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codyleaderbrand
2015-06-15, 01:53 PM
We've all had those players at our table. The ones who are prone to saying "Well actually...this is how it really happened." How do other DM's handle these players? In my personal opinion, unless it's a historically accurate game, it's not worth a debate, but my players don't always agree.

Avoiding the "Historically Accuracy," Fallacy (http://bit.ly/1GmNWRl)

Kriton
2015-06-15, 02:08 PM
While I don't completely agree with the article you link, I agree that your world doesn't have to conform to real world history, so you could shoot down your players with that.

The way I handle this issue is, to think about whether what the player proposes would make sense in the world I'm creating and if would improve the experience of my players, if both conditions are true I would alter the story on the spot if possible.

codyleaderbrand
2015-06-15, 02:15 PM
I would also be curious to hear from people who have ran games based off of historical events. Unless you're a subject matter expert it's kind of hard to not break the historical accuracy at least I would think. At the same time, I don't consider myself extremely knowledgeable in history, to the point where I would feel comfortable creating a story out of it. I think that's where the safety net of fantasy comes in because how lenient you can be with your story.

VoxRationis
2015-06-15, 02:20 PM
That article has a lot of problems with it. It completely misses the point that people come up with (or play in) these settings often to recapitulate history and culture of a particular time period, and that by deviating too wildly from it, you corrupt the intended tone of the setting and story.

ComaVision
2015-06-15, 02:39 PM
If someone disputes how something works (whether it's an unexplained pulley or a unusually strong door) I just say it's magic. It's as good of an excuse as any.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 02:51 PM
That'd be me when I'm at the table, so when I DM, I just don't make the setting too anachronistic.

Edit: I also kind of think the author of that article might not be a particularly clever source for your arguments. He writes about how people use logical fallacies incorrectly or are unaware of them and then invents one. Doubly ironic since the historical fallacy is a fallacy that exists already and has nothing to do with what he's talking about.

Keltest
2015-06-15, 02:52 PM
My response to such a player would generally be "So what?" Its an interesting factoid, but unless he is basing his character actions off of incorrect assumptions he makes about the game world based on said trivia, its not really all that important in the context of the game.

harlokin
2015-06-15, 02:57 PM
It depends on what campaign concept was pitched to the players in the first place.

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 03:02 PM
That article has a lot of problems with it. It completely misses the point that people come up with (or play in) these settings often to recapitulate history and culture of a particular time period, and that by deviating too wildly from it, you corrupt the intended tone of the setting and story.

I respectfully disagree. The article has absolutely ZERO problems with it. If you are playing in a setting to "recapitulate history and culture of a particular time period," then you make that the premise of your campaign! If that's not one of the defining, outright-stated-rather-than-implied premises for your campaign, then you have no leg to stand on when the setting is not "alternate England[or wherever else] of the 1300s[or whenever else]" but rather another world. When creating another world entirely, unless historical accuracy is a defined premise, historical accuracy is about as meaningful and the gibberish that comes out of a baby's mouth before it learns to talk.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 03:14 PM
I respectfully disagree. The article has absolutely ZERO problems with it. If you are playing in a setting to "recapitulate history and culture of a particular time period," then you make that the premise of your campaign! If that's not one of the defining, outright-stated-rather-than-implied premises for your campaign, then you have no leg to stand on when the setting is not "alternate England[or wherever else] of the 1300s[or whenever else]" but rather another world. When creating another world entirely, unless historical accuracy is a defined premise, historical accuracy is about as meaningful and the gibberish that comes out of a baby's mouth before it learns to talk.

First of all, the article absolutely has problems. The way he uses and then completely ignores what fallacies are is one.

Second, you can't make historical accuracy a premise if you're not the DM. If he's a player and he can't stand really bad anachronisms, then that's your preference. Having some guy make up fake fallacies about why you shouldn't be bothered by them isn't a sound argument.

And ultimately, that's kind of the flaw to his whole position there. If it's something that doesn't really add anything to a campaign world, and it happens to piss off your players it's probably not a great idea to include it, citing "historical fallacy" and then pointing to that article isn't going to change that it's bad DMing and or story writing. If your group is fine with a lot of anachronisms or likes them, sure put them in.

The Evil DM
2015-06-15, 03:14 PM
My opinion on historical accuracy, or physical accuracy for that matter, depends on how well it contributes to verisimilitude. The bottom line in any role playing game is the game is a series of back and forth questions. What do I see - GM Describes. I jump over the pit. roll d20 GM describes result and so on. At various points in the game questions will come up where verisimilitude is broken. Either some detail doesn't fit a preconceived notion that a player has or the player is looking for more realism in the games grit.

Since it is a little easier to make the argument with something very concrete like Physics I will use an extreme physical accuracy as an analogy.

So lets assume for instance, you have decided to make a campaign world where the sky is pink.

Players begin the game and you tell them that they gaze out over the plains with the pink sky overhead...

Immediately some players will ask "Why is the sky pink?" while others will say "Pink Sky, cool"

The difference in the questions is based on the personality of the player. A player who is detail oriented, possibly an engineering or math type is typically going ask why. A player who is narrative oriented will likely say hey pink sky is cool.

Take that thought process and apply it to the historical scenario. You describe the maneuver of an infantry unit on a battlefield. The battle historian says, "Hey wait a minute, it doesn't work that way in real life? - It doesn't make sense to me."

With that in mind my goal, as a GM, is to create enough internal consistency that the questions don't come up. My campaign worlds are very earth like. Everything works as one might expect. But occasionally the characters go to a planar location or fight some demonic monster with different infantry capabilities. This is where I break the "Accuracy" If all humans are "Accurate" and then non-humans have inaccuracies that can be consistently explained it helps to highlight the narrative differences. It also highlights magic, because magic breaks the accuracy of expectations for a normal world.

In so far as "Handling" the player. In most cases the player is looking for an explanation about why. A poster mentioned above if the character's argument is sound and it doesn't hurt the campaign world make the change. Integrate it into the content for future reference. But if there is some reason, provide that reason. Sometimes a simple explanation of how and why things work they way they do.

One caveat. The farther you break from familiar context the more you have to explain as a GM. I have played in games where a crazy GM tried alternate gravities, water flowing uphill and other crazy stuff. Sure it was interesting but you as GM need to work really hard not to have it fall apart to the questions about how, why, and can I use this to do x.

BTW. I Agree with comments above about the article having many flaws.

TheTeaMustFlow
2015-06-15, 03:21 PM
The article (and the other article it links to) miss that the fantasy counterpart culture (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCounterpartCulture) is a thing. Many of the works it's talking about are deliberately based on or reflect a point in history - or at least, a perception of a point in history - which makes reference to that history relevant. To use the article's main example, Westeros is explicitly heavily based on medieval Europe (again, it's really more like the `hollywood version` of medieval Europe, but that's another argument).

Ruslan
2015-06-15, 03:24 PM
Immediately some players will ask "Why is the sky pink?"
I always tend to add such little details in my worlds. When the players ask why, I act very surprised, and ask "I dunno .... it's just ... always have been this way ... have you ever seen a different sky?"

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 03:28 PM
First of all, the article absolutely has problems. The way he uses and then completely ignores what fallacies are is one.

Second, you can't make historical accuracy a premise if you're not the DM. If he's a player and he can't stand really bad anachronisms, then that's your preference. Having some guy make up fake fallacies about why you shouldn't be bothered by them isn't a sound argument.

And ultimately, that's kind of the flaw to his whole position there. If it's something that doesn't really add anything to a campaign world, and it happens to piss off your players it's probably not a great idea to include it, citing "historical fallacy" and then pointing to that article isn't going to change that it's bad DMing and or story writing. If your group is fine with a lot of anachronisms or likes them, sure put them in.

"Bad anachronism" is not an objective issue, ever, with something completely fictional and fantastical. Period. No arguments. It is only ever a subjective concern, and if it's a player that has the problem and didn't think to mention before the game started "oh, and anachronisms break my suspension of disbelief" then no, his opinion on the matter doesn't matter. Yes, players DO, in fact, get to make premises when they aren't the DM, they just have to work together with the DM and be up front about it, beginning before the game starts. If their preferences for premises clash too much with the DM, they need to find another group, not complain about it.

As for definitions of fallacies: I'm no expert, but saying "because the sky is blue, the grass must be green" when talking about the planet Xorb is clearly some manner of logical error - premise and conclusion are unrelated. Whether it's technically a fallacy is not really the point. It's a logical error and deserves to be pointed out as one. Similarly, the "historical accuracy" issue is a logical error. I completely 100% agree with the article's Texas analogy, because that's exactly how bad I see the "arguing from historical accuracy" approach.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 03:36 PM
"Bad anachronism" is not an objective issue, ever, with something completely fictional and fantastical. Period. No arguments. It is only ever a subjective concern, and if it's a player that has the problem and didn't think to mention before the game started "oh, and anachronisms break my suspension of disbelief" then no, his opinion on the matter doesn't matter. Yes, players DO, in fact, get to make premises when they aren't the DM, they just have to work together with the DM and be up front about it, beginning before the game starts. If their preferences for premises clash too much with the DM, they need to find another group, not complain about it.

Well duh, that's why I talk about player preference.

But if you wrote a story that your audience doesn't like, it doesn't matter whether it's for subjective or objective reasons, you've failed as a writer or as a DM. How that failure is resolved, be it the players leaving, the DM rewriting his campaign or whatever does nothing to change that fact.


As for definitions of fallacies: I'm no expert, but saying "because the sky is blue, the grass must be green" when talking about the planet Xorb is clearly some manner of logical error - premise and conclusion are unrelated. Whether it's technically a fallacy is not really the point. It's a logical error and deserves to be pointed out as one. Similarly, the "historical accuracy" issue is a logical error. I completely 100% agree with the article's Texas analogy, because that's exactly how bad I see the "arguing from historical accuracy" approach.

That's not the fallacy as he describes it, and what he describes is not a logical error. Errors in logic are fallacies, and what he describes is not any that I recognize. I know most, but not all and he hasn't phrased his position well enough for me to properly deconstruct it to determine if it is simply an existing logical error so it is possible that he is alluding to a fallacy of some sort. Given how it's framed however, I can't see how his position could be considered logical. Rather to the contrary, his position is ultimately that I can't dislike something because reasons. That's clearly nonsense no matter what those reasons are, I'm allowed to dislike whatever I want to.

Knaight
2015-06-15, 03:52 PM
We've all had those players at our table. The ones who are prone to saying "Well actually...this is how it really happened." How do other DM's handle these players? In my personal opinion, unless it's a historically accurate game, it's not worth a debate, but my players don't always agree.

This really only comes up in games which are supposed to either be historical or pull from history heavily, so running fantasy which isn't hugely derivative of a particular historical period, science fiction, or similar can work. The other option is to just select bits of history you know better than anyone else at the table. This also deals with setting lawyering for fictional worlds, scientific accuracy, so on and so forth. Pick something that you have the best knowledge of, pitch that game, and your problems go away.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-15, 04:13 PM
We've all had those players at our table. The ones who are prone to saying "Well actually...this is how it really happened." How do other DM's handle these players? In my personal opinion, unless it's a historically accurate game, it's not worth a debate, but my players don't always agree.

Do you have an example? I know it's come up, just can't think when.

BRC
2015-06-15, 04:25 PM
That's not the fallacy as he describes it, and what he describes is not a logical error. Errors in logic are fallacies, and what he describes is not any that I recognize. I know most, but not all and he hasn't phrased his position well enough for me to properly deconstruct it to determine if it is simply an existing logical error so it is possible that he is alluding to a fallacy of some sort. Given how it's framed however, I can't see how his position could be considered logical. Rather to the contrary, his position is ultimately that I can't dislike something because reasons. That's clearly nonsense no matter what those reasons are, I'm allowed to dislike whatever I want to.
There's no real strong single definition of "Fallacy", but it's generally an argument that relies on unsound logic.

Example: "The coin is fairly balanced. The Coin has come up heads the last five times. Therefore, the Coin will come up tails the next five times" is an argument based on a Fallacy (The Gambler's Fallacy).

In this case, The argument is "<Fictional Setting> is based on <Real World Setting>. X was true in <Real World Setting>, therefore X MUST be true in <Fictional Setting>".
This argument is not true, especially when it comes to tabletop games, where the exact details of the Setting are written by the setting authors (Assuming a published setting is used), and by the GM at the table, with the GM's word being final.
Note that the key word there is Must.
Consider the following situation: We're playing a game of DnD, set in your standard "Vaguely medieval Europe" Fantasy setting.
The Party is walking through the countryside. I describe them passing a Pumpkin field.
"WAIT!" says one of the players. "Pumpkins are native to north america! They didn't have pumpkins in Medieval Europe!"
Which would be an excellent point if this game was set in medieval europe, instead of in a fantastical world, one part of which resembled Medieval Europe. I, as the GM, have declared that there is a Pumpkin field over there, therefore there is a pumpkin field over there.

My setting is based on medieval Europe. There were no pumpkins in Medieval Europe. This does not mean that my setting cannot have pumpkins.

Arbane
2015-06-15, 04:27 PM
If the game is actually set in real-world history (like, say, the 1920's in Call of Cthulhu), this is a potentially a legitimate complaint. (I say "potentially" because it's also an excuse to make life miserable for anyone playing a character who's not a wealthy caucasian male.)

If it's set in Fantasyland, I recommend just pointing out "we also have elves and DRAGONS."

Oh, and a third case where this can happen: Running a game set in a detailed but imaginary setting, like Star Trek. The best solution I've heard for that is to tell the players before the game starts "this is a divergent universe, so not everything happened the same way."

Ruslan
2015-06-15, 04:37 PM
Consider the following situation: We're playing a game of DnD, set in your standard "Vaguely medieval Europe" Fantasy setting.
The Party is walking through the countryside. I describe them passing a Pumpkin field.
"WAIT!" says one of the players. "Pumpkins are native to north america! They didn't have pumpkins in Medieval Europe!"
The term appropriate to the situation is cognitive dissonance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance). Everything the player gets to experience and hear about tells them "medieval Europe". The player settles into an "I'm in medieval Europe" mode. The DM didn't say "we're in medieval Europe", but everything the player experiences, tells him he is. The player builds a set of expectations in his mind. Suddenly, pumpkins. The player's mind can't handle the disconnect. He wishes to go back to the image he built in his brain. He does so by arguing against the pumpkins. The pumpkins need to go.

Who's at fault here? Well, let's not point fingers, but the DM could have done a better job emphasizing the fantasy aspect of the world - the fact the world is made-up, and not actual medieval Europe.

Basically, the players should encounter more made-up elements than just one pumpkin. Gnomish shopkeepers. Drakes flying overhead. Elvish nobles. Tentacles of some monster poking out of the sewer. Rumors of the prince being a demon in disguise. Comets in the sky as omens of terrible things to come. These things should not only exist in the world, but be mentioned often enough.

If the DM wants a made-up fantasy world, he should make it fantastic. If he makes it "just like medieval Europe except pumpkins", no wonder his players suffer from a disconnect.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 04:37 PM
There's no real strong single definition of "Fallacy", but it's generally an argument that relies on unsound logic.

Example: "The coin is fairly balanced. The Coin has come up heads the last five times. Therefore, the Coin will come up tails the next five times" is an argument based on a Fallacy (The Gambler's Fallacy).

In this case, The argument is "<Fictional Setting> is based on <Real World Setting>. X was true in <Real World Setting>, therefore X MUST be true in <Fictional Setting>".
This argument is not true, especially when it comes to tabletop games, where the exact details of the Setting are written by the setting authors (Assuming a published setting is used), and by the GM at the table, with the GM's word being final.
Note that the key word there is Must.
Consider the following situation: We're playing a game of DnD, set in your standard "Vaguely medieval Europe" Fantasy setting.
The Party is walking through the countryside. I describe them passing a Pumpkin field.
"WAIT!" says one of the players. "Pumpkins are native to north america! They didn't have pumpkins in Medieval Europe!"
Which would be an excellent point if this game was set in medieval europe, instead of in a fantastical world, one part of which resembled Medieval Europe. I, as the GM, have declared that there is a Pumpkin field over there, therefore there is a pumpkin field over there.

My setting is based on medieval Europe. There were no pumpkins in Medieval Europe. This does not mean that my setting cannot have pumpkins.

I didn't get that as his argument, though I would agree that that form would be fallacious.

His form of it is that the fallacy as used is "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it is therefore perfectly reasonable to argue for or against certain elements being included in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which is poorly formulated, but isn't like what you posted there. His statement includes the term "reasonable to argue". His form is not "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it must include elements in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which I would agree is flawed. As he has written it however, he is absolutely wrong about his position, it is reasonable to argue against it to get that result, as whether or not a setting adheres more or less to history is a matter of preference, and what is or is not reasonable to attain that goal is not related to logic in this context.

Your form of his argument would be an illicit minor formal fallacy, which is trivial in this case, but that's not what he presents. It's pretty obvious that no one "has to" adhere to historical accuracy. If that were the case, this post wouldn't even exist as no one could have even created a fictional setting. It's better in this context to assume that he has written his form of the fallacy as he actually wrote it since no one ever makes the claim that you have made. You cannot derive from that argument any certainty about whether or not they should or should not do something based on subjective value.

BRC
2015-06-15, 04:53 PM
I didn't get that as his argument, though I would agree that that form would be fallacious.

