D&D General Dungeons & Dragons survival sim video game coming

[Parmandur]

Every time I see people oohing and aahing over the Outlander TV series/novels, I keep thinking "yes, but do you know what all those folks smelled like?" (To say nothing of their teeth.)

I am happy to have a fantasy world that's quite a few steps removed from the real world.

Again, that is deeply contrary to fact: Medieval people bathed and kept their teeth in good shape:

"Contrary to the depiction of medieval peasants with blackened and rotting teeth, the average person in the Middle Ages had teeth that were in very good condition. This is substantially due to one factor—the rarity of sugar in the diet. Most medieval people simply could not afford sugar, and those who could used it sparingly, usually as a seasoning or minor ingredient and almost never as a condiment or the basis of a dish. This means that most people used natural sugars, such as those in fruits and honey; even then, they ate this kind of sugar sparingly. Taken with a diet high in calcium via dairy, high in vegetables and cereals, and low in foods that cause decay, the average medieval person ate the way most modern dentists would recommend for good teeth."

"Not surprisingly, tooth decay was actually much less prevalent in the Middle Ages than it became in later centuries, when mass imports of sugar from the tropics made it a staple rather than a rarity. Surveys of archaeological data from the medieval period show that an average of only 20 percent of teeth show any sign of decay, as opposed to up to 90 percent in some early 20th-century populations. A more common dental issue for medieval people was not decay but wear. Eating stone-ground bread daily as part of almost every meal meant medieval people’s teeth saw considerable abrasion from grit that over years led to the teeth being worn down. To an extent this actually helped prevent decay, as their molars had less crevices in which plaque could accumulate. But in the long run it could lead to the complete abrasion of dentine and tooth loss."

Did People in the Middle Ages Have Bad Teeth?

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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The majority of humanity lives in absolute luxury compared to what people lived in in the Middle Ages. What we consider horrific conditions today would make the average middle ages peasant green with envy.

My wife would have 100% died in childbirth and it's a real toss-up as to whether my oldest would have survived the process. And that means my youngest wouldn't have even had a chance to be born.

I think folks in the west in the 21st century don't really grasp just how good we have it, even compared to our great-grandparents, to say nothing of previous centuries and millennia.

 

[Parmandur]

If, you're like me, and over the age of 50, you are very likely dead by now.

That part is the very misleading manipulation of statistics that is a huge canard in pop culture: if you lived past the age of 5 or 6, then life expectancy was basically the same now as it was then. People were very likely to live into their 70 or i0's if they passed the gauntlet.

If you aren't dead, you are likely mostly blind because there's no corrective lenses

They invented corrective lenses in the Middle Ages.

you're very likely crippled due to a complete lack of sanitation and medication

Vastly exaggerated, though medicine has definitely advanced.

if you are one of the very fortunate few who aren't, you're likely alone because everyone around you has already died.

Not really how it was.

The majority of humanity lives in absolute luxury compared to what people lived in in the Middle Ages. What we consider horrific conditions today would make the average middle ages peasant green with envy.

That is what many powerful interests want you to believe, yes.

 

[Parmandur]

My wife would have 100% died in childbirth and it's a real toss-up as to whether my oldest would have survived the process. And that means my youngest wouldn't have even had a chance to be born.

I think folks in the west in the 21st century don't really grasp just how good we have it, even compared to our great-grandparents, to say nothing of previous centuries and millennia.

It is true modern medicine is wonderful, but that doesn't mean people in the Ancient or Medeival world didn't enjoy their lives and thrive. In particular, it is very true that Medieval peasants had a better work-life balance than modern Americans, which is admittedly a low bar. Better labor and housing protections, too.

 

[Scribe]

I think folks in the west in the 21st century don't really grasp just how good we have it, even compared to our great-grandparents, to say nothing of previous centuries and millennia.

I've looked over the genealogy on both sides of my family, and yeah, life's a roll of the dice back then.

 

[Stormonu]

Please, I have no desire to go back to 2E and every other sentence being about specific time periods (serious; I've been reading through the 2E DMG lately). I just want something fun to play, where choosing to be someone swinging a sword doesn't put you at a disadvantage for not choosing to sling spells.

 

[Hussar]

That part is the very misleading manipulation of statistics that is a huge canard in pop culture: if you lived past the age of 5 or 6, then life expectancy was basically the same now as it was then. People were very likely to live into their 70 or i0's if they passed the gauntlet.

They invented corrective lenses in the Middle Ages.

Vastly exaggerated, though medicine has definitely advanced.

Not really how it was.

That is what many powerful interests want you to believe, yes.

70's? Not bloody likely. Good grief, life expectancy in Canada in the 1960's was barely 70. There's a reason that 60 is a HUGE milestone for many cultures. It's because your odds of survival to that age were very low.

