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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5049085" data-attributes="member: 4937">A player can be unreasonable if they wish to be.  I have no problem with a player being unreasonable.  However, I will be compelled to have any NPC in the vicinity act toward behavior that they find unreasonable in whatever way that I think most suits their character.  But I certainly won't go, "You can't do that! It's unreasonable!" or "Your character wouldn't do that!"Sure.  On most occassions the noble would wear something more suitable and frankly comfortable.  Ever worn chainmail for a few hours?I don't agree.  The only D&D classes that imply social class are Cavalier (1e) and Aristocrat (3e).  The rest do not apply social class at all.   For example the entry on Rogue reads:"Rogues share little in common with each other.  Some are stealthy thieves.  Others are silver-tongued tricksters.  Still others are scounts, infiltrators, spies, diplomats, or thugs.  What they share is versitility, adaptability, and resourcefulness.  In general, rogues are skilled at getting what others don't want them to get." Ok, sure.  I can easily imagine a noble rogue with the following skill list (3.0e): Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Forgery, Gather Information, Innuendo, Listen, Perform, Read Lips, Pick Pockets, and Sense Motive.  He is highly skilled in every social situation, well informed, a master of schemes and plots, and by devious designs highly skilled at getting what he wants from others.  Just because you are a charlatan or a crook, doesn't mean you are a criminal.  You could just as easily be a politician.This is just wrong.  If I could hazard a guess, I think you aren't making the translation from a Scandanavian language to English.  You are think of a knægt, where the conotation is primarily of the servitude of the knight to his master.  In English, the word 'Knight' emphasises the wealth and noble character of the holder.  In any event, even on the continent, the were heriditary offices of Knighthood, which means that the Knight was not merely the lowest rung of the nobility in name and by legal status but of the order of landed nobility in fact.  Knights are nobles.  It is a title.  Knighthood is conferred upon the recipient and thereafter, the Knight is entitled to the appropriate honorific - usually Sir (in English) or Ritter in German.  And where it is not conferred, it was usually owed by virtue of noble birth.  For example, the younger sons of a Baron were entitled to the rank of Knight.  Younger sons of minor nobility were in fact the primary ranks from which knightly mercenaries were drawn.  And the very fact that the Knight could enter into a vassalage contract with a Lord proved his status as a member of the nobility (albiet, a very low ranking one.)  Commoners and slaves could not take an oath of homage: they were required to take an oath of bondage.By the end of the middle Ages, it was not unusual for a Knight to be a soldier in name only.  His legal status as a noble was more important.  In payment of his theoretical legal duty to serve his lord in battle, he would send a mercenary in his place.  Over time, this fiction began to be replaced by the Knight merely sending gold to his Lord so the Lord could hire the mercenary.  By the early modern period, Knightly orders existed entirely to draft people into the fuedal structure or bestow honors without any connection to military service whatsoever.  This practice continues to this day, so that you have, for example, Sir Elton John or Sir Alex Guinness.They were accorded status most usually because they were born with it.  Very rarely a commoner might have knighthood confered upon them.  Very often this occurred when the commoner managed to get a noble at his mercy in battle.  Since it was disgraceful to surrender to a Villain, the vanquished Noble would confer Knighthood on the commoner, which in turn would in theory force the commoner to accept his surrender (by the code of chivilry).  The Noble could then ransom himself out of bondage, and viola, a newly created Knight.Why?  "Send for the Yeoman of the Bowman"?  "You Peasant! You must pay your tax in the form of corvee."?  "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, where did you learn to fence?  At the University in Paris, of course."?  Besides, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.  Mercenaries were about as far from upper class as you could get.Or get the Hostler to send his boy out the back to fetch the Town Watch.  I rather doubt the Innkeeper likes mercenaries scaring away his other customers.</blockquote>

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