Where Is The Present (In Your Game)

[CleverNickName]

I get the feeling that most of the RPGs out there do not take place in our "present" time...at least, from the point of technology. I'm talking about cars, cmputers, cellular telephones and the Internet, all that.

In a lot of games, the "present" time is something that hasn't happened yet. The story unfolds in an alternate history, where the technology is late Iron Age and magic exists. Cars and computers will probably come later, if magic doesn't replace the need for them (or doesn't destroy the world first.) I'd go out on a limb and say that most fantasy RPG games fit this category.

And in other games, the "present" time is something that happened long ago...mankind grew in strength and number, and their machines became more and more powerful until a Great War destroyed everything. Now that the earth has been "rebooted," all sorts of mutations and climate changes have taken place and magic has been awakened. Star Wars, Star Frontiers, and other "futuristic" game settings are probably like this, too, but without an apocalypse. There are certain fantasy novels, too, that use this story device (the Shannara series, for example.)

But there are some games out there that take place in our present age, but with alternate physics or mythology...magic, monsters, laser cannons, aliens, and so forth all exist, but the general public isn't aware of them. There are plenty of references to this setting in pop culture: Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Men In Black, Spider-Man, etc.

So with these thoughts in mind, where does "today" exist in your game? Did all of this happen long ago? Will it all happen far in the future (if it happens at all?) Or do your heroes make regular trips to S-Mart to reload their boomsticks?

 

[haakon1]

Many Planes, many planets

It's the present, but it's a big universe. Our world (20th-21st century Earth) is accessible via space travel or gates. Come to think of it, there's probably a lot of Earths out there (like alternate realities in Stargate).

Some crossovers in my campaign:
-- Oriental Adventures PC's go to Cornell University and rural Wisconsin in the 1930s, fight Nazi archeologists over an item described in Thucycides.
-- Oriental Adventures PC's accidentally teleported to Gamma World
-- Oriental Adventurers PC's steal a Nixon 5 spaceship, travel to the nearest Type M planet -- Earth in the 1960s

-- Stargate Marine traveling the planet of the American Indians protected by nature spirit aliens (in Season 2) back to Earth goes through a gate on Greyhawk, 588 CY. Traveling to the ruins of the City of Blackmoor, he finds a gate in the tavern called the Comeback Inn, and goes home with some healing potions, having left behind a pistol and some nightvision equipment. Which work until the ammo/batteries run out.

 

[Jack99]

I do not believe I have ever considered if it existed. So my answer is future (or not at all).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Oh damn... I am all over the place with this one.

I'll just go through a couple settings of mine and list off where I think they would be:

-Necromancy meets Technology Setting: This I would set in a "past", but a recent past 1914-1918 specifically. Every piece of technology from that time-period exists but it is thanks to Necromancy; phones are ears and vocal chords tied too lines of nerve-ends, tanks are walking armoured behemoths who march along on the twisted masses of hundreds of legs sewn together, etc.

-Fantastical Louisiana Setting: This would be the "past", specifically 18th century Louisiana (not actually Louisiana but based off it). It has all the technology, fashion, etc. of that time-period with some of its own twists, etc. but with fantasy mixed into it as well.

-Spirit-Punk Setting: I don't know... I guess sorta, post-present... But, I dunno. I am reluctant to call it. Since this setting combines lots of Cyberpunk traits; internet, hacking people (well their spirits), cyborgs (spirits who control a mechanical body), etc. But... This isn't because of normal advancement of technology.

This is because the Spirit World who thanks to all the spirits who have passed onto there has been able to advance at a much faster rate (think about it all the great minds of past generations working together). But then the Spirit World and our World mixed so a big technological boom. But so rapid things like horses, knights, etc. still coexist beside this stuff.

It is also even more messed up in that this explosion of technology is cyclical, it has been happening again and again. Where the Spirit World and our World mix and then separate. This separation stalls our technological process but we kept much of the technology, then we have another explosion but because of the stall not much advances... Yeah, I guess "post-present" be closest, but I dunno...

-Artificial World Setting: Another, I dunno setting. The world has advanced pretty far, too essentially a Magipunk world, but with some more advanced stuff, ie; mecha and such powered by connecting to ley-lines.

However, this is because reality was warped and is being controlled by a collective of Aberrations, so... Things could change on the fly. To top it off too the world isn't real it is a big artificial world that was originally a "flash-image" of a previous world created by the Gods through technology and is controlled by a God-Machine well was... before it began to malfunction. I guess... post-present since whatever the old world was I guess be considered the "present" of this universe.

 

[Wombat]

My campaigns have been usually placed in the past, but of late I've had two rather different campaigns.

The first was a WoD Changeling campaign set in very much present day Minneapolis. The game was set to the current calendar, with current news, current tech, etc.

The second game is my current one. It is set in 2009 in a major east coast city of North America ... but due to some twists and turns it is a heavily "alternate history", with lagging technology, very different layout of the nations, and the like. So it is both contemporary and in the past...

But, yes, most games have taken place in a medieval-base world, pre-gunpowder, much less pre-cellphones.

 

[maddman75]

I run a lot more modern games than I do fantasy or sci-fi. Right now I'm running Hollow Earth Expedition and Call of Cthulhu, both set in the 1920s, but a lot closer to 'present' than some fantasy world. Most of the other games I run or find interesting are present, modern day games as well.

I find its easier for people to get into their characters and interact with the world. I mean I can roleplay someone who grew up as a medieval peasant in a world with magic and monsters, but I'm more comfortable and can get up to speed faster playing, say, a guy who grew up in rural Indiana. Or New York. Or wherever - TV, radio, cars, cell phones, Big Macs, so on and so forth.

Characters are more capable, mobile, and informed, so I enjoy that challenge as a GM. Have to be able to think on your feet when the PCs potentially have access to international flights, cell phones, and google.

 

[the Jester]

Possibly past and future.

Hell, maybe present, too, somewhere.

My world is humungous.

 

[Starglim]

D&D and Star Wars: Nowhere. The game takes place in a fairy-tale universe that has no definite relationship to the real world.

In terms of fantasy generally, I make an exception for Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, which subverts expected relationships to our time in ways that I enjoy.

In the broad genres of SF and modern games, I like the sorts of games that can reasonably have a date in the real-world calendar, so they would generally occur in the future of today's world.

 

[Scribble]

I tend to be a fan of the this is all happening way in the future after the apocolypse of a world that used to be earth or earthlike.

But not always... my current campaign isn't really one or the other. (Or at least I haven't decided it was yet.)

 

[Umbran]

In the D&D games I have run so far, our present age does not and cannot exist. The laws of physics do not support it. It is a different world, and will never be akin to ours.

Maybe sometime I'll decide to run a game where something like our world will develop, but so far, I have had no desire to do so.