Earth-like worlds in fantasy games

[Wysardry]

I am in the early stages of planning a single player CRPG aimed at less casual CRPG and PnP RPG players, and have reached somewhat of an impasse with the other members of the team at a crucial point. I am therefore seeking the opinions of those here.

The basic premise of the story is that a few thousand Celtic settlers from the British Isles fled to a new world to escape the Roman legions, and have now been living there for several centuries. This world is inhabited by creatures from mythology, and magic is real.

I would like to make the planet itself as much like Earth as possible, maybe so alike that it is Earth in another reality or timeline. This would allow us to use factual reference documents, thereby saving a lot of time and effort, which could be spent on the more unusual elements.

Others want a more "fantastic" environment.

I would appreciate a little help and advice on what the pros and cons of each option might be.

[contracycle]

I've given a fair amount of thought to this, not least becuase RPG as counter-historical thought-experiment seems like an interesting avenue to go down.

There is also a fairly solidly established literary tradition to go down, as seen in Mary Gentle's books such as "Ash" and "1612".  Also there are quite a number of counter-factual histories on the net, notably: http://www.alternatehistory.com/ahdirectory.html  

FVLMINATA has a counter-factual history starting from Augustus IIRC.  
I once had an RPG published in novel format that was specifically about Celtic types travelling to another world as I recall, but I'm having trouble tracing the title.  It was a pretty poor working anyway IMO.

Anyway.  What attracts me to your proposition is mainly that it is more likely to be actually interesting than another stock fantasy world.  For what its worth, I am utterly bored senseless by stock fantasy, and so tend to seek out things that are more relevant to real people.  I just can't really get into saving the kingdom from ravening hordes of orcs or whatever.  But I can get into the conflict between celts and romans, as that is more complex, more human, more interesting.

But I have also come to the view that it is not actually worth setting such games on Earth proper.  This is because the total quantity of possible research far exceeds the ability of non-specialists to even investigate.  It is truly simply impossible to really display the world in a medium with limited entities, limited views.  What you can, and I think should, do is choose the crux about which the game will revolve, and fill in all other details impressionisitically.  Thus, I quite like the approach taken by Seventh Sea, L5R, and TROS, in which a recognisably Earth-like landmass is used rather than the real geography.  This IMO communicates "like but not identical" very rapidly and effectively.

Anyway, you have two questions here, one being "should it be Fantasy" and the other being "should it be counter-factual".  I have adressed mostly the conter-factual element but could give you a good diatriobe against fantasy too, if you wanted.  But it will purely be my preferences, of course.

[Wysardry]

I'm not sure the story would be classed as counter-historical as known history would not be contradicted. Instead, we would be taking advantage of the lack of accurate information and suggesting that certain events occurred which were not documented.

I suppose "parallel history" would be a good term to use.

The closest literary examples I know of are the novels in the Deverry series, by Katharine Kerr (which I hadn't heard about until after I came up with this idea).

I'm afraid that the conflict with the Romans would be ancient history by the time the game starts, as one of the aspects I'd like to explore is how the tribal Celts would have evolved culturally if cut off from the rest of human society.

The Celts would have left sometime before 60 AD, when the majority of the druids were slaughtered and their sacred groves destroyed. Their technology is now roughly equivalent to that of Britain in 1000 AD (though more or less time may have passed for them to reach that level).

A lack of specialised knowledge is the main reason I would prefer to restrict the range of variables we would need to deal with. I am concerned that changing even one parameter would change a whole chain of related ones, and we might miss a few, causing inconsistencies. Even if we did manage to spot them all, quite complex calculations might be involved in documenting the details.

The fact that humans are able to survive there does mean that the world can't be drastically different to Earth, but something which might seem to be a minor change could still have far-reaching consequences.

[anthony kilburn]

A lack of specialised knowledge is the main reason I would prefer to restrict the range of variables we would need to deal with. I am concerned that changing even one parameter would change a whole chain of related ones, and we might miss a few, causing inconsistencies. Even if we did manage to spot them all, quite complex calculations might be involved in documenting the details.

The way you might handle such an "alternate timeline" world is to create the present state of the game environment, and then back track to figure out what may have lead to such developments, based on what you know about societal progress and historical advancement in general.  Back-tracking the evolution of this Celtic civilization for your game world would allow you to somewhat logically place any imagined ideas in your game world.  For example: If your world requires magic, maybe some type of transportation ritual was enacted to move the society to a different "dimension", or any number of other explanations.  Maybe their patron gods annihilated the rest of the world and kept the Celts due to their loyalty.

However, if your goal is that historical realism, maybe the "reverse-explanation" creation method would be a bad idea.  But then again, there would be no magic or mythical creatures in a historically, and hence realistically, sound world.

