Good place to start a Reign of Steel campaign

[Anders]

So I think I'll have the PCs start in a small farming/hunting community in Zone Vancouver (North America west of the Rocky Mountains). Unfortunately North American Geography is not my forté. Anyone have any ideas on where to start? Ideally it should be a place not too far from a mid-sized city and a place where you can grow crops, hunt for food and not be immediately spotted by Zone Vancouver.

Any ideas?

[SID]

How about Arizona? It's in a desert, it's got the vibe of MadMax and you can do farming and hunting with some access to water.

[Anders]

Interesting. I'll have to look into it more. Brice on CRR's discord channel suggested Oregon as well.

Thank you.

[Anaraxes]

I'm not familiar with Reign of Steel in detail, but if Arizona counts as Zone Vancouver, that gives you a lot of choices.

How about Idaho? Eastern Washington and Oregon are pretty dry, but the rainfall picks back up in Idaho. It's not a very developed region of the country in general, so lots of rural communities and places to hide. As a bonus, you get the Nez Perce reservation and National Forest. "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Of course, your PCs are after a different outcome, but they do get a nice symbol of resistance against their overwhelming, technologically advantaged foe. And Yellowstone.

And the locale would have some novelty value. It's not like a lot of RPGs were set there. OTOH, that means no pre-done sourcebooks, so that much more work for the GM.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

How about Idaho? Eastern Washington and Oregon are pretty dry, but the rainfall picks back up in Idaho. It's not a very developed region of the country in general, so lots of rural communities and places to hide. As a bonus, you get the Nez Perce reservation and National Forest. "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Of course, your PCs are after a different outcome, but they do get a nice symbol of resistance against their overwhelming, technologically advantaged foe. And Yellowstone.

My first thought there is "wow that's cold". And Snowy. Which I suppose makes for great scenery. There could be people living out there that the AI's hardly even care about, because there is very little infrastructure to take over, and the humans steer clear. Of course, that probably won't get you a "mid-sized city".

I'm not sure where the line between Denver and Vancouver is. I'd expect Denver to control Arizona. With how close Vancouver is to idaho... It could go either way. Possibly, the two might not care about the exact border, or living on the border between the two might provide a safety value, fleeing "jurisdictions" when a search in one gets too hot.


EDIT: Mid-sized city means different things to different people. what size is the OP looking for?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by ericthered

My first thought there is "wow that's cold".

First thing I thought when he wrote "Vancouver" :) Once you're far enough from the ocean that that's not moderating the temperature (and it's a cold current on that side of NA, not the warm Gulf Stream that heads over to Europe), it's cold everywhere.

If you're a rebel, it might be good to live near a boundary, in hopes the Zones don't want to bump into each other. (Or not; it's not like all the Terminators won't have GPS to know exactly who gets to shoot you without violating the Zonal agreements, whatever those are.)

EDIT: Mid-sized city means different things to different people. what size is the OP looking for?

A good question. The US Census labels "urban" areas starting at 50,000. This page has a link to a spreadsheet; 804 locations, 8.8M down to 50,016 (St. Louis Park, Minnesota; median is 87K in Deerfield Beach, CA; Boise is 235K at rank 94, about the same as Spokane, WA; Missoula, MT, between those forests and Yellowstone, is 73K.)