Is it possible to have an exciting and long-lasting campaign in a historical setting?

[Wombat]

Boy, I think history is just chock-full of fun places and eras to run games in! Imagine plying the Spanish Main as a pirate, being part of a mercenary company during the Italian Wars or 30 Years War, exploring South America, being one of the original FBI agents working against organized crime, putting down bandit uprisings in China, playing the role of a viking or a Greek explorer ... the possibilities are nearly endless!

I've played Ars Magica both in its "real" setting (late 12th, early 13th century Europe) and in alternate settings; most of the "history" took place in the background while the game continued on its own course. I know a fair amount about this period, but for my players all they had to know was the rules, the basics of the setting, and then learn little bits (as necessary) as we went along.

Alternate History has a long and glorious place in writing and gaming. Again the possibilities here just scream to be played out -- what if the Romans had invented gunpowder? What if the Spanish had reached the New World during a period other than one of internal crisis for the native empires they discovered? What if the vikings had established colonies in North America instead of just leaving?

No one seems to worry too much about history in most rpg settings. The realms, dynasties, economics, and religion are incredibly static, with very rare exceptions. How much more exciting would it be if, say, the Sword Coast went through a period of technological development or had people crying out for other forms of government?

History is what you make of it.

Remember: History is people. People are not boring.

Have some fun with the whole situation.

 

[Turanil]

As often, my choice of words wasn't careful. In fact I don't want to play a truly historical setting. My idea was of taking some period of history and build a campaign upon it. Lets see this one as an example:

-- Dark Ages 500: Roman empire is crumbling as west is swept by barbarian hordes that destroy civilization. Roman empire being decadent cannot stop the barbarians.

-- Larger than Life: Have seen movies such as Gladiator or 13th Warrior? Obviously equipment and building are better than what they truly were during these periods. I would do the same, and maybe even more exaggerated.

-- Adding the Supernatural: Not only magic and monsters are real, I want more. I would pretend this: in fact Roman were not only decadent, they were becoming more and more chaotic, dabbling in sorcery, summoning of demons, etc. Their doings brought chaos in itself, and as a result the forces of nature (represented by barbarian hordes) retaliated with savagery. What I mean is, that under the rationale course of history were occult and supernatural forces at work.

-- Maybe add a really weird D&D staple in it. For something more Cthulhu like, it appears that antediluvian abominations were brought back to the world by the careless doings of Roman necromancers. These would be the Mind Flayers, whose agents are dopplegangers; and adding some deep-ones wouldn't hurt either.

Of course, all of this is off the top of my head as I am writing, and would need more thinking. But the idea would be to use historical Earth for doing something fantasy, but with more subtlety to not break the suspension of disbelief. At least making something similar to Cthulhu Dark Ages, but in heroic d20.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

History is what you make of it.

Remember: History is people. People are not boring.

Have some fun with the whole situation.

It's not that I think it's boring, not at all. I love history. It's just that when I game, there are certain tropes I like to see - magic and monsters being the foremost. That doesn't preclude using them in a historical setting.

 

[Faraer]

Are there any reasons inherent to the medium of roleplaying games (as opposed to conventions of D&D) that make historical or contemporary earth less appropriate settings than they are in, say, prose fiction?

 

[Psychotic Jim]

I've also been wanting to run a alternate/fantasy/pseudo historical game. My problem is, like the otheres above, I'm not the best history person in the world, and I'm afraid of not doing the past justice in portraying it in a game. A lot of the terms and lingo we use today for past events and locations were not in place at the time they existed at. The presence of differences in language between cultures and eras present a barrier as well (how many phrases and lingo do we have that are shaped by relatively "modern" events), especially considering how much language affects how people think. And cultural assumptions of historical settings that are different from modern day Western culture presents an obstacle also.

On the other hand, variant historical campaigns allow a person to ask "what if" questions. What if Buddha had not become a monk and instead stayed in his father's palace? What if the public's belief that Martians were invading when the 1930s War of the Worlds radio show ran reached a level of mass hysteria where society broke down? What if Salem recognized the effects of the ergot fungus that inspired the delusions that inspired the Witch Trials in real life? Time travel also presents interesting possibilities in speculating how two peoples, seperated by land and time, would react to each other. How would the pyramid builders of the American continents react to ancient Egypt?