His form of it is that the fallacy as used is "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it is therefore perfectly reasonable to argue for or against certain elements being included in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which is poorly formulated, but isn't like what you posted there. His statement includes the term "reasonable to argue". His form is not "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it must include elements in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which I would agree is flawed. As he has written it however, he is absolutely wrong about his position, it is reasonable to argue against it to get that result, as whether or not a setting adheres more or less to history is a matter of preference, and what is or is not reasonable to attain that goal is not related to logic in this context.

It depends what he means by "Perfectly reasonable to argue". What he probably means is "Provides evidence for".
So, "Westeros is based on Medieval Europe. Medieval Europe had no pumpkins. This is evidence that Westeros does not have pumpkins"

Which is false. Westeros may or may not have pumpkins independent of whether or not pumpkins existed in medieval Europe.
The thing to remember about a fallacy is that just because something conforms to a fallacy does not mean it is untrue, or even invalid. Compare these arguments.

"In Medieval Europe there were no Pumpkins. This setting is based on medieval europe, that provides evidence that this setting does not have pumpkins"
and
"In medieval Europe, suits of plate armor were very expensive to make, required training to use, and assistance to put on and take off. Therefore, suits of plate armor were used almost exclusively by wealthy noble knights who could afford such armor and the training needed to use it. This setting is based on Medieval Europe, this provides evidence that suits of plate armor are used almost exclusively by wealthy nobles."

The former argument is flawed, the latter is not. Assuming that things like landed gentry, the challenge involved in making plate armor, and the training needed to wear said armor remain consistent across both Medieval Europe and this setting, it makes sense.

Although, in this case what the argument actually is is "Suits of plate armor are difficult to make (Therefore very expensive) and use. Wealth is concentrated within the nobility. Therefore, plate armor is used almost exclusively by the nobility", the similarity to Medieval Europe is mostly coincidental, except that it brings over a few details like suits of plate being expensive and wealth being concentrated in the Nobility.

If we had a setting where magical factories could churn out suits of full plate at a rate of a dozen an hour, then we might be seeing common footsoldiers using full plate, regardless of how much the rest of the setting resembles medieval europe.

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 04:54 PM
I didn't get that as his argument, though I would agree that that form would be fallacious.

His form of it is that the fallacy as used is "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it is therefore perfectly reasonable to argue for or against certain elements being included in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which is poorly formulated, but isn't like what you posted there. His statement includes the term "reasonable to argue". His form is not "Because this game/book/movie bears a passing resemblance to our world’s myths or history it must include elements in order to make this game/book/movie more like history." which I would agree is flawed. As he has written it however, he is absolutely wrong about his position, it is reasonable to argue against it to get that result, as whether or not a setting adheres more or less to history is a matter of preference, and what is or is not reasonable to attain that goal is not related to logic in this context.

Your argument would be an illicit minor formal fallacy, which is trivial in this case, but that's not what he presents. It's pretty obvious that no one "has to" adhere to historical accuracy. If that were the case, this post wouldn't even exist as no one could have even created a fictional setting. You cannot derive from that argument any certainty about whether or not they should or should not do something based on subjective value.

Eh.... it's more a wording mistake on the author's part, I think. Let's take a recognized fallacy and apply his approach.

Ad hominem: This fallacy is believing that attacking a debater's character is a valid counterargument.

So, technically, yeah, that's not the fallacy - attacking the debater's character in place of their argument is the fallacy. But the point should be clear. Same deal here.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 05:27 PM
It depends what he means by "Perfectly reasonable to argue". What he probably means is "Provides evidence for".
So, "Westeros is based on Medieval Europe. Medieval Europe had no pumpkins. This is evidence that Westeros does not have pumpkins"

Which is false. Westeros may or may not have pumpkins independent of whether or not pumpkins existed in medieval Europe.
The thing to remember about a fallacy is that just because something conforms to a fallacy does not mean it is untrue, or even invalid. Compare these arguments.

"In Medieval Europe there were no Pumpkins. This setting is based on medieval europe, that provides evidence that this setting does not have pumpkins"
and
"In medieval Europe, suits of plate armor were very expensive to make, required training to use, and assistance to put on and take off. Therefore, suits of plate armor were used almost exclusively by wealthy noble knights who could afford such armor and the training needed to use it. This setting is based on Medieval Europe, this provides evidence that suits of plate armor are used almost exclusively by wealthy nobles."

The former argument is flawed, the latter is not. Assuming that things like landed gentry, the challenge involved in making plate armor, and the training needed to wear said armor remain consistent across both Medieval Europe and this setting, it makes sense.


As posited, both arguments are actually identical. Both settings being similar does actually provide evidence that an element from 1 is the same or similar in the other setting. It can't prove that that is the case, it only provides that evidence. What those elements are, and that one has a collection of elements instead of just one element is irrelevant in terms of logical validity.

Fallacies and logic care about the form of an argument more than they care about the specific premises. The premise of an argument can lead to an informal fallacy and you could argue he's trying to formulate an informal fallacy. I'd argue that his form of that isn't inherently fallacious however, one can reasonably argue that two similar things should share traits.


h.... it's more a wording mistake on the author's part, I think. Let's take a recognized fallacy and apply his approach.

Ad hominem: This fallacy is believing that attacking a debater's character is a valid counterargument.

So, technically, yeah, that's not the fallacy - attacking the debater's character in place of their argument is the fallacy. But the point should be clear. Same deal here.

That doesn't really work here, since as I pointed out, the harder interpretation which is that it should be "anything which has similarity to a historical setting must adhere to that historical setting" is irrelevant, no one is positing that something which is anachronistic is impossible. Any weaker form of this argument whatsoever however, cannot be considered a fallacious argument, especially since whether or not historical accuracy and verisimilitude are good is subjective, for certain audience's, the medium absolutely should adhere to historical accuracy.

I don't mind his opinion too much, but he shouldn't condescendingly talk about fallacies and logic only to go on and misuse them to push forward his personal opinion on the matter.

Mr Beer
2015-06-15, 06:08 PM
Never really had a major problem with this but 99% of my games are set in a fantasy world so if they can get past the giant firebreathing flying reptiles, they can shut the hell up about incorrect interpretations of the feudal system's minutiae or whatever.

The article is correct in stating that this is a fallacy in a non-historical setting. If it's a 'real' historical setting and not an alternate timeline or whatever, it can be a legitimate complaint and the GM will then need to deal with it.

Thrudd
2015-06-15, 06:22 PM
There are different sorts of "historical" arguments some of which a player might be justified in presenting, others not.

They have no right to question what sort of things you chose to place in your setting, unless you are using a specific real world historical place and time as the setting. You can have anachronistic things in your setting.

However, arguments about the functioning of something that is in your setting could possibly have more merit.

If you say: there's this trireme warship, and you can operate it with five people...it would be understandable if someone questioned you about that.

If your game has plate armor, a thing that exists in the real world, descriptions of how such armor functions might be expected to adhere to its real world counterpart unless you specifically explain why it is otherwise (like all plate armor is magical or is made of fantasy metal or something).

Jay R
2015-06-15, 07:45 PM
How do I handle such people?

I cherish them for having passion for the game. I mine them for ideas that might work. And I sometime ask them how what I want to do can be justified, and they almost always come up with an explanation that works.

I very rarely have to tell them, "That's not true in this world. Your character doesn't know why, but he doesn't have that assumption in his background." But I never, never, never argue with or belittle their ideas.

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 10:07 PM
one can reasonably argue that two similar things should share traits.

This is our disagreement. I hold that, barring some other, independent, agreed-upon reason, the mere fact that they are similar is fundamentally no grounds at all (and completely unreasonable) for arguing that they should share any given specific trait.


They have no right to question what sort of things you chose to place in your setting, unless you are using a specific real world historical place and time as the setting. You can have anachronistic things in your setting.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 10:14 PM
This is our disagreement. I hold that, barring some other, independent, agreed-upon reason, the mere fact that they are similar is fundamentally no grounds at all (and completely unreasonable) for arguing that they should share any given specific trait.

The important element that you are ignoring is the word "should". You said it yourself, whether or not anachronisms are acceptable is subjective. You cannot state that the position is wrong unless anachronisms are objectively good under all circumstances. If they aren't, arguing against them is rational if they are something which you find offensive, which as a subjective element, you can.

That's why the entire position that his opinion is logical falls flat. He has an opinion, he's entitled to it, but he is absolutely not positing a logical position or coining any semblance of a real fallacy.

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 10:20 PM
The important element that you are ignoring is the word "should". You said it yourself, whether or not anachronisms are acceptable is subjective. You cannot state that the position is wrong unless anachronisms are objectively good under all circumstances. If they aren't, arguing against them is rational if they are something which you find offensive, which as a subjective element, you can.

That's why the entire position that his opinion is logical falls flat. He has an opinion, he's entitled to it, but he is absolutely not positing a logical position or coining any semblance of a real fallacy.

Should=must, but carries with it a sense of obligation. Should is the must of a conversation where what is perceived as what "must be" by one is presented as what is not "is" by another.

Yukitsu
2015-06-15, 10:41 PM
Should=must, but carries with it a sense of obligation. Should is the must of a conversation where what is perceived as what "must be" by one is presented as what is not "is" by another.

Not if you're talking about fallacies or logic. An example, "X must be Y" is dramatically not equal to "X should be Y".

An example, the setting must be historically accurate.
Clearly not true. He could instead kill all of his players. This statement is therefore false.

The setting should be historically accurate.
That should have been his solution, but he instead killed all of his players. This remains true so long as he should have made the setting historically accurate.
In a less extreme light, you could note that he could instead have done any number of things. He could have kept the course alienating any players that like historical accuracy.

Should is to be used in any situation where other actions are possible but where there is a course of action which can fix a problem. Technically, "should" is just short hand for:

The DM wants to create a setting the players enjoy
The players enjoy historical accuracy
The DM will do what the players enjoy
Therefore, the DM will create a setting with historical accuracy

If the third premise is false, the DM will not do what the players enjoy, then obviously the statement falls flat but that would be because a premise is false. Not because there is a fallacy.

Both should include an "if the audience dislikes anachronisms" but that's redundant in this context, as that subjective value is guaranteed if the argument is being made.

I don't particularly think you need to be defending his blog post. The issue I take with him is his talk about logic and fallacies being used incorrectly. His actual opinion about being a stickler about history isn't logical, but it's something a lot of people prefer regardless, but being sanctimoniously atop some high box and calling the position logical and the opposition fallacious is arrogance rather than anything clever.

Fiery Diamond
2015-06-15, 11:46 PM
I see. I apologize, we don't disagree to the extent that I thought and I misunderstood your beef with the article.

My opinion on the topic, which I think is the same as his, is that not all opinions and expressions of opinion are created equal. Using the word "should" in an argument for or against something carries with it a claim of authoritativeness; someone using "should" essentially is claiming that their opinion is not merely their opinion, but some sort of higher truth. People (usually) don't mean "I would prefer it if [fill in the blank]" when they say "[fill in the blank] should be the case!" That might be what's actually true, but that's not what they mean. They mean "[fill in the blank] not being the case is wrong/bad/incorrect/etc., while [fill in the blank] being the case is right/good/correct/etc.," which is an assertion of fact, not a statement of opinion - and people say these things about subjective topics, not just objective ones! (I mean, one could argue that all values are subjective, but that's a philosophy debate I'd not touch with a ten foot pole.)

Consider the following two "arguments" made by a hypothetical baseball fan. A batter slides into home plate, and the catcher catches the ball and tags him. The ref makes the call - "OUT!"

Fan A: What?! I saw it, the batter touched the base before he got touched by the ball! That should have been safe!

Fan B: What?! That batter was for my team! That should have been safe!

I, and presumably the author of that blog post, would make the following claim: Fan A has a legitimate argument. Fan B does not. Regardless of whether fan B is making an actual logical fallacy, he IS making some kind of inherently wrong mistake, and his argument isn't worth listening to as a result. The blog post writer and I hold that the argument "This fantasyland resembles medieval Europe, so it should be historically accurate!" is, if that is the whole of the argument and there are no other agreed-upon premises that could have been used instead, is just as wrong and worthless an argument as Fan B's argument, from an objective standpoint.

Yukitsu
2015-06-16, 12:14 AM
I see. I apologize, we don't disagree to the extent that I thought and I misunderstood your beef with the article.

My opinion on the topic, which I think is the same as his, is that not all opinions and expressions of opinion are created equal. Using the word "should" in an argument for or against something carries with it a claim of authoritativeness; someone using "should" essentially is claiming that their opinion is not merely their opinion, but some sort of higher truth. People (usually) don't mean "I would prefer it if [fill in the blank]" when they say "[fill in the blank] should be the case!" That might be what's actually true, but that's not what they mean. They mean "[fill in the blank] not being the case is wrong/bad/incorrect/etc., while [fill in the blank] being the case is right/good/correct/etc.," which is an assertion of fact, not a statement of opinion - and people say these things about subjective topics, not just objective ones! (I mean, one could argue that all values are subjective, but that's a philosophy debate I'd not touch with a ten foot pole.)

Consider the following two "arguments" made by a hypothetical baseball fan. A batter slides into home plate, and the catcher catches the ball and tags him. The ref makes the call - "OUT!"

Fan A: What?! I saw it, the batter touched the base before he got touched by the ball! That should have been safe!

Fan B: What?! That batter was for my team! That should have been safe!

I, and presumably the author of that blog post, would make the following claim: Fan A has a legitimate argument. Fan B does not. Regardless of whether fan B is making an actual logical fallacy, he IS making some kind of inherently wrong mistake, and his argument isn't worth listening to as a result. The blog post writer and I hold that the argument "This fantasyland resembles medieval Europe, so it should be historically accurate!" is, if that is the whole of the argument and there are no other agreed-upon premises that could have been used instead, is just as wrong and worthless an argument as Fan B's argument, from an objective standpoint.

I'd actually agree with the first being valid and the second not being valid. The second I think probably reduces down into a sort of argumentum ad populum or some sort of appeal to authority (depending on how he rationalizes it) rather than being based on a measure of fact. If he instead said (erroneously) that "the batter was touched by the catcher before he touched the plate, that play should have been out" his argument would be reasonable even if he was wrong. The same goes when you argue your displeasure of anachronisms. "It's my setting therefore whatever I put in it is what should be there" is just as weak an argument, but just as reasonable as "your audience doesn't like anachronisms, they shouldn't be in there".

At that point, if you have to come to that crossroads, your solution will be preference. Your vision, or your player's verisimilitude. There is no objectively right answer and saying that arguing in favour of verisimilitude is fallacious is a gross misuse of the term.

The problem in this case is that no matter how you interpret his supposed fallacy, none of them actually produce a logical fallacy. The argument necessitates an unstated premise, that being that an effected party subjectively dislikes the anachronistic content (otherwise there would be no argument). Therefore, there is rational reason why anachronisms should not be included in the story or game. There may be stronger arguments that can be formulated that can support anachronisms in the game, but the argument against them are still reasonable.

Xyk
2015-06-16, 12:46 AM
As a DM, I am the world's greatest expert on the world I designed. This never comes up in my group, but I guess it might if I ever played a real-world campaign. I'd probably go with the "this world is very similar to Earth but is not exactly the same, so some history is different."

sktarq
2015-06-16, 01:06 AM
I. Know for me one of the biggest problems in this field is when those things that are similar and those that are not have problematic logical linkages. Where what is missing is implied by the presence of the other because they have a causal link. Like finding grain mills-implies that there are crops to mill. If there are no crops then asking why there are mills seems reasonable. Same with a place with tons of weapon-smith but no army guards or other customer base or any number of other less obvious links. Or even Showed horses, implied stables, grooms, feed stores, probable farriers, tack makers, ranches-lots of horses implies use as draft animals, considerable land given over to the purpose, probably ability to ride and cavalry. Sadly many of those who run games and who change things (fine) fails to logically map out the consequences of that change (potentially problematic)

Kami2awa
2015-06-16, 02:42 AM
Through running games like Call of Cthulhu and In Nomine, I've used historical settings a lot. I do as much research as online sources allow (wikipedia is great for that) but I'm sure I get things wrong. On occasion I've chucked out real details of the setting, like the fact that many Wild West towns actually banned carrying guns within the town, [1] because they made the game less interesting and would possibly have been annoying to the players. I also write some fanfiction with historical settings and try to keep it accurate.

However, I'd say that, as with everything, if you spot historical innaccuracy in your GM's game, by all means mention it but don't be a **** about it, and don't disrupt the game. Everyone knows more than someone else about something, be it history, science, or whatever - and the GM is writing a game, not a thesis.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/did-the-wild-west-have-mo_b_956035.html

Aedilred
2015-06-16, 12:18 PM
I think there is a difference in this respect between a relatively independent setting element and the behaviour of elements within the setting, and in my experience it tends to be the latter that causes the problems. The pumpkins example earlier, for instance: while some players might complain, if it's a fantasy setting then it's really just something that's been inserted, like dragons. You don't want to do it too liberally, perhaps, but it's part of the setting all the same and one of the identifiable differences that can fairly easily be mentally maintained.

The problem comes with things like the following, usually themselves rooted in some kind of historical misconception, and I encounter it much more frequently than the "pumpkins" type of scenario:

"The iron sword easily cleaves your bronze sword in half".
"Your plate armour is useless against the arquebus".
"Your armour is far too heavy for you to mount your horse without assistance".

A well-informed player could challenge each of these on the basis that that's not how such things actually worked. I don't think the "you swallowed the dragons but not this?" defence really works here, because there's no reason to suppose that bronze and iron have changed their properties relative to each other just because there's a dragon, or that the people on this world are so inexplicably stupid that knights there wear armour they can't move in.

