Real World History in (or influencing) your Game?

[Mark]

(snip)

Knock it off. Break your own rules elsewhere. If you have a problem with that, you can email me, but keep it out of this thread.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

In my Last Stand of the Dorinthians story, the PCs were members of a corrupt civilization based on the Huns and had to survive the takeover by an empire based on Rome.

 

[Jack7]

Do the same chaarcters play in both or are these two different games, even with different players?

Over the years Mark it has varied. We have played with different players playing in all the groups and sometimes we play with the same players playing in different parties.

On earth, or our world, there are 3 basic groups or Teams (all human):

Basilegate (The Emperor‘s Legate)- the secretive and chief investigative party of the Emperor and Church. A Special Team to investigate the invasions from Ghantik (the other world) and other strange phenomena. The party of Byzantine agents and European team of spies, legates, adventurers, soldiers, and lawmen operating throughout the known world. Operates exclusively for the Byzantine Empire, home base of operations is, and stationed at, Constantinople.

Hoshi (The Footbridge)- a party of Oriental explorers, adventurers and specialists sent from the East into the West to investigate bizarre phenomena. Includes Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Persian characters.

Oro (The Moonshadow)- a party of African explorers, adventurers and specialists drawn north by unknown forces to explore the Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor and Europe. Mostly Eastern and Northern African, and Egyptian characters.


If players want to undertake solo missions then they become Acers. Acers are solo agents who learn special skill suites such as Vadding, Thieving, and Esipionage skills.

Acer (Sharpers)- Lone Agents or Operatives who undertake missions of exploration, adventure, and danger by themselves, operating without a party.

Acers, Vadders, and Sharpers usually do infiltration, undercover, espionage, and urban adventure work.


On the other world there is one main team sponsored by the most powerful nation there and it is called the Caerkara (no humans).

Caerkara (The Expeditionary Force)- the special team of Eldeven explorers, adventurers and specialists sent to the human world of Terra in order to study human religion, culture, Thaumaturgy and to hunt down monsters escaped from Ghantik into Earth.


The Caerkara has often traveled to our world and the Basilegate has traveled to the other world. Events on both worlds overlap and the Byzantines think the leader of the most powerful nation on the other world may actually be Prester John.

Over the years the Basilegate and the Caerkara have become aware of each other and now sometimes work together on joint missions.

Additionally Constantinople and Samarkand (the capital city of the most powerful nation on the other world) also now occasionally work together for common interests.

The Caerkara is made up of Elves, Eladarin, a Dwarf, and a Giant.

 

[Wik]

Hm. I ran a campaign that was a cross of Ten Kingdoms China and Imperial Rome. It was a lot of fun. Used the cultures, took in some events from both (Spartacus' Slave Uprisings, and Confucious), and had a ball.

Had another game based on Medieval Venice. Used Venice as my starting place, added in some 19th century London, early 20th century New York (based mostly off Caleb Carr's The Alienist, and even a bit of Hong Kong. The PCs belonged to a knightly order based off the Templars. And they investigated Cthuluesque horrors, while dodging the religious church (which they technically belonged to). The church was based off the medieval catholic church, though it's coverups were more along the line of the X-Files.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Are you someone that has plucked a bit of history from the real world and worked it into your gaming experience?

Yep. Like many people, I've borrowed liberally from Greco-Roman events, but I've also used the legendary Chinese Treasure Fleet, the conquest of the Americas, the rise of the powerful monasteries in Japan, the opening of the East by the West and other stuff.

I also have a player who regularly names his characters similarly to historical figures and then plays them with what he imagines would have been the attitude of that real world figure, as a means to guide his rolelpaying.

Been there and done that. Some of the PCs are fairly thinly veiled, others are nearly unrecognizable. Especially imperceptible are those based on what I think a person would have been like if they had made a particularly eventful decision differently than they did in real life. Like...what if Robert E. Lee hadn't fought for the Confederacy, or what if Erwin Rommel had actually believed in Nazism- what would those men have been like?

I've also read a lot of alt-history fiction, especially the works of Harry Turtledove (his "Darkness" series is an excellent depiction of a fantasy world undergoing its own version of WW2), SM Stirling, David Drake's "Northworld" and CJ Cherryh's "Sword of Knowledge" trilogies. Writers like that give you an excellent idea about how to use RW sources without being a slave to them.

 

[Jack7]

based mostly off Caleb Carr's The Alienist

A superbly excellent book by the way.

A lot of people are taking interesting historical backgrounds and creating good historical and semi-historical analogues.

As someone who has done this for a long time it's interesting to read what others are doing.

 

[Woas]

Yes I've gotten pretty darn to close to the actual historic event to the point where I'm even using real names initially, especially in the case of the re-worked Rent Wars scenario. However the scenario quickly deviated off it's historical course once the characters got to work which isn't surprising. I rolled with it though. I still got my "fist-fight in a court house" scene out of it!

The pseudo-Seven Years War (it was more French and Indian War themed though) scenario wasn't as close to the actual historical event other than the general theme of two Imperial powers along with their respective native allies letting their 'far flung' colonies fight their own "growing pain" war. It was Human Empire A plus Elves vs. Human Empire B plus Dwarfs set in a very rural/wilderness American North East setting. Basically Last of the Mohicans but change the Huron to elves, and Iroquois to dwarfs an add magic. The game started off with a reenactment of the Schenectady Massacre with the characters being the only survivors.

The French Wars of Religion scenario, with the real, actual event being confusing and sometimes hard to follow as is if you aren't paying attention also didn't cut very close to actual events past "Three heirs via for control of a nation after the death of a king".
The campaign was planned as a Burning Wheel game but that system sort of fell flat for my group and never happened. It only got to the brainstorming stages but there was plans for copious amounts of political backstabbing, fighting over control for the City of Pruvyre (pseudo-Paris) and religious tensions including lots of pseudo-Huguenots.

Over the years I've had smaller events happen (either as side quests or historic NPCs) in game that weren't the overall focus of the game like those mentioned above that cleave pretty close to actual historical events. I've had a Sojourner Truth NPC named Jessica Truth in a game that acted just like the real one.

Plus plenty other little tidbits of history to point out. In fact now that I think of it probably 90% of my GMing career has been reworked historical events.

Those are rich eras to plunder. How detailed do you get? How close do you cleave to the actual?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Looks like they are in for a surprise! Is there much material on the actual aliens or are you handwaving that?

Well, I'm not the DM, but in this case the "aliens" are the Aztec-analogues, just as we "Brelish*" are aliens to the islands as well.

Mostly, I enjoy trotting out fringe theory things like that, and the DM does, too. Most of the other PCs have no idea what I'm talking about.

* - Given that we have a minotaur, an eladrin, two elves, and two drow...but that's where our charter comes from, so hey.

Brad

 

[Silver Moon]

Are you someone that has plucked a bit of history from the real world and worked it into your gaming experience?

Big time. I've run a number of Westerns set in 1881-1882 on a quasi-historic world that also has the D&D Races, Classes, Magic and Pantheons. I often draw from history.

I recently began a new 19th Century Pulp campaign set on the same gaming world called "The AGELESS Campaign", with AGELESS beging the acronym of the team: Adventurer's Guild of Exemplary and Legendary Explorers, Scientists and Scholars. Four team members, two PC's and two NPC's, are actual historical people. Here is the Story Hour link:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-...century-pulp-d-d-3rd-edition-episode-1-a.html

 

[ProfessorPain]

I majored in history, and find it influences the way I construct my settings. But I am not a big fan of historical campaigns. Sometimes I will steal threads, or movements from real world history though.