While googling campaign settings for Pathfinder, I stumbled upon Kingdoms of Legend. KoL is unique because it is 15th century Europe with elves and orcs tacked on. I like this very much because it cuts out the middleman: every fantasy setting is just mirror universe Europe, so why not just use Europe?
Where the setting falls apart for me is that Christianity and Islam are conspicuously absent, replaced by Roman syncretism, while the political institutions founded on them remain the same. E.g., the Teutonic Knights are still fighting infidels in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Papal States are a magocracy (?!), etc.
The writers said this was to avoid offending people, but I can't accept that. Without Christianity, this is just your generic fantasy world with familiar names. The entire point of playing in medieval Europe is to kick ass for the Lord!
Agree or disagree?
Erasure! Erasure! :D
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;852889Agree or disagree?
Having now seen the juicy roleplaying advantages of
7th Sea's pseudo Abrahamic-gnostic faiths in action for myself, I must say I agree this was likely a missed opportunity.
However, part of that roleplaying potential depends heavily on the fact that it is based on faith and the lack of decent evidence, which allows for harsh factionalism, theological debate, witch hunts of the innocent, moral confusion, real tests of piety, anxiety-driven fanaticism, legit martyrdom, eight anklebones of St. Louis and other great stuff; Pathfinder/D&D's divine magic and related system/setting elements really undermine that necessary uncertainty (and don't tell me Eberron's agnosticism makes it work, because I'm running Eberron right now and it only half-works).
Also, an alt-history campaign where Europe's identity wasn't utterly defined by Christianity and its variants could be an interesting exploration too. I've actually been wondering lately how France's culture, for instance, would have developed if its Celtic elements had been better preserved and propagated through the centuries.
EDIT: Removed some petty bitter bullshit on my part.
Medieval Europe without Christianity (and Islam on the edges) isn't really medieval Europe.
It was funny to see pervasive Christianity in 0D&D which was not set in Europe. Vampires were repelled by "crosses", St Cuthbert, etc.
If having Christianity in a fantasy Europe offends you, don't play that game. Buy a different setting.
I actually had a player who insisted on playing only Christian characters in D&D. "No way is my character worshiping some pagan god." I said OK, and didn't worry about Christianity was present in my non-Earth fantasy game.
In my current game the question of religion hasn't come up yet. There is the possibility of playing a religious acolyte, but no one has chosen to yet. I have not defined any of the religions for the world.
This shit drives me crazy. A pseudo historical game set in 15th century europe needs christianity and other real world religions. Period. Anything else is a crapy glancing blow at the heart of the setting.
I absolutely think you can do medieval Europe without Christianity.
Unfortunately, almost invariably, the gaming world does.
You don't suppose that the existence of elves and orcs might have butterflied away the prominence of Abrahamic religion?
(although in that case, one must wonder why it didn't butterfly away the Roman Empire...)
Wait, here's a possibly related thought: did the setting keep or ditch historical sexism?
Quote from: Ravenswing;852967I absolutely think you can do medieval Europe without Christianity.
It wouldn't really be the 15th century though, now would it?
Quote from: Ravenswing;852967I absolutely think you can do medieval Europe without Christianity.
Unfortunately, almost invariably, the gaming world does.
Really? Other than the Best Forgotten Realms (much of the history of which is Earth with the serial numbers filed off) can you give some other examples?
It seem sto me more of th egaming world is doing Tolkien or Howard.
Quote from: Ravenswing;852967I absolutely think you can do medieval Europe without Christianity.
Unfortunately, almost invariably, the gaming world does.
The major exceptions I can think of are Ars Magica, Pendragon, Cthulhu: Dark Ages and Vampire: the Dark Ages.
Any other exceptions, whilst we're on the topic?
EDIT: Whoops, nearly forgot Maelstrom Domesday.
Quote from: Axiomatic;852968You don't suppose that the existence of elves and orcs might have butterflied away the prominence of Abrahamic religion?
