svwerley Posted December 5, 2016 Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 I'm running a pbem for a friend, and I want to really drill into Millennium City. I have the source book and the map, but what I'm really wondering if anyone knows is this: How much does the map layout differ from Detroit? i'd really love to be able to lift street names and maybe some city details based off google earth to get some realistic street level details. Stuff that if the player got curious and decided to go looking they would find that, 'Holy Smokes, there is a hospital there' But I'm wondering if I'm better off using the RPG book map and embellishing and staying more vague, or if I should just use Google Earth? What would really be fun is if someone with skills made a Millennium City overlay that could be put on top of Detroit with all the Champions based POI. I think that might be a bit beyond my skillset though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted December 5, 2016 Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 A few points to consider: That supplement was published in 2003 (and written in 2002). No matter how close it may have been at the time, 13 years have passed and Detroit has surely changed in that time. Detroit was blown up in the CU--at least a good chunk of it. Millennium City is a re-built Detroit, so I don't know how faithful to the old layout Darren even intended it to be. You should be able to do a rough comparison just by using Google and looking at the MC map. Darren's still around, so he may see this and provide more definitive answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CptPatriot Posted December 5, 2016 Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 A few points to consider: That supplement was published in 2003 (and written in 2002). No matter how close it may have been at the time, 13 years have passed and Detroit has surely changed in that time. Detroit was blown up in the CU--at least a good chunk of it. Millennium City is a re-built Detroit, so I don't know how faithful to the old layout Darren even intended it to be. You should be able to do a rough comparison just by using Google and looking at the MC map. Darren's still around, so he may see this and provide more definitive answers. If you don't mind a little conjecture, I suspect that Westside would be intolerant of the sort of changes that Millennium City experienced because it is generally the poorer section of town and people would not be willing to be forced to move to allow those changes to happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svwerley Posted December 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 I did pull up Google Earth and check it against at least one major boulevard and they matched name and direction. I intend to do more comparisons, just to get a better handle on things. cptpatriot - I hear what you're saying, but also, it sounds like the city was nearly completely obliterated and huge numbers killed. I'm moving forward with the thought that there prorbably weren't enough survivors to negatively impact the rebuild, BUT that those who survived did their best to re-settle in familiar areas, causing most of the neighborhoods to be repopulated similarly to the way they were before the city was destroyed. I'm also making the assumptions that the pristine city of the future has now begun to fall on slightly harder times and that the super clean techno city has already begun to age, that standard city corruption has snuck in under the radar, and that some of the more ambitious technologies, like self-driving microchipped cars are no longer being supported. It doesn't do any good to have Millennium City be a perfect town. But I'm starting to make some progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted December 5, 2016 Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 as I understand it Detroit was renamed by the survivors of the attack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassandra Posted December 5, 2016 Report Share Posted December 5, 2016 I use real life Cities, but give them fictional landmarks for villains to attack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
segerge Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 The map in the 5ed supplement is close enough to Real Life that it should serve you just fine. IIRC, there are some minor differences with the expressway layout in the supplement's map -- which, given what Detroit suffered in-universe at the hands of Glacier, Grond, Mega-Terak, the meteorites that got by the spaceborne heroes, and the Zeta beam is understandable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 I use it as a guide for my own campaign cities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spence Posted December 7, 2016 Report Share Posted December 7, 2016 MC never clicked with me. I never could put my finger on it but something was always meh somehow. Now I use the layout of Hudson City all the time for pretty much every RPG I run that involves needing a US city. Clean and shining like Metropolis, dark and gritty like Gotham or anywhere in between. It's all in the narration and the city layout just feels "right". The other Champs city I like is Vibora Bay. Not as much as HC, but better than MC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoloOfEarth Posted December 8, 2016 Report Share Posted December 8, 2016 I ran a campaign set in Millennium City shortly after the MC book came out, though to be honest I didn't use the book's city map so much. Being that everybody in my gaming group lives within an hour's drive of Detroit, it was easier to use real-world locations that we all knew about, with high-tech upgrades to make it seem nice and shiny. That was before Google Maps' satellite view, which I now use to an almost excessive degree in my current campaign (set in Boston). Personally, especially for a PBEM game, I'd go the Google Maps or Google Earth route, with text to describe how things the PCs see differ from what Google shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phydaux Posted December 13, 2016 Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 I set my campaign in Boston because I live in the suburbs. And it's cool because there ISN'T any official source book, so things are the way I say they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted December 13, 2016 Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 I use Millenium City mostly as written, since I'm using the Champions Universe for my campaign. It helps to have all that reference material on places and NPCs in PDF form rather than coming up with it myself. The PCs don't often leave town either. My next campaign might be set in San Angelo though. I've always wanted to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted December 13, 2016 Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 Not at all. I use real world settings with minor changes. I've used Salem Oregon, Seattle Washington, New York City, and Chicago in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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