We're doing fantasy Ancient Greece but with group consent that most geographical and historical accuracy will be warped in favor of fun. Basically Hollywood movie history.

I've run an Honor+Intrigue campaign set in 1620s France for over three and a half years (190 sessions) with zero complaints about historical accuracy.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;873586Well, it takes a certain degree of pressure off if you don't have to be historically accurate in the games you run, admittedly - and reading up on history can be interesting for general fantasy ideas.

However, sometimes I get frustrated by fantasy settings - and seek more authentic experiences, often in time travelling campaigns. Each to their own though, of course.

I did a "fantastic England 1360" campaign some years ago for three or four years.

Two or three people thought it was neat, two or three people hated all the "history junk", and thirty or forty people didn't give a fuck or really notice.

Let's face it, for 90% of the players they absolutely do not give the tiniest trace of a fuck about whether the NPC they're talking to is named Sir John Chandos or Sir Loin of Beef or Lord Dickshits of Fucktown.

There are tiny pockets of variation on this, but 42 years and thousands of games have taught me I'm way more right than wrong.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;873607Let's face it, for 90% of the players they absolutely do not give the tiniest trace of a fuck about whether the NPC they're talking to is named Sir John Chandos or Sir Loin of Beef or Lord Dickshits of Fucktown.

I care.

And since I'm the GM we have the 1620s equivalents of Chandos - real people appear a lot. And while a well chosen humorous name or two is fine for the fictional characters, what I won't have are characters who sound like they were named by a bunch of stoned and giggling 14-year olds. YMMV and all that shit.

Quote from: TristramEvans;873553Because it only lasts as long as you don't stop for one second and consider that if even one fantasy element was true in our world, there's no possible way that history from that point on would actually resemble anything close to what happened in our reality.

BINGO! Once you pass that threshold, it essentially becomes an alien fantasy world. The only similarity being the geographic features. Unless those have been altered by magic as well. Might as well just play in a truly unique setting from square one. Which is more exciting for your average American: Exploring your own backyard or Borneo? Most folks would take Borneo.

If you are basically playing in a fantasy version of the real world, maybe setting it in the real world is the way to go. But I think using fantasy settings have several advantages that make running and prepping a lot easier. The biggest is you have a lot more freedom to do whatever you want in a world that never existed. If you need a place that feels kind of like France and a place that feels kind of like China to be right next to each other,you can do that in a fantasy world. It is easier to introduce those sorts of things. You are not as bound to real history in a fantasy setting. You also don't have to worry about stuff like people bickering as much over the details. You might get some folks who insist your fantasy Europe resemble real Europe in excruciating detail, but most people will be more okay with anachronisms in a fantasy setting.

I will say though, just going ahead and using history as a canvass is totally fine and I think people sometimes don't do it merely out of habit (we just make fantasy settings and don't stop to think if setting it in history, even greatly tweaked and altered history might not work better). Also people forget you can crank the past up to 11 if you need. Nothing stopping you from making witches real in Medieval Europe, or giving the priesthood some awesome smiting powers.

I like hybrid options like Dark Albion, because they make some things easy.  I can immediately know what languages are likely to be known, for example.  

If magic is rare (see clerics in Dark Albion) and most fantasy elements are in the wilderness then the general notion of "wandering in the deep woods is dangerous" is simply given extra weight.  Small deviations from history are easily explained -- it's a near clone of our reality and it should be deadly dangerous to assume that history is a guide to fine details.  It's the broad strokes that are similar

Quote from: Bren;873610I care.

And since I'm the GM we have the 1620s equivalents of Chandos - real people appear a lot. And while a well chosen humorous name or two is fine for the fictional characters, what I won't have are characters who sound like they were named by a bunch of stoned and giggling 14-year olds. YMMV and all that shit.

You're one of the lucky ones.

I had the care beaten out of me.  It's discouraging as hell to put a couple years' effort into a historically based campaign like I described above and to be told point blank that most players are at best neutral on the subject versus just making shit up.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;873645You're one of the lucky ones.

Somewhat, yeah. I knew before running the setting that my wife loves 17th century French history and Dumas' The Three Musketeers. Absent that, I'd probably have pitched something else. In addition, I do the majority of my GM prep for me. So as long as what I do amuses me and doesn't annoy the players I'm good.

