Lately I've been looking at criteria for a good D&D setting because I knew I had a few ideas kicking around, and I wanted a structure for looking at the opportunities objectively. I'm intrigued by the idea of a D&D setting in the early modern period, but when bouncing the settings up against the things that make a regular D&D setting great, some issues emerge. Let me know if you agree.
Here's the check list I'm using to see how well the setting match the needs of the game. Some of the items involve what adventurers do or need, some are institutionalized in D&D's mechanics:
Adventures and Frontiers, Autonomy, Dungeons, XP for Gold, Treasure and Magic Items, Classes and Levels, NPC Classes and Levels, Alignment, High Magic, Humanoids and Monsters, The End Game, Demi-Humans, Clerical Magic, Vancian Magic
There should be no problem with adventures, frontiers, player autonomy, or even placing dungeons in the early modern age; the big change you notice is they need to be more remote or isolated. XP for gold might seem a bit fishy - in an age with nation states, would private individuals amass vast fortunes through sacking old ruins? I just have to stop and remember Spanish galleons loaded with treasure, and I can see the XP for gold mechanic still working out in early modern.
Regular D&D tends to assume that high level characters become rulers, there's a correlation between battlefield prowess and domain rulership. History is littered with guys like William the Conqueror, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, and so on, that had great personal power which translated into careers of conquest and political power. That paradigm, which works so well for D&D games at tech levels of the Medieval period, Dark Ages, or Antiquity, seems to break down in the post-Renaissance world. I'm sure one of the talented students of history out there could explain what changed that diminished the political role of the battlefield hero.
You can argue a D&D game in early modern needs to be somewhat low magic, otherwise you have the problem of magic warping the setting. Humanoids and monsters are rare or nonexistent, for the same reasons. But doing an "alternate earth" with humanoid races mixed in with humanity would be pretty interesting - perhaps take an approach like Trey's Weird Adventures. But I'd avoid a high magic setting with a Renaissance or later level of technology - I've seen that before, and it looks like Mystara, or perhaps Eberron.
There you go - take a game like BX D&D, reduce the amount of magic, make monsters rare, and remove the traditional end-game, and you end up with a view of D&D like Jim's LOTFP. Funny stuff. The only other major adaptation to is to swap the gold standard for something fitting to the age, like the silver standard used in LOTFP. Now that LOTFP will have an upcoming firearms supplement, it's the perfect fit for one of these campaigns.
This is a bit of an odd post, as I started by wondering what needed to change for D&D in early modern, and it became clear LOTFP is already there. However, how do you feel about ditching the traditional view of domain rulership and conquest for sliding D&D play into a setting themed against a later age? I've always like knowing there's an "end-game" out there, where D&D crosses over into a different style of play and there's a natural point for retiring characters.
Referring back to an old poll here at the Lich House, only 23% of the readership at the time were concerned that their campaigns supported a high level end-game: Beedo's hierarchy of campaign needs and then the associated poll results.
There's room for domain building in an early modern campaign; such places are known as colonies. Characters can still build forts on the frontiers. Wizards can seclude themselves to research the arcane mysteries. Clerics can build monasteries and churches. Thieves can have hideouts, some can become infamous.
ReplyDeleteGuns in the hands of a few do little to change the game on the skirmish scale PCs often deal with. Large battles change and the greatest of warriors is not immune to a stray cannon ball.
There's room for domain building in an early modern campaign; such places are known as colonies. Characters can still build forts on the frontiers. Wizards can seclude themselves to research the arcane mysteries. Clerics can build monasteries and churches. Thieves can have hideouts, some can become infamous.
ReplyDeleteGuns in the hands of a few do little to change the game on the skirmish scale PCs often deal with. Large battles change and the greatest of warriors is not immune to a stray cannon ball.
There's room for domain building in an early modern campaign; such places are known as colonies. Characters can still build forts on the frontiers. Wizards can seclude themselves to research the arcane mysteries. Clerics can build monasteries and churches. Thieves can have hideouts, some can become infamous.
ReplyDeleteGuns in the hands of a few do little to change the game on the skirmish scale PCs often deal with. Large battles change and the greatest of warriors is not immune to a stray cannon ball.
The end-game could be exchanged for influence and prestige in court, titles, land, and so forth. Not that much different really, and in keeping with the times.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Backswords & Bucklers?
Deletehttp://tiedtoakite.com/backswords_bucklers
DrBargle, there's a review of that worthy book here on this very blog:
DeleteReview of Backswords and Bucklers
I love that book - it has lots of ideas for interesting urban adventures in the Elizabethan age, centered around 'tavern trawling'.
Post-renaissance society is a lot more organized and has, by and large, abolished the feudal system. Although nobility was still around, they weren't (usually) autonomous anymore - they had their power much more on the behalf of the king (or other rulers) as a central authority.
ReplyDeleteFor some countries, such as France, this was a long and difficult process that took well into the 17th century, but the development was underway.
