PDA

View Full Version : Why "historal accuracy" can die in a ditch



taltamir
2010-01-10, 09:54 PM
the entire concept of fantasy is just that, fantasy. you could say most feudal societies wouldn't allow a woman to run around fighting and instead marry her off at age 10-12. Also women wear such frumpy clothes that you barely see their ankles, and everyone is butt ugly because they don't have showers or toothpaste.

But really, where is the fun in that?

Can you imagine anyone who would want to play a game that says: you can only play a male, homosexuals/bisexuals/educated women (they must be witches) are burned at the stake, premarital sex results in stoning, you are unwashed and ugly, all the "romancable" (you buy them from their father) "women" (age 10-12 and girls; else there were already married off) are unwashed, ungroomed, unshaven, wear puritanical clothes, and have rotten teeth.

ugh, that game will be horrible.
Am I missing any aspect of why medieval life sucked so hard?

FishAreWet
2010-01-10, 09:56 PM
say... wouldn't it be fun to play as a hero in that setting? in a dumpy setting, be the one to bring the light? to be the one who makes everything better? to save the day?

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 09:58 PM
It's a spectrum. Too much historical accuracy and you get this. Too little and you get some freakish acid-trip-spawn-thing-maybe-not-really. Controlled doses of historical accuracy can be useful to a game, the same way controlled doses of Botox can be useful to a human. After all, people clamor for it; so they must like it for some reason.

Magnor Criol
2010-01-10, 09:58 PM
Unless you HAD money (inherited it), you really had no way of GETTING money (it was all taken by your feudal lord)?

No plumbing or electricity? While I love camping and can not miss those for weeks at a time on a camping trip...I can honestly say I don't think I'd really want to live, full time, without those modern amenities. Maybe I'm just soft.

Don't forget horrendous medical knowledge. You could die from a paper cut (gets infected, then practice like bloodletting makes things worse...). Or heaven forbid the common cold stop by for a visit.) No band-aids and no nice magical healing for real fantasy.

Still, most people understand that there's a line between realism and fantasy, and an enjoyable game experience lies somewhere in between the two. What happened to set you off like this?

taltamir
2010-01-10, 09:59 PM
say... wouldn't it be fun to play as a hero in that setting? in a dumpy setting, be the one to bring the light? to be the one who makes everything better? to save the day?

actually that is a pretty neat idea... a good party that sets out to reform the land... give rights to women and minorities, open schools (for both genders), stop the stoning/burning of "witches", etc... neat idea.


It's a spectrum. Too much historical accuracy and you get this. Too little and you get some freakish acid-trip-spawn-thing-maybe-not-really. Controlled doses of historical accuracy can be useful to a game, the same way controlled doses of Botox can be useful to a human. After all, people clamor for it; so they must like it for some reason.

ugh... botox "cosmetic surgury" is as useful is smoking a cigarette. just because people chose to do it doesn't mean its a healthy or wise thing to do

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 10:01 PM
Set him off? This isn't a very ranty post.

It was a reaction to a comment about Dragon Age. This pos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7666536#post7666536)t said that all the bisexuals in Dragon Age were fanwankery and historically inaccurate. Taltamir responded.


ugh... botox "cosmetic surgury" is as useful is smoking a cigarette. just because people chose to do it doesn't mean its a healthy or wise thing to do

I would have used chemotherapy as a better example, but I don't know specifically what chemicals are used.

The Dark Fiddler
2010-01-10, 10:02 PM
There is one simple reason why historical accuracy can die in a ditch, but beware for its very mention may drive you insane:

FATAL

Sure, it may have failed miserably at everything, including historical accuracy, but this is what happens when you try too hard. :smalltongue:

Green Bean
2010-01-10, 10:02 PM
actually that is a pretty neat idea... a good party that sets out to reform the land... give rights to women and minorities, open schools (for both genders), stop the stoning/burning of "witches", etc... neat idea.

And then they get laughed out of town, because all that bad stuff takes hundreds of years to wear off.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 10:03 PM
And that's why you create magic traps of Mindrape to enforce your utopia. Big Brother Tippy is watching you.

taltamir
2010-01-10, 10:05 PM
There is one simple reason why historical accuracy can die in a ditch, but beware for its very mention may drive you insane:

FATAL

Sure, it may have failed miserably at everything, including historical accuracy, but this is what happens when you try too hard. :smalltongue:

I have *shudder* read the rulebook... it is not trying to be historically accurate at all, it uses the claim "historical accuracy" as a shield to try and defend a "game" that is nothing but a rape simulator.


And then they get laughed out of town, because all that bad stuff takes hundreds of years to wear off.

by commoners? HA! Finally a use for greater cleave :) it would be a blood bath.


And that's why you create magic traps of Mindrape to enforce your utopia. Big Brother Tippy is watching you.

heh, with high enough magic, sure... but you can always just kill anyone who objects too loudly

Demented
2010-01-10, 10:05 PM
Taltamir the Magnificent, Inventor of Toothpaste!
That would make an excellent hero. :smalltongue:


- Toothpaste isn't the only way to clean your teeth.
- Without braces, you could find the people with bad teeth and mock them for their breeding.
- Ugly people get sent to the forlorn hope.
- You eat your vegetables. You also eat the fruitcake. There are no exceptions.
- You still smell better than the guy who lives on modern fast food.
- You look better, too. (See #3)
- There is no 'detect sexuality' spell, and if you're doing an ancient Greek setting...


As to realism in general...


The dragon breathes fire.

You are a pile of ash.

No save.

deuxhero
2010-01-10, 10:05 PM
This is why I don't like the obsession with "medieval" settings. Give me Victorian era anyday.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 10:07 PM
Soft sci-fi magitek settings for me. Though I'll take whatever comes my way (so a lot of the medieval settings)

ericgrau
2010-01-10, 10:10 PM
1. This is a 110% a matter of personal/gaming group preference. Who cares what everyone else does?
2. The Dark Ages sucked... at certain times in certain parts of Europe. Other areas were quite civilized and you could easily adapt their ways of life for your setting (or not). Even in ancient times. It's not a matter of technology so much as a bad time and place in history.

Terraoblivion
2010-01-10, 10:12 PM
Not to mention that this really has little resemblance to any observable historical reality, instead being gross hyperbole of traits from various points of European history over the last 1500 years. In short if anybody claim that anything like that is historical accuracy laugh at them. Hard. And then walk away and play what you actually find fun.

Demented
2010-01-10, 10:13 PM
2. The Dark Ages sucked... at certain times in certain parts of Europe. Other areas were quite civilized and you could easily adapt their ways of life for your setting (or not). Even in ancient times. It's not a matter of technology so much as a bad time and place in history.

Someone could say the modern era sucks and point to the poor regions of Kazakhstan.

And for some reason, Opera's spellchecker thinks "Kazakh" is a word. A proper name, actually. (Uncapitalized, it's erroneous.) to google!

RPGuru1331
2010-01-10, 10:13 PM
"And that's why you create magic traps of Mindrape to enforce your utopia. Big Brother Tippy is watching you."

You don't see any problem with enforcing rights through Mind Rape, do you?

Tengu_temp
2010-01-10, 10:15 PM
1. Historical accuracy is inaccurate in most fantasy settings, because they're very different from how medieval times looked like.
2. What most people consider historical accuracy really isn't. They base it on myths about middle ages rather than how middle ages were in reality. I see such examples in this thread already.

