The problem of setting in urban fantasy

[Menzo]

I've been working on an urban fantasy game for a little while. I've got a solid premise, a clear idea about tone and the types of adventures I want to run, and a (mostly complete) D&D 5e-compatible set of rules that I think will work well. In that sense, I'm pretty much ready to go.

However, the main stumbling block for me is setting. In a home game, with everyone sitting around a table, the choice of setting is obvious - the town or city the players live in, or one close by that they'd be very familiar with.

But in a PbP or other online game, you don't have that setup. Your players could be from anywhere in the world. To get around this, you might set the game in a city that is relatively famous, like New York or London or Paris. But since I don't live in those cities, or even in the same country that those cities are in, I don't feel like I have the necessary experience to set my games in them.

I could set the game in the city I live in, but that just exchanges the problem. Instead of 1 DM that isn't particularly familiar with the setting, you just get 6 players that aren't familiar with the setting. Because I feel pretty sure that very few players on this site live in the same city I do.

What do people think are potential solutions to this problem?

[Chrystrom]

Well one solution is to set it in the setting you as the DM are familiar with and then set it so that the characters are not assumed to know anything about the city. Maybe they are out of town visitors, tourists, business people there for work...and then whatever sets the ball rolling for the actual game happens. That way you have the required knowledge to do the setting justice but you can work with players that do not have that say level of knowledge for the city.

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[Spoonybard]

Some ideas that came to mind:

1. Ask that the PCs are all newcomers to the city. Then you can use a city you're familiar with and players can excuse their lack of knowledge. Everything they need they can find on google maps, which is essentially what the PCs would do if they needed to get around anyway. It may also give them the opportunity to focus on the immigrant experience, which can provide an interesting perspective to your story.

2. Make up your own city, a la Batman's Gotham City or Grand Theft Auto's San Andreas. You don't have to convey an actual city, just the idea of a city. You'll have more work to do when it comes to maps, but you can completely control the setting and make it work for your story instead of working with a set map.

[zevonian]

Ever see the movie Dark City, starring Rufus Sewell?

The city the characters think they know isn't necessarily the city that the players can look up on with a search engine.

[Imveros]

The Harry Dresden RPG has a mechanic for creating a cust city as the final character for the party. The mechanics work quite well if you want to glance over them

It may be FATE based, but it is urban fantasy so it's half way there

[HotsuSama]

I'm personally of Spoony's approach of a 'stand-in' city. They usually closely embody a particular real-life location (e.g. Superman's Metropolis is basically New York City) so you can get the feel of a particular city or part of the world without being beholden to every minor detail about that city's actual layout or little cultural nuances non-locals wouldn't grasp.

[TADHG]

I have to agree with some others here. A native might know "Ed's Bar" on the corner of this street and this Avenue, and that it's across from a gas station, but you don't care. You can set your businesses any way you want to, once you have a grid map.

I live in a smallish city, and I find myself going to the same ten places or so. All in the same part of town.

[kingmonkey]

How about a meta-city. Depending on the nature of the magic in your urban fantasy setting, why not have a sort of demi-plane which is an expansive city that is linked to every town or city on Earth (whatever world). The meta-city is the sort of a manifestation of the human desire for "civilization", and is in turn shaped by the cities it has helped to build. The meta-city is part New York, part London, part Moscow, part Tokyo, part every small town, part every suburb.

Maybe the meta-city can be accessed only at certain points in time and space, from other cities (never from the wilderness). Tiny stairwells discretely placed in subways or beneath sidewalks, remote corner alleyways, backdoors of abandoned stores, and usually only by those who know how to get to the meta-city, or by those the meta-city chooses to induct into its strangeness.

Just an idea.

[roninkelt]

I'd not worry about being too true to life. The first few Dresden Files books were written and the author had never been to the city. There are more than a few errors compared to the real city. It's a game and I wouldn't expect absolute realism, as long as you make it interesting as a GM. Realistically speaking, it's almost impossible for a game to be totally realistic in it's representation of a city as they tend to grow and change over time, sometimes quite radically.

[farothel]

Depending on the type of game, you can use a well-known city but add or remove stuff from it. What almost all World of Darkness games do. It's a standard city, but the vampires/werewolves/mages/... are something extra. You're players might know the basic stuff from the city, but not the supernatural stuff as they never have been exposed to it.

There are also a lot of resources online you can use. Looking stuff up on google maps, checking some articles on wikipedia can give you a basic idea of what a city looks like.

[roninkelt]

IMO the key thing is to get the feel of the city right. cities in the northeast of the US have a very different feel than most of the rest of the country as they are usually much older. As you head south and west, they start to feel more similar and more modern with a few exceptions like Savannah, Georgia or New Orleans, Louisiana. Getting it right is just a matter of doing some research - watching movies or documentaries about or set in the city in question is a good start.

I don't think your players are going to call you out on any differences, and if they do, let them spend the equivalent of a Fate Point (or Inspiration or Hero Point) to make it true.

[Djinn and Tonic]

If I may, I would recommend the Damnation City sourcebook for Vampire: The Requiem 1e. It’s a tool box to help you build your own city setting from the ground up. I find it to be a great resource, and it’s especially appropriate to urban fantasy and modern horror.

[Talissen70]

I have played in a survival game where the DM used google maps and had us navigate the UK that way, ready-made world and features

[Born of Monsters]

I've always assumed that urban fantasy games were loosely set in an alt-world version of someplace the DM was familiar with. Although I can see the appeal of a fictional setting (Metropolis or whatnot) if the DM wants to put in the time to build one out that's believable. I don't think there's any problem with this style of game being set somewhere the players aren't familiar with. After all, the first World of Darkness city setting was actually Gary, Indiana, and I'm certain that most players of that game weren't actually from Gary!

[Zynthasius]

My favorite urban fantasy series is also horror, Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia. It has elves, orcs etc along with your typical monsters.