(although in that case, one must wonder why it didn't butterfly away the Roman Empire...)
The whole point of Kingdoms of Legend is add elves and orcs to medieval Europe, butterfly be darned. Furthermore, Christianity doesn't exist in the game to avoid offending people and to have a pantheon like every other D&D campaign setting, not any other reason.
So while the setting promises medieval Europe, what they really mean is generic fantasy world with familiar names. Which is a huge rip-off.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;852978Wait, here's a possibly related thought: did the setting keep or ditch historical sexism?
It is not mentioned. After reading Medieval Players Guide, which addresses that, I assume PCs are special enough to warrant ignoring gender values. It's not like women were treated as disposable! Men were willing to kill their best friends in duels if both desired the same woman!
Real-world religion can be a touchy subject for some people. I have no problem running a world with Christianity. In fact, once upon a time, I was less annoyed by the omission of Christianity (real-world religion can always be a touchy subject for some players and GMs) than by its substitution by made-up religions that bear little or no resemblance to Christianity, but use the trappings of historical Christianity; this is common enough that it's got at least two (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrystalDragonJesus) distinct (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LowestCosmicDenominator) TVTropes Wiki entries.
Nowadays, though, I embrace the silliness. It can be leveraged to add flavor. I find it hard to imagine WFRP without a Catholic Church that worships Conan as played by Ahnold as the founding father of the nation, plus a culturally acceptable Old Faith wolf god (Ulric) and a smattering of Greco-Roman-ish deities (Vereena/Myrmidia/Shallya as Athena, Taal/Rhya as Dionysus, etc.). It's a mess, but an endearing one, and the proliferation of cults is a reasonable expactation when the world's going to hell in a handbasket, as is the case with WFRP's Old World. And it all fits, thematically, with the setting's embrace of black humor and a frank caricature of Late Medieval/Early Renaissance Europe.
When crafting a fantasy world of my own, I usually succumb to the siren song of D&Desque polytheism, but I often make a point of hewing in what I feel might be a decent stand-in for Christianity. My favorite tactic is to draw from Mithraism, which is said to have greatly influenced and cross-pollinated with early Christianity, and might have turned out similar given enough time; so my Christianity stand-in is usually a solar deity with a suitably redeeming life-death-rebirth theme. Also very easy to fit into pantheon narratives if necessary (I sometimes like to frame the religion's origin as an evolution from an older, more comprehensive pantheon).
When the world is an alt-Earth, though, I just go with Christianity. I don't think you can have a reasonable facsimile of our own Common Era world without Christianity, at least in the West and the Near East.
Yep, it's hard to make sense of many of the details of medieval Europe without Christianity. It's not enough to "butterfly away" some things without explaining why everything else didn't fall victim to the lepidopteran alteration of causality, either directly (would dwarves have prevented the collapse of the Carolingian Empire?) or indirectly (how do you have the Teutonic Knights without Christianity?)
That said, I've seen a pretty nice not-Christian setup in the game Shades of Fantasy. It's not Europe, but the main religion is pretty similar to inistitutionized Mainichaeism.
As for sects, schisms, and religious conflict, I absolutely agree that magic makes it hard. This topic came up a long while back on this forum and I remember being puzzled by the mental gymnastics some posters employed. If I have a chance I will dig it up. Anyway, I think the as the power of magic increases, so does the difficulty of sustaining the ambiguity over matters of faith. However, I think it might be handled by describing magic purely in terms of effect. Then one person's divine magic is another's sorcery.
Quote from: Arminius;853036However, I think it might be handled by describing magic purely in terms of effect. Then one person's divine magic is another's sorcery.
That and identifying the gods and demons as the same sort of being as spirits, but spirits who have fattened on the tasty spiritual sacrifices of their worshippers (or have torn sustenance from the souls of their screaming victims) to reach a state of enormou spiritual power. So they aren't necessarily objects to worship, but spiritual beings that anybody can propitiate and manipulate via the appropriate ceremonies, rituals, and summonings.
