Pretext: This thread has imo the potential to spiral out of control, so be respectful and mods, please lock it when you feel its starts to get inappropriate.
Nearly all countries and societies in RPGs are based on real world ones. A trend which has in my opinion only increased in recent years as companies strife for a more respectful representation on noneuropean cultures which in turn makes them stick closer to the historic real world material than before.
Of course that is not a binary yes/no choice but a sliding scale, some developers only borrowing a general idea while others copying entire events more or less accurately like the French revolution complete with guillotines, ect. (Galt in Pathfinder as example).
I of course see the advantages in that. You provide something familiar to many people and do not need to explain everything. That also saves book space as you do not need to spell out every nuance of a specific country and can just point to its historic reference (or more likely players will figure it out themselves in many cases). Although it leaves some things in the open as the familiarity about certain countries can vary between individuals, including players, DMs and designer.
Another disadvantage I see it that it gets stale at some point. There is always the Viking country, the China country, various European countries, etc. all populated with monsters from the respective mythologies and people with the corresponding culture and ethnicity.
So what is your opinion on this? Do you prefer to have familiar historic inspired countries in your setting or do you like to have more fantastic countries or at least countries that heavily deviate from their historic base?
Nearly all countries and societies in RPGs are based on real world ones. A trend which has in my opinion only increased in recent years as companies strife for a more respectful representation on noneuropean cultures which in turn makes them stick closer to the historic real world material than before.
Of course that is not a binary yes/no choice but a sliding scale, some developers only borrowing a general idea while others copying entire events more or less accurately like the French revolution complete with guillotines, ect. (Galt in Pathfinder as example).
I of course see the advantages in that. You provide something familiar to many people and do not need to explain everything. That also saves book space as you do not need to spell out every nuance of a specific country and can just point to its historic reference (or more likely players will figure it out themselves in many cases). Although it leaves some things in the open as the familiarity about certain countries can vary between individuals, including players, DMs and designer.
Another disadvantage I see it that it gets stale at some point. There is always the Viking country, the China country, various European countries, etc. all populated with monsters from the respective mythologies and people with the corresponding culture and ethnicity.
So what is your opinion on this? Do you prefer to have familiar historic inspired countries in your setting or do you like to have more fantastic countries or at least countries that heavily deviate from their historic base?