Microscope would make an interesting way of exploring the history of Northern and Eastern Europe and its generational traumas and conflicts.

Twilight 2000 for modern day Texas/America. Things are getting worse every day, every fight uses up scarce resources, you're in a slow death spiral from the first minute of the campaign.

I would love a heist (?) game about time travelers stopping...is the Manhattan Project itself too ambitious? the creation of *a* nuclear weapon at least. I don't know if Blades in the Dark is right for this but it's the system I think of.

idk about everyone else but I as a Japanese kid spent a lot of time learning about the visceral horrors of nuclear weapons. you know

for a light-hearted answer, idk if I could do it, but *somebody* should hack Stewpot for a story about teriyaki in 90s Seattle. does it count as a story about my home if I didn't live there at the time?

I fucking love all of this. All of it is a yes from me. The heist to stop the Manhattan Project is BRUTAL. I, too, think about these things often. And yes, Stewpot in Seattle would be rockin. I wish I had a better connection to the Seattle JA community.

Well there's Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall for modern Chinese/Taiwanese diaspora stories. There's Wandering Blades for wuxia storytelling. There's Pathfinder with updated Tian Xia which has Chu Ye, explicitly inspired by Taiwan under Japanese colonization. Also Godkiller.

A time will come when my Brindlewood Bay idea pans out. I think it offers the opportunity to show familial bonds through the lens of the elders in our life. By drawing away from the eldritch horror, in some what of a hack the aim is to implement family and friends as a part of play instead.

Although, I think the home we remember is going to be an interesting game to try this with as well.

Not to advertise but I literally made a game setting that's based on my diasporic experience, I guess I could've made something India specific but the bridging between my Indian family and American experience was the setting that felt most like me. It's called Tamasha! Btw @tamasha-rpg.bsky.social

World of Darkness (2004) is my go to ttrpg. Between growing up in the foothills Appalachia and hearing stories passed down from my Irish/Scottish ancestors, it only feels right to use a system that addresses the shadows that walk hand in hand with us.

Stewpot but it’s a bunch of italian-americans who just came over from San Giovanni and are trying to start a pizza restaurant

… this is literally my family. 🤌🤌

My family’s business was the dairy stand but SAME

I actually prefer Kids on Bikes. Specifically because I grew up in the 80s/90s and was an incredibly imaginative young person who had occasional had run ins with the Unexplained. Latino life is Magical Realism and KoB captures that vibe well.

This right here is my answer

This is what I was thinking too. Grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountaind in the 80s/90s and that system could 100% work for that small rural town feel with just the right touch of weirdness.

Am I allowed to say ‘a new system’ bc all I want is a ‘first errand’ style mechanic that happens as a session 0.5

wait hold on I love this

Maybe Western Hero to tell the story of how my ancestors walked from Kentucky to Texas during the westward expansion phase. Lots of thorny moral issues to deal with.

Something Minnesotan. Genisys or.. probably Over The Edge. Maybe Pandemonium?

I'll start (because I just did it and it really meant a lot to me): Thousand Year Old Vampire was a really amazing way to explore the relationship between my Japanese ancestry and my European ancestry from the POV of my Japanese history.

The jumps in time could be edited to be generations vs 100s or 1000s of years. This would allow you to play as your own lineage or the lineage of a family adjacent in story to your own.

-about each culture perhaps learning something you didn’t know or weren’t taught by your parents/grandparents.

I would maybe suggest “The Ground Itself?” Instead of using it as a world building tool though focus on the countries and regions your various ancestors came from and maybe play the game with people of the same sort of heritage. When asked the questions you can input the knowledge you each have -

Probably Unincorporated to specifically capture growing up in what is legally classified as a "Census-designated place" I'd strongly consider Shirtless On A Rooftop too cuz I, for similar reasons, experienced Scott Pilgrim levels of casual street violence. ethanharvey.itch.io/unincorporated

I've also really wanted to run a game of Ten Candles that is my version of Stand By Me which is partly related to how much my childhood is sorta clouded by trauma where I didn't get to actually express who I was, experiencing terrible events many others seem to find upsetting upon my reporting 😅

Emergent RPG feels like a great way to highlight the stories of cryptids and hauntings I grew up hearing and believing in the PNW. Helps that I can tie it to a small town high school setting.🤔 I think this question helped me figure out my next campaign😁

Alternatively: Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

I'm writing that game right now, based in part on the Irish diaspora and the genocide forced on them by the British. It's a storygame called The Years of Bone and Soul. The group collectively plays an ogre, telling the story of both the ogre and his culture as "Civilization" seeks to consume them.

semi-serious answer; Brit School Hijinks It does an excellent job of capturing the tone of the '90s British upper school shows I grew up with

Serious answer; Fate The Stunts and Aspects feel like the perfect mechanical fit for the heroic sagas of the Atlantic Archipelago, whether I'm leaning Scottish, Welsh, or Irish

Obojim- *shot*

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry lmaaaaaao

It's most likely gonna be @playgubatbanwa.bsky.social .

