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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 4652464" data-attributes="member: 7635">See, I don't think D&D (nor much in the way of fantasy in general) cares about the REAL middle ages, they care about the romanticized version that floats somewhere in Jung's collective unconscious. A true medieval world would be very different and radical from the notions we take an romanticize in games and literature. For example, Take gender equity. D&D is pesudo-egalitarian; there is no official distinction in gender by the basis of ability (maximum strength) or profession (female clerics). Though older D&D (1e) did create an ability distinction between genders (and visages of this lingered on, such as drow favored classes and 2e bariaur racial traits) we accept female PCs are as equally competent at their game role as male PCs. So D&D becomes a world of female paladins (knights) and clerics (priests); something completely aberrant to the medieval mindset (odd exceptions like Joan of Ark permitting). In a truly medieval world, women would mostly be chattel or breeding stock; with primary functions of home-making and child-bearing. Even nobility rarely improved a woman's role in society; women merchants and scholars were few and far-between. Women would never be allowed to become knights (dame as a title typically referred to the wife of a knight in medieval times) and the Catholic church never would consider female priests. Occasionally, a smart and ambitious woman would rise to power (typically royal blood) but truly powerful Queens are a Renaissance ideal, not a medieval one. So we hand wave that notion for a better game idea. We accept some females are passive to indulge our "rescue the princess" stories, but we accept capable female warriors and priests. We allow our female PCs rights of land and ownership, do not arrange their marriages, and give them autonomy un-thought of in medieval times. It makes a better story and game.Much the same is done about religious tolerance, racial equality (both of human races and non-human races), more modernistic notions of coinage, property, rights of man, medicine & healing, science, and crime & punishment. We take our modern world (or our idealized notion of it) and sprinkle medieval tropes on it rather than creating a medieval world.And that's not EVEN touching magic!Finally, I'd like to plug A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe as further reading. It does a good job of trying to create a more "authentic" vision of a medieval world using the D&D structure. A much smaller text of a similar notion is found in 3e' Dungeon Master's Guide II.</blockquote>

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