As It Was Becoming Clear The US Was Headed Into Trade War Territory, I Got Really Interested In Farming

"your cool city needs a food supply"
a worldbuilding game about getting people fed"

Introduction

I love worldbuilding games. I love making maps, I love imagining
characters, I love planting rumors that grow into the seeds of something
grand.
But maybe because I've spent my whole life in the soybean belt of the
US, I'm particularly interested in how celestial capitals and cyberpunk
skyscrapers keep their denizens and workers fed. Keeping people alive is
hard, keeping them happy is harder, and food is a critical part of both. And
while food production is not quite as sexy as dragon caves or god-
skeletons, I think conceptualizing the ways in which a world keeps itself
alive will produce more interesting and varied opportunities to imagine
culture, conflict, and community.
What is this Game Trying to Accomplish?
The purpose of "your cool city" is to get players to think about the
ways villages, towns, and cities depend on their food supply, and how the
maintenance of that food supply affects cultural, economic, and political
factors. It wants you to build a community primarily through the lens of
the way that group of people keeps itself fed. That setting can then be
used as a foundation for an RPG campaign, fictional story, or other creative
endeavor. Alternatively, the game can also be used to enhance an already-
established setting, expanding your understanding of that world with
additional detail. However, it is my hope that playing this game for
pleasure alone will also be enjoyable.

black and white image of a plow

Briefly discuss the scope of your setting. While you could theoretically
play this game until you have an extensive planet-spanning model of
cultures and their food sources, you should probably be more judicious with
your time. Decide whether the community you'll develop is a village, a city,
or a nation, and roughly how many people live in that community. Keep
this scope in mind when you plan Climate and Geography in a little while.
. If you're creating a community larger than a hundred people, keep in
mind that not all of your food will be locally produced. The game will
be more interesting if you go into it with the understanding that there
are people far away who are working very hard to keep people they do
not know fed.

Prompt Tables

If you'd like some inspiration for various parts of the game, please take a look at these prompts and pick and choose which ones you find most interesting.

Crops
1. Staple plant. What makes its flour so versatile?
2. Small reptile. What delicacy is its sweet nectar used in?
3. Space algae. What are its medicinal uses?
4. Predator eggs. How would you describe their texture?
5. Difficult flower. Why is it so prized?
6. Organ byproduct. How was its sour flavor first discovered?

Growing Conditions
1. How do you water the rocky soil it thrives in?
2. What animal does it grow on the underside of?
3. Why does it only grow in vacuum?
4. What strange fertilizer does it demand?
5. How does the annual cometfall impact its fertility?
6. Why are its roots so fragile?

As it was becoming clear the US was headed into trade war territory, I got really interested in farming and the logistics of keeping people fed. I turned that interest into "your cool city needs a food supply," available now!

it's a hack of "i'm sorry did you say street magic" and "Microscope," two gold-standard worldbuilding games. It was polished by Nico MacDougall, who gave me some great advice on how to make this game really align with the themes and ideas I had in the draft.

I've always been a sicko about logistics and agriculture (growing up in the US midwest will do that to you), and I hope this game helps people think about how great a privilege it is to eat.

Tags

reblog worldbuilding for the future oooooo this is so neat

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