Fallout Campaign - Ideas for New York

[Maquise]

I am getting ready to start up a Fallout campaign set in New York, and am looking for ideas on things to include. I have a basic overarching storyline in mind, and am mostly looking for things to make the show more interesting and flavorful. It takes place some time after FO4, for the record, but I'm not terribly concerned about the timeline for this purpose. As an aside, the game is Genesys RPG.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

New York is famous for its organised crime - you could have some of the mafia outfits survive as post-apocalyptic power groups. That might be a bit too close to the Triggermen in FO4, but you could go in a different direction if you have them be something more than always-hostile mooks.

It's also famous as a crossroad of the world - you could explore what the world outside the USA is like a bit by having factions based elsewhere have a presence there. Traders or explorers from across the Atlantic, maybe, or ambassadors from revived nations in the Caribbean.

As for locations to use, there's obviously a lot, but one I might highlight is the old UN Headquarters - which in the Fallout universe was bought converted into a superstore by a toy chain after the UN disbanded in 2052. Having it as a place for the PCs to explore would be a great way to highlight the black comedy of the setting.

[Mr_Fixler]

I had worked on a similar Fallout in NY game but never finished it. "The Manhattan Project"

Unfortunately, a lot of my ideas were "stolen" for Fallout 4. A few ides were: as already mentioned a Mafia/Gangster presence, either a raider gang or community that was baseball themed, subway mutants who come out at night, a 3-dog style radio host who lived/was Under siege in the Empire State Building but had it so defensible that he was fine and would report stuff he could see, something to so with Rikers Island, another community based at Fort George.

Honestly, I would recommend just reading up on the various districts and features, historical buildings that really identify as NY . I'm interested to see what you come up with.

[Beleriphon]

Major instutions/places:

New York has an extensive subway system. Several of its stations would make a very nice underground town. Yankee Stadium is a thing, and big. Empire State building needs to be included, as does the Statue of Liberty.

The UN Building as mentioned was turned into a mega toy store. Districts, Times Square has to be something interesting. The Bronx Zoo would fun to see after the bomb. Plus it explains how radscorpions and all of the other crazy Fallout critters from the American South-West are in New York.

The Institute must have an outpost there, so synths are thing you need. Even after the endgame of Fallout 4 (assuming the Sole Survivor blows up The Institute) they must have places other than their HQ where they are doing things.

In terms of factions, because you always need factions, find something about New York that is unique and is a riff on the 50s or 60s. Something Broadway related maybe.

[Thinker]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History could have some fun bits to them.

You can also use the five boroughs to divide the city into manageable sections - The Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. Add in Nassau County and Suffolk County for some variation on the urban feel.

[Beleriphon]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History could have some fun bits to them.

You can also use the five boroughs to divide the city into manageable sections - The Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. Add in Nassau County and Suffolk County for some variation on the urban feel.

Could be five boroughs are controlled by 5 factions. Each allied loosely with two others.

On that note you need a relatively obvious good guy faction like Fallout 4's Minutemen.

[Mechalich]

Flooding.

New York City, and Manhattan especially, is sustained and protected by an extremely complex pumping system, without which a significant portion of the city, and pretty much the entirety of the subway, gets reclaimed by the ocean very quickly, as was seen during Superstorm Sandy. FO4 played with this a little in Boston, but it's an ideal issue to structure a post-apocalyptic New York around. In the Fallout context, you could have populations trapped in crumbling high-rises linked by rickety sky bridges while swarms of Mirelurks patrol the semi-flooded streets.

[Pauly]

Manhattan has been turned into a giant super-max prison where the inmates are free within the walls. There is a crashed air force one in Central Park.

All the Gangs have themes. One is dressed up in baseball gear, Another wears orange karate gis. Yet another shave their heads and dress exclusively in blue denim. The all-female gang wear tie-dyed t-shirts and bubble perms. The Coney Island based gang wear brown leather vests.

The escaped great apes from the zoo have escaped and evolved into human equivalent intelligence and society. The Statue iof liberty is three quarters covered in sand on a beach,

[Maquise]

I sort of have my own spin-off of the Institute, but synths will be playing a much smaller role than they did in Fallout 4. On the other hand, the Children of Atom are a major power in this campaign. Need an interesting idea for the Minutemen equivalent, preferably less Revolutionary.

