New Era: 1950s Gaming on the Edge?

[Nathan]

Hello folks.

I have no updates on Rodendom, the Cross, or anything lately. I've been working on getting actionroll.com up and going, as well paying attention to my real life job.

New Era is another project that has been sort of in and out of consciousness for a few years now. GraveyardGreg came up with the fun little idea -- Imagine it is the mid 1950s. Suddenly, magic returns unto the world, alien invaders from dimension x pop up, gigantic insects roam the countryside, and the McCarthy scare takes a new turn -- against magic users.... It is a weird setting, almost in a vein of Deadlandish or Riftish quality -- take some staple period of American life and make all the daydreams come true.

You can find all the old source material, game system, images, fiction, and stuff here: www.newerarpg.com

I've been hosting the site, despite the fact that GraveyardGreg said it was dead a year or so ago. Now, we are both reexamining the material for a possible PDF release. Here are my thoughts.

To do a game about the 1950s, you have to use the basic theme: man vs. conformity. Take a look at the movie High Noon. Simply, one of my favorite westerns of all time -- but the main character ends up having to face the two villains by himself, and the rest of the town quietly shuts their doors or just thinks, hey let's ignore it. It is sort of symbolic of American culture -- we just want to conform, leave us alone.

So, if you make all that staple of science fiction of that decade come true, you have a ripe setting for conflict. You've got all these Americans across the country who would rather just ignore this talk of "magic" and "giant bugs" and get back to their diners, music, and family life. Then, you have the heroes, basically like investigators, who are thrown into the thick of this conflict and have to figure a way out of it.

I am going with character archetypes early on. I think Over the Edge would be the perfect system for this game, but I'm not sure what licensing would look like. I am using my own house system and seeing what happens for the time being.

The archetypes are cut in three shapes: You have the COMMON HERO, who is sort of the common average person rising up to protect his family, country, or way of life. Then you have the OUTSIDER, who is the person who knows too much and that knowledge has separated himself from society. Then, you have the INNOCENT, who is almost like the bystander about to be caught in the middle of a war.

Sound okay thus far?

You can find my current notes here: http://www.actionroll.com/newera.doc

I'd also be sure to have you check out hive's cover picture he did for the game, which rocks my boat. Hive, do you remember doing the pic?

I find that the game could rock, but of course, it dredges up visions of Over the Edge and Cthulhu in my book.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill

[Nathan]

Update....

After a quick email to John Nephews, I have permission to use WARP -- the Over the Edge system. Funky wild...

John said:

Meanwhile, assume that you'll have to use the terms of the Open Game License (which is what we'll release WaRP under), as far as delineating open content, identifying Product Identity (if you want to use any), etc.

I'm a happy camper.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Jason L Blair]

First off, New Era, baby! Yay!

Second, John Nephew is cool.

Third, I don't agree that the theme is man vs conformity. The conflict has a lot less to do with conformity than willful ignorance. It seems to me to be man vs recognizing the unpleasant. The image shot at us about the 1950s (I wasn't there, so I can't confirm it) is that everyone wanted things to be nice and "normal." Which is what you're talking about. Just be careful calling it "conformity." While conformity is there in the background, it's conforming to the image of everything being nice that is really at play here.

Just a thought.

[Ron Edwards]

Jason,

Beautifully said. I could not agree more.

My personal reference for New Era has always been the wonderful movie, The Iron Giant. It seems to me - and this is merely "me as potential customer" speaking - that any design concerns about the game would be well served by watching the movie again.

Best,
Ron