Rosebriar: Cultural Alienation

Finally we reach the end of my work on Rosebriar. We'll end not on physical geography but a cultural one. The question is what can I do to mirror the character's experience in the players (PCs)?

The theme of You Can't Go Home Again is a bittersweet one of returning home to the familiar and finding that things have changed and what was home isn't anymore. They suffer alienation, isolation due to cultural distance.

Demonstrating this to players is a subtle game of having non-player characters referencing a shared past, one that the PCs are not privy to. To be fully unsettling, this past should include cultural references that everyone in the area knows about. These might be local like the closing of a favorite ice cream shop or may be global like the election of President Hillary Clinton. In a way I am building an alternate history, one different in only minor ways (from the perspective of the common person) but divergent enough to make the players feel like they are living in a foreign land.

Remember the third X-Files movie? Wasn't it cool how the alien invasion began?

The trick of this is to reach an uncanny valley of differences. I don't want to make it feel like I am just switching names of cultural icons (different actors for major movies, exchanging major companies' successes). The tone should remain as serious as possible. I also want to keep the nature of the changes small enough that the world is still somewhat familiar. A world war or ungridlocked congress might distract from events within Rosebriar. Changes in the recent past or whose influence is broad but shallow work better for this.

Lets start by examining some of the cultural touchstones for the past decade, the period many of the player characters would have spent in Arcadia. The changes we make should start subtle and become more extreme with time.

Cultural Touchstones (2005-2015)

A sample of major events from previous decade.

• The ongoing war on terror (2001-): though it begins prior to our period, it includes the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, further terrorist attacks and plots, and continued strained relations between many cultural groups throughout the world.
• Lost (2004-2010): not my favorite show but clearly one that many people followed.
• Facebook (2004-): while social media's rise is a given, the winner was (and still is) not.
• Gay marriage debate: within the US, we see a rapid shift from federal and state bans to legalization for the majority of the country through court battles, amendments, and new laws.
• Rise of Google: from search engine to provider of everything...
• Replacement of floppy disks by flash memory: I must admit I was behind the curve on this one.
• Doctor Who returns (2005-)
• Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013):a new pope, then another after an abdication.
• Twilight books and movies (2005-12)
• WikiLeaks (2006-)
• Twitter (2006-)
• Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: an obvious place to change the victor.
• Rise of ebooks (Kindle 2007)
• iPhone introduced (2007-) and Apple’s relentless march to the top.
• Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008) and the Great Recession
• President Obama (2008-)
• Tea Party (2009-)
• Death of Michael Jackson (2009)
• Swine flu
• Rise of Tablets and mobile computing
• Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April-July 2010)
• Arab Spring (December 2010-2012)
• 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (March 2011)
• Demise of Borders Bookstore (2011)
• Death of Osama bin Laden (May 2011)
• End of the shuttle program (July 2011)
• Occupy Wall Street (September 2011)
• School spree shootings: specifically how it leaped back into public imagination (again) with Sandy Hook.
• ISIS reaching significant prominence. Might as well as Boko Haram as well.
• Ebola (2014 outbreak)
• Scottish Secession Vote (2014)
• Ukraine Conflict (2014-)

I went a little heavy on geopolitics and light on pop culture. You can guess which I personally care more about.

Specific Deviations

Okay with all of that in mind here are some possible events and trends I can drop into the game. Some of these I came up with while others were inspired by my wife.

Unfamiliar Terms:

• Whisper: Instead of Twitter, a different micro-blog with its own strange terminology makes its way through social media. People say "I’ll whisper it" or "I sent him a whisp."
• Clintoncare: with a different Democratic nominee, we get a different (and potentially more ambitious) healthcare reform for people to complain about.

Popular culture:

• Annifer: the scandalous super couple remained together for only a few years but shook the tabloids with the ensuring love triangle (I take no credit for this idea).
• The MacGyver movies: Hollywood produced a relatively successful action-comedy based on the fondly remembered TV show. The sequel was much less well received and a possible third film looks likely to be canceled.
• Michael Jackson's latest album/tour: following his hugely successful This Is It comeback concerts, Jackson reemerged as a pop music superstar.
• X-Files: Invasion (2012): the widely anticipated third film brought closure to the long running TV series mythology with the Scully and Mulder facing off against the alien invasion.

Game Changers:

• The Swine Flu Global Pandemic of 2009: while not as devastating as media hype made it out to be it was still as deadly as any the prior flu epidemics in living memory killing over two million people worldwide. Deaths in the US officially totaled 153,452. People still discuss how loved ones died of the "Irish Flu" (Northern Ireland being the epicenter of the initial outbreak).

That should be enough for me. A few simple thing to keep track of is easier than a vast collection of differences.