Because larps go much easier if you write them a year in advance, here’s some historical inspiration from Wikipedia for next year:
1990
- Gulf War I
- end of the 4th Labour govt in NZ
- Books: The Eye of the World,
- Film: Dances With Wolves
- Worthy but difficult topics: end of Apartheid in South Africa, end of communism in Eastern Europe, German reunification
1975
- the Fall of Saigon
- death of P G Wodehouse
- death of Fransisco Franco
- Film: Jaws, Rocky Horror Picture Show
- Books: Shogun, the Illuminatus! trilogy
1965
- Worthy but difficult topics: US civil rights struggle
- Books: The Black Cauldron, Dune
- Film: The Sound of Music
- first episode of Thunderbirds
1915
- the obvious: lots of WWI stuff
- the Armenian genocide
- foundation of the Rosicrucians
- publication of “Extricating Young Gussie”, the 1st jeeves and Wooster story, and “Somethign Fresh”, the first Blandings Castle novel
- discovery of Proxima Centauri (an excuse for an SF larp set there?)
1865
- end of the US Civil War
- Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- foundation of the International Telegraph Union (surely someone can steampunk this?)
- bith of Robert W. Chambers (King in Yellow larp, anyone?)
- books: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Hereward the Wake, From the Earth to the Moon
1815
- the hundred days: Napoleon’s escape from Elba and defeat at Waterloo.
- the Congress of Vienna ends (its been done, but someone should run it)
- Books: Emma
1765
- the Stamp Act and Quartering Act in the pre-revolutionary American colonies
- the Beast of Gévaudan
- James Watt produces the first decent steam engine (steampunks ahoy!)
1715
- Jacobite Rebellions in Scotland
1665
- start of the Great Plague of London
- first publication of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
- Hooke’s Micrographia. 2nd Anglo-Dutch-war. In fact, there’s a great post-Restoration stew there
1265
- De Montfort’s Parliament and the Second barons’ war
- first Budweiser brewed in Bohemia (a larp about beer!)
- birth of Dante