Bronze Age/Iron Age OD&D

[thorswulf]

I have more time on my hands than I know what to do with at work, so I think about D&D. I've kicked around the idea of using a Bronze or Iron Age setting but some things just didn't translate well.

Money in a Dark Age world is practically non existant at times, scarce at others, and not necessarily a mark of status either- although it could by you lots of influence. So I came up with the idea of chattels instead of currency as a means of defining influence. Characters are assumed to be either free farmers or retainers of a chieftain. Their personal wealth is relected in the amount of livestock and or rare items they possess. The base line for this is cattle. Cattle were wealth on the hoof so they become worth so many chattels. Roughly speaking ten cows equal a good sword! I don't have any other values firmly set as this is just a rough outline but there are some other things to consider.

Warriors begin with a helmet, shield, spear, and a dagger. These have been the primary tools of fighting men from the beginning of history, and any warrior worth his salt has more than one of them. Armor is slighly different so some tweaking of AC is in order. Full armor is non existant. Chain mail or scale corslets and hauberks are the best armor to be had. In a Bronze age setting a bronze cuirass, greaves, and bracers form the best armor available. So AC 4 is the best anybody can have!

Magic Users gain their spells from some kind of otherworldly source, or lost lore of ancient tongues written down on scrolls. Clerics are probably not going to be Christian based, unless they are missionaries! Something I would like to introduce would be variable power based on the source of the entity worshipped whether a nature spirit or diety.

Anybody got some ideas to bounce off of me?

[bluskreem]

I know I've suggested these house rules before, but it might work for your setting:

I often offer two types of M-U's in my games. Wizards which are the standard book and scroll M-Us, and Sorcerers who gain their spells by making pacts with spirits, fae, and demons. Sorcerers cast spells using Spellcraft and Swordplay rules which means they must roll to use their spells, and may have a delayed effect, but if they succeed they do not loose the spell for the day. I like fickle magic being the domain of spirits, while reliable magic being formed by rigid age old traditions.

[aldarron]

Other than money and thief skills (no locks), you don't need to change anything, rule-wise. Most the viking age game publications deal both with non coin (ususually, silver, weight based) economic systems and more tribally centered "cleric" characters, applicable with adjustments to any tribally organized societies. (The Viking age began in a late Iron age phase) For your purposes, Ultima Thule - mythic Scandinavia is a great source - especially for the magic/miracle using classes. The Gurps Viking book by Graeme Davis is also relevant, but you could even just go with Zeb Cooks really excellent (and very inexpensive now) AD&D Vikings Campaign Settings book but you won't get variety of magic types there. Cook does deal with most other issues including giving thieves an open barred door ability instead of open locks.

Keep in mind that pre state societies can be very complex both socially and culturally, regardless of political and institutional organization - look at Cahokia, the Iroquois league, or 1st kingdom Egypt for example.

[Thorulfr]

May 12, 2010 9:47:11 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Other than money and thief skills (no locks), you don't need to change anything, rule-wise.
<snip>
Cook does deal with most other issues including giving thieves an open barred door ability instead of open locks.

The Viking had locks, as did the Romans - they were padlocks, though, to secure chests. I have not seen any references to locks on doors.
Both the Romans and the Egyptians had locks for doors, so ruins or "dungeons" could have door locks.

May 12, 2010 9:47:11 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Most the viking age game publications deal both with non coin (ususually, silver, weight based) economic systems

Coins were more common than we assume. While barter was the norm and "hack silver" was a common means of exchange, that hack silver could include a lot of assorted coinage. Silver pennies were minted literally in the millions to pay off the Danegeld. Tons. In 1007, Aethelred paid 36,000 Troy pounds of silver - over 14 tons. And that was just for two years peace.

May 12, 2010 9:47:11 GMT -6 aldarron said:

(The Viking age began in a late Iron age phase)

You might want to distinguish between Scandinavia, and the "Viking Age." The settlement of Scandinavia by the Gothic peoples, some of whom would later engage in the seaborne piracy that characterized what we refer to as the "Viking Age", began during the 'Migration Period', which was in the late Iron Age. The "Viking Period" itself is generally dated as beginning in 793 c.e. with the sack of Lindisfarne, and is the tail end of what is now termed the "Early Middle Ages" (I guess the term "Dark Ages" is thought to be pejorative in this hyper-sensitive age.)

May 12, 2010 9:47:11 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Keep in mind that pre state societies can be very complex both socially and culturally, regardless of political and institutional organization.

lol - having studied anthropology, I couldn't agree more. EVERY society is complex, going far beyond their institutions - customs, mores, myths, technology, kinship and social patterns. Just because a culture doesn't have a written legal system that comprises so many millions of pages that most of it is either forgotten or deliberately ignored doesn't mean it is not 'complex'.

In Iceland, before they lost their independence, they would meet for two weeks every summer at a plain called "Þingvellir" One man was elected the "Lawspeaker", and his job was to recite the laws. He recited one third of the laws each year - if three years went by and a particular law had not been recited, it was considered to have been repealed. If it wasn't important enough to be remembered, it wasn't worth using. I think there is a lesson in there.

(The downside of the Icelandic parliament - the "Allthing" - is that while they had laws, they had no police force - no way to really enforce those laws. If you pissed off enough people, you could be declared 'outlaw', but unless they had enough powerful friends to outnumber your powerful friends, there wasn't much they could do. Technically, anyone could kill you and your kin could not ask for wergeld, but it rarely stopped one of your relatives from making an unlawful killing in revenge, keeping the feud rolling along.

I highly recommend Njal's Saga for anyone wanting to run a Scandinavian campaign.)

[aldarron]

Generally agreing with you, but the question of coins is more properly tied to specific times and places with the arab coins being the most commonly found archaeologically in most Viking Age contexts. The point here being that value in pre state societies was often a matter weight (of silver in this case), quantity (livestock) or labour investment (wampum) not a set value determined by authorities (although things like kula rings can complicate even this picture)

Locks, yep, simple ones in the Viking Age, even for doors, existed, as you point out, and iron keys are an important status marker for women, but as regards the earlier time periods you were looking at, keys and hence locks, become increasingly scarce in the archaeology of non urban, non state societies.

[Deleted]

I have always thought of Post Roman Britain as the Mad Max sort of setting. The Britains had a very civilised society under the Romans, but when they leave the Irish, Pictish, Saxon, Jute, and Native Britains are all fighting for the land. Technology is disappearing at a rapid clip, and there is no one to guard your back.

[stevemitchell]

Even under the Romans, Britain was at occasional peril: the Irish raided in the west, the Picts raided in the north, and the Saxons were active along the eastern shores by about the mid-200s, I think. Plus Britain managed to slip out from under the Empire's sway a time or three when various usurpers and pretenders took hold.

After the Romans departed, I feel that it was infrastructure more than technology that started to disappear. The Britons weren't hurled back to the Stone Age, but they rather quickly fell back into tribal divisions, with the consequent waning of villa and urban life.

It would make an interesting campaign background, though: limited magic, mostly druidic but possibly some Germanic pagan as well; limited monsters, but you could toss in the occasional serpent-man or swamp-beast if you like RE Howard's take on things; lots of raiding and looting and burning; and maybe a special guest appearance by Arthur. You could do pretty much whatever you wanted between, say, 450 to 550, without much fear of contradiction from the historical sources, as they are practically nonexistent for that period.

[greyharp]

One of the problems of running a historically-based Iron Age campaign is that while various cultures had trading links with each other going back into the Stone Age, they entered the Iron Age at very different times. If I was going to run a game like this, and I've seriously considered doing so, I would dump the historical angle altogether and instead go for very general, very broad strokes. I'd have an Iron Age that was loosely based on Celtic/Germanic culture before the Roman invasion of their lands. I would include Iron Age civilisations based on the cultures like the Hittites, with their large armies, large stone cities, libraries of texts and dreams of empire. But because it would be only loosely based on these models, I wouldn't be constrained by such things as having to replicate a Roman invasion, or the confusing legend of Arthur, or whether or not they used coins. Nor would I feel obliged to have a magic system based on a Victorian view of the druids or whatever. I'd borrow heavily from the various Iron Age cultures, but completely dump the history. This would help prevent players feeling that they HAD to act in certain ways because that's what they would've done had they lived in those days.

[apeloverage]

According to GURPS Camelot, the Roman withdrawal from Britain meant that the slave system broke down and Britain was suddenly more prosperous, because its grain wasn't being exported. So it probably wasn't a disaster for most people.

[Deleted]

There was a lot of grain, which everyone was coming for. At the same time several technologies which the Romanized Britains had become accustomed to began to vanish.

While part of me likes the idea of a fantasy iron age with dwarves and all, another part wants to distribute the powers of the fantasy races to different groups of people.

In my mind I see the Romans as human and the Celts (Welsh) as the elves. The romanized Britains as half elves having a watered down version of the great powers of their ancestors. Taking a page from Mary Stewart, dwarves could be the small hill peoples which the Romans brought to work the mines.

They are all humans , but humans who have lived their lives in situations which have equiped them differently.

[murquhart72]

Y'all may want to check out the stuff I've posted here regarding my Clashing Realms Of Metal (CROM) supplement or my Moons of Metal (Zandor) setting. I love primal, savage, barbaric settings, but also like to keep things as simple as possible.