TheRPGSite

So what kind of fantasy medieval elements do you prefer in your game? Do you adhere to a specific era? Or are you pretty much just into ren-faire pseudo-medieval with whatever is fun?

Or are you a purist? Do you go for a realistic era of the "Low" or "High" middle-ages? Or are you more into Bronze/Iron age sword-n-sandals?

Feel free to cite details, likes/dislikes and why. Also - I'm interested in how your tastes have changed over the years.

I have no real attachment to any particular area of development in human history as a player.  I'm far more attracted to setting that's internally consistent. 

When I run fantasy, I like take inspiration for setting and circumstances from periods of rapid shifts in power and society.  For example, the rise of the Roman empire, the bronze age collapse, the Sengoku period of Japan, the 900s in Europe, etc.

This may be a lame answer but...it depends.

Mine tend to be based on fantasy literature rather than historical medieval Europe.  Conducting even a historically semi-accurate game requires quite a bit of knowledge on the parts of both the GM and players unless, I suppose, they're history major, and I just don't have that kind of time.  On the other hand, I'm familiar with hundreds of fantasy book setting and so are most of my players so that's relatively easy.  Most of the time it's a moot point - our adventuring tends to be out past the edge of civilization with only occasional city adventure - so we don't actually see much of the culture.  I'd be interested in trying a historically accurate game as a player if someone wanted to run one, but running such a game requires more investment than I'm able to give.

I lean heavily towards late dark ages to early medieval (Western/Central European flavor) as a base for "reality" in the world.  Then I'll selectively advance a few technologies explained as magic--often with the physics of the world reinforcing that.  For example, in my current world, not only is magic blacksmithing the only known way to currently make steel, it's the also the only way to make steel, period. You can't apply real world methods to iron and get steel in this setting.

The idea is to explain why technology absent magic stagnates at an early medieval level. There's holes in this method for a rules lawyer.  Fortunately, I don't play with any. It's good enough for a consistent, plausible world in play.

I rarely can tolerate gunpowder--even a magical equivalent. I want minimal plate armor.  No galleons.  No Venetian-style banking (with "banking" topping out at personal letters of credit). 

I do like some variation in tech, ideally tied to cultures or regions.  Even when doing a circa 1100 AD game, I'd like places to have tech more appropriate to 800 AD. 

I'm quite happy to include some (magically supported and/or constructed) later medieval devices--modest telescope, better paper (though usually without the printing press), advanced irrigation and milling techniques.  Though since I usually run games in the climb out of a world-wide apocalypse, such things often need to be discovered by adventurers in ruins.

Strangely enough, despite all these preferences, I don't much enjoy ancient world games.  If I did, I'd probably run a post bronze age collapse variant.  Height of Rome really leaves me cold.

As for tastes changing with age, they are steadily moving back. The basis for my current setting is 600 to 800 AD tech, with the assumption that before the current fall several centuries prior, it had capped out around 1100 tech.  There's even an aesthetics side to this, since I like the way that late-period scavenged Roman armor or a spatha or a seax look on fantasy characters.  I'd rather have characters wearing tunic and sandals than hose and pointy shoes. 

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 01:07:47 PMSo what kind of fantasy medieval elements do you prefer in your game? Do you adhere to a specific era? Or are you pretty much just into ren-faire pseudo-medieval with whatever is fun?

Or are you a purist? Do you go for a realistic era of the "Low" or "High" middle-ages? Or are you more into Bronze/Iron age sword-n-sandals?

Like others, my answer is "it depends", but I often have a base period that I diverge from. So, the campaign that I just wrapped up was loosely based on late medieval Peru -- the height of the Incan empire. But it was still a fantasy game with elves and dwarves and orcs, so authenticity was more in big picture and style rather than any sort of purism.

In other games, I've jumped around in period and region of influence. I've had a realistic early medieval Norse alternate history; and a over-the-top fantasy inspired by 19th century China; and various modern and sci-fi games.

I have run more and less realistic games, so that varies a lot, but I usually don't go for random jumbling together different cultures and/or periods as sources. I like having a consistent basis for culture and beliefs and such. That said, I have had games set in Forgotten Realms which is pretty much a jumble, but it's the exception.

Greetings!

Well, I generally run my Thandor World with a foundation comprised of Ancient to Dark Ages and Early Middle Ages historical themes. So, essentially Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Carthage, the Persian Empire, the Germanic Barbarians, the Celtic Barbarians, the Huns, Scythians, Egyptian Empire, the Gupta Empire, the Tang Empire, the Song Empire, the Abbassid Caliphate, the Kwarazm Empire, the Crusades, the Arthurian Age, the Ghana Empire, Numidia, Ethiopia, the Kushan Empire, the Kievan Rus, the Russian Empire, the Bulgarian Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Kazan Khanate, the Empire of the Volga Bulgars, the Vikings, and the Mongol Empire. There are additional regions and themes, though these mentioned and noted are the primary foundational sources.

I tend to default to a "Low Fantasy" milieu, with occasional episodes or special regions "spiking" up to "Hogh Fantasy." I even have a few areas that embrace "Gonzo" and weird technology. All of that is great for spice and variety, though again, the foundations are more historical "Low Fantasy" so that a baseline of verisimilitude and relatability is maintained. Such dynamics also serve to form a kind of internal consistency, and a "Firewall" system, so that magic, weird technology, and other problems from Gonzo elements do not get out of control and annihilate the campaign world. A large part of me is a historical purist, so while I also embrace part of me that enjoys Gonzo, I love historical consistency, realism, and relatability more than I love Gonzo crazy elements.

