Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Ghostse]

I feel someone confused the issue slightly when they said that Vaesen should do three different eras the way Cthulhu does. There's honestly no great need for that. A point in the 1800's is fine for something that has a somewhat limited scope for campaigns anyway. And a GM that wishes to do something different can. The issue is that it explicitly states that you should take anything from the 1800s as you like - political territories, inventions, beliefs - and "build your own Mythic North". It says things like "if a character wishes to type her novel on a typewriter, then the typewriter will have been invented".

when I suggested Epochs/ages, I was merely trying to give a less-lazy example of how the creators could have, with only a touch more effort, at least given GMs guide rails for how people would react, what was going on in the region and people would be talking about, etc. Just put in a few extra maps, etc. Other people suggested that was how CoC handled it.

There also would be nothing wrong with setting it just in 1860's sweden, and providing an "Appendix: Different Times or Countries" with general guidelines for having a game based in 1820 Norway or Pre-invasion Finlan or 1888 Denmark, and if not specifics at least "Here are some links to resources to figure out when things were invented and how borders shifted. But also remember not to get too hung up on specifics. Prototypes were often developed in parallel by different people and it might have taken a long time before something was developed and when it would have been commonly available"

Like you, I just took issue with "If your players want to have their Flapper shitposting on the internet and uploading RealVideo of her doing the Lindybop to Purple Rain while eating a Big Mac and talking about how great the first Superbowl was and how she'll be taking an autogyro to Siam with her Greaser boyfriend next week, then simply allow this because all this happened between 1900 and 1999" as being incredibly lazy.
And nothing shows how lazy someone is by pointing out how little effort it would take not be that lazy.

Whereas Vaesen really is more someone's mini-campaign drawn out into an entire game line. It doesn't have the depth needed to do something large and sprawling, imo. You could but the rules are quite shallow and it would be very much on the GM to build a big collaborative fantasy story out of the premise.

Not to belabor the point, but I honestly think that given the sort of narrow focus they should have picked a single point in time and tried to build on that, and just give the players help locating resources if they want to pick a different time or country.

that or just go full donut steel.

 

[Judge Dredd]

A GM should not fear his players, his players should fear him.

I assume that's hyperbole, because I find that idea insane. Same with general "GM vs players" mindsets.

If same player starts trying to derail things with minutiae or gotchas, well that's why I buy hardback books over PDFs.

Is there any other type? People who are history buffs but aren't rivet counters are generally more willing to go along with it.

I've mentioned at length in the past, but during a campaign where we jumped around time (in a fantasy world) in an astral train. One of the players kept going on about HEMA (Historical Medieval Martial Arts) techniques, how it's bullshit his PC was easily disable by magic (he dumped wisdom), complaining that a guy with an axe shouldn't have hurt him because he's wearing full plate, and trying to get us to watch Shadiversity videos between and sometimes during games.

the GM should put them to work

This would be interesting. What would work? Having them DM wouldn't work, as previously mentioned HEMA guy proposed running a game and it a text wall of house rules and homework.

 

[AnOminous]

I assume that's hyperbole, because I find that idea insane. Same with general "GM vs players" mindsets.

Depends on the game. My favorite example for this is Paranoia which outright encourages GM sadism, but since everyone is against everyone in that game, it makes sense.

More generally, though, in most games, I think the GM should try to be a neutral arbiter, even if it's between his own content (and content he is running) and the players.

The ultimate purpose is it's a game so it should be fun. If it makes things less fun, it sucks. The reason a game like Paranoia works with an utterly adversarial system is that this is the whole joke of the game.

I'd compare two of my favorites, Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, and how I played them. I tried to be grim and atmospheric in CoC and fair, but as cruel as the setting serves. This game could get grim and depressing, though, so we'd sometimes switch to Stormbringer. That is as grim a setting as CoC really, but I'd play it for laughs with over the top villainy and ending with a ridiculous Battle Royale when everyone betrayed each other after getting the MacGuffin.

So I'd be a murderous GM in both settings, but one was because of the grim difficulty of the scenario and the other was for a release valve of an unremittingly grim campaign being the "normal" campaign.

 

[The Ugly One]

D&D is more fun if you act like you hate your players. Everyone loves feeling like they got one over on the DM who is trying his best to kill them.

 

[Overly Serious]

when I suggested Epochs/ages, I was merely trying to give a less-lazy example of how the creators could have, with only a touch more effort, at least given GMs guide rails for how people would react, what was going on in the region and people would be talking about, etc. Just put in a few extra maps, etc. Other people suggested that was how CoC handled it.

