Worlds of Design: Baseline Assumptions of Fantasy RPGs

You can write a set of fantasy role-playing game (FRPG) rules without specifying a setting, but there’s a default setting assumed by virtually every FRPG. Moreover, some rules (e.g. the existence of plate armor, and large horses) imply things about technology and breeding in the setting.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The Basics of FRPG​

All FRPGs start with some assumptions built into the setting, some of them so innocuous that gamers might not even realize they're assumptions to begin with. For example the assumption that there are horses large enough to be ridden, even though for thousands of years of history, horses weren’t large enough for riding (the era of war chariots from about 1700-1000 BCE, and the era before that of infantry only).

Familiarity vs. strangeness is an important question for any worldbuilder to answer. What are gamers familiar with? That tends to be the default. J. R. R. Tolkien’s works (Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, etc.) are nearly a default setting for many, as in the dwarves and elves who are quite different from traditional stories of dwarves and elves. You could argue that the default setting is more Tolkien than it is medieval European, but he largely adopted Late Medieval European (1250-1500), so I prefer to refer to that.

The question is, do you want your ruleset, or your campaign setting, to follow the default? An early example of great deviation from the default was the wonderfully different world of Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne, and a few novels). A “different” FRPG might posit no monsters at all, perhaps not even elves and dwarves, just a lot of humans, yet never explicitly say so: if you leave out rules for monsters and humanoid races other than humans, you have a different-than-baseline setting, even if you didn't consciously make that decision. But be warned: too much unfamiliarity may make some players uncomfortable.

Are there baseline assumptions for science fiction? There seems to be so much variety, I wouldn’t try to pin it down.

The Baseline​

What ARE the baseline assumptions? In general, they are mostly late medieval (not “Dark Ages” (500-1000) or High Medieval (1000-1250), as FRPGs tend to be magic grafted to later medieval Europe. In no particular order here is a list of categories for baseline assumptions that I’ll discuss specifically:

• Transportation
• Communication
• State of Political Entities
• Commonality of Magic
• Commonality of Adventurers
• Commonality of Monsters
• Length of History and Rate of Change
• Level of Technology
• Warfare and the Military
• Religion
• Demography
• Climate

Transportation​

Wooden sailing vessels, late medieval style. In calm waters such as landlocked seas and lakes, galleys; in wild waters (such as oceans), small sailing vessels. River barges much preferable to poor roads and carts. And are there wonderful roads left by or maintained by an Empire (Rome)? See "Medieval Travel & Scale."

Communication​

Proceeds at the rate of travel, by horse or by ship. In other words, very slow by modern standards. Even as late as 1815, the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the War of 1812 had ended (in 1814), but before news of the treaty had reached Louisiana from Europe.

State of Political Entities​

Monarchies and lower level independent states (such as Duchies) ruled by “the man in charge” (very rarely, a woman). Nobles. States, not nations (the people rarely care which individual is actually in charge). Castles are so defensible that it’s fairly easy for subordinate nobles to defy their superiors. There are small cities (5-10,000 usually), not really large ones (over 100,000 people).

Commonality of Magic​

Magicians are usually rare, secretive folk. Few people ever see any manifestation of magic. In some cases the church or the government tries to suppress magic. See "The Four Stages of Magic."

Commonality of Adventurers​

Magicians, knights, powerful clerics, all are rare. 1 in 500 people? 1 in 10,000?

Commonality of Monsters​

Human-centric. Monsters are usually individuals rather than large groups. Intelligent monsters are rare. (Here Tolkien’s influence, the great orc/goblin hordes, often overrides European influence.) Undead may be common. Dragons are “legendary.”

Length of History and Rate of Change​

Slow pace of change of technology. Awareness of the greater days of a “universal empire” in the past (such as Rome), now gone. Technology changed much faster in late medieval times, than in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Level of Technology​

Late medieval, or possibly less. (Late medieval for the technology necessary to make full plate armor, if nothing else.) See "When Technology Changes the Game."

Warfare and the Military​

Wars rarely changed borders much (Late Medieval) - the great migrations have ended. Wars certainly aren’t national wars, the common people are spectators. See "The Fundamental Patterns of War."

