If we were all using one objective setting, then yes, this would be accurate. But, otherwise, I feel perfectly justified in telling you that your boomerang throwing grippli samurai is out of place in my Carolingian setting.
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The argument people are making is not the argument you're debating Crusader
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In the case of Golarion, you've got exotic materials (adamantine, mithral) along with technological items from Numeria that could be studied. You've got the bombards and such in Ultimate Combat, but aren't seeing the move away from castles that you should see. Once cannons come in, you want different defenses.
You can design fortifications to withstand cannon: they're basically really pointy star shaped with a lot of earthen angles and embankments around them. Ridiculously expensive to build and took more than a few ranks in knowledge engineering to get the angles right.
Or just magically strengthen the stone. If someone shoots adamantine cannon balls at you just pick them up and buy a new city...
The argument people are making is not the argument you're debating Crusader
I'm exaggerating to the point of absurdity. But, only as an exercise in rhetoric. Yes, you can find examples of guns in history dating back to the fourteenth century. That does not make them legitimate to the setting, though. At best it would be a novelty of the setting.
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Arguments to absurdity are.. well.. absurd. It results in two very idiotic ideas screaming at each other rather than a productive dialog about where exactly to set the line between making fantasy inclusive without losing its essential character.
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Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
Basically, everyone had a hard-on for LotR and pretty much only wanted British influences in their setting. After a while, I quit playing because it felt like the GMs were using the historical accuracy argument as a facade to really say "No Non Whites Allowed". A lot of these GMs were older people and had really close minded views on how one should play the game. Because of that, I stopped playing until I left for college. I had always played with my father since I was 6 or 7, and he never had problems with people playing Hispanic or African or Asian inspired characters. So it was jarring to see people saying that my ethnicity doesn't belong in the game. Other minority friends of mine quit playing too because of that. No one likes to be told that they don't belong or don't fit in. Shit sucks for a kid (less so for a cynical, bitter Millennial ;) ).
Since then, I've run and played games with people my age and no one really cares about "setting integrity" per se. When I run, I give a brief synopsis of the setting then let the players make the characters and fit them in. Hell, I had a player want to bring in an Indian inspired character and ended up working with the player to create a fun, Mythical India for m setting which didn't even have that to begin with. Now I have a group of Indian assassins and yogis in my Caribbean setting that has enhanced it a great deal and I'm happy for it. Players using naginatas and atlatls having ruined my Medieval European game and I doubt it'll really ruin anyone else's.
As GMs, we need to learn when to say yes. Sometimes you end up with some great stories, great additions to your setting that you never thought about, and most importantly, a great time with your friends.
Lets be fair Odraude... they usually include Norse and German influences as well as English :P [Infact... more of the English material that came from those sources originally than the actual Celtic stuff in most cases...]
Too true, too true. :) I do point that out to people that cling to Earth Historical Accuracy in their make-believe setting, but generally they are too stubborn to see.
Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
Yyyyyyyyyy...
Eeee...
Yyyhhh...
Sorry, my brain can't handle that level of geo-historical ignorance...
Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
for some reason this makes me want to play a Frank Knight from the early Charlemagne period.
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While tangentical to this post, as has been mentioned several times already the "historical fallacy" (or whatever one prefers to call it) has often been used to dissuade characters of color in general, and black characters in particular, in pseudo-medieval settings. Due to this, I feel obliged to link to this excellent, fantastic tumblr blog, called Medieval PoC and which is basically what it says on the tin (though it has a broader focus than just the medieval period - basically most things from ancient times to the 17th and sometimes 18th century).
While I knew beforehand that europeans had contact with people who aren't white during the medieval period, the blog really gave me some perspective on just how much sources there are about this. If one's a historian one probably already know about these things, but for amateurs who've mostly picked up stuff along the way like me it was a real eye-opener.
for some reason this makes me want to play a Frank Knight from the early Charlemagne period.Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
I've seen people disallow French, Italian, and Spanish inspired knights before. They seem to not realize how intertwined they are in Medieval England's history. Especially France.
Again though, any attempt I've made to correct people about their history is usually met with them digging their heels in and metaphorically sticking their fingers in their ears while yelling "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALA!!!"
Well... sometimes it's metaphorically ;)
I've seen people disallow French, Italian, and Spanish inspired knights before. They seem to not realize how intertwined they are in Medieval England's history. Especially France.for some reason this makes me want to play a Frank Knight from the early Charlemagne period.Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
especially when you count the Normans.
