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>>48485064
1920s version of cyberpunk, except it's about subverting governments instead of megacorps

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>>48485064
I don't know, but you've reminded me that it's been far too long since I've watched the Rocketeer.

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>>48485064
Because I'm an uncultured swine and lack a deep enough understanding of the culture and time period around art deco... I'd probably just do something in Rapture.
Which at the very least, would be an easy way to get other players on board with "art deco looking shit is here"

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>>48485134
So, Shadowrun: Atlas Shrugged edition?

>>48485064
Art deco is about hope and this grand, shining future. It's the reason for all those sun beams and thunderbolt design. You run mutants and masterminds in the 1920s where the great war has just ended and prohibition begun. Plenty of badass veterans and grizzled gangsters. Corruption in the streets and the courthouse you cant just punch away, as well as the earliest fbu. While pulp heroes are away on mars andbfar flung jungles, you're in the city as the earliest super heroes. You might fight crazy monsters on occasion, but your biggest issues is making things good for people on the street. You're exotic, stange and powerful, yet still humble and human. Think of the Rocketeer, a man with a jet pack yet able to affect great change. Superman of this kind of period was just an amazingly strong man who could lify cars and was immune to bullets. He fought wife beaters and evil cops. Help the little man to a brighter future. Deliver hope.

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>>48485277
Minus the proselytizing and 60+ page speech

Also, a lot more fun

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>>48485064
Also, post art deco stuff

>>48485064
Mega Deus.

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>>48485487

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>>48485573
Oh shit, I forgot Big O was a thing

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>>48485487
I have no art deco so I'll just post Popular Mechanics and what the past thought the future would contain

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>>48485895

>>48485895
>Current year
>Not equipping our soldiers with plate armor

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>>48485907

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>>48485920

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>>48485937

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>>48485954

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>>48485965

>>48485175
Why so self-depricating? You're probably cultured in some regards.

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>>48485983

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>>48485998

>>48485920
Not too far off.

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>>48486014

A lot of this is more dieselpunk than art deco

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>>48486041

>>48486047
Aye, but my pictures folder is a clusterfuck so I don't know where my art deco stuff is

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>>48486064

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>>48486081

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>>48486104

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>>48486123

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>>48485994
>

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>>48486145

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>>48486163

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>>48486181

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>>48486192

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>>48486206

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>>48486224

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>>48485064
probably something like counter spy stuff

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>>48486241

>>48485315

Art Deco in that period is ironic though. Misery and crime are creeping closer every year and the rich are super rich. The horrors of the great war are still fresh.

I'm with >>48485134 . Use art deco as a foil to a corrupt society.

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>>48486254

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>>48486274

>>48486269
Weren't the 1920s a time of affluence though? Hence the whole Roaring Twenties aspect, at least for America

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>>48486331

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>>48485175
Rapture was actually pretty late to the Art Deco obsession, by around thirty years. Rapture was built and inhabited during the 50s, but Art Deco started and became popular in the 20s into the 30s.

>>48485134
I think this is interesting. Art Deco is about the bright and glorious future that humanity could bring about with the power of industry, which is why it was adopted by all of the different utopian ideologies of the Modern age. Capitalists, Communists, and Fascists all adopted the same aesthetic in Art Deco to reflect their view of the glorious future, be it empowerment for the businessman, the common man, or just the white man.

Perhaps the setting could be a huge industrial city, like a fantastic New York, full of different factions clamoring for the rise of the Utopia they like best, while opportunistic gangsters play all sides and represent a form of government that has been all but forgotten; familial, territorial landed aristocrats who rule through force but also through love.

>>48485064
Although I love Art Deco I guess it's kinda hard to make a RPG campaign, a medium usually almost deprived of visual features based on something as purely visual as architecture and art style.

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>>48486375
I fucking love this idea. Ideological factions clashing in a post-war metropolis
>Picture relevant
all fighting to shape the future into their utopia.

>>48485907
They've got giants manning the side hatch guns.

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>>48486375
You know, considering nowadays cyberpunk is either about either toppling the corrupt system or embracing and reveling in it, a setting about bringing about the ideal system would be terrific especially since we know about the horrendous shit people will do in the 30s and 40s

>>48485983
This idea is far from dead. Even a few years ago the US Marine Corps was looking at the possibility of a hypersonic transport that would let them put troops anywhere on the planet in an hour or two.

>>48486844
I had to read the poster 3 times and then the image name before conceptually seeing the swastika as an "x"

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>>48486331
For some, yes. The 20s were a great time to be middle class in the West and particularly in the United States. The nouveau riche, once desperate to join the exclusive aristocratic upper crust, now occupied the trust of the common man moreso than the upper class did and formed their own culture and social circles. The nouveau riche middle class (think Gatsby and the rest of West Egg) were the patrons of much of the great avant-garde art of the 20s and 30s, even if that art often had a socialist slant towards the proletariat. The war had changed public view of traditional values and nobility; what were once seen as guardians of the respected old ways and defenders of the nation now became old reactionary fogies clinging to a power they had never earned and clearly didn't deserve. Pic related; middle-class Japanese in distinctive Western clothes, upper-class Japanese in traditional garb, and their excited children all watch as the very first subway train in Japan rolls in to greet them. While the traditional upper class woman in the kimono and sandals in the middle ground watches with a mix of fear and anxiety as modernity arrives, the middle class modernists up front chat and smoke.

Common folk (think the gas station owner whose wife was cheating on him with Daisy's husband) didn't really get all that much out of it, though, besides more opportunities to join the bourgeois social circles which had earlier rejected them. Those who trusted and respected their capitalist overlords generally tried to join them, but those who felt disenfranchised by the prosperity of the 20s generally joined socialist movements or nationalist ones, thus forming the general political attitude of the time (capitalism vs socialism vs nationalism).

I love this era of history, and I just took a class on art of the interwar period, so (not to toot my own horn) I'm somewhat knowledgeable on the subject if you have any questions about it!

>>48486667
Th-thanks anon... uguu

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>>48486930
Know any social discontent movements around Britain, France, America, etc.? I know Eastern Europe was conflicting with the Soviets while Germany was a chaotic mess of political radicals and Freikorps. Also, why did Japan shift from an Entente-aligned democracy to an extremist militarist state?

>>48485937

Not just a jaguar, a BLACK jaguar.

>>48486998

This is either an acid trip or an enemy Stand.

>>48487100
>Guy in the back is directing the wall-making brick people
Yep, it's a Stand

>>48486844
I think that the romanticized vision of gangsters and mob culture that the 40s and 50s brought was a bit of a rebirth of the romanticism of nobility that had existed before the war. When you think about it, gangsters and nobility are pretty much the same thing - hereditary positions in a hierarchy of warlords who war over territory, extract tax in return for protection (literally a protection racket), and use violence to inspire both fear and love in their subjects. While feudalism was generally replaced on the national scale by the 20s by capitalism, socialism, or nationalist fascism, a thousand year old system doesn't just die out.

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>>48486930
Excellent analysis, thanks! Aside from Gatsby, which I've never read, can you recommend any academic or fictional works that would give a better idea of the times?