Do you like cinnamon? I hope so. Because you are going to eat it with virtually every meal to cover the taste of the rotten meat and vegetables that are being used for your food due to the lack of refrigeration. Don't mind the salmonella or dysentery. Water with your meal? Oh, right, can't drink that because that will kill you. Got milk so you can get that calcium for healthy bones and not have your skeleton shatter like matchsticks by the time you are forty? Oh, right, nope. Gonna be drinking unpasteurized milk - again, welcome to constant bouts of the trots. On and on and on.

While you are correct that corrective lenses were invented in the 13th century, they wouldn't find widespread use until well after the Renaissance. Certainly won't be found on the faces of Middle Ages peasants until long after the end of the Middle ages.

This is what I was talking about when I talked about the romanticization of the Middle Ages that comes part and parcel with fantasy stories. The Middle Ages were a horrific time. Mind buggeringly horrific. Good grief, 25% of Europe DIES from the Black Plague. TWENTY FIVE PERCENT. Never minding the other 75% that are scarred for life.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Please, I have no desire to go back to 2E and every other sentence being about specific time periods (serious; I've been reading through the 2E DMG lately). I just want something fun to play, where choosing to be someone swinging a sword doesn't put you at a disadvantage for not choosing to sling spells.

I recommend going to a spellcheck system, as balancing via spell slot "scarcity" hasn't ever seemed to work out in practice. (Especially since the slots get less scarce with every edition of D&D.)

Spellchecks (with consequences for failure) work out well in Dungeon Crawl Classics (12 years old this year!) and Shadowdark. Even an experienced spellcaster isn't casting spells constantly, because they dare not, giving the martials an advantage they can't keep up with.

 

[Parmandur]

70's? Not bloody likely. Good grief, life expectancy in Canada in the 1960's was barely 70. There's a reason that 60 is a HUGE milestone for many cultures. It's because your odds of survival to that age were very low.

This a popular myth, but it dies not reflect reality:

"There is a common misperception that long life spans in humans are very recent, and that no one in the past lived much beyond their 30s before now. This is not true. There is physical evidence that plenty of people in the past lived long lives — just as long as some people do today. Anthropology professor Sharon DeWitte writes for The Conversation on the evidence that proves old age isn't a modern phenomenon."

Old age isn’t a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too

There is a common misperception that long life spans in humans are very recent, and that no one in the past lived much beyond their 30s before now. This is not true. There is physical evidence that plenty of people in the past lived long lives — just as long as some people do today. Anthropology...

sc.edu

Do you like cinnamon? I hope so. Because you are going to eat it with virtually every meal to cover the taste of the rotten meat and vegetables that are being used for your food due to the lack of refrigeration.

Uh, no, that is inaccurate.

Water with your meal? Oh, right, can't drink that because that will kill you.

Also inaccurate:

"One of the oddest myths about the Middle Ages is that people did not drink water. Many books and articles have repeated the idea that water was so polluted during this period that medieval men and women would only drink wine, ale or some other kind of beverage. However, there is plenty of evidence that people regularly drank water."

Did people drink water in the Middle Ages? - Medievalists.net

One of the oddest myths about the Middle Ages is that people did not drink water.

www.medievalists.net

Got milk so you can get that calcium for healthy bones and not have your skeleton shatter like matchsticks by the time you are forty? Oh, right, nope. Gonna be drinking unpasteurized milk - again, welcome to constant bouts of the trots.

Also less than accuraye: obviously Pasteutized is an improvement, but people were close enough to their sources that this wasn't a big problem until...around the time Pasteurization came about, curiously enough.

25% of Europe DIES from the Black Plague. TWENTY FIVE PERCENT. Never minding the other 75% that are scarred for life.

That could easily happen tomorrow, too: tge Black Death was an unusual event from a small period at the end of the Middle Ahes, in no way typical.

Erroneous myths about the Middle Ages are far more common than romanticization, honestly.

 

[Parmandur]

Do you like cinnamon? I hope so. Because you are going to eat it with virtually every meal to cover the taste of the rotten meat and vegetables that are being used for your food due to the lack of refrigeration. Don't mind the salmonella or dysentery.

Interestingly, this reputable source (among historians) indicates this particular falacious legend dates aaaaall tge way back to 1939:

15. That medieval people ate rotten meat
This particular myth is not that old – it started in 1939 with the publication of The Englishman’s Food: Five Centuries of English Diet. The authors were not experts in medieval food, but had read that in 14th century London there were laws against selling rotten meat. For some reason, they saw this as proof that people were eating lots of rotten meat. They also misunderstood a recipe from 1594, and that was all the evidence they needed to claim that people were using spices as a way to mask the smell of rotten meat.

Spices, which included very expensive items imported from across the medieval world, were widely used for the same reason people use them today: they added to the flavour. If medieval people, especially the wealthy, can be blamed for one thing, it was that they liked to create very elaborate recipes. In other words, they liked to cook.

20 Myths about the Middle Ages - Medievalists.net

People have some very wrong ideas about the Middle Ages. Here is a list of twenty of the strangest misconceptions about the medieval period – they often came about to portray the people as being ignorant, cruel and unsophisticated.

www.medievalists.net