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 Post subject: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 1:22 pm 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
[edit]
Game starts at roughly 3:45pm, eastern time, every other Sunday, and runs to about 8:15pm eastern time, with a brief break somewhere in the middle for munchies.

PCs will be starting at 8 refresh, 30 skill points, and a skill cap of +5.

Main Themes of the City:
The Empty Heart of Silicon Valley
The Wrong Side of the Tracks
Cold War of the Seasons (or something like that?)
[/edit]

So, step one is picking out what city we want to set the game in. (There is also a question of timeline re: various events in the novels, but I know at least two people - myself included - who haven't yet read the whole series and don't want spoilers, so let's leave that alone for now.)

There's also step zero: working out when game actually runs. Current theory is alternating Sundays, but there's still the question of *when* on Sunday, and the option of maybe moving it around if some other time ends up working out better.

There will, of course, still be a fusion reactor* present, along with its 20 mile (or should that be more? Dunno.) safety zone. The two colleges from the original setting are staying, too, though one or both of them could get renamed if appropriate. I suspect that the old liberal arts school will have a fairly strong White Council presence - at the very least there's probably a Warden around somewhere.

_____
* There are some supernatural entities who will swear that the reactor is, in fact, a magical artifact of some sort. Most commonly, the forces of Winter, who claim that not only is it a magical artifact, it's a dangerous one that needs to be destroyed / shut down - though, given the wholly self-serving nature of that claim, it's pretty easy to be skeptical. Nobody seems to have any actual proof, either.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 4:49 pm 
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Missing Some Marbles

Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:08 pm
Posts: 215
I have 2 votes.
1) Washington D.C. You and Brian know it decently well. It is easy to do some quick research on. What isn't there? whatever you want can be added.

2)I looked at a list of US places with a nuclear plant and Dresden IL seems to fit. I like the obvious pun. I doubt anyone knows it, so we could just decide what is there and not make any effort to match it to real life.

alternating sundays are fine for me. Right now I work til 5:30 PM EST. Sometimes this will be on world tree nights, others it will be on dresden nights. That will change each month.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:05 pm 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
Well, err, I wouldn't actually say I know DC well. Honestly, I kinda stayed out of there; cities are crowded and annoying and DC in particular has this lovely tendency to, if you don't know exactly what you're doing (or, I suppose these days, have a good GPS unit on hand) toss you right back out of the city via whatever bridge you came in on.

On the other hand, it could be interesting to drop a fusion reactor nearby; I wonder what the politicians would do about having to live and work near something that could, in theory, explode and kill them all...

(For reference, I believe the original game plan called for setting it in or near Rochester, but that's largely because that's where we all were at the time; I have no strong opinions one way or another.)


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:49 pm 
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Sane. VERY Sane.

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:32 pm
Posts: 610
DC and it's environs are nice and iconic. We know enough about it to provide some verisimilitude, there's plenty of information out there about the city, and failing all else, we can make it up. Of course, it would probably be on the outskirts of DC to have the buffer room for the reactor.

I'm amused by the idea of setting it in Vancouver and using the "Vancouver Method."

The fusion reactor could be rehabilitating Three Mile Island. We could go for Research Triangle down in NC. Near Silicon Valley isn't a bad choice: Nice mix of high tech and California silliness, with the reactor up on a mountainside.

The Dresden RPG shipping date has moved to the 23rd!


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:51 pm 
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Lunatic

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:46 pm
Posts: 515
Location: In front of my computer
I dislike cities in general thus have neither general knowledge nor opinions about any. Roleplaying a character who *does* like cities is going to be vaguely irritating. >-< Outskirts thereof wouldn't be so bad, that's getting towards suburb-ish while still in range and also give more than just isolated snips of park to mess with.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 9:05 pm 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
Haha... california silliness... yeah, that could fit in nicely.
[edit: And yes, I'd also tend more towards suburbs than city central, that being what I'm more familiar with.]

Another question worth considering: what power level do we want? I'm leaning towards 8-10 refresh, but would have no problems running a 6 refresh game if that's what people want.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:39 pm 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
Ok. Looks like I get to declare Silicon Valley as the winner. Time to research / invent / borrow stuff!


