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Post by adriangunn on Sept 13, 2014 21:35:51 GMT -5
After a long hiatus from gaming due to the arrival of my son (who is now 10 months old) into the world, and a significant change in my work location, I finally have my act together enough to return to the hobby on what I hope is a regular basis.
I'm hoping to:
1. Play some Battletech. I was a huge BT player back in its heyday in the early and mid 90's and I've recently picked up the latest rule set at the store. Are there any regular groups playing currently?
2. GM. I've been gaming for over 30 years as both a player and GM (more of the later) and I've run or played with more systems than I can recall. I'd be interested in running a week night game if I can find the players. The game would use the FATE ruleset, using a modified Kerberos Club setting (moved from the 1860s to the 1930s). A little bit Pulp, a little bit Noir. The characters would be "Strangers" - humans gifted (or cursed) with unique super human abilities, whether through magic, weird science, mutation or other Fortean means, who as members of the esoteric, mysterious and throughly scandalous Kerberos Club, help to (mostly) protect the world from the rising tide of Strangeness that threatens to engulf it with an onslaught of mad scientists, monsters, criminal masterminds, ghosts, nazis, demons, faeries, giant robots, dinosaurs, martian invaders, foul cultists, unspeakable gods who wait the stars to be right, and other weirdness. The setting is 1935 earth, during the height of the depression - largely similar to our Earth though with on the surface a bit more weird pulp technology (Airships, Teslsa World Wireless Towers, robots, etc), and beneath the surface, well..... ALL kinds of strangeness. The game will have: Two fisted action, Tommy Guns, Throwing Buicks at animated Aztec statues, Nazi zeppelins, Nikolai Tesla, Two fingers of bourbon, served neat and a package of unfiltered Luck Strikes, Dames, Death Rays, Gangsters, Secret Societies Japanese Kempetai Secret Police Ninjas. You get the point.
Looking to run a weekly game, on a weeknight, probably starting anytime after 5pm-ish. Anyone interested give me a shout. For it to really work we'll need a minimum of 2 players. 5 would probably be the max before things get unworkable.
Adrian
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Post by blantyr on Sept 17, 2014 8:08:07 GMT -5
I might be interested. Fate isn't my favorite system, though a while ago I played some Dresden Files / Fate, so I'm familiar with it. At the moment I have an interest in finding an RPG that is "anything but Pathfinder." Not that I dislike Pathfinder, but I've done too much of it of late. I'm looking for game setting other than Tolkienesque fantasy. 1935 Pulp counts. I really like a fair amount of role playing with a mix of everything else (combat, mystery, politics, etc...)
For me, Tuesday is out. (Tuesday is a busy RPG night at the Starship, with a Pathfinder and a D&D 5 game both going.) I'd kind of like to keep Wednesday free.
There are several people that talk BT, but there are no regular meetings that I know of.
Bob Butler
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Post by adriangunn on Sept 17, 2014 17:08:33 GMT -5
I'm pretty flexible on nights, I should be able to do Thu or Friday. Monday is the only day that's out for me - my wife goes to the gym Monday nights so I need to be home to watch our son. If we can scare up another couple of players we should be GTG. Any suggestions?
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Post by thatoneguy on Sept 18, 2014 12:18:39 GMT -5
Actually, there is a Thursday group that is currently playing fate, however that game is coming to a close soon, but the group is sticking around, probably moving to another system
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Post by blantyr on Sept 29, 2014 10:41:18 GMT -5
All
It looks like the Kerberos - Fate is going to happen. Wednesday October 1 about 5:00, Adrian, Joe C and I are going to be holding an introduction and character generation session for a 1935 based Pulp Fate game. Adrian talks lots of role playing well enough to interest Joe and I, but we still intend fairly frequent action. The power level might get to Shadow / Batman levels, or above depending on how much emphasis people put into "strange" powers. We're hoping to use Fate in a fast loose narrative way without sweating details.
My character speaks clearly and carries a big gun. She's as fit as a bull moose. She still hunts big game, but doesn't hunt animals anymore. She is hoping they will declare an open season on Paparazzi.
