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@The_Dyer_Consequences

Let's start with the most bizarre suggestion first: #Microscope

https://lamemage.com/microscope/

Yes, I'm very aware that it doesn't have a resolution mechanic other than essentially what you say happens. This works greatly in your favor if you want to tell stories about groups of people or about exploring parts of histories.

Microscope is an obvious call. But what people don't recognize is that it is really good for zooming way in and following individuals or families or even items throughout a historical period.

You don't have to worry about the dice coming up with something nonsensical. Everybody at the table knows what's sensible. They know what kind of thing is unlikely to happen in a historical context. That's why they're playing a historical game; they want that feeling. Empower them to do so.

For example: let's say you wanted to follow a family throughout their experience in the invasion of Ivar the Boneless. No problem. Set up your opening period and your closing period , and start filling in between.

- Halvaar the One-Eyed Establishes the Family Farmstead
- Gudmund Ice-Tongue Establishes the First Family Farmstead in England

Why do they have those names? What happens between?

Play to find out.

(cont)

@The_Dyer_Consequences

I want something less broad-scale and more focused in, but still with great flexibility. Same author: #Kingdom .

https://lamemage.com/kingdom/

All of the players at the table are part of the same community. It might be a literal kingdom. It might be the inhabitants of a village in England being invaded by Ivar the Boneless. It might be a war band of Vikings.

They all have a defined relationship to one another, and there are other people in the community beyond themselves that are affected by their decisions and actions.

Threats to the situation come along and they have to decide how to deal with them or how things go awry in the process. Kingdom really requires that you have players who are willing to speak up about inherent conflicts and lean into them — not conflicts between players, but conflicts between intents and effects. It's an absolutely fantastic game, which doesn't get nearly as much discussion as it deserves.

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@The_Dyer_Consequences

Or if you want to be more classically focused on player characters than that, even. Okay, we can do that. Go pick up a copy of #Ironsworn. You can do so for free.

https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn

Yes, I know that the basic setup of the game is very much low fantasy and not historical. But that is not necessarily a limitation. It's the mechanics you're interested in, and you have very much all the mechanics you need to play a historical TTRPG set in the Viking period.

You might have to be a little bit creative when it comes to characters which are not classically combatant because there are a lot more assets which are combat-focused, because fantasy games tend to be pretty combat-focused. But that may not necessarily be a drawback if you want to talk about an age of conquest.

By the way, you don't have to be the GM. The game is perfectly playable GM-less, solo, co-op, or if you must, guided.

The mechanics are not going to get in the way when you want to tell a historical story. It's a fiction-first architecture so as long as you and the other people at the table agree on what kind of fiction that you are playing, the rest follows naturally.

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@The_Dyer_Consequences

Let's say that you really prefer the traditional RPG architecture of one GM and multiple players without heavy distributed authority. I don't know why you would, but let's say you did.

I still have systems that can fulfill your needs and let you have a very flexible historical game: Over the Edge.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/267012/over-the-edge-third-edition-digital

As an advisory, I have to say that I much preferred 1st edition to 2nd or 3rd. It was less elaborated and less molded to the setting in which it occurs, a modern world but with fantastic elements.

However, the core mechanics are simple, straightforward, and you can probably summarize the important parts on a 3x5 card. You can certainly put a character on a 3x5 card, just the front.

It is a player trait-defined mechanical core, so the descriptive language isn't going to get in the way of realizing a historical character concept. Conflicts are straightforward and a roll will give you an answer.

If I were about to put together a historical game for people who really wanted the traditional RPG mode of play, I would go pull Over the Edge off my shelf and start putting something together

(cont)

@The_Dyer_Consequences

Two more suggestions, and I'm done. I swear.

The first is probably one of the best little cores that I've ever seen presented for a Kickstarter, and I'm happy to have one of the hardback cloth-bound copies, even though it is somewhat small and might not be everyone's cuppa: #Sanction .

http://www.sanctionrpg.com/

One of the great things about Sanction is that, like Ironsworn, it has a community content creation license that comes with it.

