Other Victorian Roleplaying Systems
In addition to this page of games, Marcus Rowland has written Vaguely Victorian, an excellent summary of the Victorian era roleplaying games that have been published (at least at the time he wrote his article), that's well worth reading.
Written by Phil Masters and Jim Cambias
Imagine a world very much like 19th-century Earth, but with wizards and swashbuckling heroes... and Dragons and Faerie! A world where Kabbalistic magic meets steam-powered technology against the backdrop of imperial intrigue, and where the writings of Doyle, Shelley, Verne, and their contemporaries are fact. A world of high fantasy and romance. This is the world of Castle Falkenstein.
This critically-acclaimed RPG setting was originally published by R. Talsorian Games. It found an enthusiastic fandom . . . gamers even showed up at conventions in elaborate Falkenstein court costumes. For its fans, there is no setting quite like "Falk," with its combination of courtly graces, 19th-century intrigue and steampunk.
Stock number 6099
ISBN 1-55634-438-4
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RPG.net
another review of GURPS: Castle Falkenstein on RPG.net
Written by William H Stoddard
Behold the power of Steam!
GURPS Steampunk combines the mood of cyberpunk with the setting of an alternate Industrial Age, where computers run on steam power, walking colossi stalk the battlefields, flying ironclads rule the skies, and science is the new frontier.
Whether your destination is 20,000 leagues under the sea or into space to hear the music of the spheres, GURPS Steampunk can get you there. It covers the real events, politics, and personalities of the Industrial Age, as well as the weird science that could have been created... vehicles, robots, airships, and more. Choose from several different Steam Age settings described in the book, or make up your own!
Stock number 6098
ISBN 1-55634-419-8
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RPG.net
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The good folks at Pinnacle Entertainment don't provide any description of this game on their web site, so you'll have to rely on my own description (and the resume for the GURPS version below) to decide whether this is truly Victorian gaming or not.
Set in the United States of America shortly after the end of the Civil War, on the surface it's an 'Old West' game like Boot Hill; except that the Civil War hasn't ended, and the game features magic, weird science and horror by the bucketload. Kill a man in a gunfight at high noon, and he'll be clambering out of the grave and coming gunning for you by dusk; while ghost towns really are populated by ghosts.
It's not really my type of game, but I'd recommend the published sourcebooks for anybody planning to run a Victorian game in the USA: they're filled with snippets of history that provide great inspiration for scenarios in the old west of the gunslinger, the Yankee or the Southern Belle.
Reviews:
RPG.net
RPG.net again
more on RPG.net
yet another RPG.net review
this system really is popular on RPG.net
here we have yet another RPG.net review
RPG.net seems to have a hell of a lot of reviews of deadlands
still more from RPG.net
will these reviews on RPG.net ever be consolidated into one?
yet more from RPG.net
Role-Playing In A More Civilized Time. Everything Jules Verne should have written. Everything H. G. Wells could have written. Everything A. Conan Doyle thought of, but never published - because it was too fantastic. Everything you need for adventures of the century! This rulebook is the heart of the Space:1889 role-playing game. It contains the complete role-playing rules, plus the exciting background of Victorian science fiction: ether flyers and Martian cloudships, the canals and civilizations of the red planet, Venus' swamps and dinosaurs, the honeycombed interior of Luna, and the thrills of inventions and inventors - the driving force behind Victoria's multiworld empire! It also includes the errata and additional rules from the Space: 1889 Referee's Screen.
Originally published by Game Designers Workshop, Space: 1889 has now been re-published by Heliograph, Inc.
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RPG.net
Forgotten Futures is Marcus Rowland's table-top role playing game based on scientific romances, the predecessors of science fiction that were published in the late 19th and early 20th century. Each collection focuses on a different theme, and include space travel through the heavily populated solar system of 1900, Ghost Hunting in Edwardian England, and adventures with Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger.
Forgotten Futures was originally distributed as shareware e-texts and later as HTML. Currently, Forgotten Futures collections are available from this site for download, on CD-ROM from the author, and in print versions published by Heliograph, Inc.
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RPG.net
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Gone but not Forgotten
Cthulhu by Gaslight from Chaosium
Written by William A Barton
Written as a supplement for Call of Cthulhu set in the later years of the Victorian era, adventurers seek out the paranormal in 1890's Britain.
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Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death
A boxed supplement for the Ravenloft setting for AD&D. This is a horror game, set in the 'Gothic Earth' of the 1890's.
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RPG.net
another RPG.net review
Age of Empire
Written by Gareth-Michael Skarka
This RPG takes every staple of Victorian science fantasy and combines them into one crazy little game. Everything from invading Martians to evil geniuses is covered, and the game's system is fast-paced enough to keep things moving along at a decent speed. Unfortunately, this game went out of print when its publisher was bought out by Event Horizon Publications.
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RPGNet review
Published on the Web
Using the same system as Chivalry & Sorcery "Essence", this is a game of Colonial age Victorian Adventure. You too can be an officer of the Queen or a Jungle Foundling, more at home with animals than men, and all in 8 pages how can this encompass modern day firearms and magic from the most primitive heart of the jungle!
