Historical Accuracy
Of course there were women warriors. A ten-second Google search gives us plenty of precedent. Point that out to a guy like Summoner, however, and the goalposts start moving all over the place.
Well yes, but those historical examples were the exception to the rule. There weren’t many dedicated warrior cultures composed of females. Generals and commanders don’t count because reasons.
By the time you get to the phrase “upper body strength” and “the tremendous weight of full plate armor,” you know you’ve descended into the utmost depths of forum comments hell. That’s why I’m with Cleric. There’s no use debating history with opinionated laymen. I’ll go a step further though, because I don’t want history in the conversation period. Or at least, I don’t want history thrown around like it’s legal precedent.
This is for the simple reason that secondary worlds like Eberron or Golarion (or Handbook-World for that matter) have their own history. Their unique cultures, philosophies, and levels of techno-magical development determine the nature of the setting. Earth may be relevant as a point of reference (players tend to come from Earth after all), but that doesn’t mean Merrie Olde England is the gold standard for Faerûn. You’re allowed to diverge from the known. That may be the definition of worldbuilding.
Caveats apply. Should your world still “make sense?” Of course. It may not be a deal-breaker for me, but if rapiers existing side-by-side with knights in shining armor gets your pantaloons in a twist, take one of ’em out! Can you choose to set your game in pseudo-historical times? Pendragon is a thing, and I’m glad that it exists. I’m also glad that it’s aware of its own tropes. We’re all creative people, and we each get to decide what “our world” looks like. I’m no sensor, and I’m not going to claim that a sexist setting can never be interesting. But if you value creative control, why the crap would you cede it to the nebulous forces of “historical accuracy?” You can always imagine different, and that’s your greatest power as a fantasist. History informs, but it doesn’t get to dictate. That’s true whether you’re talking about women warriors, anachronistic systems of government, or the prevalence of firearms vs. fireballs.
So what do you think, guys? Have you ever been bludgeoned about the face and head by the phrase “historical accuracy?” Conversely, is there some particular point of “thing A wouldn’t exist in setting B because logic” that sticks in your craw? Let’s hear all about your world’s relationship with historical precedent down in the comments!
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Ah yes, in a world where you can ignore the laws of thermodynamics with the right application of bat guano, a, bodybuilder with anger issues can reliably survive orbital reentry and giant sentient lizards are able and willing to produce viable offspring with pretty much anything, it is the lack of grossly exaggerated misogyny that’s immersing breaking. Bottom line: we’re all here to have fun, and anyone who forgets that should take note that the “does it spark joy” test applies to the players just as much as it applies to the rules.
Tidying up your gaming group has never been so cathartic! https://pics.me.me/butchlesbian-you-do-not-spark-joy-goodbye-tidying-up-with-45934349.png
As both a GM and a player, I only mention historical accuracies to say “YES” to a player’s course of action, never “NO”. After all, if you limit yourself to only things that have historically happened, you tread on the edge of the “Guy at the Gym” fallacy.
Ofcourse, just because something might be historically accurate (such as fullplate being invented mainly as a response to firearms), doesn’t mean that the same must be true in a particular setting (I don’t feel obligated to any games that have a full-plate armor option). Of course, in my own settings, I generally tend to write out history, as well as how magic has influenced technology, etc.
I think you may want to check your timeline there. Full Plate armor was developed several years before firearms started being of a size that cared about armor (ie not a cannon).
Before I start, I admit that the following will be using the “moving the goal post” fallacy, as perhaps even the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
When I said full-plate, I was referring no to the Roman-era lorica segmentata, nor the “full-plate” created in the 13th century (which in my opinion was more like half-plate), but rather the full-plate that was used in the 14th century (after the battle of Ain Julet), which in my opinion is what fantasy full-plate in fantasy is based on.
Certainly plate armor changed over time, but my understanding is that as firearms became more prevalent and portable, plate armor became less covering, not more, as firearms were not accurate enough to be worth covering things like elbows and armpits. Increases in mass and coverage were still predominately aimed at protecting you from melee weapons or allowing for a better fit without sacrificing protection.
In any case, it was meant merely as an example (even if a bad one). Another example would be batteries, such as the Parthian battery, which while likely not used for anything other than covering objects in gold, could be used as an excuse by players to possess technology significantly before it was commonplace for the era.
From my understanding, full plate went through a period of becoming more extreme to protect against primitive guns (as well as other armor-piercing weapons of the time) before giving up and shifting to Conquistador-esque breastplates and helms.
Remember, guns didn’t replace medieval weapons overnight. If those Renaissance-era knights unarmored their armpits, they’d have to deal with pikemen and lancers exploiting the obvious hole. (As well as stray bullets, obviously.)
Well. That an interesting read. Cheers for the terminology!
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303089-The-Guy-at-the-Gym-Fallacy
Rogue (the tiefling) is going to have particular pleasure from stabbing the sexist midget. I wonder how Wizard would react to this? It’s hard to guess since she wasn’t always a woman.
I recall that her last interaction with Summoner resulted in an offer to fireball him.
True.
Summoner is… not popular. That’s true regardless of gender expression.
Also true. So long, Summoner. You will not be missed.
Never fear. I have no doubt that he will come sliming back in future comics.
Sir, you have a great deal of faith in your comments section.
but no, I actually hang in a gaming group that is quite gender split (4 guys, 3 girls) so that has never really come up. We did recently finish a ‘Rippers’ campaign set in Victorian times, but everyone knew what they were getting into and wanted it to be part of their character. The Gypsy knew that people were going to treat her like people treated Gypsies back then and so forth.
