D&D General D&Difying History

[BookTenTiger]

I really have no idea why this fairly benign thread is being turned into an argument. Can’t we just talk about fun historical campaigns rather than making it political?

It would be historically inaccurate for a post about history on the internet to not turn political.

 

[CleverNickName]

I remember running a biblical D&D game a million years ago, for my youth group.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Crossroads!

1630 CE, in the misty past of Britain’s history, there was a prince named Mordred, and his bastard half brother, Arthur.

Essentially, Arthur and his knights convert to Christianity after a decade of regency in his younger brother’s name, and longer as the protector of Britain, by right of arms and by his aquisition of the protector’s sword Caledfwlch.

At this point, Mordred refuses conversion, and Arthur ousts his brother.

War ensues, and where things really take a turn is when Mordred makes a deal with The Morrigan to provide her an empire ruled by her half-mortal children and dedicated to the gods in exchange for the power to defeat his brother.

More than a thousand years later, the Empire of Cymru rules over what we call the British Isles, France, and most of Western and Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and has strong alliances and growing trade towns in the New World. Magic has never left the world, and the heirs of Mordred are shadowy people with long lives and a daring and sometimes wild nature. The Empire is strongly Pagan at its core, but functions in a sort of federalism inspired by the ancient Persian empires, meaning that parts of the empire are nearly fully autonomous, and have thier own petty monarchs or parliaments or whatever.

It has several rivals,

Federation of Reykjavik (and “empire” made up of Scandinavian states, the free states of Greenland, and the nations of the Iroquois Federation

The Byzantine Roman Empire persists, and is the primary bastion of Christianity in Europe.

The Caliphate rules over much of the historical territory of the Abbasid Caliphate, excepting Egypt, Persia, and some other little bits. The rise of the “moralists” was avoided, so this is still an empire that values science and the exchange of ideas.

Catholic Spain is small, made up of only a few northern kingdoms not part of Al Andulus or the Empire of Cymru’s Iberian holdings, and a widespread but tenuous diaspora spreading from the West African coastline to the islands and coasts of South and Central America, in walled fortress cities that are as likely to be embattled with their neighbors as have open trade relationships, from decade to decade.

The PCs in the 1630 attend thier first year at the Royal Academy in Cardiff, where many of the most promising youths of the Empire and her allies and rivals go to learn, to meet the powerful scions of far flung houses, and to compete in a sport that combines parkour with rugby.

The PCs were

Ianto Pandraeg: 5th child of the High King Mordred VI, sometime privateer. Level 11 Shadar-Kai Assassin/Avenger - Covenant Agent. Basically a crit-fishing swashbuckler half made of shadow, with a fierce burning dedication to the Queen Mother (the Morrigan) and to his love, Elodie. (5e conversions have varied from Blade Bard with Shadowtouched and shadowy magic tattoos to Paladin/Rogue and Ranger/Rogue builds, but none quite get there like the 4e Covenant Agent)

Elodie dArgent: French Gnomish new blood noble from a family of jewel merchants. Her father purchased a government position, which after a few decades earned him a permanent hereditary title. Elodie is favored by Caiphon and Al Ghurab, stars of knowledge and insight, and navigation. Caiphon enigmatically stopped another star from overwhelming and destroying her mind, and showed her how to take that external knowledge and partition it, and turn what she could consciously handle into power, thus making her a Star Pact Hexblade. She’s cute, scary, wields a bastard sword one-handed, and is in love with Ianto in spite of all that tries to keep them apart.

Tremayne ap Tarrant, Venetian Half-Elfin Bard and swordmaster. Used his bard and half elf features to have Twin Strike as an At-Will, has associations with assassins and a cult of vampires back home. (Yes, his name is not Venetian, it’s a long story)

There was also a Scottish Knight who had been given Excalibur and been told to cleave himself to Ianto and protect him, for the future of the Empire. He was a all so a Hexblade I think, White Well Pact. Can’t recall his name.

And others rotated in and out over time.


As for races, they generally have a place they are concentrated, but most races have a broad ranging diaspora.

Elves and Eladrin tend to originate in Northern Europe, gnomes in Western Europe, Gnolls in Africa, Dwarves in Eastern Europe, etc.

It’s also a world where the IRL pantheons take the place of D&D gods, and are more distant than FR, but less that Eberron.

