Fantasy Immersion and the Things that Ruin it.

[Chris Goodwin]

 

23 hours ago, DShomshak said:

As for Things I'm Tired Of Seeing, I'm a bit irritated with the concept of the "professional adventurer." I suppose it's useful for getting PCs into adventures: Village/Kingdom/Whatever has problem, hires "adventurers" to solve it. PCs take the job, aadventure begins. B ut the term is a little meta for my tastes.

 

I think if you're postulating a world in which there are monsters out in the wilderness (and by monsters I'm including "hordes of evil races" even though I don't like the notion), marauding and attacking cities, caravans, travelers, and the like... especially if they're something the regular military and city guards/watch can't or won't handle, and you've got warrior/wizard/rogue/priest types, you'll probably have adventurers.  Think Europe and the British Isles, in the let's say 500 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Opposite would be Europe post-Renaissance, or let's say Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar.  Everything is peaceful -- relatively so, at any rate -- and there aren't necessarily hordes of barbarians/bandits/goblins/undead/monsters wandering around the countryside or out of crypts.  People get on with the business of making a living.  That's not to say there aren't bandits or whatever, but those are handled by professionals (caravan guards, city watch/guard, etc.).  

 

23 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I like when there can be some frame to explain why the PCs keep getting into trouble. Our last FH game had a good one: The PCs are the neighborhood watch. Looking for trouble, in a sense, as we stop drunken bar fights and such... but this is a Fantasy city where small events can entangle one in larger conflicts such as the power struggle between the Duke, the nobles and the merchants, or the stolen McGuffin that people are chasing is magical, or there's stuff buried beneath the city that could reveal the world Isn't What You Thought It Was. Worked out really well. The GM had to end the campaign for personal reasons, but I've lifted the concept for my own use.

 

I like this idea, a lot.  I've always wanted to play in a city sort of campaign, whether it's as watch, independent operators, vigilantes even.  

 

Generally speaking: what do "adventuring types" typically do for a living?  Fighter-types usually come out of a war of some kind (hence the old school D&D first-level fighter's title of "veteran").  Cleric-types, if they don't have a parish or congregation, can easily be wandering missionaries with a side business in hunting the occasional undead that somehow pops up.  Rogues tend to make their own trouble, whether they're criminals, carousing swashbucklers, or even hard-boiled (Garrett, PI) types.  Wizards?  Aside from opening a shop, casting a few spells for people who need it, or going full research... what might wizards do for a living that might get them involved in adventures?

[DShomshak]

In my friend's campaign, I ran Jervon Cutler. As his surname says, he made and sharpened knives. He was also very good at using them. We also had a grown-up street urchin who still did thieving for her Faginesque mentor when she wasn't working as a barmaid; a teamster with ambitions of being a minstrel; and a very strong man who worked in sewer maintenance.

 

Current-on-hold campaign has a cleric of The Lovers who's set up a storefront shrine and may be becoming the neighborhood marriage counselor and matchmaker; a lizardfolk awakened from his people's trance of race-memory, and works as a laborer to pay for lessons at a dojo in hopes of controlling his rage (*long* story); a bard who works as an entertainer, hustling for gigs at inns and taverns; a teenage girl who is really really good with crossbows (her parents make and repair them); and an orc paladin apprenticing with his gnomish artiificier kinsman (another long story) while he seeks his destiny.

 

There may be quests in the group's future, but for now they are enmeshing themselves in the affairs of the neighborhood and the city beyond.

 

Dean Shomshak

[ScottishFox]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:16 AM, Vanguard said:

And we found it a bit hard to believe that after hundreds of years of fighting with edged weapons, no-one lost a finger.

 

Couldn't agree more.  Centuries of bladed weapons training and the kind of hard, dangerous work that typified life prior to the 20th century makes it inconceivable that the immortals wouldn't have lost fingers, toes and limbs.

 

Hell, I've known multiple people with manual labor jobs (auto mechanics, oil rig workers, etc.) who have lost 2 or more fingers before they were 50.

