RENAISSANCE! Moving on from the D&D middle ages

[Altair_the_Vexed]

It is a trope in many fantasy fictions and games that civilisation is fixed in one era's style forever. In D&D, this tends to be a pseudo middle ages era.
(There are other settings, sure.)

Me, I like to see progress in a setting. I like to see that new inventions and cultural movements change the way the world works.
If new lands are discovered, people emmigrate. If new spells are invented, wizards use them. If a new battle tactic is winning, survivors emulate it.

How long should it take, in game, to move a D&D middle ages Europe setting to the early renaissance, and from the renaissance to the Eberon / Iron Kingdoms magic-punk settings?
Would you expect to see new inventions cropping up in game? Newly discovered islands being exploited?
What would be disruptive and annoying about a progressive setting?

In short: discuss!

[Oslecamo]

Progress exists on the D&D world, but there's several nitpicks.

-MAGIC! That's where most of the research effort goes. Magic allows you to tell the laws of physics to shut up and do as you want.

However, advanced magic is normally on the hands of a few greedy people.

In the real world a scholar needs people to help him and eventually dies leaving his works behind for others to work.

In D&D a scholar creates his own servants(familiars, golems, undeads, ect) to help him and then either becomes immortal or hides his research in some trap-filled dungeon so it can't be turned against him. Either way, knowledge is hardly passed from one person to another.

In the Underdark splatbook it's explained that in Drow society research is highly encouraged, and new discoveries are always being made, but then each Drow House tries to hoard it's own secrets in fear the other houses will backstab them.


And then we have Eberron, wich indeed is very close to D&D renaissance with steampunk, but more on the magic side. Magic is just that good in D&D that there's little use for non-magic technology.

-DEITIES like their status quo. There's indeed voices from the sky and from the earth telling you what to do and most don't like change that much. Lighting WILL strike you if you don't do as you're told, either from the god himself or one of his clerics. In Eberron deities are a lot more weaker and passive so there's a lot more progress.

-MONSTERS-all D&D setings are filled with ruins of super-ancient-civilizations filled with secrets. And each of those civilizations was destroyed by some massive catastrophe or monster rampage. So there is "renaissance", several of them actually, but each one of them ends up being destroyed by some calamity like a Far Realms invasion.

[Crasical]

It is a trope in many fantasy fictions and games that civilisation is fixed in one era's style forever. In D&D, this tends to be a pseudo middle ages era.

Trope'd.

Me, I like to see progress in a setting. I like to see that new inventions and cultural movements change the way the world works.
If new lands are discovered, people emmigrate. If new spells are invented, wizards use them. If a new battle tactic is winning, survivors emulate it.

Theoretically, within the confines of the game, this could already be happening. A DM could say that explorers have colonized a new land and the players should head there to fight the weird new monsters.

A game where dungeon-diving(as a profession) has died out with the extinction of many races of monster and all the temples and ruins having been cleared of their treasure, only to be revived with the discovery of a new continent full of riches and creatures, could be an interesting campaign.

New tactics or spells being propogated throughout the world probably does happen on some small level for most DMs.

How long should it take, in game, to move a D&D middle ages Europe setting to the early renaissance, and from the renaissance to the Eberon / Iron Kingdoms magic-punk settings?
Would you expect to see new inventions cropping up in game? Newly discovered islands being exploited?
What would be disruptive and annoying about a progressive setting?

I think it'd be a pain in the rump for long-lived races unless there are rules for retraining in effect. "Hahaha, you dumped feats into swordplay? That's so dumb, muskets are where it's at now!" For the more ephemeral races, PROGRESS! should be less dramatic, as they'll be dead by the time their training is fully obsolete, and their rage against the dying of the light as their tradition is subsumed by new ways makes an interesting motivation.

[rojomoke]

Ever since 3.0e introduced sorcerers, I've been working on an idea. Up to now, magic has been the preserve of the wizards and their hide-bound guilds. This has led to an ultra-conservative society, with power concentrated in the hands of the nobility and the magiocracy (who are often the same people). After a recent cataclysm (the exact nature of which my players will have to discover for themselves), certain people are able to cast spells intuitively, without having to spend years studying first. This puts more power into the hands of ordinary people. Cue massive social upheaval, and the flowering of new ways of doing things, both through magic and this new-fangled science thingy. The Powers That Be, of course, are desperately trying to stuff the djinn back into the bottle.

[Spiryt]

How long should it take, in game, to move a D&D middle ages Europe setting to the early renaissance, and from the renaissance to the Eberon / Iron Kingdoms magic-punk settings?