Related, but not quite the same, would be where you have something that borrows historical trappings but retains relatively little of the substance, such as where you might have a fantasy guild that operates nothing like an actual guild. Maybe for an obvious fantasy institution like a wizard's guild or a rogue's guild that's not so much of a problem, but when it's a merchant's guild that's the sort of thing that's going to cause confusion to any player who knows anything about historical guilds.

In general, if you lift something straight from history and plonk it into your world without making it clear what the differences are, players with existing historical knowledge on that subject are going to be confused and potentially annoyed when things then don't work as they would expect from that knowledge, and I don't think the player would be wrong to say so.

Talakeal
2015-06-16, 01:36 PM
It is even worse when it is the DM. Mine is constantly banning or changing things in game wit no warning to be more "historically accurate" or, worse, to be more true to real life legends. It is very frustrating.

This is compounded by the fact that he generally has no idea what he is talking about. For example, he insists that the concept of the undead and poisoned weapons were not invented until the mid nineteenth century and thus are not allowed in his PF game. I guess he had never heard of Hamlet, which was written several hundred years earlier and features both...

Arbane
2015-06-16, 10:29 PM
It is even worse when it is the DM. Mine is constantly banning or changing things in game wit no warning to be more "historically accurate" or, worse, to be more true to real life legends. It is very frustrating.

Tia is compounded by the fact that he generally has no idea what he is talking about. For example, he insists that the concept of the undead and poisoned weapons were not invented until the mid nineteenth century and thus are not allowed in his PF game. I guess he had never heard of Hamlet, which was written several hundred hears earlier and features both...

Seriously? :smallamused: The concept of the dead coming back to devour the living can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, never mind Shakespeare. And poisoned weapons have been used (in hunting, if not warfare) at least as long.

Tell him if he wants "historical accuracy", he needs to learn history first.

Aspiration
2015-06-16, 11:27 PM
Not much of a DM yet, but as one of those players in question, I'd suggest one thing. Identify whether they actually want the game to conform to their ideas of historical accuracy, or if they're just being know-it-alls. A simple "yes, Bob, you're the history expert, but that's not the case in my campaign" seems a lot more likely to resolve the issue than arguing with them, either way.

Solaris
2015-06-18, 05:55 PM
Trying to tell me that a fantasy game ought to adhere to notions of historical accuracy is not a good way to go. This is speaking as a history buff, mind; the one time I encountered this ("There weren't any guns in medieval Europe!" was the crux of his argument) I dismissed it with a "Yes there were" and refused to entertain further debate on the subject.
Logical consistency is good. Historical accuracy is not so good unless we're in an explicitly historical game. Nitpicking over details is bad because it's taking time away from the rest of the players who'd much rather be doing something interesting than sitting through history class.

If someone gets really bent out of shape about historical accuracy, I have two words for them: Bubonic plague.
Roll them Fort saves, biznatch.

Keltest
2015-06-18, 05:57 PM
It is even worse when it is the DM. Mine is constantly banning or changing things in game wit no warning to be more "historically accurate" or, worse, to be more true to real life legends. It is very frustrating.

Tia is compounded by the fact that he generally has no idea what he is talking about. For example, he insists that the concept of the undead and poisoned weapons were not invented until the mid nineteenth century and thus are not allowed in his PF game. I guess he had never heard of Hamlet, which was written several hundred years earlier and features both...

Is there anything your DM doesn't do poorly?

Solaris
2015-06-18, 05:59 PM
Is there anything your DM doesn't do poorly?

He seems alarmingly skilled at retaining players.

Talakeal
2015-06-18, 06:05 PM
He seems alarmingly skilled at retaining players.

Yeah, I was wondering about that the other day. Everyone on GitP tells me to get out and get out quick, but none of the other players in the group even question him, let alone leave.

Keltest
2015-06-18, 06:24 PM
Yeah, I was wondering about that the other day. Everyone on GitP tells me to get out and get out quick, but none of the other players in the group even question him, let alone leave.

Have you talked with them in private? I would be willing to bet they feel similarly to you.

D+1
2015-06-18, 06:49 PM
How do other DM's handle these players?
A calm but VERY firmly stated, "I DO NOT CARE. Now, moving on with the game..." has always been sufficient. I would suggest that if it isn't then the player probably ought to run his own game world - DO NOT ever let players run yours if you are the DM.

Anxe
2015-06-18, 06:53 PM
The campaign that I run and the campaign that I play in within my gaming group are both based off of historical periods that I'm an amateur historian in. My campaign is ~400BCE in a fantasy geography area northeast of Turkey. I know a lot about what's going on in the rest of the world, but we usually ignore it by staying in the area northeast of Turkey. I (and to a lesser extent, my players) decide what counts as accurate in the fantasy geography. Outside of that area I try to be as historically accurate as possible. Obviously, I can't find everything and when my players find stuff I'll roll with it and change the story to what they said or I won't because my idea is better than the historical facts.

My friend's campaign that I play in is set in the Aegean Sea ~1500BCE. Crete was expanding to subjugate the Aegean islands during this period. Only now Crete is an island inhabited by militaristic goblins! The Cretan civilization was destroyed by pirates of some kind (it's suspected that the Dorian Greeks are descended from these pirates). Our adventuring party and a second villain group called the Red Skull closely match what the pirates were like. There are similarities, but there are also obvious anachronisms. The goblins have amazingly advanced ships for this period, but that's what's needed for a simple voyage to a different island to not be a shipwreck 1/4 of the time. We've got plate armor which certainly wasn't around during that period, but D&D 3.5 was designed to be balanced with Full Plate for classes that have Heavy Armor Proficiency.

Overall, we try to be historically accurate when we can, but we aren't upset when we break from it. My campaign is not meant to be a historical simulation at all, but I bring accurate elements in when I can. My friend's campaign is more a reenactment of Marvel comic book stories than a historical simulation. And we've got goblins and elves and dragons and magic. Why can't we have things be different if we want?

It's definitely a collective decision though (that's guided by the DM). I know more about the setting for my friend's campaign. When we come to something that he doesn't have an immediate answer for I'll say, "It was like this in the real world." He can accept that explanation or reject it and come up with something of his own.

Separate point I wanted to make! the historical version of something is different than the actual version. Example, the "Historical Alexander" didn't sleep with his friend Hephaestion. Did the "Real Alexander" have sex with Hephaestion? Up to the DM to decide if you're basing something in that period.

TheCountAlucard
2015-06-18, 08:00 PM
Seriously? :smallamused:Seriously. This ain't even in the top ten.


Tell him if he wants "historical accuracy", he needs to learn history first.There's about a thousand things Tal's DM needs to improve first, with "being a decent human being" up near the top.

Mr Beer
2015-06-18, 08:04 PM
It is even worse when it is the DM. Mine is constantly banning or changing things in game wit no warning to be more "historically accurate" or, worse, to be more true to real life legends. It is very frustrating.

This is compounded by the fact that he generally has no idea what he is talking about. For example, he insists that the concept of the undead and poisoned weapons were not invented until the mid nineteenth century and thus are not allowed in his PF game. I guess he had never heard of Hamlet, which was written several hundred years earlier and features both...

What an idiot...extant stone age cultures use venomous arrow heads for hunting purposes and as for the dead coming back to life, I suspect that every single known human culture has at least some myths along those lines.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-19, 11:48 AM
A GMs job is to have fun with his players, not to belittle them when they start arguing with him.



They have no right to question what sort of things you chose to place in your setting, unless you are using a specific real world historical place and time as the setting.

They have every right to question things, they're your friends not your servants. They're not even your audience, they're fellow performers.

One player shouldn't waste other players time by constantly nitpicking things the other players don't care about but that's a different issue.

One thing that historical nitpickers should always keep in mind is that anachronisms happened in real life. Some places were ahead of their time, other places were behind it.


I
Although, in this case what the argument actually is is "Suits of plate armor are difficult to make (Therefore very expensive) and use. Wealth is concentrated within the nobility. Therefore, plate armor is used almost exclusively by the nobility", the similarity to Medieval Europe is mostly coincidental, except that it brings over a few details like suits of plate being expensive and wealth being concentrated in the Nobility.

Plate Armour wasn't used almost exclusively by the nobility. All armies were led by noblemen who bought armour for their non-noble troops because there weren't enough nobles to make decent sized units of heavy cavalry but plate wasn't so expensive that you couldn't have lots of heavy cavalry.

We have factories today and armour is still rare and expensive with lots of soldiers going into combat without it.


What an idiot...extant stone age cultures use venomous arrow heads for hunting purposes and as for the dead coming back to life, I suspect that every single known human culture has at least some myths along those lines.

Use of poisonous weapons requires access to poisons, its not a chronological issue its a geographical one. The Stone Age only really works in a European context as a concept and there are no such poisons available in Europe.

Hunters in the amazon with poisoned stone darts doesn't tell you that Europeans with stone headed spears would have used poison.

A fantasy world full of poisonous monsters would naturally result in more poisoned weapons than any real world society.

It would be an inconstant setting if the DM wouldn't let his players buy poison for their weapons because "it wasn't available in medieval Europe" despite this being a medieval Europe with Wyverns flying around.

Poisoned weapons weren't used in Ancient Greece but Heracles still had his hydra blood coated arrows.

Yukitsu
2015-06-19, 11:55 AM
Plate Armour wasn't used almost exclusively by the nobility. All armies were led by noblemen who bought armour for their non-noble troops because there weren't enough nobles to make decent sized units of heavy cavalry but plate wasn't so expensive that you couldn't have lots of heavy cavalry.

We have factories today and armour is still rare and expensive with lots of soldiers going into combat without it.

Most men weren't armoured with the articulated full plate, most men were armoured with munitions grade plate armour which wasn't made of the same hardened steel and which didn't cover as well as the really well made plate armour. They also weren't individually fitted. While munitions grade plate is plate armour, it's not what people are usually talking about when they are talking about how plate armour is extremely expensive.

warty goblin
2015-06-19, 12:01 PM
Usually I remind myself to shut the hell up already; nobody else cares about why that picture is an incorrect representation of the Argive shield grip. Unless they ask me, in which case I consider that permission to go ahead and tell 'em.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-19, 12:06 PM
Most men weren't armoured with the articulated full plate,

Nobody ever said 'most men'. They said 'nobles only' which isn't true, heavy infantry and cavalry were never made up entirely of knights and nobles. Most heavy cavalry had some form of plate armour in time periods when anyone did, heavy cavalry were never the majority of the army unless you're Poland in that one battle where they were taking the piss and sent most of their infantry home.

Articulated plate is mostly a post-medieval thing anyway, but that's not the point here.

Any adventurer going around in plate armour is stupid. It requires servants to properly care for it, it tires you out if you wear it for too long. Even those with the wealth to afford plate wouldn't take it with them on a quest. We can of course solve that with magic but most players don't bother to.

Yukitsu
2015-06-19, 12:22 PM
Nobody ever said 'most men'. They said 'nobles only' which isn't true, heavy infantry and cavalry were never made up entirely of knights and nobles. Most heavy cavalry had some form of plate armour in time periods when anyone did, heavy cavalry were never the majority of the army unless you're Poland in that one battle where they were taking the piss and sent most of their infantry home.

Most cavalry and heavy infantry also weren't armoured in well made plate armour. A man at arms would have to have had tremendous wealth (or more realistically a mercenary) to afford himself a suit of articulated plate, it was extremely uncommon on anyone other than a noble or wealthy knight. Munitions grade plate was also invented fairly late medieval period. Neither existed until well after gun powder saw the battle field, but at the very least heavy infantry were often seen in munitions grade plate which isn't what BRC was likely talking about.

Lord Torath
2015-06-19, 01:10 PM
Nobody ever said 'most men'. They said *snip*.

Most cavalry and heavy infantry also weren't *snip*What do you say we take this discussion here: Got a Real World Weapon Armor or Tactics Question Mk XVIII (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?421723-Got-a-Real-World-Weapon-Armor-or-Tactics-Question-Mk-XVIII)?

I'm with those who say, "Okay, you got me. It's not historically accurate, but that's the way it is in this campaign." Unless I think it's an idea that will make the game more fun and interesting, in which case I'll roll with it.

Solaris
2015-06-19, 05:09 PM
I'm with those who say, "Okay, you got me. It's not historically accurate, but that's the way it is in this campaign." Unless I think it's an idea that will make the game more fun and interesting, in which case I'll roll with it.

It's been my experience that nitpickers who come up with anything that improves the game for anyone but themselves are only slightly less rare than unicorns.

Takewo
2015-06-19, 05:20 PM
How do I handle such people?

I cherish them for having passion for the game. I mine them for ideas that might work. And I sometime ask them how what I want to do can be justified, and they almost always come up with an explanation that works.

I very rarely have to tell them, "That's not true in this world. Your character doesn't know why, but he doesn't have that assumption in his background." But I never, never, never argue with or belittle their ideas.

And I think this is the wisest outlook that you can have on the issue, so I'll say no more about it.

I will say something on the side of the "historical correct" people, nonetheless. Things don't just happen for no reason in our world. In the same way, they shouldn't in our created worlds (well, or maybe they should, everyone is free to do whatever they want with their fantasy games.) If the most capable weapon you have is a broad sword, there is no reason for your world to have plate armours. Mail is perfectly capable to stop any blow from any weapon in your world. Having people use sword and shield in a plate armour is not just an anachronism, it doesn't make sense because there is little reason to carry a shield if you're wearing a plate armour (yes, I know that some writings of the Battle of Agincourt describe people wearing plate and shield, that could be because they were facing English bowmen or for whatever other reason that historians can't figure out, I'm using it as an example, not as the perfect example, and most historians do agree that shields were outdated by the time there were plate armours.)

Arbane
2015-06-19, 06:15 PM
If someone gets really bent out of shape about historical accuracy, I have two words for them: Bubonic plague.
Roll them Fort saves, biznatch.

Don't forget hepatitis and wound infections! :smallamused:

Maglubiyet
2015-06-19, 06:39 PM
If the most capable weapon you have is a broad sword, there is no reason for your world to have plate armours. Mail is perfectly capable to stop any blow from any weapon in your world. Having people use sword and shield in a plate armour is not just an anachronism, it doesn't make sense because there is little reason to carry a shield if you're wearing a plate armour

Maybe in our history that was true, but Earth didn't have ogres, wyverns, and dwarven crossbows. Who knows what weird combinations and technical innovations would occur in the presence of giants, demons, and magical enchantments?

hiryuu
2015-06-19, 10:18 PM
I would also be curious to hear from people who have ran games based off of historical events. Unless you're a subject matter expert it's kind of hard to not break the historical accuracy at least I would think. At the same time, I don't consider myself extremely knowledgeable in history, to the point where I would feel comfortable creating a story out of it. I think that's where the safety net of fantasy comes in because how lenient you can be with your story.

I'm currently running a Demon: the Descent game set in Japan, around the 1580s/90s. Plan is to get them to converge on Sekigahara, and I'm inserting details that will hopefully make them realize they're not the only ones mucking with time.

And yeah, keep having to teach myself more Japanese history than I thought I'd needed to know.

Winter_Wolf
2015-06-19, 10:53 PM
For my money, unless the activity is a historical reenactment, then "historically correct" is really a guideline at most, a footnote more commonly, and completely ignored quite often. If I'm playing a fantasy game, or even a game based on history, then it's really just a reference point and not THE point of the game for me. I don't do historical reenactments (hats off to those who do and enjoy it, power to ya) so historical accuracy/correctness are just tidbits of info that may or may not make the team, as it were.

Takewo
2015-06-20, 04:51 AM
Maybe in our history that was true, but Earth didn't have ogres, wyverns, and dwarven crossbows. Who knows what weird combinations and technical innovations would occur in the presence of giants, demons, and magical enchantments?

Point taken and I must admit it is a very good explanation. Although, in that case, I suppose that better weapons would also have been developed.

Anxe
2015-06-20, 09:20 AM
Point taken and I must admit it is a very good explanation. Although, in that case, I suppose that better weapons would also have been developed.

We call those better weapons +5 Swords in my campaign.

Keltest
2015-06-20, 09:20 AM
Point taken and I must admit it is a very good explanation. Although, in that case, I suppose that better weapons would also have been developed.

They have been. Theyre called "Wizards".

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 10:05 AM
If the game is actually set in real-world history (like, say, the 1920's in Call of Cthulhu), this is a potentially a legitimate complaint. (I say "potentially" because it's also an excuse to make life miserable for anyone playing a character who's not a wealthy caucasian male.)

If it's set in Fantasyland, I recommend just pointing out "we also have elves and DRAGONS."

Countering fallacy with another fallacy is not a good way to go. It does not follow from one break from reality that other breaks of reality are true, necessary, useful, or anything else. If anything, it's usually assumed, and arguably should be assumed, that a fantasy world is alike ours unless otherwise noted, as to allow maximal usage of logic, player knowledge and everyday experience for making decisions. This is a major reason why D&D, for example, heavily draws (or at least used to draw) from real history and real mythology, and why it had humans as the default. To quote Gygax from 1st Edition AD&D, it "provides the most readily used assumptions".

"But Dragons!" hence regularly comes off as an excuse for laziness or to dismiss real-life knowledge of another player. Realism isn't a curseword when attention to detail improves the experience for a player or allows them to have more informed opinions of the game world.

Takewo
2015-06-20, 10:31 AM
We call those better weapons +5 Swords in my campaign.

