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1 - using niteside dreams with your Gaslight/1920s campaign
In the niteside dreams world, magic becomes an everyday thing in the late 19th/early 20th century.
By choosing this rationalization, we made realtively easy for a keeper to graft the niteside dreams world onto his ongoing Gaslight/1920s campaign. All he needs, is for the players to blunder badly enough.
In this sense, this game setting can be an highly instructive demonstration of what our world could look like should the forces of darkness ever get a greater sway.
No particular modifications are necessary to the rules and background as presented; just remember to age your players' characters as needed - or introduce in the game their offspring.
2 - the tongue-in-cheek factor
Being generally the kind of guys that like a good laugh once in a while, we have presented the setting as a mix of horror, paranoia and fun.
The degree of humor in games depends completely on the Keeper's decision.
The rules and the background as they are will let you play any kind of game, from WoD-style angst-fests to Paranoia-like slapstick.
We are well satisfied with the balance as presented herein, but there you go...
3 - early noir: the 1930s
The magical word for the 1939s is: depression.
Please disregard such joking 1930s "celebrations" like "The Sting", and stick to darker, Hammett-inspired moods.
A few reminders are probably in order.
a - the role of women - the attitude towards the fairer sex is still in its conservative phase, so that strong willed, independent women are the exception more than the rule, and will generaly have a bad reputation.
4 - war-years campaign
a - fifth column
There's a war going on, and the Enemy is among us.
Players can
now be OSS agents or "consultants" whose mission is to infiltrate dangerous
Nazi spy-rings, stop the smuggling of secret technology (or magic), foil
cunning plans devised to weaken the war effort.
Innocents drawn in the
machinations of the evil guy are also a good PC archetipe.
b - la resistance
The Nazis are here, but they'll have to fight us in every home.
A
variant of the Fifth Column campaign, this moves the action to War Torn France
and Paris in particular.
Now that the lights of the Ville Lumiere have been turned off, it's up to the players to keep the freedom flag flying, intecept secret messages, help war-camp fugitives and lost pilots and paratroopers reach safety behind the lines, set up daring traps.
A dirty work, but somebody's got to do it.
5 - spooks - spy-oriented games, late '50s/early '60s
We relocate to Post-War Berlin for this campaign, in which the two blocks (and as many independents as the keeper feels like) face each other across the Wall.
Please avoid Bond-style playing and go for the IPCRESS/Quiller Memorandum feel.
6 - Anytown, USA
While we stressed the suburban setting of noir, we must not forget
that suburban areasstill offer a lot plotwise. Think Peyton Place or, for
a modern source, Twin Peaks.
The classic High Sierra is after all set
primarily at a mountain resort.
So what do you need to set a game in a small town off the beaten track?
- a quiet place in the country - peopled by well-to-do, pipe smoking professionals, their permed wives and their healthy children. Adda dog if suitable.
- some city slickers for player characters - nothing better than being outsiders for enhancing the feeling of alienation
- gossip - be sure to put the rumour mill at full speed
- skeletons in the closets - a few dark secrets straining to get out in the broad daylight are just what it takes to turn an idyllic small town into a den of rabid wolves.
Maybe literally.