I've especially been wanting to run a mythic China game for some time now. It presents a history of interesting possibilities, from the ancient days of Confucius to the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion in the 19th Century to current events and China's modernizations.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I'm thinking of running such a game and the players would be playing vikings seems you beat me to it though. I'll probably use d20 modern classes and Ken Hood's GnG rules or vitality/wounds. I know more about history than most of my players so I could probably do fine. No one would expect 100% accuracy anyway.

 

[dougmander]

-- So what do you think about it?
-- Why historical or pseudo-historical campaigns are boring?
-- Or does it provide cool opportunities on the contrary?
-- Tell us of your experiences in such a type of setting?
-- What supernatural stuff could be added that wouldn't break the suspension of disbelief for play in a pseudo-mythical Europe of the Dark Ages?

I think it depends on who your players are. If they like the kill-things-take-stuff style of play, they might not want to play in your Jane Austen-Regency England campaign, but they might really like being Viking raiders. I think whether a campaign is historical or fantasy is secondary to the type of roleplay it is likely to cater to, and with all of history at your disposal, the options are quite broad.

Historical campaigns can be very cool because, well, they have the ring of truth -- everything makes sense: the economy, the history of the different cultures, the technology, it all seems sturdy and convincing. For players who like that feeling of verisimilitude, it can be a kick.

My own experiences running a historical game started with Space: 1889, and then focused on developing the Septentrionalis homebrew setting, which eventually became Northern Crown. I like to have magical/science fiction elements in my historical games, simply because they make the game more fun for the people I tend to game with.

You could argue that to encourage your players to have the mindset of 9th century Vikings, everything that Dark Ages folk believed to be true about monsters and the supernatural should be true in your campaign. As long as you're adding these supernatural elements to a firm historical base, they don't weaken the campaign, but rather add to the period atmosphere of the game. Even if only once in a while a rumor about a ghost or troll turns out to be true, it pushes the players towards having their PCs act like the superstitious folk their historical counterparts probaby were.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Are there any reasons inherent to the medium of roleplaying games (as opposed to conventions of D&D) that make historical or contemporary earth less appropriate settings than they are in, say, prose fiction?

No, I suppose not. I think if you're talking about a flat-out realistic depiction of historical or contemporary life, it would be a very roleplay-intensive game. It seems that the majority of gamers play games that involve much more action, which, if this penchant was carried over to a realistic setting, would result in a pretty deadly game. Even most "realistic" TV shows and movies have characters that are more durable (or lucky) than real people.

 

[Turjan]

I'd love to play in a historical setting, like Europe 800-1000 or an old Phoenician seafarer campaign. I wouldn't want to DM it, though. If it comes to historical settings, I always try to be accurate, and this striving for perfection makes things unwieldy. You could say that I'm my own worst obstacle on that path .

 

[Quickleaf]

Good advice, especially about David Chart's stuff, ArsMagica and the Medieval Player's Manual, though you'll want to do some of your own research for a Dark Ages game.

I have run two historically based games and both were a blast. However, I think Jester raises an excellent point. In trying to accurately recreate history does a game master open himself or herself up to history-buff players nit-picking their every move.

Obviously the answer is we don't try to recreate history. Instead we use historical themes to add versilimitude to our games. If the threat of rat and mosquito-born plague is everywhere in a Dark Ages game, you can play up the immunities of grave-robbers as a product of the Devil's work when in reality many such robbers used a blend of oil called thieves' blend surprisingly enough; it contained cinammon and other exotic spices from the Levant that deterred mosquitos and hence minimized the risk of infection.

Other reasons why you might wish to include historical themes in your games might include teaching players about a past event that parallels a modern world event, you just love to research history , clarifying myths about the period of time pandered by Hollywood, mining history for good ideas, your players love a certain theme, etc.

If you are trying to recreate a certain theme consult with your players. What setting do they want to play in? Ok, now have them write down the top 5 things they associate that setting with. That is your System Reference Document. Now you just use your knowledge of history to flesh out the setting. You may find that your players don't care so much about historical accuracy as they do about historical probability, as in, "yeah, I buy it, this could happen in this genre."