So, to clarify, I am against the "disneyfication" so to speak of irl time periods in recent rpg media; ie the massive downplay of racism in the 1920s by chaosium and the constant simpering ""trigger warnings"" and ""x-cards"" and such and such bs.
Having said that, it also seems to me that basically all irl history till the last half-century or so (in the USA and other first world countries) can be summarized as ""start with crushing poverty/scarcity, brutality, genocide, sexism, classism, and tribalism, then add imperialism, alphabet-ppl-phobia, fascism, authoritarianism and religious oppression to taste."" (pardon if inaccurate; working on two history classes in public hs)
So what exactly is the appeal of playing in such a setting, especially if I want to convince others to do it? Are there any good examples of such a setting being handled well?
Fun.
Its a very niche thing some people try to push for whatever reason as if it is the be all and end all of the bestest best gaming!
It CAN work. But it feels like some of the advocates come across as borderline elitist and that drives people away.
TSR did a whole series on playing D&D in historical settings. Not bad books really.
Polyhedron had one for doing 3e/d20 to play Robin Hood setting and one to play World War II.
Pretty sure Call of Cthulhu had a setting book for playing in the dark ages and the Victorian era.
Theres a couple of others. And a couple of failures. One in particular being "Fantasy Wargaming" a not really RPG set in medieval times.
Quote from: Omega on May 07, 2025, 12:32:29 PMIts a very niche thing some people try to push for whatever reason as if it is the be all and end all of the bestest best gaming!
It CAN work. But it feels like some of the advocates come across as borderline elitist and that drives people away.
TSR did a whole series on playing D&D in historical settings. Not bad books really.
Polyhedron had one for doing 3e/d20 to play Robin Hood setting and one to play World War II.
Pretty sure Call of Cthulhu had a setting book for playing in the dark ages and the Victorian era.
Theres a couple of others. And a couple of failures. One in particular being "Fantasy Wargaming" a not really RPG set in medieval times.
Thx! Any links or names?
i find a player usually pines verbally for such a setting or thematic when what they really are trying to communicate is that they do not wish to learn anything of a setting they are unfamiliar with, such as your own if custom or a published one like FR or DL.
Quote from: FishMeisterSupreme on May 07, 2025, 12:31:36 PMFun.
ig wantonly beheading eta as samurai or enacting ""prima nocta"" rights before dying of syphilis or infection would be appealing to certain groups, yeah
Settings such as early Utah were so freakin' bonkers that you really could make it an RPG without trying. I think that's what Dogs In The Vineyard was about.
Quote from: Omega on May 07, 2025, 12:32:29 PMTSR did a whole series on playing D&D in historical settings. Not bad books really.
Given how difficult it is for AD&D to emulate any sort of game except, well, AD&D, those books were fantastic. The Charlemagne one is especially good in my opinion, and I particularly like the Greek heroes of legend book as well.
A lot of folks play RPGs because they want to experience being someplace else, such as a world with magic, Star Wars, or a cyberpunk future. It's not surprising that someone interested in history would want to experience being there via a realistic historical game.
As for your laundry list of bad things in history, for the people there those were just life as usual. They probably hardly perceived them, much less imagined that they could be different. Just like today, where the world has all kinds of things wrong with it yet most of us manage to be happy anyway. Also, all of those problems provide opportunities for adventures. An RPG in a world without problems to overcome would be pretty boring.
Quote from: Omega on May 07, 2025, 12:32:29 PMIt CAN work. But it feels like some of the advocates come across as borderline elitist and that drives people away.
I don't think this is avoidable. If you want to play such a game as faithfully as possible, then you need to find like-minded people who want to do the same. Inevitably you'll have to turn away those who have some interest but aren't interested in putting in the necessary amount of effort to make it work.
Quote from: Mishihari on May 07, 2025, 02:52:25 PMQuote from: Omega on May 07, 2025, 12:32:29 PMIt CAN work. But it feels like some of the advocates come across as borderline elitist and that drives people away.
I don't think this is avoidable. If you want to play such a game as faithfully as possible, then you need to find like-minded people who want to do the same. Inevitably you'll have to turn away those who have some interest but aren't interested in putting in the necessary amount of effort to make it work.
The opposite side is also true. I don't play sci/fi games because I never find my preferred mix of science and space/opera to be a match for anyone else, and don't really want to run a game where half the players are unhappy with my lack of attention to the details that matter to them.
Quote from: Mishihari on May 07, 2025, 02:48:59 PMA lot of folks play RPGs because they want to experience being someplace else, such as a world with magic, Star Wars, or a cyberpunk future. It's not surprising that someone interested in history would want to experience being there via a realistic historical game.
As for your laundry list of bad things in history, for the people there those were just life as usual. They probably hardly perceived them, much less imagined that they could be different. Just like today, where the world has all kinds of things wrong with it yet most of us manage to be happy anyway. Also, all of those problems provide opportunities for adventures. An RPG in a world without problems to overcome would be pretty boring.
As much as it sounds bad, a lot of bad things in history didn't get highlighted in their media counterparts simply because it was commonplace and nobody cared. Bob Hope was one of the first actors to act with a black man by his side in the highly influential Ghost Breakers film (which spawned the entire Scooby-Doo/Ghostbusters comedy/spooky subgenre). It is now considered highly offensive, yet it pioneered the way for Black people to become side actors and eventually main characters. Hope talks down to his partner as people did back then, but they work together to solve a mystery and it was progressive in retrospect. Most films just avoided having Black people altogether back then, so for an openly conservative actor (he breaks the fourth wall and compares the zombies in the film to the democrat party) it was a very large step for equality. In this light, I think it's wrong to NOT include slavery and such topics in modern gaming. Even Hasbro/D&D has that disclaimer about it being wrong to EDIT old games, it's wrong to just pretend that a franchise or timeline didn't have bad things happening. You're playing with the wrong people or group if they cannot work with that in an appropriate way.
