Archived thread started by Andrew:
With Stephen's current Roman-esque setting, I was starting to think about alternative settings that have been attempted in other game systems. Most probably have the "generic" fantasy, King Arthur or the orient (with Zombie Ninjas!), but I was wondering about settings like pre-colonial Africa, Aztecs and ancient Egypt/Middle East. We know enough about legends and myths to make interesting campaigns and I was wondering if anyone else thought about these or other non-standard settings for a fantasy campaign?
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteThe current setting was never meant to be a faithful recreation of historical Rome. It was intended to be mostly standard fantasy, with just a dash of Rome for flavour. In that, I think it mostly succeeds.
In truth, I don't think it would be possible to do ancient Rome faithfully with D&D, any more than you can do Call of Cthulhu under d20, or Star Wars, or anything else. Almost inevitably, what you get is D&D with funny names, D&D with mind-bending horror (for the DM if no-one else), or D&D with Jedi.
Other game systems can do a better job of historical recreation, but even then I think it's quite unlikely. My personal opinion is that most groups play D&D by default, even if populated by d20-haters. Vampire is just D&D with fangs, Exalted is D&D with big swords, and so on.
That's a very sweeping statement, and in no way fair. However, I think it is true to say that a lot of gamers default to the hack-and-slash mentality found in D&D, regardless of the setting and system they use.
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeleteYou've mentioned Oriental Adventures, and there's also an African setting book (Nyambe, I think) for d20. TSR did a range of historical setting books, including vikings, rome, greece, and some others I forget. Finally, there was Maztika, which I believe was South America in the same mould as Oriental Adventures is Asia. That is, D&D with human sacrifice, rather than any sort of realistic portrayal. And, of course, there's Testament, which is the middle east in d20, with a decidedly Biblical bent.
If I were thinking of doing a 'faithful' historical recreation, I absolutely would not use D&D, for all the reasons I've ranted about below. Unfortunately, most other systems are designed for use with their own custom settings, which leaves something of a gap in the market.