Never go out at night. Period.
Cardio.
Take some self-defense classes.
Never be a hero.
Never speak against the establish order.
Never witness anything.
Stick to the main streets. No alleys. Ever.
Save up for a one-way bus ride to either Keystone City or Metropolis.
Pray Batman is in the right place at the right time should any of these fail.
edited 11th Jan '12 6:20:11 PM by AtomJames
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.There are eight simple instructions that you must follow if you wish to survive in Gotham:
1. See no evil
2. Hear no evil
3. Speak no evil
4. Do no evil
5. See no goodness
6. Hear no goodness
7. Speak no goodness
8. Do no goodness
edited 12th Jan '12 10:45:22 AM by TrashJack
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
This. Plus some manner of pistol for concealed carry.
Seriously, Batman has like three rogues that couldn't be dealt with by any competent marksmen. I get that Gotham is built up as some kind of absurdly dangerous place and his villains as super dangerous, but that's always struck me as Informed Ability.
Another TL:DR post.General Safety Precautions
- The Batman has very good reasons for not wanting to kill anyone. He also has years of training and an ocean of expensive gadgets to ensure that he can survive against Gotham's worst without having to kill anyone. You do not. So buy a gun.
- Clowns aren't funny. Don't seek them out.
- Own a book of mensa puzzles and test yourself on riddles often. Trust us on this.
- There are crocodiles living in the sewer, and there are occasionally giant bats in the abandoned churches. Do. Not. Go. Exploring.
- Nothing is just a rumor in this town. If you hear there may be some kind of super-criminal around called the Cobbler that only targets people who wear shoes, invest in sandals.
- Never assume any criminal is harmless based off of their looks. It doesn't matter if it's a little kid with a military fetish, a grown man obsessed with quilts, or a guy based around a nursery rhyme: these people are dangerous and will kill you.
- The supervillains are not a quaint tourist attraction - do not approach them. The fact that they bring scores of tourists into town daily is to be considered depressing, not an invitation to throw your life away.
- Go ahead. Laugh at Penguin or Scarecrow. We dare you.
- Seriously, don't go exploring.
- Every waking moment in Gotham should be spent contemplating ways to get out of Gotham. We hear Smallville's nice.
Safety Precautions For Dealing With The Joker:
- For the love of God, learn to smile and laugh. Even when the joke's not funny. Especially when the joke's not funny.
- Resign yourself to the fact that smiling and laughing when not appropriate may result in death. And that smiling and laughing when appropriate may result in death as well.
- Thus, further resign yourself to the fact that if you see the Joker on the street you've probably got about a 20% chance of getting away perfectly fine.
Safety Precaution For Being An Everyday Criminal In Gotham:
- Rule #1: Don't work with/for the Joker. Ever. This is a rule of thumb.
- If the Joker, for some reason or another, approaches you for aid (this is rare), ensure the bare minimum of contact with him and make sure you're never alone with the guy, especially when your work is done.
- If the guy wears a gaudy costume or mask, he probably pays well but is likely really dangerous to work for for some reason or another.
- Be flexible. If the boss wants you to tear your good suits in half and stitch two different ones together then learn how to sew post haste.
- If the guy is famous for inhuman experiments or monstrous creations, don't be flexible. You shouldn't even be there.
- Repeat after me: you can not beat Batman. You will not be that infamous criminal who miraculously manages to beat the Bat with a lucky punch. Drop your delusions of grandeur and learn when to surrender.
- Batman won't kill you, but remember you technically don't need most of your bones intact to survive. Suddenly giving up doesn't seem like such a bad option, huh?
- Putting on a costume will not suddenly give you clout. Nine times out of ten it's just a fast track to an important life lesson about how you really should find a more productive line of work, which you might not necessarily learn on account of being dead.
- If two supervillains are involved in whatever conflict you're in, know that you're probably just in the crossfire and cannon fodder besides. If more than two supervillains are involved, you should probably keep in mind that on top of that you're probably being manipulated somehow.
