OT: "Historical" VS Fantastic RPG´s

[Tombot]

I really dont understand it.
Is it just me, or do you get the same feeling, when you read in most rpg-forums, that most gamers LOOK DOWN on games (and players) which DO NOT INCLUDE FANTASTIC ELEMENTS ?

What is less fantastic about a scenario playing in the T2k-Gameworld, the historical Wild West, the "true" mediaeval world, or (f.e.) the 30 years-war ?

I played my share of fantastic settings (Traveller, CoC, Runequest, Cyberpunk,etc.) - and loved it!

But i dont NEED Zombies/Werwolves/Vampires/Orcs in the Wild West to have a good setting for adventure.

Same with most (mainstream-)movies. Since Neo from Matrix did the "Slomo-Leather-Jacket-Bullet-Ballet" most movies bore me to death with unconvincing copys of that. With lots of blood, which doesnt make it better.
I prefer action which seems A BIT more convincing (as you see; i avoid the word "realistic"...).
What is it about this "artificial action-kitsch" in RPG´s and movies ?
(Keyword: "E-P-I-C"... oh man i hate that...)

Recently i saw "Goodfellas" for the 1000-time i guess. After that came "Once upon a time in America".
So i felt inspired to play a scenario in the real world with mobsters.
With bullets that COULD kill instantly. Without healing after gobbling down some healing-potion.

I wasnt sure in which time-period, but i suggested that general topic in a german forum to see, if there are any interested gamers in my area. The only 2 answers i got were like:
"Cant you do a Shadowrun-Campaign, cause i would like to play my Level-10 Troll as a police-informant with an addiction..." or "Could be good, but i would only play as a vampire-gangster in the WoD".

Trolls with an addiction ?! F.... that!

Sorry about the rant, but it seems like i´m getting to old for that shit.

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

Yah, I know where you are coming from. I for one would like to play a game which does not have any magic or psi in it. Like a plain ol twilight or a wild west game...... sigh.............

[weswood]

Maybe I'm just blowing wind through my buttocks but I think that video gaming has influenced RPGs and more video games than not have fantastic elements to them. Plus the fact such RPG games are less challenging, dying is just a temporary setback whereas in a historical or realistic game, a single well placed bullet can take out a beloved character that took years to develope.

Personally I've never understood the desire for playing creatures such as trolls and vampires and werewolves. In my formative gaming days, trolls were evil creatures that prefered human flesh to eat, vampires were cursed blood drinking dead things (NOT sexy at all) and lycanthropy was a disease like syphallis or ghonorea.

I do have to admit that I like characters having disadvantages and advantages such as addictions or better than average eyesight. I feel this adds a little realism to the game. I have a friend who has phenomanal eyesight while if I don't get my tobbacco fix I get flakey. Things like this add some character to characters. Alan's eyesight lets him shoot a rifle way farther than I'd try to and if I run out of smokes getting more is almost the top of my list, right after food.

With the infamouse "In My Opinion" I believe that we engage in gaming, whether video or paper RPGs, as a temporary escape from reality. (Same as books and movies). Maybe historic and non-fantasy games are too real for some people.

[copeab]

I think a lot of players are used to falling back on "healing magic" (which includes psionics and superscience), which makes it difficult to play in historical settings.

Many also prefer to play "big, damn heroes" which histotical games don't support (at least not once combat starts ...).

It's no reason for fantasy gamers to look down on historical gamers, however.

[Graebarde]

The fantasy was the reason I never played much D&D or games such as that. Twilight became my game of choice, but even Twilight is fantasy more than realistic if played by the book imo.

I have gone to the historical settings and really like them, the further from gunpowder and modern conveniences the better. I have always approached the game as a game of survival (hence I played in a campaign for five years with the same character, whereas one of the players averaged at least a new character every other session depending on what action was taking place.) Stupid is not something a player can overcome in the game, nor is intelligence much help over common sense.

with that said, my current favorite realm of RPG is set in Dies the Fire, where gunpowder, electricity, internal combustion engines etc have been stripped from the players who are prepared mentally for a Twilight like game. Hard part with that is set up and keeping the player from metagaming towards the skills needed in that setting instead of the 'well hell I don't know how to shoot a bow', or 'I can't drive a team of horses' instead of 'I'm a medieval reenactor with a closet full of armor and real swords etc etc, can ride like nobody's business and own a sting of war horses to go with the acting. Heck there's no challenge there. OR the guy that has a clan already built to his specifications. A little over the top. But the same guys would play T2k as the ultimate soldier with all the bells, whistles, and toys in the book too if they were allowed to.

