Freedom City - Worth the $ if I use my own setting?

[Mucknuggle]

I'm considering buying Freedom City for NPC ideas and such things as I don't read many comics (although I am hoping to start buying The Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men since they are sort of like my gritty campaign), but I will still use my own setting. Would Freedom City still be worth the purchase of $50 Canadian? I guess that I could convert it for my campaign if I ever want to use a non-real world city in my world.

[therealtony]

Yes.. FC is a very in depth RPG city that can be adapted to almost any genre..If ya wanna get grim and gritty I think you could do that no problem..I was happy with it..Useful information,entertaining and the art /layout is awesome! You could easily capture "The Ultimates" vibe..

BTW where do you live in Canada?

[Strand0]

I'm considering buying Freedom City for NPC ideas and such things as I don't read many comics (although I am hoping to start buying The Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men since they are sort of like my gritty campaign), but I will still use my own setting. Would Freedom City still be worth the purchase of $50 Canadian? I guess that I could convert it for my campaign if I ever want to use a non-real world city in my world.

I don't think so. 1) If you are planning to build your oun city. 2) If the heroes and villains are going to be more gritty. Only seven of the villain IMO are gritty, and they may not even be to your taste.
These are two of the most important things about the book.

The other things that might be useful.
The history section. Most of that is the city history, but othr things could be things you would want to you the you new cities background.
City's NPC. The different city orgainization could be moved to a new city and grubbied up a bit. Would save you some time.
Ideas. The insitutions, corporations, and hang outs of the city could be used in your new city OR as examples/patterns for you.

[Mucknuggle]

J'habite à Montréal mon ami.

I live in Montreal.

[Shakaninja]

Freedom City is an absolute gem of a book. even if you don't use it as your main setting, buy it anyway, the sheer wealth of material will inspire all GMs.

[peanutgnome]

Mucknuggle,

Check the book out locally, see if it has what you want, then drop on over to www.amazon.ca and you'll see it's only $33+ CDN for the book. Even including shipping (free if over $39 purchased!) it's about $40.

Of course, it's stabbing your local gameshop in the back... But I was a little upset with mine here in Edmonton, AB. I was there with my money but they wouldn't open the sealed copy (they seal it themselves anyway???) so I left and went to Amazon. It should be here by Wednesday, I got shi[ping notice Friday (I can't wait!).

[Mucknuggle]

Good idea, except that for me, the local gamestore is a 45 min drive to downtown Montreal from my house in the sururbs, and I'm one of those students without a car...Ok, enough self pity for now. Yeah, so thx for the advice, I'll have to make the trip after exams.

[therealtony]

Hey peanutgnome which store did you go to in Edmonton? Was it Warp1? or do they call it "Warp Entertainment" these days? That sounds like something they'd pull..

[zornwil]

Of course, it's stabbing your local gameshop in the back... But I was a little upset with mine here in Edmonton, AB. I was there with my money but they wouldn't open the sealed copy (they seal it themselves anyway???) so I left and went to Amazon.

This is when the "F" in "FLGS" stands for a particular word other than "Friendly"...

[tetsujin28]

I'm not sure if it's worth the dough if you're already set on using your own city. I might wait for Crooks.

[John Bock]

If you use your own city then NO. Sorry to be a dower, but while it is an interesting read, it's (REMEMBER -IMHO) not worth it. All fluff, no extra useful stuff at all...

[MasonsDad]

I would say that it is useful in the fact that you may come across and idea or situation where you think to yourself, "Hey, I never would have thought of putting that in my city/universe". I have my own city/world and I was able to add both Freedom City itself and ideas from the book into my world. No, there are no new rules/powers/ect it still has quite a bit of useful information in there.

[bwgwl]

i think it'd be useful insofar as if you haven't been working on your own city/world for the past several years, you probably don't have the same kind of depth of information as Freedom City does.

so you could use Freedom City to fill in parts of your own city that you haven't detailed yet.

it's got tons of cool locations and NPCs that could be cut out of FC and dropped into a new city with little to no problem.

not to mention 3 complete hero teams, 2 complete villain teams, at least 2 solo heroes, and at least 22 solo villains.

plus stats for such things as Moon People (the Farsiders), Atlanteans, Serpent People, subterranean people, 2 alien races, etc.

i don't know if you'd find that worth $32.95 (or however much you can find it for), but it might be worth looking into.

[bwgwl]

...no extra useful stuff at all...

hey John, i don't mean this to sound sarcastic, but what would you find useful? i'd like to hear your opinion. specifically, what were you expecting in Freedom City that you didn't get?

[Strand0]

...no extra useful stuff at all...

hey John, i don't mean this to sound sarcastic, but what would you find useful? i'd like to hear your opinion. specifically, what were you expecting in Freedom City that you didn't get?

He said alittle while back that he expected more GM information on running games, new powers and feats. IIRC

[Amazar]

I'm going to be an Edmontonian this Thursday (my wife and I are moving in May 1st). I'm a twenty-eight year-old that will be going to U of A in the fall. I'll probably be looking for a game (either to play or GM).

Is there another thread I should be posting to?

Edit: I just noticed the Albertans here, and I had to grab 'em.

[superheroic]

Hello there,

Just putting my 2 cents in here.

I don't really play Mutants and Masterminds but I DID buy the rulebook and I did buy Freedom City.

Why?

Well, I play a heavily modified version of an old 80's Supers RPG called VILLAINS & VIGILANTES and I found some of the rules in the book and the setting info (along with the characters) to be very inspiring and useful tor setting my own house rules and making changes within my own already established campaign city.

I'm of the opinion that NO supplement can completely fill all the nooks and crannies of anybody's own Super RPG universe and that supplements are only as good as the imagination of the GM who is using them.