Sure. And I have liked your replies on the subject very much. I think maybe people unfamiliar with Vaesen simply read more into it than the game line itself could practically handle. All I really want is for the game authors to share my love of historical realism and not go all in on the c'omfortable collaborative nobody in charge everyone feels good don't sweat the details because it's all about respectful fun' approach. Or in other words, "just give me a fucking timeline you cunts".

I assume that's hyperbole, because I find that idea insane. Same with general "GM vs players" mindsets.

I mean... no? I don't necessarily mean that players should be checking under their bed and installing new locks out of terror I will murder them in their sleep (though that would be the dream). But I don't hold with these new-fangled notions of everybody being equal. For a few reasons:

1. A GM puts in a lot more work and time and often money. In many ways running a game is like providing a service to the players. Yes, it's a service you enjoy providing for the most part, but that's still the way it mostly works.
2. Like an orchestra needs a conductor, a game needs a GM to direct it. Yes, there is more than the GM - the players all play their instruments. But even setting aside story, mystery, creating the encounters, etc., a GM during play keeps things working. Sometimes you get an advanced player who supports the GM in various way but for the most part, it's the GM who sets the pacing, injects excitement and challenge or help and sets the atmosphere. And not infrequently keeps inter-player squabbling to a minimum. You ever seen a tuba player stand up and start trying to change the timing during a recital? There's a good reason for that.
3. A GM usually has the grand vision. He knows what he wants and brings the group to that vision to help realise it.
4. I know what I'm doing and I like it that way.

So is it hyperbole? Ehhh. I want them to know I'm in charge at my table in my game. If they chafe under that then they're probably not suited to my table and that's fine. They can go. But I've noticed more than once in your comments here you seem to have issues with players causing you problems and to the point you are changing your actions in case of the event. Like saying that you'd prefer a less detailed timeline because otherwise you get continuity lawyers. I don't want to throw out something that enriches my game - for both me and my players - because some tit wants to play gotcha. If someone says: "Oh, the typewriter wasn't actually invented yet," then probably I'll say thanks unless they're being a dick about it. And then I'll decide either to retcon what I just said (the preference) or say "ah, my bad, we'll have to roll with it now" if there's a reason I can't change it easily. But either way I expect the player to abide by my decision on that.

And a little "GM vs. Players" is not a bad thing. Obviously as GM you can "win" at any time. It's not about that. It's about not having a mindset of being their coddling buddy that has their warm fuzzies as my primary goal. I want to see them work, think, overcome and triumph.

And at this point if we were discussing this on Reddit I'd be on about a million down votes by this point. And I still wouldn't give a fuck.

I've mentioned at length in the past, but during a campaign where we jumped around time (in a fantasy world) in an astral train. One of the players kept going on about HEMA (Historical Medieval Martial Arts) techniques, how it's bullshit his PC was easily disable by magic (he dumped wisdom), complaining that a guy with an axe shouldn't have hurt him because he's wearing full plate, and trying to get us to watch Shadiversity videos between and sometimes during games.

Yeah. Case in point. Tell him to bring his full plate along and you bring your axe and see how confident he is on his reasoning when you're standing there saying "batter up". Hell, he's wrong anyway. In so many ways. Impacts can wind and hurt you even if they don't penetrate. Plate mail has gaps and weak points. It's not always perfectly maintained - in fact most of it was for show and never saw real combat. All sorts of things can injure beyond just cutting. Does he think if he's wearing 2mm of steel around his head that he'll be fine if someone swings a lump of metal into his face? Does he parry? If so then has he ever held something tightly in place whilst someone swings a heavy axes into with their full strength? Torn ligaments, sprains, dislocations. The list of injuries even apart from actually being sliced open is substantial. In Ireland one method of torture the English used was to put a bucket over someone's head and batter it with sticks. Didn't leave marks but totally disorientated and wrecked the victim.

If a player has a distorted idea of how armour works - that's fine. You can explain they're wrong and how. In a friendly way hopefully. More brutally if they're being a PITA. But either way a GM should not be letting players derail their game like this. For their own sake and for other players. The player needs to respect the GM and understand who is in charge.

 

[Ghostse]

. If someone says: "Oh, the typewriter wasn't actually invented yet," then probably I'll say thanks unless they're being a dick about it. And then I'll decide either to retcon what I just said (the preference) or say "ah, my bad, we'll have to roll with it now" if there's a reason I can't change it easily. But either way I expect the player to abide by my decision on that.

I know I'm missing the forest for the trees on your argument here but:
For typewriters, there is nothing wrong - especially in the 1800s - with a character having a custom prototype ahead of general availability.

