Quote from: Bren;873752D&D is and always has been a bit of a kitchen sink fantasy setting. Kitchen sink and history don't fit together. Thus I have dwarfs in my 1620 Honor+Intrigue game. But those are these dwarfs...

Word. I like each dwarf to be unique in his dwarf-ness.

Also, that first one is a ringer for Tyrion Lannister.

If people are looking to use history as a canvass for history, I think a lot of Chinese shows get the balance right of adding in new elements and drawing on real events. Some of the following shows might give you a new perspective on blending history with fantasy adventure:

Legend of Condor Heroes:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_F5PO5xD3Ig

Return of condor heroes:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v9oDr1roxM0

Legend of Qin: https://www.viki.com/videos/1090593v-the-legend-of-qin-episode-1

Considering the great amount of supernatural-style fiction taking place in the real world, I don't know why people consider this a problem. Even many stories set in fictional places (examples: Arkham, Sunnydale) are understood to exist in the real world. Hell, superhero settings invent multiple large cities and nations and civilizations and alien invasions, complete with their own custom histories, and even with all that history as we understand it is still completely recognizable in the setting.

I don't see why using a real-world setting in a game would be any more difficult or disruptive.

Quote from: JimLotFP;873758Considering the great amount of supernatural-style fiction taking place in the real world, I don't know why people consider this a problem. Even many stories set in fictional places (examples: Arkham, Sunnydale) are understood to exist in the real world. Hell, superhero settings invent multiple large cities and nations and civilizations and alien invasions, complete with their own custom histories, and even with all that history as we understand it is still completely recognizable in the setting.

I don't see why using a real-world setting in a game would be any more difficult or disruptive.

It isn't but I think gamers sometimes overthink these kinds of things or just avoid real history out of habit. I also know plenty of players who've had negative experiences that color their impression of using real world history (I.E. If the campaign becomes a pissing contest on historical knowledge---though to be honest I've seen plenty of Forgotten Realms games turn into pissing contests over expertise on Faerun). I think if people just tried to have fun with it and relaxed a little, they'd find you can easily run a campaign set in earth's past.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;873734But how can anyone be so deluded to be "historically accurate" when you have elves and dragons in your one-hundred-and-one year's war?

You're new to this hobby, aren't you, lad.

Also, mes amis, never forget the "old and tired" aspect.  After the umpteenth time of hearing that Dragonlance is a cooler setting than the real Earth, or that Dribbles the Drow or whatever the hell his name is is a cooler character than Bertrand du Gescelin (Not more powerful, COOLER) a certain number of aged grognards will simply throw up on their hands in despair and say, in the words of Master Yoda, "It, fuck."

Quote from: markfitz;873755Word. I like each dwarf to be unique in his dwarf-ness.

Also, that first one is a ringer for Tyrion Lannister.

Kind of makes sense as Martin is known for making his fiction like history. The Hapsburg fascination with dwarfs was very notable in art from that period. I'm not aware of any examples from actual royal or grandee families (which would be the equivalent of Tyrion Lannister), but dwarfs were prominent at court as companions and curiosities. In my Honor+Intrigue campaign, L'Omino* the dwarf is an NPC and enemy of one of the PCs, the Jesuit Priest Father Signoret.


* L'Omino is depicted about a fourth of the way down in this adventure write up.

:rant: Anyone who thinks Drizzle Dro'Up is cooler than the Eagle of Brittany can just make sure not let my game room door hit them in the ass on their way out.

They'll read every Dragonlance book out there and cream themselves over Dribble d'Urinal, but getting them to read even a single book by Joseph & Frances Gies is "too much work."

Never MIND A Distant Mirror.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;873769They'll read every Dragonlance book out there and cream themselves over Dribble d'Urinal, but getting them to read even a single book by Joseph & Frances Gies is "too much work."

Never MIND A Distant Mirror.

