Gotham city and RPG

I'm interested in some sort of source book on gotham city or any of the other various comic book cities. I'm going to be looking into doing a campaign with Mutants and Masterminds, but since there's been a few incarnations of DC and Marvel RPG's over the years I'm wondering if anyone know of sourcebooks that fit my needs from the past?

The previous incarnations of the DC game have had sourcebooks. Batman (from Mayfair) was self contained and had about half the book devoted to Gotham (broad strokes tho) but there may have also been a sourcebook for Batman (updates maybe?).

The WEG version also had a Bat-book (Nightwing and Catwoman fighting Bane on the cover I think) that expanded on the basics in the core DCU book. Since a Metropolis tourist's guidebook was released, I'm fairly certain a Gotham one was released as well.

There's general info and pics in those big hardbacks in the fantasy / sci fi section of any bookstore. They've done Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, JLA, X-Men and the Avengers (I think). I once saw a hugemongous encyclopedia of the DC Universe at Sam's Wholesale.

WEG's DC game had information on Gotham in the main book/boxed set (sparse), the Batman sourcebook (better), and then in The Daily Planet's Guide to Gotham City (much better). In addition to the gaming resources proper, there are also sections on Gotham in the various "Secret Files" books that DC Comics put out for Batman, and the DK Guide to Batman has some nice stuff, as well.

soulforge said:

I'm interested in some sort of source book on gotham city or any of the other various comic book cities. I'm going to be looking into doing a campaign with Mutants and Masterminds, but since there's been a few incarnations of DC and Marvel RPG's over the years I'm wondering if anyone know of sourcebooks that fit my needs from the past?

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Freedom City is pretty good, though not as dark as Gotham. It's basically Marvel's New York with a fictional name. Even if you don't play in it, it's also fun to read.

soulforge said:

I'm interested in some sort of source book on gotham city or any of the other various comic book cities. I'm going to be looking into doing a campaign with Mutants and Masterminds, but since there's been a few incarnations of DC and Marvel RPG's over the years I'm wondering if anyone know of sourcebooks that fit my needs from the past?

Click to expand...

There was a Metropolis and a Gotham sourcebook for the old Mayfair DC game; the Atlas of the DC Universe also has simple, artsy maps of most cities in the DC universe. None could really be considered canonical I suppose since none appeared in the comics, even though DC had a lot of input into the game.

Unfortunately, the Gotham map is totally different now (different, as in, the comic finally gave us a canonical map of the place during No Man's Land; you should be able to find a decent map of it somewhere) and the areas are different as well. There is a great Bludhaven map in the first Nightwing Secret Origins book.

Bold and Brave MUSH has a Gotham map here. They also have a map of Metropolis.

The Marvel game did a New York sourcebook but you could do better by getting a nice New York Access book or similar mundane guidebook.