World History Roleplaying Game

WayneLigon said:
When doing Twilight 2000, the GDW staff apparently used an inhouse system to 'play' the various countries and use what happened in the game to create a plausible future history. I thought at one time that The Game as it was called was to be included in the reprint of TW2000 from Far Future but I don't see any confirmation of that. Using that might be good once you get into the modern era.

Fortunately, I was around when this was going on - I'll ask Frank about it.
 

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BlackMoria said:
You could use a game system like D20 Modern, D20 Future, Stargate, etc. for characters and base rules. Then do a 'Sliders' or Time Travel game.
<cool stuff snip>

Awesome stuff - I was already thinking time travelers, but I really like the twists you mentioned!
 


Hey Pogre, explain to me how you'll go about using this, whatever system you use.

Anyway, you wanted an easy-to-learn system that gets people through a quick survery of western civilisation? I'm wondering how you'll give them challenges to overcome. Anyway, you seriously might try giving them the expert class from the Cthulu D20 book. They get to write what skills they have and such.

A whole class activity? That's a lot of players to be using a system.
 

do you have a current affairs teacher handy? In that class in high school, one semster we took a test which determine if we Democrats/Republicans/etc. Then the class was divide into different fictional states of fictional country. We got grade on how well we advanced our states view and our party view. Which led me to ticking off my fellow party members by speaking for a bill and then voting no on it. The materials were from the course materials so ask your teacher friends .
 

Pogre, I'm thinking you want Fudge.

http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge/index.html

It's extremely flexible and very rules light. It doesn't use any gaming jargon, making it very accessible for a group of non-gamer teens.

The downside is that, to my knowledge, it doesn't come a lot of setting detail. So as your students' characters work their way through the ages, you may have to do a little more to create a gaming framework for each era.

I kind of like the time travel idea, but if you want to teach the course chronologically, you may have to force the students to "slide" along at your pace. I imagine a scenario more along the lines of the old Quantum Leap TV show, where they leap from era to era as they complete certain goals -- helping set history right.

Carl
 

You might consider starting with a free kriegspiel scenario, at least as a template. Some sample scenarios:
# The Gothic Resurgence by Richard Madder. Briefings and Maps for a Dark Age Kriegspiel, set in Italy 543AD.
# The Battle of the Yalu by Richard Madder. Briefings and Maps for a Naval Game set in the Sino-Japanese War 1894.
# Operation Strongheart by Andy Grainger. Briefings and Maps for a Committee Game of the Arab Israeli War 1973.
# The Battle of Peyrestores by Paddy Griffith. Briefings and Maps for a 19th Century Kriegspiel set in Revolutionary France.
# Here's a Leader you can't catch either with net or line by Richard Madder. Briefings and Maps for a 16th Century Kriegspiel set in Japan.
# Beyond the Metal Mountains by Richard Madder. Briefings and Maps for a Seven Years War Kriegspiel set in Central Europe 1756.
# Lerida by Paddy Griffith. Briefings and Map for a Napoleonic Kriegspiel set in Spain 1809.
# Operation Bluecoat by Andy Grainger. Briefings and Map for a WWII Kriegspiel set in Normandy 1944.​
In the Gothic Resurgence scenario, for instance, each player on the Roman side plays a general -- with his own secret agenda, in addition to the greater agenda of beating the Goths.
 

Assuming high school students, how many kids are we talking? That could be too many to run in an RPG. I'm assuming an RPG would need a Teacher DM to really present the historical stuff well. Whereas, board games, you can deploy to teams of students.

Janx
 

Class sizes are 24-30 students. I do use a lot of board games already. I think this is doable and have picked up a lot of excellent suggestions. The time travel angle is definitely one I will be pursuing. Thanks for the input thus far.
 

pogre said:
Awesome stuff - I was already thinking time travelers, but I really like the twists you mentioned!

Another Time Travellers angle is to have them break into groups that are accidentaly displaced back to various ages. You come in like in Terminator; you don't even have the clothes off your back. What do you do? Assume for simplicities sake that they can actually speak the language :)
 

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