Historical settings

faraday

So in your example it's not so much that I'd have that stagecoach fly through hundreds of miles overnight to let your PC go to her cousin's wedding, but I'd do my damnest so that's never a necessary logistical nightmare to handle. It's why I highly recommend single-city games rather than ones set in a sprawling world where characters need to travel extensively - it's because they then isolate themselves from the rest of the playerbase.

Yeah I understand that, and the games I mentioned were all single-city games. I used the stagecoach as an example of the kind of historical issue that seems innocuous on the surface (who cares if they want to go off-grid for a week?) but can really bother people who are into the historical setting because it's an pretty jarring anachronism. Like the costumes thing @insomniac7809 mentioned. Or everyone going around a small Wild West town with modern values.

I set out to make Sweetwater the sort of "Hollywood History" you described - heck, I even said so in the theme file.

What we strive for here is not so much historical accuracy but rather historical plausibility. Think of us as a Hollywood western.

What I ended up with was what somebody not-so-affectionately dubbed "Twin Peaks 1866". I had fun, personally, but I don't know how "historical" it was in the end.

Arkandel

@faraday said in Historical settings:

I had fun, personally, but I don't know how "historical" it was in the end.

Again this is only my opinion, but if I ran a MU* and someone told me "hey, I have fun here but I don't know how historical it is" I'd take it as a win - any day.

mietze

I think for "hard" historical settings (based on RL, no supernatural or fantasy elements, ect.) you'd need to take a very close look at the scope of the game. I think for most people looking for strict historical being able to change history would be not great (plus that introduces the alt- or fantasy elements IMO); so it might be best to eliminate that from the scope of the game and focus on a fictional town that while all sorts of unusual things and people might happen/gather, they're NOT going to have a world-changing impact.

I would say anyone who really feels the need to have that kind of thing available probably /isn't/ going to be truly happy on a hard historical setting game. They're looking more for a potential alternative world game, which while there's nothing wrong with that, isn't the type of game you've outlined.

So that's one thing that you'd need to take a hard look at. What DO you want in the scope of your game? Then be honest about it.

I think you also need to have a plan in place for dealing with the inevitable problem of some (very small, but sometimes super vocal/noticeable) players who either "don't understand" (because they choose to not, they choose to use that as an excuse, or there's something with them that makes them incapable) the setting, or choose to make themselves the exception. There will be people like this, since there's this variety of oopsie-on-purpose theme flouting asshole on any game with a strong theme, eventually. There is no wrong way to deal with this, really, but instead of thinking that if only you write enough newsfiles, have the greatest wiki, provide lots of historical links, provide great documentation, if only you do those things you'll never have to deal with someone like this--be realistic and think about what you're actually going to do WHEN this person appears or grows into something like that over time.

How much theme drift will you allow?
How will you deal with PCs whose players aren't disruptive in the classic sense of the word (not ooc nastiness), but who are moving towards a theme clash? This would be via drift or bait and switch, not first approval. So how will you deal with players already IN GAME.

I also think it is very important to have focused things for the PCs to /do/. While historical stuff is super enjoyable, if you are not introducing fantasy or alt- elements I actually think it's even more important to have storyline goals/things for the PCs to work towards and participate in that help get/keep them excited about the theme. So whether that is battles, minigames/crises involving historically accurate-ish elements, ect--I think that ideally there should be a plan in place. Putting in a strict no-fantasy no-alt setting and then just leaving everyone to BaRP for the most part seems to be askingfor frustration and drift, IMO.

mietze

Also, to clarify, I don't mean to imply that PCs shouldn't be able to radically alter the state of the /town/ or whatever that the PCs are centered around. There have always been towns and settlements that flouted social conventions and the like for better or worse. Just that I feel like if you allow people to, say, change the entire course of a country's history, you have moved away from strict historical into fantasy, and thus you're opening up more problems to deal with in the long run if in your head you want a historical game.

Arkandel

@mietze @mietze said in Historical settings:

So that's one thing that you'd need to take a hard look at. What DO you want in the scope of your game? Then be honest about it.