For example, in the book instead of "Just permit this" they could have given an example
"The first commercially available typewriter was released in 1874, but the concept of goes back to 1575 with patents issued for similar devices as early as 1714. Inventions also might have developed but never patented or widely distributed; Before 1810 Two Italian inventors independently created type-writer like machines for blind individuals they knew personally in order to allow them to write.
A Character may have been given one by an inventor friend, or even inherited it from a relative or mentor, or a mechanically inclined character may have developed one their own. If you want to allow your player's character to have such a device "before its time", encourage them to think about how it would impact their character; with no typewriter shops available, it would be up to the character to source new ink ribbons and make repairs should it break!
Many other developments in the 1800s follow similar patterns where inventions dreamt up decades or centuries before were finally possible to produce, and may have been made in workshops or backrooms but never entered production. You may want to allow characters to have access to items before were widely available. Encourage your players to check with you before including these items in their characters inventories or attempting to source them to use as they solve mysteries".

The player needs to respect the GM and understand who is in charge.

QFT

 

[Henri Barbusse]

This would be interesting. What would work? Having them DM wouldn't work, as previously mentioned HEMA guy proposed running a game and it a text wall of house rules and homework.

In Ars Magica context, it works since the game is built around rotating GM position and every player having multiple characters (one wizard, one 'companion' (important PC, but non-magical), and a bunch of grogs (your meatshields. they're supposed to be bumbling sidekicks and are simple to make and keep up to date)). That makes for a game that is, for lack of a better term, more 'democratic'. Everyone is expected to put in at least some GM work, even if it's just playing some minor NPCs as well as their own wizard and said wizard's bodyguard.

With how Ars Magica players end up self-selecting for huge history nerds, HEMA guy would get a chance to explain why he's right, but he'd have to convince not just the GM, but every single player. (That's how it works in general, since a GM pushing houserules the players don't like will quickly find himself without players, but it's explicit in Ars Magica that every player has to agree with houserules.) And since Ars Magica players are huge history nerds, they'd want HEMA guy to bring primary sources, not just shadiversity videos. If HEMA guy was able to say 'here, in this account of the siege of Toulouse during the Crusade against the Albigensians, it's said that X did Y', that's a strong argument in Ars Magica, which runs on the assumption that medieval view of the world is objectively correct and that medieval sources are generally accurate.

But.. if the HEMA guy tried to complain about a guy with an axe being able to regularly do damage through full plate, he'd be reminded that the standard starting date for the game is 1220 and full plate hasn't been invented yet. And Ars Magica combat is mechanically abstracted enough that a complaint like that wouldn't really work anyway, since the lowest tier of damage you can inflict in it is "a fatigue level". It's kind of telling that in the core book before the books started having detailed table of contents, rules for combat are hidden under the 'Obstacles' chapter.

I know I'm missing the forest for the trees on your argument here but:
For typewriters, there is nothing wrong - especially in the 1800s - with a character having a custom prototype ahead of general availability.

7th Sea first edition actually has rules on inventing things earlier than it happened in the real world. It's basically a penalty to the invention roll of (Year the Thing was invented in real world - ingame year)+(extra penalty for every intermediate invention you skip). That makes it easy for PCs to create new technology that's slightly more advanced like a better musket, possible for them to make more advanced weaponry like the Girardoni air rifle and if the character minmaxes, spends every possible metagame resource and is extremely lucky, they can theoretically deal with the -500 or so penalty to invent nuclear weapons.

 

[The Ugly One]

If a player has a distorted idea of how armour works - that's fine. You can explain they're wrong and how. In a friendly way hopefully. More brutally if they're being a PITA. But either way a GM should not be letting players derail their game like this. For their own sake and for other players. The player needs to respect the GM and understand who is in charge.

Players like this appeal to RAW when it suits them, then casually discard RAW and want (what they think is) reality when it doesn't. Look, it's a game, there are rules, and the rules say when you've got Hold Person on you and an orc hits you with a greataxe, you're fucked.

 

[Adamska]

For typewriters, there is nothing wrong - especially in the 1800s - with a character having a custom prototype ahead of general availability.

This is actually a factor in my Barsoom inspired DnD campaign given one of my players is an artificier whose big thing are firearms, and another is a gunslinger variant who specs in ship building. Given I'm having this roughly right before the invention of poudre B or so, the artificier was able to beat the real inventor so to speak by a bit less than a year to the formula, and he is also retrofitting and figuring out how the martians own weapons are so advanced, since I'm playing upward their technical advances.

It's also why I'm able to do things like mags, automatics, and occasionally computing machines. Also why the gunslinger was able to build a revolutionary tramp steamer or ocean liner design that'd beat the current stuff in the 1880s. Well that and the magic also really helps there too in spots. Magic cheats where science couldn't quite make the cut.

ut.. if the HEMA guy tried to complain about a guy with an axe being able to regularly do damage through full plate, he'd be reminded that the standard starting date for the game is 1220 and full plate hasn't been invented yet. And Ars Magica combat is mechanically abstracted enough that a complaint like that wouldn't really work anyway, since the lowest tier of damage you can inflict in it is "a fatigue level". It's kind of telling that in the core book before the books started having detailed table of contents, rules for combat are hidden under the 'Obstacles' chapter.

