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<blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3568317" data-attributes="member: 30001">One of my points of confusion on this thread has been where to draw the line in terms of &quot;medieval&quot;.&nbsp; As has been pointed out, Earth's history is mostly an accident of chance, geography, etc - so expecting an exact replica of Europe 1200 AD to exist in an imaginary setting I think is a bit shaky.&nbsp; On top of it, there are the differences between history and mythology (ie. ideal vs. reality), and which is more &quot;medieval&quot;.&nbsp; Then there's a question of how much non-European culture should/can be used - the whole archetype of the wizard in DnD IMO seems to borrow much more heavily from Renaissance conventions (spell books, alchemical labs) than from more &quot;Dark Ages&quot; sources.&nbsp; And the sort of garbled view of Renaissance science that comes through in the trappings of a wizard probably have their origins in medieval Islamic culture.&nbsp; Does any technology that existed on any place on Earth in 1200 AD constitute &quot;medieval&quot;?So I don't know where the boundaries belong.&nbsp; I know for purposes of my game that the printing press, gunpowder, nose-rings, mohawks, 50% representation of women in government, progressive ideas about poverty and taxes, assembly-line factories, paper money, and such things are &quot;anachronistic&quot; (for lack of a better word), but this is somewhat arbitrary.&nbsp; Nevertheless - I do think my decisions have some basis in a common DnD culture and that simply adding these elements into new versions of the game willynilly I think is being a little too willfully ignorant of DnDs basic conventions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="gizmo33, post: 3568317, member: 30001"] One of my points of confusion on this thread has been where to draw the line in terms of "medieval". As has been pointed out, Earth's history is mostly an accident of chance, geography, etc - so expecting an exact replica of Europe 1200 AD to exist in an imaginary setting I think is a bit shaky. On top of it, there are the differences between history and mythology (ie. ideal vs. reality), and which is more "medieval". Then there's a question of how much non-European culture should/can be used - the whole archetype of the wizard in DnD IMO seems to borrow much more heavily from Renaissance conventions (spell books, alchemical labs) than from more "Dark Ages" sources. And the sort of garbled view of Renaissance science that comes through in the trappings of a wizard probably have their origins in medieval Islamic culture. Does any technology that existed on any place on Earth in 1200 AD constitute "medieval"? So I don't know where the boundaries belong. I know for purposes of my game that the printing press, gunpowder, nose-rings, mohawks, 50% representation of women in government, progressive ideas about poverty and taxes, assembly-line factories, paper money, and such things are "anachronistic" (for lack of a better word), but this is somewhat arbitrary. Nevertheless - I do think my decisions have some basis in a common DnD culture and that simply adding these elements into new versions of the game willynilly I think is being a little too willfully ignorant of DnDs basic conventions. [/QUOTE]

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