Which historical periods could serve as a good base of roleplaying games beside the classics like medieval fantasy...

Which historical periods could serve as a good base of roleplaying games beside the classics like medieval fantasy? Would you recommend an exiting one?

Unironically late 20th/early 21st century Africa. Between all the silly voodoo/fetish stuff, the exotic landscapes, the blatant corruption and the constant civil war a group of outlaws could easily end up being dictator du jour and fighting an evil animist necromancer or whatever.

The only problem is that nobody's name is pronouncable.

The idealized 1990's, complete with PCs having tamogotchi/digimon familiars, escalating supersoaker armaments, and fighting off Street Sharks and Furbies.

>escalating supersoaker armaments
Your move motherfucker.

I did this for some overly-crunchy home brew that fell apart. Africa is great, there are plenty of documentaties that provide great inspiration. Also, you can look into the Ogaden Conflict, the Hillux War, and the history of Liberia.

I've always liked the Renaissance as a base for fantasy. It's not done often and the tech levels jump up enough to mean a lot versus the usual eternal medieval era fantasy.

Plus, guns.

...

>Which historical periods could serve as a good base of roleplaying games beside the classics like medieval fantasy?

Pre-Islam Middle Eastern themes don't show up in tabletop gaming very often, unless you count anything based on the Roman Empire or Ancient Greece. I'm not really sure at what point all these empires might have overlapped.

XVI/XVII century Ukraine

Napoleonic era.
> Guns, but only one shot per barrel.
> Swordfights
> Wooden ships
> Iron men
> Social intrigue
> War a-brewing.
Add magic to taste.

WW1 anywhere other than the trenches
> Lawrence of Arabia
> Spying and intrigue
> White heat of technological development
> Wacky aeroplane hijinks.
> Airships!

Post-invasion iraq/afghanistan
> PCs can be from any military
> Or mercenaries
> Or civilian contractors
> Quests from village elders to do X because 'hearts and minds'
> Military gear laying around everywhere
> Quest of 'go fetch me a goat' is complicated by the goat being in the middle of an unmarked Soviet minefield.
> Ancient history means you can drop all sorts of magical shit in there.
> Indiana Jones-esque artifacts as well
> Murderhobos gonna murderhobo. Sleep in your mine-protected vehicle, drive around the country between fuel dumps.
> Your reward is an air support coupon! You get one (1) JDAM at a time of your choosing!

The 'Post-apocalypse'.
> You start with basic gear in an urban wasteland
> Fight for survival
> Kill feral animals for food
> Fight off roving gangs
> Steal and customise vehicles you find
> THE TWIST!
> It's not the post-apocalypse.
> Australia/Detroit/Glasgow on a sunday morning/Slough/The South is just like that.

> Pic related
Otherwise, blunt force trauma. Have you any idea how high a pressure some of that shit got up to? They had to redesign one and tone it down, because IT PUT SOMEONE'S EYE OUT.

GOOOOOOOD MOORNING VIIIETNAAAAYUM
> Jungle
> VCs
> IT'S CHARLIE
> MURRICA, FUCK YEAH
> Napalm
> 70s technological advancement
> What do you mean, we can't just nuke them?
> Go locate targets to drop bombs on.
> Oh, shit, you didn't know? The bombing starts once you confirm the target
> Acceptable losses, enjoy the rain of boom.
> Go sabotage that SAM site.
> Flush that tunnel
> THIS IS MY RAIFU
> MY RAIFU IS MY LAIFU
> MY RAIFU IS MY BESTO FRIENDU
> And then you crit fail and it jams

1980s Seattle
> Like cyberpunk, only not
> Whistle into a payphone to contact certain lines
> Upload your hacks into a server with a bulky 80s laptop attached to a car battery, with a dial-up modem
> Rip important files off a server
> Smuggle floppy discs out, without the metal detectors on the door wiping them
> What do you mean, this company has a nuclear bunker under the mainframe room?

The 16th and 17th centuries. Conquest and exploration of the New World, as well as some really incredible wars in Europe that created some serious opportunity for adventurers. Not to mention that D&D is just the 16th century, but without gunpowder for some horrible, stupid arbitrary reason. It was present in OD&D and 1e, I don't know why it got totally removed.

>Detroit on a Sunday morning is just like that.
True,True.

[Fortunate son intensifies]

>> And then you crit fail and it jams
And then the acid kicks in, you bumrush gook tunnels with just a knife and come back three days later with necklace made of thumbs.