I would fuse both, as even a "fantastic" environment needs precedent and explanation, lest it seem too oddball and contrived.

[anthony kilburn]

A lack of specialised knowledge is the main reason I would prefer to restrict the range of variables we would need to deal with. I am concerned that changing even one parameter would change a whole chain of related ones, and we might miss a few, causing inconsistencies. Even if we did manage to spot them all, quite complex calculations might be involved in documenting the details.

The way you might handle such an "alternate timeline" world is to create the present state of the game environment, and then back track to figure out what may have lead to such developments, based on what you know about societal progress and historical advancement in general.  Back-tracking the evolution of this Celtic civilization for your game world would allow you to somewhat logically place any imagined ideas within it.  For example: If your world requires magic, maybe some type of transportation ritual was enacted to move the society to a different "dimension", or any number of other explanations.  Maybe their patron gods annihilated the rest of the world and kept the Celts due to their loyalty.

However, if your goal is that historical realism, maybe the "reverse-explanation" creation method would be a bad idea.  But then again, there would be no magic or mythical creatures in a historically, and hence realistically, sound world.

I would fuse both, as even a "fantastic" environment needs precedent and explanation, lest it seem too oddball and contrived.  Maybe even use the Celts' knowledge and/or discovery of true magic to eliminate the other civilizations or at least isolate their own.  That would satisfy both parties.  

Real world > imagined "discovery" of ultimate magic power > distruction of other societies or isolation of Celts > game world as its now known

Or even throw evolution in there.... natural selection (through the evolved abilities of magic) allowed the Celts to survive better than other Humans, leaving them dominion over the earth!  Maybe there's pockets of lesser Humans left on other continents....?

Just some oddball ideas!

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I think Ars Magica does a creat job with a counter-historical setting.  Check out how they handle mythology, the Church, and magic.  Get the source books, that's where you'll find a lot of what you're looking for IMHO.

Peace,

-Troy

[Sydney Freedberg]

Katherine Kerr's "Deverry series" (Daggerspell, Darkspell, ad nauseam) are a pretty competent treatment of "Celts ran away from Romans and end up in mythical fantasy world." I think this is the Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-1715163-6318217.

[Wysardry]

If your world requires magic, maybe some type of transportation ritual was enacted to move the society to a different "dimension", or any number of other explanations.  Maybe their patron gods annihilated the rest of the world and kept the Celts due to their loyalty.

Celtic mythology contains a number of tales which include travel to other worlds via "portals", some of which mention time anomalies (too much/little time has passed when the travellers return). These portals could be used to explain travel in time, in space and/or to another dimension.

However, if your goal is that historical realism, maybe the "reverse-explanation" creation method would be a bad idea.  But then again, there would be no magic or mythical creatures in a historically, and hence realistically, sound world.

I would fuse both, as even a "fantastic" environment needs precedent and explanation, lest it seem too oddball and contrived.

I had planned to use historical references until the point at which the Celts leave 1st Century Britain, but I also wish to use mythology as much as possible too.

Magic use would not leave any archaeological evidence behind and historical documents for the time periods we're concerned with are incomplete and inaccurate. The Ancient Celts rarely wrote anything down and those from other cultures are likely to have modified the truth. The Christian monks in particular would have had reason to suppress and/or modify tales describing magic being used by pagans.

I think Ars Magica does a creat job with a counter-historical setting.  Check out how they handle mythology, the Church, and magic.  Get the source books, that's where you'll find a lot of what you're looking for IMHO.

I'll keep an eye open for cheap/used source books, but I'm loathe to pay full price for them as I've already spent a large chunk of change on this project.

Katherine Kerr's "Deverry series" (Daggerspell, Darkspell, ad nauseam) are a pretty competent treatment of "Celts ran away from Romans and end up in mythical fantasy world."

I mentioned the Deverry novels earlier in this thread. I have the first 7 books, and will use them as a source of inspiration, as there are some similarities between the two ideas.

Novelists can get away with providing less detail than is needed in an RPG though, so what worked for Katherine Kerrmight not be practical for us.

[anthony kilburn]

You could always go for that "secret history" element, like in WW's Vampire.  Their secret vampire society has existed forever, and the history of the world is twisted around it.  The Crusades were apparently the cause of vampire wars, or something of the like.  Then history forgot, and chalked the whole ordeal up to "religious wars".  This might work with the magic element, existing even when Rome was conquering the known world.  Giving a unique and detailed "secret" history ("HaHa!  Little did the Romans know, but our magic was protecting us all along....") will give the fantastic setting a lot of credibility, too.

[Wysardry]

Yes, I had intended to explain that the Romans and subsequent invaders had hidden or altered certain facts when recording events, and that the remaining Celts had done the same when relating information to them orally.