Which are countered by the +5 Armours and, therefore, there's still no reason to develop a full plate if you've got chain mail.


They have been. Theyre called "Wizards".

So I must assume that the most common hazard a soldier is going to face are hordes of wizards throwing fireballs at him? Then maybe armies are going to be based on dodgy people instead of warriors.

Of course, everything in your world changes if huge monsters, giants and sorcerers are the main dangers. But then, common armies would have been rendered useless long ago and weaponry would have never developed and wars would be fought by wizards while martial characters would have to go around with sticks and bronze weapons because no one would have bothered to develop technology any further.

valadil
2015-06-20, 10:53 AM
I'm gonna paraphrase Rush's drummer, Neil Peart. When he hits the wrong note, it's a mistake. But when he hits that note a second time it becomes jazz.

When my players point out a mistake, I nod or wink and let them think they've uncovered an important clue that I put in the game on purpose. And just because they find an inconsistency doesn't mean they're entitled to an explanation. If they bother to investigate, I'll backfill an explanation later. Usually they don't.

VoxRationis
2015-06-20, 01:50 PM
It does not follow from one break from reality that other breaks of reality are true, necessary, useful, or anything else. ... "But Dragons!" hence regularly comes off as an excuse for laziness or to dismiss real-life knowledge of another player.

May I put this in my signature?

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 02:02 PM
Do as you wish.

Talakeal
2015-06-20, 02:07 PM
Countering fallacy with another fallacy is not a good way to go. It does not follow from one break from reality that other breaks of reality are true, necessary, useful, or anything else. If anything, it's usually assumed, and arguably should be assumed, that a fantasy world is alike ours unless otherwise noted, as to allow maximal usage of logic, player knowledge and everyday experience for making decisions. This is a major reason why D&D, for example, heavily draws (or at least used to draw) from real history and real mythology, and why it had humans as the default. To quote Gygax from 1st Edition AD&D, it "provides the most readily used assumptions".

"But Dragons!" hence regularly comes off as an excuse for laziness or to dismiss real-life knowledge of another player. Realism isn't a curseword when attention to detail improves the experience for a player or allows them to have more informed opinions of the game world.

I have been arguing this exact point for years, but nobody ever seems to listen.

BTW, does this fallacy actually have a name? I was considering trying to give it one and formalize it a few years ago as it seems to be brought up every bit as often as other famous GiTP fallacies such as Oberoni or Stormwind.

VoxRationis
2015-06-20, 02:31 PM
We could call it the GitP Fallacy, for how often it appears here. Or perhaps the Straw Precedent Fallacy, because the first break from reality is used as a precedent to allow future breaks which are unrelated in truth.

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 02:34 PM
It is a non-sequitur ("it does not follow") combined with rhetorical device of dismissal. It also carries in itself shades of false dichtomy (ie. you can only go fully realistic or forget about it. There's no middle ground). If you want to give a name to the specific version seen in RPGs, "but DRAGONS!" works just fine. "If Jesus Then Aliens", to borrow from TV Tropes, works just as well, as it exemplifies a similar irrationality (both as a non-sequitur, as aliens don't follow from Jesus, and as a false dichtomy as it hold that you either have to believe in all sorts of weird things, or believe in none).

Talakeal
2015-06-20, 02:45 PM
It is a non-sequitur ("it does not follow") combined with rhetorical device of dismissal. It also carries in itself shades of false dichtomy (ie. you can only go fully realistic or forget about it. There's no middle ground). If you want to give a name to the specific version seen in RPGs, "but DRAGONS!" works just fine. "If Jesus Then Aliens", to borrow from TV Tropes, works just as well, as it exemplifies a similar irrationality (both as a non-sequitur, as aliens don't follow from Jesus, and as a false dichtomy as it hold that you either have to believe in all sorts of weird things, or believe in none).

Neat; I remember having a similar discussion in my Anthropology class. We watched a couple episodes of X-files and then had a discussion about a lot of the themes discussed on that TV Tropes page, but the title probably skirts board rules a little close, so I would say "...but DRAGONS!" is probably a better name for it.

Beleriphon
2015-06-20, 02:57 PM
I think the largest issue that people have is with the fact that the "historical accuracy" argument is that the people that tend to make those remarks work from really inaccurate views of history. The women were never warriors is of course wrong, but even if it weren't it just makes for a crappy game experience. My response is the response that I have for Gladiator. It is a pretty poor example how history actually played out, but its still a good movie that managed to get the look of everything basically correct. Ridley Scott wasn't trying to make a historically accurate movie, he was trying to make a bitchin' movie about revenge and gladiators.

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 03:13 PM
Maybe, but when the motivation actually is historical accuracy, then you can sway them by correcting them. That's the thing about history and reality in general - there's a body of data to discuss about and use to settle a conflict outside the opinions of two people.

You can also ask yourself: would Gladiator have been as good of a move if it hadn't managed to get the "look of everything basically correct"?

Mr Beer
2015-06-20, 05:13 PM
I think the "But Dragons!" Fallacy is not always a fallacy though, for example it counters some arguments about physics.

Other ahistorical features of a game world are not countered by "But Dragons!" Fallacy but a train of thought related to dragons might assist. For example, female equality might be considered ahistorical, conversely if women can get dangerous enough to carve up giant flying hellfire-breathing megafauna, one would be tempted to at least give equality to those particular women and maybe by extension, all women.

Yukitsu
2015-06-20, 05:25 PM
I think the "But Dragons!" Fallacy is not always a fallacy though, for example it counters some arguments about physics.

Other ahistorical features of a game world are not countered by "But Dragons!" Fallacy but a train of thought related to dragons might assist. For example, female equality might be considered ahistorical, conversely if women can get dangerous enough to carve up giant flying hellfire-breathing megafauna, one would be tempted to at least give equality to those particular women and maybe by extension, all women.

I get the feeling that adventurers should be considered rare and exceptional compared to normal people. There were actually plenty of powerful women in history that commanded respect and who had extensive rights compared to other women. It didn't universalize just because of them even were some fought for greater equality. However, the degree to which they were equal or not equal varied tremendously by region and time frame so it's very hard to concretely say who had what gender roles.

You're right to a degree though, most forum fallacies aren't real fallacies the way they're used or presented.

FabulousFizban
2015-06-20, 06:46 PM
by telling them to **** right off

Solaris
2015-06-20, 08:34 PM
You're right to a degree though, most forum fallacies aren't real fallacies the way they're used or presented.

Then of course, there's the Fallacy Fallacy: Just because something is a logical fallacy doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong.

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 08:43 PM
"But DRAGONS!" in the form it is commonly seen (as in this thread) is nearly always fallacious - more, it is typically purposefully fallacious. Like a loaded question, it appeals to commonly held assumptions in order to pass an argument as self-evident.

It is possible to make a correct argument similar in spirit by actually explaining why the specific break in reality (such as existence of dragons) requires or leads to other breaks from reality, but typically that is not even attempted.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-20, 09:01 PM
"But DRAGONS" works fine for me when it implies more than the addition of a handful of flying reptiles to medieval Earth.

"But DRAGONS" is really shorthand for "but dragons, beholders, elves, demons, mind flayers, faeries, arcane and divine magic, psionics, undead and necromancy, travel between alternate planes, lycanthropy, mithril and adamantine, elementals, animated objects, et al".

When a fantasy world diverges in so many ways from ours, including the basic laws of physics, it's hard to argue convincingly that wheelwrights only nail iron strakes to the rim and not use a tongue-and-groove method. How do you know that method wasn't taught by the dwarves or an imp or learned thru a Divination spell?

Frozen_Feet
2015-06-20, 10:43 PM
Thank you for illustrating one of those commonly held assumptions: that the typical setting is a high fantasy kitchen sink with all those things and more. A lot of settings only diverge in some, or one of those ways.

Talakeal
2015-06-20, 11:21 PM
Then of course, there's the Fallacy Fallacy: Just because something is a logical fallacy doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong.

Hell yeah. I constantly have people yell "appeal to authority" at me when I tell them that I don't know how something works but my teacher said it does and I know that they are more knowledgeable about the subject than I am so I take their word for it.

I also get a lot of people insisting that I am wrong because I don't want to provide evidence for a claim that I know to be true. They say that the burden of proof is on me because I made the claim, regardless of the fact that my statement is true no matter how much I present it or back it up.


I think the "But Dragons!" Fallacy is not always a fallacy though, for example it counters some arguments about physics.

Other ahistorical features of a game world are not countered by "But Dragons!" Fallacy but a train of thought related to dragons might assist. For example, female equality might be considered ahistorical, conversely if women can get dangerous enough to carve up giant flying hellfire-breathing megafauna, one would be tempted to at least give equality to those particular women and maybe by extension, all women.

If the statement was something like "Dragons can fly, therefore the world must have some mechanism to allow something weighing tens of tons to fly under its own muscle power," that logically follows. People rarely use it like that though, instead they say things like "You expect a skill system that roughly models reality in a system with magic and dragons?"

Shackel
2015-06-20, 11:26 PM
As someone who actually does get quite a bit annoyed whenever there are severe anachronisms(coming fresh off a game where someone barely even tried to not have their family be 1900s-level enlightened for a notably early 1600s tech/culture level), I think the best way to handle them is to just have a reason why it's so.

If you're caught without a reason and it wouldn't destroy the campaign, no point in not changing it or even just asking them to go with it until you can come up with something. Even if the reasoning is magically-centered, I think a true "historically correct" player(versus just a problem player who wants control, which is another problem) wouldn't mind.

As one, after all, I think the big thing with "historically correct" players is just that they want a world with consistency. It helps them get into the world and, on a more paranoid note, makes sure that the DM can't just pull something out of their rear end. They have something definitive, IC and OOC, to hold onto.

hiryuu
2015-06-21, 01:25 AM
Hell yeah. I constantly have people yell "appeal to authority" at me when I tell them that I don't know how something works but my teacher said it does and I know that they are more knowledgeable about the subject than I am so I take their word for it.

They don't know how to use the appeal to authority: the fallacy explicitly calls out appeals to authorities that in no way are related to the subject - "Stan is a doctor of medicine, therefore Stan is able to answer questions pertaining to quantum mechanics" and "N'kele is a doctorate of physics, therefore she knows that vaccines are dangerous" are appeals to authority.

"My instructor is a physicist and says that things are made of atoms" is not.


I also get a lot of people insisting that I am wrong because I don't want to provide evidence for a claim that I know to be true. They say that the burden of proof is on me because I made the claim, regardless of the fact that my statement is true no matter how much I present it or back it up.

Depends on the claim, but I can see that. If someone claimed that UFOs are vehicles used by aliens from space, they would be required to back up that claim. If someone claims that UFOs are hoaxes or misidentified normal objects, they would not likely need to back up that claim, because that falls within already well-understood behavioral patterns.


If the statement was something like "Dragons can fly, therefore the world must have some mechanism to allow something weighing tens of tons to fly under its own muscle power," that logically follows. People rarely use it like that though, instead they say things like "You expect a skill system that roughly models reality in a system with magic and dragons?"

this is so correct i dont even

I can go for some historical accuracy to the tune of things that would rule each other out entirely if either was absent - if I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks; if I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers; if I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge; if I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap; if I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican; if I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts, and if I see star forts, I expect to see at least limelight (or silent image-based) projection; if there's tomatoes and potatoes, I expect there to be jalapenos and corn; if glass is used as a laboratory container I expect there to be lime and soda products, and so on.

On the other hand, PCs are super awesome special people and if a player's character concept requires them to be the only one with a revolver, guess who's got a magical ancient artifact of mystery?

Ravian
2015-06-21, 02:32 AM
Generally I prefer very historically accurate settings (Since I love to get into research like that) so this isn't much of a problem for me.

However, I will say that not every setting has to adhere to this accuracy.

Obviously I feel that these sorts of things should be stated up front however.

For example one game I enjoy is 7th Sea, a setting which is loosely based off of 17th century Europe. They sometimes handled the anachronisms well, sometimes not.

One thing that was stated fairly early on was that some forms of technology in this world are slightly more advanced than what was normally expected from the time period, for example medicine was at the point where people knew washing a wound was a good idea, even if they didn't fully know about germ theory. This was largely so players wouldn't have their characters keeling over from infection all over the place as well as to illustrate a rather scientifically progressive society that was worthy of protecting from more fundamentalist threats.(It was later explained that a few scientists had discovered germs, but felt the concept of such things would be rejected by the general populace, and instead secretly propagated the washing wound idea so they could still do what they could with the knowledge without getting everyone in a panic

One change that didn't work as well was the inclusion of women into their catholic church analogue, without giving clear mention of such beforehand. Technically this was because this universe's version of Christianity didn't have much in the way of original sin as well as to allow greater possibilities for female characters (women being largely more free in this world in all except a few places.) However given that this difference wasn't clearly stated, the fact that the religion is still largely reminiscent to real-world catholicism (with a similar hierarchy, monastic orders and a celibate clergy) and because priest isn't as obvious a choice for a character in a swashbuckling game, most people are first introduced to the concept when a book introduces a female Cardinal in an adventure, which can often be jarring.

Generally I find that anachronisms can work fine, but it's good to clearly illustrate what type of setting you want (so if you want a fairly low-tech society, guns are out even if wizards are around) as well as any other differences you want to make. No one wants their image of a classic medieval setting destroyed when it turns out it has steam engines, so it's good to know what to mention in order to avoid these kinds of surprises.

goto124
2015-06-21, 06:41 AM
To be honest, the females-as-equals thing is for players to be able to play female characters without facing heavy backlash. And will the players believe the DM who says things like 'I'm being realistic' and 'You should've rolled a male char'?

It's also a pretty common anachronism, enough that players can/will expect gender equality even when it's not stated.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-21, 07:29 AM
Thank you for illustrating one of those commonly held assumptions: that the typical setting is a high fantasy kitchen sink with all those things and more. A lot of settings only diverge in some, or one of those ways.

I'm not fond of kitchen sinks, but it's rare to find a fantasy campaign that only has a single addition to an otherwise Earth-like setting. In my experience there are always at least a handful of differences, not the least of which is the presence of magic. That in itself is a major game changer. Even the addition of a single race, like elves, would likely have wide-ranging effects on any human culture. Assuming it wasn't some hidden enclave unknown the world at large, it would impact the arts, sciences, religion, philosophy, and technology. How much more so would it be with just the base PC races from 3.5?

A lot of our history was created by random circumstances. For the most part our ancestors would stick with tried and true methods for centuries or millennia. Then when they would encounter new cultures, there would be a rapid exchange of arts and technologies, each learning lessons from the other. There were also synergies -- a master of such-and-such craft technique happened to meet up with someone who studied another, complementary discipline and a new science/invention was born. These happy accidents would be pushed into high gear when we're talking about alien species with radically different mindsets and technical abilities.

So, yes, I still stand by my belief that "but DRAGONS!" is just shorthand for a number of critical changes that highly impact the course that history would take. Whether that's "only" a dozen changes or several hundred, those differences quickly add up to a wildly alternate reality than the one we have here.

Ravian
2015-06-21, 08:45 AM
To be honest, the females-as-equals thing is for players to be able to play female characters without facing heavy backlash. And will the players believe the DM who says things like 'I'm being realistic' and 'You should've rolled a male char'?

It's also a pretty common anachronism, enough that players can/will expect gender equality even when it's not stated.

I understand that, I actually condone it. I just would have preferred to know that was a difference between the game and reality.

Thrudd
2015-06-21, 09:01 AM
It has been said: what people want really is a coherent setting in as much detail as possible.

"But DRAGONS" is a perfect reason to have what appears to be an Ancient Greek social/political structure with advanced metallurgy and Renaissance level weapons and armor, for example. Or to include anything in your setting you can think of.

However, if you're going to include something as an important feature of your game, you should make an effort to understand how that thing works and explain any differences between your world and the real world people are familiar with. If your game is going to include heavy use of sailing ships, you would want to understand how sailing ships work in the real world, and if you want them to be different in the game, explain how and why that is in more detail than "but DRAGONS".

If something isn't an important feature of the game ( you haven't thought about it or researched it) but is just a flavorful detail, and a player points out that your description is inaccurate in some way, it does no harm to adjust your description. It only makes your world more believable, which is always a good thing. If you think of something on the spot to explain why your world should be different than the specific historical precedent, then by all means explain it and make it a part of the setting.

siegeperilous
2015-06-21, 05:36 PM
Which are countered by the +5 Armours and, therefore, there's still no reason to develop a full plate if you've got chain mail.

Assuming we're talking about DND, isn't it often cheaper to buy something like full plate then to enchant less protective armors to a equivalent AC, or am I misremembering? Of course, thats not even getting into how the prevalence of supermaterials, strength enhancing magic items, or the fact that quite a number of otherwise non supernatural warriors (profession, not class) in the world seem to be able to exert what would be superhuman levels of force or display miraculous strength.

Obviously though, that's probably not the real reason the authors would likely have full plate in that era but not early firearms. Its because full plate has pierced the public consciousness about how the time period and societies the writers were trying to emulate are viewed, but guns haven't. Thus people are more likely to expect and want them there, whereas they won't be as likely to expect a gun. At least that was the conception back when the genre was being formed I think, which may be different now.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-21, 06:46 PM
For example, female equality might be considered ahistorical, conversely if women can get dangerous enough to carve up giant flying hellfire-breathing megafauna, one would be tempted to at least give equality to those particular women and maybe by extension, all women.

