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 RPGs 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 im 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]

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]

Nice to have a T2k-community

@ 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

-oe... 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 oesensation if the PCs 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 PCs & NPCs, survival & medical tasks, etc. BUT IF theres combat, everybody is on his toes.

- oeIn 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.

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

Ads & Disadsare always interesting. But thats not a question of oehistorical OR oefantastic.
Look at Sylvester Stallones characters in oeCopland.
Less intelligent, with a hearing-loss on one ear, but a strong code-of-honor. Cool...



@ copeab:
oeI 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 oeOutlaw (Rolemasters old West RPG-supplement), compared to an average battle in a over-the-top-superheroes-game.
Like in the examples of Weswood & Targan; oethe scars marked the character for life.
Every pontentially dangerous encounter (even with oenormal animals) is REALLY something to remember...
Thats what i always enjoyed the most, as player and a GM!
(oeI 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.

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]

@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]

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!)