But no magic, no monsters other than nature has out there and there are some in nature.. ever run across a zoo tiger in the cave you want to shelter in? Not nice... Of course I'm way older than the average fella even on this board, so maybe age is a factor in my case.

Nuff rambling.

[Targan]

I've played Harnmaster for decades and, while that game setting does contain magic and monsters they are rare and your average peasant may live out their entire lifetime never seeing either. I love the realistic setting and I love the brutality of the realistic combat system.

In all campaigns that I run I like to give each PC a pre-game session or two by themselves (or perhaps two PCs together if they know each other as part of char-gen). I recall one promising PC who was a Kuboran warrior-hunter (culturally very similar to a pre-Christian Celt or Germanic tribesman). During his pre-game he was travelling from one tribal forest settlement to another. He'd decided to travel alone and was stalked by a pack of hungry wolves during the night in his campsite. Long story short, after a helluva fight he was taken down and eaten. His last conscious sensation was feeling a wolf tearing off his face.

Another PC was a heavy horse mercenary (Hundred Years War level of tech approximately). His player had rolled very well for his family background (most Harmaster PCs are some variety of peasant or mediaeval town dweller/commonfolk). He went out hunting by himself after the party had made camp in a woodland area and snuck up on a fairly large male brown bear. The player didn't know much about bears and his character had never hunted one before, so he put an arrow from his longbow into it from about 50 yards away. It was not a killing shot and the bear came at him, fast. Both the player and the PC learned a valuable lesson in how fast and how dangerous bears can be. There ensued a "Legends of the Fall"-type combat with the PC having to go toe-to-toe with an enraged bear and only having time to pull his heavy dagger. The PC won the fight (he was a pretty impressive specimen of a man with much better combat skills than the average Harnmaster PC) but he was grievously injured and literally had to crawl back to camp. The scars and impairments from those injuries stayed with that character for life.

So yes, standard, Earth-type wild animals can be just as scary as fantastic monsters if the system and the GM are realistic.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I'm an AD&Der through and through, to the point of having met and for a brief time before he passed away worked with Gary Gygax. But I really, really like "hard" Sci Fi games or at least firm Sci-Fi games. F'rex I prefer Heavy Gear to Battletech (both are fine games, I just have my preferences), I prefer Traveller to Star Frontiers (rather, the universe, the rules not so much) and so on.

though AD&D is my first love I don't look down my nose at "harder" games (like T2k).

[weswood]

Originally Posted by Targan

Another PC was a heavy horse mercenary (Hundred Years War level of tech approximately). His player had rolled very well for his family background (most Harmaster PCs are some variety of peasant or mediaeval town dweller/commonfolk). He went out hunting by himself after the party had made camp in a woodland area and snuck up on a fairly large male brown bear. The player didn't know much about bears and his character had never hunted one before, so he put an arrow from his longbow into it from about 50 yards away. It was not a killing shot and the bear came at him, fast. Both the player and the PC learned a valuable lesson in how fast and how dangerous bears can be. There ensued a "Legends of the Fall"-type combat with the PC having to go toe-to-toe with an enraged bear and only having time to pull his heavy dagger. The PC won the fight (he was a pretty impressive specimen of a man with much better combat skills than the average Harnmaster PC) but he was grievously injured and literally had to crawl back to camp. The scars and impairments from those injuries stayed with that character for life.

So yes, standard, Earth-type wild animals can be just as scary as fantastic monsters if the system and the GM are realistic.

I had a AD&D character go through something like this. The PC party was shipwrecked and the DM told us we could each grab one item. My character was a Conan type barbarian, he grabbed his short sword length belt knife. After the party made it ashore, he made a bow and half a dozen arrows. No arrowheads, he knew how to make a bow and arrows but not flintknapping so they were fire- hardened tips. He went out hunting alone and ran into a bear. He managed to scramble up a tree and fired off all 6 arrows, doing very little damage. Bear got pissed and started tearing down the tree, so my character jumped down on the bear with his knife. Like you said, the scars marked the character for life.