Gender status issues can't be considered ahistorical at all in a fantasy setting because they're the sort of things that vary between cultures that exist concurrently.

1700s France didn't treat women the same way 1650s France did, so the idea that a setting which is "1650s France but with trolls that come at night to eat people" having the exact same gender politics as the source setting despite the trolls isn't really logical. Any two towns in 1650s France probably didn't have identical gender politics.

If we can have "medieval England but with ancient Mesopotanian style polytheism" we can have the same thing but with 1970s social issues.


I get the feeling that adventurers should be considered rare and exceptional compared to normal people.

Depends on the setting. In most "adventurers are exceptional heroes" settings its actually "successful adventurers are rare and exceptional, the corpses of failures are everywhere".



I can go for some historical accuracy to the tune of things that would rule each other out entirely if either was absent

Some of those are assumptions on the "I see paper based written media, I expect some level of metal working" level which is counter to pre-contact Maya.

"There are spices on the market, so they must have long distance trade networks" is a reasonable assumption. It might still be wrong because we might be in an Indonesia analogue and that's something for the GM to clarify. "They have a spice trade so I should also be able to buy other things that were historically available at the same time" is not because it requires very specific geography.

Magic is so potentially powerful it just changes up everything. Scrying can replace compasses and other bits of navigation tech for example.

The only safe assumptions are ones like "they have anti-armour weapons, so they should have armour as well" or "there must be some level of infrastructure supporting this _____"


I'm not fond of kitchen sinks, but it's rare to find a fantasy campaign that only has a single addition to an otherwise Earth-like setting.

I find it fun to avoid kitchen sinks, but real world mythologies are pretty kitchen sinky. Medieval bestiaries were just as happy to incorporate things from any old source as the Monster Manual is. Renaissance Art is full of stuff from classical mythology thrown onto Christian themed scenes just because.

Its very easy to make a well thought out fantasy setting that's more coherent than the real world.

hiryuu
2015-06-21, 09:14 PM
Some of those are assumptions on the "I see paper based written media, I expect some level of metal working" level which is counter to pre-contact Maya.

No, they're not. They're all by-products of each other. Though, certain types of ink do. None of any types the Maya used. But it should be noted that the Maya were bigger than Rome and had sewer systems that rival modern New York.

Guess I have to explain myself.

If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)

If I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers (pitch production creates these things as a by-product)

If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)

If I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap (artificial quinones make indigo dye super easy to make)

If I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican (huge armies need preserved food of some kind)

If I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts, and if I see star forts, I expect to see at least limelight (or silent image-based) projection (star forts eliminate blind spots for people (or cannons) using wide arcs; you need some method of rapid communication that can be used during sieges; in our history, this led to the invention of film projectors using candles, as well as wall-mounted candle powered microscopes, in a D&D world I suspect we'd see a different means of solving the problem)

If there's tomatoes and potatoes, I expect there to be jalapenos and corn (Europe stole these things from the Americas, it is almost racist to put these things into a medieval European setting and not explain where they came from)

If glass is used as a laboratory container I expect there to be lime and soda products (can't make alchemist lab quality glass without soda and lime)

Essentially, these things are "if there is spice trade, there are materials that can carry dry goods long distances and protect them from rain."

MrZJunior
2015-06-21, 09:29 PM
I tend to be that player, so I often have to resist the urge to correct people on historical issues.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-21, 09:39 PM
If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)

Can't pretty much all of these requirements be short-circuited by the presence of magic or magical devices, though? Or, at the very least, via alternate timelines that led to different technological development?

With simply adding something like hippogriffs, you could totally throw these askew. Like, young hippogriffs preferentially feed on indigo plants, making them rare, leading to them never being harvested by humans. However, hippogriff blood is a miracle cure for malaria. Aerial mounts led to the importation of foreign food crops, like the solanaceous plants, centuries ago and have made star fort configurations useless. Etc.

Darth Ultron
2015-06-21, 10:04 PM
I think the largest issue that people have is with the fact that the "historical accuracy" argument is that the people that tend to make those remarks work from really inaccurate views of history.

Most people have only a vague view of history and that is something someone else just told them at some point and they believed it 100% for no real reason. Most of the rest just remember what they saw in a movie/TV show. Only a couple people really dig into real history.

The big three:

1. History only covers a tiny bit of detail. There are not accurate records from 5000BC to 2015. Lots and lots of stuff was never written down, but that does not mean it did not happen, just that there is no proof. So there is no proof that Anne Boot was Sheriff of Sweetwater for six months in 1877, but it still could have happened just as local lore said it did.

2. A lot of ''official public'' history is just down right wrong. In a lot of cases the truth is not what people think. Though often the truth is just too bizarre, so people find more comfort in the lie or flasehood.

3. History is not set in stone(mostly). So what is known of history changes all the time. And even of what is known, not everyone agrees.

Talakeal
2015-06-21, 10:21 PM
If there's tomatoes and potatoes, I expect there to be jalapenos and corn (Europe stole these things from the Americas, it is almost racist to put these things into a medieval European setting and not explain where they came from)
"

Ok, I can agree with all of your points except for this one. If you are playing in a fantasy world, why is it illogical to have a different distribution of species than our world? Is there any reason why corn and jalapenos couldn't have evolved (or been placed by the gods) in two similar ecosystems on different parts of the planet?

Obviously it is a fantasy world and the odds of any real life species evolving naturally on a different world, even one with identical conditions, are infinitesimally small, but I see know reason why they would need to develop in the same clumps as our own Earth.

siegeperilous
2015-06-21, 10:39 PM
Guess I have to explain myself.

If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)

If I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers (pitch production creates these things as a by-product)

If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)

If I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap (artificial quinones make indigo dye super easy to make)

If I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican (huge armies need preserved food of some kind)

If I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts, and if I see star forts, I expect to see at least limelight (or silent image-based) projection (star forts eliminate blind spots for people (or cannons) using wide arcs; you need some method of rapid communication that can be used during sieges; in our history, this led to the invention of film projectors using candles, as well as wall-mounted candle powered microscopes, in a D&D world I suspect we'd see a different means of solving the problem)

If there's tomatoes and potatoes, I expect there to be jalapenos and corn (Europe stole these things from the Americas, it is almost racist to put these things into a medieval European setting and not explain where they came from)

If glass is used as a laboratory container I expect there to be lime and soda products (can't make alchemist lab quality glass without soda and lime)

Essentially, these things are "if there is spice trade, there are materials that can carry dry goods long distances and protect them from rain."

I'm actually curious, and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, why you EXPECT to see these things in a fantasy world being role played in? To your knowledge, are these things very basic or common knowledge to people that you can expect most people to know these facts offhand? Would you say that's it's usually incredibly rudimentary knowledge on the part of people who are drawn to dming or writing these sorts of fantasy worlds? Is it the norm at your table, and you haven't had any reason to believe it would be different in others? Did I misinterpret what your trying to say here?

The reason I say this is because largely this hasn't been my experience, not that I mind, but I'm willing to believe maybe I'm just abnormal or not plugged in very well to the modern zeitgeist.

By the way, despite wanting to make a career out of the study of history, I hope no ones take this as a particular criticism of society at large or a strand of elitism. I honestly don't think it's particularly reasonable to think less of someone for not knowing the things Hiryuu has pointed out.

hiryuu
2015-06-21, 10:57 PM
Can't pretty much all of these requirements be short-circuited by the presence of magic or magical devices, though? Or, at the very least, via alternate timelines that led to different technological development?

With simply adding something like hippogriffs, you could totally throw these askew. Like, young hippogriffs preferentially feed on indigo plants, making them rare, leading to them never being harvested by humans. However, hippogriff blood is a miracle cure for malaria. Aerial mounts led to the importation of foreign food crops, like the solanaceous plants, centuries ago and have made star fort configurations useless. Etc.

Yes, and this is a variant of "but dragons!" Look, I'm just trying to point out that people should be aware that change leads to change, and discoveries in many cases happen not because they are needed, but because they solve a completely different problem than the one for which it was designed. We get alarm clocks because monks needed to be awake at certain times. And, of course, sometimes things just don't catch on: Hero of Alexandria invented vending machines in the tens AD (he also invented robots and fire engines and steam trains, but Caligula wanted nothing to do with it and told him to go home and bite himself).

Honestly, "but historically accurate!" is a cry I hear from players and GMs who just don't want cultural progression or who don't want to address the horribly monstrous past upon which our current cultures are built. In my experience, GMs often want to build settings with something cool in them but don't want to think about the implications of that thing, and "but fantasy" is a convenient, lazy set of bywords to completely dismiss any questions of how this fits into the setting, and by players who just want a cool piece of technology or magical item all to themselves.

Which, again, there is no problem with this. Even in something like World of Darkness, PCs are supposed to be fun and cool to play. If something is an ancient artifact whose meaning and construction are lost to history than whatever. Guess who's toting around the setting's only revolver, right?

Otherwise, yeah, go nuts. If it's D&D whatever man, we already have rapiers but no guns and easy access to air forces that would render any kind of fortification moot entirely but everyone's still living in Scottish square blocks, so, hey, if we're going to throw anachronisms in every direction why not go in for the full hog?


Ok, I can agree with all of your points except for this one. If you are playing in a fantasy world, why is it illogical to have a different distribution of species than our world? Is there any reason why corn and jalapenos couldn't have evolved (or been placed by the gods) in two similar ecosystems on different parts of the planet?

Obviously it is a fantasy world and the odds of any real life species evolving naturally on a different world, even one with identical conditions, are infinitesimally small, but I see know reason why they would need to develop in the same clumps as our own Earth.

Yes, this is a possibility, but its presence in a pseudo-medieval European setting by gods or "just different happenstance" is a bit of a cop-out, and, again, it's eliminating two entire continents covered in thousands of awesome cultures (that so rarely show up in RPGs that I would call it openly insulting if I hadn't been jaded to NDNs being cut out of our own history so it could be erroneously co-opted by prime-time dramas or unseated and buried by Germanic mythology - you have no idea how many times I see another boring demon on some supernatural romance/hunter show and scream "but they are in Tennessee, the Uktena is from there and requires less than half a minute of google") just because you want your potato soup.

It's the same kind of frustration if someone just walked up to you and started deleting stuff off your phone except the stuff they liked, and when you protested, they tried to inform you that it was really their phone all along, and that it doesn't really matter, you can just go get a new one of your own.

Ravian
2015-06-21, 11:16 PM
No, they're not. They're all by-products of each other. Though, certain types of ink do. None of any types the Maya used. But it should be noted that the Maya were bigger than Rome and had sewer systems that rival modern New York.

Guess I have to explain myself.

If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)

If I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers (pitch production creates these things as a by-product)

If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)

If I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap (artificial quinones make indigo dye super easy to make)

If I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican (huge armies need preserved food of some kind)

If I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts, and if I see star forts, I expect to see at least limelight (or silent image-based) projection (star forts eliminate blind spots for people (or cannons) using wide arcs; you need some method of rapid communication that can be used during sieges; in our history, this led to the invention of film projectors using candles, as well as wall-mounted candle powered microscopes, in a D&D world I suspect we'd see a different means of solving the problem)

If there's tomatoes and potatoes, I expect there to be jalapenos and corn (Europe stole these things from the Americas, it is almost racist to put these things into a medieval European setting and not explain where they came from)

If glass is used as a laboratory container I expect there to be lime and soda products (can't make alchemist lab quality glass without soda and lime)

Essentially, these things are "if there is spice trade, there are materials that can carry dry goods long distances and protect them from rain."

Navies without clocks- teleportation, allowing messengers to relay information between ships easily. (Actually 7th Sea did something similar to this. Their France Analogue has access to teleporters who can teleport to specially prepared beacons. Because of this, France calculated Longitude without the need for precisely accurate clocks, since a teleporter could simply teleport back to France from a ship in order to know what time it was back home.)

Keeled Ships without Ammonia- Trees are sung into proper shape by druids.

Pole Arms without huge armies- Infectious undead are a common enough threat that most fighters prefer weapons that avoid close contact with the enemy.

Malaria cure without indigo- Clerics + Cure Disease, 'nough said

Evoker Wizards without star forts- A commonly produced magically resistant material is now considered a vital component in all fort construction.

Potatoes and Tomatoes- Tolkein had Tobacco in Middle Earth, ecology is simply different in this world.

Laboratory Glass- A simple harden spell eliminates the need for improving construction quality.

I understand what you're saying about knowing the history behind something before using it willy nilly, but fantasy offers a quite useful workaround for many things, such that things don't always follow a clear logical path.

Take Wildfire in GoT. On the surface it resembles Greek Fire, however it's clearly far more lethal than that. Greek Fire was primarily powerful because it could be deployed against wooden ships without being easily doused by water. (Despite our popular beliefs, it wasn't a perfect weapon, primarily because it had a short range, required calm seas and winds, and was easily countered by the Muslim navies using felt and vinegar soaked hides.) Meanwhile Wild Fire has more explosive power than Westeros's technology level suggests would be possible for several centuries at least. Obviously if this substance exists, logically Westeros should have used it to develop numerous uses for it. However, they haven't, largely because it is heavily implied that Wildfire is to some degree magic. (Some of the alchemists that stored it even mentioned it was growing in potency as magic was returning to the world)

Lots of factors make up history, and changing even a few can have effects few can calculate. This is even more true in fantasy, where new factors that historians never even considered (largely because they didn't exist in the real world) can alter things dramatically.

hiryuu
2015-06-21, 11:17 PM
I'm actually curious, and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, why you EXPECT to see these things in a fantasy world being role played in? To your knowledge, are these things very basic or common knowledge to people that you can expect most people to know these facts offhand? Would you say that's it's usually incredibly rudimentary knowledge on the part of people who are drawn to dming or writing these sorts of fantasy worlds? Is it the norm at your table, and you haven't had any reason to believe it would be different in others? Did I misinterpret what your trying to say here?

My gaming group consists of two science fiction authors, an engineer (who works on rockets and lasers), a physicist who works as a blacksmith in the SCA, and an electrician.

You have no idea how much of a headache that can be, historical accuracy or no.

When you're writing novels, you absolutely have to learn this stuff, because it leads to making some really awesome magic systems.

I always suggest Dirty Jobs to world builders, it is the best show about how to make a fantasy setting that is not actually about building fantasy settings.


The reason I say this is because largely this hasn't been my experience, not that I mind, but I'm willing to believe maybe I'm just abnormal or not plugged in very well to the modern zeitgeist.

By the way, despite wanting to make a career out of the study of history, I hope no ones take this as a particular criticism of society at large or a strand of elitism. I honestly don't think it's particularly reasonable to think less of someone for not knowing the things Hiryuu has pointed out.

No, it's perfectly reasonable to not know these things if you're in an RPG, that's cool. Especially in D&D, where there are magic-powered robots shooting lasers that ride dinosaurs. We have already stepped so far into the crazy zone that the module that follows up the one where you fight fungus men from outer space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_to_the_Barrier_Peaks) is the one where the PCs are shrunk and are forced to fight an animate deck of cards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeonland) and the follow up to that is the one where the PCs try to fight an army of three-headed hermaphroditic monsters (https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic2292736.png) for a ruby the size of a head.

"But dragons!" is perfectly viable in a situation where trees can grow up and there are boomboxes (http://i.imgur.com/X8Lku.png)and washing machines full of skeletons (http://i.imgur.com/qLLBD.png).

Also, as others have mentioned, in D&D, there are some cool ways to solve these problems (the hippogriffs thing is cool and I'm going to steal it - maybe not with hippogriffs but with giant beetles - quinines are the waxy stuff on beetle carapace!), like using familiars on ships to communicate, and purple dies made from the blood of, I don't know, modrons or something.

I always imagined, at least in D&D, that armies operate more like modern armies, with wars won and lost with supply chains and small insertion teams instead of massive forces clashing openly on a battlefield where just some guy with a hippogriff flying so high the ground can't see him and a barrel of green slime can end hundreds of thousands of men in seconds.

hiryuu
2015-06-21, 11:41 PM
Navies without clocks- teleportation, allowing messengers to relay information between ships easily. (Actually 7th Sea did something similar to this. Their France Analogue has access to teleporters who can teleport to specially prepared beacons. Because of this, France calculated Longitude without the need for precisely accurate clocks, since a teleporter could simply teleport back to France from a ship in order to know what time it was back home.)

Def. As mentioned before, there are other solutions to these problems, but one solution to one problem always leads to new problems and a huge array of solutions for other problems entirely, and that should be taken into account when you're worldbuilding. We often don't accept it in science fiction, we sure as heck shouldn't accept it in fantasy. Especially one that's supposed to have a working set of societies in it.

Also, 7th Sea was boss. I love it and L5R in spite of themselves.


Keeled Ships without Ammonia- Trees are sung into proper shape by druids.

Good, the culture has a huge working art/singing community and that is awesome. Shipwrights have concerts where they try to outdo each other, and orchestras are employed to make complicated ships with unearthly shapes.

That's so awesome it's going in a book somewhere.


Pole Arms without huge armies- Infectious undead are a common enough threat that most fighters prefer weapons that avoid close contact with the enemy.

Dead people are probably burned, and ranged weapons are of much higher import. I would also suggest that the setting maybe also have decent knowledge of explosives and flammable payloads for arrow volleys. Everyone's (at least everyone who's adventuring) carrying some zombie-buster arrows.


Malaria cure without indigo- Clerics + Cure Disease, 'nough said

I consider cure disease a cop out, since the implication is that there are enough clerics who can cast high enough level spells to deal with malaria is that there's no disease, ever, even the infectious undead. But, hey, go with it.


