[D20 Past] The 1800's.

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

How hard would it to get a group to play in an 1800's time period game? There seems to be a lot of information on the time period that would be required. While the time period really fascinates me and I am a big Victorian age fan it would seem to have a steep learning curve for your players.

Wow, I can't imagine ANY group not wanting to play in that time period. Of course, I signed myself "Research Monkey" in the previous post, so that sorta tells you something right there. One of my favorite characters of all time, though, was in a late 19th century world--he was an ex-baseball player turned policeman.

[And this is my 100th post!]

 

[Ymdar]

How hard would it to get a group to play in an 1800's time period game? There seems to be a lot of information on the time period that would be required. While the time period really fascinates me and I am a big Victorian age fan it would seem to have a steep learning curve for your players.

Well. As any setting based on the past of real - life you'd have to be really *in* it. So you must know the key political figures, the world and even the slang of the era to create good adventures for your players.

 

[Stormborn]

Well. As any setting based on the past of real - life you'd have to be really *in* it. So you must know the key political figures, the world and even the slang of the era to create good adventures for your players.

Totally,but respectfully, disagree. Yes you should have a good understanding of the era, its politics and its issues; but knowing all the details of the world is absolutelly not neccesary. There is no need to have written, or read for that matter, a doctoral thesis on the time period to run a game set in it. Your players certainly shouldn't have to. But I think that you could easily get away with having read a little HG Wells and browsed a few websites before running the game. Most of the details of real life don't come up in game anyway.

Anytime you play a game set in a real world past you should play with the guiding principle: "Things might happend differently in this unvierse." Otherwise the PCs will be constrained by RL events, attitudes, and behaviors. You can't very well be spies for the Confederacy and know that your side is going to loose, or be Union secret service and not be able to prevent the assasination of Lincoln. It prevents historical nit picking, and allows the PCs to be world changing heroes.

But then, I would play in a published campaign setting that way too. I wouldn't want to be constrained by every detail published in every Forgotten Realms supplement if I chose to run a game in that world.

 

[Ymdar]

Basically I agree.
But!
It is hard to predict the outcome of a "what would happen if..." adventure imho. I think it would be fun to do everything as a PC to save Lincoln or such and still know that he'll die. (The mysterious asassin fireing a PL5+ sniper rifle (eg:railgun)?)
Or to get a vacation on a luxury ship only to learn in the harbour that the ship's name is Titanic.... (Cthuluoid monsters cruising accross the seas on an iceberg anyone?)

 

[ragboy]

Also, I can't resist touting Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures (to which I have no connection financial or otherwise.)

This campaign is of particular interest, but there is loads of information on the Victorian age, especially if you're going for a 'weird science' or other similar fantastical/SF route with your campaign.

Airship sailors fighting vampires and werewolves? And all dreamed up by Rudyard Kipling...

 

[Stormborn]

Basically I agree.
But!
It is hard to predict the outcome of a "what would happen if..." adventure imho. I think it would be fun to do everything as a PC to save Lincoln or such and still know that he'll die. (The mysterious asassin fireing a PL5+ sniper rifle (eg:railgun)?)
Or to get a vacation on a luxury ship only to learn in the harbour that the ship's name is Titanic.... (Cthuluoid monsters cruising accross the seas on an iceberg anyone?)

To a certain degree. But your PL5+ sniper rifle and cthuloid monsters prove my point. Worlds where those things exist are not our real world, or at least not as we know it and understand it. Therefore the PCs can hope that anything can happen and are not bound by history, and therefore do no have the despair of knowing all the great disasters of human history will unfold with them or without them. By the same token, the DM need not know everything there is to know about the world, because in world with such strange things in it no one knows what might be different. No need for the historian's understanding of history, so long as he has the basic popular understanding of history he can run an adventure in any era.

 

[Ymdar]

I'm talking about a secret history only revealed to a number of chosen agents from countries that know or participate in the underground history.
To everyone else there is only the normal history. And if you don't know what happened and when, then you have less chance to create an authentic setting.

 

[Michael Dean]

I have to put in my 2 cents for any of the Flashman books by George McDonald Fraser. These books have absolutely indespensible adventure ideas for the mid 19th century time period. Harry Flashman meets just about every important social and political figure and impacts history as only Harry can. Plus, the footnotes give great history lessons from the time period. I know you don't want to buy anything, but you can check this series out at any decent library (I started reading Flashman in college by checking it out at Michigan State Univ.'s library). There are also some very dedicated fan sites on the web that give some good timelines and information for the period. Just google Harry Flashman and Fraser.

Also, the Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell have very good information about the early 1800's. They are also enjoyable to read, and have very good adventure seeds in them.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Right - but it began to become available to the general population in 1860, as prices dropped, etc. Though many of the technologies had been around for quite some time, they didn't enter general use until a spate of wars across the world made their use more desirable (in the case of North America, the American Civil War).

But yes - what I was generally referring to was the "image" of the time period, since obviously the time period does have a set meaning. However, just like the common conception of "the '80's" is an amalgamation of stuff from about 1984-1994, so too can the image of the "19th Century" and the "20th Century" fail to reflect all that they actually were.

My images of the 1980s date from Jan. 1 1980 - Dec. 31 1989. Some things that wre begun in the 1980s may have continued into the 1990s, but they form their own continuity apart from the time period.

The Auld Grump

 

[qstor]

I do have Urban Arcan and the MotRD D20 system take on it done by Sword Sorcery. Just hopw ncessary do you think the Menace Manual is? Being that I have the MM and Lords of Madness, wouldn't that be enough?

Its not THAT necessary, I just flipped through the TOC and the spirits weren't in that book.

The spirits are handled a bit different in D20 modern than ghosts so the D20 Modern stats for those are kinda helpful to have.

I don't have the MotRD 20 modern book by S&S but I have the old boxed set and some of the old Katagane online rules for fear checks so I think I'll be ok. The RPGA MotRD rules are free online too.

Mike