Rivers of London - Campaign Design

Rivers is set within Ben Aaronovitch's magical London, where wizards working with the Police venture forth from the Folly to keep the King's peace. The book series has been in print since 2011, has expanded into graphic novel territory and, if we're all very good and keep Santa happy, may one day expand into other media. After all, if Slow Horses can become an international Apple TV hit, perhaps the British star is in the ascendant.

The RPG assumes that the characters are magical police working in London from the Folly. Potentially there are other options, but that's where the main book spends most of its time, so the implication is clear. The timeline is also a little vague, but roughly present day (ish) and the sections It's Not Gritty and It's Not Horror make it clear this isn't the Cthulhu-esque stuff Chaosium is famous for. Aaronovitch says it's Call of Cthulhu but with added hope, and that's broadly the feel of the RPG.

It doesn't allow much scope for alternatives, which ... I mean, the people coming here will be coming via the books, in a way that isn't often seen. Even the Tolkein-heads who went into the Middle Earth RPG or the Bond nuts who bought into the James Bond RPG didn't do it so they could recreate the stories or the movies. They wanted to play in that world. They didn't want to play alongside Frodo or Bond. Not all of them, anyway.

I'm not 100% convinced the same could be said for Rivers. I suspect a lot of the audience for this series came to it via the books and want the Folly, Molly, the yap-o-meter and all the other doo dahs that go with it. 

But.

Would I, as GM, want to run that kind of game as a campaign, as opposed to one-shots? I'm not sure.

See, one of the great things about Cthulhu as a setting is its elasticity. If I want to set it in 1890s Tokyo, not a problem. 1920s New York? Can do. 1990s First Gulf War? Got you covered. Gothic romance, nihilistic post-apocalypse, techno-horror, body horror, whatever your shriveled little heart desires, it can supply.  

I don't think you could say the same about Rivers. You can set in in the States (there's a whole book about that, you may have heard of it) but the main setting's still relentlessly modern London, and you're a copper. That feels limiting. There's damn near a century between the World War Two devastation that wiped out British wizardry and Peter Grant's recruitment by Nightingale to see off Mister Punch. All kinds of options.

One that leaps out at me straightaway: 

Life on Mars Trailer

The thing almost writes itself. 

Here's a copper from the present thrust into the 1970s through shenanigans that can only be magical. Thanks to those self-same shenanigans the copper picks up a guardian angel: Nightingale, who's still working through his war trauma and is, at this moment, the only official wizard in London.

Moreover, if Ashes to Ashes in in the mix then, mild spoiler warning, there is a very good reason why all those modern coppers are turning up in the 1970s & 80s and it's exactly the kind of thing that would interest Nightingale. 

OK, it's not a setting book Chaosium could publish, for obvious reasons, but at your gaming table you can do as you like, and this is just gagging for it (as Hunt might say).

To be honest, one of my qualms about running Rivers as written is, it feels as though the home team starts with all the advantages. The characters have the resources of the Folly at their disposal, with backup from Frank Caffrey and the Rivers, not to mention Nightingale himself, a Kipling-ish hero with superlative magical ability. 

Stalky & Co

Not always, of course. The Rivers in particular may have their own reasons for not getting involved, but the players are going to be looking for backup at some point, and after a while the GM's going to run out of reasons why, say, Caffrey can't turn up with the heavy mob to help the characters out of a fix.

In that respect it's not a million miles away from Ars Magica, which Aaronovitch has said is an inspiration for his series. You can have grogs and companions in the narrative but, sooner rather than later, all eyes will turn to the wiz-liards to handle the problem. Even if that problem is why the soup tastes funny. It's like putting candy on the table next to the hummus and raw carrots. Fingers will reach towards the chocolate, guaranteed.  

What other, non-Folly routes could be taken? Keeping the central concept of law versus disorder in the mix?

Well, there's always the private detective route. Given that there are foxes and other non-humans in the setting, this needn't be a human private detective route either. There's something appealing about a vulpine Sherlock Holmes who has to work through a human mouthpiece to get clients. Without a Clue, but with a fox in the Watson role. 

