A poster on Pyramid Online asked the following:
I’m running a kind of “kitchen sink,” modern, horror, dark fantasy game. The characters are currently in a sort of alternate realm. At the end of the adventure I want them to think that they’ve come back to their reality. Of course, they haven’t. It’s a parallel timeline but the differences are so subtle they don’t notice them until well into the next adventure.
I know it’s a fairly broad question, but does anyone have suggestions for subtle, not easily noticed differences between alternate Earths?
People came up with a lot of interesting ideas, from the expected “Betamax not VHS is the standard for video tape” and “America has used the metric system since just after the civil war” to “Crude oil is transported in gel form to avoid the risk of oil spills”. Here are the suggestions I came up with:
- The whole of Ireland became independent in 1922. ‘Unionist’ terrorists, although totally disowned by the British government, have fought sporadic terrorist campaigns against the Dublin government, and ultra-protestant elements of the Religious Right in America sometimes raise funds for them.
- Ireland joined the allies in WW2, and the Royal Navy operated out of ports in south-west Ireland. (Probably too major a change, might have a significant effect on the Battle of the Atlantic)
- There was a civil war in Belgium between Flemish and Walloons in the 1950s.
- Margaret Thatcher was never British prime Minister. Denis Healey succeeded Harold Wilson and won the 1978 general election. He was defeated in 1983 by Michael Heseltine. The present British PM is still Tony Blair, who defeated the Tories in 1997.
- Switzerland is a member of the EU, but Denmark and Sweden are not.
- Jimi Hendrix is still alive, but the critical consensus is that he hasn’t made any great albums since about 1971. His ‘Disco period’ is best forgotten, although some unrepentant prog-rock fans love the album he did with ELP.
- Paul Rogers joined Deep Purple in 1973 as the replacement for Ian Gillan. To someone from our own timeline, their first album sounds remarkably like ‘Burn’ except with completely different song titles and lyrics.
- Elvis died in a road accident in 1961
- The big box-office fantasy hit filmed by Peter Jackson was not Lord of the Rings, but Michael Moorcock’s Elric.
- There are only three books in The Wheel of Time.
- Armour subtracts from damage in DnD, and always has done.
- The Channel Tunnel opened in 1974, but Concorde was scrapped after a few test flights as a waste of taxpayer’s money. People talk of the ‘glorious age of supersonic flight’ that might have been.
- European locomotive builders got a major foothold in the US railroad market; locomotives by English Electric and Krauss-Maffei are as common as the products of General Motors.
- On US roads, everyone drives on the left, not on the right.
- The two most common soft drinks throughout the world are Tizer and Irn Bru; the two manufacturers are great rivals
- Both America and Europe use the same voltage and frequency for domestic electrical supplies.
- Cricket is a major sport in Canada, and they’re one of the world’s top test sides. The game is now as popular in the US as soccer.
- The Hindenburg never exploded, and Zeppelins are still a common sight throughout the world. Ooops, sorry, don’t know what came over me, won’t happen again……