But yeah, trying to enforce restrictive gender roles in an experience that is supposed to be at least partially about escapism and wish fulfillment seems like a pretty dick move.
I have faith in the good people of Handbook-World. 🙂
Personally, I’m not a a total stickler for historical accuracy, but I also don’t think it should just be brushed aside. I’m a lot more forgiving of technology/philosophies from vastly disconnected areas being thrown into the same setting (e.g. having hammocks on ships in quasi-Medieval Europe or quasi-Medieval Asia, when clearly hammocks were invented in Mesoamerica and didn’t reach Eurasia until 1492, so should only be present in Renaissance settings). However, there is something to be said about history: it has a very strong internal logic.
The problem I see with people who throw historical accuracy to the wind is that often they throw out some of the internal logic that goes along with it. A lot of fantasy Medieval Europes are historical Europe – Catholic church + magic. The problem is that those two elements change a whole lot about the setting. The Catholic church had an enormous impact on Europe’s development, politics, and society that numerous polytheistic church, or churches with different doctrines, would greatly alter. And magic, of course, changes a whole lot (I’ll come back to this point later).
Same goes for other differences, like gender stuff. I’ll say most DMs I’ve played with deal with this by just flattening out gender differences, e.g. women are just as physically strong as men, men are just as resilient to disease as women, women are just as tall as men (though strangely I very rarely see that last one.) But often the DMs then set up a society that is based on post-birth control pill women, and it turns out that’s really important. Does your setting have fantasy contreceptives? Are they widely available for commoners, or a luxery that your noble or adventurer can afford but not the peasant? Regardless, that’s going to have huge repercussions that further changes the quasi-Medieval setting.
The point being that by ignoring historical accuracy often it sacrifices internal consistency. Sure all of there repercussions and consistency issues could be addressed, but that takes a lot of time, time the DM may not have, or would rather spend developing that sweet twenty level mega dungeon than figuring out how accessible fantasy birth control is and how that reshapes society when that issue will likely only come up if the players want it, and they will only care as much as it affects them directly.
Of course, all of this assumes that internal consistency is very important in your fantasy setting, and frankly I’m not sure how much it is. On the one hand the less consistent it is, the less verisimilitude, the more the players feel like they are walking through a cardboard setting and the less they feel there will be logical consequences for their actions. On the other hand, and getting back to “magic changes everything,” I have heard some fairly convincing arguments that magic would rapidly transform any 3e/PF setting into the Tippyverse*, and a lot of players and DMs don’t want to be confined to that setting. So frankly, I’m not sure what to make of it. Speaking for myself as a time-strapped DM, I’ve been trying to focus more on drama and character so players won’t explore that inconsistencies in my own setting, and if one comes up I just smile and say “yes, that is interesting, isn’t it?” Makes my players think there is a rhyme and reason they just don’t see rather than immersion break, and then gives me time to address that specific issue if the players look into it more.
I suppose my final word on the matter is this: history is not a total confinement, but history happened for a reason. Certainly you can change what you like to fit your setting, but the more you do so the more causal chains break and the more inconsistencies arise. And the more inconsistencies you try to address, the more time it takes to find and logically address them, often creating more reprecussions in the process.
*To avoid this turning into a debate about whether the setting would actually turn into the Tippyverse precisely, I’ll say that even if it’s not the Tippyverse, magic would radically realter the setting such that it bears little in common with the classic quasi-Medieval settings most campaigns take place in, including Greyhawk, Faerun, and Golarion.
That’s the only way to do it in an interactive game. In literature or cinema, you can direct audience attention wherever you like, never lingering on the questionably plausible details. When you’ve got player action deciding where the camera points, however, the only solution is to handwave for the short term, hope the problem goes away, and then provide some kind of explanation if the players press the issue.
For my part, I class historical accuracy alongside accurate economic models. Sure you can buy ladders, break them apart, and sell the pair of resulting ten-foot poles for infinite profit. That’s not why I play the game though. I’m a storyteller first, and a worldbuilder a distant second.
Agreed. Typically my roleplaying settings are more drama oriented than detail oriented. It’s just a matter of how much detail are you willing to sacrifice before verisimilitude is broken. When they ask why the merchant in the small town sells bags of holding and vorpal swords, there’s either a setting problem or a quest hook. I usually try to get basic details, like what the monsters eat and what a city’s economic reason for existence is even if I don’t detail it’s actual economic output. I suppose how fantasy settings would affect gender roles has been glossed over in enough fantasy settings that most players won’t bat an eye if your own glosses over it as well. Legions of lazy/time-strapped writers before me save my own laziness!
I’m not a big believer in GNS theory, but it’s an interesting touch point in this case. It seems like what we’re really describing is people letting their own particular version of a (questionably) accurate simulation overpower other people’s ability to craft a narrative to their tastes.
If there’s anything left of him, I’ve got a labrys ready to go. Who’s going to tell a minotaur she isn’t valid?
I mean, historically speaking, the Minotaur was the singular result of a divine curse, not an entire race. It’s like saying, “I want to play an Odysseus.” I’m afraid you’re going to have to reroll. /s
What stats are you using, btw? Is there an especially good minotaur race floating around out there?
RE: Minotaurs
Also, not a full on bipedal cow, just a man with the head of a bull.
There are probably quite a few monsters like that (singular entities in the original story I mean). Off the top of my head, the Hydra, I think the manticore, and possibly vampires, depending. (from what I remember in the original Bram Stoker novel, Dracula was “king of the vampires” and other lesser vampires had fewer powers, but the power-jump in the MM seems to think that every vampire is Dracula)
If I sat down a the MM and went through it page-by-page I’m sure we could come up with more.
