Josh Sawyer plans to develop a historical RPG after Project Louisiana

[Humanoid]

Suspect it's because the more fantastical the setting is, the easier it is for it to become a crutch. The decision-makers cynically  (and correctly) figure that you can sell a game on the novelty of dragons, bombed-out wastelands, zombies, time-travel, etc, and pair it up with some fairly perfunctory writing. The job becomes much harder the more grounded the setting is, which should explain why so few developers even attempt an RPG in a contemporary setting.

[Gorgon]

Anything but steampunk.

You can't let cosplayers ruin steampunk for you, that's absurd. Anyway there is more than one way to skin a cat. It's basically just reimagined technolgy, Bioshock infinite, Dishonoured, Arcanum, whathaveyou, that is heavily influencing the setting. 

 

I'm all for a properly themed historical setting where Lenardo Da Vinci/Benjamin Frankin/Nicola Tesla don't show up as questgiving NPCs by the way. 

[Vaeliorin]

For me, the biggest problem with a purely historical RPG is having gameplay that's interesting.  Without any kind of "supernatural" abilities, you're basically left with nothing but attack.  I guess you can add aimed shots, knockdowns, and the like, but there's not a ton of room for interesting abilities.  Also, no fast healing, which becomes problematic.

 

 

 

A Victorian era dark fantasy could be good. A little steampunk, some faerie influences, and a mix of rationalism with romanticism.

That said, I'd love something like this.

[redneckdevil]

It should be about the Spanish Inquisition, no one will see that coming.

[Leferd]

16th Century Italian Renaissance. All sorts of things going on:

 

-Interplay and warfare with the various city-states - Milan, Florence, Venice, Genoa

-Rivalries of the major house...Medici, Borgia, Sforza

-Papal politics

-The Papal States, The Holy Roman Empire

-The Ninja Turtles

-Galileo

-Machiavelli

-Science vs Church Doctrine

[FlintlockJazz]

 

For me, the biggest problem with a purely historical RPG is having gameplay that's interesting.  Without any kind of "supernatural" abilities, you're basically left with nothing but attack.  I guess you can add aimed shots, knockdowns, and the like, but there's not a ton of room for interesting abilities.  Also, no fast healing, which becomes problematic.

 

 

 

A Victorian era dark fantasy could be good. A little steampunk, some faerie influences, and a mix of rationalism with romanticism.

That said, I'd love something like this.

 

 

16th Century Italian Renaissance. All sorts of things going on:

 

-Interplay and warfare with the various city-states - Milan, Florence, Venice, Genoa

-Rivalries of the major house...Medici, Borgia, Sforza

-Papal politics

-The Papal States, The Holy Roman Empire

-The Ninja Turtles

-Galileo

-Machiavelli

-Science vs Church Doctrine

As Leferd points out there's lots going on.  You could run it as a kind of 'bladepunk' setting, using themes from Cyberpunk but replacing the cybernetics with the new fencing styles and the faceless Megacorps with the faceless Church.

 

As to the lack of magic leaving you with just auto-attack, that is patently untrue as there are many tabletop systems that don't use magic but are still indepth.  Without having to develop a magic system they would actually have more time developing the normal combat system, developing for a Renaissance setting would be a great opportunity to develop a system that plays on the different styles of the fencing styles at the time.  Special attacks, defensive maneuvers, acrobatics depending on how cinematic they want to get it, stealth kills, all sorts.  The system would also be built with the knowledge that there is no 'fast healing' in the game as well.  And of course, combat may not be the focus of such a game, not every RPG is a dungeon delve after all.

[Vaeliorin]

 

For me, the biggest problem with a purely historical RPG is having gameplay that's interesting.  Without any kind of "supernatural" abilities, you're basically left with nothing but attack.  I guess you can add aimed shots, knockdowns, and the like, but there's not a ton of room for interesting abilities.  Also, no fast healing, which becomes problematic.

 

 

 

 

A Victorian era dark fantasy could be good. A little steampunk, some faerie influences, and a mix of rationalism with romanticism.

That said, I'd love something like this.

 

16th Century Italian Renaissance. All sorts of things going on:

-Interplay and warfare with the various city-states - Milan, Florence, Venice, Genoa

-Rivalries of the major house...Medici, Borgia, Sforza

-Papal politics

-The Papal States, The Holy Roman Empire

-The Ninja Turtles

-Galileo

-Machiavelli

-Science vs Church Doctrine

 

As Leferd points out there's lots going on.  You could run it as a kind of 'bladepunk' setting, using themes from Cyberpunk but replacing the cybernetics with the new fencing styles and the faceless Megacorps with the faceless Church.

 

As to the lack of magic leaving you with just auto-attack, that is patently untrue as there are many tabletop systems that don't use magic but are still indepth.  Without having to develop a magic system they would actually have more time developing the normal combat system, developing for a Renaissance setting would be a great opportunity to develop a system that plays on the different styles of the fencing styles at the time.  Special attacks, defensive maneuvers, acrobatics depending on how cinematic they want to get it, stealth kills, all sorts.  The system would also be built with the knowledge that there is no 'fast healing' in the game as well.  And of course, combat may not be the focus of such a game, not every RPG is a dungeon delve after all.

I realize not every game needs to be a dungeon delve, but I am, at heart, a systems person. I tend to think in terms of crunch, not fluff (note that fluff is not intended as a derogatory term), and the non-dungeon delving parts of games usually don't tend to have a lot of crunch to them. I'm not even sure you could come up with crunch-heavy non-combat gameplay that people would like or accept. Anyway, in my experience, things that would make for interesting gameplay (such as the things you mention) are decried by the "realistic games" enthusiasts (those I would expect to be most interested in a truly historical RPG) as unrealistic, usually quite loudly. How much of an effect this would have on Josh and company isn't really knowable, but they've acquiesced to (unreasonable) fan complaints in the past.

 

As for the game being built with the knowledge there's no fast healing, this has, in my experience, usually resulted in games where you either take almost no damage, or you die almost instantly. It's not as if a significant sword wound will heal within a matter of hours, or even days, and there's no way the plot can reasonably take weeks or months of (essentially random) recovery time into account.

 

Anyway, this is just my own experience when trying to deal with games that tried to do a real world setting. Whether or not Obsidian can overcome these problems (or if they would even intend to do a truly realistic setting) is something we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Of course, if they intended to make it an action game, instead of being stat driven, the whole thing goes out the window.