Quote from: James Gillen;880707Unfortunately that didn't work so well for Gary Gygax.

JG

I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make.  It worked great; we had lots of fun.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880708I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make.  It worked great; we had lots of fun.

Totally agree. Worked perfectly fine for us too.

Quote from: Omega;880432As long as they admit that UFO abductions and Bigfoot are real Im ok with that. :cool:

Sometime in the future, someone will be arguing that our generation lives in a Cryptozoological world because we all believed in bigfoot.

For me it's simple - people like me. History nerds who can't let go. I'd be eaten alive if I tried to run a historical campaign (maybe Napoleonic period, but even that I am unsure of), and that'd be a karmic death.

Also, holy shit, someone was taken for a ride because they didn't know Pundit believes in magic(k).

Quote from: Rincewind1;880803Also, holy shit, someone was taken for a ride because they didn't know Pundit believes in magic(k).

A magic(k) ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4WiyxXpyZc

Quote from: Rincewind1;880803For me it's simple - people like me. History nerds who can't let go. I'd be eaten alive if I tried to run a historical campaign (maybe Napoleonic period, but even that I am unsure of), and that'd be a karmic death.

.

I used to be that guy. It is a choice though. If everyone in the group is like that, then its fine, but if you are ruining the game for four others or ruining a movie fro four others because you can't let go just because you are a history nerd, it starts to annoy people. I learned the hard way that people do not appreciate the unsolicited history lessons or the constant critiques. Not only did my own enjoyment of games, books and media improve when I started to let go, but my understanding of history also improved (because my ego would get in the way any time I encountered things I didn't know fully before....I became more willing to see where I needed to learn more or where I was carrying around outdated/incorrect facts).

One conversation years ago with some designers came down to this conundrum.

You do a historical game. Ok. So now what?

If you allow the PCs to interact with historical figures then very likely something is going to get altered. At which point what was the point of all that historical accuracy you demanded? Just so you can cockwave killing Sun Tsu or banging Joan of Arc? Cherish the players who are totally ok with just meeting in passing or working for such figures in some reasonable manner.

If you dont allow the PCs to interact with historical figures then you have to keep them out in the boonies or otherwise not interacting with history. At which point also what was the point in all that historical accuracy?

One trick suggested was to pick an area where alot was happening. But the details of which are nebulous at best. Drop the PCs onto the coast during the height of Viking raids or somewhere in Russia during the great bogatyr conflicts. Alexander Nevsky was just one of a number of leaders rising and falling.

Or base things in the realm of legend like Ilya Muromets where magical events still occur.

Quote from: Omega;880843If you allow the PCs to interact with historical figures then very likely something is going to get altered. At which point what was the point of all that historical accuracy you demanded?

(1) The point might be to create a detailed starting point and then see where things go from there. Basically similar to the point of all the many alternate history novels ever published.

(2) Changes made by PCs don't necessarily mean changes to known history. Predominantly this is an issue of scale of the campaign and the power level of the PCs. If you don't assume the butterfly theory of events, then unless your PCs start out the game with the resources to make major changes in the setting or the players are the sort of assholes who have their PCs assassinate the President or kill the infant king just to fuck with history because they can, the changes the PCs make aren't necessarily going to cause huge changes in history that will invalidate everything. So many, if not most historical people and events are still usable even after a series of PC driven changes. Or at least they will be usable until well into the campaign when the PCs have gained the power, wealth, and influence to become movers and shakers, kings and kingmakers.

Scale is critical. Are the PCs kings and kingmakers? Is the story of the world and the story of the PCs more or less the same thing? Or is the world a much, much bigger place than the PCs who, like the vast majority of all of us, don't do anything all on our own that significantly changes the entire city, country, continent, or world we live in. Consider any number of fictional movies or TV shows set in historical time periods.* The actions of the protagonists, though presumably exciting and meaningful on the scale of operations of the show are not sufficient to change the entire world as we know it, no matter what the protagonists do or don't do. A historical campaign may be like that.

For that matter, a fictional setting may be like that. Even a character like Conan does not, until he becomes King of Aqualonia, change the entire shape of the Hyborian world with every adventure. Unless we assume a butterfly effect, saving or not saving the scantily clad girl from the sacrificial alter and succeeding or failing at looting the Elephant's Tower is unlikely to have enormous consequences of the sort that would change the fictional recorded history of the Hyborian age. When I run fantasy/fiction, the PCs are just a handful of characters and by no means the most powerful or important characters in the setting. Growth in power is something I like to see occur over time in most campaigns.

Also, when I run an historical campaign, PC success sometimes reinforces the history as we know it, e.g. the PCs were materially responsible for the defeat of the Spanish at the Siege of Bergen op Zoom in my H+I campaign. In a campaign set in the American Revolution, the PCs may ensure that Paul Revere (or other similar folks) made their midnight ride. Maybe the PCs are the other folks making midnight rides. In a WWII espionage setting, the PCs may be the ones who see that the Polish device and information is delivered to the British. So PC actions may reinforce rather than subvert known history.


* Examples off the top of my head include:

• The fairly gritty, squad level five season, 152-episode  TV show COMBAT! and the silly squad level TV show The Rat Patrol
  
• Nearly all episodes of the old TV show the Untouchables, which is set during Prohibition and just after
• The first TV version of La Femme Nikita. (Haven't watched the newer version yet.) and newer series like the British TV shows Ultimate Force and (most of) Spooks/MI-5.
• Any detective show, police procedural, murder mystery, or Western
• Most actions movies, e.g. The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, Die Hard, Rocky and its sequels, and the Transporter films
• Some James Bond movies (though it is arguable whether they take place in the real world).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880708I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make.  It worked great; we had lots of fun.

