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If you could choose a setting for a Flintlock & Steel adventure...?


doomedpc

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Hi Folks,

I thought it would be fun to canvass you all for your ideas on this one.

We're currently working on finishing Dark Streets, but we also have some Flintlock & Steel adventures lined up for Renaissance Deluxe. Flintlock & Steel are a series of short adventures, that use the Renaissance Deluxe rules (the first in the series, Adrian Jones's rather excellent The Mystery of Shirdley Hall, set in the Clockwork & Cthulhu setting, is already available). What would your dream setting be for a Flintlock & Steel adventure?

Peter Cakebread

>:>Cakebread&WaltonO:)

Purveyors of Fine Imaginings

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Late 16th century Scottish Border Reivers. Very interesting time period full of "larger than life" characters, cattle raiding and small scale skirmishes. You can set the characters up as either members of a local clan out for some sweet revenge or over-worked wardens trying to maintain the peace.

Reading material: "Candlemass Road" & "Border Reivers" by George MacDonald Frasier. Also a series of books by P.F. Chisholm (aka Patricia Finney). Osprey has a couple of books including one on the fortifications. Wargames Foundry and (I think) Vendel miniatures have lines of appropriate miniatures.

Please leave Cthulhu out of this one:) Witchcraft would fit in perfectly though.

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Late 16th century Scottish Border Reivers. Very interesting time period full of "larger than life" characters, cattle raiding and small scale skirmishes. You can set the characters up as either members of a local clan out for some sweet revenge or over-worked wardens trying to maintain the peace.

Reading material: "Candlemass Road" & "Border Reivers" by George MacDonald Frasier. Also a series of books by P.F. Chisholm (aka Patricia Finney). Osprey has a couple of books including one on the fortifications. Wargames Foundry and (I think) Vendel miniatures have lines of appropriate miniatures.

Please leave Cthulhu out of this one:) Witchcraft would fit in perfectly though.

Another very cool suggestion ;t)

I got a bit side-tracked reading about the Border Reivers when researching for C&C, so a lot of the research is already in the bag...

Peter Cakebread

>:>Cakebread&WaltonO:)

Purveyors of Fine Imaginings

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I'd enjoy seeing something set in the Jacobean era cos' that's when my campaign will be set. ;)

Geographically speaking, the Norfolk Broads would make for an intersting setting; as would Dartmoor. Anywhere desolate and forboding with a high strangeness quotient.

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I'd enjoy seeing something set in the Jacobean era cos' that's when my campaign will be set. ;)

Geographically speaking, the Norfolk Broads would make for an intersting setting; as would Dartmoor. Anywhere desolate and forboding with a high strangeness quotient.

I've lived on the edge of Dartmoor, and I can certainly vouch for its strangeness...

Peter Cakebread

>:>Cakebread&WaltonO:)

Purveyors of Fine Imaginings

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French & Indian War

The War in the Forest in Colonial America is frightening. British officers who've surrendered watch in horror as their men are cut down and scalped. Diabolical French officers order their men to set fire to farms while settlers cower inside. Rangers travel 100's of miles through the back woods to decend upon a native village and slaughter the inhabitants. Can war alone drive "civilized men" to such savagery or is there something darker lurking in the forest? Characters could be members of a fairly independant military unit like "Rogers Rangers", or normal folks caught up in terrible events. Reading material: the "Leather Stocking" tales by James Fenimore Cooper, "The Skulking Way of War" by Patrick Malone, "White Devil" by Stephen Brumwel. Miniatures available from Conquest amongst others.

Three Musketeers

Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artangan versus Richelieu, Milady d'Winter and Rochefort. Would give it a much more light-hearted feel than Clockwork & Chivalry. All windows are made out of sugar glass, chairs automattically break after clobbering one attacker, +20% bonus to swing across a room on a chandlier. Reading material: Anything by Dumas, more modern "Musketeer mysteries" by Sarah D'Almeida and for a touch of fantasy the "Cardinals Blades" series by Pierre Pevel. Required viewing: The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers (Michael York and Rachel Welch version - screenplay by George MacDonald Frasier). A variety of miniatures for this period, but I think the ones by Brigade Games are some of the best.

Remember the Alamo

This is an iconic American battle. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Santa Anna and other 'larger than life' characters. Great potential for skirmishes, raids and other "rpg-group-sized" actions. To add a horrible twist - what if Santa Anna dabbled in the dark arts and raised an army of zombies to assault the mission? Miniatures available from Boot Hill Miniatures.

Edited by filbanto
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Late 16th century Scottish Border Reivers. Very interesting time period full of "larger than life" characters, cattle raiding and small scale skirmishes. You can set the characters up as either members of a local clan out for some sweet revenge or over-worked wardens trying to maintain the peace.

Reading material: "Candlemass Road" & "Border Reivers" by George MacDonald Frasier. Also a series of books by P.F. Chisholm (aka Patricia Finney). Osprey has a couple of books including one on the fortifications. Wargames Foundry and (I think) Vendel miniatures have lines of appropriate miniatures.

Please leave Cthulhu out of this one:) Witchcraft would fit in perfectly though.

This would be my first pick, too. I'd de-emphasize witchery, though - give me tales and flavour more reminiscent of an S.R. Crocket novel. Add The Steel Bonnets by GM Fraser to the list of reference material.

