Dmg II

[John Morrow]

Seriously, I think that little tidbit (though you hear it all the time) is total crap. Like a peasant couldn't spare an hour in the day to go for a walk.

Out of curiosity, how many times have you walked between two towns in your life? Can't you spare the time?

Sorry, can't go with you to the fair today! I'm too busy subsistence farming! I'd go, but I'd probably catch small pox just getting there!

This definition of the word "serf" from Merriam-Webster might point to an even bigger problem than time or will:

"A member of a servile feudal class bound to the soil and subject to the will of his lord."

They weren't free to just do whatever they wanted. Serfs were slaves to the land.

And let's not forget that they don't have oil or gas furnaces for heat, gas or electric cooking ranges, electric lights, refrigerators, grocery stores, washing machines, bicycles, automated looms, tractors, combines, etc. You might want to watch one of those BBC/PBS shows that takes some modern people and puts them into roles from an earlier period in history (e.g., the American frontier, a British manor house, etc.) and see what those people go through. You don't spin thread and weave cloth, you don't have new clothing. You don't chop wood, you don't have a fire. You don't slaughter and process the pig, you don't eat meat or much of it goes bad. You don't plow the field or harvest the grain, you starve. Oh, and don't forget an absence of antibiotics and vaccines (combined with a, well, Medieval understanding of infections and diseases) that can turn even a minor injury or tooth abcess into a life-threatening situation.

By the way, I know one woman who wrote a master's thesis that defended the idea that the Roman slaves had a better standard of living than the Medieval serfs that replaced them.

I think historians just like to comfort themselves by making the conditions of all past eras so abominable that we must be making progress as a society. Not that I would want to live in the era of the Black Death...

While historians certainly spin the evidence from time to time, the conditions of past eras really were pretty abominable by today's standards. Unless you really want to give up clean running water and modern plumbing, heating and air conditioning, antibiotics and modern medicines, abundant food, and a whole host of other things that you probably take for granted, I doubt that you'd really to live in any other era. Heck, I'm not sure that most people would really want to go back to the way things were in the 1970s and I certainly know that I wouldn't want to go back to the Depression, when my parents grew up.

 

[Samnell]

Unless you really want to give up clean running water and modern plumbing, heating and air conditioning, antibiotics and modern medicines, abundant food, and a whole host of other things that you probably take for granted, I doubt that you'd really to live in any other era.

Don't forget modern hygiene and modern civil society. If you aggrivated a knight or nobleman in real life, about 1200, and you didn't have amazingly good connections, he'd probably kill you where you stood. Then there are the issues of if you're a member of a minority religion or ethnic group. The upshot would be the possiblity of the whole town coming out to watch you get killed. I mean, everyone deserves their fifteen minutes.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Out of curiosity, how many times have you walked between two towns in your life? Can't you spare the time?

Well, that's an interesting point.

I'm an American. Our towns tend to be pretty spread out, compared to what I've seen of Europe (which, admittedly, isn't much).

However, I have walked in between towns when the situation called for it - especially when I was a student in Boston, and would walk between the near-in suburbs and the main town rather than taking the T - weather and time permitting.

 

[Simplicity]

Out of curiosity, how many times have you walked between two towns in your life? Can't you spare the time?

Yes, I've walked between various towns/cities in my life. It's not that hard to do when the city limits run up against each other. However, if the question is how many times have I walked a mile to get to a destination. The answer is quite a lot, and sometimes I take my dog. Yes, I could in fact spare the time to walk a whole mile. Woooooo...

I would imagine lots of people walk that far all the time.

"A member of a servile feudal class bound to the soil and subject to the will of his lord."

They weren't physically bound to the soil. They typically had to pay a tithe. Well, okay. Big deal. They were growing the grain anyways. The lord of the castle isn't going to come down and beat up some poor Dennis because he wants to stretch his legs.

Unless you really want to give up clean running water and modern plumbing, heating and air conditioning, antibiotics and modern medicines, abundant food, and a whole host of other things that you probably take for granted, I doubt that you'd really to live in any other era.

Like I said, I don't want to live back then. I just don't think it could possibly be as bad as the historians make out.

Roman slaves CLEARLY had it better than serfs. But then, the Romans were pretty high up there in terms of standard of living. At least they had (very basic) plumbing and sewage systems. If you believe what is written about medieval society, after a serf takes a dump he apparently has to go around looking for a second story window to throw it out of.

 

[John Morrow]

However, I have walked in between towns when the situation called for it - especially when I was a student in Boston, and would walk between the near-in suburbs and the main town rather than taking the T - weather and time permitting.

I visited Boston last weekend for the first time. From what I saw of the roads and traffic there (and bear in mind that I live in New Jersey), I think I'd rather stick a sharp pencil in my eye than drive in Boston.

