In case someone doesn't know where I stand I despise the grey gruel most settings have become in recent years.
That said, if that's what floats your boat no hard feelings, just don't sling istophobes, nazi, etc libel against those who don't like it.
On the other hand 100% Period "Authentic" settings aren't really MY cup of tea either, I like SOME Fantasy/Fiction/etc in my ElfGames thank you very much. What do I mean?
Let's take Pulp as an example, but first we need to define it:
IMHO Pulp isn't a time period or genre, it is a style with larger than life Heroes (and Heroines), with Low Fantasy, High Adventure, Super Science, Weird Science, Cosmic Horror, Black & White morality, Manly Men and Femenine Women (the old fashioned type without dicks).
Now, when the Pulps were being published there was a lot of isms around, yes, and if that's what you want in your setting/games more power to you, even if what you want is for the Heroes to be Istophobic, no skin of my teeth.
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
And yes, there were Heroines beyond the Femme Fatale trope:
1936 Domino Lady
1937 Sheena
1944ish Señorita Scorpion
1937 Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress
Red Sonja
And others.
Thoughts?
Sounds fun and what drew me (and my gaming group) into Spirit of the Century before Evil Hat painted everything with an agenda.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 04:16:53 PM
In case someone doesn't know where I stand I despise the grey gruel most settings have become in recent years.
That said, if that's what floats your boat no hard feelings, just don't sling istophobes, nazi, etc libel against those who don't like it.
On the other hand 100% Period "Authentic" settings aren't really MY cup of tea either, I like SOME Fantasy/Fiction/etc in my ElfGames thank you very much. What do I mean?
Let's take Pulp as an example, but first we need to define it:
IMHO Pulp isn't a time period or genre, it is a style with larger than life Heroes (and Heroines), with Low Fantasy, High Adventure, Super Science, Weird Science, Cosmic Horror, Black & White morality, Manly Men and Femenine Women (the old fashioned type without dicks).
Now, when the Pulps were being published there was a lot of isms around, yes, and if that's what you want in your setting/games more power to you, even if what you want is for the Heroes to be Istophobic, no skin of my teeth.
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
And yes, there were Heroines beyond the Femme Fatale trope:
1936 Domino Lady
1937 Sheena
1944ish Señorita Scorpion
1937 Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress
Red Sonja
And others.
Thoughts?
It reminds me of what was considered "Liberal" back in the 90s and the 00s when it comes to settings, particularly when dealing with things we all recognized as being historically part of Humanity but also universally bad. The goal wasn't to completely and totally act like it never existed, as taking away all forms of prejudice in a setting make it feel less 'real' to us. But it also wasn't there to make players of any stripe (particularly minority players) have to deal abuse in the name of "Realism."
To use historical Pulp as an example, we recognize the 1920s were full of isms like you mentioned, but we don't pile it on in play... Even when recognizing it's there. It more becomes an attribute in that black and white morality of a pulp feel... Not only are these corrupt cops on the take with the Mob, they're all RACISTS cops abusing their power in Black Harlem too! This doesn't mean we start dropping the N word at the table, but it might also be fun for a black PC (IN real life or the character they're playing) to get to beat up the Corrupt Racist Cops and bring them to justice along side of the *Good* Cops and bring relief to the disenfranchised neighborhood.
At the same time, if players don't want to deal with that sort of thing, the Pulp world is big enough they can... as you mentioned, go fight Fu Man Chu in China and ignore western prejudice that existed at the time completely while Fu man Chu looks down on all of them anyway.
In another example say a Fantasy setting that is trying to hew itself more towards historical realism as opposed to current day Forgotten Realms, we can say Woman adventurers are rarer than male Adventurers, particularly if magic is lower in this setting... but not completely and totally unheard of. Without any kind of widespread contraceptives in such a setting, having female soldiers fighting alongside of male soldiers and women adventurers in the exact same number as male ones just doesn't make sense. But also in such a setting, the few female Adventurers would stand out more and be more noteworthy because of such a thing.
The goal is to strike a balance between what makes the setting feel more real while also not making players have to experience any overt prejudice in game, unless they *WANT* to as part of roleplay and the story.
There are a lot of game genres where you can ignore racism and prejudice completely too, and in the end you might have a table of players that doesn't want to engage with any real world negativity. I do think it goes down to how much you want to hew to something being "realistic"... Racism and Prejudice are "Realistic" because they existed so long among humans (and still do) it could be a manner of substituting Fantasy Racism though to keep it away from any real world harm while also making the setting have a feeling of 'reality' to it.... Whether it be Elves and Dwarves not getting along, or Bioengineered Human 2.0's looking down on unAgumented humans.
It's a complicated situation that ultimately boils down to "Know your players and plan accordingly."
Quote from: zircher on February 25, 2024, 04:35:57 PM
Sounds fun and what drew me (and my gaming group) into Spirit of the Century before Evil Hat painted everything with an agenda.
It is fun, lots of fun.
Quote from: Orphan81 on February 25, 2024, 05:02:33 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 04:16:53 PM
In case someone doesn't know where I stand I despise the grey gruel most settings have become in recent years.
That said, if that's what floats your boat no hard feelings, just don't sling istophobes, nazi, etc libel against those who don't like it.
On the other hand 100% Period "Authentic" settings aren't really MY cup of tea either, I like SOME Fantasy/Fiction/etc in my ElfGames thank you very much. What do I mean?
Let's take Pulp as an example, but first we need to define it:
IMHO Pulp isn't a time period or genre, it is a style with larger than life Heroes (and Heroines), with Low Fantasy, High Adventure, Super Science, Weird Science, Cosmic Horror, Black & White morality, Manly Men and Femenine Women (the old fashioned type without dicks).
Now, when the Pulps were being published there was a lot of isms around, yes, and if that's what you want in your setting/games more power to you, even if what you want is for the Heroes to be Istophobic, no skin of my teeth.
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
And yes, there were Heroines beyond the Femme Fatale trope:
1936 Domino Lady
1937 Sheena
1944ish Señorita Scorpion
1937 Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress
Red Sonja
And others.
Thoughts?
It reminds me of what was considered "Liberal" back in the 90s and the 00s when it comes to settings, particularly when dealing with things we all recognized as being historically part of Humanity but also universally bad. The goal wasn't to completely and totally act like it never existed, as taking away all forms of prejudice in a setting make it feel less 'real' to us. But it also wasn't there to make players of any stripe (particularly minority players) have to deal abuse in the name of "Realism."
To use historical Pulp as an example, we recognize the 1920s were full of isms like you mentioned, but we don't pile it on in play... Even when recognizing it's there. It more becomes an attribute in that black and white morality of a pulp feel... Not only are these corrupt cops on the take with the Mob, they're all RACISTS cops abusing their power in Black Harlem too! This doesn't mean we start dropping the N word at the table, but it might also be fun for a black PC (IN real life or the character they're playing) to get to beat up the Corrupt Racist Cops and bring them to justice along side of the *Good* Cops and bring relief to the disenfranchised neighborhood.
At the same time, if players don't want to deal with that sort of thing, the Pulp world is big enough they can... as you mentioned, go fight Fu Man Chu in China and ignore western prejudice that existed at the time completely while Fu man Chu looks down on all of them anyway.
In another example say a Fantasy setting that is trying to hew itself more towards historical realism as opposed to current day Forgotten Realms, we can say Woman adventurers are rarer than male Adventurers, particularly if magic is lower in this setting... but not completely and totally unheard of. Without any kind of widespread contraceptives in such a setting, having female soldiers fighting alongside of male soldiers and women adventurers in the exact same number as male ones just doesn't make sense. But also in such a setting, the few female Adventurers would stand out more and be more noteworthy because of such a thing.
The goal is to strike a balance between what makes the setting feel more real while also not making players have to experience any overt prejudice in game, unless they *WANT* to as part of roleplay and the story.
There are a lot of game genres where you can ignore racism and prejudice completely too, and in the end you might have a table of players that doesn't want to engage with any real world negativity. I do think it goes down to how much you want to hew to something being "realistic"... Racism and Prejudice are "Realistic" because they existed so long among humans (and still do) it could be a manner of substituting Fantasy Racism though to keep it away from any real world harm while also making the setting have a feeling of 'reality' to it.... Whether it be Elves and Dwarves not getting along, or Bioengineered Human 2.0's looking down on unAgumented humans.
It's a complicated situation that ultimately boils down to "Know your players and plan accordingly."
Indeed but Pulp doesn't NEED to take place in the 1920s, it can take place in "The Future as it never was", say 1945 onwards with flying cars, rocketships and aliens, plenty of opportunity to deal with prejudiceagainst the Blue Skins and for humanity to join in their hatred for the Martians from War of the Worlds.
Now, a humanity with exactly ZERO isms? That's TOO fantastic, even if all humans end up having the same shade of brownish skin with indeterminate facial feautures we'll find a way to hate on each other:
Earthers vs Belters (those born in the asteroid belt) vs Jovians, etc.
Maybe those corrupt police officers work for the Black Organized Crime? Maybe they beat blacks because their black masters tell them to?
Maybe the Government, police, elites, etc are trhe things from "They Live"? Maybe they stoke racial hatred to keep us divided and weak?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 05:59:06 PM
Quote from: Orphan81 on February 25, 2024, 05:02:33 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 04:16:53 PM
In case someone doesn't know where I stand I despise the grey gruel most settings have become in recent years.
That said, if that's what floats your boat no hard feelings, just don't sling istophobes, nazi, etc libel against those who don't like it.
On the other hand 100% Period "Authentic" settings aren't really MY cup of tea either, I like SOME Fantasy/Fiction/etc in my ElfGames thank you very much. What do I mean?
Let's take Pulp as an example, but first we need to define it:
IMHO Pulp isn't a time period or genre, it is a style with larger than life Heroes (and Heroines), with Low Fantasy, High Adventure, Super Science, Weird Science, Cosmic Horror, Black & White morality, Manly Men and Femenine Women (the old fashioned type without dicks).
Now, when the Pulps were being published there was a lot of isms around, yes, and if that's what you want in your setting/games more power to you, even if what you want is for the Heroes to be Istophobic, no skin of my teeth.
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
And yes, there were Heroines beyond the Femme Fatale trope:
1936 Domino Lady
1937 Sheena
1944ish Señorita Scorpion
1937 Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress
Red Sonja
And others.
Thoughts?
It reminds me of what was considered "Liberal" back in the 90s and the 00s when it comes to settings, particularly when dealing with things we all recognized as being historically part of Humanity but also universally bad. The goal wasn't to completely and totally act like it never existed, as taking away all forms of prejudice in a setting make it feel less 'real' to us. But it also wasn't there to make players of any stripe (particularly minority players) have to deal abuse in the name of "Realism."
To use historical Pulp as an example, we recognize the 1920s were full of isms like you mentioned, but we don't pile it on in play... Even when recognizing it's there. It more becomes an attribute in that black and white morality of a pulp feel... Not only are these corrupt cops on the take with the Mob, they're all RACISTS cops abusing their power in Black Harlem too! This doesn't mean we start dropping the N word at the table, but it might also be fun for a black PC (IN real life or the character they're playing) to get to beat up the Corrupt Racist Cops and bring them to justice along side of the *Good* Cops and bring relief to the disenfranchised neighborhood.
At the same time, if players don't want to deal with that sort of thing, the Pulp world is big enough they can... as you mentioned, go fight Fu Man Chu in China and ignore western prejudice that existed at the time completely while Fu man Chu looks down on all of them anyway.
In another example say a Fantasy setting that is trying to hew itself more towards historical realism as opposed to current day Forgotten Realms, we can say Woman adventurers are rarer than male Adventurers, particularly if magic is lower in this setting... but not completely and totally unheard of. Without any kind of widespread contraceptives in such a setting, having female soldiers fighting alongside of male soldiers and women adventurers in the exact same number as male ones just doesn't make sense. But also in such a setting, the few female Adventurers would stand out more and be more noteworthy because of such a thing.
The goal is to strike a balance between what makes the setting feel more real while also not making players have to experience any overt prejudice in game, unless they *WANT* to as part of roleplay and the story.
There are a lot of game genres where you can ignore racism and prejudice completely too, and in the end you might have a table of players that doesn't want to engage with any real world negativity. I do think it goes down to how much you want to hew to something being "realistic"... Racism and Prejudice are "Realistic" because they existed so long among humans (and still do) it could be a manner of substituting Fantasy Racism though to keep it away from any real world harm while also making the setting have a feeling of 'reality' to it.... Whether it be Elves and Dwarves not getting along, or Bioengineered Human 2.0's looking down on unAgumented humans.