Evoker Wizards without star forts- A commonly produced magically resistant material is now considered a vital component in all fort construction.

The star fort is to eliminate blind spots for the defenders, not make it harder for attackers. How about a cool material that allows wizards to eliminate blind spots by changing the path of a line of effect?


Potatoes and Tomatoes- Tolkein had Tobacco in Middle Earth, ecology is simply different in this world.

It's not really about the vegetables, it's about people wanting to be super xenophobic and pretend only "comfortable" cultures exist (or just the one they're showcasing in the setting). Saying "ecology is simply different" is at best, insulting to the people who were massacred so that another culture could get those things - it's about writing an entire two continents of people out of existence because they are inconvenient. More than "historical accuracy," this is the thing that confounds me. The constant removal of people, languages, and cultures for simple convenience while allowing the main culture from which you are cribbing to retain all of the changes it had undergone through contact and trade with the people and places surrounding it and writing all of it off is perhaps the single most annoying thing I have ever had to deal with in this hobby.


Laboratory Glass- A simple harden spell eliminates the need for improving construction quality.

Which will be used on everything made, ever. It will be fantastic. Honestly, in D&D, I have no idea why there aren't minor magic items everywhere: little prestidigitation stones dropped in latrines or used in your mouth, little 0-level spell effect clothes that never get mussed or dirty - maybe that's why so many D&D portraits have perfect hair and makeup?

None of this is bad stuff, it's actually great stuff, just asking people to understand the wider implications of introducing certain things to a setting.


I understand what you're saying about knowing the history behind something before using it willy nilly, but fantasy offers a quite useful workaround for many things, such that things don't always follow a clear logical path.

I think I said that. Repeatedly. If I didn't, I'm sorry.


Lots of factors make up history, and changing even a few can have effects few can calculate. This is even more true in fantasy, where new factors that historians never even considered (largely because they didn't exist in the real world) can alter things dramatically.

This is my entire point. And, of course, you hang out with historians long enough, you discover they have considered a lot of these things. There's almost nothing more history nerds like to do than imagine what the world would look like if X wasn't around or Y happened differently.

Arbane
2015-06-22, 12:11 AM
Its very easy to make a well thought out fantasy setting that's more coherent than the real world.

That's because fantasy settings are supposed to make some sort of sense. Reality is under no such obligation.

This comic (http://www.weregeek.com/2013/09/13/) and the ones preceding it seem somewhat relevant. (Yes, I know the Hivemind hath decreed that "but DRAGONS!" is a fallacy. I don't care.)

Maglubiyet
2015-06-22, 12:32 AM
Look, I'm just trying to point out that people should be aware that change leads to change, and discoveries in many cases happen not because they are needed, but because they solve a completely different problem than the one for which it was designed.

...so, hey, if we're going to throw anachronisms in every direction why not go in for the full hog?


You and I are on the same page, brother.

On the other hand, I don't cut any slack for movies. I was up in arms when the hobbits went tramping through a modern maize-corn field in LotR. Where did Farmer Maggot get hybrid seed and a mechanized rotary tiller in the Shire? And how was that field maize still green in Autumn!? The horror...

hiryuu
2015-06-22, 12:44 AM
You and I are on the same page, brother.

On the other hand, I don't cut any slack for movies. I was up in arms when the hobbits went tramping through a modern maize-corn field in LotR. Where did Farmer Maggot get hybrid seed and a mechanized rotary tiller in the Shire? And how was that field maize still green in Autumn!? The horror...

Our group watched Pandorum recently and aside from the usual cracks, the guy who actually does space engineering in the group spent the entire time screaming incoherently at the everything, and not because it was scary.

Cealocanth
2015-06-22, 12:44 AM
I run a lot of games that take on the alternate history approach, and all of my players are history geeks in one way or another, so I encounter this a lot. Occasionally we may be playing a game set in the Old West and an NPC sends a letter via the Pony Express to Denver, and a player feels the need to remind the group that the telegraph made that service obsolete a decade before the campaign is set, for example. In the most extreme of cases, we may be playing a game set in the late Ice Age and a player feels the need to point out that the North American Zebra has not been found to have lived in areas as far north as the campaign takes place, or something. It's a relatively common occurrence and can get annoying, but the solution is simple.

The key to an alternate history is that there is something that differs the game from real history. In some campaign settings it's obvious. In Deadlands, for example, there is the presence of magic, monsters, and evil spirits that totally changes American history. In other settings, such as a one-shot War of the Roses reenactment, the only distinct difference is the players are present. Regardless of this change, it is relatively easy to point to this alternate timeline to explain most minor anachronisms, or point out that our current conception of history may not be entirely correct. Historians do tend to make up likely scenarios to fill in the gaps they find in the written records, and an archaeologist's job is pretty much defined by assembling a menagerie of clues and making an educated guess on history or culture. As long as you, as the GM, have educated yourself to a reasonable extent to recreate the period you are attempting to recreate, then any minor fault can be easily be explained away by "it's an alternate history, so it's not going to be exactly the same."

This is actually one of the major tools used when I am running my time-travel game. Because I only have 2 weeks to study a period before sending the players there as best I can, I often find it easier to make up towns or people or certain events and explain them away as missing from your perception of history due to changes to the timeline that the players made in the past before this. The Butterfly Effect can do pretty much anything and everything you want it to.

Ravian
2015-06-22, 01:53 AM
Def. As mentioned before, there are other solutions to these problems, but one solution to one problem always leads to new problems and a huge array of solutions for other problems entirely, and that should be taken into account when you're worldbuilding. We often don't accept it in science fiction, we sure as heck shouldn't accept it in fantasy. Especially one that's supposed to have a working set of societies in it.

Also, 7th Sea was boss. I love it and L5R in spite of themselves.

This is my entire point. And, of course, you hang out with historians long enough, you discover they have considered a lot of these things. There's almost nothing more history nerds like to do than imagine what the world would look like if X wasn't around or Y happened differently.

Ah, I understand, sorry for jumping to conclusions. I do agree it's not a good idea to just put something in somewhere and assume everything can stand in a vacuum despite it. That said I also understand that more than a few people prefer to just have a simple game where thing's generally aren't as complicated.

Plus no one likes a nit-picker if the focus isn't on accuracy. If I want to portray my fantasy alternate history accurately, I would welcome a correction where needed, but if the heroes just want to go down and kill some stuff in a dungeon, it get's a little boring if someone's complaining about anachronistic pumpkins.

Also Yes: 7th Sea is all kinds of awesome, Viking raids on the Dutch East India company be damned. :smalltongue:

goto124
2015-06-22, 02:42 AM
but if the heroes just want to go down and kill some stuff in a dungeon, it get's a little boring if someone's complaining about anachronistic pumpkins.

'Oh, the pumpkins? They've developed legs, teeth, and a taste for humanoid flesh. Roll Initiative!'

Not sure if that's actually a good idea though.

hiryuu
2015-06-22, 02:53 AM
'Oh, the pumpkins? They've developed legs, teeth, and a taste for humanoid flesh. Roll Initiative!'

Not sure if that's actually a good idea though.

http://orig09.deviantart.net/0a79/f/2011/302/0/5/052102ed6980042d7b1f73aec1b9aa09-d4ec03b.jpg

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-22, 05:59 AM
Is there any reason why corn and jalapenos couldn't have evolved (or been placed by the gods) in two similar ecosystems on different parts of the planet?


Technically food crops don't evolve on their own, they're engineered through artificial selection.

In a fantasy setting that takes mythology literally then they would just be given by the gods and therefore could be anything.



Guess I have to explain myself.

Not really, I wasn't disputing individual examples. I can though.


If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)

"large scale" doesn't mean anything. Which is larger scale, 5 Pre-Dreadnoughts or 200 gallies? This is just pointless nitpicking since I get the point, I just think you're saying it in completely the wrong way.


If I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers (pitch production creates these things as a by-product)

Ammonia is a complicated issue because its available for most of history but its availability varies massively.

Similarly, every culture has some kind of fertilizer but the scale and effectiveness varies a lot. Most cultures would be using manure or guano, not making their own fertilizer out of ammonia. If you have a large source of Guano like the Andes civilisations you're not going to bother developing artificial fertilizers and there isn't going to be any link between pitch and fertilizer.


If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)

Pole arms are the oldest weapons and more effective than most higher tech melee weapons. Every army has them.

A normal sized army is 6000-20,000. To me "stupidly huge" would be something like Herodotus' implausible Persian invasion numbers (who had spears but not pikes).

Stirling Bridge was 5000 pikemen vs 9000 mixed troops. Pike battles don't need large numbers at all.


If I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap (artificial quinones make indigo dye super easy to make)

Your assuming its real world bacteria and real world chemicals.

Artificial scarcity or government regulation could drive up the price of dye.


If I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican (huge armies need preserved food of some kind)

Long campaigns and traveling requires preserved food. Really preserved food is just so common you shouldn't need to do this.


If I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts,

Fireballs are not cannons. The Star Fort is designed to be good against concussive force, not explosions of pure energy. Acid Arrow simply does not care what angle walls are tilted at.

Wizards can usually fly. That makes all real world pre-modern fort designs utterly useless.

A fort designed to stop wizards would rely on wards, not architecture. It would be designed to be just as effective from above as from the sides and might even have protection against attacks from underground.


Essentially, these things are "if there is spice trade, there are materials that can carry dry goods long distances and protect them from rain."

They're way too specific. General ideas and processes can be applied, specific substances and tactics are subject to too many factors.


Hero of Alexandria invented vending machines in the tens AD (he also invented robots and fire engines and steam trains, but Caligula wanted nothing to do with it and told him to go home and bite himself).

This is just wrong apart from the vending machines, sorry.

Everyone had fire engines and automata, Caligula didn't stop anything. Hero didn't invent Steam Trains, that's just stupid. He drew plans for an Aeolipile which is not a practical steam engine and probably pre-dated him.

Steam power did not 'just not catch on'. A lot of factors that led to the development of steampower in the 18th century were just absent. A steam engine that's worse than human and animal power is not a ahead of its time piece of forgotten genius, its a interesting toy.



Yes, this is a possibility, but its presence in a pseudo-medieval European setting by gods

Depends how much gods are a feature of the setting. If its a world created by gods then bringing in real world logic is just wrong. Like all those Tippyverse arguments that assume we're on an earth equivalent planet in a solar system.

You can't build a moonbase if the moon is a 10 meter radius indestructible sphere that a god puts in his pocket for most of the day, you can't argue based off real world evolution in a world where all plants and animals were put in place by divine beings.

VoxRationis
2015-06-22, 01:11 PM
The star fort is to eliminate blind spots for the defenders, not make it harder for attackers. How about a cool material that allows wizards to eliminate blind spots by changing the path of a line of effect?

Really, I have to question the efficacy of evocation wizards in the role of anti-fortification artillery in the first place. Depending on what system you're using and what sourcebooks you allow, often the bread-and-butter evocation spells are going to do little to nothing against an 8' stone wall, and the spells that can actually threaten the wall are so high-level that there are 5000 regular people for each wizard who can do that, making it better to simply build against the 5000 regular people.



It's not really about the vegetables, it's about people wanting to be super xenophobic and pretend only "comfortable" cultures exist (or just the one they're showcasing in the setting). Saying "ecology is simply different" is at best, insulting to the people who were massacred so that another culture could get those things - it's about writing an entire two continents of people out of existence because they are inconvenient. More than "historical accuracy," this is the thing that confounds me. The constant removal of people, languages, and cultures for simple convenience while allowing the main culture from which you are cribbing to retain all of the changes it had undergone through contact and trade with the people and places surrounding it and writing all of it off is perhaps the single most annoying thing I have ever had to deal with in this hobby.


Some people don't want their games to be an American Studies class. Including any New World social dynamics gets us into situations where we are not playing the time period we want to—even more than anachronistic plate armor, having a New World-equivalent continent throws the setting way off of what people are trying to get at, which is generally medieval or pre-medieval fantasy. And again, the geography is completely different from our Earth—why assume an Old World/New World divide at all?
Mind you, this is coming from someone whose current setting is exploring the hypocrisy of leading a nationalist uprising against a conquering empire on behalf of a people who conquered and enslaved their predecessors before being conquered by said empire. I am not saying this out of a desire to smooth over the unpleasant aspects of history.

Ettina
2015-06-22, 01:19 PM
As for definitions of fallacies: I'm no expert, but saying "because the sky is blue, the grass must be green" when talking about the planet Xorb is clearly some manner of logical error - premise and conclusion are unrelated. Whether it's technically a fallacy is not really the point. It's a logical error and deserves to be pointed out as one. Similarly, the "historical accuracy" issue is a logical error. I completely 100% agree with the article's Texas analogy, because that's exactly how bad I see the "arguing from historical accuracy" approach.

Isn't there some kind of link between the kind of sun & atmosphere we have (and therefore the colour of the sky) and what colour of chlorophyll works best? I think I remember hearing that green chlorophyll won out over purple chlorophyll for that reason.

Talakeal
2015-06-22, 01:20 PM
Yes, this is a possibility, but its presence in a pseudo-medieval European setting by gods or "just different happenstance" is a bit of a cop-out, and, again, it's eliminating two entire continents covered in thousands of awesome cultures (that so rarely show up in RPGs that I would call it openly insulting if I hadn't been jaded to NDNs being cut out of our own history so it could be erroneously co-opted by prime-time dramas or unseated and buried by Germanic mythology - you have no idea how many times I see another boring demon on some supernatural romance/hunter show and scream "but they are in Tennessee, the Uktena is from there and requires less than half a minute of google") just because you want your potato soup.

It's the same kind of frustration if someone just walked up to you and started deleting stuff off your phone except the stuff they liked, and when you protested, they tried to inform you that it was really their phone all along, and that it doesn't really matter, you can just go get a new one of your own.

This really goes into the realm of cultural sensitivity / white washing history rather than historical accuracy, and I imagine if we pursued this line of conversation it would lead far off topic and into the realm of forbidden subjects.

Suffice to say, while I do agree that RPGs can be used to explore social issues, I don't think that having a fantasy world with a different natural distribution of species or with different human cultures inhabiting said world is unrealistic.

Heck, my campaign world has elements from so many different real world cultures and ecosystems that it seems weird to argue about whether a nation's culture should demand that its primary crop be wheat, rice, or corn when they are using domesticated ankylosaurs to work said farms.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-23, 05:19 AM
often the bread-and-butter evocation spells are going to do little to nothing against an 8' stone wall

Ray of Frost followed by burning hands, repeat backed up by catapults.

But its stone shape that really makes any fortification useless, but 4th level spells are rare.

Best low level spell against fortress is actually just summoning any animal with a burrow speed.

tensai_oni
2015-06-23, 06:03 AM
To answer OP's question:

I have yet to see the "historically correct!" argument used for something else than one or more of the below:

1. Getting huffy that someone wants to play a female character, especially a female warrior/knight/other combatant
2. Getting huffy that someone wants to play a black/person of color/other minority character
3. Trying to rationalize why raping a female character, usually other PC, is okay

I am talking both from personal experience and second hand reports of other people.

Therefore whenever someone tries to use that argument, my response is "deal with it" and also possibly "I judges".

Btw, female combatants and people of color were both a thing that happened in medieval Europe, if not very often, and rape was considered as vile as it is today and didn't happen all the time either.

Drascin
2015-06-23, 10:57 AM
'Oh, the pumpkins? They've developed legs, teeth, and a taste for humanoid flesh. Roll Initiative!'

Not sure if that's actually a good idea though.

Vampire pumpkins are a legitimate Eastern European myth. You can look it up, I'm not joking. So hey, if we can have chimerae and gorgons, why not vampire squash?

Ravian
2015-06-23, 11:25 AM
To answer OP's question:

I have yet to see the "historically correct!" argument used for something else than one or more of the below:

1. Getting huffy that someone wants to play a female character, especially a female warrior/knight/other combatant
2. Getting huffy that someone wants to play a black/person of color/other minority character
3. Trying to rationalize why raping a female character, usually other PC, is okay

I am talking both from personal experience and second hand reports of other people.

Therefore whenever someone tries to use that argument, my response is "deal with it" and also possibly "I judges".

Btw, female combatants and people of color were both a thing that happened in medieval Europe, if not very often, and rape was considered as vile as it is today and didn't happen all the time either.

Yikes... That is the worst, when you try to use 'history' to justify your own severely problematic actions and opinions. Almost as bad as those that use 'biology' to justify sexism and racism.

Very true that it wasn't unknown to have women fighting in Medieval Europe. Joan d'Arc's the obvious example, there was also Shield-Maidens during the viking age (Valkyrie's weren't invented from nothing after all.) and Celtic legends described numerous female warrior's (including Scathach, the teacher of Cu'Chulain, one of their greatest heroes)

As for other races, some places were more racially homogeneous than others, but you can't discount that there was frequent contact between Europe and North Africa, so it certainly wasn't unheard of to see a black person in Europe (particularly in places like Moorish Iberia.)

On rape the main issue is that rape was rather simply defined in the Middle Ages. If you violently assault a woman and violate her, that's an obvious crime, but things like marital rape and coercion were more likely to get a pass from the system.

goto124
2015-06-23, 11:43 AM
Yikes... That is the worst, when you try to use 'history' to justify your own severely problematic actions and opinions. Almost as bad as those that use 'biology' to justify sexism and racism.