[DShomshak]

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Generally speaking: what do "adventuring types" typically do for a living?  Fighter-types usually come out of a war of some kind (hence the old school D&D first-level fighter's title of "veteran").  Cleric-types, if they don't have a parish or congregation, can easily be wandering missionaries with a side business in hunting the occasional undead that somehow pops up.  Rogues tend to make their own trouble, whether they're criminals, carousing swashbucklers, or even hard-boiled (Garrett, PI) types.  Wizards?  Aside from opening a shop, casting a few spells for people who need it, or going full research... what might wizards do for a living that might get them involved in adventures?

 

In prepping my new campaign, I wrote a brief essay on ways people can become members of various classes -- keeping in mind that almost nobody in the Plenary Empire sets out to become a Murder Hobo/roving treasure-hunter, and even fewer succeed. (Even in decline, a thousand-year-old bureaucratic society has ways of dealing with such troublemakers.) Here are samples for a few classes:

 

Fighter
    There are many paths to becoming a fighter. The Imperial Army trains the largest number of the Plenary Empire’s fighters. Its legions accept citizens of all races (and half the drill sergeants seem to be orcs), though it includes race-specific auxiliary groups such as dwarf sappers, elf archers and halfling slingers. Various knightly orders such as the Storm Riders or the Lions of the Sun serve as special forces. The Empire also has many other military forces, from provincial armies to village militias, city guards, and the private guards of rich merchants.
    Then there are gladiators, dueling clubs, and other people who fight for sport. In the Plenary Empire, gladiatorial combat is never deliberately to the death. Many a brawny village youth or slum kid achieves fame and fortune in the arena, though the lure of glory draws upper-class men and women to the gladiator’s life as well. Dueling clubs tend to be exclusively upper-class affairs. Fencing with a rapier is the most celebrated dueling art, but not the only one. Cities also have gymnasia called palaestra (posh) or Houses of Strength (street) that teach boxing, wrestling and basic weapons combat as well as physical fitness.
    Crime — street gangs, bandits and pirates — provides another path to becoming a fighter. Even less formally, some people just get in a lot of fights. Survive enough of them, and you become a fighter. Sailors often become fighters in this manner, since no shore leave is complete without a tavern brawl.
    Military officers often become battle masters, but so do gladiators — the special maneuvers enable a more strategic form of combat, as well as spectacular moves that get the crowd cheering. Fencing masters may become battle masters as well. Champions are more a generic fighter, dedicated to killing the enemy as quickly as possible while not getting killed in turn. Eldritch knights and arcane archers are rare and probably belong to some elite military order that you will have to define for me.
    See the Resources chapter for more description of fighting groups, though some of these include rangers and other classes. Plenary folk rarely draw clear distinctions between the various combat-focused classes.

 

Ranger
    Note: The Magozoic setting does not use the official ranger class. My rangers don’t cast spells. There are not, in fact, any organized “conclaves” of rangers: It’s just that at 3rd level, rangers choose to specialize in various ways. Guidance from a ranger who already follows a particular subclass is useful, but not necessary.
    Many rangers join the class through training by a personal mentor. They don’t think of themselves specifically as rangers. They are merely skilled hunters, tribal warriors, village sheriffs, members of bandit companies, and the like.
    A few military organizations do train rangers. For instance, the Knights Lupercine train their squires in stealth, woodcraft and other skills suitable for scouts and commandos who operate in the wilderness and behind enemy lines. The Pursuivants are a company of rangers that began as Imperially-chartered bounty hunters but degenerated into kidnappers for hire. However, all these organizations include rangers from more than one “conclave” (and people from other classes besides). See the Resources chapter for more information about groups that include rangers.

 

Rogue
    Rogues are another class with many possible origin stories and career paths. Many independent rogues apprenticed with a master thief, assassin or confidence trickster. Some rogues belong to street gangs or organized crime syndicates (though few of these groups would style themselves a “thieves’ guild”). A major city such as Thalassene has several mobs, large and small, from little neighborhood groups such as the orcish Big Bad Bashers of East Row or the now-deceased Spikemen, through roving gangs such as the halfling thieves called the Wall Rats, to major syndicates such as the Sicarii. But the Plenary Empire has other options.
    The elven academy of Cedrus Mons provides a holistic education — physical, mental, esthetic and arcane — whose boundaries are elvishly obscure. It’s best known for producing bards. However, the academy’s curriculum can also grant a rogue’s skills without ever calling them such. Expertise is “how to become the best you can in anything you want.” Sneak Attack arises from advanced tactics for self defense, striking for best effect during an opponent’s divided or otherwise imperfect attention. Lockpicking comes from fine mechanics as a way to develop mental and manual precision; and so on. It’s one of the most elite finishing schools for children of the upper crust, but the masters of Cedrus Mons do not open their academy for mere gold. They place higher value on students whom they find in some way… interesting.
    The Plenary Empire itself trains rogues as spies. So do some of its rivals. Not every spy stays forever within the Office of Inquiry and Correction or its analogs in other countries.

