Someone remarked that 4e has stripped the last vestiges of medievalism from DnD. But then I began to think about how equivocal a role that particular strand has always played in FRPGs. After all, in the pulp S&S of Howard, Leiber, Vance, etc., medieval trappings are either absent or merely the thinnest veneer. But then there is the medieval fetish side of things, as seen in Harn, Chivalry and Sorcery, and the SCA, as well as sprinkled through AD&D1/2e.  

Personally, I don't think that mead, jousting, heraldry, three-field farming and hose are essential to FRPG. But neither do I like to throw out all of it and launch into a completely "non-Eurocentric" (read: handwaved and anime-esque) modern fantasy style.

So what do you think? Are medieval trappings, or the emulation of medieval conditions, important as a touchstone in your game, or important to the genre?

For me?  Pretty important.  I like them.  To the extent that it's something I dislike about 3e, despite liking it otherwise, and have felt drawn of late to the old Palladium 1e, because it just has a better archaic feel to it.

I like knights and castles in my D&D.

Quote from: jrientsI like knights and castles in my D&D.

Word.

Quote from: jrientsI like knights and castles in my D&D.

I second the sentiment of the distinguished gentleman from Illinois.

I'd love to play Harnmaster at last one day, but to me knights and castles are no essential ingredients of D&D. They can be present but needn't be. They work in parts of Greyhawk but not so much in Arduin.

Since my leanings aim more towards mythological epics, wuxia, science fantasy, picaresque novel, piratical swashbuckling, planetary romance, globe-trotting adventure and masked crimefighting pulps, westerns, and swords and sorcery, medievalism isn't that important for me.

There can be all sorts of Fantasy RPGs.  Knights and Castles is an important and popular one though.

If you want medievalism, play Pendragon.

Quote from: jrientsI like knights and castles in my D&D.

Yes.

I like a medieval feel to my fantasy settings. Although I did enjoy the Dark Sun setting quite a bit as well.

Well, in general you pretty well have either medievalism or sword and sorcery.  D&D was always in default format a funky mix of both, which usually led to individual campaigns leaning more toward one or more toward the other.

Now, its just a little bit harder to swing toward medievalism, and Sword and Sorcery is seen as a default. From what little I've seen though, its still pretty far from impossible to swing it the other way with 4e.

RPGPundit

I prefer to set games that are some mish-mash of the early modern period and the classical world, with very little mediaeval material in them at all. No one's ever complained before that I wasn't running a proper "fantasy" game.

Quote from: The_ShadowSo what do you think? Are medieval trappings, or the emulation of medieval conditions, important as a touchstone in your game, or important to the genre?

To fantasy RPGs in general?  Not important.  However, the medieval setting does have a host of qualities that lends itself to a particular style of play (rogue justice?).

I don't care much for Medievalism, and don't consider it essential to fantasy RPGs, but I also think it's dangerous to hand-wave off the need for a historical grounding for the game.

This is a feature of computer RPGs, where the "economy" consist of item shops that sell items with pricing based off character power level, and the player has no option to explore anything about the "culture."  There's no need to explain why swords are the most common weapon in a world that features chain guns (wtf is up with Final Fantasy anyways?  Is it fantasy?  Sci-fi? Anime?  I don't get it).  None of it has to make any sense, because you can't tug at the strings and cause it to unravel.

That's why a historical grounding for a game is of vital importance.  My current game is set in Darokin, which is essentially Italy circa the late 1500s.  If you have a question about Darokin, and it's not covered by the material I've added about technology, religion, magic and the government, then you can probably puzzle it out yourself with a historical reference book.  It also allows me to toss things in like women at a party wearing red shoes to indicate they are courtesans.

More importantly, if my players go off script, or if they ask me a question that isn't covered by the rules ("Can I buy item X, which is not on any price list?"), I have an idea what the answer is, or can figure it out fairly easily.

One of the issues I have with WOTCs handling of D&D is their tendency to encourage hand-waving the background -- in 4E the death of the campaign setting will take this to its ultimate expression -- and leaving DMs with worlds that are useful to adventurers but don't make much sense for farmers.

In D&D, it's assumed that players can just buy whatever magical items they want, but it's never explained how this can possibly work.  WOTC has just let it be assumed that there are Costco Magic Item Warehouses that stock multiple copies of everything imaginable.  Which is just dumb and makes no sense at all.  

In my campaign, as players grow in power they gain a reputation.  People notice them coming to and from the dungeon flush with gold, and start trying to become friends with them and sell them stuff.  As the players start hauling out real treasures, they attract the attention of more powerful merchants and specialized agents who make their living by arranging purchases for the wealthy -- i.e. courtiers.  By the time they hit 9th level, the tavern of the inn they live in becomes their lobby, with no patrons that aren't waiting to try to sell them on something.  A boorish player character could walk out of his room in his underwear, and shout down to the throng below that he needs a potion of cure disease in case his whore gave him something, and there would be a half dozen merchant agents rushing the stairs to sell it to him.  Generally by this point, the players have agents of their own to screen prospective sellers.

All of that developed from my readings on how trade worked in mercantile Italy, and the public markets of Venice.

I don't think the latest iterations of D&D do much to enable DMs to figure this stuff out.  It's been greatly downplayed since 2E.

My games have never been truly mediaeval, and they were just fine. I never had the chivalry and "Ye Olde Englande" thing; my early models were the Fighting Fantasy books and later fantasy pulps with a healthy dose of the CRPG Wizardry VII. This ensured that even though some of the trappings were there, the spirit of the settings was always very distant from mediaeval high fantasy. Later, even these trappings went bye-bye, and gave way to something that's two parts classical Mediterraenean, one part Wild West, two parts modernity and one part planetary romance (mostly Brackett with a bit of C.L. Moore). The lasers-and-frogs aesthetic is, well, not the stuff of Arthur and Gawaine. :haw:

I don't think D&D really requires mediaevalism at all. In fact, when we take its assumptions at face value, the relation becomes very strained. People can of course adjust it in all kinds of directions, but there will always be problems if you wish to be faithful to high fantasy ideals... and even more if you want chivalric romance.