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Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
However stupid it is, and it's a pretty dumb argument, it still falls into the same problem - the GM's telling you what he wants in the game. He's doing it badly, since it's easy to misunderstand, and he's using a dumb argument to do it, but that doesn't mean that "I know you don't want this, but your statement didn't exclude it, even if you thought it did, so you have to let me play it." is a good approach to the game.
If the GM & other players want a British LotR derived game, make a character that fits. Or find another game.
That I can mostly accept. But the point is that they used the historical accuracy excuse, which was pretty much completely wrong.
And since then, I've run and played games that were fairly open to concepts and I've yet to see having samurai, black people, and firearms ruin people's pristine, LotR-wannabe setting ;)
Lets be fair Odraude... they usually include Norse and German influences as well as English :P [Infact... more of the English material that came from those sources originally than the actual Celtic stuff in most cases...]
Though on the other hand, these people often credit the Norse, Germanic, and Celtic influences as being 100% original, genuine English...
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wait,wait, people are disallowing French Knights? They wouldn't be quoting Le Morte D'Arthur and his knights of the round table also, would they?
eesh.
The Song of Roland and his over the topness has more in tune with PF then most mythologies.
==Aelryinth
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Indeed. The problem isn't that they wanted a certain flavor for their game. The problem is that they said they wanted a Medieval Europe game, and then Odraude made a character that fit in Medieval Europe, only to be told that it was inappropriate.
It would be like if the GM said he wanted a LotR-insipired game, then got annoyed when you brought a Dwarf PC because "Dwarves don't belong in Lord of the Rings."
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If your Tolkien-inspired pseudo-British setting can't account for a Spaniard hopping the channel then that says some pretty odd things about your setting.
Keeping the historic motif, the first Celts of Ireland came from Spain after migrating out of Switzerland. The Celtiberians were local Spanish Celts that married into the local populace, and are ditantly related to the Celts of Ireland.
There seem to be a few different arguments here.
One of them is like calling appealing to authority an appeal to authority fallacy when appealing to an authority usually ISN"T a fallacy: the more common version of the fallacy occurs when someone appeals to a fake authority. The corollary here would be appealing to historical accuracy that isn't very accurate. Citing complaints about that doesn't argue against the general idea of having a historically accurate setting.
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If your Tolkien-inspired pseudo-British setting can't account for a Spaniard hopping the channel then that says some pretty odd things about your setting.
This is actually similar to my mindset when running a game and allowing characters.
Whenever I run a game, I always ask myself "Does allowing X really harm my game?" If I allowed, say, a samurai in a Renaissance game, does it somehow ruin the integrity of the setting? And if my setting is so fragile that a single, fairly basic concept would somehow ruin the atmosphere, then I think that says more about the my setting and my inability to adapt as a GM. I mean, I can understand some limitations on technology and things for the setting (and even that I tend to bend somewhat), but overall, I don't have any issues adapting to my players and their characters. And honestly, to me, learning when to say yes and work with ones players is a sign of a good GM.
Beyond Spaniard and Frankish knights, there are Saracens, Ethiopians, Turkish and Egyptians in the Arthurian/Carolingian Legends. And at least one very successful female knight that I can recall.
So, that's.... Yeah.
There seem to be a few different arguments here.
One of them is like calling appealing to authority an appeal to authority fallacy when appealing to an authority usually ISN"T a fallacy: the more common version of the fallacy occurs when someone appeals to a fake authority. The corollary here would be appealing to historical accuracy that isn't very accurate. Citing complaints about that doesn't argue against the general idea of having a historically accurate setting.
The problem at the core of "historical accuracy" argument being a fallacy is not the sizable number of anecdotes showing how often gamers are pushing historical inaccuracies as historical facts - the "historical accuracy" fallacy is usually a case when one uses historical argument for a fantasy setting just because that setting happens to share some superficial qualities with the historical setting (like a presence of plate armor) and argues that other historical facts must be true for the setting (example: if there is plate armor, there must be European-style feudalism and warriors must follow European Medieval Western Europe knightly codes of conduct).
In reality most cases being called out as "Historical Accuracy Fallacy" are actually Appeals to Authority.
