A class at the University of Southern California : Game Studies Seminar: Role-playing Games
GURPS Infinite Worlds : Britannica-6
From Victorian Adventure Enthusiast’s interview with Phil Masters:
VAE: In more a steampunk vein you’ve written GURPS Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6. Despite its late 19th century setting Britannica-6 is *not* Victorian setting. What makes this different than other steampunk and Victorian settings out there?
PM: The origin of that was a typically brilliant one-paragraph note by Ken Hite in his GURPS Infinite Worlds, which I initially took as inspiration for a convention demo game, and then expanded into this publication. It’s an alternate history in which Queen Victoria was never born, because a rather peculiar incident in early 19th century history turned out differently (and if you look, Victoria was only born as the result of some quite strange political stuff!), and a very different British Empire has got into internal squabbling involving some weird-tech super-weapons and gadgets.
So I took the absence of Victoria as the key. It’s not a Victorian era! And the easy replacement for Victorian society is a continuation of Georgian/Regency society, which has the right flavour of dynastic squabbling, too. (I think that this is what Ken had in mind from the first, actually.)
Then, I decided that the technology, having had 70 years to run away with itself, could have got beyond steam. Dearly as I love steampunk, it’s become a bit of a cliche; I wanted something a bit different. And Ken’s paragraph had mentioned things like “the Electrical Terror”.
Right. Electricity! Let’s go for a post-Victorian feel here. After all, diesel power and electrical gadgets can give these crazy science- loving aristocrats and royals a bit more credibility to their mad science. Steam is a bit too cumbersome for a society with the dial jammed on fast-forward, let’s face it.
So it’s diesel-electric rather than steam, and Regency rather than Victorian.
VAE: The fashions of Brittannica-6 are strikingly different than the buttoned up conservatism of the Victorian era. How do you sum them up for people?
PM: The tag line I sometimes use is “Georgette Heyer with glide bombs”. A player in one of my demo games pointed to a bit of unconscious ’70s/’80s cop show influence, too - fast cars and garish nylon clothing.
It’s all a bit decadent, in a very Regency way. (Remember, the Victorian era was in many ways a reaction against the Regency. There’s not been any reaction on Britannica-6.) Technology is running away, and while a lot of people seem to be having fun, if you want a dark undertone, there’s a sense that the whole thing may run into a brick wall at some point
All PCs are members of The Drones Club, Dover St., a London club for generally idle young men. New members are put up for election by existing members.
The club provides social facilities for its members. It has two smoking rooms, one smaller and less used. An older member often mentions the “animal spirits” and “young blood” throwing sugar about in the larger smoking room. There is a bar, and a dining room where the throwing of bread rolls is de rigeur. Games of indoor cricket quite often take place in the corridors and entrance hall.
“We’re pretty broad minded here, and if you stop short of smashing the piano, there isn’t much you can do at the Drones that will cause the raised eyebrow and the sharp intake of breath”.
It is in keeping for all adventures to take place during the early 1920’s.
Background is based on some of the novels and short stories of P.G.Wodehouse.
(Source: vae-editor.livejournal.com)
I’m running a d20 Modern campaign. For those not well versed in geek lingo, it’s basically like Dungeons and Dragons except with a rule set for modern times. So every week, a group of us get together, sit around, eat snacks, roll dice, and make up stories based on set dice. It’s loads of fun.
…
I weaved a world based on my religion.
Well, sort of. The world that my friends delve into every week is steampunk alternative Mormon history. Basically, I ran with the idea of “What if Joseph Smith had successfully fled to the West instead of being martyred in Carthage Jail?” Suddenly, it’s the year 1899, and the Northern American continent has split into three basic political entities — the Federal Union, the Confederacy, and the Mormon Territories (during the Second War of Independence). Joseph Smith is still the prophet, operating out of Deseret, the capital established next to the Great Salt Lake, while Brigham Young is the governor of New Nauvoo, west of the Mississippi (the ruins of old Nauvoo lie just across the river). The two major Mormon cities are connected by a network of dirigibles, called the Mormon Line. Also, there’s magic, swashbuckling adventure, and sweet steampunk goggles and gears and stuff.
I’m planning on running strong themes of order versus nature, freedom versus security, justice versus mercy, the law versus the Spirit. In the background are the two gleaming diamonds of Mormondom — the alabaster, orderly, cosmopolitan city of Nauvoo and the dusty, rough-and-tumble, frontier city of Deseret. Two political leaders, the charismatic Joseph and the managerial Brigham, will butt heads as they both grapple with problems both mundane and fantastical and wonder what to do. In the midst, our plucky hero-adventurers will make decisions that will alter the course of alternate Mormon history forever.
(Source: alternatehistoryweeklyupdate.blogspot.com, via turner-d-century)
my-ear-trumpet replied to your link:Send me some questions or talk to me while I make up a D&D character sheet.
Have you ever played any other RPGs apart from D&D? If so, which ones? If no, why not?Does D20 Modern count? Because we played a pretty awesome post apoc. zombie survival campaign. I played a character that was…. myself. Surviving the zombies with the massive horror movie knowledge.
Yes it counts. Sounds interesting. But how did you survive in Canada? Don’t you have stricter gun laws than the U.S. If zombies happened in Australia - that would be it - it would be hand to hand or very rare guns.
(Source: mechromance)
