Mesoamerican Setting

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Even in cases where we know titles or alleged names for kings and priests, I don't imagine that any source includes enough detail to exclude one claimant or another defeating a rival and taking a religious or regnal name that fits any name we have from sources. If we even know any historical details at all from a given decade in the 14th or 15th about a given Nahuatl city state.

True. And even if the archeaologists know it... chances are your players won't.

[Dalin]

I had an extensive fantasy "Mesoamerica" in my old college D&D campaign. It was definitely fantasy, but I stole tons of material from archaeology and art books. This was part of what led me to GURPS because GURPS Aztecs was so much better than any other gaming treatments I could find. (The Maztica setting for Forgotten Realms was subpar.) I stumbled across a mint copy of The Florentine Codex (all twelve volumes...sold for a song) at a used bookstore on a road trip... I mined material from it for years.

My players seemed to enjoy the setting. But, again, ultimately the cultural milieu was just a backdrop for standard dungeoneering. (I recall an aboleth hidden in the canals of a "Mayan" city and a beholder living in a dungeon beneath a temple pyramid.)

I'd love to hear how your world building unfolds.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Anders

True. And even if the archeaologists know it... chances are your players won't.

Unless one of your players is an archaeologist.

(Granted, my grad school gaming experience was far from representative.)

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Honestly, as long as you aren't setting your game within a generation of contact with Europeans, I doubt that any sources are detailed enough to constrain a GM and his players from essentially any events within a campaign.

My understanding is that, since we've been able to decipher and translate more and more of the Mayan written language in the last 50 years, we know a lot more of their history than we used to. It just hasn't gotten into the public consciousness, yet.

Still, you are right that most of the history of the region is pretty dark to us before the early 16th century.

The OPs approach reminds me of the way Guy Gavriel Kay does his fantasy settings--well researched historical settings with all the names changed and a hint of the fantastical. It's a valid and, I think, liberating way to go.

Originally Posted by adblue

I want to do a reasonably realistic setting. It will be in a fictional location but mostly follow real world rules (Like Westeros but instead of medieval England its post classical Nahuatl city states. Also like that setting I plan to keep the fantasy elements to a relative minimum at least early on) Should I just use Low tech and some homebrew elements then?

Yeah, Low Tech is all you need.

If you decide to introduce magic later, I recommend you get Thaumatology, though. The standard GURPS magic system and magic as powers don't feel like a very good fit for a realistic Low Fantasy.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Unless one of your players is an archaeologist.

(Granted, my grad school gaming experience was far from representative.)

If one of your players is an archaeologist you press-gang him into helping. And tell him that any deviations from the truth is motivated by "this is an alternate world."

[adblue]

So my idea for the setting is that there are four cities that each predominantly worship one of the four directional deities. The PC's are former slaves from a tiny village and they will have the opportunity to either become merchants or join the army. I'm taking a DC comics approach to the cities where they're based on real places but largely fictional.