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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Cripple X on April 25, 2010, 05:50:02 PM
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Hey folks,
My group's play-by-post game is kicking off and we decided to use Boston as our city. I've never been to Boston, but I've been doing a good deal of research on the internet and I've come up with some interesting stuff here and there I think. Is anybody else using Boston who'd be interested in any of the stuff? It's by no means finished, and its a work in progress but we could swap ideas to really flesh out the town.
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Not planning on using Boston but I think everyone would be interested in what you've put together (even if it's just to see some examples of what's possible).
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Hey folks,
My group's play-by-post game is kicking off and we decided to use Boston as our city. I've never been to Boston, but I've been doing a good deal of research on the internet and I've come up with some interesting stuff here and there I think. Is anybody else using Boston who'd be interested in any of the stuff? It's by no means finished, and its a work in progress but we could swap ideas to really flesh out the town.
You may be able to get some ideas and comments from folk who have been in and around boston too...
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A lot of what I've got going so far is relevant to the group's first adventure, but I'll be sure to post it once it's no longer a surprise to them.
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My game's going to be set in Boston. I'd love to see anything you've got.
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I'm from the near Boston. I can give a couple quick things to make your game seem more local.
Some geography. The coastal area North of Boston is called the North Shore. The area South of Boston before you hit Cape Cod is the South Shore. You call Cape Cod, "The Cape."
There are a bunch of towns that get clumped in with Boston. You can call the collective Boston, or the downtown area Boston, but when being specific, you can name the particular towns. ("Yeah, I live in Boston." "Which part?" "Somerville.")
A lot of the buildings are old. Most of the roads are as old or older. The result is that a lot of neighborhoods are really crowded.
Speaking of roads... it's kind of Hell to drive in Boston. Most of the roads are one way. The majority of them are far too narrow. Oh, and construction projects constantly spring up without warning and reroute the traffic in whole areas. You'd be better off parking and either walking or taking the T (what we call the transit system), but good luck finding parking, especially if you're near Fenway and it's a game night.
Speaking of the T, Boston has a public transit system. There are only four subway lines, but those will get you within a couple of blocks of most places downtown and many central places in the surrounding areas. A fairly extensive system of buses fills in much of the rest. Rail and bus lines leave North and South Stations, connecting with other cities in and out of state.
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I'd love to see what you have done for Boston as well, as I'm about 40 miles east of there, as the Raven flies. I'm working off and on with central Massachusetts (focusing on Worcester -- Woostah). Not as easy as I had thought originally, as some of the aspects may throw me for a loop. Since we have historical buildings and such, as well as a fantastic tech culture here, I was thinking One Foot in the Past, One in the Future...
But I digress...
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I'd love to see what you have done for Boston as well, as I'm about 40 miles east of there
I think you mean West, mate. (;
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I think you mean West, mate. (;
He could be on Cape Cod.
or living on a boat.
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I think you mean West, mate. (;
Quite right... brain's fuddled this morning. Not enough sleep and Dunkin's got my coffee wrong. Oh well, at least it was free.
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Quite right... brain's fuddled this morning. Not enough sleep and Dunkin's got my coffee wrong. Oh well, at least it was free.
Speaking of which, the apocryphal story among my friends is that it is impossible to pass through boston without passing a Dunkin Donuts.
Speaking of roads, the more important a road is, the less likely it is to have a road sign. After all, if you are on a major road, you should know where you are, right?
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You have that correct. In fact, any major city or town in Massachusetts (and perhaps most of New England) is likely to have at least a handful of Dunkin Donuts within easy reach. Sometimes they're even across the street from each other!
(Corollary: Manassas VA is a hatching ground for 7-11 franchises... along the 234 Business road, there's gotta be about a dozen or so, including two next door to each other! So they stock up on 7-11, we stock up on DD.)
The roads are the same in Worcester as well. Oh, and let us not forget the dreaded rotaries (or roundabouts for our friends over the Pond)... where people firmly think it's every man for himself.
And the two driving seasons were already mentioned -- winter and construction.
Shall we compile a list of local slang for our readers as well? Gotta get the atmosphere right...
Oh, and I think Fenway has to be a Place of Power... after all, a Curse was laid upon it... until 2004...
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You're talking about Worcester and you're complaining about rotaries? Dude: Kelly Square. It's seven roads coming together in one intersection. I need a drink whenever I drive through there.
Speaking of Fenway, it's got to be a hunting ground for something. Tons of people go through the area whenever there's a game. The Kenmore Square side has a bunch of clubs and restaurants. The other side is the Fens, which always make me feel like something's about to pop up from the reeds and eat me.
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Oh yes... Killer/Chaos Square... one of the possible places of power I was thinking of... or at least a place to put a neutral meeting place.
I've had many ideas on Worcester already... where points and lines of power would be, where some of the spooky stuff would be... Been working on that for years. Now I'll have a chance to work with it.
