A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe *Print Version*

[Messageboard Golem]

This 144-page supplement is for GMs and players who wish to add a touch of realism to their game. It's for the people who'd like to flesh out the background of their gaming world, but don't have the time to dig through scholarly books. A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe provides you flexibility and advice in creating your own world. It contains a massive amount of game-usable information about the medieval period and focuses on how D20 magic could change a traditional medieval setting. Generation systems for kingdoms, cities, manors, aristocratic wealth and landholding; a thorough construction system; and an economic simulator allow GMs to recreate the high middle ages feel with ease.

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe solves age-old dilemmas like: How much does it cost for my PCs to repair the formerly-orc-infested abandoned keep they want to use as a home base? What would happen, politically, were the PCs to set up their keep? How big is my city of 15,000 people? How many buildings are in my city? What do all the NPCs do? How do I start my PCs on the road to becoming kings? Just how much does a king earn a year anyway? What about just a regular noble? How big is a kingdom of 5,000,000 people? How many cultivated acres does it take to feed them? How should I map towns, cities, and smaller communities within my kingdom? What type of government should I use for my kingdom? How does magical religion really work? Just what do those NPCs do all the time?

The questions plaguing DMs and world-builders for the past twenty-five years have now been answered! Expeditious Retreat Press is now accepting orders for A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe at their web site and at RPGmall.com.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I didn't know what to expect from A Magical Medieval Society. I've never heard of Expeditious Retreat Press before so the whole book was coming at me from an unexpected angle.

The back boasts no new spells, feats, or classes. What than is left for the book to do? Does it bring to life Medieval Europe like old Ars Magica products do? Does it provide detailed breakdowns on military strength and the various titles that those in Medieval times held? Nope.

What this book does is take the feel of the most commonly used background in d20, Medieval Western Europe, and applies it to the d20 system by discussing how different abilities and powers might influence the way those structures would work in such a setting. It's not a detailed, dry treatise on it, but rather an entertaining read that provides the reader enough material to take the material in the direction he wants to go.

The book breaks information down into different chapters, making it easy to find what you're looking for by grouping things in a logical manner. The first chapter for example, On Those Who Toil, includes information on running a Manorial System and what legal status peasants have and how villages fit into the overall structure. That's not to say that it only covers manors. It provides materials on cities, countries, social structures, town charters and other subjects appropriate to the meta-setting.

Helping out the text are tables that help break down information in further bite sized chunks. Some of these tables are lengthy, like Random Structure Generator or the Professions, or Guilds, Item Purchase or Crime and Punishments. Some of them are worksheets, like the Kingdom and Demographics Worksheets. For those unfamiliar with most of the terminology, a Glossary helps keep terms straight. What's a Chattel you ask? Why movable property like slaves or animals. What's a Demesne? Nothing more than a domain.

I enjoyed the book's examples as they provided clear cut illustrations of how nothing is set in stone and how a simple in concept theory of land management, can become complex with the additions of churches, and other social powers.

The book in and of itself isn't going to provide you with the tools you need to get started right away. It's something best layered onto something else. For example, when it concerns guilds, I'll probably be using the information here to add some depth to the information from Mystic Eye Games Guilds and Adventurers. It's not a setting in and of itself, but a meta-setting you utilize for depth and richness on your own setting.

If the book has a weakness, it's the art and layout. A lot of the tables rely on being boxed and centered for readability purposes and some of them, like the Item Purchase one, are laid out in a very tight manner making some of the information difficult to look at and requires a fine eye to move along the type. The art itself fits the book, looking like it came from the archives of the Dover Publication series with a medieval origin but the border doesn't cover the full page so the text swings over underneath the border, jarring the reader's eye to the left or right when doing so. Editing is sound in most cases although a few misspellings snuck through. At 144 pages, the $25 price is about right.

If there's something that would've pushed the book into the fire star rating, that'd be maps. Much like Chris Pramas mentions in his introduction to Cartographica, not every GM has an eye or even the knowledge for maps and I'd have loved to seen some standard manor layouts and designs and some fortified manor layouts and designs. That's one thing that the old Fantasy Hero supplements had going for them. Lots of great black and white maps.

If you're interested in bringing the roots of the D&D game to your setting without doing a ton of research, A Magical Medieval Society is for you. Me personally? I'm hoping that they do another book like this for other centers like Eastern Europe and Asie.

As a side note, this book is currently only available from the website, www.exp.citymax.com , and will be also available through RPGmall.com when RPGmall.com opens for business.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing up the Target
A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is a medieval background sourcebook written by Suzi Yee and Joseph Browning and published by Expeditious Retreat Press. It is available in print for $25, or as a PDF file for $10; this review is of the 144-page softcover print version.