[Talyn]

The New York City Police department is bigger, better trained, and better equipped than most nation's militaries. Having the 'minutemen' faction be based on the descendants of the NYPD or people who emulate them might be a fun idea. Have them report to a Commissioner instead of a General. If you want to have a 'reclaim the Castle' mission, they could have to clear out and fortify the old headquarters at 240 Center Street - from there, they can plan to 'retake the streets.'

[hotflungwok]

Gotta have a few vaults.

How about a totally flooded vault? Would fit with the flooding thing mentioned earlier. Good salvage, but difficult to navigate: no lights, fine silt stirred up easily, sharp rusty metal all over the place, sealed airtight rooms, lack of decent diving equipment, etc. Throw in a few rumors of something special thus far unfound in the depths for some extra incentive.

Or a vault where the experiment was that about 30 days in previously hidden caches of weapons & ammo opened up all over the vault. Do the people inside kill each other off, or do they learn to get along? Maybe the inside is a carnage filled crypt strewn with the remains of the last battle between 2 factions, or maybe it's the base of a heavily armed group known for trading in high quality hardware.

A vault populated solely by the homeless. That was the experiment, to see how this section of society performs in vault conditions. Maybe they included only minimal amenities, with barely enough resources are available. The survivors would be expert scavengers and jury riggers, lean and mean.

[Scripten]

As someone who lives in Upstate/Central New York, I'd wager that the city itself is pretty much gone, and would argue that you should set your campaign here in real NY instead. :P Much like in the original Fallout, you've probably got a big glowing crater centered on Manhattan. As mentioned in the thread already, the ocean has likely reclaimed a good portion of the area, so it could be an interesting underwater variation on the Glowing Sea/The Glow. Further out, there would likely be places where the city remains standing to some extent, where you could introduce gangs and factions. Long Island would have taken a hit, but would be more likely to have retained pre-war structures and objects. There' are probably several vaults in that area as well.

The props for the Warriors/Escape from NY/Planet of the Apes references above in the thread.

[Thinker]

Gotta have a few vaults.

How about a totally flooded vault? Would fit with the flooding thing mentioned earlier. Good salvage, but difficult to navigate: no lights, fine silt stirred up easily, sharp rusty metal all over the place, sealed airtight rooms, lack of decent diving equipment, etc. Throw in a few rumors of something special thus far unfound in the depths for some extra incentive.

Given the experimental nature of the vaults, you could do one where every day was the Thanksgiving Day parade and the logs could show the vault dwellers going mad with the constant celebrations - and why is there only turkey, cranberries, and mashed potatoes to eat?!?

[hotflungwok]

Given the experimental nature of the vaults, you could do one where every day was the Thanksgiving Day parade and the logs could show the vault dwellers going mad with the constant celebrations - and why is there only turkey, cranberries, and mashed potatoes to eat?!?

You could have a vault where the food processors also produced high quality marijuana on demand, which had additional air scrubbers installed.

You could have a vault which only had eggs, cheese, beans, and hot sauce stocked for food, with no additional air scrubbers installed.

Or a vault where the lights, food, and work schedule was kept to a 36 hour interval.

The people who ran Vault Tec were seriously disturbed bastards, go nuts with it.

[Schismatic]

A semi-control vault made up of pop and street artists, and fashionistas. The experiment being whether they can teach an A.I. about aesthetics and human concepts of fashionable consumption as a possible means of creating a robotic line that better understands human desires.

So inspirations of Warhol, Salvador Dali, classic-Christian Dior, etc.

[Serenity]

If you wanted to continue Bethesda's trend of dropping Lovecraft references in the modern Fallout games...perhaps Red Hook could be a ghoul neighborhood. But since Horror at Red Hook is possibly Lovecraft's most virulently racist stories, flip the script and have it be a friendly ghoul community which a jittery antagonist is unreasonably plotting to destroy. Or there could be a ghoul physician somewhere by the name of Dr. Munoz.

[hotflungwok]

Oh, and you have to call it 'Nuke York'.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

As someone who lives in Upstate/Central New York, I'd wager that the city itself is pretty much gone, and would argue that you should set your campaign here in real NY instead. :P Much like in the original Fallout, you've probably got a big glowing crater centered on Manhattan.

You'd likely have said that about Washington, DC as well, yet FO3 was set down there.

DC's not really that far south, so a lot of what's there could have come North to a greater or lesser extent, plus West Point's even closer, so there's potentially still the Enclave operating from there. Or maybe there's an old "temporary" naval base that's been set up - possibly something from the Navy sailed up from Annapolis to help secure the city in the immediate wake of the nuclear exchanges, and has either taken in new recruits to replace crew as they died (maybe not always voluntarily), or the crew became ghouls and have been obeying their orders ever since.

