If you want to feel like the towns you''re traveling to in an RPG are different, what are some ways that they can be varied? I''m looking for meaningful, not simply graphical ways-- things that impact your game. Here''s a couple: Crime level - How dangerous it is to walk down the streets at night (or in the day). This could cover how many incidents of various types of theft, robbery and murder you''re subject to. Towns could be known for covert theft, such as pickpocketing, or overt theft, such as thugs who mug you Items available - What you can and can''t buy gives a town alot of flavor, especially if it''s a matter of illegal goods Services available - Whether or not a town has a hospital or weapons outfitter can really impact your game. If services have a quality level, then this adds texture and flavor (such as a hospital that can resurrect a dead character versus one that can only heal minor wounds; or a spaceport that can do a complete overhaul versus one that can only spot repair a few hit points) Any other ways to meaningfully make towns different? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

This kinda goes w/ crime level, but one thing could be how honest or corrupt the rule is.

For instance, how honest are the police? Is there even a police system or it more of an anarchy.

Another could be ethnicity and then you could get into how tolerant/hateful that city is toward one race/culture.

Use a system of increasing novelty. So you look at where your town is, climate, number of monsters around, distance to resources (and what is available), who''s in charge. From those (and possibly a few other base factors). you can then identify more detailed differences. Climate and resources tell you what the town is made from, stone / wood / thatch, add political considerations and you can figure out your architecture. Politics bring benefits and problems. Identify the quality of the towns leaders and you will know weather the streets and people should be clean and rich or dirty and poor. Or a mixture. From that you can figure out what the people are doing with their time. Peasents spend most of their time building piles of mud and drinking rubbish mead. Alcohol? Then the town has a brewery, or trade links with one.. what impact do the trade links have on the town?

It all links, and you can work the detail (novelty) right down to macro social issues like locking doors and local customs. Once these are figured out, you cant go wrong making quests!

Specalty Items, a good way to seperate towns is by giving each town a unique specalty item that is only available there. You could expend on this and include access to racial items. Each race could have a set of items that only they make, and these are diffiuclty to find and expensive to purchase from shops that belong to other races.

Festivals and cultural events.

Treatment of outsiders, some town welcome visitors with open arms and try to sell you things, in others towns people lock their doors when they see a stranger arrive.

Disrubution of wealth, is their a small rich population and the rest lives in poverty, or is the population predomintly middle income.



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"Fate and Destiny only give you the opportunity the rest you have to do on your own."
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