Tell us about your Alt-History game

[adwyn]

What happened in Europe, between Napoleon, the Russians, the Brits and so forth?
Did any of that change?

For my time line I had Sherman falling ill during the march on Atlanta. Longstreet is shifted west the way he was at Chickamauga the year before and captures much of Sherman's army which is paralyzed by disease. Chattanooga is then lost just before the 1864 election. Lincoln in turn loses the election to McClellan and a truce is signed in 1865.

As a result Maximilian retains his French backed throne in Mexico, albeit precariously. The American west becomes a more dangerous place as England and France along with the new CSA try to pry territory away from the US.

The Franco-Prussian war is still devastating to France, but when Napoleon III is captured and the new French republic proclaimed events in Arizona territory are unstable and England needs Maximilian on the Mexican throne. The British use some devious methods to make Napoleon's son Prince Eugene the new emperor, Napoleon IV. He in turn marries Queen Victoria's daughter Beatrice. Prussia is bought off with the Yucatan and southern Mexico, whetting their naive appetite for colonization. This episode, the second major deviation from history allowed me to introduce some regular British spies who while active are not always adversarial to the PCs.

 

[Dan Bell]

I once ran a Lionheart game that where Richard was not captured & ransomed but returned to England where he made war against the Scots and the killed the king the France in battle.

 

[Jack7]

For my time line I had Sherman falling ill during the march on Atlanta. Longstreet is shifted west the way he was at Chickamauga the year before and captures much of Sherman's army which is paralyzed by disease. Chattanooga is then lost just before the 1864 election. Lincoln in turn loses the election to McClellan and a truce is signed in 1865.

As a result Maximilian retains his French backed throne in Mexico, albeit precariously. The American west becomes a more dangerous place as England and France along with the new CSA try to pry territory away from the US.

The Franco-Prussian war is still devastating to France, but when Napoleon III is captured and the new French republic proclaimed events in Arizona territory are unstable and England needs Maximilian on the Mexican throne. The British use some devious methods to make Napoleon's son Prince Eugene the new emperor, Napoleon IV. He in turn marries Queen Victoria's daughter Beatrice. Prussia is bought off with the Yucatan and southern Mexico, whetting their naive appetite for colonization. This episode, the second major deviation from history allowed me to introduce some regular British spies who while active are not always adversarial to the PCs.

Very interesting.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

With so much interest being paid toward the American South-West and Central/South America is Africa no longer the next big-colonialisation? ie: Mahdist War, Boar War, etc?

Which is actually where I would like to set my own alternative history game. Essentially what it is, is colonialism never ended in Africa/India. So it is now the mid-30's and Britain has retained its empire for the most part, crushing any rebellions in Africa and Raj-India.

The strength of the British Empire has caused there to be no major war for the past 50 years, thus military technology has not progressed far beyond the Victorian Period. It has however been extremely refined.

Now though, various rebellious groups are spurring up across the Empire, sponsored by other European empires and various rival-commercial interests. It is up to the PCs to join a side (they start off as British officers).
___________________________________________________________________________________

I had another which is quite extreme alternative-history. It is a combination of Victorian Era ideas on science and H.G. Wells' "War of The Worlds". Essentially after the end of the war, humanity has begun to rebuild. The old empires becoming more powerful with the advanced technology they have gained from the aliens machines.

They now stand on the threshold of space-travel. The game takes place, just prior to the launch of the French's first Ether-Ship, I am having the PCs be spies from various organizations watching the launch. However as the Ether-Ship is being readied to be fired from its Space-Gun chaos begins as Austro-Hungarian Tripods cross the border. World War I has begun.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Quite a while ago I wrote up some notes for an alternate Masque of the Red Death campaign. Basically the American Civil War was won by the south using vile magic and legions of undead. I'd type up more detail, but I lost the file in a computer crash about a year ago. :\

 

[Jorunkun]

I once spent a good year researching and planning but never playing a campaign set in Northumbria (Yorkshire area) shortly after William's invasion of 1066. In fact, I can still name every river and town in the Yorkshire Dales, though I've never been to the region.

What I found so attractive about this period and location is that you can draw on all these layers of British history; from celtic /pictish/ briton myth (elves, halflings, druidism) to roman (dwarven) ruins to anglo-saxon (human) and viking/norse (orc-ish?) lords now fighting off norman invaders ...

I had in mind an outlaw campaign, where the PCs would have rallied and eventually united the diverse nationalities living in the north, culminating in an all out war of liberation which, unlike real history, would have stood a chance at success. Thematically, I was aiming for something between Ars Magics's Mythical Europe, the TV-series' Robin Hood and Cornwell's "Winter King" series.

I'm still in love with this setting, but it turned out to be too hard to get my players excited about it, who were more into the fantastic elements of D&D than the more mundane fruits of my historic research.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

For years my main campaing has been an alternate earth...with D&D...about 80-90% by book.

It works better then you think. As long as you don't get hung up on things, and remember alternate.

stuff here: www.terra-viejo.net

Wow! I really like what I've seen so far. I bookmarked the site to study it in more detail.

 

[Jack7]

Wow! I really like what I've seen so far. I bookmarked the site to study it in more detail.

Yeah, I had it bookmarked from maybe two years ago or so, having arrived there from another site.

But I didn't put the site name and the name Terra Dave together until I saw both linked together in this thread.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

What alternate history campaigns have you run? What made them work or not? Do you have any that you are just dying to run?

I ran an AD&D 2nd Ed. game based on the Historical Campaign Supplements with the following ideas:

• Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism never happened.

• The Dark Ages really were dark and experienced terrible winters which brought on the great migrations. All of this was due to Idun getting kidnapped by Thjazi. This also weakened the Norse gods to the point that they had to rely on heroes to rescue her who of course did.

• Instead of the historical huns, a half-fiend/half-ogre unites the various ogre tribes who waged war on civilization. They almost succeeded except when their leader Etzl was murdered by the PCs.

• Dwarves became so successful in the arms trade that they branched out into banking. This led to several monarchies defaulting on loans and driving dwarves out of their kingdoms.

• A great plague of zombies spread throughout the known world until some intrepid heroes destroyed the lich but not before almost 1/3 of the world's population had died.

• Roman paganism organized along the lines of the Catholic church in response to the barbarian invasions. Some centuries later, the Knights of Mars get a charter from the Pope to form an inquisition to root out anyone who detects as Chaotic.

And much, much more.

I wanted to replace the Mongols with centaurs with Genghis as a half-fiend/half-centaur but never got around to it.

I've been kicking around the idea for some years now of replacing historical cultures & races with D&D races. Using Hobgoblins for Romans, Elves for Asians & Indigenous Americans, and Orcs for Sub-Saharan Africans.

P.S. Northern Crown is an alt.historical setting published by Atlas and written by our veryown Dougmander.

 

[Tolen Mar]

I wanted to replace the Mongols with centaurs with Genghis as a half-fiend/half-centaur but never got around to it.

Man, I wish I'd thought of that.

...Yoink!!