Fantasy Games like BG3 Don't Represent Medieval Europe

[seeker1]

One erroneous claim I frequently see on these forums is the idea that fantasy games and literature are based on medieval Europe.

This has never been true - even if we only look at just the influences on D & D. Many of the authors that influenced Gary Gygax in the creation of D & D set their settings elsewhere in time and space.

Robert E. Howard - Conan the Barbarian's Hyborian Age was supposedly 10,000 years ago in the past.
Michael Moorcock - the stories of Elric of Melnibone and Corum were in a mythical past, that of Erekose and Dorian Hawkmoon in a fantasy future.
HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories, which the illithids are based on, were usually set in his own time period of the 1920s and 30s.
Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories are also in a far-flung future.
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories are set on a fictional fantasy planet known as Newhon.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom/John Carter stories are actually set on Mars.

D & D and Greyhawk was never based by GG solely on Tolkien. Tolkien in turn only very loosely based Middle Earth on medieval European history - more on European mythology. Tolkien's so called Third Age of Middle Earth would have been 6000 years ago.
Forgotten Realms less so. Ed Greenwood also built out from Gary's Greyhawk by using other fantasy sources.

I repeat: fantasy has never been based solely on medieval Europe.
D & D itself never was. Not in 1974 when started by Gygax, and not now.
So when you say BG3 doesn't seem like the society of medieval Europe: of course it isn't.

Yes, it has castles, feudal nobility, and medieval armor and weapons. No, the society of the game, or the FR in general, is not in any way representing that of medieval Europe. Mostly because, most importantly, Christianity and the Church doesn't exist: the people of Faerun are polytheistic and are worshipping all kinds of different gods.

Also it just bugs me: yes there is a kind of "racism" in the FR like where drow hate surface elves (and vice versa), and people fear tieflings, but this is a kind of species-ism which really doesn't mirror the bigotry toward phenotype we normally see regarding humans vs. other humans who are Black, Asian, etc.

[Bobduck]

is this bait?

[William]

It does represent medieval Europe in many different ways - from steel armour and pikes, to monasteries with stain glass windows, to ports with harbour cranes loading barrels and boxes into wooden ships.

The game is almost entirely 1400s medieval era technology, then throws in some steampunk stuff that looks more like 1700s technology near the end.

Eras aren't about gods or religion - they're about technology. For example, you know that the Huns invaded China using bows, riding horses, wearing chainmail and iron lamellar, living in Yurts. Everyone knows this - now tell me what god did they worship? What religion did they follow? You can't tell me, because it doesn't matter as much as the technology - and no one cares.

It isn't the Gods of the worshippers in the monastery that tell the era the game is set in, its the monastery itself.

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by Flake:

is this bait?

Not everything you disagree with is bait. Not everyone you disagree with is a troll. Either engage or ignore.

[seeker1]

The technology level to me looks late-medieval, early-Renaissance. And yep, you've got some definite steampunk going on - the smokepowder weapons and explosives, the submarine, the underwater prison, the killer robots , the mechanical flamethrowers in Wyrm's Rock - that stuff isn't medieval tech. No way medieval people could have built an underwater prison with functioning pumps and valves.

The Nautiloid is basically a spaceship, taken from the Spelljammer setting. It's bombarding you with phase cannons during the ending, kind of again, not medieval tech.

I guess the elephant in the room that I'm pointing to has to do not with the tech level, but social norms. Right? Everybody keeps saying Faerun doesn't seem to them to be like medieval European norms. Well, of course, it's a world with present gods that appear to followers, magic that actually works, mythological races and monsters, creatures with psionic powers ...

Such a world would not have social norms and morals the same as medieval Europe.

This is my larger point: some folks say BG1 and 2 seem more "medieval" to them in this game, and yet they have a lot of the same fantasy diversions from what a real medieval society would have been like. D & D has NEVER been based solely on medieval Europe.

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by William:

It does represent medieval Europe in many different ways - from steel armour and pikes, to monasteries with stain glass windows, to ports with harbour cranes loading barrels and boxes into wooden ships.

The game is almost entirely 1400s medieval era technology, then throws in some steampunk stuff that looks more like 1700s technology near the end.

Eras aren't about gods or religion - they're about technology. For example, you know that the Huns invaded China using bows, riding horses, wearing chainmail and iron lamellar, living in Yurts. Everyone knows this - now tell me what god did they worship? What religion did they follow? You can't tell me, because it doesn't matter as much as the technology - and no one cares.

