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What Real Life or Fictional City do YOU campaign in?
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The way that Millennium City has been designed - both in the printed materials and in the MMO - makes it a fantastic campaign location.
I like it a lot. And even in a campaign where the players heroes aren't based there, it's likely they'll visit it often. (There are some differences between the books and the game. The most notable of which is that Ren Cen in the books is much different from the MMO. It's closer to what it is in "real life". Office buildings mainly. In PnP games, I generally go with the books, but bring in specific imagery of the city from the MMO, like the Argent Building or Mind Inc. Or how Westside generally looks overall.)
Which brings me to a set of questions I'd like to ask. If you're playing in a PnP campaign, and you're not based in MC, where are your heroes based?
Is your campaign based in the city or town that you live in in real life? Or did you choose a different city?
Have you visited the city in question? Or lived there? If not - how do you get your information on it?
Is it another fictional City? Like Metropolis or Gotham? Or even Paragon City from CoH?
What are your criteria for a good city to base a campaign in? What are some of the good backdrops and scenery for a supers battle?
What would you change or add to your campaign city to make it suit your needs? Or have you sometimes made an assumption about a feature that you've seen on TV or in a movie that you found out later contradicts reality?
(For example, everyone "knows" what New York looks like! But there's no "L" train running above ground in Manhattan! That was a GREAT scene in Spider-Man 2, but real New Yorkers are rolling their eyes because no such train line exists. Yes, I'm nit-picking - for fun.
)
Just to start the ball rolling - I've played and GMed in campaigns based in San Francisco, Vancouver B.C. Dallas/Fort Worth, Millennium City and Paragon City (from CoH). I grew up in Dallas/Fort Worth and I lived for a few years out in the SF Bay Area. (Strangely I've never played in one based in New York. Though you'd think that would be one of the easiest.)
When I've GMed Champions, I've always preferred setting campaigns in cities/regions that are port cities or within close range (an hour drive at normal freeway speeds) to one. It always seems to afford more in the way of options for backdrops for battles and scenery in general. There's also the fact that many types of plots can be based on smuggling via container ship or the like. Plus Aquatic Heroes (and villains!) are able to operate in or close to their element.
If there is a mountain range within sight of the coast, that's even better.
My favorite cities for basing a campaign in are Seattle, The San Francisco "Bay Area", and Vancouver, B.C.
Runners up include Houston, Texas, Miami, Florida and San Diego.
Dallas/Fort Worth is actually an exception to my general rule. Partially because my friends and I live in the area and know it. And partially because with the huge D/FW airport in the center of the area, you replace the whole "port city" thing with "Airport City" which brings up interesting problems all on it's own. Ever tried to fight an aerial supervillain who tries to dodge into the controlled airspace? How about one that threatens to blow up a passenger jet fully fueled on the runway?
( Los Angeles is a notable exception. It tends to get destroyed or damaged in my campaigns by supervillains, alien invasions and giant "kaiju" monsters. I hate that town. And I am a vengeful god. :P )
I like it a lot. And even in a campaign where the players heroes aren't based there, it's likely they'll visit it often. (There are some differences between the books and the game. The most notable of which is that Ren Cen in the books is much different from the MMO. It's closer to what it is in "real life". Office buildings mainly. In PnP games, I generally go with the books, but bring in specific imagery of the city from the MMO, like the Argent Building or Mind Inc. Or how Westside generally looks overall.)
Which brings me to a set of questions I'd like to ask. If you're playing in a PnP campaign, and you're not based in MC, where are your heroes based?
Is your campaign based in the city or town that you live in in real life? Or did you choose a different city?
Have you visited the city in question? Or lived there? If not - how do you get your information on it?
Is it another fictional City? Like Metropolis or Gotham? Or even Paragon City from CoH?
What are your criteria for a good city to base a campaign in? What are some of the good backdrops and scenery for a supers battle?
What would you change or add to your campaign city to make it suit your needs? Or have you sometimes made an assumption about a feature that you've seen on TV or in a movie that you found out later contradicts reality?
(For example, everyone "knows" what New York looks like! But there's no "L" train running above ground in Manhattan! That was a GREAT scene in Spider-Man 2, but real New Yorkers are rolling their eyes because no such train line exists. Yes, I'm nit-picking - for fun.
