Location, Location, Location: Where Do You Want to See Games?

[ThatGuyThere]

Yeah Brooklyn as a room would be a bit too big, after all before it was fully incorporated into NYC it was it's own city and at the time the 4th largest by population in the US
So I second the neighborhoods, idea, after all there is a big difference between fancy parts of Brooklyn and Red Hook.
Honestly NYC might be a little big any one of the Boroughs would likely be plenty big enough to be a game city, after all most games I have seen call themselves NYC were just Manhattan Island for the most part anyway.

[Coin]

@DnvnQuinn said:

@Bobotron said:

@DnvnQuinn
New York, but don't get into street-level minutiae. Build the boroughs and neighborhoods and set them up in areas; don't do 'A and 1st,' do 'Alphabet City' and such. It makes doing things on grid, and mapping as a staffer, so much easier.

So what your saying is do like, Brooklyn then have folks have their havens and businesses off that but don't to individual streets?

I think this makes absolute sense.

@Bobotron said:

@DnvnQuinn
New York, but don't get into street-level minutiae. Build the boroughs and neighborhoods and set them up in areas; don't do 'A and 1st,' do 'Alphabet City' and such. It makes doing things on grid, and mapping as a staffer, so much easier.

This is what we did for Eldritch.

[Bobotron]

@ThatGuyThere
You could also feasibly do what VtM: Bloodlines did. Have a section represent an area, but only have the 'main thoroughfare' playable, in order to have things be iconic, and allow temprooms or something to represent things that are in that area, but aren't permanently built.

[Thenomain]

I still like what Haunted Memories did with Vienna: Grid spaces that are large enough to make grid-crossing possible, but not so small that they were based on streets. Along with the Wiki, you could have themes for the areas that organically transitioned. It was not "one neighborhood = one grid square", which is tricky to do.

Dark Metal did this too, though I don't think we did this on purpose. The whole purpose of a multi-city transit system ("The T.U.B.E" yes really) was to help transportation without giving up a more realistic and organic feel. You know, like other big-city mass-transit systems.

That said, I don't think I've ever seen a hierarchal grid setup that I liked. Cities are not set up as a top-down network, and you don't walk into "vaguely The Bronx" before choosing which block you want to end up in.

[Arkandel]

My play style - it could be others' too - simply accepts the grid as a collection of pre-made, pre-described temp rooms. They are divided into two categories; regular public hangouts ("the Elysium at Jim's Bar") and locations catering to something specific ("a library") for certain kinds of scenes. Either way they're simply places be +summoned at. If none of these fits my purposes then spoofing or creating a temp room if the code allows it will do just fine.

I don't see that paradigm changing unless having neighborhoods and territories actually matters yet in my experience, and again YMMV, it's exceedingly rare that it does. Unless one's turf is a resource source and that implies a finite, depletable resource pool set up in the first place, that isn't likely to change.

[ThatGuyThere]

I disagree somewhat. to me the grid can inspire rp. If walking the grid, which i do if I get bored because anything beats sitting in the OOC room, I have gotten inspired for scenes by the places or descs I have seen on grids. Now I definitely agree there should be temp room available or makeable for things that are not on grid or when you don't want to spend the time looking for the right place on grid.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@ThatGuyThere said:

I disagree somewhat. to me the grid can inspire rp.

It does for me. More than I logically think it should, but it does give the game a tangible sense of place. I've play on a couple games - and a lot of on-and-off campaigns - that were just all temprooms, and I did feel like something was missing. Which is totally irrational, but so it goes.

[Derp]

To me, I don't think that a well-defined grid is absolutely necessary. What -is- necessary is the history of a place. You can have a grid that is an absolute wonder to behold, but without a good history to back it up, it's empty. Hollow. And if you have a really good history/backstory for a city, you don't really need to have a grid to find yourself immersed in it.

Having a grid just makes it easier to have landmarks common to all, and to create a mutual back story behind things so that everyone is on the same page. The 'where' is only important insofar as supporting a diverse range of play styles and locations people want to go, which can be equally effective if there are a few places with interlinking stories.

[ThatGuyThere]

I think the main benefit of a grid is having places that will make events matter. For example lets there the is an event at a grided Hangout and it gets the customary media post. I read that and can then use that information as something my character would talk about, hey something happened at the bar we go to in convos even if he was not there.Also if there is followup stuff my character would likely look into it at least after all it is his regular bar.
Now lets that that happens in an anywhere room,same post goes up but name of the Bar is some place I have never heard of, not likely to mention it or even remember reading it more the five minutes later, definitely not going to look into the matter.
To me the grid is one of the big things that keeps games connected instead of being many little sandboxes.

[Deleted]

I like MOO grids. I don't like sandboxy +temproom grids.

[OrcRiot]

Vampire and werewolf game set ON the moon! In a colony!

Mages not allowed.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere said:

I disagree somewhat. to me the grid can inspire rp.

There's nothing to disagree with, it's just my preference. I wasn't arguing it was the best or only way, just how it looks to me - and possibly why.

I guess I also asserted there may be others who see it the same way I do, but it's probably a safe bet, just like there are people who prefer to learn and navigate grids.

[Cirno]

Africa.

EDIT:

Or, really, anywhere that has a large population of black people, for a change. I'm sure we can all name scores of games set in a majority-white population, or, in some cases, a majority-Asian population, but I daresay you'd be hard-pressed to name me a game set in a world, locale, or nation where there are more black people than anything else.

The Caribbean would be nice.

EDIT2:

It occurred to me that a game set in the Middle East would be fun, as well. I've got a brilliant idea, actually!

Hellsing had Vampire Nazis; I propose a Middle Eastern-setting game, wherein Vampire and Werewolf Terrorists - a sort of supernatural ISIS, if you will - are cutting a bloody swath across Zanzibar Land, a fictional state bordering Syria and Iraq.

[Coin]

I once ran an oWoD game set in Istanbul.

[Ganymede]

@Coin said:

I once ran an oWoD game set in Istanbul.

It's Constantinople.

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

I once ran an oWoD game set in Istanbul.

It's Constantinople.

You tell'em.

[TNP]

@Ganymede said:

@Coin said:

I once ran an oWoD game set in Istanbul.

It's Constantinople.

I've known that song since I first hear a recording of the Four Lads sing it. But it wasn't till I regularly handled coins minted in Constantinople that I really wondered why did Constantinople get the works? it has so much history and flavor, why change it?

I'm not satisfied by the answer of it's nobodies business but the Turk or that they liked it better that way..

Edited to add: Googling reveals it's a rather complex story and rather interesting.

[Ganymede]

@TNP

I really don't know, but Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire for a long time before it became Byzantium, and the seat of the Eastern Church. It's entirely possible that the Turks renamed it so as to severe its ties to Christianity.

[ThatGuyThere]

Lets not forget the origin of the name Constantinople. The city of Constantine, they had just spent generations fighting the Eastern Roman Empire and I can definitely see the name change after the final defeat of them. After all the Russian communists renamed St. Petersburg after the Revolution. It is fairly common practice to change names of cities after replacing governments.

[TNP]

It's a lot more complicated than that and worth a read. The city had multiple names for centuries (if not millennia) it seems.