1849: Feel the Rush – Onside Report from the Archives 1999

1849: Feel The Rush

Onside Report

Mukul Patel

For motivation and the starting introduction to the game see the    last issue of MilMud (MM March 1999 p8-10).      The actual moment I knew I wanted to do a game was when the TV program described the fate of those Gold Rushers who a branch of the trail called Lassens cut-off.

Mechanics of Game

The games structure or rather physical layout reflected its subject. It would be massive. The gold rush was of huge length, I wanted players to experience that same huge journey. My original idea about to reflect this was to layout the trail using masking tape using the whole length of the Church Hall. This became impractical as the Church Hall dropped out as a CLWG venue, and also it would take a great deal of setting up to layout 50 odd metres of masking tape. It became clear that the only option was to use and create a very large map. I had two options about how to create that map use a computer and printer or freehand. After looking at the two options and considering what sources I and experimenting I plumped for a hand drawn accurate map. This was the right choice. A computer map would have taken ages and ages to make, and would have been very hard to do. I also had lots of spare maps, 3 ft square from COT megagame upon whose reverse side I could draw my maps, a very useful resource. Hence I ended up drawing a 25 foot long map, with the aid of a metre rule and protractor.

Who are You?

At the same time I also had thoughts about what players would represent. In the end after a bit and lot of thought and at a rather late stage I decided the players would represent the leader of three men from small town USA. Players would themselves select which town they would come on the basis of limited information. These men would arrive then at Independence be allowed to recruit more men to their company or not. They could also maybe join with other players from other towns to form larger companies. There were other jumping off points from the Missouri but I did not give these as options for the players.

Getting Ready.

The gold rush companies would then need to figure out how to spend their small amounts of money on outfitting a wagon. How this was to be done took a bit time for me to figure out and I was surprised in the end how easy it was to create mechanisms for this and how it all feel into place. As players got their mostly single wagon companies together they then set off on their long journey. The key but simple and totally unoriginal idea was that every item had a cost and weight and sometimes a use.

The Rush.

I had one very important decision to make in designing the mechanisms that I had help with. How long would be the turns, I had had a chat with Brian Cameron about this game and how long it would take I floated an idea of whether I should stick to weekly turns or go for two weekly turns to give a shorter game and possibly less boring and tedious game. Brain said go for weekly turns, it is meant to be an epic journey make it an epic. I took his advice and it proved correct.

The Trail

The Trail as divided into various sections of unequal length. The Sections were divided on the basis of what incidents and special features and characteristics were present along the trail. At the start of each section I had glued down some information about how easy the trail was, what was the state of grass and water, its length, description of the trail, what they might except to see and encounter. The description was there to attempt to enrich the players experience of the journey and also supplemented by a number of pictures culled from books and the inter net.

The players using a fairly simple 1 sided set of rules had to work how fast they could move their wagon, how their animals would fare and if any accidents had happened to their wagons. Once a little way into the trail after they had been broken in they also started coming across features and random incidents. Features were things that all gold rushers would have experienced in their journey like Mormon toll ferries. Incidents were random things that only some gold rushers experienced and players simply drew “community chest cards”. All these mechanisms were meant to be and proved to be mostly self administering. They had to self administering in the main because I would have been overwhelmed with too much to do as an umpire. The philosophy of self administration was inspired in part by John Pickles freeform role playing game at the Xmas 98 meeting, subsequent chats with John and the good old but still very valid KISS philosophy, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Setting up the game.

This was relatively easy as the I turned up on time at 10 o’clock and had about 20 minutes to get things organised, and compose myself, without other members hovering around. This also made sure this would be the first game of the day. Once I had about 6 players the game started. As a couple of players turned up late they were slotted into either as a new company of gold rushers or caused a split in existing one. I was quite happy about doing this to late arrivals as in reality people would set of for California as late as June or even early July!

How did I expect the game to work out in practice. Well I hoped it would go ok. Hopefully the players would bear with the game given that they could see how much work I had put into this project. In the event game did go well, it more than meet my best hopes that the players would enjoy the experience, and give them a good idea of what it was like to make that immense journey. Especially I was most glad when John Rutherford told me afterwards that his young son Adam really enjoyed the game was talking about it all the way home.

There was not a lot in this game that I feel I could have done better. Just to end on a sour note. It is improbable that I could ever put this game on again at CLWG. For the Gold rushers it was a once in a lifetime experience and similarly for the players.

Conclusion

I loved the subject of this game I the players experienced some of my same enthusiasm. Thanks to everyone who helped me with ideas and advice for the game and those who took part.

Cast list

Adam Rutherford, John Rutherford, Andy Reeve, Jerry Elsmore, Brian Cameron, Richard Hands, James Kemp, Jonathan Pickles

[As noted in the editorial, it is a pity that Mukul thinks that this game cannot be run again.    It did seem to create a buzz.    Maybe Mukul could create a space gold rush, to avoid the problems of hindsight – but there again, I suppose that was what John Rutherford’s “Aweary of the Sun” was!]

Reply to comments on

“Feel the Rush”

Mukul Patel

John Rutherford in his very welcome game report (MM May 1999 p10) makes three critical points in his report on this game. My thoughts on those points,

1) Getting annoyed because John misunderstood the rules and that the rules should be bent for very young players.

I was torn in two directions here. Historically some and in fact a lots of gold rushers and earlier pioneers did completely load with all manner of crap at the expense of vital goods. So to allow John to follow that same historical pattern seemed reasonable and not harsh. I though completely and totally agree with John that this error should not be allowed to transmitted in its effects to the younger or indeed inexperienced players.

2) Banding together and co-operation between wagons should have more benefit.

The historical experience seemed to me that the experience of banding together were not totally positive. On the whole wagons moving individually did not seem that badly off compared to those moving in organised companies. Banding together though as John writes would have increased chances of role play, but I could not bet on that. Also more importantly I very little experience of running and setting up role games, therefore fear of failure and inexperience stopped me from pursuing strongly the role playing committee aspect of the game.

3) The uniformly negative portrayal of Native Americans. This is the same sort of criticism that appeared in MilMud a few years ago. This was when we had that discussion about the rights and wrongs of how the Vietnam re-enactors went about things.

It was totally negative as Richard Hands report indicates, but was overwhelmingly negative. There were in the history of the California Trial some friendly Indians. The most notable of these was the Indian Chief Truckee who indicated the route across the Forty Mile Desert. The present day Truckee River is named in honour of his massive help. Without his help the California Trial would not have been discovered for many years and long after 1849. Without his help the fate of the Bear flag rebellion of 1846 in California could have very different. Anyway back to the point I suppose I could have put in some more friendly Indian stories or incidents but I did not read of many instances of that happening in the 1849 Gold Rush.

The 49ers did have a completely negative view of the Indians. The Native peoples would die in their droves in California. They would be made slaves. Laws would be passed that stated that if you found an Indian under 14 then he or she could be taken into effective slavery for a few years. The women folk would be raped and butchered, the peoples would be hunted like animals. They had no rights, they were barely regarded as human, the treatment of the Indians showed the worst of white men can do. Hitler was not the only evil man ever tread to this fair earth. Ordinary, no name Americans, English gentlemen, Protestant Scots, French Dandies, German and Swedish immigrants, Catholic Irish and many others all committed acts that were evil in the year of 1849 and the following years in California.

So the near uniformly negative portrayal of native peoples was not through ignorance on my part but because I wanted you to feel how the 49ers felt.