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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9701060" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's my opinion that no one can truly imagine anything from before about 150 years before they were born without devoting a lifetime of academic study.&nbsp; And that's probably for someone with some awareness of history.&nbsp; A good many people probably can't imagine anything more than about 25 years before they were born.Despite being ostensibly set in the &quot;medieval era&quot; the reality is that for most tables D&amp;D was set no later than Dicken's England just with swords and armor and dragons.&nbsp; Any social and political structure early than that was too hard to imagine.&nbsp; Even as a medievalist, a lot of Gygax's D&amp;D was the old west with monsters - he himself likened the default setting to the Klondike gold rush (but with more literal monsters protecting the gold).&nbsp; I think one of the most iconic ways to show this is Disney cartoons.Based on the costumes, manners, technology and such what is the year of &quot;The Little Mermaid&quot;?Did you guess 1855?Cinderella?&nbsp; 1865 or so.&nbsp; The story could presumably be happening while the American Civil War is happening elsewhere.These days D&amp;D is increasingly set in marriage of somewhere between 1875 and 1915 New England and the Star Wars cantina (itself nearly 50 years old, and to the younger generation something like Casablanca was to mine I think).&nbsp; Anachronism grates at times, but it's also probably inevitable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9701060, member: 4937"] It's my opinion that no one can truly imagine anything from before about 150 years before they were born without devoting a lifetime of academic study. And that's probably for someone with some awareness of history. A good many people probably can't imagine anything more than about 25 years before they were born. Despite being ostensibly set in the "medieval era" the reality is that for most tables D&D was set no later than Dicken's England just with swords and armor and dragons. Any social and political structure early than that was too hard to imagine. Even as a medievalist, a lot of Gygax's D&D was the old west with monsters - he himself likened the default setting to the Klondike gold rush (but with more literal monsters protecting the gold). I think one of the most iconic ways to show this is Disney cartoons. Based on the costumes, manners, technology and such what is the year of "The Little Mermaid"? Did you guess 1855? Cinderella? 1865 or so. The story could presumably be happening while the American Civil War is happening elsewhere. These days D&D is increasingly set in marriage of somewhere between 1875 and 1915 New England and the Star Wars cantina (itself nearly 50 years old, and to the younger generation something like Casablanca was to mine I think). Anachronism grates at times, but it's also probably inevitable. [/QUOTE]

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