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

[buzz]

You may be onto something with Buffy, but the other examples don't really fit. I mean, the Twilight books were released after the games and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was released by the time Bioware released BG 2. Gladiator 3 years before Gladius soo

 

[Agesilaus]

Recognising the value of an historically accurate setting, and then being able to pull it off, requires a certain education, culture, and value system. Few, if any, game designers and writers bring that to the table, and the government has not created any regulations requiring oversight from historians. Gave devs require less licensing than manicurists, literally any man and his dog can go out there and market a pew pew shooting game.

 

[Renegen]

Same thing with Koudelka of the Shadow Hearts series, right down to being gridded, emulatable, and bespeaking consolitis.

Koudelka is actually pretty good, it's sort of a fantasy horror Resident Evil RPG.

edit: I also think that historical RPGs could work, anyone seen the TV series Rome? One of the things that made me love it was the exploration of roman life and values, turns out they were very different from us in that regard. Exploring different cultures can be interesting if done properly.

 

[Telengard]

You may be onto something with Buffy, but the other examples don't really fit. I mean, the Twilight books were released after the games and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was released by the time Bioware released BG 2. Gladiator 3 years before Gladius soo

It's a way to sell your idea. If you've got an idea, you've got to sell it. You've got to convince someone to be willing to invest $10,000,000 (if you just want a low budget title). You've got to make him believe you can make him a profit. He needs assurances. What about your idea is going to sell to the general public so he can make money.

And it's got to be a profit. You and your company, you can break even and keep going. But if investors break even, they get mad. They're there to make more money than they could sticking their money in the bank. If they don't do that, they're outta there.

Are you taking Gladius, a sucker seller, and removing the spells and making it even less cool? Okay. How are you selling that to him and to the public? If you want to sell an actual historical title, you've got to show them why your historical title is going to actually make profit, unlike all of the other non-indie attempts that have gone before it. Why is your idea different, even though there's no cool and you have no profit stats to back you up. All you've got are movies and common culture.

And even if you do somehow sell him on just movies he likes, those assurances that he's going to want, they're going to include a bad, bad, bad contract, so he can hedge his bets, since it's such a longshot.

 

[CyberP]

History, though. History ain't cool.

This. It'd be difficult to pull of a good game set in a true to life historical setting. Certainly worth a shot though.

 

[Telengard]

You may be onto something with Buffy, but the other examples don't really fit. I mean, the Twilight books were released after the games and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was released by the time Bioware released BG 2. Gladiator 3 years before Gladius soo

And I wasn't going to do this, because I hate being Mr. Anal Guy, but I can't stop myself:

2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2005 Jade Empire

1997-03 Buffy
2004 Bloodlines

Gladiator 2000
Gladius 2003

Lots of investors are happy to follow trends. Things that are currently hot are so much easier to get greenlighted. Just don't miss the boat.

(Twilight I threw in there because it's annoying)

 

[Fockatar]

Same thing with Koudelka of the Shadow Hearts series, right down to being gridded, emulatable, and bespeaking consolitis.

Koudelka is actually pretty good, it's sort of a fantasy horror Resident Evil RPG.

edit: I also think that historical RPGs could work, anyone seen the TV series Rome? One of the things that made me love it was the exploration of roman life and values, turns out they were very different from us in that regard. Exploring different cultures can be interesting if done properly.

Well I mean I'm not disagreeing with the point that the Romans were very different from us - obviously they were, much more than most people could ever know - but did the series show that? not really. They made things look more violent and gritty than other series of the time. Even now I can remember some of the oddness of it all - a Taurobolium taken straight from Prudentius, Caesar's disavowal of religious knowledge in one scene (WTF?), trying to posit a divide between soldiers and politicians and patres and plebs as if it were an American whitehouse drama or, you know, anything on the BBC? I'm not talking about pointless things like costuming or the fact that the historical chronology was truncated. Because who cares? I don't. But it didn't at all feel "Roman" to me.