At this point I don't care about realism, I'll just outright say 'This is a GAME, for all of us PLAYERS to have FUN. If you don't have the common sense to not do what you just said you want to do, LEAVE.'

OOC considerations are important.

VoxRationis
2015-06-23, 12:09 PM
Very true that it wasn't unknown to have women fighting in Medieval Europe. Joan d'Arc's the obvious example, there was also Shield-Maidens during the viking age (Valkyrie's weren't invented from nothing after all.) and Celtic legends described numerous female warrior's (including Scathach, the teacher of Cu'Chulain, one of their greatest heroes)


Your latter two examples are from the early medieval period, while the "stereotypical" setting tends to be high medieval or Renaissance, where sexism was more entrenched. Joan of Arc was remembered so well partly because being a woman and a general was so weird at the time.

VoxRationis
2015-06-23, 12:18 PM
Ray of Frost followed by burning hands, repeat backed up by catapults.
Well, not only are you now uncomfortably close to the fortress (rendering you more of a magical battering ram than actual artillery, as well as vulnerable to counterattack), but fire damage does 1/2 to objects and cold 1/4 by the rules (and hardness still applies). The catapults will be doing most of the work.


But its stone shape that really makes any fortification useless, but 4th level spells are rare.

Stone shape is the most plausible of these, but again, you have to be right up next to the fortress, which makes you no longer artillery, but a particularly expensive battering ram.


Best low level spell against fortress is actually just summoning any animal with a burrow speed.
Most creatures with burrowing speeds can't go through rock, and most of the exceptions are noted to move through earth "like a fish through water" (i.e., seamlessly sealing the tunnel behind them, not creating any permanent deformations). In order to do any real damage to a fortification with a summoned burrower, you'd have to employ it as a sapper, which would be difficult considering the size of most fortifications and the limited durations you have to work with.

Beleriphon
2015-06-23, 02:54 PM
Most creatures with burrowing speeds can't go through rock, and most of the exceptions are noted to move through earth "like a fish through water" (i.e., seamlessly sealing the tunnel behind them, not creating any permanent deformations). In order to do any real damage to a fortification with a summoned burrower, you'd have to employ it as a sapper, which would be difficult considering the size of most fortifications and the limited durations you have to work with.

An earth elemental (or at least most common depictions of one) are probably best. But that point you're just fighting a fortress with a mobile boulder, which isn't that different than catapult/trebuchet other than the ammo keeps getting to attack after the first shot.

Ninja Bear
2015-06-23, 04:20 PM
Ray of Frost followed by burning hands, repeat backed up by catapults.

But its stone shape that really makes any fortification useless, but 4th level spells are rare.

Best low level spell against fortress is actually just summoning any animal with a burrow speed.

Magic also makes fortifications much easier to build, defend, and repair; spells like Stone Shape or even Wall of Iron are available to the defender the same as they are to the attacker.

Magic also makes sieges much, much more difficult to pull off; it means the defender can keep themselves supplied for much longer (Create Food and Water, bags of holding, aerial supply, etc.) and it means the besieger's forces are much more vulnerable to a counterattack if they keep their forces out in the open for any length of time (it's much easier to sally out for a raid when you can fly or teleport, and a siege camp is prime fireball-bait).

Fortifications standing by themselves might be less effective, but fortifications aren't built so they can sit there and annoy an invading army; they're intended to be force multipliers. And they're still quite good at that.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-23, 04:22 PM
there was also Shield-Maidens during the viking age (Valkyrie's weren't invented from nothing after all.) and Celtic legends described numerous female warrior's (including Scathach, the teacher of Cu'Chulain, one of their greatest heroes)

Valkyries are basically fate deities (nothing unusual for a female mythological figure) and barmaids. Barmaids with aggressive names and armour but they don't actually every seem to do any fighting on screen in actual norse sources.

Not that it matters because fantasy is based more on myth than history, but Scathach isn't evidence for Irish warrior women at all. The primary Greek war diety was female and they didn't have women warriors or generals that we know of.

Like the Valkyries, Athena never seems to actually get into fights despite wearing armour. But Zeus is pretty much the only Greek deity who gets to win any battles (except for demigods like Hercules) so Ares doesn't have much of a record either. If anyone its the girly goddesses, Aphrodite and Hera, who do all the killing.


Joan of Arc was remembered so well partly because being a woman and a general was so weird at the time.

Joan of Arc wasn't remembered that well. She was constantly forgotten and then rediscovered because she only really had political appeal when France was seriously losing and when the moment passed the French weren't particularly keen on being reminded about the defeat.

She was only beatified in 1909 because Lorraine became such a major issue between France and Germany.

Being a woman general wasn't that weird, being of low status and a general was weirder. Not that she was really a warrior or a general but a standard bearer.



Fortifications standing by themselves might be less effective, but fortifications aren't built so they can sit there and annoy an invading army; they're intended to be force multipliers. And they're still quite good at that.

The question was "will evokers lead to Star forts?" not "will wizards make forts obsolete?".

Ninja Bear
2015-06-23, 05:21 PM
The question was "will evokers lead to Star forts?" not "will wizards make forts obsolete?".

Since the argument actually raised was more supportive of the idea that "magic will make all forts - not just the existing ones - obsolete," I considered that broader point to be worth addressing. If you didn't, why raise it?

The argument that reasonably competent evokers will inevitably lead to star forts or something very much like them is pretty simple. Star forts have two major advantages: the angling of the walls relative to an attacker, and the higher defender visibility they offer (via the elimination of blind spots).

If one man in a pointy hat is capable of destroying your fortress should he get near it, the second is absolutely necessary; if you aren't capable of spotting that guy before he gets near you, then you won't have a fortress for very long, and one guy is going to be much sneakier than your average siege engine. He might not even have a pointy hat; you might need to catch him casting, which makes it even more imperative that you be able to see everywhere all of the time.

The first is also useful; an attacker having to attack the walls at an angle still means they have a higher effective thickness, even though spells generally aren't designed to bounce quite so much as cannonballs.

goto124
2015-06-23, 08:30 PM
See, magic can change so many things, that it's really really really hard to tell how it'll actually affect history and the workings of the world.

Why not leave it at 'this is a different world from RL, everything else can be discussed off-table'?

Ravian
2015-06-23, 09:23 PM
Not that it matters because fantasy is based more on myth than history, but Scathach isn't evidence for Irish warrior women at all. The primary Greek war diety was female and they didn't have women warriors or generals that we know of.


Scathach was one of numerous warrior women described in Celtic Legends. The Morrigan was the Celtic War Goddess (much closer to a mix of Odin and Ares though, rather than Athena), The Ulster Cycle also included Aife, a rival of Scathach that Cu Chulain fought.

Not to mention there were some historical accounts of female warriors in celtic culture. Boudica was a warrior queen that burned London astride her chariot (and still got a statue there) but I didn't mention her since she was during the Roman era.

VoxRationis
2015-06-23, 09:39 PM
Since the argument actually raised was more supportive of the idea that "magic will make all forts - not just the existing ones - obsolete," I considered that broader point to be worth addressing. If you didn't, why raise it?

The argument that reasonably competent evokers will inevitably lead to star forts or something very much like them is pretty simple. Star forts have two major advantages: the angling of the walls relative to an attacker, and the higher defender visibility they offer (via the elimination of blind spots).

If one man in a pointy hat is capable of destroying your fortress should he get near it, the second is absolutely necessary; if you aren't capable of spotting that guy before he gets near you, then you won't have a fortress for very long, and one guy is going to be much sneakier than your average siege engine. He might not even have a pointy hat; you might need to catch him casting, which makes it even more imperative that you be able to see everywhere all of the time.

The first is also useful; an attacker having to attack the walls at an angle still means they have a higher effective thickness, even though spells generally aren't designed to bounce quite so much as cannonballs.

I think an important question here is how common wizards are expected to be and how likely they are to be attacking or defending the fortress. In a lot of fantasy settings, wizard attacks (or at least the attacks of wizards powerful enough that they are qualitatively different from an archer) on castles are rare enough that it's easier to just disregard them as a threat and build for the monster, bandit, and barbarian attacks you know will happen in the immediate term. In other settings, every garrison can be expected to have a dozen war-wizards tossing fireballs from the ramparts in case of a siege.

Aedilred
2015-06-24, 06:17 AM
See, magic can change so many things, that it's really really really hard to tell how it'll actually affect history and the workings of the world.

Why not leave it at 'this is a different world from RL, everything else can be discussed off-table'?

I guess the problem with this is that ultimately it tends to be assumed that failure to object constitutes acceptance, and therefore leaving something that a player believes is problematic unchallenged means it's going to remain that way (as correcting it thus becomes a retcon). Since things can't be raised before they appear (usually) I think this is one of the reasons why discussions tend to happen when they do come up and why people can be reluctant to drop them without reaching a satisfactory conclusion.

Hawkstar
2015-06-24, 02:37 PM
If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)This flat-out doesn't follow... or rather, it precludes the possibility of non-"Stupid Huge" armies, because polearms are ubiquitous". Seriously - the very first weapons invented and used by tiny hunting tribes were Polearms. A small farming family is equipped with polearms. Polearms are dirt cheap, and an army of 20 appreciates that low-cost-for-effectiveness as an army of 10,000. What [i]does follow is 'If there is armed combat, there are polearms", because grabbing a big stick is an intuitive way to increase effectiveness in combat and decrease personal risk. Making that end pokey or slashy is also an intuitive improvement.


Dead people are probably burnedGreat! So instead of dealing with shambling skeletons and zombies even a sufficiently-motivated commoner can deal with, you end up with plagues of burning wraiths capable of incinerating towns and requiring powerful magic-users to defeat!:smalltongue:



Not that it matters because fantasy is based more on myth than history, but Scathach isn't evidence for Irish warrior women at all. The primary Greek war diety was female and they didn't have women warriors or generals that we know of.Actually, they did. We've found graves that prove there have been women warriors. The primary Greek war diety was male (Ares), and patron of Sparta. Athena was the goddess of Wisdom, and patron of Athens.

TheCountAlucard
2015-06-25, 04:38 AM
Athena was the goddess of Wisdom……and War. And Strength. And Strategy. And Skill. Oh, and Courage, too.

Her epithets included, among other things, Άτρυτώνη (the unwearying), and Πρόμαχος (the first fighter, or she who fights in front), and she's often depicted holding Nike, the winged goddess of victory, in her hand.


…and patron of Athens……and protector of Argos, Lindos, and Sparta. Hey, let's not forget patron of heroic endeavor in general, as well.

Plus there's the bit about how when she was born, it was literally with spear and shield in hand… :smallamused:

Really it'd be more accurate to call Athena the goddess of warfare and Ares the god of battle (especially considering the literal meaning of his name).

Keltest
2015-06-25, 09:20 AM
…and War. And Strength. And Strategy. And Skill. Oh, and Courage, too.

Her epithets included, among other things, Άτρυτώνη (the unwearying), and Πρόμαχος (the first fighter, or she who fights in front), and she's often depicted holding Nike, the winged goddess of victory, in her hand.

…and protector of Argos, Lindos, and Sparta. Hey, let's not forget patron of heroic endeavor in general, as well.

Plus there's the bit about how when she was born, it was literally with spear and shield in hand… :smallamused:

Really it'd be more accurate to call Athena the goddess of warfare and Ares the god of battle (especially considering the literal meaning of his name).

Indeed. By my understanding, Athena was a lot more about the strategic aspect of war than the killing mass quantities of people part.

Ravian
2015-06-25, 09:43 AM
Indeed. By my understanding, Athena was a lot more about the strategic aspect of war than the killing mass quantities of people part.

Meanwhile The Morrigan of Irish mythology positively reveled in carnage. She was said to influence the course of every battle, typically through crows to inspire or despair, but often joining in as a warrior herself.

Her name was thought to mean "Nightmare/Phantom Queen", and unlike many of her fellow gods, was never Christianized as a saint or hero like Brigid or Lugh. All throughout history she was simply The Morrigan, and no one dared to try and recast her as anything less than a particularly frightening pagan goddess.

Mr.Moron
2015-06-25, 12:40 PM
I don't invite or play games with people that have playstyles I don't enjoy.

Wardog
2015-06-25, 05:33 PM
In general, doesn't thin really depend on
a) What sort of setting you are going for ("set in an actual historical time and place" vs. "fantastical version of an actual historical time and place" vs. "fantasy setting, inspired by an actual historical time and place" vs. "complete fantasy with only vague relation to the real world".)

b) What sort of "historical innacuracy" you mean. I.e. are you talking about anachronisms (e.g. plants in the wrong place, modern attitudes in a supposedly medieval society, etc). OR are you talking about historical myths (e.g. knights needing cranes to put them on their horse, people not living past the age of 30, etc).




Guess I have to explain myself.
I'm not sure why these specific things require each other. What time period or level of technology or society are you implying with these examples?



If I see large-scale navies I expect to see precision clocks (can't maintain a large scale navy without the ability to synchronize actions without communication - at least three cultures with no contact have invented these things independently)
What do you consider a "large-scale navy" and "precision clock"? Does the Spanish Armada count as the former? Because that predated teh invention of the marine chronometer by 149 years.



If I see keeled ships I expect to be able to buy ammonia and fertilizers (pitch production creates these things as a by-product)
Keels have been around for hundreds of years (according to Wikipeedia, the word itself dates back to the 6th century). I can't find out when ammonia was first used in the manufacture of fertilizer, but I don't think it became significant until the invention of the Haber–Bosch process at the begining of the 20th century.



If I see pole arms, I expect army sizes to be stupid huge (pikes in nearly every culture in which they were invented are a mass-market weapon)
What do you mean by a "stupid huge" army? And as others have said, pole-arms are among the oldest and most easily available weapons, and useful even in small units.



If I see a treatment for malaria, then purple dye is cheap (artificial quinones make indigo dye super easy to make)
As far as I can tell from Wikipedia, quinine was used as a malaria treatment (by Europeans) from the early 17th century, but producing dyes (as a side effect of trying to create artificial quinine) didn't happen until the mid 19th century.



If I see those stupid huge armies, I expect to be able to buy at least bottled pemmican (huge armies need preserved food of some kind)

Again, what do you mean by a "stupid huge army"? (Do the Romans count?) And by pemmican do you mean actual pemmican, or just any form of preserved meat?



If I see evoker wizards used in battle, I expect to see star forts, and if I see star forts, I expect to see at least limelight (or silent image-based) projection (star forts eliminate blind spots for people (or cannons) using wide arcs; you need some method of rapid communication that can be used during sieges; in our history, this led to the invention of film projectors using candles, as well as wall-mounted candle powered microscopes, in a D&D world I suspect we'd see a different means of solving the problem)

Star forts are designed to:
a) Resist demolition by cannon-fire, and b) Give the defenders better lines of fire against enemies close to the walls.

Wizards aren't going to lead to star forts unless their spells are as good as cannons at battering down castle walls (and as ineffective as cannons at battering down star forts).

And limelight wasn't invented until the 19th century - long after star forts were invented.
[/QUOTE]

VoxRationis
2015-06-26, 12:47 AM
In general, doesn't thin really depend on ...
Yes, yes it does. Obviously, a setting which is not intended to relate to history doesn't have to be historically accurate, but many settings are intended to be mirrors or parallels to selected periods of history, and those merit greater adherence to the subject material. Furthermore, sometimes the inaccuracies relate not to facts of history per se, but facts which are shown by history—your example of cranes and knights is in this category.


What do you consider a "large-scale navy" and "precision clock"? Does the Spanish Armada count as

Heck, forget the Spanish Armada—the battle of Salamis had hundreds of ships on each side (mostly triremes, 170+ rowers plus sailors and marines per ship), as did the battle of Actium, and those predate the compass (at least in the West—I forget exactly when it was invented in China), the nautical astrolabe, and the pendulum clock.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-06-26, 01:53 AM
b) What sort of "historical innacuracy" you mean. I.e. are you talking about anachronisms (e.g. plants in the wrong place, modern attitudes in a supposedly medieval society, etc). OR are you talking about historical myths (e.g. knights needing cranes to put them on their horse, people not living past the age of 30, etc).

Yeah, this. Depending on what type of game you're going for (running with popular myths can also make for nice fluff and a very fun adventure), a bit of nagging about historically accuracy could enrich the setting.

Sure, it's possible that the people from this sort of medieval culture really do believe that the earth is flat, but if they're also using making long journeys on open seas and navigate by latitude and longitude, it would sure be bloody stupid of them to believe that.

It's not so much about staying true to history as about creating a setting that's consistent, and historical examples can help us do that. Knights not being able to get on their horse is another good example. If that's the case, how is your fighter holding up in that heavy plate of his?

The wizards VS forts discussion in this thread is another fine example. Just mimicking history might not work here because there are other types of weapons available, but maybe we could look at different periods in which weapons closer to those appeared and take our lessons from there.

I might expect multi-layered fortifications in a d&d world, with deveral secondary (earth) walls in front of the main defensive line. They went out of style around 1700, because the moment you fall back from one row of fortifications you've basically handed the enemy their own defensive line surrounding yours (even if you specifically designed it to be less usefull that way, sloping very gently on the outside). But with wizards in play it might work brilliantly. Let them burn up their spells while carving a hole in your outer defenses, put up some resistance, retreat before they get to the part where they can kill you, and when everyone on their side is low on magic get your own magic/cannon/archery barrage raining down on them, retake that first line and plug the hole before morning.

It'd cost both sides a lot of good soldiers, taking and retaking a line of defense every day, but as long as the attackers los more it could still be a valid strategy.

