I didn't quite know what I was doing when I adapted the setting creation questions from several Apocalypse World games. I used them to challenge my group to create the neighborhood where their corrupt police precinct was situated in All The Lies You Can Invent. My goal was that I wanted the group to feel like Gotham City was their canvas, not belonging to DC Comics at all. So here's what I asked them:
Tricorner Island
All through Gotham City, there’s certain constants:
It’s crime-ridden.
Rents are cheap, attracting artists and musicians.
Its night life is alive, exciting.
Pick three things that make Tricorner Island special:
⬜ The Lighthouse Towers - a vibrant, affordable housing community backed by the Wayne Foundation (neighborhood)
⬜ Panessa Studios - A venerable moviemaking institution trying to make the jump to streaming (arts)
⬜ Dutch Corners - A block of colonial-era streets that has survived fire, earthquake and history, where no cars can go. (neighborhood)
⬜ Gotham Hops - The biggest local brewery and a major industrial employer, home of Hoppy, the famous Gotham Hops mascot (industry)
⬜ Fashion Row - Fashion Row has hosted artists, craftspeople, glitz and the associated light industry for over a century. (arts)
⬜ Dreamland - An amusement park beloved by families from across the city. (entertainment)
⬜ Veteran’s Memorial Amphitheater - music venue and home of the Gotham Guardsmen (NBA) (entertainment)
⬜ Baroque Hill - Home to a marginalized community whose sacrifices and progress have made the neighborhood beloved. (neighborhood)
⬜ Hiram Rittenhouse Library - Open 24 hours due to an ancient trust fund. (arts)
Other than being dominated by a corrupt GCPD precinct, Tricorner Island also other troubles. Pick two:
⬜ It’s haunted; spirits and ghosts flicker through the night.
⬜ It’s divided along ethnic or racial lines; tensions between residents are high.
⬜ It’s doomed; rising ocean levels are undermining pilings and supports.
⬜ It’s crumbling; power and water outages are common.
⬜ It’s overgrown, thanks to Poison Ivy’s latest caper.
⬜ It’s impoverished and targeted by payday lenders and loansharks
The group discussed and landed on Panessa Studios, Gotham Hops and Baroque Hill. They also picked that the neighborhood was haunted and doomed.
As always when establishing a setting I started asking questions about each of these. "Panessa Studios, how's it doing? Has it had any success on streaming? Or is it dying out?" "Gotham Hops, does it make popular beers or is it more of a local thing? Is it a bad place to work or a good place to work? Is it unionized? Hoppy, the bunny mascot for Gotham Hops..." and so on. When I got to Baroque Hill I asked "tell me about this marginalized community. Are they refugees, are they racial minorities, are they immigrants, or excluded on some other axis..."
Claire spoke up and said "What if it was like....a LGBT enclave? A queer neighborhood?"
Just to give you an idea of how far behind the curve I am, I'm of the generation where "queer" was, one hundred percent of the time, a slur, and I know it's not now. So as the group coalesced around this idea, I tried to remember the goal of having them create this situation. The idea was to get them to feel shoulder to shoulder with Gotham City's other great creators.
I said "Okay, I'm game if you all are. How did this come about? Why is Baroque Hill a LGBT enclave?" The group (including me) discussed and brainstormed and came up with this story:
Ever since colonial times people had considered Tricorner Island a place to dump trash, to quarantine the sick and maniacal, to outlaw bandits and pirates. And in the past, the city gave full rein to its hatred of LGBT people. Landlords wouldn't rent to people they thought were gay. People wouldn't sell property to them. Business and political connections required you to be closeted. If you were successful and queer in Gotham City you left. A few blocks on Tricorner Island were different, out of the neglect the island always received. So if you couldn't leave, and couldn't bear to be closeted anymore, you ended up on Baroque Hill. There a community formed, organizing themselves to provide what the City wouldn't. The cops tormented the residents, and the rest of the city ignored them. Then, a gang of straight up neo-Nazis came, "The 88 Crew". Of course the cops were on their side. Some were even members. One night the 88 Crew decided to attack in force. Naturally, the cops disappeared. And, defensively at first, but then with increasing determination and spreading resistance, Baroque Hill stood up for itself and broke the 88 Crew straight in half. The city was shamed by their bravery and heralded Baroque Hill as heroic, pretending their previous prejudice didn't exist. Cops were fired, even jailed for their involvement on the gang side of the riots. Today, the Baroque Hill riots are discussed as "Gotham's Stonewall". The cops who escaped punishment, of course, seething, still within the GCPD, see it differently.