It's assumption that whatever happened in "Real world" in Europe recently, is something typical, rather than one of a kind thing.


Tribes, even whole organized realms, civilizationals in Africa of South America, existed trough the millenniums without any sign of "progress" similar to European.

Europe gave birth to certain systems, ideas, that caused what we see today. It's one of a kind thing, in just tiny little period in whole humankind history.

So there's no reason for fantasy world to change in the same way at all, even if many elements are obviously similar.

[Aroka]

I love Artesia: Adventures in the Known world history: it's already gone through the Bronze Age (and, indeed, Smylie's art for certain ages reflects this, with bronze equipment), the Dark and Middle Ages (again, art of older events depicts 14th century "transitional" armor and pigface bascinets, contrasted to "modern" sallets and full plate armor), and the default age is more or less early Renaissance (pikemen dominate the battlefield, full plate is common for knights and elite troops, and Imperial alchemists have developed bombards). Obviously, development does not parallel the real world on all counts (what are the odds anyway?), and even gunpowder is a result of magic - alchemy.

Meanwhile, the grand campaign of Pendragon goes through sped-up development (caused by the Enchantment) from the 5th/6th century Dark Ages technology all the way to Renaissance - armor goes from maille to gothic plate in about 50 years, and wooden hill-forts turn into massive stone citadels.

It's just that most campaigns don't work on timescales big enough for such advancements to be more than MacGuffins and other plot items.

[Psyx]

How long should it take, in game, to move a D&D middle ages Europe setting to the early renaissance

Surely D&D is early renaissance already?

I'm seeing rapiers, full plate harnesses, steel hand crossbows, spyglasses...
All of these are tools of the renaissance.

Plus the mentality is already there. As the 'leading' people in the game-world are played or created by people from our own age, they think on a level far in advance of middle-age logic. The concepts of scientific method, logic, fair trial and a lot of the morals in game-worlds are taken from our own time: most certainly not the middle ages.

[Aroka]

The concepts of scientific method, logic, fair trial and a lot of the morals in game-worlds are taken from our own time

I avoid those things like the plague. Then again, one of my main games is RuneQuest, which is 90% Dark Ages or earlier culture.

Some basic tenets include that only your own culture is really human and has rights (even outlaws are better than outsiders, though both can be killed out of hand), that everyone else's ideas are filthy and poisonous, and that new things are usually dangerous (unless it's been proven to work well, or shown to just be an extension of an old thing). I think RPGs are much more fun when you really get in a different mindset and explore unfamiliar societies.

It's one of the reasons I like ASOIAF, actually - the cultures in the world have their own medieval values, and actually believe in things like trial by combat and the inherent superiority of the nobility.

[Ormur]

Unless we're talking about post-industrial-revolution rates of progress things don't necessarily happen so fast that you'd see new inventions and social currents suddenly appear in the span of the few months your campaign lasts.

I think it's more appropriate to hint at an undercurrent of subtle change. People representing older ideas and interests complaining about new ideas, nobles complaining about uppity merchants and royal bureaucracy or warriors or armies fighting in the traditional way being defeated by new tactics and weapons. Well informed NPCs might mention some spells being new or know about some new discoveries. Common people might only know rumours of great men that found new continents (although "here be dragons" is quite likely to be perfectly accurate in D&D)
However even ongoing revolutionary change might not be recognized by the short lived and often ignorant people living through it. People might still think everything was better in some mythological past and either interpret new things as evidence that everything is getting worse or that they're rediscovering something from back then.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Good points about the speed of progress - gunpowder was used in the military for a long time before pistols and muskets were available.
I guess if I introduced gunpowder into the game (for example), then it'd take a good long time to turn from rockets and cannon into personal firearms.

Yes - a wizard did it.
Just because I mentioned real-world technological eras, doesn't mean that magical advancement is out. Indeed, many advancements that would have taken mundane society generations to do might be accomplished in a couple of year or even months.

We have to be careful not to go down the Tippyverse route here though.

[Lord Raziere]

It's assumption that whatever happened in "Real world" in Europe recently, is something typical, rather than one of a kind thing.


Tribes, even whole organized realms, civilizationals in Africa of South America, existed trough the millenniums without any sign of "progress" similar to European.

Europe gave birth to certain systems, ideas, that caused what we see today. It's one of a kind thing, in just tiny little period in whole humankind history.

So there's no reason for fantasy world to change in the same way at all, even if many elements are obviously similar.

Jared Diamond would like to have a word with you.

[0Megabyte]

Yeah, that was what I was about to say.