Point being, Temia’s minotaur is valid and should definitely not behead us with a labrys.
If there’s no in-universe mechanical difference between the sexes, why wouldn’t they both be able to be functional warriors? Even if there is an in-universe mechanical difference, adventurers are exceptional so they can get away with whatever.
There was an in-universe mechanical difference in 1E D&D though.
https://1d4chan.org/images/thumb/4/40/AD%26D_page16.png/443px-AD%26D_page16.png
Even if mechanical differences like strength and weight are flattened and you assume there are no significant psychological differences, there is still a really, really big difference that’s very hard to get around: women get pregnant, men don’t. This means, biologically speaking, men are a whole lot more disposable than women, because women are the bottleneck of reproduction. A village with 100 women and 1 man is infinitely more likely to survive than one with 100 men and 1 woman.
Now it is an effect on a broad societal level, not an individual effect, so it’s not going to be an issue for Barbarian for example. And adventurers tend to be exceptional crazy people, so it probably won’t affect them much at all and shouldn’t limit player options. But it will effect the prevelance of women in the guards, the military, and other dangerous occupations, which has in-world consequences and repercussions. Is your character going to bump into women guards and soldiers? On occasion likely, there are precedents even in our own world where there are more mechanicaldifferences. Is it going to be 50/50 chance of men and women, like in FO:NV? From an internal logic perspective, probably not unless under an exception, battle of extermination deal, or if it’s an all-female battle company for a different reason. At least for humans. Perhaps elves for example with a stupidly low fertility rate and very high fertility window operate very differently. Still, the pregnancy issue is one very often forgotten and as a DM and worldbuilder I’m still struggling to figure out what to do about it.
Pregnancy is still more of a cultural rather than biological restriction. Women aren’t precious queen bees. In most settings, humans follow the typical XY distribution so roughly half the population is female. Unless the population is under extreme threat by war, plague, or famine, having breeding numbers isn’t really a concern.
Say average mothers have 2 to 4 kids in their lifetime. That is a few years out of their life that they are physically restricted. What are they doing with the rest of their life? Does your society prohibit mothers from participating in other jobs? In some ancient societies, mothers didn’t have maternity leave. You have your baby and then a week later, get back to work in the field. Women still had to get work done on the farm while still taking care of children. It’s even more important that a couple is productive, because now they have more mouths to feed. Mothers aren’t precluded from careers outside the home because of pregnancy. It’s being solely responsible for child-rearing that limits the time they are able to work outside the home. This isn’t a biological issue. It’s a cultural one. If the culture views women as primarily as breeding vessels and babysitters, it’s going to limit what they can do. If child-rearing is more a communal effort and views are more egalitarian, women will have more opportunities. Even women who have recently given birth aren’t necessarily limited to child-rearing. Look at the practice of wet nurses.
Since the dawn of civilization, culture has been a factor in human evolution. However, culture is a collection of choices we make as societies. A fantasy setting doesn’t necessarily have to make the same choices.
It’s not a matter of maternity leave or being restricted to stay at home mother, it’s a matter of “will she be alive to have those children at all?” Certainly women were working in ancient societies, and their children were working too, because if they weren’t the family would starve. It’s not if they were working, it’s what sort of jobs, and very dangerous jobs for young women are, well, dangerous. This most clearly manifests in soldiers, with the further complication of getting pregnant on a campaign could cause some serious issues (though this could be avoided with very reliable fantasy contreceptives.)
It’s not absolute of course. As Colin mentioned there’s precedent of women warriors in ancient societies, and in the modern day Israel notably drafts everyone, men and women, into the IDF for a few years. So on further thought it probably wouldn’t affect city guards as much (not as dangerous as may initially seem all things considered, at least if modern police on-the-job deaths are a good indication) and may not affect militias to a great extent, depending on how frequently they are called up and how grave the threat is. But for a militia regularly called up, or a professional army, or especially a drafted army the matter changes.
So it wouldn’t preclude women from careers outside the home, it wouldn’t preclude individual women from being soldiers or generals or whatnot. But it doesn’t change that women are a bottleneck of reproduction that men aren’t. I suppose you could say it determines collective value, not individual value. An individual woman isn’t some precious queen bee and could be considered worthless, and an individual man could be incredibly important and valuable. But as a group men are more expendable than women, and losing a lot of women is a lot more damaging than losing a lot of men, or even an equal amount of men and women. If the men are lost, women can, have, and do step up to fill the gap in labor (e.g. vast employment of women in industry during WWII). If women are lost men cannot, barring magic or cloning, step up to bear more children.
Certainly a fantasy society could decide that it doesn’t value men and women as a group differently, but it’s going to suffer hard a generation after losing a bunch of women relative to one that doesn’t. And maybe that would actually be an interesting society in a setting, one that does this in spite of the drawbacks, perhaps valuing more troops on a battlefield to overwhelm the foe and counting on winning decisively enough with the numbers advantage that they don’t lose too many people, so minimizing 2nd generation decline. Actually now that I think about it that would be very interesting, maybe have an orc tribe doing this and going on a conquering spree, hoping to minimize damage by overwhelming then absorbing other tribes to recoup lost numbers. It is a gamble though, one that could easily reverse to terrible detriment in a setting where other tribes might hire adventurers to Storm of Vengeance the army or swear fealty to a black dragon to ward them off, and suddenly the conquering army is having a reproductive crisis.
