19th Level

Back in my day we didn't have cell phones or text messages or Snapchat. If you wanted to make plans with someone you called their house, maybe asked their parents or siblings to get them on the phone. And you had to plan out where and when to meet like you were planning an amphibious assault. And we liked it. We loved it! I've been looking through some old 1980s games, either old ones from my collection or new acquisitions. I've realized if I were to, for example, play a game of 1st edition Chill  or Top Secret, my inclination would be to run it as a historical game as opposed to running it in the present. Chill has a modern day 3rd edition and a new, modern day version of Top Secret  is being made. But to me, those classic games really feel rooted in the eras in which they were made. That's not to say they couldn't be adapted to modern times - and Chill would also work great as a Victorian-era game. Not all games from that era scream their time periods as m...

As a fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, I'd love to see an RPG published that captures this series. There's a few Age of Fighting Sail RPGs out there, but I haven't yet found the "perfect" one. I'd want something that captures the feel of life at land and at sea, the social aspects of the era, and provides for exciting ship combats. It would need to manage the advancement of characters while also having a way to keep a group together. It would need to handle the passage of years, though for gaming purposes I'd be fine with it also making the year 1813 last as long as it needed to, much as Patrick O'Brian did. And it would need to appeal to people who aren't perhaps a tad obsessed with the genre. I keep thinking that Pendragon  could be reskinned for this purpose. A game that expects a campaign of many game years. Perhaps living long enough to see your son take your place might be a bit much, even with a long 1813, but one ...

If I see a game based on the Old West it's a pretty safe bet that the Confederacy is still alive and kicking. Similarly, there have been games set in the Roman Empire that have vampires and or beasties of the Cthulhu Mythos. What I'm writing about is the tendency of historic RPGs to take place in an alternate past, usually with some fantastic elements. It's not a universal tendency - for example, TSR had both Boot Hill  and Gangbusters , covering the Old West and the Prohibition-era. But I'm pretty sure that's a minority. And to be fair, there's not a lot of games set in the modern age that don't bend reality pretty hard - typically with a heavy dose of the supernatural or of superpowers. I get the inclination to play with history and add the magic - setting a game in a historical era can feel a bit overwhelming and changing the past gives a lot more leeway for historical inaccuracy - "what do you mean you're upset that Perceval is listed as...

I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you cannot put downe; by the Which I mean, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to answer, and shall commande more than you. - HP Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward   I was talking with one of the players in my gaming group about Call of Cthulhu  in Colonial America - specifically the 17th and 18th centuries. Sixtystone Press has a Colonial Lovecraft Country  on their production schedule but it is likely safe to say it is a ways out so any Keeper is on his or her own. I wrote about general gaming in Colonial America last year whilst in Colonial Williamsburg - Another Bucket List Setting - Colonial America . Not a lot has changed on the material available gaming in Colonial America. As I see it, the main products currently usable include: Colonial Gothic - A game dedicated specifically to g...

I am currently working my way through Mary Beard's SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. She covers Rome from its legendary founding to the point where all free people of the Empire were granted citizenship. She closely examines the legends of very early Rome such as the founding by Romulus and Remus, the Regal period, and the early Republic. For all of these periods we have no contemporary written history, being forced to rely on archaeological evidence - any written histories of those periods were written centuries later. What I found striking was her description of warfare in the period around the end of the monarchy. She wrote: Military activity is another good case in point. Here geography alone should give us pause. We need simply look at the location of these heroic battles: they were all fought within a radius of about 12 miles of the city of Rome. Despite the style in which they are recounted, as if they were mini-versions of Rome against Hannibal, they were probably ...

“That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.” - Cotton Mather, On Witchcraft I'm trying my luck with a superhero campaign right now, something I've really wanted to do for ages. We've seen the evolution of Port Henry as a place for adventure and over the next few months we'll see how good a place it really is for adventure. While I'm not actively planning another game (I'm just starting this one folks), currently being in the Historic Triangle of Virginia (Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown) reminded me of another genre in my bucket list - that of Colonial America. I love the history of 17th and 18th century North America. Make no mistake, it's not some glorious noble epic. Jamestown was settled in search of cash. Plimoth was settled for religious liberty - but only for the pilgrims, not for anyone else. The many peoples living in North America were decimated by plague and war and Afri...

I love history. Living in Massachusetts I enjoy taking opportunity of many of the historical sites available to visit - U.S.S. Constitution , Plimouth Plantation and Mayflower II , Boston's Freedom Trail, Old Sturbridge Village, etc. My family has paid multiple visits to Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg. My Kindle and physical library are full of history books and works of historical fiction. With that in mind I'm surprised to see how little "historical gaming" I've done. It's not that I've done none - one of my more successful recent campaigns, and one I might go back to, was a 1920s Call of Cthulhu game. But aside from that most of my historical gaming has been more of dabbling than full-fledged campaigns. I think for me at least a lot of this comes from the desire to "get everything right". On the surface that's a good desire but taken too far it can be crippling. I'm unlikely to run into players shouting at me "Omigod...