Quote from: BedrockBrendan on September 24, 2020, 06:53:57 PMAnd I liked Colonial Gothic (which I think billed itself more as Secret History, but still felt like alt history to me).

I'm using the term alt-history for games like Aces & Eights and Deadlands and for all the various novels where that either use some fantastic premise like that crossbow bolt misses Richard the Lionheart and the Plantagenet dynasty goes on to discover, systematize, and use powerful magic during the Middle Ages, space aliens invade during WWII, a Destroyer crew is sent through a rift in time to our historical past and then things change and colonizes Nantucket Island, or  a chunk of our earth including a small town in West Virginia is transported to Europe during the Thirty Years War OR that take some point of real history and introduce a fairly minor change - Alexander the Great doesn't die in his twenties and is able to consolidate his conquests and set up a legitimate line of succession, General Grant dies during the Siege of Vicksburg and his victory and expertise are unavailable to Lincoln, or Lindbergh and the America First isolationists achieve greater prominence and Lindbergh replaces Roosevelt as President. (The latter is perhaps a bigger stretch.)

Now I haven't played Colonial Gothic, so I may be completely wrong, but I had the impression that the world outwardly seemed the same as our world - at least up to the point of time where the campaign starts - but that secretly there were things - like magic, witches, demons, & monsters - that were real. Similarly, a classic 1920s Call of Cthulhu setting presumes historical world events have transpired the same as in our world up to the point of the campaign, but after that world events may differ slightly or (if the PCs are very unsuccessful) very significantly and of course prehistory does differ. I don't think of either of those two setting as alt history.

I haven't really seen that much hate for alternative history settings, though I have seen some objections and I think that there are two factors with that.


One is that a lot of geeks like to be Mr. Smarty Pants and instead of just letting people have their fun, they like to lecture people about history and why their alternative histories are unrealistic. Well, of course they are unrealistic, history happened the way it did for a reason and most of the interesting alternatives are going to involve more unlikely alternative events.


The other factor is that some leftists get pissed off by any kind of alternative history where people who they see as the villains win, have greater success, or are depicted in any way less than total demonization.


What often happens is that we get a combination of those two things, people get nit-picky when they see alternative histories that offend their sensibilities but not otherwise. Nazis or Confederates winning are both popular alternative histories that can trigger SJW's and that are usually far fetched.

Quote from: ShieldWife on September 24, 2020, 10:00:41 PM... some leftists get pissed off by any kind of alternative history where people who they see as the villains win, have greater success, or are depicted in any way less than total demonization.

It's not exclusively leftists. One of the reasons I never got into S.M. Stirling's alternate Draka novel series history is that it's deliberately written to create the most monstrous "civilization" imaginable in the culture of the Draka and then show them winning and ruling the world, mostly by conveniently having everything that needs to go their way for this going their way.

(It might be argued that there is precedent for this -- one essay in the book What If? actually highlights no less than thirteen extremely lucky breaks for the fledging United States during the American Revolution, any one of which going wrong could have dramatically shifted history -- but that's why Mark Twain wrote, "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to stick to what you can make people believe is the truth.")

The Draka aren't exactly a fair example, though, as my issues with that world background lie less in its plausibility and more in its sheer basic repugnance; I have this crazy, old-fashioned standard that I want my entertainment to uplift me as well as entertain. But the basic reaction can be non-political.

As others have said, I have nothing against alternate history settings IN THEORY.


However, in practice I'm enough of a history buff that they tend to really grind my gears. Truth be told, a decent chunk of "historical" movies and books do the same, but with alternate history the writer is adding a whole other level of complexity by trying to add in believable changes to drastically change the course of the history... but without changing everything that makes the historical setting iconic. I can't think of a time when I've ever seen it done well.


What especially bug me are the alternate histories where the difference happened decades or even centuries before, but there is minimal differences beyond surface level stuff with the real-world equivalent. Ex: I started an urban fantasy book where magic & magical races appeared through a portal just before WWI. Yet, somehow all national borders and technology a century later were EXACTLY THE SAME as what we have now, except also with magic. >.< Not a secret thing either. Governmental agencies of magic with buildings downtown etc.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on September 24, 2020, 11:54:26 PM
As others have said, I have nothing against alternate history settings IN THEORY.


