I might have done a thread like this before, and if so- oh well:)  Anyways, I was looking to see what historical RPG's are out there.  I'm not looking for quasi-historical settings that feature things like monsters and or magic.  The only ones that I am aware of are some straight westerns and Flashing Blades perhaps.  What else is out there?

Some came up in this thread in the Pundit's forum (it's also an interesting conversation in general):
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?34438-Hey-Pundit-how-would-you-Dark-Albion-France

Quote from: RunningLaser;899056I might have done a thread like this before, and if so- oh well:)  Anyways, I was looking to see what historical RPG's are out there.  I'm not looking for quasi-historical settings that feature things like monsters and or magic.  The only ones that I am aware of are some straight westerns and Flashing Blades perhaps.  What else is out there?

• Honor+Intrigue can be played with or without magic and monsters. Robin Hood or Captain Blood would be played without, while Les Lames du Cardinal would be played with.
• Boot Hill is historical in the same sense that Western movies are historical.
• Runequest (or more specifically some version of BRP) can be played without magic or monsters, though usually it is played with both. The Ninjas and Vikings source books, for example, work just fine without magic and monsters.
• Of course GURPS can do anything.
• As can HERO as shown by Justice Incorporated.
• Top Secret was spies with no magic or monsters and Gangbusters were, well gangs and government agents.

GURPS of course has various historical sourcebooks... Westerns, Rome, Swashbucklers, Aztecs, Middle Ages, Napoleon, etc.

Clash (Better Mousetrap Games) has a good number of historical games, generally military-focused.

BRP-based historicals seem to include magic as an option but not required. So you've got Crusaders of the Amber Coast, Stupor Mundi, Val du Loup, Celestial Empire, etc.
GURPS as noted is quite strong in this area; I'll add GURPS Japan along with the WWII books.
Fantasy Hero had both Vikings and Pirates sourcebooks.

Just in terms of swashbuckling games, in addition to those mentioned there's At Rapier's Point for Rolemaster, also Run out the Guns using a simplified RM system; Crimson Cutlass; Swashbuckler (Jim Dietz); En Garde; Pirates & Plunder; Skull & Crossbones; Pavillon Noir (apparently); Capitán Alatriste; Privateers and Gentlemen (not quite the same genre but historical anyway).

Warlords of Alexandria, and Zenobia I think are both more historical than mythical/magical.

Purely historical games are difficult to find because most contain or assume some degree of supernatural abilities or elements that most of the time extrapolate what could be considered reasonable for the periods. For example, Pendragon strikes some of your cords, but then it's technologically anachronistic and full of supernatural elements that's hardly considered "historical". One could argue for the belief in the existence of the Fey being historical, but then you have the Lady in the Lake, Merlin, a whole Fey dimension, etc.

The games I think may fit the bill are those that exclude the supernatural altogether, or that had the care to make the supernatural subtle and fitting enough to the beliefs of the cultures in question (which will be a subjective thing anyway ). So, from the top of my head:

- Gurps with historical supplements ( Ancient Greece, Rome, Vikings, Low-Tech, etc)
- Dogs in the Vineyard (young Mormons saving people's souls by shooting them in the face)
- Bushido (samurai in feudal Japan)
- Blood & Honor / World of Dew (samurai in feudal Japan/in Tokugawa period cities and castles)
- Sagas of the Icelanders (viking Icelander settlers)
- Night Witches (Russian WWII pilots fighting nazis)
- Hillfolk and it's historical series pitches (Ninja clans in feudal Japan, 20s Gangsters, Cold War spies etc)

I think one could argue for games like Qin, Keltia, Yggdrasil, Mythic Britain, Mythic Iceland, etc. but I think these have some overtly obvious supernatural elements, be it in the form of character abilities or creatures/monsters, that would discard them for me.

OSR:

Simon Washbourne:
Ancient Mysteries & Lost Treasures
Medieval Mysteries

John M. Stater:
Bloody Basic - Sinew and Steel edition
Black Death
Deviant Decade
Swords & Sandals

Backswords & Bucklers

Non-OSR:
Duty & Honour
Beat to Quarters
One Dice WW1
One Dice WW2
One Dice Spies: Cold War
Dark Continent

But the one game that I admire the most is the French Te deum pour un massacre. Too bad that I am not keen on that particular era or conflict (the French religious wars) but it has an awesome-looking life path system.

Quote from: Arminius;899185BRP-based historicals seem to include magic as an option but not required. So you've got Crusaders of the Amber Coast, Stupor Mundi, Val du Loup, Celestial Empire, etc.