He's also coming off as a jackass, because I guarantee if I slam that axe into the side of his head, or alongside his side or limb, I have pretty good odds of bruising, concussing, or breaking a bone if you do it hard enough even with plate armor. Plate's not a magical "end all be all" for bladed weapons, especially since you can still punch through it with a blade that also has a good thrusting point. And if he's going to burble about the stuff designed to stop musket and arquebus shots, that shit's damn near impossible to move quickly in or efficiently; too heavy. I'd also call him a powergaming by bullshit jackass given he seems to constantly do that.

Again, you can tell players no, especially if you give reasonings for that nope. If they can't cope and can't refute you in a way that isn't coping, then they probably suck too much to play with anyway.

 

[Judge Dredd]

And at this point if we were discussing this on Reddit I'd be on about a million down votes by this point. And I still wouldn't give a fuck.

This is also why I stand by my "theatre kid" bullshit even though most places on the internet don't like it.

It's funny to me because my game is too "based" for lack of a better word, for wokeshit, but also not "traditional" enough for grognards. Chances are, if I were DM, HEMA guy wouldn't have lasted.

But I've noticed more than once in your comments here you seem to have issues with players causing you problems and to the point you are changing your actions in case of the event. Like saying that you'd prefer a less detailed timeline because otherwise you get continuity lawyers. I don't want to throw out something that enriches my game - for both me and my players - because some tit wants to play gotcha.

It's the opposite. I'm a massive fan of gameable material. It doesn't enrich the setting, it's usually just meaningless filler. As Ghostie said-

I know I'm missing the forest for the trees on your argument here but:
For typewriters, there is nothing wrong - especially in the 1800s - with a character having a custom prototype ahead of general availability.

To give a broader example. In the 1920s USA, there was supposedly some law that prevented women from crossing state lines? I don't know the details.

So, if I'm playing CoC or any other 1920s game, I might make prohibition part of the setting, because that's fun. I might have mail order tommy guns, because that's also fun. But I'm not have the female PC get arrested every other session because they travel between states as part of an investigation. It doesn't add to the game, and is easily worked around.

Where history buffs and super fans of a franchise become an issue is when they know more than me. There's a weird disconnect where for games like Achtung Cthulhu, the existence of eldrich horrors doesn't phase people, but getting the date of some weapon or vehicle wrong is a problem.

Instead of trying to plot out where the mines are, where they could be, and so on. Better to just not go into the minefield to begin with.

In the above example. By moving the date to 1947 everyone is on the same page. No more arguing about this or that weapon being here or there at some specific date. Everyone gets all the toys, they can't try and gotcha with out of game information. People not in the game might gripe about how it's unrealistic because Japan would've been out of the war no matter what, but they don't matter. Also dieselpunk mechs, that's fun.

And what has been lost here? It's not a hardcore World War 2 simulation any more? I never offered that.


Wheeling it around to Vasaen. I get what other people are saying about wanting a detailed timeline as you guys explained in depth. I don't attribute it to self hating sweeds that hate their own culture.

 

[Ghostse]

To give a broader example. In the 1920s USA, there was supposedly some law that prevented women from crossing state lines? I don't know the details.

lol no. That is a weird extrapolation of some weird Eurofeminist screed.
This is the sort of shit why historical accuracy and actually knowing something about the time period you are setting your story in is important.

As motion pictures started to be a thing, this also resulted in cheaper and more readily available photography. This all naturally resulted in an explosion in porn. Along with the availability of the car, Ye Olde Pornografferf would generally have handsome young men seduce young girls then take them to Old Timey porn studio, usually with the help of opium and alcohol.
They came up for a term for it: White Slavery. Though "white" was less about it being caucasian women and more that "white" meant a less serious version of a crime; see "White Lie". Another term might also be "pimp" as sometimes these arrangements went beyond photos and early videos.
this is why George Lucas called Disney "White Slavers" for what they did with Star Wars.

