I would agree that dnd is mostly the Middle Ages, but it does seem to mix and match stuff from all across history. Then again, a lot of the technologies used in game are purely fantasy creations.
The Middle Ages spanned 10 centuries (6th - 16th). Maztica is mezoamerican-inspired, that refers to a period starting 7000BC and ending along with the Middle Ages. Al Qadim is set in an Islamic Golden Era time, that’s 8th until 14th century. Blackmoor (and thus Mystara later) was all over the place, with golden age of piracy influences, a crashed spaceship, massive war machines driven by combustion engines but also barbarian hordes. Mystara had Age of Exploration aspects, but also two warring empires modeled on ancient Rome (and a bunch of other eclectic stuff). Planescape rocked a Victorian era steampunkish vibe.
And all of the above is from when TSR was in charge of D&D. Even without WotC’s setting additions, it’s easy to justify three millennia or more of human history as relevant influences.
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It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
A lot of the official settings actually are post apocalyptic- Greyhawk, Eberron and the Forgotten Realms for example had ancient empires that were considerably more advanced than anything in the game's present, and then there's Dark Sun.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
What you described sounds a lot like that "Land of the Lost" kids show from the 70's :)
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
A lot of the official settings actually are post apocalyptic- Greyhawk, Eberron and the Forgotten Realms for example had ancient empires that were considerably more advanced than anything in the game's present, and then there's Dark Sun.
Actually, AFAIK, they were all post-apocalyptic. Mystara followed Blackmore too.
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
What you described sounds a lot like that "Land of the Lost" kids show from the 70's :)
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
A lot of the official settings actually are post apocalyptic- Greyhawk, Eberron and the Forgotten Realms for example had ancient empires that were considerably more advanced than anything in the game's present, and then there's Dark Sun.
That’s kind of a fantasy thing in general. Tolkien started it with Numenor (and Beleriand), Martin does it with Valyria, etc, etc…
It's because Renaissance era Europe treated the Roman Empire as a lost Golden Age and put down the Medieval period as a fallen Dark Age.
To be fair, they forgot how to make concrete for almost 1,000 years, and only just recently figured out why theirs then was still better than ours now. Like, the middle period was in some ways a fallen dark age. War, famine, pestilence, death… in many ways Europe underwent an apocalypse for a couple hundred years. The schism of the Roman Empire was a major paradigm shift in European history that only finally ended on May 8th, 1945.
It's because Renaissance era Europe treated the Roman Empire as a lost Golden Age and put down the Medieval period as a fallen Dark Age.
To be fair, they forgot how to make concrete for almost 1,000 years, and only just recently figured out why theirs then was still better than ours now. Like, the middle period was in some ways a fallen dark age. War, famine, pestilence, death… in many ways Europe underwent an apocalypse for a couple hundred years. The schism of the Roman Empire was a major paradigm shift in European history that only finally ended on May 8th, 1945.
Yup, the first 5 centuries, give or take, of the Middle Ages are still conventionally called the Dark Ages. Major decline (in Europe, anyway!) in pretty much every way - economically, scientifically, culturally, socially… Bad times.
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Tends to happen whenever all “the world’s*” wealth gets bottlenecked into a small pool. Everything goes haywire for a bit and then it apparently seems to all start over again.
It's because Renaissance era Europe treated the Roman Empire as a lost Golden Age and put down the Medieval period as a fallen Dark Age.
To be fair, they forgot how to make concrete for almost 1,000 years, and only just recently figured out why theirs then was still better than ours now. Like, the middle period was in some ways a fallen dark age. War, famine, pestilence, death… in many ways Europe underwent an apocalypse for a couple hundred years. The schism of the Roman Empire was a major paradigm shift in European history that only finally ended on May 8th, 1945.
Yeah, not trying to claim that there wasn't a decline for a few centuries, but both the "high" of the Roman Empire and the "low" of the Medieval Era got exaggerated- the Romans had war, famine, pestilence, and death aplenty. And Medieval Europeans were classified as illiterate by Renaissance scholars not because they couldn't read and write their own languages (which many of them actually could) but because they couldn't read or write Latin.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's because Renaissance era Europe treated the Roman Empire as a lost Golden Age and put down the Medieval period as a fallen Dark Age.
To be fair, they forgot how to make concrete for almost 1,000 years, and only just recently figured out why theirs then was still better than ours now. Like, the middle period was in some ways a fallen dark age. War, famine, pestilence, death… in many ways Europe underwent an apocalypse for a couple hundred years. The schism of the Roman Empire was a major paradigm shift in European history that only finally ended on May 8th, 1945.
