A question that gets asked a lot is why everything in the Marvel Universe seems to take place in New York, although this is an erroneous question since there are other locations of interest. So I guess "everything" means the stuff that gets focused on most: Avengers, Fantastic Four, even the X-Men have their school in upstate New York. Los Angeles and San Francisco are other locations that get used a lot, but no where near as much.

I'd have to guess that it's a combination of people writing what they know and also going to the biggest draws and expecting to find all the activity there. While L.A. has Hollywood and plenty of local culture and resources to draw upon, New York has the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, and all manner of just about anything you can think of, with a great mix of cultures to draw upon such as a Chinatown, a Little Italy, and strong Hispanic and African-American communities. I would imagine there's plenty of superhuman activity all over the country in the Marvel Universe, but the writers focus on the diverse areas because there are so many stories to tell in one place... and with all of the big league heroes centered in New York (and sometimes in L.A.), it'd be easy to believe that that's where the small-timers throughout the rest of the country think about going to make their big scores... because it's clearly where all the action is.

But what other cities throughout America could use regular superhero activity due to high crime rates? Chicago comes to mind... and I remember awhile back, I think in the 80s, Thor settled there for awhile. Washington DC could probably use some superhuman vigilante action... and, with the threat of superhumans and it being the center of our political power, I would think that the area is heavily policed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and other agencies prepared to deal with supervillain terrorists. One of the (very) few things I liked about the Civil War storyline was that they tried to address this with the 50 State Initiative to get a hero team (or at least one hero) in every state... but I don't think they ever got around to naming who was assigned to all 50 states.

So, with all that in mind, has anyone run a game outside of the run of the mill big cities? What cities would be good targets for supervillains looking for an easy time seeing as how all the superhero might is usually tied up in NYC or on the West Coast?

It's New York because that's where the Marvel bullpen is.

I like to use Seattle, but that's where I'm from.

And dont limit it to the US folks - we base our game in London

Though for a hero game; perhaps one of these cities would be a better choice?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2015 11:20AM by The_Skycutter.

Punstarr Wrote:
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> It's New York because that's where the Marvel
> bullpen is.
>
> I like to use Seattle, but that's where I'm from.


Like I said, writers write what they know. It would seem that GMs do the same.

Personally, living in NJ, I just don't feel much of a connection to any location in particular and nothing here jumps out at me as a city that needs a superhero presence. I suppose if I were running a low power game --like Punisher or Daredevil kind of power, there are few places that could use a hand with street crime and urban violence. Trenton comes to mind... as does Camden. I suppose a Marvel Atlantic City would have some underhanded crime bosses racketeering and such, with a few second-rate supervillains on hand as hired muscle.

But really, I'm just thinking of the national scene and wondering where other heroes would go and why.

The only comments I ever heard about Why Marvel is NYC based was from Stan Lee. There is a documentary about the history of comic books. Lee pointed out that all of DC Comics heroes were from cities that do not exist in our world; Gotham is not NYC and neither is Metropolis. Star City is not Seattle, etc. So, Stan the Man stuck with the city he lived in. It's not a great answer but it is an answer.

My group is LA based because 1) there were no established west coast heroes in MC2; and 2) they're public heroes who are media friendly; and 3) there's more space to do science-y stuff while still being part of a big urban area than in NYC, which is incredibly cramped.

I'm LA based as well, but for some reason NYC just captures the imagination more.
Set pieces like abandoned warehouses, slums, offices, and parks mix with famous landmarks that are just fun to play around with- even just once.
Sure, I could stage a fight at the Griffith Observatory, but half of you are scratching your head wondering what that is.

We do a lot of Missouri both St Louis and Kansas and the small towns in between. Its where we from. It adds a sense of familiarity to the game. The area is also just a good location in general. Its in the middle of the United States so it doesn't make it hard to travel to bigger cities like New York or LA in the need arises. St Louis in real life is always in the top 3 most dangerous cities in the United States because of its high murder rate. Its embarassing to the country folk that live in the areas around st louis where things are generaly peaceful. That opens up plenty of game options for low powered characters. Its fun to clean up the streets even if it is just in a game. There is alot of rural areas and open farms for more powerful heroes to lure enemies in to where they can cut loose with their powers with out much fear of hurting bystanders Lots of real life "alien" sightings, native american legends and mystic lore, stories of satanic worshipers in the vast cave networks under missouri. all those things make great adventure ideas.
For criminals it is an area not filled with super heroes if they just want to rob things. Good place to recruit gang members to use as henchmen. Baddies with higher ambitions is trying to destroy farm land to force the government to pay ransom or risk the loss of a large portion of its food source. Boeing and Scott Airforce base raids or attacks as part of a grand scheme. A lot of nuclear missile sillos are in missouri. Who wouldn't love fun with nukes?.
There just so much you can do when you know the area and as a judge you can spend less time of explaining the area to give the players an idea of where they are at and the whats around them. Like The Hulk has been spotted traveling north out side Annada. Our players know its a tiny town with a population of only 36 people made up of a post office a couple of grain bins and a few houses. They also know the Hulk is about 60-70 miles from St Louis and every little town and city in between. Where the safest places to try and stop him are.

i had used a few Texas cities, as well as Denver. teams of the more covert type as well corp villians. A few super teams but mostly loners.