[Tombot]

@ Cpl. Kalkwarf : if you would live around the block – i would invite you right now! Could use more players with an open mind about Non-Magic-Stuff-Games!

@weswood

-“... I think that video gaming has influenced RPGs and more video games than not have fantastic elements to them. Plus the fact such RPG games are less challenging, dying is just a temporary setback..”

You are surely right about that. Dying is no option for most gamers.
I always felt more of a “sensation” if the PC´s survived in a system which CAN (not usually will) kill or seriously harm them.
Where recovery is a matter of days and weeks.
The players of my T2k-group are pretty careful about when to shoot or to risk getting shot at.
They make the best out of lots of tense social situations between PC´s & NPC´s, survival & medical tasks, etc. BUT IF theres combat, everybody is on his toes.

- “In my formative gaming days, trolls were evil creatures that prefered human flesh to eat, vampires were cursed blood drinking dead things (NOT sexy at all)...”

You said it. Vampires should be Horror-creatures like Nosferatu.
Playing a supernatural creature can be fun, too. But not as a standart.
It should be something special.

-“ I do have to admit that I like characters having disadvantages and advantages such as addictions or better than average eyesight.”

Ad´s & Disads´are always interesting. But thats not a question of “historical” OR “fantastic”.
Look at Sylvester Stallones characters in “Copland”.
Less intelligent, with a hearing-loss on one ear, but a strong code-of-honor. Cool...



@ copeab:
“I think a lot of players are used to falling back on "healing magic”...

Yup, thats it. They hate the risk of dying, which is off course understandable.
But its a whole different mindset, when you survived - say f.e. five – deadly shoot-outs
in “Outlaw” (Rolemasters old West RPG-supplement), compared to an average battle in a over-the-top-superheroes-game.
Like in the examples of Weswood & Targan; “the scars marked the character for life.”
Every pontentially dangerous encounter (even with “normal” animals) is REALLY something to remember...
Thats what i always enjoyed the most, as player and a GM!
(“I lost that thumb on Grand Forks in the august of 1877. That damn grizzly got me good... Here – thats his claws...”)

@Graebarde: I will check out "Dies the Fire"! Looks like a good read (i checked the Wikipedia-entry about the books).
Are you playing that with T2k-rules, or is there a "Dies the Fire"-RPG ?
(I just found this: "emberverse.proboards.com/index.cgi")

[weswood]

Tombot-
Dies the Fire is a decent series, you may be able to preview chapters here: http://smstirling.com/ They've redid the site since I was last there. I really liked the 1st 3 books of the series, then the author started with the children of the main characters in the rest of the books. Still an okay read but the deeper into the series you get, there's more detail than action. You might run across 3 or 4 pages detailing a feast or what a character is wearing. Plus it gets a little "mystical", gods possesing people, a magic sword...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I find the world of Dies The Fire very interesting for gaming but I really don't want to read any more of the novels.
I forced myself to finish Dies The Fire and it was enough to convince me never to read any of Stirling's other books. I'd recommend borrowing the book from a library and reading it first before spending money on it.
Personally, I'm happy enough with the plot summaries on webpages like wikipedia so that I don't have to read the entire book.

Stirling is a slow, turgid and frustrating writer who commits the cardinal sins of: -
1. building up to a significant event by spending chapters detailing everything that leads to that event, then he skips over it almost like he ran out of time and had to finish the book - even though he already spent 200 pages or more building up to it.
2. too many deus ex machina moments, there are a lot of "convenient" coincidences that help the main characters survive the world such as the British soldier who "just happens" to be wandering the forest near the main character's home and this British soldier "just happens" to be a skilled bowyer and fletcher...
I love the story idea but I hate the way he wrote it.

Originally Posted by weswood

Tombot-
Dies the Fire is a decent series, you may be able to preview chapters here: http://smstirling.com/ They've redid the site since I was last there. I really liked the 1st 3 books of the series, then the author started with the children of the main characters in the rest of the books. Still an okay read but the deeper into the series you get, there's more detail than action. You might run across 3 or 4 pages detailing a feast or what a character is wearing. Plus it gets a little "mystical", gods possesing people, a magic sword...