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Sun Jun 27, 2010 1:19 am 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
Random notes:

I'm probably going to base Shaelblun at least somewhat off Santa Clara university - it's got much the same sort of history going for it, though I'd imaged SU as a rather more secular school than SCU is. But I can change that, even as I borrow the location, and the buildings, and the like. Yay, alternate reality?
It'll probably end up with ties to the White Council - perhaps containing one of their west coast headquarter-y areas?

Ferret's insisted on hockey, so, HMTI will have a fairly good hockey team - the only college level hockey team in CA.

HMTI is probably still going to be mostly underground, and is going to be horrendously over-engineered for earthquake survival. I'm not entirely sure how they'd do it, but its designers are at least claiming that it should be "perfectly serviceable" up to about 8.2 on the richter scale. Oddly enough, this sort of thing is something Ferret's character might end up studying.

The reactor itself is probably going to be somewhere in the mountains east of San Jose; past the (mostly abandoned?) Lick Observatory.
The blast safety zone may still cut off some of the easternmost section of San Jose, leaving abandoned homes and stores now completely overgrown.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 7:12 pm 
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Prismatic Pangolin

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:50 pm
Posts: 2283
Some semi-randomly selected places that may or may not be worth further attention:

Mountain View:
Google campus. If you have to make your motto "don't be evil"...
St. Joseph Parish. Built in 1905, burned down by "a pyromaniac" in 1928, rebuilt in 1929, and in continual use since then. The church bells here are normally not used. Perhaps was a repository for information on the denarians back in 1928?
Moffett Federal Airfield. Includes a few truly gigantic dirigible hangers.

Sunnyvale:
This is apparently one of the top ten safest cities in the US.
From wikipedia:
On May 4, 1998, during an unusually strong thunderstorm, Sunnyvale and its neighbor Los Altos were hit by two tornadoes of nearly F2 intensity, causing upwards of $4 million in property damage. No serious injuries were reported. Tornadoes are not common in the San Francisco Bay Area, and these were particularly unique because they exhibited anticyclonic rotation. This was the first time that weather radar data of such high quality had been collected for an anticyclonic supercell thunderstorm with tornadoes. Though smaller tornadoes are not completely unheard of in the area. Sunnyvale experienced another small tornado at the Lockheed-Martin facility at Moffett Federal Airfield two months prior to this one.
On January 21, 1962, and on February 5, 1976, measurable snowfall occurred in Sunnyvale and most of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Los Altos:
Primarily expensive residential area.

Alcatraz, of course. Not exactly silicon valley, per se, but there's so much potential to site icky nastiness there...

Cupertino:
"On December 1, 2009, Cupertino became the first city in Northern California to have an Asian-American majority city council."
Permanente Cement Plant: A massive open-air quarry in the foothills of the santa cruz mountains. Very easy to spot on google maps.
The Crossroads: Local name for the intersection of Stevens Creek and De Anza Boulevard. Easy to imagine some supernatural meaning here...

Los Gatos:
"A preferred destination for antique shopping." - could probably stuff one or more occult stores in here? Doesn't seem to be much of note otherwise, or at least, not on wikipedia.

Evergreen:
the south-eastern section of san jose. Listed as "some of the higher crime areas of san jose" - if the eastern half of it got chopped off by the blast zone, that might increase?

Alum Rock:
Primarily hispanic / latino. Probably got similar treatment as evergreen, re: blast zone. Alum Rock Park (definitely in the blast zone if the reactor is out that way) contains (contained?) some particularly paranoid private residences.


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 Post subject: Re: City Creation
PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:23 pm 
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Sane. VERY Sane.

Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:32 pm
Posts: 610
I cannot stress how much I dislike the "lower skill point" options. A mostly mortal character will find themselves even more out-paced by people who take the maximum number of powers. Powers are already better than mortal stunts and both often outshine pure skill. Why tip that balance further?

At 8 refresh (default 25 skills), every single template is available and you can be fairly well skilled anywhere you desire.

(I'd be happy with 6 or 7 refresh, but it sounds like many other people aren't.)


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