Historical accuracy and Fantasy gaming

[Ed the Coastie]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The early games I took part in even had the institution of the "caller": The players would discuss among themselves what their characters could do, but then the caller would sum up all of their decisions as an order to the GM, in effect treating the characters as members of a tactical unit. Player/player dialogue did not represent character/character dialogue so much as tactical planning. When only one player gets to speak, dialogue is limited.

Oh, I remember the "caller"...and the "mapper"...and charts detailing everything from marching order in varying size areas to general PC notes...and gaming in math classrooms because they had chalkboards on most of the walls and you could put your charts up there for easy reference...

Dang...now I am having 80's flashbacks!

[Gavynn]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

They visited several populated areas that lacked any evidence of the cultivation that would have been necessary to support their populations: Bree, Rivendell, Lorien, Edoras, Isengard in LOTR, the Woodland Realm in The Hobbit.

Though Sam did marvel at the lack of cultivation in Mordor, and the omniscient narrator mentioned distant farmlands around the Sea of Nurnen. Sam made no corresponding comments about Bree, Rivendell, Lorien. I don't know what we can read into that.

I have never taken it that Bree, Rivendell, Lorien, Edoras, Isengard, etc, had no means of food production, only that it just never came up in the narrative. I doubt Tolkien intended for Bree to have no means of producin food. Sam did specifically comment about the lack of obvious food production in Mordor - he did not make the same comment about Rivendell, for example. Therefore, I tend to think Sam called out the place where things appeared to be out of order and never specifically commented on where things were all in order.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

Oh, I remember the "caller"...and the "mapper"...and charts detailing everything from marching order in varying size areas to general PC notes...and gaming in math classrooms because they had chalkboards on most of the walls and you could put your charts up there for easy reference...

Dang...now I am having 80's flashbacks!

Hehe ... although these days I do like to take the GURPS approach and, at the very least, prevent the use of grid paper for mapping.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Hehe ... although these days I do like to take the GURPS approach and, at the very least, prevent the use of grid paper for mapping.

The last time I used a game map—one of those rolled up plastic hex boards—it was to play out a formal dance for young aristocrats and the soldiers and village gentry who were attending as their guests.

Bill Stoddard

[Ed the Coastie]

I'll use square or hex maps about half of the time...particularly if a battle is occurring indoors. For outdoors fights, though, I tend to return to my wargaming roots, with buildings made out of legos and such. (I like building miniature dioramas.)

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Fish

Not enough — in that era, you'd expect a much higher proportion of the world to revolve around food production, but the Fellowship trekked across hundreds of miles of trackless waste and only once, in Hobbiton, did they cross farmland.

Methinks you're not paying close enough attention to your Tolkien.

Eriador was largely wasteland. It included the Shire, however, whose farms are obvious. But you're forgetting about the farms of Rohan (mentioned several times, including a mention of how the orcs burn them outside of Helm's Deep), the farms of Gondor (south of the White Mountains), and the farms of the Beornings (west of Mirkwood). I believe there is also mention of farms around Laketown in The Hobbit. There are the also vineyards near Rhûn. Heck, even Mordor has farms to the south. And farms are also mentioned in the Silmarillion, including in Hithlum.

The farmlands of the Elves are never described, and the food production of the Dwarves is unknown (though we know the folk of the Lonely Mountain imported their food from Dale). But it is never denied that they have farms, either, or some kind of food production.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In having NO way to define an ordinary man who wasn't an adventurer (okay, "Level One Fighting Man"—but the progression chart equates that to "Veteran," which sounds like they have more experience than, say, a typical peasant levy),

You're forgetting the 0-level man.

or to represent someone's having skills of social interaction, craft, or artistic creation, D&D had a much more restrictive focus on the quest/adventure stuff that Tolkien had.

As for craft, D&D — even the original — had good lists of professionals and rules governing their skill use. The game assumed that professionals were non-adventurers, but there was nothing to stop you from saying "My character is also a blacksmith; I'm going to use the smithing rules of the blacksmith."

Skills of social interaction were handled by the players themselves. If you want to negotiate, you do it yourself. As the game was not meant as a character simulation, this was fine.

There were no artistic skills, because these have little to do with a sword & sorcery adventure.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

As for craft, D&D — even the original — had good lists of professionals and rules governing their skill use. The game assumed that professionals were non-adventurers, but there was nothing to stop you from saying "My character is also a blacksmith; I'm going to use the smithing rules of the blacksmith."

On what page of the three little tan books, or of Greyhawk, did that list and those rules occur? I do have copies of those books, and I don't recall them.

Skills of social interaction were handled by the players themselves. If you want to negotiate, you do it yourself. As the game was not meant as a character simulation, this was fine.

There were no artistic skills, because these have little to do with a sword & sorcery adventure.

That's pretty much exactly what I said: The focus was more narrowly on quests, adventures, and fights than in Tolkien. Tolkien has a huge number of examples of characters singing and playing music and even extemporizing song lyrics; he has examples of tales, notably the tale of Nine-Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom, and there's the notable conversation between Frodo and Sam about who is the hero of their story; he has many examples of works of craft, such as the Gates of Moria, and some of works of fine art, such as the huge sculptures of the ancient kings; he has Gimli's speech about how the dwarves would reshape the glittering caves to make them even more beautiful. A game in which none of that ever comes up is very definitely not Tolkienian. It is, as you say, sword and sorcery, whereas Tolkien is much closer to high fantasy.

Bill Stoddard

[Murrkon5]

Though I've locked horns with historical obsessives in a few games of varying genres, nowhere do I find it more rampant than in a "Pirates" type game. Suddenly *everyone* is a bloody expert on scurvy, crew ranks, how to tack to a lee shore and gunpowder charges for a cannon.

I found the setting up of ships for a boarding action to be the most tedious. "Is it a barque or a schooner or a brigatine? Then there are two masts set precisely here, and here, the bilge is here, the captain's cabin is here, he keeps his seachest here, the picture of his wife here..."

As I say, every campaign with a toe in reality will flush out one "expert", but apparently the tonal qualities of "Arrrgh, avast ye swab" triggers some deep genetic memory of the bounding main in the majority of the team.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Murrkon5

Though I've locked horns with historical obsessives in a few games of varying genres, nowhere do I find it more rampant than in a "Pirates" type game. Suddenly *everyone* is a bloody expert on scurvy, crew ranks, how to tack to a lee shore and gunpowder charges for a cannon.

Maybe there's just something about the people you hang out with, because I've never observed that to be the case. Though I'm often guilty of objecting to things on the grounds of historical plausibility, I'm vastly less likely to do so in a pirate game. Give me rum and cutlasses, and I couldn't care less. Hoist the poop deck, swab the mizzenmast, yo ho ho, etc. Arrr.