The World of China Mieville

[Chris]

I've been thinking about working on a system/setting based around the works of China Mieville (Perdido Street Station, King Rat) - very original, very dark fantasy/sci-fi/steam-punk (though he hates genres and calls his work merely "weird-fiction").  

I just wanted to know if any one has made/is currently making/knows of or heard rumors of anyone making/ a system for this, or if anyone has run a game based in Mieville's works and could recomend/warn against a system.

I haven't even got past the "wow, wouldn't that be cool . . ." phase of planning, and thought I'd check to see if anything was being hammered out in the forge . . .

[taalyn]

I can't say for sure that anyone has /specifically/ set anything in China's universe, but I do know that Underworld used it as one of his primary influences (along with Gaiman's Neverwhere, among others). Unfortunately, it's gone under. I can get my hand on a rule book if you want one. It uses coins for it's primary mechanic, and is generally pretty rules light. It does have some very cool GM tips too.

You can find details about it on RPGnet, as G.M. Skarka wrote it as part of an online "game-designing" column.

Aidan

[GMSkarka]

I just wanted to know if any one has made/is currently making/knows of or heard rumors of anyone making/ a system for this, or if anyone has run a game based in Mieville's works and could recomend/warn against a system.

Hi there.

I wrote the above-mentioned UnderWorld, and Mieville was an inspiration (King Rat, specifically...although China sent me a galley copy of PSS after I was mostly done with the design).

China is a friend of mine--I spoke with him last month about acquiring the rights to do an RPG set in New Chrobuzon (the city in PSS), and he said that he wants to wait until he's got a couple more books set in that world published, and then the game could focus on the entire world of Bas-lag.  So we agreed to table it for a couple of years.

GMS

[Chris]

I thought I'd heard the term 'underworld' tossed around with China's name.  I read an interview with him where he said he was interested in gaming, and I think I went to an Underworld website, but I was having a hard time finding anything.  I guess going under would explain it - if fortune smiles on you and it gets going again, let me know, though currently if there are any .pdfs of it floating out there, I'd be very interested . . .  I have yet to track down a copy of King Rat, but PSS was one of the most atmospheric books I've ever read.

[Malcolm Craig]

a/state has been likened to some of Chinas work. Me and him were both influenced by the same writers (Dickens, Conrad, Aldiss, Peake, etc) and it kind of worried me a couple of years ago when I first read Perdido... Bits were rather like a/state and I was initially worried people would see it as too similar. But, China being the very nice chap that he is, assured me similarities were fairly supeficial.

Personally, I'd love to see an RPG set in Bas-Lag. The Runagate Rampant mailing list on Yahoo Groups is a good source of discission on this sort of thing. There have been one or two threads about RPGs.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Matt Machell]

Yeah, Baslag would be a great setting for an RPG. Glad to see you're on the case GMS. :) Let us know how things develop...

Malcolm, and good to see you on the Forge!

-Matt