)Just to start the ball rolling - I've played and GMed in campaigns based in San Francisco, Vancouver B.C. Dallas/Fort Worth, Millennium City and Paragon City (from CoH). I grew up in Dallas/Fort Worth and I lived for a few years out in the SF Bay Area. (Strangely I've never played in one based in New York. Though you'd think that would be one of the easiest.)
When I've GMed Champions, I've always preferred setting campaigns in cities/regions that are port cities or within close range (an hour drive at normal freeway speeds) to one. It always seems to afford more in the way of options for backdrops for battles and scenery in general. There's also the fact that many types of plots can be based on smuggling via container ship or the like. Plus Aquatic Heroes (and villains!) are able to operate in or close to their element.
If there is a mountain range within sight of the coast, that's even better.
My favorite cities for basing a campaign in are Seattle, The San Francisco "Bay Area", and Vancouver, B.C.
Runners up include Houston, Texas, Miami, Florida and San Diego.
Dallas/Fort Worth is actually an exception to my general rule. Partially because my friends and I live in the area and know it. And partially because with the huge D/FW airport in the center of the area, you replace the whole "port city" thing with "Airport City" which brings up interesting problems all on it's own. Ever tried to fight an aerial supervillain who tries to dodge into the controlled airspace? How about one that threatens to blow up a passenger jet fully fueled on the runway?
( Los Angeles is a notable exception. It tends to get destroyed or damaged in my campaigns by supervillains, alien invasions and giant "kaiju" monsters. I hate that town. And I am a vengeful god. :P )
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My current campaign is set in the ruins of New York City. I liked the concept of Millennium City, but not the implementation (at least not for my campaign setting) so I decided to run a campaign set during the post, "Battle of New York," rebuilding process.
Tons of construction, corrupt politicians and unions siphoning funds off for personal projects, a huge influx of capital for rebuilding, interrupted policing due to heavy damage, ruined infrastructure, and any number of other factors make NYC in rebuild mode a perfect haven for criminals (super or otherwise) and really bring out the need for heroes.
In addition the nature of the destruction of NYC resulted in permanently open dimensional portals in the city's underground, allowing for some interesting side stories.
Ive never actually visited NYC, but do own a number of guidebooks, use various online tools for generating maps (and setting scenes), and set the campaign about 20 years in the future.
My biggest criteria when choosing a campaign city is inspiration. Some specific element must just jump out at me. In the case of my current campaign it was a combination of, "MC is nice, but I'd have done it differently," and having recently watched Escape From New York.
I'm thinking about a new campaign (we all actually miss the fun of being low level), but having it be all space-based like Dreadstar.
I'm currently running a Savage Worlds Necessary Evil game and using the default setting of Star City.
For real world cities, I do a bit of research to get the feel for the city and then mostly wing it, with apologies to anyone who has ever lived there.
Liked Seattle best....
In all likelyhood though, it would probably be in downtown Austin, near either the Capitol building or the UT tower, or in Dallas.
Hehe, I wonder what Paragon City and the Rogue Isles would be like in Champions at times.
My one easy criteria to start off with is "does the city have a waterfront?" Too many good stories and scenes require a waterfront.
After that I look for mood. Miami is awesome for some games, f'rex, but not for grim games where you want characters to wear leather coats and have to put up with wintry weather a lot.
I dunno steve "It's snowing in Miami" sounds like a pretty good plot device
In the past, I've done a number of things in the New York, New Jersey, and Illinois area. People tend to centerize in those areas (New Jersey, specifically because that's about where Metropolis and Gotham are allegedly located) for connection to other major IPs (except Illinois - though Chicago is a great setting, it just tends to crop up more in non-hero type settings). St. Lois and Portland were also some of my favorite American cities to do stuff in.
I think my current WoD Horror story bit takes place in an area based off of... someplace in Western Oregon. For the life of me, I can't remember the city I used as a framework for it. I think it might be Bend. But, it's a pocket dimension that has a tangential relationship to a real-world place (with most of the 'major' set pieces being thrown in ala Who's Line Is It Anyway style Scenes from a Hat. We eventually had to cut the Adult Movie Studio because I couldn't take it seriously writing it, and we changed the age-range on the characters enough that it'd been really weird. S'what I get for asking my local gaming group for ideas).
Though I may have to think about some other interesting places to run games... Maybe more central US centric? Or maybe Ireland..
It was an adjunct "Sister city" setting for Houston. Port city and home of the Crusaders of the Villians & Vigilantes "Crisis at Crusader Citadel" adventure. The Crusaders were more or less mentors for the Player Characters, and the Crushers their earliest foes.