It's a complicated situation that ultimately boils down to "Know your players and plan accordingly."
Indeed but Pulp doesn't NEED to take place in the 1920s, it can take place in "The Future as it never was", say 1945 onwards with flying cars, rocketships and aliens, plenty of opportunity to deal with prejudiceagainst the Blue Skins and for humanity to join in their hatred for the Martians from War of the Worlds.
Now, a humanity with exactly ZERO isms? That's TOO fantastic, even if all humans end up having the same shade of brownish skin with indeterminate facial feautures we'll find a way to hate on each other:
Earthers vs Belters (those born in the asteroid belt) vs Jovians, etc.
Maybe those corrupt police officers work for the Black Organized Crime? Maybe they beat blacks because their black masters tell them to?
Maybe the Government, police, elites, etc are trhe things from "They Live"? Maybe they stoke racial hatred to keep us divided and weak?
Fallout's 1950s retro-future setting can certainly be played as pulp. When it comes to -isms, the ghouls are on the bad side of it, even the non-feral ones that can be completely civil.
I enjoy reading Moonstone Books comics about Honey West, Domino Lady, Sheena, et al. :) Just sharing another tangential hobby of mine. I like comic pulps and horror pulps. :D
The term 'period appropriate' doesn't have much meaning in a fantasy setting. As a made up world anything goes. Humans love to fight each other for a variety of reasons, but how much would they quibble over skin color in a world populated with evil sentient races such as orcs, hobgoblins, and lizard men that regard humans as something tasty? I think that in a world with threats like these, and worse, that humans would band together and put aside petty squables at least until the threat was taken care of. Then again it is easy to imagine some humans allying themselves with such creatures to attain their ambitions.
The role of women can easily vary from culture to culture. Religious beliefs and traditions can shape these roles in different ways. Likewise some cultures will embrace slavery and others will rail against it. A world with the same vanilla culture everywhere would be pretty boring to play in.
It's funny. It seems I just as often come up against people running too far in the opposite direction. "It's the dark ages, so everyone is literally covered in shit and the world exists in a constant state of rape and pillage." "It's the 20s, so everyone is racist and women can't have jobs." "It's ancient times, so every NPC will try to enslave you."
I've seen this both from right-leaning people overcorrecting and from lefties terrified of playing in historical settings because they assume it's going to be like that. One of the things I always try and bring across in any setting I GM is that no matter what the tech level or social structure is, people are still people. Even a medieval peasant is likely to be a reasonably intelligent person who knows his trade, takes pride in his appearance, loves his wife, and would prefer not to find himself in a fight to the death.
Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 25, 2024, 10:19:48 PM
The term 'period appropriate' doesn't have much meaning in a fantasy setting. As a made up world anything goes. Humans love to fight each other for a variety of reasons, but how much would they quibble over skin color in a world populated with evil sentient races such as orcs, hobgoblins, and lizard men that regard humans as something tasty? I think that in a world with threats like these, and worse, that humans would band together and put aside petty squables at least until the threat was taken care of. Then again it is easy to imagine some humans allying themselves with such creatures to attain their ambitions.
"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."
--Terry Pratchett: "Witches Abroad"
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 25, 2024, 10:23:42 PM"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."
--Terry Pratchett: "Witches Abroad"
I always say that we will end racism the day we encounter hostile aliens. Because Apes are hardwired to fear and fight 'the other.' Once we have something very different to ourselves, we'll form ranks and racism will disappear like mist in the morning sun.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 25, 2024, 10:39:10 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 25, 2024, 10:23:42 PM"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."
--Terry Pratchett: "Witches Abroad"
I always say that we will end racism the day we encounter hostile aliens. Because Apes are hardwired to fear and fight 'the other.' Once we have something very different to ourselves, we'll form ranks and racism will disappear like mist in the morning sun.
My dude, what makes you think they need to be hostile? They just need to be different enough as to not be able to pass as human.
Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 25, 2024, 10:19:48 PM
The term 'period appropriate' doesn't have much meaning in a fantasy setting. As a made up world anything goes. Humans love to fight each other for a variety of reasons, but how much would they quibble over skin color in a world populated with evil sentient races such as orcs, hobgoblins, and lizard men that regard humans as something tasty? I think that in a world with threats like these, and worse, that humans would band together and put aside petty squables at least until the threat was taken care of. Then again it is easy to imagine some humans allying themselves with such creatures to attain their ambitions.
The role of women can easily vary from culture to culture. Religious beliefs and traditions can shape these roles in different ways. Likewise some cultures will embrace slavery and others will rail against it. A world with the same vanilla culture everywhere would be pretty boring to play in.
If that's what floats your boat more power to you. Me? I like internal consistency from my worlds, so no, not everything and anything goes "because Dragons".
If I'm building a world to play Arthurian myths then sorry not sorry but everybody is of European descent or so close to it as to make no difference.
On the other hand if teleportation is a thing a la Ringworld, then it makes sense for people of every color to be everywhere, and if it's far enough into the future then sorry not sorry but everybody is about the same color with ethnically ambiguous facial features.
What makes sense in one world doesn't neccesarily make sense in the other.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 25, 2024, 10:23:42 PM
It's funny. It seems I just as often come up against people running too far in the opposite direction. "It's the dark ages, so everyone is literally covered in shit and the world exists in a constant state of rape and pillage." "It's the 20s, so everyone is racist and women can't have jobs." "It's ancient times, so every NPC will try to enslave you."
I've seen this both from right-leaning people overcorrecting and from lefties terrified of playing in historical settings because they assume it's going to be like that. One of the things I always try and bring across in any setting I GM is that no matter what the tech level or social structure is, people are still people. Even a medieval peasant is likely to be a reasonably intelligent person who knows his trade, takes pride in his appearance, loves his wife, and would prefer not to find himself in a fight to the death.
Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 25, 2024, 10:19:48 PM
The term 'period appropriate' doesn't have much meaning in a fantasy setting. As a made up world anything goes. Humans love to fight each other for a variety of reasons, but how much would they quibble over skin color in a world populated with evil sentient races such as orcs, hobgoblins, and lizard men that regard humans as something tasty? I think that in a world with threats like these, and worse, that humans would band together and put aside petty squables at least until the threat was taken care of. Then again it is easy to imagine some humans allying themselves with such creatures to attain their ambitions.
"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."
--Terry Pratchett: "Witches Abroad"
I'm pretty sure women held jobs long before the 20th century, it wasn't so common but also not so rare people would not know this historic fact. It was just a matter of the type of jobs, because men are dispossable and women aren't so coal minning was a male job.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 26, 2024, 12:02:54 AMMy dude, what makes you think they need to be hostile? They just need to be different enough as to not be able to pass as human.
That would just add a different other.
Even if friendly aliens settled Earth in huge numbers, only some of the population would see them as an existential threat, much like the current split regarding unlimited immigration.
What we want is a nice Inter-System Cold War with a weird and hostile species that are around our strength. Too strong and they wipe us, too weak and we defeat and absorb them.
Greetings!
"WOMEN DIDN'T WORK BACK THEN!" Or, "WOMEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK BACK THEN!"
What fucking morons believe these ideas are true?
WOMEN have always worked various kinds of jobs, throughout history, EVERYWHERE.
For example, in Ancient Rome, normal, ordinary Roman women worked in the farms, worked as shepherd girls, they did laundry, cooked, worked as servants and waitresses, as well as dancers, musicians, and whores.
In the city of Rome, they also worked in Roman fast food restaurants, much like many modern women work in restaurants or as baristas at Starbucks. Roman women also worked in the many bathhouses, and also in hotels, inns, and bars--just like many women nowadays. Roman women also worked in different businesses and shops, crafting widgets. Sewing, tailoring, making clothes, bedding, utensils, and so on.
Roman women also loved working at the gladiator arenas, selling food, drinks, snacks--and of course, themselves as well. ;D
There were a rare few women also involved in the upper echelons of business on occasion, working as consultants, interpreters, and that kind of thing.
Anyhow, the idea that "Women didn't work back then!" and similar pronouncements are just asinine, and full of jello. Either grossly ignorant and uneducated, or mouthing BS propaganda they have been spoon fed by Feminists in college. ;D
Oh, yeah. And another reference--during the time of Moses, as he was wandering in the wilderness in exile from Egypt, he met his soon-to-be wife near a watering hole, tending to her flock of sheep. She was working hard, as she always did apparently, as a shepherd. Being a shepherd was a common job for many rural people, both men and women alike.
It is interesting how centuries later, far away in Rome, throughout Italia, there were Roman girls working as shepherds. Being a shepherd was an honourable profession, especially for rural people. There was different dynamics and status-symbols amongst rural and urban people back then--again, echoing to some of the dissonance and friction between rural and urban populations everywhere, even in our current day.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
What a lot of modern people tend to forget about history is that until around the mid-20th century, the vast majority of people in any society were living at or just above the subsistence level, and in that situation everyone works. Way too many people base their entire understanding of history on how the upper classes lived.
I've been dealing with this a little running Cyberpunk Red. The core book is fine really, but some of the supplements lean hard into Current Year. My response has been to emphasise the 1980s feel of the original, which was after all The Best Decade. ;D
I think it very unfortunate if games like CoC aren't run more or less as "period authentic" settings. For example: What's the point of playing in Weimar Germany if you don't include the huge political and social tensions that marked Germany during this period? Also, something like 99.99% of the people were white, so skin color didn't influence society like it did in the U.S. By today's standards, practically everyone in Europe would be considered racist to some degree. Moreover, many cosmopolitan Jews in western Europe looked down upon the ultra-orthodox Jews in countries such as Poland.
Quote from: Rhymer88 on February 26, 2024, 11:01:38 AM
I think it very unfortunate if games like CoC aren't run more or less as "period authentic" settings. For example: What's the point of playing in Weimar Germany if you don't include the huge political and social tensions that marked Germany during this period? Also, something like 99.99% of the people were white, so skin color didn't influence society like it did in the U.S. By today's standards, practically everyone in Europe would be considered racist to some degree. Moreover, many cosmopolitan Jews in western Europe looked down upon the ultra-orthodox Jews in countries such as Poland.
Nothing wrong with period authentic, but a lot of people prefer less-authentic games.
Even in the horror genre, there's a degree of wish-fulfillment in RPGs - where PCs don't have to deal with things like social snubs, papers being checked, forms to fill out, and so forth. For example, I think that's a big drawsof the zombie apocalypse genre -- in fiction, it's more fun to deal with things like zombies eating your brains than snippy help at the mall.
The last Call of Cthulhu campaign I played in was Masks of Nyarlathotep. It was authentic in some respects, but it was action-heavy, and we glossed over some of mundane life to get to the action. By a quarter of the way through, we were solidly gun-toting criminals. So the prejudices that our characters faced in social life didn't matter to us much, compared to the end-of-the-world cultists we were killing.
On the other hand, I've also played in some other campaigns with more socializing and everyday life, where it mattered that my character was a black bar hostess from Detroit, say. My other PC's Catholicism was a also a big deal.
It depends on what the GM and players are into.
This is often why I tend to gravitate towards post-apocalyptic, post-post-apocalyptic, and scifi/sci-fantasy settings overall (or to the real world complete with all its counter-woke ideologies).
I don't like "current year Seattle" values, nor do I have a desire to revisit the values of the past prior to the 20th Century (I'd say "Roaring Twenties" is about as early as I'd go in terms of real world settings)... so settings where the nature of them allows you to mix familiar and non-Woke values plausibly is where I'm at.
One example of the very non-woke of many of my post-apocalyptic settings is simply that the general population of survivors has zero use and little tolerance for what they call the "luxury ideologies" of the past.
When the global population has been dropped to barely 7 million people and a town of a few thousand is the only civilization for a hundred miles in any direction; they have zero use for the various "non-breeders" who aren't producing offspring to strengthen the community and provide for their parents in old age since there is no social safety net save for one's actual family.
What you do on the side of raising a family is your business (just be discreet), but those who aren't having children by choice are seen as freeloaders who expect other peoples' children to care for them and are likely to be cast out.
Similarly, current year identity politics doesn't have a place in sci-fi where the most extreme differences among humans pale in comparison to their differences from sapient life from other planets, nor when the setting is further from the current year than we are from the Western Roman Empire.
