Historical Roleplaying Games

I noticed an interesting home-brew game called Traveller: 1700 which appeared in Freelance Traveller (Traveller: 1700 link is at the bottom of this page). The notion of using Traveller rules to roleplay in colonial times got me to thinking about what historical eras I’d be interested to play in, so I pinged my game club gamers to see what historical eras most interested them. Here were their responses. I also jotted down some game systems that might work to play in those eras.

I had a discussion with my game group on what (if any) historical settings our gamers would be interested in playing. Here were the areas that had the most interest:

Egyptian Period — Egyptian pantheon perhaps? (D6 or (gulp!) GURPS)
Greek Period — Mythical Greece with gods and monsters (Agon, D6, or d100)
Dark Ages — England/Europe/Vikings (D6)
1700’s — French Musketeers (Flashing Blades or D6)
1800’s — UK or US based Steampunk (D6, Victoriana, or Abney Park’s Airship Pirates)
1870-1890’s — Wild West (D6 or 2D6)
1920’s — Gangbusters style game (D6 or 2D6)
1930-1940’s — Pulpy Superheroes (Icons, PbtA, or D6)