I suppose my point is that it shouldn’t be limiting player choices, and different societies would approach the issue differently, but there is a very real biological issue there that is often neglected when worldbuilding this matter and requires some thought. And with a bit of creativity it can open up some really interesting setting details and dynamics for the players to promptly run roughshod over.
Sorry for wall of text, but it’s a thoughtful comment that I think should have a thoughtful, if verbose, reply.
Just read an interesting take in one of the Malazan books. I forget which culture it was, but fortune and glory accompanied raiding parties, so naturally all the young people wanted their cut, women included. A bunch of fit young people sleeping out in the boonies for months at a time resulted in children. That in turn resulted in grandparents getting saddled with communal child rearing while the fit young people took off for more raiding during the war season.
See, that’s the kind of little detail I like. It’s a minor thing, but it’s a setting detail that makes it feel more alive and shows the writer put a bit of thought into it and the repercussion, and could have future repercussions as well. Maybe in this society it is customary for children to take care of their elderly parents. What happens if instead it’s the grandchildren taking care of the grandparents, and when the parents get older a lot of the children feel no obligation to care for them and there’s a crisis in elderly caregiving? Or perhaps the childrearing is communal enough that the children decide to start glorious people’s communist republic. Now in raids glory and fortune must be shared equally with everyone, which ticks off the parents and sparks an intergenerational conflict. In an rpg this sort of thing opens up a very nice mess for the PCs to stumble into, and better it’s a mess that feels like it was organically grown in the setting.
I do seem to recall this particular group of people going through a cultural crisis after contact with a larger empire. But I’d rather sketch that with broad strokes than detail every part of the society. I think the Malazan books are especially good at that sort of worldbuilding.
Well I can certainly tell you how not to handle it: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pregnancy_(3.5e_Disease)
Pregnancy is a disease…
Wait, are paladins immune to pregnancy? Well I suppose that’s one way to get fantasy contraception.
A pregnant female will most definitely cause another female to become pregnant from contact.
Ok, I was debating between if this was written by hyper-obsessive rules lawyer or troll. Definitely troll.
Personally I think those rules are funny enough that in a less serious game I might bring them up. The female adventurers trying to dodge out of the way of pregnant NPCs to avoid catching pregnancy. More seriously I think it’s likely better to handle it from a worldbuilding perspective than a rules one. If one of the PCs gets pregnant and wants to treat her pregnancy like Phùng Thị Chính did (hopefully minus the “killing your newborn infant in a murder-suicide” part) screw the rules, you’re a PC and adventurer and that’s awesome, and I’m not giving you penalties for that.
That was… not a popular decision. I think I just read a hot take recently.
…
Ha! Found it: http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/constructing-the-female-body-in-role-playing-games/
Cute. Usually you don’t get to see Rogue’s eyes.
And by ‘cute’ I mean ‘terrifying’. Kudos to Laurel for managing to make her cute and silly art style look that sinister…
I shall pass your compliments to the lady behind the stylus.
I should also shout out the patron who caught Thief’s lack of eyes 3-6 before we published on the main site!
Yes you should. It would have both been a continuity error and not nearly as terrifying otherwise. 🙂
That’s quite a bit of red eye. Funnily enough, every one of them can be justified given what their actions will be once initiative is rolled!
One might argue Magus’s eyes are red and glowy because she’s a Catfolk with cat’s eyes. This is markedly false when an alternative presents itself from her spell list: Burning Gaze. Because sometimes, you do want to set the world (or at the very least, Summoner) on fire.
Inquisitor’s eyes are the most ‘natural’ of the bunch, being red-tinged on account of being a Drow with Darkvision. Of course, she might also have buffed herself with ‘Hunter’s Eye’, expecting Summoner to try to flee once things start rolling.
Barbarian’s eyes are clouded by pumping blood vessels and a good ol’ fashioned murderous rage class feature. I wonder if she’ll get to use ‘body bludgeon’ for once?
Tiefling’s eyes can be explained by her questionable heritage and the occasional flaring of demonic powers which Summoner seems to cause to manifest, as was witnessed the last time Summoner pissed her off. In the same establishment, no less!
And finally, Witch is doing some markedly rare cooperation with the others for once, by giving the Summoner a taste of the ol’ reliable Evil Eye hex.
Succubus cannot be seen, as she is busy negotiating in advance with a specific Efretti over Summoner’s ‘afterlife travel plan’. Druid is absent, but has a few treants in the background to handle the case whilst she’s busy communing with Arcane Ar-I mean, nature.
What do you suppose Street Samurai is up to?
Probably looking through a red-lens scope and taking aim. Summoner made a poor choice of making his forehead highly visible with a glow-in-the-dark glyph. Great target for called shots too!
He can’t help it! It’s a class feature.
Here’s a fun game for the theorycrafters and number crunchers out there: What is the most possible damage that can be done to Summoner in a single turn by the red-eyed women scorned? Assume that all the characters are level 10, and that Summoner is flatfooted/surprised, unlikely to make a save/dodge, and goes last in initiative.
Given what I know about optimization, gonna ballpark over 500 assuming witch uses a debuff and quickened haste.
All of them.
For the purpose of this question I am going to assume that Oracle is also there, she just wasn’t tall enough for her shadow to be visible through the window. Why do I need Oracle? Well, Plane Shift’s level varies significantly but Oracle should just barely make the cut, as it’s a 5th level for her. One quick trip to the Elemental Plane of Fire should resolve Summoner’s pesky “HP problem”. Sure, he could try to quickly cast Resist Energy on himself. Good luck making his concentration check when he’s taking 3d10+1d6 fire damage per round, though (DC 32 on average, while his bonus is probably about +12, assuming his Charisma is just barely high enough to cast his spells).