Religion​

What we’re used to in later medieval times is a universal monotheistic church (Catholicism), though with foreign churches of different stripe (Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist). But in games, more often the setting seems to derive from older, pantheon-based, religions.

Demography​

Density of population is low. Depends on whether the local area is frontier or settled. Cities are population sinks (high mortality rates). There may be stories of a Great Plague (later-1340s and onward in Europe).

Climate​

Temperate medieval European (more often, English (governed by the Gulf Stream)), with fairly cool summers so that full armor is not impossibly hot. (Imagine wearing full armor when the average summer high is 91 degrees F, as in northern Florida.) But winters are much less severe than in the northern USA. (Modern European climate is currently getting much warmer than in late medieval times.)

Your Turn: Do you see the default setting as different that what I’ve summarized?

 

[Argyle King]

From the perspective of grand strategy, I believe that focusing on attack magic would be a poor use of resources.

Applying magic to logistics, movement, communication, command, and control would (IMO) be a far better use of resources. A wizard casting fireball possibly kills a platoon of enemies; a druid ensuring that the enemy is harried by natural forces and unable to eat or sleep disrupts things on a larger scale.

 

[Minigiant]

I never once said that fighters and rouges would be less common than wizards. You did say Clerics would be though.

And, if you want to say 0.5% of the population... I think it is fair to say that the Capitol of a kingdom would be a Large City, right? That means they might have around 20,000 citizens. That is 100 wizards, on average. Not a single on of them a noble, and all of them having spent decades doing nothing but studying magic.

Lets assume five duchies, each with at least the entire population of the capitol on their lands. We are now at an average of 600 wizards

That seems to be a rather significant population. Consuming thousands of gold worth of profits and spending decades doing nothing.

Again, it seems to have going backwards on what I've beensaying.

I didn't say there would be no wizards. There would be a noteworthy amount of wizards in anareain the base assumption of D&D.
I didn't say no nobles would be wizards. I'd specifically that large noble families would have wizards among branch families and youngest children.

What I said is that the wizard would be a rare class among the nobility.

This is almost amusing at this point.

So we need 3.X level advancement and weapons skills, 2e skills (because wizards had the most in 3.X, the same in 5e and I believe the same in 4e) , probably 2e health.

How many different editions are you blending together for your assumptions at this point? I mean, I get why, taking the 5e assumptions removes your argument fairly thoroughly, so you have to keep mobile.

I'm not blending the editions together.
Your premise is that no noble would give up the power you get from even low levl arcane magic.

My rebuttals is that this concept only kinda works for 5e. In 1e, 2e, and 3e, wizards werre designed to be bad at low levels. For 4e,apprentice wizards don't really exist. So if nobles can only grind to low levels safely, it is a lot of work for little gain.

Wow... no.

The idea that all of the wizards who were nobility are foreigners or other races is just exoticism. Humans have no restriction on becoming wizards, and "foreigners" would likely still be humans, and you don't ship someone you spent decades training and funding to a foreign court. (Also, no feats to get spells and cantrips, since you are assuming 3.X or 2e, unless you also want to assume 5e simultaneously)

Also, a tenth level wizard NPC would be dead by the numbers you were throwing out before of needing 30 years to reach level 5.

But, at this point, I think you have to admit that the "base assumption" is just bcause people aren't willing to fully explore the idea of mages being nobility. It is requiring nobles who do not fight, magic that requires decades of study to even become a novice, along with a healthy population of these novices and master wizards who just appear when needed for plot.

Scratch the surface and this just falls apart.

It's weird
D&D is weird.

The problem is your trying to make sense of D&D logic. The baseline assumption is just what everyone excepts if the DM does not say they are breaking it.

And the baseline assumption in D&D is that if the DM introduces a noble NPC, you assume their class or HD are martial or skill based and not wizardy or priestly unless the culture of the area has been hinted to the latter already (like being elves or clues of devil worship).

And you are still an educated noble, who likely can afford guards or have a retinue of followers. So what's the issue? Also, there is an assumption here that "weapons, armor, attack routine, and HD" are higher goods than magic, but that is not necessarily the case in a world of magic. Maybe in a world without magic, but not necessarily one with magic.

