Wisconsin as a Hunter: The Vigil setting

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

OK, I'm going to order Weird Wisconsin from Amazon, but I was hoping to get some Badger State advice from those who know:

It looks like my group's Hunter: The Vigil game is going to be set in Wisconsin.

The first game will take place in the summer of 2002, when the characters are all elementary schoolers. I'm looking for this to take place in a poor or lower middle class community that would have been both hurt by the post-9/11 economic hit and where a fair number of adults would have gone off to the military, leaving the kids, in large part, on their own when the horrible stuff starts happening.

The later games will all take place in a college town. Madison is the obvious choice, but I honestly feel like it's a little too big for my purposes. It's hard to get things really claustrophobic with a population of more than 200,000. Any suggestions for other college towns in the state, where the college is legitimately the center of all social and economic activity?

What about Wisconsin would you include in a World of Darkness game? I lived in Madison for a few months, years ago, but I'm otherwise pretty much a blank slate.

Finally, what things should appear (or not appear) in a Wisconsin game to give it a truly authentic flavor?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[billd91]

What should appear:
Packer games
Binge drinking
Fishing
Deer hunting (bow and rifle)
Snowmobiling
Taverns in every town
Lutheran and Catholic Churches
Beer
Brandy
Curling clubs
Supper clubs
Dairy farms
Chubby people who drink milk and eat fried cheese
People who really like gardening
Hunting weapons in the backs of cars/trucks driven to school
Paved roads - seriously, while other states like Iowa still have lots of gravel roads serving farms, we paved them all as a compact between the state and the dairy farms
Culvers fast food restaurants
A&W and Hardees still in some smaller towns
Mosquitoes
People with cabins (or at least campers) up at "the lake"
Wood burning stoves
Ice fishermen
Brats
Harleys
Farm and Fleet stores
Tailgate parties at sporting events
Soccer fields for the kids
Lots of green - lawns, trees, fields - contrasts a lot with western brown states
People who follow too closely while driving
Cookouts on any occasion possible
Slow-pitch softball tournaments all summer in the local Fireman's Parks
Beer tents at the same Fireman's Festivals that host the slow pitch tournaments
Porn shops on the major trucking highways


Things that appear less frequently:
Temperance movements
Non-Hmong racial minorities. Wisconsin is more German than not, add in the other European immigrant descendents and we're a very white state outside of the cities and away from university campuses. And even in those environments, racial minorities are definitely in the minority. Yet, somehow, Wisconsin has substantial Hmong pockets, including a surprisingly large fraction of Wausau in central WI.


For ideas on where to set the game - look into the UW system. The satellite campuses run as large as 5-10,000 students in towns much smaller than 200,000 people. Some of them have a lot of character. UW Lacrosse has been known to riot during their Octoberfest celebrations. UW Oshkosh has been known to riot just for being drunk. UW Whitewater feels a lot like a non-residential campus, so many of the students go home or other places on the weekends.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Good point with the Hmong. That's something I wouldn't have even considered.

What's the split on Lutherans and Catholics? Are the religions split along any particular ethnic lines?

 

[FreeXenon]

don't forget hatred of the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

don't forget hatred of the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings!

The tip-off that someone isn't quite right is if they're wearing NFL shirts, hats or jackets other than the Green Bay Packers.

 

[billd91]

What's the split on Lutherans and Catholics? Are the religions split along any particular ethnic lines?

Being mostly Germans, the most common churches you'll find are Catholic or Lutheran depending on where in Germany your ancestors came from. Presbyterian and Methodist and anything else are a lot less common.

Also more common: Germanic/Eastern European names like Madison's recent mayor Dave Cieslewicz (chess-LEV-ich).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like that religious split. It lets me bring in the two Christian hunter groups if I want to later on.

 

[kenko6ux]

don't forget hatred of the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings!

I lived in Minneapolis for a while. My wife is from Plymouth, WI, a tiny town about halfway between Green Bay and Milwaukee. We took the Amtrak to visit her family one weekend and the closest stop on the train left us about an hour's drive from Plymouth, in a tiny little town surrounded by cranberry bogs.

While we were waiting for her parents to drive up to the train station and pick us up, we decided to have a drink in a local bar. There were three of them within a block of the train station. This in a town with a population of a few thousand at most. We selected the friendliest looking one and went inside.

There were a few people inside busily talking and enjoying themselves. When we walked in every stopped to size us up. After we took a seat, one of the locals came over to say hi. It was a definite "you ain't from around here, are ya?" moment. He asked us where we were from and when we said we had just taken the train into town from Minneapolis he asked "You ain't Vikings fans, are ya?" suspiciously.

There was dead quiet.

"No," my wife and I explained "We follow the Packers."

After that, there was once again revelry. And several of the locals tried to buy us drinks.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we had said we were Vikings fans....

I'll add a few more things that you should definitely see in WI:

It's pronounced "melk" not "milk"
It's pronounced "dray-gon" not "dragon" (rhymes with RAY GUN)
Not just bars ... PABST bars
Cows

However, it should be pointed out that Cow TIPPING is a myth, although the locals might try to trick out-of-towners into trying it. Cows don't generally sleep standing up, though, and they certainly won't just stand there while you try to knock them over.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For cities, you might want to consider Milwaukee. It's more industrial, more hilly, closer to Lake Michigan. One of the features that might work for your game is those hills: it's easy to seem claustrophobic when the buildings loom up around you at 45 degree angles.

You might also want to look at the "rust belt" phenomenon, especially for your point of origin. There's a lot of rural places where they used to make car parts or airplane parts or some other parts that are now manufactured overseas. Abandoned factores and warehouses are very common in certain areas, especially in the southern part of the state, and they often run right up next to farm areas (big open stretches of rolling prairie). Such a place also often has a large amount of military volunteers: the town industry is largely dead, so to get paid, get an education, and maybe get a stable start as an adult, they'll dodge bullets in a desert for a few years. There are some towns that are little more than a few old plants, some stores, and the surrounding fields. This is more in the southeastern section of the state (kind of the regions around Chicago and Milwaukee).

The northern part of the state is more "vactation town" rural: forests, lakes, and a number of large, steep hills. Easy place to get lost in the wilderness, no real people for miles around, caged by an infinite distance that you can't cross without a car. Then there's random new McMansions places alongside highways in nearly unincorporated land. Kind of creepily isolating, with the right vibe.

Madison is awesome, but honestly I wouldn't find it as compelling as a setting compared to the Rust Belt regions and the more wild North. Get them up to Green Bay and have them fight in the meatpacking plants alongside Lake Michigan in the dead cold of winter, all iced blood and cold metal.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Dude, if you don't set the game, or at least an adventure episode, in Lake Geneva, we're recalling your gamer card.