What city is used for your BTS setting?

[mrloucifer]

I always find the locations and settings used in modern day RPG games to be interesting. I meant to ask this question ages ago (before I suddenly got so busy and disappeared from the forum for ages), but what city, state, country, continent, etc… does your game take place in? And if applicable, what is the timeline you’re playing in?

For example, when I first started my game in 05, it was set in Los Angeles, California. Why I did this I’m still not sure to this day (I think watching “Angel” had something to do with it at the time) but it was a poor location for the setting I wanted. At first glance, the idea of playing in a cultural melting pot of so many different types of individuals it would provide plenty of interest and intrigue… but it never quite panned out. The sunny skies, the lack of rain and atmosphere kept me for really going all out with it. So a little over a year ago I moved the group up to Seattle… this so far has been a genius idea!

Seattle, Washington offers much more atmosphere and adventure material than LA ever provided me. For example, I’ve used Seattle constant cloudy overcast as a haven for vampires, the many private islands West of Washington state are homes to a few mad scientist labs and cults while the Ship graveyard has been home and hideout to many supernatural baddies. The woods/forests surrounding Seattle and through the state make for great adventures, the Seattle Underground has been used a few times, I have plans where a cult will soon attempt to make use of the space needle to bring an ancient being to Earth. Point being I find Seattle to be fertile grounds for good BTS playing.

So where does your group play ball?

[filo_clarke]

Arkham, Massachusetts. Oh yeah, that’s what I said

[mrloucifer]

Detroit Michigan and Windsor (Ontario Canada)

I'm not too familiar with either Detroit or Windsor. What's adventure worthy of such locations? Any good adventures come up using these cities?

[mrloucifer]

Arkham, Massachusetts. Oh yeah, that’s what I said

NICE!

Any adventures take place in Miskatonic University yet?

Since your all out that way.. has the group visited Innsmouth or Dunwich yet?

(yeah, Im an Cthulhu fan )

[Lord_Dalgard]

Chello!

New Orleans, of course.



Pre-Katrina.

[Natasha]

Mostly Moscow and St. Petersburg. There have been some Siberian and Far Eastern adventures, however; the wilderness setting is a good one.

One was in the American SW desert with characters based in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

[filo_clarke]

Arkham, Massachusetts. Oh yeah, that’s what I said

NICE!

Any adventures take place in Miskatonic University yet?

Since your all out that way.. has the group visited Innsmouth or Dunwich yet?

(yeah, Im an Cthulhu fan )

From the dusty bookshelves of the Miskatonic University Special Collections Library, to the rolling back-country of Dunwich, to the fetid salt-water swamp around Innsmouth, the misty cobblestone streets of Kingsport, and the serene foamy seaside of Martin's Beach. In my opinion there is no better time period or setting for a horror game than Lovecraft's Arkham of the 1920/30s.

Yeah, I'm a Cthulhu fanatic.

[Sir Neil]

Sis and I used present-day Chicago, Illinois as the setting since we began using BTS in '95. I think we intended it to be a generic big Northern city without the cliche of using New York City. (Our Marvel Superheroes game was set in Boston for the same reason.)

When I started a second BTS game in '04, it was briefly set in ~2015 St. Louis, geographically for a more favorable legal environment and the ominous presence of the Gateway Arch, timewise for some characters to be adult children of the Chicago PCs. The group broke up after one game, so I don't have a feel for how it compares.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

We've used New York City (mainly Astoria, Queens to be precise), Ulster County and Greene County in New York, and a fictional washed-up mining town in the Adirondacks.

I just realized that I haven't ran a BTS campaign outside of New York, well, except for that one I set in hotel off the interstate in Nebraska where the villian was a Mad Gasser.

~ Josh

[mrloucifer]

We've used New York City (mainly Astoria, Queens to be precise), Ulster County and Greene County in New York, and a fictional washed-up mining town in the Adirondacks.

I just realized that I haven't ran a BTS campaign outside of New York, well, except for that one I set in hotel off the interstate in Nebraska where the villian was a Mad Gasser.

