Kotath: Great point! Basing our aproximate time period off the armour does make more sense. All sorts of weapons were develouped to combat the armour. Each armour meanwhile was limited by technology.
Kotath: Great point! Basing our aproximate time period off the armour does make more sense. All sorts of weapons were develouped to combat the armour. Each armour meanwhile was limited by technology.
Each weapon was obviously also limited by technology, that goes without saying. But again, the rapier wasn't "only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms". Nor was it really invented or designed to combat armour.
Kotath: Great point! Basing our aproximate time period off the armour does make more sense. All sorts of weapons were develouped to combat the armour. Each armour meanwhile was limited by technology.
Each weapon was obviously also limited by technology, that goes without saying. But again, the rapier wasn't "only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms". Nor was it really invented or designed to combat armour.
Again, the first fencing manuals from the school that developed and promoted the entire style (and thus promoted the rapier) show up around 1409. And the name 'rapier' shows up much later but according to the article "The origin of the rapier is more than likely Spanish. Its name is a "derisive" description of the Spanish term "ropera". The Spanish term refers to a sword used with clothes ("espada ropera", dress sword), due to it being used as an accessory for clothing, usually for fashion and as a self-defense weapon."
In other words, such weapons pre-existed the term. They were merely popularized by the Italian School of Swordsmanship. Again, when talking about history, one cannot assume that what we have is all the evidence that ever was. This is Wikipedia that we are referencing, on a relatively esoteric subject.
Completely wrong. If you had bothered reading the 1409 manual you would have known that no rapiers of the kind we are discussing is depicted. we have enough information to say with certain that there were no 16th century style rapiers in the period of 1000CE to 1200CE.
I've written a few essays considering when I'd guess D&D's adventures would take place. Sure the Forgotten Realms isn't Earth. Sure Magic throws a monkey wrench into how technology works... but what time period would you put it in?
Personally, I imagine it mostly as Europe's 1400's... but it can be widened to 1100 to 1600. How about you?
Given the organized government systems then I would say it is hard to place, 1400’s Europe is pretty much feudalistic, with the “peasantry” class having no real ability or freedom. The DnD world is a lot freer then this, I equate it almost to the American west during the expansion, in fact if you ignore technology early colony America is probably the closest you can get to an equivalent environment.
Large swathes of un charted land, natural dangers, natives who are unhappy at the encroachment of the newcomers. You have a political conflict with Spain, France and other nations trying to exert influence. You have small towns and settlements on the outskirts with larger population centers near the sea.
Technologically as well DnD is harder to place, in a world with magic available to do things like teleport the drive to make mass transit machines is reduced. The Wright brothers won’t tinker a plane because they can teleport so are more likely to create some other invention.
It was a rhetorical question. There were no such weapons as the D&D rapier in 1200CE.
Well is there any school of swordsmanship of any era that teaches alternative methods relying primarily on strength or dexterity respectively, but not both? Technically one could argue that the D&D rapier has not existed at all IRL, in any era.
A weapon known as a rapier has, but there is ongoing handwringing over whether 5e longswords are correctly named too.
As I understand it, the rapier became popular due in great part to the teachings of Italian swordsmanship schools, with the first known formal manual published in 1409. But unless said manual was written first to encourage sword makers to invent the rapier, it would follow that the rapier, or at least something very rapier like must have been out at least in the late 1300's. Even if not popular enough to be publicly available, it is quite possible that some swordsmith somewhere had come up with the idea much earlier and there merely is no record of it, since it hadn't caught on yet.
That seems like a chicken and egg problem. Were Italian techniques invented for the rapier, or was the rapier invented for Italian techniques. Either is plausible. Italian techniques could have been invented for the longsword. As they became popular, it became clear that different dimensions of longsword than had previously been used were better suited to those techniques, and the longsword gradually evolved into the rapier.
The Estoc was around in the 14th century, a French thrusting sword. It was designed to exploit gaps in armour, since it was getting too difficult to simply cut through armour or even too difficult to simply bash in. So the concept was developed against armour, then refined against unarmoured people. So in a sense it was still developed originally as an anti-armour weapon. Evolution of the pointy stick.
The estoc or tuck isn't really the same as a rapier but it does show that pointy sticks were being used not because of the decline of heavy armour due to firearms but rather to serve a different purpose than cutting blades.
Well more specifically, to serve the purpose that cutting blades started failing to do. They are actually a response to heavy armour rather than due to it's decline.
