Sell me on "Magical Medieval Society" WE

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Ok, I know it won an ENnie, and a lot of people think this is a darn good book.

Based on the award and the raves of members here, I told myself that I would buy this when and if I saw it in my LGS.

Last week:

Saw it.

Grabbed it.

Looked at TOC.

Spent about 10 minutes reading through the first couple pages of each chapter.

Put it back on the shelf, feeling dissapointed.

I was expecting a manual to help me create a truly different society where the presence of magic has made fundamental and pervasive changes to an otherwise medieval tech level world, but the "magical" part of the book seems to be severely understated. It read to me more like a "Medieval Society" creation book. Many sections began with the words: "In a Magical Medeival Society..." things are pretty much the same as in a regular medieval society ( my words after the quotation mark )...

So - have I rushed too quickly to judgement?

Can anyone offer some examples from the book that truly provides detailed examples of a magically altered society? I'm looking for more than - a MMS will have magic users working for the royalty... cuz like ... duh!

I will say that the book was wonderfully rich in providing lots of tables for filling in details for a homebrewers world: titles import/exports etc... but I'm strictly looking for advice on how the prevelance of magic ( even a low magic setting ) would plausibly change things - from the fantastic to the mundane.

TIA

 

[Crothian]

It won three ENnies, but who's counting?

You are right, this book is not how to make a medieval society magical, but how to make a magicaly society medieval. That's why I like it. We have countless settings that are all heavy with magic, but really none that are medieval. It's still a darn good book that has lot of great information. But like all books, it isn't for everyone.

 

[ForceUser]

You got the wrong impression of MMS:WE. It is a book intended to help bring your D&D game historically closer to a true medieval culture, and offers ways to help reconcile some very modern concepts and fantasy elements with the true historical era. It is a must for every DM who wants to add a touch of realism and versimiltude to his otherwise plain-Jane-bland-vanilla-been-there-done-that-regular-old D&D campaign. I love it.

 

[BSF]

OK, if you are looking for a sourcebook on all the ways that magic will alter the fabric of society, this isn't quite for you.

For me, it provided a much more detailed look on how a medieval society was structured. Given that I live in the Southwest United States (New Mexico, we have lots of land and not many people), this book showed me how a feudal structure works. We are much more ranching country out here and I am much more familiar with the concept that all the farmers/ranchers have their own fields, on their own fenced in land. I have always tended to just extend that concept out to serfs with the assumption that they don't own their land. It doesn't quite work like that.

That is just one example of what I found the book useful for. The coverage of magic is much more on the integration side. How magic can be introduced without, necessarily, tearing the society down. I also have ideas on how I can better integrate curch vs state politics, how I can bring in a presence fro Druids and why smart Lords will work with them rather than against them, how I can use land and title as a reward for characters and still have it be more than just flavor or a hassle, all sorts of things.

In fact, my next campaign is starting off around a City-State. The city-state itself dows to no other leige, but has an entire feudal structure around it. I want the characters to start off on the lower end of that chain and, hopefully, move their way up through their adventuring career.

In all, I think it is a great book. But, it might not provide you with what you are looking for.

 

[Desdichado]

If that's the case, I'm very glad I haven't rushed out and bought this. If I want to know about Medieval societies, there's tons of books I can get for free at my local public library that I'd bet are much, much better at detailing medieval life.

I prefer my gaming material to actually be gaming material, thankyouverymuch, not some pseudo-historical tract masquerading as gaming material.

Given that, I'm actually quite surprised that it's been raved about so much, or that it won three ENnies. Are gamers so insular and ignorant these days that we have to have a gaming supplement to teach us about something as basic as medieval life? What the heck is so good about the thing?

EDIT: NOTE: I feel the same way about GURPS books for the most part; if they provide game stats there's some value to them, if it's just a bunch of game designers reading a few history books and then distilling it into a "gaming supplement" than the book is completely worthless, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Gellion]

If that's the case, I'm very glad I haven't rushed out and bought this. If I want to know about Medieval societies, there's tons of books I can get for free at my local public library that I'd bet are much, much better at detailing medieval life.

I prefer my gaming material to actually be gaming material, thankyouverymuch, not some pseudo-historical tract masquerading as gaming material.

Given that, I'm actually quite surprised that it's been raved about so much, or that it won three ENnies. Are gamers so insular and ignorant these days that we have to have a gaming supplement to teach us about something as basic as medieval life? What the heck is so good about the thing?

EDIT: NOTE: I feel the same way about GURPS books for the most part; if they provide game stats there's some value to them, if it's just a bunch of game designers reading a few history books and then distilling it into a "gaming supplement" than the book is completely worthless, as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed, you can learn about that if you paid attention in History.

 

[d4]

If that's the case, I'm very glad I haven't rushed out and bought this. If I want to know about Medieval societies, there's tons of books I can get for free at my local public library that I'd bet are much, much better at detailing medieval life.

I prefer my gaming material to actually be gaming material, thankyouverymuch, not some pseudo-historical tract masquerading as gaming material.

i understand your concerns, but this book is fairly dense on the gaming material.

i can't think of any other books at the public library that contain this amount of material on medieval life translated already into d20 gaming statistics.

sure, i could read any of a number of books on medieval life (and have) for the benefit of my game. but then i'd have to actually sit down and figure out how to apply all that knowledge to the game mechanics. the author of this book has already done all that work for me -- i can just buy this one book and have all the mechanics i need ready to go.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, that's the kind of info I'd look for, I guess. What types of mechanics does it include, though?

 

[Crothian]

WEll, the library books are formated in a way to help you design a society, this one is. Sure, RPG books like this and Gurp[s don't have as much info as if you research it at the library, but they do present it in way geered towards gaming. It makes it a lot more useful. THe trick is to use the gaming products as gaming products and not as history book.

 

[Desdichado]

But if the information they include is primarily historical (and dubious at best, and the fact that they're gaming books immediately makes their historical accuracy dubious as far as I'm concerned) then they don't have a lot of value as gaming books.

Note; I'm not necessarily saying that MMS is that kind of book, but a lot of GURPS books I've looked at are. And the descriptions of MMS so far in this thread make it seem to be that type of book as well.