Fight Locations — Events and Environments

Costume Party

Cool Things That Could Happen

• Maybe the heroes are aware that a particular villian will be at a party, but dont know what costume he will be wearing.

• If they do know what costume, then obviously more than one person will be wearing that costume. Great place for the Elvis Impersonating Gunmen(TM).

• This is a great place for a Demon to hide out. Not only can he plan the destruction of Hong Kong, but he can win 1st prize at the party as well.

• There should be at least one VIP, with resultant bodyguards, incognito at the party.

• Some poor sap may turn up in a costume that is the spitting image of a big villian that the heroes fear. Make sure his back is to the heroes so they can sucker punch him.

• What costumes will the heroes be wearing? This is your chance to have a little fun “I'm sorry Mr Cool and Deadly Killer, but the only costumes left are Little Bo Peep and Leather Clad Rentboy”.

• A Masked avenger could go in his costume and in the ensuing mayhem, someone could turn up claiming to be the “real” Night Weasel or whoever. Test how he copes with overzealous fans.

• Where will the party be taking place, this could be anywhere. My wife came up with the following (credit where, credit is due): Hold the party at an amusement park with model village representations of big cities, such as New York, Tokyo or London. The martial Artist could only get a gorilla suit and the the villian of the piece is either in a lizard suit (or is a Demonic Lizard, see above). Now these two have got to have a tussle in the Village, havent they. Go on re-shoot Godzilla The way you wanted it.

• At least half the guns at the party should be extremely realistic waterpistols. Make sure that the heroes guns get destroyed or temporarily mislaid.

Funeral

This is a fight Location that should be used at least once, after the tragic Death of a loved one/ally/member of the Dragons. What better place for their enemies to launch a revenge attack. The location of the funeral is important, if it is being held in a Church use the fight location list for that area. However for the purposes of this description I have decided to concentrate on an open Grave service.

Cool Things That Could Happen

• An evil sorcerer can raise all the corpses in the graveyard, an unending supply of mooks. He could also raise the hero who is to be buried, but this time he is fighting for the bad guys.

• Coffins could be used as weapons, throwing the lids, using the coffin to shelter from an explosion.

• At least one character should fall into an open grave, maybe someone should then try and bury him alive.

• Try and fit he dialogue “Eat the Coffin Mushroom Now!” in somewhere.

• Maybe a corpse could be used as a weapon or for some defensive parrying (a bit gross, but great for that Everyman Gravedigger)

• A Ghostly Hero could start the battle in the Coffin, maybe its his own funeral, great introduction for a new hero.

• Not everybody at the funeral will be combat ready, there will always be a “Great Aunt Lucy” who is there just to say goodbye to her beloved nephew.

• Protect the innocent!

• Gravestones can also make weapons/cover, and don't forget those angel statues, maybe one has a stone sword.

• Two Words: Grave Elemental

• Other funerals could be taking place, maybe of a high ranking Mafia/Triad member, everybody at that one will have weapons and will be more than willing to get involved

Inspiration

Face/Off, Last Action Hero, James Bond Movies (Live and Let Die?)

Sky Diving

Well obviously the first question one must answer is: How do you initiate such a complex fight scene like sky-diving?

If a fight breaks out on an airplane, the action could continue on the outside in a number of different ways. Should the PCs capture a villain and escort him to a new location, he might break free, grab a parachute, and leap out the door. Of course the PCs would have to follow suit in order to catch him again, especially if the villain is in possession of an important item of theirs. Alternatively, the PCs themselves may be the captives attempting escape. This may be trickier for a GM to arrange considering a group of PCs might feel they don't need to leap out to 20,000 feet of free-fall, but simply overpower the plane's pilots. There are a number of excuses a GM can use to get the PCs jumping however. Use the old classic of a broken gasline and the plane's going down (saying the cockpit is on fire will prevent any attempts at emergency landings). Or you might just say that none of the PCs have any experience at being an airplane pilot.

Once your gang is on the move, that's where the fun can really begin. Be sure they each have a parachute. Surviving a fall like that should be pretty much impossible, even for a Big Bruiser. If anyone is without a parachute, they'll have to find a way of landing safely fast. Perhaps he could latch onto another character and hang on for dear life. Or maybe he can remove one from a dead mook who won't be needing it anymore (it'd be a real bummer if that chute turned out to have several bulletholes in it however). If everything else fails, the PC could steer himself towards a grouping of high trees or a nearby body of water. Surviving that should be for more unrealistic games. Combat is an exciting, though difficult exercise. Air is rushing by at an incredibly fast rate of speed, making aiming difficult. Firing point blank is unaffected, but all modifiers for range are doubled when trying to fire a gun at someone else. Handguns are ideal for sky-diving combat. Attempting to fire a two-handed weapon like a shotgun should be impossible.

