Back in 1989, Space: 1889 came along — a role playing game set in a hybrid world of Victorian speculative fiction.  It quickly garnered the appellation “steampunk” (which I bloody hate!), and spawned a sub-genre of science fiction that is still quite niche, but with rabid followers.   For me, it woke an old love of history and culminated in my work on a doctorate in history.

I loved the setting of Space: 1889, but to be blunt — the system was a disastrous kludge (something I expected from GDW’s role playing lines.)  Since then, every Victorian-period campaign I’ve run has been in search of a system.  In 1994, R. Talsorian (prior to going belly up, for the most part) released Castle Falkenstein.

The book itself was gorgeous.  Rarely, in that time, did you get such high art values in an RPG book.  Most of it was full color (not unusual now), with a story-like narrative that explained the world setting and the rules at the same time.   It laid out the alternate Victorian world that was both Vernian science fiction and fantasy combined.  There were chapters on society’s rules of the time — for courtship, precedence of nobility, dueling…all very well done.

The last hundred pages dialed down on the mechanics of the game, which were designed to facilitate LARPing of CF.  Character creation was swift and somewhat free-form, involving picking skills in which you were “poor”, “good”, “great”, “exceptional”, or “extraordinary.”  All others were considered “average.”   The player was encouraged to keep a diary, like a character from a Victorian novel outlining their past and recording their activities in the game.

The mechanics of play were relatively simple:  your skill ratings gave you a numeric value which was modified by a novel randomizer:  playing cards.  (Because gentlemen do not play at dice in the Victorian period.)  The suits had different aspects:  clubs were physical, hearts emotional, spades social, diamonds intellect/ knowledge based.  Players drew a four card “fortune hand” and play the cards so the characters could have to beat a certain difficulty, modified by a card or cards from the gamemaster’s fortune hand.  Simple, fun, and it allowed players to strategize their actions in play.  Can’t beat the villain, can you try to talk him down and play for time?

The only place that Castle Falkenstein fell down was combat, which was overly complex with series of holds and actions that were an attempt to capture the flow of fencing.  I feel it failed miserably.  So much so that a friend of mine and I banged out house rules, in a night, that have served us well for a decade.  (They were cobbled together from a combination of Lace and Steel and Castle Falkenstein.)

The game would generate six books, including a fantastic guide to Victorian ethics and “rules of society” Comme il Faut, which I recommend for any Victorian period game (along with my guide to London for Victoriana, The Smoke.  End shameless plug!)  There was a seventh book on the Ottoman Empire put out by Steve Jackson Games.  There’s plenty of material to play this universe and all of the books have high production values and crunch.

Style: 5 out of 5, Substance: 5 out of 5.

Now, an aside!

While I highly recommend the game, one of the first things I did was ditch the magic and monsters and port the setting of Space: 1889 over.  The system has performed well for me for 13 years, even without the fantasy elements.