That said, yes, I've done quite a bit of walking just because it was fun in cities (New York City and Tokyo, in particular) and I have personally walked between surburban towns (including once during a snow storm because there was no other way to get home at the time) but it's simply not all that common in my experience. In fact, various groups are bending over backward trying to get adults and children to spend a single hour a day doing some sort of physical activity. And, yes, I've even walked for a few miles in Manhattan and Tokyo with leather soled dress shoes. Don't forget that those Medieval folk didn't have Nike sneakers, either.

 

[John Morrow]

However, if the question is how many times have I walked a mile to get to a destination. The answer is quite a lot, and sometimes I take my dog. Yes, I could in fact spare the time to walk a whole mile. Woooooo...

It's not a matter of time or ability but desire and want. How many people do even when they can?

They weren't physically bound to the soil. They typically had to pay a tithe. Well, okay. Big deal. They were growing the grain anyways. The lord of the castle isn't going to come down and beat up some poor Dennis because he wants to stretch his legs.

I think you are wrong. From:

http://www.answers.com/topic/serf

"In 322, an edict of Constantine established the salient features of what would become serfdom. The coloni could not leave or marry off the estate without their landlord's permission, and any children of the coloni also became coloni; however, the landlord could not evict his coloni nor arbitrarily increase their traditional rents and duties. Thus, the coloni had a somewhat secure if severely restricted existence."

From:

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861717998/serf.html

"Without the landowner's permission, a serf could not leave his or her plot of land or village, marry, or change occupation."

There are also laws that allowed a serf who could run away to a city and remain for over a year could become free, so there was incentive for a lord to not let his serfs leave at all.

So, yeah, the lord of the castle may very well not let poor Dennis "stretch his legs". If Dennis wants to "stretch his legs", there are plenty of things he can do to stretch them on his lord's land.

Like I said, I don't want to live back then. I just don't think it could possibly be as bad as the historians make out.

People say the same thing about people living in slums and in impoverished Third World nations. People who enjoy the fruits of modern Western civilization loose a lot of perspective about what human beings can and will endure, especially when the alternative is death.

Roman slaves CLEARLY had it better than serfs. But then, the Romans were pretty high up there in terms of standard of living. At least they had (very basic) plumbing and sewage systems. If you believe what is written about medieval society, after a serf takes a dump he apparently has to go around looking for a second story window to throw it out of.

I'm not talking about urban Roman slaves with access to aquiducts and baths but rural provincial slaves in remote villas as contrasted to the coloni and serfs. And rural serfs didn't need to toss their waste into the streets because they didn't generally live in cities with two-story buildings.

 

[Simplicity]

"In 322, an edict of Constantine established the salient features of what would become serfdom. The coloni could not leave or marry off the estate without their landlord's permission, and any children of the coloni also became coloni; however, the landlord could not evict his coloni nor arbitrarily increase their traditional rents and duties. Thus, the coloni had a somewhat secure if severely restricted existence."

Huh. Learn something new everyday.

And rural serfs didn't need to toss their waste into the streets because they didn't generally live in cities with two-story buildings.

Clearly. Serfs probably didn't even have streets. So, if they wanted to use the john, they'd have to get up at 4:00 in the morning, lay down cobble to form a street, extend their shanty with a second story WITH a window, and then perform aforementioned defenestration. Then they'd take 30% of their waste to their liege lord so that he might do the same out his much taller windows onto his much wider streets.

 

[MadMaxim]

There's a whole spread of thieves and con artists that the new system, with its division of class abilities, feats, and skills, could've been set up to handle, but isn't: the cat burglar who's point of pride is stealth and would never use violence; the non-magical, non-fighting con artist; the court manipulator/power-behind-the-throne. I'll let the BAB/hp thing slide--such is the nature of D&D. But simply replacing a rogue's sneak attack with a shot at a special ability list (which included sneak attack), frex, would address many of the missing archetypes. Some tweaks to the bard class could set it up to handle a bunch of "missing roles", too, while still covering the roles it currently does (or at least covering them with an easy multiclass combination).

The expert NPC class covers all of those things nicely, since they get to choose their own class skills. It just doesn't make for very a good dungeon-crawling class. The core classes are generic enough to cover pretty much anything, if you ask me... You just have to think outside the box...

 

[MadMaxim]

Well, back to the topic. I'm certainly going to pick it up when it's released. I think it has got a lot of potential.

 

[S'mon]

Walking - I'm in London, where I think most people walk over a mile a day getting to the nearest Tube station to take them to work, then walking from the Tube station nearest their work to the office. Personally I do about 1.5 miles/day. Until about 10-15 years ago most British school children walked 2-3 miles/day getting to school & back.