As was said above, the Marvel employees were largely working out of New York area, and thus why it centers on NYC so much. I believe in the SPIDERMAN 1 DVD, in the MAKING OF, it was mentioned that at some point, Marvel NEARLY moved their HQ into 1 World Trade Center in the 1970's and WOULD have been where the first jetliner hit if they had done it.

And I tend to set all my campaigns in Southern California just because it is what I know.

Adrian Wrote:
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> I'm LA based as well, but for some reason NYC just
> captures the imagination more.
> Set pieces like abandoned warehouses, slums,
> offices, and parks mix with famous landmarks that
> are just fun to play around with- even just once.
> Sure, I could stage a fight at the Griffith
> Observatory, but half of you are scratching your
> head wondering what that is.

Griffith Park Observatory? I know what that is, if only via Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (You "fight" a werewolf there).

Because Marvel offices were there. Why write about a place you aren't familiar with

Which is brilliant. It means you could walk the streets of NY City and be walking the Marvel hero beat.

The group we're starting here in upper Michigan is based in Sault Ste Marie and may involve US and Canadian locations around the Great Lakes.

As for the OP, I think it has to do with population density. The more people there are in a relatively small space, the higher the chance of someone gaining powers and the more likely it is to be targeted by the villains.

I think they used NY because everybody knows about it. It is the center of the Universe, people from all over the world go there to do what ever they do.


We started out in Chicago, because it is a huge city and not NY. It was fun, especially fighting on L trains, and utilizing the crippling -20 degree winters.

I gamed with a group in Baltimore (and wrecked it to the point the real city would have gone bankrupt) and then DC and finally NY, which is fun because of the miles of subway tunnels.

Now I am using a fictional city, a combination of NY, Chicago and San Francisco (so it has sky scrapers, tunnel systems, bridges, docks, shores, Little Everything ethnic neighborhoods, rich estates, sprawling urban blight, canals and a river running through it.).
It has the greatest population density on Earth and a crime rate worse than Rwanda. Kind of like Mega City. That way there are no limitations.

Also want to use some of the Marvel fictional countries. Anyone have a good list?

Tigerfaced God Wrote:
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> Also want to use some of the Marvel fictional countries. Anyone have a good list?

I also used places I knew well, that's why when I played years ago, I created the Gulf Coast Avengers. I wrote them up in my netbook that you can find at Gaming Nerds 'R Us.

Additionally, you can find write-ups of all the fictional Latin American countries in my netbook as well!

Tigerfaced God Wrote:
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> Also want to use some of the Marvel fictional
> countries. Anyone have a good list?


Marvel released, as part of their Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series, 2 issues of Atlas detailing the nations of the Marvel Earth, both real and fictional, with entries like this:

Tigerfaced God Wrote:
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> I think they used NY because everybody knows about
> it. It is the center of the Universe, people from
> all over the world go there to do what ever they
> do.
>
>
> We started out in Chicago, because it is a huge
> city and not NY. It was fun, especially fighting
> on L trains, and utilizing the crippling -20
> degree winters.
>
> I gamed with a group in Baltimore (and wrecked it
> to the point the real city would have gone
> bankrupt) and then DC and finally NY, which is fun
> because of the miles of subway tunnels.
>
> Now I am using a fictional city, a combination of
> NY, Chicago and San Francisco (so it has sky
> scrapers, tunnel systems, bridges, docks, shores,
> Little Everything ethnic neighborhoods, rich
> estates, sprawling urban blight, canals and a
> river running through it.).
> It has the greatest population density on Earth
> and a crime rate worse than Rwanda. Kind of like
> Mega City. That way there are no limitations.
>
> Also want to use some of the Marvel fictional
> countries. Anyone have a good list?


Not too many people are aware of the fact that L.A. also has a subway system.

LamiaMortis Wrote:
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> The group we're starting here in upper Michigan is
> based in Sault Ste Marie and may involve US and
> Canadian locations around the Great Lakes.

I could just cry. Why weren't you running 30 years ago?!

Our junior high and high school Marvel RPG fic started in Delta County and wandered all over Michigan. We fought the Marauders in Escanaba and faced off with the Great Lakes Avengers in Green Bay.

As a GM, you use what you know.

My games have been based in: South West Ohio (where I was born...) as well as St. Petersburg (made up) Ohio, Hudson (made up) Georgia, Bismarck North Dakota, Los Angeles, San Francisco. I did a Heroes campaign based in New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. In keeping with everything in the comics being bigger and better, my version of Bismarck was more like a Detroit or Cincinnati rather than what it really looks like.

When I ran my X-Men game, about 15 years ago, it was set in Westchester, New York.