Favourite Mediaeval Setting?

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, assault said:

Good conversation and ideas so far.

 

Perhaps the next thing might be to reduce some of these ideas to a playable form. Something of a microcosm of the big picture, with the basic ideas and conflicts reduced to something more PC scaled.

For example, instead of a conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, one between a Duke and a Bishop. Or something like that. I don't find that specific situation particularly compelling, but something broadly along those lines.

 

Okay. If we're staying Euro-centric, PCs could be agents of the Doge of Venice, engaging in covert operations or leading battles on land or sea against Genoa, Pisa, or the Turks (or their fictional analogues).

 

Another great location/example for a more focused campaign would be the Kingdom of Asturias on the northern Iberian peninsula, which from its effective founding in 718 fought many battles with the Moors of Al-Andalus to the south, as well as Viking raiders. The kingdom was contemporaneous and had good relations with the Carolingian Empire, so trips into those lands and entanglement in the Empire's affairs would also be possible. (BTW Asturias transitioned into the Kingdom of Leon in 925.)

Edited January 22 by Lord Liaden

[GDShore]

There is a good piece of source material available that can be adapted easily for Hero system usage, Chivalry & Sorcery RPG., created by two history students studying European history. It is complex, not particularly user friendly, I was a beta tester for it in my late teens. The tome has a wealth of knowledge of the customs, societies and general life in the middle ages (mostly middle age's Germany). Gives a very good overview of how to become a Knight, and how magic or at least how middle Europeans thought magic worked. I still have my copy of the original book, a gift from Wilf Bakus one of the co-creators, I always intended to get it autographed but sadly I left it too long, and he has passed. We were friends for more than fourty years I still miss him and his bombast and wisdom.

[Steve]

I have long had a love of the Ars Magica version of Europe, but translating it into Hero System has always been too intimidating for me.

[Rich McGee]

1 hour ago, GDShore said:

It is complex, not particularly user friendly, I was a beta tester for it in my late teens.

Wasn't C&S out in the Seventies?  Pretty sure I haven't even reached my teens when it first came out. 

 

Pendragon's also a decent game-history source for Arthurian England, albeit more narrow than C&S was.  Must be at least one GURPS book that would be of use as well.

1 hour ago, Steve said:

I have long had a love of the Ars Magica version of Europe, but translating it into Hero System has always been too intimidating for me.

That's one I'd dearly love to play a good lasting campaign of again, but it takes a table full of people who are really invested in playing to work well IME.  Hard to put together, arguably harder than doing Amber Diceless for any period of time.  Their version of Mythic Europe is a fascinating read, at the very least.  

[GDShore]

I played it first, in '67 0r '68 while they were still developing it. We were friends a long time, and I always saws him as being immortal, even in my fifties he was their as a friend, voice of wisdom and occasionally an ass kicker. (when I really needed it)

[Cancer]

On 1/21/2024 at 12:50 PM, Old Man said:

 

If we ditch the European requirement, central Asia is an outstanding source of inspiration.  I have a history of central Asia that reads exactly like a fantasy novel with intrigues, wars, dynasties, and entire civilizations that no Ur-Murrikan has ever heard of.    Largely because they were erased by the Mongols, and later the Russians.

 

The Mongols put an end to the Abbasids in their conquest of Baghdad, and it is the Muslim writers rather than the western Christians who bemoan the Mongol invasion the loudest.  Europe was barely touched by them (though the threat was very, very real).

 

There is a (quite controversial) suggestion that the semi-nomadic Khazars in central Asia converted as a nation to Judaism at some point around 800-900 AD.  Simply because I find the concept of Jewish horse barbarians laugh-out-loud humorous in a Terry Pratchett sort of way, I've adopted this in my "Arabian Seas" campaign concept; the nominal date of that campaign is a start in 780 AD.

 

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

 

The Mongols put an end to the Abbasids in their conquest of Baghdad, and it is the Muslim writers rather than the western Christians who bemoan the Mongol invasion the loudest.  Europe was barely touched by them (though the threat was very, very real).

 

 

Unless you count Russia, of course. Three centuries under Mongol rule.

 

In a way we're all still paying for the Mongol conquest of Russia. That left a deep emotional scar in the Russian collective psyche, a fear of invaders that greatly contributed to their desire to expand, so as to create buffers protecting them.

Edited January 23 by Lord Liaden

[Rich McGee]

That certainly hasn't been helped any by Napoleon and Hitler, either.  How many times do you need to be invaded before paranoia starts being a rational response?

 

Of course, that doesn't explain why Belgium is so relatively well-adjusted.

[Steve]

2 minutes ago, Rich McGee said:

That certainly hasn't been helped any by Napoleon and Hitler, either.  How many times do you need to be invaded before paranoia starts being a rational response?

 

Of course, that doesn't explain why Belgium is so relatively well-adjusted.

Maybe due to the chocolates?

[tkdguy]

6 hours ago, Steve said:

I have long had a love of the Ars Magica version of Europe, but translating it into Hero System has always been too intimidating for me.

