Thinking about Blocks and Neighborhoods

Alexis' recent series of posts on urban game structures has got me all abuzz. I love running games in cities. Since starting to work on my world, I've begun every game in some city that has played a huge part in whatever the players do. I also am aware that I don't do nearly as good a job of creating functioning cities, that is, cities that offer the kind of depth Alexis describes.

The metaphor that has got me all excited is the 'block,' a contiguous area within a town or city that:

• The block should provide some specific purpose for the players' use.  The beach is a source for transport across the sea; it accumulates fish which can be purchased.  It is a place where boats are repaired.
• The block's residents should have a character, based on what they do and what they respect.  The people of the beach respect people who can do for themselves; who can fish or sail; who can do a hard day's work; who don't consider themselves superior because they possess wealth, status or intelligence.
• The block should be a source for adventure.  The beach offers the opportunity for smuggling.  Or to block smuggling.  It is the natural entry point for raiders who come from under the water.
• The block should provide an advantage for the player's well-being.  The beach is a good place to rest; swimming is a restorative, relaxing activity; so resting there heals hit points faster.

[text from here]

where the beach is Alexis' example of a block, outlined here.

Prior to Alexis' posts, I'd been using the idea of neighborhoods, something from Zak Sabbath's Vornheim game supplement. Boiling the concept down to what I'd actually been using, a neighborhood is a large region of a city with a distinct character. The key difference between neighborhoods and blocks is size. Traditionally, I've been using somewhere between 3 and 6 neighborhoods per large city.

Additionally, each neighborhood is geographically amorphous - what is relevant to me at the table is not how big each neighborhood is but how the neighborhoods connect. If my players antagonize a group of people prevalent in one neighborhood, they need to be careful how they move through that neighborhood and that may restrict access to other parts of the city. Over time, the party needs to cultivate people and places that give them safe access through different parts of the city, something like knowing which house at the edge of town has a cellar that opens beyond the gate checkpoints or having a friend in the guard who will let the party join patrols through a nastier area of town.

My challenge with working with neighborhoods was a question of scale - what exactly should be in each neighborhood, and how do I manage them, a.k.a. how "big" is a neighborhood. Thinking of a neighborhood as a self-sufficient collection of blocks neatly fixes this problem. So, to describe how I want to be thinking about cities going forward, I've adapted Alexis' bullet points from above.

• Each city is divided into a small number (2-6) of neighborhoods roughly separated by sociopolitical power. A town consists of 1-2 neighborhoods.
• Each neighborhood is a self-sufficient urban entity, which means that there are places to shop, eat, sleep, and relax in each neighborhood. Typically, only one group of people exerts control over a neighborhood, and if the same organization controls multiple neighborhoods, each neighborhood is run by a separate chapter of that organization.
• Each neighborhood is comprised of a number of blocks.
• Each block provides a function that is self-evident to the players, has a distinct type of inhabitant with a defined set of norms and values, offers easy potential for adventure, and affords access to some kind of benefit for the players.
• While neighborhoods may have similar blocks, each neighborhood has at least one unique block that is only accessible in that neighborhood.

As I look to getting my game back on its feet this coming Monday, I am excited to apply this framework to our current location and see how well it works.