Cities are a great setting forDungeons & Dragonsadventures, even if they have neither dungeons nor dragons. Human antagonists are much easier to create compelling narratives around, and setting your campaign in a single location allows for longer-lasting narratives with persistent consequences. Compare the traveling escapades of Star Trek Voyager and the station-bound stories of Deep Space Nine.

Creating these types of urban campaigns evokes new challenges that most campaigns won’t experience. If locations and factions are persistent for a long time you need to play much further ahead around player actions: A single decision in a session can have consequences that last for months of real world time.

Adventurers brawl in a tarvern in Dungeons and Dragons.

Work With Your Players To Include Their Characters

Certain game settings can exclude charactersif the DM isn’t careful. It makes narrative sense that the ranger’s sabretooth tiger won’t be allowed in most establishments, but that meansthey’ll be hamstrung for most of the adventure.

Depending on the game you’re running, this is going to be a process ofcompromising with the players' vision of their characters, the suspension of disbelief, and how you design encounters.

Two adventuers walk with care through the foggy districts of baldur’s gate. Hooded attackers watch from afar

For the example of the ranger’s companion being left outside constantly, you have a few possible solutions:

Make Use of Humanoid Opponents

An urban campaign is liable to havea lot ofcombat against thinking people. This lets the DM play with mechanics that don’t appear as often when the party is slaying faceless abominations or wild beasts.

Implementation

Reputation Impacts Combat

Ifthe party has a reputation for using certain tactics, they may face encounters with enemies who have observed them in combat and can counter them.

A Helmed Horror isimmune to three spells chosen by its creator. By default, these are spells like Fireball but can also be player favourites, like Spirit Guardians.

dungeons & dragons image showing Large Luigi running the tavern.

Taking Prisoners

Scenarios likeneeding to take prisoners, dealing with surrendered opponentsand unwilling combatants let the players use their abilities in new ways.

A sharpshooter might not have a non-lethal attack by the rulebook, but you can allow them tointimidate an opponent into surrender by pointing a crossbowat a wounded foe.

Dungeons & Dragons adventurers entering the Tomb of Annihilation.

Tactical Enemies

Mindless undead and wild beasts can be rather easily lured into spells like web, grease, or wall of fire whenmost humanoids would circle around them or retreat until the spell expires.

Varied Ancestries

Humans, gnomes, and elves are all impacted differently by spellsand have access to different weapons. This prevents your players from having too consistent of a battle plan when fighting their way through the city.

Persistent Enemies

Characters defeated in combat canreappear later as rivalsif the players don’t kill them (and potentially even if they do).

Environmental Combat

Players often forget to make use of environmental factors in combat. By having NPCs interact with the terrain or buildingsencourages your players to do the same.

Prepare A Variety Of Locations

Not every encounter in a city needs to use identical maps. Creating different districts for your city both keeps the game fresh and expands your world. Prebuilt cities such asBaldur’s Gate do this already with the upper and lower cities,but you can use other dividing lines than class for how your urban environments differ.

You want at least one location to have a special significance to the players. A bastion, base of operations, or the territory of a friendly faction.

Take A Few Trips Outside The City

An urban campaign is still allowed to travel outside the city walls when the plot allows it.If the city setting feels stifling to your players, you don’t need to abandon the campaign concept entirely.A short quest to a nearby hamlet, trade route, or diplomatic mission can break up the pace with some wilderness combats and then return them to the city.

This also avoids the issue of the same city having a half dozen underground mega-dungeons that somehow never intersect (looking at you, Baldur’s Gate 3). Put some in under a rural noble’s estate, or in a nearby hamlet.

External threats like invading armies and natural disasters are a good way ofgetting the players out of their comfort zone and into enemy territory.

There are other methods you can introduce non-urban combat encounters without your party needing to leave the adventure setting: