realism vs fantasy

[SCO Adam Theo]

Hello Birthrighters, Adam Theo here. (Sunday, July 18, 1999, 10:46 PM)

my view: most people don't know the nitty gritty of what the time
period was like in our real world. they only know what they read in
other fantasy books, and cannot be expected to be any type of experts
in history. that's perfectly fine. if religious history didn't
fascinate me, i wouldn't know squat, and wouldn't care. not knowing is
not a bad thing, really, beyond the fact that i try to not be ignorant
about anything in general. but i don't know about biology, first aid,
the process of painting brush strokes. and i don't really care. it's
not important to the rest of my life.
now, i went a bit off in that last paragraph, so let me get back
on. of course everyone (and i mean *everyone*) playing will have some
'falsehoods' in their style of gaming compared to the real world's
equivalent. everyone will have the present era influence their style
of play somehow. that's perfectly fine, IMO. racial and religious
intolerance are great things to throw around in campaigns. it gets
players angry at something or someone, makes friends and enemies,
conflicts, adventures. it does not harm the campaign in most
circumstances. at least campaigns i've DMed/played. i wish i had done
more religious stuff in my current campaign that's been running for 11
game years. but my players were a guilder who didn't care squat about
religion, and an elf who had the same view, so i focused on wars and
imperialistic power plays. but now that i'm about to introduce some
new characters to the scene as players, i'm going to have the faiths
play a lot more importance. racial intolerance came into my games a
good bit, and will a lot more now. it doesn't care to me if it was
realistic or not. it's good plot and adventure starters.
oh, and about not wanting to have any reality in my games. no, not
true. i think reality is a great thing... as a basis. but not as an
end all. after all, anuire is *not* france and britain of the time
period, no matter what, in any way. they have similarities, not are
nothing close to the same. for one: *real*, *working* magic. two: a
different history (those cultures 'grew up' differently). three:
different cultural influences.
these are my views, and my views only. i am writing this not to
impose, but to see if anyone else agrees with me, but more
importantly, to see if anyone doesn't.

- --
Adam Theo, A Buddhist Patriotic Libertarian American Capitalist.
mailto:AdamTheo@Theoretic.com ICQ:22377963 AIM:adamtheo79
SCO of Theoretic Internet Services: http://www.theoretic.com
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[geeman]

SCO Adam Theo wrote:

> these are my views, and my views only. i am writing this not to
> impose, but to see if anyone else agrees with me, but more
> importantly, to see if anyone doesn't.

Ah, the voice of reason.... :-)

Nah, pretty much I agree with you, Adam. In fact, I think most of the
"disagreement" in the preceding messages stems from an off-topic kind of ego
trip thing of which I am very much as guilty as anyone else. I'll subject
myself to ritual purification this week to atone for my high-handedness. (I
was kind of planning to anyway....)

Gary
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