Not Pathfinder! A break from the Tolkien fantasy setting!
A few more players would be welcome.
Bob
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Post by adriangunn on Sept 30, 2014 20:52:42 GMT -5
The year is 1935. The Great Depression drags on into its fifth year. Unemployment in America reaches 25%, though in some cities it approaches 80%. Since the Great Crash in 1929, the stock market has lost 90% of its value, and household incomes have dropped 40%. In the west, drought and over farming cause a series of terrible dust storms that devastate America’s breadbasket and leave over 500,000 farmers homeless. The great Dust Bowl exodus begins with over 86,000 farm workers in one year migrating from the stricken Midwest to California escaping the dust and looking for work. In Europe, financial collapse leads to the rise of extremist ideologies and nationalism in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Poland. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler orders the re-militarization of Germany, expanding its army to 500,000 and creating a Luftwaffe. In the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin continues to consolidate his grip on power and expands the Soviet economy with the second of his 5-Year plans, but collectivization and drought takes a terrible toll on the Soviet people. The Great Famine of 1932-33 kills almost 10 million people, mostly in Ukraine. In Manchuria, Japan now rules the puppet state of Manchuko with and iron fist, wrested from china in 1932 following the staged Mudken and January 28 incidents.
In the United States, it has been 2 years since the 18th Amendment repealed the deeply unpopular Volstead Act, ending Prohibition. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been President for 2 years, and has just enacted his second “New Deal” program of social welfare and economic reform, creating, among other things, Social Security and the Works Progress Administration, providing jobs for over three million unemployed Americans. Despite the economic and social turmoil of the Great Depression (or perhaps, because of it…) it is the “Golden Age” of Hollywood with such Film icons as Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, Shirley Temple, and the Marx Brothers filling the theaters. “Mutiny on the Bounty” starring Clark Gable is the top grossing film of the year, followed by the historical drama “Becky Sharp” (the first filmed in Technicolor), the musical comedy “Top Hat” with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and “The Littlest Rebel” starring America’s Sweetheart, Shirley Temple.
Radio has become American’s preferred means of entertainment and Swing music (and dancing) is the latest musical craze. Topping the billboard charts in 1935 are Fred Astaire’s “Cheek to Cheek”, Eddy Duchin’s “Lovely to Look At”, Shirley Temple’s “On the Good Ship Lollypop”, The Carter Family’s “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” and Bing Crosby’s “Silent Night”. Radio dramas and comedy shows are also very popular with such favorites as “The Adventures of Charlie Chan”, “The Amos and Andy Show”, and “The Shadow Old-time Mystery Show”.
In 1935 the NY Times launches its first “Best Seller List” and some of the most popular books of the year include “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” by B. Traven, “Tortilla Flat” by John Steinbeck, “A Murder in Three Acts” by Agatha Christie and “A House Divided” by Pearl S. Buck. Pulp Magazines are incredibly popular, with newsstands being dominated with their often lurid covers. Pulps are printed in cheap paper and contain either serialized novels or short stories, the genre (true crime, detective stories, westerns, science fiction, horror, etc.) depending on the magazine. Some of the most popular titles include Argosy, Adventure, Amazing Stories, Weird tales and Spicy Detective. By 1930 50% of American families own a car, and the automobile is firmly established as the primary mode of transportation. For long distance travel, rail is still pre-eminent, though with the advent of large passenger dirigibles and comfortable passenger planes like the DC-2 and Ford Tri-motor, commercial air travel is beginning to become popular among those with the money to afford it. By 1934 it was possible to fly from London to India, though the trip took several days. In 1934, Germany established Zeppelin mail and passenger service between Europe and the Americas, while British airships have connected Europe to North America, India, Africa and Australia. Transatlantic travel is still predominately by ship on one of the great passenger liners such as the RMS Aquitania, the SS Manhattan and the SS Normandie, though airships are increasingly popular among the wealthy.
While a trans-Atlantic phone cable would not go into service until 1947, the first transatlantic phone call (using radio) between NY and London occurred in 1927. In 1934 service was opened to Hawaii and in 1935, Japan. Telegrams are still popular means of sending messages, particularly overseas. By 1935 most ocean liners offer radio-phone service to their passengers.
