D&D General d&d is anti-medieval

[Warren Ellis]

So is Faerun, or much of Toril, still sorta magical Renaissance mostly because little tricks that some lf these nations have done don't spread anywhere?

 

[Philip Benz]

This is a great thread - lots of great laughs in there.

Some RPGs go for a stronger medieval vibe... but DD (and DD clones like Pathfinder) are not amongst them. Ars Magica tried to situate magical fantasy in a strong medieval setting. pendragon did a good job of projecting players into the romanticized vision of a medieval world consistent with the chansons de geste that influenced Malory. In the late 70s we switched from D&D to Chivalry and Sorcery precisely because we wanted to play in a somewhat closer version to a medieval setting, while still keeping the fantasy. Ed Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus did a great job on that game, and put a lot of medieval-inspired subsystems in it. I won't defend the needlessly complex combat system, but hey, it was the late 70s, what do you want? <g>

This said, I don't agree that DD is "anti-medieval". It is medieval inspired - as filtered through a host of authors and a liberal sprinkling of anachronism. Do you want to play a game filled with heroic adventures, or a history lesson?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I did find this entry in Wikipedia yesterday, it seems relevant to this scolarly discusion:

The Knights who say "Ni" have been cited as an example of intentional disregard for historical accuracy in neo-medievalism, which may be contrasted with the casual disregard for historical accuracy inherent in more traditional works of the fantasy genre.[4] However, in Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present, the authors suggest that the original characters of Monty Python and the Holy Grail actually represent medievalism, rather than neomedievalism, as many of the film's details are in fact based on authentic medieval texts and ideas. With respect to the Knights who say "Ni", the authors suggest that Sir Bedivere's difficulty pronouncing "Ni!", despite its levity, "carries a very learned joke about the difficulties of pronouncing Middle English", alluding to the Great Vowel Shift, which occurred in English during the late medieval period.[5]

 

[GMMichael]

Anti-medieval? Well, D&D:

• rejects sexism
• welcomes demonic ideas and creatures (tieflings, dragonborn...elves?)
• directly rejects the natural course of disease and mayhem with cure spells and potions
• doesn't grant aristocracy automatic bonus levels
• promotes underground land-grabs (versus above-ground)
• assumes common literacy

Yeah, that's pretty anti-medieval to me. I think it used to have some medieval (Marsellus Wallace definition) features, though:

• roll 3d6. That's your Strength score. Roll again.
• the peasant/commoner class was the bottom of the food chain.
• roll d20. If you don't roll high enough, you're dead.

 

[Warren Ellis]

I'm wondering what is the point of the article in the first place.

Most gamers already know most standard medieval fantasy settings aren't historically accurate and all that. It's kind of obvious.

I mean this may have been useful seversl decades ago but nowadays just feels like a waste of an article.

 

[Weiley31]

So, I have the most experience with 4e and 5e, I would say both are similar in some ways and dissimilar in others. One of the biggest points of dissimilarity is in the focus (or lack thereof) on the accumulation of land and power. As the editions have progressed, the standard play experience of D&D has moved further and further away from clearing out land, building strongholds, and acquiring followers. It has focused more and more on doing quests.

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 - it’s really only adventurers who regularly deal in coinage, which they plunder from the dungeons they adventure in. That said, in my experience it doesn’t really work this way in practice. The player characters deal in coins, which means for practical purposes the people they trade with need to do the same. 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.

I mean with today's exchange rate, a suit of Masterwork Plate armor would at least be 151 cows!

 

[Warren Ellis]

Also, hasn't that claim that peasants bartered been sort of found to be not true?

 

[Anoth]

Some of us play more medieval than you think. But we are called sexist and everything else because we try to be true to the time period. I really go out of my way to create settings with the culture and value of the Middle Ages. I don’t like the mos eislie style settings all the time. Races better pass themselves off as humans

 

[der_kluge]

I just got through doing a lot of research on this very topic. And I would say that D&D isn't really medieval, but the game itself doesn't force a particular model over another. It can be as "medieval" as you want it to be. The game I just started running is quite medieval, and I'm trying to adhere to some of the norms of the time period, including what people wore, what they did, and what they ate and drank. I think it provides a lot of realism to the setting. A medieval-feel has always sort of been there, but with lots and lots of anachronisms. Start taking away the anachronisms, the game starts to feel more medieval slowly.

But as others have pointed out, as westerners (really, as Americans), we tend to place a lot of mis-understandings and stereotypes into the setting - mayors often tend to run cities for example, and all of modern sensibilities about genders and democracies. Part of the problem comes in the form of the Catholic church, which held immense power over the peasantry during the Middle Ages, and there's no real parallel for that in the D&D world, since one church doesn't hold all the power.

Social structures tend to break down. It's hard to be a serf under the thumb of an oppressive noble lord if you become a sorcerer or a warlock and you decide to fireball the nobility. So, a lot of what made feudalism work would completely break down in a model where individuals can literally defeat giants and dragons.

 

[GreyLord]

I just got through doing a lot of research on this very topic. And I would say that D&D isn't really medieval, but the game itself doesn't force a particular model over another. It can be as "medieval" as you want it to be. The game I just started running is quite medieval, and I'm trying to adhere to some of the norms of the time period, including what people wore, what they did, and what they ate and drank. I think it provides a lot of realism to the setting. A medieval-feel has always sort of been there, but with lots and lots of anachronisms. Start taking away the anachronisms, the game starts to feel more medieval slowly.

But as others have pointed out, as westerners (really, as Americans), we tend to place a lot of mis-understandings and stereotypes into the setting - mayors often tend to run cities for example, and all of modern sensibilities about genders and democracies. Part of the problem comes in the form of the Catholic church, which held immense power over the peasantry during the Middle Ages, and there's no real parallel for that in the D&D world, since one church doesn't hold all the power.

Social structures tend to break down. It's hard to be a serf under the thumb of an oppressive noble lord if you become a sorcerer or a warlock and you decide to fireball the nobility. So, a lot of what made feudalism work would completely break down in a model where individuals can literally defeat giants and dragons.

You could have it where the Church holds that much power, but it would be more like the Roman or Greek Churches.

If like the Greek Church, each city or area would have it's predominant deity which would rule that area, and those faithful to it could be the Clergy that have a similar control to that which the Catholic Church did in Europe and Islam did in the Middle East.

On the otherhand, you could have it where it is the entire pantheon with the head deities such as the Romans did. In this, they had a powerful Clergy which you could bump up to be on par with that of the Catholic Church if you so desired.