Medieval vs Renaissance (Fantasy) Settings

Hey Veeky Forums
Struggling very much with a big decision comcerning the campaign setting I’m working on so I figured this would be a good way to get an outside perspective.
In your opinion/experience with gaming/writing, what do you find makes a more interesting fantasy setting? What are some pros or cons you can think of?

Very interested in what you boys think. Effectively the only thing I’m closed off too is the generic late medieval mishmash that’s copy-pasted all around. We’re talking 11th century or 15th/16th.

Thanks for your time lads

You want a wide variety of arms and armour, castles, knights, etc? Go for Late Middle-Ages/Renaissance.

You want mail armour, sword, shield and spear being the only accessible equipment and everyone being dirty poor? Go for Dark Ages.

You want cool aesthetics, big palaces, huge armies and mysterious cults with multiple gods? Go for Classical Antiquity.

12th century is better than 11th

>You want cool aesthetics, big palaces, huge armies
Baroque, no contest.

In Fantasy you are not bound to our timeline, mix and match branches instead.
Frame the tech as an reaction to setting realities.

I was also thinking baroque/renaissance could be fun due to the more swashbuckling feel of the era. Having things be more like Count of Monte Cristo, Zorro, or even Assassin’s Creed 2 seems like it would be refreshingly different.

Thoughts? Experiences? Have you seen it work well?

Seventh Sea.

WFRP is the premier renaissance/early modern-flavored fantasy RPG.

Too much grimderp and potato sacks.

WTF I hate Pommes de Terre now

I'm from the Sword and Sandals crowd, but I mix influences from Stone ages until the the late Eastern Roman empire. Your Pic is a good example (Varangian guard in the ERE, insn't he?).
I also add guns until matchlocks and alchemy, they are expensive and only elite units, monster hunters or Chieftains can adquire and maintain them.
Magic wise, it's common, but in minor ways, more folklore than Fireballs throwing wizard everywhere, with rituals for better crops, apease the spirits or ease child-birth. There are more powerful magic users,both "good" and "bad", but they don't wield god like powers and are more down to earth, magic is expensive be it in terms of Raw power needed to wield it or how hard is to learn the spells and to make the trinkets to use them. Think Dominions and Glorantha instead of DnD.
Monster and Fantasy races, there are lots but Humans are everywhere and are the default, while minor ones tend to be in a subordinated position to Humans (Halfings), in they own countries/constant war (The Fey than includes goblins, trolls etc) or in they own little "isles" (Witcher Brokilion forest for example), some times a mix of them (Dwarfs enclaves). Also lots of petty monster races than are only found in a few places or countries (think Bangaas/Viera from Ivalice).
Monsters are also common, be it spirits, monster made be the fey to fuck with humans, remnants of the Gods wars, animals (be it Dinos or Paleo-fauna), god servants etc, but they tend to be, again, in tone with the setting, most would go down with a good sword trust or gun shot in the brain. tough others need to be dealt with apropiate ways (think the Witcher, Dungeon meshi, the Spook aprentice and folktales), like a Kapa can be distracted with cucumbers or Spirits can be banished with salt and prayers, Cursed being damaged with silver weapons etc.

>Medieval vs Renaissance
I would say a breaking point between those two

>Spirits can be banished with salt
I suppose spirits avoid neckbeards like the plague.

Being than most Neckbeards try to dwell with the most esoteric magic and Spirits hate to be bonded unless they are promised something they like,paid handsomely in power/prayers (and they tend to prefer, like most folklore being, virgin women), yeah.

Yeah desu I’m a huge fan of late antiquity/fall of rome era and the Byzantines. Underrated desu.
Plus generic shit just gets so old, even if done well.

Everything ends old if you consume it too much desu,it's natural. I still love medieval settings, it's only Classical Age settings and the feel of Hiboria make my dick hard. Than the aestethics are top tier help too.

A Renaissance setting would allow you to introduce da Vinci's more crazy inventions like the ornithopter or diving suit. It might be worth taking a look at "clockpunk"

I've got a metric butt ton of late medieval pictures if you're interested OP

Not OP, but please, do share.

It's mostly armored cosplay but there's a decent amount of regular artwork aswell

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Why not even earlier?

I'm running a 9th century game and it has a certain charm my players seem to really enjoy.

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I think that how interesting a setting is, is a function of how interesting the adventures you can run in it. In turn, how interesting the adventures you can run in a setting are, depends on your level of understanding of the setting. Therefore, you should choose which of the two options is the more fleshed-out world.
Of course, this also makes generic easily-understood kitchen sink fantasy a much better setting than either medieval or renaissance.
If I had to choose one myself, personally I would choose renaissance because I understand it better than the medieval period. Medieval is just such a long time, and in my quite limited knowledge, heavily monopolized by Christianity.

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>Ye walked into the wrong kingdom, peasant!

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I could get behind that. Lots of big empires, lots of tribals running around. Lots of invasions, migratory movements, and political intrigue.

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OP here. Great stuff! Thanks for sharing everyone.
What’s everyone’s experience with firearms in campaigns/settings? I was thinking a pike/shot or feudal japan level of gunpowder could be a fun twist without being obstructive.

>generic late medieval mishmash
These "Medieval" fantasy settings ends up feeling like the Renaissance, from the gear to the social/governmental structures to the level of centralisation and ease of travel. Hell they end up feeling like Early Modern settings that forgot to add firearms.

>These "Medieval" fantasy settings ends up feeling like the Renaissance
Oh gee, could it be because there's extremely little difference between late Medieval and early Renaissance?

What I find curious is that despite this so many of those settings ignore the more unique aspects of the Renaissance as a period. Weird how merchant republics and city states tend to be just window dressing, how things like individual liberty/economic change/legal reform/tech improvement aren’t given the spotlight at all.
Weird too how this extends to tabletop when Florence/Venice are so well known.

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Renaissance is cooler cause everything was more in flux in society, and at least the elites had what we'd call an half-rational/half-religious mentality (while during, say, the napoleonic age the mentality was basically already ours).

It has more magical thinking, in the end, oddly enough (yeah, that doesn't contradict what I said before); there is the exploration/first globalization thing; technology has interesting connotations (epecially the end of the age of knights); Europe becam more fragmented culturally; etc.

Also I feel that oddly enough in DND.like fantasy it might be a refreshing force that implies some rethinking of the clichés for the races. Maybe there dwarfs are the landsknechts of the world, or maybe the great dwarf valley is the equivalent of the Comuni in northern italy.

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If that's Peresvet, then it's definitely not Renaissance, but High Middle Ages.

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