J.Quondam
CR 1/8
The closest I've come is a short "alt history" campaign, where history (and the relevant mythology) was historical up to a particular point, after which the game-world diverged from our real history.
That setting was Viking-world circa 1000AD. The overarching campaign premise was that an executed sorceress made a deal in the afterlife to return to life, which was the event that split off the game world from real history. The system was a stripped-down D&D3.5 (something like E6 Micro20). The beginning-of-campaign constraints were "humans only, martials only, low-magic" which expanded for in-game reasons as the campaign progressed to include increasing magic and monsters.
The slow escalation of magic and monsters was straightforward to manage. I felt the main sticking point was handling real-world faiths in a setting where a specific mythology was presumptively "true." WHile I was somewhat prepped to take it a bit farther, I mostly just handwaved those issues away as just different sects/views of the same truth. And it never really came up, except as setting dressing, and none of the players (all of whom I knew well, and none of us history buffs) was bothered by it, afaik.
Mechanically, it worked reasonably well as a short-term, low-power, mythic type campaign. If I did it again, though, I'd probably seek out a different rule set.* And I wouldn't try today without players I know and/or a LOT of pre-campaign communication.
* But probably end up back on a D&D derivative for lack of players willing to try other rules.
That setting was Viking-world circa 1000AD. The overarching campaign premise was that an executed sorceress made a deal in the afterlife to return to life, which was the event that split off the game world from real history. The system was a stripped-down D&D3.5 (something like E6 Micro20). The beginning-of-campaign constraints were "humans only, martials only, low-magic" which expanded for in-game reasons as the campaign progressed to include increasing magic and monsters.
The slow escalation of magic and monsters was straightforward to manage. I felt the main sticking point was handling real-world faiths in a setting where a specific mythology was presumptively "true." WHile I was somewhat prepped to take it a bit farther, I mostly just handwaved those issues away as just different sects/views of the same truth. And it never really came up, except as setting dressing, and none of the players (all of whom I knew well, and none of us history buffs) was bothered by it, afaik.
Mechanically, it worked reasonably well as a short-term, low-power, mythic type campaign. If I did it again, though, I'd probably seek out a different rule set.* And I wouldn't try today without players I know and/or a LOT of pre-campaign communication.
* But probably end up back on a D&D derivative for lack of players willing to try other rules.