PhoenixRivers
2010-01-10, 10:15 PM
As to realism in general...


The dragon breathes fire.

You are a pile of ash.

No save.

I find it amusing that you adjudicate the effects of a:
Dragon.
Breathing Fire.

Under... Realism?

Demented
2010-01-10, 10:16 PM
Exactly. :smalltongue:

Riffington
2010-01-10, 10:17 PM
ugh... botox "cosmetic surgury" is as useful is smoking a cigarette. just because people chose to do it doesn't mean its a healthy or wise thing to do

Botulinum toxin is used in a variety of therapeutic procedures to treat dysphonia, hyperhidrosis, and various spasmodic disorders. It is not solely a cosmetic procedure.

Medieval life was not as bad as described.

Medieval peasants could improve their wealth and station (and become a miller, merchant, baker, priest, or physician)

taltamir
2010-01-10, 10:18 PM
the implication from the "people clamoring for botox" seemed to indicate cosmetic uses, not medicinal. Although it is nice to know that medicinal uses exist.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-10, 10:25 PM
I meant clamor for historical accuracy. I don't think people clamor for Botox, even as cosmetics. Do they?


You don't see any problem with enforcing rights through Mind Rape, do you?

Of course I do. My character doesn't, though. :)

Mikeavelli
2010-01-10, 10:34 PM
Historically, people could not snuff bat Guano and spit Fireballs. Nor could individuals single-handedly defeat an entire army, or remain successfully hidden right in front of your face. Historical accuracy went out the window once you accepted fantasy elements, and it shifted into a tolkien-esque "fantasy setting"

About the only requirement is that world be internally consistent.

Slightly off topic (on topic in the other post about dragon age)


It's well established that Lyrium is impossibly dangerous and makes humans go into convulsions just from touching the raw stuff. Yet, when you're down in the Underdark, you can just walk up to raw veins of the stuff and nothing happens! WTF Internal consistency? I know I'm a Jedi, SPECTRE, Grey Warden and thus super-special, but what about my buddies?

IT DOES NOT MAEK SENSE!

taltamir
2010-01-10, 10:37 PM
Historically, people could not snuff bat Guano and spit Fireballs. Nor could individuals single-handedly defeat an entire army, or remain successfully hidden right in front of your face. Historical accuracy went out the window once you accepted fantasy elements, and it shifted into a tolkien-esque "fantasy setting"

About the only requirement is that world be internally consistent.

Slightly off topic (on topic in the other post about dragon age)


It's well established that Lyrium is impossibly dangerous and makes humans go into convulsions just from touching the raw stuff. Yet, when you're down in the Underdark, you can just walk up to raw veins of the stuff and nothing happens! WTF Internal consistency? I know I'm a Jedi, SPECTRE, Grey Warden and thus super-special, but what about my buddies?

IT DOES NOT MAEK SENSE!

not only that, but the blood of the darkspawn is supposed to mean death to anyone it touches the SKIN of... the whole purpose of the grey warden ceremony is to use magic to make you immune, so how do you walk around fighting darkspawn close and personal and getting covered by their gore without falling on the ground convulsing and dying before the ceremony? how do your friends do it without ever getting the ceremony? (like all the "sick" in the camp)

Don Julio Anejo
2010-01-10, 10:49 PM
the entire concept of fantasy is just that, fantasy. you could say most feudal societies wouldn't allow a woman to run around fighting and instead marry her off at age 10-12. Also women wear such frumpy clothes that you barely see their ankles, and everyone is butt ugly because they don't have showers or toothpaste.

But really, where is the fun in that?

Can you imagine anyone who would want to play a game that says: you can only play a male, homosexuals/bisexuals/educated women (they must be witches) are burned at the stake, premarital sex results in stoning, you are unwashed and ugly, all the "romancable" (you buy them from their father) "women" (age 10-12 and girls; else there were already married off) are unwashed, ungroomed, unshaven, wear puritanical clothes, and have rotten teeth.

ugh, that game will be horrible.
Am I missing any aspect of why medieval life sucked so hard?
1. You don't see many women running around fighting in any setting, medieval or otherwise. Present times included. There's probably one woman in the armed forces for something like 70 men (85% of all statistics are made up by my point stands). It comes from the fact that most women, in fact, don't want to fight.

2. Myth. 13-14 - maybe, 12 - almost never. Also, there's girls having sex at 12 right now. How is that any different if you throw out the "arranged marriage" part (which by the way still exists in a lot of societies and even countries like Canada). And finally, we grow up sexually around 13-14. Heck, biologically it's much worse to have children like we do now in the developed countries (i.e. when we're 35 or something) then when we're 13.

3. Frumpy clothes? You do know that it's a religious and cultural thing, right? Also, the whole skimpiness thing we have now is more of an anomaly than frumpy hooded stuff from the middle ages. I mean seriously, who in their right mind would wear a miniskirt when it's -5 outside if the culture didn't tell them to do it?

4. What does the lack of showers have to do with being butt ugly? Also, what about now, in places where there isn't much water? Like Sahara or the Arabian Desert or Sub-Saharan Africa?

5. Toothbrushes existed as far back as ancient Egypt and they were quite common even in medieval Europe. Ancient Romans could do real dentures, albeit without good painkillers. And in many places in Europe they used baking soda to brush their teeth... And finally, do take a look at what people ate back then. Fruit. Vegetables. Grains. Meat if you're better off. I don't see any sugar or chocolate or strongly basic/acidic foods there. How exactly would someone even get cavities?

6. Do take a deeper look at history, at the time before hordes of barbarians burned down and looted what was left of the Roman Empire. Life in ancient Rome wasn't that much different from life in the western world right now as long as you compensate for differences in technological achievement.

7. Medical care wasn't half bad despite some questionable practices. The problem was that there weren't any doctors to go around, and certainly none outside the military or large towns. So you were usually treated by whatever random person you could find who knew nothing about medicine. I doubt you'd be much better off now if you went to your, for example, banker to get treatment. With the only difference being sanitation, which, well, came with technology. In 200 years we might regrow lost organs and look back at how barbaric late 20th century medicine used to be.

Maximum Zersk
2010-01-10, 10:54 PM
About the only requirement is that world be internally consistent.[/spoiler]

Hey, Magic A is Magic A. People don't care for logic. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA) :smalltongue:

As for historical accuracy, wouldn't that only be needed for, you know, a reenactment or something similar? Fantasy - especially High Fantasy - is it's own world.

Tinydwarfman
2010-01-10, 10:55 PM
As to realism in general...


The dragon breathes fire.

You are a pile of ash.

No save.

I don't like historical accuracy. I do like realism. Let us not say there are mutually exclusive, because you CAN have realistic fantasy of sci-fi. In a realistic fantasy game, if you are a normal human, you WILL die from dragon's breath (unless the dragon is like 2 years old). But who actually expects the hero to be a completely average human? Whether you avoid the dragon's fire due to your incredible reflexes, or conjure a magical shield that stops the fire, these things can be played out realistically (within the realm of what is allowed for that world). D&D however, is not the most realistic game. (you use your evasive skills to take no damage from the dragon's breath, and yet somehow not move at all?)

