Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119372I enjoy a game that tends that way just a little, but not nearly all the way.  I don't want the Disney idealized version, but I do want it to be not quite so grimy and brutal as reality would suggest.  Part of the reason is just general preferences for me and my players.  However, part of it is that I want the fantastical elements to pile on top of it.  You pile nasty fantastical on top of grimy and brutal mundane, what you get it too close to horror for our tastes.  

Depending upon how much magic you want, it also provides an alternative to the "great fallen empire" base.  In the alternate campaign, it's set in the dark ages, and it's always been the dark ages.  People carve out their security and happiness, often managing to produce some peace and prosperity for a time, but it's only one interfering fey elf or nasty sorcerer away from collapsing.

Greetings!

That's awesome! Just "only one interfering fey elf or nasty sorcerer away from collapsing!"

I love that!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1119371I think you are understating your case.  It is something I've noticed for some time now.  I'm a little (but not much) younger than the original D&D crowd.  Call it a half-generation removed.  I caught the tail-end of using a well, when it was hooked up to an electric pump.  But I've done the haul in a bucket for a garden.  People mostly got their food from the supermarket, but a few, now and then, butchered their own.  And even a wider net is the hands-on crafts, activities, and so forth of day-to-day living.  For example, I never made a quilt because I had to have it or be cold.  I did make a quilt with people that had done that, and did it the same way they did.  A lot of things I didn't experience myself, but I knew personally people that did.  And talked to them a lot about it.  Most of our wood-working was done with power tools, but I've logged wood, seen it cut up, and made something from it with hand tools and sweat.

What I see often is many people that are another generation and a half removed from those experiences--at least two generations removed from the start of RPGs.  (The exceptions are people that have spent some time in other parts of the world.)  Not only can they not kill a chicken and prepare it, they personally have never talked to anyone that has done it!  At some point, it's hard to even get to a place in imagination and a frame of reference to convey what "dark ages" means--positive or negative.

Wow, that's a really keen insight. That's going to be on my mind for a while. Thank you!

Most of the history I've been exposed to is event-driven, e.g. major political movements and figures, wars, technological innovation. Understanding especially the forces behind those events might allow deriving information about what the day to day was like, but seems like it'd require some of that "already know how to pluck a chicken" background to fill in the gaps effectively. Where do you guys go to find out more about the details and implications of just day-to-day life, in the Dark Ages or otherwise? Work like that for any era seems like it's the place to go to run an authentic campaign.

You can describe things as grimy and gritty if you like, but it's just a flavor choice and not necessarily "realistic". Like others I've traveled extensively in the so-called developing world. There are only so many people to create muddy streets and open sewers, and nature is vast and clean. Just outside your jagged palisade and past the fetid gibbet might be a beautiful brook with a bluebell meadow looking out to the mountains. That's a perfectly realistic dark age fantasy setting.

If you were to list the 10 aspects of Disney Fantasy vs. Dark Age Fantasy, what would they be?

Where exactly are the most important dividing lines and deviations?

I don't know about 10 but one would be that in the Disney version, nobody actually starves to death.
Also, you know that "Good" will overcome in the end. Somehow.

Quote from: SHARK;1119378Yes, very nice, my friend! Do you also understand the song itself? I understand that the woman is Russian. My god, the music is incredible. She is magnificent, and mesmerizing. What a gorgeous dancer!

Up to about 2:30, it isn't Russian. After that, it says something about the youth in the cities and something about love and black, but it is very difficult for me to catch over the music. I have always struggled to make out lyrics over background music in both foreign languages and in English, for some reason. the voice effects make it a little harder as well. Sorry.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1119423Where do you guys go to find out more about the details and implications of just day-to-day life, in the Dark Ages or otherwise? Work like that for any era seems like it's the place to go to run an authentic campaign.

I read a lot of history, and then while I'm thinking about what I read, try to discard some assumptions about what I think I know.  For someone without those day-to-day living experiences, outside of living it yourself, the next best thing I can think of would be the "Fox Fire" books about crafts in the Appalachian mountains.  That's not going to tell you exactly how people did things in an early medieval or ancient setting.  It will give you a frame of reference for living without power tools, in a partially pre-industrial environment. Sure, they had some better hand tools, forged and made in ways that weren't available in an earlier time.  It's not perfect.  But its close enough to jar the sensibilities and imagination.  After all, a fantasy/gaming version is rarely going to be entirely historical anyway.