To give more detail, I'd like to point out that the Spanish conquistadors were amazed when they visited Aztec cities. Why? Because they were so much more sophisticated and well-made than their own.

Though technology WAS different, in many ways the Aztecs were a match or even more advanced than the Spanish. For example, IIRC, they ditched their armor for Aztec armor and clothes pretty much straight away, for they worked much better in that environment than what they had.

What things they lacked, they were only a few centuries behind. If they'd met the Spain of 1000 A.D., for example, there would be no contest.

Well, yes there would. The Spanish diseases would still kill them by the millions... but that's not technology. That's just unlucky since they had no experience with the current Eurasian diseases.

[Shademan]

I DM'ed a D&D reneisance game fer a short while once.
now, sleep.

[Yora]

Yeah, that was what I was about to say.

To give more detail, I'd like to point out that the Spanish conquistadors were amazed when they visited Aztec cities. Why? Because they were so much more sophisticated and well-made than their own.

"It hasn't got **** all over it"?

[Oslecamo]

Well, yes there would. The Spanish diseases would still kill them by the millions... but that's not technology. That's just unlucky since they had no experience with the current Eurasian diseases.

They had no experience with diseases, point. The records show the Aztec population didn't have to bother with any serious bacteria or virus before. The europeans on the other hand came from a continent where mortal plagues were almost common. It was War of the Worlds reversed (in War of the Worlds the space invaders end up being defeated by earth diseases, in this case the defenders were slaughtered by the invader's diseases).

[Boci]

Jared Diamond would like to have a word with you.

I think he would agree that the numberous magical disasters and powerful feral monsters, combined with multiple intelligent and malicious races from other planes mean that most D&D setting do not have the stable enviroment that allowed Europe to advance as it did.
That could be mitigated by magic, but that is arguable.

[Knaight]

What things they lacked, they were only a few centuries behind. If they'd met the Spain of 1000 A.D., for example, there would be no contest.

This is extremely debatable. While the typical academic account is Cortez and a few hundred men toppling an empire with the aid of disease, there is a lot more to it than that. The Aztec had the effective armor and weapons they had because they were constantly at war with somebody, when the Spanish came the Aztec empire included a lot of recently conquered territory, and many of the people in that recently conquered territory tossed in their lots with the Spanish. The Aztec would have had a far better chance without the disease factor even against the Spain they were dealing with, and certainly against the Spain of 1000 A.D., but the uprisings that came with would still have presented the same huge issue.

[Volos]

I have a campaign setting in which I am doing this very thing, advancing the technology slowly to show the advancement of eras though time. Each time a campaign ends, (which happens fairly often when you start at lvl 10) I advance the timeline, redraw borders, and invent new tech. My players love it because all of their hard work in game and in roleplay pays off with new nations rising up from uncharted lands and strong royal family lines that move with the times. So far we've made it to a renaissance tech and next advancement would be Eberron or as close as I'd like to get. The world would progress fairly quickly, concidering the actions of the Player Characters, but continual world destruction threats and the loss of millions of lives tends to slow science/magic/scimagic down a little bit.

[Lycan 01]

Hm. Renaissance. Y'know, why haven't I thought of that already? Its not that big a difference, but its still noticeable and fun. Like Assassins Creed to Assassins Creed 2. You're not jumping forward very far into the future, and you've still got all the same basic concepts. The culture and tech has just slightly progressed further.

Y'know, I need to discuss this with my players. Jumping our DnD setting's timeline into the Renaissance would be pretty interesting, IMO. It would add gunpowder and other inventions, and bring art, science, religeon, and politics further into focus. And all those castles and cities they used to frequent in "old" DnD will now be ruins and relics, ready to be explored and ripe for the picking. Yeaaaah... I really like this idea!

[Lord Raziere]

I think he would agree that the numberous magical disasters and powerful feral monsters, combined with multiple intelligent and malicious races from other planes mean that most D&D setting do not have the stable enviroment that allowed Europe to advance as it did.
That could be mitigated by magic, but that is arguable.

Stable? Europe was violent as hell, the middle ages were the most turbulent in history of Europe, if barbarians weren't invading you had them fighting decades long wars against each other, there were plagues ravaging Europe since Rome, its only recently that Europe has ever been stable, from the Middle Ages to WWII, they have basically been fighting each other over whether this guy or that guy succeeded the throne, in fact in the Middle ages the place that was stable and nice? the Islamic Caliphate, which was experiencing a golden age in comparison to Europe's constant warfare.

in fact? The Renaissance happened because of the Crusades combined with the Black Plague; as in Europe gone out and took everything in the Islamic Empire by force where all the old works and such were preserved, THEN a friggin plague that chopped Europe's population in half provided everyone opportunity to start fresh. Probably didn't occur in THAT order but they were both contributing factors, the Renaissance was born of blood, theft, violence and lots of death.

and the Colonial Age afterwards only succeeded because Europe had so many plagues and wars, the Europeans had become immune to such diseases by then and their culture had turned competitive, conquer and power hungry which led to them to seek out new riches and places to get them from while at the same time hating their neighboring countries.