~ Josh

Hotel off the intersate of Nebraska huh? Living here in Big Red Country myself I probrably know this Mad Gasser

[mrloucifer]

Sis and I used present-day Chicago, Illinois as the setting since we began using BTS in '95. I think we intended it to be a generic big Northern city without the cliche of using New York City. (Our Marvel Superheroes game was set in Boston for the same reason.)

Ahhh... those were the day... I first tried running BTS1 back in 91 in New York City myself (BTS and TMNT were my first simultaneous Palladium purchases back when), but I was 16 years old and while I had a good idea of horror goes, I was clueless of how to run a decent Horror game at such a tender inexperienced age. So BTS made way for TMNT and eventually superheroes and then rifts for like 13 years straight.

Then after BTS 2 came out I realized that I'd played out New York during my superhero days and decided to switch coasts as Id not done much out on the west coast.

And there's your quick history bite from your ol' buddy Mr. Lou Cifer

[ZorValachan]

St. Louis.
1) It's easy for all of us in my group to know the area around our 'home town'
2) Plenty of woods and forests west, for -those- type adventures
3) Washington University (in St. Louis) in the late 70s- early 80s had 'Project Alpha' where magicians fooled parapsychologists into thinking they had supernatural powers. So there is a history of at least attempting study of the supernatural at a well known local university.
4) Cahokia mounds just across the river (scary indian burial grounds)
5) A great zoo, art museum, history museum for those angles.
6) The Jefferson Expansion Memorial. AKA the Gateway Arch
7) About 40 miles away is Weldon Springs, which in WWII was a bomb manufacturer in the middle of the woods. Nowdays it is a wildlife preserve with tons of lakes and fishing, but they still have about 100 of the storage bunkers all around the area. They always facinated me as a kid wanting to know what mysteries were inside. After WWII, a large uranium processing factory was there and some of the high school buildings are from the old wartime bomb making facilities. It's great, tunnels UNDER the classrooms. Once in 1990, me and some friends opened 'the Hatch' in the classroom floor when the teacher wasn't looking. I always wondered was was further down those crawl tunnels....
City, Suburbs, Rural areas all within 40 miles. gives diversity of adventures

I always have my BTS 'now days' so if I ever have a question on item cost, location, information, what is possible, I can google it

[mrloucifer]

St. Louis.
1) It's easy for all of us in my group to know the area around our 'home town'
2) Plenty of woods and forests west, for -those- type adventures
3) Washington University (in St. Louis) in the late 70s- early 80s had 'Project Alpha' where magicians fooled parapsychologists into thinking they had supernatural powers. So there is a history of at least attempting study of the supernatural at a well known local university.
4) Cahokia mounds just across the river (scary indian burial grounds)
5) A great zoo, art museum, history museum for those angles.
6) The Jefferson Expansion Memorial. AKA the Gateway Arch
7) About 40 miles away is Weldon Springs, which in WWII was a bomb manufacturer in the middle of the woods. Nowdays it is a wildlife preserve with tons of lakes and fishing, but they still have about 100 of the storage bunkers all around the area. They always facinated me as a kid wanting to know what mysteries were inside. After WWII, a large uranium processing factory was there and some of the high school buildings are from the old wartime bomb making facilities. It's great, tunnels UNDER the classrooms. Once in 1990, me and some friends opened 'the Hatch' in the classroom floor when the teacher wasn't looking. I always wondered was was further down those crawl tunnels....
City, Suburbs, Rural areas all within 40 miles. gives diversity of adventures

I always have my BTS 'now days' so if I ever have a question on item cost, location, information, what is possible, I can google it

Ya know, Ive been to Stlouis and saw the Gateway (went up to the top and all that) and been to a few other places like the zoo, but I had no idea about the other stuff. The Washington University and Weldon springs sounds REALLY interesting to me... Perhaps I need to send my group there some day

[Natasha]

There was the exorcism at St Louis University as well.

Also out in Weldon Spring is an old water works; it used to be called The Aqueduct and it was said that Satanists worshiped there.

Oh yea, the Lemp mansion and a bunch of other stuff. There's a lot of ghost stories; they've written books about them.

[vika]

In the early 1980th they make the movie about tsarist strongman finding dissents. Soviet government's censors make heavy changes to the movie because they believe the tsar's secret police might remind of the Soviet KGB. Well it shows some from the lifes of tsar times. I write the adventure in tsar times but the secret police hunt the psychic characters. It is the alternative history. The Bolsheviks failed and because of Rasputin, all the mystics and the psychics are ruthlessly hunted and destroyed by the new tsar of the Russian Empire, Aleksandr IV.

