Question of the Week #141 · 3:37am February 7th
Hello everyone and welcome back to the question of the week.
So, this week's question but be a bit of an odd one. As many of you know, I am working on a DnD 5e setting to DM for my friends in a Saturday game. Initially I had tried to learn the VtM 5e rules but just lacked the time and couldn't find the motivation when I did, so I decided to run a DnD game instead, while giving my players access to some stats that could allow them to feel like vampires if they so choose.
Now at the moment the idea is that it's sort of an arcanepunk city that is a neon fantasy version of Las Vegas with vampires (secretly), monsters, guns and kung fu.
-This image can be found: here.
At one point I had mentioned it to my brother (who might be one of the players) and he was saying that at the very least there needs to be 3 of each location (taverns, inns, weapon shops, etc...) in order for it to feel "realistic." Personally I really had thought about doing that and was instead just wanting to flesh out each of these locations and the characters involved instead.
So, what do you all think? Should I try to make 3 versions of every location... Or just focus one of each?
Thank you all for coming. Stay safe and have a great week. 
-This image can be found: here.
One thing that might be worth considering here isn't so much the quantity of locations, but the quality of the location. While it is true that it would feel more realistic to have multiple of the same type of location, you might want to consider adding little descriptive touches in the narration (or the DnD equivalent of narration) to make each place feel alive, like they do actually exist rather than as a location in a story.
Another idea might be to have multiple locations, but for some reason or another, only one location of each type is accessible to the party. Although, on further thought, that might be considered lazy writing. Just remember the law of conservation of detail (if it isn't important to the story, then you don't need to include it) and you should be alright. I'm not saying that you shouldn't add multiple locations of the same type. What I'm saying is to make sure that if you do, they each serve a role in the story.
If the story being told in the module makes it worthwhile to have more than one for each location, then do so. For example, if different taverns are needed because different locations need a place to get information or quests, then sure.
If weapons aren't important, just have them all taken over by the "Walteen" family and every weapon store in the city is called "Samsmith Club" and offers the same stock.
Punk tends to favor corporate monopolies, so having 3 of each of those things but also being functionally identical is an option that the other guy also mentioned.