A game about smuggling a slave out of the south through the underground railroad would be fuckin' fantastic and I don't care who it pissed off. I think I have a stealth game idea now.
Quote from: Slipshot762 on May 07, 2025, 12:52:52 PMi find a player usually pines verbally for such a setting or thematic when what they really are trying to communicate is that they do not wish to learn anything of a setting they are unfamiliar with, such as your own if custom or a published one like FR or DL.
It's probably more the other side of the same coin. They have invested a lot of time into learning about a particular period in history, and want a return of it in their elf game.
Pro: The players understand the setting (more or less) instantly.
Con: The players may know it better than the GM, and trying to keep things accurate can become a straight jacket. Players may decide things are problematic which forces changes from reality.
The RuneQuest world dabbles in Historical settings. The games are crunchier and it seems a better fit than shoehorning in D&D.
Just don't make it internally inconsistent. For instance, I played a history-inspired video game in which women were represented everywhere (they were locomotive engineers, captains etc) but it ALSO gave me lessons on the sexism of the time period. E.g. Sexist men who were outraged at woman authors. It felt both inconsistent and preachy.
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:14:36 PMHaving said that, it also seems to me that basically all irl history till the last half-century or so (in the USA and other first world countries) can be summarized as ""start with crushing poverty/scarcity, brutality, genocide, sexism, classism, and tribalism, then add imperialism, alphabet-ppl-phobia, fascism, authoritarianism and religious oppression to taste."" (pardon if inaccurate; working on two history classes in public hs)
So what exactly is the appeal of playing in such a setting, especially if I want to convince others to do it? Are there any good examples of such a setting being handled well?
I think the biggest appeal of such campaigns is that real-world lore is much more rich in detail compared to any fantasy world lore -- the culture, stories, language, geography, etc. I ran two semi-historical longish campaigns as well as many one-shots. The first was an alternate-history 1392 where Icelandic settlements in Vinland held out (which had some fantasy elements), titled "Vikings & Skraelings", inspired by Icelandic sagas especially the Laxdaela Saga.
https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/
The second was set in the parallel Earth of Naomi Novik's _Temeraire_ novels where there are domesticated dragons. The books are Napoleonic era, but the game was set in 1860s Korea.
https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/korea/
As far as prejudice goes - it is absolutely there, but it's effect can also be overstated. In most periods, there are some rare lucky individuals who were able to overcome the prejudices of their time to have notable careers.
I would set up the campaign to presume that characters with second-class backgrounds like women had unusual backgrounds that got them accepted.
For example, one of the PCs in my vikings game was a young woman. I had that her parents were unjustly exiled and then the family were killed in an Iroquois raid. She returned at age 19 pretending to be her younger brother (in his early teens). Since her family was unjustly exiled and all killed, and she had a rich supportive family, no one begrudged that she took up arms even though it was unusual for a woman.
I've also played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, which is 1920s so more recent history than some, but still has plenty of prejudice.
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:38:13 PMThx! Any links or names?
This is the 1990s green-covered historical sourcebook series from TSR that was mentioned:
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Historical_Reference
GURPS has also had a lot of good historical sourcebooks, though they vary in quality. (Their 3E Viking sourcebook is strangely bad, but many others are quite good.) I.C.E. (Rolemaster) and Chaosium (RuneQuest) also had a few great historical sourcebooks. There was a recent thread here on the I.C.E. Robin Hood sourcebook.
https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/historical.html
https://index.rpg.net/display-series.phtml?seriesid=610&nomaster=1
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:14:36 PMHaving said that, it also seems to me that basically all irl history till the last half-century or so (in the USA and other first world countries) can be summarized as ""start with crushing poverty/scarcity, brutality, genocide, sexism, classism, and tribalism, then add imperialism, alphabet-ppl-phobia, fascism, authoritarianism and religious oppression to taste."" (pardon if inaccurate; working on two history classes in public hs)
This is indeed how history is being taught currently. It is however an incomplete picture. There is a sensible middle ground between Disney and Grimdark, and that is where the truth lies - and also where more interesting adventuring opportunities lie.
True-- any setting the players know better than the DM is going to end up being awkward at best. Actual historical has that many more nuances and ever-expanding archeological findings on top of that, whereas something fictional can just have events retconned and everyone accepts that as fact far more easily. It seems that many semi-historical systems deliberately add elements to make things paranormal enough to explain away things and reality isn't exactly this timeline's version of it. Call of Cthulhu is mainly set in the early 1900s, but I've never encountered issues with accuracy, mostly because the fictional Lovecraftian side of the setting overshadows everything else. Dishonored takes place in a very loose 1830s period which is obviously a parallel timeline to our own, but still feels somewhat historical and detail is put into pretty much everything to make it feel from that time period with just a tinge of futuristic detail.
Edit: This was intended for @Ruprecht. I didn't refresh the page all day while at work.
Personally, I prefer straight history over fantasy. History is vastly more interesting, complex and detailed than any fictional setting. When researching it, I'm learning about real things that happened (OK, often filtered through someone else's opinion of things), not filling my head with made up stuff.
Functioning societies have a logical flow to them which makes understanding them easier when you grasp the things that mattered to them. You can't work with or act counter to the prevailing dynamics without first knowing what they are. Getting into the mindset of someone who doesn't share our biases and assumptions is interesting in it's own right.