Not really. The rapier was originally a civilian weapon so it was never intended for use against armour.
The rapier, specifically, though was the result of thinking 'Hey, why don't we refine this idea for civilian use?'
No. There can be development of both civilian and military weapons going on at the same time. In either case, it wasn't because firearms had made armour useless.
But really, it was the development of heavier or otherwise more resistant armor in the late medieval / early renaissance period that led to their development. Probably better trying to place the timeline based on available armour rather than on the rapier.
Again, the development of the rapier had very little if anything to do with the development of armour. And again, again, it's really irrelevant what we are talking about, the point still stands. If you have a setting based on the time period of 1000CE to 1200CE you can't include things from "circa 1,500". Doesn't matter if it's rapiers, the European printing press or codpieces.
Kotath: Great point! Basing our aproximate time period off the armour does make more sense. All sorts of weapons were develouped to combat the armour. Each armour meanwhile was limited by technology.
Each weapon was obviously also limited by technology, that goes without saying. But again, the rapier wasn't "only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms". Nor was it really invented or designed to combat armour.
Again, the first fencing manuals from the school that developed and promoted the entire style (and thus promoted the rapier) show up around 1409. And the name 'rapier' shows up much later but according to the article "The origin of the rapier is more than likely Spanish. Its name is a "derisive" description of the Spanish term "ropera". The Spanish term refers to a sword used with clothes ("espada ropera", dress sword), due to it being used as an accessory for clothing, usually for fashion and as a self-defense weapon."
In other words, such weapons pre-existed the term. They were merely popularized by the Italian School of Swordsmanship. Again, when talking about history, one cannot assume that what we have is all the evidence that ever was. This is Wikipedia that we are referencing, on a relatively esoteric subject.
Completely wrong. If you had bothered reading the 1409 manual you would have known that no rapiers of the kind we are discussing is depicted. we have enough information to say with certain that there were no 16th century style rapiers in the period of 1000CE to 1200CE.
I did not say that rapiers were mentioned in that first manual
You implied that they. But hey, if you're finally admitting that you are wrong, good on ya. The point is still tha the 1409 manuals are completely irrelevant to the rapier's existance.
and did say that the term itself did not show up until much later. But why this fixation on 1000CE to 1200CE anyway?
Seriously? Haven't you read anything at all in this post? How many times does it needs repeating? But sure, here it is again. I was answering a claim that said that D&D takes place between 1000CE and 1200CE. I said that ifthat was the case you would have to exclude a lot of things, including the rapier.
Again, this is a magical setting and real world date ranges do not work well. Was there any technological reason that prevented earlier development of rapiers?
Metallurgy, mostly. Making that kind of blade requires different techniques than were available. And, of course, there is the fact that there really wasn't a need for the rapier back then.
Seems to me they were developed more for socioeconomic reasons, i.e. too many young fops needing a macho hobby, rather than any real need in any conventional sense.
And you would, yet again, be wrong.
Again, i feel there are far better measures placing the time later than 1000CE to 1200CE than whether rapiers exist or not.
Good for you. Not really sure what that strawman has anything to do with what I've been talking about and I haven't really disputed any such claims, but now we know.
If the DM outlaws rapiers for their campaign, would you still consider it to fit the earlier timeline?
Again, not really sure what that has to do with anything but as has been mentioned already, if you consider D&D to take place in about the era 1000CE to 1200CE ou would have to include, amongst other things, the rapier. D&D in general really can't be said to fit into a specific time period, it's way too mixed up. You would have to look at specific settings to even start making sense of it.
Dungeons and Dragons takes place in a setting inspired by the works of Professor Tolkien, the magic system came from Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. The Alignment system came from the Eternal Champion stories by Michael Moorcock. Robert Howard gave us the Barbarian class. There's a bit of Fritz Leiber's Fafhred (who was a Fighter) and the Gray Mouser (who was a Rogue) stories. The stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table gave us the Paladin class, the Monk came from the stories about The Destroyer by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir about a guy named Remo Williams. Bards and Druids came from Irish Celtic legends. The Cleric class is based on the Knights Templar from the Crusades.
The monsters largely come from Greek Bestiaries, with some things from Norse mythology.
There are types of armor that ever existed in the real world, like Studded Leather and Ring Mail. Hide Armor wouldn't have been worn by anyone, not even Barbarians, since it would interfere with their Unarmored Defense. Some of the armor that did exist uses the wrong names. Many types or armor were really only different from one another because of what locations they covered, but the hit point system doesn't allow for called shots, so it doesn't make any difference. A Chain Hauberk and Chain Mail ought to have the same Armor Class.
