Silver Age City

[assault]

I've been toying with the concept of a setting for a Silver Age game. There are lots of published settings for the Iron Age, but the Silver Age just isn't out there.

 

The most obvious settings from the source material are Marvel's New York, Gotham City and Metropolis. But that's not quite what I am looking for. I would prefer something smaller.

 

Smallville comes to mind. And Flash's Central City. And maybe somewhere the Hulk might visit, or where Thunderbolt Ross might be based.

 

Basically a small to medium city in the middle of the US, in the late 50s and 60s. It could also be a place to visit during an early Bronze Age style road trip. Definitely a UFO hotspot. Near a fictional airforce base, nuclear silos, an Area 51 type place, and a national park type preserved wilderness - with unexplored caves (containing "who knows"), a supervillain base and a place for the more hulking kind of PC to hang out for a while. Maybe near where nuclear tests take place, although that might be a bit further west and south than I would prefer.

 

Anyway, this is a brainstorm. Any ideas?

[assault]

No need for a specific location, although a general idea/inspiration is fine.

 

Not in Nevada, Utah or (especially) Texas.

[Nothere]

Why not in Nevada Utah or especially Texas?

[assault]

Associations that don't fit in vanilla Silver Age.

[Lord Liaden]

As a premade setting for a Silver Age-style game, I would strongly recommend Freedom City by Steve Kenson. The main source book for it is well detailed in both the city and its NPCs, very clearly in the Silver Age style, with beautiful full-color artwork; and the setting has a great deal of supplementary background material available for it should you desire it. The first edition of the book can be purchased right now quite inexpensively on both Amazon, here, and Noble Knight Games, here.

Freedom City was written for Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds game, but Steve Kenson wrote his first draft of it with Hero System in mind; and he once put up his Hero Fourth Edition character sheets for quite a few characters from the book on the Internet for free download. In addition, a number of fans created conversion guidelines between M&M 1E or 2E and HERO 5E. Below are links to all of the conversions I'm aware of.

4E HERO writeups for many of the characters from the M&M sourcebook Freedom City, by FC author Steve Kenson:
http://web.archive.org/web/20081021074639/http://members.aol.com/talonstudio/freedomcity/fchero.html

5E writeup for the Centurion, from Freedom City:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100813153137/http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/14907-Presenting-The-Centurion

Discussion comparing character and weapon damage capability between M&M and HERO:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100813145851/http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/14626-Just-Got-Freedom-City-Some-Very-Early-Conversion-Ideas

Guidelines and examples for converting to M&M 2E from HERO (but mostly usable in the other direction as well):
http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?p=266549

[Hermit]

You could always expand upon the fictional town of Haynesville (Sp?) where, in the CU at least, there was their own super soldier study program comparable to the studies done in WW2 for the atomic bomb in Oak Ridge

[CaptnStrawberry]

I like the idea of a 'City of Tomorrow', moving walkways, flying cars, blimp ports, the works.  Art from 30s pulp always envisioned this, and that carried over to a lot of the Silver Age visuals (Millennium City is somewhat like this).  It could be a kind of privately owned laboratory, with a wealthy eccentric type paying for the entire endeavor and plopping his new model community somewhere in a thinly populated state like Montana.

[Steve]

San Angelo or Millenium City could probably be tweaked to be Silver Age pretty easily. You just need to change the history around a bit.

 

Millenium City could be the result of a Golden Age supervillain putting the end to Detroit instead of Doctor Destroyer. The Golden Age superheroes could have put their backing behind the idea of building a new city to show a better tomorrow is coming. Years later you have Millenium City, pride of 1950s America (or 1960s).

[Nothere]

Sorry I'm still lost. I cant think of any associations  about those three states that would prevent a silver age campaign being placed in them. If you meant population or climate I could advise, but I'm at a loss for what your getting at.

[TheQuestionMan]

San Angelo: City of Heroes for Star City

[bubba smith]

I think Assalthad the comics code in mind when he  called the silver age "vanilla "

[Comic]

I've always found the best cities for Champions had a waterfront.

 

In the middle of the USA, that pretty much limits you to the Great Lakes.

 

Chicago meets pretty much all of your requirements, but then again so does Milwaukee or Detroit, Buffalo (sort of) or the aptly named Erie.

 

If you're willing to accept anywhere in the USA, then Miami and Galviston become candidates, as do Portland and Seattle, though New Orleans is far more storied.

 

There's a whole New England and Eastern seaboard available, if you like, too.