 

Sorcerer
    Note: The Magozoic setting treats sorcery as an alternative form of arcane magic. Sorcerers gain their power through arcane study; and sorcery uses Intelligence as its spellcasting ability. Instead of the eight schools of wizardry, though, sorcerers draw on primal powers such as the elements, runes, or blood. Sorcery isn’t as flexible as wizardry, but can be just as powerful. Of the published schools, only Wild Magic is ported into Magozoic — and it is gained by an arcane initiation, not by accident.
    Scholarly and formalized versions of sorcery are entirely respectable in the Plenary Empire. The same schools that teach wizardry might teach sorcery, too. However, sorcery also has a “hedge magic” side practiced by the less urbanized and less literate races such as goblins, orcs and kobolds, or the tribal cultures of distant lands. Blood sorcery in particular has a reputation as an art practiced by outlanders and savages.
    Sorcerers lack the specialized utility spells developed by wizards, but they can make their combat magic extra kaboomy. The Imperial legions and other militias offer steady, if dangerous, employment for sorcerers. The Empire’s hobgoblin cohorts train their own battle sorcerers. Sorcerers with wind and weather magic find work in the Navy and on merchant ships.
    See the Resources chapter for description of some groups that teach sorcery.

 

Wizard
    While wizards can study through apprenticeship, Plenary folk can also learn through structured academic programs. The Library of Thalassene is the Empire’s most celebrated seat of higher learning, including wizardry; but the elves of Fracasta and Zyrrhene and the three main dwarven cities sponsor their own schools. Graduates of such programs may title themselves as “Doctor.” The Invisible College of the gnomish troupes also teaches wizardry (along with bardic arts), though you don’t get a nice vellum scroll attesting to your skill. A determined person can even learn wizardry just from books.
    Plenary wizards also have many career paths besides adventurer, tower-dwelling sage or mad would-be tyrant. Simply as an educated person, a wizard can usually find a job in learned professions from clerk to physician. Many low-level spells have commercial uses, such as making ice using ray of frost. Magnates and aristocrats may want a wizard both to tutor and defend their children. Court wizards provide flashy entertainment while possibly providing more practical or sinister services on the side.
    See the Resources chapter for descriptions of groups that teach wizardry.

---------------

I won't say the "roving soldier of fortune" model for PC groups is wrong, but I think it's aiming low.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Spence]

10 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I wish...

 

I have chosen to be optimistic

[Lee]

20 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Aside from opening a shop, casting a few spells for people who need it, or going full research... what might wizards do for a living that might get them involved in adventures?

 

Maybe change the question a bit. What might wizards need to make their living? Reagents. Some of them they won't be able to get for themselves and will need to join a band of adventurers.

[massey]

As I see it, Fighters are a dime a dozen.  There are always out of work soldiers or young strong guys willing to grab an axe and go kill some orc for money.  The ones who survive a battle or two are probably Fighters instead of 0 level Commoners who just thought they were Fighters.

 

Rogues are the same way.  There are plenty of people who think they can sneak into a dungeon and grab some treasure like they're Indiana Jones.

 

Rangers might be employed by the king or other authority to patrol the wilderness.  They can show up in town because they noticed higher orc activity or whatever and the king told them to grab some people and go take care of it.  Now you've got a level-appropriate challenge for your fledgling group.

 

Groups of adventurers form up when something exciting is happening.  That doesn't mean that there are always an endless number of adventurers being generated by the world.

[Chris Goodwin]

This might be worthy of its own thread, but do anyone's fantasy worlds have a Silk Road analog?  Trade routes that spread halfway around the world.  