[Natasha]

In the early 1980th they make the movie about tsarist strongman finding dissents. Soviet government's censors make heavy changes to the movie because they believe the tsar's secret police might remind of the Soviet KGB. Well it shows some from the lifes of tsar times. I write the adventure in tsar times but the secret police hunt the psychic characters. It is the alternative history. The Bolsheviks failed and because of Rasputin, all the mystics and the psychics are ruthlessly hunted and destroyed by the new tsar of the Russian Empire, Aleksandr IV.

Fun movie. Sounds like a fun adventure, too.

[Beatmeclever]

My old games were set in NYC, but those games got out of hand and the group broke up.

My new games are noir and set in Edge City with sporadic sojourns to the Wilderness. Edge City is where all the action is: a crowded city larger than Los Angeles or New York City. No one has ever taken a census, but estimates of the area's population range from half a million to 5.5 million people.
The architecture of Edge City is an amalgam of yesterdays and tomorrows. Newly-erected towers of glass stand side-by-side with granite Gothic citadels. Most large buildings are built of modern steel and glass or in the venerable old Gothic style, with occasional experiments by architects like Bruce Goff, Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Morris Lapidus, or Eero Saarinen. The bleak Gothic ramparts were intended to be a bulwark against iniquity, but most common critics will tell you that the constructions have effectively barricaded vice and evil within the city. The Edge City Rapid Transit System (ECRTS) monorail spirals through the city on 134 miles of elevated track.
In the business and wealthy districts, the streets are broad, clean, and filled with the good looking and powerful. Elsewhere the streets are narrow, twisted, filthy, and thronged with those who don't fit in well anywhere else in the world. Graffiti, often disturbing and unusually enigmatic, adorns most surfaces.
The city has several hot spots that focus arcane energies, energize psychic powers, and attract the supernatural. Other problems in the city include organ thieves, vigilantes, crazed religious cults, organized crime, drug wars, government corruption, secret societies, a media that is out to maintain the public ignorance (by force if necessary), and wealthy patrons who can turn against you at a moments notice.
The styles of the people and technology are the same as the architecture of the city -- old and new combined.
It might be more fun than it should be!

[mrloucifer]

My old games were set in NYC, but those games got out of hand and the group broke up.

My new games are noir and set in Edge City with sporadic sojourns to the Wilderness. Edge City is where all the action is: a crowded city larger than Los Angeles or New York City. No one has ever taken a census, but estimates of the area's population range from half a million to 5.5 million people.
The architecture of Edge City is an amalgam of yesterdays and tomorrows. Newly-erected towers of glass stand side-by-side with granite Gothic citadels. Most large buildings are built of modern steel and glass or in the venerable old Gothic style, with occasional experiments by architects like Bruce Goff, Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Morris Lapidus, or Eero Saarinen. The bleak Gothic ramparts were intended to be a bulwark against iniquity, but most common critics will tell you that the constructions have effectively barricaded vice and evil within the city. The Edge City Rapid Transit System (ECRTS) monorail spirals through the city on 134 miles of elevated track.
In the business and wealthy districts, the streets are broad, clean, and filled with the good looking and powerful. Elsewhere the streets are narrow, twisted, filthy, and thronged with those who don't fit in well anywhere else in the world. Graffiti, often disturbing and unusually enigmatic, adorns most surfaces.
The city has several hot spots that focus arcane energies, energize psychic powers, and attract the supernatural. Other problems in the city include organ thieves, vigilantes, crazed religious cults, organized crime, drug wars, government corruption, secret societies, a media that is out to maintain the public ignorance (by force if necessary), and wealthy patrons who can turn against you at a moments notice.
The styles of the people and technology are the same as the architecture of the city -- old and new combined.
It might be more fun than it should be!

Sounds like a fun place

[mrloucifer]

Chello!

New Orleans, of course.



Pre-Katrina.

Post Katrina is even scarier.

I did run a game or two with Lazo agents fending off supernatural baddies coming out of the Gulf right after Katrina ended, along with a run in of a Lovecraftian tentacled monster.

