ZEITGEIST Inspirations? Touchstones? For new players

[Nnesk]

Hello!

I'm about to start running this awesome-looking project, after many years of following this from afar. I'm now looking for some guidelines to give to my players, beyond the Player's Guide itself - what sort of movies, books etc. are close enough in feel and style, to help them set the correct expectations? So far, it seems to me that technological thrillers are the closest, as a genre.

 

[RangerWickett]

You know, I'm still amazed by the general lack of steampunk in mainstream culture.

I haven't actually seen either of these two shows beyond the first episode, but I've been told Penny Dreadful and Carnival Row have a setting fairly comparable to the first couple adventures - a city in the industrial revolution with some magic afoot. Penny Dreadful's a bit more horror oriented.

I recall pitching the campaign as "James Bond" meets "The X-Files," in the time of "Sherlock Holmes." There's a shadowy conspiracy, and the heroes are government investigators who'll end up going all around the world on secret missions and having grand action scenes to save the day. I certainly listened to a lot of the soundtrack to Guy Ritchie's two Sherlock Holmes movies when writing the adventures.

But there's a lot more of a thread of political philosophy than in Bond or the X-Files, because RPGs lend themselves to lots of talking more than film or TV.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Carnival Row does seem to have some of the right visuals for the early parts. A good team based cop show should also give inspiration for a lot of books 2,3 and 5. Books 4 , 6 and 7 something like mission impossible could work for the espionage.
For books I found Brian McLellans Powder mage trilogy somewhat useful for a tech/magic seperation

 

[Crispy120286]

I also second the Powder Mage Trilogy and its sequel trilogy. A good movie would be the most recent Murder on the Orient Express for running adventure 4, as It takes place entirely on a train. Also if you haven't read it yet, read Zeitvice by @arkwright as its the most comprehensive collection of DM tips I've seen on here and is such a great help.