Tossing christianity and islam out of an historical medieval rpg is like ordering a T-bone and then throwing it on the floor and eating your napkin.
There are quite a few games that include the church, its just that most of them are relatively old (or at least have old roots). Chivalry and Sorcery. Pendragon. Flashing Blades (~150 year later setting, but whatever). A couple others named above. Perhaps not coincidentally, all of these are pretty cool games.
Magic becomes a serious sticking point when you have two types of magic that are mechanically the same, Arcane magic vs Divine magic in typical D&D where the biggest mechanical difference is in the available spell lists.
What really makes religious sects, schisms, and conflicts difficult in a fantasy world is not the existence of "real" god(s) per se, but the common direct and visible interference of the divine in the mundane world. It is very easy to argue about the nature of God, or what God's will is when God is a distant figure. When God can appear in the market square and directly say "This is what I command" it becomes a lot harder to sustain a differing opinion.
My current campaign features distant and rather uninvolved gods. A priest may pray for and recieve a miracle, but that will be more a function of the priest's strength of faith than the direct action of a deity. Magic is it's own force. Religious believers can learn magic and focus it through their faith, but non-believers can also learn the same magic and focus it through other beliefs, the magic doesn't care.
When the gods start becoming actively involved in the world the cosmology of the universe becomes much more important to define. How do rival gods interact with each other? Games lie RuneQuest delve into this a lot.
I suppose i am drifting a bit off topic. But to bring it back on topic, the Christian church shaped so much of medieval Europe that I don't see how you can really do a medieval European game without including either the Christian church or a very close analog. A world that is *like* medival Europe but not Europe could be done without the Church, but it would lack Crusades, religious orders of knighthood, the Holy Roman Empire, etc. Middle Earth is a world like medieval Europe in many ways, but not Europe, as is Prydain or Narnia. Earthsea or the Land is a world very much unlike medieval Europe. The Hyborean Age is a pre-historic Europe, certainly pre-Christian.
For me, medieval Europe needs to have a treatment of Christianity and Islam.
Sure, you can get around it by de-emphasising the role of religion in the setting, or cutting it out completely, but that loses a lot of the flavour of the setting and a lot of the reasons for the history.
Quote from: soltakss;853064For me, medieval Europe needs to have a treatment of Christianity and Islam.
I don't think it's just you. Plausibility demands as much.
I am anxiously awaiting someone to take a genuine stab at a mythical Biblical RPG during the rise of Christianity.
Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;853083I am anxiously awaiting someone to take a genuine stab at a mythical Biblical RPG during the rise of Christianity.
Too much rape, murder, and genocide. It would never pass muster today.
Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;853083I am anxiously awaiting someone to take a genuine stab at a mythical Biblical RPG during the rise of Christianity.
Check out Testament - a d20 release from roughly the middle of the 3E era.
I can understand it. It is not exactly an act of great bravery to ommit one of the major forces in the setting the authors tried to recreate, but there are two good reasons for it. One of those is quite simply, that Pathfinder/D&D style divine magic fits horribly to a Christian system of faith and miracles. "Oh, so your son of god can walk over water. So can my 7th level cleric. About a dozen times per week." I genuinely don't know enough about miracles and the like in Jewish or Islamic traditions of this time, but I wouldn't be too surprised if there weren't any sources describing how rabbis or imams summoned celestial badgers.
The other reason is that by dealing with real world religions, you have to deal with real world religious people, a group that also partially due to its sheer size produces a large quantity of intolerable, self-righteous assholes. Considering that the pre-reformatory Catholic church of that era was close to the very nadir of its existence with its massive loss of authority due to the catastrophe of the plague years, the Great Schism, a series of antipopes, open corruption, simony and so on AND you have to deal with the era's antijudaism with its pogroms, deportations, forced baptism and so on AND you have to deal with the reconquista in the west and the Turkish expansion on the Balkan (including the eventual conquest of Constantinople) AND you have to address the idiotic D&D alignment system in there as well, you have a vast potential to piss off a lot of people.