[gaby]

I like Boston.

[--Remi Diel--]

I've run a few games in a large home-spun city, but other than that the only city I've used is San Diego. While it my not seem like the most logical choice, for those that live here and know a lot of the stories about this city it works almost too well for BTS. What better breeding ground for flesh eating monsters than a city full of the homeless, illegals and (in the East County) inept police? Also, there's every enviroment you can think of within two hours of downtown, even snow covered mountians in the winter.

But what it comes down to for me is it's easier to game where you live when it comes to modern themed stories.

[mrloucifer]

Something I'm noticing here is a lack of "traveller" campaigns. One of my curiosities were if there are gm's who play a "Supernatural" like setting where the players travel from town to town as they hear of problems and possible leads of activity.

Maybe that too much work on the Gm's part? I havent tried myself but I see a lot of homework on the GM's part trying to run something like that. Has anyone tried this method or have thoughts to share?

[Sir Neil]

Plenty. There was some travelling in the Chicago campaign. On occation the characters would be hired to investigate weird happenings in other cities, other times they would stumble across things while coming back from a trip.

It was fun, but there were several problems. The characters had lives outside the party, so it didn't always make sense that they would close a gunshop, a mechanic's shop, and a private health clinic to go galivanting away chasing rumors of the supernatural.

Another problem was money and time. Who can afford to jaunt all over the world for weeks on end chasing leads that get nowhere?

Another problem was equipment. In town, they could always race back to the office to change vehicles or get more silver bullets or whatever. On field trips they were stuck with what they thought to squeeze in, and what local law would let them get away with.

I didn't worry about town layout -- like the old Sega Genesis game, Shining in the Darkness (?), they could just transport themselves between locations like, "hotel", "restaurant", and "office building" by double clicking on them.

That's why I don't think traveller campaigns work well with freelancers. If the characters are sponsored agents, of the government or the Lazlo Agency or whatnot, things could work much smoother.

[krate]

Hello everyone.

I use Los Angeles. It's where my group is from (SoCal). So, we go with what we know. But it's not the "real" L.A. After all, we are playing a game about ghosts and monsters. So, our L.A. is dark and scary, with lots of dark alleys, a maze-like sewer system. We add rain and fog when we need it. Plus, the characters can drive around California in search of the unknown. From Northern California and it's snow covered landscape to the desert areas. Plus, the various cultures can be used for adventure ideas and adding flavor. Lot's of eccentric people and strange mysticism that they bring from "the old country". Of course, this is all made up and exaggerated.
We haved a good time. If you need something, then add it and have fun.

[--Remi Diel--]

But it's not the "real" L.A. After all, we are playing a game about ghosts and monsters. So, our L.A. is dark and scary, with lots of dark alleys, a maze-like sewer system.

Sounds like the real L.A. to me.

But aside from that, with my games based in San Diego, I have to agree that the landscapes and cultures in Cali are great for BTS.

[Beatmeclever]

Something I'm noticing here is a lack of "traveller" campaigns. One of my curiosities were if there are gm's who play a "Supernatural" like setting where the players travel from town to town as they hear of problems and possible leads of activity.

Maybe that too much work on the Gm's part? I havent tried myself but I see a lot of homework on the GM's part trying to run something like that. Has anyone tried this method or have thoughts to share?

You had asked what city we used so we all told you about the cities we use. It is offensive to ask us about the city we play in and then insinuate laziness because we aren't mentioning any travel.

In the noir style, my games often travel out into the wasted wilderness that exists outside of the cities to find the clues to any mysteries they are involved in, as well, there are three other smaller cities near the Edge that my games have taken the characters. Where Edge City is dark and brooding, Conurbation City is a tall and shining example of a modern city; Cloister is a moderate sized hamlet with a demon problem; and Luminary City is a place of history with museums and libraries. These cities are just the beginning. I have plans for at least four more in the next year.

The freedom of not being on the known Earth is that I can create different baddies too.

[mrloucifer]

I didn't worry about town layout -- like the old Sega Genesis game, Shining in the Darkness (?), they could just transport themselves between locations like, "hotel", "restaurant", and "office building" by double clicking on them.

Shining in the Darkness.... now that's a true classic... played the **** out it!