Admittedly, this damage wouldn’t all be done in a single turn, but it would be a direct result of a single standard action, so I would argue that it still counts.
Interestingly enough under the terms given the damage the ladies can do in one round is surprisingly low.
The reason being that in a surprise round they only get to take a single standard action, which due to the wall between them and him cannot be a charge.
So we are left with a single ranged attack pr. martial and one spell pr caster.
We will assume that the martial go first and that the glass is shattered for free as part of their attacks, so that the casters can get line of effect.
If a halfling is dead, can it still take damage? Let us ponder the mysteries.
Dead halflings are objects. It’s just a matter of how far into broken and destroyed it gets.
Regarding single turn – assume each lady has a whole round worth of actions (std, move, full-round, etc) and starts next to him for melee purposes (or at range if using range).
I once had a player try and convince me that modern tanks would be the ultimate weapon in the game I was running, despite superheroes, dragons, and giant robots all existing as well. He kept quoting real-world tank facts at me while I patiently tried to explain that yes, they were very impressive, but I’m sure the person who came up with the flintlock rifle also thought it would be the ultimate weapon for a while too.
Dragons… Tanks… Porque no los dos?
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/chrono/images/6/6d/Dragon_Tank.gif/revision/latest?cb=20090712210839
Sometimes, you can have it both ways. Humans in my homebrew world originated from Earth, but were transported to the land of Avar by means not yet discovered. Although 500 years on an alien world has changed them, it hasn’t changed them much, and plenty of historical and sometimes anachronistic technologies and attitudes still remain.
However, thanks to a series of one-shots set at various points in Avar’s history and my players being very, ahem, thematically consistent with their characters, it’s now historical fact that women make some of the best warriors out there. Specifically, lesbians. So as well as most of Earth’s history, my world also has its very own, player-created histories to draw historical “facts” and conclusions from.
“The Lesbian with a Thousand Faces,” by Joseph Campbell.
Since we are talking historical accuracy i would want to point Crusader Kings II. This is a video game made from Paradox. CKII is set in Europe in the middle ages, you play as a noble and conduct your dynasty to the glory. Still as any game it suffer the scourge of that Bringers-of-Chaos and Heralds of Death and Doom, i mean players. They in complete disregard for any historical accuracy have done things, dark, terrible things, as this quote referring a Pope in the game:
“A Norse Catholic descendent of Muhammad from an Anglo-Saxon dynasty, who is a Satan-worshipping Pope.
Crusader Kings at its finest :)”
Yeah, “historical accuracy” indeed. It doesn’t matter if something is historically accurate in a game as long as you enjoy it 🙂
Also glad that Laurel got behind his phobia and make righteous justice befall on Summoner. Good for her 🙂
It’s funny. I always thought Fighter would be the “that guy” of the comic. But I’ve grown fond enough of the big blond idiot to need to invent an even bigger That Guy to take on the misogynist role.
I may need to invent other distinguishing characteristics for Summoner in future. As it stands, he only shows up when he’s being gross, and there’s only so many comics in that, you know?
Use internet there are a lot of webpages and forums that can give you years of material. The Quote about the Pope, a non-historical one, is from the forums of Paradox and there is lots more of weirdness and confessions of video games warcrimes. It’s a nice place 🙂
Pfft, the game is plenty screwy without player intervention. Somehow the Abbasid Emperor became a Spanish Visigoth in my playthrough, and I was in Scandinavia.
And here there is the Chinese Emperor:
https://www.chapelcomic.com/80/
There is a lot more of things like that in the game 🙂
It’s funny cus plate armor is actually very much so within reason light. anyone trained to be a fire fighter or in the military can run around in full plate with ease.
If it was heavy, it’d have been useless.
You’re talking about that firefighter / soldier / knight obstacle course, right? That mess was all kinds of cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw
I remember getting into an argument with my GM about the existence of rubber. Says that rubber (like the stuff fire car tires and such) is a modern invention. I point out its existence as a wood sealant and preservation that dates back to 800 AD, a time well before the existence of full plate and your typical high fantasy stuff. Even mentioned how it has reached Europe through Middle East trade, which is relevant since we are in a major trade city that supposedly gets merchants all over the world.
Apparently it’s easier to get my hands on a +3 magic weapon than usable rubber because of my GM’s determination to ignore historical evidence. It gets particularly egregious when they skip over technological trees to justify why a certain technological innovation doesn’T exist, such as spring steel or axles for wagons.
Jumping technological innovations is rather silly. For some technologies though it’s existence in ancient times wasn’t widespread, or people just didn’t think of a tech we take for granted (e.g. Eurasia had fabric and rope, but never thought to put them together to make hammocks). I could see saying rubber doesn’t exist in this area, but let the players find a far off civilization or a long lost civilization that has the secret of rubber. That being said it sounds like the GM is being unreasonable. I don’t suppose he would let the players innovate or find innovators (“No glass in the setting, even though it’s been known for about 5,000 years? I make camp over the sands and get the fire real hot. What, the sand melted and turned to a sort of glass? That’s cool! I do it again, then stick a pipe in and blow to make bubbles. Hey, I just invented glass blowing!”)
There’s a balance here. As we all know, it’s perfectly reasonable to invent firearms in any setting because of 9th century China and that one fight between Kirk and the gorn. If you follow that logic you wind up playing out the goofy invention discoveries from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” which becomes a bit of a metagaming issue.
