Café de Nuit

I friend of mine suggested that I'd arrange a 1920/Agatha Christie-ish campaign today. I think it sounds like a great idea, advancing Gothic Earth kicking and screaming into the 20th century. The 1920's is also about the last decade that I think still preserves the Gothic feeling.

Anyone have any suggestions on plots and adventures during this period?

Neat idea. A while back I tried to create a 1920's accessory for GE caslled Rising Darkness. In the aftermath of WW1 the world began to fall apart, while the environment turned harsh and extreme, demagogues began to seize power and extremism runs rampant.

Yeah, I remember. I'm not sure that's quite what I was aiming for, if your idea is alternate history. But the Red Death could easily be used as the reason for the changes the world is going through in this period.

Oke-doke,

So, your going for something more true to history then? Cool. When you say Agatha Christy-ish, do you mean just mystery adventures?

Isn't that the era touched on in Call of Cthulu?

And don't forget those gangsters.

ScS of the Fraternity wrote: So, your going for something more true to history then? Cool. When you say Agatha Christy-ish, do you mean just mystery adventures?

Didn't mean to dis your idea, but yes, I was aiming for the typical approach that everything happened as we know, just not for the same reasons. When I say Agatha Christie-ish, I don't nescessarily mean mystery-only, but that's about the spirit that I want to capture: Murder on the Orient Express, only with a more horror/supernatural twist. I remember seeing David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, and thinking that it would make a nice Ravenloft scenario. I can't remember the title of the episode, but they are in the near East, on a archeological site, and there is a woman that thinks she is haunted by a ghost. In the end, it's all revealed to be a mask dangling from the roof, but what if...?

I know that Call of Chtulhu dealt with this milleu, but I don't have any of the books, so I can't use that.

If anybody have any ideas for what would be going on, I'm open. Is the battle for the Light being rapidly lost by the Qabals? Is there some fiendish plot by the Red Death?

The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society is a great place if you're playing in the 1920s. The games section has some nifty ideas for adventures, although you'll have to remove the Cthulhu-specific elements, and the props and fonts are extremely useful.

I was thinking about this recently and thought that the years from 1925-1935 would probably be the best for this.
Why? Because the twenties were a decade of hope and fun after the Great War for the most part. The Roarin' Twenties. Hardly a gloomy and dark time although with organized crime and the like there was that shadowy underbelly that should be included. But for the most part it was a good decade. The thirties on the otherhand... I think everyone is familiar with the events of 1929 onward.

Stockmarket crash, mass unemployment, drought, and other troubles across the board. War in Asia and hardship in many places. Pretty dark period where the scars of the last war would still be visible and all the fallout from the twenties is taking place. That would be an interesting period to set a game.
But of course with all that hardship and depression things can only get better, right? That's not what the psychics and mediums forsee for the future as they speak of a time of death and mass-murder on a scale never before seen and the fall of great empires.

Hence '25-'35. Trouble and war are brewing and hardship abounds and everywhere there is despair and hopelessness the Red Death gains power.

Definitly a good period.

I remember a creepy little section from Ghostbusters, where they talk about Evo Chandor and his cult. After the Great War a mad doctor decides that humanity is too sick to survive and performs ritual after ritual to bring about the end of the world.

I think the early 30s (1931-1935) would be the best point to start. The compelling villains present themselves (Hitler, Stalin) and the squalor being experienced is nearly universal.

The era would also be a good way to show the success of the Red Death in subverting the various good qabals of the 1890s; you can have those qabals now run by pragmatists or silver-tongued diplomats more concerned with themselves than with fighting the forces of darkness.

I actually liked the idea of running MotRD in the 20s, but as someone else posted, Call of Cthulhu does actually cover this period particularly well (especially the areas of prohibition and lifestyle).

I think the episode of Poirot that Malken/Ezekiel mentioned is called 'Death on the Nile' - but I have to confess I didn't watch it, just saw the advertisements.

Does your local libarary have any books on this period in history? I know my husband (he's the one running Call of Cthulhu) actually has a number of books around that are specifically about this period in history, so that might also be a starting point to running any adventures.

That is where I would start researching for a campaign set then. Don't forget however, that you can quite easily incorporate a mystery story with a twist in the current timeframe of the Masque setting - more Sherlock Holmes than Poirot, but definately do-able.

a nice area for story seeds would be to research Mathers and Crowley and those associated with them. You could take these historical characters and easily apply supernatural reasons of what 'really' happened

Freud and his ilk or scientific people like Tesler and Vandavar Bush could also be two areas used to set a good story of intrigue or tapping into things better left alone.

Two movies that could provide good inspiration is 'Horror Express' woth Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing or 'Shadow of the Vampire.

I never saw Horror Express, but I have seen Shadow of the Vampire. That was a pretty keen movie, indeed. The story was a little slow, but the sets were amazingly dark and John Malkovich was excellent as the obsessed director.

I have been working up an alternate future history for a variant Masque game myself. It is set after WWII and where the South won the civil war. Very Horror based. I'm using quite a bit of material from OGL Horror and a little bit of stuff from OGL Wild West. I intend to eventually fet a full writeout of it and hopefully get it distributed on the net to whoever wants it for free.

Sounds interesting.

Can you tell us any more?