Quote from: The Butcher;934335This, in theory, but my D&D games in  particular tend to be every bit as anachronistic as the Hyborian Age. There's the vaguely Arthurian-flavored High Medieval realm with a strong king, (mostly) loyal vassal lords, knights in full plate doing jousts and shit. There's the Viking-era Scandinavia stand-in. The horse-nomad raiders that combine elements of every horse-nomad raider culture from Kurgans to Huns to Mongols to Seljuk Turks to Tatar Russia. The confederation of mercantile city-states that's mostly inspired by Northern Italy but shares elements with half a dozen other Mediterranean civilizations from Phoenicians to Magna Graecia to Discovery Age Portugal. Turns out "Medieval" is a much bigger umbrella than "Renaissance"

For historical gaming, anything goes.

This sounds like the DnD games I know ... blathering the whole thing with a good helping of modern day-isms.

Not such a big fan of the Hyborean effect, especially when it's done in a really jarring way as in "well he just crossed over the border from not-Viking land to not-Egypt land, suddenly there are palm trees and pyramids everywhere and not a beard in sight!" as I've seen in a lot of settings. Would rather just do straight-up history so I don't have to learn a bunch of names for stuff. And it's annoying that it's always the same time periods that get rehashed, never Byzantine Greece or Vasa Sweden.

What approach often works well is to grab two different cultures who have one thing in common, emphasize that and then pick and choose nifty bits from each. For example Byzentine Greeks and early modern Ethiopians (religious focus, cataphracts are badass, as are Ethiopian rock-cut churches) or Koreans and Quechua (mountain focus plus the necrocratic aspects of Quechua politics plus Korean shamanism...).

For a lot of non-human races simply stripping off a lot of the crud that's accumulated onto them to get back to the creepier folkloric origins works well. Get all of the noble savage/Vulcan/hippy treehugging bits off the elves and get back to the creepy assholes in the hollow hills and I'd be happy if I never heard another Scottish dwarf ever again. I like my dwarves grim. The conservative ones wear iron masks and robes so the son never touches their skin and use sign language to communicate with stolen human children who act as interpreters so they never have to speak to non-dwarves.

For ahistorical fantasy I hate hate hate the overpowering surfeit of Victorian anachronisms that come in with Lesserton & Mor or Dolmvay or, I'm given to understand, Pathfinder. I've been favoring anything from ACKS' pseudo-ancients to something Hyperborean, with bits of Harnic realism thrown in.

For pseudo-historical fantasy, most of my knowledge base is around 1500, so Renaissance, although I'm studying up on c 600 Silk Road cultures when I get a chance. I respect LotFP's Enlightenment and think it could be a good time, but most of their adventures don't work for me or my crew.

Neither. I go with Migrations period.

Quote from: Old One Eye;934321When running a game, I do not pay enough historical fidelity to make it all that distinguishable.

I'm running D&D, that's pretty much means what Old One Eye says.

I'm planning a Sandbox Survival Horror campaign with a distinctly Medieval flavor, drawing mainly from the Dark Ages (Sub-Roman Europe) and the Late Middle Ages (The Black Death) when society was falling apart at the seams. So, I'll have to go with Medieval over Renaissance.

The campaign is sort of like Dungeons & Dragons meets The Stand styled like a gory seinen anime.

Quote from: Daztur;934340Not such a big fan of the Hyborean effect, especially when it's done in a really jarring way as in "well he just crossed over the border from not-Viking land to not-Egypt land, suddenly there are palm trees and pyramids everywhere and not a beard in sight!" as I've seen in a lot of settings. Would rather just do straight-up history so I don't have to learn a bunch of names for stuff. And it's annoying that it's always the same time periods that get rehashed, never Byzantine Greece or Vasa Sweden.

I did Byzantine Greece.

I don't run anything pre-Renaissance.

Quote from: Old One Eye;934337This sounds like the DnD games I know ... blathering the whole thing with a good helping of modern day-isms.

