Hot answers tagged fantasy
29
There are a number of fascinating assumptions on sovereignty and justice in this question. A sovereign entity is one who, in the normal course of events, holds or can enforce a monopoly on force. Justice has always been pragmatized to respect sovereignty. This answer is written from a historical/realistic perspective.
Consider the institutions of high and ...
27
I think a good question should be "why are they going off-map?". You're running a sandbox campaign, so you're generally waiting for the characters' own motivations to lead to the next adventure. These motivations can be one of several things: they can be hunger for adventure, gold or power - in which, case, you're in control, since you determine where these ...
25
This depends a great deal on the setting.
Many settings include mundane means for neutralizing magic. In this case, you can pretty much assume that every town has access to some means of imprisoning casters, assuming they have enough knowledge to make it work.
In D&D (as of at least 3rd edition) spell casters needed the ability to speak and move ...
23
There are a few games with reasonable economics: Runequest (2nd or 3rd ed, not the Mongoose versions) and Pendragon (all editions). Fantasy Wargaming, for all its derision as a game, has decent econ research. Later versions of Chivlary & Sorcery also do reasonably well at it. Several supplements for Hero System also have decent price lists.
There are ...
22
An interesting villain has:
Motivations for doing what he does. There's this cliche, "nobody thinks of themselves as evil." That's not true for all settings, but I think it is fair to say that very few villains are just evil for the sake of cackling. So you should figure out what's driving your bad guys.
Shades of grey. The degree depends, again, on the ...
22
Mounts have several advantages and several disadvantages, especially for adventurers. Here's one Texan's perspective on going horsed vs not.
Advantages
Ability to carry a lot more grub/gear/loot than you can yourself
Keeps you from getting tuckered out from long marches (the horses may get
fatigued, but you're still semi-fresh for a fight)
Faster ...
20
Looking at the cleric as a bundle of resources for a moment:
Both wells and clerics generate water. A well accesses underground aquifers* and can generate larger and smaller volumes of water depending on local circumstances. Furthermore, most liquid intended for human consumption is vaguely alcoholic as a purifying measure.
A human will consume 3-4 liters ...
19
Back in the day, evidence was not as important as now. A lot of law was based on the person with the higher title being more honourable, so a landowner would win his case against a serf, for instance. Maybe your characters could try to get the support of a higher-ranking person if they want to convict, say, a knight?
Consider the amount of corruption in the ...
17
Medieval peasants and most tribal cultures...
Typically, children under age 1 were nursed by mothers who nursed them frequently whilst doing other work. Children aged 1-2 might still be nursing, or might already be transitioned to the next group...
Ages 2-4 were supervised by aunts and grandparents, and had as much play as they would ever see; the basic ...
17
Most everybody else is focusing on the cleric creating water; I'll focus on the military tactics then. Especially since I played not too long ago in a 3.5 campaign that heavily used -- in my opinion -- rather clever and realistic tactics that made use of spell casters.
Basically, it all boils down to one simple principle: Think of offensive mages as siege ...
17
Three basic techniques come to mind:
keep a "Big Enough" map
keep the edges really unpleasant
keep the central areas really interesting
A couple more are more "corny" but can work...
a literal barrier at the edges
Wrath of the Gods at the edges
End of the world at the edges
Have your players agree not to go off the map
Some expansion on these ...
15
The cheapest source of metal minis I know is Mega Minis, which does reproductions of a lot of old Grenadier minis plus a ton of new stuff. They go down to $1, $1.50 apiece.
EBay sometimes has big collections of old minis, albeit not necessarily pewter. The condition of those can be a bit of a crapshoot.
One Monk paper minis just went free, so that's about ...
15
Childhood is a modern invention. In medieval times, children were treated as little adults.
So, the idea of "play"? That's a modern invention, too, and especially a Western one. In medieval times, children were expected to work as soon as they could.
In some non-Western cultures today, the same applies. The child gets involved in cooking and caring for ...
15
Things I would emphasize in an Iron Age setting:
Lack of information. In medieval settings, while peasants might know rather little of anything beyond the next town over, scholars at least have a pretty good idea of "the big picture". Just one example: Maps of the continent you're on exist, and while usually being pretty bad as far as scale is concerned, ...
14
It's quite possible to buy miniatures for much less than $1 apiece. I wrote an article on this topic for Kobold Quarterly, which I'll summarize.
Caesar Miniatures produces cheap fantasy and historical miniatures for $11.99 per 35 or so, or around 35 cents apiece. These cover the basics: dwarves, elves, humans, orcs, goblins, skeletons, mediaeval infantry, ...