Now, the early 15th century is an awesome, awesome era to run a campaign. It is literally one of my favorites, and I am going to start a new campaign set in the early 15th century Balticum next week. But, in my games, there is no actual difference between clerically approved "theurgy" and ordinary "witchcraft" (well, of course there is a philosophical difference: if I use it against my enemies, it is a power granted by god; if my enemies use it against me, it is maleficium and utterly despicable), pretty much all factions have their sympathetic and villainous representatives, and the game is more concerned with survival and personal power than with theological questions.
Quote from: Beagle;853288I can understand it. It is not exactly an act of great bravery to ommit one of the major forces in the setting the authors tried to recreate, but there are two good reasons for it. One of those is quite simply, that Pathfinder/D&D style divine magic fits horribly to a Christian system of faith and miracles. "Oh, so your son of god can walk over water. So can my 7th level cleric. About a dozen times per week." I genuinely don't know enough about miracles and the like in Jewish or Islamic traditions of this time, but I wouldn't be too surprised if there weren't any sources describing how rabbis or imams summoned celestial badgers.
This is why I prefer the RuneQuest/Legend/NRP/D100 approach to magic - Each cult/sect/religion/whatever has its own magic that is probably different from others. You define the religious organisation and specify which spells it gives to its followers.
So, no generic abilities given to every cleric, no matter who the cleric follows.
Quote from: Beagle;853288The other reason is that by dealing with real world religions, you have to deal with real world religious people, a group that also partially due to its sheer size produces a large quantity of intolerable, self-righteous assholes.
That can be a problem. However, the religion of earlier times is often far removed from the religion of today, so could be treated as a completely separate entity. At least that's how I do it - Medieval Christianity/Islam/Judaism is modelled by rules in a game system and are very different from the religions followed today.
Quote from: Beagle;853288Considering that the pre-reformatory Catholic church of that era was close to the very nadir of its existence with its massive loss of authority due to the catastrophe of the plague years, the Great Schism, a series of antipopes, open corruption, simony and so on AND you have to deal with the era's antijudaism with its pogroms, deportations, forced baptism and so on AND you have to deal with the reconquista in the west and the Turkish expansion on the Balkan (including the eventual conquest of Constantinople) AND you have to address the idiotic D&D alignment system in there as well, you have a vast potential to piss off a lot of people.
Historical events can still inflame, unfortunately.
The Turks in the Balkans is very much a hot topic now - Look at the problems in Kosovo, for example. A game set in that era and area could well provoke a backlash in certain places.
However, so could any other setting. A game set in the Jacobite Rebellion would inflame the Orange Order, a game set in the early period of Islam could well enrage Shias/Sunnis depending how it was written, the taking of Constantinople still rankles amongst many Orthodox Christians. You just have to accept that this is history and that some people don't like what happened.
If you treat it in a sensitive, balanced and fair way then that is probably good enough.
Quote from: soltakss;853527If you treat it in a sensitive, balanced and fair way then that is probably good enough.
Good enough for reasonable men and women certainly.
Quote from: Beagle;853288I can understand it. It is not exactly an act of great bravery to ommit one of the major forces in the setting the authors tried to recreate, but there are two good reasons for it. One of those is quite simply, that Pathfinder/D&D style divine magic fits horribly to a Christian system of faith and miracles. "Oh, so your son of god can walk over water. So can my 7th level cleric. About a dozen times per week." I genuinely don't know enough about miracles and the like in Jewish or Islamic traditions of this time, but I wouldn't be too surprised if there weren't any sources describing how rabbis or imams summoned celestial badgers.
Well, the Bible itself features Moses going to the Egyptians and going "look, I can prove that my god is real because he allows me to do miracles!" and then he does some miracles, only to have the Pharaoh go "Okay, but I have court mages who can do that too," and then the egyptian mages do everything Moses just did.
