BioWare Blog: Medieval Fantasy Gaming, Part One
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There is one time period that fascinates me like no other - the Middle Ages. Knights in armor, kings and queens, and Crusades. what's not to like? When I was a young kid and played my first game I had no idea what medieval times were like. Honestly, I didn't care. I got to kick goblin's teeth in wee! But as I got older I found that my suspension of disbelief was harder to swallow. So I thought quite a bit and wondered what the heck was that time period actually like? On a summer vacation I picked up several books of medieval history and read them voraciously. That's something I still do on occasion. I realized that the sort of Tolkien-esque worlds I've played in or had run, although fascinating, really paled to bits of real history. It also made me realize that the best way to smooth over the disbelief issue is to inject a lot of historical realism into things.
So I'll tell you a little of my gamemastering journey. Hopefully it'll make you think of a thing or two or be vaguely entertaining or interesting.
First off, I started thinking about the people. What they believed, why they believed it, and what were their lives like on a typical summer day. High magic worlds like I'd been running really would destroy everything the medieval people believed in. You can embrace high magic and it can make a rich setting that's fascinating those to me feel almost quasi-steam punk. But I wanted to take the players into a mythical, fantasy version of medieval Europe so that didn't work. So I decided to try and make it that the medieval peasant wouldn't have to change his whole world view in my game. If magic were uncommon enough I think it would actually reinforce some of their views instead of upending their world.