 

For that matter, how much is known about the rest of the world?  Lost or as-yet undiscovered continents are fine, but most educated and/or wealthy people know where their trade goods come from, even if what they know is third hand, "game of whispers" things like Prester John.  

[Chris Goodwin]

On 4/16/2020 at 7:08 AM, Lee said:

 

Maybe change the question a bit. What might wizards need to make their living? Reagents. Some of them they won't be able to get for themselves and will need to join a band of adventurers.

 

One of the Ethshar novels (The Blood of a Dragon) concerns a regular guy who put off choosing his apprenticeship until what is traditionally considered the last possible date (like the month before his 18th birthday).  Showed no aptitude for anything, not even any forms of magic despite growing up in a house with sisters who are all casters.  He eventually started a business doing just that.  

[DShomshak]

Well, in my "Fantasy Europa" alternate history FH setting, there actually was still a Silk Road from Europe to China. I considered using it as the basis of a campaign. Instead I ended up running a campaign based on the PCs being on the first ship to the New World in 50 years, after contact was lost during the Monster War.

 

My now-on-hold D&D campaign is in a cosmopolitan port city with enclaves of peoples with whom the city has trade contacts: Little Vohai, Little Jiranda, Timbal Town, etc. Tarside, the waterfront neighborhood inhabited by Kurithan fire-worshipers, plays the same "sinister exotic foreigners" role of Limehouse in Victorian London (or at least in Victorian imagination). I also postulated a Mandeville's Travels homage, a gnomish traveler whose book about the marvels of very distant countries is perhaps not entirely reliable.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Chris Goodwin]

14 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Well, in my "Fantasy Europa" alternate history FH setting, there actually was still a Silk Road from Europe to China. I considered using it as the basis of a campaign. Instead I ended up running a campaign based on the PCs being on the first ship to the New World in 50 years, after contact was lost during the Monster War.

 

My now-on-hold D&D campaign is in a cosmopolitan port city with enclaves of peoples with whom the city has trade contacts: Little Vohai, Little Jiranda, Timbal Town, etc. Tarside, the waterfront neighborhood inhabited by Kurithan fire-worshipers, plays the same "sinister exotic foreigners" role of Limehouse in Victorian London (or at least in Victorian imagination). I also postulated a Mandeville's Travels homage, a gnomish traveler whose book about the marvels of very distant countries is perhaps not entirely reliable.

 

 

I love all of this.  Things that give the touch of verisimilitude.  

 

I've got a "bit", not really a full setting or even the basis for one, where most cities charge entry fees to non-residents.  Wizards are asked if they know any spells from a short list (purify water, night vision, light, control fire, cure disease, a few others), and their entry fees are reduced if they do know them, and even further if they're willing to take one or more volunteer shifts doing things like fire watch, night patrol, things of that nature.  The wizards' guilds in the cities will teach these spells to anyone who wants to learn them, just because the city has an interest in having people who can do things like stop disease outbreaks, prevent the city from burning down, and the like.  

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

This might be worthy of its own thread, but do anyone's fantasy worlds have a Silk Road analog?  Trade routes that spread halfway around the world.  

 

For that matter, how much is known about the rest of the world?  Lost or as-yet undiscovered continents are fine, but most educated and/or wealthy people know where their trade goods come from, even if what they know is third hand, "game of whispers" things like Prester John.  

 

Hero Games' Turakian Age setting has such a route. The larger continent of Arduna holds two enormous bodies of water, the inland Sea of Mhorec and Lake Beralka, which are each the center of a major geographic region with multiple realms on their shores. The two are linked by the long Shaanda River, navigable along its entire length, which is the only practical route through a vast range of mountains and hills separating the regions. Together with their other tributaries the giant lakes provide waterborne transport for travelers and traders to half the continent. By Mhorec's proximity to the Great Pass through mountain ranges bordering Khoria the route extends even further east.

 

While the Beralka-Shaanda-Mhorec route bears some resemblance to the Silk Road, it's also evocative of the Mediterranean Sea, having created a huge area linked both economically and culturally.

 

It's unclear how widespread the knowledge of all this was to the general populace of the known world of the time (two continents and a number of islands), but some scholars, merchants and rulers must have been at least aware of it. The authority of the High Church, the dominant religion of the era among Men, extends across the length and breadth of that world; and some trade goods are so unique and in-demand they're noted as being exported almost globally.

