I've mixed magic into historical gaming before.
Magic and pirates in the 1650's was natural.
Magic and cowboys didn't quite go so well, but that had more to do with mismanaged expectations. I think the players were expecting more history and were unaware at how little advantage cap and ball gave over certain stone-age weapons (especially in situations were the older tech was at its best advantage.)
Magic and the roaring '20's worked wonderfully, but I wasn't the GM then. We were detectives working for an agency in 1935 St Louis.
I've been watching Boardwalk Empire and I am thinking that bootleggers and gangsters in a world with magic could be fun.
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I love mixing in fantasy elements with my games, although I usually go for the various punk genres rather than historical/alt historical games. I mix in lots of supernatural elements, and even a little in the way of available magic items and stuff, but I've always had a lot of trouble with getting magic to feel like an integral part of things beyond a source of weirdness to inflict on the party. I'm not the type to play a caster unless I deliberately play against type, and when I do it's usually in D&D which does not lend itself to magic as a regular thing. I've put a lot of thought into trying to work out how magic would tie into the world, and read and played plenty where it's mixed in pretty naturally, but I still have issues with GMing it into whatever setting.
ReplyDeleteBootleggers and Gangsters with magic does work super well, I ran a brief campaign set in dieselpunk not-Chicago and used some supernatural shenanigans to put the party in debt to the mob to make them have to go do stuff. Still didn't have as much actual magic, more supernatural spookiness, but definitely a lot of potential there. Biggest magic thing I had was the curiosity shop of questionable legality that existed in many places at once.