Here’s my take. If you’re having an “is it plausible?” type discussion, I think you’ve got a solid point. Maybe some country somehwere in the setting has developed rubber for widespread use. However, iIf you’re trying to invent the modern automobile wheel and are annoyed that your GM won’t allow it, then I think there’s more of an argument to be had. Does it ruin setting aesthetics? Is it reasonable that a PC would think to improve wagon technology by using this obscure substance available only from exotic traders from distant lands?
It’s a balance of player agency and internal consistency. And the really tricky thing about internal consistency is that it varies by person.
Since other people have addressed the other historical things mentioned, I’ll respond to the remaining one.
While I’m no expert (or even a proper amateur Medieval/Renaissance period enthusiast), my understanding is that rapiers came about specifically as a counter to full plate because in their later stages (which is when “full plate” really became “full” from what I understand) regular “stab/slash/shoot with arrows the guy” combat wasn’t very effective against the very thoroughly covering armor. And thus the goal of weapons shifted to be “get in the narrow weak points” thus rapiers or “apply so much force, preferably at a narrow point, so you pierce through or crush the armor”, which would be the reasoning behind most polearms.
So it would strike me as being exceptionally weird for someone to object to rapiers and “knights in shining armor” being contemporary things since that historical point the later existed and the former didn’t yet is exceptionally narrow historical window of time. Unless by “knights in shining armor” they don’t mean what we typically think of by “full plate” these days.
Side comment: As people have mentioned, full plate is not as heavy as most people think. I mention this because it serves as a counterpoint for the following statement. Rapiers are heavier than most people think.
As for the actual subject of the comic…. Yup. I never really bother myself with the fiddly details about what weapons/armors/etc. “should” exist in the period. In part because that’s not really any fun. And in part because I know well enough that I and other people are not generally well informed about the truth and relevant details of these things and any random person’s assertions about what should or shouldn’t exist based on irl history would probably be more prone to accuracy if they picked up a die and rolled on a chart for what they were about to claim.
On the other hand if someone wants to argue a logical reason for why something should or shouldn’t exist in the game based on what is known about the game world, I am all for that. Well… right up until people start arguing that things that ruin the fun should exist or things essential to it shouldn’t.
As a fellow non-expert, my understanding was different on the rapier. I was always under the impression it developed once armor was on the way out thanks to firearms. The intro to this one seems to back up that perspective:
https://www.historynet.com/weaponry-the-rapier.htm
That’s pretty much where “you can’t be a fighter ’cause you’re a girl” comes into play. If the world can fall in love with Brienne of Tarth, I think the gaming table can handle her as well.
My rejoinder is usually something like “I thought we abandoned historical accuracy around the time the wizard started shooting fireballs out of his elbows”.
To many people seem to mistake historical possibility or exception- for almost every source citing one way thing, you can find a different source saying something else. And they might all be a little right and little wrong and until someone invents a time machine, we’re never going to be 100% certain.
Tabletop games tend to revel in fantasy/fiction/movie tropes anyway, so IMO history should be used to inspire, not to restrict.
Now see, I actually dislike that line of reasoning. Sure it’s pithy, but it dismisses the notion of suspension of disbelief altogether. It’s the difference between Lewis and Tolkien. Narnia is charming, but fairly nonsensical as far as believable worlds go. Middle Earth is a more convincing secondary world. That has less to do with “unbelievable” elements like talking animals (which both share) and more to do with the internal logic of the setting.
Take the example from today’s blog. As Bill pointed out up the page, pregnancy is a real consideration in mixed-gender fantasy settings. Assuming we’re treating the subject seriously and not using pregnancy as a reason to hang a “no girls” sign on the clubhouse door, how do we explain away the issue? We can ignore the issue entirely (as in WoW) or try to come up with an answer (as in the Malazan example I cited further up the page). It’s all to do with the seriousness of the worldbuilding project, and exactly how much we care about an “accurate” simulation.
I don’t think you should ignore potential issues, but everyone is going to have a different point that breaks their internal verisimilitude. It might be female-warriors, or democratic political systems, or capitalism or socialism instead of feudalism, or a semi-advanced magitek society in the middle of an otherwise dung-ages world, etc etc etc.
And the most common way this argument shows up is to tell someone else that they are having fun wrong, so as far as I’m concerned it gets to die in a fire(ball spell).
When you play a fictional game in a world that is intentionally not very similar to our own, then you have to expect certain things to not line up with how you might expect them. History in our real world was not inevitable except in the most general sense, and to many people think that it’s like “if not A then B”, where instead it’s more like 37% vs 38%, i.e. many many many shades of variance that could have lead us to different places. Biology can be a consideration but honestly is the whole point of magic in most settings to fantastic solutions to mundane issues, so if pregnancy is a serious matter in your setting, how long do you think it would have taken for someone to whip up a Protection from Pregnancy spell, or a magical form of anesthesia?
Something should only be a problem (impediment to gameplay) if someone is trying to MAKE it a problem. And why should we try to make more problems?
I prefer to think of ’em as opportunities.
“It doesn’t make sense for this thing to be in the setting. Yet it is in the setting. Why is it in the setting?”
That line of questioning opens up design space: https://aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Night%20tea
Of course, whether or not that sort of mechanical solution is necessary depends on that “different point that breaks their internal verisimilitude.”
sorry missed a phrase: “To many people seem to mistake historical possibility or exception for absolutely the only possible outcome”.
Ever hear of technological determinism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism
I wonder if “historical technological determinism” is a useful concept in worldbuilding?
