Tropes
The last few columns examined elements of the adventure fiction arising from the early 20th century Pulps, the Space Opera adventures that shared their pages, and their visual successors, Superhero Comics. This time around, we'll look to their origins in the Penny Dreadfuls of the late 19th century and to a lesser extent, the related and equivalent American Dime Novels.
Essentially the first YA fiction, the Penny Dreadfuls were cheaply printed serialized stories focusing on the fantastic, adventuresome, and often lurid and evocative adventures of larger than life heroes, depraved villains, and stalwart adventurers. Aimed squarely at the newly minted industrial class, adolescent boys would scrape together the aforementioned penny (often in turns as part of a club of similar minded youths) to collect the installments and then sell, rent, or trade them to their peers.
We'll avoid looking too closely at Poe, Verne, and Wells, as they belong more properly in discussions of actual horror and science fiction. We'll cover those themes in future columns. Similarly, the American Civil War and Wild West were in fact contemporaneous genres, but are best examined in detail later on.
As with Space Opera, many of the tropes of Pulp apply to Gothic Victorian role play. Additionally, A group that wants to play a Gothic Victorian campaign needs to understand the following tropes common to all subgenres.
Marquis Of Queensberry Rules!
Everyone in Victorian fiction is so dreadfully civilized. Tea is at Four O'Clock, as Big Ben chimes dourly over the grey skies of London (See London Calling below). No one would ever dream of fighting dirty unless their adversary had proven completely without honor, and even then, quarter is always offered. A game of chess in the Gentleman's Club with the man who will soon detonate parliament is perfectly acceptable a way to match wits as you each go your own way after, still in a calm and sedate life of death struggle. If it comes to swords or fisticuffs, the affair is always formal, theatrical, and done by the rules... until the crafty hero outsmarts the villain, or the honourless cur pulls a dirty trick, which of course spells his moral and often literal doom.
Uses: The heart and soul of Victoriana is an imposed formality and adherence to rules and forms of civilized action. It establishes the mood and keeps the mindset centered on the genre. Even the crudest ditch digger converses in a stilted and formal fashion despite their lower class accent and colourful colloquialisms.
Pitfalls: It is important not to force players who are simply uncomfortable or incapable of spouting flowery, overwritten dialogue to attempt it. Instead, it is quite good enough to allow them a pass, with the understanding that for purposes of the genre, something considerably snootier is coming out of their character's mouth. Players who are used to a more “down and dirty" style of operating will not be comfortable here, as they will learn society is not going to put up with that sort of nonsense. Building the social rules into the game as equivalent to the combat rules will go a long way towards re-establishing tone and mood. As always, it is best to clearly establish these rules before play even begins.
London Calling
London. Just mentioning the name evokes a series of images and sensations. Cramped, ancient cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages splashing through puddles of indeterminate liquid, rain, fog, the mighty Thames and the towering Big Ben. The city is a character, a setting, and an adversary on its own.
Uses: No matter how often the players venture forth to isolated woods, country manors, rail trips abroad to the Continent or the Isles, London is the center, it is where the action is. Everything from the Royal Family to the seat of Parliament to Scotland Yard to the thriving criminal underworld and stuffy world-class universities is there, in cramped, close quarters. Even when in darkest Africa or the streets of Hong Kong, the objective is always to return to, report to, or bring something back to dear old London Towne.
Pitfalls: There's a great big world out there full of jungles, wars, ancient Irish castles, dangerous gangs of Ninja, and corrupt Country Nobles to deal with. Don't let the city become the entire setting. Even Sherlock Holmes headed on on the train from time to time.
Rule Britannia!
England was still an Empire in the Victorian era. With the advent of the Pax Britannica, England controlled the major trade routes and dominated the seas. And as for those pesky colonies, well, this “United States" nonsense was surely a temporary state of affairs.
Uses: No matter where the PCs go, they will find people who both rely on and resent them for being English, or being with the English, or just speaking English. There are fans as well, but in a Victorian Genre, a smug sense of superiority and Noblesse Oblige wafts from them just by association, if not in actual practice. In return, the vast majority of Victorian heroes were staunchly patriotic if not outright jingoistic, and fiercely loyal to the Monarchy.
Pitfalls: As with the Pulp trope of [I]Nazis. I Hate Those Guys.[/I], this can get ugly. In the actual literature (and reality) stereotyping was casual, racism was in vogue, and sexism was a fact of life. It is essential to discuss these themes with every player present, and throw them out if even one player is made uncomfortable. Glossing over these themes never hurt the narrative, and anachronistic enlightenment will seamlessly blend into the narrative for most modern groups.
Great Men, Great Works.
Philias Fogg wagers to race Around the World in 80 Days. The Great Detective matches wits with the Napolean of Crime. A grisly murderer haunts the back streets of Whitechapel. Alan Quartermane braves King Solomon's Mines. Deranged Captain Ahab hunts a white whale with fever in his eyes, while the light of heroism shines from Horatio Hornblower's. Great Men do Great Things in Victoria's England.
Uses: One might take note that several of those events occurred decades before others. As long as the group is comfortable with compressing the timeline a bit, the World of Adventure opens to them. Even if the strict historical sequence of events is observed, the examples abound. There's never a reason to spend more than the occasional evening at the Club. Soon enough, a mysterious caller, an echoing scream, or a Gentleman's Wager will set off the next event.
Pitfalls: There are a lot of big-name, high-profile NPCs a GM may choose to introduce. It is essential to maintain the spotlight and focus on the PCs, not their guest stars.
It's Perfectly Safe! Now Stand Back!
The Victorian period began a rapid escalation of industrialization and innovation that has yet to abate. The low tech end of the high tech revolution has its roots firmly in the 19th century. Gas Lamps, large-scale automation, new fabrics, textiles, and dyes (the 1850s have been referred to as The Mauve Age because it was the first time a cheap, wide-scale shade of the formally rare and often royal purple was synthesized), electricity, telegraphy, and machines galore were all developed during the period.
Uses: You will notice the above says nothing about safety. Natural Gas is explosive. Factories were full of largely unshielded machines on a large scale that bristles with dangerous, rapidly moving points, surfaces and edges. An adventure can contain equal parts New Scientific Marvels, dangerous running battles amidst flesh-rending, bone crushing machines, and gratuitous fires and explosions.
Pitfalls: In the end, it has to be the wits and actions of the PCs that carry the day, not their machines. Going too far into the age of marvels and wonders is crossing over into Steampunk, which we will cover in a future column. Be sure the group wants to be there before taking the plunge.
Sources:
That wraps up this installment of Tropes. Next time, we'll look into the shadowy corners of those cramped, poorly gas-lit alleys with hugely overbuilt portable lights and point Tesla Pistols at whatever is unfortunate enough to lurk there. See you in 30 for a combo column on the Fantastic Victorian genres of Gothic Horror and Steampunk.
Meanwhile, here's a very short list of some past and present published games that deal with Gothic Victorian gaming that are not focused on Steampunk, horror, or the overly fantastic. Look them up in RPGNet's Game Index.
Dark Continent (New Breed), The Imperial Age (Adamant Entertainment), The Pytheas Club (Hex Games), Victorian Adventure (Kestrel Design).
Also, a rare but invaluable non-gaming recommendation: “What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist - The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England", by Daniel Pool (Touchstone, 1993). I'm not going to link to any external sites, but the book is in print and readily available from all the finer booksellers.