The world of magic in D&D comes from extremely hard work, religious occupation, special birth, or scary contracts. In D&D, buying magic is safer than being magic.

 

[Aldarc]

The world of magic in D&D comes from extremely hard work, religious occupation, special birth, or scary contracts. In D&D, buying magic is safer than being magic.

I think our discussion is going in circles at this point, because I still don't find your argument persuasive or well argued from evidence.

 

[Minigiant]

I think our discussion is going in circles at this point, because I still don't find your argument persuasive or well argued from evidence.

Same here.

It is possible that there are 2 baseline assumptions when it comes to learning magic.

One where learning magic is easy but expensive so anyone of wealth or long life span would become spellcasters.

Another where learning magic is hard and time consuming so only those who can ignore all other duties or live centuries can learn magic at significant skill before advanced age without adventuring.

Because ultimately there is little difference gameplay wise between a noble fighter NPC with a wizard hireling and a cleric adviser and a noble wizard NPC and a fighter bodyguard and a cleric adviser.

Only really matters when the party does hostile actions to the lone noble.

 

[wingsandsword]

I want to comment too on then State of Religion as it is area of gaming which is rarely mined for adventure material. So while the Medieval Church had established its monopoly over Europe in the Early Middle Ages it would be incorrect to say it was truely universal. Besides the existence of Jewish, Muslim and other populations in Europe, some Pagan beleifs remained and there were also a huge number of anti-clerical movements which questioned and challenged the Church’s teachings and which the Church then condemed as heresy. Manichaeism was popular, as was Greek Gnosticism and both were synchretised with Christian teachings to create new alternate systems. Its also not entirely accurate to say DnD is polytheistic, it tends to be Monolatrist - the consistent worship of one god despite recognising that others exist, which could be compared to the veneration of Saints.

Paganism was still common in rural Gaul until crushed by Charlemagne in the Saxon Wars of the late 8th Century.

As late as the early 9th century, isolated pockets of old-style Greek Polytheists, still worshipping the Gods of Olympus, were found in the mountains of Greece, having been missed, or overlooked by Christianization of the Empire.

There was still a pagan kingdom in what is now England, the Kingdom of Northumbria, into the 10th century.

As late as the late 10th century, laws in Scandinavia still provided explicit protection for Norse pagans and the worship of the Aesir.

The Prussian Crusades of the 13th century were aimed at crushing pagan worship in the Baltic Sea area.

The Northern Crusades of the late 12th to early 15th Century were aimed at crushing the pagan practices of the Finns and Slavic peoples, including some that survived the previous Prussian Crusades.

While the Christian Church was strongly dominant in Europe dominance in Europe by the end of the 5th century thanks to the influence of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, it would be around another millennium of populations on the fringes and rural areas still holding to pre-Christian pagan beliefs.

While D&D-style polytheism is certainly an ahistoric exaggeration that is unlike the actual middle ages that D&D normally draws inspiration from, there were certainly remnants of it in places throughout Europe definitely through the entire first millennium and fading away in the first half of the second millennium. If elements of myth and folklore like dwarves and elves and wizards and dragons can be made real in this fantastic, exaggerated, stylized version of the medieval world that is the typical D&D setting, then exaggerating the remnants of followers of polytheistic pantheons of the area into being the predominant religion certainly can fit.

 

[wingsandsword]

To your last point. If one reads the life of St. Cuthbert you can see how communities in rural England still held onto their old gods. There is a funny story about the townspeople making fun of monks floating down river, and how their silly god who was not saving them, despite their prayers.

That's extra funny, since there's the St. Cuthbert in Greyhawk (and the broader D&D multiverse, as he's sometimes depicted in Planescape too), sometimes implied to be the same figure as the historic saint.

Since St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne lived in a time when Christianity had to co-exist with pagan beliefs, he provides a pretty good historic model for integrating polytheistic religions into the same society as a monotheistic religion and having them more-or-less co-exist peacefully.

It's one reason I've often used St. Cuthbert as a fictional stand-in for the Medieval Church in D&D, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

From the perspective of grand strategy, I believe that focusing on attack magic would be a poor use of resources.