I think one of the early hardships involved in setting up a game in a period you're clearly excited about ("oh boy that golden age of Rome under Augustus!!1!") is then allowing your players some agency both in terms of not knowing everything you - in your excitement - do, or interpreting them the same way. Some might care for the constant education, correcting their pig latin or resolving somewhat minor anachronisms but probably most won't match what's locked inside your head. Not exactly.

In other words, and to generalize wildly, there are three types of players:

People who will play any era as they picture it in their heads. They'll play a stereotype - a "fighter", a "medic", a "businessman" as appropriate, but won't try to get too ambitious or take too many liberties. Those are probably most MU*'s bread-and-butter.
Folks who know or are willing to try more with theme on a meta level. They will set your culture as much or more than staff will, since they often set the IC tone; they'll play deviants, mavericks, important political figures and so on. It's these guys staff need to win over and work with more than anyone.
Finally there are those who might or not know as much as the ones above but they will be more disruptive because that is pretty much their goal. Play them in a medieval setting and they'll try to invent gunpowder, create corporations in all but name where the very model doesn't exist, try to revolutionize military strategy decades in advance.

These groups all need attention, but both the approach and degree of education and hand-holding they require is vastly different, and it needs to be handled without taking their ability to make meaningful, interesting choices.

Apos

I shrivel and die inside a little at the thought of trying to run a historical game with high fidelity, it just feels to me like a soul crushing experience of trying to please a ton of mutually exclusive desires.

There's wildly different expectations for what is necessary to be faithful to a setting and what would be needlessly pedantic and be wrongfunning someone. The thought of the million conversations about someone upset about something being jarring, and other people thinking it's a non issue but finding something else jarring and immersion breaking strikes me as the most miserable game of whack-a-mole that a staffer could play. Unless everyone is on close to the same page, it would really suck, and the less niche it is the way less likely more than a handful would be on the same page thematically.

Secondly, most MU players are not playing games to play the most ordinary, standard examples of time periods they can do it. They want to play something exceptional that they can make their mark on a game with, and for many, many people, that means something exotic and different. That directly undermines historical settings. Even ignoring again fights from people being mad that an OC concept is jarring to a setting and having wildly different views on whether something fits or not, the amount of bad feels over people upset at each other who gets to play the exotic character or watch the setting to get overrun by Exceptions To The Rule characters strikes me as zero fun to administrate as a game runner.

mietze

This is why i do NOT favor hard historical games. I think they're too much work for the staff, tbh. A lot of work upfront, to set scope/strategy for dealing with drift alongside all the other usual shit. A lot of work in delivery, as there's yet another category of stuff that needs monitoring--not just in CG but forever afterwards. (CG is not a good filter for screening garbage players or problematic play).

I would totally support in spirit anyone who'd want to take it on, and I'm sure somewhere there's been a success (TGG?).

But I find the fantasy- flexible- sorta-based-on- "history" /themes/ over actual historical stuff, personally. That's not the thought exercise you laid out though, ark.

Arkandel

@mietze said in Historical settings:

But I find the fantasy- flexible- sorta-based-on- "history" /themes/ over actual historical stuff, personally. That's not the thought exercise you laid out though, ark.

Yeah, by design though. It's certainly easier to do those since you're able to handwave a lot of headaches - don't want racism? It's gone! Accuracy? To what, the pseudo-Roman setting with your own hybrid pantheon?

For example I've been toying with the idea of a WoD game set in Casablanca era 1940 in my head. It probably won't go past that but I'm loving the idea of a Germany-backed new government ran by Nazi vampires and Aryan supremacist Pure while the locals try to survive and protect their own people. But I could take a hell of a lot more permissions with history then than if I actually tried to ran a more realistic game where the King is trying to protect the local Jewish population and somehow weather the storm until the Allies turn the tides.

