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Author Topic: OSR cities  (Read 4828 times)

Kuroth

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« Reply #15 on: November 16, 2015, 06:03:06 AM »
Newer independent published ones? Vornheim and Yoon-suin were mentioned.

Red Tide has a chapter on city set-up that uses the tag method Kevin has used for other world features.  It is a useful chapter, and it is worth the price of the book for the chapter.

City of Dolmvay is the encyclopedic city setting write-up that some expect to read. Edit: I see Pundit already mentioned Dolmvay.

D30 Sandbox Companion has a lot that is applicable to cities.  It is similar to the Judges Guild content from back in the day to describe a city.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 06:20:46 AM by Kuroth »
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P&P

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« Reply #16 on: November 16, 2015, 08:53:49 AM »
The Yggsburgh situation is a real tragedy.  I still have unpublished manuscripts for that on my hard drive, which are now totally unpublishable because Gygax's estate hasn't paid the authors.  (Their non-payment has activated the delinquency clause in their agreement so the rights have reverted to the authors, who can do nothing with those rights because they're derivative works contingent on IP they don't control.)  

Yggsburgh could have been quite cool.  :(
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Larsdangly

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« Reply #17 on: November 16, 2015, 12:40:56 PM »
Quote from: P&P;864715
The Yggsburgh situation is a real tragedy.  I still have unpublished manuscripts for that on my hard drive, which are now totally unpublishable because Gygax's estate hasn't paid the authors.  (Their non-payment has activated the delinquency clause in their agreement so the rights have reverted to the authors, who can do nothing with those rights because they're derivative works contingent on IP they don't control.)  

Yggsburgh could have been quite cool.  :(


Yes, the Yggsburgh/Castle Zagyg situation has to be the saddest story arc for a product in our hobby.  Planned as a career finale series of boxed sets led by the EGG himself, and launched with a couple of the best things produced for D&D style games, and then completely unravelled after his death. Such a shame. I'm sure Gary's heirs had financial reasons for what they did, but it would be so easy to fund publication of the rest of the series through Kickstarter and/or collaboration with one of the OSR-style companies if they were not being blocked by IP rights. That one is hard to excuse because there is no evidence the rights holders will do anything with them.

Dimitrios

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« Reply #18 on: November 16, 2015, 12:58:03 PM »
Quote from: Larsdangly;864733
Yes, the Yggsburgh/Castle Zagyg situation has to be the saddest story arc for a product in our hobby.  Planned as a career finale series of boxed sets led by the EGG himself, and launched with a couple of the best things produced for D&D style games, and then completely unravelled after his death. Such a shame. I'm sure Gary's heirs had financial reasons for what they did, but it would be so easy to fund publication of the rest of the series through Kickstarter and/or collaboration with one of the OSR-style companies if they were not being blocked by IP rights. That one is hard to excuse because there is no evidence the rights holders will do anything with them.


I have the Yggsburgh hardcover, and my only disappointment was the map of the city itself, which was at a pretty coarse level of detail. Was a more detailed version in the works?

Larsdangly

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« Reply #19 on: November 16, 2015, 01:12:17 PM »
Quote from: Dimitrios;864736
I have the Yggsburgh hardcover, and my only disappointment was the map of the city itself, which was at a pretty coarse level of detail. Was a more detailed version in the works?


I think the boxed set of Castle Zagyg was the gem of the published part of the product line. The sandbox area surrounding Yggsburgh was also quite good and has a good regional map. I have to agree that the city itself is a bit underwhelming, though my critique is that it lacks the colorful, unexpected details that mark the best D&D settings. I.e., it is just a bit bland. I suspect that would have been remedied by further publications, as my understanding is that they planned a series of publications detailing each section of the city.

P&P

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« Reply #20 on: November 16, 2015, 04:20:15 PM »
They didn't just plan.  Before his death Gary signed contracts with many authors to write 24 manuscripts, each of about 30,000 words, expanding one district of Yggsburgh.  Yggsburgh would become a place so fully-mapped and richly-detailed that you could move through it like a dungeon: mapped in ten-foot squares, each room keyed, each inhabitant statted out, working under Gary's guidance.  Most of these manuscripts were delivered, and the majority accepted by Gary for publication (mine certainly was).  Troll Lord Games actually published about eight of them IIRC, some in print and others only as .pdfs.