Also, as a more general question, what woukd be the best system to run >>48486375 ?

>>48485064
>How would you make a campaign inspired by art deco?
A new religion has formed, based upon the semi-secular worship of man, in both the individual and collective sense, as well as progress and technology.

a somewhat peaceful form of "revolution" is common amongst them, as they seek to discover more perfect forms of governance and human organization. They shun tradition and constitutions for their own sake.

>>48486998
Well there were Communist Parties everywhere you went, whose memberships included varying levels of radicalism and varying positions (anarchists, syndicalists, statists, etc), and as I understand it they were generally public societies if you lived in a more tolerant place. While it wasn't super popular everywhere you went, necessarily, socialism was seen as an acceptable viewpoint across the continent in France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. It was not socially acceptable to openly be a socialist in the United States, though, and the ideology lost pretty much all public power and respect after the Red Scare of 1919 when a series of anarchist bombings prompted mass arrests and hysteria. Nationalism, while much less popular on the continent generally, was big in the United States (as could be seen by the soaring membership numbers of the Ku Klux Klan, which was a powerful force) and in Germany and Spain. Italy was already a fascist nationalist state at this point, and the USSR was already a socialist one. The USSR would often host big international socialist conferences with delegations from parties around the world.

Britain is a bit more of a mystery to me. Socialism began to rise in importance throughout the 20s in the Labo(u)r Party, but nationalism never really became a relevant force. They continued their military expansion though, growing to their greatest imperial height during the 20s (ruling a fourth of the world and a fourth of its population), but economically fell behind the United States.

c about Japan in next post

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>>48487305
At least the Nazis had good taste in superbeings

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>>48487434
Japan had always been a very nationalistic country, with many movements during the Meiji Restoration centering around national unity (emperor worship, militarism, racism against non-Japanese). They were already an empire (not just in the 'having an emperor' sense but in the having overseas territory sense), ruling Korea, Taiwan, and many of the old German territories (which is the main reason they joined WW1, not because they valued European soverignty.) During the 20s is when nationalism really started to pick up, though, and as I understand it, and they stopped being a democracy in I think 1926, being ruled instead by effectively a bakufu (tent government/junta), which was basically a way to say 'the emperor is in charge but really it's the military lol'. Leftist opinions were largely suppressed, and nationalism and militarism took hold. This was generally driven by religion, racism, and anti-colonialist sentiments similar to what Mao would use later. (The white man tried to take us over and use us! We must fight their rampant imperialism by building a strong nation and taking over other places ourselves! That's not hypocritical because we're the superior race! Except Mao said Tibet belonged to China and said they weren't hypocritical because "Communist" countries can never be imperialistic. Unless they were the Soviet Union when he got mad at them. But whatever.)

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>>48487386
Well, reading Wikipedia articles is always a good start. Watching documentaries you might find could give you some context in terms of historical events, but reading the Communist Manifesto, maybe with some help in interpreting it (because it's difficult to understand without some help, since it's like 150 years old and the meaning of different words has changed) would be the biggest recommendation I have. It's not very long and it's very useful in understanding the ideological context under which these movements developed. I think personally that art history is very useful in understanding this period, because art during the 20s and 30s was unlike any period before or after it in expressing not just the general feeling of the time but also the political climate. Reading books/watching videos or documentaries about the history of different artists/art movements would help in giving cultural context. Art Deco is a fascinating movement in that respect, in that it united the most influential aesthetic developments of the time (Futurism, Cubism, geometric abstraction) and fused them with a passion for the utopia of tomorrow common to much political and social thought of the time such that it was equally enjoyable to everyone.

>>48487701
What caused the sudden explosion of wealth in the US following WWI? Was it just military infrastructure suddenly becoming civilian or something else?

Also, thank you for posting, based anon. People like you make this my favorite board.

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>>48485833

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>>48487840
Thanks anon! I love history and art so I'm glad I can share this with you guys rather than just shouting at my friends about it.

No, it wasn't that (and that's not what happened after WW2, either, despite propaganda) but actually, the United States had been very wealthy for a while, overtaking Britain in economic terms by the late 19th century, by 1900 at the very latest. American prosperity in the 20s was brought about by policies of economic liberalization (the marginal tax rate for the wealthiest members of society fell from 73% to 25%), technological advancement (probably sped by massive public spending on research during war) and the sweet sweet illusion of the stock market bubble brought about by excessive and unsustainable speculation. The fact that America's biggest industrial competitors in Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany had all gotten completely fucked over by the deadliest and most destructive war in human history up to that point didn't hurt American industrialists' profit margins either, as they grew to be dependent on American industry and American foreign investment to get back on their feet.

Much of the new wealth of the Roaring 20s went straight to the upper classes, and while a good bit of it trickled down (urban laborers' real wages, that is, the wages they were making as adjusted for inflation, increased by 20%, not to mention they had more time to spend on work/leisure and more money to save because of the advent of technology assisting in essential household work like cleaning) to those below (except for rural workers :[[[[) the great prosperity popularized by art and entertainment from and about that period belonged mostly to the rich.

c about stock market in next post

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>>48488297
With lots of money around, much of it belonging to the very rich, and seemingly not enough to spend (especially because investment and technological advancement made so much cheaper), lots of money was put into inessentials like fancy art and lavish parties, but often it was put into savings, which was then invested, oftentimes in stocks. This was made especially easy because predatory loaning practices allowed people with pretty poor credit to take out loans. These loans they took out put them in great debt, debt which was traded around the investment market to make even more money.

This is a strange concept, I know. You'd think it would make more sense to just keep the debt to get paid all the owed money, right? Well, the idea is that if you owe someone money (equal the amount you borrowed plus interest), your debt could be sold to someone else for a good short term burst. If someone owes you 1000 dollars, but suddenly your mom breaks her leg and you need to get her surgery or whatever, then you might sell the debt you own worth 1000 dollars to someone else in exchange for 500 dollars. That way, the person to whom you sell it would make a 500 dollar profit (the 1000 dollars you now owe him minus the 500 dollars he paid to get it) and you would get 500 dollars to spend on getting your mom's surgery which you need right now.

c actually about stock market in next post lol im dum

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>>48488639
Another, less sentimental reason someone might sell your debt is because interest rates change all the time; a loan you took out promising to pay 10% interest on will be more valuable than a loan someone else took out promising to pay 5% interest on, right? But your 10% loan is less valuable than a loan someone promised to pay 15% interest on. So if someone who owns your debt thinks interest rates are about to fall, he'll keep it and sell it when they do, so that your 10% interest debt becomes more valuable since all the new debts are worth only 5%. If he thinks they're about to rise, he'll sell your debt while it's worth a normal amount before the price falls since more valuable debts are about to be plentiful.