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Oh yes... Killer/Chaos Square... one of the possible places of power I was thinking of... or at least a place to put a neutral meeting place.
I can see it as a spot that seriously dampens magical power. Perhaps all those roads meeting at such weird angles serves to siphon off supernatural mojo.
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Ooooo, outstanding! Now that's what I call thinking!
Too bad they limit us to three themes/threats... Worcester could do with more... Maybe I will bend some rules here...
Sorry, this is a Boston thread, but I'm sure they can intertwine somehow.
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If you're having trouble limiting yourself to three, why not try working backwards? That is, instead of starting with themes and threats and coming up with instances to which they apply, why not collect lists of things you think are cool and then try to link them?
After all, some people work better from micro to macro. Look at your list of cool things. See if any obvious groups jump out at you. See if you can name those groups. If you end up with two or three, those are your themes and threats (although you might need to work them a bit in order to get discreetly named themes and threats).
They Kelly Square thing looks like part of a theme to me; it's something literally built into the city some time ago, so it's obviously not a totally new thing. Something to break down supernatural mojo might imply a crisis averted or a standing conflict in which the participants are searching for a peaceful solution. Look for other ways to vent frustration or conflict, such as the metal scene I keep hearing about.
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No idea on the metal scene, as I'm not one to really go out unless there's a band I want to hear (few and far between these days), though we do have lots of clubs and venues... made me think of bards and sonomancers.
Seriously, I have a list of various topics within Worcester to make it interesting, but to sort it out into themes and threats... overall, that's the tough bit. Individual themes and threats, yes, but nothing as an umbrella.
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Oh, and I think Fenway has to be a Place of Power... after all, a Curse was laid upon it... until 2004...
Its not a curse, its a WCV plot. You know how tasty that much dashed hope each year is?
Someone or someones may still be recovering from getting burned in 04...
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As a person who has lived near and traveled around boston most of my 24 years of life, I can try to add some "areas of interest" for you. We do indeed have a subway system going through most of boston and also reaching a fair distance outside as well (though, by the time you reach the end of some lines, they are no longer subways). The main line people use can be argued. I myself believe the green line is the main line. It has the most stops and can usually get you near where you want to go without changing lines. It not only brings you to some of the more important areas in town, it also goes far out of boston to the more suburban areas. The next would be the red and orange lines. The red line is preferable for both the newer, cleaner cars but because you are less likely to get mugged. The orange line has a bad reputation and well earned. Lastly is the blue line. Not nearly as used as the others, you can usually get to where you want to go without it.
Finally, there is the Commuter Rail and Acela. The Commuter Rail is the transit system used for long range commuters from the far corners of Massachusetts and into the borders of neighboring states. Its the main mode of transportation into boston for those who work there. Far cheaper than gas and parking (though many still grumble about the prices, myself included. It costs me $210 for a monthly pass because of how far out I travel from). The Acela is the train that you use for interstate travel across the country without flying. (Not suggested for wizard's as the Acela trains are sophisticated and VERY fast).
The main locations in Boston include areas such as Fenway Park, the aquarium, and the Museum of Science. Fenway is the home of the Boston Red Sox and some of the most die hard fans. New York fans live in Boston at their own peril (unfortunately this isn't always a joke). Also, it is home of a "broken curse", something that could be used for plot. The curse of the bambino (Babe Ruth) was believed to stop the Red Sox from winning a world series for a long, LONG, time until recently. It could be a wizard or even someone who sold their life to a Fae broke the curse. It could also be something more morbid hidden below the surface that only the supernaturals know about.
There are plenty of hauntings to find. Simply look them up on google or the like. A city with a history this rich in victory and defeat, there are plenty of possible spirits going around this area. With a strong population of Irish in the south end, there are plenty of superstitions going on here as well. Also, due to the Native Americans who formerly inhabited this area, I'm sure some ancient spirit could be awakened by the "invaders" and need to be dealt with.
Another good thing to bring up is that most real wizards and supernaturals around here would be more likely to hide their secrets due to the areas history of persecution. Since the supernatural community tends to lag behind on times, it could very well mean that they are still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials which happened all over Massachusetts and centered in Salem, a city in Massachusetts as well.
This isn't nearly all of it, but it's nearly 1AM here and this is all I can think of now. Hopefully it gives some ideas for your storyline in Beantown!
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I started looking at Boston for a DFRPG setting -- been living in New England for about 30 years, Boston area for about 20. A couple themes that should really stand out:
- Someone mentioned traffic. The roads are incomprehensible, traffic is terrible, construction is arbitrary and capricious, public transportation is iffy even before you take the problem of Wizards shorting out MBTA fare readers into account ... great Compels to frustrate investigators trying to pursue a villain, or to try and get anyplace quickly.