Or a ghost. Traditionally in this sort of narrative the ghost must Find Out Who Killed Them (boo, hiss) and stumble into other crimes that need solving along the way. Asian cinema is very good at this kind of story. Too good, honestly. I've been trying to remember the title of a particular film and Google led me to half a dozen others, plus TV series of one kind or another. The Haunted Cop Shop looks like fun, and a lot of the faces are ones I recognize from Mr. Vampire, a mark of quality.

Of course, for many British players, there's only one dead detective worth emulating.

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) sourced from Umbrella Entertainment

 

Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) 2000

Another route would be to have the police in the center of the narrative but have a fae copper in the main role. Or someone from a different magical tradition. A main character with a supernatural past who doesn't want to be part of the Folly (for whatever reason) but feels drawn to the police as a career. The others in the group might realize there's something funny about their fellow copper but not twig as to the cause. This puts the Folly and Nightingale in a semi-antagonist role. Not that the Folly's about to go on a killing spree, but they don't appreciate non-Newtonians messing about in the doo-dah. This means the main character has to hide their identity both from the police and from the Folly, an additional challenge.

The great thing about both these options is you're not caught in the modern day. They could take place at any time. 1980s London, 1960s London, take your pick. So long as it's after the War, after the Ettersberg massacre of British wizardry, the setting's wide open. 

Of course, you could always have the characters come from a completely different magical tradition and not be police. The Society of the Rose, for instance. They might involve themselves in magical shenanigans without having the backing of the law behind them. 

Or run a game in which the central location, like a bookshop, is the source of the problem. Some of you may think I'm referring to Bookhounds, but there is a magically influenced shop in the Rivers setting which could be expanded on. A Lovejoy campaign but with actual magic, rather than a suggestion of talent, working behind the scenes. The genus loci in the basement provides the juice, but it's the human player characters who have to save the day. Or find that rare first edition. Whichever best resolves the plot.

Another alternative: a magically trained group, like Bock, Loupe and Stag, members of a [whatever best suits] drafted into the Folly on Peter's initiative. The point being, it's a bit more difficult to get up to nonsense if you're regulated. 

But nobody likes regulation, so this sets the Folly up as a not-quite-antagonist. Next door to frenemies. Nobody likes a grass, and the Folly are the prefects and teachers in this analogy. Your group has your own objectives, your own plans, and they might not go hand-in-hand with the Folly's mandate. So you carry on your bits and bobs under the noses of the best of the best of British wizardry, trying not to get caught. To carry the Kipling bit a little further, it's Stalky & Co all over again, except in this version the players are the boys and Nightingale is beloved headmaster Bates. Which presumably makes Peter, Prout. 

Or you could do a tour of the colonies.

If you take the Folly at its word, then it would have gone everywhere the Empire went. Once upon a time the Empire went rather a lot of places, which implies Folly-aligned establishments all over the world. The vast majority will be well and truly defunct. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away. However, as the famous Rose Jars of George Buckland prove, the colossal wreck hides forgotten treasures. 

Guernsey's a pretty good choice. One of the oldest British police forces, historical artifacts that go back to the dawn of civilization, right smack in the Channel along established smuggling routes. The Folly's bound to have established something out in Guernsey, and from the modern Folly's perspective a bit of historical research into old business might be just the low-stress test a trainee needs. Whether you could have a long-running campaign out there is debatable, but a run of four to six sessions is perfectly doable. The distance from the Folly proper means the characters can't lean on established characters, but they're close enough - not even two hours flight time - that they can't afford to get careless.

Same with Gibraltar. Again, the Folly's bound to have had something out there, especially during the War. Gib boasts the oldest British police service outside the UK. Spain's right next door, so you have plot options. Old British war installations begging to be explored. Again, probably difficult to have a full campaign out there but four to six sessions is doable, and they're close enough to London they can't afford to get careless. Plus on top of plus, Spain has been the British criminal getaway of choice through the 1970s and 1980s thanks to a (brief) lack of an extradition treaty, and Gibraltar is a pretty decent jump-off point for a Folly investigation into the Costa del Crime. 

That's it for this week. I hope it's given you some ideas!