Personally, I do not like a historically accurate setting (if I am playing a medieval setting I want elves and magic and stuff like that), but having played low-point, low magic in GURPS, it was actually quite fun. Sure we couldn't take an arrow in the face and live, but that just gives you a sense of actual risk when involved in combat. If we were completely historically accurate however, you are right, it would not be fun.

In summary : Realism ≠ Historical Accuracy. Realism good, complete historical accuracy bad.

EDIT:
How is that any different if you throw out the "arranged marriage" part (which by the way still exists in a lot of societies and even countries like Canada).

I agree with most everything you said, but wtf are you talking about here? Canada has no more arranged marriages than the US, or any other western country.

Don Julio Anejo
2010-01-10, 10:58 PM
Historically, people could not snuff bat Guano and spit Fireballs. Nor could individuals single-handedly defeat an entire army, or remain successfully hidden right in front of your face. Historical accuracy went out the window once you accepted fantasy elements, and it shifted into a tolkien-esque "fantasy setting"

Disagree. There's such a thing called "suspension of disbelief." That is, you choose to believe that certain things work the way they're described to in the setting. Like magic. There's also game mechanics - I'm guessing people don't take in-game descriptions word for word but instead for things they represent. Like how hit points are not a representation of how many times you can be stabbed until you die, but rather how long you can fight until a well-placed hit takes you out.

But there's things that clearly don't fall under this category. An average human shouldn't be able to swing a 40 pound sword like a toothpick just because there's magic in the setting. The two are simply in no way related. Magic isn't present in the real world, and as such works in whatever way the creator wants it to. The sword... is present, and as such should abide by the laws of physics and biology. It's like having apples fall up with no explanation given just because it's fantasy.

GoC
2010-01-10, 10:59 PM
actually that is a pretty neat idea... a good party that sets out to reform the land... give rights to women and minorities, open schools (for both genders), stop the stoning/burning of "witches", etc... neat idea.
Even better if treated realistically so it causes social upheaval and all the chaos and despair that brings. I'd like to see you realistically opening a successful school (how on earth would you convince them of the use of such a thing anyway?).:smallwink:

Green Bean
2010-01-10, 11:00 PM
Hey, Magic A is Magic A. People don't care for logic. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA) :smalltongue:


Magic A is Magic A is internal consistency.

SurlySeraph
2010-01-10, 11:02 PM
I often find setting with no social tensions boring, and since it's often faster to say that a problem that existed in the real-world past exists in the setting than to make up a new one, historical accuracy can contribute to the game. But unless I'm playing something gritty and dark, I don't care much how accurate it is as long as there's decent verisimilitude.


Someone could say the modern era sucks and point to the poor regions of Kazakhstan.

And for some reason, Opera's spellchecker thinks "Kazakh" is a word. A proper name, actually. (Uncapitalized, it's erroneous.) to google!

It is a real word. Kazakh is to Kazakhstan as American is to America.

toasty
2010-01-10, 11:09 PM
Personally, I do not like a historically accurate setting (if I am playing a medieval setting I want elves and magic and stuff like that), but having played low-point, low magic in GURPS, it was actually quite fun. Sure we couldn't take an arrow in the face and live, but that just gives you a sense of actual risk when involved in combat. If we were completely historically accurate however, you are right, it would not be fun.

+1 man that's exactly what I was thinking.

Historical Accuracy can be fun for some people, but not everyone. If a player wants to play a girl and then GM says, "no. All girls get married before 16 and have 3 kids or die trying by 21. You can't break that rule." That sucks.

However, realism is good. Knowing my character can die from a few arrows or a good chop of a sword can be fun. Applying physics and a bit of common sense to a game can also be fun. Sure, some people don't like it, but I'd hope most people want at least a tiny bit of realism and application of reality to their games.

Xenogears
2010-01-10, 11:30 PM
I meant clamor for historical accuracy. I don't think people clamor for Botox, even as cosmetics. Do they?

You've never heard of Botox parties then? People invite a doctor/"legitimate medical person" to their house and give them and all their friends botox treatments. To some people getting poison injected into their face is a fun party game...


Even better if treated realistically so it causes social upheaval and all the chaos and despair that brings. I'd like to see you realistically opening a successful school (how on earth would you convince them of the use of such a thing anyway?).:smallwink:

The trick is to pay the dirt farmers for their children at first and eventually let the idea seep into everyones heads.

grautry
2010-01-10, 11:30 PM
I find it amusing that you adjudicate the effects of a:
Dragon.
Breathing Fire.

Under... Realism?

Sure, why not?

Take a look at, oh, a pistol shrimp - an animal able to create 5000 degrees Celsius bubbles that create sonic shockwaves. There's couple of other anomalies like that in nature.

I'm pretty sure there is some way to create fire-breathing dragons that would make sense from real-life biological/chemical point of view.

Frankly, I'd be more surprised by the fact that such huge creatures could actually fly rather than by the fact that they can breathe fire.


But there's things that clearly don't fall under this category. An average human shouldn't be able to swing a 40 pound sword like a toothpick just because there's magic in the setting. The two are simply in no way related. Magic isn't present in the real world, and as such works in whatever way the creator wants it to. The sword... is present, and as such should abide by the laws of physics and biology. It's like having apples fall up with no explanation given just because it's fantasy.

Who says that physics and biology work the way they do in fantasy as they work in the real world?

Maybe, in fantasy-land it's perfectly normal that you're able to build a muscles to the point where you can juggle cars or attain supersonic speeds.

taltamir
2010-01-10, 11:31 PM
{Scrubbed}

Terraoblivion
2010-01-10, 11:33 PM
{Scrubbed}

Riffington
2010-01-10, 11:35 PM
Historical Accuracy can be fun for some people, but not everyone. If a player wants to play a girl and then GM says, "no. All girls get married before 16 and have 3 kids or die trying by 21. You can't break that rule." That sucks.


I think there's a huge difference between "this is average, and there's a social stigma to doing otherwise" and "you can't". You may want gender-equal fighting forces, or you may want forces that are almost exclusively male. But neither precludes a player from saying "I am Joan of Arc or at least Portia"

Incidentally, very early marriage is typically the case only when there is a shortage of women, particularly when polygamy is practiced. "In Italy the average age for marriage was 17; in France it is 16yo; and in England and Germany 18yo was the average age - all for first marriages. (Source: “Medieval Households” by David Herlihy, Harvard University Press, 1985)." Those nations didn't practice polygamy in the middle ages, of course - if your setting includes it, you'll want to dramatically revise downward the marriage age.

taltamir
2010-01-10, 11:35 PM
merchants, farmers, even queens... sure...
but warriors?


I think there's a huge difference between "this is average, and there's a social stigma to doing otherwise" and "you can't". You may want gender-equal fighting forces, or you may want forces that are almost exclusively male. But neither precludes a player from saying "I am Joan of Arc or at least Portia"

point at joan of arc, while rare I guess it did exist.

toasty
2010-01-10, 11:41 PM
I think there's a huge difference between "this is average, and there's a social stigma to doing otherwise" and "you can't". You may want gender-equal fighting forces, or you may want forces that are almost exclusively male. But neither precludes a player from saying "I am Joan of Arc or at least Portia"

Joan of Arc was burned a the stake though. :smallbiggrin: Still, you do have a point.