Sure, you can slot in parallels, but the thing about said parallels I've found is they often seem to highlight just how trivial the "oppression" of the current year actually is without it feeling silly precisely because stripped of the current year identifiers it would be silly (ex. the androids are upset that until 200 years ago past androids were slaves to the humans until a group of humans waged a war in which hundreds of thousands of humans died to free them and all the humans who did enslave them have been dead for a century makes the reparations issue sound like nonsense. Meanwhile if you have the androids still being enslaved you highlight how far we've come compared to the humans of the setting and without some very heavy coding which would get you canceled it also risks being seen as an analogy for any of thousands of ethnic groups who've been enslaved throughout history instead of the current year group screaming about oppression).
Quote from: Rhymer88 on February 26, 2024, 11:01:38 AM
I think it very unfortunate if games like CoC aren't run more or less as "period authentic" settings. For example: What's the point of playing in Weimar Germany if you don't include the huge political and social tensions that marked Germany during this period? Also, something like 99.99% of the people were white, so skin color didn't influence society like it did in the U.S. By today's standards, practically everyone in Europe would be considered racist to some degree. Moreover, many cosmopolitan Jews in western Europe looked down upon the ultra-orthodox Jews in countries such as Poland.
There are, of course, some settings where more period authentic should be the way to go, one of them the one you cite. If I want to avoid the "downfalls" of playing in Weimar Germany then I shouldn't play in that setting, instead constructing a new one whre Germany has been culturally enriched and their women have to wear burkas or something.
Quote from: Chris24601 on February 26, 2024, 05:03:29 PM
This is often why I tend to gravitate towards post-apocalyptic, post-post-apocalyptic, and scifi/sci-fantasy settings overall (or to the real world complete with all its counter-woke ideologies).
I don't like "current year Seattle" values, nor do I have a desire to revisit the values of the past prior to the 20th Century (I'd say "Roaring Twenties" is about as early as I'd go in terms of real world settings)... so settings where the nature of them allows you to mix familiar and non-Woke values plausibly is where I'm at.
Post-apocalyptic settings are really interesting on this front. The setting I'm currently working on is one in which humanity was formerly a hyper-advanced civilization that achieved space travel through a combination of metaphysical and psychic power, but due to a catastrophe that stranded them on a hostile planet, has lost all that knowledge and degraded back to a roughly late medieval tech level. That begs the question of what would a civilization look like if instead of developing along the historical path into the middle ages, it degraded back to it from another state? After all, there's no Catholic Church and none of the historical circumstances that produced feudalism.
I tend to think the society that setup produces would end up resembling something like the American Frontier. Population collapse often produces upward mobility and a breakdown of social stratification (like it did in Europe after the Black Death), and a relatively small population spreading out over a new planet would produce something like the land rush America experienced in it's early centuries. Hostile inhabitants of the planet would produce the same attitude of every frontiersman needing to be armed and able to defend himself. And then an armed populace reinforces the loop of a less rigid social hierarchy and so on.
I haven't put a huge amount of thought into sex roles and things like that yet. In a large scale campaign setting, that's something that's pretty obviously going to vary between different groups and situations. I suppose in a frontier-type environment, it's probably inevitable that women would be expected to be much tougher than in a more secure society, but motherhood would still be an immensely important role.
Racism probably won't feature much in the setting, partially because fantasy racism is an immensely tired and overdone trope, but mostly because racism is largely a modern problem. For one thing, you only get serious racism problems once you have multiple ethnic groups living alongside each other, which is relatively rare in premodern societies. But also premodern people don't seem to have thought about race in anything like the way modern people do. Reading pre-modern sources, you get the impression that they regarded race as inseparable from culture and usually religion. All the bitterest ethnic conflicts in the premodern world seem to be motivated by religion or culture rather than race.
Quote from: SHARK on February 26, 2024, 04:40:03 AM
Greetings!
"WOMEN DIDN'T WORK BACK THEN!" Or, "WOMEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK BACK THEN!"
What fucking morons believe these ideas are true?
WOMEN have always worked various kinds of jobs, throughout history, EVERYWHERE.
For example, in Ancient Rome, normal, ordinary Roman women worked in the farms, worked as shepherd girls, they did laundry, cooked, worked as servants and waitresses, as well as dancers, musicians, and whores.
In the city of Rome, they also worked in Roman fast food restaurants, much like many modern women work in restaurants or as baristas at Starbucks. Roman women also worked in the many bathhouses, and also in hotels, inns, and bars--just like many women nowadays. Roman women also worked in different businesses and shops, crafting widgets. Sewing, tailoring, making clothes, bedding, utensils, and so on.
Roman women also loved working at the gladiator arenas, selling food, drinks, snacks--and of course, themselves as well. ;D
There were a rare few women also involved in the upper echelons of business on occasion, working as consultants, interpreters, and that kind of thing.
Anyhow, the idea that "Women didn't work back then!" and similar pronouncements are just asinine, and full of jello. Either grossly ignorant and uneducated, or mouthing BS propaganda they have been spoon fed by Feminists in college. ;D
Oh, yeah. And another reference--during the time of Moses, as he was wandering in the wilderness in exile from Egypt, he met his soon-to-be wife near a watering hole, tending to her flock of sheep. She was working hard, as she always did apparently, as a shepherd. Being a shepherd was a common job for many rural people, both men and women alike.
It is interesting how centuries later, far away in Rome, throughout Italia, there were Roman girls working as shepherds. Being a shepherd was an honourable profession, especially for rural people. There was different dynamics and status-symbols amongst rural and urban people back then--again, echoing to some of the dissonance and friction between rural and urban populations everywhere, even in our current day.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters. I just did an underdark village with huts, animal pens, beats of burden, storage etc so its believable to a degree with the small area I had available ont he map. It's also heavily defended.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
Quote from: SHARK on February 26, 2024, 04:40:03 AM
Greetings!
"WOMEN DIDN'T WORK BACK THEN!" Or, "WOMEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK BACK THEN!"
What fucking morons believe these ideas are true?
WOMEN have always worked various kinds of jobs, throughout history, EVERYWHERE.
For example, in Ancient Rome, normal, ordinary Roman women worked in the farms, worked as shepherd girls, they did laundry, cooked, worked as servants and waitresses, as well as dancers, musicians, and whores.
In the city of Rome, they also worked in Roman fast food restaurants, much like many modern women work in restaurants or as baristas at Starbucks. Roman women also worked in the many bathhouses, and also in hotels, inns, and bars--just like many women nowadays. Roman women also worked in different businesses and shops, crafting widgets. Sewing, tailoring, making clothes, bedding, utensils, and so on.
Roman women also loved working at the gladiator arenas, selling food, drinks, snacks--and of course, themselves as well. ;D
There were a rare few women also involved in the upper echelons of business on occasion, working as consultants, interpreters, and that kind of thing.
Anyhow, the idea that "Women didn't work back then!" and similar pronouncements are just asinine, and full of jello. Either grossly ignorant and uneducated, or mouthing BS propaganda they have been spoon fed by Feminists in college. ;D
Oh, yeah. And another reference--during the time of Moses, as he was wandering in the wilderness in exile from Egypt, he met his soon-to-be wife near a watering hole, tending to her flock of sheep. She was working hard, as she always did apparently, as a shepherd. Being a shepherd was a common job for many rural people, both men and women alike.
It is interesting how centuries later, far away in Rome, throughout Italia, there were Roman girls working as shepherds. Being a shepherd was an honourable profession, especially for rural people. There was different dynamics and status-symbols amongst rural and urban people back then--again, echoing to some of the dissonance and friction between rural and urban populations everywhere, even in our current day.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters. I just did an underdark village with huts, animal pens, beats of burden, storage etc so its believable to a degree with the small area I had available ont he map. It's also heavily defended.
Greetings!
Yeah, that's right, Honeydipperdavid!
Strong, single women, and single mommies rawrr rawrring wasn't part of reality. Certainly back in the ancient times, yeah, women needed their families and really depended upon the entire community for everything. Alone, women were as you said, moments away from being brutally raped and enslaved.
*Laughing* That scene you describe in a modern D&D module, where there is some single mommy with kids living on a farm aall alone. *Rolls eyes* How stupid and modernized BS is that? ;D Amazing. Mind boggling to me, for sure.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on February 27, 2024, 10:22:08 AM
Yeah, that's right, Honeydipperdavid!
Strong, single women, and single mommies rawrr rawrring wasn't part of reality. Certainly back in the ancient times, yeah, women needed their families and really depended upon the entire community for everything. Alone, women were as you said, moments away from being brutally raped and enslaved.
Even today, genuine strong women are aware of female limitations. I remember going on foot patrol with an ex-military woman police officer. She had unarmed combat training but when we actually met the gang of dangerous guys (possibly Travellers) smoking weed in Tooting Covered Market, she was the sweetest thing. ;D You will get plenty of strong women in a medieval milieu, strong enough to know they need men.
I don't even want to visit current year Seattle for a trip, much less play a game there. But yeah, I also don't expect fantasy fun time games to be super realistic either, but I do like some level of reality reflected in them, it is the unrealistic stuff that is supposed to make it feel different/magical/dangerous in the first place. When things get too unrealistic it becomes cartoonish and less fun.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 25, 2024, 10:39:10 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 25, 2024, 10:23:42 PM"Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."
--Terry Pratchett: "Witches Abroad"
I always say that we will end racism the day we encounter hostile aliens. Because Apes are hardwired to fear and fight 'the other.' Once we have something very different to ourselves, we'll form ranks and racism will disappear like mist in the morning sun.
I really, really doubt that. I think there would be a sizeable faction of people who would side with aliens.
I think a woman working on the farm without a protector is fine, as long as you realize she's probably a werewolf. :-)
Quote from: zircher on February 27, 2024, 12:51:41 PM
I think a woman working on the farm without a protector is fine, as long as you realize she's probably a werewolf. :-)
You may bring it up half-seriously, but this was generally my solution for handling female example PCs for my game. They all had something supernatural about them that let them be a viable adventurer; a human blessed with powerful elemental magic, an elven archer, an exiled psychopomp, a female-shaped robot, mystics of demonic ancestry, and a couple of mutants.
By contrast for men you had a dwarven inventor, a human roguish captain, a human knight, three types of beastman (a priest, an inventor, and a warrior), a winged elven knight, a gnomish trickster, an ice dragon, a fire giant, two male-shaped robots, a male warrior of demonic ancestry and a mutant warrior.
Quote from: SHARK on February 27, 2024, 10:22:08 AM
*Laughing* That scene you describe in a modern D&D module, where there is some single mommy with kids living on a farm aall alone. *Rolls eyes* How stupid and modernized BS is that? ;D Amazing. Mind boggling to me, for sure.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
A similar encounter can be found in an adventure from 34 years ago--RA1
Feast of Goblyns--but with two key differences:
1. The woman's only been widowed for two weeks;
2. The family at least has a blunderbuss.
:D
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 27, 2024, 05:40:06 PM
Quote from: SHARK on February 27, 2024, 10:22:08 AM
*Laughing* That scene you describe in a modern D&D module, where there is some single mommy with kids living on a farm aall alone. *Rolls eyes* How stupid and modernized BS is that? ;D Amazing. Mind boggling to me, for sure.
A similar encounter can be found in an adventure from 34 years ago--RA1 Feast of Goblyns--but with two key differences:
1. The woman's only been widowed for two weeks;
2. The family at least has a blunderbuss.
In 1940s and 1950s westerns, the scrappy widow who keeps working the ranch by herself is a very common trope. And she would often have been keeping the ranch for years, not just two weeks. It shows her pluck and determination.
Now, I agree it's not authentically medieval - but D&D has always been more about Old West tropes than accurately medieval, like having stocked general stores, 1800s-style taverns, and professional army garrisons. Railing at 1940s westerns for being too woke seems like looking to be offended.
Quote from: Chris24601 on February 27, 2024, 05:26:46 PM
Quote from: zircher on February 27, 2024, 12:51:41 PM
I think a woman working on the farm without a protector is fine, as long as you realize she's probably a werewolf. :-)
You may bring it up half-seriously, but this was generally my solution for handling female example PCs for my game. They all had something supernatural about them that let them be a viable adventurer; a human blessed with powerful elemental magic, an elven archer, an exiled psychopomp, a female-shaped robot, mystics of demonic ancestry, and a couple of mutants.
By contrast for men you had a dwarven inventor, a human roguish captain, a human knight, three types of beastman (a priest, an inventor, and a warrior), a winged elven knight, a gnomish trickster, an ice dragon, a fire giant, two male-shaped robots, a male warrior of demonic ancestry and a mutant warrior.
