ADMC - Crusades Europe

[MAK]

http://admc.pbwiki.com/

Our gaming group eventually got fed up with all the elves, dwarves, gods,  and unpronouncable place names that only the DM understood. So we moved into semi-real history and started gaming in Europe of about AD 1100 (hence the name ADMC). We have a matching d20 ruleset as well, partly shown on in the Wiki.

Being able to mine the Wikipedia for background and plot ideas is an enormous relief for the DM's (most of our group takes turns), and the world keeps reasonably consistent because everyone has some basic understanding of real-world history and geography.

MAK

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Edit: a snippet of character creation rules can now be found from the Wiki page

[Raelifin]

This is very impressive. Those character creation rules are wonderful, and I think that I'll have to steal the meta-concept.

Kudos, and I hope all goes well.

[LordVreeg]

Interesting.
Nice little Wiki, as well.  Where are the PC's centered right now, and are they involved in the first Crusade?

Love the culture thing.  What a neat little sidebar, and it does so much to advance the background.

I am trying to get a handle on what part magic plays here.  I love the historical hermetic background, and would probably suggest kabahlistic as a secondary source.  The problems/joys of magic in a real historical setting can be nettlesome, so I'm wondering how you avoid it.  Are wizards heretics?

[MAK]

We've already finished our first campaign, where the PC's started as witch-hunters for the church and eventually got mixed in founding the Templars and ended up in high positions in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The crusade was over already when they started... (we ended up making a 500-page book out of the chronicles, but unfortunately for you guys it's in Finnish). Our second campaign is well under way, a total departure from the first, as most party members are under threat of being burned at the stake for real or imagined heresies.

When we started, the rule was indeed that all wizards were heretics, and no PC wizards were allowed. That got softened a bit, so that the Church allows it's own flavor of priestly magic and does offer "licenses" to hermetic wizards, mainly so they can offer their services to the Church. Chaldeans are considered evil heretics by everyone.

Currently we have a class-independent magic system where the character's philosophy defines the spell selection but in other aspects the casters are equal (no distinction between arcane and divine, there are spell points and everyone needs to learn spells). Kabbalists are actually rolled into the hermetic philosophy, or more precisely they have the Jewish philosophy with hermetic learning feat.

If there is interest, I can add more details into the wiki (I need to translate the stuff from our Finnish wiki) - the character creation page is not complete as for now, all the cultures, philosophies, and classes have similar descriptions as the examples currently listed.

MAK

[Kalos Mer]

Putting you on notice - Though my own campaign material and LordVreeg's massive campaign thread are taking a lot of my CBG-related attention right now, I'm perusing this wiki with great interest.

I like the approximate substitution of Culture for Races, and I may yoink it if I ever create a humans-only campaign of my own.  One minor quibble I have, however - having studied a fair number of hermetic texts over the past year, I would hardly characterize their philosophy as 'atheistic'.

More later.  It's nearly 4 AM here and I should be in bed.

[MAK]

Yeah, I know. We've run into this "historically accurate vs. useful as a rule or interesting as background" question several times, and usually the latter view has won...

[MAK]

Wiki updated (at  admc.pbwiki.com) with more info on philosophies, spells, and a map.

What else would you be interested to see?

MAK

[Hibou]

I'd actually like to see all of the other rules you guys use for your games. I'm interested in possibly even running my own game in this setting and using these fantastic rules if possible. The rules for characters are so cool, I probably would've wished that you guys were the ones who did D&D, or at least had OGL material published. I've been backing the whole "culture, not race" sort of thing you have going for a while now, and it pleases me to see someone else has the right idea. :)

[MAK]

Well, we've got this huge Excel character generator that is the official storage place of the latest rules. I could add it to the Wiki, but I'm afraid it may take some time to understand... Let's try that anyway, if (when) something is totally incomprehensible, post a question.

MAK

[Queenfange]

The details on geography and the map on that page are quite impressive. I like how you've replaced races with cultures as well as how you are handling classes. Very cool setting.

[MAK]

Good to hear all these positive comments! Like I mentioned in my first post a huge depth of detail is easy to come by with a pseudo-historical setting - with a few hours in Wikipedia you can get amazing stuff together. I've been surprised what kind of adventure hooks one can find from real history. Another advantage is that the players can do this too. All too often the campaign world is the DM's baby with the players blissfully ignorant on its geography and cultures. In ADMC we've seen some very cool character backgrounds with campaign wide tie-ins, all without DM input.

The rules are another matter altogether, they started with just the standard D&D with an idea something like: "Let's play in real history, and nobody can play a wizard, because they are heretics." That was something like 6 years ago and I wouldn't lie too much to say that since then the rules used in any game session have not been exactly the same as those in the one before.

[MAK]

Some more stuff added to Wiki

Also my ideas on mythology, these are things not generally known by player characters but interesting background info for the DM.

Any ideas how to mix the Egyptian pantheon in this structure? Egyptians and Sumerians developed writing and religion about at the same time and independently from each other. The Christian belief system is based on the Sumerian/Babylonian one, and the Egyptian is mostly forgotten.

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Mythology in ADMC

The early stone age hunters worshiped the Master of the Hunt, the Great Father with the power of a bull and responsible for the success of hunting. He was symbolized by the horns or entire head of an auroch bull. As man tamed animals and learned agriculture, Mother Earth as the goddess of fertility became more and more important, even replacing the Great Father in some places. The invention of metal and writing brought more deities to the picture. The Sumerians had four major gods, who were eventually spread to the entire Middle East with different names:

An (Any, Baal, Asmodai)

* Originally the Master of the Hunt
* Patron god of Erech
* Lord of the Sky and Fire
* Great general and judge, the sender of storms
* Symbolized by bull horns

Ki (Ninhursag, Asherah, Gaia)

* Originally Mother Earth
* Patron god of Kish
* Creator of vegetation, nurse of Kings
* Sister of An, spouse of Enlil
* Symbolized by the greek letter omega

Enki (Ea, Oannes, Dagon)

* Patron god of Eridu
* Lord of water and the Deep
* Holder of wisdom and knowledge, inventor of magic
* Resides in Abzu, the subterranean ocean
* Symbolized by a fish and a goat (the opposite ends of the Zodiac)

Enlil (El, Jahveh)

* Patron god of Nippur
* Lord of Wind (the middle heights between Heaven and Earth)
* Defeated the monster Tiamat and made the World out of her carcass
* Invented tools and civilization ('me' in sumerian), but gave them to Enki

Later, Enlil under the name of El told Abraham of Ur that he is the only God and other but demons. Enlil's wily plan was eventually successful and gradually Enki and An noticed that their worshipers had been marginalized - only aquatic and subterranean monsters worshiped Enki/Dagon and witches demanded services from An/Asmodai. Ki/Gaia let the men argue, because most women respected the Great Mother anyway, even if under the guise of Mary Mother of God.