Sometimes people would just keep the debt and make all the money plus interest off it and be done with it. However, buying and selling debts gambling on the interest rate offered big profits for those were successful (but also big losses for those were not.) This activity was done not just with debts but also with stocks and other investments, such as real estate. Bonds and securities and stocks and debts and buildings were made and purchased for the purpose of just selling them further up the line, and not much thought was given to actually using them. This artificially drove up demand (and prices) for all of these things as the desire to own them stopped being based upon actually using them for their purpose but just upon selling them to someone else who also probably wasn't going to use them for their purpose, meaning that when push came to shove, oftentimes they weren't worth anything.

c crash in next post

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>>48488817
Debts would be sold around and have their prices bidden up and up and up only for one unlucky banker to find that the great deal he just made buying up a mortgage suddenly defaulted. Traded stocks in companies whose prices had soared to ridiculous heights, come to find out, weren't actually going to provide dividends to their stockholders because despite all the investment, nobody wanted their product. Many of these investments rapidly lost worth and investors just tried to sell them off as soon as possible to make some kind of profit off of them. Unfortunately, while many debts were defaulted on and many stocks came out to be valueless, not all of them were. but since the web of financial assets had been spun around the entire stock market and even stretched out to wrap around the whole world(remember all that sweet sweet foreign investment of American money overseas), when banks started taking huge losses even stocks and debts of actual value were thrown away.

So, the false profits of the stock bubble made up much of the prosperity of the Roaring 20s. But during the time the bubble was rising, it was great! Everybody was making tons of money off of entirely worthless pieces of paper and that money paid for many, many a lavish celebration that projected the view we have even today that the 20s were one of the richest times in American history, and who's to say they weren't.

>>48485994
Some of us hate ourselves more than we should. Thank you for showing kindness, though. 4chan, even /tg/ these day isn't really the place for that.

>>48486014
You know, why don't we have BABY ASSAULT TANKS?

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>>48488297
>>48488639
>>48488817
>>48489009
I was thinking about an art deco game setting where you roleplay as a wheelin'-dealin' stock trader at the height of the Roaring Twenties; lo and behold here are your posts. Now I really want this to be a reality.

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Not sure if this counts or not

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>>48485064
Can I play too?

Most of this shit isn't art déco it's American futurism.

>>48485881
I do not wish to associate with anyone who doesn't want to play in a Big O campaign.

>>48489245
Post genuine art deco por favor.

>>48489138
You should anon!

>>48489245
Futurism and art deco are related movements anon.

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>>48485064
I'm working on a 30s-esque mecha wargame where Art Deco is one of the defining visual styles.

>>48489350
Not really.
Art Déco is basically a capitalist version of constructivism and only became big after WW2.

99% of what's in this thread is straight-up futurism that doesn't even attempt to have a decorative purpose.

Futurism certainly had an influence on 1920s decorative arts and furniture design but it wasn't called Art Déco yet.

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>>48485064
Thank you all for the ideas. Now more nuts and bolts stuff:

>What system?
>What kind of characters would the PCs be?
>Why/how would they form a party?

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>>48489453
I disagree.

Bauhaus is the capitalist version of Constructivism (with socialist pretentions), Art Deco was a decorative style popular in capitalist, socialist, and fascist countries as well as among other ideological communities (see >>48489495 ). While most Art Deco focused on architecture and design, there was unquestionably lots of Art Deco 2d art, such as in posters (like >>48487554 ) and in reliefs (pic related). These media included in Art Deco cover much of the art in this thread which you deem as being "not art deco".

Art Deco as a term, by the way, arose in from the 1925 International Exposition of Modern and Industrial arts in Paris, so much of the work in the style done in the 20s was in fact called Art Deco. Also, I don't understand why you say futurism and Art Deco were "not really" related. The geometric abstraction, the strong masculinity, the bold lines and bulging shapes and the explosive expression of movement characteristic of futurism can all be found in Art Deco, not to mention the obvious ideological link between the two, both celebrating modern industrial society. I will agree not all of the art in this thread is Art Deco, but that which is not, particularly the futurist art, is certainly related.

>>48489495
The players could be members of one of the utopian groups, using new modern technology (planes, cars, big crazy machine gun arm attachments) to sabotage or even destroy projects of their opponents while securing resources for their own. Someone mentioned the idea of proto-superheroes, so it could maybe use Mutants & Masterminds?

>>48485064
The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism by F. T. Marinetti

My favorite proto-fascist manifesto. It captures the energy of the early 20th century. Inspired by a car crash in the Italian countryside it references the feeling of boundless advancement at the time. Industry was beautiful, history was soon to be irrelevant. Nothing was to stop the rising generation blessed by speed. Then almost all the Italian Futurists Died in WW1.

some highlights

>And like young lions we ran after Death, its dark pelt blotched with pale crosses as it escaped down the vast violet living and throbbing sky.
>
>But we had no ideal Mistress raising her divine form to the clouds, nor any cruel Queen to whom to offer our bodies, twisted like Byzantine rings! There was nothing to make us wish for death, unless the wish to be free at last from the weight of our courage!

>We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

>We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

>>48489495
Depends on what you want to highlight in your game.

re-purposed Paranoia might be fun if you want to play dissidents trying to sabotage or assassinate.

There is a Noir called A Dirty World that would be good for gangsters.

ORE in general would be good because it works in favor of people who are faster, and if you are playing in an inter war the random backstory rules from Reign could be home brewed into a "What happened to you during the great war" table.

If you want weird science and mechs I might go for Silhouette by Dream Pod 9. I like their vehicle rules.

Or you could roll up your sleeves and start a fresh batch of home brew based on what you are looking for.

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>>48485315
>>48486375
>>48486930
>>48487434
>>48488297
>>48489741
Can we take a moment to appreciate accidentally creating the most intellectual thread on tg today?

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>anons posting atomic age stuff in a Deco thread

>>48489495
>What kind of characters would the PCs be?
>Why/how would they form a party?
That depends on what the game is gonna be about.

If it's pulpy superheroes, then the PCs are a bunch of talented, skilled and intelligent men and women who form a vigilante team to fight organized crime and supercriminals.

If it's about overthrowing the system, then the PCs are a bunch of revolutionaries who form a cell to either topple the government or aid in replacing the current one with something that fits their ideals better.

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>>48490729
And to add on to >>48489495, who's the BBEG? Probably some sort of bigwig, I'm sure, but what else?

Also, is there some sort of dictionary of 20's slang we can get our hands on?

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>>48490749
Post art deco pics then

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>>48490883

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>>48490729
Th-thanks anon... uguu...

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>>48491043

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>>48491080

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>>48491097

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So if this hypothetical game were to be made, would the technology and look be stuck more to dieselpunk (rocket packs, zeppelins, cool cars and gadgets), or will it branch out to the pulp of the time (e.g. ray guns, rockets)?

>>48491184
I'd say that things like ray guns should be exotic objects that start to show up late the course of a game/story in an Art Deco setting, possibly as a significant plot point.

>>48491184
I would keep it ww2 so atomic and jets are experimental, but at the same time it would be superior to anything we have now for the sake of it being cool. I'm not against the occasional raygun or rocket. How else am I going to run the cosmic horror adventure on Mars? War for the Red Planet.

>>48490851
>who's the BBEG?

An extremist of some sort. The 1900s-1940s had a lot of ideals, and a lot of idealists that didn't care about the consequences of their actions.

