With a little extra thought and game preparation, your next D&D town trip can go from a five-minute grab-and-go-routine to a fun, immersive experience. Don’t worry – Ben never really had a city blueprint to follow either and consequently, just glazed over this role playing bonanza. This week, he’s got real motive though as his game group is about to hit the open road in its next module. Let’s see what urban tricks he’s got up his sleeve before the party departs.

For starters, keep your setup simple and split your town into distinct mini encounters…each with its own purpose and identity. Use a core checklist to quickly assign the appropriate core elements. Consider something like so:

• Building/Area Type
• RPG Accessories
• Business Name
• NPC Name
• NPC Miniature
• NPC Face Card
• Item Cards
• Quest Opportunity
• DM Note Card

Most of the time, a town encounter will be an actual structure (like a stable or inn) but don’t box yourself into a corner. You could just as easily create a pick pocket event or alley mugging scenario. Also, you certainly don’t have to fill in every single detail on that list…just make sure you pose each question to yourself during DM prep.

This organizational method really helped Ben get some focus on the task at hand. Yes, yes – the proof is in the Orc pudding. Here’s how we created our own little town of Thunderspire.

Playing Surface
Certainly you can use your usual d20 game mat or choose from a plethora of pre-existing city-style maps. To raise some eyebrows, use a flat city map. But for a gold star, place actual RPG accessories on top of that map for an immersive 3-D game experience.

GameMastery makes a great City Market Flip-Mat for a nice out-of-the-box solution. Or, try the market map that comes in the Marauders of the Dune Sea module. Ben’s favorite is the dual-sided map from the classic City of Peril miniatures module. It has the Griffon’s Nest Inn on one side and the Market Square on the reverse side.

For added effect, Ben plopped down a few subtle accessories including some slick market stalls by Miniature Building Authority and a statue in the city square to honor the players for saving Thunderspire from Paldemar.

City Resources
The RPG community offers some great book reading town resources including the classic Citybook from Buffalo Games and the Ultmate Toolbox. And Ed Greenwood just did a fun WotC article on Bringing a City to Life.

Magic Emporium
Everybody needs a place to re-stock magic items (especially as you go higher in level). To create one, let’s fill in all our mini encounter template blanks.

• Type: Wizard’s Shop
• Building: Wizard’s Tower by Pegasus Hobbies
• Name: House of Books
• NPC: Vallthrun the Wise
• Miniature: The Old Sage | Archfiends, #24
• Face Card: Homebrewed
• Item Cards: Yes
• Quest: None
• DM Note Card: Yes

Not bad, right? Now you covered all the basics. And there’s plenty of fun to be had here. Ben used this place to allow the group to trade in some of their unique treasure. Besides the usual re-stock, Valthrun offers to fix an enemy Nentyar Hunter’s magic longbow in exchange for the group’s more unusual finds. He also agrees to brew a few chaos mixtures from rare monster trophies.

The Blacksmith
Weapons are as common as water during these bloodthirsty times. That means there’s got to be someone nearby to make and repair them.

• Type: Blacksmith
• Building: Smithy Shop by Pegasus Hobbies
• Name: The Heavy Anvil
• NPC: Crikey Shoeheart
• Miniature: Reaper Townsfolk 1 | painted by Catatafish
• Face Card: Homebrewed
• Item Cards: Yes
• Quest: Yes
• DM Note Card: Yes

Ben decided to pass out the next Dungeon Delve-style encounter here (entitled Beggar’s Run). He didn’t want the group to just walk into the Winterbole Forest. The Pyramid of Shadow’s secret location is far away and the DM needed to establish this premise with a series of outdoor travel events. Crikey knows the group’s in for some trouble so he even put a temporary damage die (1d12) on each player’s melee weapon as an act of good faith on their barter.

The Stables
The group certainly can’t walk to its next location. Gotta hire some transportation.

• Type: Barn
• Building: Lean to Set by Miniature Building Authority
• Name: The Horse and Hitch
• NPC: Earl Feathermeyer
• Miniature 1: Farmer (Desert of Desolation, #11
• Miniature 2: Warhorse (Desert of Desolation, #13
• Face Card: Homebrewed
• Item Cards: Yes
• Quest: None
• DM Note Card: Yes

The group needed to purchase steeds (150 GP) and a wagon (40 GP) in order to transport its precious quest cargo to Winterbole Forest. Ben added a nice little skill challenge to help determine each character’s luck of the (animal) draw as we all know some horses are nicer than others. The outcome affected their riding bonus or penalty.

The Merchant
You need re-stock the basics but there are ways to even make that interesting.

• Type: Wares
• Building: Cottage by Miniature Building Authority
• Name: The Bottomless Backpack
• NPC: Jeras
• Miniature: Yes
• Face Card: GameMastery
• Item Cards: Yes
• Quest: None
• DM Note Card: Yes

Paizo’s GameMastery Cards play a huge role here. DM Ben is constantly trying to get the group to think outside of the box and do new, creative on their turns. Placing a series of everyday item cards on the table seems to nudge their imaginations a bit and pays dividends in future encounters.

The Pickpocket
A crowded city street will almost certainly smell of desperation and that can only mean trouble.

• Type: Street encounter
• Building: None
• Name: None
• NPC: Beggar
• Miniature: Metal, painted
• Face Card: None
• Item Cards: None
• Quest: No
• DM Note Card: Yes

A beggar will “accidentally” bump into a random party character. This event will be a simple thievery skill check vs. a hard DC of target’s level. Fail by 5 or more and the beggar is caught (but he will beseech the party Cleric for mercy).

An example using our own game scenario: The beggar has a thievery skill of 12. Our party is 8th level so the Hard DC is 24 (thank you Sly Flourish DM Cheat Sheet).

To determine the amount stolen, we’ll parlay some advice from a Wotc forum thread: check the margin of a successful roll (M). Set the Top Money Value on how much the NPC has on him (X). Say that a margin of Ten is the maximum margin to steal all the money. Equation: (X /10) * M = Money stolen.

Thus, for every roll point over the DC, give 10 gp to our street thief. So, if our sneaky hobo beat the DC by 6, he walks away with 60 of the character’s 100 GP.

The Inn
Quick tempers and an abundance of alcohol – what could possibly go wrong?

• Type: Tavern
• Building: Dwarven Forge Medieval Building Set
• Name: Halfmoon Inn
• NPC: Falken (the bartender)
• Miniature: Reaper Townsfolk 1 | painted by Catatafish
• Face Card: GameMastery
• Item Cards: No
• Quest: No
• DM Note Card: Yes

Typical nightly room rates are 5 SP for a common room and 2 GP for a luxury private room. Caravan for-hire guards (200 GP apiece) are huddled around a table and drinking ale. Also, some scuttlebutt about Brugg’s increased protection money is bouncing from table to table.

And certainly an opportunity for a high stakes game of chance is in order. Where else can the group lay down some coin to fix its gambling addiction? Be sure to catch next week when Ben reveals all the parameters for a homebrewed tavern game mini encounter.

Questions to Ponder: What town staple did Ben miss? Is there a city-staple you try to include in towns you visit? Got any alternate names for our NPCs or shops?