Adventures through the ages - or whats the difference between Gilgamesh and Arthur?

[Tonguez]

Okay over in this thread Hardhead made the comment that

I'm not convinced "bronze age" would feel that different from "mideaval" in an RPG.

Medieval: I ride my horse to the Vampire's castle, and fight the Vampire with my steel sword.

Bronze: I ride my horse (which does not have stirrups) to the Cyclop's lair, and attack the Cyclops with my bronze sword.

So in your opinion - other than obvious technology - what is the essential difference between roleplaying in the pseudo-Bronze Age and role playing in the pseudo-medieval age or for that matter the pseudo-renaisance/pre-industrial age? (even Neolithic settings could work - afterall the Mayan and Aztec Empires were neolithic)

Are there any scenarios that can't be easily adapted to any pre-industrial, post-paleolithic age?

 

[WayneLigon]

I'd use Between the Rivers as a starting point for the game. Just off hand, the lower tech level would have some impact. There are not as many cities and towns. Virtually no roads. Much more wilderness waiting out there to be explored.

In the final analysis, the basics - fight evil creatures, foil the plans of evil men, etc - would stay much the same but the details would be a good way to show 'you're not in Kanses anymore'. I'd need a goods reference that says more about what doesn't exist and what the implications of that are. (For instance, I seem to remember something about the stirrups thing and why they were a very important invention).

I'd probably borrow from the aformentioned book and RuneQuest to create a world much closer to the gods, probably with little Arcane magic. More like the Conan books, perhaps, or Glorantha.

 

[CCamfield]

You might not ride a horse at all in the Bronze Age setting. You'd ride in a chariot instead. (I don't think there are any references at all to riding on horseback in the Iliad or Odyssey, for instance.) Early enough in the Bronze Age, it might be (IIRC) donkeys pulling a wagon.

As Wayne said, the wilderness would be much more dominant in comparison with settlements. Small city-states were more common than unified kingdoms. Life was harder. The records proclaiming the achievements of Sumerian or Babylonian kings sometime include re-opening roads that had fallen into disuse due to the wilderness and bandits. In a fantasy environment, a lot more of the map could be labelled "unknown".

If you wanted religion to match the Bronze Age, I think it might be starker and more uncaring.

Essentially, everything should be more primal.

 

[fusangite]

It really depends on the environment of the game. Assuming we are talking about Europe, here are some possibly useful generalizations:

Politically, bronze age cultures tend to produce either bureaucratic despotisms, small-scale city states or no government at all whereas medieval cultures tend to produce pyramidal social organizations along feudal principles. Bronze age political structures are easily erased whereas medieval structures are highly durable.

Religiously, bronze age cultures tend to have multiple competing cosmological systems and often recurring or common deities whereas medieval cultures tend to have a single cosmological structure even if there are different local deities placed into the structure.

Agriculturally, bronze age cultures tend to be limited to temperate climates and soft soils due to the absence of the heavy plough and long-lasting metal tools. Medieval societies are more likely to colonize forested areas and move into colder regions.

Economically, bronze age societies tend to be more trade-dependent because of the relative scarcity of tin compared to iron ore. Furthermore, due to having less agricultural range, these societies also tend to be more dependent on agricultural trade and tribute to sustain population centres.

Intellectually, bronze age societies tend to have a more rapidly evolving literature and require a much larger community of readers and copiers to sustain a written tradition due to the much shorter lifespan of literary storage media.

As a result of the above factors, there was a much bigger cultural, economic and intellectual divide between hinterland and central regions in the bronze age. A good bronze age campaign will be driven by the enormous differences between life in the centre and life in the margins.

 

[Agback]

You might not ride a horse at all in the Bronze Age setting. You'd ride in a chariot instead. (I don't think there are any references at all to riding on horseback in the Iliad or Odyssey, for instance.).

There aren't, and this was part of the evidence that lead to the belief, current for many years, that the riding of horses was not invented until after the invention of the chariot. But this belief has been overturned of late years.

1. It turns out that the onagers and other smallish equids whose bones, found in the Middle East, have returned very early dates were herded for food, not as draught animals.

2. Horse jaws have been found (at Dereivka in the Ukraine) with wear on the teeth that is consistent with their champing on bits, and not with any other hypothesis anyone has come up with. These have been dated to at least six thousand years old, easily antedating the Iliad and Odyssey. Bits are useful only when the horses are ridden.

