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

[pawsplay]

Whatever. I can't find anything in the core rulebooks that really precludes a pseudomedieval feel. I've never had a problem making it work for me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I've never had a problem making it work for me.

I've never had a problem avoiding it completely.

 

[jolt]

Abstractly. I believe the core rulebooks mention that actual coin is rare except for the economic elite.

That's true for gold. But copper is the bread & butter of even the meanest dirt farmer. Incorporating bartering as a system of purchase or paying taxes with livestock/produce is an interesting concept and certainly doable but the economic model presented in the core books assumes you're using money.

The idea that the Renaissance differs markedly and distinctly from the so-called Dark Ages is pretty much a myth. There is no date one ends and the other begins, nor any crucial demarcation in belief or culture.

Actually, the Renaissance is pretty much universally regarded by historians as having begun in the mid-1400's in Northern Italy. And the cultural differences were profound. Without the changes from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance you have no Queen Elizabeth I (not as she was anyway), no Shakespeare, and none of those great artists of the era would have gotten anywhere (because in the Dark Ages, no one with money was willing to pay for that kind of crap). Without the vast increase in trade over the Dark Ages, many countries economies would have never developed.

jolt

jolt

 

[werk]

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?

I'm a lot more into the fantasy than the "midieval"

It's just more interesting... I don't have chainsaw swords or tanks, but it's not because they weren't "midieval".

 

[Storm Raven]

Abstractly. I believe the core rulebooks mention that actual coin is rare except for the economic elite.

They may pay some lip service to it, but they express everything in wages and weekly pay.

How many PCs are "peasant farmers," and why do they have to become kings?

William Wallace was minor gentry (little more than a free farmer with a pedigree) and he became a major military leader.

Joan of Arc was, in fact, a farmer's daughter who led the armies of France to victory.

And both were executed for their efforts. Both were considered to be exceptional and, in Joan's case, heretical. You aren't making much of an argument by trotting them out.

In any event, how many PCs are defined as even "minor gentry"? The vast majority of PCs seem to be some sort of generic "free person" class (which was fairly rare in actual medieval society), who, in reality, would have had little opportunity for significant political advancement.

Bah! The steel that made plate armor eventually built railroads. There has been nothing like the metallurgical advances of the Middle Ages until the late 20th century. Alloys, folding, different tempering, the discovery of carbon, silicon, and titanium impurities.

Bessemer would be surprised to learn that.

In any event, these are merely refinements on previous processes, and in most cases have direct military application. Sure, they were done to a certain extent, but even the most basic chemical processes (at the time) were invested with magical significance (see The Last Sorcerers) and were poorly understood, and kept secret.

I question your view of history.

Television? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it.
C. P. Scott

Nice assumptions - of course, it does nothing to butress your argument and is insulting to boot.

The idea that the Renaissance differs markedly and distinctly from the so-called Dark Ages is pretty much a myth. There is no date one ends and the other begins, nor any crucial demarcation in belief or culture. Nor is the Renaissance a time of country farmers praising philosophical advancements or cheering on discoveries in the field of astronomy.

No, the country farmers were not. But the people with money and power were. That is the major difference in mind set as the transition from the medieval period to the renaissance period took place. When leaders began financing exploration, encouraging discovery and invention, providing prizes for scholarly accomplishments, and so on, a major shift in the culture took place - a top down shift. Rather than the bulk of scholarship being the process of translating and interpreting received wisdom (and yes, there were expreimentalists in the mediaval period, but they were rare and exceptional), the idea of creating something entirely new became valued. Instead of studying Aristotle and Galen, scholars began pioneering their own ideas. Sure, it meant little to the country farmer, but then again, the doings of a band of D&D adventurers probably would mean little to a country farmer in a fantasy world too, but it meant a significant shift in how money and power pushed technology.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Honestly, what the hell do I care if the game I'm playing is genuinely 'medival' or not?

I play the game to have fun, not to stroke off over how authentic to the period I'm being.

Fun is paramount of course, but perhaps there is an easy way to make D&D more "authentically medieval."


Character creation would have an element similar to the original Traveller game, wherein players would see how their character was as he/she was growing up.