Given my previous answer, I think you can tell what thrust my response is going to take- it’s only important if that setting’s creator WANTS it to be important. If that is something you want to use to flesh out (or at contribute to) building your world, then my decision just boils down to whether or not I want to play in your sandbox. And I expect the same consideration- we can discuss the theory if you want, but in-game I really don’t want a lecture on why war-hungry orcs in my setting could absolutely NOT have morphed into a society of enlightened philosophers, artists, and poets, if that’s what I chose to build.
In fact, personally I LIKE to create settings that offer some of those double-take/stutter-step moments, where someone is caught off guard. Not all the time of course, because if you crank the dial up to 11 and leave it there then that becomes the new normal, but if you present a relatively expected scene and then tweak something enough so that someone goes “wait, back up a sec, can you repeat the last line because I don’t quite believe that combination of words that reached my ear”, that’s part of how I have fun as a worldbuilder.
Also as a followup to my previous answer about biology, we are in a different world with different rules, such as the Fighter being able to tank 26 axe-blows to the face and still go out drinking later like nothing happened, so who’s to say that biology isn’t sufficiently different to allow a woman who’s 8.5 months pregnant to complete a full acrobatic routine?
Historical Accuracy can be used for a good roleplaying highlight. For Example, when we played Weapon of the Gods (Wuxia adventure game, high flying supernatural kung fu), there was a lot of in-universe lore about how daughters are rarely if ever taught the family kung-fu, since they will eventually leave the family and go to their husband’s house. That being said, it was completely up to the player if this was the way their parents had treated them and you could choose to take either the “Outsider to her family” background or the “Normal Family” background with a female character. The accuracy is there, but it is used as a narrative device and a framing thing rather than a restriction. Instead of saying “You can’t know your father’s kung fu, you’re a woman.” its “Why do you know your father’s kung fu, you are a woman.” That’s a much better way to handle stuff like this. “Player Characters are exceptional” is accepted as the rule of the day, why can they only be exceptional in stats?
Worlds of difference between “we’re building a setting where it’s possible to tell the Mulan story” and “girls can’t be fighters.” The former is all about player buy-in. The latter is all about player exclusion.
Of course, even there I’ve heard stories of players getting miffed about these kinds of setting details. It’s years since I read the forum post that I’m thinking about, but I believe it was a new player joining a 40K game. It was an all space marines game, and there are setting details about space marines being entirely male (I think it’s something to do with the genetic template of the Emperor that all space marines share). Anywho, the new player interpreted this as an old boys club mentality, and resented her Sister of Battle PC’s lesser stats.
If memory serves, the GM tried to do like you’re saying and come up with a “you’re an exceptional person” compromise, allowing the new player to hang. It came off poorly: “I mean… I guess you could have the same modifications as a male space marine, but it would probably do crazy hormonal stuff….”
Points for trying, but you don’t have to be a gender studies major to realize that, if a players first exposure to your setting is, “Your female fighter needs to grow a beard if you want her to be decent mechanically,” it might not sound so great. At that point, you’ve got to choose between sticking to the sacred cow of setting lore or butchering that beast in the name of player accommodation.
My favorite bit of implied tech-level is the fact that books cost 25G in 5E. That implies that most 5E worlds are pre-printing press so books need to be hand-copied. For reference, a skilled laborer brings home a gold a day, while an unskilled brings home 2 silvers.
Either that or they’re TTRPG players. Those artisan-crafted source books are a mite spendy!
While I’ve actually been increasing my knowledge of history recently to become a better world-builder (focusing on trying to learn more about different cultures / approaches to society), I generally prefer to think of fantasy worlds as being more reliant on “mythological accuracy” rather than historical accuracy.
After all, historically things like mediums or seers were generally frauds relying on cold reading and vague statements, but it’s far more fantastical to go along with the myths which allow them to speak to the dead or have divine revelations. Not to mention that players often want to play out their favorite heroes from myth and media – including how those heroes deviate from our boring real historical accounts.
So what’s the most surprising historically-accurate tidbit you’ve found since you started brushing up on your history?
Probably how progressive someone like Genghis Khan was in certain areas. I had only really known about some of the horrors he did, but not much about how he internally managed his people. Things like merit-based promotion, banning rape, providing for families of fallen soldiers, and promoting freedom of religion were far from common at the time – yet greatly helped him gather a wide base of support.
In particular, the idea that the Mongols replied to some neighboring oppressed Muslims by bringing an army into the city, beheading the discriminatory leader, and then leaving without any pillaging or demands of subservience is very contrary to the popular image of them just being savage raiding barbarians. [Not to mention very good PR among the neighboring Muslims]
And more related to the topic of the comic itself… It seems to me that when going to some of the very oldest records of history/myth, there actually appears to be a tendency for various societies to lean towards egalitarian and even more matriarchal structures. Later on they’d be replaced with the more patriarchal structures we’re familiar with, but is interesting that there seemed to be a significant change somewhere along the line.
God it’s makes med Mad that People who have NO IDEA of historical Accuracy want Pseudo Historical Accuracy it. Gah!
Because for most of Human history Woman were Warriors as well depending on the Time, the Society, and Culture. You want somewhat accurate Medival Times? Wich ones? Early? Middle? Late Middle Age? Which Country? Which Society? People do some God damn Reasarch dammit.
Since were at it: During Late Medival Times the Streets of the Citys were pretty much covered in Flith, because People at that Time hadn’t heard much of Hygiene!
Also, what was much more importent than “Man and Woman” was your Social Class! A Noble Woman for example could ride into Combat if she wanted, (and was at least Schooled in Tactics since it’s her Job to Protect her Lands, when her husband is away.)