14
I make my own: this is a lot easier than it sounds -- be advised that I'm a bit of a craft-klutz, and one of the reasons I don't collect minis is I have no confidence at all that I could really paint them well enough for my taste. So, actually, I don't make minis, but I make counters.
First, I buy a batch of appropriately sized, good quality mini bases (I ...
14
Evidence was definitely not so important as today, but witnesses were. As Dakeyras noted, their status was important. Word of one noble was about as important as two or three townsmen and more important than any number of peasants (if someone of higher status didn't back them).
Question is, whether you want to emphasize "medieval", "fantasy" or "crime ...
14
Thanks for the clarification.
basically, as much as i appreciate all the answers so far, it would really help me to get to the source of them, why is it how it is, what is the cause, what led that people to develop their system how they did? and how will that natural development be different in my world, when fantasy is involved.
What it boils down to ...
13
Medical practice as we now thing of it was not extant until the 17th Century; the various providers of medical treatment included a variety of individuals with various titles. Some of the trends
Laech, Physicker, Leech: Generally, a practitioner of Roman medicine. Leaches, salves, ointments, unguents, and caurterization, perhaps some stitching of ...
13
Unless you are only going a short distance riding is far preferable to walking unless one of the following circumstances is present.
You require some amount of stealth or sneakiness for the duration of the journey. Horses are loud, carts are louder.
The entire trip is through an uncharted or very dense forest that would make mounted transportation ...
13
It will depend on the technology level of the world as well as the logistical connectivity of the village to the rest of the world, if the villagers don't travel or have access to good ore then they're not going to have as many tools unless merchants brave the far reaches of the unprofitable areas of the kingdom/empire/etc.
As technological levels increase ...
13
The things that we take for granted that would be different on a flat earth or discworld are:
The horizon would be weird – there wouldn't be one. Eventually things would just get so far away that perspective would make them too small or they'd just fade into the atmospheric haze.
What's on the other side of the disc? The sort of players I know would try to ...
13
Noting that I don't like Pratchet's writings I have read, I've not read Diskworld, so my familiarity with it is very low, and so this is answered more generically...
So I'll base it upon a thick plate, and presume gravity is present and works close to normally, but always perpendicular to the world-plane.
no coriolis forces on non-spinning worlds
storms ...
13
The system/setting that springs to mind is Savage Worlds and Hellfrost. As per your criteria:
Fast paced
Combat in Savage Worlds is specifically designed to be quick, and mostly resolves one way or the other within 5 rounds. It also deals with larger numbers of opponents without a great deal of slow down in how things are calculated, and minimises the ...
12
Burning Wheel
Its Duel of Wits system is social combat, which is great for con games.
It is set in a generic, pseudo-Medieval, Tolkienesque fantasy world.
It will really give some "teeth" to the con game (consequences!) through its Beliefs and Artha systems.
Its lifepaths will easily accommodate a medieval urban setting.
12
You have a variety of choices.
Tell the party which areas you have stuff prepared for, and let them pick from those; if you have more than 3-4 choices, this generally won't feel like rail-roading.
Come up with a story about an ancient blessing on the kingdom keeping out the more ferocious monsters. If the party wanders out of the area, hit them with ...
12
The short answer is, you want FATE. But, keeping in mind your mention of generic systems, here's why FATE works and why it won't be as bad as you think, and it's all to do with a version of FATE called Dresden Files.
Supports fantasy settings
Dresden Files takes place in an urban fantasy world. The title character is a Chicago PI who happens to also be a ...
12
I'm a fan of Burning Wheel's combat. It's brutal, but rarely deadly. Take a mid-level wound and you're basically useless, fighting at a severe handicap. None of this nonsense of having 1hp and still fighting at full strength.
Plus, there are three ways to resolve a martial conflict: the full Fight! rules (for melee), the Range & Cover rules (for ranged ...
12
Wizards.com itself has a massive collection.
Finding exactly what you need can be tedious, but for sheer volume it's hard to beat the wizards.com galleries and archives.
The Art & Map Gallery and the Map-A-Week Archive are both free, and give access to most of the maps published in D&D 3.5 physical volumes and adventures (though not the content ...
11
I am quiet fond of computer game music. It loops nicely, generally is quiet good, and has many themes similar to your game. You can get your travel, spooky, hide and sneak, and of course, combat.
Examples would be Dragon Age (1 and 2), Assassin's Creed (2 and brotherhood), Europa Universalis 3 (although this one maybe a little more renaissance), Jade ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
