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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6842052" data-attributes="member: 6677017">My thanks to all those who shared thoughts in the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?476649-Feudalism-for-D-amp-D" target="_blank">first feudalism thread</a>. It helped a lot. Now that I've got a base in mind for how I want to handle it, I've been thinking about how it would relate to a more or less traditional D&D world. I'm looking for thoughts on that.The main issue is that while D&D settings and supplements often reference feudalism as the baseline, they almost never give it more than lip-service.* I can't even say they do a mediocre job of creating a fantasy feudalism. They really don't even do it all--instead they often create a decidedly unfeudal structure.Unfeudalism**Unfeudalism refers to the social and governmental structure often found in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy settings. The key characteristic of unfeudalism is that it refers to itself as feudal, while failing to follow most of the conventions of actual feudalism. Most unfeudalism shares certain traits.  Rather than 90%+ of arrable land being populated and incorporated into fiefs, it's more like 9% in unfeudalism, with emphasis on the Village in the Wilderness. Despite the fact that border wars for land continue to be fought, most of the land is Inexplicably Uninhabited. Yet isolated villages somehow manage to survive despite the prevalence of monsters, possibly because Monsters Summon Heroes whenever they show up. These isolated villagers never seem to lack any basic goods or commodities necessary to live comfortably and provide adventurers with whatever goods they need, unless Poverty by Plot is invoked to set up an adventure.  Another common feature of unfeudalism is Manors Optional. Rather than actually portraying manorialism, most villages seems to be populated entirely by free peasants; serfs being absent from the Anachronistic Egalitarianism of these settlements. Not only are serfs absent, but even the smallest of villages often politically stands entirely alone as a Improbable City-State. Sometimes they are considered to be within the realm of a distant sovereign, but rarely anyone within a day's journey. Occasionally manors with lords are actually present, but they tend to be Conveniently Unobtrusive Rulers, generally sitting away off out of sight, and never asking anything of the peasantry, except perhaps modest taxes, which are not believably paid in agricultural products, but rather All Coins Are Accepted.  Unfeudalism also tends to forego a titled peerage in preference for Ambiguous Nobility. Rather than having barons, counts or others ruling over their fiefs, you tend to have the vast majority of fiefs ruled over by a Lord or Lady with no further title, who generally is assumed to be either the direct vassal of the sovereign, or a sovereign lord in their own behalf. Combined with Manors Optional the basic picture portrayed is of a few villages scattered over a mostly unpopulated wilderness that hosts an occasional Lord or Lady with an Improbably Expansive Domain who makes few if any demands of their Subjects in Name Only.  Perhaps not surprisingly, despite the fact that the Village in the Wilderness is rarely bothered by monsters, the Lords and Ladies are often Glaringly Incompetent Defenders of their realm. Because of Manors Optional, knights are not scattered across the realm. Rather they arrive as Spontaneously Generated Soldiers, whose purpose is usually to fail or die confronting any threats, causing the Lord or Lady to Beg for Heroes, even when those heroes should reasonably be considered Inferior Replacements for the knights who failed to overcome the threats.While some of those issues are just general conceits we play with to allow us to enjoy adventuring, others clash strongly with any attempt at believable fantasy feudalism.***Now, the general response of most DMs, I believe, is to either just go with the standard D&D Unfeudalism, or to implement a more believable fantasy feudalism. Since I'm posting this, I'm obviously not entirely satisfied with either option. What I'm really wanting to do is have a more inclusive approach. I think what I'd like to do is say that nominally feudal areas of the world include three basic types of lands:1) Fantasy Feudal Lands2) Unfeudal Lands3) Hybrid LandsI'll basically just decide based on the land or region how I want things to structured in different areas. That leaves me looking for help on two different questions:A) How do we make #2 and #3 somewhat believableandB) What could #3 look like?* Some settings, such as Birthright, are exceptions.** I wrote it in mock TV Tropes style, because D&D shouldn't be taken too seriously. No actual trope links are present.*** I'm not even talking about historically accurate feudalism, just believable fantasy feudalism as discussed on the previous thread.</blockquote>

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