Why aren't historical time periods used more as settings within RPGs

[Lyric Suite]

I liked Sawyer's video more than i liked that Kingdom (when the fuck is it gonna) Come dev response, which is troubling, because it is the Kingdom Come guys who are making an historical video game while Sawyer is busy ruining fun in some bullshit fantasy shit.

A few random thoughts here. First of all, it seems that there is this underlying implication that an historical game must invariably contain every bit of literal history, which to me is to confuse history with mere chronicle. Josh talks about that crazy guy and his stuffed corpses, which he says may or may not have truly happened (i don't think people understand just how massively biased and unreliable a lot of historical sources can be). But let's assume it did happen, and there's nothing to presume such a thing did not happen, or could not have happened, given human nature in general. For me, the first thing to ask would be, is such an event truly a significant element in representing a particular age? If i were to make a game set during Victorian times, do i have to subject the player to a sight of Jack the Ripper butchering a prostitute merely because it was an "historical" event? Is that really such a significant event that would be needed to be programmed into the game in order to truly represent what life was like in those times, or in order to capture the essence or spirit of that age? Because shit like that has probably happened many times through out all history and all nations, and happens plenty in our own times.

See, to me societies are more like living organisms. Each individual age had a particular spirit and a particular psychological outlook which permeated everything and can be felt in everything if you know how to look. To know history is not merely to know a given set of chronological historical events, but it is also to understand the meaning or essence of a particular historical culture. To understand how the people thought, to learn the meaning of their art and so forth. In essence, an historical setting is a thing of its own which is different from the raw chronicle of historical events, and an historical game does not necessarily have to follow literal historical events, but can merely try to stay true to the spirit of a particular age.

And this opens up also the possibility of not having to necessarily be "realistic" in creating history. A realistic approach to the middle ages would have to be one in which alchemy is shown to be total bullshit, because the modern world does no longer believe in such things. But whether alchemy was bullshit or not, does that really matter in a video game? I mean, in a certain sense, isn't that really what the allure of fantasy is? To experience the middle ages for instance from the point of view of what the people of the middles ages actually believed? I think it is this this notion of an historical setting having to be "realistic" a priori which makes fantasy such a popular genre, because for many people the allure is not realistic history as such, but history as a kind of mythology, and "historical" fantasy might be a decent compromise.

One may ask at this point why bother with history at all. I think the answer to that is that real history is infinitely richer than any fantasy setting can possibly be. We are talking about eras which were actually lived by real human beings, and many elements of those societies reflect "reality" to a very high degree, regardless of how many "fantasy" elements one decides to adopt or not as a concession to the escapist needs of the player (which i think is the reason people don't really like historical settings. Because for them the value of the setting is in its escapist nature). A very simple and obvious example for instance is the design of ancient armaments, which are infinitely more interesting than anything a game designer can come up with on his own because those armaments were the result of real, lived combat experiences and were not the product of mere human fancy. This is an instance in which realism actually leads to a deeper and probably much more immersive gaming experience, for i think many players would instinctively recognize the real, practical nature of those designs, if even unconsciously. Fantasy designs often lead to the same feeling of disconnect one gets when one watches a CGI action sequence as opposed to one created using real stunts. Your brain just feels the stink of unrealism. And then you have historical art and literature, historical architecture, historical politics, historical science and so on and so forth.

So i guess what i'm trying to say (just thinking out loud here, i'm jotting down ideas as they come) is that, first of all, being "historical" doesn't necessarily mean having to adopt pure realism (on this point, which was raised by the Kingdom Come dev, we must say that modern settings are not purely realistic either, so the entire argument is fallacious to begin with. I think we all understand that certain things can be ignored by the needs of actually having some form of gameplay), particularly if being realistic means one has to go against certain aspects of history (medieval people believed in saints, whether the modern historian likes it or not). Second, borrowing from history doesn't necessarily mean having to replicate historical events, for history is much more than that. And lastly, borrowing from history, if even partially, has its own value even if one is making an historical fantasy or just a plain fantasy (like the Dragonlance example used by Sawyer).

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I don't like the limits upon story and reactivity historical settings place on games/movies/tv shows.

 

[DeepOcean]

Honestly, I don't trust on game developers to do historical settings at all, most of them are illiterate or just pick the first view about history that fits on their prejudices and run away with it. You will probably see terrible one dimentional bullshit coloured by the biases of the developers. You can't expect man children to understand the importance of depicting history on its complicated form with its many conflicting dilemmas, the temptation to do one dimentional villains from your personal don't liked group is too strong.

