Hello. I was working on designing my own city and I noticed something. There are two city sheets in the game, the High Level sheet and the Locations sheet. That's it.
That may be sufficient for some, possibly even most, but I an into real estate and thus I also identify neighborhoods. Therefore I created an intermediary sheet that allows for the grouping of locations into neighborhoods, districts (wards, community areas, whatever), municipalities, and townships. The reason is that most sufficiently large metropolitan areas are actually made up of a sequence of other areas that are often grouped together, each having unique features, threats and so forth. By adding an extra layer I feel I have a better view of locations, NPCs and how they tie together. I will start with an example of why I think and added sheet is useful ... and given most have read Dresden Files I will use Chicago as an example:
- In the book Harry mentions "The Loop" community area (aka official designated community area 32), which is the main business district and includes locations such as the Art Institute, Carson Pirie Scott, Chicago Board of Trade, McCormick Place, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, which had its own zip code), Buckingham Fountain, Grant Park etc, and is actually a collection of 5 neighborhoods, including the main area known as "the Loop".
- The Field Museum is also referenced, but that is just one location in the 57 acre Museum Campus (aka, the SE corner of Grant Park), which also includes the Shedd Aquarium and the Alder Planetarium ... so is it one location, three separate locations, or four?
- Rush Street ... it isn't just one location, but in a way it is.
I could go on with many more examples (I used to work in Chicago) but I think people get the picture. Most Locations are conceived as a single place: Harry's Apartment, Harry's Office, the Field Museum, Buckingham Fountain, etc. But some areas are also collections of other areas (Museum Campus, Grant Park and The Loop being great examples as
Grant Park is east of
The Loop and contains
Museum Campus as well as other named parks and areas it is considered part of
the Loop Community Area (Community Area 32) said community area does NOT include
Museum Campus).
Due to such areas like that existing in real life I felt the Locations sheet did not capture the essence of a city as a collection of districts that in turn are collections of neighborhoods which are collections of locations. Each level has different people (neighborhood watch captains, aldermen, police & fire stations and their personnel etc.) that the players may need to interact with. By limiting it to just Locations and High Level all that layering of the middle ground is either lost or more easily overlooked, IMHO, thus allowing for a disconnect for players. Yeah, I am a structure type of GM.
I have attached a JPG image of the PDF I created.
I hope people find it useful and if Jim's people or the DF RPG people want a copy of the PDF feel free to contact me.