>>48485064
THE ONLY REAL WAY TO DO IS LIKE THIS
1-List ALL the characteristics that form the art genre called art deco
2-Use logic skills, rpg/writing skills and art theory skills to convert ALL those characteristics to setting characteristics.
3-Make a rpg setting with all those characteristics


THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO THIS, ALL OTHER WAYS ARE GUESSING.

The problem is that the guys that have those kind of ideas like me, dont have the skills needed to make them real, and the guys that have the skills dont care or dont think about those conceptual kind of stuff.

>>48485277
>>48485352
Also minus the batshit insanity. The absence of any logic what so ever is spot on tho.

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>>48490851
>who's the BBEG?
Baron von Ungern-Sternberg.

In this universe, he didn't lead a doomed military expedition into the Soviet Union, giving time for the rest of the White Russian faction to unite behind him, forming a vast and nightmarish proto-fascist theocracy in central Asia that is reaching its tendrils into the West.

>>48491944
>minus the batshit insanity

You've obviously haven't played in the same Shadowrun games I have.

>>48491997
>bad guy
>>>/out/

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>>48491997
And then by the 1960s his empire stretches across half the world

>>48485277
>So, Shadowrun: Atlas Shrugged edition?
Literally no difference between the two.

Wasn't the art deco era characters primarily through progress and futurism, not necessarily hyper-individualism?

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>>48491844
>An extremist of some sort. The 1900s-1940s had a lot of ideals, and a lot of idealists that didn't care about the consequences of their actions.

Also, mad scientists and their mad science

>>48491997
>you will never watch an aged Sternberg personally execute Mao Zedong on TV in the mid 50s
I want to live in this version of history.

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Meagre contribution from my home city

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>>48492708

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>>48492730
It used to be the best district to ever live in in the late 20s

>>48492730
So, the bad guys won in your country, right?

>>48492755
>>48492708
>>48492730
>French signage
>Soviet-style buildings and statue
Wut?

>>48492552
The development of science, the journey and discovery from it, and the rejection of those backwards sheep who claim 'no, it is wrong', is itself an ideal, in and of itself, plebian!

Now begone from my lab - for my atomic emissions towers need have nothing near them when they discharge, to ensure uniform distribution of their superior energies!

>>48492781
The whole district was campaigned and built by industrialist assisted by worker communes and a centrist mayor, for people from the countryside coming to town for new opportunities. Inspired by soviet and american architecture.

A whole new mess.

>>48492366
How is he not a bad guy? Motherfucker relied on a council of sorcerers in lieu of an intelligence agency, and allowed his army three days to pillage and rape after capturing the Mongolian capital city.

>>48487434
I do want to tack onto this a bit about leftist groups in the US. After 1929 leftist groups such as communists and socialists saw a significant bump in relevancy and power. They were a very relevant political and social force outside of more mainstream movements, or even co-opted by them. For example Upton Sinclair, an avowed socialist, ran for governor of California and received the endorsement of the Democratic Party. Although he lost the election to the Republican incumbent, he did win 44% of the popular vote.

As for the Communist Party of America (CPUSA), they were up to some interesting shit at this time. After the 1928 Comintern (read: Stalin) decided to forbid associated groups from compromising with unaligned socialist groups. In America this continued the time honored tradition of left sectarianism by breaking down amicable relations between the CPUSA and the American Socialist Party. This further reduced the political and social power of both groups. Anyways during the Great Depression the CPUSA started their attempts to mobilize all of the newly unemployed and disgruntled workers. Frequently they would hold farmer eviction protests. If the local Party heard about a farmer being evicted from his land they would rabble rouse up a sizable crowd, go get the family, move all the family's shit back into their home and then tell the sheriff to fuck.

In Chicago, what I know best about, they realized that the black community was ripe for radicalization. Blacks were very heavily affected by the depression, and a lot of them had just come from the South in the Great Northern Migration. Anyways the Communists helped to organize a lot of the radical black groups. Worker strikes were organized by the commies, as were more eviction protests, and the CPUSA did a lot for worker relief, feeding/housing/helping the impoverished. Although few blacks joined the CPUSA, very few actually, the two communities were very close.

>>48492837
see
>>48492867

>>48489495
I did an online game of The Big O using Wild Talent, in which the GM had baked in these very themes during character generation.

Utopianism, cynicism and the hopes of making a better kind of social system than the one which led to The Great War.

Watch Fritz Lang's Metropolis, at the very least. Modern Times and Things To Come, though they're a decade later, echo the similar themes (though there is more disillusionment in these two later features).

REIGN's system for companies would work REALLY well with ideological groups, plus it's combat is deadly and fast enough to avoid the hour-long grinds of combat. This is a system where the system requires relatively little calculation, so that there's swift resolution.Plus, it's a toolbox system, once you get a handle on the basic mechanics.

>>48490851
1920's slang is not too alien from our own. I just say "swear like that polite guy in one of grampa's movies" and you're set.

And BBEG's? Look up Dreamhounds of Paris and the Book of Ants. Make the surrealists using psychologically engineered memes to control the political and social undercurrents of The City (Like Dean Motter's Mister X).

Fantastic, but ultimately grounded in on or two weird parts. A blue 2 on the %-colors system of Wild Talents

http://home.earthlink.net/~dlarkins/slang-pg.htm

>>48493283
>earthlink
Geez does that take me back

>>48491043
I came a little

>>48489113
Babies have terrible morale and make terrible soldiers. That's why they join the air force.

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>>48495021

bump

>>48489163
>Tomasino the angry building

>>48485137
this is futurism not art deco

>>48485920
Interesting to see Gernsback in here. The earliest era of science fiction (the "Radium Age") is alternately called the Gernsback Years because he edited the first science fiction magazine in the 20s and 30s.

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>>48485064
OP here.

So far I think the idea I like best here is a sort of utopian cyberpunk similar to the latest Dresden Codak storyline.

>It's a time of great prosperity as the city of Apollo tries to forget the horrors of the great calamity. The machine has risen man up from his dark ages into a time of enlightenment and prosperity. But now that the calamity is behind us, what will the future hold?
>Will it belong to the aristocrats, the men and women who live in their penthouses?>Will it belong to the workers, who man the great machine?
>Will it belong to the fascists, who promise to make us strong again?
>Is the machine our salvation, or is it so much more?

>>48489390
Why do I see you all over the place, Rawb

>>48500247
So with this idea in mind, how do you convey that sense of optimism and hope for the future in RP, compared to the dystopian nihlism of traditional cyberpunk?

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>>48491043
Lovely.

And the girl's not bad either

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>>48491184

>>48500964
Expanding society and economy, new sciences opening up new frontiers with colonies where Humans are uplifting "lesser" races.

Meanwhile a dark/degenerate Empire that's vast but inefficient and distant lurks in the background to be an external enemy for the players to investigate.

Alternatively, The Great Game time period IN SPAAAAAACE.

Or post-post-Apocalypse, where things have been rebuilt and the center of civilization is spreading out once more. Boys adventures of daring-do in darkest Midwest America where the rolling plains are dangerous during the day due to vast herds of aggressive mutaloe's, but recent advances have made their organs incredibly valuable for the booming bio-industrial society that uses solar power and organic chemical batteries to power vat bred bio-machines.

