Reddit reviews The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

Try The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth century. It's a good book, got good reviews and isn't to in-depth so remains a fun light read.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1845950992/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_K6vWBbDP2QMX7

Hi, medieval historian here.

What time period are you interested in, and what region of the world? You probably need to choose one. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian dark age mythology is what Tolkein's world is based on (north western Europe, c. 500-1100) whilst the early parts of Martin's world is based on England during the Wars of the Roses (1465-1485).

If you've not read history before, getting stuck into a text book can be pretty dry going. What you'll want is some kind of generalistic guide. I recommend the following:

The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England

Might I suggest the reading list?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/europe#wiki_middle_ages

And although it's not on the list, I really enjoyed this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Travellers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1845950992

This is a similar themed book, and a great read, written by Ian Mortimer. There is one for medieval and one for Elizabethan Britain, written as if you had just dropped into a different time and what you would experience there.

Literally got that from this book.

Sure, happy to talk about this forever, hahaha.

First of all, I have been DMing for 30 years this month :-) So many things that are simple separately, can seem complex as you collect many of them over the years. For example crossing terrain, climate, type of country (empire, wasteland, feudal, democracy, etc.) and political/war status is something you end up doing naturally like using a clutch in a car, and each element (fresh produce doesn't last, salt makes food last so is as valuable as electricity, specially inland) separately makes sense but all of them together seem a load to remember, just go one at a time.

Second, I read a book that made things a lot simpler: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travellers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1845950992 - this helped me describe road qualities, relationship with authorities and law, segment the population, describe food, construction and town layouts very vividly. You also learn in this book how to price things accurately to make sense in old times.

Third, I do medieval fencing which taught me a few things about fighting that lets me describe battles a little more colourfully. For example having a sargeant shouting "don't break formation" or having a lord apply a levy tax because there is a military threat from his rival (and brother). Also, you can describe how a fighter changes their stance, and you tell your PC level 9 fighter "he changed his back foot for the spear side and is changing his grip, he is coming at you" rather than say "you won initiative". They feel every so clever after this.

Fourth, when going to a museum, historical site (castle, hastings, battle site) I take a look at something from the 5th-15th century and save some summary of it in my head (or even photograph and record it with today's tech, so I can say "the arrow slit covers the road approaching the gate but there is a blind spot when they are closer than 5 metres" or "the round clay tablet starts and ends with a flower shape, has heads with and without beards, bear skins, dotted circles and seems to be in a spiral". I also play with a laptop and can google an image of what I mean and show it to them, then have to save it to a folder with a name that is easy to find later if needed.

Lastly, I have a kind of structure for every town: it has a central square, usually a motte and bailey all the way up to the castle (depending on size), a market, a lord who is known, a lady who is known even more, gossip about them, a source of water, and add one cultural meme: a news bearer that walks around with a horn, a cleric that tolls a bell in the mornings, a monk that walks around gathering people to mass, a local drunk, a charismatic bard, whatever. I steal these memes or characters from books or films but then change them so they are not recognisable, so for example you can have a farmer boy like Hodor, or a hobbit like Willow, or a pair of fools like Laurel and Hardy (tweaked to be unrecognizable).

By having this pieces or history or literature saved in your toolbox, you can piece together a very complex scenario which is also historically accurate, but not as dense as a history lesson, just agile enough for it to be an adventure game, but rich enough to be a story.
There is a lot more one can do, but that I think is pretty simple and cumulative so over a period of time your descriptions become a bit more immersive and helps your players engage a bit more.