Greenfield
Adventurer
No, Hoffa had mercenaries.
2) A cook expected to prepare meals for "large groups" (probably 10+) definitely isn't "untrained" in the day laborer sense. Even if you do consider an untrained cook on par with a porter, why isn't the clerk on the table an "untrained" clerk who can only scribble down a few things and get paid 1 sp? Or the animal tender someone who just stands around and stables horses for 1 sp? The chart doesn't state its assumptions and isn't really detailed enough to draw conclusions.
I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.
The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.
Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the mediaeval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.
You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day. The scullions get 1sp.
Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill. I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out. A skilled animal handler gets more.
Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate...
I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.
The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.
The Capitals and big cities at the time did not lack in complexity or trading plethora. Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the medieval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.
It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.
Au contraire. While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose,
there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church.
Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest.
Crusades against evil in D&D are actually motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status.
Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.
First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms? Medieval? You must be joking.
With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times."
However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.
The Forgotten Realms, though? Not medieval in the slightest. Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.
Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...
Every PC class. You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.
which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.
I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic. I'm arguing that it isn't D&D. You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings. They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs. Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.
Not in the basic settings and not in any campaign I've ever played in! Sure, you could do that, and I'm sure many DMs do. But most deities in most campaigns only wish they had a tiny bit of the influence that the Christian church did in medieval Europe. If anything, D&D is even more polytheistic than the Roman Empire ever got. In the real world, you never really had priests dedicated to as *single* god -- at least not if they acknowledged the existence of other gods.
Even more strongly, though, D&D wizards would be flat-out impossible in a truly medieval setting. There was NO educated class except the clergy and, to some extent, the nobility. You could not have a school of wizardry, because there's no rival educational establishment to the church. Now, you could make an interesting pseudomedieval where the scholars in monasteries are wizards and they are the spellcasters of the established church. But it would be pretty far removed from a standard D&D setting.
D&D has pseudomedieval elements pasted on to settings that are really something else. Greyhawk City is flat-out Renaissance, down to being run by the Thieves' Guild, to take one example. Well, Renaissance by way of Fritz Leiber -- Greyhawk has more than a little bit of Lankhmar in it. Oh, sure, you may run into a knight in shiny armor in Greyhawk, but he's not a medieval knight, no matter how much his armor glimmers.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day. The scullions get 1sp.
Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill. I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out. A skilled animal handler gets more.