Lastly, restrictions, barriers and constraints make for challenge. Just being able to ride roughshod over everyone and everything that exists in the setting gets dull very quickly, the real sense of actually achieving things comes with working with them and when necessary around them. When you actually know a period and place well, you understand there are exceptions to some of those things and ways you can circumvent them.
Here's a classic one - the role of women. I love antiquity and sure if you only look at settled societies like the Greeks and Romans, women were sequestered and kept out of sight of men. Barring slave women or very poor ones who had to work outside their homes. But that wasn't true elsewhere, different sexual mores existed amongst "barbarian" peoples like the Celts and nomads like the Scythians. Amongst those societies women could have power and agency (in the low population densities of nomadic peoples, every adult needs to be able to usefully contribute to the group). Now that does mean in those settled realms you might be playing a character viewed as alien, but that's part of the fun.
As an aside, history as taught by left wing activists (ie most of what's passed for history in the last two decades) isn't the real thing. That's just politics by another name. I'm still shocked at how much focus there is in my teenager's "education" in history that is actually historiography.
Quote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 05:14:19 AMHere's a classic one - the role of women. I love antiquity and sure if you only look at settled societies like the Greeks and Romans, women were sequestered and kept out of sight of men. Barring slave women or very poor ones who had to work outside their homes.
That doesn't seem right. I know one woman, Hypatia of Alexandria, was supposed to be a philosopher and teacher.
I'm sure some aspects of Greek and Roman society were sexist, but there must have been women aside from slaves and the poor who were allowed in the sight of men.
QuoteThere was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 08, 2025, 07:14:21 AMQuote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 05:14:19 AMHere's a classic one - the role of women. I love antiquity and sure if you only look at settled societies like the Greeks and Romans, women were sequestered and kept out of sight of men. Barring slave women or very poor ones who had to work outside their homes.
That doesn't seem right. I know one woman, Hypatia of Alexandria, was supposed to be a philosopher and teacher.
I'm sure some aspects of Greek and Roman society were sexist, but there must have been women aside from slaves and the poor who were allowed in the sight of men.
QuoteThere was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
Philospher. She can study and correspond with anyone from the comfort of her own home. Her attending assemblies was itself exceptional, which is why it was worthy of mention in that extract. But that's not the sort of concept people tend to be leaping to play when they want to play a woman in a historical setting.
She's not a warrior, which is what I was getting at - the usual issue is someone wants to play a Greek woman who's a hoplite. Despite the fact that women of that class weren't permitted to go to the gymnasium, or train the martial dances with men, or countless other things that make a citizen-soldier.
If a player wants to play a woman warrior, they can do that in a historically accurate setting. They just won't be playing a Greek or Roman woman, because that stretches credulity a little too far. Sure you might say a Spartan woman learned more than just athletics because reasons, but easier to just go for an Illyrian noblewoman, or a Celt, or a Scythian horselord. On this side of things you have women like Cynane, Alexander the Great's half-sister who's mother was Audata, an Illyrian princess and general in her own right.
There's a great deal more freedom as a foreigner - but at the same time you have to deal with prejudices of those who don't like foreigners. Which is where things get interesting. And other foreign characters will be dealing with this, too.
All previous times look barbaric to the present. Usually the differences don't actually amount to that much.
The reason I tend to not play historical settings is that player characters are almost inherently destructive to future timelines. You are better off thinking of a historical setting as an alternate history from the beginning than you are as being faithful to the time period, and once you make the decision to play alternate history, it usually becomes more fun to add a speculative element to make it obvious to everyone that this is alternate history.
That said, while playing a historically accurate campaign isn't my thing, I am not going to tell other groups they are in the wrong for doing so. I just find it to be a relatively difficult campaign premise to set up, and generally not better than another kind of campaign, so you wind up with a "juice is not worth the squeeze" issue.
I don't agree with the idea that these campaigns are unpleasant because of the historical prejudice content. No one ever wants to play a campaign in a world where all the problems are fixed. You want to play Cyberpunk where the world is ruled by megacorps, or Paranoia where the Computer which controls everything is going insane, or Call of C'thulu where an Elder God is causing people's brains to turn into cottage cheese, or Deadlands where a Sioux shaman opens up a portal to the dimension of the dead and coal becomes wildly more powerful and starts to scream when people burn it.
Perfect settings make for bad games.
Quote from: Fheredin on May 08, 2025, 08:12:05 AMAll previous times look barbaric to the present. Usually the differences don't actually amount to that much.
The reason I tend to not play historical settings is that player characters are almost inherently destructive to future timelines. You are better off thinking of a historical setting as an alternate history from the beginning than you are as being faithful to the time period, and once you make the decision to play alternate history, it usually becomes more fun to add a speculative element to make it obvious to everyone that this is alternate history.
This is one of the things I love about antiquity - there's rarely enough record to definitively say what happened on a year-to-year basis, leaving plenty of space for license. Then we have instances where the only record is one of the less reliable "historians", which again means you don't need to feel like you're bound by what came before.
Quote from: Fheredin on May 08, 2025, 08:12:05 AMThat said, while playing a historically accurate campaign isn't my thing, I am not going to tell other groups they are in the wrong for doing so. I just find it to be a relatively difficult campaign premise to set up, and generally not better than another kind of campaign, so you wind up with a "juice is not worth the squeeze" issue.
I don't agree with the idea that these campaigns are unpleasant because of the historical prejudice content. No one ever wants to play a campaign in a world where all the problems are fixed. You want to play Cyberpunk where the world is ruled by megacorps, or Paranoia where the Computer which controls everything is going insane, or Call of C'thulu where an Elder God is causing people's brains to turn into cottage cheese, or Deadlands where a Sioux shaman opens up a portal to the dimension of the dead and coal becomes wildly more powerful and starts to scream when people burn it.
