Odd City Settings?

[Ren]

So I'm thinking about running a game, and normally I'd set such a thing in my local city (Austin) but I've doen that so many times for toher games that I get kind of bored of it. So I was trying to think of some some new locales for a setting and I've been discarding places like the major cities as being way to obvious for the most part yet I didn't want to settle on some place too small or too obscure and I've come up with a couple of possibilities and wanted to see if anyone else had other odd ideas.
Note: I have not included Foreign cities on this list as there is only limited information on activities in other locations within the Dresden 'verse so I'm trying to keep it localish.

My ideas (so far):
Miami, FL (Pretty much anywhere in Florida actually) - Something about setting a game in one of the Brightest cities in the US just has its bizzare appeal. For all of that brightness it has a very ugly underside, making a perfect setting as far as a game is concerned. Plenty of action for White Court, Red Court and even Black Court Vampires. Plenty of places to hide bodies and black magic. Swamps and legends abound including the so-called Fountain of Youth. Not to mention the Hurricnaes a few times a year that could provide a backdrop for some fun games not to mention a tremendous source of power for anyone crazy enough to tap into one!

Honolulu, HI (And the Islands in general) - Pretty much the same reasons but there would be a lot less Vampriic activity and probably more of an emphasis on native magics. The constantly spewing volcanoes would also provide a powe rlocus of it's own. With any large land-masses being far away it means that getting help would be difficult especially during the worst of times and most wizards would have to travel by sailboat to get anywhere.

[Amelia Crane]

I made a list of cities based on a largest metropolises list on wikipedia.

Akron, OH, United States
Albany, NY, United States
Albuquerque, NM, United States
Allentown, PA, United States
Atlanta, GA, United States
Austin, TX, United States
Bakersfield, CA, United States
Baltimore, MD, United States
Baton Rouge, LA, United States
Birmingham, AL, United States
Boise City, ID, United States
Boston, MA, United States
Bridgeport, CT, United States
Buffalo, NY, United States
Cape Coral, FL MSA , United States
Charleston, SC, United States
Charlotte, NC, United States
Chicago, IL, United States
Cincinnati, OH, United States
Cleveland, OH, United States
Colorado Springs, CO, United States
Columbia, SC, United States
Columbus, OH, United States
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, United States
Dayton, OH, United States
Denver, CO, United States
Des Moines, IA, United States
Detroit, MI, United States
El Paso, TX, United States
Fresno, CA, United States
Grand Rapids, MI, United States
Greensboro, NC, United States
Greenville, SC, United States
Hartford, CT, United States
Honolulu, HI, United States
Houston, TX, United States
Indianapolis, IN, United States
Jacksonville, FL, United States
Kansas City, MO-KS, United States
Knoxville, TN MSA , United States
Lakeland, FL, United States
Las Vegas, NV, United States
Little Rock, AR, United States
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Louisville, KY, United States
Madison, WI, United States
McAllen, TX, United States
Memphis, TN, United States
Miami, FL, United States
Milwaukee, WI, United States
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, United States
Nashville, TN, United States
New Haven, CT, United States
New Orleans, LA, United States
New York, NY, United States
Norfolk, VA, United States
North Port, FL, United States
Oklahoma City, OK, United States
Omaha, NE, United States
Orlando, FL, United States
Oxnard, CA, United States
Philadelphia, PA, United States
Phoenix, AZ, United States
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
Portland, OR, United States
Poughkeepsie, NY, United States
Providence, RI, United States
Raleigh, NC, United States
Richmond, VA, United States
Riverside, CA, United States
Rochester, NY, United States
Sacramento, CA, United States
Salt Lake City, UT, United States
San Antonio, TX, United States
San Diego, CA, United States
San Francisco, CA, United States
San Jose, CA, United States
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Seattle, WA, United States
Springfield, MA MSA , United States
St. Louis, MO, United States
Stockton, CA, United States
Syracuse, NY, United States
Tampa, FL, United States
Toledo, OH, United States
Tucson, AZ, United States
Tulsa, OK, United States
Washington D.C., United States
Wichita, KS, United States
Worcester, MA, United States
Youngstown, OH, United States

The question is, how many of these places are interesting (to you)?

[Buscadera]

My ideas (so far):
Miami, FL (Pretty much anywhere in Florida actually) - Something about setting a game in one of the Brightest cities in the US just has its bizzare appeal. For all of that brightness it has a very ugly underside, making a perfect setting as far as a game is concerned. Plenty of action for White Court, Red Court and even Black Court Vampires. Plenty of places to hide bodies and black magic. Swamps and legends abound including the so-called Fountain of Youth. Not to mention the hurricanes a few times a year that could provide a backdrop for some fun games not to mention a tremendous source of power for anyone crazy enough to tap into one!

