Now And Then

I’ve never run a historical game for long... unless you count The Watch House, which was set five years before we ran it so it would be concurrent with Buffy and not have to address where the Watchers’ Council ended up. (Until it went over five years...)

Thinking about this because someone just suggested a historical Buffy game on the RPG.net Play By Post board, and I really think something like Buffy benefits from the immediacy of a present-ish setting, where you can talk about the same things and make the same jokes IC as OOC. and mangle current speech with Buffyspeak rather than trying to figure out Victorian slang and references.

I ran a 50s Buffy game (briefly) because the idea of the teenager as a distinct thing really started in the 50s, and partially because the slang is kinda funny. But mostly I run contemporary, ringing other changes on the setting like “it’s about trainee Watchers” or “you’re in a band” or “it’s your Doublemeat Palace style horrible first job” or “the main supernaturally-powered character is a medium instead of a slayer” or...