Essentially, Colonialism is the best of all possible times (for the colonizers) and all you have to do is have inferior, sub or non human subjects and enemies to either uplift or destroy for being badwrong and in the way of progress.

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>>48501474
If we're going full cosmic pulp, there's already Rocket Age, and space colonialism is done by Space 1889.

We need something that does things more cyberpunk-like, focusing on street-level actions and putting the spotlight on individuals or teams instead of on the vastness of space.

Like, the future is bright not because the Empire is bright, or because the nation is bright, but because of bright people making it brighter.

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>>48486375
>a huge industrial city, like a fantastic New York, full of different factions clamoring for the rise of the Utopia they like best, while opportunistic gangsters play all sides and represent a form of government that has been all but forgotten; familial, territorial landed aristocrats who rule through force but also through love.

Campaign when.

>>48503561
This exactly. This isn't about empires falling and grand armadas, this is about people struggling against the restraints of class, against a corrupt political class, for a brighter future dreamed of by men and made possible by industry.

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Bump

Now, what do we call this setting, and what are some things we have to flesh out for next time?

>>48506326
First we need to nail down exact themes and setting.

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>>48506362
>themes
Individuals, both small and extraordinary, attempting to bring about their ideals and make the world a better place using the powers of science and industry.

The setting would be primarily urban, either in cities or one mega-metropolis, and the surrounding areas. This way, all the glamour, excess and vices of the 1920s can be brought to the forefront. And this way, players can foment revolution among the working underclass, try to reform the city through democracy, attempt to take over and install fascism, etc.

There can hints about the wider world, about the Soviet Union or the rise of radical groups in Germany, or about moon colonies or so, but the focus should still be on the city.

>>48506482
Okay, so we're sticking to pre-Raygun Gothic, pre-Atomic stuff.

I think it'd be better to have three different "power levels," working class, middle class, and upper class, that you players come from and operate in that determine their ability to affect things.

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>>48506326
"What Men May Dare to Dream"

The setting is in a massive metropolis, a technological wonder. Mechanical engineering has uplifted humanity into a golden age following the horrors of the Great Calamity. It's an age of unprecedented prosperity, where the streets seem to be paved with gold. In truth it's mostly a show, an unsustainable explosion of wealth fueled by the hard work of the lower classes. Powerful industrialists clash with passionate communists, libertine authors strike back against avowed fascists. The city is noise and bustle and excitement, walled off from the devastation outside.

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>>48506672
>libertine authors strike back against avowed fascists
Not always a distinct division

>>48506672
"What Men Dare to Dream" flows better.

>>48506767
A game about a group of writers using manipulation and subversion to strike against opposing political groups with violence as either a last resort or coup de grace could be pretty sweet.

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>>48503666
I don't know satan, but I know that I want it - fighting to bring about your chosen utopia, being or battling extremists, making alliances and enemies, acquiring the latest guns or cars for style and advantage, or even just working as a mercenary, detective or criminal in a deco/dieselpunk world

>>48506672
>>48506767
>>48506799
Admist all this there are also other groups, beyond the normal politics.

The reactionaries, mainly drawn from the exploited lower classes, seek to reverse the progress of man and return to a more equitable and simple time. Their ranks include everyone from anarchists to royalists to more moderate men, but all of them agree that technology harms man.

The futurists, on the other hand, see the suffering of the lower classes as well as the great prosperity brought about my technology. They seek to rapidly advance man's knowledge such that none may have to dirty their hands with hurting work. Their ranks are also comprised of many viewpoints, all united in their desire for progress. Whether or not the plebes will get to enjoy in their new-world, however, is a matter of debate.

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>>48506999
Why hello there upside down Megatherion.

One of the big NPCs needs to be based on Evola.

>>48507059
Why the fuck did I select ant size? I have disgraced /tg/.

>>48506999
I should also go on to say that having overlap between lots of cliques, gangs, parties, groups, and organizations would allow for some really interesting inter-group cooperation, as well as intra-group strife.

Take for instance the technocrat fascist; does he support fascism because it will bring about greater technology, or does he support technology because it will bring about fascism?

What of the communist reactionary? Does he support communism because only through primitive technology can man be truly equal to his fellows, or does he support reaction because it will force man to rely on his peers rather than becoming greater than them through artifice?

How do the anarchists and fascists view each other within the presentists, those who are perfectly happy with the technology today and wish to maintain the status quo?

How do the liberals in both the reaction camp and the futurist camp view each other?

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>>48507059
Young Evola (that is, before he got blown up in WWII) was one spooky motherfucker.

I'd like to think Evola would have found his way to alternate-universe Sternberg's court in Mongolia >>48491997 and become his royal adviser.

>>48506799
> A game about a group of writers using manipulation and subversion to strike against opposing political groups with violence as either a last resort or coup de grace could be pretty sweet.

A radicalized Algonquin Round Table?

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>>48506799
>A game about a group of writers using manipulation and subversion to strike against opposing political groups with violence as either a last resort or coup de grace could be pretty sweet.
So it's like 1920s Transmetropolitan/Jazzmetropolitan?

>>48507635
Marc Connelly gonna stab a bitch.

>>48507692
That'd be a great idea.

>>48506799
A jazz musician, an industrialist's daughter, a grizzled veteran turned private eye, and an engineer from the lower levels all receive a mysterious red letter.

>The Machine is failing. You must make it right. Brunch at 11 at the top of the Grayson Tower.

>>48509251
In the end everyone's betrayed everyone else and they're all wondering if it was a setup from the beginning.

>>48491997
Never learned about this guy in history class, someone care to give me the tl;dr?

>>48512127
http://badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=39684745806

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>>48491997
>>48492451

> An already great thread on Art Deco is now referencing Ungern-Sternberg and Iron Storm.

>>48512143
Holy Fuck, this man.

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Easy. I just run an X-COM Apocalypse game.

This thread makes me happy. Art history doesn't get enough credit as a genuinely interesting subject.

I personally like art nouveau better. I don't know why I came to this thread if that is the case. do I just want to be a contrarian dink? I dunno. however, If I look at it from the point of veiw of someone who likes art deco, I'd say you guys did a great job with this thread. keep it up!

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>>48513428
Honestly, I wish all my character concept art could be in this style. I know art nouveau is more than just this character splash style, but for this usage I can't think of anything better.

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>>48513428
Sounds like someone hasn't embrased the fookin' future! That, or there's an unnatural amount of tradition lovin' 'ere!

As fer why we use sharp angles, IT'S TO CUT DOWN YER' GODDAMNED PANSY CONVENTIONAL ARCHITEXURE YA' HARK-BAKING RELIC! Just cause it pisses yee off~

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>>48513532
>not reconciling the two styles to create the ultimate early 20th century architecture

>>48485134
>>48485137
>>48485175
>>48485277
>>48485315
>>48485352

>all of these replies

SO, BIOSHOCK?

>>48514927
Maybe pre-rebellion Rapture, but not post.

>>48514927
>>48516165
The issue here is that in Bioshock art deco was used ironically; it made a contrast between the glory and opulence of Rapture's ideals and the grim reality that arose.

