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Map Of The Site
The site we use for events is Giant's Seat Scout Campsite just outside Radcliffe, north Manchester. The site is accessed from Ringley Road West, follow the turn off past a couple of farmhouses and a set of stables and you will see the gate to Giant's Seat at the end of the road. The track beyond the gate is a little bit rough. You will enter the site from the north just by the small green marker on the map.
The yellow lines on the map indicate the rough boundaries of the play area we use. The public footpath has a stream running close by and whilst encounters are not set on the other side of that stream players have crossed the stream in order to bypass patrols, set ambushes or just otherwise get the drop on NPCs. Beyond the stream and just beyond the yellow line is the old East Lancs railway line, now a very well used public path. We ask that players do not approach that path and stay within the woods if they should cross the stream.
There is more of the scout site to the south of the parts pictured which we do have access to, but since we run quite short linear missions as a rule we do not go that far due to the time involved. It hasn't stopped a few firefights straying that way though. Continue south and you will quickly bump into the road running past the garden centre as it curves east.
There are toilets in the main hut, but there is also a separate toilet block marked on the map. We have used this as an encounter space before now as well. There are also a couple of containers converted into sheds in that area, we do not currently have access to those.
There is a small amount of woodland north of the main building that we can access but don't because there is a large pond back there which can be a bit treacherous, and very little usable space. The woodland immediately west of the main building tends to be reserved for the science missions that do not require as much space to run as others, and this allows us to run two missions at once.
The red dot marks the rough position of a deep hollow, often referred to as the quarry. In good weather we use this part of the site quite a bit, but it can be quite slippery in bad weather and the bottom has a tendency to turn into a bit of a quagmire. For the February and October events we tend to stay out of this area unless the weather has been especially kind for 2-3 weeks beforehand. Site walks are carried out on the Friday to determine if certain areas are safe to use.
For the majority of missions we do not use a fixed route. Instead we set the encounter in a specific spot and let the players choose how they approach that spot for themselves. For other missions players may be told the route NPCs will take and they can then choose their own interception point. Once a mission has begun players are free to move within the marked boundaries of the play area as they see fit, taking note of safety warnings from the crew as they see fit.
The grass area directly south of the main building is an ic area where players have set up a kind of shop/bar/cafe of their own outside the Bar, around some fixed benches and a fire. Missions will occasionally stray into part of this area, players still in the Bar area are free to point and laugh at the mission, but they shouldn't try to interact with it. The grass immediately south of the car park is the ooc camping area, players are also welcome to pitch tents in the ic area, no specific type of tent is needed (the joys of a near-future game, you can loot almost kind of tent in the Lake District if you try hard).
Accessibility
The Zone is primarily a combat game. That said we have had several players for whom the combat is very much a minor interest and one or two who have avoided it as much as possible. There are science missions with little to no combat. These are currently run down a short flight of stone stairs, but we use that spot for preference because it keeps the missions out of sight of the Bar, we do have several other options for these missions if we have players for whom the stairs are an issue. At E11 we trialed using the space north of the main building adjacent to the pond and it worked far better than anticipated. Going forward this is likely to be our primary spot for anomaly missions.
For other missions we tend to use the woods to the east and west. To the west there is a series of clearings accessed down a couple of quite steep slopes, then the deep hollow mentioned above, then a couple of narrow paths along the hillside parallel to the field. For anyone with mobility issues this is unlikely to be suitable. To the east we mainly follow the public footpath which is relatively flat but with some muddy patches. The southern end of that path opens out onto the field and into the trees at the southern tip of the field. Unfortunately the site managers have put metal rails up to deter dogwalkers from walking onto site, so this may present a serious barrier to accessibility. The northern edge of that path ends in either a stone staircase or you can continue slightly further along the path and it slopes up to meet the access road. Unfortunately, further inspection at E11 shows that the northern edge of the public footpath ends in 2 large steps and has metal barriers, which prevented wheelchair access entirely.
We will make whatever accommodations we can for someone with mobility issues but ultimately we are somewhat restricted by what the geography of the site will allow.