Quote from: Naburimannu;934353For ahistorical fantasy I hate hate hate the overpowering surfeit of Victorian anachronisms that come in with Lesserton & Mor or Dolmvay or, I'm given to understand, Pathfinder. I've been favoring anything from ACKS' pseudo-ancients to something Hyperborean, with bits of Harnic realism thrown in.

Modern day-isms, no (or at least not if I can help it); Victorian anachronisms, sometimes.

Quote from: Daztur;934340Not such a big fan of the Hyborean effect, especially when it's done in a really jarring way as in "well he just crossed over the border from not-Viking land to not-Egypt land, suddenly there are palm trees and pyramids everywhere and not a beard in sight!" as I've seen in a lot of settings. Would rather just do straight-up history so I don't have to learn a bunch of names for stuff. And it's annoying that it's always the same time periods that get rehashed, never Byzantine Greece or Vasa Sweden.

I played Mystara's Thyatis as Byzantine Greece (figured Thincol was pretty much a mash-up of Conan and Justinian), does that count?

On a more serious note, I understand it's been done to death in published material. But I like it, for the same reason Howard liked it: this way our characters can joust in Mallory's Arthurian Britain today, explore a tomb in Ancient Egypt tomorrow and ride with the Golden Horde next week. Sure, I try to set up reasonable geographical barriers and cultural buffers, but in the end my players don't care all that much.

Quote from: Daztur;934340What approach often works well is to grab two different cultures who have one thing in common, emphasize that and then pick and choose nifty bits from each. For example Byzentine Greeks and early modern Ethiopians (religious focus, cataphracts are badass, as are Ethiopian rock-cut churches) or Koreans and Quechua (mountain focus plus the necrocratic aspects of Quechua politics plus Korean shamanism...).

For a lot of non-human races simply stripping off a lot of the crud that's accumulated onto them to get back to the creepier folkloric origins works well. Get all of the noble savage/Vulcan/hippy treehugging bits off the elves and get back to the creepy assholes in the hollow hills and I'd be happy if I never heard another Scottish dwarf ever again. I like my dwarves grim. The conservative ones wear iron masks and robes so the son never touches their skin and use sign language to communicate with stolen human children who act as interpreters so they never have to speak to non-dwarves.

That's good stuff!

Quote from: The Butcher;934387On a more serious note, I understand it's been done to death in published material. But I like it, for the same reason Howard liked it: this way our characters can joust in Mallory's Arthurian Britain today, explore a tomb in Ancient Egypt tomorrow and ride with the Golden Horde next week. Sure, I try to set up reasonable geographical barriers and cultural buffers, but in the end my players don't care all that much.

Yeah I like a mix of time periods for this reason also

I prefer anything from Post-Roman up through Hundred Years War era, usually. I do enjoy Pike-and-shot age stuff, too, though.

Quote from: The Butcher;934387On a more serious note, I understand it's been done to death in published material. But I like it, for the same reason Howard liked it: this way our characters can joust in Mallory's Arthurian Britain today, explore a tomb in Ancient Egypt tomorrow and ride with the Golden Horde next week. Sure, I try to set up reasonable geographical barriers and cultural buffers, but in the end my players don't care all that much.

Love the Conan stories for this reason and like campaigns that do this as well. I can enjoy games with lots of historical realism, but there is definitely a gameability advantage to mixing periods and throwing in anachronisms.

I once ran a fun campaign of Egyptian tomb robbers set in the reign on Ramses II.  We tried to keep it historical-ish (+fantasy), but when our primary knowledge base is Hollywood ...

Dark Albion is the best of both worlds: a culture in transition.  Albion at the start of the 30-year long campaign period is still pretty well Late Medieval, and by the end of it is early Renaissance.

Quote from: One Horse Town;934274The mood that you're in now, or the time period you prefer from those two options generally when fantasy or historical gaming.

No preference. I like them both.

I also equally like Napoleonics, World War 2, Celtic Britain, Neolithic Laurentia, Feudal Japan, Reconstructionist-era England, Prohibition-era U.S., etc.

Can't abide by the 1970s though. Ugliest decade in human history.