- Many provincial communities rub up tight against one another. Chinatown, the North End (Italian), the South End (mostly gentrified gay community), Beacon Hill, South Boston/Dorchester (Irish communities), Allston/JP(Jamaica Plain) (student ghettos). Add in the most recent wave of academic and financial experts from around the world (Indian, South American, Chinese, European, Russian) that work in the city, and you have Boston. There's not much left in the way of really "bad" neighborhoods, and organized crime doesn't seem to have much of a grip on the city these days (but maybe I just have my head in the sand). But the character of Boston is maybe two dozen or so communities that live largely separated from each other and don't mingle. These communities don't fight outright but they don't really get along either. Racial/cultural/class discrimination among provincial Bostonians is many-layered and complicated.
- The long academic history of Boston demands antiquarian societies and restricted university libraries that are packed with arcane knowledge. Besides fragmented private collections, there's got to be an in-depth library tucked away somewhere buried in the basements of the Harvard campus buildings. Then there's the archives at the Boston Public Library. On the other side of the Charles you've got MIT. Though magic and technology don't mix, there's bound to be folks fascinated in studying magic by applying scientific principles and metrics -- and some great resources for investigators. These resources could include behavioral scientists, chemists/microbiologists, physicists etc.
- Just a quick note, witchcraft trials happened in Salem, not in Boston. I don't see that as really relevant.
As for places of interest / places of power (pictures of these iconic areas should help illustrate why):
- Trinity Church and surrounding area out to the John Hancock Tower
- Bunker Hill Monument
- The little duck island in Boston Public Garden
- Faneuil Hall (as a place of interest, not a place of power)
[...] out of time for now, but I hope these notes help. My thinking of a campaign takes a somewhat different tact from say Baltimore, that there are many small-time practitioners in and around Boston... the White Council doesn't pay Boston much attention because the city doesn't have the pressing worries of a NYC or Chicago... but there's no end of opportunity for trouble to fester quietly while the White Council is distracted elsewhere. And also plenty of opportunity for scientists, researchers and academicians who don't know what they're doing (or know what they're doing all to well) to get a hold of dangerous knowledge and put it to the wrong sorts of uses. One funny thing I was thinking of: What happens if the death of the last of a series of curators makes a private library somehow available to the public, and Google Books comes along to power-scan and place on the Internet all these ancient tomes containing information that really shouldn't be made public. That scenario starts off with no real bad guys, gives the players a serious challenge to try and counter, and the fallout starts the ball rolling on a world o'hurt as it turns out that our PCs didn't plug all the information leaks after all. Just a thought.
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Another good thing to bring up is that most real wizards and supernaturals around here would be more likely to hide their secrets due to the areas history of persecution. Since the supernatural community tends to lag behind on times, it could very well mean that they are still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials which happened all over Massachusetts and centered in Salem, a city in Massachusetts as well.
I actually sort of doubt that many supernaturals would be too concerned with the witch trials nowadays. They happened almost 320 years ago.
Additionally, they were mostly people using the legal system to murder their neighbors and take their property. Relatively few people involved thought that the accused were supernatural beings. Even in a Dresdenverse, I imagine that this would remain so. Besides which, real supernatural beings would have been able to defend themselves and escape far more easily than the real victims of the trials.
Finally, Salem would be a great place to live as a supernatural being. Halloween is completely nuts there. Last I checked, there's a large pagan community in which to hide one's self (at least in terms of carrying strange tools of spell work around). It's also pretty well located in terms of transit.
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Hey folks,
My group's play-by-post game is kicking off and we decided to use Boston as our city. I've never been to Boston, but I've been doing a good deal of research on the internet and I've come up with some interesting stuff here and there I think. Is anybody else using Boston who'd be interested in any of the stuff? It's by no means finished, and its a work in progress but we could swap ideas to really flesh out the town.
You may want to check out Boston Unveiled for Mage the Awakening. It is full of cool ideas for an rpg setting. All you'd need to do is ignore the mechanics/NPC sections.
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You may want to check out Boston Unveiled for Mage the Awakening. It is full of cool ideas for an rpg setting. All you'd need to do is ignore the mechanics/NPC sections.
Yeah, I helped come up with a bunch of Boston stuff for a DFRPG setting where the idea is that the centuries of supernatural history in the greater Boston area led to the BPD having a version of SI similar to Men In Black and we used Boston Unveiled a ton.
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Hi all,
As I grew up outside of Boston, I find this site rather humorous, but there is definitely some flavorful stuff in there.
http://www.moondragon.org/moondragon/humor/humorboston.html (http://www.moondragon.org/moondragon/humor/humorboston.html)
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New here :) Looking to toss this out to my regular gaming party and see if they are interested. Planning on North Shore/Southern NH setting.
Personally I grew up in Lynn MA, went to Salem State college still live in the area and head into Boston often enough.
