Which Once Upon a Time?
When I first began playing D&D and reading other Fantasy game books, they all seemed to share a similar type of setting. All vaguely medieval in a Tolkienish sort of way, except with a lot more monsters thrown into the mix. I just thought of them as being set in “the middle ages”.
Then 2nd edition D&D showed up they had optional equipment like Firearms that you could buy for your character. Then I saw Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying for the first time and noticed that they had pistols and blunderbusses as well. Surely that was only for specialized sorts of campaigns though – not those that include the standard sort of equipment you’d find in “regular” medieval D&D.
Over the years as I learned more about real-world history I became aware of the mix of time periods present in the game. Gunpowder which I’d initially thought only found in “late” medieval games was present in Europe from about the year 1248 onward. It wasn’t until this time that plate armour was being used as well. Plate armour was an iconic part of D&D… but canons and gunpowder generally were not. The extensive selection of Polearms also pointed towards an implied setting based on much later European history than I’d at first suspected.
Robin Hood, Perseus, and Conan the Barbarian were all influences on my games when I was 9 years old. These characters belonged to different eras though, with different types of weapons, armour and equipment than what was available in the players handbook. At the time I didn’t really know that, and figured all D&D items covered the general period of Ancient Greece through the Renaissance.
I think this is one of the differences between simply playing “old school” or nostalgic gaming and playing old games in a new way. Today I would either want to roughly base my campaign on a general period of history, or at least be consistent in the types of arms and armour present in the game world.
It also makes me wonder about setting games in more non-traditional fantasy-historical settings. How might a late-renaissance style dungeon crawl differ from the classic late-medieval D&D party? What about Ancient Greece, Feudal Japan, the Spanish Colonization – or even a Hyborian Age past or even Contemporary Fantasy present?
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“It also makes me wonder about setting games in more non-traditional fantasy-historical settings. How might a late-renaissance style dungeon crawl differ from the classic late-medieval D&D party? What about Ancient Greece, Feudal Japan, the Spanish Colonization – or even a Hyborian Age past or even Contemporary Fantasy present?”
I’m looking forward to your answers on these subjects.
My current Labyrinth Lord game takes place in an early iron-age setting. In this game, a mace might be a stone lashed to a club, or a carefully shaped piece of jade on a handle. Plate mail isn’t the fully articulated harness of the Renaissance knight, but the grieves and cuirass of the hoplite. And, in spite of thoroughly enjoying “The Scorpion King”, there’s no gunpowder to be found.
I’ve done alot of gaming in the late renaisance / Spanish Colonization era, it works very well with D&D. Exploring desert canyons in the southwest, Polynesian Islands, Crumbling Mayan Ruins and the splendors of the Incan Empire with the same group of characters and a sturdy boat. I can’t tell you how many times the words “Listen up you primitive screwheads, THIS is my BOOMSTICK” was uttered however, more so than any princess bride quotes.
I want to know what a wild-west dungeon crawl looks like! Maybe something like:
The old ruins on the top of the hill have always been occupied by goblinoids, and the dungeons below are rumored to be haunted. Regardless, they want to build a fort up there. They’ve hired your posse of gunslingers and spell casters to investigate and, if necessary, use martial force to exert control in the name of the government.
Your blog kicks ass.
@Timeshdows, @kaeosdad: Thanks!
@Brian: Very cool – I’ve been watching a lot of Ray Harryhausen Sword & Sandal movies lately.
@Zzarchov: What system did you use? How did the firearms work for that?
@DeadGod: Old ruins… or old prospector’s mine? While the setting for D&D is medieval / fantasy, I think the game itself is a lot more of a Western in many ways…
In regards to system: I used 2nd ed AD&D at first, it was satisfactory (note do not use the Maztica sourcebook)
Then used piecemeal (that campaign was one of the motivators to build it)
In that system guns are not terribly effective at killing hordes of lightly armoured warriors, but they do force morale checks. The main benefits are the mechanics of obsidian, stone, and (for the inca) bronze weapons versus steel armour, and the nature of the priest mechanics. It was a highly religious campaign focused on converting the masses and toppling the temples of the “heathens” etc. And the system really shines in priest games, and due to its inception, in this time frame above all else.
It may be worth noting that Mystara (as presented in the D&D Gazetteers and the Rules Cyclopedia) explicitly identifies the early Renaissance as the European historical equivalent for most of the setting in almost every respect — except gunpowder and printing presses. (Of course, exactly what the Vikings and Mongols are doing there isn’t really explained, except for some “it’s fantasy!” hand-waving.)
Similarly, I vaguely recall Gygax writing in the 1e AD&D DMG that, unless the DM decided otherwise, the early Renaissance was the presumed social, technological, and cultural background for the game — again, sans gunpowder. Gygax also explains the absence of gunpowder with reference to magic. Apparently, the existence of magic makes gunpowder not work (or at least not reliably). At least it explains all the pole-arms, plate armour, etc., but lack of cannons and blunderbusses.
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