Of course, some might wonder "Why, SHARK?" The answer is rooted in the fact that I have always loved the study of History--though I am an educated Historian specialized in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, with secondary specializations in Dark Ages/Early Medieval History, Ancient India, and Ancient China. I didn't get a degree in Mongolian Studies, but I may as well be a specialist in Mongolian Studies as well by now. That tends to almost come by a default dynamic of Early Medieval History, Indian History, and Ancient China studies. All three of such areas eventually circle around and focus on the Mongol Empire. So, yeah, I'm somewhat crazy about Mongolian Studies as well. *Laughing*

Thus, the foundations of my campaign inspirations!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, when I first started playing (in the early 80s), most of our games were "fantasy medieval," though I think a better description is technologically medieval, as the social structure was far more Wild West than anything medieval.  I think as time has passed (I'm playing with several of the guys who were in my first group even today) we have gotten more comfortable with putting in a little work to play in cultures that have a few more cultural constraints.  Still, I'd say our favorite technologically level is mid-to-high medieval, with the exception of gunpowder (as we all generally dislike that and steampunk elements like the Artificer or gnomish inventions).  We still tend to play in Wild West or re-conquering after the fall sorts of fantasy settings; weak government and high danger outside of the sparsely scattered towns, which really doesn't track nicely into medieval societies and expectations..

I tend towards a potpourri of medieval elements scattered onto a setting that likely isn't very medieval at all, largely because I find the fantasy aspect tends override normal medieval development.

Take something like metallurgy for example; one of the main limits on the development of certain weapons and armor was the lack of being able to achieve the sustained heat needed to completely melt iron (and in large quantities) until you got the development of the blast furnace.

Now, add magic fire to your setting. What does metallurgy look like when something like the Myceanians or Egyptians of antiquity already have the capacity to produce blast furnace-like heats?

Take it a step further and what about when magic can command lightning and could magically produce the sort of heats needed to purify materials like Aluminum?

How about commanding the cold and what that means for a population's diet? Unless you've got giant hostile reptiles going about (yet another variance from history) that requires the majority of magic use, what king wouldn't want the increased productivity of sending the court wizard out to every manor to fill an insulated basement with ice so less food goes bad?

Let's not even start on what European society looks like if Christianity wasn't around to mold it and instead had real pagan gods instead.

So much of a fantasy setting depends on the whens and whats of magic that trying to set it to a particular real world era is pretty futile as a general exercise (Note - it is useful for a specific exercise where you know when and how the magic caused things to diverge however).

The only way a particular Medieval era really makes sense is if the world largely IS our own and anything fantastic is some combination of subtle, hidden, and/or recent enough to have not caused anything civilization altering to have occurred (or, if such changes are actually part of some secret history where a magical intervention changed what overwise would have occurred... ex. The Bubonic Plague being spread by fleas/rats is just a cover story for what was really a fiendish curse laid upon the land and was only stopped from killing everyone by some magical force for good).

In short, fantasy is too broad a term to lay out any specifics and tends to matter more for my enjoyment of a setting than the Medieval aspects... I just want the Medieval aspects to make sense for the fantastic elements.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 04, 2024, 02:44:34 PMI lean heavily towards late dark ages to early medieval (Western/Central European flavor) as a base for "reality" in the world.  Then I'll selectively advance a few technologies explained as magic--often with the physics of the world reinforcing that.  For example, in my current world, not only is magic blacksmithing the only known way to currently make steel, it's the also the only way to make steel, period. You can't apply real world methods to iron and get steel in this setting.

The idea is to explain why technology absent magic stagnates at an early medieval level. There's holes in this method for a rules lawyer.  Fortunately, I don't play with any. It's good enough for a consistent, plausible world in play.

I rarely can tolerate gunpowder--even a magical equivalent. I want minimal plate armor.  No galleons.  No Venetian-style banking (with "banking" topping out at personal letters of credit). 

I do like some variation in tech, ideally tied to cultures or regions.  Even when doing a circa 1100 AD game, I'd like places to have tech more appropriate to 800 AD. 

I'm quite happy to include some (magically supported and/or constructed) later medieval devices--modest telescope, better paper (though usually without the printing press), advanced irrigation and milling techniques.  Though since I usually run games in the climb out of a world-wide apocalypse, such things often need to be discovered by adventurers in ruins.

Strangely enough, despite all these preferences, I don't much enjoy ancient world games.  If I did, I'd probably run a post bronze age collapse variant.  Height of Rome really leaves me cold.

As for tastes changing with age, they are steadily moving back. The basis for my current setting is 600 to 800 AD tech, with the assumption that before the current fall several centuries prior, it had capped out around 1100 tech.  There's even an aesthetics side to this, since I like the way that late-period scavenged Roman armor or a spatha or a seax look on fantasy characters.  I'd rather have characters wearing tunic and sandals than hose and pointy shoes. 

Greetings!