In the decades following the Great War there has been a surge in both scientific and technological developments, producing many amazing marvels that seem straight from the pages of science fiction pulps or radio serials. The Edison General Electric Company and its Czech Partner Rosumovi Univerzální Roboti’s Telemechanical Robot Mark I was the star of the 1933-34 World’s Fair in Chicago. The great airships that proved to be such terrible weapons during the Great War have become common in the skies over Europe and the America’s carrying passengers and freight in ponderously silent dignity. Nikolai Tesla’s Tesladyne corporation has produced a number of marvels, including the World Wireless System of wireless power broadcasting and multi-channel radio communications. So far three towers have been completed, Wardenclyffe Tower in Stoneham, NY, the Strathclyde Tower in Glasgow, Scotland and the Presidio Tower in San Francisco, CA. Still, the onset of the Great Depression has limited the widespread adoption and usage of these and other marvels, and many remain simple curiosities and have little impact in daily life beyond the covers of Poplar Mechanics Magazine or newsreel footages.
It is a time of increasing change, and increasingly instability. The Great War still casts its terrible shadow over the world, bringing with it a deep sense of cynicism and disillusionment in traditional institutions. The brief, manic euphoria of the Roaring 20’s has been replaced with the hard reality of the Great Depression. All around the world, the status quo seems to be coming apart at the seams. The radical ideologies of anarchism, communism and fascism are taking root everywhere, especially in those places where the shadow of the Great War is the darkest. The great colonial empires of the European powers are unravelling, beset by economic hardship and a rising sense of nationalism among the colonized. Even more troubling is the still distant, but increasingly strident drumbeat of war. In open violation of the Treat of Versailles, Germany is re-arming. A weak and divided Spanish Republic seems on the verge of Civil War. The Japanese continue their undeclared war conquest of China, and the Abyssinian crisis seems to increasingly be leading towards war between Italy and Ethiopia. The failure of the London Naval Treaty over he question of airships in 1931 has rekindled a naval arms race among the great powers, an arms race that under the strain of the Depression, all of the great naval powers can ill afford.
And then there is the….strangeness. On top of the economic crisis of the worldwide depression, the relentless and often stupefying advance of technology, and the seeming failure of the ideals of liberal democracy in the face of new, violent and totalitarian ideologies, the world seems to be coming increasingly…. strange. Reports of unexplained phenomena and bizarre occurrences, once consigned to the back pages of local newspapers and amused editorials, are now making the front pages of major papers. Reports of hauntings, psychic phenomena, religious miracles, unknown creatures, strange disappearances, and other weird and uncanny events have been on the increase for the past fifteen years. A sea serpent photographed off Pearl Harbor by sailors on a US Navy destroyer. A woman who burst into flames and burned to nothing but ash in front of hundreds of horrified witnesses in Times Square. A mummy, according to the handful of eyewitnesses and apparent physical evidence, apparently broke free of its sarcophagus in the British Museum, and walked through several doors, leaving them smashed to splinters, and disappearing into the London Underground. A young girl who went missing at market in Brussels, Belgium and was found hours later, unharmed and eating ice cream…..in San Francisco. A man was witnessed by hundreds of tourists, and filmed by a newsreel crew, as he jumped off the top observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, landed on his feet and then quickly walked away disappearing into the crowd. The French Liner SS L’Atlantique caught fire 25 miles of the Isle of Guernsey and vanished, only to appear year later, drifting and abandoned, in the Caspian Sea. A mysterious and gigantic blood red airship attacked the and damaged Imperial Navy General Headquarters in Tokyo with some kind of ray before being brought down into Tokyo Bay by a group of unidentified aircraft of apparently advanced design.
“The other day I was sitting in my dentists office and picked up a magazine. At first I thought it was one of those trashy ‘Amazing Story’ type pulps, but then I realized it was Newsweek. What’s next, hunting dinosaurs in ‘Field & Stream’?”- Will Rogers, January, 1935.
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