Designing a Quality Town
By Drakefyre

Towns. Every scenario has to have at least one of these. Most likely, almost
everyone has an unfinished, 50-town 'masterpiece' somewhere on their hard-drive,
begging to be cut down and simplified into a releasable scenario. Overestimating
your ability to create towns and underestimating the amount of work they require
are two mistakes commonly made by newer scenario designers. This is especially
pertinent with the Blades of Avernum Editor's terrain system.

Towns take time. A lot of time. In Blades of Exile, it was possible to slap
together a well-designed town in an hour or two, and spend another hour or two
writing dialogue for it. Well, no more. In Blades of Avernum, it's not uncommon
to spend around six hours just designing and tweaking a 48x48 town, and writing
dialogue can add another three to four hours if you do it right. That's around
ten hours spent on a single town. Fifty friendly towns, each full of
personalities, will make anyone go crazy - it would take more than 20 days,
non-stop, to write those towns.

That's why this article is here. I aim to help you cut down on the number of
towns in your scenarios and refine the ones that are left. The easiest way to do
this is with a series of questions that should be answered for every town, along
with some helpful tips that I've picked up along the way.

Really, the first thing to do is decide whether a town you've planned is
necessary. What is its purpose? Does it do anything to advance the plot or add
atmosphere to the scenario, or is it to provide a break from dungeons and give
shops? Towns with the latter purpose will only hinder the completion of your
scenario. Think about the scenario with and without the town - if it would run
pretty much the same way, definitely consider removing the town.

The first order of business when creating new towns is choosing a size. 32x32
will suffice for most forts, small towns, temples, smaller dungeons, and so on.
A 48x48 town is generally large enough for anything you're trying to do. A 64x64
town in Blades of Avernum is a lot bigger than one from Blades of Exile. A town
that size should only be used on something that is truly massive and you're sure
that you can't fit in a 48x48 town.

When creating your town, you want to think about the region in which it's being
set. What's the environment like? How far from the largest cities is it? How do
people here make a living? How strong is the presence of authority? All of these
things should be reflected in the making of the town. You won't have a mining
town in the middle of a forest, but you may have a logging town. In the
mountains, it would generally be a mining town. Have mines, miners, ore storage,
people that sell mining supplies, and maybe even a miner's union. It will help
you set the mood of the town and help you get a better idea of what goes on in
the town.

If the town is far away from other cities and has few authority figures, is
crime rampant? Or is it a peaceful backwater village that doesn't merit much
attention? Do people feel resentful towards a faraway government that they never
see? An easy way to get a handle on the sentiments of the people in a town is to
place yourself in their shoes and see what kind of reactions you would have if
you were a firebrand, a simple trader, a priest, et cetera.

The town should also have some connection to the plot - having towns for the
sake of towns is just asking for trouble. Without a plot connection, it's hard
to be motivated to complete a town. Maybe the town of Greenleaf is nearby an
evil mage's lair and magical fringe effects have caused two-headed calves to be
born. Do they know he's there? Or are they clueless? In real life, events like
these caused the town to start branding people as witches. Does this happen in
your town?

In any case, they would not stand idly by. The main plot usually has an effect
on every town, and thusly on the characters that populate it. Any events that
happen affect people, and they should talk about it in their dialogue. Everyone
has an opinion on things, and most people aren't shy about sharing it. The more
depth you add to a character's dialogue, the better the player will identify
with them and the scenario as a whole.

On the subject of dialogue, it should be full and fleshed out. Almsot everyone
should talk to the party - even if it's just a simple 'I'm busy right now'
message. People are more than just shopkeepers or soldiers or priests. They're
fathers, daughters, neighbors, et cetera. They have hobbies, relationships, sons
away at war, and so on. Bringing that out in dialogue is a lot easier in smaller
scenarios, but it should happen to some degree in all scenarios. People like the
king have more to worry about than just the party and their mission.

Also, town design should be logical. There are generally paths in a town that
lead through it, sections with houses for the town's inhabitants (it's
unbelievable how many scenarios ignore/leave out these), and some easy-to-reach
figure of authority. The mayor's office is not going to be in the back corner of
a town behind forty houses with no sign and no paths. Generally, there is not a
lot of empty space around town, and if there is, it's usually spread out by
leaving more space between buildings.

That being said, towns should not be (and are not) designed in perfect symmetry.
To add realism, most designers make towns a little messy. Not every building
came up at the same time - there were some when the town was first formed, and
the rest came up into open space at a later time. If you have that mindset when
designing towns, your towns will generally seem a little more realistic than the
'planned community' that's extraordinarily neat, with a lot of buildings the
same size and in neat little rows.

With Blades of Avernum, we're given more tools that should be taken advantage
of. Not everything in a town is the same height or even on level ground. Using
hills in some capacity makes a town look better, and so does adding signs around
buildings (even if it's not the terrain and a custom state instead).

Towns should be built to engage the player and advance the plot, not merely be a
break from dungeon crawling. A good town can do much more to advance the plot
than a dungeon can. Character interactions will draw the player in, and making a
town consistent with its surroundings will set a mood for the town and give it a
natural environment. And above all, remember that towns take time.