Your experiences with (quasi-)historical settings for D&D

[Li Shenron]

I am interesting in knowing how many of you have played or DM'ed a D&D game based on a more or less historical setting...

With that I mean a setting that may (or may not necessarily) be based on actual world geography and history, except for fantasy elements.

The easiest example would be a setting based on medieval Europe, with real-world countries, societies, religions (so that you would have to base your Paladins and Clerics on that) etc., plus magic loosely based on what were the superstitions of such time, and monsters taken from the folklore so far (but not the modern monsters).

What have been the settings or entire RPG published with such idea (not only medieval Europe)?

How did you like playing in a more historical game, did you find some key problems with it, for example in the players relating with certain representations of RL history they didn't like (historical inaccuracies, religious issues...)?

 

[Crothian]

In 2e they had the green books which were all historical settings. We had a lot of fun with the ancient Greek and Vikings ones. Those seemed to fit in pretty well with D&D classes at the times and the mythical monsters D&D is known for. It was back in high school so the historical accuracies of the games was abysmal but we had fun.

 

[kitsune9]

I never played in a historical campaign, but I have written up several primers to run one of various degrees.

I would love to run a gritty historical one-shot (i.e. no magic, monsters, remove all fantasy elements), a semi-historical (i.e. no fantasy races, but there's magic and monsters), and a fantasy historical (i.e. it's set in England or France, but you got elves, dwarves, the whole nine yards of D&D). It's on my rpg bucket-list.

 

[Memnoch3434]

I'm working on a game in a historical setting for a Call of Cthulhu game I am running right now. The setting is Chicago starting in June 1930 and should finish up before that December (game time). The play group for this game largely hate history, so it's working out well so far. Besides the great depression people really have no idea how things were at the time.

So far I have found it really easy to build a game world when you can look up information if you need to fill a hole.

I have also played in a Detroit 1925 game, while the game itself didn't last long it was very smooth and no one complained about the game getting too inaccurate or anything like that.

Kitsune's idea for a non-magical historical game sounds pretty fun. A d-day scenario or something similar could be harsh but really awesome. Or a french/american revolution game.

 

[KidSnide]

I had a great time playing in a "Mythic Rome"-style campaign run by my close friend (and classics professor) Orichalcum. There's an extensive story hour for Alea Iacta and the successor game, Alea Iacta: Parthia.

One note about the story hour is that it is narrated by one of the party familiars (an untrustworthy, if unusually literate, monkey). As such, the story hour overly reflects the biases of that particular animal (particularly after it was nearly devoured by my character's hounds).

Also, anyone interested in historical gaming should look at picking up Ars Magica and pretty much whatever GURPS supplements fit your area of interest.

-KS

 

[Mercutio01]

A friend and I are currently working (off and on) on a fantasy Earth set in 1454, but we're trying to introduce the fantasy elements at a very low level somewhere around 500 AD, sort of as an explanation for the "Dark Ages." It's going to be fairly low-magic and pretty grim/gritty, but all the fantasy races and stuff will have a place there (orcs with the Mongols, drow in the jungles, couatls with the South Americans, etc). Neither of us are actual historians, so we're taking what research we've done and what knowledge we have of the time period and extrapolating out what might have happened with little tweaks here and there and fantastical elements (again, low magic so no real altering of huge historical events except maybe moving them forwards or backwards in time - such as pushing the sacking of Constantinople back a few years and introducing Japan to the Sengoku period early).

 

[Elf Witch]

I have played Pendragon, as well as games set in the Renaissance, Ancient Greek and Rome.

I prefer playing in them if there are some fantasy in them like low magic, some healing more equal rights for woman.

 

[TerraDave]

I DMed one for several years:

Terra Viejo

A complete D&D in our world mash up. The village of Hommlet in Northumberland, Ravenloft in Transylvania...that kind of thing. Which worked better in practice then it would seem in theory. Strengths included familiarity for the players and endless resources for the DM. On the other hand, the conceit could feel constraining at times, but probably no more so then in any established campaign (setting) were a certain amount of cannon has developed.

The whole "this doesn't make sense" issue wasn't really one. Grounded in our world, the world didn't feel any less realistic or arbitrary then most. And, more importantly, players don't generally worry about these things, even if ENWorld posters might.

 

[Stormonu]

Though I had the 2E historical green books and read through them a-plenty, I could never bring myself to use them whole cloth.

D&D was my chance to escape the drudgery of reality. Hauling "reality" back in with a "historically accurate" game was something I just couldn't fathom inflicting on myself or my players.

I did pull in bits and pieces of history, but it always seemed to fall flat or collapse in the face of magic, so I pretty much gave up trying to introduce historical accuracies into my game. It just didn't jive well with the game past 1st level.

Besides, I was in high school/college at the time and my knowledge of history (beyond the green books) was pretty abysmal. It wouldn't have been pretty.

 

[Quickleaf]

I've DMed [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1931374295/ref=redir_mdp_mobile] Tales of the Caliphate Nights[/ame], which I also happen to have authored. It's about as historically accurate as Ars Magica, of course with a focus on the Islamic Caliphate during the Abbasids.