Does D&D even have a component of "midieval" anymore?

[Turjan]

I somewhat have to agree. According to many arguments I've read on the web, D&D seems to many themes with the stereotypical Western movie than anything else. Things like small, isolated towns surrounded by "savages," bandits, or other agents of chaos and a small group of self-sufficient, independent-minded people entering the town to make things right. There are a lot of medieval trappings, magic, fantasy races, and so on, but I'm not sure the fundamental game deviates too much from the standard Western. YMMV, of course.

That's my take on this topic as well. D&D is the "wild west" of the late 19th, early 20th century, as depicted in classic Western movies. With swords and armor. And the cow barons are called "lord". On top of this, we get late 20th century societal conventions.

 

[Roger]

Does D&D even have a component of "medieval" anymore?

Yes.

D&D has a "medieval" component.

It might not be a fundamental component, or a necessary component, or even an important component.

But it's there.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Hennet's outfit is freaking ridiculous on any planet, though.

He led the Rel Astran Pride Parade last year, then was followed by the D4D (Dwarf 4 Dwarf) Bear Float.

Like I stated earlier, medievalism is useful in D&D as a baseline "look" and tech level for people to work with, and to utilize the social contracts and arrangements of a medieval society as a convenient basis for plot hooks and scenarios, for example Troll Lord Games' "Assault on Blacktooth Ridge" for Castles & Crusades*.




*ok, technically non-D&D, but D&D scenarios are easily constructed out of the same stuff.

 

[EditorBFG]

Hennet's outfit is freaking ridiculous on any planet, though.

QFT. Then again, I live in San Francisco, and I have seen nearly the exact same outfit-- on people I sort of knew! (At the risk of offending my friends, let's just say that outfit is fine on Planet "Fab-u-lous!")

Like I stated earlier, medievalism is useful in D&D as a baseline

Snipped, but that's a good point. I think the main thing a lot of us do with the medieval is use it to "patch" the holes in an adventure. You know, when the PC for no reason announces they want to buy food, you say they go to an inn and have a leg of mutton or something-- you don't say they have Chicken McNuggets. Although I imagine my default on that stuff is probably Renaissance rather than medieval.

 

[Ghendar]

Our group was having a discussion and we got into a heated debate about whether D&D really is "midieval" fantasy anymore. It seems to have lost that "midieval" component somewhere along the way. Is it part of the D&D game or is it completely something else at this point?


..

D&D is what you make it really. You want midieval? Make it midieval.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Snipped, but that's a good point. I think the main thing a lot of us do with the medieval is use it to "patch" the holes in an adventure. You know, when the PC for no reason announces they want to buy food, you say they go to an inn and have a leg of mutton or something-- you don't say they have Chicken McNuggets. Although I imagine my default on that stuff is probably Renaissance rather than medieval.

I was also thinking...which Renaissance? Northern Renaissance or Italian? I like the Northern Renaissance because they had some hella cool paintings and gives people excuses to use Durer's artwork.

Given the awesome background material presented, I'd have to say that, yup, most people didn't have any idea that they were in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. I also took up the opportunity to read up on Florence/Firenze and Siena. This article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena notes that feudalism (in whatever form and generally utilized as a "bullet point" for defining medievalism) went into free fall from the 8th century to the 12th, which is pretty much a good chunk of the Middle Ages. It could be said that in some respects, many regions particularly in the Roman heartlands never went truly Medieval. At any rate, the myriad republics (or even feudalism) would have been preferable as a system to the old Roman latifundae (sp?) system.

 

[prosfilaes]

I think the "medieval mentality" is a myth that endures because people tend to ignore context.

You think that the fact that medieval people viewed the world in a different way than people of different times a myth?

If you want to call a steelman a modern inventor and the architects who built the medieval cathedrals medieval sorcerers, power to you. But I think you're dead wrong.

How is that not a strawman?

 

[Rothe]

I thought the gygax inspiration for D&D was Vance's "Dying Earth" series. That makes it more post-apocalytic / fantasy sci-fi than medieval. Even Arneson's Blackmoor is heavy sci-fi fantasy, just look at The Temple of the Frog.

The medieval varnish is more from the sand-table minature roots playing out the battles of the middle-ages, that and trying to ride the JRRT popularity wave of the early '70s IMHO.

 

[molonel]

D&D has only ever been loosely medieval, and thank God for that. The average medieval knight probably knew more about raising pigs than he did about full plate armor and greatswords.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure. I think it's silly to ignore the obvious. The arms, technology, and social structure of Medieval Europe are a big part of the trappings of the game. But the players, GMs, and even designers are not exactly Medieval recreationists and historians.

And I tend to think the game would be less fun if it were.

Psion wins a cookie!

Medieval, shmedieval. Dragons, castles, knights in armor, ruins of a great empire, all great D&D stuff.

Slavish technological and cultural accuracy obliterates the fun for me.

So...it's the parts of medieval europe that are fun, minus the parts that aren't.