Modern Day Dungeons

[Chamomile]

I've hit something of a speed bump in the game I've been throwing together. It's a modern game, but one of the concepts I want to keep is that of the dungeon run, a large facility with something in it that you need to steal, kill, or do something else unlawful to. I'm having difficulty coming up with any of these besides "generic corporate highrise" and "military base" though, and some way to differentiate locations from each other would be incredibly useful to prevent things from getting dull.

Otherwise mundane places like a mall or university campus can make great dungeons if you can first find a way to fill up the place with gun-toting mooks and give some compelling reason as to why the players would have to actually travel through the buildings in between instead of just cutting across campus (which can be accomplished with some kind of air support if you can find a reason as to why the bad guys will have it, which is probably related to why they've stuffed the place with uzi-wielding mercenaries or whatever in the first place).

Less problematically, you could fill up a storm drain system with an insane death cult easily enough. The only trick there is explaining why regular homeless people haven't set up shop in there already (as they have in Las Vegas), which can probably be answered by tastefully decorating the place with a few maimed corpses and passing around a few bribes to make sure the police look the other way.

So counting the two at start, that's three places total, which is more than I started with. But still, further ideas would be appreciated.

[Winnah]

A few ideas, some may be useful.

city park/nature reserve
scrap yard/junk yard/garbage dump
factory complex (composed automated lines, basic labs, distribution centres, silo, break rooms, etc.)
suburban cul de sac/gated community
Gym/Dojo/Sporting Club
Racetrack/Speedway/Whatever you call the place where monster trucks live
Church/synagogue/community centre
Police station/fire station/hospital

[RobbyPants]

The college I went to had tunnels under ground connecting all but one or two of the newer buildings. Most students didn't know about them, and the only reason I ever went in them was because I had a maintenance job my last year. They were fairly small, to the point that you had to travel single file. They existed just to give easy access to the water and steam pipes, and later, the cable trays.

So, these types of things do exist, although I'm not sure how common they are.

[Stahlseele]

Multi-Story Car-Park? O.o
Subway Station/Tunnels?

[fectin]

"Modern" is pretty broad. The answer is pretty different if you're fighting ancient cultists (secret dungeons everywhere), black helicopter-style organizations (secret bases), aliens (burried spaceships, pocket dimensions), cryptids (caves), street-magic magicians (back alleys), Hellblazer magicians (hell, secret temples), vampires (anywhere), werewolves (forests, alleys), undead/Teenage Mutant whatevers (underground, sewers, subways), hobos (warehouses), etc.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Don't forget hospitals overrun by Patient Zero.

[Wrathzog]

The college I went to had tunnels under ground connecting all but one or two of the newer buildings. Most students didn't know about them, and the only reason I ever went in them was because I had a maintenance job my last year. They were fairly small, to the point that you had to travel single file. They existed just to give easy access to the water and steam pipes, and later, the cable trays.

So, these types of things do exist, although I'm not sure how common they are.

The place where I work has a buttload of service tunnels underneath and connecting all the buildings in the area. Rumors say that they were built during the latter days of the coldwar and are connected to fallout shelters that were never finished so they blocked them off.
There's also supposed to be some confederate ghosts from the civil war haunting the place because there was a massacre of some sort way back when... but I'm not really sure that one's as plausible...

[fectin]

Oh, and the ever-popular Seattle underground:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground

[tzor]

Consider Manhattan as an example. There are a lot of abandoned subway lines in the city, some of them parallel existing lines. Here is an example of an abandoned lower level.

In addition to the platforms described above, there is an abandoned lower platform on the southbound side (one track, underneath the downtown local track on the upper level, and one side platform underneath the island platform above). The lower level platform was built along with the rest of the station in 1932, but it was only used from 1959 to 1981 for odd services like the Aqueduct Racetrack special fare trains, and for rush hour E trains for a period during the 1970s. For many years, a crossunder was open between the upper level platforms using a passageway at the northern end of the lower level. Rearrangement of the mezzanine a few years ago allowed passengers to crossover using the mezzanine within the fare control.

