Quote from: RPGPundit;874942But for them it was real, in a totally different way, a different paradigm, than how some religious person today might say that their beliefs are real (unless said religious person belongs to a truly nutso evangelical cult, or we're talking about some brands of African christianity or tribal leftovers or stuff like that).

It was real in the same way that other crackpot, harmful theories are real. "Different paradigm?" Sounds like you are treading perilously close to the sort of post modern relativism you claim to decry. The magic and monsters "paradigm" is wrong about how the world works. It is an ill-conceived doctrine, useless to predict or explain what happens, and it caused (and still causes) great harm. It is not real. People just wrongly thought (and some still think) it is and was real.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874943The mistake you and others in this thread are making is in thinking like a 21st century person, and assuming that these guys didn't really think it or mean it (because how could a rational person possibly think these things?), but the fact is they did.

I know (to some extent) what early modern people thought. I know (for the most part) why they thought it. I also know that they were wrong in their beliefs about how the world works. You seem a bit confused on the last point.

QuoteBut if your fantasy elements mirror the way people actually thought (which are the principles that inform Dark Albion), it works just great.

This, on the other hand, is correct.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874944Good thing that wasn't my claim. My claim was that medieval society was a society BASED on the belief that magic (and things like salvation and damnation) are literally real things, and that monsters and demons literally exist. And that people interacted with these things to some extent.
I'm not saying "it is real because people believed in it", I'm saying the belief was real and all kinds of things in the society was based on the assumption (the paradigm) of those realities.

If you aren't claiming that magic and monsters are real than your use of the phrase "really seen" appears chock full of post-modernist, absolute relativism world view.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874943They really thought that witches were cursing them, ruining their crops, plotting against the king, and what's more they had really seen animals talk or women having sex with the devil in the woods.

If you think medieval or early modern people really heard animals talk or saw women have sex with the devil then I suggest a little less wacky tobaccy in your pipe is in order.

Now you may have meant to say people back then thought they heard animals talk and they thought they saw women having sex with the devil, but that is not what you said. Feel free to clarify what you really meant.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874983Keep in mind the witch craze in early modern Europe wasn't exclusively an activity of the Catholic Church, some of the most affected areas were Protestant. And it didn't reach its height until the reformation period.

Indeed.  But once you actually start introducing magic, things begin to change.  It starts being taken seriously much sooner.  Especially once the true power of it is discovered.  Instant reading of locations, the ability to destroy settlements (one Fireball, which is just level 5 would decimate a small village.)  And suddenly, the authorities are in serious trouble in keeping their personal powers.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874983The trials themselves were usually conducted by secular authorities rather than religious ones in areas where central authority was weaker. If you did happen to be tried for witch craft, there is some evidence you stood a better chance of a fair trial and survival if you were tried by a Catholic court.

The odds of someone not being 'guilty' are suddenly lower when you have magicians who can charm, beguile or able to read the thoughts or spying at a distance.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874983Again not an expert, but in every single class I took on this subject, the standard text books spent considerable time explaining the intellectual and religious foundations of the witch craze. Basically what Pundit refers to as the paradigm. I found it incredibly difficult to come away from reading that, and all the primary source material we had to read where these beliefs were expressed, and not see this as being based in very real beliefs (like pundit says, there are always people exploiting developments for themselves, but we shouldn't't assume people at the time were thinking like modern secularists.)

Here's the thing, there is evidence that this 'modern secularist' thought isn't all that modern.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874983I also found that thinking about the churches role has greatly changed as more evidence has come to light and as earlier long held assumptions have been put under scrutiny. They lived in a world where they thought God was real and magic was real. And not all magic was regarded as bad. It was when the idea of witchcraft and diabolical combined that people started going truly crazy about it (and the church didn't even take witchcraft that seriously until about the 15th century). There were probably a lot of external factors feeding those beliefs but the beliefs were still real.

It sounds to me that you're missing that Pundit was talking about D&D style magic, the title claims that it's all D&D.  And that changes all the paradigms.  The reason Ars Magicka works is because it turns it into the power behind the scene.  D&D does not.

So now you see where things change.  The 'issues' that men in power (the Church) would have had with Magic and witchcraft start EARLIER and much more polarizing, especially if this power is not just in their hands.