It's difficult to know what I could call my heritage in a culturally-specific way, because for various reaosns I'm quite isolated from most things I might call that. I did make a game based on where I grew up and a specific folk legend/urban legend from there, using my Goldilocks system

I most strongly connect with Yorkshire folk, through my Dad's strong sense of his culture and roots there. If I were to choose a system for Yorkshireness, it would probably be a dice pool system (not sure which), or I might go for @thoughtpunks.com Motif system with its oracle-style rolls.

Please don't throw shoes or blocks at me but like now I just want a game where I play Yorkshire locusts descending over London to Eat All, Drink All, Pay Nothing.

"And if tha ever does owt for nowt, all'us do it fer thissen!" 🤣 (And if you ever do anything for nothing, always do it for yourself) IME Yorkshire folk aren't quite that mercenary, but there's definitely a directness of manner and a slightly insular tendency. And, "Some folk just won't be told!"

I could probably use Wanderhome but I'm sure there are better systems to talk about struggling to put down roots, scattered family, and finding home in the people you meet and the places you go.

MMM by @honeyanddice.bsky.social

(IT is allmoooost heere)

Bit late to this but: Coming from a former industrial area that a lot of people from all over Europe moved to for work, and were united by labor before things fell apart, I think for the past it could be The Price of Coal adapted to the Ruhr area in Germany.

For the "it fell apart and continues to fell apart" bit that's been going on for the past 40 years, I'm not sure. It would have to be some kind of urban horror. Not V:tM, because vampires are too powerful and glamorous. But something similar maybe.

For something more light-hearted, but with moments of seriousness, I feel like Pasión de las Pasiones is a great one. But for something culture heavy, I’m not sure. And that’s on me for not knowing of more systems, but I’d love to check them out if they’re out there.

I've actually recently started stewing on a game of The Between set in pre-overthrow Kingdom of Hawai'i 👀

I think Dread is actually a great system to simulate the tension of small-town, culturally-assimilated, White suburban America: Constant scrutiny of your words & actions, threats hide in plain sight, the more you stand out the more you invite disaster, & one small mistake can result in social death.

"No, there is no option for English or French or Irish. Just bubble in Caucasian." "Oh, you're mom's family was from Germany? How many of them were Nazis?" "You obviously aren't an Indian; don't lie. Besides, couldn't you come up with something better than Cherokee? Osage is a kind of orange tree. "

nearest I can think of is the setting I wrote for Brinkwood but I have not found anything that fits perfect yet so I am making a game lol but the WIP does not even have a name yet

honestly fair and valid. its part of why I wanted to ask this, actually, because when we talk about inclusive gaming, there's a huge lack of places where people can put culturally-specific games that aren't hacks or fully butcheries of existing games.

I think the hardest part sometimes is when games want to remove all aspects of some “isms” but want to be set in like Our World but then wants to have like hip-hop and I’m like “ok but we probably don’t have this as we know it bc we never had the Blues”

Which there’s a greater talk there about separating joy from the horrors of history but also it doesn’t mean I don’t wanna sometimes take pride in how the joy was created from the pain. Like idk that’s a very small thought anyway

Not that I wanna make a game all about the horrors but a game all about what do we do with hurt and how do we stop the cycle

FULLY this. hip hop w/o the blues is wild. hell most modern music without the blues - wait then we'd have to... You know. This is part of my curiosity in this thread. What geels fruitful vs what feels like it's just the horrors returned

Exactly like Sinners to me is this question fulfilled in film format. It rattled my bones and my soul. I felt emotions that go back in my blood so far I can’t name the ancestors it’s from sadly. That line “this is ours, we brought this from home. Not like that religion they forced on us”

The easy joke answer is Old Gods of Appalachia (Cypher System) The truer answer is that I've been searching for just such a system for a Rust Belt Gothic action-fantasy Persona-esque thing I want to do and still can't quite settle on one that fits the tone.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF BALIKBAYAN- temporalhiccup.itch.io/balikbayan

no but I have now!! this is rad as helll

It sure fucking is! And yeah, that’s the one

Wisconsin has one thing going for it and that’s dairy and county fairs and bad enough public school funding that a list of three things only counts as one thing to me

holy shit i did not know this exists! this is excellent.

It is an absolutely delightful little game!

That someone conflates the trifecta of dairy farming, county fairs, and underfunded public education, and then points to the game I wrote just made my day.

It’s a VERY GOOD GAME and also a VERY ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF MY HOME STATE