Do people enjoy non medieval-europe Fantasy Settings

[Ashiel]

Set wrote:

Stereofm wrote:

Anyways, I don't recall a western fantasy setting that's really representative of Europe, much less of medieval europe.

Game of Thrones is the closest thing I know.

I've seen a bunch of standalone stuff, like GURPS Imperial Rome or GURPS Middle Ages or the 2nd edition Viking and Celts Campaign sourcebooks or whatever, but no serious attempts at covering all of Europe as a single fantasy setting.

The purist in me would prefer that a D&D (GURPS, Pathfinder, whatever) fantasy setting be one or the other, either completely original (like Eberron or Dark Sun) or completely 'fantasy X' (like how Osirion, Mulhorand or Hamnunaptra are 'fantasy Egypt'). A 'fantasy X' setting, in which fantasy Egypt and fantasy Rome and fantasy Gaul and fantasy Germania and fantasy Albion and fantasy Persia all co-existed, without a bunch of made-up countries, could be neat, although it would likely veer away from Tolkein-esque fantasy in that there'd be no room on the map for elven nations, dwarven nations, orc/bad-guy humanoid nations, etc.

It would likely also get a bit Civilization-eque, in that different nations came and went, and you'd have to fudge a lot of historical timelines to have a significant Roman empire, Greek city-states, Egyptian dynastic presence *and* Persian/Ottoman empire all co-existing more or less in their 'golden age.'

This causes me to ponder something. How many settings have you played in that have cultures/empires/kingdoms built upon older ones, or having the old inhabitants now part of the citizenry of this new culture that overtook the old one?

I've got a few places like that in my setting but it occurs to me that I don't see much of that in most settings. Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but you see a lot of that sort of thing in actual history.

[Set]

Ashiel wrote:

This causes me to ponder something. How many settings have you played in that have cultures/empires/kingdoms built upon older ones, or having the old inhabitants now part of the citizenry of this new culture that overtook the old one?

I've got a few places like that in my setting but it occurs to me that I don't see much of that in most settings. Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but you see a lot of that sort of thing in actual history.

In Golarion, Cheliax (and Andoran) being formerly part of Taldor, and before that, at least partially tied to old Azlant, could be one example of such a thing. Ditto Thuvia and Rahadoum being part of Osirion once, and before that Jistka and whatever the other country is with the T (Tekritanon League?).

I don't remember Greyhawk being that focused on 'old Empires' (other than Aerdy, and stuff about the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire between the Bakluni and Suel), but the Realms also had a lot of references to older nations that had since died out.

Quite a few D&D settings had a 'the past was better and more magical and they sure did love filling old ruined complexes with gold and treasure and magic items for us to haul out in our space-folding bags!' baked in, for obvious reasons.

[SmiloDan]

The homebrew campaign I'm working on has a dozen floating continents, so it's got technology levels from the Stone Age through Steampunk in the same setting. There is a trans-continental trading consortium that standardizes currency and language, so an Egyptian sky charioteer-type can talk to a French Griffon Knight-type or an airman from the Clockwork Caliphate-type or a Chthulu-esque jungle cultist. It's designed to be very cosmopolitan, with an "ideal" mixture of isolationism (each continent is stuck in the middle of the sky, so flying from continent to another is more difficult that walking, riding, or sailing between more traditional continents) and travel (airships, flying carpets, portals, winged mounts, teleportation circles, airwhales, magical chariots, winged sandals, magical pathways through an ancient primordial forest, leylines connecting standing stones, etc.) so there can be a fun mixing of cultures, but each culture will be unique. I basically want it to be like Planescape, but without the planehopping. Each continent will hopefully be as full of adventure as the average plane. The ideal party will have a ninja, a swashbuckler, a knight, a cultist, a witchdoctor, an alchemist, and a scholar from a variety of different races and backgrounds.

[Krensky]

Set wrote:

Obviously it would suck if all options turned out to be equal, just different flavor over the same mechanics, robbing the players of any meaningful choice, and making all cultures bland and same-y, but there should be a sort of middle ground where things could be different, but end up competitive, and no one armor or weapon option is just always better-er than every other option.

That's why I play Fantasy Craft.

You could come close by using class based defense and armor as DR, but what really makes it work is some changes to the math, design philosophy, and combat system.

As an exmple, one of my current games is running through Serpent's Skull with most people wearing leather or normal clothes and doing quite well and with two unarmed fighters (built completely differently) a burgeler with a mace, an archer, a fencer, a spear and shield mounted warrior, a mage with a sword (not a fighter mage type, just a wizard who can use a sword), and sword and dagger fighter. The mage casts spells and makes threatening gesturesgestures the most part, but he can still be effective with a sword and the archer is pretty handy with a falcata.

Although, to be honest, I think the archer's war dog has the highest kill count.

[Artemis Moonstar]

For the heavy stuff: This is why I prefer to be a hermit. If I was making enough money I'd order everything I need online and be a shut in with my fiance. I got tired of pointing out the idiocy on all sides years ago.

On topic: I generally prefer to play in my own home-grown settings. Which are typically even more kitchen sink than Golarion. Magic-fueled void-space-bending evolution-energy-based steam-tech cybernetic bioship with lots of gears, springs, brass, and chrome? You betcha.

I got bored with the traditional settings a long time ago. My games will regularly have anything from Little Red Goblin Games' GONZO books in them.

[Bluenose]

Set wrote:

Stereofm wrote:

Anyways, I don't recall a western fantasy setting that's really representative of Europe, much less of medieval europe.

Game of Thrones is the closest thing I know.

I've seen a bunch of standalone stuff, like GURPS Imperial Rome or GURPS Middle Ages or the 2nd edition Viking and Celts Campaign sourcebooks or whatever, but no serious attempts at covering all of Europe as a single fantasy setting.

Runequest's 3rd edition (the Avalon Hill one) used a modified dark ages Europe as the default setting initially - the starting adventurers that were used as examples were a Byzantine, a Pict, and iirc a Vandal. And Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys RPG was also modified Europe (and north Africa and parts of Asia). And there's Ars Magica and some of the historical versions of Worlds of Darkness, though I've never played either of those. D100/BRP games have quite a lot of sourcebooks for historical settings, though few that cover the whole of Europe in one. Largely I suspect to there being a lot of information already in existence, so you really only want to explain what's different.

[DekoTheBarbarian]

Just recently saw a good review for a 3pp book for Pathfinder that gives a lot of options for unarmored/lightly armored players. Think it was called Unarmored and Dangerous, and gives various classes options to use one of the 3 mental ability scores as their AC. Really thinking about getting it as I really prefer that kind of character, yet I don't always want to play a monk or stealth-based character.

[Liz Courts]

Locking thread—please be civil to each other, thank you.