I mean, Moses wins in the end by being BETTER at miracles because his god is cooler, but it isn't like he's the only one capable of transforming a stick into a snake.
The Arthurian romances, as well as other medieval legends and tales contain quite a few holy men, hermits, giants, wizards, fairies and other magic users, some of whom get their powers from faith. It didn't seem to particularly shake anyone's faith that a hermit could perform miraculous healing. Nor that there were sorcerers, and fairies that could do much the same.
I don't think a high level Cleric casting a "Walk on Water" spell would be seen as anything other than a holy man performing a miracle of faith. An evil Cleric doing the same would obviously be drawing his power from a Satanic source.
In the setting I would assume that most (if not all) members of the Cleric class would be Jewish, Christian or Muslim. In large measure because these were far and away the dominant faiths of the period and place. Druids might be Christian (St Francis) or pagan.
It should be noted that the medieval versions of none of those religions were exactly the same as any of their present day incarnations. They have changed just as every other aspect of society has changed.
Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;853083I am anxiously awaiting someone to take a genuine stab at a mythical Biblical RPG during the rise of Christianity.
I am pretty sure someone has tried. There is hints of that in the TSR Rome campaign book I believe. Been decades so not sure.
I mentioned earlier that we'd had a thread a while back dealing with multiple religions & sects in a monotheistic campaign. I just did a little digging and I think this is the one:
Why Polytheism? (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9114)
Chivalry & Sorcery, King Arthur Pendragon, Ars Magica, GURPS Fantasy (Yrth): These are examples of games that actually do the setting, and religion is part of it.
Shinto and Buddhism are part of Samurai Japan, the Olympians of Mythic Greece, Ksarul and Avanthe et al of Tekumel, and so on.
Why call it that then drop what was most important to the people?
It would be better to make up a world like Dalarna or Zimiamvia or Florin and Guilder.
Quote from: Arminius;853665I mentioned earlier that we'd had a thread a while back dealing with multiple religions & sects in a monotheistic campaign. I just did a little digging and I think this is the one:
Why Polytheism? (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9114)
Today I learned that James Maliszewski posted here 52 times.
For pretty much any game with actual religions I would recommend and prefer a strictly agnostic approach. Actual, provable and most importanntly controlable divine intervention do not work very well in the context of historical Christianity, especially when you come to the many, many schisms and divides. Can heretics or heterodox preachers channel the power of god? Are they truly heretics if the Trinity doesn't seem to care and grant them those powers? Assuming that there are some practices that are beyond the pale for the clergy (when it doubt, think Alexander VI.), where do you draw the line? Or do you go the other route and only allow divine magic for the truly dedicated? It just raises too many questions and creates needless conflicts. And that is before you add any other religion.
The important part however is, that Christian history is filled with great stuff to build fantastic adventures of all sorts around them. How can anybody read about something like the Cadaver Synod (for instance) and not come up with an adventure idea or two?
Anyway, I wasted some money and actually bought Kingdom of Legend; after all, I do plan run a campaign set in this era starting Thursday, and more information about this would be helpful, or so I thought. It is a surprisingly bad book. Some of its inherent stupidity is a result of the no-Christianity premise, and thus it is logically that the setting doesn't include the Vatican state, even though they do have the Ordo Teutonicus and its realm. It also doesn't have Bohemia or Prague, because a long-standing tradition of alchemists and the legends about golems don't match with a fantasy setting, or something like that.
And somehow the authors think that Turkish is written in Cyrillic letters.
I replaced Christianity with the Unconquered Sun in my Albion game because it allows me to have something ALMOST exactly like the Catholic church in the 1400s while still fitting better witth the magic system, the existence of clerics, and the law/chaos alignment themes I wanted in the setting.
It would be ridiculously simple for someone to change it back if they wanted.