 

[Umbran]

Approaching history as exclusively fun is, in itself, a political position. If you're dealing with actual history, you're going to be dealing with a lot of ugliness. The choice to not address that ugliness is a political one.

Mod Note:
I think telling people that the choices of entertainment they make in their own homes is political is rather apt to cause issues.

Ever watch The Good Place? In it, we are presented with a system of moral judgement in which there is no practical possibility for a person to be good, because there are no decisions they can make that don't have negative ethical repercussions, even if they mean well.

You present the issue in that manner, you are backing people into a corner in which there are no good choices. That's not going to work, as discussion. So, how about we back off on the judgement, just a bit, hm? Thanks.

 

[TheSword]

I think as far as it all goes, if you want to elide historical ugliness in your games, TheSword, nobody's going to care. There are plenty of people who are into semi-historical stuff without wanting to dwell on where the bodies are buried. That's a personal choice and you're free to make it with a table of like-minded players.

But if you want to start talking about it in public, you're going to encounter differences in perspective that will reflect the politics of the topic and all its ugliness. And if, in particular, you try to control the discourse away from that ugliness, then you're engaging in a VERY political act.

Choosing not to engage with a topic doesn’t mean you condone or disregard the topic. It’s just choosing not to engage with it. That might be for a few reasons… it might not be age appropriate, it might disturb someone in the group, or it just might not be your cup of tea when it’s part of a game for entertainment purposes.

I just think it’s sad that a discussion of real world settings throughout history has to turn into a debate about progressive thought. Can’t we just talk about cool points in history that might make good mini campaign settings… there are plenty of them.

 

[Fifth Element]

Can’t we just talk about cool points in history that might make good mini campaign settings… there are plenty of them.

Why can't we also talk about the realities of history that some people might want to address in their games? That seems like a perfectly valid topic to discuss as well.

 

[Tonguez]

Why can't we also talk about the realities of history that some people might want to address in their games? That seems like a perfectly valid topic to discuss as well.

Can we just get back on topic
if you want to discuss the realities of history and how to include serfdom, repression, disease and torture in your game then please do so. That however is not whats been happening, instead its a few debating the rightness of their own views compared to anothers. Its not topic related and would best be taken somewhere else.

 

[billd91]

I just think it’s sad that a discussion of real world settings throughout history has to turn into a debate about progressive thought. Can’t we just talk about cool points in history that might make good mini campaign settings… there are plenty of them.

You can, and everyone in this thread was pretty much doing so until complaints, yours included now, implied that people now wouldn‘t allow it or because it crossed some progressive agenda. So you tell me who’s being political.

But the fact remains that people are still publishing historically oriented materials for gaming use, including for D&D. They may be running a tougher gauntlet of some critics because of the modern zeitgeist, but the market all over has higher standards to get over compared the early days in art, composition, design. That just now includes sensitivity and inclusiveness as well.

 

[TheSword]

Why can't we also talk about the realities of history that some people might want to address in their games? That seems like a perfectly valid topic to discuss as well.

Because it’s going to generate controversy and the thread will end up being about that, and not the game itself.

You can, and everyone in this thread was pretty much doing so until complaints, yours included now, implied that people now wouldn‘t allow it or because it crossed some progressive agenda. So you tell me who’s being political.

But the fact remains that people are still publishing historically oriented materials for gaming use, including for D&D. They may be running a tougher gauntlet of some critics because of the modern zeitgeist, but the market all over has higher standards to get over compared the early days in art, composition, design. That just now includes sensitivity and inclusiveness as well.

I don’t disagree, I think people are publishing. Lets talk about them. I have no problem with a product being progressive. I have no problem with sensitivity and inclusion. I just don’t think it needs to take over every thread.

As @Tonguez says, can people start a new thread if that’s what they want to talk about.

 

[Ixal]

I once applied to a 15th century D&Dified Pbm history game. Sadly it died quickly as Pbm games often do.

What I remember was that the oppressed native scandinavians were kobolds ( basically the Finns, not the "Viking" ones. Those were dwarves I think) who, after converting to Christianity brought some protection, started to interact more with the rest of Europe. Can't remember much else besides Dragonborn were of course the far eastern people (Ming? Qing?) and that the game would have been set in Venice as a melting pot.

One could see that the GM had more than just a passing knowledge if history considering the details.

Maybe I can find it again in some archived thread...