It isn't really clear why this lower level was even built. It can only be used by trains running from Queens via 53rd Street (today's E service). Heading downtown on the track from the lower level of 50th Street, switches allow access to the downtown local, downtown express, or lower level of 42nd St. Departing 42nd Street on the lower level, trains can become local or express prior to entering 34th Street; however, trains departing 42nd Street on the upper level cannot cross over until reaching Canal Street. It is likely, therefore, that the extra platform was built to allow some operational flexibility, by permitting trains from 53rd Street to have access to both downtown local and express. Perhaps there was no other suitable location for a crossover switch, or it was thought an extra platform face could allow increased dwell time or time for switches to line up.

An oft-repeated story offers this as a reason the lower level was built: The Independent subway was being built by the city to compete directly with routes owned by the IRT and BMT companies. The #7 crosstown IRT line terminates at Times Square; it is said that the bumper blocks of the #7 are directly against or very close to the eastern wall of the lower level of the 42nd St. IND station. The construction of the lower level therefore blocked any potential extension of the #7 line to the west side of Manhattan. If this is true, it would have been done only in the spirit of crushing the competition, for the IND had no plans to construct a competing crosstown line.

In 1998 and 1999 all but one remaining entrance to the lower level was sealed (the remaining one is under a lift-up trap door at the south end of the southbound platform). A report in the September, 1999 Bulletin of the New York Division ERA reports that the lower level track D-3 from north of 42nd St. all the way to 34th St. is now permanently out of service. Occasionally the existance of the lower level is mentioned as an excuse for why the IRT #7 cannot be extended westward; this new development now renders the lower level useless and it should not pose a problem to run the #7 extension directly through the lower level.

[Stubbazubba]

Otherwise mundane places like a mall or university campus can make great dungeons if you can first find a way to fill up the place with gun-toting mooks and give some compelling reason as to why the players would have to actually travel through the buildings in between instead of just cutting across campus (which can be accomplished with some kind of air support if you can find a reason as to why the bad guys will have it, which is probably related to why they've stuffed the place with uzi-wielding mercenaries or whatever in the first place).

Oh, you mean like this?

[wotmaniac]

I've personally played in games with the types of tunnel complexes that RobbyPants and Warthzog talked about; it goes over just fine -- you don't even have to try too hard to sell it.

I can also say, from personal experience, that multi-level parking garages can be a lot of fun.
you can even mix it up with one that has both below- and above-ground levels.

as to this:

Otherwise mundane places like a mall or university campus can make great dungeons if you can first find a way to fill up the place with gun-toting mooks and give some compelling reason as to why the players would have to actually travel through the buildings in between instead of just cutting across campus (which can be accomplished with some kind of air support if you can find a reason as to why the bad guys will have it, which is probably related to why they've stuffed the place with uzi-wielding mercenaries or whatever in the first place).

I think you may be over thinking this.
I would think that just a few strategically-placed snipers hidden on the roof-tops/upper-floors would do the trick.
Can apply to not just campuses and open-air malls, but also apartment complexes, executive business parks, touristy "historic downtown" type areas, amusement/theme parks (or maybe the carnival/state fair is in town).

[Wesley Street]

Griffith Park in Los Angeles has the ruins of the old Los Angeles County Zoo.

Any major city that has been involved in a war has some labyrinth of abandonded service tunnels. See Tokyo, London, or Beijing.

I'm a fan of the abandoned power plant as the scale is always ginormous.

[Cynic]

Really cities with older infrastructure are great open dungeons.

Take London, Paris or Venice.

There are narrow alley ways, mesh fences, Abyssmal and dangerous highways. London's Ratcliffe Highway is a perfect example of this. They have history and plot devices attached.

