Personally, I like listings of shops/buildings, NPCs, local organizations, and such. Random tables might have been useful in the 1970s, but they are no longer a novelty, with dozens of random table books to choose from, some of which are actually meant to produce coherent, at least vaguely realistic results (like the World Builder's Guide from TSR)

Just loads and loads of maps and floorplans with concise, terse descriptions of locations, organisations, inhabitants and any other relevant info.

Quote from: 3rik;1054499Just loads and loads of maps and floorplans with concise, terse descriptions of locations, organisations, inhabitants and any other relevant info.

This.  So much this.

Seconding what everyone else said about maps. Good maps are key. After that, lots of locations and fleshed out NPCs. I don't really need or want a hugely detailed background about the history/politics & etc. unless it's pretty directly relevant for play. "City as hexcrawl" is about my speed.

I want a relevant history that is not only a good read, but incorporates and/or expands on elements from the wider setting. Events in the history should not be isolated to the history, but should reverberate throughout the city today and should inform aspects such as the layout of the city, the current political landscape, ongoing mysteries, place names and the current relations with neighbouring towns and cities etc. That is, the history should give reason as to why things are the way they are.

I want details on those vying for power, be it government, religion, or secret societies or just criminal gangs in the streets. As a minimum I want a map of the city. I want detailed locations of note within the city, with smaller location specific maps if possible. I want adventure hooks that are relevant to the section they appear in and perhaps larger adventure frameworks at the back of the book.

I want a GM section to offer advice on the styles of adventures and campaigns possible in the city, from the standard tropes to something a bit more specific to the city itself. If there is nothing unique about the city, why do the player characters even want to be there.

I want to know what lies beyond the city, what enemies lurk just beyond the gates, what adventuring opportunities await over the brow of the next hill. I want to know the city's relations with its neighbours are, who their ambassadors are and vice versa.

I like small snippets of in character narration to add a little flavour to individual chapters, but that a very personal preference. To sum it all up, I'm looking for depth.

NPCs and adventure sites. I have a 5e book Streets of Zobeck that is really good that way, the NPCs are well detailed and brimming with plot hooks, and it has numerous sites detailed that are suitable for adventures. It also has scripted adventures but these are much less useful to me.

Sewer maps that can be used as adventure sites like Dyson Logos' Sewers of Trayvon map - got tons of use from that one map.

A useable city map where I can see the building outlines - again, Dyson Logos does great ones. Paizo does appalling pieces of multi-coloured crap that are completely unuseable (Magnimar & Korvosa are two I own).

I would say the main thing is to hire Dyson/use his maps, then add a bunch of colourful NPCs, detailed adventure sites (abandoned buildings, sewers, crypts, bathhouse, inn, temple etc) with their own maps at dungeoneering scale.

Encounter tables are good too, but keep it simple. One to four tables with say 12-20 entries each is good. DO NOT require a lot of cross-referencing. I find in city play tables are less useful than in a dungeon anyway.

Flying Buffalo's Citybook series is still my go-to of how to do this right.

Quote from: Omega;1054620Flying Buffalo's Citybook series is still my go-to of how to do this right.

I love those books and have used one or two of the shops in my gaming, but you could never detail a city at that level. They might not work well for a sandbox city because you would end up having the wrong establishments detailed out. So basically that kind of detail would work best for a scenario or some of the most important establishments.

Frank

Quote from: Spinachcat;1054487Vornheim be thy guide. I know Zak S is a touchy subject for many, but HOT DAMN he wrote a great city book.

The more I can make a fantasy city into MY CITY the more I useful that supplement would be to me.

I strongly, strongly disagree.

Vornheim does have a few neat things in terms of an osr toolbox book. But as a city guide? It's fucking awful. It's everything not to do when it comes to making a city.

I used to use "Runequest Cities"  
https://www.amazon.com/Runequest-Cities-Explore-Fantasy-Communities/dp/9990397562

Many years ago.  it has lots of material for encounters in cities, building cities and city management etc.

It can be a lot of fun to use. Particularly the detailed encounter charts, which have all sorts of interesting stuff.

I've since lost my copy of this, although I did manage to buy a Non-Branded PDF from the original creators a few years ago.

Have I mentioned Maps?  If I haven't, I want to makes sure that Maps are mentioned.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054962I strongly, strongly disagree.

Vornheim does have a few neat things in terms of an osr toolbox book. But as a city guide? It's fucking awful. It's everything not to do when it comes to making a city.

Oh, you didn't want an opinion, you just wanted an echo chamber consensus...  Sorry, I misunderstood your intent.

For a long time I saw Thieves World from Chaosium as the model of how to do it for publication. I think it is good to recall that a ref should write-up city preparation for their own use very differently than for publication.