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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5742178" data-attributes="member: 4937">If we just looked at published settings, Faerun is fairly explicitly 16th century from the cannon and newly designed man-o-wars to to the recently discovered New World.&nbsp; Eberon the full swath of Victorian and Edwardian tropes right down to the railroads.&nbsp; While Ravenloft as a published setting was a patchwork quilt, many of the core regions have much later than medieval tech levels suitable to the period when Gothic fiction was actually written and Mask of the Red Death was set in Edwardian era.&nbsp; And, Iron Kingdoms is steampunk.But a lot of it that shows up is a lot more subtle than that.&nbsp; Most games I've been in had sailing technology that was much later than Medieval, and a generally cosmopolitian world where Marco Polo's travels wouldn't be that remarkable.&nbsp; They feature strong monarchies with unified nation states and generally professional bureacracies and nationalized standing armies.&nbsp; They have printing presses or at least bookshelves with large numbers of books aren't unusual.&nbsp; They have relatively flat social structures and the characters status as non-nobility doesn't seem to hinder their social or legal freedoms to the extent that they can walk around wearing arms and armor and no one comments on it.&nbsp;&nbsp; Merchants and rakes carry rapiers, and urban dress, furniture, and architecture could all be taken from the 19th century.&nbsp; Palace life is imagined as that of the Louis the XIV's Versailles and is as much Dumas as any thing else.&nbsp; Practically every street urchin and back alley comes from Dickens.&nbsp;&nbsp; Cities are huge sprawling affairs with 10's if not 100's of thousands of inhabitants.&nbsp;&nbsp; And so forth.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5742178, member: 4937"] If we just looked at published settings, Faerun is fairly explicitly 16th century from the cannon and newly designed man-o-wars to to the recently discovered New World. Eberon the full swath of Victorian and Edwardian tropes right down to the railroads. While Ravenloft as a published setting was a patchwork quilt, many of the core regions have much later than medieval tech levels suitable to the period when Gothic fiction was actually written and Mask of the Red Death was set in Edwardian era. And, Iron Kingdoms is steampunk. But a lot of it that shows up is a lot more subtle than that. Most games I've been in had sailing technology that was much later than Medieval, and a generally cosmopolitian world where Marco Polo's travels wouldn't be that remarkable. They feature strong monarchies with unified nation states and generally professional bureacracies and nationalized standing armies. They have printing presses or at least bookshelves with large numbers of books aren't unusual. They have relatively flat social structures and the characters status as non-nobility doesn't seem to hinder their social or legal freedoms to the extent that they can walk around wearing arms and armor and no one comments on it. Merchants and rakes carry rapiers, and urban dress, furniture, and architecture could all be taken from the 19th century. Palace life is imagined as that of the Louis the XIV's Versailles and is as much Dumas as any thing else. Practically every street urchin and back alley comes from Dickens. Cities are huge sprawling affairs with 10's if not 100's of thousands of inhabitants. And so forth. [/QUOTE]

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