I love it Steven! *Laughing* Absolutely ruthless and beautiful campaign standards, my friend! Yeah, you must be ruthless to maintain the campaign milieu properly, and definitely restrain or gatekeep "Rules Lawyers" from the game. Thankfully, I don't really have any "Rules Lawyers" in my groups. Well, maybe a few, but they know that being too obnoxious also invites disaster and wrath from the Gods, so they tend to keep themselves in check. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 04, 2024, 03:08:54 PMI tend towards a potpourri of medieval elements scattered onto a setting that likely isn't very medieval at all, largely because I find the fantasy aspect tends override normal medieval development.

Take something like metallurgy for example; one of the main limits on the development of certain weapons and armor was the lack of being able to achieve the sustained heat needed to completely melt iron (and in large quantities) until you got the development of the blast furnace.

Now, add magic fire to your setting. What does metallurgy look like when something like the Myceanians or Egyptians of antiquity already have the capacity to produce blast furnace-like heats?

Take it a step further and what about when magic can command lightning and could magically produce the sort of heats needed to purify materials like Aluminum?

How about commanding the cold and what that means for a population's diet? Unless you've got giant hostile reptiles going about (yet another variance from history) that requires the majority of magic use, what king wouldn't want the increased productivity of sending the court wizard out to every manor to fill an insulated basement with ice so less food goes bad?

Let's not even start on what European society looks like if Christianity wasn't around to mold it and instead had real pagan gods instead.

So much of a fantasy setting depends on the whens and whats of magic that trying to set it to a particular real world era is pretty futile as a general exercise (Note - it is useful for a specific exercise where you know when and how the magic caused things to diverge however).

The only way a particular Medieval era really makes sense is if the world largely IS our own and anything fantastic is some combination of subtle, hidden, and/or recent enough to have not caused anything civilization altering to have occurred (or, if such changes are actually part of some secret history where a magical intervention changed what overwise would have occurred... ex. The Bubonic Plague being spread by fleas/rats is just a cover story for what was really a fiendish curse laid upon the land and was only stopped from killing everyone by some magical force for good).

In short, fantasy is too broad a term to lay out any specifics and tends to matter more for my enjoyment of a setting than the Medieval aspects... I just want the Medieval aspects to make sense for the fantastic elements.

Greetings!

*LAUGHING* Ah, yes, my friend! Yeah, I have periodically through the years wrestled with precisely these kinds of issues, and their deeper campaign implications! I love it, too! However, several friends of mine basically argued with me, explauning, that once you have established an absolutely powerful empire like the Roman Empire, or the Gupta Empire, or the Tang Empire, or the Song Empire, with unimaginable access to wealth, near-infinite natural resources, and populations of tens and hundreds of millions of people--take those basic foundations, and then add the fantasy game's magic system to ut, then you can forget having an ancient or Dark Ages/Medieval fantasy world. You won't even have what we know of as the "Modern World." Your campaign world--so rich and historically deep and awesome--will very rapidly transform into an uber-Gonzo High-Fantasy Science-Fiction campaign world. That development will blow past anything we know of today, and will eventually distort what we can even comprehend on a campaign level. Everything within a few centuries would change so fast and so horrifically dramatically, that everything would be unrecognizable.

They continued--by pointing out that remaining historically grounded, or going Gonzo crazy, as choices, neither are right or wrong. However, logic, reality of historical imperial power, and the game's magic will inevitably result in a crazy Gonzo Science-Fiction High Magic world. So, you, as the Viking DM, must make some deep choices, and maintain your world, by divine dynamics, or whatever you want to establish, because otherwise, the uber Gonzo direction is the destination that awaits. I readily admitted that they were very right, so I had to make certain dynamics become established within my Thandor World to maintain the milieu.

I have found that doing so, however, requires some degree of vigilance, and frequent overview monitoring, so as to keep the Gonzo dynamics restrained properly. I love the result, but it does take some work, and a ruthless insistence on saying "NO" to some stuff, even if such things you yourself might very much enjoy--at least for a time. *Laughing*

It is always a discussion and thought experiment I hugely love having and thinking about!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 04, 2024, 03:08:54 PMI tend towards a potpourri of medieval elements scattered onto a setting that likely isn't very medieval at all, largely because I find the fantasy aspect tends override normal medieval development.

Take something like metallurgy for example; one of the main limits on the development of certain weapons and armor was the lack of being able to achieve the sustained heat needed to completely melt iron (and in large quantities) until you got the development of the blast furnace.

Now, add magic fire to your setting. What does metallurgy look like when something like the Myceanians or Egyptians of antiquity already have the capacity to produce blast furnace-like heats?

Take it a step further and what about when magic can command lightning and could magically produce the sort of heats needed to purify materials like Aluminum?

How about commanding the cold and what that means for a population's diet? Unless you've got giant hostile reptiles going about (yet another variance from history) that requires the majority of magic use, what king wouldn't want the increased productivity of sending the court wizard out to every manor to fill an insulated basement with ice so less food goes bad?

Let's not even start on what European society looks like if Christianity wasn't around to mold it and instead had real pagan gods instead.

So much of a fantasy setting depends on the whens and whats of magic that trying to set it to a particular real world era is pretty futile as a general exercise (Note - it is useful for a specific exercise where you know when and how the magic caused things to diverge however).

The only way a particular Medieval era really makes sense is if the world largely IS our own and anything fantastic is some combination of subtle, hidden, and/or recent enough to have not caused anything civilization altering to have occurred (or, if such changes are actually part of some secret history where a magical intervention changed what overwise would have occurred... ex. The Bubonic Plague being spread by fleas/rats is just a cover story for what was really a fiendish curse laid upon the land and was only stopped from killing everyone by some magical force for good).

