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

[TarionzCousin]

Have I got a game for you! I give you...
Advunced Peasants and Crapmongers (by our friends at Totalitarian Scum Regime Games)

Gee, I wanna be a Crapmonger. Check out this wonderful list of possibilities:

Crapmongers
1 to 30: get a job in a real shop. It burns down along with the rest of the town
31 to 40: shanghaied. Die at sea
41 to 50: famine. Eaten by neighbours
51 to 60: sacrificed by the cult of the arch wobbly
61 to 70: the local guildmaster realises you are not a guild member. Thugs come around and break both your legs -1d6 HT, -1d6 DX
71 to 80: glut in the market. +2d6 SH but -1d6 HT from starvation as you can no longer compete for a living
81 to 90: robbed! -5d6 SH
91 to 100: eaten alive by rats - death
101 to 110: an upset turnip cart crashes through your front door and you have enough turnips to eat for the rest of your life.

Wheeeee!!!

 

[Melan]

All in all, D&D is as mediaeval (and has been since the Original D&D booklets) as it is Tolkienesque. Very thinly on the surface.

BTW, T. Foster, those are good examples, but none of it makes D&D mediaeval. What would make it mediaeval would be a focus on feudal systems, PCs behaving as parts of such, etc. Gygaxian dungeon delving is anything but that. Thanks God.

 

[wingsandsword]

So, 1e AD&D had bankers, money lenders, department stores and (on the prior page) inns. None of these kinds of establishments existed as such in medieval Europe that I'm aware of. The idea of frontier coinage/inflation is also on these pages (Alaskan gold rush is mentioned as an example). I think someone above mentioned that D&D has always had a Western frontiers vibe. I tend to agree. Medieval trappings start and end with the swords and armor. The introduction to the 1e phb is filled with words like fantasy and swords and sorcery. Feudalism, medieval, renaissance and other historical terms are entirely lacking.

The Knights Templar provided banking services to the wealthy as far back as the 12th and 13th centuries, in fact the wealth they had that allowed them to give letters of credit (and find ways around church prohibitions on charging interest) is what inspired Phillip IV of France to destroy the order and attempt to seize it's wealth to fill the French coffers.

 

[pawsplay]

So, 1e AD&D had bankers, money lenders, department stores and (on the prior page) inns. None of these kinds of establishments existed as such in medieval Europe that I'm aware of.

All did. The charging of interest (usury) wouldn't have been forbidden if it weren't attempted. The Knights Templar, the Jewish gentry, and the Medicis are some notable money lenders. As to "department stores," general stores were the rule, not the exception, in the Middles, when you are talking about a retail establishment. You could buy candles from a chandler, but if you wanted to buy from a store or market, you bought from a vender who sold a variety of wares.

Inns have been around essentially as long as the Roman highways.

 

[jolt]

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?


..

This was the original post in case anyone's forgotten. A lot of tangental topics have sprung up as a result. This isn't, inherently, a bad thing. However, medievlaism, feudalism, the plague and the Renaissance have all been researched exhaustively by credible historians for a long time. Historical reality is what it is. Arguing about it is pointless though some seem to want to do so.

If you're truely interested in these topics, or history in general: read books. One credible book is generally better and more complete than five credible websites. Of course, indentifying a credible website can be a chore in itself. And in case you didn't know, Wikipedia is not considered to be a credible or reliable source of information. Even when they get it "right", it's often oversimplified and incomplete. If you want to rely on Wiki for your historical knowledge, that's your choice; but you're going to be wrong a lot.

These topics were initially interesting but the thread has now, IMO, devolved into circular statements, repetitious comments, ignoring long and universally held historical facts, and "-The sun rises in the East. -No it doesn't! And what does that really mean anyways?" style of debate (which is inherently agitative and only fosters pointless arguements).

And so I'll take my leave of this thread while elements of civility still remain. However, I'd like to do so on topic:

Emirikol: D&D still has the trappings of medievalism, yes. But that's all they are, trappings.

Victim: No, it was never really that medieval. It has some of the superficial appearances of medivalism but even the quasi-feudal setting of 1E Greyhawk was/is not representative of medievalism.

To everyone else: Have fun, that's what it's all about.

jolt

 

[Celebrim]

However, medievlaism, feudalism, the plague and the Renaissance have all been researched exhaustively by credible historians for a long time. Historical reality is what it is. Arguing about it is pointless though some seem to want to do so.

If I may say so, this is spoken like someone who has never taken an upper level academic history course. Are you suggesting that the state of conventional wisdom about historical reality is not in continual flux? Are you suggesting that Historians consider questions like, "What was the Reinnsance and when did it begin?" or "How Medieval was the middle ages anyway?" to be settled questions?

One of the first things I was taught in an upper level history course was that all historians have biases. Thus, historical reality never is what it is. Historical reality is only what was written in books. It is the reality of what was documented by individuals with agendas. You can try your best to remove these biases, but you yourself will inevitably be a biased historian. What will be considered the recieved wisdom of the day may and probably will be challenged by someone with a fresh and different perspective on the text. That won't necessarily make them right, but it won't necessarily make them wrong either.

...ignoring long and universally held historical facts

When it comes to questions of Historicism, like 'When did the Reinnasance begin?', there are very very few long and universally held facts. Universally held facts might be when a documented event actually happened, but why it happened and what the real motives of the individuals were and what it means are not questions of fact. So unless, by 'long', you mean '50 years or so' and by 'universally' you mean 'by the Academics of the currently most fashionable school of thought', it is entirely wrong to suggest that the opinion on questions of opinion is static, unchanging, and unchallengable.