 

Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, if you're willing to travel outside the USA, could serve; plenty of places in Mexico and points south also work. Don't overlook Cuba.

 

Isn't that one of the good things about the Champions system?

 

Your setting could be anywhere, or a mix of all of the above.

 

Or build a mythical Silver Age high speed rail system connecting the cities your heroes patrol, so you can cover all the range and variety without having to smudge the margins.

[pinecone]

I've been toying with the concept of a setting for a Silver Age game. There are lots of published settings for the Iron Age, but the Silver Age just isn't out there.

 

The most obvious settings from the source material are Marvel's New York, Gotham City and Metropolis. But that's not quite what I am looking for. I would prefer something smaller.

 

Smallville comes to mind. And Flash's Central City. And maybe somewhere the Hulk might visit, or where Thunderbolt Ross might be based.

 

Basically a small to medium city in the middle of the US, in the late 50s and 60s. It could also be a place to visit during an early Bronze Age style road trip. Definitely a UFO hotspot. Near a fictional airforce base, nuclear silos, an Area 51 type place, and a national park type preserved wilderness - with unexplored caves (containing "who knows"), a supervillain base and a place for the more hulking kind of PC to hang out for a while. Maybe near where nuclear tests take place, although that might be a bit further west and south than I would prefer.

 

Anyway, this is a brainstorm. Any ideas?

have you seen freedom city for m&m? It is very nice, and foremost any where

[Spence]

Personally I use Hudson City.

 

It is a well written city that is easily scaled to any genre.  And the availability of a high res map of the city doesn't hurt.   I actually modified a copy of my HC map to pre-interstate.  Removed all the interstates and replaced with boulevards or railroads.

 

As a city it is extremely well done for and RPG and has all the bells and whistles.

[massey]

I think that Nevada, Utah, and Texas all carry certain stereotypes.  In the Silver Age particularly, those are going to still be portrayed as "The American West" and are probably filled with cowboys and ranches.  Texas and Nevada will be seen as mostly desert, and Utah will be snowy mountains.  To me, none of them have the visual "look" for a superhero city from a 1960s era comic book.  Sure, in the real world there are cities in those states.  Texas has a wide variety of geography and most people don't wear a 10 gallon hat.  But this game isn't trying to mimic the real world, it's trying to be a Silver Age comic.

 

I'd suggest (in a fine Silver Age tradition) leaving the exact location of the city undetermined.  I don't think Smallville was ever placed in Kansas, for sure, until the 1978 Richard Donner movie.  Who knows exactly where Metropolis and Gotham are.  But if you want a more exact place, I'm suggesting Springfield, Missouri.  It is centrally located.  It is in the Ozark mountains, which are pretty much big, rolling green hills that are covered with forests.  It's on Route 66, There's an Army base in the general area (Ft Leonard Wood).  The only thing you're really missing is a water feature.  I don't think it's too hard to play with geography and put a river and a big lake near there.

 

Instead of the high rises of Metropolis and Gotham, you'd have 4-6 story brick buildings lining main street.  Very much a "small town America" setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(the last pic is Joplin, Missouri, but it works)

 

In real life, in 1960, Springfield had about 95,000 people (source: Wikipedia).  You can make it bigger if you need.  You'll probably want a town that punches above its weight class for some reason.  In other words, lots of interesting people come through, exciting things happen, etc.  Why do super things happen in this particular sleepy little city?  You probably want a university to be nearby as well.  A museum, too.  Since it's a smaller city, that would let travelling exhibits come to town.  So the mummy of the Pharaoh can come through, wake up, rampage through town, be defeated, and then get sent back to New York or wherever.  You don't have to deal with there always being a museum full of artifacts nearby.  Since there's only one museum, it can have whatever you need at the moment -- dinosaur skeletons, mummies, priceless artwork, an experimental jet, etc.  Or it can justifiably be empty.  "Today we've got artwork from Mrs. Johnson's 4th grade class!"

[assault]

The other thing with Nevada is Gambling!!! (horror).

[assault]

I originally was considering using a Kansas/Missouri baseline, but was tempted by the New Mexico-type Atomic Monster setup.

 

I never really had an intention of specifying an exact location, but I've been too conservative in taking advantage of this. Basically, I'm going to use the Kansas/Missouri baseline except when I want the city (provisionally named Silver City) to be near analogues of Roswell, the White Sands Missile Range, Area 51 etc.

 

Oh, and OK, since Area 51 is in Nevada, I have to take back my earlier comments about Nevada not being a suitable location. But Gambling, Batman!

