League Of Extraordinary Whatevers

Basic Information

The League of Extraordinary Whatevers is when your adventuring party is assembled from historical characters who probably had no interaction in the real world, but have some common thread that loosely justifies putting them together for an RPG campaign.

The same can also be done with fictional characters from different source materials or worlds. Often this would involve the Literary Agent Hypothesis as a way of explaining how such characters might exist in the same setting. Otherwise, there may be some sort of multiverse explanation and/or a dimensional gateway. Light comedic games can probably just hand wave it away.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Graphic Novel: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore, from whence this page draws it's name.

2. Animated Series: Futurama had the Vice Presidential Action Rangers. Al Gore lead several other famous nerds to repair the Space-Time Continuum.

3. Web Comic: PVP mentions a game Andy Collins ran that was along these lines, with 80s TV icons as characters.

4. Actually, Andy Collins used to run something along those lines every year at Gwen Con, with a different genre each time. Andy talks about it on his blog, but I can't figure out how to link directly to the post in question (Search for "Gentlemen"). I played in his Extraordinary Cowboys version one year, which I described on my blog.

5. Sophie Lagace ran a short-shot at the Emerald City Game Feast that was along this lines. All the PCs were aging Brits who'd been knighted - from Sir Mick Jagger to Dame Jane Goodall.

6. I ran an Og game that was heavily influenced by Land of the Lost, and had Sarah Palin (with a conservative version of the Vice Presidential Rangers) fall through a portal to the past. More info at my blog again.

7. Cracked has an article about some surprising connections between famous historical figures mentioned below. Cracked is an entertaining source for all sorts of obscure historical goofiness.

Game and Story Use

• Great for one-shots. Normally one-shots and short-shots have the problem of the characters being fairly shallow, and their back story rather vague. But with this approach, everybody already has some notion of what the characters are like.
  • Especially good when you have a weeks adance notice so everyone can find a YouTube clip of the character they'll be playing. Refreshing myself on Val Kilmer's version of Doc Holliday sure helped me with roleplaying in the Extraordinary Cowboys game.
• Hop on over to the People page, and start dreaming up your own league of whatever.
  • Just beware of the Roy Thomas Syndrome
    • Wait, what am I saying? Embrace your Inner Roy!!!
• For those looking to scratch this itch with just a little more verisimilitude, here's a short list of famous historical figures who actually spent more time together in real life than you would expect:
  • Alan Turing and Ian Fleming both worked for British Naval Intelligence on deciphering the enigma machine and other highly classified projects. Turing was Fleming's mean boss, as apparently they didn't get along very well.
  • Amelia Earhart gave flying lessons to Eleanor Roosevelt, and they went on at least one flying "road trip" together.
  • Frida Kahlo had an affair with Leon Trotsky. She was also friends with the man who later assassinated Trotsky, and was briefly interrogated by the authorities.
  • Hans Christian Andersen was an extended house guest of Charles Dickens, and it ruined their friendship.
  • H.P. Lovecraft repeatedly worked as ghostwriter to Harry Houdini, and they collaborated on debunking ghosts and other superstitions.
  • Mark Twain rescued Ulysses S. Grant from bankruptcy.
  • Theodore Roosevelt was friends with (and gave government jobs to) the White House Gunfighters.