Good question, I have a pretty in-depth answer I think. It definitely would not ruin the game but any time anyone asks about a change to Eureka I’m obligated to first explain why Eureka is already the way it is before I explain how to change it.
Eureka is very much an American game, specifically a US South game. Its outlook on the world is both informed by life in that region and the social commentaries it makes are most primarily focused on that region.
This region more specifically,
and just Louisiana and Texas if you want to get even more specific.
Some of the rules kinda obviously assume the adventure is taking place there even compared to other places in the USA, such as the fact that just about any PC has access to purchasing firearms from the start. Most of the official adventure modules (adventure modules are very important to Eureka) also take place in the US South, in places where NPCs won’t think twice about it if a PC comes to talk to them with a handgun on their belt.
("WP" is "Wealth Points," something derived from the PC's Wealth Skill on character creation before every adventure and then spent to determine what items they can start an adventure with. Since a PC starts out with only about 11 WP on average, you can see that firearms are as prohibitively expensive to own legally in Eureka as in the real life USA.)
There are definitely adventures I’ve played where one or more PCs just had a handgun the same way they'd have a wallet or cellphone but never ended up using it.
Actual combat, especially combat with deadly weapons, is pretty rare in Eureka in general.
The Eureka adventures that take place definitely in the US South are:
An oil rig off the coast of Texas in 2020.
Shreveport, Louisiana in 1999.
Lake Charles, Louisiana in 2017.
James Stabbed Him (fan-made adventure)
The middle of nowhere, Texas in the present day.
A Horror New to this World
The middle of nowhere, Texas in the present day.
Where’s Tom? (unreleased official adventure module, currently in early playtesting)
New Orleans, Louisiana in the present day.
Another thing is the paranormal elements of Eureka’s setting are very much US South-influenced, particularly Louisiana/New Orleans. A lot of modern New Orleans folklore just… is the kind of environment Eureka presents, where objectively dangerous monsters have homes, jobs, and friends.
Before we get to the fact that Eureka is definitely very easily playable in other geographic locations, I’m going to urge that you do give the default geographic location a chance. If you’re too picky about where an adventure can take place, you’re going to really limit yourself off from a bunch of really good and well-constructed mysteries. It’s also my private experience that the more media people are exposed to where all or most characters are Southern in a way that isn’t a joke, the more it humanizes this region, and that’s something we kinda unfortunately need from time to time. (Not that all PCs need to be from the region, they could be visiting/immigrants from basically wherever.)
Now about Eureka adventures taking place anywhere else.
There already exist several Eureka adventures taking place notably outside the USA.
Vancouver, Canada in the present day.
Murder at Raspberry Hall (fan-made)
A remote English estate in the 1980s.
The Dorfteich Murder (fan-made and not yet fully reviewed by the A.N.I.M. Team like the other fan-made ones here)
Peitz, Germany in the 2000s.
The thing is, information still works roughly the same way and so do the physics and lethality of bullets no matter where you go, and those are some of the most important aspects of Eureka.
This one’s easy, just reduce the WP price of healthcare-related items if they’re provided by the state (even to 0WP if appropriate), and reduce or remove the Wealth Skill roll related to hospital visits.
This one’s easy too. There are a ton of places in the USA already where firearm and other weapon ownership is severely restricted already. Eureka already says to check the local laws for wherever an adventure is taking place against the available purchases in the Inventory part of character creation. That applies anywhere, not just US states. If it’s taking place in Paris, France, look up what items a PC would be allowed to have in Paris, France.
There are no Eureka adventure modules to date where I think a PC having a firearm, or even owning any kind of weapon at all, is a necessary part of solving and surviving the mystery with the exception of The Shootout at Studio 12 but come on, it’s called The Shootout at Studio 12. This is the only Eureka adventure where violence is pretty explicitly unavoidable. Eureka PCs have access to guns not because guns are always expected to be used, but because it is something they would realistically have access to in the default region the game takes place in. In fact it is discouraged to give your investigator a gun unless they are the kind of person who would realistically own one.
This one is a bit trickier especially since I don’t know where you’re from.
The Heat rules in Eureka (the rules regarding the party attracting the attention of the law and getting investigated by the police) are kinda US-specific in their, well, specifics, such as what equipment the cops have and what the laws are. You’d have to do some research and some adjusting for that. Because, like, getting into a shootout with the cops would be a pretty significant failure state in the first place, Eureka doesn’t necessarily need random patrol officiers to be carrying guns for the game to work. Again, combat is very rare.
As for the cops being inclined towards bias and racism like they are in Eureka, not to be US-centric, but based on my own experience I would be inclined to assume that’s true basically everywhere on earth. Who they’re biased against specifically is just what might change from place to place.
To quote the writer of those three non-USA adventure modules above,
Anecdotally, when I lived in France and England in places that are very very strict about weapon ownership is the only time I have ever seen police officers carrying anything except small-caliber handguns. In England I saw patrol officers in bulletproof vests carrying small SMGs on shoulder straps, and in France I saw full-blown soldiers in full gear including helmets carrying full-sized high-caliber assault rifles in certain places. I have never seen such a thing in-person in the USA. (To clarify these were not special operations, just guys standing around.)
Anyway, wherever you are from or were hoping to play Eureka set in, I hope this answers your questions. What would actually love to come of this is for you to play Eureka using the existing adventure modules to experience them and get a feel for the game and how it works, then write your own adventure module taking place in some place more familiar to you and share it with us/the community. (We don’t take any money from fan-made adventure modules or own them in any way.) With how “life-sim-y” Eureka can be, playing an adventure set in another location can be a lot more like visiting that place than most RPGs, and it’s cool to learn about other places.
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
