Save Science City - Of What Has Gone Before

I truly wish I could claim credit for Alexandria, Florida, known nationwide as Science City.  However, it was a group effort for VirtuaCon 2014, detailed by its GM, Lowell Francis (here).  It was done with Fate Core for a framework and was meant as a four hour one-off game.  That game also has its own YouTube video, (here).

Clearly, I had larger plans, a multiple session campaign in Mutants and Masterminds, a superhero RPG that combines the d20 mechanic (familiar to my players) with an ease of use including a program for generating characters.

While I like M&M, it lacks a few things, such as social rules, a structure for building reputation in a multi-faction environment, ways of knowing how strong or fragile factions were, and other things I felt the setting needed in order to work over a longer term.  I bolted on a Fate-like system of regional advantages and disadvantages, and created Detroit - City on Fire. (Which I may go into, it took a few months of research and really does deserve its own blog posting.) 

At some point during development of City on Fire, I ditched the Microscope background of the Age of Ravens campaign, and just rebuilt around real history, which had several wrinkles I was unaware of.  Besides, it's never wrong to punch a Nazi in the face, and defeating a plot by such an archetypal menace added to player enjoyment.

In spite of being a mashup of disparate systems, the system did what it was supposed to do and the players were chomping at the bit for the more intricate Save Science City campaign.

Well, that took two years to put together, in part because my life had entered another spiral lacking in spare time and funds.  

I got a city map done by Amy Fanning, at way more cost than I thought it would be.  That said, I did get my money's worth, and learned quite a bit about urban dynamics that will be of help in future campaigns.  This step was necessary because the original map was IP of DC Comics (a map of Gotham City).  Also, because the new map was based on real-world geographics (done to an epic scale), the city is just a different shape, which meant that the burroughs (as Florida calls subdivisions) also got rearranged into a new mix.

The new map of Science City, by Amy Fanning

In developing the city, I did several things recommended by the original creator.  I detailed the motivations and goals for each villainous faction, added redemption options for several factions, et cetera.  The result was a dynamic city, with its own organizations and - best of all from my view - a social fabric that came apart in chaos if the PCs just went punch-fest on every jaywalker they saw.  (In my defense, the group normally plays with an adversarial GM who bludgeons them with the rules.  Having actual player agency, they tend to blow off steam - although faint, this was a possibility.)

Originally, I wanted to post the game sessions in YouTube, but the background noise (babies and dogs and anime discussions, oh my!)  was prohibitive.  So, I know the following logs will not contain everything, and several nuances will be lost.  But in general, it looks like both the players and myself will have fun with this campaign.