Real world weapons came in so many different shapes and sizes that it would take an entire book to cover a minor percentage of them, and D&D covers everything from throwing rocks, to using a Sling to throw them further, and all the way on up to laser guns.
There's no way at all to give a real world approximation for what historical time period that might be.
As for me, D&D happens on Wednesday and Sunday nights.
I will say don’t forget gunpowder weapons, this is probably a better way to “age” technology. But also, magic would slow down technological progress. If you want proof of just how something can impact a cultures development, because China had such good ceramics experience, they didn’t as a culture develop glass, or high meant they didn’t do chemistry fully beacause they didn’t have the ability to make glass vessels, also, they didn’t develop reading glasses so lost the ability to read and write at a far younger age.
So a culture that was highly developed and intelligent lost out in the technological advancement of the world simply because they made better teacups then everyone else. So imagine a world where magic exists, why learn how to dig a hole quicker when you can ask a Druid or wizard to do it for you, why invent the plane when you can fly thanks to a potion, or travel across the world at a click of a finger.
For me it is pointless to look at the equipment and weapons. You are better looking at the culture and society. Most DnD settings have either a ruling council, or some form of government, or where there is a good king he has a form of democracy under him. But the world is not fully populated (lots of areas to be explored and lots of isolated settlements).
There is a common currency that is based on good standard but no real complicated economy of banking, credit notes etc.
Generally travel is undertaken only when necessary by the masses.
There is no single god, instead there are multiple religions that exist in harmony with each other,
So I think you are looking at a cross between Ancient Greek or Roman era, mixed with the land of early colonial America, combined with the technology (if you allow gunpowder in your campaign) of 13-1400’s Europe but magic then gives the abilities and technologies of early 30th century with the ability to travel to multiple worlds (the planes), travel through space, and teleport all over the world. Oh and make swords that almost behave like a light saber (a +3 weapon).
My point, as interesting a thought experiment as this is it is impossible to think about DnD equating to a period of history because it doesn’t you can pick and choose a single object but that then ignores the evidence against your point. So in my opinion my home brew world equates to 945 AC After the Cataclysm. Which equates to exactly never in terms of human history.
But maybe actually the DnD world equates to a period far into the future where humanity has evolved into different races, where we have lost so much of our technology because magic was discovered, and then ripped the world asunder, and so the races have lost there memory if cars, and TVs and really magic items are just “ancient” technology found but not understood.
Or, and this is my favorite, maybe the characters and world are just a computer simulation created by a crazy computer who, convinced by a programmer, decided to use an 80’s game to keep its infrared citizens occupied until needed. Or it is a VR created by some Netrunner for his mates in Night City. (Both of these ideas I have used to Segway my players from a long running campaign to a cyberpunk or paranoia short adventure).
The current setting of Faerun in 5E is more closely related to post apocalyptic. There are several reality wielding super cultures that have declined only a few thousand years ago, and the current age of sword and sorcery is a mostly artificial outcome of decline rather than progress.
I have to admit your bringing up of dinosaurs (and they are not only in the monster manual-they are given great detail) is the best example of how hard it is to pin dungeons & dragons to a certain time period. Because there's so many weapons and armors that are used that all span a good thousand years. Not to mention the navel vessels that are listed, as well as political and other examples given in the dungeon Masters book. And then it also depends on which dungeon Master's guide you're talking about. The first edition one has just about everything in it going back from 1700 and back to 1000 BC. But by bringing up dinosaurs, I got a good laugh out of that. Also those magical weapons must date back to the BC area at least.
I got a good laugh out of the dinosaur part. I want to thank you for it.
I think the best concept of most D&D worlds is that they’re roughly what the late 17th-century would look like - if you had magic and very limited firearms.
The societal systems are largely those of the late Age of Exploration. Sailing ships are well developed, you could see something like the English Civil War having happened, and the mercantile class and towns are important.
But there are no steam engines and in most settings, while there may (or may not) be personal firearms, there are usually no cannons - but magic exists.
With those caveats, in a lot of ways, it could be any time from the High Middle Ages to the early Age of Enlightenment. which is exactly the same fantasy “Neverwhen” time period in which Disney Princess movies occur.