Applying magic to logistics, movement, communication, command, and control would (IMO) be a far better use of resources. A wizard casting fireball possibly kills a platoon of enemies; a druid ensuring that the enemy is harried by natural forces and unable to eat or sleep disrupts things on a larger scale.

Exactly. If you learn to use a sword, you can stab someone with a sword.

If you learn magic you can kill someone, read their mind, protect yourself, protect others, create walls, see the future, alter the landscape, grow crops, kill crops.

You know... MAGIC. It is a far far more versatile and useful tool than that three feet of sharp steel. And (if we assume the game rules), you can still fight better than a peasant.

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Again, it seems to have going backwards on what I've beensaying.

I didn't say there would be no wizards. There would be a noteworthy amount of wizards in anareain the base assumption of D&D.
I didn't say no nobles would be wizards. I'd specifically that large noble families would have wizards among branch families and youngest children.

What I said is that the wizard would be a rare class among the nobility.

So, there would be a noteworthy amount of wizards.

How?

You have stated that a wizard needs to spend 20 years of dedicated study with no time for anything else to become a level 5 wizard. Who can afford to do that?

Only the wealthy, like the nobles.

But. the inheriting nobles can't become wizards, because they don't have time. So all the wizards have to be... well, they can't be second sons, those guys are the back-up for the heir. So the third sons.

How do you imagine that conversation goes?

"Okay, Leo, you are going to learn how to run the estate. Neo, your brother might die, and the job is important, so you will also learn alongside him. Jerry, we can afford to lose you so you are going to learn how to bend the fundamental laws of reality and reshape the world in ways that will define how your brother's can rule their land, offer our family immense power and prestige, and protect us from harm."

I mean, could be me, but one of those sounds like it is far more core to keeping the family in power than the other.

And that is the problem you are not confronting within DnD.

The nobility learned the arts of war because fighting war was expected of them to protect the kingdom, but also so they could protect themselves and their lands. But how many times in Fantasy are magical threats presented? How many times is being able to identify magic, curses, and knowing the lore of such things vital to the defense of the land?

Many of the other things they learned? Fashion, Art, ect? It was a combination of needing something to occupy their time and prestige. Of course you knew the latest fashions, that showed you were wealthy, well-connected and important.

But instead of saying that DnD nobles would be exactly like the nobility of the European medieval ages (and by the way, ignoring all the different types of nobility from other traditions) and then trying to stack magic on top of it, you need to start with the baseline. Noble's jobs were protecting their people and the land of the King from attack. And, in a world with magic, magic would be a key part of that job. It is too useful of a tool, it offers too many opportunities. They would cut out learning dance and art and fashion. Those are their to make you look better, and offer opportunities for gossip and intelligence gathering. Instead they would look into designing familiars, they would study arcane formula.

I'm not saying they wouldn't show off and attempt prestige, but the ways they would do that would shift, because the noble with fullest grasp on magic? They are the most powerful person in the room.

I'm not blending the editions together.
Your premise is that no noble would give up the power you get from even low levl arcane magic.

My rebuttals is that this concept only kinda works for 5e. In 1e, 2e, and 3e, wizards werre designed to be bad at low levels. For 4e,apprentice wizards don't really exist. So if nobles can only grind to low levels safely, it is a lot of work for little gain.

Okay, lets look at what a level 1 3.5 wizard could do.

Skimming the rules I see that they can create a familiar, know all level 0 spells and if I assume intelligence of 12, four 1st level spells. But that is just starting out, they can of course scribe more, so a noble's magical library is going to really just give them the run of things at 1st level.

So, what can we do.

Detect Poison -> IE Is this goblet going to kill me

Battle magic (I see acid splash, daze. ray of frost. all certainly weaker, but they are there)

Arcane mark is interesting, because it allows you to mark a person as well as an object. It only lasts a month, but that is a good way to get a courier "secured" is to mark them as being trusted.

Moving on to level 1 spells

Alarm becomes less useful, only 2 hours of protection, but still a good way to seal a meeting.

Even better battle magic

Summoning magic, interesting. Doesn't look like it would be too useful at low levels, 1 round per level duration, but within a few levels the wizard could summon a companion to fight for them, bypassing the need to fight themselves.