Otherwise, a lot of what people have already said - organised crime, exploring skyscrapers, sewers and subway tunnels, updated versions of existing buildings (maybe MSG's a gladiatorial arena), the various districts - which could independant and involved in trade and/or conflict with each other and so on.

[Scripten]

You'd likely have said that about Washington, DC as well, yet FO3 was set down there.

Oh, I absolutely did.

Otherwise, a lot of what people have already said - organised crime, exploring skyscrapers, sewers and subway tunnels, updated versions of existing buildings (maybe MSG's a gladiatorial arena), the various districts - which could independant and involved in trade and/or conflict with each other and so on.

This actually gives me a terrible, wonderful idea. It's not the best movie ever (it's actually pretty bad), but the Roland Emmerich Godzilla movie from the early 2000's does do a good job of showing a post-apocalyptic NYC, with specific emphasis on MSG. Might be good inspiration for an encounter or dungeon.

[Maquise]

Where would be a good starting location, when they just come out of the vault?

[ElFi]

Where would be a good starting location, when they just come out of the vault?

Governor's Island, maybe? If you're not familiar, it's a small island right off the coast of the city. Ideal for keeping an isolated population safe from the rest of the island's craziness, and it'd make for a cool home base.

For some general campaign ideas:

• Chelsea Market is still operational, but now its vendors sell weapons, armor, and chems instead of hipster cuisine and kitchen wares.
• The Statue of Liberty has been converted into a Liberty Prime-esque war mecha. Alternatively, it's now venerated as a god by some postapocalyptic cult.
• The residents of Brooklyn are still hipsters even after all these years. I'm talking beanies made of mole-rat fur and super mutants complaining about how regular ghouls are SO last century.
• Sleeping in the depths of the lake in Central Park is the most powerful mutated creature in the city - maybe it's some kind of super mutant behemoth, maybe a souped-up Deathclaw that bears a certain resemblance to Godzilla.
• The city's subways are totally flooded and overrun with Mirelurk colonies. Players bold or stupid enough to venture into them anyway will discover that the Mirelurks are beginning to form complex societies among the refuse.
• Some section of the city has been completely fenced off by twenty-foot high metal barriers. Nobody can (or rather, nobody will) tell you what's past the wall, but everyone in the city, even the super mutants and crime bosses, are terrified of whatever's inside getting out.
• Central Park as a whole, rather than an irradiated wasteland, has become a lush jungle of mutated, radioactive plants - think Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind minus the giant beetle monsters.
• The ice-skating rink in Rockefeller Center is now a brutal combat arena where anyone can fight or gamble provided they have the caps to spend.
• What was once the most prosperous parts of the city are now the worst sections - looters and criminals raided the mansions and high-rises first once the dust settled, and ever since those parts of town have become lawless, violence-filled wastelands.
• Staten Island is now a fiercely isolationist and xenophobic pocket of civilization - anyone who swims/boats within a hundred feet is blown out of the water with extreme prejudice. Despite this, rumors persist that the qualify of life is much higher on the island than anywhere else, and every month people die attempting to reach the shores.
• Something huge can occasionally be seen swimming within the depths of the Hudson River. Nobody knows exactly what it is (maybe a hostile aquatic robot, maybe a radiation-created sea monster), but don't stay out on the water after dark - it's been known to swallow ships whole.

[Maquise]

I have a few ideas, though I'm still trying to flesh out what each borough has in it, specifically.

To further elaborate on the starting area, I'm looking for something that would be fairly isolated, a sort of suburb similar to Sanctuary Hills in Fallout 4.

I am thinking that one of the major factions is called the Shields, that originated back with the NYPD. It is currently in a bad shape, for the PCs to potentially rebuild.

I am considering a rather large underground settlement with a Punk/Rave attitude going for it.

Another faction is the Gaia Foundation, a scientific organization dedicated to attempting ecological repair.

[Slipperychicken]

Regular shootouts and raids over "parking turf" - the areas in which members of each faction are allowed to park their vehicles or animals. Woe betide the wastelander who takes a warlord's spot or parks in front of a fire hydrant.

Someone made a treasure map out of a subway/transit map. Confused treasure-hunting wastelanders from out of town are trying to make their way in the Big Apple by navigating the often-noxious tunnels and old bus lines in search of it. Despite being remarkably hostile, they often stop people to ask them for directions.

