Looking for a good city sourcebook

[Chernobyl]

Hi there.

My players have asked me to consider running Mutants & Masterminds for a spell. I need a good city in which to locate the campaign. I have Freedom City and Emerald City, and honestly neither one of them really inspire me. I've heard about San Angelo (for Champions), and Bedlam.

Can anyone recommend a really good city sourcebook? I don't care which system it's for; I'm able to convert to M&M. I'd like something that is a good sandbox, with plenty of locations with planned and/or random encounters, so I don't have to do as much work.

Also, I'm planning on the PCs being among the few (or only) supers in town, so I don't want a city that is crawling with an established superhero community, or at least one where said community can be easily removed without substantial retconning effort.

Thanks,
Chernobyl

[JustIgnoreMe]

Hi there.

My players have asked me to consider running Mutants & Masterminds for a spell. I need a good city in which to locate the campaign. I have Freedom City and Emerald City, and honestly neither one of them really inspire me. I've heard about San Angelo (for Champions), and Bedlam.

Can anyone recommend a really good city sourcebook? I don't care which system it's for; I'm able to convert to M&M. I'd like something that is a good sandbox, with plenty of locations with planned and/or random encounters, so I don't have to do as much work.

Also, I'm planning on the PCs being among the few (or only) supers in town, so I don't want a city that is crawling with an established superhero community, or at least one where said community can be easily removed without substantial retconning effort.

Thanks,
Chernobyl

I like San Angelo, but I don't think it has planned or random encounters. I know there was a supplement but I haven't read it.

The 4th Ed Dark Champions line didn't really have a specific city sourcebook as I recall, although it was all set in more or less the same place. I think 5th Ed has a specific Hudson City book, but I haven't read it.

The Mayfair Games DC Heroes game had some Gotham and Metropolis stuff (possibly mixed in with the Batman and Superman sourcebooks): if you want a city that feels like either of them it might be worth a look. I have a copy of the Batman RPG (a slim stripped down DC Heroes combined with Gotham source material) which I thought was quite well done.

Likewise the WEG DC Universe game has sourcebooks for Gotham and Metropolis.

The M&M DC Adventures game doesn't have a city sourcebook, and while Book 4 does cover various cities it doesn't do so in any depth.

Outside of superhero games, I've always liked the Miami sourcebook for Millennium's End: it's full of locations and people, and how they interact. Millennium's End is a technothriller rpg set (and published) in the late '90's, so there are no superheroes, but a lot of realistic street-level criminals. If I were running something street-level and didn't want to make my own city, this is what I'd use.

[Chernobyl]

The Mayfair Games DC Heroes game had some Gotham and Metropolis stuff (possibly mixed in with the Batman and Superman sourcebooks): if you want a city that feels like either of them it might be worth a look. I have a copy of the Batman RPG (a slim stripped down DC Heroes combined with Gotham source material) which I thought was quite well done.

Likewise the WEG DC Universe game has sourcebooks for Gotham and Metropolis.

The WEG Gotham sourcebook doesn't have city data, apparently (according to this review).

Outside of superhero games, I've always liked the Miami sourcebook for Millennium's End: it's full of locations and people, and how they interact. Millennium's End is a technothriller rpg set (and published) in the late '90's, so there are no superheroes, but a lot of realistic street-level criminals. If I were running something street-level and didn't want to make my own city, this is what I'd use.

I'll check out Miami. Street level criminals is perfect. I can pepper in a few supercriminals for story arcs, but I want to have some background noise sprinkled about the city for the PCs to deal with, so it doesn't feel like a railroad.

Thanks!

[daniel_ream]

First off: do you want a superhero game that feels like an actual superhero comic book, or do you want a game that feels like fairly typical town-to-dungeon D&D game?

That's not a snarky question; they're both perfectly valid, but the difference matters.

Because here's the thing: in four-color superhero group books, the city doesn't matter. The action almost never takes place there, and the heroes rarely interact with the inhabitants (seriously, the JLA was based in Happy Harbour, RI for 25 years and they never went there once).

In solo books, the people and institutions around the main character get a lot more air time because there's only one protagonist to deal with. So Batman's Gotham, Daredevil's Hell's Kitchen, The Flash's Central City, Spider-Man's Queens all get more detailed treatment. But in a group book, which is what your typical superhero RPG campaign resembles, the Avengers never hang around New York, the JLA never visit Happy Harbour, Alpha Flight doesn't fight crime in Edmonton, etc. The action takes place somewhere exotic and far away, and the team doesn't spend any time meandering around the local neighbourhood where "random encounters" could even happen.

Now, if what you really want is a town-to-dungeon model with a light superhero gloss on it, then you have a couple of options. Freedom City and San Angelo are your best bets for a dense, detailed citybook; as befits the fact that neither Metropolis nor Gotham have ever really been detailed in the comics, their respective sourcebooks are pretty sparse. (The reason the Gotham City Sourcebook doesn't have city data is that the data is in the adventure folio Night in Gotham). Freedom City is more comic book-y; San Angelo could be any mundane modern town, it really doesn't have much of a superhero comic book feel to it. There's Autumn Arbor, which you may be able to find on the used market; it's a deconstructed superhero setting, so you'll have to decide if that's to your taste.

[TerrickTerran]

I'm partial to Palladium's Century Station but Autumn Arbor is pretty nice too.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Night City for Cyberpunk 2020 had some interesting stuff - lots of dark 80s / 90s action movie flavour, super technology, scheming corporations, underworld dives and night clubs, nasty gangs, high life venues and all the other cyberpunk stuff.

It could fit well into a super game - and it probably wouldn't be very familiar to the players (hardcopies sell for over 100 USD).