How Big and Dangerous is your Combat Zone?

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How Big and Dangerous is your Combat Zone?

The Combat Zone seems to vary extremely depending on the Referee and opinion.

My question is how large (compared to the City you run) and how dangerous is it? Does your game even have one and what do you/Ref use it for?
 
I chop and change mine as I need to. I never really put a boundry on it, though I do make it more dangerous the deeper you go. I have never seen the point in a 'shoot on sight' attitude in there, for me most of it is more like 'Escape from New York'.
 
My combat zone is fairly large. It can be dangerous but it is not a constant firefight. For no other reason than bullets are expensive.
 
I always thought that the Combat Zone was intended to be fairly nebulous, so that Refs could do what they want to with the 'Zone. In one game I ran, the 'Zone had a concrete wall right around it, so it was a fixed size. In a different game I ran, I had it that the 'zone was spreading much quicker than it could be managed, and the Concrete Wall was a device I used to instigate a city wide riot. Some people were all for it, others (especially the poor and those who lived in the 'zone), who were against. I was trying to get the group to pick a side, but unfortunately that campaign fizzled out.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I think you'll find everyone's 'Zone is different. And indeed, could be different from game to game.
 
I imagine a place the cops have given up and stay away from. A place of gang wars, occupied condemned buildings, intresting night clubs, corperate conspiracy, blackmarket cyberware, drugs, oppertunity and death. PCs roaming there might need to pay tribute to local gangs, follow very local laws and generally have problems fitting in (unless they are gutterpunk) and get a lot of unwanted attention. A place to stay away from unless you got buisness there and make some precations. It's more a lawless zone than a combat zone really. How nasty it is depends on how nasty it need to be at the time being for a good game, always evolving and devolving.
 
I imagine a place the cops have given up and stay away from. A place of gang wars, occupied condemned buildings, intresting night clubs, corperate conspiracy, blackmarket cyberware, drugs, oppertunity and death. PCs roaming there might need to pay tribute to local gangs, follow very local laws and generally have problems fitting in (unless they are gutterpunk) and get a lot of unwanted attention. A place to stay away from unless you got buisness there and make some precations. It's more a lawless zone than a combat zone really. How nasty it is depends on how nasty it need to be at the time being for a good game, always evolving and devolving.

This is exactly the way I see it. Assuming a constant firefight is totally unrealistic. People live here, and even the most crazed lunatic wouldn't choose to live around a constant battle, (if for no other reason than they would not 'live' there for long until they were a casualty.)
 
This is exactly the way I see it. Assuming a constant firefight is totally unrealistic. People live here, and even the most crazed lunatic wouldn't choose to live around a constant battle, (if for no other reason than they would not 'live' there for long until they were a casualty.)

I made the distinction in one campaign between the combat zone (the area was the nexus of the borders between several gangs territories) and the Freefire Zone at it's heart, from which sporadic gunfire could be heard 24/7. Even though most of it was just potshots across borders, it was a proving ground for young gangers, to hang out and try to score against their enemies for a bit of rep. Great place to dump the corpses of GSW recipients, so long as you're armored up and don't mind some dings in the paintwork...

Unless, of course, your trip there coincides with an upswing in the state of gang warfare, like one of the gangs bosses was murdered an hour ago... *Sigh* if only they read their screamsheets...
 
I picture it pretty much as a location where the only law is decided by the people who live in there. By description I use the Kowloon Palace from Street Fighter II V anime series as inspiration.

Size-wise I have described its size as 20% of Night City.

It's a huge location with an imaginary jigsaw puzzle boundries with each boundry having totally different "rules" that trespassers are to go by.

Also in my version every major gang has a small section to call home (and even a few corporations) since no lawful government will go there its the perfect place to do ones' dirty work.

As for dangerous in my games it depends on the time of day and the person going into it.

One PC I have is a Medtech who has a Drifter he uses for portable infirmary. People shoot at the vehicle but almost nobody tries to take it. The player will treat anyone. So none of the gangers want to lose that privilege when they need it most.
 
In my usual combat zone there some constants. There is the combat mall. Stole this from a game in Houston. Merchants have moved into an abandoned mall. In this mall you can buy almost anything. Cops do not come here on duty unless they are rolling in max force. There is a security force that is not to be messed with. The mall is neutral ground. In another area there is an abandoned school. The school has been taken over by a mysterious group. The area around the school tends to be safe because anyone causing trouble tends to wind up dead. Head and spine gone, skinned, or just disappeared. Anyone adult that has snooped inside the school has disappeared. Children who have wandered in return talking about monsters.

Over the years various characters have set up in the combat zone. Some have just set up safehouses. In one of the longest campaigns I was in my character bought and remodeled a whole block. First he found a block he liked. Near the edge, no megaviolence gangs, with a hotel. He bought/filed on the properties. Organized/subjugated the gangs. Secured renovation grants and actually used the money to renovate. He turned the hotel into a safehouse/brother/porn studio. When he was done he had a small army of security from the gangs. This took about 6 years in game. By the end he barely had time to adventure. I now use him as an NPC.
 
Well...the CZ is bad enough. Now Add in Bozo's whose personality archtypes are somewhere between the Night City book, Mark Hamill's Redition of the Joker for the Lieutenants, and saving some sick fragger who uplaoded Heath Ledgers version for the Boss and things get much scarier
 
In my New York campaign Manhattan Island is the combat zone, just like in escape from New York with a border check to leave the island.
 
It bigger than 20 blocks, but I haven't mapped it. How dangerous it is depends on many factors. What gang is in charge of the territory, and whether or not some smuck is running for office like mayor or sheriff, incumbents like to step it up with a purge. Its the borders that are rough, also some corps like to keep the image of the combat zone alive as it makes a convenient place to engage is illegal research.
 
This is exactly the way I see it. Assuming a constant firefight is totally unrealistic. People live here, and even the most crazed lunatic wouldn't choose to live around a constant battle, (if for no other reason than they would not 'live' there for long until they were a casualty.)

Look at the favellas of Rio, plenty of ordinary people lives and work here caught in the crossfire of narcogangers and crazied paramiltary police (This is the land of infamous police deathsquads ) Even more cynical, the rehabilitation of the favellas for the world cup showed some serious flaws, the police force was involved in many crimes in thoses areas: becoming the main gang around, they started to control the turf and making illegal street money.

As in real life, the combat zone is full of normal people struggling for a living in a "grey" area full of contradictions, with criminals and borderline cops chasing around and a regular collateral damage toll on the street people. Here, nothing is really sure because things change everyday: people dies easily, businesses disappears in a blink, the gang next door is on the verge of extinction, your car was stolen right now, ... When you're in the CZ, it's kinda Twilight Zone, gato, people are strange and nightpeople dangerous.

As fixer says, the city have a pulse, a rhythm, a mood you can feel in your bones if you belong to the city (In fact, it was Michael Man, in most of his films you can feel this city pulse. The opening night sequence of Abel ferrara "King of New York" is also a great one).
 
Mine were pretty much everything outside the inner suburbs (the one's basically absorbed by the city). Ground travel between cities in anything other then the VERY WELL PROTECTED trains was very much "at your own risk". Tho once you got into the rural areas it was fairly safe ... as long as you weren't mistaken for raiders ... farmers in 2020 don't use just shotguns :2guns:
 
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