Venice's waterways allow for awesome dungeoneering. Hell, you can use the water ways to introduce water races/monsters.

Rome or Pisa's religious history are another awesome plot hook.

If you go to the middle east, you have Jerusalem -- for the religious bent. Kuwait's oil wells allow for underground adventure.

[Cynic]

Really cities with older infrastructure are great open dungeons.

Take London, Paris or Venice.

There are narrow alley ways, mesh fences, Abyssmal and dangerous highways. London's Ratcliffe Highway is a perfect example of this. They have history and plot devices attached.

Venice's waterways allow for awesome dungeoneering. Hell, you can use the water ways to introduce water races/monsters.

Rome or Pisa's religious history are another awesome plot hook.

If you go to the middle east, you have Jerusalem -- for the religious bent. Kuwait's oil wells allow for underground

Seriously the modern world is ripe with Dungeon adventure. a

Pick any city and just check out the history page on wikipedia.

[Chamomile]

I would think that just a few strategically-placed snipers hidden on the roof-tops/upper-floors would do the trick.

This strikes me as being more a single encounter than a modern day dungeon.

Abandoned, ruined, or otherwise vacant-but-slightly-creepy places are great, so thanks for those. The main antagonists are along the lines of cultists and evil corporations, but the setting is kitchen-sink enough that practically all of the antagonists listed by Fectin could make appearances except aliens, which don't have a place in the mythos...Yet.

Does anyone have any recommendations for some movies, games, or books I could watch/play/read for inspiration as to storming a corporate headquarters or shadow government secret base?

[wotmaniac]

I would think that just a few strategically-placed snipers hidden on the roof-tops/upper-floors would do the trick.

This strikes me as being more a single encounter than a modern day dungeon.

It depends on the implementation/execution.
I was thinking of something along the lines of having the snipers in such a position that the PCs can't really effect them unless they assault the individual positions (which they have to go through the building(s) to get to). The sniper fire is basically to funnel the PCs in to the nearest "safe" spot (which will be the nearest building) -- at which point, they have to clear the building. Rinse and repeat.
or something like that

Does anyone have any recommendations for some movies, games, or books I could watch/play/read for inspiration as to storming a corporate headquarters or shadow government secret base?

- 4 seasons of Burn Notice (this one even gives you instructional narration)
- Bourne trilogy
- MI (duh)
- Punisher: War Zone (made of awesome)
- the Die Hard series (maybe?)

[Wrathzog]

Does anyone have any recommendations for some movies, games, or books I could watch/play/read for inspiration as to storming a corporate headquarters or shadow government secret base?

As for games:
Alpha Protocol (aka Burn Notice the Video Game)
Fallout 2 (Navarra; Post Apocalypse)
F.E.A.R. (Pretty much all you do is go on rampages in secret military bases)
Global Agenda (Maybe too futuristic?)
Half Life
Max Payne (Hilarity Tripping Balls Option)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Post-Apocalypse)

[DSMatticus]

Abandoned mining towns are awesome. They often have modern, industrial looking buildings on the surface and extensive underground tunnels between the buildings and into the mines themselves. And there are hundreds, maybe thousands of them. There are tiny little (few dozen houses) rural/suburban towns that look really nice and have been deserted a decade or two. They haven't really had time to detoriate that much, so they still look the spitting image of white picket fence homes except there's no one there and it's creepy as hell. Bunches of these too. There are even abandoned urban centers (Pripyat, by example). Not sure how many places like this there are. Lots of these also contain mining locations (see Hashimi Island) because that's what caused them to grow, so you have abandoned city + underground caves and that's awesome.

As for storming shadow government bases and secret corporation headquarters or whatever, modern security systems are usually based on detection and response. For legitimate, legal businesses that means an alarm system that sends a message to police headquarters. You should probably build around this same model, and decide on a per-organization basis, "what are their response capabilities?" The cult slumming it in the abandoned subcity probably can't do much more than text message all their members, who show up with cheap guns to kill you. The military can throw wave after wave of trained, well-armed soldiers at you until you are dead or you escape. The military's secret base may not be able to throw wave after wave of trained, well-armed soldiers at you because that would conflict with the 'secret' part, but when they give up on that the base probably has a self-destruct fallback.