I disagree with this diagnosis. Appeal to authority is using opinion of someone believed to be authority on the matter discussed with assumption that he is right. This would be accurate if the GM commonly said "no you can't play Spanish knight in my Merry England game because my history teacher said that there were no Spaniards in England at that time." or "because my elementary school history book said that there were no Spaniards in England".
Most historical accuracy fallacies in the context of fantasy games seem to be of association fallacy: automatic assumption that because fantasy setting (C) shares a specific trait (A) with historical Earth (B), it will share other traits as well, even when there is little or no reason to because conditions that were cause of other traits on Earth were not present in the fantasy setting C. Probably due to human predisposition to forming illusory correlations.
The only time it should come into play is when you are trying to actually play in a historical setting.We have evidence of the Caliphate trading as far north as Sweden.
Well yeah. I saw The 13th Warrior too! :D
Lo, there do I see my father. 'Lo, there do I see
My mother, and my sisters, and my brothers
Lo, there do I see
The line of my people
Back to the beginning
Lo, they do call to me
They bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla
Where the brave
May live
In reality most cases being called out as "Historical Accuracy Fallacy" are actually Appeals to Authority.I disagree with this diagnosis. Appeal to authority is using opinion of someone believed to be authority on the matter discussed with assumption that he is right. This would be accurate if the GM commonly said "no you can't play Spanish knight in my Merry England game because my history teacher said that there were no Spaniards in England at that time." or "because my elementary school history book said that there were no Spaniards in England".
Well, in those cases it's because that authority is pretty weak and indirect and a simple Wikipedia article often holds more authority than an elementary school book. There's nothing wrong with appealing to an authority on a specific subject if they can command some actual authority that by far surpasses the people discussing - if you and I where discussing astrophysics in our low layman level of understanding (I'm assuming here you're not an astrophysisist), referring to what Stephen Hawking has said on a specific subject isn't really a fallacy, as he can be assumed to be command some actual authority on the subject. However, if we were discussing horticulture and I started referring to what Hawking has said on the subject, yeah, you're right to call me out on that being BS.
To quote Bakunin, "In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker". While he was talking about ethically justifiable authorities, I still think the quote summarizes this quite well; if the authority referred to has actual and solid reasons for being taken as an authority, it's not a fallacy to refer to them. The shakier the basis of their authority is, the reasonable it is to refer to them.
The problem at the core of "historical accuracy" argument being a fallacy is not the sizable number of anecdotes showing how often gamers are pushing historical inaccuracies as historical facts - the "historical accuracy" fallacy is usually a case when one uses historical argument for a fantasy setting just because that setting happens to share some superficial qualities with the historical setting (like a presence of plate armor) and argues that other historical facts must be true for the setting (example: if there is plate armor, there must be European-style feudalism and warriors must follow European Medieval Western Europe knightly codes of conduct).
Those don't seem to be the cause of any player problems though. It seems that most of the problem with appeals to "historical accuracy" are alleviated with historical accuracy.
So if we eliminate those, whats left as a campaign breaking argument?
You can hardly argue that its completely unrealistic for the DM to say that plate armor and feudalism were concurrent because he's basing it off of our one and only (as far as we know...) actual test of their development.
Most historical accuracy fallacies in the context of fantasy games seem to be of association fallacy: automatic assumption that because fantasy setting (C) shares a specific trait (A) with historical Earth (B), it will share other traits as well, even when there is little or no reason to because conditions that were cause of other traits on Earth were not present in the fantasy setting C. Probably due to human predisposition to forming illusory correlations.
Some of them run a might deeper than you think. For example, was a knight on horseback REALLY worth a life time of training and the cost of the horse, armor, weapons, and horse armor... or was all that armor bought by the rich because that was their kid in the battle and they wanted them to come home alive?
Side note, does anyone else really like the movie 13th Warrior? It gets such a bad rap, but I really enjoyed it.
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Side note, does anyone else really like the movie 13th Warrior? It gets such a bad rap, but I really enjoyed it.
eyup. I especially like the objections to a viking in Arabia being unrealistic... when there's pretty good evidence that there was a trade route there for a while.
The problem at the core of "historical accuracy" argument being a fallacy is not the sizable number of anecdotes showing how often gamers are pushing historical inaccuracies as historical facts - the "historical accuracy" fallacy is usually a case when one uses historical argument for a fantasy setting just because that setting happens to share some superficial qualities with the historical setting (like a presence of plate armor) and argues that other historical facts must be true for the setting (example: if there is plate armor, there must be European-style feudalism and warriors must follow European Medieval Western Europe knightly codes of conduct).
