Quote from: Shipyard Locked;899062What do you feel are some mistakes people make?

They assume that each aristocrat is "angry, abusive bastard with megalomania".

The biggest mistake most people make in portraying aristocrats is not reading enough on real aristocrats.

One thing that people overlook (probably because it's offensive to our modern sensibilities), is that medieval aristocrats were superior to common people in most respects. They were healthier, stronger, more learned, more cunning (they had to be), and exhibited more self-control than the common folk. They had far superior diets and healthier upbringings than peasants toiling in the fields or working in tanneries. The men trained for war relentlessly from childhood, and were as superior to a common man in feats of arms as an NFL player is superior to a guy who plays flag football on weekends with his buddies. Those raised to rule had to understand a host of complex matters, from agricultural and livestock practices to money management to military tactics to diplomatic protocols. If they were weak they would soon be toppled by a ruthless neighbour or family-member.

The notion of aristocrats as lazy and incompetent buffoons is an emotionally-satisfying narrative for egalitarian cultures like ours, but has little basis in reality.

Quote from: AsenRG;899224The biggest mistake most people make in portraying aristocrats is not reading enough on real aristocrats.

Also this. I'd recommend Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror to anyone interested in this stuff. It's a fantastic read.

Quote from: Spinachcat;899157That's pretty much what would happen in D&D. A 10th level wizard can wipe out a town without breaking a sweat. A 10th level fighter can chop down the king's guards and stride through with meaningless scratches. Just +1 Plate and +1 Shield gives an AC that barely any regular humans will crack. And if they do? They do 1D6 damage against a 10th level fighter in OD&D with 10D6+CON bonuses. In 5e, that 10th level fighter could have 100 HP.

And if the PCs can fly? Teleport? Become invisible? Good luck for the monarchs that don't have the same magic on their side.

In AD&D1e, a fighter upon reaching 9th level can build a stronghold, clear the surrounding hexes of monsters, and attract a body of men-at-arms, and gradually attract peasant settlers. That is, at 9th level a fighter is a lord. So at 10th level he's a more powerful lord.

It is reasonable to expect that a lord may tell another lord to bugger off. It is less reasonable to expect that a common adventurer may do so. As with most people doing thought experiments about such things, you are forgetting that nobody is born 10th level, they actually have to work up from 1st. And a 1st level fighter is not in a position to defy the local lord. So for at least the first 5 or so of those 9-10 levels, the fighter will have to get into the habit of doing exactly as he's told by his betters - or finding other betters to protect him, and doing as they tell him instead. By the time he himself becomes a lord, and thus powerful enough to challenge a lord, it is likely that rather than rebelling against the system, he will be part of the system. And if he rebels - well, lords have rebelled before, most have failed - and therein lies the next adventure!

Of course, these assumptions are not true in other editions of D&D and other games, nor are they true if you let players roll up 10th level characters and play. But if you are going to play a silly game then you cannot be surprised when there are silly results, and you are not concerned if a few goons in shiny armour or tassled robes bring the whole fucking kingdom down in flames for a joke.

In answer to the OP, lords are just men, men with fears and ambitions like any other. Some will act as the PCs' betters, some will actually be better than them (in levels or decency or connections), and some won't. Some will lie, some will tell the truth, some will be loyal and some will sell you down the river for a rusty nail and a bucket of phlegm.

Quote from: Haffrung;899239One thing that people overlook (probably because it's offensive to our modern sensibilities), is that medieval aristocrats were superior to common people in most respects.

By which you mean, they were higher level characters.

Don't treat them as mooks. They have power, and they act like they have power. Sometimes it's soft power sometimes it's very hard. To be sure, power has many forms (legal, fiscal, social, military, religious, cultural etc.), but in a level-based game like D&D, they probably have personal power too.

It's easy for modern gamers to be dismissive of hereditary rule as primitive and backwards. However, you need to remember that there are worse alternatives, and having a society where an high-level character that kills the king gets to be the king is one of those worse alternatives. That gives you a society where there is never really peace. Kings need to be especially brutal if anyone can usurp them at any time. The death of a king means anarchy until someone else can kill enough people to take power.

Yeah, there are still people plotting to become king and engaging in all kinds of underhanded machinations, but if you want to be king, you need to make sure those moves look at least semi-legitimate. If you completely destroy the traditions that the previous king built his authority on, then you have no clear legitimacy of your own, and your authority will be weak in the eyes of everyone. You can kill the king and take his power, but you already need to have spun a narrative about why you are the rightful king that the aristocracy will swallow.

if you are the guy who just marches into the throne room and kills the king, you aren't the king. You are the guy who killed the king. And that king had blood connections to plenty of other kings, all with their own armies, which will they will pool together to destroy you. Kings' frequently don't get along, but a threat their very institution is a great way to unite them.

