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.

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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?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
…Oh, and they get cantrips like Shocking Grasp, Fire Bolt, and Prestidigitation…..

Little John,” WHAT RICHARD IS ALIVE! Firebolt!”

Henry Herald, “Oh it burns. It Burns!” THUD!

Little John, “Is there any more bad news?”

*
The magic, religion, and Adventure ratio should be the top three. Magic is Tech. Is Little Richard a Bard, or just a fighter jock? And will the gawds lock down your kingdom to a certain tech level. These must be answered first.

Fourth would be NPC classes. These fall into NPCs who are/were adventurers. The 3E NPC classes. Homebrew. Homebrew could be giving npcs a mixture of arcana and divine spells. Giving a person spells with high dcs. Extra hit points and AC just because. I would suggest using 3E idea, and just bumping Hit Dice and to hit to the various people in Appendix B of the monster Manual.

Tech Level is hard to pin down once you start doing research. There was a lot of hidden tech during the medieval ages. Read some Frances and Joseph Gies books on Medieval x.

Oh one subset on magic commonality. Mundane or non-adventuring magic. Mill house which does not put stone dust in the flour. Blacksmith who forge is cleaner and wastes less coal. This would need to be address.
 

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Yep. And they have time and wealth, and literacy. And magic equals power. I can't imagine nobility shrugging that away. Throughout history, we've had members of the elite pursuing alchemy and other beliefs that we now know is not how science operates. But what if it did? If there were people who could create something from nothing, and control the elements or other people's minds, there'd definitely be a ton of research, resources and time going into that. Magic is something rulers would grab hold of, and abuse in ways I'd rather not contemplate.

I don't think this realistic portrayal is actually what I'd want in my fantasy game, however. 🤔

There may be some kind of "the ruler can't be a wizard" rule, but some of the nobility that won't be heirs study the magical arts? Think about non-heir members of noble families joining the clergy or military.
 

I think that assumption is where we are disagreeing.

Levels in cleric take no training. The gods pick you to be a cleric, and then you are a cleric. Yes, we have the narrative of leveling up, but that is more earning more and more of their favor or channeling more and more of the Faith rather than dedicated study as far as I have ever seen

You still have to be trained in weapons and armor. And if you want to make a cleric out of normal folk you have to train them as priests. Few D&D clerics are just randos picked by gods of the street.
Also, let us take that seven year figure. Let us assume they start studying all subjects they need by age 10 (I'm actually starting late for when noble children would start studying I imagine) and assume that by adding in the extra curriculum, we increase that to 10 years of study of magic. That makes them age 20 and a 1st level wizard. At this stage the only thing holding them back from knowing every 1st level spell in the book is time, money and access. They just need to have access to a spellbook with those spells.... and if your Grandfather's brother was the second son of the family and spent his entire life gathering and researching spells, then you would very easily have access to that library of 1st level spells.

Then what does it take to reach level 3? Well, let us say that it takes 1 and a half times as many years to crack 2nd level spells. That is 15 years leading to them being... 35. Not that old really. Even if we decide they are fairly busy that is 20 years making them 40.

And, this is assuming they are dedicating their time to other pursuits. After all, nobles had leisure time. They had a lot of it, and one of the things they would do during parties and social gatherings is discuss high-level philosophy, things that other nobles had studied and considered. Which means that the social gatherings of nobles could also be where they discuss Magical Theory, meaning that preparing for diplomatic relations with the Duke of Such and Such could involve brushing up on your knowledge of Otto's theory of symphonic strings so you can speak to the Duke's interests.

Also, don't forget the other most famous of Noble pastimes. Hunting. IE, they would also engage in combat for sport. And that could give them the XP to level normally, albeit slower than an adventurer.

That's still middle aged. Too old for the whole nobility to be wizards and clerics. It is too unfeasible for short lived races in such a hostile world.
 


A lot of people seem to be assuming that magic is something that you can just learn if you want to. This is not necessarily the case. In a lot of fiction becoming a spellcaster requires some sort of innate gift or spark and without it you simply cannot do it any more than a completely blind person could learn cinematography. Now in D&D separate existence of sorcerers and wizards might imply that wizardry is something one can simply learn, but even then that might only be in the same sense than in theory anyone could learn to become a quantum physicists (i.e. not really.) Furthermore, the aristocrats and courtiers have a lot of other things they need to learn, ballroom etiquette, domain management, courtly intrigue, fashion and countless other things. Most of them probably do not have sufficient time and mental acuity to master a completely separate and highly complex science on top of that.
 



A lot of people seem to be assuming that magic is something that you can just learn if you want to. This is not necessarily the case. In a lot of fiction becoming a spellcaster requires some sort of innate gift or spark and without it you simply cannot do it any more than a completely blind person could learn cinematography. Now in D&D separate existence of sorcerers and wizards might imply that wizardry is something one can simply learn, but even then that might only be in the same sense than in theory anyone could learn to become a quantum physicists (i.e. not really.) Furthermore, the aristocrats and courtiers have a lot of other things they need to learn, ballroom etiquette, domain management, courtly intrigue, fashion and countless other things. Most of them probably do not have sufficient time and mental acuity to master a completely separate and highly complex science on top of that.
Wizardry implies that magic is something that can be learned by the aristocracy. Sorcerers imply that magical bloodlines that could be bred by the aristocracy over successive generations. Warlocks imply powerful patrons that the aristocracy could make pacts with for power if they lacked other methods. You are right that there are other skills that nobles likely should know, but a lot of these happen to be skills either under Intelligence or Charisma, which either the Wizard, Bard, Sorcerer, or Warlock happen to have access to. So it's clearly not an either/or scenario if the classes can pick these skills up as well. And also, it's clearly not exactly redundant due to the Background system, where one could easily be a Noble Wizard or a Noble Sorcerer.
 

It took a long time to become a knight. Boys started as pages at age 7 or 8, then became squires at around 14, and then finally, hopefully a knight. Other children could definitely be sent off to become wizard apprentices at a similar age. If being a wizard requires a spark of internal magic that's rare, the search would widen to include, "gasp" lower classes and girls.

I think a person could learn other things besides magic. Training for court magician would have to include diplomacy, etiquette, heraldry, etc. If D&D wizards can improve while adventuring, surely there's time for our noble wizard to learn some music, dance and etiquette. 😉
 

You say this as if it were somehow fact and not simply conjecture pulled from a bull's rear end.

I'm pulling it from the few rules and images on age and class in the game. There is more nods that wizards and clerics of humanlike lifespans are normally not young when they are of noteworthy skill and power than nods that they are young.

D&D doesn't use the Hogwarts, anime, or MMO mentality of mage learning. Learning magic academically takes up time you would normal use to learn skills and proficiencies. And for the arcane, wizardry is so time consuming that it effects your toughness and only lets you train with a handful of weapons and no armor. Being a wizard is a major physical and mental sacrifice. Being a cleric put you in a second hierarchy and chain of command. Setting require special events and circumstances to bypass D&D's base assumptions on magic if they use them.
 

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