Quote from: DavetheLost;853010Really? Other than the Best Forgotten Realms (much of the history of which is Earth with the serial numbers filed off) can you give some other examples?
It seem sto me more of th egaming world is doing Tolkien or Howard.
My apologies; the thread dropped off my radar, and I didn't respond before now.
I don't think I was clear enough. What I meant to say wasn't that the gaming world invariably did Christianity-less medieval Europe. It was that the vast majority of treatments -- published or otherwise -- of medieval Europe by gamers all but omit Christianity.
Quote from: Warthur;853018The major exceptions I can think of are Ars Magica, Pendragon, Cthulhu: Dark Ages and Vampire: the Dark Ages.
I wouldn't even give those games credit for being exceptions.
In medieval Europe, damn near EVERYthing was about religion. The intelligentsia, such as it was, were overwhelmingly clerics. The Church was the major landowner in almost every region, the chief beneficiary of the majority of wills. Almost everyone was a churchgoer, and a mark of a conspicuous Bad Man was that he often wasn't, or that he was a (gasp) heretic. Theological conversations were the order of the day. The Crusades dominated the martial energies of Europe for most of the period. The pronouncements of the local bishop or abbot had as much weight as those of secular authorities. Knights fought more often with the name of saints on their lips than of ladies or feudal overlords.
Published settings don't really reflect this, and I've only seen one campaign that ever did.
I have played and GMed Vampire: Dark Ages and King Arthur Pendragon extensively.
In Vampire religion really didn't play a big part. The Church was more set dressing than anything else. Despite the whole "lineage of Cain" thing the vampires didn't wrestle with religious questions. The Church had its vampire hunters, but that could have been a secular vampire hunting organization in many ways. The Church just didn't feel integrated.
In Pendragon the opposite was true. In that game the differences between Roman and British Christians, and any Christians and Pagans often came to the fore. Holy men, chapels, and religious hermits were frequent encounters.
In Vampire there was always a sense that "God is not really real" in Pendragon God was very much real.
That despite Arthur being some five or six hundred years before Vampire and the Crusades.
Quote from: Beagle;853288I can understand it. It is not exactly an act of great bravery to ommit one of the major forces in the setting the authors tried to recreate
I would frame it more along the lines that it doesn't really benefit the author to make a decision which cuts out certain portions of the gaming market. Any inclusion of real world religion will alienate (some) members of other or no religious affiliation, the truly devoted of that religion will certainly note such a decision mostly on what the authors (from these readers' point of view) got wrong, and the only people it helps to retain is those who look at a historical Europe sans Christianity and say, "well that ruins the verisimilitude for me."
Quote from: Beagle;854222For pretty much any game with actual religions I would recommend and prefer a strictly agnostic approach. Actual, provable and most importanntly controlable divine intervention do not work very well in the context of historical Christianity, especially when you come to the many, many schisms and divides. Can heretics or heterodox preachers channel the power of god? Are they truly heretics if the Trinity doesn't seem to care and grant them those powers? Assuming that there are some practices that are beyond the pale for the clergy (when it doubt, think Alexander VI.), where do you draw the line? Or do you go the other route and only allow divine magic for the truly dedicated? It just raises too many questions and creates needless conflicts. And that is before you add any other religion.
The important part however is, that Christian history is filled with great stuff to build fantastic adventures of all sorts around them. How can anybody read about something like the Cadaver Synod (for instance) and not come up with an adventure idea or two?
.
Just speaking as a player, I would personally find it much more interesting to treat a mythic christian setting the same way one treats mythic norse mythology or hindu mythology. I would prefer the GM treat it as true and make specific choices on his own (not necessarily reflecting his or her personal beliefs but reflecting what works best for the setting).
Of course just throwing in an analog works too.
The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of players out there don't give a shit. Tried that 30 years ago, about two people noticed and nobody else cared.
90% of all American Christians are utterly ignorant on the influence of Christianity on the Middle Ages, why should a random sampling of gamers be any different? Any discussion on this board already is a result of massive selfselection bias.