 

I was thinking about combining Ars Magica with Vampire and Werewolf, both of which have their own Dark Ages supplement. Then add the Highlander mythos for good measure.

[Rich McGee]

2 minutes ago, Steve said:

Maybe due to the chocolates?

That might explain the invasions, too. 

[Mark Rand]

4 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

Wasn't C&S out in the Seventies?  Pretty sure I haven't even reached my teens when it first came out. 

 

Pendragon's also a decent game-history source for Arthurian England, albeit more narrow than C&S was.  Must be at least one GURPS book that would be of use as well.

That's one I'd dearly love to play a good lasting campaign of again, but it takes a table full of people who are really invested in playing to work well IME.  Hard to put together, arguably harder than doing Amber Diceless for any period of time.  Their version of Mythic Europe is a fascinating read, at the very least.  

There was a GURPS Arthurian England book.  It had three versions of the era, including one where Guinevere was a Celtic warrior queen who could take lovers as she wished.

[L. Marcus]

As for Chivalry & Sorcery, the fifth edition came out a few years ago. Our own Andy Staples was part of the Britannia Game Design crew. 

[Lord Liaden]

Since the Mongols have come up repeatedly in this discussion, I want to mention that I've often mused about what would have happened to the world's history if there had been one minor change -- the death of Temujin, the future Genghis Khan, as a boy. That was a very possible development. His tribe, the original Mongols, were defeated and scattered by their enemies, and Temujin became a hunted refugee for years. He could easily have been caught and killed in that time. Temujin eventually gathered his tribe, and brought the other nomads of the Gobi Desert region under his banner, apparently through his personal charisma, genius, and force of will. There's no reason to believe that unification would have happened without him.

 

The possible ripple effects of that change are profound. The Mongols united the rival states of China, which remained unified ever afterward. OTOH they crushed the Russian principalities, among the most prosperous and progressive in Europe, holding back their development so the momentum of civilization shifted westward. The powerful Khwarizmian Empire dominated Central Asia and the Muslim world for only a few decades before the Mongols utterly defeated it in a mere two years. The Mongol peace across their vast empire opened new safe trade routes which spurred European contact with the Far East, like the Polo expedition. That in turn fueled Europeans' desire to find a shorter, more direct route to the Orient, which led to the discovery of the New World. Subsequent notable imperialists such as Timur and Babur declared themselves descendants and successors of the royal Mongol house, which may have inspired them and was used to add the aura of legitimacy to their rule.

 

 

Edited January 24 by Lord Liaden

[GDShore]

 The problem with your premise L.L. is the historical forces to unite the Mongols were well established before Temujin "the Genghis Khan" did so. It reminds me of one of the great time travel paradox's " if you could travel back to the early 1900"s would you kill Adolf Hitler and thus prevent the rise of Naziism. It would not have. The forces which lead to it's appearance were already in existence world wide, (for instance, the eugenics which formed the basis of the Nazis race beliefs arose in the U.S. south) and before A.H. appeared one other Fascist leader had already made it onto the world stage. (there was also the abortive coup against F.D.R. that if successful could have birthed a Fascist U.S. with much more dire consequences) The death of Temujin is an interesting thought experiment, 1. the unification of the tribes fails , no Mongol hordes, 2. an Ogaidai, Kublai or a somebody unites the tribes sweeps into China then Korea then Japan, then what in our world are Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos ect. and finally Indonesia which leads to the discovery and colonization of the Australian continent. There are multiple possibilities, including the original outcome delayed by a decade or two.

[Steve]

When discussing medieval settings, how much magic is preferable?
 

A Swords & Sorcery level would seem to work easiest as far as impact on a historical setting, focused on humans as the only race. But once you start scaling up from there, history would start getting strange.

 

Imagine the city-states of 10th century Italy ruled by ageless, Elven lords who have been in charge for centuries. The occasional half-elf comes into being due to their decadence and trysts with humans in attempts to stave off their ennui.

 

Or if the Mongol Hordes had a wizard at the Khan’s side acting as mobile artillery when it came to dealing with walled cities.

 

Or the inquisitors from the Catholic Church possessed actual clerical magic and were hunting down demon-possessed humans, witches and vampires.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, GDShore said:

 The problem with your premise L.L. is the historical forces to unite the Mongols were well established before Temujin "the Genghis Khan" did so.

 

Highly unlikely. Genghis was the only leader who emerged with a vision to unify the whole world under the Mongols, and the only one who had the ability and charisma to enforce his will on the warring Mongols, then get the survivors to buy into his messianic vision.

 

Not to mention his organizational skills in turning nomadic tribesmen, within a single lifetime, into the most disciplined and organized combined arms force on the planet in centuries - a level not seen since the days of the Roman legions, and not seen again until the Napoleonic wars.

 

There was nothing inevitable about the Mongols' rise. There was nothing special that set the Mongols apart from a plethora of nomadic Steppe tribes who lived the same lifestyle, used the same weapons, and survived the same hardships in the same kind of environment on a daily basis. E.g.; the Tartars, the Naimans, or, especially, the numerous Turks (who did form some empires, but none as massive as that of Genghis).

