Quote Originally Posted by Vrock_Summoner View Post
Don't misunderstand me. One of my favorite RPGs, Ars Magica, has magical characters going through non-magical, mostly historically accurate medieval Europe. The main thing that it changes to make it more fantasy-appropriate is that things such as medicine and disease worked the way people back then thought they did, meaning the number of "wow, what a stupid, avoidable death" scenarios go down immensely without really altering lifespans much. Truly accurate historical settings, while certainly possible to survive and thrive in (ref: people still exist) have a very different type of tension than more fictionalized variants, where acquiring simple diseases and minor injuries, things that can be glanced over in most types of games, are instead fairly dire situations, which in turn extremely reduces the likelihood that your favorite character will die specifically at a narrative climactic moment.
Lethality is actually an appeal to some players rather than a deterrant. Combat is a last option, because it is as likely to kill as any injury complications that follow. And depending on when you set things in history, there is plenty room for badassery (Late-Egyptian, anyone?)