And thus the Inquisition is suddenly more prevalent and might occur earlier.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874983It is true that is magic were real, things could have panned out differently. But they might not have because if their beliefs were reality, that also means the church had God on its side. For the purpose of a roleplaying game, I have no trouble accepting a Europe with real magic and basically the same history.

Problem is, it does change because D&D magic is more blatant, it's no longer 'A friend of a friend that my cousin 4th removes once heard that...'  There would be CLEAR incidents that people could see.

Historical fantasy is perfectly viable. It doesn't have to be literal Europe; it can be spun into something wholly different, with a distinct fantasy take with echos of our own world. Dark Albion is a modern example, along with old AD&D favorites like A Mighty Fortress, Charlemagne's Paladins, The Crusades, Age of Heroes, Celts and the Glory of Rome.

For people who thrive on using their imagination to craft games, some of you don't seem very imaginative.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;875078Historical fantasy is perfectly viable. It doesn't have to be literal Europe.

That's not what the title says.  Please read it before you start making blanket derogatory accusations.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;875082That's not what the title says.  Please read it before you start making blanket derogatory accusations.

I made two very distinct opinions. Reread what I typed.

Are you familiar with the AD&D historical supplements? They are agnostic of fantasy D&Disms entirely, and address both the topic and the conversation as it has evolved.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874943Leaving aside that by "inquisition" you actually mean the early-modern Witch Craze (the Inquisition was mainly concerned with heresy, and in Spain with hidden jewish/muslim backsliders, not with witchcraft)

Maybe you should pick up a book or two on the history of Basque.

Quotehow would it change?
To the people involved the witches REALLY DID EXIST. They weren't all just going around being all tongue-in-cheek about it. They really thought that witches were cursing them, ruining their crops, plotting against the king, and what's more they had really seen animals talk or women having sex with the devil in the woods.

Their belief isn't the issue. It's the effect of people actually being able to learn magic from the devil, having the power to curse their enemies, talk to animals, fly about on ergot and bat-blood smeared sticks, etc. Its the capability of these people to actually change the course of history, easily, by actually doing these things instead of being blamed for natural occurances.

QuoteThis is ridiculously cynical. You are making assumptions based on a perspective that has no actual context to the time or place. Of course, there were some hucksters and opportunists, but even most of these were people who really did think they were taking advantage of real problem to benefit themselves.  There may have been time they knew the person they were accusing probably wasn't a witch, but that's different from not thinking witches existed at all.

No, I'm making assertions based on quite a bit of research spanning two decades. The fact that there were people that believed witches existed does not change the fact that an excessive amount of accusations of witchcraft and resulting trials can be traced back to political motivations and the acquisition of land. Hell, even the Salem Witch Trials have evidence of this; try reading up on Thomas Putnam some time.

QuoteAnd no, it's not like the modern UFO maniacs. It's like if EVERYONE was sure that UFOs were real and alien abductions were really a thing that happens.

No, that wasn't the analogy. What you're not understanding is that it's not the belief that matters, its the actual effects of these things actually existing. The ACTUAL effect of extraterrestrials interfering on earth. The ACTUAL effect of people using magic to curse their enemies, cause crops to wither and animals to sicken and die.  

QuoteThe mistake you and others in this thread are making is in thinking like a 21st century person, and assuming that these guys didn't really think it or mean it (because how could a rational person possibly think these things?), but the fact is they did.

Nope, not making that mistake at all. The mistake you're making is the same as the people who think that people pre-Columbus all thought the world was flat.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;874985I like using Secret History in a lot of my historical campaigns.

Absolutely!

Back in the 90s, I played in a short lived "Medieval Delta Green" where we were Vatican witch hunters whose job was to find and kill the enemy before their magical power got out of control and resulted in big disasters.

...and when big bad disasters happened, the monks would "record" a different set of facts to be taught in the future.  So, the modern world just thinks the Library of Alexandra was lost, but we know what really happened....and where it is.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;875088Are you familiar with the AD&D historical supplements? They are agnostic of fantasy D&Disms entirely, and address both the topic and the conversation as it has evolved.

I owned most of them, and the mental gymnastics required to make the not D&D with a thin veneer of 'faux history' was AMAZING.  And they form my stance on why you can't do it in D&D.