The vast majority of gamers want their fantasy medieval game to be about as medieval as Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. If you don't believe me look at World of Warcraft, or what happened to Guild Wars 2.
Quote from: RPGPundit;856040I replaced Christianity with the Unconquered Sun in my Albion game because it allows me to have something ALMOST exactly like the Catholic church in the 1400s while still fitting better witth the magic system, the existence of clerics, and the law/chaos alignment themes I wanted in the setting.
It would be ridiculously simple for someone to change it back if they wanted.
I like that idea even better than using real Christianity. It neatly fulfills the same role as the Church did in shaping medieval society, but won't turn nonreligious players away and religious players cannot find fault because the religion is fictional.
As for real world religions in RPGs, one of the best games we ever had was playing The End (1e), a game that takes as its start that the Evangelical Christians are right about the Rapture and the End Times, with a group composed almost entirely of non-Christians. We had a Jew, an atheist, several pagans, and a Native American traditionalist.
What made this work, and unexpectedly well, was that we all agreed "this is the way the game world works. We'll leave what we actually believe about this aside."
It is worth noting that Greek, Roman, Norse, Hindu, etc mythology are "fun stories" to some, "religion" to others. They just don't have the cultural power that Christians do.
But, I think it is a good observation that most gamers don't really give a shit about religion or culture in games. "Deity" was always just a slot on the character sheet that Clerics filled in and everybody else ignored.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;856261The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of players out there don't give a shit. Tried that 30 years ago, about two people noticed and nobody else cared.
90% of all American Christians are utterly ignorant on the influence of Christianity on the Middle Ages, why should a random sampling of gamers be any different? Any discussion on this board already is a result of massive selfselection bias.
The vast majority of gamers want their fantasy medieval game to be about as medieval as Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. If you don't believe me look at World of Warcraft, or what happened to Guild Wars 2.
I would agree that a fantasy setting doesn't need to be terribly historical or based on real world religions. I think with fantasy worlds what most GMs and players want is the ability use their imagination creatively. Being chained to the real world can limit that, particularly if the group isn't interested in doing a bunch of research before making a town or secret society. My point was simply that a fantasy world that assumes the Medieval world view was true, would be interesting to me.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;856261If you don't believe me look at World of Warcraft, or what happened to Guild Wars 2.
I know what you mean about WoW, but what happened to Guild Wars 2? I'm not familiar with that game or its community.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;856272My point was simply that a fantasy world that assumes the Medieval world view was true, would be interesting to me.
"The Highest Level of All Fantasy Wargaming" does this in spades if you can find a copy of the hoary old chestnut.
Quote from: DavetheLost;856314"The Highest Level of All Fantasy Wargaming" does this in spades if you can find a copy of the hoary old chestnut.
It's not hard to find ... but doesn't it also assume that God is a pretender to the position and dependent on mortal worship for power?
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;856272I would agree that a fantasy setting doesn't need to be terribly historical or based on real world religions. I think with fantasy worlds what most GMs and players want is the ability use their imagination creatively. Being chained to the real world can limit that, particularly if the group isn't interested in doing a bunch of research before making a town or secret society. My point was simply that a fantasy world that assumes the Medieval world view was true, would be interesting to me.
Interesting to me too. Just not very popular.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;856275I know what you mean about WoW, but what happened to Guild Wars 2? I'm not familiar with that game or its community.
GW1 had very strong art direction, and Nightfall had a wonderful pseudo-Ptolemaic Egypt flavor.
GW2 is World of Warcraft with better art direction. 100% generic fantasy sludge.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;856316It's not hard to find ... but doesn't it also assume that God is a pretender to the position and dependent on mortal worship for power?
No, that's Kult ;)
Actually it was a medieval heresy and might be in Fantasy Wargaming, I haven't read my copy in years.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;856261The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of players out there don't give a shit. Tried that 30 years ago, about two people noticed and nobody else cared.