The 19th Century was the grand time of Empire, new lands could be annexed by working class soldiers ever eager to find a King’s ransom in loot, the sons of the middle-class could hope for a better life in Colonial service and the younger sons of ancient families could earn themselves a name and perhaps even lands of their own. These quests would take them across the worlds, exploring jungles and wastelands unknown to "civilised Man".
Of course the people living in these foreign, "unexplored" lands might rightly to be said to have a different view of these adventurers, merchants and empire builders suddenly turning up on their door-steps. Nonetheless, before science-fiction the prime adventure genre was the fiction of empire, full of men who patronised the natives as a class but who treasured the friendship of individuals, dissolute Europeans or crafty viziers for villains, lost cities, bandit tribes and the sort of place where a stiff-upper lip and the ability to ride well were damn near all a gentleman needed and, unless a plucky adventuress or a native princess taking pity on an imprisoned chap, women were hardly seen.
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Yarthe, a world in the most exciting stage of its development. Just a few years have passed since the great nations left the dark age of barbarism behind in an upsurge of knowledge and technological progress, and they are already envying each others' progress.
Yarthe is a world similar to our Victorian era. But it is much more: Magic and the Gods are real and play an important role in the life of the natives, as important as any technological advance like the steam engine and the heliograph. The remnants of strange tribes and forgotten cultures are found across the globe. The supernatural is everywhere, and is very real.
Nevertheless humans govern the major part of the planet as the great powers try to carve it up among themselves. They fight for supremacy with gunboats and trade embargoes. The smaller nations strive to retain their sovereignty and to gain acknowledgment in the eyes of the others. It is the time of the national states, but also a time of unknown dangers, of technology and invention. And as society moves toward a new greater and more glorious future, will all the innovations of recent years like the machine gun and the automatic loom bring poverty and destruction?
This is a time for adventure.
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A Roleplaying Setting based on the collected works of H G Wells. Visit Mars, the Moon, or the Depths of the Ocean. Travel in Land Ironclads, Airships and Cavorite Spheres. Contains various resources, descriptions and adventure storylines.
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Iron Empire by James Desborough and Stephen Mortimer
Charles stood at his window high above the thick London smog and looked down on the choked streets below him. Below the layer of smoke lay all the rubbish, including the human kind. Down there the poor and the destitute lived and worked, some spending their entire miserable lives coughing through the filth. Most of this, mercifully, was hidden from the outside world by the polluted fog rising from the Thames, allowing those with wealth to forget what went on out of sight below them. Other cities saw London as something to be envious of. Charles wrinkled his nose, the centre of the Empire had problems....
He sighed, troubled times indeed, that was why he had joined his particular club. The Society of Gentleman adventurers. He was a little concerned having heard that they even accepted women into their organisation, but that was overcome by what he heard they had accomplished. Within the society was a group who used the society's expeditions and influences to covertly defend the Empire. He glanced back into the smoke filled room, filled with snooker tables, books and foreign artifacts. A large bald man in a red smoking jacket bedecked with medals beckoned to him and opened a door with a smile. Charles made his way between the tables, apologising to the players, and entered the room, head high, ready to do his duty for his country.
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Coming soon...
Written by Stephen Dedman
The year is 1877. The place is the American West... but haunted by the forces of darkness. Undead gunslingers... hostile Indian spirits... strange cults... and, worst of all, the sinister Reckoners. The Civil War drags on, while federal agents and Texas Rangers struggle to deal with the eldritch menaces while hiding the awful truth from the public Back East.
Deadlands, from the Pinnacle Entertainment Group, is possibly the most original roleplaying setting of the decade. It combines the romance and action of the Old West with the horror of invading Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Now this great background will be explored in a series of GURPS worldbooks.
Adventure as a shootist, a card-slinging huckster, or a prospector searching the ruins of California for that supernatural stuff, "ghost rock." Saddle up, hombre. The Weird West awaits!
Stock number 6049
ISBN 1-55634-455-4
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Terra Incognita
Do historical mysteries intrigue you while historical inaccuracies repel?
Do you bristle at excessive accolades that dilute a job well done?
Do you insist upon cutting-edge technology and tea at four?
Welcome to the world of NAGS -- the National Archaeological, Geographic, and Submarine Society!
Terra Incognita is a roleplaying game of exploration, intrigue, and mystery with adventure-scholars whose exploits span the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Armed with extensive training, unpredictable technology, and unimpeachable discretion, Nags travel to the Four Corners of the globe -- exploring, uncovering, and clarifying information -- all in the name of the ever-increasing store of accurage knowledge and the record of human possibilities.
The Angel's Comments: Currently in playtest, Terra Incognita from Grey Ghost Press Inc. is based on Steffan O'Sullivan's FUDGE, and takes elements from Victorian gaming and the pulp hero genre of fiction from the early years of the 20th Century. Emphasis of the game is on exploring new frontiers and previously uncharted territory, and seeking to understand (and in some cases defeat) that which man was not meant to know.
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Dark Continent
The Angel's Comments: The good folks producing Dark Continent had a stand at GenCon UK 2001, inviting people to join their mailing list; but nothing further has been heard about this since, they don't respond to e-mail, and the web page doesn't exist.
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