Going along with this, in the 1920s information... let's just say it didn't move as fast as it does today. And each state had its own records department. To translate for your Eurorotted brain, remember US states are are about the same as a EU country, so just imagine if the EU was an actual elected government accountable to the people and existed in the 1920s, Germany wouldn't have full insight record of France.
Also back in the 1920s clerks would generally not issue marriage licenses without the woman's parental OK, especially younger ones. So a common elopement dodge was to cross state lines and either say she was an orphan or just hope the state had less strict marriage license laws. This got a number of rich familiies scandalized when little Greta married below her station (or when young Tiberius came back with a slattern in tow)

Anyway:
In many cases of these "White Slavers", the recruiters were known to police, but the police couldn't do anything about it. The women were traveling with the men willingly, and simple production and possession of pornography wasn't yet illegel (distribution/sale was illegal under existing moral laws, but those had been weakened and erroded, it wasn't until "Moralists" started to take control that anything was really done about it. Basically the real threat in being a pornographer wasn't the police it was viligantes. But I digress)
Now, like any good public outrage the scale of the problem was over blown by politicians wanting to be seen doing something about this. Thus there were a lot of over harsh laws put on the books, and in fact many of them still are on the books, making it a crime to "transport young girls across state lines for immoral purposes" - that is, allowing the police to arrest these known scumbags preying on young women and girls.

So while a car with a young woman might be stopped and questions asked, but no one would be arrested unless one of the men was a known pornographer/pornographer associate and hadn't been paying his bribes or otherwise the cop thought something was wrong.

Also the women wouldn't be "arrested" but simply held by the police until a relative could be contacted.
In otherwords, completely and 100% skippable unless the GM wants to make it a story point.

So yes, just being completely out of pocket ChatGPT levels of "wrong but convinced I'm right" is why historical games need timelines.

In closing, going along with Eldritch horrors, I leave you with this:

In the 1960s, as experiments with higher IQ animals were taking off, there was Marine biologist one Dr. Long. Dr. Long was a marine biologist specializing in studying cetaceans had developed ... unique theory that what held that the larger-brained cetaceans were held back from reaching their true potential by short lifespans of only around 10 years. He proposed attempting to trying to find a way to lengthen the lifespans of these oceanic mammals as the first step in raising thier intellect.. His grant was approved, but instead of the bottlenosed dolphins he wanted, he was instead given a pod of harbor porpoises. And he had to share the facility, at a zoo, with other researchers doing studies on all manner of animals.

Dr. Long attempted many formulas with no success, but learned of a story of a Phillipino fisherman who claimed to have trained a dolphin to guide him to the best fishing grounds and rewarding the dolphin with Balut - a Phillipino dish that consists of nearly-hatched ducklings cooked in their shells. The fisherman claimed the collaboration had gone on for nearly 30 years, well over double the normal life span of a dolphin, so Dr. Long tried to see if there was anything in young birds that might explain the longevity. And sure enough, there was. Dr. Long discovered there was a compound in avian hatchlings that, when refined, would not just slow but reverse aging in the harbor porpoises he had for his study. He studied this for well over a decade, his porpoises continuing to survive well beyond what was expected of them. As long as they kept getting a serum containing the compound, all evidence said they might just live forever.

This all went fine, until one day in in 1974, budget cuts had forced Dr. Long to get frugal to keep his research going. He had let go all his assistants, was doing all the work and synthesizing the syrum himself. He had previously gotten incubated eggs from a specimen supply store, but now had taken raiding the nest of the near-by Seagull population. The trouble was one of the other researchers was studying big cats, and one - a male lion - would often escape from his cage to lie in the sun under a skylight in the hall, right between the door to the beach and Dr. Long's lab. The large lion would take up the entire width of the hallway, requiring Dr. Long to carefully step over the immobile, dozing lion with his box of hatchings.

On this particular day, Dr. Long's transit was observed by another researcher who immediately called the police. Dr. Long was arrested and sent to prison, where he died after contracting pneumonia. His notes were held in evidence and were destroyed in a flood, so Dr. Long's secrets on dolphin longevity went to the grave with him.
All because he was arrest on the charge of Transporting young gulls across staid lions for immortal porpoises.

I'll see myself out.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Yeah. That's the one.

For those wondering, It was called The Mann Act.

And that kind of reaction is the kind of thing I want to avoid at the table.

 

[Overly Serious]

Where history buffs and super fans of a franchise become an issue is when they know more than me.

That's a strange argument against setting material having enough detail to inform you.

Players are going to know what they know independently of what I know and bring things up regardless. Detailed knowledge can always be ignored if I choose to, but cannot be conjured out of the air if I need it. Detailed knowledge helps me in that adversarial scenario you talk about. But for me it's not the goal. After all, I can always fall back on Peter Falk's immortal words: "Yes, you're very smart. Shut up." What it really gives me is a richness to the world. Something that makes it more fun for the player. And though I see you rated our lovable @Ghostse for his post, a player coming up with that sort of detail at my table would be much appreciated. If I'd built a big plot point about not being able cross state lines I might ask to put that aside (or more likely adapt on the fly and have another reason come into effect), but I don't feel trapped by a player sharing that stuff. Detailed knowledge is also inspirational when I'm creating adventures. Wars, discoveries, social movements - they all are grist to the mill of my mind.

