real life RPG inspirations
Real life RPG inspirations – Mass murder on the railway
I often say that you hardly need to make stuff up, just look at history for ideas. Boing Boing linked to an article recently on a mass grave of 57 migrant Irish workers who were meant to have all died from cholera in 1832, while working on a few miles of the Philadelphia to Pittsburgh line.
In June of 1832, the 57 Irish migrant workers arrived at the docks of Philadelphia. Their job was to lance a flat path for the track through steep, hilly terrain. In railroad parlance, this is known as a ‘cut’ and thereafter that stretch of track would be known as Duffy’s Cut. Six weeks later, they would all be dead. History would blame cholera for their deaths, but history is always written by the winners, and the winners—in this case the railroad company and the landed gentry of Chester County—would be best served by such an explanation. But in fact there is a lot about the historical record that doesn’t add up.
It’s a really interesting article of cover up, death, big business exploiting the workers and people doing each other over for profit. Not to mention ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts.
A nice atmospheric quote from the full article.
A dark shadow looms over the valley at Duffy’s Cut, dubbed Dead Horse Hollow because the carcasses of dead horses were allegedly dumped there back in the day. Some say it’s cursed, other say it’s haunted. But for the 178 years since the 57 Irishmen died there, the valley has remained untouched by development or, for that matter, any manifestation of modernity.
Something tells me I’ll be using this in a one off at some point.
Real life RPG inspirations: The brutality of battle
Thanks to a tip from fellow gaming blog Cyclopeatron I’ve been pointed towards an excellent article from the Economist on the Battle of Towton, during the English Wars of the Roses. For anyone running a realistic game with large scale battles, this is well worth a read. It gives some real insight into the people who faught at the time, the way the battle was faught and the consequences of loosing.
Very interesting stuff, especially if you’re at all interested in Medieval history.
This is seriously awesome!
Pictish Rock Art a Written Language. (from Boing Boing)
Although I suddenly realise I’ve never seen anyone use pictograms for a fantasy language. Odd. But my theoretical ‘Celtic islands dark fantasy game’ is definitely going to have a ancient pictographic language in it.
Need a 1920′s character photo?
I had a GM a while back who required us to all get photos for our characters. It wasn’t something I’d done before and I’m not sure we really used them much but I thought it was a decent idea.
Today I found (via Very Short List) this cool flickr set of 1920′s passport photos. They’re of famous people but they’re largely not recognisable (and not all of them are still famous). Perfect for a Pulp game or some 20′s Call of Cthulhu.
More and more real life RPG inspirations
Sophie revived our real life RPG inspirations the other day, I thought I’d follow up with some links of my own.
The first two come from Wired.com’s pretty fascinating Danger Room blog about the world of the military and national security.
- The US is thinking of starting up a special assasination squad – right or wrong (and I lean towards wrong) it would make a pretty fun game.
- While you’re running your assasination squad game, perhaps you could use some interesting spy tools.
It’s not from Danger Room, but the CIA has recently declassified their Manual of Trickery and Deception as well. It’s apparently all about using stage magic for spy purposes, but imagine if it had real magic as well?
Another one for the real life files
I know that the push for ratings is tough, but this might be taking things just a little bit too far. A crime TV host is accused of actually ordering killings so that his team could be there first with the scoop. Before the police even… read a little more about it here.
Real Life RPG Locations – Crazy Russian Research Centres
Thanks to Boing Boing, I found this cool site all about this high voltage electricity research centre in Russia – it’s based on the ideas of Nikola Tesla, it’s still active, it looks awesome and it shoots electrical bolts of up to 150 meters out at night.
This would make an awesome location for a modern RPG – either a location for a fight or just a really strange meeting spot.
Weird science lives!!!
In other news, I’m travelling for the next three weeks so don’t expect too many updates. I’ll schedule some for while I’m away however.
Modern Pirates – a real life RPG inspiration
Wired.com have printed an interview with a Somali pirate, asking all sorts of questions about they whys and hows of modern Pirating…
How are the pirates organized? (Are there pirate leaders, financiers, and specialists?)
The financiers are the most important since they organize and plan the big shot operations and are able to pay running cost[s]. Financiers always need to forge deals with traders, land cruiser owners, translators, business people to keep the supplies flowing during operations and manage the logistics. There is a long supply chain involved in every hijacking.
Pretty interesting stuff and it has all sorts of applications – for modern games obviously, but also for any other game. How do you orgnaise getting rid of that loot? It doesn’t have to be as easy as going down town and selling it off.