Terraoblivion
2010-01-10, 11:43 PM
Burned at the stake in a rigged trial that the pope condemned shortly afterwards and her name restored to honor.:smalltongue:

Mystic Muse
2010-01-10, 11:45 PM
5. How exactly would someone even get cavities?

.

the acid from fruit. It can be murder on your teeth.

although that might result more in loss of teeth or some other tooth anomaly than a cavity.

toasty
2010-01-10, 11:46 PM
Burned at the stake in a rigged trial that the pope condemned shortly afterwards and her name restored to honor.:smalltongue:

Ahh darn. Maybe I should have paid attention to that stupid Joan of Arc book I was supposed to read a few years back... :smalltongue:

Terraoblivion
2010-01-10, 11:53 PM
Checking wikipedia for the exact date reveals that "shortly after" might be an exagerate, but a retrial to clean her name was begun 21 years after her death and after four years it declared her a martyr executed by a heretic pursuing a personal vendetta. So unfair to say that society or even the church was unified in condemning her for stepping out of the appointed role of women.

Not only that few historical figures have inspired the kind of devotion in their followers that she did, seemingly without having to struggle much to be accepted as a woman who led them. So while the British insisted on the unnatural nature of a woman leading soldiers and dressing in men's clothing, the French didn't even dismiss her on that basis when she first arrived at court. So hardly an example of how the middle ages repressed women.

taltamir
2010-01-10, 11:53 PM
it should be noted joan of arc was burned at the stake by her enemies (who thought they could condemn her that way), not her own people (who still fought on in her name after her death).
Joan of arc is actually a concrete example of how I was wrong. I admit that even in medieval europe it was possible for a woman to be a warrior and military leader. rare, but possible.

Zincorium
2010-01-10, 11:56 PM
{Scrubbed}

Terraoblivion
2010-01-11, 12:02 AM
It was not about comfort for her. It was about establishing what the view of a female warrior was, which seems to indicate that the only people who had a significant problem with it were the ones actively being killed by said warrior. That is the significance of her restitution.

And trust me, even the richest Romans led poor, wretched lives compared to the modern middle class. So did Carnegia, Rockefeller and Hearst. That is simply what living in the past was like due to worse technology.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 12:04 AM
I'm sure the restoration of her good name was a great comfort after being burned to death after being condemned as a heretic by her religious brethren.

if you lead a rebellion, woman or no, you can expect a painful death if captured by your enemies.
That she was a woman probably didn't really matter to them as much as the whole "leads a rebellion" thing.

Don Julio Anejo
2010-01-11, 12:14 AM
If I did find myself in feudal Europe, I'd head for the middle east. May not be friendly, but it's at least less disgusting and backwards than the dark ages.
The Byzantine Empire wasn't half-bad either. Although it was the Roman Empire, so..


But they are allowed to should they choose to.
They were allowed to be pretty much anything except a warrior. Yes, there were restrictions, but not to the degree painted by feminists and pop culture. Being a warrior on the other hand was a cultural and class-specific thing. How about men of noble birth who didn't want to be warriors? They should have been allowed to, but they were pretty much universally trained as knights.


"having sex" and "being married off" are two different things... the thing I was referring to is the universality of it... that is, you will not find an unmarried girl above the age of 12ish. and they probably will not marry them off under 10.
That still exists in some parts of the world.
Exactly, it still exists in some parts of the world if you're talking about "married off," including, dare I say, for example, a lot of East Indian communities in Canada. And if we're talking about "12 years old," well, girls now are having sex at 12 so I don't see what the problem is given you compensate for cultural expectations of age. And the fact that people "grew up" much faster in the past because they didn't have to waste 10 years in school learning useless crap 95% of which will never use or even remember.


I did specifically refer to medieval feudalism aka the middle ages
Yes, but see... Unless the game/book/movie/whatever is specifically set in medieval Europe, what outfits they wear or how they feel about sex have absolutely nothing to do with having feudalism or being on about the same technological level as the middle ages. Therefore it does not take away from historical accuracy or realism.


The answer should be obvious...
did you know that in some languages the same word is used for "clean" and "beautiful".

Uhm, being clean has absolutely nothing to do with being beautiful. Being, well, beautiful, dressing well and being attractive, on the other hand, do. Also, not taking baths/showers and not washing are completely different. Showers simply didn't exist, I don't think I should explain why. As for taking a bath... specifically bathing was an almost ritualized procedure with barrelfuls of water being heated and enough perfumes/ointments used up to stock a good sized store. Which was obviously expensive. I believe King John I was said to take a bath once a week, which cost 6 pense - what an average labourer made in a week.

Going down to the river or washing your body using a barrel with water and a bunch of towels was a different thing, however.


The most common tooth treatment in medieval europe was to scrub your teeth with a brick and then rub molasses on it. Hair was pressed between boards with animal fat. Water was believed to damage hair the hair.

At the very least the Slavs used eggs as shampoo (by the way works pretty well, a lot of even modern shampoos/conditioners are based on eggs). Nobles in Western Europe used soap, which by the way, was available. Teeth - it was much, much harder for them to go bad than it is now, just from the diet. As for scrubbing hair with animal fat instead of washing it... The only way I'll believe that is that it was either done by nomads who often didn't have access to water (e.g. Mongols) or it was done as a hair gel.

SurlySeraph
2010-01-11, 12:45 AM
No refrigeration for food. No modern plumbing. If you've ever lived like that, and I did so for several years, you realize how much of an absolute blessing those are. Add in not just lack of medical supplies but deluded folk remedies instead of legitimate knowledge, and you've got the makings of a rough life. People thought that mercury was good for you- and administered it for things like headaches.

A lot of traditional remedies are, if not useful, at least not harmful - and the placebo effect helps. Granted, for every idea like using heated turnips to cure chillblains (heat helps, the fact that they're turnips does not) there's one like wearing red to cure smallpox, but no one would have continued going to the doctors if they were completely worthless. And you may be surprised to learn that mercury is a good disinfectant and that mercury compounds were the main treatment for syphilis at the start of the 20th century and actually worked (with horrible side effects, of course, but better than syphilis).


If I did find myself in feudal Europe, I'd head for the middle east. May not be friendly, but it's at least less disgusting and backwards than the dark ages.

Hells yes. Syria and Almohad Spain were among of the nicest places in the world during that period. Pity about the Crusades and the backlash against tolerance after the Reconquista.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 12:51 AM
A lot of traditional remedies are, if not useful, at least not harmful - and the placebo effect helps. Granted, for every idea like using heated turnips to cure chillblains (heat helps, the fact that they're turnips does not) there's one like that wearing red cures smallpox, but no one would have continued going to the doctors if they were completely worthless. And you may be surprised to learn that mercury is a good disinfectant and that mercury compounds were the main treatment for syphilis at the start of the 20th century and actually worked (with horrible side effects, of course, but better than syphilis).
Wearing red is not so bad... getting cut to remove some of your blood with an unsterilized knife that was used on other sick patients before is bad, very bad.
The notions that if people go there it must help is fallacious. People seek many remedies which are false and actually harmful.
As for mercury compounds... it is a basic fact of chemistry that different molecules of the same materials have vastly different properties. The same materials in a different three dimensional configuration range from cure" to "poison". Mercury is highly toxic and has severe effects on the brain and nervous system unless bound in very specific compounds which ensure it is not absorbed by the body and deposited in the nervous system. Ancient alchemists actually knew how to make compounds which promoted absorption (it is fairly easy to see if someone absorbed it, measure its quantities in their feces). this had disastrous results to those given mercury.