[mrloucifer]

You had asked what city we used so we all told you about the cities we use. It is offensive to ask us about the city we play in and then insinuate laziness because we aren't mentioning any travel.

Touche... serves me right for writing when I'm half asleep

[Beatmeclever]

You had asked what city we used so we all told you about the cities we use. It is offensive to ask us about the city we play in and then insinuate laziness because we aren't mentioning any travel.

Touche... serves me right for writing when I'm half asleep

Yeah, me too. I shouldn't have been offended anyway, huh?

[Sir Neil]

Especially since he pointed out in that very post that he had never run a travelling campaign, either. Anyway, everyone's happy now.

As far as BTS goes, there were some fairly interesting one-shots. Russian commandoes battled Kindred and Garou using Marvel SAGA rules. Another time I used D&D 3e to run Rifts, Dead Reign-style. Coalition troops vs. zombies.

[tmikesecrist3]

my bts games, tend to have travel, also I tend to like eruope to base it. there are majer city and some of the oldest unaversatys in the world, I also tend to set bts in eruopes conleal age which did not end tell 1945. and tavel twred the end between ww1 and ww2, is farely easy. and lagues is not as much of a problem as you could find some one whom spoke english, frinch, spanish or dutch just about any where in the world.... but you have the blockes, buttepenst any one, you also have astrea, you have the middle east a short boat ride, and nothern afraca. alll right there.


thow I have sent bts games in richmond ky, puducha ky, dayton oh,

[Tearstone]

my bts games, tend to have travel, also I tend to like eruope to base it. there are majer city and some of the oldest unaversatys in the world, I also tend to set bts in eruopes conleal age which did not end tell 1945. and tavel twred the end between ww1 and ww2, is farely easy. and lagues is not as much of a problem as you could find some one whom spoke english, frinch, spanish or dutch just about any where in the world.... but you have the blockes, buttepenst any one, you also have astrea, you have the middle east a short boat ride, and nothern afraca. alll right there.


thow I have sent bts games in richmond ky, puducha ky, dayton oh,

What?

[Tearstone]

Generally, I play in whatever city or region I tend to be living in. Right now it's the Panhandle of Texas region with dozens of small towns to small cities and larger cities dotted around the area. Classic locations are Amarillo, Borger, Dumas, Fritch, Pampa, Lake Merideth, Lake Frier, Blackfoot national grasslands. There's rocky and rugged terrain, rivers, several lakes, indian burial grounds and other sacred sites, dozens of places that have been warred over among native americans and of course things that also date to the Civil War. The area has always been a cross-roads of sort for both people and the supernatural, so things tend to pop up all the time. Most of them are minor since there's little ley line activity, but every once in a while something happens that's truly diabolical. As far as city-based locations there are the tank farms, several refineries, recycling stations, malls, workshops, museums, several colleges and universities, dozens of libraries, some of them quite well stocked, schools, airfields abandoned air-force bases, old missile silo's, grain elevators with dozens of underground tunnels, old abandoned houses.

There's a number of major players when it comes to magic and psychic things, and some of which like to use the old lore of this place. One of those things is a 'Cloud-walker' or 'Sky-walker' It's a quartet F3 or bigger tornados, except they will walk across the land from sky to ground, two big ones in the middle, one moves forward, then the other moves forward, like a pair of walking legs, and then two smaller ones to either side that sway like arms. I've seen one... once. They aren't very often, but they have more destructive power than anything else on the Fujita scale. It's like ... having an ungodly powerful Greater Air Elemental roaming around.

There's just a few examples of some of the things that go on in the area. Most are never heard about though because I tend to get very busy doing other stuff.

[Lord Z]

Tearstone, a few details from your post are interesting to me. Has anyone ever caught a Cloud-walker on camera? What is a tank farm? Lastly, have you ever heard of 12 to Midnight? It's a small e-book production company which creates .pdf materials for horror RPGs set in Texas. I used one of their adventures, "Fallen", and I it worked very well for me.

[Tearstone]

Well, as for the Cloud Walkers... I think there might have been one caught on camera a few years back. The movie Twister gives a rough example of one as well. I also think there might have been one caught on camera last week as Oklahoma City got hit by 15 tornados in a single day/night. I'll have to look into it.

