On Behavioral Realism

[Fenris-77]

Oookay champ, you pound that ignore button, that's what its for. I was specifically not trolling though, just curious what the end game was for your litany of woes. A cursory familiarity with classical and medieval history gives you that list and worse. So now we have a list, cool! Then what? That's the part I wanted to hear you out on.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes, they did. The height of recorded activity, is precisely because the printing press had arrived after the 1400's, to allow records.

Well, actually, yes... but, no.

The printing press did play a big role in the witch panic, but not in the keeping of records. Records weren't kept by printed books, but by hand. And that was true up to very recently. Printing allows for distributing books, which you don't really need to do for "records".

The truth is in the middle ages they didn't really burn witches, and the Catholic Church had issued decrees banning the practice of killing witches early on in the middle ages. There also just weren't many people in the middle ages that believed in witches.

The role the printing press had in the witch panic is it allowed self-described 'experts' to print books decrying witches and describing witches, and then to widely disseminate those books. It's books that caused the panic and caused people to begin to imagine that they were surrounded by witches making pacts with the devil. And it's worth noting that where those books made inroads was mostly in the North of Europe, which at the time was no longer dominated by a single religious institution.

Incidentally, the medievals were also cleaner than the Europeans of the early modern period. Europeans didn't stop taking baths until after the Black Death closed all the public baths.

And Joan of Arc wasn't burned for wearing women's clothing either. That was the official excuse. She was actually burned because she'd embarrassed a lot of people in a position of power, and they need some official excuse to murder her. Similar thinking went into book burning. In most cases, they didn't burn all the books. They kept copies of the books in, as it were, 'the restricted section of the library'. The authorities in power weren't afraid of books. They were afraid of not being able to control public opinion.

And in general, I rather think your simple line downward from the classical era to the medieval one is a... overly simplistic one. For just one example, you ought to read some about the practice of exposing female infants to the elements to die, a practice that was rather successfully squashed by those same medievals you abhor.

 

[Reynard]

Thread drift is one of my favorite inevitable phenomena.

 

[dragoner]

Well, actually, yes...

Right. Rather than foolishly trying to defend them, before admitting what happened, you need to read more of the history as you fail to understand.

The truth is that awful people would probably do awful things, realistically. Modern and future people, would be considered worse for doing similar.

 

[Reynard]

Right. Rather than foolishly trying to defend them, before admitting what happened, you need to read more of the history as you fail to understand.

The truth is that awful people would probably do awful things, realistically. Modern and future people, would be considered worse for doing similar.

Out of curiosity, what is your goal and intent with bringing this up. How does it relate the to the subject at hand, and how can it help encourage realism in play?

 

[dragoner]

Things like burning infants to death, after accusing them of witchcraft, makes the never having bathed thing, not as big a deal. Medieval Europeans could be considered some of humanity at its lowest point, it's weird how they got to that point from the classical era. There is a documentary on violence, and how we are becoming less violent as time goes on, which makes for a weird juxtaposition for modern or sci-fi games, because some of the PC's are extremely bloody, having killed a lot of people. How to deal with that?

^^^ This.

Thinking about different situations, and realistic behavior. If people want to fall over themselves defending abhorrent behavior, that's on them.

 

[macd21]

^^^ This.

Thinking about different situations, and realistic behavior. If people want to fall over themselves defending abhorrent behavior, that's on them.

This what? Nobody’s defending abhorrent behaviour, just people pointing out some commonly held assumptions about historical periods that are wrong.

 

[dragoner]

This what? Nobody’s defending abhorrent behaviour, just people pointing out some commonly held assumptions about historical periods that are wrong.

Since their "well acthully's" circle back with poor logic, more like how uneducated they are on the time period.

 

[Reynard]

^^^ This.

Thinking about different situations, and realistic behavior. If people want to fall over themselves defending abhorrent behavior, that's on them.

Nobody is doing that as far as I can tell. I don't think you are approaching the discussion in a productive way, to be honest. Nothing in the discussion prior to this exchange focused on realism=abhorrent behavior, certainly not my OP. In fact, in this thread I distinctly mentioned not being interested in realistic portrayals of medieval psychology but just generally realistic human behavior.

 

[Eric V]

To try to get back to the original topic, in my 13th Age game I have what could be "RP Contests" and whomever gets voted to have been most entertaining/world-building/authentic to their character gets to re-roll one of their Icon Relationship Dice. So, in your situation, I guess I might ask each player to narrate what they are doing and why in town, and whomever provides the best story get to re-roll the die.

This way, someone who is just penny-pinching to upgrade magic items is likely to not win the contest...but it's not impossible.

It's an incentive, and it's gamist, but it also brings out peoples' best roleplaying/narrative chops. So far, it's worked well. My players have populated the Dragon Empire with a lot of NPCs and adventure ideas using this method.

Just my 2 cp.