Wasn't Gary pestered until he allowed Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits into the game, because the crew loved Lord of The Rings and he did not?  I remember you mentioning this back on TBP...

That MAY be what Mr. Gillen is saying?  That his idea got co-opted because he got pushed in a direction he didn't want.

Quote from: Bren;880875(1) The point might be to create a detailed starting point and then see where things go from there. Basically similar to the point of all the many alternate history novels ever published.

(2) Changes made by PCs don't necessarily mean changes to known history.

1: This was my thought too. But I do agree that it seems a little odd to have demanded the history just to throw a wrench into it. Then again some really dig that aspect.

2: This was my argument too. Have the PCs in positions to do big things but not to de-rail history. Rather to support it. Like my Alexander Nevsky example.

Furry Pirates took the middle ground. They laid out the history and personalities of the era and then left the players and DM to sort out which direction to go. The high seas was vast and you could adventure all your life and never meet a personality or impact history. Or you could hob-nob with, or oppose, kings, queens and Blackbeard if you wanted.

Quote from: Omega;8808851: This was my thought too. But I do agree that it seems a little odd to have demanded the history just to throw a wrench into it. Then again some really dig that aspect.

One might argue that the BBC TV show Musketeers does this. They started out with a fairly loose interpretation of history (as do many cape & sword fictions). And they have clearly made a significant change from the historical timeline by

Spoiler

having Richelieu die early and allowing the fictional Rochefort to take the Cardinal's place.

But I don't expect too much historical accuracy in a what is, more or less, a historical romance. History is frequently just the backdrop in that genre.

Why do it in an RPG?

I'd only expect to see it if it interests the GM and one or more of the players. It's way too much work if the GM isn't interested. And if none of the players care, there is probably insufficient payoff or audience to keep the GM motivated.

Quote from: Omega;8808852: This was my argument too. Have the PCs in positions to do big things but not to de-rail history. Rather to support it. Like my Alexander Nevsky example.

Yes. Or just don't play PCs who are movers, shakers, kings, and kingmakers. D'Artagnan in the Three Musketeers doesn't do anything history changing or history making. The same is true of much, if not most, swashbuckling and cape & sword fiction. It's only when you get into world saving fiction like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars where the action is centered on whether or not the ordinary and not so ordinary folks can save the world, defeat the dark emperor, etc.

This is a thing I find applies not just to historical settings. Some players have a strong expectations that the PCs in any RPG are extremely important and hypercompetent. You see elements of that in the frequent arguments about whether or not any sort of restraint on "adventurers" makes sense in a setting or is even feasible. People who argue no, usually do so with an assumption that there is a status like "adventurer" and that those in that class are much more powerful than ordinary mortals. Others arguing for restraint often assume that PCs are no more powerful than NPCs in the setting - and often less powerful than powerful NPCs. The PCs are special/powerful/savers of worlds expectation isn't accurate for all settings nor all RPGs.

Part of the original appeal of Runequest and Glorantha was that PCs started out as ordinary folks. It was called Runequest because play was, in part, a long term quest to master several runes and become rune-level. But even rune-level characters were small potatoes compared to the movers and shakers of Glorantha - which we had a glimpse of in the board games White Bear/Red Moon (aka Dragonpass) and Nomad Gods as well as in the cult histories. Some people liked that aspect of the setting. It bugged other people.

I find that there is often an unstated assumption or desire by those that find historical settings impossibly implausible. This assumption or desire is that their PCs should be a really big noise in the setting. So an historical setting where the characters are squad level soldiers in WWII is unsatisfying, not so much because there is some problem with contradicting history, but it is a problem because the expectation in a squad level soldiers campaign is that YOUR guy will never end WWII by punching Hitler in the face. Some people want campaigns where the stakes are enormous. Winning WWII. Saving the world. Saving the universe. If those are the stakes then any historical setting is quickly going to end up as a railroad or as significantly altered history.

Quote2: This was my argument too. Have the PCs in positions to do big things but not to de-rail history. Rather to support it. Like my Alexander Nevsky example.

Kudos. You cleverly combined both uncertainty about the details of how history came about (so it is difficult to contradict) with setting the power level and scale where it affects the local area not an entire country or region.

Simmilar to IP RPGs. If you stat out the main characters. Someones going to try and off them. As a designer/writer you just have to accept that this may happen. And it may not.

As a DM. Know your audience. Are they the types to play Time Meddler? Or are they going to set out and make a name for themselves? Or are they out to assist history? Or are they trying to stay out of history? and so on.

Lot s of ways to approach it.

Quote from: Omega;880935Simmilar to IP RPGs. If you stat out the main characters. Someones going to try and off them. As a designer/writer you just have to accept that this may happen. And it may not.

Yes, but IP settings are somewhat easier, because you can have the PCs after the prime of said characters.  Some settings are admittedly easier than others.  Conan for example, a lot easier, because he never defeated the world's greatest 'evil', he was just a dood who was looking to become King by his own hand.  He succeeded, but he didn't seal off any chance of other characters having adventures in Hyboria.

Unlike say, Lord of The Rings, because once Samwise saves his Frodo and let's Gollum fall into the lava, that's the end of the greatest evil.  And once that happens, anything that the players want to do kinda pales in comparison.  Some players are totally OK.  Some are not.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880819https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4WiyxXpyZc

I usually think of this version, or Aladdin's "A Whole New World," when it comes to magic carpet rides.

Pizzicato Five — Magic Carpet Ride

But that's because I'm not old enough to remember the 60s.