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Should calendars in fantasy games be, um, fantasy? (i.e. custom-made)

mondblut

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I like my fantasy calendars detached from earthly medieval european conventions. Why the fuck does the world of Nowheria have a 7-day week? Unless it ripped off the hebrew creation myth whole, there is no reason to. Why the hell is the month of AfterNewYearWinter has 31 days and the month of MyAssFreezon that follows has 28? This shit has been purely coincidental on Earth. Fuck it, give me 8-day weeks, 32-day months, 10-month years and a bunch of special days in between months if you hate round numbers.

Also, never call your fantasy porcelain "china" :obviously:
 

mondblut

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What comes next ? Your own system of measurements ?

Unlike calendar division, old / imperial unit measurements are usually grounded in human anatomy, not on random shit from earthly history. So, unless your primary race has no legs and 14 fingers, they will probably measure length in 30cm-long "feet" and use either base-10 or base-12 for math.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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turtles are awesome
Especially when the turtles in question are giant and rideable!

kA3m1cp.png
 

Arryosha

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A number of people in the thread have said that if the calendar doesn't affect the gameplay in any meaningful way, don't make it fantasy. But I think the opposite is true. The more a fantasy calendar is relevant to the gameplay the greater chance there is for it to annoy (timed quests with no timer). As long as its effect on gameplay is nil or optional, there should be no reason to be annoyed by it because you can ignore it. It is just part of the lore that adds immersion. As with lore, I think a general rule is that if it affects gameplay in a way that is not optional, it has to be interesting enough on its own that a player will want to learn it for its own sake.
 

GarfunkeL

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You open a can of worms:
1. Why is your week 7-days long?
2. Why is your month 4-weeks long?
3. Why is your year 365-days long?
4. Why are there four seasons?
and so on.

Is your game taking place on Earth? You don't have to change inclination or distance from the local star much to affect all of these things. Changing the size and shape of the planet alters it too. Is gravity the same? What about latitudes and longitudes? Is there 12 hours of light and 24 hours of darkness or something else, and why? Weather patterns - just compare Kazakstan or Tibet (deep hinterlands) with Madagascar or Galapagos (island surrounded by ocean) and that's just on our planet. Why does your fantasy land have Earth-like climate?

It's definitely cool to have your own calendar but really, if you're starting worldbuilding like that, either have it all in the background where it helps your creative process to remain consistent and you don't need to unload it on the player at all (or just through occasional snippets) but then you have to think about everything else too. Or it really doesn't make any gameplay difference and isn't an important element of the story, in which case you can just ignore it completely.
 

Bruma Hobo

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You open a can of worms:
1. Why is your week 7-days long?
2. Why is your month 4-weeks long?
3. Why is your year 365-days long?
4. Why are there four seasons?
and so on.
Not really. From a storyfag perspective, most fantasy settings are actually Earth Europe's past under a blurry lens, so by changing the planet's behavior in such precise ways you're entering the science fiction realm. Which could be fine, but that's not at all the same as making-up a fantasy calendar that still respects actual orbital periods.
 

GarfunkeL

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Yes really, because our historical calendars are not the same as our current calendar. The number of days per week or months, or weeks/months per year, have been fluctuating. Some are arbitrary, others stem from early astronomical observations, while others rely on natural seasons. If you're going to the trouble to make up a fantasy calendar, then you need to justify its existence by explaining the underlying reasons for such a calendar.

Otherwise, it's just a shitty re-skin of the current calendar and that's both lazy and annoying. I have no problem suspending my disbelief that a fantasy world uses January and Tuesday if it has to use a calendar at all because I can accept that as a convenient short-hand. Just like I can accept that it has humans that are identical to us and its historical progress - scientific and sociological and economical - mirrors human history. Call it fantasy-lite or whatever. I prefer that over the Elder Scrolls system of just renaming the 12 months and 7 days which is a hassle and has no actual impact on anything.

As I said, either focus on world-building to the extent that you're creating sufficient cosmological background for all this, like Tolkien, which will make it interesting and exotic enough to make learning it fun, or don't bother at all because the half-assed method makes you come across as a pretentious twat.
 

Dramart

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In my opinion it's good, it gives the fantasy world its own identity and makes it more real, it doens't matter if the names are complicated or whatever, It's not something important to memorize. If you use the names of the real world it feels weird if it's a fantasy world. Fire Emblem had this and I think that also did Dragon Age Origins and I don't remember the name of any of them.
 

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