The arquebus has been in D&D since at least 2nd edition, and both the musket and rifle debuted by the end of the 15th century. Then there are ball bearings, which are used for locomotion. They first ones were used in the axles of proto-bycycles, though they could see use in wagons. Something analogous to steam engines is not outside the realm of possibility; especially with Eberron.
And then there's magic, which dramatically changes things. The world─societally and technologically─would advance differently.
My personal preference is renaissance. Settings like the Forgotten Realms are continuously post-apocalyptic with widespread basic education. That fits the bill.
I think that it's safe to say that d&d is quite old-fashioned and includes various things that we don't have in our world, so in general it'd be difficult to predict when it would take place. I have to agree with some of the other comments, though, that between the Late Middle Ages it would be a decent fit. What do you think about this?
The presence of working magic throws everything off. That along with a poor understanding of just what levels of technology different eras of the ancient world actually had. We know that steam power was understood along with advanced geared systems sometime between 200 BCE and 100 CE because of the antikythera device and the steam engine of Heron and Vitruvius. While we typically think of laces like Faerun as being iron and steel based little if anything would need to be changed if we stepped back to around 1200-900 BCE and the transition from bronze to iron/steel with magic weapons being iron and steel and normal weapons being bronze. Gunpowder/smokepowder was essentially unneeded in older editions where you didn’t have attunement so you could (and did) carry multiple wands and/or staves (each with way more than 7-10 charges) that effectively took the places of pistols and long guns. The presence of dinosaurs doesn’t, to my mind, have any impact on when as they are accounted for in “lost worlds” like Chult in all the official settings (homebrew is on its own here). Gunpowder was discovered by Chinese alchemists sometime before 1000 CE and in use in China and at least Korea by 1000 CE. But the formula(s) is so simple that it could have been discovered at pretty much any point from @2000 BCE on. The Almeden region of northern Spain has a very broken terrain in the areas around the ancient silver mines. It was only about 10-15 years ago that it was demonstrated that this was the result of Roman hydraulic mining literally blasting the insides of the mines apart and Down into the valleys for processing to extract the silver ores in bulk easily. (essentially doing the mining, crushing and separation all at once on a scale as large as modern mines.) When we actually look at what we know the ancient Greeks knew they were surprisingly far ahead of the everyday technology of the times. Most of what was developed between 1500 CE and 1870 CE was rediscovery of what the ancient Greeks already knew and lost with the collapse of the Roman Empire in 450 CE. WE are living in a post apocalyptic age every bit as much as worlds like Faerun. (forget Netheril - look at the Creator races, and the Elves before the crown wars. So no real world era really fits the worlds of D&D.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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Kotath: Great point! Basing our aproximate time period off the armour does make more sense. All sorts of weapons were develouped to combat the armour. Each armour meanwhile was limited by technology.
Each weapon was obviously also limited by technology, that goes without saying. But again, the rapier wasn't "only invented because people stopped using heavy armor because it was useless against firearms". Nor was it really invented or designed to combat armour.
Completely wrong. If you had bothered reading the 1409 manual you would have known that no rapiers of the kind we are discussing is depicted.
we have enough information to say with certain that there were no 16th century style rapiers in the period of 1000CE to 1200CE.
Given the organized government systems then I would say it is hard to place, 1400’s Europe is pretty much feudalistic, with the “peasantry” class having no real ability or freedom. The DnD world is a lot freer then this, I equate it almost to the American west during the expansion, in fact if you ignore technology early colony America is probably the closest you can get to an equivalent environment.
Large swathes of un charted land, natural dangers, natives who are unhappy at the encroachment of the newcomers. You have a political conflict with Spain, France and other nations trying to exert influence. You have small towns and settlements on the outskirts with larger population centers near the sea.
Technologically as well DnD is harder to place, in a world with magic available to do things like teleport the drive to make mass transit machines is reduced. The Wright brothers won’t tinker a plane because they can teleport so are more likely to create some other invention.
Not really. The rapier was originally a civilian weapon so it was never intended for use against armour.
No. There can be development of both civilian and military weapons going on at the same time. In either case, it wasn't because firearms had made armour useless.
Again, the development of the rapier had very little if anything to do with the development of armour. And again, again, it's really irrelevant what we are talking about, the point still stands. If you have a setting based on the time period of 1000CE to 1200CE you can't include things from "circa 1,500". Doesn't matter if it's rapiers, the European printing press or codpieces.
You implied that they. But hey, if you're finally admitting that you are wrong, good on ya. The point is still tha the 1409 manuals are completely irrelevant to the rapier's existance.
