Quote from: cranebump;899910Speak for yourself, kemosabe. Not everyone is Donald Trump. Some folks make or have their money without becoming total dicks.  This whole aristocracy aspect implies to me that one is born into it. One of us wins the lotto, there's a good chance we're not gonna start dick waving, because if you never had it and get it, you understand the other side of the bargain. Some rich prick who's always had it has no conception of the alternative. Maybe hubris needs to be on the aristocrat list, too, now that I think of it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;899913The other side of "entitled" is what in fancy-talk we call noblesse oblige - that with privileges come responsibilities. In anglo-saxon poetry they had kennings, poetic metaphors, and for "king" a kenning was "ring-giver" - because one aspect of what was considered to be a good king was that he gave away his wealth to those who distinguished themselves in his service.

And this is something players in my campaigns learn quickly: nobody will give you anything if you're a rude cunt to them.

So there's the thing.  Somebody like Donald Trump is Donald Trump because he's a rude cunt and he thinks he can get away with it because he has money.  And so far, he's been proven right.  And a lot of people imagine that they could do that too, if they had money.  That's his support base.  Certainly not every aristocrat (inherited title or otherwise) acts like this, but the ones who are rude cunts are so because they've been allowed to get away with it.

JG

Quote from: jhkim;900034It's important to note that this is a game, played for fun. In the modern day, it sticks in a lot of people's craw to be in a system where people are unequal. Similarly, a lot of people don't like to have disease, infection, rape, or slavery in their games - even though historically those were common.

Sure, nothing wrong with that. It just gets funny when those same people start claiming that they actually like realism, too;).

Quote from: Spinachcat;900100D&D doesn't have enough boobies to be Ren Faire with magic.

And Ren Faire does have real magic. Physics alone isn't keeping those "ample bosoms" from exploding out of their corsets!

Well, I don't actually like most D&D settings for precisely this reason...but if they were like those "real Ren Faires", I might be easier to persuade:p!

Quote from: Gormenghast;900065RE aristocratic superiority

I assume that superior nutrition, training, and opportunities...

Obviously there's a mix of nature & nurture. Nobles are descended from people who clawed their way to the top of the pile. People who were probably more capable than the ones they defeated. Since capacities are partly inherited, their descendants are likely to be more capable too.

Although, in societies where the nobles breed to excess there is a lot of downward mobility, many of the children of upper class become middle class, middle class become lower class, lower class die off. Per economist Greg Clark's Farewell to Alms thesis, eventually the whole society is largely descended from the upper class of previous centuries. So in a society like 15th century England, that fits his description closely, you may not see much difference in inherent capability between the upper class and the middle class, say - which will tend to lead to a more egalitarian society than eg a caste-based one.

Quote from: AsenRG;900138Sure, nothing wrong with that. It just gets funny when those same people start claiming that they actually like realism, too.

I love people who have trouble with disease, slavery, rape, etc. but don't bat an eye at the constant warfare, casual violence, robbery, eldritch horror and being eaten by monsters or soul-sucked by tragic undead that is typical in many popular game settings.

Yes, I've met people like that, and you likely have too.

Quote from: S'mon;900149Obviously there's a mix of nature & nurture. Nobles are descended from people who clawed their way to the top of the pile. People who were probably more capable than the ones they defeated. Since capacities are partly inherited, their descendants are likely to be more capable too.

Although, in societies where the nobles breed to excess there is a lot of downward mobility, many of the children of upper class become middle class, middle class become lower class, lower class die off. Per economist Greg Clark's Farewell to Alms thesis, eventually the whole society is largely descended from the upper class of previous centuries. So in a society like 15th century England, that fits his description closely, you may not see much difference in inherent capability between the upper class and the middle class, say - which will tend to lead to a more egalitarian society than eg a caste-based one.

Book added to reading list.



Thanks.

The only thing on that list I would tend to leave out would be rape. But it did feature in a PC's solo adventure because that player was fine with it. No detail. And , while never described, it had happened to a number of captured peasant women found pregnant and chained in an evil lord's dungeon. Another adventure saw the PCs decide to rescue a twelve year old girl from a brothel before the whoremonger " broke her in."
I won't go graphic with this kind of thing. I game with women as well as men and quite often it's online. Even if that weren't the case, I prefer not to get graphic with certain things.


But disease? Yep. Players recently had to roll to see if their PCs caught anything while locked up in the common pit at the city jail.

Ditto slavery. Some form of involuntary servitude or bound labor can usually be found in my settings, and chattel slavery always pops up someplace. Nor is it exclusively a bad guy thing. I find that take a bit too simplistic and modernist. LG guy can own slaves if it is normal for his society; he's just going to be a fair, humane, decent master.