[TrailerParkJawa]

I don't hang out in any pen and paper RPGS forums aside from this one. I occasionally visit RPG forums for various videos games like Fallout, Wasteland, Geneforge, etc. I've never noticed any difference. Each genre is its own and should be viewed on its own merits. I like some fantasy RPGs and like post apoc too.

As a kid in the 80s I played D&D (basic & expert version), it was more simplistic than say Warhammer Fantasy which was excellent too. But I found the worlds of Traveller, 2300AD, and T2k to be just as entertaining.

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Tombot

@Graebarde: I will check out "Dies the Fire"! Looks like a good read (i checked the Wikipedia-entry about the books).
Are you playing that with T2k-rules, or is there a "Dies the Fire"-RPG ?
(I just found this: "emberverse.proboards.com/index.cgi")

There's no DtF RPG as such. I've been in a couple that I still haven't figured out if they even used a sembalance of rules, more the whim of the HoG. I guess I use T2K with mods for character development, then it's freelance from there, using die at discrection when there's a tough decision to make. Much of the combat is melee of course or archery. And melee is usually with larger groups, so it's a man-man down the line and emphasis on the out come with the player characters. A new character is hard to come by generally speaking. They would have to be a roadie or take over an NPC from the community. So far only one of the characters has ever 'died' and that is when he quit.. then he died of a ruptured appendix. <shugs>

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I find the world of Dies The Fire very interesting for gaming but I really don't want to read any more of the novels.
I forced myself to finish Dies The Fire and it was enough to convince me never to read any of Stirling's other books. I'd recommend borrowing the book from a library and reading it first before spending money on it.
Personally, I'm happy enough with the plot summaries on webpages like wikipedia so that I don't have to read the entire book.

Stirling is a slow, turgid and frustrating writer who commits the cardinal sins of: -
1. building up to a significant event by spending chapters detailing everything that leads to that event, then he skips over it almost like he ran out of time and had to finish the book - even though he already spent 200 pages or more building up to it.
2. too many deus ex machina moments, there are a lot of "convenient" coincidences that help the main characters survive the world such as the British soldier who "just happens" to be wandering the forest near the main character's home and this British soldier "just happens" to be a skilled bowyer and fletcher...
I love the story idea but I hate the way he wrote it.

I admit I agree there's alot of problems with the story line, such as the SCA empahasis I think is HIGHLY overplayed. And things get done REAL fast too with organizations. But it IS possible for the organizations to come together relatively fast if there is sound leadership that can bring people together. Cooperation is the key I see outside Portland, but I digress. I agree that reading the first ten chapters on the wed give would be the best bet to decide if you want to read more. Reading it I HAVE found some areas that I have researched futher that I would not have thought of for a community.. such as the sewage plan.

LOL.. the way the 'coincidences' occured in the books reminds me of metagamers.. but they are somewhat plauseable... guess that's what makes it a story.

[Tombot]

About "Dies the Fire" - i will give it a shot and consider your warnings about the style of its author. But thanks for the hint anyway, i could use some postapoc-reading again. Or strip its premise for more T2k-gaming


I think modern gamers are used to more easily consumable success for their groups. And want rules, which assure that.
And within these confines they rather tend to play in fantastic settings (superheroes f.e.), than in historical ones.

Shitty for me, looking for some more “grounded” gamers in my area to free Warsaw from Baron Czarny...

PS:
TrailerParkJawa
“...I occasionally visit RPG forums for various videos games like Fallout, Wasteland, Geneforge, etc. I've never noticed any difference. Each genre is its own and should be viewed on its own merits. I like some fantasy RPGs and like post apoc too.”

Even in the videogaming-industry historic settings without fantastic elements do have a harder time. Look at the surprised posts of most gamers, when they discovered the purisitic “Red Dead Redemption”.
A lot of people wrote stuff like “Before playing RDR, i thought western is a dead genre.”
Even if they played “Undead nightmare” later, they all loved the gritty world of John Marston!