I find it lazy to do what Vaesen authors did and worse in fact, because they're doing it out of what feels like the same sort of mindset you share: That fun and authenticity are somehow in conflict and that detail is fuel for group conflict and should be handwaved away. Their "if someone wants to use a typewriter just say it's invented". The whole book drips with this kind of pre-emptive conflict-avoidance mentality. It informs the way it dispenses with historical attitudes as well. It doesn't explain why one of the male NPCs is in love with another male NPC and this is unremarkable in the adventure, that's a different ahistorical problem. But it all interrelates.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

 

[Fuck Bankers]

View attachment 7762049

/tg/ hates 2e so I always thought it was trash. I asked a grognard at my table how he felt about 2e. It was his first system. A friends dad owned a comic book store in town, and he even played in a convention game that Gygax ran. His friend's dad would DM for them, and he said they ran Isle of Dread. They just used what they wanted and tossed what they didn't. So far He's liked ACKs II more than 2e. He's really getting interested in the arbitrage trading system, wanting to start a venturer soon.

So is 2e worth playing if we have ACKS, Castles and Crusades, and Shadowdark?

 

[Ghostse]

Yeah. That's the one.

For those wondering, It was called The Mann Act.

And that kind of reaction is the kind of thing I want to avoid at the table.

"I don't want have a game set in a time period because I don't want to have deal with this aspect of the setting"
"You are completely and utterly incorrect, that aspect wouldn't apply unless you wanted it to."
"Being disabused of my total ignorance is exactly what I wanted to avoid."

Its like you learned absolutely nothing from the story of Dr. Long.

Additionally, now hold on your hat here because I have an absolutely wild, utterly bonkers idea:
Lets assume you are correct, that much like Sharia zones in the Middle East and Western Europe, in the 1920s US women weren't allowed outside without a male relative to escort them.
So then what if instead of having your game set in 1920s New England you instead set it in 1920s Old England, something you'd be more familiar with? You don't even need to change location names half the time other than dropping the occasional "new".
I know that Great Britain ceased existing from 1918 until 1935 when Hitler's Nazi magic returned it our world so this requires a huge stretch of the imagination and a lot of work to imagine a world where England existed between WWI and WWII, but these are games of make-believe you know.
You can even have bootleggers and tommyguns because English alcohol was a big source of smuggled alcohol, and an export location for the few breweries/distilleries that were able to secure export licenses.

If I'd built a big plot point about not being able cross state lines I might ask to put that aside (or more likely adapt on the fly and have another reason come into effect), but I don't feel trapped by a player sharing that stuff. Detailed knowledge is also inspirational when I'm creating adventures. Wars, discoveries, social movements - they all are grist to the mill of my mind.

If you DID want to make it a plot point, there are almost infinite number of ways to do it.
-One of the other characters is maybe a dead ringer for a known pornographer. You could make this an ongoing thing where he's constantly confused for a smut peddler.
-You might simply have an over-zealous or Corrupt sheriff; he isn't allowed to just arrest any woman for crossing state lines, but he either doesn't know or doesn't care (or does know, but wants a payoff)
-There might just be a local ordinance forbidding unwed women from out of state being in the town; the ordinance won't survive a challenge in any higher courts and will be nullified in 6 months, but that doesn't help the characters NOW as they sit in jail for violating it.

However, in these cases you need to be ready to flex "The GM is always right" or wrangle your players.

The other thing is if you do have a plot point you want to include but aren't confident in your ability to execute, say you want have a plot line with a mob controlled town and aren't confident in you ability to get Mafia culture and customs correct, is to simply make sure no character knows more about it tan you the GM does.
That is: why not have the gang controlling the town be a bunch of Mafia-LARPers, acting out every Mafia stereotype because that is what they, ignorant people who only know about the Mafia from wildly inaccurate popculture depictions, believe the Mafia are like.
And no one in the town knows any better than to believe they are the mafia, because their only exposure is also these same sensationalized fictitious accounts.

/tg/ hates 2e so I always thought it was trash. I asked a grognard at my table how he felt about 2e. It was his first system. A friends dad owned a comic book store in town, and he even played in a convention game that Gygax ran. His friend's dad would DM for them, and he said they ran Isle of Dread. They just used what they wanted and tossed what they didn't. So far He's liked ACKs II more than 2e. He's really getting interested in the arbitrage trading system, wanting to start a venturer soon.

So is 2e worth playing if we have ACKS, Castles and Crusades, and Shadowdark?