If I was doing this Jazz Age/Art Deco thing I'd prefer to use the imagery unironically, to show a society undergoing rapid change and a hope for a better future.

>>48517738
With the whole theme of clashing ideals and classism going on, I think we can still use Art Deco ironically, show how all this opulence and wealth is fueled by corruption and exploitation of the underclass, minorities and other marginalized groups. Of course, the key difference between this and Bioshock/cyberpunk works is that the future COULD get bright and COULD change, rather than just stay as a downward spiral of never-ending hypercapitalism

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>>48513532
I'd throw in some Brutalism for dwarves as well.

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>>48518006
Holy shit why are soviet dwarves not a thing?

>>48485937
>Guys, guys
>Hear me out
>Guys
>We-
>Guys
>We put swords
>Guys
>We put SWORDS
>On our ARMS

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>>48519500
They ain't even swords man, they're curved baskets called cestas, and you're supposed to use them to throw a 'super-grenade' at enemy aircraft.

And the rest of the article mentions injecting people with a super-serum that can turn the dumbest yokels into Captain America.

So apparently, our real life Captain Marvels will be a bunch of jai alai-playing, Nazi-killing hillbillies.

>>48491870
List ALL the characteristics of art deco and I may attempt this

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>>48485064

Something a little like this.

>Now, the world is unified and at peace under the benevolent rule of the Great Powers, the League of Nations and the World Science Council. Planning and technology are being used to deal with the natural economic dislocations of the postwar era.
>Nothing can go wrong.

>>48491870

ok, I know this is /tg/, but this is a little bit too autistic

>>48512343
They missed some key points, like how he swore to his executioners that he would return.

Also, that he had married a mysterious Manchu princess a few months before his attack on the USSR, with whom he communicated solely in English so that none of the others in the Mongolian royal court would know what they were plotting. She then managed to escape the Soviets and Nationalist Chinese who moved in after the Baron's death and completely disappeared from the historical record. Which means that she may well have produced an heir to his throne in exile and that his lineage may continue in secret to this day.

I'm gonna be running a Traveller game soon in a homebrew verse, and this thread has inspired me to go for a Roaring twenties theme for my Core worlds.
The Core is currently reaping the benefits of the frontier worlds, with frontier investments and debt being traded around like crazy.
The current Art Deco architecture and art is partially inspired by the very organic Art Nouveau sensibilities of the Fallen Terran Empire, with more of a practical, colonial bent.

I'm gonna use Jazz music for background in the core just cause it's cool though

>>48523969
"The Core" in this setting being a few colonies who were developed enough to maintain their civilisation during the fall of the Empire, and by the time of the game have formed a Confederation spanning about 40-50 stars

>>48485315

It doesn't have to be about grand acts just because the art is grand. The great thing about having that in the background is it's great fucking juxtaposition when society is falling to shit and everyone's a jerk. The beautiful mural about the The Great Hopes of Men is just as powerful when it's rotting and half peeled away.

Bioshock understood that.

Pity Bioshock was a total fart when it came to being an actual game but the setting was lovely

>>48486253


That's really cool, but that's not Art Deco. You're about 40-50 years late, there.

>>48486253
>>48525903
Yeah this some 60's shit

>>48489163
In case anyone was wondering? This is a picture of Mussolini's headquarters. More futurism (an explicitly fascist art movement) then art deco.

>>48505059
>>48506482
>>48507135

Great ideas. The themes resist calling this setting Decopunk but is there a more obvious nomme du setting?

>>48528512
Jazzpunk?
Gatsbypunk?

>>48528512
You know, I just realized that we can tack on 'punk' to the end of the label, and it would actually be sorta accurate

>>48528512
For the actual setting?

Quick Progress has a nice ring to it.

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The control room of a power plant. Budapest, 1930's.

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It's still around. It didn't change much.

>>48519432
I have always wondered about this too. To me Dwarves really seem to be often have odd similarities to communism. Their society is industrial and very collectivist. They also value work and science over religion.

However, I can see the reason why soviet dwarves aren't a thing because despite their similarities to communism they're also often greedy and love gold.

>>48523258
>lineage may continue in secret to this day
Ever notice how Putin has kind of a weird vaguely asiatic eye shape, despite neither of his supposed parents looking that way?

He's totally the Mad Baron's grandson.

>>48485998
this one is basically big dog isn't it?

>>48529728
Doesn't quite capture that self-referentially grandiose quality of early 20th century stuff.

I'd suggest "Excelsior."

>>48534589
"Glorious Men"?
"Golden Pulse"?

>>48520000
The quads of truth have struck! May it be done in the name of PROGRESS!

>>48534856
This building is beautiful.
>with the stoa on top

>>48520000
>>48535500

Go forth and build ye captain of industry.
Icarus may have fell, but by Jove he reached further and higher than anyone else

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

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>>48535722
I know, right? Why not put a giant aluminum ziggurat topped by a sphinx on the roof of a courthouse modeled after the Mausoleum of Mausolus?

St. Louis is full of these vaguely sinister 1920s buildings.

>>48536345
Thank god for the Freemason/Illuminati.

Speaking of which, this was the era when secret societies were really at their height. I mean, in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan and the Masons both outnumbered the US military more than 10 to 1. In some parts of the country, more than a fifth of the population were members of one or both organizations.

>>48493062
I didn't know that! That's fascinating! The history of communism is so interesting to me, particularly the history of communist propaganda and how it expresses communist values.

>>48531664
>>48531680
>>48531732
Beautiful.

>>48536541
I love secret societies myself. I've been planning on building a campaign based on the shadow war between various different sorcerous secret societies & cults in a 20s era not!Amsterdam, all advancing their ideologies/faiths/gods/etc and undermining their rivals.

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>>48531993
So make then tsarists russia.

>>48537652
But if Russia is Tsarist instead of Communist, who's going to fill the role of the Red Scare?

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>>48537768
Trees.

And dragons are the Jews.

>>48519680

>Are we the baddies?

>>48540306
>white stone, steel, and glass
Truly, the most patrician and civilized of building materials.

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>>48541963
Warmer tones can be pretty good too.

>>48542019
>tan stone, bronze, and glass
Also patrician tier.

>you will never live in a proper neo-deco city, angels and statues and great tower-spanning works of geometric art on every corner
Master planned metropolis when.

>>48542151
Nope just a lot of modern "art" made by self-important dickheads who don't understand notions of classical beauty and the work is more important than the message

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>>48544988
dubs of sad truth

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*BWOOOOMMMMM*
*BWOMM-BWOMM*

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Some art deco-ish trains, because reasons.

Bump

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Expansive City-scapes are a must

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I think my favorite aspect of this setting is the potential for rampant mad science

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>>48552012
Oops, that's another city scape, not mad science

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Men (and women) of science

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>>48520950
>ok, I know this is /tg/, but this is a little bit too autistic
Not autistic, but the only real way of doing this kind of stuff.

Also /mu/ doing the exact same thing once.
But instead of rpg setting they did a musical genre
And instead of art deco they did colorfield painting

the songs.
https://wavelength2.bandcamp.com/
Genre rules, how it is:
1-Song is mono.
2-Song start/continue with a tone or silence.
3-They have at least 1 second, tone must have same volume, frequency and waveform.
4-End song or go back to 2

PS:Picture and albums covers are example of colorfield painting.

