Unimportant... I allways wanted fantasy mechs...

Quote from: JackalopeI 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.

My opinion, except that I like medievalism.

QuoteIn 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.

When we played D&D Basic/Expert (a long time ago), we had the "village wizard". You have gold earned in a dungeon, he has magic items, a capitalistic economy arises. Exactly what you describe.

Quote from: ClaudiusWhen we played D&D Basic/Expert (a long time ago), we had the "village wizard". You have gold earned in a dungeon, he has magic items, a capitalistic economy arises. Exactly what you describe.

For that to work in 3.5, the wizard has to be 20th level (a 20th level mystic theurge with practiced caster taken twice to be specific) and have an unquenchable lust for gold (along with poor business sense)

It totally worked for Basic though, I did the same thing back in the day.  But the game wasn't engineered with the assumption you'd have craploads of specific ability enhancing magic items.

Quote from: FritzsUnimportant... I allways wanted fantasy mechs...

Heh. I remember using them years ago, except mine couldn't fly.

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?

Nope for both. But then again my definition of fantasy is pretty out there. Of course for some fantasy campaigns I want to get Medieval....

Regards,
David R

In my games it's a mixture of Sword and Sorcery and Medievalist, and more. I see no reason to limit myself by definitions like these.

As for Magic Items, generally speaking unless it's a massive city or a place that has reason to have items like that on hand you can't purchase magic items. But then we use a bit of the Earthdawn rules with our magic items, and the more you discover about an item and it's history the more powerful it can potentially get.

I think our games are only medieval co-incidentally. If you're playing during a period in your setting where widespread availability of work by machines is low or non-existent, obviously it will have similarities to real cultures during those periods. For instance, if steam power - or some arcane equivalent - hasn't been developed, populations will be lower and more people will live outside urban centers [because they'll need to in order to feed everyone]. If, in your setting, the biochemistry of legumes is the same as in ours, crop rotation is, if not inevitable, pretty likely if anyone's paying attention.

Without devices to output massive energy, nonhuman energy production must come from the environmental energy: wind, wave, stream. The means by which to do that don't strongly differ from those used in Europe's medieval period, although there's no reason the windmills have to have radial vanes, for instance.

[edit: But again, the dictates of realism mean, for instance, that steam power might never be developed. Steam power requires burning something with a high energy density, such as coal; trying to have an industrial revolution with wood is highly unlikely, if only because of the temperatures required to melt the metals you need to produce vessels with the integrity to contain the kind of force a steam engine needs to produce in order to be useful for more than draining deep mines. (Hey, and why isn't the Underdark flooded, anyway? Drow steam engines?) The technological advancement on a world without some kind of abundant high-energy-density material would be very different. Similarly, if magic in your setting is real, mages may have discovered long, long ago how to produce work from whatever the source of magic in the game is; there's no reason humans without a civilization couldn't have widespread localized power in such an event, and the technological progression of the real Earth would be of very little utility in predicting the course of such a world.]

Economies of magic items and precious metals are always problematic in roleplaying games. I don't think I've ever seen that handled realistically, because it'd be so much of a pain in the ass to revise every cost entry in the book, and even for me, there's a limit to how realistic [read: pedantic] you need to get at the table.

Quote from: JackalopeOne 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.

Are there lots of farmer pcs in your games?

On topic: I am an S&S with SF elements tossed in guy.

Quote from: AosAre there lots of farmer pcs in your games?

OPn topic: I am an S&S with SF elements tossed in.

Hey, a RuneQuest 3rd group without peasants is like a garden without flowers!

Quote from: droogIf you want medievalism, play Pendragon.

Pendragon lacks robots and slimy frog gods, which I also like in my D&D.

Quote from: AosAre there lots of farmer pcs in your games?

A lot of the PCs tend to be the sons of farmers, or miners, or other working people.

Does that play an important role in your campaign? I mean does building the economy add significanty more to the adventure than having a character say "I'm the son of a farmer?" and leave it at that?

Quote from: AosI am an S&S with SF elements tossed in guy.

Me too, although I usually downplay the SF unless it's something I'm specifically shooting for.

I like medievalism well enough, but being English by birth and location it often feels a little too close to home. We're pretty much surrounded by cultural and archaeological remnants of the middle ages over here, and sometimes it interfers with the distancing process required for me to think of a setting as fantastical.

That said, I'm a long time fan of the early renaissance setting of WFRP, and have always had a soft spot for Dragon Warriors. I suppose I prefer a world to either hew quite closely it's medieval inspirations or not at all. Those RenFairs you have in the States sound like exactly the kind faux historical bollocks that infects too much of fantasy. Plonking a castle in a field and having everyone start their sentences with "Prithee" has never really done much other than irritate me.

Quote from: AosI mean does building the economy add significanty more to the adventure than having a character say "I'm the son of a farmer?" and leave it at that?

Yes, if for no other reason than it aids in the suspension of disbelief. It's very difficult for me to get into the game if I'm constantly distracted by utterly implausible events and settings. That's not to say settings cannot exist without farming or farmers: magic can [literally or figuratively] handwave a lot of things. As always for me, internal consistency is key.

Quote from: AosDoes that play an important role in your campaign? I mean does building the economy add significanty more to the adventure than having a character say "I'm the son of a farmer?" and leave it at that?

Quoted from here:

"Ok, so, not knowing much about plowing you have to go to the village to find ..."
"Um ... I know about plowing, I have Farming at 18."
"What ... wait? You're a warrior, why do you know Farming at 18?!"
"I wasn't born a soldier."