Say you wanted to add fantastic places or creatures to a mostly historical campaign. Just enough for some exoticism but not so much as to drown out the historical appeal of the setting and conflicts...

What are some of the best ways to do that in your opinion? Which games would you point to as good examples?

When I say 'fantastic', I'm using the word to cover fantasy and scifi elements.

In case anyone wants more precision, I'm thinking of 16th century Europe but I don't want to rule out responses relevant to other periods/places.

Underground locations: where "things best forgotten" lurk.

Ancient forests: where the fey or near prehistoric versions of beasts still exist. This one even works as non-fantasy as even in 16th century Europe there were still some large and dangerous animals roaming. Boars in particular. But sylvan zones that fit the locale and theme of the area can work fine.

Cults: Or Cults with actual powers: Or Cults with actual powers and oh hell they summoned a demon!?!?: Especially if they have set up shop in some forgotten temple, caves, monestary, etc.

Freak town: Places where the deformed have somehow gathered to try and make a semblance of normal life.

Locations of standing stones, mounds, vitrified forts, necropolis, even just good ol forgotten cemeteries and mausoliums.

A totally abandoned village with no signs of struggle or disease. This can be unsettling for its sheer quiet and the unknown.

I think "secret history" settings are the way to go. It keeps history intact, but subverts it in different and unexpected ways. Of course, your old also go alternative history, too.  Track down some old streams of Art Bell's radio show or Coast to Coast AM. It's a gold mine for this sort of thing.

The trick is to use a light touch. If you don't want the occult to be the focus of your campaign, don't build major plot points around it. Leave yourself an out for a Scooby Doo ending. Consider Brotherhood of the Wolf: is it a werewolf? No, just a...

Spoiler

(which is no less horrific).

Now, I really like how Witch Hunter does it.  Basically, what we see as superstition is real in the game world, and the common joe knows it. It employs both alternative history (lightly) and secret history to great effect. It's close cousin, the Savage World of Solomon Kane, plays it straight with history and puts all its cards on the secret history front.  Colonial Gothic is also a solid secret occult history game.  All For One: Regime Diabolique is cool in that while the setting definitely expects you to include the supernatural, you can also play it pretty straight.

And then there is the whole World of Darkness line. The Eras book is full of potential ideas.

On the OSR front, my first stop would be Dark Albion. But Sabres and Witchery and Lamentation of the Flame Princess might work too.

I'd start with looking at what the people of the time sort of thought was probably real, and having many of those actually be real, plus some more about like those, or different variations. Even in the Renaissance there are non-fantasy dramas about witches and demons and so on, as if they were real & serious subjects. Then in the Augustan period there was Gulliver's Travels convincing people it was a real travel log about actual miniature people and giants. Take a peek at some of the illustrated maps that show monsters in the countryside.

Good advice so far. Really it's not much different than running Call of Cthulhu in the Victorian, 1920s, or modern eras or most of Charles de Lint's novels.

Keep the weird stuff in the shadows. Shadows may mean the weird is living among us while hidden from mundane society like the traditional Vampire or Urban Fantasy setting. Shadows may mean that most people can't see the Fair Folk or monsters like in the TV series Grim. Shadows may mean on the fringes of civilization like the deep forests, hidden caves, and foreign countries. Shadows may mean there is some conspiracy to keep such things secret either by the monsters or by the government who are doing it for the people's own good, or both at once.

Use myths and superstitions. Many people in the middle ages believed in magic. Use the type of magic that people thought witches could do and that fits in with history. Witches in Early Modern Europe, especially protestant EME, are great because history tells us people believed in witches and there were recorded witch trials. So having witches be real already fits history as it really was.

Limit the power of the weird. You want the supernatural to be fairly low key, not the sort of over the top wizards chucking fireballs and lightning bolts in the town square, at high noon, on a clear sunny day. Make the magic less flashy, more ritual based, and have most of the weird stuff happen in secret and where there aren't a lot of witnesses.

Quote from: Skarg;910444I'd start with looking at what the people of the time sort of thought was probably real, and having many of those actually be real, plus some more about like those, or different variations.

Pretty much this.  Even today tons of people believe in the supernatural; in your game it just happens to be true.  Sticking with the myths and legends of the era are your best bet; there's a lot of cultural fears and zeitgeist bound up in the horror stories of a given culture.  There's a reason zombie media are so popular right now, politically incorrect as it is.

Quote from: Bren;910450Good advice so far. Really it's not much different than running Call of Cthulhu in the Victorian, 1920s, or modern eras or most of Charles de Lint's novels.

Keep the weird stuff in the shadows. Shadows may mean the weird is living among us while hidden from mundane society like the traditional Vampire or Urban Fantasy setting. Shadows may mean that most people can't see the Fair Folk or monsters like in the TV series Grim. Shadows may mean on the fringes of civilization like the deep forests, hidden caves, and foreign countries. Shadows may mean there is some conspiracy to keep such things secret either by the monsters or by the government who are doing it for the people's own good, or both at once.