That's a problem with a lot of historical endeavours in entertainment media. They always feel plastic and fake. But I think people here are focusing on the wrong things. We've had two good suggestions to the thread title's problems and these have broadly been:

i) Games designers don't know enough history to pull it off and/or Historically aware people nitpick and therefore make this perilous.
ii) It's boring.

Well for i) I'd say, sure, that's true but what does it matter? You can hire special consultants etc. The problem usually is entertainment guys tend to hire the wrong people as consultants, it's kind of mental actually. Or often they discard advice given. Or over estimate their own knowledge. The second part, nitpicking as a deterrent: I've never, ever, seen any of the professional Classicists, Ancient Historians, Renaissance specialists etc sit down and tear a show/novel/game a new one for "inaccuracies" in the grumpy way tumblrtards and imgurnerds and redditurds do. It's always the self declared "history buffs" or those with History majors from some shitty Kwan liberal arts school. Who gives a shit? I mean if something is being heralded as being particularly accurate, sure, go ahead but the kind of grumpy fanboyism designers might fear only comes from half-formed minds. If they don't over advertise their products with regards to accuracy I don't see the problem.

ii) It doesn't have to be boring, it depends how history is implemented. Ok so I've been playing Ass Crack II and I'm enjoying the background. There has even been one moment I got a bit of "fanboy" (ugh) glee and that's when Politianus shows up, even if in an odd position and if only for a second, but the game isn't necessarily historically accurate. The biggest problem isn't in accuracy but its ham-fisted treatment of history: How. The. Fuck. Is everyone either an Assassin or Templar? It's just shitty narrative and that's more jarring than anything else. Getting a decent plot and narrative doesn't require historical research, just good writing, and that's beyond most games.

I'd like a game which makes use of a different historical setting like Gupta India or Song China or the Hussites or something. I'd like to see some attempt at research. Mostly though, I'd just want a well crafted game because let's face it a fantasy based game which uses its settings and atmosphere to great effect will always be better than a try hard but not quite historical game. I bet more people here thought the "feel" of King of the Dragon Pass was better than RYSE for example lol.

 

[Renegen]

You forget the role of women, the way their justice system worked, no safety nets, slavery. There was enough of it in Rome to show how totally different they were from us and it was presented in an interesting fashion.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One thing that is funny about SJWs is how they are ignoring the appropriation and mangling of western history going on all the time.

 

[sser]

I feel like the Kingdom Come guys show why so few devs will touch historical games. Look how much inane bullshit they are putting up with. So they make a game that's historical and the tumblr-crowd jumps on their nuts about this or that. And, by the way, the same problem occurs on the other side of the fence. People who do like history could rag on you for not being accurate enough. Hell, I'm guilty as fuck here. Expeditions, for example, cool game. But it has these women soldiers in it and it just takes me out of the experience 100%. No, I don't hate the womenz, I just don't think a 120lbs woman in heavy armor stands a second's chance against a raging native with a bone-shard pickaxe. So I just sit there and stare at this game that depicts racism and a distinct lack of multiculturalism, and then for some fucking reason shoehorns in this dumb crap. And this is true of most "historical" stuff nowadays. There's always some way to wedge in modern sensibilities into things no matter what. "X-person was in history, so they should automatically be in this historical game!!" Upsets the people who don't even buy the games, and upsets the nerds like me who wonder why you'd go down the historical route if you're not going to accept that history and fairness rarely went hand in hand.

 

[DraQ]

Even those who try, however clumsily, to make a "different" kind of fantasy (Morrowind and its alien geometries or the pitiful attempts in DA: O "HEAR HOW COOL THE WORLD HIS OUTSIDE GENERIC ANGLOSAXON SHITLAND YOU HAVE TO PLAY IN") after a while realized that it is useless (Oblivion), as few of us care about historical accuracy or fascinating ideas.

Actually the facts seem to paint a more optimistic story.

We had wildly successful Morrowind. Then we had awful, but wildly successful Oblivion that just shat all over worldbuilding. Then, for some reason beth bounced back - Skyrim may be dumbed down mechanically and quest-wise, and may not be as well built world as Morrowind, but everything about it screams of beth considering OB a massive fuck-up on some level, despite it being lucrative, and promptly backtracking.
I guess that as mismanaged and often derpy as they seem Beth deserves more credit than it gets from us and actually seems aware of what a long term success involves and seems to think that OB fucked that part up.