Yeah, not trying to claim that there wasn't a decline for a few centuries, but both the "high" of the Roman Empire and the "low" of the Medieval Era got exaggerated- the Romans had war, famine, pestilence, and death aplenty. And Medieval Europeans were classified as illiterate by Renaissance scholars not because they couldn't read and write their own languages (which many of them actually could) but because they couldn't read or write Latin.
I understand it was Greek the West lost, not Latin, but in any case agree that the Medieval era gets a bad rap. Historians no longer consider it 'dark'. Essentially, every generation thinks they're the best, sprinkle in a bit of propaganda, and voila. The medieval period gave us hospitals (they technically started earlier, but took off after the Roman Empire was Christianised) and universities. Charlemagne made education available to the masses - that's late first millennium. Part of the myth of the dark ages is because the West was Latin speaking and preserved those texts while the Humanists rediscovered the Greek texts.
I understand it was Greek the West lost, not Latin, but in any case agree that the Medieval era gets a bad rap. Historians no longer consider it 'dark'. Essentially, every generation thinks they're the best, sprinkle in a bit of propaganda, and voila. The medieval period gave us hospitals (they technically started earlier, but took off after the Roman Empire was Christianised) and universities. Charlemagne made education available to the masses - that's late first millennium. Part of the myth of the dark ages is because the West was Latin speaking and preserved those texts while the Humanists rediscovered the Greek texts.
No, Latin was never lost- the Church used it though that whole time period, after all. The issue was that during the Renaissance, romanticization of the Roman Empire meant that it was considered to be the only language that mattered for determining how educated a person was. Since few Middle Ages people could read or write in it, they were therefore classified as "illiterate."
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Last time an honest to goodness Linguist passed through, they made the comment that in the Medieval era, Reading and Writing were entirely separate things and very few people knew both. Reading was rather discouraged by the Church, most documents were in Latin, and only the highly educated tended to learn it, and those were in the Clergy. If you needed writing done, you pretty much had to find a scribe, and those were also mostly clergymen.
It was a pet peeve of theirs that in D&D, not only are most characters fully literate, able to read and write, but they also know multiple languages and are fully literate in those too.
Of course, so the story goes, it was the Ancient Greeks who coined the term "barbarian", and so the story goes, it came from how they considered the people who didn't speak proper Greek as making noises that sounded to them like "bar-bar-bar". So pretty much most of us are technically Barbarians. Not a whole lot of people around who speak Ancient Greek, not even on the Greek islands.
I'd argue that the abundance of magic and long-lived individuals of great intelligence and wisdom are a big part of the reason many D&D settings never progress past the Renaissance technologically, they just don't have any need to (well that and regular global calamities hampering any lasting progress).
D&D has it's strongest roots in the Lord of the Rings books. Sort of amusingly, Professor Tolkien was a Linguist. That fact doesn't really have any bearing on the discussion, but it's ironic. It's sort of Robinhood-ish, and it fits beautifully with the King Arthur setting. There are weapons in the lists that go back to the beginning of recorded history like the Sling, and it goes all the way into things that I'm not sure ever really existed even in the late Renaissance period like the Hand Crossbow. Those are very modern, or at least anything capable of doing real damage is.
For myself, I play D&D on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to DnD on Saturday night. Our first session is today. Pity about the video, they picked the wrong day of the week.
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The Middle Ages spanned 10 centuries (6th - 16th). Maztica is mezoamerican-inspired, that refers to a period starting 7000BC and ending along with the Middle Ages. Al Qadim is set in an Islamic Golden Era time, that’s 8th until 14th century. Blackmoor (and thus Mystara later) was all over the place, with golden age of piracy influences, a crashed spaceship, massive war machines driven by combustion engines but also barbarian hordes. Mystara had Age of Exploration aspects, but also two warring empires modeled on ancient Rome (and a bunch of other eclectic stuff). Planescape rocked a Victorian era steampunkish vibe.
And all of the above is from when TSR was in charge of D&D. Even without WotC’s setting additions, it’s easy to justify three millennia or more of human history as relevant influences.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It’s at best “Pseudomedieval.” It’s more like post apocalyptic cycled back ‘round to a nebulous era where Winston Churchill is Caesar and there are dinosaurs.