Seriously? Haven't you read anything at all in this post? How many times does it needs repeating? But sure, here it is again. I was answering a claim that said that D&D takes place between 1000CE and 1200CE. I said that if that was the case you would have to exclude a lot of things, including the rapier.
Metallurgy, mostly. Making that kind of blade requires different techniques than were available. And, of course, there is the fact that there really wasn't a need for the rapier back then.
And you would, yet again, be wrong.
Good for you. Not really sure what that strawman has anything to do with what I've been talking about and I haven't really disputed any such claims, but now we know.
Again, not really sure what that has to do with anything but as has been mentioned already, if you consider D&D to take place in about the era 1000CE to 1200CE ou would have to include, amongst other things, the rapier. D&D in general really can't be said to fit into a specific time period, it's way too mixed up. You would have to look at specific settings to even start making sense of it.
Dungeons and Dragons takes place in a setting inspired by the works of Professor Tolkien, the magic system came from Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. The Alignment system came from the Eternal Champion stories by Michael Moorcock. Robert Howard gave us the Barbarian class. There's a bit of Fritz Leiber's Fafhred (who was a Fighter) and the Gray Mouser (who was a Rogue) stories. The stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table gave us the Paladin class, the Monk came from the stories about The Destroyer by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir about a guy named Remo Williams. Bards and Druids came from Irish Celtic legends. The Cleric class is based on the Knights Templar from the Crusades.
The monsters largely come from Greek Bestiaries, with some things from Norse mythology.
There are types of armor that ever existed in the real world, like Studded Leather and Ring Mail. Hide Armor wouldn't have been worn by anyone, not even Barbarians, since it would interfere with their Unarmored Defense. Some of the armor that did exist uses the wrong names. Many types or armor were really only different from one another because of what locations they covered, but the hit point system doesn't allow for called shots, so it doesn't make any difference. A Chain Hauberk and Chain Mail ought to have the same Armor Class.
Real world weapons came in so many different shapes and sizes that it would take an entire book to cover a minor percentage of them, and D&D covers everything from throwing rocks, to using a Sling to throw them further, and all the way on up to laser guns.
There's no way at all to give a real world approximation for what historical time period that might be.
As for me, D&D happens on Wednesday and Sunday nights.
<Insert clever signature here>
I will say don’t forget gunpowder weapons, this is probably a better way to “age” technology. But also, magic would slow down technological progress. If you want proof of just how something can impact a cultures development, because China had such good ceramics experience, they didn’t as a culture develop glass, or high meant they didn’t do chemistry fully beacause they didn’t have the ability to make glass vessels, also, they didn’t develop reading glasses so lost the ability to read and write at a far younger age.
So a culture that was highly developed and intelligent lost out in the technological advancement of the world simply because they made better teacups then everyone else. So imagine a world where magic exists, why learn how to dig a hole quicker when you can ask a Druid or wizard to do it for you, why invent the plane when you can fly thanks to a potion, or travel across the world at a click of a finger.
For me it is pointless to look at the equipment and weapons. You are better looking at the culture and society. Most DnD settings have either a ruling council, or some form of government, or where there is a good king he has a form of democracy under him. But the world is not fully populated (lots of areas to be explored and lots of isolated settlements).
There is a common currency that is based on good standard but no real complicated economy of banking, credit notes etc.
Generally travel is undertaken only when necessary by the masses.
There is no single god, instead there are multiple religions that exist in harmony with each other,
So I think you are looking at a cross between Ancient Greek or Roman era, mixed with the land of early colonial America, combined with the technology (if you allow gunpowder in your campaign) of 13-1400’s Europe but magic then gives the abilities and technologies of early 30th century with the ability to travel to multiple worlds (the planes), travel through space, and teleport all over the world. Oh and make swords that almost behave like a light saber (a +3 weapon).
My point, as interesting a thought experiment as this is it is impossible to think about DnD equating to a period of history because it doesn’t you can pick and choose a single object but that then ignores the evidence against your point. So in my opinion my home brew world equates to 945 AC After the Cataclysm. Which equates to exactly never in terms of human history.
But maybe actually the DnD world equates to a period far into the future where humanity has evolved into different races, where we have lost so much of our technology because magic was discovered, and then ripped the world asunder, and so the races have lost there memory if cars, and TVs and really magic items are just “ancient” technology found but not understood.