Back to the thread topic:


I don't seem to carry so much of the egalitarian baggage that a lot of gamers you guys have referenced lug about. It might be politics, which we won't go into here. More likely , it it my education and reading interests. I love history.

I think the poster above who suggested reading about actual aristocrats was spot on.

But I'm not knocking other approaches, from a Disney-like split between good and bad ones to a " they all stink" grimdark comedic take on it.

The game is what we make of it, no?

Quote from: The Butcher;899143Ever waited tables at a posh restaurant?

Some are nice, some are awful, most are indifferent — but all are above you. And they know it.

Aristocracy is alive and well, at least in my country.

I was a cab driver for many years, trust me, the difference between my blue collar fares and white collar fares was immense.

Quote from: Gormenghast;900160The only thing on that list I would tend to leave out would be rape.

Why? What makes it so much worse than the horror of slavery and murder that you can mention one but not the other in your games?

Not that I'm encouraging you to or anything, I've never dwelt on rape in any of my games and feel no desire to, so whatever. I just find the discrepancy in responses interesting.

Matter of taste. I don't do graphic sex scenes, either.

But marriage, pregnancy, harlots, a bit of romance, etc have all featured in past games.

I do not lump all forms and cases of slavery together as " horror." Slavery certainly can involve a lot of brutality. It often has been very harsh.
But there have been a wide range of conditions collectively called slavery, in various historical cultures. Sometimes slavery may take a more paternalistic and limited form.

Evil slave-catchers do make good villains. But I think there are plenty of other things that could be done with slaves and masters in a game. Loyal slaves, good masters, conflicts between desire for freedom and ties to a household, movements to free slaves that go disastrously off the rails, etc. Prisoners of war. And of course, slaves as simply part of the human landscape of a city.


Edit

I don't want to drag the thread too far off topic.
But if you have any questions or comments, please do fire away. Maybe PM or a tangent thread? As you like.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;900175Why? What makes it so much worse than the horror of slavery and murder that you can mention one but not the other in your games?

The chance to have a slave or murder victim at the gaming desk whose personal traumata can get triggered is smaller.

Quote from: Spinachcat;900051Even the Lawful Good Count who is kind and good to his servants and does all he can for his peasants still expects them to treat him as a noble and he expects them to act according to their station. He may not start screaming "off with their heads" if PCs act against their station, but it will negatively affect his opinion of them.  It will be harder for them to gain his trust and support and he may only work with them in great crisis.

Indeed. Acting against or outside of the fixed social order is inherently un-Lawful behavior. It may not necessary be illegal, but it demonstrates that one lacks a fitting internal sense of order and of one's place within it.

QuoteSame with your Greek plays as well for those running Bronze Age nobles.

Greek plays weren't written by people with actual experience with Bronze Age nobles. While they often use legendary settings and themes, the issues they focus on are contemporary with the writers – which is just like Shakespeare's plays. The Iliad is closer to the Bronze Age, but Homer is thought to have written in the Greek Dark Age, not the Bronze Age. How much of the Iliad or the Odyssey remains from actual Bronze Age sources seems an unsettled matter for debate among scholars.

Quote from: Gormenghast;900059IME, the problem is not so much how to play aristocrats.

It is more likely to come from a player with what somebody (Pundit?) called " mall fantasy" expectations running into a setting run with social ranks and rules that actually matter.

That too is my experience. But my experience is a bit skewed since I GM more than I play.

Quote from: Maarzan;900196The chance to have a slave or murder victim at the gaming desk whose personal traumata can get triggered is smaller.

Isn't that trivializing the legacy, the ongoing effects of slavery in the U.S.?

Also, even if the chance is smaller, it is still possible that someone at the table grew up being forced to work in a sweatshop or knows someone who was murdered. Why should mere math affects our considerations?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;900211Isn't that trivializing the legacy, the ongoing effects of slavery in the U.S.?

Also, even if the chance is smaller, it is still possible that someone at the table grew up being forced to work in a sweatshop or knows someone who was murdered. Why should mere math affects our considerations?

No one alive today knows anything about historical chattel slavery in the United States that he didn't learn from a book, movie, family account, etc. It was abolished before anyone alive today was born.
And I will laugh in the face of a person who brings that leftist politics shit to my gaming table. I have no patience for SJWs. I don't game with them because they are not fun people. They are dicks who make everything a showcase for their politics/ psychological issues.
I must be blunt about this.

And there is no " our considerations", as I see it. YMMV
 You do what is right for your table, your group. I'll do what works for me and mine.

If you were kidding, sorry about the tone. Without emoji use, it can be hard to gauge tone.

Bren,

I GM more often, too.

I'm also pretty fond of a couple of games in which the ingame laws and customs seem to come up pretty often: Call of Cthulhu and  Pendragon.