Full disclosure: I haven't played/run ACKS or shadowdark. For C&C I have done some basic investigation on the mechanics. But for 2e while I haven't really "run" the system, when looking into the system I talked to an experienced player and we did some example scenarios (mostly a few rounds of combats)

tl;dr: The issue isn't with 2e so much as when you start digging into the optional autistic subsystems for dealing with edge cases, like equipment speed effects. Sort of in @40 Year Old Boomer 's post highlights the issue in a tongue-in-cheek way, which is near infinite modifiers can be applied to things if a GM's foot isn't put down.
All the autistic systems aren't really meant to be used in common play, they are supposed to be tools brought in for arbitrating edge cases - Did the Fighter or the Orc hit first? - which can be extremely important due to the the generally more combat-useful magic items in 2e. "Did my enervating sword hit before the orc brought down his club?" can change the result of combat, and much like 1e in 2e hitpoints are precious commodity so that very likely WILL matter.

 

[The Ugly One]

/tg/ hates 2e so I always thought it was trash. I asked a grognard at my table how he felt about 2e. It was his first system. A friends dad owned a comic book store in town, and he even played in a convention game that Gygax ran. His friend's dad would DM for them, and he said they ran Isle of Dread. They just used what they wanted and tossed what they didn't. So far He's liked ACKs II more than 2e. He's really getting interested in the arbitrage trading system, wanting to start a venturer soon.

So is 2e worth playing if we have ACKS, Castles and Crusades, and Shadowdark?

"People" hate 2e because it's fashionable to cry about how it "ruined" the game by changing the number of hit dice a hill giant had. The reality is the differences between it and any other TSR-era version (including OSR games) are miniscule. The published material is all broadly compatible, since the math is pretty similar in all of them. In my opinion, ACKS II is the best published version of the core conceit, and if there's an AD&D 2e module you're just dying to run, I'd run it with ACKS.

EDIT:

Going to elucidate on that a bit. Hating 2e is something people to do establish their bona fides, status-signal as a true AD&D fan. Most of the people who "hate" 2e are under 50 years old and are therefore too young to have a genuinely formed passion about it, i.e. it's not like they played 1e all though the 80s and then were shocked and angered when 2e released. They probably never even heard of D&D until 3.5, or maybe even later. It's entirely an adopted outrage, like a Zoomer affecting hatred of Metallica's "black album."

What's attractive about hating 2e is the differences between it and 1e boil down to esoterica. Hill Giants now have a few more hit dice. XP for gold was made an optional rule. The initiative system was changed. Thieves could distribute their points. Demons and devils got renamed to tanari'i and ba'atezu. It's just a bunch of little tweaks and fiddlings here and there. And that's the point. You couldn't possibly know what the differences are unless you were really deep into the game, let alone proclaim your undying hatred of 2e. Thus hating 2e is a way of signaling to other ur-nerds that you're one of them, and a way of pretending you've somehow got roots in the beginning of the game, despite only being in your thirties.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I find it lazy to do what Vaesen authors did and worse in fact, because they're doing it out of what feels like the same sort of mindset you share: That fun and authenticity are somehow in conflict and that detail is fuel for group conflict and should be handwaved away. Their "if someone wants to use a typewriter just say it's invented". The whole book drips with this kind of pre-emptive conflict-avoidance mentality.

I feel I've said pretty much what I want to on the subject, but one thing I want to make clear (and I think is getting lost) is that it really depends on the detail being discussed. What is the game about, and what is the detail being argued about. On the one extreme, you have "middle earth with the BMW i3 with heated seats" meme. And the other you have people going on a thousand word screed on The Mann Act.

I might have shared this before, but if not, a funny bit of writing advice. An author of pulp action books kept getting shit from gun nuts about the particulars of guns. Fire rate, effective range, magazine size, that sort of thing. His solution? He started putting the word "modified" in front of any named weapon, and the letters and negative reviews stopped. So "he sprayed the crowd with his AK47" becomes "he sprayed the crowd with his modified AK47".

It's "conflict avoidance", but it's avoiding needless conflict that doesn't really benefit the game.



Completely unrelated. Does anyone know about Draw Steel's negotiation and social mechanics?

Saw a bunch of clickbait YouTubers saying how Draw Steel the real 6e (which I think is the fifth game so far to be called that?) and they praise the social conflict/negotiation system for making social checks more than roleplay and a persuade check, but don't go into how.

They describe the system as you making a bunch of arguments to persuade the person as much as you can before their patience runs out. Classes have unique abilities that help in negotiation. Results are tiered based on outcome.

My guess (and this is pure speculation) is that each PC has a list of "arguments" and each NPC has arguments that are effective and resistant to. And you have X number of rounds to bank Y amount of successes. But I really don't know, and it seems strange to praise this only to get really vague.

