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Come Looking For Me by Cheryl Cooper - Q4
Q4 - Gaming
We've discussed nautical fiction gaming before, here. Clash has written Nopoleonic (and derived) games. Naval settings usually have strict hierarchies that you have to deal with because the setting calls for them. The are Captains at the top of the pyramid, then Lieutenants, and Midshipmen, and Specialists, and so on. To some degree, Come Looking For Me, sweeps much of this rigid hireachy under the rug. The Captain isn't the most important character, and the washerwoman and child labour on the ship get much more airtime. What impact would this have on naval gaming? Does it change how you might run things?
Comments
It was good to do a "Lower Decks" approach to the setting. There have been similar examples around. The Star Trek ones (the "Lower Decks" series, and the first season of "Discovery" that featured a maverick non-commander), and bits of Sharpe perhaps, with Sharpe's core team.
There's plenty of scope for this sort of gaming, I think. The best example that comes to mind are the games Duty and Honour and Beat to Quarters, both about Napoleonic military fiction. I those games, the PCs have personal objectives that they have to pursue, alongside the overall mission.
Thinking about it, Mouse Guard does something similar. For each Mission, one PC takes on the Goal of achieving it, while the others are free to take personal goals (and achieving a goal gives mechanical benefits).
Both of those are different from the other thing mentioned, which is giving voice and spotlight time to people other than the men serving in the military.
There were women who disguised themselves as men in order to serve, both as officers and as crew. There were typically several women serving in various capacities ON warships of the time, as specialists of various sorts, most of them married to officers. I have had both in my games. There were people who started out as crew, and through sheer ability became officers. In the British navy, they were referred to as "coming up through the hawsehole". Americans call them "Mustangs". Some have ended up as Admirals.
In my In Harm's Way military RPG series, I generally have players play two characters, one an officer and one enlisted, to see both sides of things. Officers are driven by the Notice mechanic, where their commander singles them out for mention, good or bad. Thus the officers compete in doing awesome things, the more awesome, the more notice. Theoretically the first officer to be promoted to the next level becomes the star of the series, eventually becoming Captains themselves, and earning the respect of their officers and crew (players).
That's an interesting question. I've only come across naval gaming, both Napoleonic and WW1, in a table-top sense (well, for WW1 it was actually a whole lot of floor area rather than a table), where the focus was on manoeuvring ships into advantageous positions. I vividly remember building little scale models out of layers of plasticard, and spending a lot of time in Guildford library with Janes Fighting Ships and other reference books to get the sizes and armaments right. But presumably you're meaning more in a role-playing sense?
Yes. Role-playing games. I have written military RPGs set from the Napoleonic era to the near and into the far future. Some of the most extraordinary gaming I have ever participated in.
I didn't know that. Please tell me more!
@clash_bowley may have more sources but there's one list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_warfare_and_the_military_in_the_19th_century
and another one at http://emperornapoleon.com/army/women-in-the-army.html
One suspects that these are just the tip of the iceberg and many more were unrecorded
That would be my opinion as well. Note that several women were found among the British dead at Waterloo, not just the one mentioned. Mary Dixon, a 17 year veteran. Most battles they didn't bother checking the sex of the dead, and I don't know why they did here.
Women (existing openly as women) is easier in the army, where there is a long tradition of "camp followers" and similar support personnel, much like the vivandieres in the link Richard posted. But women on naval warships of the time? That's what surprised me, and I'd like to know more about.
The quick few articles I've read suggest that warrant officers (e.g. boatswain, carpenter) sometimes had their wives and even children aboard, but those women didn't have official jobs on board. The women helped out, but unofficially.
It's nothing to do with the Napoleonic era, but touching on the subject of women in the armed forces I came across this article today...
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-mystery-iron-age-warrior-small.html
The island where the remains were found is Bryher, one of the Isles of Scilly off the tip of Cornwall.
Very cool, Richard! Judging by sketal remains there were many women warriors in ancient Britain, but some scientists think skeletal examination is no conclusive. This is.