Given the range of these characters, it seems like Red Sonja as a character would fit in fine. It's not realistic, but most fantasy games break further from realism all the time. I don't think a woman warrior like Red Sonja or Atalanta is particularly woke.
Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2024, 06:17:05 PMIn 1940s and 1950s westerns, the scrappy widow who keeps working the ranch by herself is a very common trope. And she would often have been keeping the ranch for years, not just two weeks. It shows her pluck and determination.
Now, I agree it's not authentically medieval - but D&D has always been more about Old West tropes than accurately medieval, like having stocked general stores, 1800s-style taverns, and professional army garrisons. Railing at 1940s westerns for being too woke seems like looking to be offended.
And she's either somewhere so remote that she hasn't been endangered till the cattle/rail baron came to steal her land, or is recently widowed and struggling. And in every case she needs a dangerous good man to wander by, take pity on her situation, and make the area safe for her again.
So don't be disingenuous.
Quote from: jhkim on February 27, 2024, 06:17:05 PM
In 1940s and 1950s westerns, the scrappy widow who keeps working the ranch by herself is a very common trope. And she would often have been keeping the ranch for years, not just two weeks. It shows her pluck and determination.
I had this exact same thought. The historicity of it is doubtful, but the character is so common in cowboy fiction as to be a stereotype. In reality, it seems to be the case that a land-owning widow would be under a lot of pressure to remarry and the majority of them probably did.
However, between wars, bandits, feuds, Indians, and extremely dangerous jobs, you have to assume there would have been a
lot of widows on the American frontier. Add to that the fact that adultery and prostitution were much more common than they are now, and there were probably a lot of fatherless children, too. The reason the fiction is inaccurate isn't that these people didn't exist, so much as that the outcomes for them were probably a lot worse than the stories want to show.
Quote from: Chris24601 on February 27, 2024, 05:26:46 PM
Quote from: zircher on February 27, 2024, 12:51:41 PM
I think a woman working on the farm without a protector is fine, as long as you realize she's probably a werewolf. :-)
You may bring it up half-seriously, but this was generally my solution for handling female example PCs for my game. They all had something supernatural about them that let them be a viable adventurer; a human blessed with powerful elemental magic, an elven archer, an exiled psychopomp, a female-shaped robot, mystics of demonic ancestry, and a couple of mutants.
I'm happy enough to handwave female PCs in any setting on the grounds that adventurers are by definition exceptional people. As long as the setting acknowledges them as unusual I don't think it interferes with verisimilitude. In general, I think you have to step up the competence level of the average person to make D&D make sense at all. D&D world is much more dangerous than the real one, and I prefer not to have a 3rd level character already be in the top 1% of personal power in the world.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 27, 2024, 05:40:06 PM
Quote from: SHARK on February 27, 2024, 10:22:08 AM
*Laughing* That scene you describe in a modern D&D module, where there is some single mommy with kids living on a farm aall alone. *Rolls eyes* How stupid and modernized BS is that? ;D Amazing. Mind boggling to me, for sure.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
A similar encounter can be found in an adventure from 34 years ago--RA1 Feast of Goblyns--but with two key differences:
1. The woman's only been widowed for two weeks;
2. The family at least has a blunderbuss.
:D
Feast of Goblyns is one of the best adventures for the Ravenloft line. Just a minor correction. It is a little darker than her being a widow. She wasn't widowed. Her husband was just inured and recovering. But her son was killed by a wolfwere and every night the wolf were and his wolves, who wants to take over their farm, torments them. The present situation is she has to protect the homestead herself while her husband heals. So it is meant as an encounter that seems like a safe harbor but actually turns into a pretty cool situation each night. Also the wolf were is named Jacque, which always amused me for some reason
One of the cool things about this part of the adventure is it is just kind of thrown in there as a possible encounter on the road. It is one of those modules that is brimming with content
The other cool thing about this adventure is the wolfewere had wolf pups at his homestead, so the players can get some wolf pups out of the encounter. And the homestead maps are pretty cool too
And the blunderbuss was always kind of a cool detail I thought (I feel like Ravenloft slowly crept up in terms of tech and time period as the line went on----until they started clarifying individual tech levels of each domain).
On this topic, I don't have any issue with not being overly historical in a fantasy setting. Even in a historical setting, there is plenty of genre precedent for not having all the social norms in place. I also think it is fine to have a setting that reflects the real social norms of the time. I think what irks me a bit about some of the stuff people do these days is it is simply too modern in character. That can work for certain things (it is an odd example but I recall Hercules and the show Xena having very modern ways of speaking, which initially irritated me, but I realized it worked for what they were doing; A Knights Tale would be another example, and Wuxia films set in historical periods where martial heroes are exceptions to the historical norms around them). But if a writer or designer can't imagine a world outside the one they live in for a moment that is when I have more of an issue (where the setting has to reflect all of their beliefs, all of their values and all of their cultural assumptions).
Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 28, 2024, 08:15:08 AM
Feast of Goblyns is one of the best adventures for the Ravenloft line. Just a minor correction. It is a little darker than her being a widow. She wasn't widowed. Her husband was just inured and recovering.
Thanks; I'd reviewed the text, but missed that her husband survived the initial attack.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 25, 2024, 10:23:42 PM
It's funny. It seems I just as often come up against people running too far in the opposite direction. "It's the dark ages, so everyone is literally covered in shit and the world exists in a constant state of rape and pillage." "It's the 20s, so everyone is racist and women can't have jobs." "It's ancient times, so every NPC will try to enslave you."
I've seen this both from right-leaning people overcorrecting and from lefties terrified of playing in historical settings because they assume it's going to be like that. One of the things I always try and bring across in any setting I GM is that no matter what the tech level or social structure is, people are still people. Even a medieval peasant is likely to be a reasonably intelligent person who knows his trade, takes pride in his appearance, loves his wife, and would prefer not to find himself in a fight to the death.
I think this is more a symptom of a vast ignorance. Sometimes a vast, willful ignorance. There are more and more people that have never even been outside an urban setting in any meaningful way, so that their concepts of what it is like to live in one even today are already heavily skewed, let alone an earlier period. They've also never studied what pre-industrial or even pre-modern means, where everyone was concerned about famine, protection, shelter, etc. (Including many that think they have, when they haven't.) So it's simply too great a leap of imagination for them to extrapolate that, yes, when you live in a pre-industrial society, pretty much everyone works, and when they don't, they probably starve. Yep, most of the people in such a society aren't idiots, and know that, so they set up their society with customs and rules that encourage people to "do the right thing" by their lights.
What I try to do is strike a balance between fantasy (often with fairy tale and/or mythic influences) to make things strikingly different in one way, but also include enough of the grounded dark ages to make it impossible to completely ignore. That includes farmers, fishermen, etc. being a big part of the population and the powers that be taking a dim view of interfering with their activities. Of course, you can get a big boost with a more limited selection, too. Sometimes I'll have food be relatively secure and available (due to subtle magic) but have clothes still be something that people struggle to maintain. Everything being hand-crafted puts a limit on growth, that really emphasizes the pre-industrial mindset.
Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 28, 2024, 10:18:23 AM
On this topic, I don't have any issue with not being overly historical in a fantasy setting. Even in a historical setting, there is plenty of genre precedent for not having all the social norms in place. I also think it is fine to have a setting that reflects the real social norms of the time. I think what irks me a bit about some of the stuff people do these days is it is simply too modern in character. That can work for certain things (it is an odd example but I recall Hercules and the show Xena having very modern ways of speaking, which initially irritated me, but I realized it worked for what they were doing; A Knights Tale would be another example, and Wuxia films set in historical periods where martial heroes are exceptions to the historical norms around them). But if a writer or designer can't imagine a world outside the one they live in for a moment that is when I have more of an issue (where the setting has to reflect all of their beliefs, all of their values and all of their cultural assumptions).
It's even worse IMHO when they have tp preach to you about whatever IN SETTING while ignoring that such setting has always had heroines (Pulp for example). But they feel the need to inject reality into it:
"Don't you know the people of the 30s were a bunch of Istophobes and in reality beiong gay/transvestite was seen as normal!?"
For an example of people who hold such contradictory beliefs just peruse this thread.
I don't want realism in my RPGs thank you, I aim for verisimilitude.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 28, 2024, 10:34:17 AM
Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on February 28, 2024, 08:15:08 AM
Feast of Goblyns is one of the best adventures for the Ravenloft line. Just a minor correction. It is a little darker than her being a widow. She wasn't widowed. Her husband was just inured and recovering.
Thanks; I'd reviewed the text, but missed that her husband survived the initial attack.
No problem. It is probably my favorite adventure module so I remember running that encounter quite a bit. It is also one of the encounters in the book that always stood out in my memory
Okay... this whole, "Women were never left alone or they'd be immediately enslaved and raped" thing is kind of a complete and total lie.
The Norseman who went Viking left their wives and children behind... alone... all the time.
Sailors during the age of exploration did the exact same thing.
Beyond the fact lower class men throughout all of history have a habit of being drafted in ridiculous numbers and being forced to go off to war. Some families came with these men, but lots of them stayed behind to tend the farms and live stock. History didn't suddenly become safe for a woman to be alone in 1800.
So it's not out of place to have a single woman running a farm with the kids. It was kind of very common depending on what was going on at the time in history there.
That is not how farms worked in the periods you are discussing. Even when the "husband" was home, it wasn't a single family.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 28, 2024, 02:26:56 PM
That is not how farms worked in the periods you are discussing. Even when the "husband" was home, it wasn't a single family.
Yes, Serf based farming involved multiple people...
But they didn't live in the same House. It was one family dwelling in a house, and a Nuclear family at that. The Nuclear family was the dominant form going back to the Thirteenth century in England alone. And not every single Farming Villages weas set up with Houses in neat little arrangements right next to one another surrounded by a wall. Walls were only in places where there was a danger of attack, typically on the borders and coastline. Interior Villages didn't have them.
And even then, the period after the Black Death saw the number of Free Peasants outnumber the amount of Serfs due to Labor demands...So again, stop with this nonsense that women could never be alone before 1800 without being attacked or enslaved. This is the same type of thinking that says everyone was covered in shit and there were no bright colors anywhere. Women would take journeys to marketplaces on their own. They would go on pilgrmages on their own.
Europe isn't the Middle East...Women weren't just chattel property.
Quote from: Orphan81 on February 28, 2024, 02:47:26 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 28, 2024, 02:26:56 PM
That is not how farms worked in the periods you are discussing. Even when the "husband" was home, it wasn't a single family.
Yes, Serf based farming involved multiple people...
But they didn't live in the same House. It was one family dwelling in a house, and a Nuclear family at that. The Nuclear family was the dominant form going back to the Thirteenth century in England alone. And not every single Farming Villages weas set up with Houses in neat little arrangements right next to one another surrounded by a wall. Walls were only in places where there was a danger of attack, typically on the borders and coastline. Interior Villages didn't have them.
And even then, the period after the Black Death saw the number of Free Peasants outnumber the amount of Serfs due to Labor demands...So again, stop with this nonsense that women could never be alone before 1800 without being attacked or enslaved. This is the same type of thinking that says everyone was covered in shit and there were no bright colors anywhere. Women would take journeys to marketplaces on their own. They would go on pilgrmages on their own.
Europe isn't the Middle East...Women weren't just chattel property.
Both of your last two post are accurate.
That doesn't mean female warriors were EVER common, and where they were those cultures found out why it's a bad idea.
Other proffesions were also closed to women, some due to either plain prejudice or religious ideas, but mainly because of physical differences and the fact that nobody would hire a woman in her fertile years to do even the jobs they could, because they would get pregnant.
Once factory labor stoped being so dangerous only men and little children could do it women were allowed in... It tells you something about how we evolved that women are more precious to us as a species than children.
Oh, not at all suggesting female warriors. Not trying to say they had the same rights as men either.
But some of the previous posts here literally had a guy saying an untended woman would be raped or enslaved in 5 minutes...
That's not how life in medevil Europe was. Some areas were more dangerous than others but plenty of women were left alone for long stretches of time and didn't end up raped and enslaved.
Hell most people still believe you only lived to 33 because of life expectancy.. But that's taking all the child deaths into account. If you made it to 21 you could expect to live until your 60s at least.
There's a big difference between living in a different house within hailing distance of several other houses, versus living alone, out in the middle of nowhere. The latter has been distinctly unsafe in many periods, and the more vulnerable the household appeared, the more unsafe it was.
