Cityscape

by Ari Marmell, C.A. Suleiman

"Cityscape "features city-building rules, new options for city-based characters, city-based encounters, and rules for urban terrain. The game material is completely compatible with the D&D core rulebooks and includes timesaving tools and tips for any urban campaign. The material in this supplement is appropriate for both D&D players and Dungeon Masters and includes content that appeals to both

Genres: Role Playing Games, Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Fantasy, Reference, Fiction, Games

160 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2006

About the author

When Ari Marmell has free time left over between feeding cats and posting on social media, he writes a little bit. His work includes novels, short stories, role-playing games, and video games, all of which he enjoyed in lieu of school work when growing up. He’s the author of the Mick Oberon gangland/urban fantasy series, the Widdershins YA fantasy series, and many others, with publishers such as Del Rey, Titan Books, Pyr Books, Wizards of the Coast, and now Omnium Gatherum.

Ari currently resides in Austin, Texas. He lives in a clutter that has a moderate amount of apartment in it, along with George—his wife—and the aforementioned cats, who probably want something.

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general, at least in terms of its concept, I found this book pretty compelling.  Like many people, I have spent a great deal of my life in and near cities, and can personally attest to the sort of adventures that one can very easily find in urban places that would be well-suited to role-playing adventures [1].  If a mild-mannered soul like myself can find it easy to encounter quests in the city that can be used to gain experience, then surely it can be done by brave adventurers who are a part of various parties.  To be sure, the assumption is that most players will end up doing a lot of exploring of barren wastes, but the cities and their higher density also can provide some compelling adventures for fun and profit and this book was deeply interesting in allowing such adventures to be conceived and such parties to be created that fully exploited the urban environment that many fantasy worlds can provide.  The absence of space in the city also makes certain strategies, especially for magic users, less attractive, and that is definitely for the best in forcing people to think and adapt their strategies.

This book is a bit more than 150 pages.  It begins with an adventure that provides the sort of experience that one can have in urban adventuring.  After that comes an introduction as well as five chapters.  The first chapter discusses the scope of the city (1), including alignment, cities by type, culture, unusual locations, features and hazards, as well as a wide variety of city districts with their populations and qualities.  Next come a discussion of the urban adventurer (2), including races, contacts, social class, urban feats, spells, and invocations.  After that there is a chapter that discusses politics and power in cities, including various political systems ranging from autocratic to tribal (3), houses and patronage, guilds, organizations, and churches.  There is a chapter that looks at events and encounters (4), including planned events as well as disasters, NPC encounters with guards, thugs, nobles, cultists, thieves, and various villains and mobs, as well as some new monsters to make the city more interesting.  Finally, the book ends with a chapter on running the city, including a history of ten historical city quests, the urban crawl, as well as a look at what the city offers besides dungeons, including crime sprees, guild conflicts, mysteries, political epics, war, and racial conflicts, as well as the importance of city law.

That said, this book is not quite perfect.  In particular, it appears as if this book was written for the 3.5 edition and as such its gameplay is not quite as seamless as one would hope.  In particular, a lot of the options this book involves requires a certain amount of multiclassing that is destructive the goals of creating truly powerful characters at the end levels.  Since this book does offer something worthwhile and interesting to readers, it would be for the best if this book was re-written with the 5th edition rules in mind so as to allow for the urban options to spice up a character without penalizing one by taking up levels on various urban-specific classes.  Likewise, the book would probably be benefited from viewing the city as a place for more of the class options and race options that have been introduced in later versions of D&D and related tabletop role playing games as well.  This book isn't precisely useful for contemporary gaming but at the same time it does offer plenty of food for thought and for reflection and addition to one's existing adventures that is enjoyable.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

[Victor Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why are elves nobles? Why are dwarfs, middle class? And the rest the lower classes.

I... seriously, why are elves always described as a poem badly written. "If they people are wise, they will allow elves to construct as they please, for they are beautiful and elegance" or something like that.

Here
World Largest Dungeon
Dungeon Master Kit.

Besides that, it's a little generic and many times looks unfinished, but as a base is wonderful and it can save you hours upon hours of time and effort and allow your imagination and starting point and a line to follow, so you can know what you want to do and where do you want to veer to the other side.

['Nathan Burgoine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit, I was expecting good things out of this book. The idea behind Cityscape was a good one - explore Dungeons and Dragons in an urban setting, with the hope of fleshing out how a city can be just as dangerous an experience as any dungeon, and bringing real life to the locations and options available for city-based play.

Beginning with descriptions of city by alignment, type, culture, and locations (which might have been too much example cities and not enough explanations or ideas on how to create your own), the book then moves into hazards (good), city districts (also good, and more useful than the blanket entire-city examples of the first thirty or so pages). The second chapter focuses on the player characters, and while there's discussion of all the characters, and some decent enough feats, it didn't seem like enough. Kudos, however, for including Warlock invocations.

Politics makes up a decent thirty page chunk thereafter with quite useful information, and events, encounters, monsters, and then a miscellany of various city bits and pieces rounds out the book. Prestige classes - always my favourite to read - are scattered among the pages of the book, with various houses or guilts, or organizations, which I found a little less than optimal, and there are not many of them.

This book is definitely weighted in the Dungeon Master's side, and I wouldn't recommend it for players to buy unless they occasionally DM as well.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent resource for DMs wishing to run city-based games and I especially liked the contact system. Unlike, say Dungeonscape, there wasn't, in my view, a great deal of useful info for the player in this particular book.