 

Just for fun, for the moment I am going to use the map from Outdoor Survival to represent the area around Silver City. This seems appropriate, given a lot of the game's success was due to it being suggested for use in conjunction with the earliest versions of D&D. I haven't got an exact location on the map yet though.

[massey]

There's a Silver Dollar City in Missouri, near Branson.  It's a frontier-style theme park.

 

Other than that, "Silver City" sounds like it might be in Colorado.  That could get you closer to some desert-y places.

[Nothere]

Ah sort of a beefed up area from the films Trantula and them. So are you talking actual maps or what sort of things to put in it?

[Lunatic Fringer]

Milwaukee is a good location for a silver age city.  Population between 500,000 and 750,000, lots of traditional industry, and of course, the setting for Happy Days!    But, San Francisco is also an excellent choice at around 750,000 at that time, and probably the best one for adventure opportunities.  And yeah, San Angelo is also an awesome setting for just about any superhero game, as is Freedom City.

 

LF

[assault]

Major businesses/employers: meatpacking and meat industries in general, transport, oil, silver mining (mainly defunct), uranium mining, support for agriculture, education, health, air force base.

 

Transport: rail hub, two (relatively) major highways, modest airport. Is a highway bypass period appropriate?

 

Other: college/university, museum/art gallery. Large for the size of the town. Assisted by oil money.

 

Nearby: national park, Indian reservation (very traditional, if not downright anachronistic), Dinosaur Valley (historic archeological site, still somewhat active), Civil War battlefield.

 

Note on the college/university: despite its relatively small size and obscurity, its staff includes some well-respected, if sometimes controversial, figures. In some cases it's an employer of last resort, hiring people rejected (blacklisted) by other establishments. In this context, it means it has a relatively high proportion of eccentric and downright mad scientists.

 

Since this is the Silver Age, with the related obliviousness to social issues, there is a "wrong side of the tracks" area that won't receive much attention in this context.

 

The general environment is very conservative, although there are a few Beatniks(!).

 

The main city is surrounded by smaller settlements that would be suburbs of a larger centre.

 

There's a large dam, ripe for blowing up. I'm not sure if there is a nuclear power plant. That sounds a bit too much.

 

The centre of the town is a grid pattern, breaking down as you go further out.

[assault]

Prison, mental hospital, naturally.

 

Police would have been somewhat geared up for car chases since the bank robbers in the 30s.

[assault]

Two newspapers, vaguely supporting Republicans and Democrats respectively. Both very conservative though.

 

Probably two radio stations, similarly biased. One is starting to play the Devil's Music late at night. (Late 50s)

 

TV? Dunno. Probably broadcast from elsewhere.

 

A movie theatre or two. And a drive-in, that, amongst other things, shows lots of teen oriented flicks, including cheapie monster movies.

 

The local Lovers' Lane and a popular burger joint are nearby.

[assault]

There's a river (anachronistic/tourist riverboats?), and some potentially tactically relevant creeks feeding into it.

 

Remnant Nazis/Bundists are attempting to stir up prejudice in the community, under the guise of patriotism. (Silver Age, remember. This would be the Klan in a more "realistic" setting.)

 

Basically, it's pretty much a Pulp era setting, with Space Age frills and B-movie cliches added. Inconvenient realities are carefully ignored or dealt with through metaphors. (See the previous paragraph for an example.)

 

The hero group is small, possibly informal, and could even have a rotating membership. Only one team exists. With appropriate movement powers, it could operate anywhere in the world, and beyond it, as required. But this place is home for at least some of it. (Other heroes could pass through, hence the rotating membership.)

 

In the early Bronze Age, it could be a stop on a road trip campaign instead.

 

I'm attracted to the idea of Silver Age heroes somehow running into pompous Iron Age types. A little difficult since this, so far, is a period piece. Time (or interdimensional) Travel is an option.

 

Power levels aren't necessarily low. Characters like Superboy, the Flash and the Hulk would be fine.

[assault]

Bumping for my own convenience.

 

I should be starting to edit my stuff from this thread, and some of the suggestions, into a more logical sequence. I should also be working on an initial sketch map.

 

Instead, I've started wondering exactly what would be the minimum amount of information required for a not-New York east coast (of the US) metropolis.

 

Being not-New York means it actually is New York except when differences are relevant.

 

The first key things it needs is a name and a rough map, to show spatial relationships between key points and regulate travel times and the faster moving combats.

 

And I'm also getting distracted by the urge to create some Australian supervillains.