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17 – Past, Present, or Future? When is your favourite game set?

Purely historic games are not that interesting to me — there is always something added (cthonic horrors in Call of Cthulhu’s 1920s, magic in Ars Magica’s middle ages etc), which makes the setting not the past, but an alternate past that never was. I find that an important distinction to make — there is no ‘historic accuracy’ in RPGs because the setting is not historic. People who insist on ‘historic accuracy’ are invariably white dudes who seek to impose their own racist views on an RPG setting and should be shunned.

My favourite game set in a past-that-never-was is probably Ars Magica. I’m also interested in King Arthur Pendragon, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually played it.

My favourite game set in a present-that-is-not is probably Nobilis.

My favourite game set in a future-that-probably-(or-hopefully)-will-never-be is The Sprawl.

Crossposted from my blog. Comment here or at the original post.