Not to mention, the medieval period is vast. There are the various "good king" periods in English and Scandinavian history, for example, where supposedly an escorted maiden could walk from one side of the kingdom to another without trouble. We don't know how accurate that is, of course, but we do know that it was often written poetically in reference to a past period superior to the writer's. We also know that such periods are rare. Now, of course the opposite of complete lawlessness is also rare.
Lawlessness erupts. When it erupts, if the lawless know where you are, bad things tend to happen. If you are vulnerable, more bad things happen.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 28, 2024, 04:01:05 PM
There's a big difference between living in a different house within hailing distance of several other houses, versus living alone, out in the middle of nowhere. The latter has been distinctly unsafe in many periods, and the more vulnerable the household appeared, the more unsafe it was.
Not to mention, the medieval period is vast. There are the various "good king" periods in English and Scandinavian history, for example, where supposedly an escorted maiden could walk from one side of the kingdom to another without trouble. We don't know how accurate that is, of course, but we do know that it was often written poetically in reference to a past period superior to the writer's. We also know that such periods are rare. Now, of course the opposite of complete lawlessness is also rare.
Lawlessness erupts. When it erupts, if the lawless know where you are, bad things tend to happen. If you are vulnerable, more bad things happen.
You are literally splitting hairs at this point. Of course a "Lawless" period is dangerous. It's dangerous no matter what time period you're in. There are large swaths of incredibly dangerous lawless parts of Modern American Cities right now. Throwing in a "lawless" qualifier to the discussion doesn't add anything because nothing has changed from the past to the present when it comes to "Lawlessness".
The distinction here is that whether or not say.... a woman going to the another town with only herself and her children to sell the Farm's produce is unrealistic during a stable period of the Medevil era.
It's not.
It's not at all.
Saying there were rape/bandit gangs laying in wait between every single town is where things get into the "the medevil period was absolute hell" lack of realism. Trying to use that as an argument for the place of women in a game is where any argument of 'realism' falls apart... because realistically single women went about the buisness they needed to attend to whether or not men were there... From running a farm to going to market to selling crafts.
What *IS* unrealistic is warrior women, women guards, and women soldiers... But a widow running an Inn at a cross roads by herself is not unrealistic in the slightest.
Quote from: Orphan81 on February 28, 2024, 03:33:03 PM
Oh, not at all suggesting female warriors. Not trying to say they had the same rights as men either.
But some of the previous posts here literally had a guy saying an untended woman would be raped or enslaved in 5 minutes...
That's not how life in medevil Europe was. Some areas were more dangerous than others but plenty of women were left alone for long stretches of time and didn't end up raped and enslaved.
For clarity, the subtopic of a woman living by herself started with honeydipperdavid's reply #22:
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters.
I generally agree with Orphan81, and disagree with honeydipperdavid. During the Viking Age (800-1050), the vikings would live communally in longhouses, so no one would be farming alone, but women had considerable independence. They could own property and do business for themselves. The Laxdaela Saga is about the matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded leading her clan to Iceland.
Medieval England had some more restricted legal rights for women, so they were restricted from many professions - but they can and would still run their own farm, brew beer, or do other simple trades for a living. There were also convents full of single women. A widow running a farm in an unwalled town would not be out of place.
I prefer settings that don't obey 21st century western leftist morality. Or 21st century rightist morality. Or 21st century morality. Or 20th century morality...point is, I exclude Abrahamic morality from my worlds
Quote from: jhkim on February 28, 2024, 04:33:25 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters.
I generally agree with Orphan81, and disagree with honeydipperdavid. During the Viking Age (800-1050), the vikings would live communally in longhouses, so no one would be farming alone, but women had considerable independence. They could own property and do business for themselves. The Laxdaela Saga is about the matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded leading her clan to Iceland.
Medieval England had some more restricted legal rights for women, so they were restricted from many professions - but they can and would still run their own farm, brew beer, or do other simple trades for a living. There were also convents full of single women. A widow running a farm in an unwalled town would not be out of place.
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
Quote from: jhkim on February 28, 2024, 04:33:25 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters.
I generally agree with Orphan81, and disagree with honeydipperdavid. During the Viking Age (800-1050), the vikings would live communally in longhouses, so no one would be farming alone, but women had considerable independence. They could own property and do business for themselves. The Laxdaela Saga is about the matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded leading her clan to Iceland.
Medieval England had some more restricted legal rights for women, so they were restricted from many professions - but they can and would still run their own farm, brew beer, or do other simple trades for a living. There were also convents full of single women. A widow running a farm in an unwalled town would not be out of place.
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
Quote from: jhkim on February 28, 2024, 04:33:25 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters.
I generally agree with Orphan81, and disagree with honeydipperdavid. During the Viking Age (800-1050), the vikings would live communally in longhouses, so no one would be farming alone, but women had considerable independence. They could own property and do business for themselves. The Laxdaela Saga is about the matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded leading her clan to Iceland.
Medieval England had some more restricted legal rights for women, so they were restricted from many professions - but they can and would still run their own farm, brew beer, or do other simple trades for a living. There were also convents full of single women. A widow running a farm in an unwalled town would not be out of place.
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
Quote
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
I think it was Tacitus who remarked on the weirdness of the Germans, who preferred to live out of sight of their neighbours. German and Scandinavian steadings could be widely scattered. Clearly Italians were different and lived together in villages. I suspect this was more about soil fertility than neighbourliness though. You got mostly scattered farms in Highland Scotland, mostly villages in lowland Scotland, for the same reason.
Greetings!
Well, women living or traveling alone and risking being killed or enslaved every five minutes in the Middle Ages is hyperbole. However, during the Dark Ages, and in the Middle Ages--and in Ancient periods, it was very dangerous for men or women to live or travel alone. Especially though for women. Bandits in the countryside were in many places a constant danger. In urban areas, even in Roman times, there were gangs of urban ruffians and criminals of all sorts quite literally making up *hordes* within the cities.
And yes, slavers were also ubiquitous, and a very present danger. A danger for men, but even more so for women. Women are easier to enslave, and commanded higher profits for slavers in general than men.
Certainly, while there are some commonalities with our own modern age, and some recognizable attributes of life, the underscoring reality is that the past ages were very different in many ways from our own age, and the smug assumptions embraced by many that women could live and operate back then in such ages in the same comfortable, assuming manner that is commonplace in our own age is ridiculous.
I think that many gamers--and the member here that brought up the weird scene from the module--is reacting to that precise absurdity and dissonance presented in the modern D&D game module.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
This really depends on how dangerous your setting is. Are you doing a complete 'points of light' setting, where a few hundred feet outside of any and all cities is wilderness teaming with monsters?
Cause I see the "Orcs, Goblins and Trolls" as replacements for the real world foreign raiders and bandits for the most part... Meaning there are parts of the Fantasy World that are safer than others just as there were parts of our world less subject to raids than others... And therefore no walls. Just like in our world.
But if every single place outside of a city is full of Monsters than you need to take that into account for the rest of your setting as it begins to look less and less like our world and more like something such as Numenera or Worlds Without Number. In the Real World we had the silk road that spanned two continents, nothing like that could exist if there are not well known areas and roads that are (relatively) safe compared to other places.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
Quote from: jhkim on February 28, 2024, 04:33:25 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2024, 01:18:15 AM
And you are not going to a see a single woman farming in Northern Gaul by herself without a community. She would be raped and enslaved about 30 minutes after a Gaul realized there was a lone woman and easy to capture. You go to D&D they tend to pull the same kind of oddity with women. Hell its bad enough when they do it with men, but usually they have some farm hands, I mean maybe they could survive a goblin assault, but the strong single woman farmer all by herself and her 3 kids, OK BOSS. You can't forget how bad things get the further back in time from a lawlessness perspective. In medieval europe the laws, punishments and torture was so sever because they had very limited prisons and sheriffs. They were extreme to make the cost of committing a crime prohibitive, and men still raped, sacked, banditry etc. And medieval Europe is D&D's setting but rather than rampaging vandals and goths they rampaging ogres and orcs. Having unwalled towns (Phandalin) is cringe, I have to remake that map. And in Phandalin the entry level adventure you've got the strong single mother and ther two kids farming. I do a fair bit of mapping and world building so to me crap like that drives me nutters.
I generally agree with Orphan81, and disagree with honeydipperdavid. During the Viking Age (800-1050), the vikings would live communally in longhouses, so no one would be farming alone, but women had considerable independence. They could own property and do business for themselves. The Laxdaela Saga is about the matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded leading her clan to Iceland.
Medieval England had some more restricted legal rights for women, so they were restricted from many professions - but they can and would still run their own farm, brew beer, or do other simple trades for a living. There were also convents full of single women. A widow running a farm in an unwalled town would not be out of place.
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
Greetings!
Very good point, GeekyBugle! Like human bandits, ruffians, and slavers are not bad enough of a concern--which think that they were a much greater threat than now in modern times--when you add in the fantasy elements of Orcs, Goblins, and Trolls roaming about--yeah, the idea that much anyone--but especially a woman with kids, is out somewhere living on the back 40 is all the more weird and stupid.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: S'mon on February 29, 2024, 12:11:02 AM
Quote
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
I think it was Tacitus who remarked on the weirdness of the Germans, who preferred to live out of site of their neighbours. German and Scandinavian steadings could be widely scattered. Clearly Italians were different and lived together in villages. I suspect this was more about soil fertility than neighbourliness though. You got mostly scattered farms in Highland Scotland, mostly villages in lowland Scotland, for the same reason.
Greetings!
Very interesting, S'mon! It's fascinating how geography and climate shapes and influences social structure and lifestyles. As you mentioned, the differences between Highland Scotland and the Lowland Scotland makes very clear.
I love that! ;D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on February 29, 2024, 12:14:03 AM
I think that many gamers--and the member here that brought up the weird scene from the module--is reacting to that precise absurdity and dissonance presented in the modern D&D game module.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here. The original mention was about a single woman farmer in Phandalin, which seems to be Qelline of Alderleaf Farm. Here's the entry from the module:
QuoteAlderleaf Farm
A wise female halfling of forty-five, Qelline Alderleaf is a pragmatic farmer who seems to know everything that goes on in town. She is a kind host, and is willing to let the characters stay in her hayloft if they don't want to stay at the Stonehill Inn.
Carp's Story. Qelline's son, Carp Alderleaf, is a spirited and precocious halfling lad of ten years. He is enchanted by the idea of being an adventurer and says that he was playing in the woods near Tresendar Manor when he found a secret tunnel in a thicket.
A couple of "big ugly bandits" came out of the tunnel when he was there, and met with a pair of The Redbrands. They didn't see him, but it was close. Carp thinks that the bandits have a secret lair under the old manor house. He can take the characters to the tunnel or provide them with directions to the location. The tunnel leads to area 8 in the Redbrand hideout.
Quest: Reidoth the Druid. Qelline is a longtime friend of a druid named Reidoth . If she figures out that the characters are looking for specific sites in the area, such as Cragmaw Castle or Wave Echo Cave, she suggests that they visit Reidoth and ask for his help, "since there's not an inch of the land he doesn't know." She tells the characters that Reidoth recently set out for the ruins of a town called Thundertree, just west of the Neverwinter Wood. The ruins are about fifty miles northwest of Phandalin, and she provides directions so the characters can easily find the place. If the party pursues this quest, see Reidotth the Druid Quest or "Ruins of Thundertree".
On the map, the farm is at the edge of town, but the house is no more separated than any of the other houses.
IMCs when you meet a woman living alone in the forest, you know she's a witch. ;D
Quote from: S'mon on February 29, 2024, 02:46:50 AM
IMCs when you meet a woman living alone in the forest, you know she's a witch. ;D
Adventurer: "Good day m'lady, what do they call you?"
Woman living in the forest: "My name is Blair."
Adventurer:
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2b/d5/37/2bd537843fb9e03f308986e39342d900--the-blair-witch-project-best-horror-movies.jpg)
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
If that's your attitude, why are we even talking about "period appropriate" settings?
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
By that logic, couldn't someone turn around and say "well the woman we're talking about here is a halfling. What bearing do human sexual dynamics have on on a fantasy species?"
The specter of male violence also protects women who aren't married.
The majority of social interaction between men boils down to, "Is this guy going to punch me in the face?" It's so ingrained in our psyche, we don't even think about it. Men are just as afraid of men as women are, we just handle that fear differently. That's why 90% of murder victims are men, and men are most likely to be murdered by strangers (compared to women, who are most likely to be murdered by their domestic partner).
Couple that with the fact that fights between men rarely have winners, and most often have one guy who lost harder than the other, and the natural male response is to avoid violence unless it's really warranted.