Tyndmyr
2010-01-11, 01:00 AM
Magic A is Magic A is internal consistency.

This is what's important. If you have internal consistency, I'm completely happy. I don't care in the slightest if it's more or less realistic....I merely care if it's an interesting, engaging system that doesn't break it's own rules.

Kallisti
2010-01-11, 01:00 AM
It's a spectrum. Too much historical accuracy and you get this. Too little and you get some freakish acid-trip-spawn-thing-maybe-not-really. Controlled doses of historical accuracy can be useful to a game, the same way controlled doses of Botox can be useful to a human. After all, people clamor for it; so they must like it for some reason.

Too little and you get the Tippyverse. Which is in its own right a legitimate setting for play.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 01:05 AM
Too little and you get the Tippyverse. Which is in its own right a legitimate setting for play.

I seriously doubt that tippyverse existence has anything to do with historical accuracy. it has to do with unchecked broken magic.

Kallisti
2010-01-11, 01:11 AM
I seriously doubt that tippyverse existence has anything to do with historical accuracy. it has to do with unchecked broken magic.

I was referring to the fact that most D&D settings have the magic available to be the Tippyverse, but are stuck in Medieval Stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis). Because they prize historical accuracy too much to let the Tippyverse happen.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 01:17 AM
I was referring to the fact that most D&D settings have the magic available to be the Tippyverse, but are stuck in Medieval Stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis). Because they prize historical accuracy too much to let the Tippyverse happen.

ok, i get it now. sorry for the misunderstanding.

Zincorium
2010-01-11, 01:25 AM
I was referring to the fact that most D&D settings have the magic available to be the Tippyverse, but are stuck in Medieval Stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis). Because they prize historical accuracy too much to let the Tippyverse happen.

If you actually take the effect of magic on the world logically, like the Tippyverse does, there's no reason for civilization to even pass the Babylonian civilization in technology and social strata.


The reason for this is simple: in the real world, you have intelligent people with enough resources to experiment who want to improve their life in some way. In a world where magic works like D&D, these people will become wizards 90% or more of the time, because mundane experimentation produces dramatically weaker effects. Why invent wells when a cleric can arrange for water to flow forth in unlimited quantities, and invent irrigation when food literally can be created from nothing? To say nothing of the invention of bronze versus the invention of a fireball.

There's no incentive to progress in any field except for magic.


The psuedo-medieval construct that is D&D relies on not looking at it too closely.

Kallisti
2010-01-11, 01:36 AM
To quote an old cliche, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The corollary to which is that any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

You're right, Tippyverse magic makes technology largely redundant. And magic is more reliable, since a permanent spell never needs to be recharged and still works in a blackout. Of course, fewer people have the expertise necessary to set things up, but thanks to the magic of Persistent Time Stop, the ones who do have all the time in the world.

Jayabalard
2010-01-11, 01:38 AM
Can you imagine anyone who would want to play a game that says: you can only play a male, homosexuals/bisexuals/educated women (they must be witches) are burned at the stake, premarital sex results in stoning, Yes.

I have to include more text in order to post this response.

Zincorium
2010-01-11, 01:48 AM
People who play FATAL don't count.

Tavar
2010-01-11, 01:53 AM
Of course, fewer people have the expertise necessary to set things up, but thanks to the magic of Persistent Time Stop, the ones who do have all the time in the world.
Actually, persistent Time Stop doesn't work: time stop's duration is actually instantaneous.

SurlySeraph
2010-01-11, 01:57 AM
Wearing red is not so bad... getting cut to remove some of your blood with an unsterilized knife that was used on other sick patients before is bad, very bad.

Absolutely, though bleeding is such an obvious example that I saw no need to include it.


The notions that if people go there it must help is fallacious. People seek many remedies which are false and actually harmful.

I didn't deny this, just noted that many medieval remedies were less awful than commonly believed.


As for mercury compounds... it is a basic fact of chemistry that different molecules of the same materials have vastly different properties. The same materials in a different three dimensional configuration range from cure" to "poison". Mercury is highly toxic and has severe effects on the brain and nervous system unless bound in very specific compounds which ensure it is not absorbed by the body and deposited in the nervous system. Ancient alchemists actually knew how to make compounds which promoted absorption (it is fairly easy to see if someone absorbed it, measure its quantities in their feces). this had disastrous results to those given mercury.

It is also a basic fact of chemistry that every compound exists in an chemical equilibrium; it is rare to have just a compound in solution, with none of the unbound ingredients. The mercury compounds used to treat syphilis did, in fact, cause mercury poisoning, but at low enough levels that they were better than the disease. I am well aware of the effects of mercury.


People who play FATAL don't count.

If you're referring to Jayabalard's post, I'm pretty sure the FATAL universe is tolerant of bisexuals (well, female ones) and encourages rather than punishes premarital sex. :smallyuk:

Zincorium
2010-01-11, 02:01 AM
Actually, persistent Time Stop doesn't work: time stop's duration is actually instantaneous.

We're talking Tippyverse here. Time stop's listed duration is in apparent rounds, so according to a strict reading of the rules, you get 24 apparent hours. Sage Advice and DM rulings specifically don't exist in the Tippyverse.

taltamir
2010-01-11, 02:05 AM
certainly, you could get lucky and go to a doctor for a disease whose folk treatment did actually more good then bad. you just had no way of knowing which is which...

and the syphilis treating with mercury compounds is different then simply feeding people mercury to be absorbed.
are you saying that the mercury compounds used to treat syphilis are the same compounds used by ancient alchemists to consume because "mercury makes you immortal"

Fhaolan
2010-01-11, 02:43 AM
I don't actually care about historical accuracy, but I do care about some amount of realism for which I use historical knowledge and personal experience to judge.

Why do I want an amount of realism in the game? Because I find that my players respond better to fantasy when they have some grounding. It's easier to suspend disbelief if you don't have to *all* the time.

For example, I had a DM once run this truely acid-trip of a game. All words in the game were redefined, usually on the fly. Horses might refer to elk, or sheep, or dogs, depending on his mood. Trees were called swords, men were called saltshakers or some such nonsense.

We ended up with conversations like this:

DM: You ask into the book, and disk a spin.
Me (consulting a phrasebook I had been constructing during the game): I grommet the spin. Do I disk a vase as well?
DM: Nope. The spin's lens needles you, take 10 damage.
Other player, in a written note to me: WTF? I though lens was a cure light wounds wand? And what the heck does needles mean now?
Me, in written note back to other player: I think it was a CLW wand, but it's been inserted up my nose somehow.

After a few games of this garbage, you loose the desire to have a complete fantasy game.

grautry
2010-01-11, 02:52 AM
DM: You ask into the book, and disk a spin.
Me (consulting a phrasebook I had been constructing during the game): I grommet the spin. Do I disk a vase as well?
DM: Nope. The spin's lens needles you, take 10 damage.
Other player, in a written note to me: WTF? I though lens was a cure light wounds wand? And what the heck does needles mean now?
Me, in written note back to other player: I think it was a CLW wand, but it's been inserted up my nose somehow.