It isn't the Gods of the worshippers in the monastery that tell the era the game is set in, its the monastery itself.

Technology doesn't define the character of a people the way the gods they worship do. Saying that the game's world should be treated like medieval Europe because people use crossbows and wear platemail is like saying Japan should be treated like America because they wear suits and do business in tall buildings with brutalist architecture.

[Bobduck]

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

Originally posted by Flake:

is this bait?

Not everything you disagree with is bait. Not everyone you disagree with is a troll. Either engage or ignore.

When i mean bait, is its a topic that will trigger some trolls and smurfs.

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by seeker1:

I guess the elephant in the room that I'm pointing to has to do not with the tech level, but social norms. Right? Everybody keeps saying Faerun doesn't seem to them to be like medieval European norms. Well, of course, it's a world with present gods that appear to followers, magic that actually works, mythological races and monsters, creatures with psionic powers ...

Such a world would not have social norms and morals the same as medieval Europe.

Bingo!

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by Flake:

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

Not everything you disagree with is bait. Not everyone you disagree with is a troll. Either engage or ignore.

When i mean bait, is its a topic that will trigger some trolls and smurfs.

If that is your definition of "bait," then "bait" is effectively meaningless.

[seeker1]

Originally posted by Flake:

is this bait?

A lot of people do have irrational negative reactions to well argued, logical presentations such as mine.

Unfortunate, but true.

[Amaka]

Yes, almost all fantasy is based on europe. Whether ancient, medieval, renaissance or victorian/enlightenment era, whether history, myth, fables or combination of all of them. And that includes BG3. Funnily enough even the modern hypersexual/queer side of BG3 originated with sexual revolution/liberation in europe, whether through soviets or freudian school. Modern D&D tries hard to mix in non white aspects and inspirations, but the core of D&D is very european as is most classical fantasy prior to maybe 2010.

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by Amaka:

Yes, almost all fantasy is based on europe. Whether ancient, medieval, renaissance or victorian/enlightenment era, whether history, myth, fables or combination of all of them. And that includes BG3. Funnily enough even the modern hypersexual/queer side of BG3 originated with sexual revolution/liberation in europe, whether through soviets or freudian school. Modern D&D tries hard to mix in non white aspects and inspirations, but the core of D&D is very european as is most classical fantasy prior to maybe 2010.

This is the kind of thing that could only be said by a person who thinks that only white people create stories.

[Amaka]

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

Originally posted by Amaka:

Yes, almost all fantasy is based on europe. Whether ancient, medieval, renaissance or victorian/enlightenment era, whether history, myth, fables or combination of all of them. And that includes BG3. Funnily enough even the modern hypersexual/queer side of BG3 originated with sexual revolution/liberation in europe, whether through soviets or freudian school. Modern D&D tries hard to mix in non white aspects and inspirations, but the core of D&D is very european as is most classical fantasy prior to maybe 2010.

This is the kind of thing that could only be said by a person who thinks that only white people create stories.

White people created the fantasy genre as we know it, post fables/myths fantasy genre. Ofc plenty of non white authors today.

[Moonlight Knight]

Originally posted by Amaka:

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

This is the kind of thing that could only be said by a person who thinks that only white people create stories.

White people created the fantasy genre as we know it, post fables/myths fantasy genre. Ofc plenty of non white authors today.

Do you genuinely think brown people only started picking up pens and paper after the year 2000, or are you trolling?

[Lord Adorable]

Originally posted by Amaka:

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

This is the kind of thing that could only be said by a person who thinks that only white people create stories.

White people created the fantasy genre as we know it, post fables/myths fantasy genre. Ofc plenty of non white authors today.

Nobody tell this guy about the Bronze Age. Or.. literally any age in world history.

[Amaka]

Originally posted by Moonlight Knight:

Originally posted by Amaka:

White people created the fantasy genre as we know it, post fables/myths fantasy genre. Ofc plenty of non white authors today.

Do you genuinely think brown people only started picking up pens and paper after the year 2000, or are you trolling?

Pen and paper can be used to write a lot of things, we are talking fantasy. I didnt put a date, you did. Feel free to name some works of classical fantasy BG style from brown people that isnt derivative of something white author came up with.