Taking all this into account is good way to understand why a 10th-level NPC Fighter would be obey a weak 15-year-old king. It's because people in this society understand that the king is the entire basis the stability of their lives is based on. If the idea of the king fails, then the land won't just be plunged into war. It will probably be plunged into a long series of horrible wars. A lot people have a strong, vested interest in supporting a stable aristocracy, even outside the members of that aristocracy.

A lot of people are terrified at the idea of either Clinton or Trump becoming the next president, but the idea of the system for orderly succession completely crumbling and there not even being a clearly established next president is a whole order of scary beyond that. People in an aristocratic government respect hereditary rulers even when they are dicks for the same reason people support the US Constitution. It may not always give us the results we want, but it beats the heck out of social collapse.

For people that need to see things in D&D terms rather than realistically, also consider that D&D characters are low-level when they are young and get tougher with time. People reaching a conservative middle-age can slap the shit out of those more rebellious low-level snots in their teens and twenties. I'm referring here to earlier editions of D&D, not WotC-era when it only take a year or two to reach maximum level.

Quote from: Baulderstone;899308However, you need to remember that there are worse alternatives, and having a society where an high-level character that kills the king gets to be the king is one of those worse alternatives. That gives you a society where there is never really peace. Kings need to be especially brutal if anyone can usurp them at any time. The death of a king means anarchy until someone else can kill enough people to take power.

Our pop culture attitudes about history and government have a huge blind spot when it comes to the dread of anarchy that every civilization in history felt. Maybe it's because American culture is built on a myth of homesteaders free of state meddling. But yeah, the alternative to a powerful state was typically marauding bands of bandits and rape gangs, the breakdown of trade and agriculture, ensuing famine, and basically a horror-show of common folk  desperately trying to live day to day in a world of unrestrained predation where peasants are the bottom of the food chain.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;899062Most of us are not medieval/space aristocrats, so we muddle along when roleplaying them as either players or GMs. What's your advice for playing them better, more 'realistically' if you don't mind that dangerous term?

What do you feel are some mistakes people make?

As the GM, I honestly feel that you play a character to fit the need of the story to some degree.  He's whatever you need him to be for the story situation, because in many cases people are products of the environment...  For example, if you want him to be an asshole- well, I have a method.  I use simple little descriptive phrases, and build on to that.  I'll build one now.  

SITUATION:  The peasantry lives very poor, the aristocracy is perceived to not give a shit about the common man.

Lord Snivelbutts IV

Arrogant, self-righteous, spoiled, aloof

Snivelbutts is arrogant because honestly, in his society there's no room for being weak-willed.  When you're a power-broker, if you say the sky is green and the grass is blue- you don't second guess yourself... you describe the verdant skies and the azure lawn and you fucking mean it, or you'll never have any pull in matters of influence.  And this isn't just you as the individual, this society believes your actions reflect those of your entire family- even your unborn children.

Snivelbutts is self-righteous because... well, he honestly believes that what he does is the right thing.  He's assured of this, because he's got so many yes-men underneath him that the aftermath and reception of even his worst decisions or opinions aren't given proper feedback- they're all sugar-coated.

Snivelbutts is spoiled because- well, that's how he was raised.  When he was fifteen he played in the mud with the stable boy and his mother dragged him by his ear inside and told him that's not what he was supposed to do.  He was taught that getting your hands dirty was beneath him.  Besides- he's 'spoiled' because he's waited on hand and foot... by people he pays quite well and honestly appreciates.  

Snivelbutts is aloof because... well, he doesn't deal with 'real people'.  He deals with 'yes men' and people who veil insults under compliments in an attempt to undermine him.  He doesn't really know how to talk to a regular guy.

The mistake people make is not really playing him as if there's a reason behind his personality.  People do what they do for a reason, and even people like Snivelbutts- you kinda wanna punch him in the face until you understand what he's dealing with.  To him, your 'disgust' with him is just so out of place and alien he can't comprehend why you'd be that way... so, of course... he's gonna keep up appearances and not react to it.  He never learned how to react.

