Earth: The Ultimate Campaign Setting

[TerraDave]

I've been kicking around some ideas of running a historical Earth campaign. And the more I look into running a historical Earth campaign, the more I want to run a historical Earth campaign. Here's why:

1. Earth is the most detailed campaign setting out there. If you don't believe me, then you must live on another world!

2. Earth has the cheapest "sourcebooks" available. Just pick a time, region, and go to the library or internet and do some research. And you can find decent sourcebooks for cheap in the bargin bin at bookstores.

3. Earth has tons of product support. There's lots and lots and lots of magazines, pictures, books, about the various topics of Earth that come out every month. Adventures that can be adapted to ANY RPG system can be found is various history books. Example: Read about the finding of King Tutenkamen (sp?), make up some stats for NPCs, get a good hook, then go!

4. Earth has no marketing gimmick to entice you to buy all the books out there!

Exactly!

I've come up with two downsides to running an Earth Campaign, and these can be dealt with!

1. "That's not how it happened!" A player might be a expert in the time/region you've chosen to run your campagin. But that's simple, just remind the player that you're the DM and you can take some "creative alteration" as you see fit.

2. Religion. Yes its a sensitive topic. Just remind the players that its just a game and not meant to be religious commentary.

3. Too much information out there! Well, we're experiencing the d20 glut as we speak. Only get the stuff you're actually gonna use. ?

I think you have the idea...all these are problems I have seen much more in theory then actual practice.

I want to run either a campaign about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, or one in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Has anybody run a historical earth campaign?
How did it go?

I and another DM have run a series of fantasy Earth campaigns in a shared world for about 10 years. They have been great!

We have freely used whatever we wanted from both D&D and from real world myth, legend, geography and sometimes history, and have never really had the sorts of problems regarding suspension of disbelief or offending people that your are supposed to have.

We have had other problems, but they tend to be of the sort that afflict all campaigns. I do have to say though, it is always clear that it is an alternate/fantasy earth--like the examples from above--not really a historical earth.

Want to see more, hit the sig!

 

[TerraDave]

Two good sources (in addition to the sig above of course ):

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe from Expeditious Retreat Press

the various Mythic Vistas from Green Ronin.

 

[Psion]

Historical Earth bores me. I can't get past this "it happened; it's done" feel.

Modern Earth ... or magically twisted modern Earth, on the other hand, does something for me. One of the biggest draws for me to running Second World was that I could use my knowledge of places that I have been ... and history ... to make great scenes quickly.

Conicidentally, Second World Sourcebook has just been re-released for 3.5:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5144&SRC=EnWorld

 

[TerraDave]

An example of type (a) games is the 9th century game I ran which was set in 9th century Dalmatia, close to the Byzantine fortress of Spalato/Split. The world was as people at the time believed it be. There were weather wizards, saints' miracles, dog-headed men, etc.

An example of type (b) games is the campaign I am running now, set in 13th century North America on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is true and that people in the Americas were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. Of course, there are immortals walking the earth, magic seer stones, etc. too.

I have met people in Croatia who talk (favourably) about woman from Split...don't know if you worked that into the campaing...

As for the 2nd, I will be in Salt Lake in a week...do you play it "straight"?

 

[wingsandsword]

I want to run either a campaign about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, or one in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Has anybody run a historical earth campaign?
How did it go?

Actually, I ran a semi-historic campaign set during the 3rd crusade a few years back (the last 2e game I ran). It played out over the course of a year, and was a low-magic game (obviously).

The Religion issue came up early on, as one PC (playing a Knight Templar) was Catholic, and I had carefully researched the practices and doctrines of the church circa 1200, so some sparks flew when the religion wasn't exactly what he thought it was. He started to nitpick, and then came to a session with catechism in hand trying to correct me. I told him that this was set in the 1190's, not the 1990's, there have been a few changes in 800 years, and this was historic fiction even. I could show him documentation on everything I was doing (including copies of primary sources). He couldn't handle it and quit the game, largely because he expected the game to be heroic brave paladin-like Crusaders (with a late 20th century religious ethos) fighting endless waves of godless, heathen saracens, and the game was hardly that (both armies were depicted as zealots who saw the other side as godless and evil, and both sides had civilians depicted as everyday, virtuous folks just trying to get along amidst terrible war).

I actually also tied the campaign back to ancient Mesopotamia As I said, it was historic fiction, and the game did have a few fantastic elements. The actual campaign villain was a primeval demon of water and destruction (known to Christians as Leviathan, known to Babylon as Tiamat) who was manipulating the Christian and Islamic worlds to fight each other to weaken them both so her cults could infiltrate and control the known world. The PC's had to deal with two very hostile armies, bandits, weather, an increasing number of elementals and demons sent to stop them, as they pieced together what was really going on and prevented Tiamat from returning to the world in her true form (including a dungeon crawl through the ruins of Babylon).

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Possible hazards

1) The guy who knows more history than you do.
2) The guy who doesn't know more history than you do, but thinks he does
3) The guy who doesn't know more history than you do, but knows one bit of trivia that pooches your entire plot.
4) The woman who thinks this authentic historical role-play is absolutely no fun at all.


Suggestions:

a) Make it an "alternate" history where you reserve the right to invalidate history books at your whim.
b) Keep the famous historical characters rare, otherwise they overshadow the PCs
c) Read up on the historical period. In general things were both much more advanced and much less advanced than people think.
d) Ease up on the "authentic" prejudices of the time. It really isn't worth it.

Happy gaming!

 

[Turanil]

I want to run either a campaign about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, or one in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Of course I may only suggest both Green Ronin's Medieval Player's Manual and Necromancer's Games' Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia. Lets say that during the crusades, some knight templars eventually stumble on the site of ancient mesopotamia and have adventures there in its ruins full of ghosts and demons.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'll second TerraDave's Terra-viejo.net

Ars Magica is also a good starting point for an earth-based fantasy world.

Plus, if you enjoy Gary Gygax's work, you owe it to yourself to check out his "Epic of Aerth" published for the Dangerous Journey's system. It might be a little hard to track down, but no longer expensive.

-=-=-=-
I for one agree with you about using Earth as a campaign setting. Nearly all knowledge you learn while playing in the game is real world applicable. Which makes playing actually both fun and worthwhile.

 

[TerraDave]

Thanks howandwhy99!

I hope you have been able to get something usefull from it (at least a few minutes of diversion...).

 

[Wolv0rine]

I have met people in Croatia who talk (favourably) about woman from Split...don't know if you worked that into the campaing...

As for the 2nd, I will be in Salt Lake in a week...do you play it "straight"?

Having lived in SLC for a few years I find this question funny, since more than half the people I met there weren't "straight".