All of these titles include magic, although somehow removeable. However, BRP Rome: Life and Death of the Republic is specifically designed to be played without magic, although a small chapter about Roman magic is included.

Peter has done a revision of Rome for the new Mythras ruleset due in July, and judging from what I read on the TDM forum you might expect to see it shine again in print and PDF as soon as the switch from RQ6 to Mythras takes place. For more precise info check the Design Mechanism, of course, as I am no longer the publisher of this award-winning book.

Valley of the Pharoahs from Palladium Books. Historical ancient Egypt.

Warlords of Alexander has already been mentioned, there's also the GURPS netbook Philos Basilikos covering the same period, too. That being the Hellenistic era of antiquity before the rise of the Roman Republic.

ACKS lends itself very easily to historical gaming, I did exactly that in my own hack, Mercenary, Liberator, Tyrant, which I used in Tyche's Favourites.

Quote from: Itachi;899213For example, Pendragon strikes some of your cords, but then it's technologically anachronistic and full of supernatural elements that's hardly considered "historical". One could argue for the belief in the existence of the Fey being historical, but then you have the Lady in the Lake, Merlin, a whole Fey dimension, etc.

Dude, Pendragon isn't remotely historical, because magic and technological anachronisms--not to mention social and institutional anachronisms--don't even touch the fact that virtually none of the persons or events in the game are attested in historical sources. It's cool myth, with some gritty/realistic trappings.

Love ya, guy, but you're continuing to build your rep as our resident Storygame Derper with some of these suggestions:

Quote- Dogs in the Vineyard (young Mormons saving people's souls by shooting them in the face)

Granted, the magic in this game can be dialed up or down to taste, but the representation of Mormonism is ahistorical, and while the book points to a real (horrible) person who upheld the faith through murder, there was no actual institution of teenaged "Dogs" going around from town to town.

Quote- Bushido (samurai in feudal Japan)

Not to impugn this game's status as a traditional RPG but it's set in mythic Japan and two of the character classes are priests and wizards.

Quote- Blood & Honor / World of Dew (samurai in feudal Japan/in Tokugawa period cities and castles)

Highly doubtful that this isn't a mishmash drawn from Kurosawa and lightly daubed over a HotB framework.

As Japan-themed games these at least eschew the "Asia Land" approach found in Oriental Adventures and Legend of the Five Rings, but for a real historical game one would need to seek out GURPS Japan (set firmly in the historical Tokugawa/Edo period), or Sengoku, set in the Sengoku period. I'll even throw a bone to The Blossoms are Falling, which at least makes a gesture toward placing itself in the Heian period, even though it has some anachronisms and I couldn't imagine ever trying to play it again due to its Burning Wheel-isms.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;899222But the one game that I admire the most is the French Te deum pour un massacre. Too bad that I am not keen on that particular era or conflict (the French religious wars) but it has an awesome-looking life path system.

Did a quick Internet search. Wow! That game has some amazing original artwork. I may have to buy it for the art alone - though I'm hopeful the lifepath may have stuff to steal for my H+I campaign. Black Vulmea did a short review back in 2012.

Fair points, Arminius. Bushido supernatural elements really feel too strong, and Dogs fictional premises kind of invalidate it. With that, my list goes down to Sagas, Hillfolk and Night Witches. Don't know Sengoku, will google it.

Another purely historical game is The Regiment, the PbtA WWII hack by John Harper.

About the "story-game derper" reference, it's sounds weird to me because I don't consider any of these "story-games", or whatever that's supposed to mean around here. My definition of story-game is things like Fiasco, Munchausen, Universalis, Microcosm, Realm, A Quiet Year, etc. But YMMV of course.

Sengoku is set in Sengoku Japan, and is rather good.

Zenobia is set in the times of Zenobia, at the end of the Roman Empire, except in the Middle East. Palmyra was recently in the news, even.

43AD/Warband is set exactly when the name indicates, and uses the system from Zenobia.

Grunt RPG is set in the Vietnam war.

Runequest: Vikings can be found (under that name) for $1 at Drivthru, and used with MRQ2, which means you can use it with Mongoose's Legend RPG (there's another that has almost the same name and a different system), which also costs $1. It can probably be used with Runequest6, or Mythras, whenever it appears. We used it with MRQ2, back in the day.

Most of my other recommendations were mentioned above.

Don't worry, man (although mentioning a PbtA game by John Harper is practically the icing on the cake). At least you aren't Silva!

Duty and Honour (and Beat to Quarters) is a game series I've come across online, about a very specific subject, Napoleonic era British military adventure.