[massey]

None of those things matter to me, because they aren't something that the PCs would really know about.  Bob the illiterate fighter is probably not going to know about international trade.  These are all things that take place away from the action.

[Chris Goodwin]

23 minutes ago, massey said:

None of those things matter to me, because they aren't something that the PCs would really know about.  Bob the illiterate fighter is probably not going to know about international trade.  These are all things that take place away from the action.

 

Given that this thread is about immersion... playing Bob the Illiterate Fighter is immersive for you?  

[Chris Goodwin]

I mean, I look at this... 

 

3 hours ago, DShomshak said:

 

My now-on-hold D&D campaign is in a cosmopolitan port city with enclaves of peoples with whom the city has trade contacts: Little Vohai, Little Jiranda, Timbal Town, etc. Tarside, the waterfront neighborhood inhabited by Kurithan fire-worshipers, plays the same "sinister exotic foreigners" role of Limehouse in Victorian London (or at least in Victorian imagination). I also postulated a Mandeville's Travels homage, a gnomish traveler whose book about the marvels of very distant countries is perhaps not entirely reliable.

 

I didn't just click "Like" on Dean's post for the hell of it.  I can instantly imagine this city in my head.  The sights, the sounds, the smells!  I have no idea where Vohai or Jiranda are, but I want to know more about this place and the people in it!  That to me is immersion.  

 

"Bob the illiterate fighter"... really?

[Lord Liaden]

Now that brings up another issue I'd like to ask about: When it comes to city adventures, what size of city do you like to adventure in? 5-6 thousand years ago most "cities" had less than 10,000 inhabitants. OTOH several pre-industrial cities are estimated to have reached populations of a million or more, e.g. Rome during its imperial period, Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate, and Chang'an in China with the Qing Dynasty.

 

I typically top out my "largest city in the world" at one million inhabitants, with only a handful of others coming anywhere close to that, and the great majority of cities a small fraction of that total. For me that seems credible and helps me feel I'm in a world with at least a nod to reality. But I do like to balance a home base for a campaign between "large enough to be interesting" and "small enough to be manageable" -- most often between 50,000 and 100,000. Much larger cities are great for a visit, but as a GM I have trouble maintaining an immersive environment when I have too much to keep track of over the long term. If I get lost my players will, too.

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

anyone's fantasy worlds have a Silk Road analog?  Trade routes that spread halfway around the world.  

 

Mine does, actually.

 

Briefly:  The campaign starts at the beginning of the Fourth Age, after a devastating war and then six hundred years of mind-your-own-businessism has elapsed between this age and the Third Age-- an age of exploration and trade that began to develop into a real golden age, right down the emergence of a mercantile class, dealing in goods from far away lands.

 

To be fair, the "road" is a series of waterways, mapped and settled and explored during the Third Age, but when that crumbled, little of it remained in use.  The "core" part did, a pathway through the...  "continent" is not entirely accurate, as the campaign starts in an Australia-sized cluster of large islands.  It starts on the largest one, which roughly 1/3 the size of Australia,  but the center is largely uninhabited, or at least, undeveloped woodland and swamplands.  It gets wetter the further east you go, until it eventually breaks into a series of scattered islands (about 1/2 of Australia, if pushed into a mass) with the remaining land being islands scattered around the permitter of the main continent.

 

The more commonly-used ports along the waterways remained in touch, but the more out-of-the-way or exotic were eventually forgotten about.  As the Fourth Age started, wealth is again accruing along this path, and people are again itching to see the world around them and recover the knowledge and trade that is lost.  Even a couple of races have been lost, remembered as little more than fairy tale boogeymen to frighten children, if at all.

 

During its height, the water trade routes extended to six other continents and myriad island chains on this quadrant of the globe.  It's a great time to be a professional adventurer  explorer or treasure hunter  speculating merchant.

