Workshopping an apartment building

[ajardoor]

A vague idea I’ve got for my next RPG blog article;

Upscale (most who live here are well paid urban professionals, Comfortable Wealth and Status 1) apartment building in a nice neighborhood, 5 floors high (plus a basement and roof), one large apartment residence per floor. TL 8, probably America, the building was completed back in 1990.

Each apartment has its own cast of NPC inhabitants with their own backstories, secrets, plot hooks and personalities. Not to mention maps of each flat and contents/“treasures.” Physical stats for walls, doors, locks, security systems, etc.

My current ideas for NPC residents of the apartment building includes;
Hacker, gearhead mechanic/inventor, wealthy art collector, undercover spy, beat cops patrolling the neighbourhood (ok, not residents but still relevant NPCs), family of four, old man, eccentric writer, criminal in hiding.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Books and page numbers I should consult for this project?

[Donny Brook]

ChatGPT will spin up casts of characters to order in just a few seconds.

Edited to add: But you can't rely on it for accurate GURPS stats.

[Icelander]

First of all, the right use of regular Internet search engines and just selecting the option, for those which have it, for an Image Search, will let you turn up a lot of blueprints and/or at least layout maps of modern buildings.

You should be able to find one you like to use as your map, without having to do any work, but if you are handy with technology and like to do extra work, I am sure you could import the image into some kind of program which would let you manipulate it exactly as much as you want, depending on your skills and desires, of course.

That being said, suggestions on inhabitants, security system, presence and exact job descriptions for any doormen or other security, not to mention how burglar alarms would work, as well as the parking situation and the hypothetical existence of an underground garage, all depend on exactly when and where the campaign is set.

You say that the department building was finished in the 1990s and the first inhabitants moved in then. Ok, that's one data point. But does that make it a brand-new apartment building or a thirty-year-old one going through some renovations right now?

Is the apartment building in one of the newly trendy tech workplaces that also features a growing population of remote-working professionals, like Atlanta, GA or Austin, TX? Is it maybe in a smaller city or even town, where the surroundings of this apartment building represents one of the few nice neighborhoods, like if it were located in a place like Beaumont, TX, Lafayette, LA, Biloxi, MS, Mobile, AL, or Panama City, FL?

Or is it maybe up North, where the need for air conditioning might not be as desperate, but insulation and heating takes on a wholly new level of importance, not to mention the vehicles people drive changing, or maybe even their whole attitude toward owning car or truck if you place it somewhere like New York City.

If it's in certain neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California, maybe the mix of inhabitants changes again, with a lot of people coming from somewhere else, and some of them perhaps still hoping that someone will read their screenplay or notice them at the right parties, even if they've secured some kind of different employment that pays enough to finance their stay there while they hope for stardom.

And everything changes depending whether it's the 90s, the 00s, the 2010s or 2020s. So, more detail, please.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

... 5 floors high (plus a basement and roof), one large apartment residence per floor.

In the real world, both of these measures are highly unlikely. The builder has to consider how to deliver the most building for the least practical cost.

Horizontal floor area is relatively cheap to build compared to the vertical transportation systems for utilities, goods, and people. A typical floor plan would include a minimum of four dwelling units unless they are extreme luxury types (i.e., penthouse-equivalent); eight or ten would be more common.

Similarly, five stories is an expensive place to stop. It's high enough (>4 floors) to legally require elevators, but won't max out the number of levels before special (and expensive) high-rise building codes take effect (to make up for being beyond the reach of hook-and-ladder firetrucks, etc.). A more cost-effective building would be seven floors.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by thrash

In the real world, both of these measures are highly unlikely. The builder has to consider how to deliver the most building for the least practical cost.

Horizontal floor area is relatively cheap to build compared to the vertical transportation systems for utilities, goods, and people. A typical floor plan would include a minimum of four dwelling units unless they are extreme luxury types (i.e., penthouse-equivalent); eight or ten would be more common.

This is true and depends on economics and practical engineering concerns, so it should hold true no matter the local regulations.

Originally Posted by thrash

Similarly, five stories is an expensive place to stop. It's high enough (>4 floors) to legally require elevators, but won't max out the number of levels before special (and expensive) high-rise building codes take effect (to make up for being beyond the reach of hook-and-ladder firetrucks, etc.). A more cost-effective building would be seven floors.

However, this is cultural and regulatory. It depends on where the building is located. Apartment buildings higher than four or five floors are pretty rare here, probably because few people want to live in real high-rises.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

However, this is cultural and regulatory. It depends on where the building is located. Apartment buildings higher than four or five floors are pretty rare here, probably because few people want to live in real high-rises.

In some countries, high-rises are common not because people want to live in them, but because its almost as much of a hassle to get permits and zoning for a four-story building as a fourteen-story. Which brings us back to how the details vary with time and place.

[The Colonel]

A detail that may be of use to you:

A former partner of one of my cousins worked as a building and maintenance contractor for a city in the South of England, and a major part of his work was maintaining and re-fitting public housing.
Apparently on one occasion he was require to rectify the damage caused by "unauthorised modifications" carried out by an extended family who, allocated a row of flats, had cut through the dividing walls - all of which were fire resistant and at least one of which was load-bearing - to form a single communal habitation.

This might be an interesting feature for somewhere in your block - either for habitation purposes as above, or for criminals who can use the rat-runs between flats to enter and leave unobserved.

Hell, if you're prepared to go full "Kowloon Walled City" the tunnels can go from building to building by improvised bridges, or even whole rooms suspended from the external walls.

Originally Posted by ajardoor

beat cops patrolling the neighbourhood (ok, not residents but still relevant NPCs),

Go old school Judge Dredd - have a beat cop (or perhaps a detective) actually live in the building...

[Pursuivant]

I can't help you with NPCs, but if you want stats for the building itself, take a look at my "Random Things to Lift and Smash" thread here:

https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=176284

There are sections specifically designed to provide stats for modern commercial buildings, including TMI on elevators.

As for plans, a search for "apartment building blueprints" will yield suitably gratifying results.

It's also worth mentioning that a 5-storey building with just four apartments per floor isn't likely in most markets, but would just be plausible in a city where there are height limits on buildings (e.g., Paris or Washington, DC) and where the developers only had a small area to build on due to zoning requirements (e.g., parking lots or minimum separation from other buildings). It might have a T-shaped layout with elevator shafts, utility runs and emergency stairs at one end of the building at right angles to an access corridor to the apartments.

[ajardoor]

I should clarify; the building was opened in 1990, and the current setting is (let’s call it) now. The year you’re reading this, basically, mid-2020s.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

I should clarify; the building was opened in 1990, and the current setting is (let’s call it) now. The year you’re reading this, basically, mid-2020s.

Is it in a specific city, state, coast or other region?

I'd start by imagining the Homeowner's Association, Condo Board or other bureaucratic entity through which nags, scolds and that guy who keeps complaining about a knocking sound in the heating system interact with other inhabitants, who just want to be left alone, not suffer through more passive-aggressive notes on their doorstep or, Gods forfend, another special meeting on the 'Canine Waste Crisis' in the garden.