Roll on the following table to determine your character's significant events during childhood:

01-11: Measles
12-27: Broken Bone
28-30: Extreme poverty
31-40: Father hit you in drunken rage
41-45: Mother beat you regularly
46-50: Older sibling tortured you mercilessly
51-65: Chronically underfed
66-72: Family cursed by spiteful necromancer
73-85: Orcs/goblins/other ravaged your village
86-90: Neighbor's Demonic summoning goes horribly wrong
91-95: Hangnail
96-97: Apprenticed to tradesman
98-99: Permanent rash from unclean clothes
00: Found a lesser magic item

On a result of 01-95, you have died in childhood. Roll another character. Note that like Traveller, you only roll on this table after you have finished filling out your entire character sheet.

 

[DragonLancer]

IMO, D&D is more Renaissance meets Dark Ages than a pure medieval fantasy. That works fine for me. As for it being fantasy modern, thats to be expected since I doubt many of us could relate to that era very well.

 

[pawsplay]

Bessemer would be surprised to learn that.

Bessmer process was a method for producing steel in volume, not for producing a different kind of steel.

Wikipedia says:

The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly.[1][2] The process had also been used outside of Europe for hundreds of years, but not on an industrial scale.

Bessmer steel replaced wrought iron and made possible the mass production of rail lines.

 

[Storm Raven]

Bessmer process was a method for producing steel in volume, not for producing a different kind of steel.

Yes. Which means that medieval metallurgy has little to do with building railroads. Sure, there may have been some steel produced that was sufficiently strong to be used in this way, but it wasn't widespread, it wasn't useful for that purpose, and wasn't valued for that sort of thing.

In other words, the mind-set of those producing it was radically different from the mind-set of a modern individual. Which is the point.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm going to address this in more detail.

They may pay some lip service to it, but they express everything in wages and weekly pay.

It has to be expressed as something. But as noted many times in the text, ordinary wealth is tied up in capital and commodities, not coin.

And both were executed for their efforts. Both were considered to be exceptional and, in Joan's case, heretical. You aren't making much of an argument by trotting them out.

Of course they were exceptional! Anyone who achieves great advancement is exceptional. We were talking about exceptions. Obviously, not everyone can be President of the United States at the same time, or king, or whatever.

As to their fates, ... do most PCs meet better ends? At least Joan wasn't killed by vegepygmies.

In any event, how many PCs are defined as even "minor gentry"? The vast majority of PCs seem to be some sort of generic "free person" class (which was fairly rare in actual medieval society), who, in reality, would have had little opportunity for significant political advancement.

Knights were required to have "franchise", i.e. freedom. Scottish lairds, free farmers, German burghars, escaped peasants, craftsmen, and many others existed on a plane below true aristocrats but had freedom, saved wealth, and opportunity for advancement. German landsknechts and Swiss pikemen were also freemen, as were most ship captains.

While the knight and baronial classes tended to blend, ultimately you had both freemen (of which knights belonged) and minor gentry (the barony) who were not precisely interchangeable.

Bessemer would be surprised to learn that.

In any event, these are merely refinements on previous processes, and in most cases have direct military application. Sure, they were done to a certain extent, but even the most basic chemical processes (at the time) were invested with magical significance (see The Last Sorcerers) and were poorly understood, and kept secret.

I think the tanner's guild would be surprised to learn that, or leaders of glass.

No, the country farmers were not. But the people with money and power were. That is the major difference in mind set as the transition from the medieval period to the renaissance period took place. When leaders began financing exploration, encouraging discovery and invention, providing prizes for scholarly accomplishments, and so on, a major shift in the culture took place - a top down shift. Rather than the bulk of scholarship being the process of translating and interpreting received wisdom (and yes, there were expreimentalists in the mediaval period, but they were rare and exceptional), the idea of creating something entirely new became valued. Instead of studying Aristotle and Galen, scholars began pioneering their own ideas. Sure, it meant little to the country farmer, but then again, the doings of a band of D&D adventurers probably would mean little to a country farmer in a fantasy world too, but it meant a significant shift in how money and power pushed technology.

I think that the personalization of magic... that is, the need for a live spellcaster, the need to handcraft individual items, the inaccessiblity to the masses... makes it an excellent parallel to medieval science and technology, which lacked mass production. Eberron, of course, turns this assumption on its head.

It's all very well and good to talk about paradigm shifts, but tell me, on what day and date, and where, did the Renaissance begin? Was there some specific event that caused people to start "pioneering" instead of merely "experimenting?" If the Renaissance began in Italy, what were people in England doing at the time?