Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

[Alverant]

I've been tossing around the idea of running a DC campaign in my gaming group. A few months ago I posted a campaign history for group review. I don't think it went over well. After the Civil War the rules for how the federal government was run and presidential elections were rewritten. The end result was a smaller federal government that did less but what they did do they did well. Also with a less powerful federal government, there wasn't as much patriotism or national identity. (Historically a strong central government did more to unify a nation than a weak one.) People's loyalty was focused locally. For example when Katrina hit New Orleans people in Maine or Oregon were as apathetic about that as US citizens in the real world are as apathetic about flooding in say Sri Lanka. (Sorry folks, no offense intended but the last time serious flooding hit a distant nation the only people in my neighborhood who seemed to care apart from myself were the missionary family across the street. They were more ... giddy than concerned IMHO.)

 

So anyway it seemed most of my group liked the idea of a smaller federal government even though it meant things like no national fingerprint registry or FBI or DNA labs or sex offender database or those other expensive law enforcement tools used in the here and now. My goal wasn't to push politics but I was hoping to go for the idea that "there's such a thing as overdoing it".

 

Now I want to rewrite the campaign background so it's more appealing to the players. I still want the campaign to be focused around fighting corruption and fighting for justice as unofficial law enforcement. The problem is, how did the campaign decay so much in the first place? How did things get so bad that vigilantes are being commissioned by federal agents to clean things up?

 

The campaign rules are for 200 pt normal characters. Any special abilities must be plausible to reproduce in the real world. There's a place for drama but don't go overboard. Also the PCs may kill obvious criminals like drug dealers but they'd better be dang sure that if they kill the "respectable businessman" they give the press enough evidence so everyone knows he's an evil criminal who deserved what he got. Doubly so for dirty cops.

 

So for people who made their own campaign world, how did you make it dark? How much history did you have (if any)? My personal preference is to have a grasp of the big picture and know why and how things got bad instead of just accepting that they are bad. I figure the first step in solving the problem is to figure out the cause.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

Do you really need to make something up?

 

Buy newspapers from a few major cities for a few weeks. New York, Detroit, Miami, LA, etc. Clip out crime and corruption stories, make a scrapbook.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

What time frame do you want this in?

 

Sounds like you are going for a dystopia.

 

Perhaps the government is too swamped by rampant crime that it literally is struggling to keep up- so vigilantes are much more acceptable (albeit unofficially) than in today's society.

[Maelstrom]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

I went with a combination of uber-PC-ness and fiscal crisis -- especially in the Bay Area, where no one seemed to want the police around anyway. When the official LE realized that the only way not to be sued is to not try to stop crime, and local pols decided to award each other big contracts instead of paying for basic services, the whole thing went to hell.

[Alverant]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

To answer some of the questions:

I'd like to make my own world because while I want the campaign to be realistic, I'd like to include some mysteries, conspiracies, etc that don't exist (or are seriously toned down) in the real world. The Illuminati for example. I don't want to cross the line of having magic and superpowers but I would like to approach it.

 

I'm not aiming for dystopia. I want things to be Bad not Bad Beyond Redemption. The PCs will be part of the last best effort to prevent the collapse.

 

The time period will be the present or near future (10 years) depending on the final decisions on the nature of the campaign. So CRT TVs will no longer be used, cash has all but been replaced by some form of electronic currency, GPS and cell phones are common place. I want to have a realistic expectations of the future if the campaign takes place there. No cybernetics, flying cars, etc.

[Korvar]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

I think you don't necessarily need to "explain" why your game is set in a slightly "amped-up" version of our world.

[mikesama]

Re: Campaign History, how did yours become dark?

 

Honestly when doing a semi-realistic DC game all you really need to do is tweak someplace thats already bad for whatever reason. If you want the police to let them get away with some vigilante justice make sure that the (effective) police force is swamped. Meaning the number of cops that aren't apathetic and/or paid off don't have the manpower or are legally hogtied from doing their job. That second one would be an interesting motivator as the good police that are left start digging through the records and background of some murder victims and find that, lo and behold this person is actually a criminal (more like they can prove it).