 

Maybe it sounds contrived, but invariably, all my fantasy games are driven by exploration before something just bites the players and they decide to hang around a certain place for a while.  Honestly, I think it's a matter of "Ooh!  I loved this!  Let's see what else there is!"   Sometimes it's "Nope; ain't interested in _that_!  Let's keep moving!"  Personally, I think it falls more to "we want to be professional adventurers, because at the end of the day, that's what an explorer _is_, and they have a hard time getting interested in a setting that's already well-explored.   Seriously.  My players would be _thrilled_ with a game of Dungeons and Traveller.     Generally, once they achieve the level of "success" they are looking for-- be it wealth, carving a new kingdom, overthrowing an unjust kingdom somewhere else in the world-- whatever it is their goals are, they're ready to throw in the towel and start over again.

 

Which is great in the sense that I get to try out new ideas on a regular basis, and horrible, because I have to come up with all-new ideas on a regular basis.  

 

 

5 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

For that matter, how much is known about the rest of the world?  Lost or as-yet undiscovered continents are fine, but most educated and/or wealthy people know where their trade goods come from, even if what they know is third hand, "game of whispers" things like Prester John.  

 

Oops.  I guess I answered that already.  Sorry about that.  

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

Given that this thread is about immersion... playing Bob the Illiterate Fighter is immersive for you?  

 

 

I know it doesn't work for you, but do you remember this guy?---

 

 

 

Scoff a bit if you must, but that was a real character-- _my_ real character.  He was like my third D&D character, and the first character (and I think only) character I ever converted from D&D to Champions when we decided to "try it out" on Champions running gear (the test was successful, it seems.  Except for Traveller, and a single summer with 1e Vampire, the Masquerade, everything we play now is on Champions running gear).

 

He was about as ignorant as it was possible to get.  He was also an absolute _joy_ to play.  Not just for laughs, like in that post (though there were plenty of them, because he was dumb as a post), but I daresay for the immersion-- when a sophisticated bard or a persnickety paladin enters a new city and sees a thousand people, or two thousand, and water being magically drawn _up_ an aqueduct to garden floating over a castle courtyard, they may "approve of this, as it's charming," or sneer disdainfully at the opulence---

 

But a barbarian who's entire life was killing and wenching it up in a near-frozen wasteland?  Forget about it!  It was _amazing_....  It was as if Gods had walked the earth here, and every person dressed in fine silks and colorful leggings and starched collars were clearly wizards of great power....   The staggering wealth indicated by the use of metal not for weapons or statues of gods, but for..   art?  Using metal to make something with no purpose?  Truly, these people something wondrous and absolutely terrifying!  People who had so much luxury that they would trade it for coins?  What opulence was here that someone could have too much finery?! And-- and...  bottles of magic!  Bottles at all!  Like skins, but colorful, with the contents dazzlingly on display...   And for coins, one could trade and get bottles that let even Koloth cast fireballs like a mighty wizard---  ASTOUNDING!!

 

 

Oh yeah; being an ignorant savage can be extremely immersive, and often amusing, if that's the game you want to play.  Not all INT:6 D&D characters were murder/death/kill oriented.  

 

 

[Chris Goodwin]

44 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Oh yeah; being an ignorant savage can be extremely immersive, and often amusing, if that's the game you want to play.  Not all INT:6 D&D characters were murder/death/kill oriented.  

 

Koloth the Virile (and unlettered) is awesome!  I was snarking at the wrongfun implication, and especially at the example.  

 

And this is Fantasy Hero!  If I want to play Ellarin the Wizard who actually does know aught of international trade, and absolutely loves Jirandan food, and oh by the way did you know that this particular spice that comes from Jiranda has a beneficial effect for men of a certain age, and we'll leave that conversation right there...

[Chris Goodwin]

Here's another query.  Does your fantasy world have a Friday night?  

 

By which I mean: it's the night of the last workday of the work week, however that's defined.  It's the night when the longshoremen and the warehousemen and the trades apprentices and the wizards' university students are done with the week and are ready to go out and party, drink, dance, and so forth, and the thieves and rogues and so on are out to try to help them spend their coin (with or without permission)?

[Duke Bushido]

"Sorry; you cannot add any more reactions today...."

 

 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Just now, Chris Goodwin said:

Here's another query.  Does your fantasy world have a Friday night?  

 

By which I mean: it's the night of the last workday of the work week, however that's defined.  It's the night when the longshoremen and the warehousemen and the trades apprentices and the wizards' university students are done with the week and are ready to go out and party, drink, dance, and so forth, and the thieves and rogues and so on are out to try to help them spend their coin (with or without permission)?