But try to find a RPG-group playing a pure western-game... you end up playing in the “Weird West”, i bet ! (At least here in germany, where it all seems to be vampires & cyber-orcs, and where i have to try and convince people that T2k is not an INFERIOR setting compared to Fallout!)

[James Langham]

You can actually have fun the other way too, when I first ran Call of Cthulhu in the mid-late 1980s, I created new character sheets without SAN, Cthulhu Mythos skills, etc and told them it was a historical RPG. I them introduced the horror elements slowly over the first few adventures...

[mikeo80]

I have played AD&D, CyberPunk, Traveller, Mech Warrior, Morrow, Gary Guygax' version of Wild West Game (Do not remember title. LOTS of fun!)

Each one had it's own appeal, it's own enjoyment.

Do I prefer one over the other? For me, the best is Morrow Project.

My $0.02

Mike

[Adm.Lee]

I can keep my fantasy gaming and historical gaming separate. I don't like mixing the two. My friends, by & large, fall into one camp or the other, and I now have two gaming groups (three, if you count my son & his pals, who are still too young to have formed preferences).

Having said that, I even prefer my D&D playing to stay away from uber-powerful, super-wahoo elements, and stick closer to something like realism.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I forced myself to finish Dies The Fire and it was enough to convince me never to read any of Stirling's other books

I haven't read "Dies the Fire" which appears the new show "Revolution" takes much of their premise.

However I enjoyed "Conquistador" very much.

[ArmySGT.]

As for magic or super science games I am an all in or all out.

I would play AD&D because the magic is very much part of the scene, however I totally reject the psionics from Morrow Project, except for Bruce.

However, I am leaning toward a Terminator style time machine for how Bruce moves through time just to get away from psionics.

It is very 70's powers of the mind chicanery.

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I haven't read "Dies the Fire" which appears the new show "Revolution" takes much of their premise.

However I enjoyed "Conquistador" very much.

You should hear the hype on the Sterling group when "Revolution" was first announced. there had been hopes DtF might make the screen, but I guess those hopes are dashed. People would say DtF 'stole' the idea from "Rev" when in fact I feel it was the reverse. Watched the pilot last night. Probably will continue to watch it for a while, but there's LOTS of problems with the series technically IMO.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

Gary Guygax' version of Wild West Game (Do not remember title. LOTS of fun!)

Boot Hill? Classic game.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Targan

Boot Hill? Classic game.

(Gygax)

Anyway, Gary once told me a pretty funny story about playing Boot Hill...his character was a bit like Tuco from "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" and wound up getting arrested in a town he'd planned on robbing. He was actually arrested by another PC (played by Don Kaye) and Don hadn't thoroughly searched him. So while the Sheriff was looking out the depot window at the bandito's gang riding in to town and shooting the place up in prelude to rescuing Gary's character, Gary drew a knife from his boot and threw it at Kaye's back!

Well, he missed, but only just. The knife thudded in the doorjamb and Gary said as Don's character whirled around ready to blast him, doing his best "Mexican bandito" accent: "Hey, sheriff! I thought you might need a knife to fight off those desperadoes! Use mine!"

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Graebarde

You should hear the hype on the Sterling group when "Revolution" was first announced. there had been hopes DtF might make the screen, but I guess those hopes are dashed. People would say DtF 'stole' the idea from "Rev" when in fact I feel it was the reverse. Watched the pilot last night. Probably will continue to watch it for a while, but there's LOTS of problems with the series technically IMO.

Oh I don't have high hopes for it. Tiny vegetable gardens but, we have this heaving fat guy who was some Google exec. By the way 15 years on where did he get new eyeglasses? The clothing looks manufactured and less homespun. Nice new shoes and boots all around. I would expect moccasins with tire sandals.
Guns are scarce. In America? Not enough mismatched families. There would be a huge die off and you would expect that adults would be settling with anyone and raising children together.

To clean, and too Disney-esque. I would love this if it was more like "The Road".

[Targan]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Too clean, and too Disney-esque. I would love this if it was more like "The Road".

Ooh, The Road. The book and the movie were excellent, but so grim. I reached the end of both feeling a bit depressed but still impressed by the quality of the work.