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A lot of the official settings actually are post apocalyptic- Greyhawk, Eberron and the Forgotten Realms for example had ancient empires that were considerably more advanced than anything in the game's present, and then there's Dark Sun.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
What you described sounds a lot like that "Land of the Lost" kids show from the 70's :)
Actually, AFAIK, they were all post-apocalyptic. Mystara followed Blackmore too.
Yup. It came out the same year D&D came out…. 🤔
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That’s kind of a fantasy thing in general. Tolkien started it with Numenor (and Beleriand), Martin does it with Valyria, etc, etc…
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
It's because Renaissance era Europe treated the Roman Empire as a lost Golden Age and put down the Medieval period as a fallen Dark Age.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To be fair, they forgot how to make concrete for almost 1,000 years, and only just recently figured out why theirs then was still better than ours now. Like, the middle period was in some ways a fallen dark age. War, famine, pestilence, death… in many ways Europe underwent an apocalypse for a couple hundred years. The schism of the Roman Empire was a major paradigm shift in European history that only finally ended on May 8th, 1945.
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Yup, the first 5 centuries, give or take, of the Middle Ages are still conventionally called the Dark Ages. Major decline (in Europe, anyway!) in pretty much every way - economically, scientifically, culturally, socially… Bad times.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Tends to happen whenever all “the world’s*” wealth gets bottlenecked into a small pool. Everything goes haywire for a bit and then it apparently seems to all start over again.
* When “their world” was:
*Chronologically
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When does DnD take place?
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D&D on Sunday nights? Clearly, these folks don't have jobs. ;>)
Yeah, not trying to claim that there wasn't a decline for a few centuries, but both the "high" of the Roman Empire and the "low" of the Medieval Era got exaggerated- the Romans had war, famine, pestilence, and death aplenty. And Medieval Europeans were classified as illiterate by Renaissance scholars not because they couldn't read and write their own languages (which many of them actually could) but because they couldn't read or write Latin.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
True
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I understand it was Greek the West lost, not Latin, but in any case agree that the Medieval era gets a bad rap. Historians no longer consider it 'dark'. Essentially, every generation thinks they're the best, sprinkle in a bit of propaganda, and voila. The medieval period gave us hospitals (they technically started earlier, but took off after the Roman Empire was Christianised) and universities. Charlemagne made education available to the masses - that's late first millennium. Part of the myth of the dark ages is because the West was Latin speaking and preserved those texts while the Humanists rediscovered the Greek texts.
I'm sure scholars 900 years from now will have similar myths and misconceptions about why life in the 21st century was uniformly terrible.
No, Latin was never lost- the Church used it though that whole time period, after all. The issue was that during the Renaissance, romanticization of the Roman Empire meant that it was considered to be the only language that mattered for determining how educated a person was. Since few Middle Ages people could read or write in it, they were therefore classified as "illiterate."
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Last time an honest to goodness Linguist passed through, they made the comment that in the Medieval era, Reading and Writing were entirely separate things and very few people knew both. Reading was rather discouraged by the Church, most documents were in Latin, and only the highly educated tended to learn it, and those were in the Clergy. If you needed writing done, you pretty much had to find a scribe, and those were also mostly clergymen.
It was a pet peeve of theirs that in D&D, not only are most characters fully literate, able to read and write, but they also know multiple languages and are fully literate in those too.
Of course, so the story goes, it was the Ancient Greeks who coined the term "barbarian", and so the story goes, it came from how they considered the people who didn't speak proper Greek as making noises that sounded to them like "bar-bar-bar". So pretty much most of us are technically Barbarians. Not a whole lot of people around who speak Ancient Greek, not even on the Greek islands.
<Insert clever signature here>
I'd argue that the abundance of magic and long-lived individuals of great intelligence and wisdom are a big part of the reason many D&D settings never progress past the Renaissance technologically, they just don't have any need to (well that and regular global calamities hampering any lasting progress).
D&D has it's strongest roots in the Lord of the Rings books. Sort of amusingly, Professor Tolkien was a Linguist. That fact doesn't really have any bearing on the discussion, but it's ironic. It's sort of Robinhood-ish, and it fits beautifully with the King Arthur setting. There are weapons in the lists that go back to the beginning of recorded history like the Sling, and it goes all the way into things that I'm not sure ever really existed even in the late Renaissance period like the Hand Crossbow. Those are very modern, or at least anything capable of doing real damage is.
For myself, I play D&D on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to DnD on Saturday night. Our first session is today. Pity about the video, they picked the wrong day of the week.
<Insert clever signature here>