Depends how you want to use it. I imagine most would use Paragon City and it's history as an alternate world from the typical Champions Universe.
Considering many "regular" human gang guys like Family can be massively dangerous to a hero on up into the low 30th level, and such, City of Heroes characters seem quite low powered to me, even very high level ones. I imagine a level 50 CoH character is conceptually usually about equal to a level 30 Champions Online character.
Hell, a CoH character has to hit level 10 just to "feel" heroic to me. Before that, they are too weak to be more than [maybe] metahuman beginners.
I agree, but I think level 20 is a better cap to believe in. I mean just going on raw damage from my brute to my werewolf in CO, my frenzy does about the same damage as my KO Blow >_> That and my health is pretty much 5 times greater than a willpower brute hehe. An incarnate character, maybe might break 30?
Still, would like to see Paragon in Champions, maybe replace the surviving 8 with some real heroes >_>
We've had several other campaigns including London, Vancouver, SLC and Vienna to name the longer ones.
Overall though most of our settings are rarely taking place for the most part in big cities. It surely depends on the players, we are probably one of the groups that prefers to play more in the less "crowded" areas. Especially when it comes down to mystical characters we often explore tombs and strange magical places and these are most often not in cities, but in pyramids, stonehenge like natural areas or the like.
Most of our group prefer fantasy settings though, so our overal time dedicated to the modern themes is rather small compared to the big chunk of medieval and middle age settings.
*nod* Thematically this makes sense, especially if you're playing up the "Super Sorcerer" angle.
Although given what's happened to Detroit over the past decade, blowing it up and starting over sounds more and more appealing.
Wait, what? (Houstonian here) Houston actually made it to some comic/video game? Wow.
I know also L.A. well, but due to the lack of high buildings (and most of that do exist are centralized in a small area), it doesn't make a good place for roof-hopping heroes. So I tend to limit campaigns in Los Angeles as visits.
When we first tried this we were sure it would limit us but I instead lead to great roleplay and didn't need maps as all concerned new the areas . We all had a feel for the mood of the city where the bad areas were or where you would find the homeless or students out partying or even what housing was like in an area to give mood. Like old town houses used buy the rich or sublet to students or modern poor housing estates. This gave you instant mood and sense of danger.
I don't think it works the same in some source books especially if there maps are poor.
On the downside one of the group ran a great Horror story and we all still think of certain streets as overly spooky.:eek:
Paragon city is actually in Rhode Island :P I think they were talking about the overall feeling of the area.
I was talking about how I chose to use the unstated city setting for a super group from the Villains & Vigilantes pen & paper RPG as Galveston as a campaign choice in my game, since my home campaign ws set here in Houston, which is where I and my gaming group live.
It was one of those, "The groups city would have easy access to a Harbor, but otherwise can be any city you prefer"
Well, there certainly is a lot of flat space and not much else... I can see it. And it'd be functionally the most exciting place in the entire state!
...Anywhere else (except maybe New Jersey), that might be a great statement, but Wayne's World mostly got it spot-on when they joked about it in the movie.
Hi....I'm in Delaware....
On topic, would go with Atlanta.
The only thing Delaware has going for it is that it's flat!
Exactly!
...Well, that and Dover, AFB and DuPont Chemical. Other then that, yeah, just flat.
The AFB and it's specific functions were probably exactly why it was built in Delaware - plenty of flat. Planes like flat!
I once tried to run a Marvel Super Heroes (the old TSR system) game in Delaware, but it didn't work out that well. Probably because it was being played in Delaware, by a bunch of Delaware natives. Havoc ensued, shots missed their target, and the Delaware City oil refineries ended up being successfully defended against the forces of AIM, only to be destroyed by an errant fireball.
Still, it was cool to use a street-level county map as the game map for a change.
I've also done a few one-shot superhero games in the Adirondack Park of New York. The real upstate, not what the NYC folks call "upstate."
The only thing I will add to the list is Capriotti's and the University of Delaware.
Man, I haven't been to Capriotti's in forever.
Also, thanks to you lot, I'm now going to have to 'convince*' my GM to set our next All Flesh Must Be Eaten game in Delaware. Lord knows that if a zombie outbreak happens, it'll probably be here...
Dover AFB is the largest military mortuary in the country - bodies get brought here first, and are then sent out. Then there's DuPont.. Total excuse for a zombie outbreak waiting to happen, given how much stuff they research.
*Convince by suggesting it ironically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWV-pZfqSEc
Not too soon into your future.
