Historical

Historical fiction is a genre set in the past, incorporating real cultures, people, and events from its period. Historical media grounds itself in reality, using recorded history to extrapolate the kinds of stories that might also take place at that time. It might include well-documented people or events and fill in the gaps in the historical record with speculative fiction. Historical media might hew very closely to its source material in pursuit of historical or take artistic liberties with the facts, and the further the setting is from the present and the less recorded history becomes, the more the creator must fictionalize. Historical tabletop roleplaying games let players create historical fiction in real time! A historical setting gives players and game masters a sense of the world that might be easier to grasp than a completely imaginary world, with pre-existing characters whose biographies they can read, compelling situations which are so realistic they actually happened, and locations with actual maps available. Historical RPGs might be tactical wargames set in an era of conflict; survival games set in a hostile frontier, during the age of exploration, or even the stone age; political intrigue games set in any number of historical governments; or a slice-of-life or drama game using history as a backdrop! Historical settings might also be the earliest documented tabletop roleplaying games, as the freeform Napoleonic-era game Braunstein and its western counterpart Brownstone both predate even Dungeons & Dragons!