TheCountAlucard
2015-06-26, 03:01 AM
More than just earth - a good fortified wall should probably have a layer of wood or metal toward the center to stop an earth elemental from just phasing through.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-26, 05:31 AM
Actually, they did. We've found graves that prove there have been women warriors. The primary Greek war diety was male (Ares), and patron of Sparta. Athena was the goddess of Wisdom, and patron of Athens.

Ares wasn't patron of Sparta. They appear to have respected him more than the Athenians did but we don't have any sources on what that actually meant in detail.

I've not seen any source for female warrior graves from the classical period in Greece. But the presence of female warriors in some societies that may have worshipped Athena doesn't stop the examples of societies that worshipped Athena and stopped women from fighting from being evidence that having a war goddess does not necessarily imply female warriors.

Part of the point of deities in Greek mythology is that they don't follow human rules. Most stories about Artemis are about the tension between following the goddess's example and the goddess' role being antithetical to human society.


The Morrigan was the Celtic War Goddess.

A (Irish) Celtic War Goddess. We have names (and pretty much nothing else) for a lot of them from Roman period inscriptions. The Morrigan is just famous due to having been put in Christian era sources which survived due to chance.

In one interpretation The Morrigan isn't a goddess (singular or triplicate) at all but a class of being, which due to regional variations may be both true and false.



Not to mention there were some historical accounts of female warriors in celtic culture. Boudica was a warrior queen that burned London astride her chariot (and still got a statue there) but I didn't mention her since she was during the Roman era.

Even ignoring the period issues the Iceni are pretty much irrelevant to Irish Goddesses since there's no evidence for anything but minor similarities among the various Celtic Cultures.

Hawkstar
2015-06-26, 08:54 AM
Sure, it's possible that the people from this sort of medieval culture really do believe that the earth is flat, but if they're also using making long journeys on open seas and navigate by latitude and longitude, it would sure be bloody stupid of them to believe that.
Fun Fact - "Medieval Morons thought the world was flat!" is one of the (many) Victorian-era 'blackouts' made to paint the era of time between the Roman Empire and Enlightenment seem like primitive savages, to build up their own image and values (And the image of the empire they were trying to ride on the prestige of).

Jay R
2015-06-26, 09:26 AM
Sure, it's possible that the people from this sort of medieval culture really do believe that the earth is flat, but if they're also using making long journeys on open seas and navigate by latitude and longitude, it would sure be bloody stupid of them to believe that.

Nobody who can see lunar eclipses and think straight can believe that for long. The question wasn't whether the earth was flat, but was the spherical earth unmoving at the center of the universe, with the seven wandering stars, or planets (including the moon and sun), orbiting around it.


It's not so much about staying true to history as about creating a setting that's consistent, and historical examples can help us do that. Knights not being able to get on their horse is another good example. If that's the case, how is your fighter holding up in that heavy plate of his?

Absolutely correct.

I ran a game of original D&D about ten years ago in which the earth actually was the unmoving center of the universe, and the plot revolved (sorry) around the Staves of the Wanderers - seven artifacts with powers from the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Arbane
2015-06-26, 06:14 PM
I've not seen any source for female warrior graves from the classical period in Greece.

Would you settle for their neighbors, the Scythians? (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/amazon-women-there-any-truth-behind-myth-180950188/?no-ist)

VoxRationis
2015-06-26, 07:52 PM
No, because if a Scythian woman walked into Athens and demanded the kind of respect the Greeks afforded men, she'd probably be either laughed at or beaten into submission (or, if she successfully resisted being beaten into submission, everyone around her would either be dead or taking effort to no longer be around her, rendering the question moot). That's a precedent which showed that there were women warriors—I'm not really sure who would dispute that—but does nothing against what was the real issue of the topic: that female adventurers would probably get a lot of flak from people in a strongly patriarchal society based on, say, ancient Greece or medieval Europe.

Heemi
2015-06-26, 09:29 PM
Most of the time the "Historically accurate" argument is brought on to disregard People of Color (See also: The Newest Cinderella Broadway). This argument is not only completely incorrect, it presumes that Trading does not exist in this world--or if it does, that all people on this world are white, no matter where their ancestors evolved. That is, many black people were around back in europe! And plenty of white people traveled to africa--especially Egypt! Heck, there were even Middle Easterners around in europe and vice versa! There could also have been a few Chinese settlers--the silk road didn't exist in a space-time warp, people!

Due to all of these facts, I can only call the people who refuse to include these elements of friendly trade and mingling of multiple races (of either sort) for the purposes of "Historical accuracy" racist and unrealistic. This doesn't mean losing racial tensions, but rather, that racial tension isn't omnipresent. While warhammer is a great setting for a battle simulator, it doesn't make a ton of sense.

Nextly, we get onto sexism...I'll just wrap this one up quickly: If you want to attract nice people in general, keep it outside in the cold, dark, unforgiving night where it belongs. If you don't you'll just end up with a bunch of loosers giggling about how they're superior to "T'em Wimmenz".

Knaight
2015-06-26, 09:34 PM
...ancient Greece or medieval Europe.

Medieval Europe covers a good thousand years and a lot of territory. There were huge cultural differences between regions, huge cultural differences within a region between time periods (including plenty of cases where it was just a few decades apart), so on and so forth. The Baltics prior to the Baltic crusades and 15th century France are wildly different, and the generalization rarely works with much of anything.

Cazero
2015-06-27, 12:32 AM
No, because if a Scythian woman walked into Athens and demanded the kind of respect the Greeks afforded men, she'd probably be either laughed at or beaten into submission (or, if she successfully resisted being beaten into submission, everyone around her would either be dead or taking effort to no longer be around her, rendering the question moot). That's a precedent which showed that there were women warriors—I'm not really sure who would dispute that—but does nothing against what was the real issue of the topic: that female adventurers would probably get a lot of flak from people in a strongly patriarchal society based on, say, ancient Greece or medieval Europe.

Not if the bolded part had been happening every other month for a few centuries. If around 0.1% of women can set on fire people they dislike since the dawn of time (read : sorcerers exist), your 1% of adventuring women are going to get some basic respect even if common women don't.

Closet_Skeleton
2015-06-27, 06:50 AM
Adventurers are a social class that didn't exist in history (they're a lot like mercenaries and bandits sure but not the same). Since social classes don't follow the same rules as other social classes by definition, there isn't a historical precedent for how female adventurers would be treated in a strongly patriarchal society.


No, because if a Scythian woman walked into Athens and demanded the kind of respect the Greeks afforded men, she'd probably be either laughed at or beaten into submission (or, if she successfully resisted being beaten into submission, everyone around her would either be dead or taking effort to no longer be around her, rendering the question moot).

No, because she'd be a foreign noble and attacking them would be diplomatically dangerous.

Scythians and Black Sea Greeks lived together fine, but we don't know how they compared to Athens on gender roles since Athens mainly got compared to Sparta who gave their women a little more to do.


This argument is not only completely incorrect, it presumes that Trading does not exist in this world--

Mostly it presumes the accuracy of a overly progress based historical narrative that allows for The Dark Ages (tm) but otherwise assumes that if something was bad in the last century and got better this century it must have been even worse in all the preceding centuries


And plenty of white people traveled to africa--especially Egypt! Heck, there were even Middle Easterners around in europe and vice versa!

I never got this argument. There have always been minority merchants around in fantasy stories. They're basically a stereotype in themselves. They usually only exist so you can buy Katana and flying carpets but they're pretty much always there.

Absence of middle easterners is not a fantasy cliche and never has been. Even LotR has them. Absence of people we'd call 'black' today has been a issue but you can't just extrapolate that to all minorities.


There could also have been a few Chinese settlers--the silk road didn't exist in a space-time warp, people!

The Silk Road was a system of middle men. Chinese people didn't go to Europe. Europeans only went to China to cut out the middle men. Chinese embassies got as far as Syria in the Han dynasty.

The Chinese tended to rely on minorities with foreign connections for long distance trade. Chinese minorities outside of China didn't really start until the rise of the Spanish Empire.

China analogues in the far distance is a fantasy cliche, so again, this isn't an issue. Pretty much every edition of D&D has had a Samurai class.

Jay R
2015-06-27, 07:59 AM
Adventurers are a social class that didn't exist in history (they're a lot like mercenaries and bandits sure but not the same). Since social classes don't follow the same rules as other social classes by definition, there isn't a historical precedent for how female adventurers would be treated in a strongly patriarchal society.

On a historical basis, adventurers aren't a social class at all.

Adventurers whose parents are nobles are in the noble class.
Adventurers whose parents own land are in the gentle class.
Adventurers whose parents own a business in town are middle class.
Adventurers whose parents are yeomen are yeomen.
etc.

But in a fantasy D&D world, it could be possible to earn higher place in society. I assume that any society in which somebody's personal abilities can change that much would have upward mobility. That was even built into the original game. At about tenth level, a Fighting Man (it was a different time) would build a keep and become a Lord, and a Cleric would build a Cathedral and become a Patriarch.

I once ran a game of original D&D, in which all characters were escaped slaves, specifically so that first level PCs would start with no social position, and slowly earn it..

Cluedrew
2015-06-27, 06:26 PM
There are a lot of good points here but there is one I would like to talk about.


there isn't a historical precedent for how female adventurers would be treated in a strongly patriarchal society.

This is completely true, but there isn't a historical precedent for a lot of things that happen in fantasy. We can however extrapolate from things that did happen in history.

Unfortunately the answer from examining history is essentially they will never be given the chance to become adventures in the first place. Even if they have the skill they will never be given the sword, the spell book or the bow and arrow to practice with. They may find there little corners, if they are viewed as secondary or assistive, such as heal-bot clerics. Many will be so indoctrinated in this social structure that they will never try to rise above "their station" those that do will be heckled, beaten or even raped down and the few exceptions will be viewed as special exceptions in some way and not connected to the rest of the population.

I do like historically accurate. We have moved on from those times and there is no need to go back.

Yukitsu
2015-06-27, 07:20 PM
That depends pretty wildly on period and place too. While you don't often see women in the specific class of warrior, it's not terribly uncommon for them in parts of history to either have a sword or to specifically be taught to fight. If you were a woman in Scandinavia you're essentially required to have a short sword and in Japan many Samurai wives had to learn to fight using a naginata even if they were never expected to use it in real combat, they were expected to use it to defend the home. In medieval Germany a woman could have a Messer, just as any man could. Far from scorned, a woman killed a viking that attacked her and she was given tremendous praise for her bravery by his peers and in Japan, Tomoe Gozen was made not only a high ranking officer, but was essentially treated by her peers as though she were a man. There were plenty of opportunities for a woman to have to defend herself during those times, and they weren't denied the ability to do so. Only a very rare few ever decided to make a career of it but I should point out as well that most men also don't want to be in an army or learn to fight and get killed. It's the reason you needed some form of conscription in many eras.

Kitten Champion
2015-06-27, 07:36 PM
I don't care about historical accuracy one way or another and can accept whatever. You play what's fun for your group and when there's a disagreement as to what that entails use basic human interpersonal skills to find a compromise between competing visions or if that doesn't work and you're still not having fun... move on.

Still, I don't want to justify why the role of adventurer isn't an exclusive domain for Men. Even if you can site sources of times and places where gender roles were hazy and this and this happened that refutes this or that - ultimately you're just trying to justify what doesn't need a justification - like telling me that in this case it's permissive that Women can do fun things too because of it, rather than for the much better reason that the world is escapist fantasy and fun can be had by all.

Cluedrew
2015-06-27, 07:42 PM
To Yukitsu:
What you say may be 100% true and I would be surprised if it was less than half true. I was being slightly dramatic to drive the point home (plus someone mentioned Joan of Arc, it is a story I really like but it also puts me on edge).

Still, I put very little stock in "realism" and historically accurate is a subset of that. It is not bad, sometimes, but there are many more important things that should be addressed first before this. Such as letting people play interesting characters. Unless you are doing a "re-enactment" type thing.

Hawkstar
2015-06-27, 08:11 PM
There are a lot of good points here but there is one I would like to talk about.



This is completely true, but there isn't a historical precedent for a lot of things that happen in fantasy. We can however extrapolate from things that did happen in history.

Unfortunately the answer from examining history is essentially they will never be given the chance to become adventures in the first place. Even if they have the skill they will never be given the sword, the spell book or the bow and arrow to practice with. They may find there little corners, if they are viewed as secondary or assistive, such as heal-bot clerics. Many will be so indoctrinated in this social structure that they will never try to rise above "their station" those that do will be heckled, beaten or even raped down and the few exceptions will be viewed as special exceptions in some way and not connected to the rest of the population.

I do like historically accurate. We have moved on from those times and there is no need to go back.

This is not quite true, and paints a bleaker picture of reality. While a woman would certainly have had a harder time overcoming their family's concerns in trying to take on a dangerous, "masculine' profession, there are still chances for many suitably-motivated women to take up sword, shield, spell, bow, or arrow on their own. The easiest way for this to happen, of course, is for a loved one to say 'yes' to their requests or desires.

Archaeological records have shown that throughout the middle ages, women have served in Militias, and taken combat roles in defense of military baggage train guards and other support roles, even though they weren't career soldiers. "Women always stayed in the kitchen/bedroom" is one of those Victorian Revisionisms.

Cluedrew
2015-06-27, 08:23 PM
This is not quite true, and paints a bleaker picture of reality. [...] there are still chances for many suitably-motivated women to take up sword, shield, spell, bow, or arrow on their own.

I stand corrected. OK jokes about spells aside I really am. I was trying to highlight "real=/=good" and purposefully choose a bleak interpretation to make the point. History is a big area, especially when we are talking about the entire history of the human race all over the world, and any general statement made will probably be either inaccurate or so general as to be useless.

So please take away my message that "historically correct" does not get far with me (on its own) and not my melodramatic example.

Yukitsu
2015-06-27, 09:17 PM
To Yukitsu:
What you say may be 100% true and I would be surprised if it was less than half true. I was being slightly dramatic to drive the point home (plus someone mentioned Joan of Arc, it is a story I really like but it also puts me on edge).

Still, I put very little stock in "realism" and historically accurate is a subset of that. It is not bad, sometimes, but there are many more important things that should be addressed first before this. Such as letting people play interesting characters. Unless you are doing a "re-enactment" type thing.

I think the problem is less with "realism" it's bad realism. Reality actually is pretty interesting.

Reltzik
2015-06-29, 11:49 AM
Every other player at the table and the DM should bow to the learned knowledge and benign, enlightening authority of the player with the best knowledge of what is historically accurate.

*coughmecough*

(Okay, not really. But when the DM has a bunch of triremes engaging each other tactically as if they're 32-gun ships of the line without any sort of magic gizmo to justify it, I reserve the right to drop a few WTF bombs.)

VoxRationis
2015-06-29, 12:32 PM
Every other player at the table and the DM should bow to the learned knowledge and benign, enlightening authority of the player with the best knowledge of what is historically accurate.

*coughmecough*

(Okay, not really. But when the DM has a bunch of triremes engaging each other tactically as if they're 32-gun ships of the line without any sort of magic gizmo to justify it, I reserve the right to drop a few WTF bombs.)

I'm a huge ship fan and problems with them bug the heck out of me. My brother came to me to do the ships for his campaign setting on account of figuring it'd be better for me to work it all out in the beginning rather than pick at them later. Another big historical misconception is when people apply the "galley slave" of the 15th-17th centuries to ancient galleys—and hear me out on this one, because I know someone's going to say "But that's just a social difference between history and the campaign world!" You can't successfully operate an ancient-style galley (particularly not triremes) with an unfree crew (unless they're the rowing equivalent of Janissaries or something)—the very design of the ship's hull and oar layout demands a highly skilled, highly motivated crew. When skilled, motivated crews were lacking, shipbuilders consistently, across time and culture, built larger, slower ships with multiple rowers per oar. And that's the sort of thing people who cite history are really going on about—they aren't assuming that everything in the setting has happened in direct analogy to history heretofore, but they are rather pointing out that two or more aspects of the setting just don't work together, and citing historical precedent.

gom jabbarwocky
2015-06-29, 03:36 PM
Forgive me forum-goers, for I have sinned. I'm the "Well, ACTUALLY..." guy in my group.

I'll generally let it slide as long as I'm putting to rest a misconception in the minds of the players out of game. To my shame I can't resist pointing out that's not how it would work in reality, but obviously the world of the game is not reality, and the GM can say whatever he wants is true if it's in greater service to the story or setting.

So there's that caveat, but I won't deny I get a smug satisfaction out of it.

On the other hand, there have been times where the GM has used information I've helpfully provided him to spice up the game a bit. Usually, the corresponding refrain to any nit-picks is a good-natured, "It's just a game; you should really just relax."

Examples from games I've played in:
- "Why on earth are the Tradition's chantry in Las Vegas based out of the Bellagio? Shouldn't it be in the Luxor? It's a freaking pyramid! Pyramids are crazy magical!"
- "What? You can't be arrested for taking drugs! You can be arrested in the US for possessing drugs, but the Supreme Court has ruled that it's perfectly legal to put whatever you want in your body, even if that substance is illegal!" (My PC still got charged with disrupting the peace, disorderly conduct, and defacing property [long story].)
- In a superhero game taking place in 1986, the PCs get into a brawl in Times Square. I had to remind them that this was pre-Disneyfication and Times Square is seedy as all get-out. "Haven't you ever seen Midnight Cowboy?" We ended up rescuing a bunch of porn theater attendees from lava men.