Well, the reason why not has been thoroughly covered.

But I enjoy doing so, as earth has plenty of detail from which to adopt and derive content. However there's two main caveats to retaining mood, which is ever important in any game:

1. It cannot attempt claim to 100% fidelity to history. Otherwise there is no agency. At that point it is mere re-enactment, theater -- not a game with choices.

It, like much historical romance, can claim a veneer of verisimilitude with overarching bands of fate to hold things together. The veneer is there to accomodate the impact of the fantastic -- this includes PCs' non-magical interruptions with trifling historic consequence -- while retaining familiarity. The fate bands are there to similarly retain familiarity, by necessitating extreme direct action to otherwise trigger an alt-history snowball.

(Basically the latter is to avoid "Butterfly in France inducing Typhoon in China" speculations. Your PCs are special and precious to me and our play, but they're not that special to the world... Up until the point of major consequence, and that's easily assessed in many games with their tier-of-play demarcator, such as titles, "named level," etc.)

2. You as a GM got to be able to retain the option of firing a player on the table. At the point they cannot suspend for point one, they need to take the initiative and approach the GM discussing where is their grief, and if they can continue amid it without table disruption. If they cannot handle their disbelief, reconcile such discrepency with you, nor stop disrupting the game, then they gotta go elsewhere.

This feels hard socially, but it's the healthiest part of any form of play. Being able to know what you like and where are your boundaries are critical parts of knowing yourself. Being able to recognize what others like and respecting the boundaries of another's fun are critical parts of knowing others.

Essentially self-awareness and empathy are the keys to not being an intolerable asshole.

Ars Magica springs to mind as one version of Fantasy Europe done quite well. There's also things like Cthulhu Dark Ages and Stupor Mundi for RuneQuest. Deus Vult is another attempt, that I actually find very cool. The RuneQuest Vikings supplements, and Mythic Britain from Design Mechanism also do a great job of setting fantasy campaigns in actual history. All of these use real European medieval history as a basis for a game that includes fantastic elements, usually fairly in line with legend and fairy tales. I don't think that you can plonk all of the run of the mill D&D elements in, like halflings, orcs, etc. You have to go back to the roots of things like the fantasy races for them to fit authentic medieval feel.

It might be a case of D&D-isms being somewhat incompatible with actual historical play, but it seems less of a problem with other systems.

That said, unless you've got a very well researched campaign guide and players willing to go along with the necessary approximations and simplifications, it can involve a hell of a lot of work. And as pointed out, it can tie your hands somewhat.

As an example, the fantasy novel (yes, I know that's not the same thing as a campaign, rest assured, I keep them separate), that I started a couple of years ago, and that you can read some of at the link in my sig, is set in 10th Century Europe. I found that inspiring, and it gave me some depth and a feeling of reality that I appreciated. But now that I'm finished my PhD and am going back to continue it, I've decided I'll rewrite the beginning setting it in a fantasy world that's a few steps to the left of the real world. For one thing, it just requires too much research, and I'm kind of sick of research at the moment! For another, there are some elements I want to include, such as Celtic religion, that even historians don't know enough about, so I'd have to make them up anyway. But keep them in line with the complicated and conflicting things we do know. Best to just make it up whole-cloth, while being influenced by the real thing. I guess it boils down to me coming up against the Robert E. Howard lesson!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;873587In my admittedly small circle, even if the GM is lenient with the historical accuracy, some players are not.

But 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?

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 asking human beings to be RATIONAL?  Have you lived on this planet long?  Watched the news?  Interacted with the internet?

I still boggle at it, but I don't question it anymore.

Quote from: markfitz;873722It might be a case of D&D-isms being somewhat incompatible with actual historical play, but it seems less of a problem with other systems.

D&D is and always has been a bit of a kitchen sink fantasy setting. Kitchen sink and historical setting just don't fit together. I have dwarfs in my 1620 Honor+Intrigue game. But those are these dwarfs...





not these dwarves...

Quote from: markfitz;873722It might be a case of D&D-isms being somewhat incompatible with actual historical play, but it seems less of a problem with other systems.

D&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...





not these dwarves...