However, in practice I'm enough of a history buff that they tend to really grind my gears.

I know what you mean and the example you cite sounds ridiculous. However as I get older and I keep reading history, I see the revisionist process keep grinding on (not just politically-motivated people grievance-mongering, but serious academics re-interpreting in light of new evidence), and understandings change or even reverse completely. And the more I realise it could all have gone very, very differently (for want of a shoe etc.)


This is even more the case further back when the personalities and identities of monarchs or other powerful people mattered more. What if Queen Mary hadn't died so early? What if one or two British cabinet ministers had been more strongly opposed to the UK's entering WW1?


I don't want to disappear down the rabbit hole of discussing exactly how much difference these specific examples would have made, but I hope the point stands that you can easily think of specific events or decisions that shunted things one way or another and could easily have gone differently.

But it needs done cleverly to be interesting. Like anything I suppose...

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 09:50:44 PM
...  like that crossbow bolt misses Richard the Lionheart and the Plantagenet dynasty goes on to discover, systematize, and use powerful magic during the Middle Ages ...

I'm not a huge fan of most alt-history work, but Lord Darcy was awesome.  It really pains me that Randall Garett's written works were so few.

EDIT - I just checked his bibliography and I take back half of that.  I am deeply pained that his LORD DARCY books were so few.  On the other hand, it looks like I now have a lot of great reading ahead of me.  

Aside from alternate RL history games, I find it really weird when people get all crazy about alternate histories/timelines for fictional settings. If somebody wants to run Greyhawk where Iuz won the Greyhawk wars and it feels a bit more like Midnight, sure. If someone else wants to run Buffy the Vampire Slayer but wants to edit out the "all Slayers are activated" bit, OK. If someone else wants to run Star Wars and says nothing Disney added will be included...great!

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 25, 2020, 07:03:02 AM
Aside from alternate RL history games, I find it really weird when people get all crazy about alternate histories/timelines for fictional settings. If somebody wants to run Greyhawk where Iuz won the Greyhawk wars and it feels a bit more like Midnight, sure. If someone else wants to run Buffy the Vampire Slayer but wants to edit out the "all Slayers are activated" bit, OK. If someone else wants to run Star Wars and says nothing Disney added will be included...great!

One of the reasons why is that learning about a fictional setting can be a significant investment, and changing details invalidates that effort. That's more of an issue with the expansive settings -- like the Marvel or DC universes, the Forgotten Realms, or the Star Wars EU -- but it also crops up in smaller ones. Plus, it's usually easier to learn something new from scratch than unlearn and relearn something different. That'll come up less with complete overhauls or reimaginings, or if there's a single clear change without a lot of consequences, but it's why alt-histories in the middle can be hard to keep straight. There's also the asymmetry in attention -- a GM probably cares a lot more about the tweaks than the players, who are more likely to forget.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 09:50:44 PM

Now I haven't played Colonial Gothic, so I may be completely wrong, but I had the impression that the world outwardly seemed the same as our world - at least up to the point of time where the campaign starts - but that secretly there were things - like magic, witches, demons, & monsters - that were real.

This is basically the gist of it. In that case, I don't think it would qualify as alt history. Though in some instances it can involve impacting historical characters. For example I wrote a module called Landlord's Daughter, where the characters were investigating a plot to kill Colonel John Glover. I don't believe the core book had any changes to the actual history though (there have been different editions, sourcebooks and adventures though, so can't say with certainty).

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:13:50 PM
Alt history means that I not only need to know some real history

Exactly -- in order to appreciate alternative history, you have to appreciate the history that it is an alternative to. And those folks seem to gravitate more toward authentic history games, thanks to that appreciation in the first place. Alt history can be a fun "What if?" scenario, but that's rarely interesting for longer than an episode of Twilight Zone.