Perfect settings make for bad games.
You absolutely need players who are invested in the history, in the same way you need them to buy into any campaign setting. Though I do agree that buy-in can be harder for all kinds of reasons.
And agree that fixed settings are dull, all the fun stuff happens in addressing those things. Overcoming challenges are what makes it fun.
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:14:36 PMHaving said that, it also seems to me that basically all irl history till the last half-century or so (in the USA and other first world countries) can be summarized as ""start with crushing poverty/scarcity, brutality, genocide, sexism, classism, and tribalism, then add imperialism, alphabet-ppl-phobia, fascism, authoritarianism and religious oppression to taste."" (pardon if inaccurate; working on two history classes in public hs)
So what exactly is the appeal of playing in such a setting, especially if I want to convince others to do it? Are there any good examples of such a setting being handled well?
I had written out a long post on the history question here, but this is supposed to be an RPG forum. Also, I try to avoid posting walls of text and it was turning into a bit of a rant, so I'll summarize:
Yes, you are under a profound misapprehension as to the nature of history. No, the average daily experience of people in the past was not crushing oppression and misery. If that's what you learned in school, then the public education system has become even worse than I realized.
Also, the "ius prima noctae" or "droir du siegneur" is a myth. It's a stereotype of the middle ages invented by post-medieval sources. The historical consensus on that is clear, but frankly, it's such a stupid myth that no one should have ever believed it in the first place.
On the RPG topic: There are a number of clear advantages to historical roleplaying. The most obvious is that history is inherently interesting. As they say, "the past is a different country". Historical people had different problems and concerns than moderns, and different tools for dealing with them. At the same time, they're still human and the human experience has enough universals that with a little mental exertion you can get into their heads and understand them. For a lot of people, that's what roleplaying is about. In a less high-minded way, historical roleplaying also offers the advantage of instant familiarity. If you set your game in 17th century Europe, you don't have to explain to your players where France is. And from a GM's perspective, it offers you reliable world consistency. Everything in a historical setting will fit together coherently, because it actually did in the real world.
At the same time, there are clear disadvantages. Ruprecht alluded to two of the big ones: that trying to be historically accurate requires a lot of fact checking and that while everyone knows a little bit history, the little bit that everyone knows is different. People have an enormous number of misconceptions about the past, and where those misconceptions clash, you will get confusion. Then there's also those restrictions which were utterly normal to people of the past, but are utterly galling to modern people. Most will talk about class or sex restrictions, but it's not just that. I've had players stall their own advancement in a medieval campaign because they just could not accept the idea of swearing fealty to someone.
The biggest problem with historical roleplaying, though, is that it just doesn't offer the same avenues for adventure as fantasy roleplaying does. The real world was never full of monster-haunted dungeons, and freelance adventurers didn't save the world. In fact, much of the real world has always been arranged to try and minimize the necessity for dangerous adventures.
So you don't actually see much purely historical roleplaying. I can only think of a handful of games off the top of my head, and obscure ones at that. What you get instead is historically-inspired or alternate-history fantasy settings, which aim to balance out the pros and cons of historical gaming and so achieve the best of both worlds. That approach allows you to take a historical period, and then insert the opportunities for adventure, soften the parts that offend modern prejudices, and brush over any historical inaccuracies with the sound defense that you're not trying to represent real history. I could name you literally dozens of games like that.
EDIT: On a personal note, that kind of semi-historical roleplaying is absolutely my jam, and these days it's most of what I end up running. I like history. It's way more interesting to me than what the vast majority of people can make up off the top of their heads, and it always feels more real.
Quote from: Fheredin on May 08, 2025, 08:12:05 AMAll previous times look barbaric to the present. Usually the differences don't actually amount to that much.
The reason I tend to not play historical settings is that player characters are almost inherently destructive to future timelines. You are better off thinking of a historical setting as an alternate history from the beginning than you are as being faithful to the time period, and once you make the decision to play alternate history, it usually becomes more fun to add a speculative element to make it obvious to everyone that this is alternate history.
That said, while playing a historically accurate campaign isn't my thing, I am not going to tell other groups they are in the wrong for doing so. I just find it to be a relatively difficult campaign premise to set up, and generally not better than another kind of campaign, so you wind up with a "juice is not worth the squeeze" issue.
I'd argue that the present also looks barbaric to the present, no matter where you stand.
Also tbh this kind of hit it on the head with me with the meta difficulty of a historical game what with PCs being PCs.
On the "intersection of Disney and grimdark", how would you handle things like, in fantasy worlds? ie in Berserk Casca is a female warrior but faces a lot of prejudice. Still Midland is a madeup and totally fictional country, despite being brutal and oppressive and literally demon haunted. So ig what I'm asking is, how do you insert elements of this in fictional worlds, and how do you handle it?
Quote from: faelord on May 08, 2025, 09:10:33 AMOn the "intersection of Disney and grimdark", how would you handle things like, in fantasy worlds? ie in Berserk Casca is a female warrior but faces a lot of prejudice. Still Midland is a madeup and totally fictional country. So ig what I'm asking is, how do you insert elements of this in fictional worlds, and how do you handle it?
You've always got to draw the line somewhere, whether as historical as you can make it, as fantastical as possible, or anything in between.
Nor is this distinction limited to history. In fact, historical detail is merely one small area where it appears. Consider a game that has any fantastical bits in it, then how does physics work? Or for that matter, any future sci/fi game where it includes elements that we don't currently understand how the physics work, but speculate that they might work in some particular way that we can't achieve right now (e.g. various means to travel faster in space).
