Scenarios For Power Outage?

[Brick]

Campaign City is suddenly in the dark. For whatever reasons, there is a city-wide blackout. My question is: How would you handle this scenario? Where could a hero be needed besides fighting looters and freeing citizens out of stuck elevators? When would the lootings start? How would this affect the underground network and other traffic systems? What other factors should be considered? I am asking because I have never been the victim of a blackout, and I want to be "realistic" (as far as one can be in a superhero setting, of course). Thanks in advance.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

HMM it would depend on your city does it have a high crime rate also on the time of year mid winter in a city like new york would be dire but the height of summer may well lead to impromptu street parties with everyone escaping the stifling lack of air con. looting would start after a few hours with many alarm systems off and the police tied up with traffic control you can expect opportunistic looting if things last for more than a few hours you can expect things to get worse. as fro the whys of the black out electrical villain overloading the grid that works best in summer when everyone's got there air con on) or a targeted series of explosions designed to distract the cities law enforcement community/superheros from a major robbery ( think die hard).

and alien space ship powering up or even sunspots could all shut down power.

[Flames]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

Go and read the reports coming out of NYC back when that massive blackout hit back in the summer of 2003... it was crazy!

 

CNN's Coverage, including people trapped on an ascending roller coaster!

 

A bunch of photos with descriptions, starting in the daytime and then going into night... eerie!

[David Johnston]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

Of course in reality there has to be a lot of tension built up before a blackout will trigger rioting. If people aren't angry and on edge, they don't turn to violence easily. Ideally for maximum chaos you want to have your blackout during a heatwave, there should have been at least one racially charged incident of violence that recieved publicity in the recent past and the economy should be a bit rocky. The power failure should also start after sunset on a night with little moonlight. If you don't have at least some of these kind of preconditions, blackouts tend to become rather convivial events with minimal violence. Compare the relatively pleasant experiences of the recent Eastern blackout of a few years back and the 1965 blackout in New York immortalised in "Where Were You When The Lights Went Out", with the nightmarish 1977 blackout in New York which occured during a heatwave, after the storeowners had gone home and while the city was in a terrible financial crisis. So if you want to do a blackout with full on riots, you need a city that's ready to blow in the first place.

 

As for the rest, power failures knock out traffic lights. People are supposed to treat every light controlled intersection as a four way stop sign, but in heavily urbanised areas, traffic will slow to a crawl as traffic snarls spring up everywhere. You can beat a car home just by walking, and that's part of the problem as hundreds of thousands of people do just that. Hospitals have their own emergency generators and so do radio stations so that people can get information through battery powered radios, but their airconditioning goes off. The phones will keep working unless something else brings down the lines. One of the most theoretically dangerous problems in a blackout is what happens when the airport's power is knocked out just as several planes are arriving. While the control tower has emergency generators so they can use radio to warn off planes and divert them to unaffected airports, the landing lights and the radar will probably be knocked out. This has never actually been known to happen. The timing is pretty unlikely. Apart from that, there's an increased risk of house and apartment fires caused by people using candles for lighting. People in a subway will be trapped but in no real danger although it's likely that someone somewhere will get in touch with their inner claustrophobe.

[Doc Tough]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

Doc sez...

 

Campaign City is suddenly in the dark. For whatever reasons' date=' there is a city-wide blackout.[/quote']

 

A good selection for adventures where supervillians do not have to be the opposition. More natural disasters can be an excellent break. Blackouts are good because they are serious without there being the need to cause massive and widespread damage and death.

 

My question is: How would you handle this scenario?

 

Be sure at the beginning of the adventure whether or not it is important for the players to determine the cause of the blackout. If they are conditioned to always look for a villain behind the event they may becaome distracted to dealing with the effects of the disaster and helping out heroically.

 

Where could a hero be needed besides fighting looters and freeing citizens out of stuck elevators?

 

There are a vast number of problems that occur when a city is left without power. Cities are particularily stricken by outages sicce they absolutely depend on power to do 99% of daily routines. No lights, no computers, no ATMs, no alarms, no subways, no gas pumps, no freezers, maybe no ovens.stoves, no microwave ovens, restricted food processing etc. Some things might work if the have back-up generators like in hospitals, police stations, prisons, and others but maybe some businesses don't have generators of their own or they failed to work.

 

And no cell phone coverage.

 

When would the lootings start?

 

Depends on the area, but often you'll find this sort of trouble starting as soon as criminal types find unprotected stores and know that the police are elsewhere. The stereotype is for poorer areas to suffer looting first and then it moves out into "better off" areas.

 

How would this affect the underground network and other traffic systems?

 

If they have no back-up power the trains will stop and commuters will have to walk to daylight and may have encounters in the tunels along the way. Other problems would mean no street lights, no stop lights or other traffic control devices. Look for pplenty of auto accidents, traffic jams, fights among drivers, etc.

 

What other factors should be considered?

 

Riots, food shortages, limited hospital availablility, mass confusion in the public as they try to guess at what is going on, limited media contact, limited fresh water, stressed out police and emergency workers, gang activity, panic in the population, etc.

 

But you'll also find acts of great heroism by normal people and police and other emergency workers. You might want to highlight instances of the good in people in crisises.

 

I am asking because I have never been the victim of a blackout, and I want to be "realistic" (as far as one can be in a superhero setting, of course).

