Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Let's say that you play as a mixed group of Crusader Knights and Saladin's forces who are forced to cooperate to survive in a town besieged by demonic forces. This is of course set on Earth during the 12th century with fantasy and horror elements added within. Maybe it could be an invasion orchestrated by a worshiper of Orcus, Yeenoghu or Baphomet?
D&D is not a historical TTRPG so isn't suited for historical settings. Maybe try and find a historical TTRPG
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I don't advice to use real life as setting because History may be radically different acording other point of views. A hero for a country could be a monster for other.
Also you can use historical characters as source of inspiration and ask AI their names to be changed, at least to avoid accidental spoilers.
No, don't do this
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Why would you need to ask AI to change names instead of just changing names yourself? You're destroying the planet rather than going to a random name generator website
The rule of thumb for whether I'd use D&D for a game would be:
1. Is it combat heavy, and would benefit from having a lot of detail in the combat?
2. Do the Player Characters have generally have magic at their command?
It's not a perfect sorter that gets everything perfectly right. There are other factors (eg there are a lot of people who are irrationally attached to specific game systems) that can affect your decision. If your players will only play 5e, then you have to make do with 5e. However, if you want to know if 5e would be a good match, then I'd like the answer to both of those questions be a "yes". 5e can handle more mundane battles, but often you'll find that other systems will likely handle it better.
It sounds like you're expecting the Player Characters to be non-magical, being essentially historical characters who are faced with magic. In that case, there are better systems that would give you a better experience. If you're particularly bound to 5e, it would work, it's just not the one I'd pick if I had free reign overthe choice of system. If, on the other hand, some of your Players Characters are also highly magical, then 5e is probably a good choice.
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You will have recreated the video game Lionheart...
The crusades will be a potentially hot topic (in a bad way) depending on your play group.
Let's say that you have a history-nut who's also an atheist cynic, and they play one of the Crusaders. Then you tell them that they have to team up with characters from Saladin's army. The player will, in all likelihood, try to kill the other players, stating that the pope has decreed this the way to heaven, or stating that they are the reason for the devils being summoned. Then you'll open a whole religious argument.
I recommend against setting the game in one of the greatest historical religio-race-wars in history.
However, using the Crusades as inspiration for your own game, you will likely create a great foundation for a narrative!
The main question you need to answer for this to work is why would they work together. For that, you probably need some form of uncertainty to the characters motivations in being in the war, and a hard rule that utter religious zealotry is not an option. A good session 0, where you explain that they will ultimately be thrust together and expected to work together, so don't be a hate-filled zealot, should do most of the legwork here.
Depending on your play group - because outside of them, it doesn't matter - you may also want to adjust the crusade to be something more heroic and less horrifying. I'm struggling to find a decent analogy which doesn't carry over potentially questionable undertones, to be honest. Recovering a relic from a portion of the wild which is overrun by monsters would be a good one, with two clashing kingdoms each vying for the same one. If you say "group A is recovering a relic from the homelands of group B" you're straying back toward those roots which are best left buried.
I think better to have the two factions in competition than in all-out war. That way there's logic to them setting aside their original quarrel for a greater good. The Crusades, as they were, unfortunately had both sides in the belief that their good was the greatest a good could be, so them working together was really not a likely thing to happen.
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Nothing says you can't use the scenario, just break it away from real history.
Two groups from opposing and warring factions - religious, political, or otherwise - retreat to the safety of a desert village/stockade/outpost when each individually faced with an otherworldly force greater than itself and are now forced to cooperate in order to survive. Man, I think I have seen that movie multiple times! Course, an intelligent foe will send forces in the night to commit acts which cause the two groups to fight if you want more than just the slavering ravaging hordes kind of scene.
Well, I was thinking of the possibility of inserting Clerics and priests into the game to make things a bit easier fighting the demonic forces. In terms of character builds I feel that the Crusader Knights can be represented by Cavaliers and Purple Dragon Knights renamed as Templars, the Ottoman Cavalry could be Cavaliers while the Archers could be Scouts and the Ottoman Corsairs could be Swashbucklers. As for Clerics I guess they'd be Light Domain. I also thought that there could be a part of the game involving a succubus trying to infiltrate the village.