Quote from: Baulderstone;899308Taking all this into account is good way to understand why a 10th-level NPC Fighter would be obey a weak 15-year-old king. It's because people in this society understand that the king is the entire basis the stability of their lives is based on. If the idea of the king fails, then the land won't just be plunged into war. It will probably be plunged into a long series of horrible wars. A lot people have a strong, vested interest in supporting a stable aristocracy, even outside the members of that aristocracy.

A lot of people are terrified at the idea of either Clinton or Trump becoming the next president, but the idea of the system for orderly succession completely crumbling and there not even being a clearly established next president is a whole order of scary beyond that. People in an aristocratic government respect hereditary rulers even when they are dicks for the same reason people support the US Constitution. It may not always give us the results we want, but it beats the heck out of social collapse.

Thus another way to look at it is in terms of America or the Roman Republic, where there technically isn't a "nobility" but there definitely is an aristocratic group, either because they have money or because they are in the political class.  In either case they're where they are partially because they know how to administer the machinery of finance, government and bureaucracy, and you usually don't, and the "peasants" certainly don't.  Of course a 10th level Fighter can beat up the average King unless the King was already a high-level adventurer.  But in the same way, a Hollywood-action-hero type with enough hardware might be able to assassinate the head of state, but that doesn't mean it would change the system in the long term.

JG

Quote from: Crüesader;899332As the GM, I honestly feel that you play a character to fit the need of the story to some degree.  He's whatever you need him to be for the story situation, because in many cases people are products of the environment.

Disagree strongly.  I only run "sandbox" worlds where there is no such thing as "the need of the story."  The story... that is, "what happened" ... is shaped BY THE NPC PERSONALITIES (and how the PCs react to them), NOT the other way around.

Quote from: Haffrung;899320Our pop culture attitudes about history and government have a huge blind spot when it comes to the dread of anarchy that every civilization in history felt. Maybe it's because American culture is built on a myth of homesteaders free of state meddling. But yeah, the alternative to a powerful state was typically marauding bands of bandits and rape gangs, the breakdown of trade and agriculture, ensuing famine, and basically a horror-show of common folk  desperately trying to live day to day in a world of unrestrained predation where peasants are the bottom of the food chain.

Yes, the manors were way more collectivized than people realize, with all being in their place through a system of rights and duties. The Lord and his men were often better considered a group of drinking buddies, with one guy buying all the beer. You might not be able to get fired, but the other peasants would give you hell if you failed to be productive. Plus on holidays you could expect a ham and bottle of liquor, and on feast days, a spot at the table. Any threat to the lord would be met with torches and pitchforks carried by peasants. Even though there were peasant uprisings, often they were about making a deal, or to secure rights.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;899338Disagree strongly.  I only run "sandbox" worlds where there is no such thing as "the need of the story."  The story... that is, "what happened" ... is shaped BY THE NPC PERSONALITIES (and how the PCs react to them), NOT the other way around.

Eh, I can see that.  I dunno, sometimes for me it depends on how important the NPC is.  I mean, I kinda want to make an NPC that isn't cliche', but also one that fits into the setting.  Like, there's certain times you want the NPC to completely defy stereotypes and be something unexpected just to set the tone and have fun...

... but you also kinda need one that meets some expectations based on the culture, too.  If everyone is unique, no one is.  So I play them to their culture and such, to a large degree.  Even for me- an Aristocrat, a Noble, a Politician, a mob etc... they're supposed to do certain things and be a certain way to some degree.  Beneath that, they're individuals but it all depends on how far into the surface the PC's scratch.

Like, in one of the games that I play there's an old Apache former OSS guy.  He's kind of stone-faced and soft spoken, as you'd expect that guy to be.  He has a respect for nature and his culture.  But he's also obsessed with model trains, he's serious about his 'Days of Our Lives', and he tends to forget his shoes (he carries them in his hand as he's looking for them, he's pretty old).  He was raised a certain way (secretly- he's cursed to 'bury all of his sons, and his sons' sons', and so on- and he's been around since the 1700's) and he holds to his traditions.

Certain things are kind of expected based on environment.  And like I said, it all depends on how far you go.  For me, one of the most important aspects of a campaign is the setting and the environment.  But it's like you said- people do shape that, but for example when you see 'Shitty urban sprawl'... you kinda expect 'understaffed, stressed, emotionally drained police chief'... just like you'd expect to see 'mayor that is oblivious and aloof, and neglects people for what his sycophants advise'.

Make sense?

Quote from: Spinachcat;899117And that's when you hit him with your plasma cannon. Laugh that off King Toasted Dude!

Endoskeleton Henry then rises from the flames... laughs in synthesized voice...

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