Would it be more fun? To some, maybe. To me, definitely not. But it would be trickier to pull off, that's for damn sure.

mietze

This is part of my confusion then. If you are okay with adding fantasy elements like vampires (one could argue that it's a cop out by having monster monsters be the Aryans and promoters of that evil rather than humand) I really dont get why making some alterations to other parts of history would be somehow a more immersion breaking thing.

mietze

And not to get too deep here, but I can say as someone whose family is deep in the trenches of taking actions and making plans I never in my wildest dreams I'd ever have to take/make in my own fucking country to keep one if my children safe, I personally feel very uncomfortable with people cheapening the evil being done by people to people by dehumanizing the people doing the evil. Oh, that couldn't be people like us, only monsters do that.

I would find a story about the monsters becoming concerned about the true depths of evil rooted in man and trying to protect some folks from it while not exposing themselves for genocidal destruction alongside those beset human groups far more compelling, and less tiresome to me personally.

But that is just a reflection of where I player am at, and of course there are going to be others who will only feel comfortable playing a WWII theme where Nazis are monsters or supernaturally forced from their basic humanity.

Three-Eyed Crow

@mietze said in Historical settings:

I would totally support in spirit anyone who'd want to take it on, and I'm sure somewhere there's been a success (TGG?).

I mean, TGG was essentially War Movie Game. It is what I think of as straight historical on the sense that there were no fantasy elements and it followed the arc of real historical events. But war movies and WW2 thrillers are still a genre and that's the level of fidelity it was going for. I feel like it maintained a fairly low stress ooc environment while still achieving a feel of vague historical fidelity, but it was also always a fairly small game (which made it enjoyable). Same with ChicagoMUSH. It was a Gangsters and G-Men game even though it did not have other genre elements, and the feel of those types of movies/stories was paramount over what belt buckles were accurate in 1925 or whatever.

I had positive experiences on these games and would play their like again, but they wouldn't be The Giant Game of the Moment. Idk why the Giant Game of the Moment is even desirable.

mietze

That's what I mean by paying very close attention to scope of the game.

I'm not sure anyone is talking about a large or immensely popular game? I thought most of us had agreed this is a niche that's unlikely to draw a huge crowd.

Arkandel

@mietze said in Historical settings:

And not to get too deep here, but I can say as someone whose family is deep in the trenches of taking actions and making plans I never in my wildest dreams I'd ever have to take/make in my own fucking country to keep one if my children safe, I personally feel very uncomfortable with people cheapening the evil being done by people to people by dehumanizing the people doing the evil. Oh, that couldn't be people like us, only monsters do that.

The best answer I can give is that it depends on the kind of game you want to run, and the issues you'll get yourself into by foregoing distancing the fictional from real-world evils.

Sure, some people - historical figures even, ones you can easily plug into your game - were racist assholes of monumental proportions. They were pedophiles, serial rapists, murderers, torturers; you name it, it happened. And if you run in the right period those can be part of your MU*, too; do you want it to be? Do you want players triggered by it coming to complain (or leaving) over it? It's not a rhetorical question, it's a legitimate concept to run and with the right crowd it can be super interesting not despite the discomfort but because of it; think The Handmaid's Tale, that sort of thing.

But it's not for everyone. And for those potential staff teams giving their villains fangs or orcish faces makes it more palatable - similar themes with a smaller impact but easier to compartmentalize.

mietze

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

But it's not for everyone. And for those potential staff teams giving their villains fangs or orcish faces makes it more palatable - similar themes with a smaller impact but easier to compartmentalize.

Yes. But by doing that, I think you are firmly planted in a supernatural horror/fantasy game rather than "historical game". Maybe there should be a differentiation between "historical game" and "<X time period> SETTING game." I think there can be a huge difference, in framing and intent. And also how issues are addressed.

faraday

@apos said in Historical settings:

The thought of the million conversations about someone upset about something being jarring, and other people thinking it's a non issue but finding something else jarring and immersion breaking strikes me as the most miserable game of whack-a-mole that a staffer could play.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at when discussing with @Arkandel earlier. It's not that it can't be done to some measure of "success" (however you describe it). It's just that it's a lot more headaches than other kinds of games in my experience.

...
the amount of bad feels over people upset at each other who gets to play the exotic character or watch the setting to get overrun by Exceptions To The Rule characters strikes me as zero fun to administrate as a game runner.