That, and... it's recent enough that it's still kinda sad.
I love me some "Gods Must Be Crazy" African civil war gaming, but I think for a lot of the public their thoughts are less about wacky mercenaries seizing control of a hell-hole, and more "Beasts of No Nation" stuff about child soldiers, ethnic hatred and the indifference of the outside world.
17th/18th century American Frontier is pretty cool.
You've got people of many cultures (Spanish, English, French, Dutch, German refugees, West African slaves/freemen, as well as literally hundreds of Native nations) exploring, teaming up, betraying each other and journeying farther than anyone they know has ever gone. Most of the fighting boils down to hand-to-hand combat involving fighting styles that range from bayonets to war clubs to European fencing-style blades to cavalry sabres.
It's probably one of the coolest periods that could easily have four characters with wildly different backgrounds and skills wandering around together and getting into trouble.
Hell, subtle magic in the form of European witch craft and Alchemy, Native shamanism and African Voodoo could fit neatly into the setting too.

Medieval France
> No magic
> You're a band of mercenaries in the service of the King.
> Of England.
> During the Hundred Years' War.
> Go wreck shit.
> Occasionally get messages by runner asking you to weaken a stronghold, or assassinate someone.

> Indian Ocean, early 2000s.
> You're hunting pirates!
> Hired by an insurance company to protect their liabilities
> Paid by a conglomerate of shipping companies to protect their investments
> Bidding wars with the pirates; their ransom versus your 'kill them all' fee versus your future loyalty to the corporations and protection of future shipments.
> Do you get fucked over by the margins, or go into business for yourselves?

WW2 France
> La Resistance!
> Dropped into the wilderness with an assortment of guns.
> One objective: 'Ruin Hitler's Fun'.
> Hide jews!
> Kill nazis!
> Seduce french women with emergency chocolate rations!
> Dodge bombing raids
> Avoid the SS
> Run from the invasion because the Americans will shoot you by 'accident'.
> Culminates in Berlin; squeezed between the Russians and the Allies, you have to find what's left of the Wehrmacht to sabotage it

Bumping to see if anyone has more ideas. Or to keep it alive until tomorrow morning to see if I do.

mid 18thC-early 19thC European, with the spread of colonies, age of sale and exploration, political intrigue were crowns and nobles rule against the rising revolutions, and vicious battles where canon and muskets readied you for swords and bayonets.

The "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel" series is now on netflix, and some of my coworkers and I have been all about how war magicians would have affected the US Revolutionary war...

Im thinking of starting a tricorn-fantasy thread, if you're game.

I'm running a high fantasy game inspired by the Late Bronze Age, right before the Sea People's arrival (roughly equivalent to our 1300-1200 BC era). I'm really enjoying it, especially the world building.

There's a lot of room for cool stuff there, lots of trade and commerce for cosmopolitan urban centers, while there's still a wide and mostly unknown world to explore. I'm running a low magic game in a world where magic definitely exists but people don't know how to use it to their favor. Also there are a lot of real world cultures and mythology to draw ideas from. It's also interesting to work with the lack of stuff that players are used to take for granted, like larger trade organizations, guilds, taverns and the like. Not being able to just walk into a store and buy a sword or armor is a big one they miss. The Palace economy and the people of the Palace also provide a fertile ground for quests and intrigue.

Lack of currency is a bit of a challenge though. Also staying reasonable takes a lot of research, and there's surprisingly little information about some aspects of the era (which can be good or can be bad, depending on what you need).

>Lack of currency
Debatable. They chipped out so many flint knives in quarries in the stone age that they can't be anything else BUT currency or trade goods.
The bronze age likely used copper coins or something for trades.

I've always wanted to run an Ancient China setting, particularly close to powerful people like generals, heroes, emperors, etc.

I never have and probably never will because I'm afraid of it coming across as a magical realm, what with all the harems and submissive women and general subservience to your superiors.

Some form of money definitely existed in the form of receipts or ox-hide ignots, but that mostly concerned larger transactions.

As far as personal currency used by people of low class, I didn't find any conclusive evidence of anything resembling currency from before 1000 B.C. in any of the Palace economies that I'm borrowing from for my setting. In a Palace economy the Palace managed the distribution of almost everything.

In the end I settled on using a system of barter and metal (copper and silver) weights for consumables and equipment is mostly quest rewards and loot.

Late Antiquity

You got two similar but ideologically opposed empire who both believe are fighting for the light and civilization. To some degree know they need each other against the uncivilized hordes, but at the same time they have conflicting interests in the same area and consider the other to be their most powerful foe.

Meanwhile, with those two growing weaker with each war and each plague, previously minor uncivilized peoples grow strong and prepare for the feast of vultures.

It sounds 100% fantasy to be honest.