If you ran a campaign in your vicinity, what would it be?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Buzzardo

I'm from Wyoming and in Texas. The obvious choice is Old West. The less obvious choice is what happened when the first white explorers met the natives (pre-Old West). In WY, that was mostly the fur traders. In TX, it was the Spanish. It didn't go well either time, which should make for plenty of role-playing opportunities.

Why not have an Indian vs Indian campaign as a variety? This is where the Comanche were crowding out other tribes ahead of them. Funny they were a spinoff of the Shoshone and I can't remember the Shoshone showing particular warlike inclination though no doubt they were as scrappy as any. But the Comanche were scary. Perhaps the PCs can be a band of Apache fleeing the Comanche and trying to cut a deal with the local Mexican governor.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Apart from the famous farmer fisticuffs I'd run......eh............uh.....has something interesting and gameable happened in Icelandic history?

The Age of the Sturlings was a 40-year civil war. You could probably run a nice campaign there. Maybe even unite the island under one ruler.

If I was to do a viking campaign, I would probably run something like Ingvar Vittfarne's journey. This was the last attempt to do business with Constantinople, traveling through Russia and the Caucasus (the lower Volga was too dangerous at this time).

[johndallman]

I've tried running an In Nomine campaign set in modern Cambridge. It didn't really gell, although there were a few good moments. I had trouble turning the high concept into actual events.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You mean aside from making a stab at reinventing democracy, almost making a colony in the new world, and making some of the greatest literature in Western history? Not to mention being an important airstop in World War 2 and the Cold War? Nah.

Reinventing democracy?

Then I'm not seeing how to make a campaign out of the somewhat vital location of the country during WW2 and the Cold War. The location was mainly used in WW2 to fly long air patrols (in Liberators and Sunderland flying boats), most if not all of the action would take place in not-Iceland.

Originally Posted by Anders

The Age of the Sturlings was a 40-year civil war. You could probably run a nice campaign there. Maybe even unite the island under one ruler.

That would've been what I was referring to as "famous farmer fisticuffs".

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Then I'm not seeing how to make a campaign out of the somewhat vital location of the country during WW2 and the Cold War. The location was mainly used in WW2 to fly long air patrols (in Liberators and Sunderland flying boats), most if not all of the action would take place in not-Iceland.

Counter-intelligence and counter-sabotage. The WWII German Navy was well aware of the importance of Iceland. Intelligence on convoys to Russia could be obtained by an ingenious secret agent, since many of them were assembled and/or fuelled in Icelandic coastal waters. Sabotage at the air bases (especially their fuel stocks) would have been sensible whenever the Germans were staging important operations in the Atlantic.

[sjard]

I live about an hours drive from Robber's Roost, so Wild West is a natural thing. And my area is also part of the general setting for Dogs in the Vineyard.

Otherwise... Transcontinental Railroad/Golden Spike drama type setting.

Similarly, early unionization attempts for coal mining. That's about it for the middle of nowhere in the north or east Utah desert.

Oh, and general mountain man trapping adventures I guess.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Counter-intelligence and counter-sabotage. The WWII German Navy was well aware of the importance of Iceland. Intelligence on convoys to Russia could be obtained by an ingenious secret agent, since many of them were assembled and/or fuelled in Icelandic coastal waters. Sabotage at the air bases (especially their fuel stocks) would have been sensible whenever the Germans were staging important operations in the Atlantic.

Yes, but precious little exciting in that vein seems to have actually gone on. Probably related to the extreme difficulty of conductive covert operation or intelligence work among a small population where everybody knows everybody and no one outside the country even speaks the language.

There were unsuccessful attempts by the Germans at operating here, but they would have made for pretty poor roleplaying fodder, as they were even less successful than the Abwehr efforts in the US (but did not even have a dramatic arrest to enliven them).

If the campaign was not constrained by the lack of historical evidence, of course, a number of spy vs. spy campaigns could be run in Iceland, set in WWI, WWII or the Cold War.

And if we're opening up Alternate History, a Red Dawn type of campaign would be considerably more plausible in Iceland than the Continental US. After all, one commercial freighter could easily carry more Soviet soldiers than the total number of Icelandic coast guard and police, not to mention with more heavy armaments. And Iceland is in the top ten countries in the world for numbers of guns per 100 inhabitants, so there would be enough guns for a resistance after the initial landing, especially if US airpower and naval response made it difficult for the Soviets to reinforce the assault force.

[ericthered]

From Utah, living in Alabama:

Civil war jumps to mind, but I don't know that well enough to GM it and I'm not really interested. I am interested and versed in Utah history, and its got some gamable stuff, but that's not quite old west, and getting the right group of players would be hard. Utah has some gameable stuff in the polygamy era*, but between the religious, political, and other issues I think it'd be near impossible to run. At least for me.

A paranormal game would be interesting to run in areas I know well, but that's true of just about everywhere.

Huntsville is a local tech center for the US government, particularly rockets and missiles (including but not limited to NASA and the Army). It could feature in an espionage campaign, though I'm sure you'd end up on field trips elsewhere.

I'm also fond of using local wilderness locations in fantasy campaigns rather than building a map from scratch. Both Alabama and Utah lend themselves to that rather well.

* A local majority conspiring to protect and hide a type of felony that's nearly impossible to conceal, and lots of dirty politics as what amounts to a foreign power tries to break an unofficial theocracy. Lots of interesting conflict. Lots of conversational landmines. probably unrunnable.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yes, but precious little exciting in that vein seems to have actually gone on. Probably related to the extreme difficulty of conductive covert operation or intelligence work among a small population where everybody knows everybody and no one outside the country even speaks the language.

There were unsuccessful attempts by the Germans at operating here, but they would have made for pretty poor roleplaying fodder, as they were even less successful than the Abwehr efforts in the US (but did not even have a dramatic arrest to enliven them).

If the campaign was not constrained by the lack of historical evidence, of course, a number of spy vs. spy campaigns could be run in Iceland, set in WWI, WWII or the Cold War.

And if we're opening up Alternate History, a Red Dawn type of campaign would be considerably more plausible in Iceland than the Continental US. After all, one commercial freighter could easily carry more Soviet soldiers than the total number of Icelandic coast guard and police, not to mention with more heavy armaments. And Iceland is in the top ten countries in the world for numbers of guns per 100 inhabitants, so there would be enough guns for a resistance after the initial landing, especially if US airpower and naval response made it difficult for the Soviets to reinforce the assault force.

It is also possible to use it as a base to run SOE ops in Norway. And there was the weather station wars in WW2.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It is also possible to use it as a base to run SOE ops in Norway.

Does it have advantages over the Shetlands? It's significantly further away from most of the populated parts of Norway.