I have published an alternate history (and alternate geography) RPG, and am working on an expanded English edition. To me, the draws are pretty straightforward:

   
• It offers a playing ground where fiction can thrive without constantly hitting the walls of fact, and especially "fact" (geek pedantry, historical myths like the whole "dirt farmer" aesthetic).
• It clears the playing field by disregarding the "canon" of established settings - and our world is the king of all established settings! Want to become King of France? Sure, if you can get away with it.
• It allows the exploration of playful historical "what-ifs".

In summary, alt history clearly establishes the milieu as fictional, and opens it up for re-discovery and re-interpretation.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:13:50 PM
While I find some alt-history fiction interesting, I find alt-history RPG settings uninteresting.* There are scads of RPGs with fictional settings, so if I'm going to have a setting with some real history I'd far rather work with all real history** rather than set things in some alternate universe where the Persians conquered Ancient Greece or the Nazis won WWII.

* It's worse than uninteresting. Alt history means that I not only need to know some real history, but I also need to remember whatever other fake-history premises and consequences some designer thought was cool and put in their alt-history setting. So from a learning the setting perspective, I get all the disadvantages of real history along with all the disadvantages of a detailed, made-up setting. It's lose-lose for me as the GM.

** Within the limits of the history used in the setting. The setting may use real history as the backdrop, but it may not be much more real than the real history one might see in a fictional TV show or movie. (It probably will be more real than most, just because I like consistent settings and I like reading about history.) And the setting might even include unreal things like werewolves, Transylvanian vampires, Egyptian mummies, witches, or zombies...or maybe the setting just includes legends of them just like we have in the really-real world.

This.  To some degree, it's the same issue I have with any other setting.  Once it gets intricate enough, I'd rather use my own--which is easier for me to remember.  Mix in what Bren already discussed above with that often the point of departure for the alt history or where it would go is not how I would have done it, even if I liked the setting idea.  Short version:  I'm fairly widely read in Ancient/Medieval history from the Western perspective at least, but most of it I don't want to run in a game, straight or altered.  The few things I do have an interest in running, such as early dark ages, I'd rather run as a fantasy spin off. 

Trying to sell me on an alternate history setting is like trying to sell a monkey a typewriter--theoretically possible, but more likely to annoy both parties.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan on September 25, 2020, 09:49:35 AMThis is basically the gist of it. In that case, I don't think it would qualify as alt history. Though in some instances it can involve impacting historical characters. For example I wrote a module called Landlord's Daughter, where the characters were investigating a plot to kill Colonel John Glover. I don't believe the core book had any changes to the actual history though (there have been different editions, sourcebooks and adventures though, so can't say with certainty).

Some designer and GM creative license with historical characters is expected - required really. I see that as being just like an author writing a novel that is Historical Fiction. The author will have to embellish (or create) the personality and motivations of historical figures to a greater or lesser extent. We just don't know enough about historical people for that not to be the case. Similarly I'd expect the author to create some number of fictional characters to fill out the cast of the novel. The ratio of history to fiction obviously will vary for RPG settings just as it does for novels.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 25, 2020, 02:06:44 PMThis.  To some degree, it's the same issue I have with any other setting.  Once it gets intricate enough, I'd rather use my own--which is easier for me to remember.

Yes. This is an important point.

There are only two or three intricate settings that someone else designed that I am willing to use. Two are Glorantha and Star Wars. It's been 25 years since I last ran Glorantha. If I did it again, I'd limit the setting to a selection of the material I already own and I'd change what I wish. For Star Wars, I limit the setting material to the original three films and whatever else I choose to include from old WEG D6 material, the Extended Universe, Rogue One, the prequel films, cartoons, etc. I'd ignore almost everything from the many video games as well as the most recent three films.

Quote from: Mishihari on September 25, 2020, 03:59:26 AMI'm not a huge fan of most alt-history work, but Lord Darcy was awesome.  It really pains me that Randall Garett's written works were so few.

It makes me happy you recognized the source. And yes, more Lord Darcy stories would have been welcome.

I think in many ways the best way to do alternate history is to begin right after the point of departure.


That gives players and GMs maximum freedum.   It's October 15 1066.  Harald Godwinson just won the battle of Hastings.  What happens next?


Of course that ony matters is you intend to run a game that gets caught up in historical events.