I think, as others have said, the core of the idea is fine. That core being former enemies banding together to fight a greater evil. That kind of thing is easy enough to place into almost any setting and time period. That much of it can work easily. I don’t know why you’d have to put it on 12th century earth. Just use the events as inspiration and have them happening in your own world.
Sounds kinda like you are setting up for a 5E Trench-Crusade prequel, because i think that is what happened in the Lore of Trench-crusade.
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Well, in Trench Crusade lore it was that some Crusaders found a demonic artifact in Jerusalem and became demon worshippers, opening the gates to hell. But in my idea history is more or less the same as our own world but Magic existed in the past, this won't change the course of history.
Have you ever read Dune? It is based on real world events, history and influences that are clearly apparent to an educated reader at the time of the books printing and also of readers today. Whether or not it is a good idea to use the Crusades as a base or if they model it close to accurate depends on his audience and if it will engage them. It has nothing to do with the system used as a vehicle. How silly.
Conversions of any game to another game, or some fantasy movie to a game never happen, right? Real history has probably spawned all mythos.
I would personally be very interested to play something along the likes of your idea Samueltheslayer.
To throw it out there...you could you also have a look into Vampire the Masquerade: The Dark Ages which used vampire clans operating in the 1100-1200's and has lots of interesting, spooky and out right awful things to draw upon if you wanted to do "D&D: the Dark Ages".
You seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not saying "don't take inspiration from real world events when cooking up an ahistorical D&D campaign". I'm saying the mechanics of D&D as a system are not suitable for running an actually historically campaign. Dune and it's influences are completely irrelevant to what I was saying, shockingly so.
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You certainly could use D&D for a historical game, it's just that your choices for character creation are exceedingly narrow because very few classes are either entirely mundane, or even subtle enough in their supernatural abilities to pass. Of course, you also don't have demonic invasions (could you write a readable alt-hist novel where the Battle of Arsuf was interrupted by a demonic invasion? I expect so. Would it have a lot to do with history? No).
There's also the option for a D&D mythic history game, where you assume myths and folktales of the relevant period are actually true. D&D magic tends to have capabilities that are a bit too disruptive here, unless you just ban primary spellcasters, but it's doable and probably works better than the pure historical.
The specific problem with the Crusades would be:
I mentioned this in a different way already, it is audience dependent. Not everyone has these sensitivities.
2nd Edition had a campaign setting for this in one of the green covered guides. There was a whole series of historical inspired ideas.
Mighty Fortress - which was inspired by the Wars of Religion in Europe, it opens with the (I think) Lutheran prayer that gave the book it's name.
A Viking inspired setting.
Charlemagne's Paladins
IIRC there was also one inspired by the Ulster Cycle, but it has been YEARS since I have looked through any 2nd edition stuff.
And yes, the Crusades.
“Sensitivities” is a lovely word, but the grammatical implication here is a nasty one - that anyone who would have an issue with the idea is “sensitive,” shifting the blame away from the DM for coming up with a minefield of an idea onto the players. I hope that is not what you meant, though it is essentially what you wrote.
One also need not be overly “sensitive” to take issue with a conflict built upon truly staggering attempts to annihilate entire cultures and civilizations from a whole host of different actors. Furthermore, anyone who thinks thee fact of the crusades is not continuing to shape the world in problematic ways is not paying attention.
But let us pretend anyone who thinks “maybe playing a game centered around genocidal wars with harms lasting to this day” are “sensitive” (there are, unfortunately, members of the community who believe this). It would still be a bad idea. Folks on this thread have touched on “wait, why would they work together?” concerns as well as mechanical concerns. Not touched upon yet is the simple knowledge disparity - more so even than in premade settings, the introduction of real world history adds an element of “who knows the most on this subject. Moreover, this different knowledge might result in different expectations (especially for things like who the “good and bad guys are”) that can lead to disconnects at a table level, even without sensitivity.
I have seen someone try to do almost this exact idea before, with players I know could handle problematic themes. It fell apart before it even started, as soon as folks realized what a minefield it might become, and how it would feel more like a slog than an enjoyable game.