However, I often use the Noir RPG's take on the city vs the country, and deliberately allow players to draw from a more narrative rather than factual New York. It's the Big Apple, the City of Golden Dreams, the Metropolis, the Modern Gomorrah. It's where people work, slave, die in, and sometimes dare to dream. Outside of the City is a different story, but that's because the City is where it happens.
One of our players is from New York (the rest of us are Australian), and when I get to the United States next year I intend to have a look around the area myself to get a feel for the nearby suburbs and towns. (although access to the peninsula is restricted to people fishing and hunting.... any locals want to take me fishing?)
Our other game is currently based in Vibora Bay, but is likely to move elsewhere once we finish the current story arc.
When I think of Millennium City, Michigan. I think of how currently Detroit is ran. Detroit is just a city, inside of a county, in a state. Roleplayed, its much more than a city. There is a mayor, but there's also a sheriff, county managers, and minute but important bureaucracies at work.
The lack of information on Millennium City doesnt help, either. Does Wayne County still exist <the city Detroit is/was/RL-ly located in this county> Its politically very popular and powerful. Even if Zerstotien did what he did, thats not going to honestly make this piece of the state just disappear even if the city was renamed in the vein of California ala Watts to Southwest Los Angeles?
Alot, ICly would have had to happen, especially on a political level, to get rid of Wayne County. It existed before there was a state of Michigan. The sheriff, according to the current state constitution of said state is more powerful than a local police chief, and the MCPD running the jail is quite strange as well since of the Office of the Sheriff RL-ly runs that as well.
Also, what doesnt make sense is that they renamed the city, But the DETROIT RIVER still exists in name and in mission, Detroit River Bound. So, the political machine has the power to change the name of the city, but not a landmark river.
Id just like some clarity... and the chance to boot Bizelle as mayor. He reminds me too much of Kwame Kilpatrick.
And it was Detroit? Where are all the car companies? They just picked up stakes and leave??
P.S. If you've ever watched The Wire yes, Baltimore is really like what you saw on the show.
Closest actual geographical area puts it kind of on the Texas Gulf Coast. But have also- in same run, been in PA, and TN.
With different systems- pretty much the world over and beyond.
Anyways, I made a homebrewed world of Templata, complete with 13 continents, and have so far fleshed out the maps for 5 of those continents. The basic premise of the game I've been running requires the players to travel to various temples of magical power, and so staying in any one area really isn't an option. What's more, the players have the option to have come via various portals from Earth, which of course gives a very different background and flavor. Also, eventually they will be able to go back to Earth. So, all in all, my game is set in two worlds lol.
I've also used LA, New York City, Chicago, Seattle and Calgary.
I draw from many sourcebooks for my Campaigns, but the most useful sourcebook of all is San Angelo: City of Heroes by Gold Rush Games (Defunct). Greatest resource and introduced me to Astro City by Kurt Busiek.
Google Maps with Satillite View and Street View were fun.
Tourism BC had a great list of resources.
Wikipedia was a big favourite.
More later.
QM
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63848
Hero System 3rd Party Products
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"Life is not about having the Right Answers. It is about having the Right Questions." - QM
When I was younger I went to Uni there and I have a holiday home in Edinburgh. I swear its the closet thing real life has to Gotham City. Its creepeh as f@%&.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I been a long time leaving but I'm going to be a long time gone.
Willie Nelson
T.U.F.K.A.S. (the user formerly known as Scarlyng)
Wrong on the CO forums since November, 2008
OMG I don't believe this! :biggrin:I come from Edinburgh and we had a campaign set there. Creepy is right.
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
OH OH! Do you ever go the The Black Bull ( thats just up from the Rockstar North building ...NERDGASIM XD ). I play pool there whenever I am in Edinburgh ^_^
I was wanting to go there this Hogmanay but Sandy made a bit of a mess so I've postponed my trip till March, sadly this will mean my bro will destroy my apartment with a wild party this New Year
PS: Sorry for calling your City creepeh....but it is creepeh. Last time I was there in the middles of January last year I was in a store called CeX buying some games and beside me was ..well it was some guy dressed as Jason @_@"
But its a very beautiful city a place everyone must visit I say.
Also good for Champs campaigns ^__^
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
YUP. Theres a big hole in the kitchen floor no idea how it got there. Will be needing some money to fix it.
Git Gud M8!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Cause I'm worth it. Playing since 2009.
Wut -.-
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!