At the same time, cities strengthened their importance and created alternative sources of power. They became important to the economy, through rising trade. That made them stronger as political bodies - and sometimes extended in the form of merchant houses and networks, that took away some of the nobilities claim to power.
As you say, in some few cases there could still be radical shifts of power, especially during wars. All the way up to Napolean times it could happen that a capable field commander was rewarded with fiefdoms and such.
But the newer means of power, of course, lay in building up other kind of organizations. First trading houses and other economic ventures. Companies. They worked within the (emerging) structure of a nation, sometimes branching out into multinational bodies. Later on, different religious groupings - like the Jesuits - that sort of surplant the cloistered and knightly orders. And so on. Universities, societies, in the 18th century the rising fad of secret societies and even later political parties - all of them in some ways acting as sources of power for those in the leadership.
Organisations act at least semi-autonomous. The stronger the civil state grows, with it's bureaucracy, laws, courts et.c. the less autonomy of course. But in the early modern society, they would be the natural option, I'd say.
On the Endgame in Early Modern games, look no further than the Burr Conspiracy. Or Libertatia. And so on.
ReplyDeleteJDJarvis and faoladh said much of what I was going to say - except I'd prefer not to agree with the propaganda of the 19th century and instead say that the colonies actually had their own high-level character networks, thanks very much. Not that you couldn't endgame in the most traditional way, even after the Napoleonic watershed.
ReplyDeleteI like the 17th century because it's an interesting hybrid in so many ways. Piet Heyn and Prince Rupert of the Rhine are clearly DnD characters. Lots of the power structures and military strategies are scrambling to catch up with colonies (gold rushes) and gunpowder (alchemy) and new methods of labour organisation (dark lords), so it's really just an unstable and adaptive DnD-magic world, rather than one that ignores the implications of the broken, mystical DnD economy. And if you scratch the surface of the East India Companies, all that rational capitalism stuff melts away and you're left with internecine intrigue between families worthy of any cod-medieval or Italianate game-of-assassins fantasy heartbreaker.
Regarding high magic my big question is, why do we accept it in pseudo-medieval settings? My guess is familiarity with the idea and/or ignorance about the social ties that made villages, towns and fiefdoms work before the late 18th century. What's actually really different about Hardy's (admittedly romanticised, nostalgic) England and... whatever kind of England we assume in "vanilla" DnD? Is it that famous "march of rationality" associated with modernity? Hmmmm... OK, that's a cheap,easily refuted shot. Hmmmmmmm... Well, if you don't like massively powerful magic in London's drawing rooms, just remember Metternich's assessment of the "modernity" of central Europe in the 1840s: "The Orient begins at the Landstrasse"* - the medieval became a place, somewhere between eastern Austria and Transylvania and the Caucasus and every point east of there, rather than a thoroughly past time.
It's true that there was a general shift away from personal command and glory and power toward corporate/national victories and defeats: a "migration to the back" among military leaders, but there were notable exceptions and the legend lived on regardless... effectively front-line work became the domain of 2nd-5th level characters, and people above that level... well, they became secret masters.
* yeah OK, he's been "quoted" with every possible variant on this theme.
Great insight fellas, it gives me a lot to think about. My conception of the end-game was focused on D&D's "kill the monsters, build a castle, tame the land" approach to settlement but I can see how buying titles, armies, wars of conquest, or becoming 'secret masters', could be just as engaging in the 17th century. (Or becoming commodore of your own pirate fleet).
ReplyDeleteFor ideas on 17th century social advancement (buying titles and positions and such), you could do a lot worse than checking out Flashing Blades or its inspiration, En Garde (I confess that I haven't actually seen the latter, but I am told that it is where the social advancement schemes in Flashing Blades were first presented).
DeleteYou should check out the supplement TSR put out for this in Second Edition: HR4 A Mighty Fortress.
ReplyDeletehttp://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=1712
From the rpg.net description:
Adapts the Elizabethan age to AD&D 2, with new kits, equipment, a timeline, historical essays, and three partly developed adventure ideas. Also includes how to handle magic and fantasy monsters in the setting. A colour map of Europe circa 1610 is bound into the book.
It's quite good. In fact, all of the HR series sourcebooks are good, with the exception of the one on ancient Greece.
Also, it was written by Steve Winter, who now has an active blog that you probably already know about:
http://www.howlingtower.com/
I'm actually considering using something similar to the French Revolution as a backdrop for an urban LotFP campaign. Revolutions mean instability with multiple factions vying for power; conspiracies abound, and ambitious individuals (such as Napoleon) can have an "End Game" of empire building (yes, he actually was a Soldier, Conqueror, Emperor...). You'll probably organize a "club" instead of building a stronghold, or, alternatively, join the army and organize a circle of loyal officers around you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I could possibly use something along the lines of the Committee for Public Safety as a patron organization for starting PCs - they'll have plenty of conspiracies to investigate and a mandate to go after "Enemies of the Revolution" (including, but not limited to, necromancers, demon-summoners, cults and mad scientists)...