In short, fantasy is too broad a term to lay out any specifics and tends to matter more for my enjoyment of a setting than the Medieval aspects... I just want the Medieval aspects to make sense for the fantastic elements.

This, plus heavy use of fantasy novels.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 04, 2024, 02:44:34 PMI rarely can tolerate gunpowder--even a magical equivalent. I want minimal plate armor.

That can be a toughie.  The technology in my current project is age of pirates meets D&D, and I wanted cannons, muskets, bows, swords, and armor all together.  I spent quite a bit of time studying the reasons gunpowder weapons replaced everything else and decided that the only change I wanted to make is that in the physics of this world firearms penetrate armor no better than bows and swords.  There are still plenty of other advantages, but that seems to justify the technology with minimal ripple effects on the setting.

Quote from: SHARK on June 04, 2024, 03:35:25 PMGreetings!

*LAUGHING* Ah, yes, my friend! Yeah, I have periodically through the years wrestled with precisely these kinds of issues, and their deeper campaign implications! I love it, too! However, several friends of mine basically argued with me, explauning, that once you have established an absolutely powerful empire like the Roman Empire, or the Gupta Empire, or the Tang Empire, or the Song Empire, with unimaginable access to wealth, near-infinite natural resources, and populations of tens and hundreds of millions of people--take those basic foundations, and then add the fantasy game's magic system to ut, then you can forget having an ancient or Dark Ages/Medieval fantasy world. You won't even have what we know of as the "Modern World." Your campaign world--so rich and historically deep and awesome--will very rapidly transform into an uber-Gonzo High-Fantasy Science-Fiction campaign world. That development will blow past anything we know of today, and will eventually distort what we can even comprehend on a campaign level. Everything within a few centuries would change so fast and so horrifically dramatically, that everything would be unrecognizable.

They continued--by pointing out that remaining historically grounded, or going Gonzo crazy, as choices, neither are right or wrong. However, logic, reality of historical imperial power, and the game's magic will inevitably result in a crazy Gonzo Science-Fiction High Magic world. So, you, as the Viking DM, must make some deep choices, and maintain your world, by divine dynamics, or whatever you want to establish, because otherwise, the uber Gonzo direction is the destination that awaits. I readily admitted that they were very right, so I had to make certain dynamics become established within my Thandor World to maintain the milieu.

I have found that doing so, however, requires some degree of vigilance, and frequent overview monitoring, so as to keep the Gonzo dynamics restrained properly. I love the result, but it does take some work, and a ruthless insistence on saying "NO" to some stuff, even if such things you yourself might very much enjoy--at least for a time. *Laughing*

It is always a discussion and thought experiment I hugely love having and thinking about!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I think the rapid advancement we've seen of the last millennium or so is a result of the discovery and use of the scientific method and is not typical of the span of history.  IIRC the stone age lasted millions of years.  If I wanted a more static world I'd probably postulate that the scientific method is never discovered, isn't used in a widespread manner, is suppressed by leaders, doesn't fit with the people's psychology or somesuch.  That way you don't have to totally redesign your setting in the middle of the campaign because some turkey invented the magic transistor.

I like late Dark Ages with low fantasy, though I see the charm of knights in plate and princesses in towers. One of the things I find fascinating is feudalism as a way of structuring society. All too often, fantasy stories have what's essentially a modern state, except it's led by a hereditary monarch rather than an elected government.

Karl Edward Wagner meets Clark Ashton Smith meets Thundarr through a Frazetta lens.

You're probably sick of "it depends" answers by now, but it really is a question of the specific game and campaign. For Dragon Warriors or Pendragon, I really want lean into that curious combination you see in Arthurian Legend, where the events are ones that would have taken place at the very beginning of the Middle Ages (the migration period, really), but the aesthetics and technology are all high medieval. One of the settings I really want to run is R.E. Howard's Thurian Age (the setting for the Kull stories). For the Kull/Conan stories, I think it's best to imagine them as aesthetically and socially classical, but technologically high medieval.

I think the question is more directed at what people do when they run D&D-like "general fantasy or "dungeon fantasy" campaigns though. Years ago, I was intent on running my campaign in a dark ages mold, to the point where I banned plate armor. Over time, though, my tastes have run later and later in time. At this point, I run my dungeon fantasy as very late-middle ages bordering onto the Renaissance. I'm running Dolmenwood at the moment, and I expressly made it a Renaissance or early modern setting, because I felt that time reference made more sense for what's presented in the Dolmenwood books. Also you get black powder guns, and muskets are awesome.

Partially I just prefer the aesthetics of that era, but I also think it works better for a fantasy adventure game. I may have rehearsed this argument on this forum before, so apologies if it's getting redundant, but the borderline where the late medieval and early modern periods meet nets you so many things that make for an awesome campaign. It's a period where knights in armor are sharing the battlefield with cannons and musketeers. It's an era of huge social mobility, the golden age of guilds and mercenary companies. There's much more international travel and trade than there was earlier, and the development of printing means it's also a period of rising literacy. The great cities of Europe were really becoming great cities at the time, so there's more opportunity for urban adventures. It's also an immensely violent period, arguably more so than the medieval period was. Not only do you get the rise of mercenary armies during the Italian and Burgundian wars, but it actually became more generally legal for the common man to go armed (with the rise in criminal violence that entailed).

