Thursday, 25 June 2009
Ill
I have the cold. It is the worst thing ever. Aargh. I phoned work yesterday to say I was ill. They phoned me today. Twice. Is it just me or is that creepy as hell. Better be careful, my work monitors all blogs all the time and will sack me if I say it is the worst job I've ever had. I love it really. Oh god I'm gonna spew... lol.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Game Plot Ideas (Victorian London)
I love RPGs. I used to play at Uni. I miss it, but I know no one out here who plays...
So, here are a few ideas for steampunk RPGs set in London.
1) Joseph Bazalgette needs the heroes help. It is 1860 and he is building the sewers, but something dark and dangerous is using the new sewer tunnels as a lair. The heroes must hunt it out.
2) There were 4 assassination attempts on Queen Victoria in her lifetime. It is not hard to make up a fifth attempt, and have the heroes pursue the would-be assassin through Victorian London.
3) It is 1851, the Great Exhibition is in full swing, but suddenly one of the main attractions begins killing people. It is a one hundred feet tall steam-powered man and was last seen leaving a trail of destruction heading towards the river.
4) It is 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the prowl. But he is not a man; he is a demon from the deepest pits of Hell, and only the heroes can send him back where he came from.
5) A man with a strange tale in the pub sparks adventure. His name is Jonathan Harker, and he spins a tale of a blood-sucking fiend from a distant land praying on the women of our fine city.
6) A mad scientist hires the heroes to bring him dead bodies. Dig them up or kill them yourself, he doesn't care. But when the heroes learn he plans to reanimate the pieces, sewn together as one monstrous man, they must stop him before it is too late...
7) A mad scientist needs a test subject and one of the heroes, strapped for cash and facing debtors jail, volunteers. But when the scientist accidentally makes him permanently invisible, and very slowly becoming permantly intangible, it is up to the heroes to find a cure.
8) The famous Egyptologist Dr Albert Napier returns to London with the results of his recent looting, including a mummy that comes to life each night... think Brendan Fraser's The Mummy in Victorian steampunk London
9) A werewolf in Hyde Park
10) Chinese Triads have a weapon of mass destruction. They plan to test it on Paris, firing from London. This could lead to a massive war between the two empires...
11) Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde
12) Florence Cook, the famous medium, is haunted by ghosts... indeed, the spirits of the departed are rising all over the city. The heroes must help the restless dead to rest in peace.
13) A sorceror plans to summon Cthulhu to earth... (I love Lovecraft, too).
A nice mix of techie and fantasy ideas, there.
See also http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm. With the ideas above and this link I'm sure you'll have great games. I'm so jealous...
So, here are a few ideas for steampunk RPGs set in London.
1) Joseph Bazalgette needs the heroes help. It is 1860 and he is building the sewers, but something dark and dangerous is using the new sewer tunnels as a lair. The heroes must hunt it out.
2) There were 4 assassination attempts on Queen Victoria in her lifetime. It is not hard to make up a fifth attempt, and have the heroes pursue the would-be assassin through Victorian London.
3) It is 1851, the Great Exhibition is in full swing, but suddenly one of the main attractions begins killing people. It is a one hundred feet tall steam-powered man and was last seen leaving a trail of destruction heading towards the river.
4) It is 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the prowl. But he is not a man; he is a demon from the deepest pits of Hell, and only the heroes can send him back where he came from.
5) A man with a strange tale in the pub sparks adventure. His name is Jonathan Harker, and he spins a tale of a blood-sucking fiend from a distant land praying on the women of our fine city.
6) A mad scientist hires the heroes to bring him dead bodies. Dig them up or kill them yourself, he doesn't care. But when the heroes learn he plans to reanimate the pieces, sewn together as one monstrous man, they must stop him before it is too late...
7) A mad scientist needs a test subject and one of the heroes, strapped for cash and facing debtors jail, volunteers. But when the scientist accidentally makes him permanently invisible, and very slowly becoming permantly intangible, it is up to the heroes to find a cure.
8) The famous Egyptologist Dr Albert Napier returns to London with the results of his recent looting, including a mummy that comes to life each night... think Brendan Fraser's The Mummy in Victorian steampunk London
9) A werewolf in Hyde Park
10) Chinese Triads have a weapon of mass destruction. They plan to test it on Paris, firing from London. This could lead to a massive war between the two empires...
11) Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde
12) Florence Cook, the famous medium, is haunted by ghosts... indeed, the spirits of the departed are rising all over the city. The heroes must help the restless dead to rest in peace.
13) A sorceror plans to summon Cthulhu to earth... (I love Lovecraft, too).
A nice mix of techie and fantasy ideas, there.
See also http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm. With the ideas above and this link I'm sure you'll have great games. I'm so jealous...
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
RPG Carnival
There is a blog carnival on steampunk rpg's this month, courtesy of Mad Brew Labs. I thought I'd get involved. http://www.madbrewlabs.com/index.php/2009/06/01/steampunk-klokwerks/
There is some idea that steampunk isn't punky enough, unlike cyberpunk. I think they just aren't thinking things through.
According to wikipedia, steampunk often lacks dystopian elements. Again according to Wikipedia, these elements include... poverty, war, violence, disease, pollution, and oppression. Because the Victorian era was so nice that this nonsense could be ignored... eh, no.
There was a lot of poverty in Victorian London. Work houses, debtor's prison, etc. Violence, Jack the Ripper. The Crimean and Boer Wars and the Taiping Rebellion. Cholera, tuberculosis, etc.
I think the problem is the name itself. Victorian gives rise to images of Victoria, who is usually pictured in a sombre all-black outfit (the clothing she wore after Albert's death). This gives rise to thoughts of upper class or middle class houses where the men ruled. Dinner jackets, cigarettes and tea in the lounge, and strict rules of etiquette were the order of the day.
Victorian Poverty
The Victorian era showed a vast increase in population. This seems to be a combination of larger families, of more children surviving infancy, of better understanding of disease and better medical care, and immigrants fleeing the Irish potato famine. By the end of the century, the population had tripled.
Because of the large number of people looking for work (skilled and unskilled) wages were low. People worked long hours, and so wanted to live near their work. Because of this there was a housing shortage. This led to extremely overcrowded situations, and unsanitary living conditions. There were no state benefits.
In 1848 Cecil Frances Alexander published a hymn:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate.
(All things Bright and Beautiful). This hymn sums up Victorian attitudes to the poor. God made them poor, so they'll stay poor, the next life is more important than this one, anyway.
Children
Children had to also support the family. There were very few schools, and most kids worked; climbing boys employed by chimney sweeps, or to crawl under machines, or in coal mines, or as errand boys... Crime was rife in the city, with pickpocket gangs mostly made of children. In 1848, Lord Ashley made reference to these "naked, filthy, roaming, lawless and deserted children" claiming that there were more than 30,000 "in and around the metropolis." (Victorian Town Child, Pamela Horn).
Women
In a time when a hard working man might earn £3'6 a week, and a prostitute could earn as much as £1000 a week, it is no wonder London was heaving with prostitutes.
Pollution
This is often seen as something new, but pollution was widespread in Victorian London, a city famous for its unnatural fog. This was the heart of the Industrial Revolution, a city where the queen ordered sewers to be built because the stink became so overpowering that something had to be done, a city so polluted that when Cholera came from Germany it spread like wildfire.
The rich took the attitude "out of sight, out of mind," which is why there were so many prisons (Australia being the biggest ;) ). If a starving man stole a loaf of bread to feed his family, he was locked up...
Violence
In our child-centred society today, it is hard to comprehend a time when there were dead babies by the thousands, droves of missing Madeleines, scores of Myra Hindleys, and hardly anyone batted an eyelid. The "Angel Maker" was the worst of these, and there's a chilling article here... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-484575/The-baby-butcher-One-Victorian-Britains-evil-murderers-exposed.html
So murder, pollution, poverty, and crime were rife in the Victorian era, and this is where we'll find the punk. It was very much a time of "behind closed doors" with the Victorians fascinated by sex and death. This even extended to the royals, (look at Edward, who had numerous affairs. Infact, husbands encouraged their wives to sleep with the king because it would further the husbands position in society). Edward was involved in divorce proceedings and was in court twice, and was also embroiled in a cheating lawsuit about a game of cards at a gentleman's club.
You'll find it all in the Victorian/Edwardian era, from obsessive lesbian love affairs, to murder, from gangs of feral, lawless children, to high society, from the slums and rookeries to the mansions and palaces, from baby farming to drug taking, there is more than enough room and inspiration for punk. Be inspired.