Maybe you actually need "core" gamers to build your franchise upon and they actually do sperg about the most insignificant details of your setting?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I feel like the Kingdom Come guys show why so few devs will touch historical games. Look how much inane bullshit they are putting up with. So they make a game that's historical and the tumblr-crowd jumps on their nuts about this or that. And, by the way, the same problem occurs on the other side of the fence. People who do like history could rag on you for not being accurate enough. Hell, I'm guilty as fuck here. Expeditions, for example, cool game. But it has these women soldiers in it and it just takes me out of the experience 100%. No, I don't hate the womenz, I just don't think a 120lbs woman in heavy armor stands a second's chance against a raging native with a bone-shard pickaxe. So I just sit there and stare at this game that depicts racism and a distinct lack of multiculturalism, and then for some fucking reason shoehorns in this dumb crap. And this is true of most "historical" stuff nowadays. There's always some way to wedge in modern sensibilities into things no matter what. "X-person was in history, so they should automatically be in this historical game!!" Upsets the people who don't even buy the games, and upsets the nerds like me who wonder why you'd go down the historical route if you're not going to accept that history and fairness rarely went hand in hand.

I fucking hate all these fucking subhumans. About a year go I had a tumblerite SJW lunatic call me names and wish me death because I made strength of females lower basing on sport lifting norms and records. Luckily it was one of these retarded forums with extreme censorship, so I just reported her and she got a warning (and got a ban some time later).
Accidentally, she was also a fanatical gamist. I realised that many of these tumblerites are fanatical gamists to the point they say that there's no place for realism in games, even in serious games.

When it comes to women, you could find women with AD&D strength up to 18/49, so it's not that bad but that high would be very rare and requires very competent training and nutrition besides having good (that's olympic lifter level) and you certainly wouldn't get more than 10% of reasonably strong women.
By the way, this is hilarious:
http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/
I was under great impression until I checked the AD&D strength table:
http://www.ancientscrossroads.com/adnd_tools/str_table.htm
And realised that her strength is 9.

http://www.criticalbench.com/Kerry-Self-Raw-Dogs.htm
This one seems to have strength of 11. If I understood correctly the relationship between press and bench press, that is.

 

[Luzur]

thats just good ol' feminism "WOMYNSCANDOEVERYTHINGMENDOBUTBETTERDERP" filtering into the gaming industry.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

thats just good ol' feminism "WOMYNSCANDOEVERYTHINGMENDOBUTBETTERDERP" filtering into the gaming industry.

Does it even originate from feminism or is straight from the generation brought up on movies and video games? Was posting on a feminist forum and there were pretty a lot of feminists aware that there are differences in strength between men and women.

 

[Luzur]

thats just good ol' feminism "WOMYNSCANDOEVERYTHINGMENDOBUTBETTERDERP" filtering into the gaming industry.

Does it even originate from feminism or is straight from the generation brought up on movies and video games? Was posting on a feminist forum and there were pretty a lot of feminists aware that there are differences in strength between men and women.

Dunno really, but it prob originated from feminism but later mutated into something the industry uses to pander to the SJW's and feminists to shield themselves from slander and get their cash.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

thats just good ol' feminism "WOMYNSCANDOEVERYTHINGMENDOBUTBETTERDERP" filtering into the gaming industry.

Does it even originate from feminism or is straight from the generation brought up on movies and video games? Was posting on a feminist forum and there were pretty a lot of feminists aware that there are differences in strength between men and women.

Dunno really, but it prob originated from feminism but later mutated into something the industry uses to pander to the SJW's and feminists to shield themselves from slander and get their cash.

I think it was somehow accidentally created by the middle class guys who never were women and never did any physical job or physical training.

 

[Ninjerk]

Probably started with this joke of a film

 

[Irenaeus]

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.

Can't brofist both posts enough