For example, most people draw a line that "gravity generally works the way we expect on a planet barring magical anti-gravity or sci/fi analogs", because otherwise the game gets too weird for most people. Not only would it get weird, trying to do it some other way would put a huge burden on the GM to extrapolate consistently what the effects would be, even in a fantastical or space/opera game. You need one of those alternate explanations for why people don't just float away. :)
In comparison, we can imagine easily societies that have had more or less acceptance for females in various male-dominated roles--especially if that game also has elements that would make females more successful in those roles than they were for much of human history. In fact, that some people today, for less than thoughtful reasons, believe that there are no differences, is likely to cause bigger consistency problems than many ways in which you could easily incorporate such roles.
It would be fun to create a game where the players are modern folks dumped into a previous historical period. What they know (or think they know) they know. Now survive and maybe prosper if you can use that historical and technical knowldge to advantage.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on May 08, 2025, 10:35:27 AMQuote from: faelord on May 08, 2025, 09:10:33 AMOn the "intersection of Disney and grimdark", how would you handle things like, in fantasy worlds? ie in Berserk Casca is a female warrior but faces a lot of prejudice. Still Midland is a madeup and totally fictional country. So ig what I'm asking is, how do you insert elements of this in fictional worlds, and how do you handle it?
You've always got to draw the line somewhere, whether as historical as you can make it, as fantastical as possible, or anything in between.
Nor is this distinction limited to history. In fact, historical detail is merely one small area where it appears. Consider a game that has any fantastical bits in it, then how does physics work? Or for that matter, any future sci/fi game where it includes elements that we don't currently understand how the physics work, but speculate that they might work in some particular way that we can't achieve right now (e.g. various means to travel faster in space).
For example, most people draw a line that "gravity generally works the way we expect on a planet barring magical anti-gravity or sci/fi analogs", because otherwise the game gets too weird for most people. Not only would it get weird, trying to do it some other way would put a huge burden on the GM to extrapolate consistently what the effects would be, even in a fantastical or space/opera game. You need one of those alternate explanations for why people don't just float away. :)
In comparison, we can imagine easily societies that have had more or less acceptance for females in various male-dominated roles--especially if that game also has elements that would make females more successful in those roles than they were for much of human history. In fact, that some people today, for less than thoughtful reasons, believe that there are no differences, is likely to cause bigger consistency problems than many ways in which you could easily incorporate such roles.
Yeah I suppose at a certain point of extrapolation it goes all the way to "basic physics and biology of the world".
iirc Exalted's Creation *tried* to funk around with a cosmology and magical physics extremely different from the baseline-- to mixed success (much like white wolf also did with Mage's cosmology).
The last paragraph is something I especially agree with-- why try to shoehorn in obviously incongruent elements when you can simply write reasons for why it is in a context that completely obviates irl considerations.
Quote from: Ruprecht on May 08, 2025, 10:58:25 AMIt would be fun to create a game where the players are modern folks dumped into a previous historical period. What they know (or think they know) they know. Now survive and maybe prosper if you can use that historical and technical knowldge to advantage.
Not rly a Turtledove or Stirling fan, but incidentally Between Two Fires is legitimately a very good example of irl dark fantasy that I wanted to bring up.
Quote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 05:14:19 AMHere's a classic one - the role of women. I love antiquity and sure if you only look at settled societies like the Greeks and Romans, women were sequestered and kept out of sight of men. Barring slave women or very poor ones who had to work outside their homes. But that wasn't true elsewhere, different sexual mores existed amongst "barbarian" peoples like the Celts and nomads like the Scythians. Amongst those societies women could have power and agency (in the low population densities of nomadic peoples, every adult needs to be able to usefully contribute to the group). Now that does mean in those settled realms you might be playing a character viewed as alien, but that's part of the fun.
Quote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 07:39:11 AMIf a player wants to play a woman warrior, they can do that in a historically accurate setting. They just won't be playing a Greek or Roman woman, because that stretches credulity a little too far. Sure you might say a Spartan woman learned more than just athletics because reasons, but easier to just go for an Illyrian noblewoman, or a Celt, or a Scythian horselord. On this side of things you have women like Cynane, Alexander the Great's half-sister who's mother was Audata, an Illyrian princess and general in her own right.
I agree that Greek and Roman society was much more closed to women than many of the neighboring societies. That said, as you say, there are a lot of options even in a Greek and Roman campaign.
You mention slaves in the first post, and I'd note that Roman slaves often had a surprising degree of freedom to modern readers. With a lenient owner, they could do most things that citizens could do. For example, a woman character could be a gladiatrix, a lower-class woman or slave who fights in exhibition bouts in the arena. The average gladiatrix was probably a prostitute forced into a deadly spectacle, but one could achieve some fame and fortune as male gladiators sometimes did.
In general, history has many individuals who were exceptions to the prejudices of their time.
As GM, my rule of thumb is that a player who chooses a female character doesn't have to be treated worse than other PCs. Unless the player wants to be low status, I'll arrange a suitable background such that they are treated as one of those exceptions - by circumstances like high birth, an exceptional family or patron or owner, and/or unusual fame/reputation.
In general for historical campaigns, the PCs should be unusual and/or privileged. The lives of average commoners did really suck. For the game to be fun, the PCs should be non-average.
Quote from: jhkim on May 08, 2025, 04:13:17 PMQuote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 05:14:19 AMHere's a classic one - the role of women. I love antiquity and sure if you only look at settled societies like the Greeks and Romans, women were sequestered and kept out of sight of men. Barring slave women or very poor ones who had to work outside their homes. But that wasn't true elsewhere, different sexual mores existed amongst "barbarian" peoples like the Celts and nomads like the Scythians. Amongst those societies women could have power and agency (in the low population densities of nomadic peoples, every adult needs to be able to usefully contribute to the group). Now that does mean in those settled realms you might be playing a character viewed as alien, but that's part of the fun.