Nope, I haven't heard of that company, but I'll definately research them. I'm always looking for good materials. I really need to find a good BTS play group around where I live.

[Lord Z]

Sam, your game seems like it could be fun. Have you ever read the manga series called Spriggan? It was also called Striker for a short time when released in the U.S.

[runebeo]

We play our game is in Detroit, Chicago, Bay City and Mexico City. In our game a supernatural plague has taken over most of South America and half of Mexico. It appears to be a new super strain of polio with a extra side effect of the agony of the victims attracting all kinds of pain feeders.

[Cybermancer]

I use whatever city I'm living in at the time and maybe some surrounding ones. It helps create a surreal setting when the players know the neighborhoods where the weird things are going down.

[Lord Z]

Sam to the D, yes Spriggan does have a lot in common with your campaign, based on what you wrote. It's heavily influenced by Raiders of the Lost Ark but the stories are told with cyberpunk sensibilities.

Rune, your campaign seems kind of apocalyptic. Who are the big players that a crisis like this brings out of the shadows?

[runebeo]

We have not figured out what is behind the plague as of yet. Our research uncovered that such a plague had happened in the holy lands and in Egypt before Christ. Our GM is hinting that it maybe one Earth's defenses against over population & occult groups looking for salvation are willing to rush the apocalypse along to ensure their demonic masters get a strangle hold over the Earth before the world resets anew after this apocalypse. In our game we have encountered deformed Lizard Mage that seemed to have the cure for the plague, but the cure was only temporary and when it returned it was more infectious. We think he is the key to the mystery.

[Blindscout]

My GM needed a break from the RIFTS campaign he is running for us, he needed to be a player for a while. I asked him what he wanted to play. He said he wanted to play either BTS, or Chaos Earth. I thought about it for a moment and asked "How about both?" he looked at me like I was crazy and asked how that would work.

I'm running the BTS game in Seattle, WA, 2095, leading into the apocalypse. He (and the other player, yeah only 3 of us in the group at the moment, total ) loved the concept, so that's what and where I am running. I went with Seattle as it's the area I grew up in and, well, it's where we currently all are.. Has anyone out there run a game in a similar fashion? Is so I would love to hear how you went about it!

I suppose that's it for my first ever post on these here forums! Good night and have fun!

[Gallahan]

I ran a few games set in North Dakota, between Minot Air Force Base and Fargo. I tend to run games in the area immediately around my group, for ease of description, --everyone has common references and is very familiar with the locations. I only played the game when I was active duty Air Force, and then, only when stationed at Minot AFB, ND.

It's a neat kind of thing, too, to do research into the local stories, legends. Up in Minot, there was a lot of Native American folklore. A lot of farmers had stories about strange creatures sighted at night, in deep winter, in surroundings of vast, cold ice/snow covered wheat fields. The weather gets to be a character up there, as blizzards can come and go and morph (ice storm or heavy snowflakes that obscure vision?). The base served as a major centerpiece to the story, especially since we were all stationed there (also, North Dakota --in the winter-- is very conducive to gaming since there's not much to do and you don't want to travel too far).

As it turned out, Minot AFB was/is famous for several high profile UFO sightings by military, and was even featured on Peter Jennings' famous UFO documentary (his last, before succumging to throat cancer). Also, other sightings involved UFOs penetrating ICBM security and rendering them unlaunchable. Security Forces (protecting the base) sighted strange, "Bigfoot-like" creatures that apparently clawed guard towers before jumping over the perimeter fences and running off into the frigid night.

I have been stationed in Texas, Arkansas, North Dakota, Hawaii, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. Unfortunately, due to work, school, high operations (ops) tempo, marriage and private studies, I only ran a campaign while in North Dakota (or as they pronounce it: Nort Dah-koh-dah. Researching "local" lore in any of the other areas would have been fantastic.

[gaby]

Boston,Massachusetts

[Holister]

Cypress Cove, Maine. Like there is anywhere else.

[Lord Z]

Gal, you have me curious. What role would the UFOs and/or Big Foot play in your games? I mean are they supernaturals, truer aliens, or a combination?