I ran a short online game set in Miami, since I'm going to school here. I'm also trying to gather together a local group for DFRPG.

Miami is a great city for the Dresden Files. There's tons of stuff ripe for use in a game. Plenty of different districts throughout the city make for plenty of different groups. The White Court and Summer Court squabbling over South Beach, plenty of loa and orisha thanks to all the voodoo and santeria, a huge drug trade and gangs. There's so much to work with. I even invented a nation of merfolk to play the role of antagonists to my PCs.

[Becq]

If you want a more unique, dynamic, non-traditional (if such a term can be applied to such a young game system) setting, try looking at this thread:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,21822.0.html

[Ren]

Hrm I hadn't considered the sea-dwellers Angel since DF hasn't relaly dealt wiht such much...I could totally do were-sharks!
Now I am totally sold on the idea!
I may have to pick your head for info at some later point...

[Ren]

And great list Amelia, thanks!
By odd I really meant Cities that you don't typically think of as being great locations for role-playing games.
Come to think of it, Nashville could be entertaining as well...a Genius Loci at Graceland that Manifests as the King!
Uh-huh!

[Ren]

Actually, now That I think of it my friend who was going to run the Game was going to use las Vegas, not Austin, Still an interesting location in and of itself.

Edit: I was incorrect, he's planning to use Austin. I think I got confused and I've bene playing to much Fallout: New Vegas....8P

[sjksprocket]

I live in Lancaster, PA, and was going to use the entire county, instead of just the city. You might want to consider take a little bit smaller city and using not only the city but the area around it as well. have your your characters run around a bit more and cover more distance to get from plave to place. Here in Lancaster we have a very large rural and agricultural landscape that could be used for plenty of things, and I want to try to work the amish into things somehow. I don't know how though yet.

[sinker]

I love Colorado for a location because there's so much variety here. You can create almost anything you want just by emphasizing one thing or another. The Denver-metro area is a sprawling city (not as huge as L.A. or Chicago those being places I've actually been to and can compare) with all that implies. Thirty minutes from the city are the Rockies with the natural forces implied there as well as all sorts of myths and legends and then a large percentage of the state is very rural otherwise.

One of the details that I love and has been in every DF game I've played thus far is the fact that the weather is so chaotic and unpredictable. I remember a time in the last few years when it snowed one day then was eighty degrees the next. One of the major themes we use is the idea that the veil is thin here and winter and summer's battles bleed through.

Also its a very old town for the western states. There's a lot of history here and a lot of bodies.

[Elf_NFB]

I live in Lancaster, PA, and was going to use the entire county, instead of just the city.

This would be an EXCELLENT area for a Dresden game. I have some relatives in that area and all the little towns and tourist traps are ripe for fun game events. Wouldn't you just LOVE to have the Hershey factory as a setting? Perhaps over run by the Fay of some type....

[Ren]

I like Colorado as well, I lived in Berthoud for my senior year of HS and got to know the general area pretty well. Totally agree on all of the old west history there, lost mines, legends etc...adding an old west theme would be a nice twist as well.

[bibliophile20]

I've been running one set here in Rochester, NY.  Getting to include the local flavor (including such things as discussing traffic patterns in game, or the food, or what'll happen if someone fell into the river (the gaming club has a d100 chart set up to determine which powers you get)) has been lots of fun. 

[HumAnnoyd]

Birmingham, Alabama would make an interesting choice.  It is called the "Magic City" first off and has been a nexus for a remarkable amount of violence having been at the top of all the violent crime categories for 40 years.  There is a great deal of history there with the Civil Rights movement.  It is a city that has crushing poverty (the poorest zip code in the US is in West End according to a news report I saw once) only a few miles away from the mansions of some of the top ten richest men in the country.  There are all sorts of interesting locations like Sloss Furnace and the Fountain on South Side.  There is the near mythic neighborhood "Bubba Town" that is so crime ridden that even cops disappear without a trace according to the street.  All of this comes from my experiences living there from the 70s and 80s so it might have changed since then but I think it would be a great place to run a game.

[sinker]

It occurs to me as well that Detroit might be an awesome place to run a game if my friend who lives there can be believed. They've lost a ton of population recently and they're just letting whole areas of the city go. Trees grow up in the middle of streets, all sorts of fun things like that.

[HumAnnoyd]

It occurs to me as well that Detroit might be an awesome place to run a game if my friend who lives there can be believed. They've lost a ton of population recently and they're just letting whole areas of the city go. Trees grow up in the middle of streets, all sorts of fun things like that.

Yeah I think Detroit is perfect in many ways.  There is a lot of desperation there and the Supernatural predators might see it as a great place to get a meal or two.  Flint might work too for many of the same reasons.