I honestly have no curiosity about how SJW would fill the Industrial Revolution period, for example, with tons of idiotic cliches like they usually do and I have no curiosity about other terribly biased to the point of fake bullshit versions of history. Or you give historical settings the love and attention to detail they deserve (i.e. humans are fucking pricks and no, your favorite group isn't an exception to that) or it's better for you to continue writing about your elf waifus and dragons.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Honestly, I don't trust on game developers to do historical settings at all, most of them are illiterate or just pick the first view about history that fits on their prejudices and run away with it. You will probably see terrible one dimentional bullshit coloured by the biases of the developers. You can't expect man children to understand the importance of depicting history on its complicated form with its many conflicting dilemmas, the temptation to do one dimentional villains from your personal don't liked group is too strong.

I honestly have no curiosity about how SJW would fill the Industrial Revolution period, for example, with tons of idiotic cliches like they usually do and I have no curiosity about other terribly biased to the point of fake bullshit versions of history. Or you give historical settings the love and attention to detail they deserve (i.e. humans are fucking pricks and no, your favorite group isn't an exception to that) or it's better for you to continue writing about your elf waifus and dragons.

I agree with this sentiment, but:

humans are fucking pricks

Some humans. Let's not err in the opposite direction, which is a mistake many people make when they try to create "realistic" historical settings.

 

[Immortal]

humans are fucking pricks

Some humans. Let's not err in the opposite direction, which is a mistake many people make when they try to create "realistic" historical settings.

People are largely a product of their environment / culture / group think blah blah.

My Point IS:
Depending on the location and historic era it is safe to assume most people were pricks by today's standards without even knowing it. Our quality of life and as a result our beliefs on empathic behaivior have evolved a lot and if you were to accurately depict how people acted in history, even the 'good' guys would be pretty huge assholes by today's standards.

Unless of course.. the Dev equips their favourite group with trope armor which is what Deep Ocean mentioned.

If a unbiased developer (not Sawyer) could actually pull off an accurate historical RPG without declining into some preachy moral message.. I would probably really enjoy it.

 

[Rake]

humans are fucking pricks

Some humans. Let's not err in the opposite direction, which is a mistake many people make when they try to create "realistic" historical settings.

I take it more as in they have different values than modern society than being horrible persons. Spartans killing babies, women being considered as inferior to men, Aztec human sacrifices, slavery being a common practice, a noble that considers commoners lesser beings than himself etc.
Nothing of the above is evil, nor making someone a prick according to the values and beliefs of their time, but to a modern audience it would seem evil incarnate. And i don't trust developers (or more accurately i don't believe they trust their audience's ability to try and judge things according to the values of that time period instead of their personal ones, and sadly they are propably correct) to make a good portrayal of all that.
I have zero interest in a historical game where the people behave like tumblr teens or have 21 century values.

Funny thing is that propably a game that depicted a accurate historical portrayal would sell like hotcakes for reasons unrelated to the game due to all the controversity and SJW buthurt over it, plus the Gamergate crowd supporting the game just in principle, acting like free marketing

 

[DeepOcean]

humans are fucking pricks

Some humans. Let's not err in the opposite direction, which is a mistake many people make when they try to create "realistic" historical settings.

By pricks, I mean that people always follow their self interest, despite their claims of otherwise not that most are evil, there are some sick motherfuckers, but most just try to survive. People on other times conformed to the rules as most do nowdays. You dig on history and as you study more, even people that many consider evil monsters today, it is interesting to study the forces that created them and you realize that human being were always human beings and people were always on this constant struggle with tribalist, violent and primitive tendencies even to this day.

The problem I have with people is that they don't understand this and want a sanitized version of everything as if by the fact of you depicting something nasty makes you a supporter of that thing. Fuck, there are stores that don't want to sell GTA V on Australia because of some online petition claiming that because you can kill women on GTA, it means GTA condones violence against women... yeah, people are that dumb. Imagine a story showing that the political leaders and movements they so much love like Disney level charicatures had their bad side too, or at least, very strange morals for nowdays.

 

[Jaesun]

What in the fuck is this thread about?

 

[DeepOcean]

What in the fuck is this thread about?

