|
The Pure Fantasy
Set your game in a pure fantasy world. You adapt a published one, or create your own.
The No-Research
Pick names for the local nobility, towns, parish church. Decide what sort of geografy you want. Use elements from the medieval Europe to make your stories feel medieval. Have fun, and ignore people telling you that the king of England in 1220 wasn't William the Bastard.
The Low-Research
Get hold of a modern map of Europe, and pick an area with the sort of terrain you want. Look up ??th century events in an encyclopedia or general world history, to give you a few names and trends. Most of the cities, towns, and villages in modern Europe were there in Midle Ages, only smaller, so shrink places. Add more forest. Roads, with the exceptions of freeways / motorways / autobahn, tend to follow historic routes that sometimes go back to the Romans, so you can use those as discribed. From that point, things proceed as for The No-Research
The Medium-Research
Pick your area from a modern map, as above. Then find a history of that area, and read the chapters on ??th centuries. This will give you qite a few names, a fair bit of social detail, and some idea of which towns were important back then. Work what you've learned into your setting in a way that will impress your players.
The High-Research
Once you have chosen your area, get hold of a history of that area that focuses on the ??th centuries. Reading such a book will probably give you more information that you can possibly include in a setting. More recent histories are better for gaming purposes than older ones, because recent historians tend to pay more attention to what life was like, and to events other than battles and deaths of kings. Give characters names that match the sort of names you find in the book, so that they "sound right." Have the repercussion of events you read about affect your players. Foreshadow future history, giving the players a chance to change it. And so on.
The Extreme-Research
Read several single-volme histories of the area in question, to get a more balanced view. Find, and read, histories of specific aspects, such as the history of single city, or of law, or of the Church, or even a single monastery. Track down books written in or about your area during ??th century, and read them in translation. Learn Latin so that you can read the ones that haven't been translated yet. Learn paleography so that you can read the ones still in manuscript. Go back to university and get Pf.D in medieval studies while actually just researching your setting.
Apklausa padaryta pagal ARM5 "Researching a Setting"
_________________
"To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)
|
Register
Login
FAQ
Search
The Extreme-Research netilpo i apklausa. Na tai nera didele beda. Nemanau, kad atsiras daug meistru turinciu "Pf.D in medieval studies"
O tai dabar pakabina zmones sedevra 5x8m (mano sukurtas pasaulis) ant batsiuvio vinies (veikia magijos pagalba)...
