CHi-Town maps

[RPGnut]

I haven't played RIFTS in forever and yet me and some freinds decided to start up a game and lucky me I get to GM, so I'm just wondering are there any official or un-official maps of CHi-Town itself (Not the Burbs) out there that I could get my hands on to help make things a little less intense for myself.

[Athos]

The Rifts Adventure Sourcebook "chi-town burbs" has a map of a section of the burbs, but that is all I have seen. I haven't read the adventure, but it might get you started quickly if you wanted to do some ChiTown stuff.

[RPGnut]

The Rifts Adventure Sourcebook "chi-town burbs" has a map of a section of the burbs, but that is all I have seen. I haven't read the adventure, but it might get you started quickly if you wanted to do some ChiTown stuff.

Yeah I'm looking for something that has a layout of Chi-Town itself, not the Burbs...I can't seem to find any maps or diagrams of inside the Mega-city walls...I guess no oneelse has had this issue come up before or they were much more creative than I on map making

[The Galactus Kid]

It'll never happen. I really wish it would, but even if it was my game, I don't think I would actually map out Chi-town. It really limits the possibilities.

[Athos]

If you just HAVE to have a map, I had an idea that might not be too much work. if I remember correctly, CHI-town is not Chicago, but close to where chicago used to be, so you can't modify a Chicago map and still be realistic. I would take a large land locked city like Oklahoma City and use its map. You can draw in the fortress with a Sharpie marker and make whatever other changes you want to it, but it would at least give you the basis of a city to start with. You could flesh out individual neighborhoods as needed. Hope this helps.

[Dr. Doom III]

There is no map.

Even if we ever get a Chi-Town book I doubt it will have a good map anyway.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

i use maps of cities from other games for Chi-Town. Like the awesome maps that came with the TSR Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Only problem with them is I have to say "Yeah, this library here isn't really a library. It's uh...a...uh...laundromat. And this gun store is really a ......a...uh...another laundromat."

[The Galactus Kid]

Thats because you are lame, roadwarrior.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

well i got maps and you dont, sucker.

[The Galactus Kid]

Whatever. i don't need maps. I grew up on the mean streets of Chi-Town. I know all those roads, elevators, and stairways like the back of my hand.

[Killer Cyborg]

I find it immensely annoying that they haven't detailed Chi-Town yet.
They are coming out with a 3rd book on China, but they haven't given details on the main city in America.
Sigh.
As if my party is ever going to go to China, Japan, Australia, or any of their other World Tour books on the other side of the planet.

Where exactly do all the City Rats hang out?
The only cities really detailed are in VK...

[Gabriel]

Maybe China got three World Books because it's a substantially larger landmass than America, with about four times the population?
Just a though.

[The Galactus Kid]

Actually, I would say that they are doing other books right now because of the immense ammount of time they have spent detailing The North American Continent over the past few years. Lets take a look at this. RIFTS Mainbook, Vampire Kingdoms, Sourcebooks 1 and 2, Mercenaries, Juicer Uprisings, Coalition War Campaign, Psyscape, Lonestar, New West, Spirit West, Federation of Magic, Canada, Free Quebec, Xiticix Invasion, Coalition Wars 1,2,3,4,5, and 6, Adventure Sourcebooks 1,2,3,4 and the upcoming Adventure Sourcebook 5, Arzno, Lazlo, Merc Town, Merc Ops Books.

Lets compare this to the ammount of books on Eurasia. Triax, Mindwerks, Russia, Russia 2, Japan, China 1,2,3. Thats a Ratio of 30 to 8!!!


Seriously, with all these books focusing on various sections of North America, I think that we can give China 3 books.

[Borast]

Besides, with Chi-Town being an Arcology, think of it like a REALLY big house, with each room being a neighbourhood all to it's self. To put it in scale, take the entire population within 100km of NY City, and squeeze it all into a single building going about 1km high, and plunging another km into the ground, and the size of Manhatten Island. Even given for the heavy and super thick walls, the volume of the building could comfortably house 2x that.

The reasons behind why we'll never see a true map of Chi-Town are the same as why we'll never see a true map of Centre! It's TOO BIG! (That, and no one really knows enough to truely speculate on how it should be done!)

[Killer Cyborg]

Maybe China got three World Books because it's a substantially larger landmass than America, with about four times the population?
Just a though.

None of that means a whit to any of my characters; they're in North America.
I'm not against Palladium doing places outside of North America, but it's been over a decade since the first book and North America STILL has large gaps and holes all over it.
We know little to nothing about what the inside of Chi-Town is like (and what we do know, Palladium changes), and it is long past time that we had more info on it.
It'd be nice to be able to have adventures, or campaigns, take place in Chi-Town without having to come up with all the details myself.

[Killer Cyborg]

Besides, with Chi-Town being an Arcology, think of it like a REALLY big house, with each room being a neighbourhood all to it's self. To put it in scale, take the entire population within 100km of NY City, and squeeze it all into a single building going about 1km high, and plunging another km into the ground, and the size of Manhatten Island. Even given for the heavy and super thick walls, the volume of the building could comfortably house 2x that.