Talking about something that Sawyer said and saying he is a faggot, you know, usual stuff.

 

[Abelian]

It might be a good idea to split off the discussion about historical RPGs in its own thread.

 

[Lyric Suite]

People are largely a product of their environment / culture / group think blah blah.

No they are not. Not "largely" at any rate.

By pricks, I mean that people always follow their self interest

Not always, and not all people.

Seems to me you are both trying to apply your own moderntarded prejudices to history. "Everything was bling and bitches trololo". Right. I am in awe at the deeyp historical insight.

The problem I have with people is that they don't understand this and want a sanitized version of everything as if by the fact of you depicting something nasty makes you a supporter of that thing.

I don't see how going to the other extreme is a solution. Game of Thrones is just as cartoonish and childish as Baldur's Gate.

 

[DraQ]

tl;dw and tl;dr (will rectify later), but:

• would require actual knowledge and research
• would likely induce balancefags whining
• possibly lack of magic
• value dissonance and massive SJW turdalanche it would trigger

From what I've managed to skim the latter 2 have already been mentioned.

 

[Raghar]

tl;dw and tl;dr (will rectify later)

So how the later worked? Did he caused rectum diarrhea?

 

[Perkel]

Even on the Codex I see a ton of people with the "Tolkien fantasy or GTFO" attitude. Drives me nuts.

Because RPGs needs to sell.
Creating African RPG for couple milions is like burning that in fire.
And then there are cultural differences.

That is why we have tolkien lorefication and white people medieval period.

Imo if anything i would love to see original ideas instead of historical RPG set in Africa with quest to became full owner of 5 cows.

 

[Jools]

Those were very good points. I'll add another one: the difficulty in writing about history without pronouncing judgement, which is in turn shaped by the author's upbringing, values and cultural milieu.

That, and the difficulty of writing about history without making stuff up. This would be a big issue even when mapping the game world, at some point someone would come up and say "hey there is evidence that there was no barn in that field, in 1798!", or "no that [historical event] didn't go that way!". How many angry historyfans does Rome:TW drive to anger? How many "accurate legions", "accurate shields", "accurate penis", "accurate tribes" mods are there for RTW?

I mean, even for eras and places which are far away (metaphorically), such as Roman Empire or Classic Athens, there's basically no RPGS out there (save for AoD), and I guess it's for fear of "making historical accuracy mistakes" rather than because of lack of interest in the settings.

Plus, I think it's a generic rule that videogames and extreme realism (such as the realism that history usually required), don't mix well. I for one would love to see a contemporary, REALISTIC (no superpowers, no magic, no easily-available weapons) RPG to be made (kinda like d20 modern, but more low-key).

PS - It also happens a lot in movies. There are really few movies which don't "hoolywoodize" history and depict it "as is".

 

[pippin]

• possibly lack of magic

That depends of what you see as "magic". You could create groups of charlatans that try to sell "magic" shit to ignorant peasants. Or, think about Kalkstein in Twitcher, he never really does magic but there's this interesting element about him that you could take in this direction. Medieval people had a really wild imagination, just check Marco Polo's book.

If anything, we'd see lots of faggots complaining about not being able to have swords, which were almost exclusively used by professional armies (something more common in the late middle ages) and the nobility, since they were both a symbol or a certain social position and something very expensive to have and maintain.

 

[Raghar]

I wonder when they would make a game that would actually show economic differences between Rome and North tribes, and about how important Egypt was for Rome? So far nothing.

 

[Stokowski]

To be shallow:

Making shit go BOOM!
Whether it's with my post-apoc dude's Explosive skill, or some pointy-eared avatar-fag casting Fireball spells.
I want to make shit go BOOM!

Doesn't necessarily square well with historical realism/roleplay.

 

[TheGreatOne]

tl;dw and tl;dr (will rectify later), but:

• would require actual knowledge and research
• would likely induce balancefags whining
• possibly lack of magic
• value dissonance and massive SJW turdalanche it would trigger

From what I've managed to skim the latter 2 have already been mentioned.

Most importantly: gameplay would likely be boring (part of lack of magic). Atleast it's hard to imagine a historically accurate game that doesn't also try to be very realistic. There's Darklands, but overall historic stuff works better in a 4X game. I don't know if you could make turn based tactics interesting if you can't use magic nor firearms&technology.

Depending on the location and historic era it is safe to assume most people were pricks by today's standards without even knowing it.