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>>48552043
Hmm, maybe I don't know the difference between deco-punk, futurism and dieselpunk, but based on this thread the three definitely share themes. Obviously art-deco is heavily centered around the architecture style and the culture that surrounded its emergence. So Gatsby-esque extravagance built above poverty. But I keep wanting to classify it as an offshoot of dieselpunk

>>48500247
>Aaron Diaz trash

Don't shit up the thread with this. It's a really good thread.

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Classes:

Pulp Hero:
Gumshoes, Doc Samsons, Flash Gordons etc. Gun-totting adventures with luck and excellent aim. Late level they get ray guns or metal rods that shoot electricity. Or maybe just tricked-out pistols

Silver Aged Superheroes: They can leap tall buildings and lift buses. Later levels can see all sorts of powers manifest

Mad Scientists:
They're weak as hell, but they're accompanied by robots and other feats of science that do their bidding. Maybe they can fix the party's ride or upgrade gear.

????:
Not sure what to do for a fourth class. Cthulhu cultist? What niche hasn't been filled yet by the other three?

>>48553567
Wealthy socialites/flappers who have social skills out the wazoo, with maybe some stealth? I'm thinking the Femme Fatale. You could bake the cultist angle into the main class or leave it as an archetype?

>>48553567
>inb4 'using classes' [SMUG ANIME GIRL.JPG]

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>>48553645
>femme fatal
Yes please.

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>>48553567
>Silver Aged Superheroes
Uh, I think we should keep it to the Golden Age. Nobody goes into the Silver Age and comes out sane.

>>48553567
>>48553645
Femme fatal could be a class of its own? Is there enough there to support a class? They are distinctly different from pulp heroes

>>48554162
Good point. I get them confused, but silver age is definitely the bat shit crazy period. Golden Aged super heroes are much more balanced

>>48553567
If we're going for pulp heroes and mad scientists, Danger Patrol would be a great system, though it's a bit over the top.

>>48552060
Is that Teddy Roosevelt on the left?

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>>48554317
Would Teddy Roosevelt count as a proto-Golden Age hero?

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>>48554127
>that feel when no mysterious eastern beauty to lure me into giving up national secrets to Imperial Japan

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>>48554476
Like this? Yes not the time period but close enough

>>48554429
That's more pulp hero, maybe the gentleman adventurer? Though that strays into the dreaded steampunk.

So we've got four classes including femme fatal, with room for discussion and tweaking. The setting seems to be Art Deco mega metropolis, complete with secret societies, laboratories, socialite clubs and less savory streets locations. Big Bads range from Mad Barons to, what, alien horrors? Mad scientist? Pulp and super heroes who've gone crazy? Or maybe full on dictator. Or a possibly vague foreign menace like the evil Manchu sorcerer or the Soviet/Nazi spy cell

>>48554892
>big bads
At least at lower levels, a ruthless Mafia boss could be a good antagonist.

>>48554892
Honestly, it depends how far down the Rand-bit hole we want to go. Are the Unions the dickheads or are the strikebreakers the bad guys, that sorta thing?
Is there enough room to have good and bad people on both sides of the spectrum, or do we want things more clear cut?

The reason I bring up Rand is that despite her being quite batty, I believe a much toned down version of her individualism would suit the theme of this setting. Think less Atlas Shrugged and more Fountainhead

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>>48554918
Completely forgot about gangs and mafias. That's a staple of any mega metropolis adventure.

>>48555011
The worst parts about Rand's books were the rambling 50-page philosophical essays that were somehow supposed to be in-character dialog.

If you just take the general proposition of a corrupt socialist bureaucracy vs. brilliant industrialists in a dieselpunk setting, it's pretty cool.

>>48555011
I like the idea of gray areas. Less black and white. Good people in the unions, but maybe some of the union leaders are leeches or far worse. Same goes for the strike breakers. Good and bad policemen. Though some part of me takes the side of the working class over the industry giants. But that's just a symptom of the punk setting.
But I had to wiki fountainhead to understand your point. I may need you to elaborate. I'd agree individualism suits the Deco theme, the lone hero or lone party striking against the status quo. Or maybe I just failed to understand your point completely.

>>48555103
Although considering this setting's about the rise of idealists, the actual working class socialists hoping to ease the burdens of their brothers would actually have legitimate points and grievances

>>48551942
As gorgeous as that is, it must be next to impossible to ride.

>>48555152
I just mentioned the Fountainhead cause it's way less extreme than Atlas Shrugged and actually has some sympathetic characters who don't live by Rand's worldview.

>>48555152
Aye, I feel like maybe the theme should be "Collectives are nearly always corrupt" so you get in corrupt governments, mafioso unions and the like. And yeah, people who aren't in leadership positions should be portrayed in a more neutral or positive light

>>48555189
Aye, maybe have an equal mix of wide-eyed socialists, brilliant captains of industry, sleazy union leaders, and greedy robber-barons
Maybe political belief could be leveraged as a loose alignment system of sorts. Not for mechanical effects, but just to make sure every PC has some sort of stake in the ideological conflict

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>>48554715
Probably a bit racy, but the quipao is entirely period appropriate.

>>48555341
>Collectives are nearly always corrupt
That opens up the issue of a "Great Man" sense of the world, where somehow people working together seem to be incapable of running anything, and that it's loners who can somehow achieve what hundreds to thousands of people can't do.

If anything, I'd make corruption a constant possibility, but also portray that society still functions competently regardless of it, and that there are systems to oust the corrupt from power.

>>48555440
>That opens up the issue of a "Great Man" sense of the world, where somehow people working together seem to be incapable of running anything, and that it's loners who can somehow achieve what hundreds to thousands of people can't do.

Isn't that one of the themes we're going for?
In this universe, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe that said mechanism to stop corruption is Great Men

>>48555405
Political beliefs as loose alignment? Love it!
Communist, for the good of the people
Fascist, also for the good of the people, but, a little more evil, for lack of a better term
Anarchists, you can guess their deal
Some sort of Cynical political belief, just a world-weary man who's seen too much and knows how these types of things shakes out

This is just scratching the surface, but with a little bit of refinement this could be a real interesting way to do things

>>48555405
>loose alignment system
I'd go with what anon made here >>48506999 and >>48507135 while listing the major ideologies (fascism, socialism, technocracy) and assigning major factions to represent them.
Give the players contacts and possible allies to start with, people who also follow the PC's goals, and emphasize the whole triumph of ideology in society rather than the pure triumph of the individual over other individuals

Good thread

>>48555601
Not kick anything off, I'd say Fascism is for the good of *your* people, but that's arguable

>>48555405
>>48555601
>>48555658
Would it be better to have lots of discrete political 'classes' or would you want more of a multi-axis alignment thing?
Because I feel like we'd probably need a lot of classes to properly cover this sort of setting.

>>48555846
We're either gonna need to figure out how to make vigilantes, Golden Age superheroes, socialites and common folk work together somehow, or we're gonna run into Cthulhutech's problem of trying to allow play multiple genres at once and utterly failing at that.