After a few games of this garbage, you loose the desire to have a complete fantasy game.

How is that in any way related to "complete fantasy"? It's just introducing pointless confusion.

However, I sort of agree with your point.

Playing a game where you are a dimensional frequency attempting to harmonize an astral symphony in order to overthrow the universal thoughtform ruling the etheric mindplane might be fun, but it would be a one-time event or a one-time campaign.

Generally speaking I want a game that has at least a semblance of grounding in reality, you need - at the very least - characters you can relate to somehow.

Aux-Ash
2010-01-11, 03:14 AM
certainly, you could get lucky and go to a doctor for a disease whose folk treatment did actually more good then bad. you just had no way of knowing which is which...

Virtually all "folk treatment" did if nothing else make the patient feel better, sometimes it did make them much better (and sometimes the doctois were just trying whatever they had on their hands because that was all they could do). Many medicines and treatments might have have had an ill effect on a healthy patient, but might have saved a dying one.

In most cases the patient would probably have died anyways without the treatment, but stood a small chance of surviving if they recieved it. Even if it was stuff like mercury it allowed them a slim chance of living.

Also, this reminds me of that story of a man here in Sweden who worked with making crystal glass. During a period he was unable to aquire milk to drink, so he drank normal water. What he or noone else knew was that the water was contaminated with lead, but he remained healthy.

Once the milk became available again and he started drinking it he quickly became lead poisoned. The man had suffered from calcium deficiency and the lead had actually been stored in his bones as a replacement. Once he got the calcium however, the lead was released out into his body and poisoned him.

So the doctors prescribed him to drink the lead-tainted water instead and he kept on living for another 30 years.

Basically, the body is a flexible thing and can adapt itself interestingly. Just because something is hazardous when you're healthy does not mean it is automatically life-threatening when you're sick.

Kiero
2010-01-11, 04:40 AM
Personally, I have little interest in medieval settings generally, never mind faux-medieval ones that you see in most fantasy.

There's plenty of interesting historical periods that can be played in straight or with a touch of weirdness at the edges, and more than enough real life examples of people who did break the constraints and conventions not to worry about it for PCs.

Besides, the fact that it's fantasy doesn't simply mean we toss versimilitude out of the window. I still want to know even in a fantasy setting how people make a living, eat, buy and sell goods and so on.

Edmund
2010-01-11, 06:37 AM
But they are allowed to should they choose to.


Maybe in some nations, but women are explicitly kept out of combat arms in the American military. Among 11th and early 12th century Normans, women defending their husbands' castles, and even going on campaign with them (and fighting, yes) was not unheard of either, if Orderic Vitalis is to be believed.




"having sex" and "being married off" are two different things... the thing I was referring to is the universality of it... that is, you will not find an unmarried girl above the age of 12ish. and they probably will not marry them off under 10.
That still exists in some parts of the world.
Although I didn't take into the consideration that you could seduce a married woman who was married off at an arranged marriage some years ago.


It is very easy to treat an exclusively noble practice as one that was universal, but arranged marriages were rather uncommon, in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, though the marriage would be arranged in the youth of the people involved, they wouldn't actually be married by the church, except in cases of dynastic urgency, until both were into adulthood.



I did specifically refer to medieval feudalism aka the middle ages aka:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages
The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval or mediæval) is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through to the 16th century. It is commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and contrasted with a later Early Modern Period; the time during which the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance and the Reformation unfolded, are generally associated with the transition out of the Middle Ages, with European overseas expansion as a succeeding process, but such dates are approximate and based upon nuanced arguments.


Mmm yes that ever-so-precise term that is feudalism. Tell me, how does Feudalism work? Does it work the same in Lombardy as in Normandy? What about Pecs? Mainz? Burgos? Was it the same in 1100 as in 1402? Well, would you look at that, feudalism is a terribly inaccurate term for a large spectrum of political systems.

But more to the point you do realise that medieval clothes were coloured and, depending on the period, very form-fitting. There was a fashion industry and it did change over time.



The answer should be obvious...
did you know that in some languages the same word is used for "clean" and "beautiful".


Depending on how willing you are to stretch your definition of clean, the fact that there were public bathhouses in just about every English town, even the smallest, should tell you something, not to mention the propensity toward bathing among Scandinavians and Scandinavian descendants (namely the Rus), and similar inclinations for cleanliness amongst the Byzantines, Italians, Spanish, and just about anyone with a river nearby.



The most common tooth treatment in medieval europe was to scrub your teeth with a brick and then rub molasses on it. Hair was pressed between boards with animal fat. Water was believed to damage hair the hair.
Althouhh some people in some places have used baking soda, which today is used in some toothpastes.


This sounds like a confused conglomeration of flippance and odd factoids about some cleanliness practices in the medieval and early modern periods. Fun fact about tooth decay: According to archaeological excavations done on the mass graves at Towton, along with a large body of other evidence (but none containing such a nice collection of data in one place) cavities were almost nonexistent in medieval Europe! Hooray!



Rome was quite civilized, running water, indoor plumbing, toilets, baths, etc... it was also not "medieval feudalism".


That rather depends on your definition of civilised, but since you're so obsessed with sanitation, then yes, they did do a good job at that of course, I'd far rather have the opportunism of the medieval period than the crushing, and ultimately unstable tyranny and highly parasitic urbanisation of Imperial or Republican Rome, especially if I lived somewhere other than the capital.


well, it really depends... there were some decent doctors, like galen the greek doctor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen

But his work wasn't exactly prevalent in medieval Europe.


Lol what? His work was actually extremely prevalent, even from before the 12th century renaissance, to the point where physicians would reject teachings that showed him to be wrong just because it's Galen and, in their view, Galen's right all the damn time. In that sense you were often better off with a folk healer (or even better a Greek or Arab) since they were more open to the concept of the advancement of knowledge. In fact, fetishism toward ancient Rome in the medieval period was one of the things that harmed Western Europe so badly in that regard. If the Romans didn't do it, well, it must be wrong, the logic went.

dsmiles
2010-01-11, 07:55 AM
ugh, that game will be horrible.
Am I missing any aspect of why medieval life sucked so hard?

Did anyone mention chamber pots yet?

:smallyuk:

Jolly Steve
2010-01-11, 07:58 AM
When I hear the phrase "historical accuracy", I reach for the controls of my Tie Fighter.

Matthew
2010-01-11, 09:20 AM
Seems to me that people who eschew historical "accuracy" in their RPGs tend to know very little about it beyond some vague pop culture notions, but that is kind of beside the point. Just about the only reason for historical authenticity or verisimilitude in a fantasy adventure game is to provide a foil against which the fantastic things happen. To some extent there are also shared expectations, which is to say (for example) people expect arms and armour in their adventure game to function the way they imagine them to have actually functioned, but since people are variously informed on the subject that does not necessarily guarantee any degree of consistency.

That said, D&D is a self devouring beast; it has created its own context derivative of history and literature (both modern and ancient), and the media arts have had an ever increasing impact over the years. Sometimes you get people who look at fantasy worlds and try to logically prove that they should not exist the way that they do, which is of course the height of fallacy, since what they should be looking for are reasons for why it does work the way it does, since it in fact does, if you follow my meaning.