 

I was at work when the great North America Blackout struck in August of 2003. Fortuantely it started during daylight hours. I had to evacuate the building and hang around the building until the full extent of the crisis was known. When we did decide to close, it was dark and getting home was a fun 15 mile drive. I got to spend a few nights with my family living in "primative" conditions...no TV...children unhappy.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Hope this helps...

 

Doc Tough

[Flames]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

What if, unbeknownst to the citizens at large, there's an energy field that runs off of the powergrid that's been keeping an extraterrestrial entity imprisoned in the city somewhere?

 

The power goes out, and the backup systems fail, and the entity is free... free to thrash about and add to the chaos!

 

Okay, that's kind of lifted from Ghostbusters, but it could still work.

[Brick]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

Wow, what a feedback. Now, to be more precise - let the blackout happen in Millenium City. In my opinion, this would hit the City Of The Future even harder than other areas because it is so much more dependent on technology and thus on electricity. Any comments?

 

I found an excellent adventure idea which deals with a blackout:

 

http://www.rpgarchive.com/index.php?page=adv1&advid=179

 

Sounds to me like a good starting adventure to unite the heroes as a team.

To get a feel for their characters, the first problems for the players to solve are the blackout-related incidents.

Then, while the Champions, the MC8 and other heroes are distracted, the PCs are the only ones to stop the Ultimates. They arrive more or less at the same time and, ideally, defeat the villains together.

[Boulder]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

What you forgot to mention is the "why" , if there is a total loss of power, than threre is a major reason.

 

Alien envasion, a Master Villian sucking up all the energy for his evil plan? The high Tech absolutely safe atomic plant is going critical for unknown reasons. If I was a hero and it happened I wouldn't waste time on looters and people stuck in traffic but find out why it is happening and fix it!

[ghost-angel]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

You can look at the major US power outage from a couple years ago for a massive widespread outage example.

 

Places that have backup generators:

DoD Complexes (contractors, et cetera...)

Telephonce Main Frames (and larger Central Offices) - this prevents the communications lines from going down completely since if the Frame and C/O have power so do the phones; phone lines carry their own power.

Hospitals

Radio Stations

Larger police dispatch buildings, many smaller ones

Power Stations

Hotels

TV Stations

and miscelaneous small businesses and homes (people who feel they need a backup generator, like my grandfather).

 

Then there's types of backup generators:

Natural Gas - these remain on as long as the gas lines are open.

Diesel - from 1hour tiny generators to massive 24hr generators.

(I'm not including the myriad of personal generators that use hand crank and kerosene amongst other things)

 

some give back into the grid, depending on what caused the outage it might quicken restored power.

 

Just some thoughts to keep in mind as people may go to "safe" places where there is some power left.

 

Most of those have UPS Switches that turn the generator on automatically when the city grid power fails. The UPS are designed to last long enough for the generator to turn on. From my experience where I work I know for a fact that only way I know the building lost power is the non-essnetial areas go dark.

 

Just some more information on what else is going no while the majority of the city is in failure.

 

I wouldn't suspect people would start to riot for a prolonged period of time if the outage weren't predeceded by something catastrophic. If it just went dark most people would just go home and wait it out with family.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

The high Tech absolutely safe atomic plant is going critical for unknown reasons.

 

Maybe they're using it to make electricity?

 

Okay, one of my little pet peeves as a nuke: the word "critical" when refering to a nuclear reactor, describes a state in which for every generation of neutrons, exactly as many are produced as were produced in the previous generation.

 

In other words, the plant is running steadily, its power output neither rising nor falling.

 

"Supercritical" describes any state in which a generation of neutrons has more than the previous generation; i.e. power is rising.

 

"Subcritical", as you've no doubt guessed, is the opposite.

 

Zeropoint

[ghost-angel]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

ddnt know that - cool info. I'd rep you but it seems I can't right now...

[David Johnston]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

Wow, what a feedback. Now, to be more precise - let the blackout happen in Millenium City. In my opinion, this would hit the City Of The Future even harder than other areas because it is so much more dependent on technology and thus on electricity. Any comments?

 

 

Not really. The inhabitants of the city proper are extremely unlikely to run wild even with city surveillance knocked out and the disgruntled run down surburban areas don't have the kind of population density that breeds rioting. While there's a lot of high tech stuff, anything that would obviously directly endanger someone's life if it had a power interruption is going to have a backup. You'll have people trapped on the elevated train and that sort of thing, but not a massive crisis. You might be better off going with something like a computer virus causing widespread and erratic failures that have to be dealt with.

[MPT]

Re: Scenarios For Power Outage?

 

I once ran a scenario using the Golden Heroes rules using the blackout idea. What I had was a group of villains get together to form the "Knights Of Darkness". Their plan was that by ...

 

a) Causing the local power generation facilities to fail

 

and

 

Performing crimes simultaneously

 

... that the local police and superheroes would be unable to cope with the chaos and most of them would get away.

 

Some of the villains in the group were specifically hired for the attack on the power station (in my case I used the Marvel character Juggernaut) and some to cause general chaos.

 

My idea was that the PCs would have to split up to cover everthing that was happening providing a natural situation for lots of 1 on 1 combats to occur simultaneously.

 

Unfortunately (from a GM point of view) the hints that I gave that this was going to happen were picked up by the players and they were able to get together a large group of heroes to attack the villains when they were all together planning the night. Mass battle ensued.