Then Gary died and the product line vanished as if it had never been.  I've got some of the manuscripts that were shared between authors for various reasons but by no means all.  They're generally rich in creative detail and would be hard to use in practice just because of finding the information you need among more than 700,000 words of text...
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S'mon

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« Reply #21 on: November 16, 2015, 04:39:15 PM »
Quote from: Larsdangly;864737
I think the boxed set of Castle Zagyg was the gem of the published part of the product line. The sandbox area surrounding Yggsburgh was also quite good and has a good regional map. I have to agree that the city itself is a bit underwhelming, though my critique is that it lacks the colorful, unexpected details that mark the best D&D settings. I.e., it is just a bit bland. I suspect that would have been remedied by further publications, as my understanding is that they planned a series of publications detailing each section of the city.


I found Yggsburgh worked really well for me, I ended up with a very 18th century 'Moll Flanders' feel to the place. The outer blandness allowed plenty of space for hypocrisy and corruption when I used my imagination... I actually find something like City State of the Invincible Overlord far harder to run.
Also I could contrast the Lawful city with the Chaos of the wilderness beyond the walls, haunted by terrible monsters and brigands - sometimes female brigands!! :eek: There are no women NPCs inside Yggsburgh, certainly no female soldiers or powerful nobles, and again whether intentional or not that helped me imagine Yggsburgh as a patriarchal society.

Kuroth

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« Reply #22 on: November 16, 2015, 08:10:35 PM »
There are some smaller length write-ups here and there, like Free City of Haldane, which is a nice outline of a city.  It is about twenty pages.  

Something like Scenic Dunnsmouth can be overlay atop a larger over all city background, with the players interacting with the elements developed using  Scenic.

Pirate's Guide to Freeport is designed to be usable with (A)D&D as easily as any other game, being free of system content. Freeport sort of fits into the category Free City of Haven did back in the day.  Green Ronin is sort of a player in making games, though.  Dragon Age!
« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 08:15:48 PM by Kuroth »
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Spinachcat

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« Reply #23 on: November 17, 2015, 02:52:14 AM »
Quote from: Sean !;863739
Enharza -the original one-page city, published in Fight On ! magazine, is still my favourite, a challenge to DM DIY rather than rely on overwrought gazetters and other people's generative tables.


Which issue?

One page city? Tell us more?

deleted user

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« Reply #24 on: November 17, 2015, 03:52:45 AM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;864855
Which issue?

One page city? Tell us more?


It's a city of thieves published in FO! issue #6, more Judges Guild sword and sorcery than high fantasy.

Kuroth

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« Reply #25 on: November 17, 2015, 04:08:47 AM »
Enharza, City Ruled by Backstabbing Thieves is in Fight On! #6, Summer 2009.  The issue dedicated to Lee Gold.  It ended up being about 3  pages in Fight On, but it was originally one.  Santiago is on other forums, and maybe he is here.  I don't know.  It reminds me of the encapsulated parts of Irilian that were serialized in White Dwarf.

Edit: ha Sean answered while I had the comment window open.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2015, 04:15:21 AM by Kuroth »
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ArrozConLeche

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« Reply #26 on: November 17, 2015, 12:38:16 PM »
I was browsing on the net and found this retrospective on Tarantis by Judges Guild:

http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2015/04/commentary-on-judges-guilds-tarantis.html

I looked at their website and they don't sell it there. It's on DTRPG though.

RPGPundit

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« Reply #27 on: November 21, 2015, 01:03:19 AM »
Between the material in Dark Albion, and "The Ghost of Jack Cade on London Bridge", you could say London has become an OSR city...
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Kuroth

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« Reply #28 on: November 21, 2015, 05:20:24 PM »
Sure, the London Bridge content is pretty nice alright. I know you don't care for doing supplements Pundit, but a city supplement in Vornheim's style for York or similar would be something I think you wouldn't get burned out doing.

Lenard Lakofka's Kroten content counts as ones of these.  It's available over at Dragonsfoot.
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Spinachcat

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« Reply #29 on: November 21, 2015, 09:35:56 PM »
Totally forgot about Tarantis!

Judges Guild also has the great city of Modron. I've used it for several campaigns over the decades. It's small enough / big enough if you know what I mean.

http://closetbarbarian.blogspot.com/2012/03/judges-guild-retrospective-1-modron.html