"Anachronisms" in your game

[John Q. Mayhem]

The grosse Messer rocks my socks.

What I always thought the Heron-mark swords should look like.

 

[WayneLigon]

It depends on the campaign I run and what sort of themes or tropes I want to use. Many times, 'anachronisms' are found because of cross-pollination with non-human cultures. Humans living near the elvish lands of the Greenwood tend to be more reverant of nature, non-expansionist, and have little concept of differentiation by gender in any matter. The humans living near the dwarf settlements are used to a higher standard of living through technology, so they bathe at least once a day, have a higher urban population, better education and wash their hands and tools before cutting people open.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Money...Money in my games is an anachonism.

I have a little (well not so little) chart done up that uses a silver and copper based economy and prices things like you would expect to see in our world. i.e. most personal use weapons cost in the smae range as guns, horses are priced like cars (and my players had a cow when they tried to buy a fully tricked out warhorse), and armor is just like our armor....very hard to get ahold of the real stuff and expensive as hell when you do get it.

Women may be warriors and such so I guess that is another ding.

OTOH, much like SHARK (Hiya) I run a world where racial, religious, and other bigotries routinely take place. Sucks to be a peasant. My players have become big softies cause they can't extort much out the local villiage that can barely feed itself and pay their taxes.

 

[Particle_Man]

I ran a King Arthur game where I limited the languages to: Common, Druidic (that secret language that only druids (and those partaking of druid magic) could learn). And this was invariant over time and space. If they found a 5000 year old document, they could read it. If they travelled 2000 years into the future, they could communicate fluently with the natives.

I just didn't want to deal with languages.

 

[danbuter]

I have elves being the ruling caste, modelled strongly on samurai (but with european armor). They also cast spells with no chance of spell failure regardless of what type of armor they wear. Most elves are multi-class sorcerors.

Women are equal to men in all respects.

There is a Catholic church and a druid analog for religions. Elves are Catholic, and the Pope is a 600 year old elf.

Shifters live in the forests, as do goblin wolf riders.

Humans are ruled by elves, and serve as soldiers, servants, and slaves.

Bast cat-men come from the mysterious east. They are always solitary, and usually assassins sent to remove the more expansionistic elves. The East is clouded by magic, though human traders bear items to the eastern elven city.

 

[Psion]

Relative gender equality and racial tolerance
Widespread literacy (though it was not uncommon in ancient Japan. But then, I don't consider my setting to be a strict analog of Europe.)
Rapiers in a setting that never developed gunpowder.

I will say though, my world's shops don't resemble modern stores, and find it annoying that some people think that they pull magic items (or anything else) off a shelf.

 

[RFisher]

All the games I run--D&D, my current classic Traveller campaign, or anything else--is really just here-&-now with just as much genre window dressing as needed to give the feel of the genre. So, it's intentionally more anachronistic than not.

Whereas, in the past, I tended to be more simulationist. Yet, my games were probably just as anachronic as they are today, but it wasn't intentional.

(I wonder why we tend to say "anachronistic" when "anachronic" is just as valid a word, if not better. There's usually not an "anachronist" involved unless you're talking about the SCA.)

 

[diaglo]

pony express.
modern paved roads.
trade language. heck, trade in general.



a lot of these were added to stop player whining.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Many published campaign settings feature a mix of rennaissance, barbaric, medieval, and egyptian locales; I'd say they're rife with internal anachronisms.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

- My favorite line from that whole wonderful series.

How did I miss that? Almost assuredly my favorite (or, should I say, favourite) series ever!