Have you ever set a game on the French Riviera? How did it go?

My 1930s game of detectives working for the League of Nations, actually started on the Riviera, and often goes back there. This is because one of the PCs is a retired cat burglar who had retired there. (Think Cary Grant from the film ‘To Catch a Thief’). He gets trapped into working for the League’s (fictitious) investigation unit, as the investigator who becomes his partner has got the proof to put him away for a very long time. Also, he was bored in retirement, and had achieved everything he wanted to do as a thief.

The first session was set in Marseilles and I cribbed the map of the old dock area and the three local gangs from an old CoC adventure and some other elements from an old Daredevils adventure. However, the main set-up was my own. The web supplied some more info and old photographs of the town. The games use the excellent Two Fisted Tales as their ruleset.

Our game as all to do with missing Tsarist gold and getting an old mentor of the thief PC free from the attention of all three gangs – the Catalans, The Corsicans and the Mafia. The leads the PCs got in Marseilles led to Hong Kong, and later Shanghai before the missing gold was tracked down and they discovered what it was being used to fund (nerve gas development and the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek as head of the Kuomintang).

The games involving the investigators roam all over the globe, but the thief (now solidly ex-thief) still lives just outside Antibes and sessions often start there. A kidnapping case started in Monaco, roamed over the south of France and was resolved in Morocco; so the Riviera – the food, the architecture, the ever present sea – is a regular backdrop. These are very popular games with our group.

The film Ronin is useful to show what the south looks like nowadays, while To Catch a Thief has good visuals for the post-war Riviera.
 
What sort game were you thinking of?

That's really cool. Thanks for the Ronin recommendation, I didn't know it was set there.

I'm looking to run something either detective, urban supernatural, or a combination of the two, and I'm considering locales. I spent many summers in the region as a child, but that isn't necessarily helpful for making it gameable. Any sourcebook recommendations from any game would be neat.

My historical game, Tyche's Favourites, was set in Massalia (Marseilles).

Quote from: Kiero;949569My historical game, Tyche's Favourites, was set in Massalia (Marseilles).

That's a pretty cool document.

Be kind of cool to set an adventure around the decadent 70s period when the Stones recorded Exile in the south of France.

Quote from: Voros;949910Be kind of cool to set an adventure around the decadent 70s period when the Stones recorded Exile in the south of France.

Oh yeah, I can see that being a lot of fun: Sour on the world Vietnam vets, Eurotrash nobility with too much money and a bad coke habit - addicted to thrills, foot soldiers of Mafia/Union Corse drug barons, aging rock stars, Italian film directors needing funds for their next project...and that's just the scumbag PCs!

@ Shipyard Locked - I don't really have any supplements to recommend. The Daredevils scenario called 'The Deadly Coins' just supplied the idea of a missing hoard of gold coins (I did not use the actual plot, which was a Fu Manchu story with the serial numbers filed off) and a map of a shop proved useful. The CoC scenario set in Marseilles was the second of two scenarios included in a slim book called 'King of Chicago' (I think). This provided the three gang set up I used, and a nice map of the old town. However, I don't think it would be worth the trouble of hunting these down.

@ Kiero - I loved the write ups to your historical game when I read them last year - great stuff!

I find visual sources good for this sort of thing. The sequences in To Catch a Thief where cars are being driven along the high mountain roads have inspired more than one car chase in my 1930s game (and our cars were more classy!) Ronin has a great scene in the bullring in Arles (originally an old Roman gladiatorial circus.)

Google image searches by year usually pull up interesting pictures. And books of old photographs have sometimes sparked my imagination for good locations, scenes, or even NPCs.

Quote from: Gruntfuttock;949978Oh yeah, I can see that being a lot of fun: Sour on the world Vietnam vets, Eurotrash nobility with too much money and a bad coke habit - addicted to thrills, foot soldiers of Mafia/Union Corse drug barons, aging rock stars, Italian film directors needing funds for their next project...and that's just the scumbag PCs!

Exactly, great description. A doc on the making of Exile they mentioned all the hashish and heroin dealers moving between Marseilles and North Africa.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;949770That's a pretty cool document.

Quote from: Gruntfuttock;949981@ Kiero - I loved the write ups to your historical game when I read them last year - great stuff!

Thank you both. The birth of my second child (in 2013!) put paid to that game, I hope to return to it one day. Or else run something else historical, we'll see.

Quote from: Gruntfuttock;949982Ronin has a great scene in the bullring in Arles (originally an old Roman gladiatorial circus.)

Just as an aside, before it was the Roman Arelate, it was the Greek Theline, a trading post originally.

Nope.