Maybe more of Shadowrun's thing where there's no hidebound classes, just skills and magic/bioware/cybernetics.

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>>48554162
WHAT WAS HIS NEW POWER? I GOT TO KNOW!

>>48555846
I was thinking the same thing to be honest familia

I was cribbing the idea of politics as loose alignment from England Upturn'd, an English Civil War setting for LotFP.
In it, the OSR DnD alignment grid is replaced by a Royalist-Republican, Cavalier-Roundhead axis.
Royalist-Republican defines whether you're a top-down or a bottom-up goverance sort of person, while Cavalier-Roundhead is a measure of "seriousness". Someone who's Cavalier is a hearty fellow who lives life to the full, but they can be a bit flighty, whereas a Roundhead is sober and unwavering.
It's entirely possible to be a Cavalier Republican (someone who believes in the romance of a revolution) or a Roundhead Royalist (a sober and unwavering supported of the King)

Your alignment defines which religions you can be a part of, so a Catholic can't be Republican, while a Puritan must be a Roundhead.

Maybe we could use a similar system of an axis of personal political leanings which defines which discreet political beliefs you can subscribe to?

>>48556043
So our one would be Individualist-Collectivist and Traditionalist-Futurist?

I'd rather avoid using conservative and liberal because what those words represented back then are different from what they do today
Also because they're extremely politically charged whereas we're supposed to cover a wide range of ideologies

>>48556122
That's a good idea anon

Now we need a list of political classes or beliefs, which we then need to map onto this axis

To get the ball rolling, I'd say:
Socialism (Collectivist)
Communism (Collectivist-Futurist)
(Socialism being workers rights, communism being vanguard parties and all that)

>>48556122
>>48556287
We'd need a third axis to distinguish between communists and fascists who would both be collectivist-futurist. Maybe egalitarian-hierarchical?

>>48556459
Are there any other political systems that'd need that distinction? Cause if not then I don't think it'd be necessary for a 3rd axis.
Personally I'd say that Fascism should be open to any collectivist, so you get both the "make Germany great again" types as well, whereas Communism is exclusively Futurist in it's eschewing of previous cultural standards

>>48556032
Projecting a miniature version of himself with all of his powers.
He later got jealous of all the attention it was getting, so he tried to kill it.
Then, it sacrificed himself to save Superman

I'm not joking, look it up

>>48556717
Don't worry I believe you. Sounds about the right amount of super dickery.

>>48556602

As communism ages, the difference becomes hard to tell.

The futurism of the past eventually becomes Ze-rust.

>>48556886
Aye, but at the time they were looking forward to the replacement of capitalism with the next stage of human economy, as capitalism had replaced feudalism. I think at least, this is coming from my friend who studied the Russian Revolution

>>48555421
Well it is not a qipao is an Ao dai (Vietnamese, but this one is lacking the pants)

>>48559080
I have an urban explorer friend who snuck down these once. gave me a piece of tile.

>>48492867
Was that Le Corbusier? Was he an alien?

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Good rule of thumb: copy major issues of the era the art was made in, and apply it to the story.

Art deco: 1920s-1950s. Society becomes fully industrialized, and war becomes global. Concepts like communism, socialism, capitalism and ethnonationalism are all debated as workers sieze the means of production (either with their dollars, votes or guns).

More importantly, remember how the later industrial age (ie when art deco was big) began: with oil powered tractors allowing for a larger surplus of labor. It ended with the creation of nuclear power and nuclear weaponry.

Example: Belfast 1940. The UK is engaged in a total crackdown as the Battle of Britain wages over London. Taigs want freedom and accept German assistance. The player's main quest would be to destroy the local army headquarters, and sabotage the local power plant in order to allow a German beachlanding. Alternatively, the player could be in an occupied London and have to kick the Germans out.

Works the same with the US but with communism. In 1935 workers in Stockton stage a revolution, and march east towards the state capitol (Sacramento), then west towards San Francisco. The player, an SF resident, is tasked with assassinating the mayor.

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>>48561580

Alternatively: farmers want to destroy degeneracy (ie racemixing) created by capitalism and move to destroy it.

Yes it's a /pol/ fantasy but remember that the NASDP heyday was in the 30s, when art deco was big.

>>48561580
>Belfast
B...but that's unrealistic! Even the fenians weren't that stupid, right?

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>>48561580
>>48561675

the 1930s was also the peak of railroads, as the Autobahn and Interstates hadn't been finished yet. Germany itself gave us pic related

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn

Which can factor into games in any number of ways. For example, a typical cowboy story involving a railroad buying up everything and kicking everyone out of their homes. Or a railroad going on strike and a city shutting down.

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>>48561719

not if they're given guns and ammo, and promised that all the loyalists will be totally removed forever once London falls

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>>48555846

You only need three:

- capitalism
- communism
- ethnonationalism

with no crossbreeding

watch metropolis. Players are either secret police working for the higher ups trying to track the son of the leader, workers sabotaging the machinery to start the revolution, or they are members of the upper crust trying to survive in the aftermath.

>>48562098
What about technocracy?

>>48562167

That can any of them, depending on how you view money.

>>48562217

or, more specifically:

- Capitalism: money is a modern technology and it's flow should be unrestricted
- Communism: money is an obsolete technology that only it's owners want to keep around
- Ethnonationalism: money is a technology, and it's flow should be restricted to advance the people's technological and social development

>>48552927
this picture, HNNGG

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>>48563014

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>>48563024

Here's another big bit, is there just going to be one BIG city, or are we going to have a bunch of metropoli connected together by great sky-train-lines.
How will the cities be developed? Will some be organic, with geometric beauty paradoxically spewing forth from itself in chaos?
Will one city be the equivalent of a gigantic statue, the magnum opus of a great architect, every building, street, and lamp set out perfectly so to appeal to all aesthetics?

>>48491997
>white army
>bad guys

>>48563355
Well according to tumblr anyway

>>48563355
>Workers and Peasants Red Army
>bad guys
>implying

>>48513428
>I personally like art nouveau better.

My dream is 30-40's art deco art and architecture, but with Mucha art nouveau interiors and highlights.

I'm thinking an art deco building, with it's strong exterior, and reliefs/art at the base, with the interior in a neo-classical, floral art nouveau and stained glass windows in Mucha's style.

Honestly, though, the reason I preface it all with Mucha is because the vast majority of Art Nouveau is complete shit, especially the classic art/paintings. Art Nouveau is a very wide concept, in that regard.

Check out Gustav Klimt, for example. So fucking terrible compared to the naturalist majesty of Mucha.

>>48562098
>ethnonationalism

By which you mean nationalism, as in nationalism.

>>48563986
I always wanted to see a proper fusion between art deco and art nouveau.

Imagine beautiful ferns and flowers growing out of geometric and hard pots of stone and metal.

Now apply that to a building; a "super-facade" of art-deco geometry and statues, with floral art-nouveau bursting out from the seams like nature reclaiming a structure, but at the same time remaining harmonious with it.

Anyone have any buildings like that, that they can link to?

>>48564064
There are other forms of nationalism. Civic Nationalism, for example.