I think you'll agree that I couldn't hope for a better backstory, nor one that fits both the humanistic, conservative, and violent elements of noir Gotham City comics. And we used it in All The Lies You Can Invent - I released the leader of the 88 Crew from jail, I made sure that every "older cop" they came across was favorable to the gang (except, of course, for Jim Gordon, which made him stand out even more). Claire's character Vanessa was a Baroque Hill resident who had joined the force to "make a difference" and "protect MY community" but who had sunk into drug and alcohol use and corruption.
Through the play of the group I could tell there was a lot more to talk about with respect to Baroque Hill. I demanded that Vanessa compromise her loyalty to her community to keep the case against the corrupt police officers alive. I demonstrated there were no consequences in the GCPD for falsely arresting someone from Baroque Hill. I introduced Miles, a wealthy gay "finance bro" who was generous with his money to Baroque Hill causes, but fully expected the authorities to do what he wanted if he flashed a roll of cash at them. I introduced queer kids from smaller towns who came to Baroque Hill wanting to be part of the community and who were getting taken advantage of by criminal groups. Every lesbian bar in the neighborhood had a defiant and partially ironic "Poison Ivy Drinks Free" sign in the window but when she turned up, I made it clear that she violated your mind, your will.
In short, I tried to take Baroque Hill "seriously", in a comic book sense. If this existed in the Guide To The DC Universe, what stories would I want to see about it? In Gotham City you have to see the city's inhabitants as good, Ostrander taught me that. But you also have to see corruption as possible and crime not just as a systemic failure but as a victimizing process. You can't just have everyone on Baroque Hill be nice. You have to let them be bad, let them be corrupted, give them a gun and a need they can't fulfill within the law. That said, you also have to let people be good. Let them desire what's right, let them ache for justice and want it to happen. Give people shame over what they've done that's wrong, give them regret over decisions they've made that hurt others.
There was more to do with Baroque Hill, so I started a series of duets afterwards. The witch, Cassilda, had her adventure based off the "haunted" selection of the group above. Why was Tricorner Island haunted? Was it truly under a curse? And then Noreen, a Panessa Studios-backed "indie" director struggling to get her picture made as the threats of Gotham City closed in from all sides.
In comic books, romance exists, so creating a LGBT character means that LGBT romance must exist. I read some LGBT romance novels to see how, if at all, that type of heightened romance comes about. Here is what I learned. Every guy that I wanted to be when I was a 90s teen is now a "type" of gay male romantic lead (the slender glasses guy, the himbo, the heavyset protective guy, the fast-talking guy with fantastic hair), and every girl that I wanted to get with when I was a 90s teen is now a "type" of gay woman romantic lead (the goth, the cheerleader, the tomboy, the athlete, the snotty girl, the hot librarian, the girl next door, etc.) All I truly had to do was introduce myself to the concept of non-binary romantic interests and then permit myself to remember the high school thirsts and fantasies I had and the romance element of Baroque Hill was ready to go.
The response from players has been tremendous and I've been very happy with what they've given to me. I think the appeal of Baroque Hill, especially to queer players, is that they want Gotham City to have representation like this, but they don't trust DC Comics to do it right. (Remember hasDCdonesomethingstupidtoday.com? RIP) And that actually raises one of the great things about working in beloved licensed settings as a tabletop RPG player. You don't have to wait for the representation you want, you don't have to wait for the plotline you want. You can just....say you want it. And collaborate with other players to get it. You don't have to imagine what it would be if these issues of identity were raised in a Batman comic; you can raise them yourself, in exactly the way you want.
And the very best thing about it is that if you mess up, if you don't end up doing what you wanted, or make a misstep, you are doing it in private. You're not streaming it, you're not livetweeting it, you're not youtubing it or putting it on Twitch, Brought To You By Amazon Prime - you're not performing for anyone but your fellow collaborators, who are committed to helping you rather than punishing you. Your responsibility isn't to a global internet audience of billions, but to your own vision, and your friends.
Baroque Hill is the manifestation of that invitation.