 

Mongols and similar tribes had existed for centuries, and numerous chieftains came and went, without anybody doing what Genghis did. His presence and unique set of abilities and talents is what made the difference.

 

Perhaps the most telling evidence is that, two generations after Genghis's death, the Mongol empire fragmented, with Mongols in central Asia returning to their pre-conquest lifestyle, while those who continued to rule specific civilized states gradually adopted the cultures of those states during their relatively brief reigns.

Edited January 24 by Lord Liaden

[tkdguy]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

When discussing medieval settings, how much magic is preferable?
 

A Swords & Sorcery level would seem to work easiest as far as impact on a historical setting, focused on humans as the only race. But once you start scaling up from there, history would start getting strange.

 

Imagine the city-states of 10th century Italy ruled by ageless, Elven lords who have been in charge for centuries. The occasional half-elf comes into being due to their decadence and trysts with humans in attempts to stave off their ennui.

 

Or if the Mongol Hordes had a wizard at the Khan’s side acting as mobile artillery when it came to dealing with walled cities.

 

Or the inquisitors from the Catholic Church possessed actual clerical magic and were hunting down demon-possessed humans, witches and vampires.

 

 

 

Something I'm playing with in historical and other low-magic settings is keep clerical magic but get rid of wizards.  At least one TSR campaign book, Charlemagne's Paladins, offers this as an option. I tried this option in my solo Middle-earth campaign. I renamed the clerics "healers" and treated their turn undead and spells as skills rather than than actual magic. It's still a work in progress.

[GDShore]

You are right L.L. Temujin was special, but not all that special. The tribe that destroyed was trying to do just that amalgamate the tribes. There were two other groups doing the same. As for organization the Mongols had already become the most effective and powerful light cavalry ever seen and add a growing overpopulation factor  then add the introduction of a new bow (D-bow which was the best of the horse archer bows by a considerable margin - it has a smoother draw, a smoother, easier release, over the horse's head, to either side and in Parthian) a new saddle form and the introduction of the "caracal" the Mongol hordes were inevitable. They were within a generation 2 at the most exploding out of Mongolia in all directions. Much like the Norse explosion on Europe's from it's north-east coast. Yes the man can make the times but just as often the times make the man.  Ah yes the Mongol empire did fragment and finally fall between 1368 and 1370 (by that time calling itself the Yuan dynasty by the Ming's), 140 years after the death of Temujin "the Genghis Khan" and while that was happening the Balsa tribe lead by Timur the Lame leads them into a series of short lived conquests that create the Turkic people that begin a wave of conquest in eastern then central Anatolia morphing into the Ottoman empire under Osmun

It could therefore be said that the last of the Mongol empire's did not fall until the 1920's.

[Lord Liaden]

Don't forget the Mughal Empire of India, again invoking the name and legacy of the Mongols.

 

I haven't found scholarly consensus as to a particular cause of Mongol expansion. All those you mention are cited, and a few additional ones. But I would say the "inevitability" of the Mongol Empire would be a big stretch to claim without Genghis Khan. There's a major difference between widespread raids and the establishment of scattered kingdoms, as with the Vikings; and the systematic subjugation and governance of a quarter of the world's population. Temujin pursued several tactics and policies which were atypical for his people and contributed to his success. And when you look at other notable conquerors such as Alexander and Timur, their conquests did not long survive their deaths.

 

So, I still maintain that the changes to historical events I mentioned earlier depended on the existence of Genghis Khan. [Forrest Gump] "And that's all I have to say about that." [/Forrest Gump]

[Jmonty]

On 1/17/2024 at 7:00 AM, Old Man said:

 

Wrong!  The other best setting is 5th century Europe:

 

 

 

Not discussing wich is the best, I'm here just to tell I played a campaign in 6th century Europe, from Byzantium to the Vandal Kingdom to the Persian frontier in Armenia, with the Blue and Green hippodrome factions fighting in the streets, Huns still menacing, conspiracies, spies, and a gold mine. Years 519-535, a long run.

[DShomshak]

That sounds hella cool.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

The average person tends to think of the Roman Empire as ending when the "barbarians" conquered Rome. But the eastern part endured another thousand years, and was the literal bridge between East and West. I was always struck by how it would repeatedly suffer setbacks, but then renew itself.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The average person tends to think of the Roman Empire as ending when the "barbarians" conquered Rome. But the eastern part endured another thousand years, and was the literal bridge between East and West. I was always struck by how it would repeatedly suffer setbacks, but then renew itself.

 

True, although most of the time it felt like it was coasting on inertia, almost in spite of whatever the emperors were doing.  Still, it took a plague plus some really big guns to finally put an end to it.

Edited January 26 by Old Man

[Scott Ruggels]

I have to admit that Byzantium has a certain attraction. I am running a pre-Islamic Persia, and Byzantium travelogue, with no magic. And the players have added tons of minor conflicts, and romance. It’s not one for one, but it’s been fun.