Middle Ages Europe. Stable. Funniest thing I ever heard.

[0Megabyte]

Osle: To be clear, it isn't that they had no experience with diseases. They had plenty.

But they had no resistance to the diseases that Europeans had been dealing with for the previous 10,000 years or so. As Jared Diamond would point out, the lack of large farm animals and the lessened breeding grounds for bacterial diseases left them vulnerable to the sorts that the Europeans carried with them.

[Ormur]

I've stumbled upon many theories for the industrialization and modernization of Europe and its offshoots in my studies. Some of them are:

-The right blend of centralization and fragmentation. Europe had many centralized states that had to compete for economic and military domination. China most often only had one centralized bureaucracy without competition whereas India didn't have strong or stable enough states.

-European states from their early formation in the middle ages had weak despotic powers but strong infrastructural power. The King usually couldn't do whatever he wanted since he was constrained by nobles, parliaments, customs and business interests but when he got his way he had a bureaucracy capable of enacting his will comparatively effectively throughout the state. In China the powerful bureaucracy was just too small to effect much change in local governance. European priests and sheriffs however routinely meddled in local minutiae according to royal policy.

-Related to the above is the role of the medieval church which provided a cosmopolitan, literate and efficient bureaucracy through it's universities (not just the clergy but scribes and lawyers too).

-Cities and towns which drove much change were pretty autonomous and mostly came into being spontaneously or organically. Merchants often ruled the towns and they could protect themselves and nobles and later governments saw the benefit in that for their tax and customs income. Cities in China were under more state control but Middle Eastern and Indian ones were vulnerable to raiding armies (some of them European) that looted their wealth for short term benefit.

-In the vein of Jared Diamond there is the geographical advantage of having a jagged coastline that promoted maritime trade and fragmentation.

-Related to that is the benefit of finding a whole new continent, essentially there for the taking, America. Exporting people was demographically advantageous, new crops increased food yields, gold and other resources mitigated the European trade imbalance with Asia and the subsequent emphasis on maritime trade and innovation allowed European powers to dominate world trade and later allowed them to enforce their will on the advanced civilization of Asia in the 18th and 19th century.

-Then there's of course the protestant work ethic explanation from Weber (which I personally don't subscribe to).

I'm not saying those theories are correct and they don't say anything about inherent European superiority or some such nonsense. There were certainly eras in which those conditions might have been present in other civilizations and spurred innovation but they might not have lasted long enough.
They might however provide ideas for the conditions necessary in a campaign that focuses on progress. If your world is frequently laid waste by monsters and cosmic events (on the scale of the Mongol invasions or black death) long-term progress might not happen.

[Aroka]

in fact? The Renaissance happened because of the Crusades combined with the Black Plague; as in Europe gone out and took everything in the Islamic Empire by force where all the old works and such were preserved, THEN a friggin plague that chopped Europe's population in half provided everyone opportunity to start fresh. Probably didn't occur in THAT order but they were both contributing factors, the Renaissance was born of blood, theft, violence and lots of death.

and the Colonial Age afterwards only succeeded because Europe had so many plagues and wars, the Europeans had become immune to such diseases by then and their culture had turned competitive, conquer and power hungry which led to them to seek out new riches and places to get them from while at the same time hating their neighboring countries.

The inaccurate oversimplifications, they burn.

Europeans were immune to diseases? what

And yes, the Middle-Eastern Crusades did occur first (11C-13C), the Black Death later (mid-14C). But there's a gap of some 200 years from Crusades to Renaissance, and 100 years from Black Death to Renaissance. All those wonderful books by Islamic scholars (which were indeed pretty impressive, including advanced lens optics, etc.) just sat around for 100 years waiting for a plague to kill off a third of the population, then sat around another 200 years before they were picked up again?

[Lycan 01]

Sorry to divert attention from historic debate, but I have a few questions.

If I were to run a Renaissance game, what sort of firearms, armor, and tech would be available? Flintlock weapons would be too advanced. I'm thinking Wheel-lock and clockwork firing mechanisms. Armor wise, I think metal cuirasses and breastplates would be available and countable for Plate armor. And as for tech, the printing press and such would be available, correct? I suppose airships would be a must, since it IS DnD after all.

