“City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities” is exactly that: A manual for the Game Master to design communities. It answers such crucial questions as: What types of communities are there? Which buildings are to be expected in which type of settlement? What types of work shops, shops, religious places, government institutions/facilities and so on can be found in which community? The descriptions are system-independent and best used with “ancient, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, fantasy” RPG setting. They give a lot of background (even real live history) and do not restrict the GM by giving maps and inventories of single, specific locations. On the other hand for each place one to four adventure hooks are presented. When not building a community from scratch, each place can be used independently, of course.
While the individual chapters are also sold separately, this compilation covers some additional places but nevertheless is cheaper as the sum of the single chapters. Thus, you get more for less!
The lavish illustrations, appendix on Guilds, versions for screen and printer must not go unmentioned, neither the intelligible style of writing.
While City Builder: A Guide to Designing Communities encompasses all volumes of the City Builder series (and additional material), in each issue of d∞ (d-Infinity) the description of a bonus place is contained. (d∞ 0: “The Shape of Things to Come” is even available for free – check it out there: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=81842).
One thing, though: You might want to think about purchasing this (also) in print.
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