Use myths and superstitions. Many people in the middle ages believed in magic. Use the type of magic that people thought witches could do and that fits in with history. Witches in Early Modern Europe, especially protestant EME, are great because history tells us people believed in witches and there were recorded witch trials. So having witches be real already fits history as it really was.

Limit the power of the weird. You want the supernatural to be fairly low key, not the sort of over the top wizards chucking fireballs and lightning bolts in the town square, at high noon, on a clear sunny day. Make the magic less flashy, more ritual based, and have most of the weird stuff happen in secret and where there aren't a lot of witnesses.

This is exactly it.  I was going to say the same thing (with different, and probably long winded words) but this encapsulates how to do it.

Tons of good advice here!

I'll add:

Keep it rare Make sure the majority of interaction is on a mundane level so the weirdness retains it's weirdness and doesn't become "normal."  Have sessions where there are no overtly weird elements at all and the prime antagonists are human.

Don't allow PCs to begin with super natural powers or knowledge The act of discovery is important.

Blur the lines The PCs might be asking "did that really happen" or were we dreaming, on drugs, is this proof of God (myth, whatever), or am I just freakin crazy?  You can even introduce supernatural experiences in situations of compromised rationality (wounded on the battlefield, praying in church, stranded at sea, or wigged out on ergot). If your doing it well, rational PCs might doubt their own experience with the supernatural even though the players know better.


I might add that in 16th century Europe, if you go with that, religious piety and superstition reached a high fevered pitch so you might take that into consideration.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910501Keep it rare Make sure the majority of interaction is on a mundane level so the weirdness retains it's weirdness and doesn't become "normal."  Have sessions where there are no overtly weird elements at all and the prime antagonists are human.

Yes that is important. Someone mentioned a Scooby Doo option. One thing I did was present some mundane things that NPCs thought were weird. Like a big black wolf with glowing eyes or the mad wild man who everyone, including him, thought was a Loup Garou. He lived in a cave, dressed in animal furs and skins, had claws attached to his hands, and ate his meat raw.

QuoteBlur the lines The PCs might be asking "did that really happen" or were we dreaming, on drugs, is this proof of God (myth, whatever), or am I just freakin crazy?  You can even introduce supernatural experiences in situations of compromised rationality (wounded on the battlefield, praying in church, stranded at sea, or wigged out on ergot). If your doing it well, rational PCs might doubt their own experience with the supernatural even though the players know better.

I like that.

In our game we've seen the superstitious PCs embrace the weird, while the sceptical PC still believes that no matter how weird things seem a normal sword will kill anything if you can cut off it's head.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;910407Which games would you point to as good examples?[/B]

I'm thinking of 16th century Europe but I don't want to rule out responses relevant to other periods/places.

It's not history (rather it is "not-history") but WFRP, especially the Enemy Within Campaign, used a lot of the techniques we listed above and fits the bill for your time period.

By the way, good questions

To the greatest degree possible, give the PCs an out:  Couch this in mundane terms.  Of course that long slithering track is just a giant python, or a crocodile tail.  Of course that great pinioned shadow against the moon was the PC having a touch too much to drink, and his imagination running away from himself.  There's always an explanation for everything!

And that's how you do it.  The greatest impact is the moment you slap people across the face with something they can no longer explain away.

Quote from: Madprofessor;910595By the way, good questions

Thank you.

Look at the folklore of the time as that will pretty much tell you how to introduce these things.

If something has witches then they are rarely out in the open, unless a Wicked Queen. Fairies come and go, playing with humanity. Giants and Dragons are scary beasts that heroes have to kill, normally found in mountains and far away from civilisation.

Dunno.. but for myself I put them at the periphery of human civilization. So going into the wilds will tend to have those rare moments that are, well, 'wild'. It tends to keep the whole "magi-tech!" modern-players-going-anachronistic idea from proliferating all over my setting (like a money shot...).

Most of the truly fantastic in the "civilized" parts of my world's setting then remain sparing, often expensive luxuries.

This because I am elitist and deliberately oppressive to my players, goring them with my viking horns routinely just to keep them in line.
:cool:

Not much to add here. I recommend going either Secret History (keeping things in the shadows, like Bren and others suggested) or Balls-Out Insane Alternate History, as desired.

I took the first approach to my Solomon Kane game, drawing on my experience with Vampire: the Dark Ages; and the second to my Day After Ragnarok game, rawing on WFRP (which is set on ersatz-1500s AD Earth but works fine as an extreme example of History Gone Gonzo). Both worked beautifully and people still pester me to revisit both games.

On a funny note, Deadlands as Balls-Out Insane Alternate History doesn't work for me, but I suspect I'd get a kick out of a more Secret History approach.