Then you get to some random woman running the inn at the crossroads in West Bumfuck Oklahoma. She's probably somebody's mom, or sister, or daughter, and if I do something to this woman, that's crossing some kind of a line, and now I'm going to have to watch over my back for some guy who's name and face I don't know. Not only that, but there's other guys in this place all having a meal and a drink, and she's the one feeding them. The risk to this random woman isn't zero, but it takes a certain kind of guy to decide to cross that line. Finally, that type of guy, when he gets out to West Bumfuck, frequently decides he's far enough away from civilization that nobody knows his name, and he's won the game. Now I'm about to fuck up this grizzled Sam Elliot looking frontiersman's retirement, and we're all the way out here in West Bumfuck where nobody is ever going to notice I'm dead.
Greetings!
Well, historically, most settlements everywhere had fortified walls, gates, and towers.
The host of the video discusses the Argaric Culture--a culture that ruled Bronze Age Iberia from 2500 BC to 1200 BC. In the program, he comments about *every settlement* having defensive walls and towers. This isn't pulled out of his ass, but is supported by thorough archaeological research and analysis.
O have also consulted many history books from the ancient world, and the evidence clearly shows that any settlement larger than a watering hole for a herd of goats in the Middle East and Levant--were fortified by walls, gates, and towers. The Bib;e's refernces to meeting in "The city gates" and frequent refernces to a settlement's walls makes it very clear that having defensive fortifications, even for smaller sized towns, was the established norm.
In studying the East, again, China is famous for every town and city having fortified walls, going back thousands of years. Everywhere. In India, Burma, and also Japan--towns and cities being fortified was the standard norm.
Throughout history.
Greece? Rome? Carthage? All had fortified towns and cities.
So, we also see this general reality working throughout Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire--Gaul, Spain, Dacia, Britain, Germania. All areas and provinces of the Roman Empire customarily had defensive fortifications. This continued in general throughout the Dark Ages.
Yes, a few towns along the way in Britain, Germany, and up in the Viking north may not have had walls and defensive fortifications. They were an exception.
Most of history, human tribes have existed in harsh, brutal environments where war, raiding, and slaughter were common.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 07:35:24 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
If that's your attitude, why are we even talking about "period appropriate" settings?
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
By that logic, couldn't someone turn around and say "well the woman we're talking about here is a halfling. What bearing do human sexual dynamics have on on a fantasy species?"
Notice how I chose the words, period appropiate and not period authentic?
True, when faced with a Dragon you're likelly fucked, doesn't mean intelligenbt beings would then throw up their hands and say "Fuck it, why have fortifications?"
I started the thread by decrying the need of some to insert IRL shit into the setting.
Why would we need to discuss Hobbit females biology beyond size/strength/speed? How is it relevant to the setting? Now, monster's biology might be relevant, you could have some that reproduce like amoebas, others lay hundreds of eggs, others need a living host for their cycle.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on February 28, 2024, 05:09:07 PM
I prefer settings that don't obey 21st century western leftist morality. Or 21st century rightist morality. Or 21st century morality. Or 20th century morality...point is, I exclude Abrahamic morality from my worlds
So, a world where slavery of all types is universal, women are property, child sacrifices (and human sacrifice in general) common, mass murder and sexual enslavement of conquered populations applauded, lying only matters if you're doing it to your people, and rulers can have anyone summarily tortured, maimed and/or executed on a whim?
I think you grossly underestimate the influence of Abrahamic religion on what you recognize as civilization. It's so pervasive that even the most anti-Christian fantasy writers take Christian morality as the norm for human thought instead of the absolute aberration from thousands of years of history that it actually is.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 07:35:24 AM
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
People wouldn't plan around the very unlikely possibility of a dragon appearing out of nowhere and attacking. People would plan around much more likely threats like humanoid raiders. Fortifications would work quite well against that. Add some flaming arrows and they would work fine against trolls too.
Greetings!
Dragons, and monsters. Yeah, while they are formidable, I think many people make the mistake of grossly and severely underestimating the iron will, ruthlessness, and savage might for war that humans possess.
Throughout history, the Bible, archaeology, and mythology, the evidence and themes are clearly shown--
When humans truly feel threatened, as a society, as a people, by foreigners, by giants and monsters, people unite, and rise up. They don't just unite and agree to help--no, generation after generation, they harden themselves and train, and dedicate themselves to resisting the invader, and eventually hunting the hated enemy down, and brutally exterminating them entirely.
Dragons and giants would be hunted down and exterminated. Eventually, they would live in resentful fear of the wrath of humans, should any few manage to escape the human onslaught.
Orcs and trolls, well, their numbers and breeding actually provides them with a better survival factor than dragons and giants. However, the hatred and wrath poured out against them would also be generational, and unflinching. Humans would always be watching and looking for opportunities to strike yet another victory against Orcs and Trolls. Orcs and Trolls may in some communities be eaten, or enslaved. Some would likely provide bounties for killing them, and otherwise working on some kind of commercial angle to further increase and promote the slaughter.
Humans day and night, live and yearn for booty, conquest, and glory. And also for blood and revenge. People will, and have, devoted absolute decades of their lives to pursuing and fulfilling the demand for vengence.
So, even in a fantasy environment, I think that humans would be far more adaptable, ruthless, and warlike than many people seem to be comfortable contemplating.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on February 29, 2024, 03:25:08 PM
So, even in a fantasy environment, I think that humans would be far more adaptable, ruthless, and warlike than many people seem to be comfortable contemplating.
Heh, I really need to get Monsters! Monsters! to the table. Humans are the ultimate crawling horde, moving across the land like a plague. ;D
There's a reason why dragon lairs are depicted as being located in remote, inaccessible areas far from civilization. No organized kingdom or nation state would allow something as powerful and dangerous as that to just sit on their doorstep. Dragons are powerful but they can't take on the weight of a whole kingdom by themselves.
If you want to see what humans are like, just read up on what Genghis Khan did to people who annoyed him.
Quote from: SHARK on February 29, 2024, 03:25:08 PM
When humans truly feel threatened, as a society, as a people, by foreigners, by giants and monsters, people unite, and rise up. They don't just unite and agree to help--no, generation after generation, they harden themselves and train, and dedicate themselves to resisting the invader, and eventually hunting the hated enemy down, and brutally exterminating them entirely.
Dragons and giants would be hunted down and exterminated. Eventually, they would live in resentful fear of the wrath of humans, should any few manage to escape the human onslaught.
Regardless of what you think of humans, dragons and giants are purely fictional. How humans fare against them depends on the fictional characteristics you give to them. The Norse thought that humans and giants would destroy the world in their final battle. In my first 5E campaign years ago, it was about an apocalypse of dragons - where dragons got the spark to take over the world and crush the puny humans. I have my original (pre-5E) design notes here:
https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dawnoffire/
You can claim that really humans would beat the dragons, but there's no logical basis either way.
Quote from: SHARK on February 29, 2024, 03:25:08 PM
So, even in a fantasy environment, I think that humans would be far more adaptable, ruthless, and warlike than many people seem to be comfortable contemplating.
Historically, lots of cultures have gotten wiped out. When populations of humans have been faced with extinction - sure, they're warlike, but they frequently get wiped out anyway.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 01:38:58 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 07:35:24 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
If that's your attitude, why are we even talking about "period appropriate" settings?
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
By that logic, couldn't someone turn around and say "well the woman we're talking about here is a halfling. What bearing do human sexual dynamics have on on a fantasy species?"
Notice how I chose the words, period appropiate and not period authentic?
True, when faced with a Dragon you're likelly fucked, doesn't mean intelligenbt beings would then throw up their hands and say "Fuck it, why have fortifications?"
I started the thread by decrying the need of some to insert IRL shit into the setting.
Why would we need to discuss Hobbit females biology beyond size/strength/speed? How is it relevant to the setting? Now, monster's biology might be relevant, you could have some that reproduce like amoebas, others lay hundreds of eggs, others need a living host for their cycle.
My point was that you can't base a thread on the idea that historical examples are a valid basis for a fantasy setting, and then dismiss historical examples on the grounds that they aren't fantasy. If you want to talk about how it being a fantasy setting would make it different from historical examples, or which historical periods more closely match the fantasy environment, that's fine, but it's not what anyone else was arguing about.
Quote from: SHARK on February 29, 2024, 03:25:08 PM
Greetings!
Dragons, and monsters. Yeah, while they are formidable, I think many people make the mistake of grossly and severely underestimating the iron will, ruthlessness, and savage might for war that humans possess.
Throughout history, the Bible, archaeology, and mythology, the evidence and themes are clearly shown--
When humans truly feel threatened, as a society, as a people, by foreigners, by giants and monsters, people unite, and rise up. They don't just unite and agree to help--no, generation after generation, they harden themselves and train, and dedicate themselves to resisting the invader, and eventually hunting the hated enemy down, and brutally exterminating them entirely.
Dragons and giants would be hunted down and exterminated. Eventually, they would live in resentful fear of the wrath of humans, should any few manage to escape the human onslaught.
Orcs and trolls, well, their numbers and breeding actually provides them with a better survival factor than dragons and giants. However, the hatred and wrath poured out against them would also be generational, and unflinching. Humans would always be watching and looking for opportunities to strike yet another victory against Orcs and Trolls. Orcs and Trolls may in some communities be eaten, or enslaved. Some would likely provide bounties for killing them, and otherwise working on some kind of commercial angle to further increase and promote the slaughter.
Humans day and night, live and yearn for booty, conquest, and glory. And also for blood and revenge. People will, and have, devoted absolute decades of their lives to pursuing and fulfilling the demand for vengence.
So, even in a fantasy environment, I think that humans would be far more adaptable, ruthless, and warlike than many people seem to be comfortable contemplating.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Odd coincidence, but that's almost exactly the backstory of Dark Souls. Gods and humans united to hunt down all the dragons and giants, which they either exterminated or enslaved, and that made way for the founding of civilization (it's a good deal more complex, but that's the cliff's notes).
I would agree with you, but with the massive asterisk that it depends on which version of these creatures we're talking about. If we're talking about one of the settings where dragons are even more intelligent and ruthless than humans, plus being expert sorcerers that living for millennia, then I don't think humans are beating them in a genocidal war. In that case they would be smart enough to see the human threat coming, and would probably have wiped us out before we ever got out of the stone age.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 11:17:11 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 01:38:58 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 07:35:24 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
If that's your attitude, why are we even talking about "period appropriate" settings?
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
By that logic, couldn't someone turn around and say "well the woman we're talking about here is a halfling. What bearing do human sexual dynamics have on on a fantasy species?"
Notice how I chose the words, period appropiate and not period authentic?
True, when faced with a Dragon you're likelly fucked, doesn't mean intelligenbt beings would then throw up their hands and say "Fuck it, why have fortifications?"
I started the thread by decrying the need of some to insert IRL shit into the setting.
Why would we need to discuss Hobbit females biology beyond size/strength/speed? How is it relevant to the setting? Now, monster's biology might be relevant, you could have some that reproduce like amoebas, others lay hundreds of eggs, others need a living host for their cycle.
My point was that you can't base a thread on the idea that historical examples are a valid basis for a fantasy setting, and then dismiss historical examples on the grounds that they aren't fantasy. If you want to talk about how it being a fantasy setting would make it different from historical examples, or which historical periods more closely match the fantasy environment, that's fine, but it's not what anyone else was arguing about.
You didn't read my opening post did you?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 04:16:53 PM
In case someone doesn't know where I stand I despise the grey gruel most settings have become in recent years.
That said, if that's what floats your boat no hard feelings, just don't sling istophobes, nazi, etc libel against those who don't like it.
On the other hand 100% Period "Authentic" settings aren't really MY cup of tea either, I like SOME Fantasy/Fiction/etc in my ElfGames thank you very much. What do I mean?
Let's take Pulp as an example, but first we need to define it:
IMHO Pulp isn't a time period or genre, it is a style with larger than life Heroes (and Heroines), with Low Fantasy, High Adventure, Super Science, Weird Science, Cosmic Horror, Black & White morality, Manly Men and Femenine Women (the old fashioned type without dicks).
Now, when the Pulps were being published there was a lot of isms around, yes, and if that's what you want in your setting/games more power to you, even if what you want is for the Heroes to be Istophobic, no skin of my teeth.
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
And yes, there were Heroines beyond the Femme Fatale trope:
1936 Domino Lady
1937 Sheena
1944ish Señorita Scorpion
1937 Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress
Red Sonja
And others.
Thoughts?
Try again.