[Mr. Jays]

St. Louis.
1) It's easy for all of us in my group to know the area around our 'home town'
2) Plenty of woods and forests west, for -those- type adventures
3) Washington University (in St. Louis) in the late 70s- early 80s had 'Project Alpha' where magicians fooled parapsychologists into thinking they had supernatural powers. So there is a history of at least attempting study of the supernatural at a well known local university.
4) Cahokia mounds just across the river (scary indian burial grounds)
5) A great zoo, art museum, history museum for those angles.
6) The Jefferson Expansion Memorial. AKA the Gateway Arch
7) About 40 miles away is Weldon Springs, which in WWII was a bomb manufacturer in the middle of the woods. Nowdays it is a wildlife preserve with tons of lakes and fishing, but they still have about 100 of the storage bunkers all around the area. They always facinated me as a kid wanting to know what mysteries were inside. After WWII, a large uranium processing factory was there and some of the high school buildings are from the old wartime bomb making facilities. It's great, tunnels UNDER the classrooms. Once in 1990, me and some friends opened 'the Hatch' in the classroom floor when the teacher wasn't looking. I always wondered was was further down those crawl tunnels....
City, Suburbs, Rural areas all within 40 miles. gives diversity of adventures

I always have my BTS 'now days' so if I ever have a question on item cost, location, information, what is possible, I can google it

Don't forget Times Beach, St. Charles is supposedly pretty haunted as well as Bonne Terre, someone already mentioned the Lemp Mansion, and East St. Louis is GREAT place for people to just vanish

[Lord Z]

Regarding Saint Louis: That reminds me, I recently saw this YouTube video about the Seven Gates to Tell. These are a series of railroad tunnels across the river from St. Louis in Illinois. It's part of the Legend and Lore series. I am trying to find a link.

I decided to place the new After Midnight News Agency office in St. Louis just because of my limited familiarity with the city. Between the haunted houses & the arch on the west side of the river, and Cahokia Mounds and tghe seven gates on the east side, and George Noory often broadcasting from a secret location nearby; there is definitely plenty to keep a parapsychologist or two busy around Saint Louie.

[Mr. Jays]

Regarding Saint Louis: That reminds me, I recently saw this YouTube video about the Seven Gates to Tell. These are a series of railroad tunnels across the river from St. Louis in Illinois. It's part of the Legend and Lore series. I am trying to find a link.

I decided to place the new After Midnight News Agency office in St. Louis just because of my limited familiarity with the city. Between the haunted houses & the arch on the west side of the river, and Cahokia Mounds and tghe seven gates on the east side, and George Noory often broadcasting from a secret location nearby; there is definitely plenty to keep a parapsychologist or two busy around Saint Louie.

Found it for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjgoctKtU_c

[ZorValachan]

Don't forget Times Beach, St. Charles is supposedly pretty haunted as well as Bonne Terre, someone already mentioned the Lemp Mansion, and East St. Louis is GREAT place for people to just vanish

For others' information. Times Beach was a town that paid a guy to oil their roads to keep dust down. The guy mixed toxic waste in the oil and people started to get sick, animals died, etc. etc. until it was discovered by the EPA and the town evacuated.

A few different types of style for a game.

Until 1982 (as current as 1985): Small town miscarriages, animal deaths, etc. Is it all dioxin or is something else taking advantage of the situation?

1985-1992: You would have a deserted 'ghost town', (buildings intact but no people), possibility of ghosts, toxic creatures, mutated wildlife, etc.

1992-1999: Town was demolished, so you'd have concrete streets, rubble, etc. events as above.

1999+: Was 'cleaned' and opened as a nature park. 'Family friendly' environment...until something goes horribly wrong...

I remember my dad by this place a few times when he'd take us to the nearby boy scout camp. I SO wanted to explore it (it was in the 1985-1192 time period.)

Another similar town would be Centralia, Pennsylvania where a coal fire started in the mines under the town in the 1970s. It still burns to this day and you can actually see smoke coming out of the ground in certain places and signs saying "don't leave the road, you might die" There are still a couple houses still standing.

[Xar]

I went to High School with a guy who had moved to my hometown in the spring of 85 from St. Claire, MO. Which was the town that absorbed some of the populace of Times Beach. He said that the kids from there...weren't quite right. They would do things like get into fights in science class with acid...