90% of all American Christians are utterly ignorant on the influence of Christianity on the Middle Ages, why should a random sampling of gamers be any different? Any discussion on this board already is a result of massive selfselection bias.
The vast majority of gamers want their fantasy medieval game to be about as medieval as Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. If you don't believe me look at World of Warcraft, or what happened to Guild Wars 2.
No argument there.
The main reason people care about religion in my campaign is that I make it matter. Want anyone to give you the time of day in a monotheistic community? Then you'd better be an observant adherent to that faith ... and those who try to fake it better not slip on details any genuine parishioner would know as a matter of course. Want clerical healing? Then you'd better be a
genuine adherent of that faith ... else it just doesn't work on you.
Of course, this approach doesn't happen in the vast majority of campaigns, and given how unpopular even enforceable alignment is among the gamers who claim that alignment is an integral, essential part of their game systems, most wouldn't put up with it.
Quote from: DavetheLost;856255In Pendragon the opposite was true. In that game the differences between Roman and British Christians, and any Christians and Pagans often came to the fore. Holy men, chapels, and religious hermits were frequent encounters.
In Vampire there was always a sense that "God is not really real" in Pendragon God was very much real.
That despite Arthur being some five or six hundred years before Vampire and the Crusades.
Yes, in my own Pendragon campaign one of the characters has ended up building a cathedral in Oxford (which, in keeping with the masses of anachronisms that can be found in most of the Arthurian source material, I've decided is the original Christ Church Cathedral in the town) and putting masses of money into constructing an elaborate tomb for himself and ensuring that lots and lots of masses will be said for him after his death and otherwise looking to his spiritual future (going so far as to ask Arthur himself to watch over his body after he died when Arthur was giving out boons), all because he's a) extremely pious and b) terrified that his dead former master will come after his soul after he's dead.
Point b) is more likely than it sounds, because the evil former master - the player in question's previous PC - made a pact with the Devil whilst alive and has ended up as a Knight of Hell, occasionally being sent forth in order to do mischief whenever an evil wizard's summonings or other activities give Satan a chance to send this knight to Earth for a while.
It isn't very theologically or canonically exact Christianity, but then again neither is the source material.
Responding to the original questions, I agree with the basic thrust, and disagree with the details.
That is, yes it seems pretty weird to set something in 14th Century Europe and include knights fighting infidels, and Papal States, and not including Christianity... how do you have anything papal or infidel without some religion to lead or not follow? More generally, since the way things were in 14th Century got that way from a history very much influenced by Christianity, removing the Christianity seems weird or ignorant or willfully um... forced handwavy, or something.
And ya I agree that the "to not offend anyone" excuse doesn't really work for me, though I can sort of sympathise with them not wanting to include it. It's a bit of a cop out that will leave major consistency questions for people who know anything about the actual Europe. I would hope it would at least have a section outlining various options for what to do instead, such as invent replacement religions, or not care, or use actual religions but decide on the tone you want and agree with your players.
What I don't agree with are:
* I don't agree that "every fantasy setting is just mirror universe Europe". There are many fantastic historical settings that aren't European - e.g. Japan, Egypt, Arabia, China, Aztec. And non-historical ones, including almost every game I've ever run. The stock game universe setting of my first FRPG system, The Fantasy Trip, was Cidri, which is actually science fiction mostly devolved to Fantasy, but the backstory is a magical/technological future involving many planets, to allow people to make up whatever they want, but it's pretty much not Europe.
* Not for everyone is the entire point of playing in medieval Europe to kick ass for the lord. In fact, even the popes were often oriented towards worldly goals. Also Vikings, Huns, Fey, wizards, and many others may be Christian-apathetic even in a Europe with Christianity.
One can always do the usual Hyborean Age kind of thing and lay on whatever medieval-ish (and other!) stuff is actually desired while leaving out the rest. The difference is, you're talking about 'Aquilonia' and such instead of Lombardy or Burgundy.