My game is as far away as point based as you can get yet I found a lot of the histories, NPC's, locations, rules from the core book, and bad guys to be very imaginative which helped me flesh out my game a bit more and I'm not even playing Mutants and Masterminds!

I found the same to be true of the San Angelo Supplement for Champions.

As far as the gritty stuff goes...ANY of those characters can be modified into a "Grittier" version of themselves with no problem whatsoever. I mean, heck, they even give you a villain option for the heroes!

And if you're concerned about the money you can get a GREAT deal on Freedom City at Buy.com. I got it for $22.00 with free shipping. A steal for a full color hardcover book!

Hope my opinion helps even if I'm not necessarily an M & M player.

K

[CPXB]

Well, I play a heavily modified version of an old 80's Supers RPG called VILLAINS & VIGILANTES.

I am in awe that someone is still getting mileage out of V&V.

[The Fifth Wanderer]

I am in awe that someone is still getting mileage out of V&V.

Are you kidding? I'm in a gaming group that's playing First Edition AD&D!!!

[Mucknuggle]

Are you kidding? I'm in a gaming group that's playing First Edition AD&D!!!

...HOW do you play with those rules?! I hated 2nd ed. AD&D, 3e has shown me the light and renewed my interest in RPGing.

EDIT: messed up on the quoting

[superheroic]

I am in awe that someone is still getting mileage out of V&V. [/quote]


Nothing to really be in awe about. It's a fairly straightforward system that's easy to modify. To be fair I'm someone that got back into RPGing about 2 years ago after about a 10 year lack of gaming.

V & V was just the system I used to play when I was in my early teens so I was nostalgic for it. Of course, it had its shortcomings but I was able to come up with a great skills system for it and pilfer rules from other games (like Mutanta and Masterminds!) to sort of build an "Advanced" version of the game. Like I said before...it's all about how you use your imagination with whatever game you're playing with.

I just could never really get into point based gaming so much. Champions just always seemed so convoluted with SO many rules. Combat would take FOREVER when my friend ran a game. I guess that's what seems to be the big appeal of M & M. I see it as a bit Champions-like but with a VASTLY superior combat system. I just like my V & V.

I guess another reason I like V & V so much is that it's just straightforward and clean. Not bogged down by too much other stuff. You can get your characters together really quickly and just start playing. And for all those folks out there who are screaming that they hate random-generated characters...well, my players can develop their own within certain limits.

I just like my V & V.

That's my opinion and I'm stickin' to it!

[therealtony]

V&V is a great system!! I still have my copy from low these many years..21!

V&V was the first superhero RPG I played and I have compared all others that come out to it..(most have failed..)

M&M of course, holds up very well..

V&V did have some weak points.. The lack of skills for one..Some of the tables were kinda hinky..It was very easy to "break the game".. The carrying chart wasn't exactly "easy".. Hit points could get sort of crazy too..But man!! that game was 100% pure fun..

good for you..

[tetsujin28]

Until M&M, V&V was my benchmark for fun. We must've had more than three different campaigns over 20 years.

[Witchblade]

It was insanely easy to "break" the system (as my players proved time and time again). However, as I have stated in other threads, I was a long-time player of V&V. In fact, my current Mutants & Masterminds campaign is a conversion from our original V&V campaign. Over the years, we modified it, personalized it, and tweaked it until what we were playing only superficially resembled the original game. That's why I was so delighted when Mutants & Masterminds was released. It finally gathered everything I thought that a super-hero RPG should be into one set of rules.

For me, the biggest disappointment to V&V was the potential for min-maxing the system. One player in my game had transmutation and would routinely "rearrange the molecules in the air" to create weapons, vehicles, video games, and the like. There were, after all, no rules to contradict his doing so. He balked when I finally put my foot down and suggested that if he could not, in real-life (his character was supposed to be a game-world representation of himself), demonstrate a knowledge of how these things worked and were constructed, he couldn't do it. That, and things like the ambiguity of mutant power, body power, and psionics left me cold.

The other thing I always felt was missing was a system to promote some kind of role-playing beyond super-powered combat. Without a system of coherent skills and a mechanic to use them, it was easy to say that any character culd do just about anything they wanted to do. The focus of the game was on super-powered combat and let worries about what the hero does in his down-time or how he handles his secret ID be damned!

So, we went through a number of house rules, switched up to GURPS (which proved to be too much work), tried Jeff Dee's Living Legends rules, and came back to the "classic" V&V. Finally, Mutants & Masterminds was released and I immediately began converting many of our old V&V characters to M&M. In fact, Wytchblade (the character based on myself), is presented in the M&M Netbook thread and is a V&V conversion.

Anyway, to bring this back on topic, should you buy Freedom City if you already have your own established metropolis? I think that you'll get your mileage out of it, just for the fact that there are some 40 or so characters contained therein, any of which can easily serve as the super-villain of the week for your campaign. Ultimately, though, it's a decision you'll have to make. Might I suggest that you follow the link to the Critic's Corner in my signature and check out my review? It may offer some thoughts to help you decide.

EDIT: To correct a few spelling errors (it happens when I type too fast).

[AstroZoom]

Two and a half things:

First, I loved V&V. It was my first superhero game, as well. Great so see others still giving it some love.

Second, I highly recommend Freedom City, even if you don't use it as your setting. I'm running a realistic game set in Chicago, but FC has provided me many ideas for NPC, maps and the like.

I actually have come up with a novel use for the supplement (here comes the "half"). My team has a "Danger Room" that one of the team members has programmed Freedom City into, as it is one of his favorite comic book settings. So whenever the PCs want a relatively low-stakes, four-color adventure, they saunter to the Danger Room and zap themselves into Freedom City!