The analogous thing I've really struggled with is ships.  I've never rowed except on a rowing machine.  I've paddled a canoe and been on a sailing ship (as a passenger) once.  It is difficult to learn enough about what sailing is inherently like to get to a point where I can make the game have the verisimilitude that I want.

Disney:  The woods are scary because of what might be in them.  Even when you get lost, it's being worried about what might find you first.  And a fair amount of being lost in the dark, of course.  Dark Age:  All of that, plus, getting hurt in a fall, can't get out, dying alone, hungry.  And then the things in the woods eat your remains and scatter them so that no one knows what happened for sure.  The woods ate you.

Disney:  The villains are mean.  They have a goal.  You are in the way.  But mostly they are mean.  Dark Age:  Hard people living hard lives, doing their best to survive.  If you get in their way, it isn't personal when they take you out.  They might snarl about territory before they kill you, but that's just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My understanding from "A Farewell to Alms" is that modern Third World living standards at the low end are much, much lower than that of Western Europeans during the Middle Ages. But I wouldn't worry much about this when seeking to evoke a theme, like grime & grit.

Quote from: S'mon;1119491My understanding from "A Farewell to Alms" is that modern Third World living standards at the low end are much, much lower than that of Western Europeans during the Middle Ages. But I wouldn't worry much about this when seeking to evoke a theme, like grime & grit.

One thing to keep in mind when laying out your "Dark Ages" is how much the previous civilization had consumed the easily extracted resources.
This determines the long hard slog back and how long it will take. If it is even possible.
Can the remains be reused? Can any of the dross?

Maybe the current "Dark Ages" is actually the new "Golden Age".

Quote from: S'mon;1119491My understanding from "A Farewell to Alms" is that modern Third World living standards at the low end are much, much lower than that of Western Europeans during the Middle Ages. But I wouldn't worry much about this when seeking to evoke a theme, like grime & grit.

I suspect that's because modern Third World countries - including the one that I just finished living in for eight years - are practically defined by their failed institutions whereas Western Europeans ultimately succeeded because of their/our successful institutions (I will leave the authors of "Why Nations Fail" to make the academic argument).

One of the many interesting things about the failures of the Philippines is that you get to see Dark Ages, pre-Reformation Catholicism in action. Much of the success of the West was built on the Reformation and I think the experiences of the modern Philippines confirm this.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1119423Where do you guys go to find out more about the details and implications of just day-to-day life, in the Dark Ages or otherwise? Work like that for any era seems like it's the place to go to run an authentic campaign.

My campaigns are usually earlier (Bronze Age) or later (Age of Discovery and later) but lately I've found great sources of inspiration from various youtube channels - like ones about period reenactment, various  crafts, primitive technology, and other various ones about bushcraft and primitive survival.

Also copies of 1800s crafts books and the various Time Life Books series have come in useful for pulling information of day-to-day life.

Quote from: Adventurer;1119704My campaigns are usually earlier (Bronze Age) or later (Age of Discovery and later) but lately I've found great sources of inspiration from various youtube channels - like ones about period reenactment, various  crafts, primitive technology, and other various ones about bushcraft and primitive survival.

Also copies of 1800s crafts books and the various Time Life Books series have come in useful for pulling information of day-to-day life.

That's a fantastic idea, thanks!

I bet the Old Farmer's Almanac might be worth a look too, come to think of it. And I think those are famous enough to be well preserved and readily available.

Quote from: S'mon;1119491My understanding from "A Farewell to Alms"

For those who are not familiar with the work. It is a well-written book that explains in details of how pre-industrial economies worked and the how the industrial revolution changed things.

The basic gist is that prior to the industrial revolution changes in technology had little impact on the living standards of various cultures.

The  basic reason is that if something improves the availability of food and resources increasing individual income then births will start to exceed deaths and then a period of time afterwards, the population has grown enough to consume the surplus and individual income falls back to it original level. If the change is permanent the result is a higher population living at subsistence income. This income a general average.

Another effect of this is that if something major happens that reduces population like the Black Death then after the chaos, individual income actually increases along with the number of births. Which again will eventually cause a fall in individual income.

Starting around 1780 to 1820 this all began to change with the development of the first industrial revolution. For a variety of reason the author gets into the book.

For the purpose of fantasy roleplaying it is an interesting explanation of what things remain stagnant within a setting. Why the presence of magic haven't turned fantasy settings into post scarcity utopias.

Sounds like that has to go on my reading list pronto!

Also explains a lot about most of the world and where we will be if there is ever a Mega Crash.