There's an appeal to a truly medieval setting, but I find the restrictive nature of feudalism and the limited population density can really limit your adventure options, if you try to play it faithfully. A lot of the standard tropes of dungeon fantasy: the thieves' guilds, the professional adventurers, the coaching inns, the common literacy, the readily available arms and equipment, etc. all don't fit to me in a period modeled on anything between the 6th and 14th centuries.

I rarely worry about being "medieval authentic" in any fantasy game. My concern is just that the world be internally consistent with its own materials. While adherence to reality can help give it consistency, it just as easily go against  the setting in favor of "reality" (even where it doesn't really fit), so that's why I don't care for it.

Quote from: SHARK on June 04, 2024, 03:35:25 PM*LAUGHING* Ah, yes, my friend! Yeah, I have periodically through the years wrestled with precisely these kinds of issues, and their deeper campaign implications! I love it, too! However, several friends of mine basically argued with me, explauning, that once you have established an absolutely powerful empire like the Roman Empire, or the Gupta Empire, or the Tang Empire, or the Song Empire, with unimaginable access to wealth, near-infinite natural resources, and populations of tens and hundreds of millions of people--take those basic foundations, and then add the fantasy game's magic system to ut, then you can forget having an ancient or Dark Ages/Medieval fantasy world. You won't even have what we know of as the "Modern World." Your campaign world--so rich and historically deep and awesome--will very rapidly transform into an uber-Gonzo High-Fantasy Science-Fiction campaign world. That development will blow past anything we know of today, and will eventually distort what we can even comprehend on a campaign level. Everything within a few centuries would change so fast and so horrifically dramatically, that everything would be unrecognizable.

I would disagree largely because if the Empires of yesterday and our own Empire's problems are any indication; intense urbanization breads insanity and dissolution of said empires.

No city in history has managed a self-sustaining population; they always relied on members of the rural classes coming to the urban centers seeking their fortunes (and bringing rural values with them) to maintain themselves.

The big collapses throughout history are invariably the result of too much urbanization exceeding the carry capacity of its rural population. In the modern world, much like a high-fantasy one, we've been able to forestall this somewhat through our technology (or magic for fantasy), but it doesn't negate the demographic requirements and urban life's universal driving down of birth rates to unsustainable levels.

The result is always an urban collapse and reset to a more decentralized rural way of living (and slow march back to urbanization as the cycle of history repeats); the more extreme the urbanization, the more severe the collapse.

Basically, infinite progress and centralization isn't likely for any group with a psychology akin to humans; instead it's going to be rises and falls... heights of Empire with "Dark Ages" in between.

Where in the cycle you place your setting could range from nigh post-apocalyptic (and really that's what the fall of Rome was... an apocalyptic collapse of central authority and the survivors having to fend for themselves) to the verge of a new Renaissance/Age of Empires.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 04, 2024, 05:44:21 PMYou're probably sick of "it depends" answers by now, but it really is a question of the specific game and campaign. For Dragon Warriors or Pendragon, I really want lean into that curious combination you see in Arthurian Legend, where the events are ones that would have taken place at the very beginning of the Middle Ages (the migration period, really), but the aesthetics and technology are all high medieval.

  This is 'authentic medieval' ... from a certain point of view. :) C.S. Lewis, in The Discarded Image, points out that medieval literature, art, etc., do not have the sense of technological or social variation between eras that we have. To the medievals, the past was just a superior present.

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 01:07:47 PMSo what kind of fantasy medieval elements do you prefer in your game? Do you adhere to a specific era? Or are you pretty much just into ren-faire pseudo-medieval with whatever is fun?

Or are you a purist? Do you go for a realistic era of the "Low" or "High" middle-ages? Or are you more into Bronze/Iron age sword-n-sandals?

Feel free to cite details, likes/dislikes and why. Also - I'm interested in how your tastes have changed over the years.

My default is the usual psuedo-medeival/renissance/ kitchen sink fantasy setting.
Though, of course, I go full swords-n-sandals for Dark Sun games.

Like many others, my campaign world is a bit of a mash-up.  Its greatest influences are probably Tolkien and Mystara (the old BECMI setting), with a bit more history sprinkled in.  So there are analogues to Asian realms, a desert setting that's mostly ruins, Mayan & Polynesian islands in the south, Hyperborea at the north pole.  Overall tech is late Medieval with limited black powder weapons.  But I've got a fairly detailed chronology so I'll set campaigns in different eras to get different flavors and political configurations.

Quote from: Krazz on June 04, 2024, 04:24:26 PMI like late Dark Ages with low fantasy, though I see the charm of knights in plate and princesses in towers. One of the things I find fascinating is feudalism as a way of structuring society. All too often, fantasy stories have what's essentially a modern state, except it's led by a hereditary monarch rather than an elected government.

This, along with some of the other points people have made about "heroic fantasy not really being medieval" is why I've gravitated towards the 600-800 AD Western Europe as a basis. There's enough of the proto-feudalism emerging that it's not hard to go with some of the those tropes in the fantasy world, but it is still loose enough that you can rationalize all kinds of differences from what came later in our history.

It's a good starting point from someone like me who doesn't want authentic medieval (or other historical fidelity), doesn't want a hint of Renaissance (let alone ren-fair), but who very much does want a divergent set of fantasy trappings that on first glance shares a lot with the medieval view.  If Barbara Hamby wrote a sort of historical fantasy novel set in Jack Vance's Dying Earth, without the gonzo, you'd get pretty darn close to where I like to land.