The MTA is inexplicably still making subways run sometimes. They're just filled with subway-performer/busker/insane-screaming-people gangs, and they run over a lot more tunnel-dwellers now. Ditto for the buses. It's believed that descendants of MTA workers are in a vault somewhere, carrying out the old work as if it were some kind of religious ritual.

Leafleters were turned into a new type of feral ghoul, which stands in places such as sidewalks and only attacks after a victim either makes eye contact or holds a leaflet (or other offered object) for more than ten seconds. Most Nuke Yorkers simply pass them by on the sidewalk because they're strong bullet-resistant enemies who simply aren't worth the trouble to most. Attempts to exterminate them have proven.. problematic.

The ice-skating rink in Rockefeller Center is now a brutal combat arena where anyone can fight or gamble provided they have the caps to spend.

Bonus points if they can still make ice happen, and have ice-skating arena combat. They can make the arena studded with protruding spikes or icicles to make falling more hazardous. Trying to skate around it without falling would be a recreational pastime for big-city survivors.

To further elaborate on the starting area, I'm looking for something that would be fairly isolated, a sort of suburb similar to Sanctuary Hills in Fallout 4.

I'd consider Staten Island, Roosevelt Island, or a chunk of Long Island isolated by radiation and/or craters. You can also put stuff slightly north, or on the NJ side of the hudson. Although playing a post-apocalyptic New Jersian might be a bit much to tackle, it would give Nuke Yorkers a very important reason to constantly try and shoot at them.

Edit: You could have New Jersian PCs exiled via NJTransit, and arrive in the outskirts of the city. That could help explain their lack of knowledge about the city.

[Papa_Hewi]

Post apocalyptic mafia war between NYC and Jersey. Don't put the mob in absolute control of either region, but make them big enough, and mean enough that other groups won't mess with them if they don't have to. New York mob go by The Wise Guys, Jerseys outfit goes by The Rat Pack.

One of the gangs needs to be in control of a vaults resources, the tec is used to expand their influence over the civilians.

[hotflungwok]

New York is know for it's rats. I think just having mole rats is thinking small.

You could have swarms of smaller rats that work like piranhas, giant rats that rival mirelurks or even deathclaws for size and ferocity, glowing rats that act smarter than the others, etc. Have a war going on in the sewers and subway tunnels between the rats and mirelurks.

Maybe the players are approached by lone rat carrying a shiny gun in it's mouth, it drops the gun and nudges it toward the players, then looks behind it, where the players can just barely see another large rat in the shadows that is obviously injured. The first rat looks back to the players...

[DavidSh]

Giant sapient rats starts moving into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle territory. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

[gmoyes]

Hmm, does anyone know if 9/11 happened in the Fallout timeline? If not the World Trade Center could still be standing and be a key landmark. Even if it did happen, having the memorial there would also be an interesting feature.

...and I may be going to hell for this, but would it be suitable Fallout dark humour for, whether it is the towers or the memorial, a plane to crash into it when the bombs fell?

[Maquise]

The WTC never existed in this timeline and I intend to avoid anything similar. Nothing that pokes too much into RL, please.

[Schismatic]

So as for something that might poke too far into real life, how about a Sicilian mafiosi sydicate that managed to secure preferential access to a control vault, opening 140 years after (or however long to generations prior gamestart is in your game), basically providing a protection racket that actually works?

So sort of a commentary on the relationship between brutish coercion and orderly society?

I mean, sure... you had better pay your 'taxes' but you have an incredibly adaptable 'law enforcement' that is born on effective ideas of honour and loyalty, as well as collective force, and it manages to create the closest thing to 'civil' society in the NY State area?

[Talyn]

May I suggest that your starting vault, where your players set up their first defensible base and where you can retreat to relative safety (i.e. your 'Sanctuary') be under the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital?


The symbolism of your new characters leaving their homes to travel to a New York filled with danger and opportunity will not be lost on your players. It's also nicely defensible, with only a single bridge between it and the mainland, and not a significant military target or source of outstanding loot or resources, so it is relatively unlikely to have been nuked or occupied by a pre-existing band of raiders. It even has housing space and some open areas to grow food!


Fun historical fact: after Ellis Island stopped being the entry point for immigrants, the FBI used the Immigrant Hospital as a base, and it was used as a military hospital in the years after World War II. If, in the Fallout universe, the FBI never relinquished control over the building before the bombs fell, there might be a cache of weapons, technology, or information that you can use to reward your players for completing their first 'dungeon' and establishing their first base.