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I suppose it depends how you define a professional soldier, but towards the end of the medieval period any state that could afford it preferred to take money in the form of taxes, leave the peasant-farmers at home, and go to war with an army of professional volunteer soldiers. It could be raised...

I'd suggest the most important thing is using a system you are familiar with, as that's going to make it much easier than learning a new system while playing with modules written for another one. On the other hand if you're willing to work around that I can suggest three non-D&D systems. 1...

Take a look at Spain, either in the era of the Allmoravids or Almohads (or some of the wars of the Reconquista). Make the two sides a little more united than they historically were, but keep the central monarchy rather weak (not unreasonable for the period). Most wars will be between local...

Possibly the rules did, but both Glorantha and EPT had setting material in existence before D&D appeared. I suspect the "strong identity" of many settings is helped because they simply didn't have so many writers with their own vision of "how things should be" or the editors were more inclined...

The Black Death certainly killed more people and disrupted society more than any of the wars - possibly all of the wars combined, with the exceptions of one or two local campaign specifically aimed at the total eradication of a particular society (Charlemagne against the pagan Saxons, roughly...

You can die in character creation. Traveller, obviously. King Arthur's knights go off questing. Pendragon - for Paladin replace Arthur with Charlemagne. Baboon and duck agree, goatfolk bad! Runequest, in Glorantha.

Like other people, I'd say no. T5 was to some extent a love letter to old Traveller fans with all that entails, including not having much regard for people who weren't already experienced players. An approximate analogy would be having two versions of D&D around, one based on 3.x (T5) and one...

I'm planning to run a Pendragon scenario on Monday which will take place at Easter with the normal Christian religious activities taking place. Some of them have particular events associated with them. I suppose I'll be able to say afterwards whether it was good or not. I do remember one that...

It's very much a sandbox, which means there's a lot of work for the GM (though there's also a lot of supplementary material for the campaign, and I'd recommend Ship Encounters in particular). It's probably best with a group with experience with Traveller so they know what's possible, and that's...

You also might want to look at Ghost Archipelago which uses basically the same system. Your party leader probably isn't a wizard, and the adventures are in tropical islands rather than an arctic city, but it's also a very nice game.

There's nothing in the main rulebook which isn't in the Starter Set, so it would be superfluous. The next thing I'd suggest would be the Central Supply Catalogue, which adds a pile of equipment that's very useful. After that it depends on what exactly you want to do. If you're determined to...

Running the Pirates of Drinax campaign with Mongoose Traveller 2e. Playing in a Modiphius Conan game - freebooting sailors out of Zingara exploring lost islands for treasure and pirating any ships we come across. Preparing for our Easter special day where we all run a short scenario with a...

The Mythic RP Engine is supposed to be compatible with any system and is designed to make it playable solo. I've seen a few "actual play" write-ups for games using it. It does seem to work better for systems where solitary action is a common trope - so King Arthur's/Charlemagne's knights, Conan...

Which time? I first left D&D in the 1970s for Traveller and Runequest. It wasn't permanent then, but the current edition is designed to tell me that they don't want me as a customer and I don't see any reason not to respect that. Now I run Traveller and Pendragon and play Runequest, Fate, and...

May Issaries guide him home. R.I.P.

Something from the d100/BRP family would be my suggestion. Take Delta Green or one of Call of Cthulhu's supplements for play later than the default 1920s era, and add one of the fantasy versions for more magic. They certainly meet all five conditions. Although I have to say that I don't see why...

I can think of a few more 'mercenary company' stories in a fantasy setting. One that actually covers a situation where adventurers join an existing mercenary company that you might like to read is the second volume of Mercedes Lackey's Tarma and Kethry stories (Oathbreakers is the name, though...

They were the Rum/Rumi to the end, as far as the Turks and Arabs were concerned.

A small correction, the New World had plenty of domesticatable plant species (rice, maize, potatoes, and many others). It was large animals that could be domesticated that were rare (the llama, alpaca, and perhaps the Turkey). There are a number of reasons why the lack of those would have a...

They get sick from all sorts of diseases that they've never been exposed to but which are common in Eurasia, the Eurasians wait till they're weakened by this and massacre most of them, keeping some as prisoners to teach them how to make all these wonderful devices. Old World Diseases...