Anyway, as to historical accuracy dying in a ditch, unless you are actually playing some sort of historical simulation I do not think anybody strives for perfect historical accuracy. Even war games that seek to refight the "great battles of history" do not have predetermined victors, they leave room for variable outcomes. If I think spiked chains and twelve foot long swords wielded by four foot dwarves are ridiculous, that is pretty much my prerogative. What I will and will not appreciate depends entirely on my own preferences and what I want to get out of the game. The best case scenario is that I play with like-minded fellows, the worst case scenario (aside from not playing) is that I have to compromise for other people's preferences.

bosssmiley
2010-01-11, 09:56 AM
{Scrubbed}

Edmund
2010-01-11, 10:16 AM
Plague.
Rule by force.
Religious fanaticism.
The risk of starving to death in early spring.
Heavy, dirty, repetitive, poorly-paid manual labour jobs like egg-gatherer, flax-retter, saltpeter man, tanner, tenant farmer, monastic scribe, miner, etc.

None of these are uniquely medieval (and almost all are equally applicable to the majority of the modern world) also don't be hatin' on my scribe bros. Mining is also mad exciting in the medieval period especially in the stanneries.

Satyr
2010-01-11, 10:19 AM
The point is usually not historical accuracy. That's just a part of it. The overall concept is a mixture of expectation (what kind of world does the consummer* want to see and expect to see), usual guidelines of inner logic and consistency, and, probably most importantly, verisimilitude.

The expectation is an individual and thus subjective issue. People have different interests, and different fields of knowledge. The more you know the more you expect the world to work along your knowledge. That's why you see very few low g fantasy settings around. A low g world would be not a worse choice for a fantasy setting by default, but because most people assume that anything not explicitly mentioned work just as they are used to, it would require lot of explanations and constant reminders.
Now, the more you know about a specific genre, the more refined and definitive your expectations of the matter at hand become. If you for example know a lot about submarines, actually worked on one etc. you are likely to react annoyed when you see a movie about a submarine that does inexplicitly stupid stuff. It's just the same with 'historical accuracy' - the more you know about the era and culture your game is supposedly like, the more you expect the setting to behave a long your perspective and the more often you will be disappointed, which is like a text book example of creating frustration.

If we made a survey among roleplayers about how much people actually know about the medieval era and as how important these people deem a certain authenticity, I'd wager there would be a certain correlation between the general knowledge about historical stuff and the interest of them in the game.


There is a beautiful quote by Umberto Eco about the inner logic of narratives describing this all in the accurate prose of a linguist, but I can't find it, at least in English, so I can't do much but offer a clumsy translation:


"Free imagination requires that you set limits for yourself. [...] In epic literature** this limitation derives from the assumed world. This is not a question of Realism, even though it explains Realism as well: You can imagine a completely irreal world, where donkeys can fly and princesses are only awakened by kisses, but this fantastic or 'just possible' world still has to follow rules which were laid out beforehand (for example it's necessary to know if it the kiss of a prince or witch which is going to awaken the princess, or if a princess' kiss only turn toads back into princes, or, let's say armadillos as well."

That's from the addon to The Name of the Rose.
"It's fantasy" is no excuse for a lack of consistency. If anything, fantasy settings are obliged to be more accurate, and more consistent than those based on the real world. A setting based in the real world always has the usual facts, standard assumptions and the like as a comfortable bottom line to fall back on; a fantastic setting doesn't have this kind of luxury and has to establish its inner consistency and verisimilitude completely on its own. There are is therefore a much smaller tolerance area. Good fantasy takes an exotic idea and follow it through with utmost vigilance and consequence. According to Roald Dahl.
Which is probably enough name-dropping for one post.



*: The medium is pretty much irrelevant for this discussion. It works the same for books, movies, and RPGs. This is a very general discussion.

**: Epic, as in unbound languages written in prose. RPGs are form of literature, but usually belong more to the genre of drama, than epic. Eco's argumentation are applicable nonetheless.

Gnaeus
2010-01-11, 10:35 AM
I think there's a huge difference between "this is average, and there's a social stigma to doing otherwise" and "you can't". You may want gender-equal fighting forces, or you may want forces that are almost exclusively male. But neither precludes a player from saying "I am Joan of Arc or at least Portia"

For a parallel example from late roman times, Hypatia of Alexandria had a father who decided for some reason to educate his daughter as if she were a boy, and she became one of the leading intellectuals of the classical world.

"On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in 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."

And then she was torn apart by an angry mob, either because she was pagan or because she angered the wrong clergy, depending on whose accounts you read.

Player Characters by their nature are exceptional individuals. There are lots of reasons why you might have blatant sexism or other "ism"s exist in your fantasy society, while still allowing a female fighter or archivist or whatever.

Jayabalard
2010-01-11, 10:38 AM
People who play FATAL don't count.if this is in response to my "Yes" then be advised that I wasn't talking about people who play FATAL.

Kiero
2010-01-11, 10:50 AM
Seems to me that people who eschew historical "accuracy" in their RPGs tend to know very little about it beyond some vague pop culture notions, but that is kind of beside the point. Just about the only reason for historical authenticity or verisimilitude in a fantasy adventure game is to provide a foil against which the fantastic things happen. To some extent there are also shared expectations, which is to say (for example) people expect arms and armour in their adventure game to function the way they imagine them to have actually functioned, but since people are variously informed on the subject that does not necessarily guarantee any degree of consistency.

That said, D&D is a self devouring beast; it has created its own context derivative of history and literature (both modern and ancient), and the media arts have had an ever increasing impact over the years. Sometimes you get people who look at fantasy worlds and try to logically prove that they should not exist the way that they do, which is of course the height of fallacy, since what they should be looking for are reasons for why it does work the way it does, since it in fact does, if you follow my meaning.

Anyway, as to historical accuracy dying in a ditch, unless you are actually playing some sort of historical simulation I do not think anybody strives for perfect historical accuracy. Even war games that seek to refight the "great battles of history" do not have predetermined victors, they leave room for variable outcomes. If I think spiked chains and twelve foot long swords wielded by four foot dwarves are ridiculous, that is pretty much my prerogative. What I will and will not appreciate depends entirely on my own preferences and what I want to get out of the game. The best case scenario is that I play with like-minded fellows, the worst case scenario (aside from not playing) is that I have to compromise for other people's preferences.

Agreed on all points. Most people are clueless about history beyond pop-culture or broad strokes. D&D is a genre unto itself. No one strives for literal, perfect accuracy. And ultimately it's about what a group agrees.

Amphetryon
2010-01-11, 11:05 AM
Most of the 'frumpy clothes' complaint can be attributed to The Little Ice Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

GoC
2010-01-11, 11:08 AM
Plague.
Rule by force.
Religious fanaticism.
The risk of starving to death in early spring.
Heavy, dirty, repetitive, poorly-paid manual labour jobs like egg-gatherer, flax-retter, saltpeter man, tanner, tenant farmer, monastic scribe, miner, etc.
Rule by force is still in effect today.
How were they fanatical?:smallconfused:
And I'm pretty sure the repetitiveness and dirtiness would not have been concerns for a medieval peasant.

hamishspence
2010-01-11, 11:08 AM
DMG2 did stress that D&D is not supposed to be historically or socially accurate- it described something of the social evolution of a D&D world, and said:

"If you try any of these in a history essay, they will flunk you faster than you can say Constantinople"

Mike_G
2010-01-11, 11:14 AM
{Scrubbed}

Fhaolan
2010-01-11, 11:18 AM
How is that in any way related to "complete fantasy"? It's just introducing pointless confusion.