Quote from: Kiero on May 08, 2025, 07:39:11 AMIf a player wants to play a woman warrior, they can do that in a historically accurate setting. They just won't be playing a Greek or Roman woman, because that stretches credulity a little too far. Sure you might say a Spartan woman learned more than just athletics because reasons, but easier to just go for an Illyrian noblewoman, or a Celt, or a Scythian horselord. On this side of things you have women like Cynane, Alexander the Great's half-sister who's mother was Audata, an Illyrian princess and general in her own right.
I agree that Greek and Roman society was much more closed to women than many of the neighboring societies. That said, as you say, there are a lot of options even in a Greek and Roman campaign.
You mention slaves in the first post, and I'd note that Roman slaves often had a surprising degree of freedom to modern readers. With a lenient owner, they could do most things that citizens could do. For example, a woman character could be a gladiatrix, a lower-class woman or slave who fights in exhibition bouts in the arena. The average gladiatrix was probably a prostitute forced into a deadly spectacle, but one could achieve some fame and fortune as male gladiators sometimes did.
In general, history has many individuals who were exceptions to the prejudices of their time.
As GM, my rule of thumb is that a player who chooses a female character doesn't have to be treated worse than other PCs. Unless the player wants to be low status, I'll arrange a suitable background such that they are treated as one of those exceptions - by circumstances like high birth, an exceptional family or patron or owner, and/or unusual fame/reputation.
In general for historical campaigns, the PCs should be unusual and/or privileged. The lives of average commoners did really suck. For the game to be fun, the PCs should be non-average.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Yeah, Jhkim. I agree. There are always a few exceptional individuals throughout history that defied the prevailing cultural and societal norms, restrictions, and expectations.
Certainly, if a DM is setting up a strictly Historical campaign, or alternatively, even a fantasy campaign heavily *inspired* by History, a DM is well-advised to lean into the historical exceptions.
Of course, if the Players are also well-versed in History, and have a strong desire to play oppressed, mud-covered peasants, then the DM doesn't need to consider Historical exceptions, and can go whole hogg. *Laughing*
I have noticed that within the OSR there is a subset minority of Players that
expect and prefer mud-covered, brutal realism. That can be fun--but for most Players I think would not enjoy that milieu very much. Much in the same manner that many Players do not enjoy or prefer crazy Gonzo fantasy milieus.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: jhkim on May 08, 2025, 04:13:17 PMI agree that Greek and Roman society was much more closed to women than many of the neighboring societies. That said, as you say, there are a lot of options even in a Greek and Roman campaign.
You mention slaves in the first post, and I'd note that Roman slaves often had a surprising degree of freedom to modern readers. With a lenient owner, they could do most things that citizens could do. For example, a woman character could be a gladiatrix, a lower-class woman or slave who fights in exhibition bouts in the arena. The average gladiatrix was probably a prostitute forced into a deadly spectacle, but one could achieve some fame and fortune as male gladiators sometimes did.
In general, history has many individuals who were exceptions to the prejudices of their time.
As GM, my rule of thumb is that a player who chooses a female character doesn't have to be treated worse than other PCs. Unless the player wants to be low status, I'll arrange a suitable background such that they are treated as one of those exceptions - by circumstances like high birth, an exceptional family or patron or owner, and/or unusual fame/reputation.
In general for historical campaigns, the PCs should be unusual and/or privileged. The lives of average commoners did really suck. For the game to be fun, the PCs should be non-average.
The problem with playing a slave is that their status is not a trivial consideration. They're literally third class not-even-citizens in most societies of the time (foreigners/aliens being second class). They're legally property, not people. So whilst they might have a degree of freedom in very specific contexts (like a gladiatrix), they're still tied to whoever owns them.
Far too often the constraints people think exist in a historical mileu are because they don't actually understand it as well as they think they do. My example of Illyrian nobility isn't an exceptional case where the occasional noble woman might be combat-ready, but rather Illyrian aristocrats of both sexes were noted as enjoying hunting and fighting. But I do agree that higher status almost always tends towards greater autonomy where the mores in general aren't for constraining women regardless.
And yes, PCs will tend to be the unusual ones. But there are more and less credible ways of doing that.
I'll freely admit that one of the reasons I've never gotten into straight history as an RPG setting is because, as a gamer, I loves me my Kewl Powerz. If I can't play a psychic, or a magician, or a miracleworker (save if perhaps the GM sometimes has things turn out the way my character prays they do), the game loses a lot of appeal for me.
Quote from: jhkim on May 08, 2025, 04:13:17 PMYou mention slaves in the first post, and I'd note that Roman slaves often had a surprising degree of freedom to modern readers. With a lenient owner, they could do most things that citizens could do.
Slavery in general is misunderstood through a modern day lens. A lot of slavery was when a person owed another money and they were forced to work for them, or punishment for a crime. The Ottoman Jannisaries were slaves who ran the country. Some interesting social dynamics going on there.
Not all slavery means chattel slavery, though that certainly existed.
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:38:13 PMThx! Any links or names?
The TSR Historical line was
Vikings = Vikings natch - 800-1100 AD
Charlemagne's Paladins = 700-800 AD
Celts = Celts natch - 600 - 100 BC
A Mighty Fortress = Elizabethan Era - 1500 - 1600 AD
The Glory of Rome = Rome natch - 700 BC to 500 AD
Age of Heroes = Greek myth era - 2000 BC - 200 BC
Crusades = The crusades natch - 1100 - 1200 AD
Castle's Guide also has some historical play if recall right.