First Blood
A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is a supplement designed to aid in the creation of a medieval fantasy world by combining d20 game elements with historical facts to create a medieval atmosphere that is both realistic and generic enough to apply to almost any fantasy setting. The authors begin with the assumption of a medieval society typical of that found in Central Europe in the late Middle Ages. They then address reconciling the historical realities of this period with basic game assumption: gender roles, the ease of communication and prevalence of education, the existence of non-human races, and the prevalence of magic. Based on those assumptions and setting concepts, the authors go on to describe the various economic, social, and political structures that would result from the combination of historical reality and game concepts.

Two chapters are devoted to “Those Who Toil” – life on the medieval manor and in farming communities. This is a wealth of information on everyday life in the Middle Ages, and is the sort of material that can bring a location in the campaign to life. Descriptions of the various functions on the manor, the roles of peasants and lords, the farming system, and the impacts of magic on life on the manor are all discussed at great depth. A system is presented to generate a medieval manor, whether for PCs or the GM to run, along with its associated incomes, residents, administration, and responsibilities, complete with an example and a helpful worksheet. A set of plot hooks provides adventuring ideas in and around the manor, and includes such things as involving druids to affect the yield for the year’s harvest.

Two chapters are devoted to life in the medieval city. With a similar level of detail, the formation of medieval cities is explored, along with government, layout, upkeep and maintenance, city structures, and city concerns. The discussion of power centers – to include guilds of craftsmen, merchants, wizards, and thieves – is very useful for running a city-based campaign, as are the discussions of city economics and the impacts of magic use, again, all grounded in historical facts where appropriate. An entire system is presented to generate medieval cities and towns. This system begins with the Cole Rulebook II system for compatibility, but allows a greater level of detail with more realistic economics. With the included tables, the GM could generate and entire city ward-by-ward and structure-by-structure, along with the important inhabitants. An influence point system provides a means of measuring how important various residents of the city might be, and allows the GM to develop webs of influence for the power centers in the medieval city.

The Economic Simulator chapter is probably the most useful and interesting chapter in the book. If you’ve ever been frustrated with the fixed price lists for gear in the rulebooks, since prices should really fluctuate all across the realm, but haven’t wanted to try and work out a good system, look no farther. The economic simulator provides a simple way to let supply and demand dictate prices for goods based on item rarity DCs, community size, and player negotiation. Sven full pages of items are provided for this system – everything from weapons and armor, to gems, to mundane equipment, to spell components.

One chapter is devoted to “Those Who Pray”, discussing the impact and importance of religion on day-to-day medieval life, and making the adjustments required from a historical reality of a monolithic, monotheist church to the multiple magical religions found in the fantasy game system. This chapter includes a great discussion on church hierarchies, religious splits, and how to handle clerics of multiple alignments within the service of a single patron god.

The two final chapters of A Magical Medieval Society are devoted to “Those Who Rule” – the people, laws, and punishment of the feudal aristocratic system. The relationships between lord and vassal are potentially much more complex than I had imagined, and open up tremendous opportunities for politically based campaigning. Sections discuss how to develop monarchies and handle the divine rights of kings (there’s even a medieval king template in the appendix with his divinely granted powers). If your players get out of hand and attack the town guard, you’ll find the tables of medieval crime and punishment useful, as well as the discussion of the impact of magic, particularly magical divination, on the justice system. Like earlier sections, there is a chapter that provides a system to generate entire kingdoms with their populations, cities, demographics, and sources of income that dovetail with the basic system outlined in Core Rulebook II.

Five appendices provide additional details in the form of demographic information, means of generating magical resources, the magical king template, and examples of guild rules, charters, grants, tolls, and taxes. One appendix provides a complete system for building fortifications and other strongholds through both mundane and magical means; the system is accurate and highly customizable, though it requires some effort and calculation to use. These are two completely worked examples of the building system provided. Finally, at the rear of the book is a collected summary of all the plot hooks provided throughout the supplement to give some great ideas for magical, medieval adventures.

Critical Hits
This is by far one of the best supplements I’ve encountered thus far to lend a measure of historical veracity to your campaign setting and adventures. Few of us are medieval anthropologists, or have the time to do the in-depth research required to develop a campaign setting with a strong grounding in reality. This work allows you to do that by picking up a single book, and you’ll be able to add detail and flavor to your campaign with plots based on the rights of the suzerain, encounters with the local reeve or millner, machinations within merchants or wizards guilds, or a dogmatic split between members of a lawful good church.

This is based on Western European feudalism, true – a Celtic campaign, Eastern flavored campaign, or Native American flavored campaign will gain less from it – but in my experience most fantasy campaigns have enough trappings of medieval Europe that something in this work will probably be useful.

Critical Misses
This is a d20 product that contains no new feats, skills, spells, or prestige classes, so gamers who are looking for those types of “crunchy bits” for their game will probably find this to be pretty dry reading – the excitement in this book is in adding medieval realism and background to the game, not in providing new monsters to slay or magic to use. Games Masters will benefit the most from the product; players might find the information on building a stronghold and maintaining a manor useful if that occurs as part of their campaign, but will likely have fewer uses for the remaining mechanics.

