My Life As A Gamer: Winners Know Their History

People that play tabletop RPGs with proper campaigns, expecially Real D&D and its neighbors such as Adventurer, Conqueror, King and Gamma World/Mutant Future, would do well to curate and maintain familiarity with real world history. The real cultures of the present and past, routinely referenced in games and fiction across all media, are full of useful and relevant information for campaigners at all levels of play. (Yes, including mythology and religion, ergo culture.)

ACKS players in particular should take to Invicta and Kings & Generals for easy-mode videos on the Ancient World. Real D&D players generally with also enjoy those and the videos on Medieval and Early Modern cultures around the world, while those playing contemporary/alt-history as well as futuristic (retrofuture included) will enjoy those on more contemporary events.

The caveat I give here is that these channels, along with Osprey Publishing's books, should be treated like Wikipedia pages: a useful starting point, not the final destination. They're surface-level presentations, introductory material, and not truly deeep and detailed inquiries into the subject matter. However, for gaming purposes, this stuff will do for gameplay purposes. (e.g. Kings & General's video on Roman fortresses on the Rhine)

What can these videos do?

• Models for adventure sites. That Roman Castra video alone can be used for a ruined fortress, a NPC stronghold, a model for a player Domain stronghold, or (with some creative license) be used as the basis for a dungeon.
• Models for NPC cultures. This requires some comprehension of geopolitics and political economy as a concept, but that isn't a hard thing to do; local environments dictate what can be built and how, and what operations are possible as well as how they get done. (The Ancient World in the West is dominated by Thassalaocracies for a reason.)
• Models for NPC religions, which will also influence cultures. This is thin, but it is there; more than other topics in this sphere, you will need to read further and deeper to get useful information.

Given that real campaign play, especially Real D&D, involves warfare and logistics it is necessary for any serious player who wants to play a serious player to be familiar with how it was really done.

Now you have the baseline, from which introduction of the fantastic allows for deviations. Want to build that stone castle, but you are in a place where stone cannot be had? Hope that you have a friendly Magic-User to cast Wall of Stone for you. In a place where wood is abundant? Better make nice with the Druids, or the trees will not merely speak Leaf but they'll get up and slaughter you. Hunt for your meat? Likewise. Loot the shrine of an alien god? Better have your own religion or you're deep in cosmic shit.

Finally, I remind you that reading the stories of history Great Men shows that those who learn how to #winatRPGs are learning how to become the Great Men of tomorrow- something that Fake D&D and its proponents fear, hate, and recoil at as vampires recoil in the presence of the Cross and invocation of His name.