 

[LovisXVI]

I feel I've said pretty much what I want to on the subject, but one thing I want to make clear (and I think is getting lost) is that it really depends on the detail being discussed. What is the game about, and what is the detail being argued about. On the one extreme, you have "middle earth with the BMW i3 with heated seats" meme. And the other you have people going on a thousand word screed on The Mann Act.

I know what video you even got the Mann Act from, so I also know that Seth Skorkowsky brought it up specifically in the context of something that some players might consider unseemly and get in the way of roleplaying if brought in constantly, but can be used to add authenticity when appropriate and serve as an excuse for antagonists to fuck with the PCs. Authenticity is the key word there, because the more authentic the world, the easier it is for players to buy into it. There is a gulf of difference between "The sheriff arrests you because you are acting suspicious" and "The sheriff arrests you because you have violated the Mann Act," a knowledgeable player can realize that the narrow use of the law in real life means dropping it on the PCs is suspicious, or making a knowledge roll for law to do the same for the PCs, gives a clue that something is off and this isn't just some overzealous local police.

Depends on the game. My favorite example for this is Paranoia which outright encourages GM sadism, but since everyone is against everyone in that game, it makes sense.

More generally, though, in most games, I think the GM should try to be a neutral arbiter, even if it's between his own content (and content he is running) and the players.

The ultimate purpose is it's a game so it should be fun. If it makes things less fun, it sucks. The reason a game like Paranoia works with an utterly adversarial system is that this is the whole joke of the game.

I'd compare two of my favorites, Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, and how I played them. I tried to be grim and atmospheric in CoC and fair, but as cruel as the setting serves. This game could get grim and depressing, though, so we'd sometimes switch to Stormbringer. That is as grim a setting as CoC really, but I'd play it for laughs with over the top villainy and ending with a ridiculous Battle Royale when everyone betrayed each other after getting the MacGuffin.

So I'd be a murderous GM in both settings, but one was because of the grim difficulty of the scenario and the other was for a release valve of an unremittingly grim campaign being the "normal" campaign.

It also depends on the exact tone of the session you are running. In my Star Wars game, it is mostly heroic, with tough but not terribly bright or dangerous enemies attacking them in large numbers enough to feel threatening but never truly risking death as long as they think on their feet. That was until they really pissed in the cornflakes of some people really high up, and the Empire took off the kid gloves and put it's back into killing them. Going from Imperial Army troopers and the odd second-rate Stormtrooper to Inquisitors, Shadowtroopers, 501st death squads, AT-STs, thermal detonators. Ramping up the lethality of encounters serves to raise the stakes significantly via gameplay rather than just saying "you have really pissed off the Empire", you can demonstrate it by putting far more threatening opponents in their way, sells it much better.

 

[Ghostse]

I might have shared this before, but if not, a funny bit of writing advice. An author of pulp action books kept getting shit from gun nuts about the particulars of guns. Fire rate, effective range, magazine size, that sort of thing. His solution? He started putting the word "modified" in front of any named weapon, and the letters and negative reviews stopped. So "he sprayed the crowd with his AK47" becomes "he sprayed the crowd with his modified AK47".

It's "conflict avoidance", but it's avoiding needless conflict that doesn't really benefit the game.

You know who else doesn't get fact checked on gun fire rates? Writers for Battletech and Shadowrun. Because those settings made up their own weapons and manufacturers.

But.. if the HEMA guy tried to complain about a guy with an axe being able to regularly do damage through full plate, he'd be reminded that the standard starting date for the game is 1220 and full plate hasn't been invented yet. And Ars Magica combat is mechanically abstracted enough that a complaint like that wouldn't really work anyway, since the lowest tier of damage you can inflict in it is "a fatigue level". It's kind of telling that in the core book before the books started having detailed table of contents, rules for combat are hidden under the 'Obstacles' chapter.

I would handle HEMA man in one then another way.
I'd first remind them that Hitpoints are an abstraction of the ability to avoid a lethal wound. Not everything that reduces hitpoints needs to draw blood, and HP can reflect not just physical soundness but also luck and skill translating into "near misses" - luck that will eventually run out. A Characrer with a higher constitution score is simply better table to shrug off a glancing blow, and Dex/AC is about the ability to have the attack cleanly miss. So HP in full plate might just represent the declining odds of attacks not hitting weak points in the armor.

If he didn't like that that, I'd just start having him roll for exhaustion for every 30 minutes he spends armored up. Moved full speed on foot? oooo That's another exhaustion check. You can't gain the benefits of a long rest in that uncomfortable metal shell, you'll need to have some help to spend the 20 minutes to de-armor. Uh-oh, looks like some goblins heard all that clanking, roll initiative.
Could I perhaps interest you in a set of Half-plate my good sir?