If the initial driving design decision for Forgotten Realms was “Make it BIG,” the City System box set (1988) is the BIGGEST. It exists to flesh out the iconic city of Waterdeep (introduced the year prior in Waterdeep and the North).

This is, basically, a box of maps. Ten of them fold out and fit together to depict Waterdeep on a street by street level. Laid out together, it measures a massive nine feet by five and a half feet. The accompanying book provides details on 282 city buildings, leaving the nature of the rest to be determined by the DM using random tables. The result is a strangely empty feeling city.  

The eleventh map provides an aerial view of the city, while the twelfth depicts Castle Waterdeep in a near-comical level of detail.

City System certainly leaves a grand impression thanks to its size. It seems terribly unwieldy to me, though. How do I use this? Or display it for my players? TSR’s first city, Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1985), feels far more alive and remains far easier to use with its moduler design – this actually seems like a bit of design regression in comparison (though I think, again, I am in the minority here).

But again, my City System box has obviously been opened countless times, so at least one group got a lot of use out of it.