An anfree Peasent, of either Gender in contrast, coulnd’t do much more than Slave away every day on the Field. Unless there was a Crusade or Something going on where he or she could join as a Pilgrim and Fight the “Heathens.”
God i could go on endlessly where Woman fought in Histrory. Warriors or not. Here a little Gift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Hatchet
People do some fucking Research and THEN come back to Talk about it. Then you will realize that all that “Oh no Upper Body Strength blabla”, No Woman NEVER fought, is just Bullshit.
Sorry for the Rant.
The only hysterically historical triggers for me are weaponry and, to a lesser extent, armor. For example, longswords are not one-handed weapons. It’s there in the name. They are swords that are long. Very long. About 4 feet. Bastard swords are slightly smaller longswords, and you could maybe use one of them one handed if you had beefy forearms. Other than that, basically every heavy armor that isn’t plate is questionably accurate, and leather armor would have either been small pieces to complement metal armor, or hardened leather shaped like plate armor. And gambison (i.e. padded armor) was amazing.
My understanding has always been that sword types are ambiguous, depending more on context than strict classification.
Unless you’re this Oakeshott guy apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakeshott_typology#Type_XIII
Lord this comes up with both women and lgbt stuff. I’ve had someone challenge me on a gay NPC couple which was an….. interesting night. Also the Night they found I was gay, coincidentally :p. I usually find historical accuracy complaints in regards to social issues to be a bit of a disguise for worse things, though.
Useful for letting you know it’s time to find a new group though. :/
Generally speaking, men do have higher upper body strength and muscle mass than women… But women also generally have higher lower body strength and muscle mass, and this is just a small biological difference between genders. Yes, there are women with higher than average upper body strength – and yes, there are men with higher than average lower body strength, but they usually take measures to get there (i.e.: putting more effort into training than what is normally required).
HOWEVER!: There are several cultures that have included women warriors in their formation. Many of them were placed in the back with Archery equipment, but there are just as many examples of women fighting. Unfortunately, what most people don’t take the time to consider, is that our current day culture was born of a culture/religion that severely underplayed the importance of a woman in society, and demonised any women who wasn’t a stay-at-home wife and handmaid to her husband.
However, because this is fantasy (and because this is a company trying to make money and not get thrown out of business), the closest culture we’re going to get with misrepresented gender are the Drow. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying no one in their right mind for publishing would greenlight anything with real-world issues involved. lol
Depends on how you handle it. Like I said in this one…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/gender-roles
…acknowledging these issues can work well on a case-by-case. But like Dr. Trammell says in this one…
http://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/constructing-the-female-body-in-role-playing-games/
…you’ve got to be damn careful what you’re saying with your rules and your setting. If you add gender issues, do it with intention rather than some horrible slapdash of “there are no women warriors, obviously.”
Ahh, “realism.” Too many groups see it as a reasonable goal, rather than the enemy to be defeated. One of our house rules is “The first person to cite real-world historical precedent loses the argument.”
I’m just saying, history teaches us that guns kill dragons. Firearms come to prominence at the same time dragons die out. My pistol should get bonus damage against dragons. Obviously.
But he is right
Adventurers are ALREADY the exceptions to the norm. That’s the point of them.
It’s certainly reasonable for an unworldly commoner goofus to see a female adventurer and go “I can take her!” because he’s only ever known the standard commoner fair of women who stick to cooking and sewing, while the men do the hunting/soldier work (primarily only because it’s generally easier to rebuild a village if you lose half the men than half the women, so keeping them safe has priority in long term survivability, none of which plays any factor to a individual woman or group of women who have gone “off reserve”)
It’s also just as reasonable for the majority of anyone who has ever dealt with adventurers to know that if a 7ft tall woman walks into your smithy and gives you a broken battleaxe and asks that you repair it, you assume that she knows what the hell she’s doing, and offer to sell her an even BIGGER battleaxe instead.
Every day we get to see all of Thief’s eyes is a good day. Well, not for Summoner, but is any day really good for Summoner..?
Having had to deal with a lot of this kind of nonsense – less so in the wargaming community, or less so back in the day – one of the things that stuck with me is that it doesn’t go both ways. If I drag out my scraps of paper on it and point out that if we’re going full realism, there should be a decent chance that the blacksmith who does work on their equipment should be a woman, death to ‘realism.’ I’ve got quite a lot more I could say about that, see username.
Anyway, one of the reasons I like talking to my players before running a campaign is getting what THEY want out of their histories. For some folks, being able to come from a village where they had a supportive family who were proud they were one of a long tradition of knightly service, and there’s nothing mould-breaking about it – that means a lot for them.
And some players wanna have a sorrowful past filled with struggle, and I can oblige that too; but ultimately, even though I’m more of the railroads-and-marked-paths kind of GM, all of that is second to making sure that the players actually enjoy the game they’re playing to, well, enjoy.
Unrelated to all of this, Summoner’s design is really perfect. Oh, they all are, but Summoner’s in particular. Also, the links in the post-comic write-up always make me chuckle, cracking stuff.
For me, the struggle comes when the “realism” guy is sitting at the same table as the “let’s just tell a goofy fantasy story” guy.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/medieval-stasis
I suspect some of the dudes in that thread would not have a good time trying to play together.
Fighter was always supposed to be “That Guy.” But after a while, we realized that our meathead murderhobo is supposed to be a love-to-hate kind of goofball. We still needed a straight-up “creep” type character. And thus Summoner was born!
“Historical Accuracy: Warrioresses are not Warriors”, add a subtitle to make it better.