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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Buttercup" data-source="post: 1752273" data-attributes="member: 990">Gender equality and literacy as a common state are the two biggies. However, there are some ways in which my players' world view colors their responses to things. Slavery, for instance. Social tolerance, also for instance. I think that in general, certain behaviors that we (and the standard D&D alignment) consider non-good, wouldn't have been looked at that way in the middle ages. For instance, we value the lives and rights of individuals much more highly than was done in the past. Indentured servitude was common & accepted by everyone. No doubt those who were indentured would have prefered otherwise, but society as a whole, and the nobility in particular did not consider a commoner's wishes to be worth worrying about. Generally, our modern notions of justice would have only applied to the nobility, and sometimes not even then. Children were not treated tenderly, as we do now. They were beaten, starved, stuffed into armor (go look at the tiny sets of armor at the Tower of London if you want to get a queasy stomach) and given sticks to hit each other with...if they were lucky. Otherwise they were just put to work as scullions or rag pickers or the like.  And let's consider hygene. Bathing was considered dangerous, so everybody stank like the alcoholic street bum on the corner. Everybody had lice, and fleas and probably lots of rashes and oozing sores as well. Being in a crowded venue such as a church must have been a torment. Also, if you got some sort of infection, if your immune system did not overcome it then you would either have a chronic illness for the rest of your wretched life, or it would kill you outright in an acute bout of suffering. Nearly everyone had rotten teeth, so that means their smiles were a horror, and their breath was worse than a sewer. And that just scratches the surface. No, modern players, including me, wouldn't be all that enamored of playing in a truly realistic medieval setting.</blockquote>

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