This topic started out interesting with a talk on how to handle controversial elements in settings and what kind of feel one goes for in their worlds compared to what the blue haired woke brigade do..
Then took a weird far turn towards trying to imply women were in constant danger of always being raped and enslaved in the medieval era (they weren't) and therefore they could never ever live or travel alone (they could).
To then saying every single Medieval Town and Village had walls (they didn't)... as a strange way of trying to give a justification for how the clearly proven woman living alone, were able to live alone (anyone could live alone, yes there was danger but the Medieval period had stable safe areas).
To now arguing about what or how people would prepare for Monsters and whether or not we could kill Dragons if they existed (Depends on the Dragon).
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 01, 2024, 01:49:29 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 11:17:11 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 01:38:58 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 29, 2024, 07:35:24 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 29, 2024, 12:10:42 AM
Quote from: jhkim on February 29, 2024, 12:06:42 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 28, 2024, 08:58:02 PM
That's really the thing. I wouldn't expect to find anyone living on a remote farm by themselves in pre-Roman Gaul. As far as I understand the archaeology, the norm for iron age settlements is a walled village with farmlands clustered closely around it. That seems to also be the norm for pre-columbian settlements in Eastern North America and any other context where a pre-industrial and non-nomadic people are living under the threat of inter-tribal warfare. A man living alone in a remote farm, even a trained warrior, would still be screwed if taken by surprise by an armed war party.
honeydipperdavid is complaining about Phandalin, though, which isn't pre-Roman Gaul. They have a modern-style tavern, three trading posts, and an inn. He doesn't specify, but the only farm that fits what he is Alderleaf Farm, which is just two hundred feet from the nearest other homes of Phandalin.
There were plenty of non-walled settlements in medieval times, though there were also walled cities and towns. Walls were not rare, but it seems like they were an extra for more warlike areas, and many settlements didn't have them. That's also true in America. Of the Native American sites that I've visited (mostly in the Southwest and California), very few had walls or palisades. The biggest medieval city in North America, Cahokia, eventually had a palisade, but that was built over a century after the city was founded.
How many of those pre-modern IRL places had to deal with Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and many other soundry monsters? Many of which attacked from above or below?
None, so what bearing do they have in a game world?
If that's your attitude, why are we even talking about "period appropriate" settings?
A settlement designed to withstand attack by trolls and dragons probably wouldn't look like anything that ever existed in the real world, except for maybe the Maginot Line.
By that logic, couldn't someone turn around and say "well the woman we're talking about here is a halfling. What bearing do human sexual dynamics have on on a fantasy species?"
Notice how I chose the words, period appropiate and not period authentic?
True, when faced with a Dragon you're likelly fucked, doesn't mean intelligenbt beings would then throw up their hands and say "Fuck it, why have fortifications?"
I started the thread by decrying the need of some to insert IRL shit into the setting.
Why would we need to discuss Hobbit females biology beyond size/strength/speed? How is it relevant to the setting? Now, monster's biology might be relevant, you could have some that reproduce like amoebas, others lay hundreds of eggs, others need a living host for their cycle.
My point was that you can't base a thread on the idea that historical examples are a valid basis for a fantasy setting, and then dismiss historical examples on the grounds that they aren't fantasy. If you want to talk about how it being a fantasy setting would make it different from historical examples, or which historical periods more closely match the fantasy environment, that's fine, but it's not what anyone else was arguing about.
You didn't read my opening post did you?
I did, but it isn't relevant. JHKim's argument (and by extension mine and Orphan81's, since we were both arguing along similar lines) wasn't a response to your original post.
It was in reference to the general thrust of this thread, which up until then had been a discussion on how violent the premodern period was generally, and the viability of isolated farmsteads (especially run by women) in particular. Tacit in that conversation is a mutual agreement on the assumption that historical social organization is a valid and useful basis for modeling a fantasy world. You could say the entire conversation is off topic from your original post, but I took the fact that you let it go on for four pages without raising an objection as an agreement by you that it was relevant to the topic at hand. Maybe I made that assumption in error. If so, I would ask why you singled out that specific post, instead of pointing out that the entire thread had gone off topic.
Quote from: Orphan81 on March 01, 2024, 08:09:48 AM
This topic started out interesting with a talk on how to handle controversial elements in settings and what kind of feel one goes for in their worlds compared to what the blue haired woke brigade do..
Then took a weird far turn towards trying to imply women were in constant danger of always being raped and enslaved in the medieval era (they weren't) and therefore they could never ever live or travel alone (they could).
To then saying every single Medieval Town and Village had walls (they didn't)... as a strange way of trying to give a justification for how the clearly proven woman living alone, were able to live alone (anyone could live alone, yes there was danger but the Medieval period had stable safe areas).
To now arguing about what or how people would prepare for Monsters and whether or not we could kill Dragons if they existed (Depends on the Dragon).
Thank you!
Yes, I thought it was an interesting topic and could even be stretched into the what the Christian Karen brigade (although they aren't relevant right now, they once were) dictates as good.
Greetings!
I think that having Current Year Seattle as a baseline setting-theme for a campaign is terrible. That is essentially WOTC's current version of Forgotten Realms. The current interpretation of Forgotten Realms, essentially being Current Year Seattle in theme and culture, is far removed from the original Grey Box Forgotten Realms.
Beyond that, I think campaigns should strive for greater realism, but also authenticity, and being inspired by real history, legend, and mythology, to blend together and serve as a distinct and different vision and experience from modern, urbanized civilization and culture.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on March 01, 2024, 11:37:03 AM
Beyond that, I think campaigns should strive for greater realism, but also authenticity, and being inspired by real history, legend, and mythology, to blend together and serve as a distinct and different vision and experience from modern, urbanized civilization and culture.
I enjoy more authentically medieval fantasy like HarnMaster and Ars Magica, but I think there's also a place for less authentic. My current game is deliberately more modern high fantasy - taking after Arthurian romances and Tolkien.
Fantasy and sci-fi always reflect the culture they're created in, more than the time period they're set in. For example, the movie Conan of the 1980s is different than the written Conan of the 1930s. They're both cool, but neither of them are authentic or realistic. They're pulp and cinematic, respectively.
At DunDraCon two weeks ago, I played in a fantasy game with 1980s Neverending Story style. It's easy to see 1970s camp and 1980s glam in a lot of old D&D material, for example. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think there should be more retro fantasy the way there is retro sci-fi as a genre.
I lived near Seattle from 2009-2015, and unless things have REALLY changed in the last decade, I have to doubt that many here have ever been to the city. If I go there expecting it to be like the most recent Forgotten Realms, I'm fairly sure it's not going to even be close.
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 01, 2024, 02:05:12 PM
I lived near Seattle from 2009-2015, and unless things have REALLY changed in the last decade, I have to doubt that many here have ever been to the city. If I go there expecting it to be like the most recent Forgotten Realms, I'm fairly sure it's not going to even be close.
If you left in 2015 then you missed the part where, in the last decade, but particularly starting in 2017, the Left went collectively insane, stopped nudging and started shoving their insane ideologies onto things. You missed the CHAZ/CHAD insurrection (a genuine one), the defund the police, militant trans-activists, and calling everyone white and/or male a purveyor of "white supremacy."
Basically every bit of woke nuttery is promoted there with the expected results unless you're among those privileged enough to live in gated communities or well outside the city. Then you just ignore the hellscape that's been created and keep putting together racially* and sexually** inclusive gaming supplements no one buys and then whine on the internet because they fired you.
* unless you're white.
** unless you're male and/or straight.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 04:43:51 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 01, 2024, 02:05:12 PM
I lived near Seattle from 2009-2015, and unless things have REALLY changed in the last decade, I have to doubt that many here have ever been to the city. If I go there expecting it to be like the most recent Forgotten Realms, I'm fairly sure it's not going to even be close.
If you left in 2015 then you missed the part where, in the last decade, but particularly starting in 2017, the Left went collectively insane, stopped nudging and started shoving their insane ideologies onto things. You missed the CHAZ/CHAD insurrection (a genuine one), the defund the police, militant trans-activists, and calling everyone white and/or male a purveyor of "white supremacy."
Basically every bit of woke nuttery is promoted there with the expected results unless you're among those privileged enough to live in gated communities or well outside the city. Then you just ignore the hellscape that's been created and keep putting together racially* and sexually** inclusive gaming supplements no one buys and then whine on the internet because they fired you.
* unless you're white.
** unless you're male and/or straight.
He's purposefully missunderstanding the meaning of the phrase "current year Seattle" and wants to pretend that it's really about Seattle, and that if not all and he didn't see it then it's not true.
[small tangent] I once applied for a game dev job in Seattle. In hindsight, I'm glad it fell through. The culture collision would have been a mess. The roads also were a nightmare. But, I did like the temperate rainforest part.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 04:43:51 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 01, 2024, 02:05:12 PM
I lived near Seattle from 2009-2015, and unless things have REALLY changed in the last decade, I have to doubt that many here have ever been to the city. If I go there expecting it to be like the most recent Forgotten Realms, I'm fairly sure it's not going to even be close.
If you left in 2015 then you missed the part where, in the last decade, but particularly starting in 2017, the Left went collectively insane, stopped nudging and started shoving their insane ideologies onto things. You missed the CHAZ/CHAD insurrection (a genuine one), the defund the police, militant trans-activists, and calling everyone white and/or male a purveyor of "white supremacy."
Basically every bit of woke nuttery is promoted there with the expected results unless you're among those privileged enough to live in gated communities or well outside the city. Then you just ignore the hellscape that's been created and keep putting together racially* and sexually** inclusive gaming supplements no one buys and then whine on the internet because they fired you.
* unless you're white.
** unless you're male and/or straight.
I live north of Seattle, in Lynnwood, and can confirm. The place went from "quirky leftist hangout" to "DON'T LET THAT HOMELESS PERSON STAB YOU!".
I used to bus into Seattle for X-Wing Miniatures events, but stopped because the homeless people in Seattle are fucking scary and have colonized the public transportation system as their territory.
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 06:52:31 PM
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Yes, but to truly make it playable you need sympathetic playable characters. So you'd have to be playing some type of outsider to the city (perhaps stranded due to connecting flight issues when everything goes sideways). The natives are the threats to your survival and the goal is survive long enough to be able to escape.
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 09:57:57 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 06:52:31 PM
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Yes, but to truly make it playable you need sympathetic playable characters. So you'd have to be playing some type of outsider to the city (perhaps stranded due to connecting flight issues when everything goes sideways). The natives are the threats to your survival and the goal is survive long enough to be able to escape.
Escape from Seattle 2050
With hordes of locals trying to fuck you or fuck you up and sometimes both.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 01, 2024, 10:02:38 PMEscape from Seattle 2050
With hordes of locals trying to fuck you or fuck you up and sometimes both.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 01, 2024, 10:02:38 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 09:57:57 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 06:52:31 PM
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Yes, but to truly make it playable you need sympathetic playable characters. So you'd have to be playing some type of outsider to the city (perhaps stranded due to connecting flight issues when everything goes sideways). The natives are the threats to your survival and the goal is survive long enough to be able to escape.
Escape from Seattle 2050
With hordes of locals trying to fuck you or fuck you up and sometimes both.
The year is too late. 2050? My money is on it actually happening for real in 2025.
This is just one of those things where I think we're creating a situation that need not exist. I never really ran into these kinds of situations playing any game. I think a big problem is that in recent years these kinds of hostilities have been wildly exaggerated and encouraged by people who WANT groups at each other's throats because they see it as a path to power.
Take all the claims of hostility towards female players that had to be endured for so long unaddressed... Never saw it back in the day (late 70's through the 80's). So few women played it was a score when you found one for your group and everyone seemed to go out of there way to make them feel at home. I'm sure there were assholes out there but this big, purvasive problem? Never saw it--think it's made up by people with an agenda.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 06:52:31 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 04:43:51 PM
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 01, 2024, 02:05:12 PM
I lived near Seattle from 2009-2015, and unless things have REALLY changed in the last decade, I have to doubt that many here have ever been to the city. If I go there expecting it to be like the most recent Forgotten Realms, I'm fairly sure it's not going to even be close.
If you left in 2015 then you missed the part where, in the last decade, but particularly starting in 2017, the Left went collectively insane, stopped nudging and started shoving their insane ideologies onto things. You missed the CHAZ/CHAD insurrection (a genuine one), the defund the police, militant trans-activists, and calling everyone white and/or male a purveyor of "white supremacy."