Quote from: faelord on May 07, 2025, 12:38:13 PMThx! Any links or names?
The TSR Historical line was
Vikings = Vikings natch - 800-1100 AD
Charlemagne's Paladins = 700-800 AD
Celts = Celts natch - 600 - 100 BC
A Mighty Fortress = Elizabethan Era - 1500 - 1600 AD
The Glory of Rome = Rome natch - 700 BC to 500 AD
Age of Heroes = Greek myth era - 2000 BC - 200 BC
Crusades = The crusades natch - 1100 - 1200 AD
Castle's Guide also has some historical play if recall right.
Each one has its own, often HEAVY, restrictions on race and class.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on May 08, 2025, 07:09:13 PMI'll freely admit that one of the reasons I've never gotten into straight history as an RPG setting is because, as a gamer, I loves me my Kewl Powerz. If I can't play a psychic, or a magician, or a miracleworker (save if perhaps the GM sometimes has things turn out the way my character prays they do), the game loses a lot of appeal for me.
Yeah, the big thing in fantasy is how the introduction of any significant amount of high fantasy stuff as portrayed in even like DnD (past ADnD) is how it's invariably going to massively change the social dynamics and world beyond any easy resemblance to irl history.
Rly you need stuff like Berserk type thing of ""magic/normal fantasy stuff is obscure and dangerous.""
Quote from: faelord on May 08, 2025, 10:01:37 PMRly you need stuff like Berserk tyoe thing of ""magic/normal fantasy stuff is obscure and dangerous.""
Which is another thing making "historical accuracy" hard to maintain, if you're trying to go the World of Darkness /
Sorcerers Crusade route by hiding all the magical/fantastical stuff in the unobserved, unrecorded wainscots of history.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on May 08, 2025, 10:13:41 PMQuote from: faelord on May 08, 2025, 10:01:37 PMYeah, the big thing in fantasy is how the introduction of any significant amount of high fantasy stuff as portrayed in even like DnD (past ADnD) is how it's invariably going to massively change the social dynamics and world beyond any easy resemblance to irl history.
Rly you need stuff like Berserk tyoe thing of ""magic/normal fantasy stuff is obscure and dangerous.""
Which is another thing making "historical accuracy" hard to maintain, if you're trying to go the World of Darkness / Sorcerers Crusade route by hiding all the magical/fantastical stuff in the unobserved, unrecorded wainscots of history.
To faelord's point... Even rare magic can easily radically change history, though. A single person who can cure lepers and feed crowds, say, could easily have a massive social impact.
Many magical effects have greater impact if they are obscure or unknown. For example, if invisibility is a known ability, then people can defend against it. If it is unknown, then an invisible assassin could kill the emperor.
On the other hand, some magical effects are less likely to change history - especially if they are close to what historical people already believed and don't change the balance of power.
---
A hidden-magic world like World of Darkness is a whole other can of worms. I'm especially doubtful about secrecy that depends on active policing, because it's impossible to keep a secret among more than a handful of people. Werewolf's Veil works better than most of the other explanations for secrecy.
Quote from: Ruprecht on May 08, 2025, 10:58:25 AMIt would be fun to create a game where the players are modern folks dumped into a previous historical period. What they know (or think they know) they know. Now survive and maybe prosper if you can use that historical and technical knowldge to advantage.
You might check this out. Not exactly what you're describing, but certainly the right system and tools to do this with.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/266664
This is kind of a weird thread for The RPGSite, given that most of Pundit's works are based on actual history.
I love historical games because the cultures make sense since they actually existed. That said, it's certainly beneficial if the myths and legends of the time are included as well. For example, if a player insist on playing a female warrior in an ancient setting, have him/her play an Amazon. Problem solved.
Slave characters aren't a problem if they happen to be a slave of one of the other PCs and the player of the slave owner doesn't abuse his character's position. Another possibility is to have a PC be the slave of a powerful patron. Declining the patron's requests (e.g. to go on a quest) wouldn't be an option. The same holds true for state-owned slaves, who, like government agents, could be sent anywhere without having the right to refuse. In sci-fi settings, you could also have this apply to robot/android PCs. They'd basically just be property.
Quote from: SHARK on May 08, 2025, 06:14:01 PMOf course, if the Players are also well-versed in History, and have a strong desire to play oppressed, mud-covered peasants, then the DM doesn't need to consider Historical exceptions, and can go whole hogg. *Laughing*
If the players are well-versed in history, they ought to at least know that peasants weren't generally covered in mud. Oppression levels varied.
I think somebody mentioned here that slavery parallels with with being indebted to someone and lots of white immigrants to America in its early days basically lived as somewhere between a slave and a citizen as well. It's ironic that simply labeling something as slavery or not suddenly forces people to see it differently.
I myself rejected a job where my boss was attempting to offer me reduced housing cost if I performed my job well and agreed to stay there. He was known to bribe the local fire station among other very questionable ordeals, being the owner of an independent living center and not wanting to provide adequate care for the people there. It begs the question: what is slavery and are forms of financial slavery still alive today, even in western nations? We see immigrants being paid less than minimum wage to produce our food and our president giving them special permission to not get deported if they continue to work at illegally-low wages. It's kind of insane that we don't label things as slavery in the modern age when people are obviously being exploited and an economy cannot seemingly even survive without it.
Peasants and slaves were freely allowed to sing and socially bond during the workday, but most American workers at minimum wage would be fired for singing, listening to music, or socializing while they work. Sure, there's no corporal punishment in the modern-day workplace but there are freedoms most working Americans will never get to experience that literal peasants had back in the day. They had families. It was affordable to have children. It was okay to be poor and hard-working.
