D&D 5E Adventures in other eras?

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:

Has anyone tried using the rules in 5E D&D for other time periods or era? The game nominally has a 10th or 11th century technology and social level, aside from various anachronisms. Has anyone tried something along the 15th century (limited guns, different society) or 19th century (lots of guns, very different society) and so forth? How did it go? What are your thoughts?

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I actually run my game in an 12th-century world, and I'd say a game of vanilla 5e is more typically high medieval, with one or two Renaissance and Ancient World anachronisms, than 10-12th centyry, but of course it depends more on the game-world than the rules.

For example, in the 12th century, there wasn't much of a cash economy, and D&D assumes this. You should also lose nearly all the armour types (keep the chain, and call "leather armour" gambesons or cuir boulli; the other types are either later inventions or pure fantasy). Likewise, you wouldn't have that many bludgeoning weapons around, which came into their own in the era of plate armour. The 12th century also wasn't anything like as urbanised as a typical D&D campaign, and which the prices and details in the PHB seem to suggest.

But D&D is anti-historical for any medieval period, in many ways, not just the 11th and 12th centuries. You have to have large areas of land for farming that are basically safe from monsters, otherwise the peasants would be killed off, and the economy and society would collapse. There also wouldn't be nearly as many warriors (knights, men-at-arms or mercenaries) around as in a typical D&D campaign world; but I suppose if you have more monsters around, you need more troops to defend civilisation. You also wouldn't have "law enforcement" agencies in anything like the same way that most players and scenario writers assume.

I'm of course not getting into the presence of magic, which would make for a massively different society anyway (and that's why my game-world doesn't have that many magic-using NPCs).

delericho said:

The trappings may be medieval, but I've found the baseline D&D actually resembles the Wild West during a gold rush more than anything else. And the societies presented have a considerably more modern sensibility than even that would imply.

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I agree with that! I always thought that D&D resembled a very "frontier spirit" idea of medieval times, rather than reflecting the rather settled, static, agrarian and social-obligation-based reality. It really is the Wild West with swords, just like the original Star Trek was (to use Gene Roddenbury's description) "wagon train to the stars".

I had never thought of it as Wild west, but I can see that and I suppose that makes it all rather American. Not that makes it bad, just arguably distinct.

It isn't hard to move away from the "frontier" style and give D&D a more authentic historical feel, if you want to do that - it's all down to the DM's game-world. The biggest barrier is not the system itself, but the assumptions made by players who have come to it via fantasy games (tabletop and video), movies and novels.

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:

I had never thought of it as Wild west, but I can see that and I suppose that makes it all rather American.

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I suspect that when I run it, it's more Scottish than anything else; likewise, when Morrus runs it, it's probably English to a significant degree, and so on and so forth. One of the beauties of the game is that the DM has such a significant influence - it really is what you make of it.

That said, I certainly prefer (these days) to take the view that it's strictly fantasy, and as such any resemblance to something from history is almost entirely coincidental. I know some people play in 'proper' historic settings, and more power to them, but it's not for me.

Warhammer frpg (the 2nd ed is really a nice system, I've used it for years) has a more 1400-1500 feel than DnD, and it shows a fantasy roleplaying game can definitely work in that erra, and in some ways be more interesting - lots of option for intrigue, law system is more present yet still archaic etc etc.

From a purely "hardware" point of view, the setting had the full gamut of D&D weapons and armor which was a bit hard to explain at first but then I realized it was because the threats/foes were so much more varied. Armor was gradually abandoned because it was so inefficient vs guns... but in a world where you are just as worried about an orc's cleaver or a beastman's tusk than a soldier's gun, armor still makes a lot of sense.

Guns *are* a challenge for a roleplaying game. You really have to understand how they worked and *why* they were adopted - the brittish kept using the longbow for about 200 years and there is a good reason for that! And then you have to translate that reality into something that is fun/balanced for the game, which is harder than it sounds.

I agree with [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION]. It feels more like the American Western than Medieval Europe to me (aside from the technology level). Which isn't surprising; it was created by Americans, after all.

It wasn't 5th Edition, but 3.5. I played a character in a 1940's "Pulp" game based off the D20 Modern book. It worked out surprisingly well. We didn't have any "Wizards", but one of the players was a Mad Scientist who created gadgets that mimic'd spell effects. Combat was a backseat to story though, so it was really about the Investigation side of things. I could EASILY see if working in 5th Edition, maybe even working better.

Morrus said:

I agree with [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION]. It feels more like the American Western than Medieval Europe to me (aside from the technology level). Which isn't surprising; it was created by Americans, after all.

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I grew up on BECMI and all the (gorgeous) Elmore art. When I visited Colorado and environs I was struck by how very American the landscape he helped shape in my head really was.

For a European flavoured setting, Dragon Warriors is brilliant, very evocative of the folklorish side to monsters (they included orcs as a monster but they stick out like a sore thumb; I think it was "expected" of an 80s rpg. Their take on hobgoblins and trolls and elves is very European - or British at least.

I can see how D&D works well as a Western. Elves and possibly Dwarves and Halflings as Native American tribes? Human settlers discovering the continent and its monsters, and bringing their own monsters with them a la Gaiman's American Gods. You could reference the Pratchett/Baxter Long Earth stories too, perhaps. A great temperate continent ripe for exploration and filled with craziness in which your out-of-sync adventurers get to die, er, that is, discover.

Ancalagon said:

Guns *are* a challenge for a roleplaying game. And then you have to translate that reality into something that is fun/balanced for the game, which is harder than it sounds.

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One stumbling block is that people expect guns to be death-wands - point, shoot, dead. Bullets mainly just punch holes in people, you're no less dead when stabbed through the heart than when shot through the heart. If 1d4 piercing for a dagger or d8 for a rapier is a deadly weapon, then a pistol doesn't need to be a whole lot different from that.

Punching through armor, OTOH, was eventually something guns did well. In 1e that'd Weapon vs Armor Type adjustments, in 3e touch AC, in 4e REF defense - in 5e the closest analogue would be a DEX save, though that doesn't dovetail well with the idea that they're weapons...