That could actually be hilarious. A Biowareian storyfag game where the good guys commit (in the eyes of SJWs) unspeakable sins in a Fallout-esque manner that is played completely straight. The heroes would cheerfully make passing comments about other races, women, lower class people etc that would make the blood of SJWs boil, in a totally light hearted manner reminisicent of 1950s commercials&TV shows.

He likes a bunch of videos about guns. Not very SJW, that.

He also liked this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peUa9A89SCc

 

[Immortal]

• possibly lack of magic

That depends of what you see as "magic". You could create groups of charlatans that try to sell "magic" shit to ignorant peasants. Or, think about Kalkstein in Twitcher, he never really does magic but there's this interesting element about him that you could take in this direction. Medieval people had a really wild imagination, just check Marco Polo's book.

If anything, we'd see lots of faggots complaining about not being able to have swords, which were almost exclusively used by professional armies (something more common in the late middle ages) and the nobility, since they were both a symbol or a certain social position and something very expensive to have and maintain.

INB4 Pseudo Warfare experts come in and start talking about this crap..

INB4 Fucking Katana > Broad Sword Bullshittery.

 

[DraQ]

Plus, I think it's a generic rule that videogames and extreme realism (such as the realism that history usually required), don't mix well. I for one would love to see a contemporary, REALISTIC (no superpowers, no magic, no easily-available weapons) RPG to be made (kinda like d20 modern, but more low-key).

OTOH there are precedences of actually succeeding with such obviously non-viable game idea - take milsims, for example.

INB4 Pseudo Warfare experts come in and start talking about this crap..

INB4 Fucking Katana > Broad Sword Bullshittery.

It's bastard sword, you imbecile.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The closets I can get to agreement with previous posts is Lyric Suite's assessment that setting and atmosphere are the factors which sound excellent and that you don't actually need historical accuracy.

When I complain about the lack of variety in RPG settings, I'm not complaining about Tolkeinism repetition so much as atmosphere repetition.

How many RPGs have you played where you go through the routine of:

Green fields starter area
Some caves
Ice area
Some caves
Fire area
Some caves
Sand area
Some caves
etc etc etc

But all with an ambiance of Orc's with name appendages - Orc, ColdOrc, FireOrc, SandOrc, DarkOrcs, etc etc etc instead of making the player feel like the game is a complete narrative within one specific atmosphere or completely alternating monster design to adhere properly to strict Monster Manual location rules and music.

I'd love to see an RPG set in the Jungles of the Congo circa 1100AD, but still have all the same character skills and impossibilities of fantasy. The point of setting it in 1100AD Congo would just be an excuse to go wild with Jungle-based monsters, African traditional music, lots of black people dressed in the most fantastically colourful clothing (making itemisation more fun), having a cool black magic twist to spell-casting, giving more interesting lore and game mechanics to Zombies and raise dead. I wouldn't actually be interested in the historical "accuracy", I'd be interested in the historical "atmosphere".

You could then extrapolate this metaphore for any strange and wonderful culture of history.

 

[mondblut]

No magic = no options = squad tactics w/o firearms and things that go boom (i.e. boring crap), or action (i.e. boring crap).

 

[TheGreatOne]

I wouldn't actually be interested in the historical "accuracy", I'd be interested in the historical "atmosphere".

Pulp fantasy in the vein of worlds of Ultima would be rad

 

[JarlFrank]

tl;dw and tl;dr (will rectify later), but:

• would require actual knowledge and research
• would likely induce balancefags whining
• possibly lack of magic
• value dissonance and massive SJW turdalanche it would trigger

From what I've managed to skim the latter 2 have already been mentioned.

Use ancient, medieval or very early history as setting, add in mythological elements, and you got lots of subtle magic and god/gods helping out devout adventurers, so lack of magic is not necessary.
Fuck SJW turdalanche, it's just free publicity for the game when they all rage about how horrible that game is in depicting [insert oppressed group here]. Then again, when you realistically portray the middle ages, for example, women wouldn't be totally "oppressed", there would just be clear gender roles, and yet the player could still play a female character because exceptions existed (there are many stories where a woman took up arms in the defense of her city and this raised the morale of the troops so much they beat back the enemy; they are exceptions, but the player usually IS an exception in any game out there).
Balancefags can go fuck off, too.

Actual knowledge and research would be a problem, but hey, I'd take a job if anyone were offering.