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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galethorn" data-source="post: 1858737" data-attributes="member: 7888">No! Don't say that! it's not! It really isn't!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Unless you get rid of rapiers, any sort of plate armor, crossbows, most polearms, the 'everybody but barbarians' level of literacy, and the existance of large, contiguous nations under one ruler as the norm, it's D20 High Middle Ages.To reitterate, I will give a brief definition of the Dark Ages in europe...The European historical period from about A.D. 476 to about 1000That was from the fall of the roman empire to the rise of the post-charlemagne nations. Before that period, the romans were still a major force for 'advancement', with their roads, aquaducts, and so on. After that period, modern social structures began taking root, and they exist to this day, including the whole concept of corporations (which called guilds at the time...).Between those two times of relative advancement, there was a sharp decline in written records, and the political climate was ever-changing and the feudal system only had three layers (kings, retainers, everybody else). Afterwards, of course, we had things like the uniting of the britons under their norman rulers, the unification of germany as the Holy Roman Empire, and so on.So, to say D&D, with its 15th-century technology (not to mention magic...) and social assumptions in most settings (guilds, a many-tiered feudal system, serfs outnumbering freemen, etc.) couldn't possibly be Dark Ages D20, and any such notion is based on either incomplete or incorrect information.But, then again, real historians don't even call that period 'the Dark Ages' any more; it's usually known as the 'early christian period in western europe' or something similar, with the early (400s-500s) in the germanic and scandinavian regions known as the 'Migration Period'...Oh yeah, and D&D has elves/dwarves/gnomes, pantheistic/polytheistic religion, very pervasive magic, and a (pretty much, except at the lowest layers) all-coinage economy. And an adventurer-class of society; can't forget that.Yep, so D&D, as written, is not a Dark Ages system. In fact, it's closest to early renaissance, come to think of it.</blockquote>

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