Campaign Setting Question

[The Colonel]

Has anyone had significant experience with using a setting similar to late medieval / renaissance Germany? There was a chap going on about it on the radio last night - actually in the context of the thirty years war - what with microstates down to the lands of a single abbey and up to things resembling a proper country all at least nominally under the rule of a (somewhat distant) Emperor.

It occured to me that it would make a pretty good setting for a low fantasy RPG - plenty of scope for limited warfare, intrigue and the like. Possibly some German RPG company has already worked this out...

[hari]

I'd be interested in listening to that. What radio station was it? What show? Who was talking? There's a chance it may have been put up online somewhere.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by hari

I'd be interested in listening to that. What radio station was it? What show? Who was talking? There's a chance it may have been put up online somewhere.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015yt86

Try that ... you wouldn't need the external nations fighting over it for the setting, but the idea of a nation so fractured that an individual abbey was a state in its own right sounded intriguing.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Try that ... you wouldn't need the external nations fighting over it for the setting, but the idea of a nation so fractured that an individual abbey was a state in its own right sounded intriguing.

If memory serves it is "could be" not "was" - plenty of abbots and landed knights who were not sovereigns.

But to answer your original question:
I'm not sure about the Germans, but there used to be a Nottingham-based
group - I believe they manufactured wooden boards for games and used to
hold the UK license for Dungeons & Dragons - that made a technically low
fantasy game set in a fantasy version of late medieval/renaissance Germany.
They're pretty obscure outside their field of specialty, so you might not have
heard of them...
:p

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

It occured to me that it would make a pretty good setting for a low fantasy RPG - plenty of scope for limited warfare, intrigue and the like. Possibly some German RPG company has already worked this out...

Well, Pendragon is often like that. You travel through lots of assorted holdings, fiefs, and so on, and they can all be making trouble with each other if they want. The trouble is that this doesn't make for much story, because the PCs aren't especially involved with these places.

To make factions interesting, you need to tie the PCs into them fairly closely. It makes for more of a Mafia game than heroism.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, Pendragon is often like that. You travel through lots of assorted holdings, fiefs, and so on, and they can all be making trouble with each other if they want. The trouble is that this doesn't make for much story, because the PCs aren't especially involved with these places.

To make factions interesting, you need to tie the PCs into them fairly closely. It makes for more of a Mafia game than heroism.

Which was why I suggested low fantasy - and at this scale, it's actually feasible for PCs to be significant figures: a more human scale if you will. It could almost be a 'bannerman' campaign or (and I'll quote more computer games later) something along the lines of The Guild or Patrician - in a smallish city state the Patriarchate are likely to be a lot nearer to the ground and whilst you may never see the Emperor, the Elector may be a fairly common sight.

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

If memory serves it is "could be" not "was" - plenty of abbots and landed knights who were not sovereigns.

You could get that anywhere. As I understand it, the Abbey they mentioned was a seperate state under the Emperor ... unlike, say, in Medieval England where a mitred abbot might well be a significant politician but was not really a peer of the realm. I may be looking at a distinction without an actual difference but it sounded cool. Plus I was playing Medieval Total War 2 at the time ... which had me in the right mindset but wishing for a bit more granularity.

"Like Mount and Blade" might be an interesting style of play.

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

But to answer your original question:
I'm not sure about the Germans, but there used to be a Nottingham-based
group - I believe they manufactured wooden boards for games and used to
hold the UK license for Dungeons & Dragons - that made a technically low
fantasy game set in a fantasy version of late medieval/renaissance Germany.
They're pretty obscure outside their field of specialty, so you might not have
heard of them...
:p

Heard of them I have ... to the dark side they turned. Mention them I shall not. :p.

I thought - very briefly - of them, but their conception of the Empire seems a bit too unified and its politics a bit too grand scale for me.

[Xenarthral]

Those places were around until Napoleon, by the way.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

You could get that anywhere. As I understand it, the Abbey they mentioned was a seperate state under the Emperor ... unlike, say, in Medieval England where a mitred abbot might well be a significant politician but was not really a peer of the realm. I may be looking at a distinction without an actual difference but it sounded cool. Plus I was playing Medieval Total War 2 at the time ... which had me in the right mindset but wishing for a bit more granularity.

There is an actual difference, as far as I know.

What I was trying to say was that one of the distinguishing features of the Holy Roman Empire was that any monastery, landed knight or small town
might be a separate state under the Emperor, but it was far from all of them
and it wasn't exactly the general state of affairs (but presumably special and individual cases dating back to privileges made by rulers like Otto The Undecided and Lothar The Flatulent for exceptional services granted or
inconvenient badassittude).

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I thought - very briefly - of them, but their conception of the Empire seems a bit too unified and its politics a bit too grand scale for me.

I'm inclined to think of it in terms of "not having the time, space and energy
to list every petty statelet", just as in, say, Crusader Kings you get Bavaria,
Saxony, Brandenburg, Bohemia and places like that, but not Schweinland-Pferd,
Kleinkleckersdorf or Dingenskirchen.
There is plenty of room for microstates making war on and intriguing against each
other. You just have to do a little more work yourself (or appeal to the forum).
And it's very easy to throw out the events of The Big Campaign and the goings-on
chronicled in the past few hundred editions of the wargame by not paying attention
to either.

As for the rules:
There is the option - as mentioned by, for example, Mr. Hite, although in reference to books on
different subjects - of trying to get hold of a second-hand copy. That way they don't get your
money and you hopefully get the
pre-dark side edition.
(And there's always GURPS.)

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think at one point there were more than 200 distinct states within German territory.

There was also a computer RPG set in that time period - Darklands.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

I think at one point there were more than 200 distinct states within German territory.

There was also a computer RPG set in that time period - Darklands.

Now that looks good ... to bad it's probably impossible to a) obtain legally and b) run on a modern PC.

[Anders]

It's in the public domain and completely playable with a DOSBox.