I have to say that using Fenway as a power point hadn't occurred to me (tho might have to do with my hatred of baseball) But I am certainly thinking of bringing in historical references in to add flavor. The 'Perfect Storm' off of Gloucester ceratainly could have been a Fae battle. As could the Blizzard of '78.
In the books Mac's pub is described as having everything laid out as to disrupt magical energy... kinda sounds like Boston's surrounding roadways :)
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OH And I do believe that there HAS to be something supernatural about Dunkin Donuts. there just has to be........
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The entire road "system" of the greater Boston area has to have been designed to break up and bleed off magical energy, just like the pillars, fans and tables in McAnally's. No system that chaotic could have arisen on its own, no matter what they tell you about wandering cows. Which begs the question "What effect did the Big Dig have on those energies?" It may be noted that both Red Sox World Series wins occurred during the Big Dig. Coincidence?
Also, you might have a lot of fun with the legend of "Charlie on the MTA". I think there was a thread on that. I'll see if I can find a link.
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As for places of interest / places of power (pictures of these iconic areas should help illustrate why):
- Trinity Church and surrounding area out to the John Hancock Tower
- Bunker Hill Monument
- The little duck island in Boston Public Garden
- Faneuil Hall (as a place of interest, not a place of power)
To add to the events mentioned above: in my version of Boston:
The curse of the Bambino was actually a fey curse, set on the city for not living up to a deal made by our forefathers after they attempted to bribe some of the neutral fey with large amounts of tea (Boston Tea Party anyone?) and the Big Dig was an attempt to siphon the curse off of the city (since it hasn't done anything else other than put the entire commonwealth into debt). That also leads into 'what famous Bostonions were those to strike a deal with the fey?' was it Paul Revere? Sam and John Adams (maybe that has something to do wit why his son was also a John Adams)? If you look at the freedom trail mapHere (in PDF) (http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/maps/pdfs/boston-nps-map.pdf) it looks like a Lasso - with Beacon Hill (where the state government is) using the same power supply for something else.
And this goes all the way to current events with Facebook being created in Harvard... maybe it links people in more than just a social networking way, and since the wizards can't get near the computers... they can't investigate it as much as they should.
Edit: and about dunkin's in Boston, one of the guidebooks I ran across last year said that in the 36 mile area comprising of the 'city of Boston' there are 64 Dunkin Donuts.
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Texas needs more dunking donuts!!!!
My game is having some fun witht e new Dallas Cowboys NFL stadium.....
Hmmm donuts
In fact if memory serves that location used to have a dunkin donuts hmmmm
donuts
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That also leads into 'what famous Bostonions were those to strike a deal with the fey?' was it Paul Revere?
Edit: and about dunkin's in Boston, one of the guidebooks I ran across last year said that in the 36 mile area comprising of the 'city of Boston' there are 64 Dunkin Donuts.
Paul Revere was a silversmith, so maybe there's a werewolf connection?
The footprint of any Dunkin' Donuts within 101 miles of the geographic center of Boston is accorded neutral ground.
Or
Built into the foundation of every Dunkin' Donuts is in the Boston area is loadstone that functions as a sink for the magical energies trapped by the Boston area roads. The Boston Freemasons have enchanted items that also scoop up negative magical energies as they are carried around the city, which can then discharge in to the loadstones. The freemasons have many members in the Boston PD, the folks who run the trains, construction workers, and truck drivers.
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Paul Revere was a silversmith, so maybe there's a werewolf connection?
You know, that's kind of cool. Sort of like Supernatural's version of Samuel Colt. I think if I end up doing a version of Boston, I'm going to have to swipe that.
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OK I LOVE the Charlie angle that is just great.
Also I am thinking that if I do end up making a North Shore game that I might just make Salem a dead magic zone. thinking something along the line that the area's magic folk decided that with the commercialization that Salem has gone through over the years that they were just plain sick of it. That it was a conscious decision, and they all avoid the city as a whole. the area would work like a cell phone dead area. Kind of a magical no bars situation.
Dunno was just an idea cause as someone that lived 1 town over from it Salem and it's surrounding towns get stupid around Halloween.
and back to sports... me and most of my players are hockey fans. Thinking maybe Bobby Orr made a deal in the 70's......
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Ok, I have a feeling that over a few years we're going to have some of these conversations multiple times.... What do people think about starting a wiki to flesh out possible things happening in cities (hotspots, history, and creatures)?
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Pleese tell me you need players!!!!! i am in brazil right now (i am from brazil actualy) but i used to live 45 min from boston in westborough for 4 years so i kwon the region!!! play by post is my only chance to play the dresden files rpg since the books have not been traslated into portuguese and my group is kind of on a meloncoly trip on dungeons and dragons 3.5 and aparently will continuo to do so for some time. i already have a char ready to play!!!