Indeed. Everyone wants to come in as the Exception to the Rule, but then most of them get pissed off that there are so many other Exceptions to the Rule around town. The amount of flak directed at staff was kind of astonishing, really. This is, again, where an extremely narrow focus like TGG can help. The character options were extremely limited, which made it hard for anyone to try to be The Special.

faraday

@mietze said in Historical settings:

I really dont get why making some alterations to other parts of history would be somehow a more immersion breaking thing.

For me it's not about immersion-breaking really. It's more about having a solid footing for reference about what my character would know/think/feel.

Like I can imagine how a regular old 1866 human would react to "ZOMG ALIENS JUST ARRIVED".

But what would a regular old 1866 human even be like if racism or sexism didn't exist? Would females have been allowed to be regular soldiers in the Civil War? Would there even have been a Civil War without slavery and all its evils? What about relations with the Native Americans? It feels like going down a rabbit hole of dominoes hitting dominoes, and I no longer feel like I have a solid foundation on which to base my character. It's no longer historical; it's an uncanny valley of similar-but-not-quite-the-same parallels that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around.

That's just me, anyway.

Arkandel

@faraday said in Historical settings:

But what would a regular old 1866 human even be like if racism or sexism didn't exist? Would females have been allowed to be regular soldiers in the Civil War? Would there even have been a Civil War without slavery and all its evils? It feels like going down a rabbit hole of dominoes hitting dominoes, and I no longer feel like I have a solid foundation on which to base my character. It's no longer historical; it's an uncanny valley of similar-but-not-quite-the-same parallels that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around.

That's a valid point. It's tricky to tackle because, like any other domino effect, any answers provided by staff would open the way for more questions.

Perhaps a catch-all statement made in advance if staff don't want to deal with certain themes? "We want to explore the Wild West era without focusing on racial tensions". Then the onus is on players to not be jerks and derail what the MU*'s goals are.

Obviously if staff do want a fully immersive environment then they absolutely can allow all that to be explored without artificial limitations in its scope or tropes.

mietze

I think you need to be more blunt, if there's things you absolutely don't want.

Like, probably "We will not be having stories around racial tensions, the removal/genocide of Native Americans, or the exploitation of foreign laborers even though this is a wild wild west era setting" is far better and more fair.

"Without focusing" is kind of very weak, and not very informative and also leaves quite a lot of wiggle room to interpretation even by reasonable individuals.

I consider myself one, and a pretty nice/focused on the comfort and enjoyment of fellow players type of player.

"Without focusing" means to me that there's limited support FOR it, but that it will not dominate things. Or that staff will not run plotlines for it, but it won't be frowned on if you partake as a player/small group/ect.

"No rape storylines, do not engage staff or other players in that sort of RP here" is always the better way to say it, when you want NONE of it than "We are a grimdark game with adult themes, without focusing on rape."

mietze

And I would say that if you are NOT willing to be that blunt, and able to live with the discomfort of actually setting real guidelines down , then frankly you deserve what you get in frustration about people not reading your mind when it comes to what is acceptable/ok to RP in that setting. You're not going to be able to guess everywhere people are going to go, and you are going to have to amend, but...I mean jesus. You cannot be so fuzzy especially with a not-modern-sensibilities place. That's just not fair to the players.

faraday

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

"We want to explore the Wild West era without focusing on racial tensions". Then the onus is on players to not be jerks and derail what the MU*'s goals are.

I agree with @mietze that you need to be more explicit than that. And honestly I'm not sure that's even feasible. It's one thing to say "Hey, don't play a racist jerk; that kind of character isn't welcome here." But by saying "we're not focusing on this" -- does that mean nobody can play an ex-slave? Or if they play a Native American, they can't complain about how their people were treated? Does it mean everyone has to accept a woman doctor as if such a thing were commonplace? Regulating that kind of thing is a complicated, slippery slope.

And again - I wholeheartedly understand people not wanting to deal with those themes in their fiction. But whitewashing away the injustices of history just so you can play cowboys and stagecoach robbers doesn't seem like such a hot idea to me either.