Finally, don't forget that Homer's works are not primary evidence: he was writing about supposed events at least three or four hundred years before his time, and although he does display some astonishing accuracies (for example in the siting of cities that were long gone in his time), he is not describing his own time. It is possible that in his day people rode, but that the old stories he worked with went on about chariots (an archaism in his time). Thinking that 'people rode chariots in the old days' he wrote chariots everywhere, even though his heroes in fact my have ridden outside of battle.

 

[Agback]

Economically, bronze age societies tend to be more trade-dependent because of the relative scarcity of tin compared to iron ore.

Copper is less common than iron, too. The result is that metal implements are much more expensive and rarer in a Bronze Age setting than in an Iron Age one. Sure, there are excellent bronze swords to be had, and cast bronze plate and scale (but not mail, for some reason), but at a far greater price than the later iron equivalents. PCs will end up armed and armoured in metal, but this will make them stand out from the crowd, even among an army, where spears, bows, leather armour and very large shields will be all the go.

Regards,


Agback

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ninjas.

Bronze age archer-ninjas.

Never ever forget to include ninjas in your campaign setting. Ever. Or they will display their Real Ultimate Power for you to behold!

Uhmm......

On a more serious note, since I inspire my campaigns around myth, certainly there's a marked difference in Bronze Age vs. Medieval. The Good/Evil distinction is thinner...even your enemies may be pretty decent gents. The impact of the gods is felt everywhere. Even if they aren't directly seen, their hand is felt, as it goes about manipulating events behind the scenes. Mass combat is nearly a must. While you can get away with fuedal people bein' all peaceful and slayin' dragons in a world without war in a Medieval campaign, the mass was more important than the individual to most mythic Bronze Age societies, and thus when one person went to war, his ENTIRE FRICKIN COUNTRY followed behind him. Spears look cool, and clubs look tribal. If you're Gilgamesh, don't be affraid to have your never-ending quest be futile in the end (it's not about the treasure, it's about your relation to it!). If you're Greek, don't be affraid to be completely bat-frickin' bonkers with respect to a few traits (hey, you're the kids of gods, you can afford to be a bit severing of social norms!), but don't give in too much (or the norms push back, and feed you your own children for the sins of your grandpappy). You're probably ruled by your priests or your warriors, or both in some cases.

If you're going more "traditional D&D with spears and horsehair," it gets a bit wonkier....mostly due to the wild and crazy monsters you need to stick in...though you'll probably get a lot of use out of classical and aquatic beasts. Wizards and clerics and sorcerers are all the same, in a game-world view (who cares if you're a natural philosopher, a seer, or a thrice-removed nephew of a nymph? You're workin' UNNATURAL POWERZ, man!)....fighters and spellcasters dominate the field, though trixy rogues have their place. Barbarians is everyone else.

And the ninjas will ride in on a chariot, flip over the seat, and wail on your entire hoplyte army hardkore!

 

[Tonguez]

So a Bronze Age Game should have

1. City-States: Urban centers were trade, religion, military and technology is centralised sorounded by large rural/wilderness hinterland which pays tribute to the Urban center (check out the Shang Culture, the first civilisation of China)

2. Ubiquitous gods and spirits (and demons) that have a hand in practically EVERYTHING that happens (ie the Big Bad is a spirit/god so is the Major NPC catalyst, and the strange encounter on the road)

3. Lots of preists, shamans and minor mediums (maybe a Feat that allows all characters with Wis 13+ to cast orisons)

3. Well established trade networks (good hook for PCs-as-Merchants/Guards)

4. Greater use of non-metal tools and weapons (bronze is rare and Iron probably equivalent to Adamantium)

5. No cavalry units and Ride skill is rare
(iirc the stirrup changed the horse from being a beast of burden/mode of transport to being an effective weapon system - ie pre-stirrup the horse might carry infantrymen to the battlefeild where he would dismount and fight, post-stirrup cavalry and then heavy armour tanks (Knights) developed)

6. Characters are more dependent on their allies (village, tribe, order, city, nation) and will make calls on them

7. Equally PCs are Heroes becoming Legends and thus probably more than mortal(like the Greek sons-of-Zeus and Gilgamesh whose mother was a goddess) (so noone else has PC classes or give the PCs hero points um)

8. Chariot-Ninjas