Author Topic: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet  (Read 1712 times)

Offline theDwarf

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City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« on: July 26, 2010, 04:41:55 AM »
OK, I have been starting a game and looking at the various City Sheets provided and noticed something was wrong.  What finally struck me was that one "level" of sheet to be missing.  To recap what exists, we have the High Level, Locations and Faces sheets, but these three do not make up all of how cities are organized or considered.  Basically they cover the High and Low levels, but ignore the Middle.  So, what is missing IMnsHO? A neighborhood/district sheet.

Cities are not generally a collection of individual locations and people, but rather a collection of neighborhoods.  Look at Chicago and "The Street Level" is neighborhoods. The Loop, Gold Coast, Cabrini-Green, Lincoln Park, Uptown, Chinatown ... each has a different feel, mood and tenor.  You might say "but those are just locations" but when you look at the sample City Sheet (Locations) on page YS38 what you see are SPECIFIC locations (with one exception). A business, a park, a bridge.  Note that the park in the example is not a neighborhood called Federal Hill Park but rather a specific park by that name (many neighborhoods are referred to as "the <blank> Park neighborhood" ... yep, I look at neighborhoods & neighborhood names for a living).  The only potential exception given is Fells Point / Canton which appears to refer to a specific location and an area (like Rush Street in Chicago used to be).

So, what I did was add an additional layer called City Sheet (Neighborhoods & Districts).  I put in a choice box for Neighborhood, District, Municipality and Township, a section for Description, a row of 5 circles for "Threat Level" (0-5 ... to indicate how dangerous the area is generally considered), retained the Name, The Idea, The Aspect and The Face but added a section called "Areas Included" that allows for a list of a half dozen or so Locations (with space for Type to be listed).  A Neighborhood is a collection of one or more Locations, a District one or more Neighborhoods, a Municipality (City, Town, Village, etc) one of more Districts, and a Township one or more Municipalities as well as the non-urban areas (Locations or Neighborhoods) in a roughly 36 sq.mi. area.  What this allows if for the GM to say, for example, that the local INS building (where Karl Kolchak works) is near the border of Cabrini-Green and the Near North Side ... or maybe it is located in Printers Row just south of The Loop.  In any case a group could use such a sheet to gather a number of locations in the same neighborhood and thus be better able to understand how the Themes work together and such (I may replace The Idea and The Aspect with Themes for this sheet).  I fit only 6 per page, but it looks like it may work.  I will see if I can construct and attach an image to this post.



Edit: Since the image insert worked the two samples are districts in a fictional city I am building for my own game.  The first is a ethnic district (aka a Chinatown) and the other is something that I may or may not treat as a separate municipality (depending on player input).  The former has a collection of locations that are neighborhoods and the latter has a collection of districts and highlights the most noteworthy neighborhood and business located in the area (aka, the occult bookstore).  The Names field would likely list aldermen, mayors, and so forth that are not generally tied to a specific location.


BTW, a link to a Chicago NBHD map :)  http://search.realtyproducer.com/core/maps/chicago-neighborhoods-map.jpg
« Last Edit: July 26, 2010, 04:47:01 AM by theDwarf »
-D.M.Zwerg
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Offline theDwarf

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Re: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2010, 04:51:45 AM »
OK, since that worked I am adding a blank for two Neighborhoods / Districts



This way people have a template and an example to follow if they wish.  I am now planning to remove Idea and Aspect and replace with "Themes" (with 3 lines for them).

Please feel free to post comments and such.  Hopefully when people start having websites we can start posting these spreadsheets and such.  If anyone at Evilhat wants copies to post officially please send me a PM.  Ditto for Jim.

Character Sheet design is an ongoing process with me  ;D
-D.M.Zwerg
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Offline smoore

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Re: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2010, 03:10:20 PM »
We didn't go so far as to create sheets for the neighborhoods when we did http://tallahasseewerewolf.com/index.php/R-DRPGLocations Tallahassee but did break locations out into neighborhoods/small towns. I think having mid-level info on aspect/threat is a good idea and will probably go back and put them in. I don't think we need the 4 different mid levels down here, stuff is much smaller but I an see how in a large city that would be useful: New York/Brooklyn/Prospect Park Area/Rock Arch Bridge since each area has its own character around the location.

Offline theDwarf

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Re: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2010, 04:40:28 PM »
I don't think we need the 4 different mid levels down here, stuff is much smaller but I an see how in a large city that would be useful: New York/Brooklyn/Prospect Park Area/Rock Arch Bridge since each area has its own character around the location.

Well, there are neighborhoods and then there are neighborhoods.  I know of a local village of under 7K that has AT LEAST 3 distinct residential neighborhoods (likely more).  You have south of the highway, north of the highway, the highway business corridor, the industrial district, then the norther residential areas, the northern business areas, and the agricultural areas ... all in one village.  As soon as you are talking villages then the game would likely span a township (6mix6mi+/-) if not an entire county (often 8 townships +/-) which could lead to the County being the main "city", and then individual townships, towns, villages and neighborhoods in the middle and then locations in those subsets.  In some areas a neighborhood could be a single subdivision (newer, older, etc) or a commercial zone along a road and a district could be a few clustered subdivisions.

In other words I think 4 is a good number not because it applies universally everywhere but rather that it allows for more generic structures.  Hopefully they will be of use to some eventually.  :)
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Offline RoseThorns

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Re: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2010, 03:48:28 AM »
I wanted to say thanks for putting this in as an alternative to just having the City locations - I'm stating out New York City right now and having a huge problem breaking down the city. While most cities are vast, New York takes it to a whole new level with boroughs, counties, neighborhoods, and then locations to do... it's a big issue. So it's kind of vast and daunting. This new breakdown level will help a LOT.

Offline theDwarf

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Re: City Sheets - An Alternate View / Sheet
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2010, 06:09:18 AM »
I wanted to say thanks for putting this in as an alternative to just having the City locations - I'm stating out New York City right now and having a huge problem breaking down the city. While most cities are vast, New York takes it to a whole new level with boroughs, counties, neighborhoods, and then locations to do... it's a big issue. So it's kind of vast and daunting. This new breakdown level will help a LOT.

I was running into the same problem stating out a fictional city based on Milwaukee so I well imagine :)
-D.M.Zwerg
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