Deadlands Noir settings options

[MightyMicK]

I'm curious as to which folks might use settings alternative to the ones provided by the core book and the Companion.

(Here's a list of the "official settings" from the books: New Orleans 30's; Chicago 20's; Shan Fan pre-WWII; Lost Angels post-WWII; and City of Gloom 50's.)

I like to pop around the decades, but mostly stick to New Orleans as my locale. I primarily run 1930's New Orleans, but I've also successfully run a few games set in 1950's New Orleans, and also some set in post WWI/The Great War New Orleans, for both home and convention games. I've even run one scenario set in late 19th century New Orleans, but using the Noir vs. Weird West rules, since it was an urban murder mystery.

What other decades and locale settings do fellow Deadlands Noir GMs like to "play around with?"

[Séadna]

Sort of a non-answer, but we just stuck to New Orleans and the City of Gloom in our year and half long game. There's just so much content in them. I'd love to go through Shan Fan though, but my players didn't want it.

How did you "update" for 1950s New Orleans?

One thing for new Orleans, I got a little book on Cajun culture , food and their dialect of French, really added to the flavour of the place.

[MightyMicK]

For the 1950's I just referred to the DL Noir Companion to see who was the CSA President, and otherwise used historical references for New Orleans in the 1950's.

As for other details, I just advanced the story a generation or two from the events (and my player characters) of 30's New Orleans; after all only about 20 years had passed.

And of course I've immersed myself in Cajun, Creole, New Orleans and Louisiana lore and languages for my games. I love me some game-mastering with lots of outrageous accents.

One neat reference I used was the book "New Orleans in the FIFTIES" by Mary Lou Widmer-- lots of photos to help the players imagine what it looked like, albeit in black and white.

[Séadna]

Thanks for the book reference MightyMick, I see there's one for each decade, so I ordered the thirties one. I keep finding stuff I wish I had used for Noir.

[MightyMicK]

Took me a few years to track them all down, but I have all six books in the Widmer "New Orleans in the" series, which covers 1900-20, 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. Great photo references, though pretty much from the point of view of a middle class "suburban" family on the city. Still, there's lots of New Orleans flavor in those books.

[Johnbone]

one day I'd like to do prohibition era detroit. if you do just a little bit of research you can find crazy stuff like the nain rouge, the purple gang, connections to the chicago mob. the unions really getting a strangle hold on the auto industry.

I'm surprised more hasn't been done about that city in any of the games.

[Sitting Duck]

There's a Savage Worlds setting from Melior Via which is low key urban fantasy that takes place in Detroit.

[otherdoc]

I've been putting together convention games that are still in the 1930s, but I've set them in the Dust Bowl region (places where the dust storms of that era were at their worst - Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, etc). My original thought was to reinject some of the Western flavor back into the setting while trying to maintain the Noir setup and the feeling of the era. (There aren't a lot of Noir Westerns out there - I tend to favor Bad Day at Black Rock as a good example of the genre.) The first scenario I ran had all the PCs as musicians, and more recently I did one where they were all hoboes. At an upcoming con I'll be running one for the first time where the PCs will all be convicts who are part of a chain gang.

I've heard these Dust Bowl games of mine described as "O Brother Where Art Thou with monsters." Which is something I'm completely okay with.

[otherdoc]

I've been putting together convention games that are still in the 1930s, but I've set them in the Dust Bowl region (places where the dust storms of that era were at their worst - Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, etc). My original thought was to reinject some of the Western flavor back into the setting while trying to maintain the Noir setup and the feeling of the era. (There aren't a lot of Noir Westerns out there - I tend to favor Bad Day at Black Rock as a good example of the genre.) The first scenario I ran had all the PCs as musicians, and more recently I did one where they were all hoboes. At an upcoming con I'll be running one for the first time where the PCs will all be convicts who are part of a chain gang.

I've heard these Dust Bowl games of mine described as "O Brother Where Art Thou with monsters." Which is something I'm completely okay with.

For anyone who might be interested - it turns out I'm running each of these scenarios on Sundays at 3PM Eastern this month on my (relatively recent) Twitch channel (over at https://www.twitch.tv/otherdoc ). We did the one with musicians last Sunday, we'll be doing the hobo game tomorrow and the game with the convicts will be next weekend. So, if you'd like to see this odd little variant I've put together in action, free to come check it out, if you're so inclined!

[Deskepticon]

Are the streams going to be archived anywhere? I'd love to check'em out, but I'm probably not going to be able to watch them live.

[otherdoc]

Yep - I'll eventually get them onto YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/otherdoc), but for now they'll be Highlghts on that Twitch page.

[Samurai007]

When I heard the base description for the new "Holler" Savage Worlds setting (1920-30 Appalachia invaded by supernatural forces, Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse for Savage Worlds by Shane Hensley — Kickstarter), my first thought was "sounds like Deadlands Noir: Appalachia!"

[paladin2019]

When I heard the base description for the new "Holler" Savage Worlds setting (1920-30 Appalachia invaded by supernatural forces, Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse for Savage Worlds by Shane Hensley — Kickstarter), my first thought was "sounds like Deadlands Noir: Appalachia!"

You weren't the only one