Basically every bit of woke nuttery is promoted there with the expected results unless you're among those privileged enough to live in gated communities or well outside the city. Then you just ignore the hellscape that's been created and keep putting together racially* and sexually** inclusive gaming supplements no one buys and then whine on the internet because they fired you.
* unless you're white.
** unless you're male and/or straight.
I live north of Seattle, in Lynnwood, and can confirm. The place went from "quirky leftist hangout" to "DON'T LET THAT HOMELESS PERSON STAB YOU!".
I used to bus into Seattle for X-Wing Miniatures events, but stopped because the homeless people in Seattle are fucking scary and have colonized the public transportation system as their territory.
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Damn that's sad to hear. I visited Seattle in 2008. Considered moving there, but glad I didn't. I remember how safe and clean the city seemed. Good memories of Pike's Place Market, Pioneer Square, a very cool underground bus tunnel, Bremerton ferry, Alki beach. No crime anywhere.
Quote from: Aglondir on March 02, 2024, 03:03:20 AMDamn that's sad to hear. I visited Seattle in 2008. Considered moving there, but glad I didn't. I remember how safe and clean the city seemed. Good memories of Pike's Place Market, Pioneer Square, a very cool underground bus tunnel, Bremerton ferry, Alki beach. No crime anywhere.
Amazing that its turning into Detroit before our eyes. Sadly its a predictable consequence and the morons cheering it on will eventually move somewhere NOT messed up (namely The Deep South) and bring their brand of insanity with them. If only we could build a containment wall around the zone to keep them inside. At this point, these people are little better than virus-carriers and should be treated as such.
Quote from: DocFlamingo on March 01, 2024, 11:18:21 PM
This is just one of those things where I think we're creating a situation that need not exist. I never really ran into these kinds of situations playing any game. I think a big problem is that in recent years these kinds of hostilities have been wildly exaggerated and encouraged by people who WANT groups at each other's throats because they see it as a path to power.
Take all the claims of hostility towards female players that had to be endured for so long unaddressed... Never saw it back in the day (late 70's through the 80's). So few women played it was a score when you found one for your group and everyone seemed to go out of there way to make them feel at home. I'm sure there were assholes out there but this big, purvasive problem? Never saw it--think it's made up by people with an agenda.
Pretty spot on. The first time we had girls in our gaming group was around 1988 and there were three of them. No issues at the table and we all got along. The whole "dark ages of gaming" for women trope is total bullshit.
Greetings!
Poor Seattle. Such a tragedy. And yet, well, fuck them. Let them rot, and wallow, and choke on the fucking cesspool if that city. Just like the crime-ingested, corrupt, blasted and poor cities everywhere run by fucking cuck Liberal Democrats.
I know all about it. I have watched in Los Angeles, and surrounding cities, that proceed to vote, year after year, for fucking Cuck Liberal Democrats. This is why the criminals are running free, killing you, or raping your daughters. Beating, robbery, and mayhem of every flavour. That's because Democrats believe that criminals are really resistance fighters, resisting the system of the evil, white Patriarchy. So, deep down, the Liberal Democrats think that criminals are really good people, they just need to be coddled and protected, and to be given their freedom to run through society how they want. Then, Liberal Democrats are soft in drugs, and drug related crimes. On and on and on, with Liberal Democrats' stupid, fucked up criminal policies, law enforcement, taxation, economic policies, education policies, down the list, the Liberal Democrats are a goddamn failure and a fucking shit show with everything.
But, the people keep voting these fucking morons into power, in election after election, for decades.
Guess what? All of that stupid train has compounding, growing effects that deepen, and become more entrenched and more severe as time goes on.
So, this here is what you can expect.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on March 02, 2024, 11:52:07 AM
Greetings!
Poor Seattle. Such a tragedy. And yet, well, fuck them. Let them rot, and wallow, and choke on the fucking cesspool if that city. Just like the crime-ingested, corrupt, blasted and poor cities everywhere run by fucking cuck Liberal Democrats.
I know all about it. I have watched in Los Angeles, and surrounding cities, that proceed to vote, year after year, for fucking Cuck Liberal Democrats. This is why the criminals are running free, killing you, or raping your daughters. Beating, robbery, and mayhem of every flavour. That's because Democrats believe that criminals are really resistance fighters, resisting the system of the evil, white Patriarchy. So, deep down, the Liberal Democrats think that criminals are really good people, they just need to be coddled and protected, and to be given their freedom to run through society how they want. Then, Liberal Democrats are soft in drugs, and drug related crimes. On and on and on, with Liberal Democrats' stupid, fucked up criminal policies, law enforcement, taxation, economic policies, education policies, down the list, the Liberal Democrats are a goddamn failure and a fucking shit show with everything.
But, the people keep voting these fucking morons into power, in election after election, for decades.
Guess what? All of that stupid train has compounding, growing effects that deepen, and become more entrenched and more severe as time goes on.
So, this here is what you can expect.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Well, to be fair, the last several years have shown us that any area where liberals have entrenched themselves politically there is no voting them out. Once in office they are constantly re-SELECTED year after year. A commie attached to power is just like a tick. Sucking the area dry they cannot be voted out. They must be plucked out and burned in the kitchen sink.
Quote from: SHARK on March 02, 2024, 11:52:07 AM
I know all about it. I have watched in Los Angeles, and surrounding cities, that proceed to vote, year after year, for fucking Cuck Liberal Democrats. This is why the criminals are running free, killing you, or raping your daughters. Beating, robbery, and mayhem of every flavour. That's because Democrats believe that criminals are really resistance fighters, resisting the system of the evil, white Patriarchy.
And yet the murder rate in Texas is still higher than the murder rate in California. (CA 5.7 murders per 100k vs TX 6.7 murders per 100k) More broadly, there's no trend of Republican-controlled states having lower rates than Democrat-controlled states. The five states with the highest murder rates are Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas.
To bring this back to gaming and the original post,
Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 25, 2024, 04:16:53 PM
IN MY Pulp Settings/Games, Racismus, Sexismus & Istophobismus are the exclusive province of the Villains and maybe the NPCs in certain parts of the world, of course I don't limit my Istophobes to being ONLY white or hating on "Teh Diversity TM". So Fu-Manchu hates westerners and thinks ANYONE not a Han Chinese inferior, got a problem with that? My table isn't for you.
NOW, having a Woman, Non-White PC provides for lots of interesting conflicts and RP. Why would I limit my self or my players simply because BACK THEN women were in the kitchen making samwhiches and Non-Whites and Whites didn't mix together?
It's not the "Real World TM" I'm trying to emulate, but a Pulp world that just happens to look a lote like the real one.
I think this can work really well. It's similar to how I've been doing my Incan-inspired high fantasy game. I pull in some parts of history, but it's more about an idealized fantasy, like Arthurian legend or Middle Earth.
There's tons of possibilities for interesting conflict and role-play without bigotry. Heck, there are plenty of villains possible without bringing in bigotry.
But a gritty, more history-authentic game with bigotry can also work. In the real-world 1920s, whites and non-whites did mix together - just not as much as today. There were segregation laws, but there were also plenty of mixed-race families and unsegregated businesses and neighborhoods. Having real-world bigotry can make for interesting play as well.
I used to love 1920s era gaming - Cthulhu or Pulp Action (or both mixed), but I doubt I'll ever run faux-historical RPGs in the future. I don't want any noise at the table about any SJW bullshit.
Faux-historical RPGing is always fraught with issues, and not just from libtards. People view history through different lenses - fictional vs real sources, books vs movies, casual interest vs. hardcore, etc. And then what part of "history" even matter for the game? Is it what's happening globally? Locally? Just set dressing and tech limitations?
AKA, how much different is your 1890s vs 1920s Cthulhu campaign? For those who have studied history, those are radically different eras. But to most players? The 1890s don't have tommy guns and electricity is rare, aka Westerns.
Also, faux-historical sets up even MOAR campaign setup issues. Now you have players who don't have any historical education (thanks to our lovely failed education system) so they have EQUAL attachment to New Orleans 1923 as they do to Venger's Cha'alt.
The only answer I know is to curate your RPG table to people who enjoy what you enjoy and who won't bring their stupid to the table. But I don't think that's possible with libtard scum so my caveat is curate your table with your people.
As for the odd thread digression into real world crime rates, the answer is simple: race matters, whether you like it or not.
Quote from: Spinachcat on March 03, 2024, 12:08:11 AMI used to love 1920s era gaming - Cthulhu or Pulp Action (or both mixed), but I doubt I'll ever run faux-historical RPGs in the future. I don't want any noise at the table about any SJW bullshit.
Sad but true. Deadlands used to be an interesting setting...now...not so much.
Quote from: jhkim on March 02, 2024, 08:19:03 PM
And yet the murder rate in Texas is still higher than the murder rate in California. (CA 5.7 murders per 100k vs TX 6.7 murders per 100k)
Murder rates tend to be dominated by race & ethnicity. Texas vs California is interesting though, as both are heavily Latino. From what I know Texas Latinos are much better integrated than California Latinos, BUT Texas whites are much shootier than California whites, and that is the culture Texas Latinos largely share. The most shooty whites are in Nevada BTW, dominated by Las Vegas.
Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 03, 2024, 02:04:38 AMSad but true. Deadlands used to be an interesting setting...now...not so much.
They absolutely gutted it, and made Hell On Earth obsolete.
Quote from: Grognard GM on March 03, 2024, 08:39:51 AMThey absolutely gutted it, and made Hell On Earth obsolete.
Yep. Without USA vs CSA as the backdrop all the settings, minus Dark Ages, become less interesting. All because the perpetually offended lefties cannot allow any kind of alternate history where maybe the CSA wasn't being run by total clods.....
Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 09:57:57 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 06:52:31 PM
If anything, Seattle is a great setting for a dystopian near future collapse RPG.
Yes, but to truly make it playable you need sympathetic playable characters. So you'd have to be playing some type of outsider to the city (perhaps stranded due to connecting flight issues when everything goes sideways). The natives are the threats to your survival and the goal is survive long enough to be able to escape.
Or the Western trope "We're here to clean up this town!"
Would it be more like a Paladin "Who was that Masked Man?"
or some skinny guy with a charoot, in a serape?
Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 02, 2024, 10:20:03 AM
Quote from: DocFlamingo on March 01, 2024, 11:18:21 PM
This is just one of those things where I think we're creating a situation that need not exist. I never really ran into these kinds of situations playing any game. I think a big problem is that in recent years these kinds of hostilities have been wildly exaggerated and encouraged by people who WANT groups at each other's throats because they see it as a path to power.
Take all the claims of hostility towards female players that had to be endured for so long unaddressed... Never saw it back in the day (late 70's through the 80's). So few women played it was a score when you found one for your group and everyone seemed to go out of there way to make them feel at home. I'm sure there were assholes out there but this big, purvasive problem? Never saw it--think it's made up by people with an agenda.
Pretty spot on. The first time we had girls in our gaming group was around 1988 and there were three of them. No issues at the table and we all got along. The whole "dark ages of gaming" for women trope is total bullshit.
My experience exactly.
If anything, I would say some of my friend groups were
too accommodating towards the female players. Fudging rolls to have their characters succeed with impossible odds. Letting them have unique wondrous items that were custom made for their characters. Creating homebrew races/classes/kits for their own use alone.
Basically, some friends that I played with as a player really really bent over backwards to please the female crowd. I never saw one female player being made fun of, bullied, hit on/cat called, or being a victim of sexism.
One girl always, almost without fail, would ask if a male NPC that was just introduced was "handsome". If the DM said he was, then her character would hit on him. This was her thing. It wasn't just one character, it was every character she played and almost every male NPC, unless it was either too old or too young.
Everyone rolled their eyes at this, but she never got called out on her behavior and was never not invited to play.
Quote from: Cipher on March 04, 2024, 01:35:45 AM
One girl always, almost without fail, would ask if a male NPC that was just introduced was "handsome". If the DM said he was, then her character would hit on him. This was her thing. It wasn't just one character, it was every character she played and almost every male NPC, unless it was either too old or too young.
Everyone rolled their eyes at this, but she never got called out on her behavior and was never not invited to play.
Ha! I had a female player who was forever interested in romance. I was a little surprised the first time it came up because I'd never had a player seek such a thing in-game before. I eventually got her married off to a wonderfully doting shepherd boy.
Quote from: Zalman on March 04, 2024, 07:30:47 AM
Ha! I had a female player who was forever interested in romance. I was a little surprised the first time it came up because I'd never had a player seek such a thing in-game before. I eventually got her married off to a wonderfully doting shepherd boy.
"As you wish." :D