Hand-to-hand combat also changes somewhat. Because the rushing air is affecting your limbs, damage done from an unarmed attack suffers a −1 penalty. Knives and swords may be ultimately more lethalsince they have the potential to slice through the straps or buckles around a free-faller's body, or even the chute itself. All characters should take extra care when handling weapons in this environment. If they lose them, they're gone for good (except signature weapons of course).

Skilled sky-divers may be able to use the open space to their advantage. Tucking your arms and legs into a straight position will make you more aerodynamic, allowing you to fall faster. This is handy for a quick getaway, or to make a crushing head-first attack.

Once the chutes are open, free-fall slows to a normalized pace. Here range modifiers return to normal, although firing powerful shotguns and autofire weapons is still a bad idea. Without solid footing to stand on, the kickback from such gunplay can get you spinning in directions you don't want to go or even get you tangled up in your chute. Smart characters will attempt to shoot holes in the enemies' open parachutes.

The penalties on hand-to-hand combat is also ignored, but generally two characters will not be able to get into a fight without their chutes becoming tangled.

Other obstacles to watch out for:

• Groups of flying birds — A passingby flcok of geese, ducks, pigeons, or even seagulls can provide distraction, danger, or even comic relief if used properly.

• Airplanes — If the PCs are escaping from captors, they may turn the plane around and attempt to ram them. The PCs will be easy targets if they already have their chutes open.

• Helicopters — These can give the group of sky-divers a lot of headaches if they can be worked in. Those rotating blades are definate character killers, and when was the last time you saw a helicopter in the movies that wasn't carrying a team of mooks brandishing automatic weapons?

• Clouds — Free-falling through clouds can be a unique experience as well. Very thick clouds will reduce visibility to almost nothing. The GM should assign penalties to Perception and combat based on how little the PCs can see in front of them (−4 being the maximum).

Planes generally fly high enough for sky-diving combat to run it's course. PCs generally shouldn't have to worry about the ground rushing up to meet them before they expect (unless the GM wants to add that extra edge of suspense).

Inspiration

Armor of God, Drop Zone, Eraser, Honeymoon in Vegas, Point Break, Terminal Velocity, Moonraker

Street Festival

A swirling mix of colorful costumes and floats, set to the rhythms of a dozen bands. Who is the enemy, who is innocent, and how can you tell the difference before it's too late?

First, decide if it's an ethnic (Chinese, Greek, etc.) festival, or more of a Mardi Gras chaotic jumble. Ethnic festivals tend to be more orderly, while the chaotic jumble is, you guessed it. Chinese festivals feature the excellent props of Lion Dancing equipment and firecrackers.

Cool Things That Could Happen

• A street festival works well on a street with many older buildings which have opening 2nd story windows. Snipers can take shots from there, and characters can climb (floats, Lion Dancers, lightposts, etc.) up to them to escape.

• Teams of (characters, mooks) can take the costumes of a matching group and make a coordinated attack. Costumes can be exchanged, duplicated, or stolen for amusing (or deadly) impact. On that note, steal a trick from “My Father is a Hero” and have an innocent looking pile of garbage bags erupt into mooks itching to ice the characters.

• With all the alcohol flowing, drunken kung fu works quite well.

• The mass of humanity lets you try and run on people's heads, and don't forget what happens to the shots that miss their targets. Hostages, human shields, and tragic slo-mo deaths of innocents are just an action away. Once panic sets in, you can have a few rounds of moving cover as people run for it, then just the combatants are left.

• Floats can conceal almost anything. How about a bomb the characters must dismantle… from the outside of the float? A hideous demon? Fresh mooks? The Head of Vecna? :-)

• Scrappy Kids may get nosebleeds if women flash their wares at them.

• A floats may be a killing machine just waiting to brush the characters with its razor-edged palm leaves, or have them leap on to its expanse of warm, sun-drenched quicksand. And how about the skeleton of the pirate with his cutlass and flintlock?

• For the Chinese festival, Lion Dancing offers some great opportunities for “secretly fighting in the open”, and firecrackers conceal gunfire. How about martial arts demonstrations? Fire breathers?

• There's lots of equipment there to service the modern festival: food carts, ticket booths, portable toilets, trash cans, PA systems, etc. Put it to good use.

Inspiration

Once Upon a Time in China part 3, First Strike

Underwater

Combat strikes at the most inopportune moments and what can be more inopportune than when you are underwater. It happens in a lot of movies for a lot of differing reasons, you gotta do it at least once.

Cool Things That Could Happen

• The First obvious thought is air. Unless you have the Aquatic schtick or SCUBA gear, you can and will drown. The rule book doesn't contain any rules for drowning, so I suggest this; At the start of each Sequence, all characters roll their Constitution vs. the Number of Sequences Submerged. If this is failed they start taking 1 WP of damage per action they take. If the character gets to even the smallest source of oxygen they can get a lungful of air and start the tests again. Drowning damage is only temporary (until you die), and WP's return at the rate of 1 per 2 shots when on the surface.