I'm thinking clockwork stuff would be prevailent. Not steampunk, that's more Victorian. But gears, springs, and tension-driven machines might make for good enemies. C'mon, a clockwork Warforged would be so cool.

[HamHam]

In an adventuring context, early firearms are going to be almost completely useless. While they work fine in formation, one guy who can only shoot every couple of rounds is just not up to snuff.

[Lycan 01]

But a brace of pistols in melee combat would surely put a damper on anyone's day. While I don't expect a player to actually stop and spent 10 rounds reloading a pistol mid-battle, I think they'd be able to find uses for it, especially if they had several of them. Plenty of roleplaying opportunities, close range attacks before moving into melee range, intimidation and style factos, et cetera.

[Aroka]

But a brace of pistols in melee combat would surely put a damper on anyone's day. While I don't expect a player to actually stop and spent 10 rounds reloading a pistol mid-battle, I think they'd be able to find uses for it, especially if they had several of them. Plenty of roleplaying opportunities, close range attacks before moving into melee range, intimidation and style factos, et cetera.

You'll deal more damage if you keep PAing your greatsword than if you start TWFing pistols (and you have to waste a feat on Quick Draw), though. If you're inside a pistol's range increment, you can just charge. Making firearms competitive in regular D&D is pretty much undoable.

[Lycan 01]

Yes, I know its statistically not the best option. There's no way around that...

But bear with me, please. For the sake of roleplaying purposes, not combat awesomeness, what sort of firearms would be available in a generic Renaissance Era game? From what I've gathered, Matchlock and Wheel-lock seem to have been the type available near the end of the Renaissance, with Flintlock not coming out til shortly later. I'm not sure about muskets, but I did read something about Arabeques or some other funky name for "pre-musket rifle" around during the Renaissance.

[Aroka]

Matchlocks and wheellocks are muskets. D&D probably can't usefully model the differences between handgonnes, arquebuses, muskets, and other early firearms, so it doesn't matter - just use the musket and pistol from the DMG. Plenty of detail of the firearms on Wikipedia.

Other weaponry and armor would just be all the PHB stuff; full plate, breastplates, greatswords, rapiers, and possibly halberds are all Renaissance stuff. (Obviously breastplates are earlier armor, but as sole armor they're later period stuff; you'd usually wear one over full mail, since if you could afford a breastplate you'd be a fool not to also cover the entire rest of your body.)

[Altair_the_Vexed]

While it's certainly easy to convert the medievalism of D&D into a renaissance setting - we've got plenty of worked examples ready made for us to do that -what I'm asking in the OP is over what kind of timeline that should be happening.

In my mind, adoption of military of technology ought to be fairly rapid in a setting where aggressor non-human species exist in the badlands. Muskets are scary to face, and easy to use (compared with a longbow) - and in the real world they quickly replaced crossbows as the ranged weapon of choice. With mass adoption of new weapons, we get mass production (or rather, non-artisan production). With mass production comes increased innovation as producers try to get their firearms to beat their competitors, and so win lucrative contracts... Roll on the flint lock, the revolving cylinder, the turret rifle, the gattling gun...

Now - on to other, more fantastic technology: warforged and war jacks (Eberon and Iron Kingdoms). Golems are already a staple part of D&D settings, so there's little to change there - except to say that the route to warforged and war jacks is simple enough: cheaper, less magic intensive golems might be made to attack opposition that use undead or poison gases and the like. These magical mechanical soldiers need not be as tough and expensive as golems - they only need to be as tough (or a little tougher) than the human soldiers they replace.

Social reforms are another thing. D&D already tends to assume equality of the sexes to some extent, and intraspecies racism isn't often portrayed (when you've got goblins over the river, who cares if your fellow human is paler or darker than you?) - so what is there to reform and modernise..?
Democracy, and the rise of middle classes starts to be discussed about the renaissance and early modern era. Isn't it a great trope of fantasy adventures to throw off oppressive rulers and free the peasants? Imagine that a wave of revolution is sweeping through your setting - look at the reactions of the historical real world rulers to this tide of democracy. Awesome campaign material...

But does any of this happen in the course of an adventurer's career?
I'd like to think that, like the first motor cars, it would take a couple of decades for any new technology to be adopted, but then a shorter time to be almost universal.
So if I want to see wizards with flintlock pistols by the end of my game, I need to start with a new regiment of musketeers being formed in the King's Guard - and wait a few game years.