You are setting down with your regular gaming group and deciding on a new campaign. Half the group wants to play a historical game, the other half wants sci-fi or fantasy. What you need here is not just some alternate history, but some alternate reality.

Making Changes

Basically, you are going to have to change not just history, but reality itself. That means adding magic, impossible science, psionics, super powers, or some other highly implausible condition. As with altering history, this will cause cascading effects on the timeline that need to be addressed. If magic is possible, what does that mean to history? How would Tesla based physics effect the development of social and political structures? If people can read minds, what does that do to concepts of privacy? If you have people flying around and throwing horses over houses, what purpose does society put these powers to? These are questions intrinsic to certain genres, but they also apply to the alternate history that introducing changes in reality can bring. As always, open communication between GM and players is essential. One of the pitfalls of altering reality is that suspension of disbelief becomes an issue. The degree to which you rationalize why these things are possible depends on the nature of your group. For some, a simple ëit happens' may suffice, but others may want to know more back story.

Now, let's apply these issues and one of these changes to a point and time, map their effects and cascades through history. For this exercise, we assume the change point is the year 1776. How does the American War of Independence change with the introduction of altered reality? What effects does this have on the culture, individuals, and flow of historical events?

Super Powers

Every thousand years, a heretofore undocumented comet crosses the Earth's orbit. Sometimes it is too far away to affect the shining sphere, but this time around it is close enough to rain down its bizarre radiations. These radiations interact with human DNA, unleashing hidden and powerful abilities.

It began in 1776, not just the American War of Independence, but the great change in humanity. Suddenly, people discovered they could do amazing things. Some could fly, gain control of the elements, commit incredible feats of strength and agility, or become invulnerable. These powers are difficult to control, and can have disastrous effects as when Henry Stanceforth combusted and burnt down half of Boston on the night of September 8th, 1776.

The Americans, desperate to gain some advantage, quickly embraced these new powers. Some saw them as signs of the New Man, created by the blessings of liberty. Others feared that this was the work of the Devil. The British, though not as quick to exploit new ideas, were forced to do something, anything to turn back the tide of a war they were losing. It was soon discovered that several members of the peerage were also gifted, and these men were formed into a band, The King's Gentlemen, to confront the super powered Sons of Liberty. This produced a stalemate, until the mysterious Baron Fredrich Wilhelm von Steuban arrived. The Baron was not who he said he was, but operating under an alias. In truth, he was a man from the past, a man who had been changed and granted immortality by an earlier arrival of the comet. Quickly, Steuban set up a training camp to teach America's super patriots how to better use their powers. With the aid of Steuban's training, as well as the French Legion du Lys, the Americans were able to batter the British into a peace.

However, this victory posed problems for the new nation. How can every man be created equal when some obviously weren't? How could European culture be superior when even the ësavage' Indians and ësub-human' Africans exhibited these new powers? Resentment was festering amongst the rank and file of the Continental Army, as their exploits and sacrifice were overlooked in favor of their super powered compatriots. Further complicating the issue, supers from different colonies rarely got along, exacerbating the rivalries endemic in the new nation.

With Britain concerned with trying to hold its growing Empire together in the face of super powered native uprisings in India and Canada, as well as the threat of another super powered war brewing in Europe, America was left on its own. The First Nations warred with each other and with some of the new States, and sought peace with different factions. Slave uprisings, led by super powered ex-slaves rocked the south, but not all of the former Sons of Liberty were willing to fly to slavery's aid. Without a common threat to unite them, the various factions turned on each other.

It is the year 1815, and the map of North America is far different than the one our timeline knows. Instead of one nation, united yet divided, pushing itself ever westward, we have a patchwork of independent states. Many are rule by unscrupulous supers of varying nationalities. Some are based around a unity of purpose or culture, such as Freedman's Confederation and the Great Cherokee Empire. Others are mere pocket kingdoms or republics, struggling to survive while surrounded by hungry and ambitious neighbors. Canada and Mexico have fallen to the same fate, as both First Nation and European supers have carved out their own realms. Somewhere to the west, across the vast stretches of prairies, storm clouds grow. Someone, or something, is uniting the First Nations of the North West into a great and terrifying army, bent on claiming the whole hemisphere as their own.

Into this fractured and savage landscape come your PCs. Will they found another petty kingdom ruled over by supers? Perhaps they operate a super powered underground railroad, spiriting away slaves to free nations. Another option would be for the intrepid heroes to be British, French, or Spanish supers trying desperately to reestablish colonial authority in the face of sprawling chaos.

We have another shameless plug this month. By the time you read this Chaosium will have published The River Terror and Other Adventures!. This supplement for the Basic Roleplaying System is an anthology of adventures submitted for the 2009 BRP Adventure contest. In it you will find my adventure “The King, the Maiden, and the Mad Man of Las Islas de los Muertos” a pirate adventure set on an island in the Caribbean with buried treasure, rival pirates, cannibals, and a mystery. The other adventures are also very good, so check it out.