The reasons behind why we'll never see a true map of Chi-Town are the same as why we'll never see a true map of Centre! It's TOO BIG! (That, and no one really knows enough to truely speculate on how it should be done!)

And yet there is a book for D20 that details the largest dungeon ever.
It's BIG, has a lot of maps, and uses every monster in the Monster Manual.
It costs about $100 a copy, and my local store has already sold a number of copies.

With the time and effort that palladium has put into slightly fleshing out large unimportant areas like Russia and China, they could have put out 5 Sourcebooks on Chi-Town giving overlays of various regions in it.
Really, I'd settle for just one that fleshes the place out decently.
I'd be happy if they'd just get it straight what stuff is on what level of the place and give an indication of what the standard of living, general economy, details of life, and other stuff goes on in the place.

[Killer Cyborg]

Personally I'm Glad they didn't create a map of Chi-town. It gets the imagination flowing.

Cool. If they wrote any of the game at all then your imagination could REALLY take off...

Chi-Town should be What you think Chi-town to be.

I think it should be mapped.

[grandmaster z0b]

When I made a map of Chi-Town I just took a map of the city I live in (Melbourne). It worked well as all the characters actually did know the layout of the city like the back of their hand. Also Melbourne's CBD is a large square grid, so that becomes Chi-Town itself and the surroundiing streets and suburbs become the burbs. We kept a lot of the original street names as it made it easier for us to imagine where we were but changed some obvious ones. King St became Emporer St, Spencer St became Proseck St etc.
I've always though that inside Chi-Town would be a grid, and that each level is possibly very similar in design. The buildings and street names themselves obviously change but the layout stays very similar, makes for easy mapping.

[RPGnut]

If not a map atleast a book on CHi-town would be great that does give the you the general layout of Cultural/Social economic structure in the town, and perhaps even certain levels mapped out...as a GM its a pain to try and run a campaign in a "dungeon" (especially a Mega-City) without some sort of reference to look back on as to where key locations are and how travel within the city is set-up...are there roads? Are there Pepole mover sidewalks? are there Stairs? or Elevators? or Escalaters? are there Vehicles? or perhaps Hover platforms? How tall is each Level? and how many levels are there? Most every book which includes chi-town diagrees on the number of levels alone one says 33, one says 35 one says 42, one says 4 sub-levels, one says 2 sub-levels all sewage and drainage. I'm just looking for a diffinative guide to the town, not a detailed map showing every single building or alley. Just a means to and end...afterall one book says Emperor Prosek and family live in 4 sub-levels and another says that they live on levels 35-42. Which is it? And why does this family need 4 to 7 levels to themselves? How many kids/grandkids/brothers/ sisters does the Emporer have? A final guide that just lays it all out there would be extremely helpful in this. And Maps don't have to be large and detailed, just general maps of levels such as was done in the Lone star book, they didn't cover the entire 30 square mile complex by no means but the outlined and maped out specific areas of intrest. And thats What I would like with a Chi-town book.

[The Galactus Kid]

This book has been asked for ever for as long as I can remember. I do agree that a book similar to that of Lonestar where they describe each level would be nice, but as far as I'm concerned, there is so much better stuff out there that should be written. Quit your whining and use your imagination. If you think that Palladium should have a Chi-Town book, then do some stuff for the rifter, and then write your own book.

[Borast]

Chi-town seems to me kinda like the Luxor hotel in Vegas: a huge, inhabited wall surrounds the whole of the structure while inside would be a fairly traditional city. I always figures Chi-Town was Joilet reborn, use their city map and make an inhabited "wall" around it about 1 mile by 1.5 miles.

Actually...it is a hollow "brick," with different levels sectors, and sections. Traffic would generally be foot, or trams (with elevators as well). Think about it like a single REALLY huge skyscraper with residential, manufactuaing, commercial, and military/scientific sections. Other than scooters and emergency specialty vehicles, there would be almost no vehicular traffic. After all, with everything within 2-3km of everything else, you don't need cars.

If you have Phase World, think of it as a scaled back version of Center.

[Killer Cyborg]

Cool. If they wrote any of the game at all then your imagination could REALLY take off...

Ok, some things need general direction, like describing whats going on conflicts in the area etc. But if everything is written down then why not just use all of the GM Ideas in the book and none of your own?

Not Everything needs to be written down, but Palladium is leaving the bulk of the work for the GMs. It would make my job a heck of a lot easier if things were mapped and detailed out like in Vampire Kingdoms.

I think it should be mapped.

why? most of the magor cities Don't have a map for them Why Should Chi-town be any different?[/quote]

Since you appear not to have guessed, I'll explain my position:

Every major city on Rifts Earth should be detailed and mapped to some extend or another. Rifts Vampire Kingdoms was done right, pretty much every book since then has wasted page after page on unnecessary weapons and OCCs, and on NPCs that I could roll up myself in 5 minutes, but has glossed over the important info.
Psyscape is a prime example... that book had everything except for any decent info on Psyscape itself.