I'm really pushing my luck on this site as of late, but I'm in a really headspace weird right now and I'm just expressing how I feel. I don't mean to be demeaning anybody or anything, I'm just very frustrated at how terminology can dictate the way we feel about something and we aren't willing to take a real look around us and actually compare living conditions with the past in an unbiased way. Conquerors write all of history, so it's bound to be tainted with half-truths and revisionism.
Quote from: D-ko on May 09, 2025, 03:36:53 PMI'm really pushing my luck on this site as of late,
We've had posters that make you look pretty tame and inoffensive. (That's not a challenge)
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on May 08, 2025, 10:13:41 PMQuote from: faelord on May 08, 2025, 10:01:37 PMRly you need stuff like Berserk tyoe thing of ""magic/normal fantasy stuff is obscure and dangerous.""
Which is another thing making "historical accuracy" hard to maintain, if you're trying to go the World of Darkness / Sorcerers Crusade route by hiding all the magical/fantastical stuff in the unobserved, unrecorded wainscots of history.
Yeah, a real implication of ""and then the normies were useless pawns, while the wizards were the masterminds""
Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 09, 2025, 07:40:59 PMQuote from: D-ko on May 09, 2025, 03:36:53 PMI'm really pushing my luck on this site as of late,
We've had posters that make you look pretty tame and inoffensive. (That's not a challenge)
The only real rule is keep it relevant to gaming. There have been outrageous things posted here both by lefties and righties related to gaming and it's fine. Drift off into real world politics unrelated to gaming and you're risking a ban.
Quote from: D-ko on May 09, 2025, 03:36:53 PMI think somebody mentioned here that slavery parallels with with being indebted to someone and lots of white immigrants to America in its early days basically lived as somewhere between a slave and a citizen as well.
Yep, they were called the Irish.
Quote from: Spooky on May 10, 2025, 05:19:34 AMQuote from: D-ko on May 09, 2025, 03:36:53 PMI think somebody mentioned here that slavery parallels with with being indebted to someone and lots of white immigrants to America in its early days basically lived as somewhere between a slave and a citizen as well.
Yep, they were called the Irish.
Some of my relatives from around the late 1800s or early 1900s had this happen in one of those mining camp traps.
Quote from: D-ko on May 09, 2025, 03:36:53 PMPeasants and slaves were freely allowed to sing and socially bond during the workday, but most American workers at minimum wage would be fired for singing, listening to music, or socializing while they work. Sure, there's no corporal punishment in the modern-day workplace but there are freedoms most working Americans will never get to experience that literal peasants had back in the day. They had families. It was affordable to have children. It was okay to be poor and hard-working.
The comment on singing makes me think of Blazing Saddles,
But seriously, America's chattel slavery was awful if one reads most of the first-hand slave narrative accounts. Being allowed to sing means little given the other conditions.
Likewise, being a galley slave in the Roman Empire was vile, but Roman slavery had more of a wide range - with some slaves having not just better conditions, but more freedom of movement.
I'm not here to demean or reduce the impact of anything, I suppose I'm trying to say that slavery is a spectrum and it exists in various degrees even to this day, so to ban it from roleplaying makes little sense-- ignoring a real-world problem because it might be too heavy of a subject or whatever. I don't understand why people use X-cards and such... if you know your group you can choose or make a campaign that fits. All I've ever seen the X-card do is allow perverted men to prey on women who are afraid to tap the card-- ironically the opposite of its supposedly intended purpose. It's not like you can just fix a whole campaign based around things that people keep X-carding, too. The whole thing makes little sense to me. This is what a zero planning session is literally for. You get to know everyone and plan for the sessions to come. For any kind of grimdark or historical setting, there SHOULD be slavery of some kind or you're losing a large part of what makes those themes what they are. We fight for progress, we show compassion and unity with our party members (even when they piss us off) and that's what tabletop roleplaying has pretty much always been about...
I don't negotiate with players.
I'll also attack them if they play out of character and ask them if they're retarded.
I had this one guy, he played a Nam vet, one disadvantage he had he has was extreme loyalty (Duty disad in GURPS) to his buddies from Nam. Well, 15 years after Nam he sees his old Platoon Sergeant in binds being paraded through a square in Benghazi by the Libyan Army with crowds throwing garbage and shoes at him. He gets put in the back of a truck with a bunch of other Westerners and driven away.
I've prepped the Libyan prison, statted out guards, drawn up guard change schedules, made stats for the main gate etc etc etc
He has an anti-tank mine that could blow through the wall or gate.
I ask what he does. He's like I continue to the safe house.
Me: to make a plan to rescue the Sarge right?
Him: No, fuck that guy, he got himself in that mess.
Me: Read your character sheet.
Him: I don't see the character that way anymore.
Then I started throwing pencils at his face.
I wouldn't call my games fun, but they are satisfying experiences. I'm definitely an adversarial GM, I consider the players and the player characters my enemy. If they leave because they're too weak I consider that I've just won the RPG against them.
That guy above, left a few weeks later because he was a fucking sook.
(https://i.imgur.com/6Fw9tRP.gif)
Quote from: jhkim on May 10, 2025, 10:59:56 AMLikewise, being a galley slave in the Roman Empire was vile, but Roman slavery had more of a wide range - with some slaves having not just better conditions, but more freedom of movement.
The Romans very rarely used galley slaves. Rowers were overwhelmingly freemen. They were trained professionals and also fought if the ship was boarded. The idea that Roman ships were rowed by chained galley slaves is a misconception created by the movie Ben Hur.