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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8726116" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>See to me the problem with sewers in fantasy gaming is not the type of material culture they incorporate, it's that they are always full of large spaces you can walk around in rather than just being networks of pipes (or cruder equivalents thereof).</p><p></p><p>Rome's Cloaca Maxima was a sewer system kind of like that, but it was large because it was adapted from a system of open streams which were turned into brick open channels (partly to drain marshland) before eventually being enclosed into a sewer system whose central line could accommodate a small boat. And it was considered an extraordinary thing; a matter of imperial and civic pride with its own patron goddess, not a forgotten place full of vagabonds and bandits. And even in this most famous (and surprisingly celebrated) of ancient sewers only really the one, linear central line emptying into the Tiber was comparable to what every part of the typical fantasy gaming sewer seems to be portrayed as, so it wasn't really much of an adventuring location.</p><p></p><p>So I would say having a sewer as an adventuring location is great, but it would be much more authentic if you figure out what extraordinary historical circumstances led to the city having a whole network of monumental, adventure-worthy sewers, rather than just put them there because they are a fantasy trope. Rome maintained a large sewer because it was adapted from existing streams and because they were a culture that took immense pride in hydro-engineering. The "abandoned", criminal sewer system we often see in fantasy gaming probably only makes sense if the city (or a particular area of it) used to be much larger and more elaborately maintained.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8726116, member: 6988941"] See to me the problem with sewers in fantasy gaming is not the type of material culture they incorporate, it's that they are always full of large spaces you can walk around in rather than just being networks of pipes (or cruder equivalents thereof). Rome's Cloaca Maxima was a sewer system kind of like that, but it was large because it was adapted from a system of open streams which were turned into brick open channels (partly to drain marshland) before eventually being enclosed into a sewer system whose central line could accommodate a small boat. And it was considered an extraordinary thing; a matter of imperial and civic pride with its own patron goddess, not a forgotten place full of vagabonds and bandits. And even in this most famous (and surprisingly celebrated) of ancient sewers only really the one, linear central line emptying into the Tiber was comparable to what every part of the typical fantasy gaming sewer seems to be portrayed as, so it wasn't really much of an adventuring location. So I would say having a sewer as an adventuring location is great, but it would be much more authentic if you figure out what extraordinary historical circumstances led to the city having a whole network of monumental, adventure-worthy sewers, rather than just put them there because they are a fantasy trope. Rome maintained a large sewer because it was adapted from existing streams and because they were a culture that took immense pride in hydro-engineering. The "abandoned", criminal sewer system we often see in fantasy gaming probably only makes sense if the city (or a particular area of it) used to be much larger and more elaborately maintained. [/QUOTE]
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