RPGaDay: Past, Present or Future? When is your favourite game set?

The present.

OK, I'll elaborate.

My favourite genre, as I've mentioned before, is urban fantasy, which almost always takes place in the present day.  Changeling, Scion, The Dresden Files and eventually my current favourite Liminal, they've all been modern day settings.  And I think it works best in the modern day because it presents the fantastical world of fairies/gods/magic/etc. as a contrast to the mundane.  And nothing is as mundane to a present day player as the world of the present day.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Vaesen is a lovely game, and hinges on the clash between the modernisation of the 19th century and the traditions and folk tales of the past.  But the setting itself is already a little fantastical to me here in the 21st century, with radically different technology, social attitudes, and even little things like food and clothes.  The mundane is something that's gradually making its way into the world of Vaesen, via industrialisation, rather than something that's already there.

There's something of an overlap between urban fantasy and horror, but again my favourite is the present day.  Kult is my favourite horror game, and while you can do period settings for Kult games and I've played a few like that, I find what really brings the horror is the intrusion of the supernatural aspects of the Kult setting into what should be the reassuring familiarity of our real world.  The same goes for Call of Cthulhu, where I like the classic 1920s setting but much prefer the games I've played set in the modern day.  To me, the sanity blasting effects of contact with the mythos are far more terrifying juxtaposed against our own normality.

One argument that seems to finally be being put to rest is the idea that technology in general and mobile phones in particular make it difficult or even impossible to do horror. Sure, there's scenarios set in earlier periods where the ability to instantly contact people at a distance would be an issue, but there's more to horror than not having a phone.  Playing in the modern day provides the opportunity for technology to be part of the horror.  Japan had that figured out back in the 90s.  I can't think of any more iconic scene from Japanese horror than Sadako crawling out of the TV screen in Ring.

Modern day settings also avoid a few minor issues with historical settings, such as accidental anachronisms due to different levels of historical knowledge, or having to work around historical gender roles.  Similarly they avoid the zeerust that can occur in futuristic settings, Cyberpunk 2020 being the most obvious example (although sometimes the zeerust is part of the charm).  And I still like playing these settings - but my love of urban fantasy and horror means the modern day is my favourite setting.