[silvarilon]

I'm not sure I understand why Lord of the Rings would have a high scientific rigor. It seemed to have medieval technology, but no real focus on "medieval science", no windmills, water wheels etc.

But it did have mountains full of dwarves and goblins, with no apparent food source (other than each other)

I totally understand why it's got more scientific rigor than Discworld, that intentionally flouts the rules of physics - but I'm not sure what you use to judge the high vs medium.

I've also got a question - where would Ironclaw fall? In terms of both historical rigor as well as scientific rigor.

The setting is a fictional continent, populated by human-like talking animals. The church can bring the dead back to life, zombies walk around, and the wilderness is, basically, populated by dinosaurs. The technology is anachronistic, spanning a period of about 500 years, so mounted knights may well be fighting blocks of troops wielding carbines.

But yet the four main factions are based on real life cultures, with (some of) their cultural achievements and attitudes.

And the world, while having so many fantasy elements, is very much "hard" in terms of social assumptions. The (Italian-themed) city has fresh water brought in by aqueduct. If the players push for slavery to be abolished, the citizens won't cheer them, they'll complain that the aqueducts aren't maintained. (Unless the players take other, appropriate action. Such as funding the maintenance of the aqueducts now that it's not maintained by city-owned slaves.)

Wizards can shoot fireballs, but it's much easier to just shoot a crossbow. And much faster to learn. So armies are made up of many more soldiers than wizards. Yet wizards have certain abilities that can't be replicated with technology, such as (limited) teleportation - so they certainly fill key roles. Siege tactics are different in this world, due to some of the characters being bats, with the ability to fly. The emphasis is always to set up the game in a believable way, to explain why society works the way it does.

So... um... how would I categorize that?
Strong scientific rigor, because we are extremely strict about technology all coming from the right time period? (albeit within that 500 year range...) Or weak scientific rigor because we have talking animals walking around wearing clothes?

Right now, one of our staff is researching renaissance roofing tiles, and the appropriate materials they were made from. (And doing so for the four major cultures) - does that give us strong historic rigor? Or because we go to a lot of effort to push the RP being appropriate for the time period, with aristocracy, rising middle class, and the historic social upheavals experienced during the renaissance? Or weak historical rigor because it takes place on an imaginary continent, and women are allowed to be mercenaries and soldiers?

I don't object to your categories, I'm just unsure how we'll rate ourselves against them. I think we're going to get a lot of games that, in some aspects are very historically accurate, and in others are exceptionally inaccurate.

Heck, even a "Knights of the Round Table" game - would that be historical? Or not?

Or am I misunderstanding how the categories should work?
(And apologies for what must sound like a game advert. I just wanted a clear example of how some aspects can have extreme attention to detail, while others are hand waved or stylized)