When you typically think of generic medieval fantasy D&D, around what sort of century's armor do you normally think of? I know that full plate exists and that was more of a late high medieval thing, but heavy armor of varying sorts existed earlier (even if it was rarer) and D&D settings tend to have a lot of variety such that maybe only great Dwarven smiths have advanced armor-crafting secrets or some such thing.
I guess it's more of an aesthetic question. Which century do you normally think of?
Andrew Phillips
1200 best 00's
Michael Morales
I guess I tend not to think of D&D as historical medieval, the mix of different races and magic and technology and gods all over the place makes the usual logistics behind European medieval stuff a complete crapshoot. The stuff you see in fantasy artwork is more stylized and conceptual rather than functional, not limited to practical considerations of cost and available technology/expertise/materials/etc. I say basically anything goes, if you want an order of paladins who evoke the templars then you put them in thick mail and bucket helms with robes, and they can live next door to a renaissance italy nation that's all pikemen and cuirassses.
Christopher Allen
1300 because you fags like plate but hate gunpowder, in all forms, and hate crusader's togas and mail armor for some reason.
Jeremiah Brown
Around 1400. Because anachronisms are fun.
Blake Cox
800s-1066s because Vikings!
Julian Foster
I tend to think of it as late Renaissance/early modern, but with lots of 'backwater' and 'less developed' areas where the styles of previous era still hold sway.
That's a solid point however..
Ironically the late 3rd age of LotR that most of this fantasy stuff cribs so heavily off of is much closer to the 1200s.
It's too bad people get hung up on plate armor, chainmail has a great aesthetic and it's pretty heavily anachronistic to have plate armor without guns, rockets and bombs.
I fucking love a good surcoat.
Camden Foster
1500-1600 because guns, halberds, and pikes!
Cameron Gray
Generally 1300's
Ian Green
A mix of 800s up to about 1400, with the distinction being largely class-based. Your average peasant militia looks like 800's, your elite royal guards and super-mercenaries look like 1400s. 1200s are about the average for someone who isn't essentially cannon fodder, but also who isn't afforded the most luxurious protections.
I do have bombs, rockets, and so on in most of my campaigns, but their presence has been greatly reduced by the presence of magic. Some people are trying to come up with alternatives to magic; most just hire a wizard.
Levi Gray
It has the glorious pimping Byzantines.
Gavin Perez
The today period. The ancient warriors of swat where likely the best fighters in fantasy archtypes.
Juan Smith
early 1400s I strive for as much realism as I can manage without taking anything away from it being fantasy. This means somewhat accurate prices for goods, more accurate pay, more accurate customs, and more accurate battle tactics. All the while there are fantasy races, magic, and a non-European map. It just really helps to have a time period to base it all on to avoid inconsistency.
Our current campaign is set in a fantasy equivalent of the Hussite wars, but my players don't know that.
Aiden Murphy
D&D in its most generic incarnations (FR, DL, GH) is almost explicitly 1400s-early 1500s.
I do not play D&D though.
And my fav period for aesthetics is mashup of 500s-1000s
I do like longswords, flails and crossbows though so i insert those despite being more modern
Levi Perry
Late 13th, early 14th, after the major Crusades but before the Plague.
Brandon Moore
>I guess it's more of an aesthetic question. Which century do you normally think of? All of them at once, alongside armor that never existed due to being impractical or overdesigned, plus modern moral sensibilities and social conditions.
Angel Rogers
And by all of them at once I'm including pre 1k BC, for clarification. It's not generic if you don't have Ancient Greece bordering the Holy Roman Empire.
Cooper Fisher
>D&D in its most generic incarnations (FR, DL, GH) is almost explicitly 1400s-early 1500s. And yet they have galleons and clockwork and shit.
Andrew Ward
Which era do you feel matches the classic, campy fairy tale knight? The one who rides with fairies to slay dragons and rescue princesses.
Have you ever actually played anything like the stereotype?
Elijah Taylor
Romanticized interpretation of the 1500s
Brayden Brown
D&D is anachronistic, but overall, I tend to put it somewhere around the end of the high and beginning of the late middle ages (c. 1300), with armor maybe going a bit beyond that. Pic is probably what I'd see as the ceiling on armor development, so we're talking about 14th century transitional armor, before complete suits of plate.
Caleb Robinson
> Skipping from 100BC to 800AD
Why the hell do you faggots hate Late Antiquity so much. Shit was cash.
Blake Cox
Most of it is a Victorian Fantasy from the 19th century.
James Phillips
Full renaissance because I like more modern settings and I'm a fan of pike and shot.
Connor Peterson
The stories or the aesthetic? For the stories round the 1000. Pretty sure some norman in sicily actually rescued and married a princess around that period. For looks early 1300's or 1500's.
Jeremiah Reyes
The 1200s, what with the Minnesingers and troubadours and courtly love and chivalry. Check out Ulrich von Liechtenstein: the man was a knight, tournament fighter, poet and lover all rolled into one mail armour package.