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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Hmmm ... I think I would prefer something a little more exotic. Like for example the

very early days of the East India Company, with a sea voyage around Africa to In-

dia, first contacts with strange cultures (and creatures), hunted by the Portugue-

se and by pirates, a bit of the spirit of Sinbad the Sailor's adventures in the mix, a

lot of opportunities to use social and other skills in unfamiliar situations ...

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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I agree with filbanto. Colonial America presents a pile of possibilities -- and they're not separate from the other options folks have mentioned. The India Company is exploring and the swashbucklers are swashing while English, French and Spanish colonists are toughing it out in the New World and Stuart sympathizers are plotting against the new regime in Great Britain. It isn't an either/or, it's an all of the above. American shipwrights are building those exploration vessels and colonial sailors are manning them. Courtiers could easily be granted land in the New World for services to their monarch -- or they could be forced to flee there to avoid political or marital troubles.

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I know it's on the outer bounds of the system, but I would most likely use the Renaissance system for a Napoleonic campaign (intrigue-heavy). I also like the Captain Alatriste novels, so that's one I'd go for. Lastly, as many have said already above, exploring the New World; preferably one that involved interacting with North American Indians (perhaps based off of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha"). I wouldn't willingly use the system for anything supernatural, but would like to play it completely straight (although Dark Nights is kind of irresistible).

132/420

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There have been a number of unoriginal suggestions for games in the north american wilderness but has no-one considered the possibilities inherent in a Seven Years War campaign set in India. Treacherous Frenchies vs. Brave British boys on land and sea and devious oriental potentates out for themselves while fending off said British and French who wish to shake the tree and gather the luscious jewelled fruit of the East.

Nigel

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I'd love to do a globe spanning campaign, taking in more than one Seven Years War theatre of operations...although not sure how that would fit with our current schedule...

We do have someone working on a New World supplement, but no confirmed release date yet.

Lots of great ideas so far :)

Peter Cakebread

>:>Cakebread&WaltonO:)

Purveyors of Fine Imaginings

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The european expansion in the 18th century is ibdeed a huge source of exotic and adventurous settings, with possibility to play from many different points of vue: european colonial countries like France or England, the Netherlands or the decreasing colonial powers of Spain and Portugal, or why not Russia expending in central Asia. Not sepaking about the Ottoman Empire expending in the Balkans. It is easy for players to start playing in exotic countries like India, North America, Japan, West African kingdoms, Australia, Pacific Isles... without needing to read pages of background: they only need their prejudices and superficial knowledge of these overseas coutries, like the Europeans use to have at this time (and still have for too many of them today...)

Wind on the Steppes, role playing among the steppe Nomads. The  running campaign and the blog

 

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The european expansion in the 18th century is ibdeed a huge source of exotic and adventurous settings, with possibility to play from many different points of vue: european colonial countries like France or England, the Netherlands or the decreasing colonial powers of Spain and Portugal, or why not Russia expending in central Asia. Not sepaking about the Ottoman Empire expending in the Balkans. It is easy for players to start playing in exotic countries like India, North America, Japan, West African kingdoms, Australia, Pacific Isles... without needing to read pages of background: they only need their prejudices and superficial knowledge of these overseas coutries, like the Europeans use to have at this time (and still have for too many of them today...)

On the other hand, many stereotypes have a basis in fact. I'm reminded of the sheriff's department I covered as a young newspaper reporter. There were about five or so men in their fifties, all fat from sitting doing reports or driving long miles across the breadth and length of Garvin County, Oklahoma. They all wore white cowboy hats, had thick country accents. The Sheriff, a man of Native American descent, was never without a chaw of tobacco in his jaw at least the size of a golf ball. He'd take it out to talk to me during interviews, then put in back in his mouth afterwards. To my knowledge, the deputies were all honest men and there was no Boss Hogg puling the strings in the background, but rural politics was convoluted and interesting enough without such a figure. Unlike the comic characters from "Dukes of Hazzard," however, these men meant business. They had a huge area to patrol and were battling international drug dealers as well as local criminals. "Modern day Robin Hoods" would have gotten themselves shot dead pretty quickly.

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I know it's on the outer bounds of the system ...

I am currently working on an "alchemists and clockwork in space" setting,

the outer bounds of the system are really far out ... ;)

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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How about something in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the height or twilight of the golden age? Political Intrigue in the Sejm/parliament, numerous wars and freebooting in Zaporizhia. Mind you, I was working on this myself for a while, but got sidetracked plus I found enough military history but very little social history i.e. what daily like was like in the Commonwealth.

BRP 31/420

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Join Vitus Bering on his expedition to find new lands to the East of Russia. Have a read of the Wikipedia page on him and pay particular note to the St. Petersburg to Okhotsk expedition. In 1725 they went overland from St Petersburg to Okhotsk on the eastern coast. It took them 2 years just to get to the coast before they could then set sail to start exploring!

132/420

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  • 1 month later...

Spanish conquest of the Americas, clash of cultures, brooding forests and jungles , searing deserts, strange indian tribes, cities of gold in the wilderness, blood thirsty rituals in ziggurats....

You could play it completely straight as a historical setting, go for a weird west approach ala Aces High or throw in some cthulhu weirdness. Of course in an ideal world you'd do all of the above....

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  • 9 months later...

wow it is real late to post to this so I well any way---- I am setting my adventures for Renaissance in 1799 the first year or so of the Office American Navy - you know a sea book or Navel book would be real handy for folks that have no ideal about then and now! Navy and the difference of what it was to be an officer and a gentleman. What it also was of a professional and an amateur. As in case the Barrister and a solicitor.

any one know what I mean?

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  • 3 months later...

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