Western Europe focuses on social, demographic, and economic aspects of medieval society; it would be nice to include a further treatment of medieval military aspects to mesh with the d20 combat system and provide some historical perspective on it as well.

Coup de Grace
A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is 100% Open Content Material, with mechanics and generation systems that dovetail nicely with established town and city mechanics in Core Rulebook II. Though GMs will probably get the greatest mileage out of this product, it’s something that fills an important niche in the d20 product line, providing some strong background flavor with a bit of historical accuracy. You wouldn’t want to take the time it would take to gather these details yourself – this is one product I’d recommend that every GM who is serious about world creation have on his or her bookshelf.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Psion]

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is a sourcebook providing details of the society based on that of western Europe as if magic were available to the citizenry. As feudal era western Europe is the most common cultural template for d20 System fantasy settings, the book is, from all appearances, targeted at adding details of such societies to such games.

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is written by Joseph Browning and Suzi Yee, who think I have a poker face. The book is published by the author's imprint, Expeditious Retreat Press. The book is available in print and PDF format, though this review is on the print version.

A First Look

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is a 144-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $25 US, which is a reasonable price for a d20 System book of this size.

The cover of the book has a burgundy background with a pinkinsh-marbled stripe down the front and back. The front has a replication of what appears to be a woodcut image of a king's visage on the front.

The interior is black-and-white. There is no indication of artists that I could find, but most of the interior art also appears to be public domain woodcuts.

The interior body text is small, but the paragraphs are double spaced; overall the text density is high. However, a san serif body text font is used, which makes continued reading a bit more difficult that optimal.

A Deeper Look

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe is organized into eight chapters and five appendices, plus a glossary, bibliography, and, yes, a final exam which you can use to gauge how well you absorbed the material in the book. Let's just say I need to do a little more homework...

The book also sets forth with an introduction. In that introduction, the authors establish a number of key concepts and assumptions essential to bridge the gap between the reality of Western Europe and the typical tropes of d20 System fantasy settings.

The most compelling (and perhaps essential) of these assumptions is that of magic. The book, for example, recognizes the implications of the d20 System rules on the pervasiveness of magic, but points out that logically, only a minor fraction of magic would be of the sort that appeals to adventurers and most magic would be turned towards mundane pursuits.

In some cases, though, I feel as it the authors could have afforded to deviate more strongly from the d20 System assumptions than they did. For example, I have long felt that the d20 System language model was painfully oversimplified and a book like this would have been a great place to add more appropriate details to that aspect of the game, much as they took the opportunity to add detail to the oversimplified economic system.

The book recognizes a three way breakdown in Medieval society and uses it as a central organizational breakdown: those who toil, those who pray, and those who fight/rule. Magic is a major aspect of the d20 System, but the book chooses to shuffle that aspect in alongside the other aspects instead of trying to treat magic as a separate branch of society.

This "integration" takes the form of descriptions of how various members of society can make use of various spells and how it affects their day-to-day lives. When it comes to systems like operating manors and farming, some magic effects are described in terms of how it affects these pursuits.

The book provides generous exposition in many chapters of how members of the Magical Medieval Society ply their trades and live their lives. These sorts of details are provided for serfs who serve the lord of a manor, priests, citydwellers, and aristocrats, providing a detailed picture of life in such a society.

In addition to these basic details, many chapters have sections providing rules for generation and simulation of aspects of society in the d20 System. These include rules for generating a manor (including staff and cash crops), towns and cities (including details like quarters, guilds, professions, and buildings), and kingdoms and aristocracy (including details of how many of what grades of nobility there are and their income.)

The appendices add further generation and tracking systems, including demographics (which is a modest variant of the system in the core rules), magical resources, and building creation. Other tidbits tucked away in the appendices is a template for magical Medieval kings (much like Kalamar, MMS:WE assumes that royalty has some supernatural granted powers), and taxes and tolls.

One chapter that I rather liked and tend to put to immediate use is the economic simulator. The simulator helps create more fluid costs to items and simulates that some items are not always available. It does this by assigning purchase DCs to items; if you don't find an item at the basic price, there is a chance that you can find it at a higher price.

Conclusion

In writing this review, I feel as if I have been all too brief. It is easy to miss the sheer depth of details that this book provides for your campaigns.

Honestly, there are many d20 System fantasy gamers who have done without such details and will likely continue to do so. That said, I find it hard to imagine that there are many serious GMs out there who couldn't make some use of these books. Even if random generation of various details aren't your thing, I can think of a great many situations in which various tidbits in this book could come in handy when running a game, such as penalties for crimes, plot hooks steeped in the reality of a medieval society, or realistically random costs and availability of items.

Overall Grade: B+

-Alan D. Kohler