I guess not everyone likes reading. I think I've seen the Life in a... by Gies and Gies. IIR the books are mostly pictures - which are actually really helpful for gaming. A Distant Mirror is an easy read. I'm not sure I've ever read any of the Dragonlance books. I certainly never purchased any. Whereas A Distant Mirror is on a bookshelf downstairs next to a few history texts.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;873581Real history is more interesting than playing in other people's fantasy worlds.

Dear gods, I agree with TrippyHippy on something! :jaw-dropping:

Fantasy is vapid and shallow for the most part, I could pick a random year and create a game I find much more interesting than any made up setting. I don't need magic or monsters or people wearing funny masks to make a game I'd want to play.

Quote from: JimLotFP;873758Considering the great amount of supernatural-style fiction taking place in the real world, I don't know why people consider this a problem.

Like I said upthread, it's a genre thing. LotFP works great because it's a horror RPG as much as a fantasy RPG, and horror benefits from juxtaposition with the familiar and mundane. Besides, the typically smaller scale of horror scenarios tends to generate less attrition with historical fact.

"Straight" fantasy gaming can be done in a historical setting (which can easily provide the same "not in Kansas anymore" so many of us expect from a good fantasy setting) but some GMs (and writers!) believe ahistorical fantasy settings to provide them with more creative freedom before immersion is shattered.

Howard famously created the Hyborian Age, a patchwork of cultures cribbed from history to Lovecraft's chagrin, so he could have Conan adventure in Medieval Europe-like Aquilonia this week and Ancient Egypt-ish Stygia the next.

Sure, establishing the "alternate history" angle will alleviate much of the GM's (or writer's) workload, but as a GM who ran his fair bit of historical stuff, I was often concerned with the after-effects of equivocal histroical data and mounting inconsistencies. I find it much more difficult to manage an alternate timeline of our own history, than a fantasy world that's been built form the ground up. The "historical" label does generate certain expectation, and there's certainly a treshold of history deviation where one wonders why not just go with a fully fantastic world instead.

So it's not that historical fantasy is undoable. Shit, it's what my players say I do best (our Savage Worlds Solomon Kane game was pretty cool). It's just that it places a few additional burdens on an immersion-invested group that not everyone's willing to bear.

Yes, I think that to find the narrative sweet spot, like Howardian Hyborea and FASA's Barsaive/Earthdawn, you need to be able to mash up historical context - but be willing to toss out timelines other than as a general guide.

I think this is why FASA's new 1879 game line is going to hit that same sweet spot with a good alt-history flavor. A shadow-run style "the magic comes back" event happens in 1879 when a eccentric inventor in England punches a hole through the astral plane to another planet. Instead of taking years and having a few "goblinized" babies at first.... it all happens in a few weeks, and some people don't survive it. "Looking Glass Fever" has changed the face of geo-politics on Earth, with many families expressing ancient bloodlines. The time-line is completely disrupted, and I really look forward to the early pre-WWI stuff (especially as Tesla fled to the Ukraine instead of dying in the US and they're getting tesla-punk magi-mecha).

Some of the issue for me is that it has the same problem as a 'modern' setting.  You can't really change much without suddenly making the game into a full fantasy/science fiction setting.

And in Fantasy, a lot of games end up being Epic Fantasy, in which the heroes suddenly become the rulers or at least demigods, and when the players suddenly are in charge, it stops being 'alt-history' for a lot of people.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;873950Some of the issue for me is that it has the same problem as a 'modern' setting.  You can't really change much without suddenly making the game into a full fantasy/science fiction setting.

And in Fantasy, a lot of games end up being Epic Fantasy, in which the heroes suddenly become the rulers or at least demigods, and when the players suddenly are in charge, it stops being 'alt-history' for a lot of people.

I think the point people are making though is why set it in a fake world when nothing is stopping you from setting it in our own. It might become full fantasy but you would have more familiar elements that don't need to be created whole cloth. You can always take more of a Hercules and Xena approach though, where history is more like a suggestion. I actually think that can work really well for certain campaigns (it also means the players are surprised because history doesn't necessarily play out the way you expect).