- No, Poison Ivy will not suddenly love you if you commit a few crimes for supposedly environmental causes. Do not try - once again, not worth it.
- Sure, working for the mob/mafia sounds like the safe alternative, but just keep in mind that every couple of years some madman or another will inevitably kill pretty much every mobster in the city for some reason or another. There's a very short turnover for bosses.
- If you become a minion, remember: you. Are. Expendable. Don't bother to object, it's your own damn fault for becoming a minion.
edited 10th May '12 3:18:12 AM by KnownUnknown
Tuck your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.
Don't tell me those aren't words to live...er well you get my point.
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I imagine Gotham has a really low high school graduation rate. You go in for a few years, drop out because your grades are too low/you don't have somewhere to live/you need to work, and you just get into this cycle, part of the slums and the underworld.
Others move to Gotham, and they borrow too much from the wrong people (in Gotham everyone's the wrong people), or they invest so much they can't afford to leave, or something. They stay because of finances, or family, or pressure. Sometimes they crack. Sometimes they don't.
And there's those who stay because they can. Gotham's the craphole that is their home, and they wouldn't trade it for anywhere else. They're the stubborn ones. And sometimes they make something out of it. This isn't counting the genuinely crazy people, who get so used to Gotham that Gotham gets used to them. There are literally hundreds of bodies hidden in Gotham's basements and rivers.
The transients come in for a few years and either leave, shaken but swearing never to come back, or go insane.
Then there's the rich people, who can afford not to have to deal with the lower classes and their problems and live on the outskirts of the city. The Waynes' murders were a genuine shock to rich Gotham, because they were the sort of people who should've been untouchable. They were a warning: stay out of our business, and we'll stay out of yours.
ophelia, you're breaking my heartFor fun, try hanging out at criminal trials. It's an unbeatable source of entertainment, and the only people who ever get hurt are up at the bench, witness stand, or jury box. However, avoid the majestic front courthouse steps at all costs, as well as revolving doors. Use a side entry, or at least hug a bannister at the far edge of the steps.
It's been said in canon most Gothamites spend their whole lives without ever seeing a supervillain in the flesh, and as for the disasters, eh, Metropolis, Central City, Keystone and the like suffer as many higher scale destruction events if not more (thanks to more powerful villains), it's just the narrative itself doesn't keep hammering on our heads how awful they truly are, unlike Gotham's case.
You don't need to see a super-villain in the flesh for them to kill you. There's a reason Joker tends to have one of the highest kill counts in the DC Universe.
And other cities may have larger disasters, but during day-to-day life, they're decent places to live in. In Gotham, you're always in danger of being killed by a common thug, regardless of whether or not Joker or Penguin are on the streets. Case in point, Thomas and Martha Wayne, or John and Mary Grayson.
Yeah, the biggest problem with Gotham isn't the murderous supervillains who want to kill the entire population (since they're pretty high profile and Batman takes care of them pretty quick).
It's that for all intents and purposes the whole city is what you might call the "bad part of town." You know how in Sim City you can see a rating for an area's crime level: green for good, red for crime-ridden? Imagine that the whole city is a very deep maroon.
Also, canonically Gotham is one of those places that just breeds a different class of criminal - even random thugs from Gotham tend to be crazier than the average mook from somewhere else.
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This. Gotham is actually less dangerous than other cities in the Dc Universe. I'll take my chances with the Joker or Penguin than with Metallo or The Cheetah.
It does have a higher crime rate, though, which is Batman's *true* target, a fact most people tend to forget. He wants to save the city from crime and corruption- not avenge his parents every night on whichever costumed thug he runs into. If anything, Joker etc. are distractions that he feels he has to deal with because the GCPD is not competent enough (overall) to do it.
edited 14th May '12 8:40:39 AM by Sijo

Okay. So you live in Gotham. Ordinary person up against the worst of the worst. What are some of the safety precautions you take?
Example: If I were a nurse/doctor, I'd never wear scrubs outside the hospital. And if the Joker broke out of Arkham, my kids would carpool.
ophelia, you're breaking my heart