Or, and this is my favorite, maybe the characters and world are just a computer simulation created by a crazy computer who, convinced by a programmer, decided to use an 80’s game to keep its infrared citizens occupied until needed. Or it is a VR created by some Netrunner for his mates in Night City. (Both of these ideas I have used to Segway my players from a long running campaign to a cyberpunk or paranoia short adventure).
The late 5th and early 6th centuries
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The current setting of Faerun in 5E is more closely related to post apocalyptic. There are several reality wielding super cultures that have declined only a few thousand years ago, and the current age of sword and sorcery is a mostly artificial outcome of decline rather than progress.
Look up Imaskar and Netheril.
I have to admit your bringing up of dinosaurs (and they are not only in the monster manual-they are given great detail) is the best example of how hard it is to pin dungeons & dragons to a certain time period. Because there's so many weapons and armors that are used that all span a good thousand years. Not to mention the navel vessels that are listed, as well as political and other examples given in the dungeon Masters book. And then it also depends on which dungeon Master's guide you're talking about. The first edition one has just about everything in it going back from 1700 and back to 1000 BC. But by bringing up dinosaurs, I got a good laugh out of that. Also those magical weapons must date back to the BC area at least.
I got a good laugh out of the dinosaur part. I want to thank you for it.
I think the best concept of most D&D worlds is that they’re roughly what the late 17th-century would look like - if you had magic and very limited firearms.
The societal systems are largely those of the late Age of Exploration. Sailing ships are well developed, you could see something like the English Civil War having happened, and the mercantile class and towns are important.
But there are no steam engines and in most settings, while there may (or may not) be personal firearms, there are usually no cannons - but magic exists.
With those caveats, in a lot of ways, it could be any time from the High Middle Ages to the early Age of Enlightenment. which is exactly the same fantasy “Neverwhen” time period in which Disney Princess movies occur.
The arquebus has been in D&D since at least 2nd edition, and both the musket and rifle debuted by the end of the 15th century. Then there are ball bearings, which are used for locomotion. They first ones were used in the axles of proto-bycycles, though they could see use in wagons. Something analogous to steam engines is not outside the realm of possibility; especially with Eberron.
And then there's magic, which dramatically changes things. The world─societally and technologically─would advance differently.
My personal preference is renaissance. Settings like the Forgotten Realms are continuously post-apocalyptic with widespread basic education. That fits the bill.
I think that it's safe to say that d&d is quite old-fashioned and includes various things that we don't have in our world, so in general it'd be difficult to predict when it would take place. I have to agree with some of the other comments, though, that between the Late Middle Ages it would be a decent fit. What do you think about this?
The presence of working magic throws everything off. That along with a poor understanding of just what levels of technology different eras of the ancient world actually had. We know that steam power was understood along with advanced geared systems sometime between 200 BCE and 100 CE because of the antikythera device and the steam engine of Heron and Vitruvius. While we typically think of laces like Faerun as being iron and steel based little if anything would need to be changed if we stepped back to around 1200-900 BCE and the transition from bronze to iron/steel with magic weapons being iron and steel and normal weapons being bronze. Gunpowder/smokepowder was essentially unneeded in older editions where you didn’t have attunement so you could (and did) carry multiple wands and/or staves (each with way more than 7-10 charges) that effectively took the places of pistols and long guns. The presence of dinosaurs doesn’t, to my mind, have any impact on when as they are accounted for in “lost worlds” like Chult in all the official settings (homebrew is on its own here). Gunpowder was discovered by Chinese alchemists sometime before 1000 CE and in use in China and at least Korea by 1000 CE. But the formula(s) is so simple that it could have been discovered at pretty much any point from @2000 BCE on. The Almeden region of northern Spain has a very broken terrain in the areas around the ancient silver mines. It was only about 10-15 years ago that it was demonstrated that this was the result of Roman hydraulic mining literally blasting the insides of the mines apart and Down into the valleys for processing to extract the silver ores in bulk easily. (essentially doing the mining, crushing and separation all at once on a scale as large as modern mines.) When we actually look at what we know the ancient Greeks knew they were surprisingly far ahead of the everyday technology of the times. Most of what was developed between 1500 CE and 1870 CE was rediscovery of what the ancient Greeks already knew and lost with the collapse of the Roman Empire in 450 CE. WE are living in a post apocalyptic age every bit as much as worlds like Faerun. (forget Netheril - look at the Creator races, and the Elves before the crown wars. So no real world era really fits the worlds of D&D.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.