 

 

Not as such; no.

 

I need to expand that a bit.....

 

Most of my fantasy games are low fantasy campaigns, and staying more or less true to "generally doing things without a lot of really over-the-top magic," work is pretty much an everyday thing, _especially_ in rural settings.

 

_however_, I also have sabbaths of a sort, which vary from religion to religion, and in larger, more multicultural cities, it's not uncommon that every day is _someone's_ sabbath.  There are civil holidays that vary from locality to locality, and there are over-lapping celebrations from some of the more-common-in-that-area holy days that may lead to a day of celebration or feasting or partying or such, but for the most part, there isn't really a "work week / weekend" sort of thing.

 

As I noted before though, this is just a "typical" campaign.  There are variants, some of which include a regularly-scheduled day or two that the majority agrees to not work, and the cows feed themselves.  

 

 

[massey]

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

Given that this thread is about immersion... playing Bob the Illiterate Fighter is immersive for you?  

 

Sure.

 

Excalibur

Camelot

Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Destroyer

The Black Cauldron

The Sword in the Stone

Krull

Dragonslayer

The Sword and the Sorceror

The Princess Bride

Legend

Red Sonja

The Lord of the Rings (animated)

Jason and the Argonauts

Clash of the Titans

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

The Last Unicorn

 

 

Those are the fantasy movies that I was familiar with when I started playing D&D.  Now tell me, apart from Merlin the Magician in The Sword in the Stone, which protagonist from these movies is skilled in matters of international trade (and Merlin cheats, because he travels through time to a place with TV)?  Which characters have an interest in studying the silk road of their world?  In an age of no internet, no newspapers, no public libraries, and 95% illiteracy, why is it important to detail something that I have a never ever seen a player ask about, and that a character has no way to know?

 

[Chris Goodwin]

26 minutes ago, massey said:

Those are the fantasy movies that I was familiar with when I started playing D&D.  Now tell me, apart from Merlin the Magician in The Sword in the Stone, which protagonist from these movies is skilled in matters of international trade (and Merlin cheats, because he travels through time to a place with TV)?  Which characters have an interest in studying the silk road of their world?  In an age of no internet, no newspapers, no public libraries, and 95% illiteracy, why is it important to detail something that I have a never ever seen a player ask about, and that a character has no way to know?

 

Most of those were on my list as well.  I've got a few that weren't on your list (Hawk the Slayer, Beastmaster, Neverending Story, Highlander) and a few of yours not on mine, but I won't press that. 

 

How about books?  The Chronicles of Prydain (and from there, the Mabinogion).  A Wrinkle In Time et seq.  Operation Chaos and Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson.  The Compleat Enchanter by deCamp and Pratt.  The Ethshar series by Lawrence Watt-Evans.  The Incarnations of Immortality, Xanth, Apprentice Adept, and others by Piers Anthony (whom I'll disavow now, because of certain proclivities, but I enjoyed his stuff in my youth and his worldbuilding has left an indelible mark on my fantasy preferences).  The Myth Adventures series by Robert Asprin.  The Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust.  The Dancing Gods series by Jack Chalker.  The Black Company and Garrett, PI series by Glen Cook.  The Belgariad.  The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane.  The David Sullivan series by Tom Deitz. 

 

The Guardians of the Flame, by Joel Rosenberg.  Every gamer I knew had read those, whether they enjoyed them or not, and "PMD" was a thing we all seemed to know after they came out, even though none of us had them in any of our games.  

 

A lot more than that, as well.  

 

Everyone has different tastes in fantasy; that's fine.  That's best.  You know what's not fine?  Coming in and threadcrapping when someone else's tastes differ from yours.  I'm going to report, next time. 

 

[massey]

44 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Everyone has different tastes in fantasy; that's fine.  That's best.  You know what's not fine?  Coming in and threadcrapping when someone else's tastes differ from yours.  I'm going to report, next time. 

 

 

You seriously need to chill out. 

[Chris Goodwin]

17 minutes ago, massey said:

 

You seriously need to chill out. 

 

You're not wrong, actually.  I've been letting stuff get to me lately a bit too much.  I shouldn't have gone off on you; I'm sorry.