Another great historical pivot point for a game is the Black Death.  There's a case to be made that the plaque set back technology progress by three centuries.  Even if you want to be more conservative with the effects, moving the Renaissance up to somewhere around 1400 can be a huge diving line.  If like me, you want to go the other way, simply make the plague worse. That used to be my general idea when doing a D&D game with all the usual equipment, but explaining why things had regressed so much.  Assume that the magical Black Death is much worse, but hits later.  So plate armor and printing presses comes into existence--and then society disintegrates.

Quote from: tenbones on June 04, 2024, 01:07:47 PMSo what kind of fantasy medieval elements do you prefer in your game? Do you adhere to a specific era? Or are you pretty much just into ren-faire pseudo-medieval with whatever is fun?

Or are you a purist? Do you go for a realistic era of the "Low" or "High" middle-ages? Or are you more into Bronze/Iron age sword-n-sandals?

Feel free to cite details, likes/dislikes and why. Also - I'm interested in how your tastes have changed over the years.

I want a logical spectrum and progression.

The setting I've been hashing out began as a high magic infused Renn Faire type of medieval using DnD 3.x (with a side step into Dark Sun sword & sorcery and another side step into Iron Kingdoms sorcery & steam). Following an apocalyptic calamity of undead, the setting has transformed into a low magic infused Renn Faire kind of medieval using my three favorite retroclones (Advanced Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and Old School Essentials) which has large swaths of desolation which are very sword and sorcery in flavor.

I think that there must be a sensible before which draws from actual play experience to the now which is the result of what happened before. One world has room for a lot of variation based upon it that incorporates what rules system is being used.

Well, my own setting I've been working on is basically a mythic fantasy RPG inspired heavily by Tolkien and Norse myth. I've also got 4 tie-in Light Novels in various stages of completion (I'm terrible at managing my thinking process for writing). Its right before the start of an 'ice age' (reimagined Younger Dryas) with a technological level about that of the late Migration and/or early Conquest/Crusades Era. It's also clearly on Earth in Europe-Africa-Asia, but with some twists, turns and anachronisms added in "BECAUSE FUCK YOU! THAT'S WHY!"

- Men are the predominant Kith (and I use that word specifically, because Men, Elves, Orks, Dwarves and Changelings are all descended from a common ancestor). And I mean Men make up ~90% of the whole. Elves and Dwarves are almost gone. Elves are fleeing to The Summer Lands or else fading and the Dwarves are sealing themselves in their mountain strongholds.

- Maille is the best armor and black powder exists thanks to Alchemy, but hasn't yet made the leap to guns.

- I allow for things like Dwarves and Dark Elves (not evil Elves, just Elves who live more like Dwarves) being able to produce mechanical clocks, porcelain, plant fiber-based paper and moveable type print/Guttenberg Press, among other things.

- Setting is also technically pre-religious after a fashion (there is a 'Church' but it doesn't have really have scriptures or hymns and serves more as a clearinghouse of information and promotion of banking). People don't really worship the Gods and their 'clergy' are really more like agents in the mortal realm that have trained (or are naturally gifted) to channel divine magick. Its a henotheistic system (a Creator/High God who charged his followers with ordering Creation according to his plans). The Gods never appear as anything other than shrouded figures, never showing any part of their bodies but their hands and the lower part of their face (namely their jaw). Thus there are no graven images of them and any art in 'temples' is more pastoral and less 'religious'. 

- There is some resistance still to 'older' beliefs, a sort of non-theistic animism that are 'the old ways' and there are cults dedicated to demons (fallen servants of The Gods) and Cosmic entities (which I call 'The Vomitted Ones' as they were birthed when The Creator separated the Firmament and The Abode <the 9 worlds> from the Void). Dwarves are the only ones that have a sort of 'worship' in that they revere their ancestors and it was the Soot Dwarves, a house of Petty Dwarves (ie - Rust) that created Necromancy by enslaving their dead who were hanging out in The Shadow Realm adjacent to Midgardr.
 
- Magic is based on the principle of 'You can't get something for nothing'. If you want to toss a 'fireball', you better have some pinecones or acorns handy to turn into flaming grenades. Gandalf's admonition of 'But I must have something to work on. I cannot burn snow.' when The Fellowship was freezing near to death on Caradhras comes to mind. Even the closest spell to 'free fire' is more igniting the oxygen around you than conjuring it from nothing (so you cannot use such spells when underwater, for example). Magic is more like accessing the 'code' of Creation, though Seer-types (ie - Clerics) beseech The Gods to lend them their powers instead of 'hacking' reality like Mages or pulling magick from Ley Lines like Druids. 

I guess my current campaign is mid to late medieval.  No printing press, the only person seen in plate armor has been the queen, there was a plague-level event (fast contagious zombies, cause unknown), the world is on the mend and the land needs to be re-united to face an external invasion.

I'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

It depends on which country I'm using in my campaign. I do a haphazard mix of countries based on real world themes and locations. Country A is based on 13th century England, Country B (a thousand miles away) is ancient Egypt, Country C (way up north), Country D is a dwarven nation, is an arctic wasteland, and so on.