Then again, I should be used to being depressed by the post-apocalyptic genre by now, what with the mental scarring left by Major Po

[copeab]

I like to mix tech and magic in an (alternate) historical setting. Oh, and weird science.

Deadlands: Weird West was made for me

Had run three campaigns set in a vaguely Shadowrun setting (with less cyber and more horror).

Currently running a Weird War II game.

[Tombot]

Originally Posted by James Langham

You can actually have fun the other way too, when I first ran Call of Cthulhu in the mid-late 1980s, I created new character sheets without SAN, Cthulhu Mythos skills, etc and told them it was a historical RPG. I them introduced the horror elements slowly over the first few adventures...

Thats a neat trick i used too, when i first introduced a group to CoC myself
An Intro a´la "The Untouchables" (30´s GTA-Style) with a slow progression to the occult (watching "Angel Heart" over and over again) and then going full throttle into the mythos...
Every CoC-group should have the chance NOT to know from the beginning, that they will be confronted with the Great Old Guys..uh Ones, i mean.

@copeab: I have no doubt that "Deadlands" (and other "fantastic" games) are great fun, too! Dont get me wrong - i would never look down on these!
Just the dissapointed faces when i present T2k / Classic Western to other players ("No muties ? No magic ? Possible disfigurement by injuries ? Coolness under Fire ?"...)- that´s a mistery to me.

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Oh I don't have high hopes for it. Tiny vegetable gardens but, we have this heaving fat guy who was some Google exec. By the way 15 years on where did he get new eyeglasses? The clothing looks manufactured and less homespun. Nice new shoes and boots all around. I would expect moccasins with tire sandals.
Guns are scarce. In America? Not enough mismatched families. There would be a huge die off and you would expect that adults would be settling with anyone and raising children together.

To clean, and too Disney-esque. I would love this if it was more like "The Road".

Hmmm the glasses hasn't jumped out at me, but should have since I went four years between changes recently and was REALLY having major problems until I got them upped. At 15 years with cloths, if they salvaged well in the early days, there MIGHT be 'new' cloths, but I would expect not as you say. Foot wear, the same, but it depends on who you have in the community. Personally I favor the wood soled clogs over sandals, and not all that hard to fabricate over the winter months IF the material is ready.

I agree with the guns issue. With a gun per person in the US and vast amounts of ammo for said guns, well that's where Rev differs from DtF greatly since the guns still work.

I'm wondering where the family was before heading for Chicago. Couldn't have been too far. Also WHY the brother, who was military in SC at the time of the event decided to go to Chicago to run his bar? Lot's of dead time they could have covered.

Mismatched? Depends on WHERE they were. Where I grew up it would not have been the case to have the mismatched families with 90% plus Northern European population. Near the big cities, yep, I agree.

And there would be a BIG die off.. probably 90% of the current population. Just like after the twilight war should be... violent death, exposure, accidentals, disease and infections taking large tolls, suicides for those unable to cope, and starvation... etc etc etc.. pockets would survive and perhaps even flouish compared to most. As I've said a LOT of it depends on the leadership that steps up as to how well any community will survive. And the human resources capabilities.. who knows how to grow food, process food, care for animals, craft needed items, etc etc

I do agree over all it's too 'clean' though hygiene can be maintained. Worse than Hollywood it's a TV series.

[stg58fal]

This is actually the only RPG forum that I can even name, let alone hang out at with anything that resembles any kind of regularity. Any others I've been to have been as a result of something I googled.

I like both fantasy and sci-fi/modern games, though I probably give a slight nod to the latter, mostly because I find it easier to think of things that involve tech rather than magic. From both sides of the screen, GM and player. Tho I have played magic-users that were both a lot of fun and very effective.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by Targan

Boot Hill? Classic game.

I just went though my game stuff, and there it was. Boot Hill. Like I said LOTS of fun.

I have even used the personal damage system from Boot Hill and used it in a Morrow Game. Seemed to work well.

Also brought a "cowboy" into an AD&D setting. Boy, did I scare the S**T out of the locals when I used my "FireStick" to kill a couple of wandering orcs who were disturbing our camp site. (It is amazing what a double barreled, 10 Ga. Greener will do to an orc at short range )

Like I said, LOTS of fun.

My $0.02

Mike