Sorry, bad example. It was an attempt to show the flavour of that particular game and it actually masked the overwhelming fantasy elements.

That game was a complete fantasy, however. There was nothing in it that resembled reality, or even consistancy. It was like playing an RPG version of Calvinball, or talking to Humpty Dumpty in Beyond the Looking Glass. If you stripped away all the code-talk, when you got on your horse to ride away, you were actually getting on a custom Tensor's Floating Disk. Cities were carved out of solid diamonds floating in astral space and were constantly dissolving because microscopic dieties of every historical religion ever were stealing bits for food, humans had anywhere from three to eight arms depending on which direction they faced, tiny mice could unhinge their jaws to swallow anything smaller than a house, provided that object was a particular shade of blue, etc.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-11, 12:04 PM
I've come to believe that medieval life is a really bad way to approach D&Dland.

Instead, look at it from the point of view of a Western.

Cleanliness is generally encouraged, though if you're not clean all the time, people understand. Medicine is generally available... while most small towns won't have a surgeon, they'll have a reasonably competent doctor who can deal with common injuries, and keep people from dying. Literacy isn't universal, but it's far from uncommon. While there's usually some sort of nod towards democracy and the will of the people, the local person in charge is either the person with the most money or a warrant from the government saying "You can kill people who break the rules, and anyone who kills you will make me angry." And you have a large class of people who are fairly rootless, reasonably well armed, and looking for pick-up work from locals who have money.

If you look at D&Dland as a "Western with swords", it becomes a lot more intelligible, than if you try to impose medieval historicity on it.

Edmund
2010-01-11, 12:06 PM
{Scrubbed}
{Scrubbed}

Kris Strife
2010-01-11, 12:08 PM
I've come to believe that medieval life is a really bad way to approach D&Dland.

Instead, look at it from the point of view of a Western.

Cleanliness is generally encouraged, though if you're not clean all the time, people understand. Medicine is generally available... while most small towns won't have a surgeon, they'll have a reasonably competent doctor who can deal with common injuries, and keep people from dying. Literacy isn't universal, but it's far from uncommon. While there's usually some sort of nod towards democracy and the will of the people, the local person in charge is either the person with the most money or a warrant from the government saying "You can kill people who break the rules, and anyone who kills you will make me angry." And you have a large class of people who are fairly rootless, reasonably well armed, and looking for pick-up work from locals who have money.

If you look at D&Dland as a "Western with swords", it becomes a lot more intelligible, than if you try to impose medieval historicity on it.

... I think I'd enjoy playing a game run with this as the setting.

dsmiles
2010-01-11, 12:11 PM
I've come to believe that medieval life is a really bad way to approach D&Dland.

Instead, look at it from the point of view of a Western.

Cleanliness is generally encouraged, though if you're not clean all the time, people understand. Medicine is generally available... while most small towns won't have a surgeon, they'll have a reasonably competent doctor who can deal with common injuries, and keep people from dying. Literacy isn't universal, but it's far from uncommon. While there's usually some sort of nod towards democracy and the will of the people, the local person in charge is either the person with the most money or a warrant from the government saying "You can kill people who break the rules, and anyone who kills you will make me angry." And you have a large class of people who are fairly rootless, reasonably well armed, and looking for pick-up work from locals who have money.

If you look at D&Dland as a "Western with swords", it becomes a lot more intelligible, than if you try to impose medieval historicity on it.

Wasn't this the whole concept behind Arcana Unearthed and Iron Kingdoms?

Nerd-o-rama
2010-01-11, 12:13 PM
... I think I'd enjoy playing a game run with this as the setting.A friend of mine (inventor of Sigil Prep, the best campaign setting ever) ran a 4e Western game, but I'm not sure if that's still going. He at least has a prety solid setting writeup.

GoC
2010-01-11, 12:15 PM
{Scrubbed}

dsmiles
2010-01-11, 12:17 PM
{Scrubbed}

{Scrubbed}

Kris Strife
2010-01-11, 12:25 PM
A friend of mine (inventor of Sigil Prep, the best campaign setting ever) ran a 4e Western game, but I'm not sure if that's still going. He at least has a prety solid setting writeup.

Sorry, personal preference is for 3.5. Didn't get into until the end, and as broken as it can be, I still prefer it for the sheer variety of character creation options. Makes it hard for me to find video games I like actually. Most of the character creation with them is nothing but minute cosmetic alterations.

LibraryOgre
2010-01-11, 12:29 PM
... I think I'd enjoy playing a game run with this as the setting.

The point is, chances are you already do. While he may be called "Baron" instead of "Sheriff" or "Mayor", he doesn't work much different than that. Corm Orp is Rock Ridge. Hommlet is Rio Bravo. Your retired, high-level fighter who now owns a keep and the surrounding land? Might as well call him McClintock and have him spank Maureen O'Hara on the butt.

Oslecamo
2010-01-11, 12:33 PM
{Scrubbed}

Jayabalard
2010-01-11, 12:34 PM
call him McClintock and have him spank Maureen O'Hara on the butt.mmmm.... Maureen O'Hara

McLintock btw.

Kris Strife
2010-01-11, 12:37 PM
The point is, chances are you already do. While he may be called "Baron" instead of "Sheriff" or "Mayor", he doesn't work much different than that. Corm Orp is Rock Ridge. Hommlet is Rio Bravo. Your retired, high-level fighter who now owns a keep and the surrounding land? Might as well call him McClintock and have him spank Maureen O'Hara on the butt.

The only game I'm in right now is PbP with an 'Age of Discovery' era setting... Game kinda got derailed after several players bowed out and the DM had family issues that kept him away for a few weeks.

SurlySeraph
2010-01-11, 01:51 PM
A friend of mine (inventor of Sigil Prep, the best campaign setting ever) ran a 4e Western game, but I'm not sure if that's still going. He at least has a prety solid setting writeup.

Curse you for reminding me that Sigil Prep exists. I just spent an hour re-reading everything on the site and have like 9 character ideas floating in my head now.

Roderick_BR
2010-01-11, 02:12 PM
Wow, prejudice much?
Some people just enjoy it, you know. Doesn't mean it is bad.

Different =/= bad.

Myself, I don't know if I'd enjoy a game like that, but that's a matter of opinion.

Swordwind
2010-01-11, 02:19 PM
Personally, I do not like a historically accurate setting (if I am playing a medieval setting I want elves and magic and stuff like that), but having played low-point, low magic in GURPS, it was actually quite fun. Sure we couldn't take an arrow in the face and live, but that just gives you a sense of actual risk when involved in combat. If we were completely historically accurate however, you are right, it would not be fun.

Henry V took an arrow in the face whilst fighting at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. He died of dysentry whilst on campaign in 1422.

Roland St. Jude
2010-01-11, 02:25 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: I'm going to leave this locked. Given the extent to which religion and politics seem to recur, the topic seems inherently religious and political.