Response may also just mean "waking up the people in the barracks and telling them to get their guns," especially if the location is remote or response is otherwise not an option.

[Maj]

as to this:

Otherwise mundane places like a mall or university campus can make great dungeons if you can first find a way to fill up the place with gun-toting mooks and give some compelling reason as to why the players would have to actually travel through the buildings in between instead of just cutting across campus (which can be accomplished with some kind of air support if you can find a reason as to why the bad guys will have it, which is probably related to why they've stuffed the place with uzi-wielding mercenaries or whatever in the first place).

I think you may be over thinking this.

Agreed.

Obviously Chamomile and I have been on totally different campuses because quite frequently I've found that students go through buildings because it's shorter than walking around them. Also, running into a building would give the characters an opportunity to access the chem lab/janitorial closet for explosives, get to a computer to send for help, arm themselves with stuff from the cafeteria, set a trap using furniture from classrooms, etc, etc...

And don't forget museums. Those rule.

Inspiration (though I haven't seen all of these recently and my recall is far from perfect):

Movies:
Mission Impossible
Sneakers
Art of War
Salt
Goldeneye (see also the N64 game of same title and similar Perfect Dark)
Antitrust

TV Shows:
Leverage
Chuck
Burn Notice

[Whatever]

Plenty of good suggestions already, so here's just a few that were missed:

1) busting people out of (or in to) prison is a classic
2) a cargo ship is great, thousands of shipping containers, plus the ship itself
3) a battleship is fine too

[Chamomile]

Obviously Chamomile and I have been on totally different campuses because quite frequently I've found that students go through buildings because it's shorter than walking around them.

I don't think the difference is in the campuses we've been to, but rather the places our minds wander to while walking through them. I cut through buildings on the way to class, and when I do I make note of how this would be a terrible idea if the campus were swarming with hostile combatants, because it's so much easier to set up chokepoints and ambushes inside than out. Unless the enemy has snipers or some kind of targeted light artillery to make traveling in open spaces even less advisable than going through the buildings. Also, if the PCs don't have more effective and more stable explosives at start than what they can make in two minutes in a chem lab, they're doing something very wrong.

/nitpicks

[Cynic]

Another great show -- "Alias."

[Maj]

Also, if the PCs don't have more effective and more stable explosives at start than what they can make in two minutes in a chem lab, they're doing something very wrong.

No, it's just a different kind of story. I can think of lots of reasons that characters wouldn't have what they need - the most obvious being that the reason they're wherever they are wasn't to get attacked or the plan went awry.

But then... That's me, and I enjoy Fiona's impromptu awesomeness (see: Burn Notice) and games where shit happens.

[DeJoker]

Not sure if reasonably conceptual but perhaps somewhat weird science would be in the ball park but you might want to watch the movie Mimic. Its actually a well thought out and executed movie and the acting aint bad either. However, this would give you an almost true dungeon crawl filled with nasty critters that you have to get rid of in order to save the your friends and ultimately the world. Of course you might want to change the ending so that all the players can have a part in it. Still I could see being able to stretch this one out of numerous game sessions. Especially if that weird science group had actually done the work in a hidden underground lab -- so that to discover the who, what, and why of it you have to gather all the clues. Kind of like a numerous other movies where something bad is happening and they send in a group to A) stop the badness B) find out why the badness came about. Maybe you take this a step further and they have begun branching out from the main hive and the group encounters a small hive under a campus or any of the various afore mentioned places -- then its a series of dungeoun crawls as they track the baddies back to the main hive. Just some thoughts.

[Lago PARANOIA]

http://www.costik.com/Violence%20RPG1.pdf