Erase is a way to destroy documents, again good for secrets

And of course, Charm Person was much much more powerful back in the day, what with the person not immediately realizing they had been charmed

So... all of that still sounds incredibly useful. Less useful, sure, but with Silent spell a few levels and Charm Person, you basically can win at most mundane negotiations. And that is a big deal by itself.

It's weird
D&D is weird.

The problem is your trying to make sense of D&D logic. The baseline assumption is just what everyone excepts if the DM does not say they are breaking it.

And the baseline assumption in D&D is that if the DM introduces a noble NPC, you assume their class or HD are martial or skill based and not wizardy or priestly unless the culture of the area has been hinted to the latter already (like being elves or clues of devil worship).

This is a cop out. I'm saying the assumptions of nobility make no sense in the context of the rest of the game.

Also, saying DnD is weird also does not excuse the idea that foriegners are magic, or that most wizards would be strange non-human people. Just because I can get away with making that assumption does not mean it is a good assumption.

The world of magic in D&D comes from extremely hard work, religious occupation, special birth, or scary contracts. In D&D, buying magic is safer than being magic.

No, buying magic is lazier than putting in the work to do it yourself.

Just like a noble doesn't need to understand economics, they can hire an accountant

And they don't need to understand war, they can hire a general

And they don't need to understand foreign languages, they can hire a translator.

And the more important the job they delegate is, and the more of those jobs they delegate... the more likely they end up losing the title of Noble to the people who are actually doing the job.

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[Crimson Longinus]

Some people seem to be assuming that you can just send any random person to a wizard school and they become a wizard. Now it can work like that, but it doesn't have to, and I'd argue that in most D&D settings it doesn't as evidenced by the rarity of wizards. Under the rare wizard paradigm becoming a wizard requires the person to be exceptionally gifted. This doesn't necessarily mean any supernatural 'spark of magic' but merely the sort of mindset suited for mastering the arcane. There simply are things you cannot teach in realistic amount of time if the person doesn't have exceptional aptitude to begin with. Some people are born with a perfect colour vision, absolute pitch, eidetic memory, superior capability to abstract mathematical thinking etc. In rare wizard paradigm mastering wizardry requires something like that.

Now you can easily have a setting where this doesn't apply, and learning to cast spells is no harder nor require any more special aptitude than learning simple algebra or a foreign language. But the other interpretation is not logically incoherent. Ultimately it is about what you want your setting to be like, and then coming up with a coherent justification for that.

 

[univoxs]

That's extra funny, since there's the St. Cuthbert in Greyhawk (and the broader D&D multiverse, as he's sometimes depicted in Planescape too), sometimes implied to be the same figure as the historic saint.

Since St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne lived in a time when Christianity had to co-exist with pagan beliefs, he provides a pretty good historic model for integrating polytheistic religions into the same society as a monotheistic religion and having them more-or-less co-exist peacefully.

It's one reason I've often used St. Cuthbert as a fictional stand-in for the Medieval Church in D&D, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

I even read...somewhere...maybe in one of the old Dragon Magazine articles, that there is in implication that it is indeed the same St. Cuthbert.

 

[Aldarc]

Some people seem to be assuming that you can just send any random person to a wizard school and they become a wizard. Now it can work like that, but it doesn't have to, and I'd argue that in most D&D settings it doesn't as evidenced by the rarity of wizards. Under the rare wizard paradigm becoming a wizard requires the person to be exceptionally gifted. This doesn't necessarily mean any supernatural 'spark of magic' but merely the sort of mindset suited for mastering the arcane. There simply are things you cannot teach in realistic amount of time if the person doesn't have exceptional aptitude to begin with. Some people are born with a perfect colour vision, absolute pitch, eidetic memory, superior capability to abstract mathematical thinking etc. In rare wizard paradigm mastering wizardry requires something like that.

Now you can easily have a setting where this doesn't apply, and learning to cast spells is no harder nor require any more special aptitude than learning simple algebra or a foreign language. But the other interpretation is not logically incoherent. Ultimately it is about what you want your setting to be like, and then coming up with a coherent justification for that.

Meanwhile other people seem to be assuming that wizards are the only people capable of magic and that other venues of magic or spellcasting are not available.