In other words, those recording history did not have accurate or complete information to begin with, and what they did have they altered to serve their own purposes.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I mentioned the Deverry novels earlier in this thread.

D'oh. Sorry, I skipped right over that line in your first post the first time I read it. My apologies.

I heard somewhere that Kerr's books started out as a D&D campaign she was involved in, but have no idea if that's anywhere near true.

[Jake Boone]

I'll keep an eye open for cheap/used source books, but I'm loathe to pay full price for them as I've already spent a large chunk of change on this project.

You might get some mileage out of the free Ars Magica 4th Edition download at:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=774

It doesn't have as much background as you'd get from the sourcebooks, but the price is certainly attractive.

 -- Jake

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Gareth here. I have something further to add. If, say, the parallel universe is just like ours until the Celts arrive there, doesn't that mean that they'll encounter themselves upon arrival? And won't the Romans be there to harry them as well? Or are these two facts not true? If so, why just those two facts?

It seems to me to make the whole idea plausible that the place that they're going to would be good to go to, it would have to be substantively different to start. And then you're also proposing that it is different, I take it, in that it has magic creatures and people using magic (presumably the fictional "real world" they leave from does not).

If you're already positing so many differences, why attempt to stick with the real world? In every case you'll have to figure out how event X was affected by the presence of troops on unicorns, etc. Meaning you'll have to go all the way back to some actual equal start when the magic arrives or have to go further back.

If you do the Ars Magica thing, and say that some events have been affected by magic, and other differences of this parallel world, then how do you explain them having happened in our world?

Basically if the worlds are substantively different, then they're different enough to make it much less work not to do the research, and just to make it all up.

Or, er, what Gareth said. You're going to have limited elements in the game to create anyhow. So it won't be very hard to just invent them, IMO.

Mike

[Wysardry]

I agree with Gareth here. I have something further to add. If, say, the parallel universe is just like ours until the Celts arrive there, doesn't that mean that they'll encounter themselves upon arrival? And won't the Romans be there to harry them as well? Or are these two facts not true? If so, why just those two facts?

Parallel worlds/universes are not usually depicted as being exactly the same. The main difference would be that on the new world, humans did not evolve/survive (for whatever reason) giving other species the opportunity to do so.

It seems to me to make the whole idea plausible that the place that they're going to would be good to go to, it would have to be substantively different to start. And then you're also proposing that it is different, I take it, in that it has magic creatures and people using magic (presumably the fictional "real world" they leave from does not).

The prospect of not having other humans persecuting them for using magic would be a good enough reason to go I would think.

There is supposed to have been magic on our Earth, but the knowledge was lost when the druids were wiped out. As magic would leave no archaeological evidence behind, and historical documents are sketchy at best, this is fairly plausible (to those who play fantasy games).

If you're already positing so many differences, why attempt to stick with the real world? In every case you'll have to figure out how event X was affected by the presence of troops on unicorns, etc. Meaning you'll have to go all the way back to some actual equal start when the magic arrives or have to go further back.

I'm mainly proposing differences in the native life forms and their cultures, rather than physical differences (such as planet size, mass, composition, rotational speed, orbital speed, air density and composition, distance from the sun etc.)

If you do the Ars Magica thing, and say that some events have been affected by magic, and other differences of this parallel world, then how do you explain them having happened in our world?

The events of the two worlds are fairly unrelated after the exodus, as the magical creatures no longer travel to and from Earth, causing the tales involving them to be regarded as fiction rather than fact (by Earth humans).

Basically if the worlds are substantively different, then they're different enough to make it much less work not to do the research, and just to make it all up.

As I mentioned, I'd rather not make them substantially different in physical terms, only regarding the native life forms.

[contracycle]

I have become confused as to your question.

I mean, I think there is good precedent for counter-factual or secret history type games and/or stories.  But I'm increasingly less clear what the point of all this is apart from relocating to a new setting with new rules.  To use such to justify magic powers, creatures and whatnot also has a lot of precedent.  

When you first mentioned the real world, and documents and so forth, I thought you might be intending to use the whole of europe, and you know, have the Peace of Westphalia still exist or something.  But if the only objective is to create a Celtic-flavoured fantasy world, then this seems unlikely to be worth the effort.

Yes, it would be possible to have a parallell universe in which Earth has no humans, but is otherwise the same.  Is that what you meant by reference documents, things like maps and rainfall patterns?  Sure that would fly, and IMO would be more interesting then yet another wholly fictional world.  Its just that dealing with our real world raises problems around magic as Mike suggested (frex, didn't the romans get magic from their gods too?  Or were the celts the only ones?)

Alternately, as you said, you could simply contrive some counter-factual reason to eliminate the Roman empire and tackle Celtic culture as it existed, exploring how it (anf others) deal with the power vaccuum.