I don't try to be realistic (in modern terms) except in what is realistic for the world. Dragons fly, the tallest mountain in the world is ridiculously tall and has breathable air all the way to the top, floating citadels exist, ancient space craft wreckage can be found, humans have yet to make plate armor (dwarves have it), gun powder doesn't ignite...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

I'm honestly the same. My home settings "Medieval" is mostly trappings atop a Post-Apocalyptic Science Fantasy setting.

Originally, I'd made the science fantasy elements blurred enough that you had to squint to see them behind the façade of "traditional medieval fantasy setting", but it got tiresome and repetitive so I opted to make them overt... the "elves" of the setting are literally video game/sim AIs brought to life by a Cataclysm that glitched the "Arcane Web" (i.e. the Internet) into burning a bunch of "Arcane Reagents" (i.e. engineered proto-matter used by replicators) to actually create artificial life forms.

The example vehicles went from just carts and boats to including hoverbikes and mecha. Pistols and Rifles became simple (in the sense of training required) ranged weapons and the armor designs now look sci-fi enough that you could imagine them stopping bullets as easily as they would swords.

The medieval elements largely leak in via it being still Post-Apocalyptic and ergo akin to the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome. Governmental structures (etymologically Lord comes from the same root as Guard and Warden... The Lord is the Guardian of the people under him and absent other currency is paid in labor for that protection. It evolved into a hereditary system down the line, but at the start of the Dark Ages it was more Strongman protecting his turf levels of legitimacy) and infrastructure absent a centralized authority and supply chains (the only reason we left the Bronze Age was the supply chains for Tin broke down so we had to start using what was, at the time, inferior iron due to lack of bronze) starts to look very Dark Ages after a century or so... you just also see people with relics of the bygone era in the mix as well in the same way that Roman suits of armor persisted in the kits of soldiers long after the Empire in the West had collapsed (because well-maintained mail is still fully effective mail even if its a century or more old).

For low/no-magic settings I try to be as authentic as possible, either medieval or ancient. The medieval era I like the most is Late Medieval, although I also have a soft spot for the Dark Ages, especially the time of the Merovingian Dynasty.
In a high-magic setting, I take the impact of magic fully into account, so I end up with 16th/17th century clockpunk, including things such as flying ships, magic firearms, giant automatons, and magic-focused universities. 

I tend to prefer TSR era style of a fantasy world, which isn't very medieval authentic. Basically you have these small towns a few days apart with dangerous roads and distant capital cities. Something that probably wouldn't work in reality(trade would be too hard and towns can't be that isolated). But I generally want an unexplored wilderness of ruins and dungeons to explore that people don't know much about.

It's basically a western setting, remote, lawless, dangerous, with a fantasy skin on it. It's really there just as a vehicle for the adventures, dungeons and so on with scattered safe havens for recruitment, rest, and rumors.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Honestly (and I'm being serious), are you burnt out on Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it, which is in many ways RADICALLY different from what others 'adapted' of his work (or imitated). I find a lot of people ascribe things to Tolkien that are 100% not true. Like the idea of Irredeemably Evil creatures, which basically cannot exist except as things that were utterly alien like Ungoliant/Shelob and The Watcher in the Water, The Nameless Things. Even Melkor (Sauron's boss, and basically Satan) was not Evil in his beginning as he came from Eru.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 05, 2024, 04:23:54 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Honestly (and I'm being serious), are you burnt out on Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it, which is in many ways RADICALLY different from what others 'adapted' of his work (or imitated). I find a lot of people ascribe things to Tolkien that are 100% not true. Like the idea of Irredeemably Evil creatures, which basically cannot exist except as things that were utterly alien like Ungoliant/Shelob and The Watcher in the Water, The Nameless Things. Even Melkor (Sauron's boss, and basically Satan) was not Evil in his beginning as he came from Eru.

I'm burnt out on the imitators and on the profit-driven requels. I watched Lord of the Rings and, despite divergences from the source material, I am satisfied with it. Hollywood needs to let stories, and entire franchises, end. If they continue onwards, then they rot into horrible zombies.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

There's lot of alternatives. Sword & sandal, sword & planet, specific cultures, far future fantasy, etc.

There's also other non-fantasy genres like conspiracy thriller, political scifi, urban fantasy, etc. There used to be more options in the past, but call of cthulhu, traveller, and world of sex pests killed anything else that tried to make forays into rpgs. WotC tried to turn d20 modern into a universal post-industrial rpg to recycle TSR's old dead IPs, only to cancel it when 4e came around and never try again.

For example, on my list of pitches is one that's basically a mix of Dresden Files, Carnival Row, Anno Dracula, Space 1889, A Princess of Mars, etc. Tir Na Nog holds seats on the House of Lords, Dracula is prince consort to Queen Victoria, the British Empire is trying to colonize Barsoom, Santa Claus is king of the unseelie and denies funding unseelie terrorists, etc.

For an actual era I prefer the late 12th to 13th century. Lots of interesting (and often recognizable to players) things going on all over the world: Crusades, Robin Hood, Genghis Khan, Gempei Wars and the birth of the first Shogunate, etc. That said I've read some Sagas recently and the late 5th century seems like a very magical place full of Dragons, Dwarves, and other weirdness. Arthur, Siegfried, Dietrich von Bern, Beowulf, and others all just about coexist temporally.

I tend toward the late Medieval in fantasy settings though.

I hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

While I did previously spell out why the nature of the fantastic elements tends to make a real world equivalent unrealistic, I will add that in terms of favored settings elements I generally pull much more from the early Medieval (i.e. the Dark Ages; c. AD 500-1000 and specifically more the 600-800 period where the Western Empire had fully collapsed, but before even the concept of modern nation states were forming).

Basically, decentralized authority (a King might rule 30-100k people and decisive battles involving just hundreds to low thousands where the kings take the field and hold their lands by being effective warriors), lots of unknowns beyond your borders, and ruins of the empire not yet so decrepit that nothing of value remains.

Basically, a world where a small band of highly skilled individuals like a PC party could really make their mark, but also one rough enough they can't just run over the local ruler because they and their troops have no experience at war (i.e. if you're a lord it's because you ARE a name level character).

Quote from: Lurker on June 06, 2024, 09:54:53 PMI hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

Greetings!

My friend, GREY BOX FORGOTTEN REALMS is as "Old School" as it gets! Along with some of the eartly Forgotten Realms supplements, the Wild Frontier, Moonshaes Islands, there was a great selection of them. Yes, OSR from the get go. Those products really showed TSR at their best. Excellent writing, evocative storytelling, numerous campaign hooks, interesting NPC's everywhere, lots of danger, and laced through it all were frequent surprises. Then, on top of all that, you also had excellent artwork, maps, cartography, and lots of advice on how to present the material differently, or otherwise adapt the material to your own campaign. 10/10!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

In my previous gaming I used Harn and it was fairly medieval authentic and I liked it that way.
Now I'm getting back into GMing and I'm using Forgetten Realms as my old crew and I get up to speed again.
Eventually I will shift over to a Sword and Sorcery world I've been working on for some time. Something like Conan meets Kane.

For fantasy games, I think my interests would fall under a subcategory of ren-faire pseudo-medieval.

Likes: Alchemy, alien fey / elves, medieval crafting methods / recipes, magic that actually takes time to learn / master, weapons and armor from the Bronze Age to the Renaissance.

Dislikes: Gunpowder / black powder, steampunk or clockwork, air travel outside of flying mounts

This is probably kind of a "basic" answer, but it is true for me, haha.

I prefer when things are different than "standard" medieval fantasy.

Either more or less advanced can be interesting. For example, a scenario where science and technology are in an almost Renaissance-like stage, with gunpowder or even a few clockpunk stuff, or inversely a Dark Ages-based scenario where crossbows still have not being invented, and cities and markets are rare.

However, I'm more into Medieval Europe instead of other regions.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Quote from: SHARK on June 07, 2024, 10:40:17 AM

Quote from: Lurker on June 06, 2024, 09:54:53 PMI hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

Greetings!

My friend, GREY BOX FORGOTTEN REALMS is as "Old School" as it gets! Along with some of the eartly Forgotten Realms supplements, the Wild Frontier, Moonshaes Islands, there was a great selection of them. Yes, OSR from the get go. Those products really showed TSR at their best. Excellent writing, evocative storytelling, numerous campaign hooks, interesting NPC's everywhere, lots of danger, and laced through it all were frequent surprises. Then, on top of all that, you also had excellent artwork, maps, cartography, and lots of advice on how to present the material differently, or otherwise adapt the material to your own campaign. 10/10!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I actually got a far bit of mileage out of the Kara Tur & Horde boxed sets that built upon the original Realms set.  We ran a campaign where we played all of the Oriental Adventures modules, plus the Black Courser trilogy, which I still think is quite good.

Quote from: Persimmon on June 09, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Graham is either crazy or a genius, or both. He can so easily inspire setting info for gaming.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on June 09, 2024, 09:54:27 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on June 09, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Graham is either crazy or a genius, or both. He can so easily inspire setting info for gaming.

Greetings!

Graham Hancock is *awesome*. And yes, he is either crazy, a genius, or both! *Laughing* So many WTF? ideas from him, and yet, also ideas that make you say "What? Hmmm..." Fantastic scholar and thinker.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Persimmon on June 09, 2024, 09:47:07 AM

Quote from: SHARK on June 07, 2024, 10:40:17 AM

Quote from: Lurker on June 06, 2024, 09:54:53 PMI hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

Greetings!

My friend, GREY BOX FORGOTTEN REALMS is as "Old School" as it gets! Along with some of the eartly Forgotten Realms supplements, the Wild Frontier, Moonshaes Islands, there was a great selection of them. Yes, OSR from the get go. Those products really showed TSR at their best. Excellent writing, evocative storytelling, numerous campaign hooks, interesting NPC's everywhere, lots of danger, and laced through it all were frequent surprises. Then, on top of all that, you also had excellent artwork, maps, cartography, and lots of advice on how to present the material differently, or otherwise adapt the material to your own campaign. 10/10!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I actually got a far bit of mileage out of the Kara Tur & Horde boxed sets that built upon the original Realms set.  We ran a campaign where we played all of the Oriental Adventures modules, plus the Black Courser trilogy, which I still think is quite good.

Greetings!

Good Morning, my friend! Yeah, those TSR products are real *gems*! Kara Tur is bubbling with as much potential as Grey Box Forgotten Realms. So much inspiration!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

In my own RPG it was a mix of arabic to the south and early medieval level to the north, then barbarians further north.

In most of my D&D campaigns I play it as mid era medieval. Since I base alot of my settings in the Known World setting from BX (not Mystara) I used the suggestion that Specularum was based on Wallachia in Romania and so pattern alot around the 1400s