 

[painandgreed]

I still don't think that clerical magic would be enough to tilt the balance versus plagues for the simple reason that Cure Disease doesn't confer immunity to a disease leaving the subject just as likely to be infected again, especially if the disease vectors are still around.

Cure Disease wouldn't be the deciding factor in such cases, but rather Commune and other divination magic. When you can play 20 Questions with your god about whatever subject you want, especially when dealing with something killing lots of their followers, the root of the problem can be gotten to and superstition shoved aside. In the case of the Black Plague, the root cause being a disease spread by fleas and rats could be determined fairly quickly, especially by people with huge wisdoms picking the questions to ask. The fear and uncertainty that came with the Black Plague would be removed and steps that could affect the spread could be taken even if antibiotics weren't avaialble. Follow this by other bits of common sense such as not dumping your sewage in the streets or water supply, and I think you'd very quickly end up with a fairly modern health system. So long as you didn't really get medieval and decide that disease and sickness really were caused by foul vapors and humors, then knowledge of germ theory, basic hygiene, and proper nutrition would be fairly common even if only understood by the peasants as being the command of their god.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Cure Disease wouldn't be the deciding factor in such cases, but rather Commune and other divination magic.

Correct. The primary benefit of Cure Disease would be to keep caregivers going.

Brad

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Cure Disease wouldn't be the deciding factor in such cases, but rather Commune and other divination magic. When you can play 20 Questions with your god about whatever subject you want, especially when dealing with something killing lots of their followers, the root of the problem can be gotten to and superstition shoved aside. In the case of the Black Plague, the root cause being a disease spread by fleas and rats could be determined fairly quickly, especially by people with huge wisdoms picking the questions to ask. The fear and uncertainty that came with the Black Plague would be removed and steps that could affect the spread could be taken even if antibiotics weren't avaialble. Follow this by other bits of common sense such as not dumping your sewage in the streets or water supply, and I think you'd very quickly end up with a fairly modern health system. So long as you didn't really get medieval and decide that disease and sickness really were caused by foul vapors and humors, then knowledge of germ theory, basic hygiene, and proper nutrition would be fairly common even if only understood by the peasants as being the command of their god.

I don't necessarily see that happening very reliably when there are active forces that will deliberately work against the efficacy of divinations. People like to toss this out there, but what's to say that plagues aren't punishments by "good" gods as well? We have germ theory, etc, etc, etc, but we still have monster pandemics and epidemics. Commune and other divination spells *still* will not be the panacea that everyone is making it out to be, especially if the number of infected reaches a critical mass, or that even by the time that people realize that they're in the midst of an epidemic, it would be too late.

Furthermore, there's an underlying assumption that civil authorities (if they're even a central authority that is strong enough) would be altruistic enough, and have enough capital to institute the amount of infrastructure to create a hygenic society. It would be patchwork at best and rural districts would most likely be the hardest hit as D&D societies would be largely agrarian societies and dispersed over geographical areas that would inhibit appropriate-level NPC distribution that could handle the crisis.

 

[Celebrim]

Cure Disease wouldn't be the deciding factor in such cases, but rather Commune and other divination magic. When you can play 20 Questions with your god about whatever subject you want, especially when dealing with something killing lots of their followers, the root of the problem can be gotten to and superstition shoved aside. In the case of the Black Plague, the root cause being a disease spread by fleas and rats could be determined fairly quickly, especially by people with huge wisdoms picking the questions to ask.

You are making huge assumptions here. The most obvious of which is that you are making the assumption that dangerous plagues in a magical universe would have the same root cause as in our universe. What if, for example, the root cause of a plague was a plague of disease spirit creatures, and the root cause of that is something of a spiritual nature with a divine entity whose wrath may be difficult to appease?

The fear and uncertainty that came with the Black Plague would be removed and steps that could affect the spread could be taken even if antibiotics weren't avaialble.

You think fear and uncertainty would be reduced in a universe were historic superstitutions were real things? You think fear and uncertainty would be reduced in a universe were witches/wizards/evil clerics really could bring plagues, poison wells, cause livestock to miscarry, bring storms, and so forth and were these beings were under the protection of a evil divine liege?

Follow this by other bits of common sense such as not dumping your sewage in the streets or water supply, and I think you'd very quickly end up with a fairly modern health system.

That's not the real issue.

So long as you didn't really get medieval and decide that disease and sickness really were caused by foul vapors and humors, then knowledge of germ theory, basic hygiene, and proper nutrition would be fairly common even if only understood by the peasants as being the command of their god.

Basic hygiene and proper nutrition are common divine commandments even in the real world. But, the real issue is whether or not the D&D world is in the opinion of the DM more like the mythic universe (and more like the medieval mythic universe in particular) or whether or not modern science is applicable. Other than the aesthetic argument (fantasy is better if the setting is fantastic) the best argument for me that in fact the D&D universe doesn't work like this one is that by the same logic that gets you modern medicine and santitation in a D&D universe, you ought to get computers, firearms, automobiles, and electric lights if the same science holds true in both universe. Another obvious argument that the science doesn't hold true in both universes is that magic doesn't work in this one. Another obvious argument against the science holding true in both universes is that the D&D universe has four elements - and one of them is heat.

So no. I don't think you can make a general argument like you are doing. It is very much going to depend on the particular DM because these are not questions answerable from the text.