  Colin Chapman has written up his own set of house rules for underwater combat, which can be found on the House Rules page. Feel free to use whichever version you wish. Also note that, according to the rulebook, drowning damage is 5 WP per sequence, doubled each sequence for as long as the condition lasts

• Movement should be halved.

• Most weapons are at a penalty of −2

• Knives, spears, tridents and are at a −1.

• Spearguns should be the weapon of choice in this environment

• A sorcerer with the lightning blast, would be devastatingly effective (area effect). A Sorcerer with the fire blast will be plumb out of luck.

• Don't forget the local fauna. Sharks are the obvious choice, but also there are Barracuda, Moray eels, Electric Eels, Octopi, Giant Jelly Fish and drifting into the realm of the incredible you have Giant Crabs/Lobsters, Kraken and even the odd Plesiosaur. Your next Lotus summoner could have an undersea base.

• That same summoner could also raise a ghost ship with all the corresponding swashbuckling zombies that might entail.

• The good guys could be able to summon Dolphins and Killer Whales.

• You have to have gobs of mooks with spearguns, and minisubs.

• One person subs with grasping claws to menace your heroes

• Sharp pieces of Coral make a pretty effective impromptu weapon.

• There must be hundreds of Feng Shui sites under the oceans, ranging from sunken ships to lost Atlantean temples and even natural beauty spots along the coral beds. This could add a whole new arena to the Secret War.

• How about a Netherworld Gate that opens up at the bottom of the Atlantic. Netherworld explorers have found it, but all those who enter it never return (obviously), maybe a legend has built up about this mysterious gateway.

Inspiration

Jackie Chan's First Strike, Most James Bond Movies(Thunderball especially), Alien 4, Jaws

Wedding

First off, I'm assuming a traditional western wedding, because those are the only kind I've ever been to. Of course, weddings are going to vary a lot in size and composition, but you can pretty much count on there always being a bride, a groom, and someone to perform the service. You usually also have guests, members of the wedding party, and a great big cake. Bear in mind that most weddings are broken down into two parts, whihc often occur in different locations: the ceremony itself, and the reception. Outdoor weddings, however, often take place at the same location.

Weddings are great for those of you who want to add a tragic element to your games, or create an automatic hook for your players. How many movies or TV shows involve bad guys crashing a wedding, followed by the kidnapping or murder of the bride, which gives the hero a reason to seek out vengeance? Of course, this is Feng Shui, so the bride is just as likely to kick as much ass as anyone else. Of course, there's also no need for it to be a tragedy either. After all, any place where you can open up with the firepower is usually a party.

Cool Things That Could Happen

• If the Wedding is being staged in a church or cathedral, you'll have a large building with small exits and lots of people. In other words, instant panic once the shooting starts, but also lots of cover too. Check out the church fight location for ideas. If it's being held outdoors, your characters will have more room to move around. Of course, that also means the bad guys can crash the party — literally — with cars.

• The bride is, of course, the center of attention at all weddings. It sure is easy to get tripped up in that big, cumbersome gown. Of course, it's also a great place to hide an uzi too.

• Even more fun than the bride is the wedding cake. It must absolutely and without question be destroyed in some spectacular fashion during the fight. In fact, I recommend working wedding cakes into almost every fight scene, even when there's no logical reason for them to be there, just for this purpose. If you like running jokes, you could orchestrate it so that the characters are constantly saving the cake from destruction all through the fight.

• Many weddings have DJ's which is ok because it gives you electronic equipment to destroy. Even better is a band or string quartet, because that gives you instruments to use as improvised weapons.

• Waiters bearing trays of food and drink make great obstacles for a karate fight. Have a few mooks collide with a waiter bearing a tray full of dinner entrees. Then use the trays to deflect bullets or as improvised frisbee-weapons. Of course, the mooks could be disguised as the waiters themselves.

• Buffet tables can also be used in a variety of ways. The most common is to have a character or characters thrown onto them, collapsing the table and spilling food everywhere. You could also have the characters fight on the table, or have someone dragged across it. If the table contains hot food, the cans of sterno can set the place ablaze. If it contains an ice sculpture, make sure it gets hit by an high-caliber round at some point.

• Even minor props can be employed to good effect. For instance, the rice traditionally thrown at the bride and groom can be thrown into a character's eyes, temporarily blinding him, and bottles of champagne are fine for improvised weapons. Did I mention the wedding cake should be destroyed in some spectacular fashion.

• Wedding receptions usually involve large dinners, which means lots of tables and chairs. This is basic stuff, and need not be repeated here. Weddings also often have lots of innocent bystanders around. Once again, this is basic stuff.

Inspiration

Black Cat, Queen's High

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