"Anachronisms" in your game

[ARandomGod]

Honestly, I’ve never worried about anachronism in the game. It always seemed silly to worry about it in a world with dragons and elves.

Ah, a man after my own heart. I was reading this thread and thinking that the biggest "anachronism" I generally see in 3.X is the concept of 'western' and 'eastern' and what is 'historically accurate'.

That's just a huge assumption. How can it be historically accurate? It not IN history! People say that the katana never was in the area that the longsword was in. Wait? Never was? So you're trying to get me to believe that there were shadowdancers? Or horizon walkers? Or "rangers" casting cure moderate wounds?

This isn't a fantasy game about the middle ages of europe. This is a game where magic does stuff. Where clerics raise both holy and unholy hell. People teleport and fly large distances, and yet noone ever brought back a katana? How can that be? There's a blacksmith down the road that make's em, and that magic user just cast "fabricate" to create something I don't even know what it is!

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Broad racial equality, if you consider that an anachronism. It's a medievalesque world, not an enlightenmentesque one. Nationalism and especially racialism are arguably anachronistic for a medieval setting; to a peasant who never leaves his village, foreign means two miles away and alien means twenty.

Now, distrust, fear and perhaps outright hatred of outsiders (meaning, anyone not a local)? That's common. It just doesn't matter if they're dwarves, elves, humans, orcs, or any particular subrace thereof - they're all from Somewhere Else and they're all damned suspicious!

I don't go in for gender equality, though, at least for NPCs; a Valeria or Eowen PC or major villain once in a while is fine, but when they become the rule rather than the exception it's just silly. Female spellcasters, on the other hand, have a long and storied tradition in fantasy, myth and folklore - they're easily as common as males, if not moreso, although neither are exactly overflowing.

I also skip religious tolerance, although some measure of it is appropriate for many ancient settings. Religious strife is too good a plot hook - as the Iron Kingdoms aptly demonstrate.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well fantasy is all about anachronisms as others have indicated so I've never been TOO concerned about them. I just don't want to get carried away with them to the point that players start thinking it's lame instead of fun, cool, or convenient and get bored with it all. That said,

• Gender equality is undoubtedly #1
• Racial equality
• A broad spectrum of class structures (Middle class especially but I think you could also say my games have Lower Middle class, Upper Lower class, etc) and relatively easy mobility
• Hygiene
• Armor and weapons from any and all periods of history and societies
• A decidedly a-historical mix of socieites, cultures, philosophies
• Technological advancements that have no supportable basis for having developed. Examples include farming practices, construction techniques, shipbuilding and many more. And they don't require a DaVinci to think them up when I want them in the game.
• Economics. Possibly even a bigger anachronism than gender equality. Not only does it have absolutely no connection with anything like a medieval economy it has no connection with anything like a MODERN economy either. I don't run economic simulations, I run D&D games. If I need an explantion for something I will INVENT one, not submit to having it dictated to me by an economic model.

There's probably plenty more but these are the biggest of them that I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[scadgrad]

Ah, a man after my own heart. I was reading this thread and thinking that the biggest "anachronism" I generally see in 3.X is the concept of 'western' and 'eastern' and what is 'historically accurate'.

That's just a huge assumption. How can it be historically accurate? It not IN history! People say that the katana never was in the area that the longsword was in. Wait? Never was? So you're trying to get me to believe that there were shadowdancers? Or horizon walkers? Or "rangers" casting cure moderate wounds?

This isn't a fantasy game about the middle ages of europe. This is a game where magic does stuff. Where clerics raise both holy and unholy hell. People teleport and fly large distances, and yet noone ever brought back a katana? How can that be? There's a blacksmith down the road that make's em, and that magic user just cast "fabricate" to create something I don't even know what it is!

You make a good point, but at the same time, the majority of the source material for the game stems from fantasy literature and as it happens, most of that literature is derivative of medieval Europe. Whether my game is based on historical Europe or the work of Martin, Tad Williams, Tolkien, Lieber, etc. there are going to be certain trappings of the setting that are decidedly medieval. For discerning players and DMs, anachronisms that work against these expectations ruin, or at the very least call into serious question, the veracity of the setting.

To me, the most absurd anachronisms are things like gender equity, racial tolerance, and religous coexistance.

