City of Shadows

[Taika]

After a good sized slump and bit of burn out, I'm looking to get the ball rolling on this again. Unless I can find staff, it'll be slated to open as m/m+/vampire. I have code in for werewolf and mage, with the intention of adding changeling as the code comes to completion.

Things needed to finish this thing off:

• Grid descs
• Minor codey stuff (mini maps, tweaks, some data entry for +equip and bloodlines/lodges, etc) I'd love to add a Supernatural type of currency to buy favors and boons with. It will need a fancy name.
• Wiki work. The wiki is up (cityofshadowsmux.com), and there's templates and prettiness, but I am not a wiki person. I'm more liable to fuck it up than make it work if I touch it.
• Theme work. Some theme stuff, little bit of world building.

Overall, I'd say she's probably about 70% done, since most of the workload is in the code, and that's more or less done, barring a few tweaks to customize the game and getting all the equipment updated to current books.

The game is set in Chicago.

[Pandora]

@Taika WoD so I wouldn't touch it with someone else's finger, but kudos for setting it in Chicago instead of some backwater New England village, so when there are inevitably 4334645 strip clubs, biker bars, and B&Bs, it at least makes sense.

[Arkandel]

This post is deleted!

[Bad at Lurking]

@Pandora said in City of Shadows:

@Taika WoD so I wouldn't touch it with someone else's finger, but kudos for setting it in Chicago instead of some backwater New England village, so when there are inevitably 4334645 strip clubs, biker bars, and B&Bs, it at least makes sense.

Hey! We don't have that many strip clubs. Mostly because cellulite is a lifestyle here.

[Deleted]

If the game is set in Chicago, will you be requiring all law enforcement characters to take racism-based flaws?

Trolling aside, Chicago is a cool setting.

[Waller]

@Admiral said in City of Shadows:

If the game is set in Chicago, will you be requiring all law enforcement characters to take racism-based flaws?

Trolling aside, Chicago is a cool setting.

Isn't that law enforcement in most US cities, to be honest?

Then again, most players make white characters, so...

[hedgehog]

@Bad-at-Lurking said in City of Shadows:

Hey! We don't have that many strip clubs. Mostly because cellulite is a lifestyle here.

Maybe not within city limits, perhaps. But, really, why bother with mere voyeurism when you have Galleria Domain 2 and Kinky Kollege? Or the basement at Jackhammer, whose clientele seem to think it's still 1980 whilst the ownership tries to drag them kicking and screaming into inclusivity?

[Bad at Lurking]

@hedgehog said in City of Shadows:

I am far too virginal and pure to have ever heard of these dens of sleaze and depravity.

[DarkDeleria]

As a resident of a suburb near Chicago, I'm pretty excited to see [finally] a Midwest-based WoD game. Question: will you be using the WoD: Chicago book for any source material/metaplots? How big do you envision the grid to be? Example: keeping the majority of the game within one or two neighbohood (Old Town, Bucktown, Calumet Heights, Bronzeville...) or each couple of grid spaces represents one of the neighborhoods (and have a larger grid representing more of the city)?

[DarkDeleria]

....scratch everything I just asked about the cities. If I had explored the Wiki more, I would've answered my own questions. #readingisfundamental.

[hedgehog]

@DarkDeleria

I always thought a clever device for a Chicago based game would be to just have the grid be a truncated version of the Red Line's route. I mean, we really don't need Edison Park or Bucktown or Pilsen, right?

[Alzie]

Unrelated to the game, I really like the wiki design.

[Sanguine]

I'm grammar and spellchecking the wiki between work and school right now. So, if anyone finds anything that needs addressed, please let me know. I'm not that great at wiki and learning in order to add new stuff and make it look somewhat decent, so any tips there would also be appreciated. Thanks, guys! (Disclaimer: I am not staff and in no way speak for them.)

ETA: I did not do the original wiki design, but I agree that it's great!

[Taika]

Lots of chicago people here! I've never been.

What are some 'must have' locations?

The grid is set up like nesting dolls:

9 districts
-+ neighborhoods within district
--+ place where the buildings will live.

I still want to play with multiple praxes, and the underground is going to be fun to play with. That pesky fire and everything being built on top of it?

[Bad at Lurking]

Chicago is probably the most neighborhood focused big city I've lived in. I mean, you have your South Side, your West side, Your North Side, and Northwest side, but people are more likely to talk about living in Rogers Park, or Back of the Yards or Lakeview (or Wrigleyville, depending on how old you are). And those neighborhood identities are hugely important in terms of rent prices and such. The cachet of living in Lincoln Park, for example, comes with an insane price tag.

As for 'must see' places, I'm up north, so I tend to think of Chinatown, the Loop, Wrigley Field (most extraordinary, especially the rooftop seats) and the Field Museum (and the other attractions in that area).

I don't think I can overstate how important the L is to the character of the city and the distribution of population/tourism. The various lines each have their own character and sights and tend to run from super sketchy to delightful. And that doesn't even include the rich people's version, which is the Metra, serving the suburbs, which is a far more Eurorail experience than American mass transit.

[DarkDeleria]

@Bad-at-Lurking said in City of Shadows:

And that doesn't even include the rich people's version, which is the Metra, serving the suburbs, which is a far more Eurorail experience than American mass transit.

I agree that it's the mass transportation for the suburban family/individual, but I wouldn't say that the Meta the "rich people's version" of the "L."

@Taika: "Must Have..." boy - that's a hard one to answer. I feel like you can't go wrong if you stick with neighborhoods along the Red Line. I would recommend trying to keep it equitable in terms of neighborhoods/districts (ie. an equal number of Northside and Southside locations). I think I'm just so stoked to see a Chicago-based game getting done that I don't know how much can be done versus wants.

I did want to ask when you're looking at in time. Is this taking place in the present day? A few years back? I ask because much of the landscape changed in some areas. Example: The South Loop went through a sudden boom in residential developments/rebuilding/gentrification around the same time The University Center of Chicago (a high-end residential hall for college students of DePaul, Columbia College, Roosevelt, Robert Morris) was built back in 2004 [*based on my own observations when I worked at The University Center between 2004-2006]. Much of the neighborhood/area looks vastly different than it did in say, late 90s/early 2000s.

[Taika]

http://cityofshadowsmux.com/index.php/Map:City_Grid

That has the 9 big districts and the smaller districts within them, using a map I found. Not shooting for crazy super accurate, just hoping for /close enough/ in terms of what's available to be believable for a mu*. Does that help some with what's already @dug? Even the red links are dug, just not desc'd.

[Thenomain]

@Taika said in City of Shadows:

with the intention of adding changeling as the code comes to completion

I'm wrestling with how to represent Touchstones at the moment, though I think this version of Changeling strikes at the heart of the game more than even CtL. With Clarity at the heart of everything a Changeling does, the risk of loss and madness is even more real.

Like Mage and Mysteries, though, I feel that players and staff need to be on the ball with regards to being honest. If they are, the payoff will probably be awesome.

[Taika]

Would they work with their own sheet section in a simple list like merits, or are they more complicated than that? SO is reading the book and hogging it, so I can't go and look.

[Bad at Lurking]

@DarkDeleria said in City of Shadows:

I agree that it's the mass transportation for the suburban family/individual, but I wouldn't say that the Meta the "rich people's version" of the "L."

Extra wide padded seats, actual conductors and security features, 'quiet cars', double decker train cars with beautiful views from the top deck, alcohol and food is permitted, even encouraged. Hell, they lost their 'bar cars' less than a decade ago.

Trust me, ain't nobody pouring margaritas on the Blue Line.