If this is true, isn't the reverse of this statement necessarily also true?
Opening the door to some fantasy elements doesn't then mean anything goes.
13th warrior is quite enjoyable.
The most unrealistic thing I found about it was the barbaric enemy having access to a poison that could kill with a scratch. I found it more unrealistic then a traveling ambassador in the old days with a gift for rapidly learning languages.
:)
=Aelryinth
Beyond Spaniard and Frankish knights, there are Saracens, Ethiopians, Turkish and Egyptians in the Arthurian/Carolingian Legends. And at least one very successful female knight that I can recall.
So, that's.... Yeah.
Actually... if you are speaking of Joan of Ark she actually wasn't all that successful in the long haul... she had one big battle and then pretty much failed at everything else...
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Unless you go full Arcanum of course.Gunpowder changes things.Not as much as (actual effective) magic. Unless it was limited to an extremely small group of people, magic would replace manual labour (particularly construction, excavation and crafting), irrigation, transportation, energy generation, medicine, and use of mortals in warfare (to name but a few).
Guns or no, the technology of the world would stagnate because it, being bound by the laws of physics, could never do what magic can.
In many settings Magic is restricted to a small number of people.
In some settings, you have mages trying to hold back technology because anyone can use that. It is seen as a threat to the magicians power and the mages have formed a secret society to deal with the threat.
In most settings, the people who create the settings never deal with it in any way.
I now want to make a world where mage's rule the countries (Because its hard to argue with a fireball to the face) and the most vile, diabolical, twisted and perverse thing one can do is dabble in the black magics i.e. technology.
Growing up, I've had a lot of people use the historical accuracy excuse to stop me from playing my own ethnicity, or really any non-Anglo Saxon ethnicity. Hell, I remember bringing an El Cid inspired knight into a "Medieval Europe" campaign and told that, and I quote, Spanish knights don't fit in the Medieval Europe setting.
I'll let that sink in.
Yyyyyyyyyy...
Eeee...
Yyyhhh...
Sorry, my brain can't handle that level of geo-historical ignorance...
My parents once shared a bed and breakfast (different rooms and didn't know the person obviously) with someone who protested they didn't want the eggs served for breakfast because "Australians don't refrigerate them" then was absolutely HORRIFIED when the owner finally took him out the back and showed him her hens laying them in an attempt to get through to him that they were freshly laid (he didn't eat the eggs afterwards but for different reasons).
Because you're probably wrong about it
Why? A historically inspired campaign is nothing about historic accuracy, just inspiration. The Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) is historically inspired, but its not Japan, so any historic inspiration included is just background, legend, folklore, culture and technology. If you don't replicate actual history, there's no right or wrong about it, it just is.
Kaidan has its own kind of goblins. Many of the existing races in the Bestiaries exist in Kaidan, but their culture and roles are more defined.
There are no indigenous dwarves, elves, half-elves, halflings, half-orcs, or gnomes. Like historic Japan, Kaidan has kept its borders closed (and since its a lot like Ravenloft, it isn't so easy to get in and get out), and only recently (2 years ago) after 714 years opened its borders from a closed state. Even now outsiders aren't very welcome, though goods and gold is still welcome - under heavy restrictions and required traveling papers just to reach the mainland (like Nagasaki). Now that isn't to suggest that dwarves and their ilk still aren't present, though they are rare at best. Its an exclusionary society, but the setting doesn't specifically exclude anyone, until the borders get sealed again (they eventually will.)
Then Kaiden has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Not the topic specifically, I was only calling out your "doing it wrong" comment, with the previous poster mentioning that an historically inspired setting is something different, and I agree using Kaidan as an example of a successful historically inspired setting, that's the only reason why I posted at all. I get the gist of the thread though. And Kaidan has many products released since 2010, with the GM's Guide hopefully out by the end of summer. Kaidan is a Japan analog, it isn't Japan. Unlike Minkai, like Japan, Kaidan is an archipelago of islands.
Paizo recruited me to create the hand-drawn map of the City of Kasai and write the City of Kasai Gazetteer in The Empty Throne module of Jade Regent AP (I'm credited as a contributing author), because Paizo recognizes my Japanese expertise.