There is some idea that steampunk isn't punky enough, unlike cyberpunk. I think they just aren't thinking things through.
According to wikipedia, steampunk often lacks dystopian elements. Again according to Wikipedia, these elements include... poverty, war, violence, disease, pollution, and oppression. Because the Victorian era was so nice that this nonsense could be ignored... eh, no.
There was a lot of poverty in Victorian London. Work houses, debtor's prison, etc. Violence, Jack the Ripper. The Crimean and Boer Wars and the Taiping Rebellion. Cholera, tuberculosis, etc.
I think the problem is the name itself. Victorian gives rise to images of Victoria, who is usually pictured in a sombre all-black outfit (the clothing she wore after Albert's death). This gives rise to thoughts of upper class or middle class houses where the men ruled. Dinner jackets, cigarettes and tea in the lounge, and strict rules of etiquette were the order of the day.
Victorian Poverty
The Victorian era showed a vast increase in population. This seems to be a combination of larger families, of more children surviving infancy, of better understanding of disease and better medical care, and immigrants fleeing the Irish potato famine. By the end of the century, the population had tripled.
Because of the large number of people looking for work (skilled and unskilled) wages were low. People worked long hours, and so wanted to live near their work. Because of this there was a housing shortage. This led to extremely overcrowded situations, and unsanitary living conditions. There were no state benefits.
In 1848 Cecil Frances Alexander published a hymn:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate.
(All things Bright and Beautiful). This hymn sums up Victorian attitudes to the poor. God made them poor, so they'll stay poor, the next life is more important than this one, anyway.
Children
Children had to also support the family. There were very few schools, and most kids worked; climbing boys employed by chimney sweeps, or to crawl under machines, or in coal mines, or as errand boys... Crime was rife in the city, with pickpocket gangs mostly made of children. In 1848, Lord Ashley made reference to these "naked, filthy, roaming, lawless and deserted children" claiming that there were more than 30,000 "in and around the metropolis." (Victorian Town Child, Pamela Horn).
Women
In a time when a hard working man might earn £3'6 a week, and a prostitute could earn as much as £1000 a week, it is no wonder London was heaving with prostitutes.
Pollution
This is often seen as something new, but pollution was widespread in Victorian London, a city famous for its unnatural fog. This was the heart of the Industrial Revolution, a city where the queen ordered sewers to be built because the stink became so overpowering that something had to be done, a city so polluted that when Cholera came from Germany it spread like wildfire.
The rich took the attitude "out of sight, out of mind," which is why there were so many prisons (Australia being the biggest ;) ). If a starving man stole a loaf of bread to feed his family, he was locked up...
Violence
In our child-centred society today, it is hard to comprehend a time when there were dead babies by the thousands, droves of missing Madeleines, scores of Myra Hindleys, and hardly anyone batted an eyelid. The "Angel Maker" was the worst of these, and there's a chilling article here... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-484575/The-baby-butcher-One-Victorian-Britains-evil-murderers-exposed.html
So murder, pollution, poverty, and crime were rife in the Victorian era, and this is where we'll find the punk. It was very much a time of "behind closed doors" with the Victorians fascinated by sex and death. This even extended to the royals, (look at Edward, who had numerous affairs. Infact, husbands encouraged their wives to sleep with the king because it would further the husbands position in society). Edward was involved in divorce proceedings and was in court twice, and was also embroiled in a cheating lawsuit about a game of cards at a gentleman's club.
You'll find it all in the Victorian/Edwardian era, from obsessive lesbian love affairs, to murder, from gangs of feral, lawless children, to high society, from the slums and rookeries to the mansions and palaces, from baby farming to drug taking, there is more than enough room and inspiration for punk. Be inspired.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Bet my block
I haven't written anything really since my last post that's why theres no gramma.
Hold on; screw the writing head back on.
I beat my block. Or maybe I sat it out. Personally, I think it was a combination of both. Either way, now I'm writing. I have a plan, a goal, and I hope only a quick editing draft after my current draft. An end is in sight (although more research will be needed).
Hold on; screw the writing head back on.
I beat my block. Or maybe I sat it out. Personally, I think it was a combination of both. Either way, now I'm writing. I have a plan, a goal, and I hope only a quick editing draft after my current draft. An end is in sight (although more research will be needed).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)