D&D General d&d is anti-medieval

[Bohandas]

There is some Lantanese/Gondite tech in the Swordcoast cities like Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate, like Waterdeep has Trolley's.

And Mulhorand has literal steam tech.

Also, in the Greyhawk setting, there's a functioning motion picture soundstage with cameras in the eleventh sub-basement of Castle Greyhawk and all of Murlynd's high ranking paladins have guns

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There are several points that strikes me as strange in the original article with regard to what is medieval anyway. Not that I find D&D implicitely medieval (I don't and I haven't met anyone who is convinced of it) but because the author, imho, chose strange things to nitpick.

The way you advance in a feudal society is to win glory in battle for your overlord. Then he grants you land, which is the main form of wealth. Unless you’re a peasant. Then you can never advance at all.

He criticizing the upward mobility offered to players characters. Agreed, it's totally against the feudal average and even outside of the ambition of many of the men of the broad era but... Heroes are not supposed to be typical denizens. Of course Joe Peasant won't advance socially, he'll also stay a commoner, can't gain XP by RAW and will probably behave more in line with the expectations of the author. PCs are by design exceptionnal, Joan-of-Arc level of social mobility (though she wasn't a peasant from the start), or Alcuin of York or Gerbert of Aurillac level of upward mobility when playing a cleric. Exceptional heroes stand out...

That’s not at all what happens in D&D. There is no overlord to grant you land. Land, instead of being a form of wealth, is completely free!

I was under the impression that PCs were not taking away a castle from someone when doing that. They were establishing new lands under the rule of the king by taking it from the monster-occupied wilderness. I am pretty sure someone able to single-handedly carve a barony from the Moors in Spain in the XIth century and decide to make it part of Castile would have been welcome to do so. Like what Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar did. Granted, he wasn't exactly a commoner but he was an exiled knight. Doesn't strike me as a close to the establishment.

If you build a castle in the “wilderness”, you have to clear the area of monsters for 20 miles around. You then gain control of a handful of villages within this area. You don’t have to compete against any other ruler or pay taxes to any overlord for these villages!

You just cleared the area from the monsters. A Saxon is obviously a kind of tree-worshipping monster. You just offed the overlord of the village... to whom could you possibly pay taxes ? Given the relatively low level of administration of the border of the Carolingian Empire, I could very well see a local noble expanding eastward by himself if given the occasion (which was much rarer than PCs can, since the latter can cast fireball).

There hasn’t even been significant inflation or deflation since the dungeons were built. The richest dungeon treasure hoard, on level 13 and deeper, averages out to about 10,000 GP in coin.

How can the author estimate inflation or deflation if he can't know the buying power of said 10,000 gp in coins in the fallen civilization that erected the dungeons he's surprizingly not bitching about (13 level of underground construction inhabitated with monster doesn't strike me as medieval, but it's the lack of inflation that irked the author)?

The monster descriptions of “men”, “elves”, and “dwarves” don’t suggest that the game is set in a European culture. The types of “men” are Bandits, Berserkers, Brigands, Dervishes, Nomads, Buccaneers, Pirates, Cave Men, and (perhaps) Mermen. Berserkers are a little Nordic in flavor, but are balanced out by Dervishes and Nomads from the “desert or steppes”.

OK, granted, buccaneers and dervishes don't evoke european middle ages, but what is strange about nomads? Huns, Avars, Bulgars were active during the middle ages...

 

[Bohandas]

5e claims, in the PHB, that most wealth is not actually exchanged in the form of coins, but rather exchange of trade goods for the peasantry and the exchange of land and titles in the nobility -

Which is kind of silly in a magical setting. You would think the novility would be trading in magic scrolls which are not only an easy medium of exchange, being made of vellum and thus lightweight, but also have the same kind of inherent value that the pesants' mediums of exchange do. Most of D&D's worlds undergo periodic doomsday events and if one of those happens their titles and the deeds to their land and the adventurers' gold isn't going to be worth much but the value of the scrolls is going to be driven even higher thus increasing their chances of reestablishing themselves in the new order if they survive

A cow may have the buying power of 10 gp, but no player is going to sell the suit of plate armor they crafted for 150 cows.

It does however go a long way toward explaining how something like a druid grove or a cloister of ascetics that have little in the way of liquid assets can be producing magic items that cost hundreds or thousands of goldpieces to make

 

[TheCosmicKid]

It's more of a fairy tale simulator. It doesn't simulate actual medieval times so much as it simulates the world of a fairy tale* set in medieval times

When in want of a D&D setting, I've gone so far as to set a campaign in one of my other, non-magic settings, handwaving the wizards and whatnot with "this is folklore from the 'real' setting".

 

[Carlsen Chris]

This has more to due with the structure of a academia than the likelihood we now have a better take on the period’s social structure than a century ago. To make a name in the field, you refute, nuance, or complicate previous arguments. Marc Bloch’s work is still pretty solid. However, a generation of medievalists have needed to justify their existence since his time by bringing new ideas to the table - publish or perish. Nobody is going to read the twelfth book about how Bloch was correct.

Bull. Bloch refuted, nuanced, and complicated previous arguments just like scholars have since. Human understanding changes with time, and our perception of historical records is subjective. And plenty of scholars since Bloch have agreed and disagreed with various parts of his arguments.

 

[David Howery]

As an aside, I recently had an idea for a campaign or adventure where the PCs would stumble upon a nation or group of nations which inexplicably behaved like actual medieval times.

I wondered at times back in my DM days if you could have an actual medieval type place, if there was a kingdom in a big magic-dead zone; no mages, no spell-wielding clerics, no magical monsters/outer planar critters, etc. It later occurred to me that while peasants would love such a place, the higher ups wouldn't, and would constantly be leaving the place to get magical healing, etc....

 

[Anoth]

I wondered at times back in my DM days if you could have an actual medieval type place, if there was a kingdom in a big magic-dead zone; no mages, no spell-wielding clerics, no magical monsters/outer planar critters, etc. It later occurred to me that while peasants would love such a place, the higher ups wouldn't, and would constantly be leaving the place to get magical healing, etc....

Well. I for one play d&d for the magic. So it would be of zero interest to me. But if you want to do it then do it.

 

[gyor]

Warpiglet why the sad vote?

 

[Warren Ellis]

Which is kind of silly in a magical setting. You would think the novility would be trading in magic scrolls which are not only an easy medium of exchange, being made of vellum and thus lightweight, but also have the same kind of inherent value that the pesants' mediums of exchange do. Most of D&D's worlds undergo periodic doomsday events and if one of those happens their titles and the deeds to their land and the adventurers' gold isn't going to be worth much but the value of the scrolls is going to be driven even higher thus increasing their chances of reestablishing themselves in the new order if they survive

Well isn't the issue that most of the stuff that is more "magic in shops" are located in cities that are often quite distant in travel from the farming villages in the middle of nowhere that we sometimes see adventures in?

Like to use Forgotten Realms as an example, are shops that sell magical scrolls and such located out in the boondocks even?

 

[gyor]

Well isn't the issue that most of the stuff that is more "magic in shops" are located in cities that are often quite distant in travel from the farming villages in the middle of nowhere that we sometimes see adventures in?

Like to use Forgotten Realms as an example, are shops that sell magical scrolls and such located out in the boondocks even?

Maybe low level scrolls, healing potions, and Alchemical supplies.