FrozenNorth
Hero
The villain stops him. Mwah-ha-ha!
D&D General A old roleplaying magazine had ideas for either buying or earning a title. Why not allow a character that earns a title to pay to upgrade it?
ilgatto
How inconvenient
Won't it?
Wasn't it Herark the Harbinger who once said that, to deal with messages such as this, we should make it declare its obverse?
So 'Nothing stops him' would become 'Something does not stop him', and, again, 'Nothing does stop him.'
Therefore, what is the 'Nothing' that stops him? What or where is 'Nothing'?
Clint_L
Hero
The obvious answer to OP is that it is up to the DM and whatever makes sense in that game world. But I take it that they want to retain some sort of fidelity to a quasi-medieval setting, so I suppose the best course of action would be to do a bit of research on the specific medieval milieu that best reflects their game setting. I know that the old AD&D rules addressed lands, titles and such to a limited degree, but that aspect of the game never interested me much so I don't recall it well. I suspect that there are also some 3PP that focus more on that style of gameplay, so perhaps those could provide some guidance?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
As a general rule, under the vassalage-and-manorialism system (which is often referred to simply as "feudalism," even though that's only the vassalage part), you couldn't just pay extra money and suddenly have a better title. I won't, at all, pretend like that never happened in European history because if I do, I am 110% certain to get at least two people "um akshully"-ing me about it. But as a general rule, the whole point of these titles was fealty and establishing a baseline of legitimacy; being able to simply pay some money and suddenly you're now a duke isn't really compatible with that. (Likewise, the story above of the guy who became duke by fiat declaration--such things were rare because few people had the clout to make such a play, and fewer still had the clout and military power to pull it off.)
That said, a sizable contribution to one's liege lord is a good way to persuade them to create a new title for you--the trick is to make sure the rest of the aristocracy accepts it, and that you get concomitant benefits for it. Being named Duke of Nowheresville, population -12, net income three feathers and one pretty shell, vassals including the birds from which the feathers fell? Not particularly useful, and indeed bordering on a slap in the face. As a general rule, being a Baron means you're the vassal of either an intermediate ruler (e.g. a Count(ess)/Earl, Viscount(ess), or possibly Prince(ss)), or of the top-level ruler for your country (generally, some form of Duchess/Duke or King/Queen.) So if you're paying money to get a "promotion," you're either bypassing the person you report to and currying favor with their boss (a great way to make an enemy, even if you succeed), or you're basically saying that the big boss of all your fellow "employees" should give you special favors because you bribed them.
Note, again, this doesn't mean it can't work. It just begs the question: why doesn't everyone do this? There are lots of potential answers, some of them favorable, some unfavorable. Many of them don't really make sense unless you just don't care about suspension of disbelief, e.g. "nobody ever thought to do it before!" is a bit of a hard sell in a kingdom with more than a century or two of history, so you need to consider carefully how to proceed. Possible options include (but are not limited to):
That said, a sizable contribution to one's liege lord is a good way to persuade them to create a new title for you--the trick is to make sure the rest of the aristocracy accepts it, and that you get concomitant benefits for it. Being named Duke of Nowheresville, population -12, net income three feathers and one pretty shell, vassals including the birds from which the feathers fell? Not particularly useful, and indeed bordering on a slap in the face. As a general rule, being a Baron means you're the vassal of either an intermediate ruler (e.g. a Count(ess)/Earl, Viscount(ess), or possibly Prince(ss)), or of the top-level ruler for your country (generally, some form of Duchess/Duke or King/Queen.) So if you're paying money to get a "promotion," you're either bypassing the person you report to and currying favor with their boss (a great way to make an enemy, even if you succeed), or you're basically saying that the big boss of all your fellow "employees" should give you special favors because you bribed them.
Note, again, this doesn't mean it can't work. It just begs the question: why doesn't everyone do this? There are lots of potential answers, some of them favorable, some unfavorable. Many of them don't really make sense unless you just don't care about suspension of disbelief, e.g. "nobody ever thought to do it before!" is a bit of a hard sell in a kingdom with more than a century or two of history, so you need to consider carefully how to proceed. Possible options include (but are not limited to):
- It just doesn't work that way in this feudal structure, sorry!
- Such promotions are considered unseemly, and will result in social ostracism (though there may be other ways to deal with that, too)
- People have already taken advantage of this--a lot. There are no existing titles to be promoted into, because other families have already bought their way to the best titles available.
- A bought title is empty--it confers no real power or authority, the buyer is expected to turn it into something useful on their own.
- A bought title is always at the frontier, with the expectation that the buyer will transform it into a loyal, productive, taxable plot of land.
- Buying a new title is a lengthy and difficult process and not everyone qualifies.
- You can only buy a better title once you have done a service to the Crown. Higher titles require both more money and a more significant service rendered.
- You have to gain recognition from some other thing in order to buy a title. E.g. you must serve in the army and achieve a certain rank, or you must gain a diploma from the royal university and publish a productive scientific work, or you must create a corporation that employs a certain number of people in the Capital, etc.
What does this even mean?
You said that you must serve in the army and achieve a certain rank and that got me thinking about something that's very similiar that was mentioned in the article about buying or earning a title
The very similiar thing that was mentioned in the same article is that in a some countries rather then get a pension someone that's either A Admiral or A General that lives long enough to retire is given A Domain that's nearly always A Barony and when its not its A Viscountom and given A Title that's nearly always Baron and when its not the title's of Viscount
Personally I think that the idea that A General or Admiral could be made A Viscount and given A Viscountdom is preposterous, should almost never happen and when it does it should only happen to someone that's of Noble Birth but doesn't have a title
The very similiar thing that was mentioned in the same article is that in a some countries rather then get a pension someone that's either A Admiral or A General that lives long enough to retire is given A Domain that's nearly always A Barony and when its not its A Viscountom and given A Title that's nearly always Baron and when its not the title's of Viscount
Personally I think that the idea that A General or Admiral could be made A Viscount and given A Viscountdom is preposterous, should almost never happen and when it does it should only happen to someone that's of Noble Birth but doesn't have a title
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
You seem to be of the belief that someone who became an admiral or general wouldn't already be from a noble family.
The idea of meritocratic promotion took a long, long, long time to take root and fully establish itself as the way to do things. It wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries that you started seeing European nations truly embracing widespread meritocratic promotion in the armed forces and civil services. During the high middle ages, meritocratic promotion was by far the exception, not the rule. Hence, if someone is the general of an army...it's probably because they either come from a noble house, or have been appointed to a noble house.
Don't forget that the article said that most Admirals and Generals are given A Title and A Domain upon retiring it didn't say that they aren't nobility and in my opinion in a lot of countries theirs a very high chance that they are nobility
That means that its possible that they are from A Noble Family but they have no chance of inheriting the families land or lands and title or titles and that they joined the army or navy in the hope of earning A Title and A Domain
GuyBoy
Hero
You appear very interested in how medieval power-building took place, in order to transfer to D&D.
I’d suggest you research this using historical sources and would recommend starting with the careers of the following, all of whom did it successfully (though not always with happy endings):
William Marshal
Richard Neville
Odo of Bayeux
Robert Guiscard
There are many others but this should get you started.
And his brother Roger.