Other game systems can do it, simply because magic can be made to be, or are, subtle.  Not so in D&D.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;875169I owned most of them, and the mental gymnastics required to make the not D&D with a thin veneer of 'faux history' was AMAZING.  And they form my stance on why you can't do it in D&D.

Other game systems can do it, simply because magic can be made to be, or are, subtle.  Not so in D&D.

OSR doesn't necessarily apply to D&D. But we are in agreement on your last point; out of the box D&D is not very condusive to supporting historic Europe.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;875214OSR doesn't necessarily apply to D&D.

Yes it does.  In fact, the only things created with that label have been modified versions of older editions of D&D.  We've decided to open it up, but you look at the title, it's all D&D and assumed variations of.

So this entire discussion is about D&D style magic being shoved into a European context that somehow doesn't change the entire dynamic of how the world happened.  Which I say is impossible, without massive amounts of hand waving.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;875214OSR doesn't necessarily apply to D&D.

Unfortunately in common usage by default it does indeed. This is something I've objected to from the beginning, since the actual renaissance of interest in old school games and playstyles as a movement instead of simply a marketing brand didn't start with D&D, but I'm afraid its pretty well ingrained by this point. The only compromise I've seen put forward is that "OSR" is just D&D while "osr" includes everything, but this is practically useless as you still have to explain you're not talking about D&D in most cases.

I know, it's lame. But then, the OSR seems to have pretty much run its course anyways.

I just checked out the preview material for Dark Albion. I also read some reviews.

It looks fun.


I think it was good call on replacing the Catholic Church with the Unconquered Sun. Sol Invictus, FTW.
This is not because I dislike fantasy historical games that involve my religion, but because the change signals the reader/ player to expect other differences. It shows that, despite the many close parallels to our history, this is a " weird" alternate universe.

What hints I have read about Frogland make me think of the bells of Saint Toad, Clark Ashton Smith, and all that.
Creepy.

Quote from: Spinachcat;875091Absolutely!

Back in the 90s, I played in a short lived "Medieval Delta Green" where we were Vatican witch hunters whose job was to find and kill the enemy before their magical power got out of control and resulted in big disasters.

...and when big bad disasters happened, the monks would "record" a different set of facts to be taught in the future.  So, the modern world just thinks the Library of Alexandra was lost, but we know what really happened....and where it is.

I quite liked what they came up with in Deus Vult for RuneQuest. It could pretty much be described as "medieval Delta Green". There was some cool stuff in there about taking on witch cults and such, and great random adventure generators. They basically assumed that the witch cult craze was based on truth, and that there was a secret force funded by the Church, at odds with the Inquisition, that sent out adventuring parties of gifted warriors and Magic/Spirit sensitives to combat evil. If I remember correctly. I thought it was quite a well done Fantasy Europe campaign idea. That said, I think it works with there potentially low magic system that RuneQuest can be tweaked to, and might not with standard D&D magic. On the other hand, who's to say we can't tweak D&D magic to fit a low magic setting? Would it help to make all spellcasters Warlocks? Works nice for witches and their ilk. Maybe make Catholic Priests Warlocks with a pact with God ....

There is also the option for a Fantasy Europe setting that the fantasy elements are on the fringes. They dont impact the rest of the setting much. Which may be intentional or may be due to the low overall level of the magical threats.

Or like with Norse mythology. The fantasy elements are other worlds that overlap at the edges with the mundane but are not a part of. Or like some sylvan legends where the faerie realms are etherial and may evaporate if too long in the real without proper anchoring points. Or the fantasy elements are spectral in nature and restricted to certain places as these things are often prone to be.

Conan for example is set 10000 years in the past. With something sufficiently cataclysmic occurring to totally re-arrange the map and obliterate about all traces of the age that was. And the Conan books themselves mention ages before that even more fantastical that were brought down.

Borderlands of Faery

That would work.

Say the setting is a county in the Anglo-Scots Border country and it lies very close to the realms of Faery-Land.
Witchery, strange creatures that crawl out of Faery, buried treasure with curses laid on it, and all that kind of stuff is unusually common in the county.
Saints may be more likely to grant intercession to people living there, who need all the help they can get in dealing with magical powers and weird monsters.
And don't the elfin lords pay a tiend to Hell?
So the Evil One may also take an interest...