Essentially, if you like the rules and you want to build your own game based on those rules, you can publish the results of what you create, as long as you fulfill some relatively simple and straightforward guidelines.

This is a system which is pretty classic in its architecture, so there is a GM who facilitates the story with the players. Crucially, quite a lot of this is driven by player decision and player action.

This is not a game where you are likely to come to the table with a full story that you want the players to experience. Instead, their interaction with the world that you help negotiate is what will drive a lot of the experience, in my opinion.

This is the same system used in the game The Dee Sanction, which led to the title for obvious reasons. If you're familiar with that game, you'll have an idea of how this works.

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@The_Dyer_Consequences

Finally: the Freeform Universal RPG .

https://www.perilplanet.com/freeform-universal/

(Pick up the 2nd Edition BETA; it's perfectly fine.)

Like Sanction, it is more of a game core than a full game in and of itself, which is a total win as far as I'm concerned.

Like Ironsworn, it is absolutely free to download, which is also pretty awesome.

Like Over the Edge, it uses descriptive traits that are dynamically created by the players rather than chosen from a list in the book, which I find to be far more flexible and way more useful for a historical game because you can have as much specificity or as little as you want.

It is descended from the Forged in the Dark lineage like Ironsworn, so players are the only ones that roll dice, not the GM. This does strangely simplify things on a lot of levels.

If you're looking for something that can provide you the framework for resolving the conflicts that you think are interesting and important within the context of whatever historical game you want to start running, this is a great game core to start with. Solid mechanics

(cont)

@The_Dyer_Consequences Essentially, to sum up, in my mind the most important thing is not what a set of mechanics does for you if you are running or intend to run a historical RPG. What's more important is what they don't do. You need them not to get in the way.

You need to have maximum flexibility in terms of description because reality is far weirder than anything we would allow to happen in a TTRPG. That applies to every single historical period in all of human experience.

If you want to keep those elements in there, you need to keep a system in front of you which allows you (as a player) to introduce them. Absolutely critical.

Stay away from things with lots of rules. Lots of rules means lots of landmines. Gravitate toward things with very few rules which can be generalized or specified for your particular needs on the fly as the players demand. Do that and you'll find yourself in a good place.

Of course, I believe that about all RPGs no matter whether they're historical or fantastical, so take that with a grain of salt.

@lextenebris alright very cool, You've given me quite a lot to consider here so thanks. I'm gonna have to find a group now and figure out what we want to play!

@The_Dyer_Consequences You'll notice that a few of the games which I have brought up are playable solo or with small groups. In fact, pretty much everything I've put on the table is best with at most three or four people. There's no reason not to take fewer, quite frankly.

Ironsworn you can play alone.

The important thing is to play. Everything else is at best tertiary. The more you play, the more you find things that you want to be enthusiastic about and share with other people as part of your relationship with them, and that is how you find other people who want to play with you.

@lextenebris thanks I definitely think that the part about just playing is a very good point. I definitely think I'm looking for a group though, I have nothing against playing solo but personally I love the social aspect of ttrpgs and telling a story with my friends.

@The_Dyer_Consequences Then your next move is to go find some people who are excited about playing together in a historical context. Settle on that context, figure out what mechanics speak to you, because since you are the one who is the most excited about pursuing this, they really need to be a facilitator. And then just start banging it out. There's nothing to do for it but to do it.

But don't think that you have to have a full table of eight people before you can start throwing some dice and having a good time. A lot of people get caught up in "I don't have a group" and never get around to "I want to play," and that is a bad place to get stuck.

If you want to play, play. If that means you're playing alone until you have some stuff put together you want to show to other people, have that lonely fun.

If you want to sit and scribble some notes and ideas to put something together and that is fun to you, that's play. Have that lonely fun and enjoy it.

The key is just to play.

@lextenebris oh believe your talking to a guy that's dming 4 DnD groups. I know how to find players, and I play quite a lot I just need to find interested, available players for this type of game, but I'm sure I'll figure it out, not that I even have that much time, but I'm planning for a future where I do have that much time and the right group.