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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 74258" data-attributes="member: 891">There's certainly truth in that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Let's look at something about fantasy though:Most of it does include a nobility and commoner distinction.Almost all published DnD settings and I'd wager most house settings also include this distinction.In such a society you will have a sense of deferal between commoners and their social betters.This often completely disapears around PCs. Which I feel is an issue of poor roleplay in ---most--- settings.The question that does arise is just how much of an impact does the presense of adventurers have on the social system.If the system still has nobles and commoners then we know almost by definition that it's not having all that much impact. Once adventuring becomes a route out of the common class you have social mobility. It will naturally lead to other forms of mobility springing up around it. This will in turn decay the concept of rights by birth in favor of the concept of rights by merit.Which will result in the end of nobility as a means to rulership and power. At the least you'll get the UK where the noble's are just a bunch of guys with fancy names. At the most you'll get France or the USA where the nobles end up lacking heads or being de-titled.But they won't stay around as the ruling class once by right by merit becomes an ingrained concept.And it's pretty clear in most fantasy and most DnD settings that right by birth is still quite strong. There are kings, queens, princesses, knights, barons, lords, and all the other trappings.Such a society if it did have adventurers for a long period of time would co-opt them into the framework somehow. It might be a path to knight hood for some. Outlawry for others. Or advancement in the noble ranks for those already born there.But it certainly wouldn't give license for the complete acceptance of one abandoning proper social protocol.Quite often in fantasy unless something en-nobles them; the commoner heroes maintain their difference to a nobility that often by the end of the novels they could wipe out with whatever powers they've amassed. It's often just a simple matter of what they feel is proper.Often the process of their adventures does result in en-nobling them. And then we get stories about them adjusting to the change. (thinking Wheel of Time again) You get people like Perrin who try to deny their new status, people like Rand who adapt to it out of need and are often resented for this, or people who despite their power and influence stick hard to their commoner roots because that's where they are comfortable (Mat is sort of an example of this in some aspects of his personality).But even if they do by some miracle get advanced in whatever system is used in their world; they will and should still be a part of it in some way.In most fantasy and DnD settings, while hard core feudalism is not the norm; nobility and right by birth is.</blockquote>

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