Why is that? Well in most settings humans are the most prevelant race and for me to believe that humans would be any different in a mythical setting than they have been behaved in our own world is too much of a stretch. Those enlightened concepts have only existed in our own world for a very short time, and one could make the argument that they don't really exist even today.

Again, not everyone will be bothered by this, but the DM should strongly considered it when creating the setting.

 

[S'mon]

To me, the most absurd anachronisms are things like gender equity, racial tolerance, and religous coexistance.

To me, conceptualised gender, racial & religious equality seem highly anachronistic to a pre-Enlightenment setting, but de facto more-or-less equality is fine. IMC (mix of medieval and Roman-classical culture) someone announcing "all genders/races/religions are equal" would be laughed at, OTOH if a woman wants to be a warrior and is demonstrably at least as good as a typical male warrior, very few cultures will seek to prevent her being a warrior. Basically individual people are treated as what they seem to be rather than forced into a pigeonhole stereotype, but the stereotypes certainly exist ("Norsemen are huge and insanely violent", ") and there is no modern-style sense of guilt attached to these stereotypes, or feeling that stereotyping is wrong. So a male human Fighter has no problem in simultaneously believing (1) "women are weak and need protecting" and (2) "Sonja is a great warrior I can rely on in a fight".

 

[VirgilCaine]

To me, the most absurd anachronisms are things like gender equity, racial tolerance, and religous coexistance.

Why is that? Well in most settings humans are the most prevelant race and for me to believe that humans would be any different in a mythical setting than they have been behaved in our own world is too much of a stretch. Those enlightened concepts have only existed in our own world for a very short time, and one could make the argument that they don't really exist even today.

Again, not everyone will be bothered by this, but the DM should strongly considered it when creating the setting.

Why do people keep mentioning religious coexistence when the default presumption of the Core rules is a polytheistic religion (usually with a henotheistic view of the NE and CE evil deities)?

 

[scadgrad]

To me, conceptualised gender, racial & religious equality seem highly anachronistic to a pre-Enlightenment setting, but de facto more-or-less equality is fine. IMC (mix of medieval and Roman-classical culture) someone announcing "all genders/races/religions are equal" would be laughed at, OTOH if a woman wants to be a warrior and is demonstrably at least as good as a typical male warrior, very few cultures will seek to prevent her being a warrior. Basically individual people are treated as what they seem to be rather than forced into a pigeonhole stereotype, but the stereotypes certainly exist ("Norsemen are huge and insanely violent", ") and there is no modern-style sense of guilt attached to these stereotypes, or feeling that stereotyping is wrong. So a male human Fighter has no problem in simultaneously believing (1) "women are weak and need protecting" and (2) "Sonja is a great warrior I can rely on in a fight".

Exactly.

In most societies there will doubtless be a division between the sexes, but of course exceptions will occur. IMC I approach it from the same stance that you just outlined. Female warriors and the like would be the exception and there's no doubt that she might meet w/ some prejudice (which she might easily turn to her advantage). But if she's skilled w/ a blade and can handle herself in melee, no one's going to tell her that she can't be a warrior. In fact, I think it adds to the complexity of the campaign when certain cultures actually have a long tradition of women warriors, while others are appalled by such.

 

[scadgrad]

Why do people keep mentioning religious coexistence when the default presumption of the Core rules is a polytheistic religion (usually with a henotheistic view of the NE and CE evil deities)?

There are a lot of presumptions in the Core rules that seem a bit too "gamey" for many groups' tastes. They dispel the verisimilitude of the world and for some players, make the game less enjoyable. It's not polytheism per se, but rather the lack of competition between the faiths, or the absence of say the domination of one over most of the others that make the whole affair just a bit too sterile and clean. Maybe they're just a bit too "balanced."

 

[Desdichado]

In a fantasy world, NOTHING is anachronistic. Allegorical or just-plain-ripped-off, perhaps, but NOT anachronistic.

I was wondering if I'd have to be the first to say that! I have no anachronisms in my campaign, because my campaign is not (nor does it closely reflect) any temporal age of our own earth.

 

[Remathilis]

I have to agree with Barsoomcore when he said:

When consistency gets in the way of samurai gunslingers riding on dinosaurs, it's time for consistency to take a day off.

That is my take at least. As long as the broth is flavored medieval, I'm not concerned about the actual soup contents.