Sunday, September 27, 2015

Places to fight!

I know it sounds terribly mechanical, but one of the things I do when I'm creating an adventure is think about where the fight(s) will take place. Sometimes the location is forced on you by the crime or the confrontation, but sometimes it's open. After all, they might discover agents of FANG (Friends of Absolutely Nothing Good) almost anywhere, and after you've had thirty or forty fights outside the corner where Rosie's Bar sits1, you want somewhere else.

So, in no particular order, here are some locations and things that make them interesting. I might go back and insert links at some future date so that you can see the inspiration for things like the underwater mansion, but I shan't do it today. I see there are twelve here, so you could use a D12 to choose among them...

  • Any Place Abandoned Warehouses, Victorian mansions, amusement parks, old theme parks, ski resorts, factories...
  • Hi-Rise Construction Site Some sheltered floors, some open to the elements, construction equipment, cranes, heavy mud if there's a rainstorm, good access for flying heroes, adequate for swinging ones, air ducts to hide in.
  • Used Car Lot Lots of cars to throw at each other; which contains the MacGuffin you need? Pennants on wires, a garage, a repair facility including jacks, floodlights, a showroom, access for shady dealing, a forgotten entrance from when this was a hideout, a secret carjacking ring.
  • High School Twisty halls, chemistry labs, a swimming pool, a big open area with a baseball diamond or football field or both, gyms, innocent bystanders galore.
  • Multilevel Mall at Christmas A huge Christmas tree, Salvation Army Santas, hundreds of bystanders, open area for flyers, decorations to grab and swing off, hostages and helpers, guards, anybody's loved ones.
  • Municipal swimming pool in high summer Water, the high board, nobody's wearing much of anything so no hidden weapons, a stretcher in case of spinal injury, a hook, pool cleaning equipment in a closet, change rooms.
  • In storm sewer Tight spaces, darkness, unexpected depths, a catwalk, the smell, sudden rush of water, lost child, albino alligators, strong monsters hiding, wet walls you can't stick to.
  • Waste treatment plant Big pools for separating waste, the smell (no, worse than that), sluices, access to the river, drying waste matter, possibly UV chambers for purifying waste, skimmers, places to put waste that won't degrade (lots of used condoms), catwalks above the pools, a control center.
  • Recycling center Disassembly lines, hazardous materials, prisoners separating out trash, big vats for materials, criminals diverting stuff to sell as "new", high security if they're recycling money (which some few do), shredders for paper, acid baths, furnaces for glass and metals, skimmers to take different density of materials off, and some should have the process for making oils but probably don't.
  • Teaching hospital Sick people, medical equipment, paramedics and doctors trying to be heroes, someone trapped in secret ID, unconscious targets, people under police arrest, teaching arenas for operating theatres, clumps of residents, candy-stripers, old women selling coffee, visitors, men waiting around obstetrics and maternity, senile people who can't be put in a home yet, imaging equipment with radioactive materials.
  • Underground mansion Proof of an eccentric mind, strange labyrinth, collections of unusual things (art; weapons; superhero devices not quite deactivated), security systems, guards, haughty owners, a pool entirely underground, its own generator, access to solar power or its own nuclear power plant.
  • Window washing platform A four-rope platform (so the window washers are not required to have separate safety lines); small space, access for those who fly or crawl walls, threatened window washers, no access to inside the building, cranes that lift and lower it, hidden under gargoyles, or an old system like the Empire State Building, where the window washer hooks his belt to the window frame, opens it, and leans out to wash the window he's just opened. (Did you know that window washing is considered the most dangerous job in the UK?2)

1. For those who don't know, Rosie's Bar was on the map that came with Champions when it still came in a box. We had many a fight near Rosie's Bar. Someday I have to design the interior to that. Just because.

2. Possibly because they're not counting “farmhand on a farm with a bull.” I don't know if it's true in the UK, but in Canada at one point (and possibly still today) they didn't count farmhands in workplace injury statistics because the numbers were just too high.

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