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Five Points: 1850's New York Setting for Dark Streets - Available in Print!


doomedpc

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Five Points is a game of urban horror in America’s first melting pot, the Five Points neighborhood of New York City. Set in the 1840s and 50s against a backdrop of the Cthulhu Mythos, Five Points is powered by Dark Streets from Cakebread & Walton. Players take on the roles of runners or advisors for the Bowery Street Runners, an homage to the Bow Street Runners from London’s past, fighting against the terrors of the night.

Five Points includes:

  • A detailed historical look at New York City’s Five Points neighborhood during the 19th century.
  • Organizations straight from history.
  • Character creation for Bowery Runners.
  • Setting information for running Five Points games.
  • A collection of adventure frames.
  • … and more!

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/195092/Five-Points-Dark-Streets

Requires Dark Streets to play:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156813/Dark-Streets-2nd-Edition--Core-Rulebook

Edited by doomedpc

Peter Cakebread

>:>Cakebread&WaltonO:)

Purveyors of Fine Imaginings

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  • 1 month later...

I have got the book and the pdf. 

They really did their homework and put quite some research in the book but I like the original setting better. Why? Because somehow the whole setting of the "Bowery Runners" seems arificial in comparison to the Bow Street Runners.

While the Bow Street Runners are a real world forerunner of a police force and the whole mythos fighting develops out of the runners fighting ordinary crime and then kind of stumble into things man wasn't supposed to know, the Bowery Runners start out as a mythos fighting special force funded by Tammany Hall.

In the original setting the characters can have almost any background to fight crime - and in the end the mythos. But who would join a force that is fighting the mythos in the slums of Manhattan? And then: If I were a mythos cultist - single or with a cult - I would not normally use the most crowded area of on eof the most crowded cities in North America to do what Cthulhu tells me. At least not every cultist would do that, especially since city wide-conspiracies need influence and money - but cultist aren't usually running for election, so why would I want the Forty Thieves (or - to make a gang up - Nyarlothotep's Chosen) to bully voters to vote for my new Elder Party? I would assume to look at the high society who in league with some scum from the slum work together (the later as providers of strong arms and sacrifices) to bring the end nearer.

I am not bashing the setting - I am just saying that for me it does not quite do for the suspension of disbelieve.

Playing it straight-forward as members of the Metropolitan Police, fighting crime and curruption (or furthering it to meet the characters' own ends) makes much more sense.

I would love to see a mini-campaign for it, preferable without any mythos or with the option of leaving it out.

It is a good enough product for Renaissance or Dark Streets fans to take a look at - 3 out of 5 street toughs agree.

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I'm not a fan of the 'Bowery Runners' element either. I'll run it with PCs as members of the 5 Points community instead, possibly members of a gang... and likely leave the Mythos out of it, at least to start. Let a sense of community set in and then, maybe, if some strangers show up coincident with folks disappearing (not all that uncommon of an occurence in 5 Points), they might have suitable reason to look into it... or look for a way to profit off of it, before things start to go horribly wrong.

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