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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1986346" data-attributes="member: 7240">Well, first of all, your idea that I base my ideas about medieval thought exclusively on Aquinas is a straw man. I have read extensively not only on the subject of high intellectual medieval thought but numerous articles, primary documents and monographs about how we think both elite and non-elite Europeans thought in the medieval period. I have read anthropological works that have sought to make generalizations about thought in pre-modern societies that existed under similar material conditions. Now maybe you're right that all of this education is insufficient to determine even what medievals or probably thought like. But surely, it is sufficient to inform the play of an RPG if this is how I choose to play it. You are essentially making an argument here that the standards of evidence required to engage in cultural simulation in RPG play should be higher than those of university presses, doctoral examining committees and peer-reviewed academic journals. While it may be the case that these are your criteria for suspending disbelief, they are not mine.Its application in role playing games you enjoy is simple. I really don't get how we can even be having this argument. Well, either something wrecks your suspension of disbelief or it doesn't. I can't actually be wrong when I assert that monks impair my suspension of disbelief. I know whether I'm suspending disbelief. You do not. I have attempted to explain why I believe they damage my suspension of disbelief -- because they clash with the European mythic past on which I base my D&D games. And I don't buy your idea that because medieval Europeans are unnkowable in absolute terms means that the data we have is in no way prejudicial to the kind of stories we can credibly tell based on their culture. Finally, of course probable things about which we do not have absolute proof are used in arguments against totally improbable things all the time. Your idea that because they are guesses, educated guesses can be lumped into the same category as fanciful and uneducated guesses doesn't even pass muster in an academic setting. Fortunately, this is gaming -- it's not a medievalists' conference; this is just a strategy for making my RPGs feel real and enjoyable for me and my players. Where are you getting the idea that my style of play doesn't permit social dissent? On the contrary, it contextualizes social dissent by placing it in the context of a culture. Simple disagreement with your society does not place you outside of its context. To justify, express and comprehend your own dissent you still have to use the knowledge and intellectual structures of the society in which you are situated. American Communists in the 1950s still existed in the context of American society; the people who went off to create communes and other intentional communities in the 1970s back to the land movement still did so in the context of American society. All I ask is that my players play their characters in context to the best of their ability. What do you mean by "limitation" here? Most scenarios technologically contextualize their characters. Lacking gunpowder is a limitation that most people accept because it assists them in suspending disbelief. But let's leave the fact that I get information about pre-modern thought from history for a moment. Let's suppose we are dealing with a Gamma World game. There, players portray characters living in a post-apocalyptic remnant of civilization -- when my players and I play such games, we speculate about how people in such an environment might think differently and place PCs and NPCs in that intellectual context. As with pseudo-medieval societies, we typically use literature as an inspiration, as well as anthropology. Now, like D&D societies, these are societies that have never existed. But we still strive to make characters who think differently. No. The fact that the fictional world we have created is a reality that has never existed does not mean that it is automatically a Cosmopolitan world. Well, first of all, "Traditionalist" is a terrible term. Your style of gaming is the mainstream tradition in D&D. Mine is not. In my understanding, Cosmopolitan=Traditional. I don't bully anyone to play within a cultural context. When I recruit people to play in my games, I make it clear that this is the kind of game we play. And I have had a waiting list to join my games for most of GMing career. I don't need to bully anyone because people line up to play in my style of game. That's really sad. It sounds like you have had some bad experiences in the past. But my game give people real enjoyment -- we have fun enhancing our suspension of disbelief by developing a cultural context for the characters' thought. If this were not fun for me and my players, we would play different games.I can't speak to other games that care about cultural context. I have only worked with two other GMs who work this way. I didn't find either of them abusive in their GMing style. If I felt that supplying cultural context damaged the narrative, I wouldn't do it. I supply cultural context because it enhances the narrative by making the PCs and NPCs feel more real. Where is this "should" coming from?Who said you didn't? You seem to be trying to have an argument with me that I don't see us having. I'm not telling anyone else to play my way; I am not telling anyone that Cosmopolitan play is inferior to cultural play; I'm simply offering some possible explanations for why the two styles exist. That stated, perhaps I should clarify that the explanations I have offered are not posed in order to exclude or invalidate other explanations; no doubt there are other reasons for these two types of play to exist. I think this is a good not to conclude on and an area where we concur.</blockquote>

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