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

What do you feel are some mistakes people make?

One mistake often made is to assume that aristocrats are normally like the ones we see in France just before the Revolution, or in England in the Georgian period, or just about everywhere in A Song of Ice and Fire. These are not representative; their behaviour are atypical, which is why people revolted against them soon a large scale. Most aristocracies have been at least tolerable governments by standards of their own times. Harsh, usually, but not unliveable, if only because nobles who are that bad get overthrown violently, or wipe out their tax bases, or lose their population by mass migrations. In most times and places, most nobles are rulers, and they take their responsibilities pretty seriously, even if it only takes the form of "they're cattle... but they're my cattle, not yours."

I usually lean on the absurd. The way I play common aristocrats, they have no idea how to interact with people outside of their own kind and don't understand common parlance or manners because they don't have to. They can pay people to literally do everything for them. Generally, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKaAO2HL4mk

I also leaned upon HBO's Rome for inspiration, particularly Atia of the Julii. Atia is so far up her own arse and removed from common society that it's almost comedic to see her interact with others outside her station. Within her station, however, she proves to be conniving and upwardly mobile.

I look at what role the NPC noble is to play in the campaign and go from there. I take inspiration from everything even remotely related from Shakespeare's historicals to the War of the Roses to the current living British Royals to the Centauri of Babylon 5.

Something I use a lot of is catspaws. A noble would not want to be associated with anything close to what the typical player character party would be up to even if that noble likes the results, so an intermediary is used more often than not to get things done that the noble wants done. This way the noble's hands do not get dirty. When the Players actually encounter a noble doing their business personally, they should realize that this is an NPC to be wary of because it is such an uncommon act.

Wear a monocle?

Most aristos are, and were, arrogant bastards.  And very conscious of their own power and class.  And class based societies are not nice if you're not on top.

That's where Americans tend to get it wrong.  Say "All men are created equal" to King Henry II of England and he'd stare at you for a while, and then burst out laughing.

In D&D, even mid-level PCs can be rockstars. These scrappy bastards, not their fat assed noble, killed the dragon that ate three villages. Thus, nobles (like politicians) like to cultivate relationships with celebrities, often becoming their patrons so the noble can take credit the next time the PC rockstars drop the hammer on threat to their city.

In roleplaying nobles, I think its important to individualize them. Are they really richer and more powerful than their title suggests? AKA, a Baron who rules a major trade town on a major trade route. Or the exact opposite? A Duke whose "power" is only an ancestral name whose long lost glory dates back to when his backwater ruins were important 1200 years ago.

Also, how did they come to power? Are they an ex-adventurer? Child of adventurers? Or hereditary nobility?

In D&D, their alignment and deity goes a long way to defining how they rule, and how they respond to challenges to their rulership. A Chaotic Good noble runs a far different town than a Lawful Neutral noble.

I like giving all my NPCs goals. For nobles, it could be as easy as "expand power", "petty revenge", "amass riches", "ego glorification", "benefit my subjects", or even "party hardy." A couple words for the goal can define many aspects of what's going on in the noble's territory and the PCs can learn lots about the noble before ever meeting them.

For instance, a noble interested in "ego glorification" will be skipping public works to instead erect statues to himself, throwing impressive parties, funding adventurers to go after "big game" monsters (as long as the noble gets credit), etc.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;899113Say "All men are created equal" to King Henry II of England and he'd stare at you for a while, and then burst out laughing.

And that's when you hit him with your plasma cannon. Laugh that off King Toasted Dude!

Good question. I like what Gronan and Spinachcat said. Aristocrats are arrogant and most will lord it over the commoners every chance they get.

Maybe the best way to run one, or any NPC is to use quick and dirty descriptions of them. Something like:

Bob Smith, male, age - 35, 4th child, second son.
Lord of Rivertown.
Primary goal: amass money.
Secondary goal: Get wife pregnant.
Personality trait 1: Loves money above all else.
P. trait 2: Treats children well, wife is secondary.
P. trait 3: Conscious of height (5 foot, 1 inch.)

Trish "Orckiller" Jones, Female, age - 22, 2nd child, 1st daughter
Lady of Crossroad Town.
Primary goal: be tough, train in combat
Secondary goal: lead troops on patrol
P. trait 1: Equal to any man.
P. trait 2: Prefers chainmail, 2 hand axes.
P. trait 3: Proud to have slain 8 orcs so far.

Etc.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;899113Most aristos are, and were, arrogant bastards.  And very conscious of their own power and class.  And class based societies are not nice if you're not on top.

Yes. My mother's grandfather was an Austro-Hungarian count, and she remembered one of his favorite sayings was "common people are born like animals". To say they live like animals and are just animals, and that was good people, bad people "were not fit to clean the stables" of their horses.

Quote from: Spinachcat;899116In D&D, even mid-level PCs can be rockstars. These scrappy bastards, not their fat assed noble, killed the dragon that ate three villages.

RIGHT HERE is why most gamers get this wrong: the general paradigm that PCs are the lords of creation, and that they're not merely above petty trifles like laws, taxes, customs and monarchs, but society pretty much exists by their sufferance.  In such a paradigm, A GM can play aristos as arrogant as he pleases, and your average player reacts with bemused laughter.  Why wouldn't he?

The way I figure, the rulers always have more power than the PCs.  That's why they're the rulers, and the PCs aren't.  Power structures survive by defeating challenges to their authority, not by cowering before them or ignoring them.  If the PCs refuse to pay taxes, obey laws or respect customs, then they're liable to be stomped.  If they resist stomping, the rulers just send a larger army.

Seriously, think of a standoff in your hometown.  What would happen if the band of desperadoes shot it out with the police, and won?  Would the government say, "Oh, that's alright then" and ignore them, or would the ante be upped to the tune of two hundred police, with armored personnel carriers and units of the army in their wake?

Without changing that paradigm first, how one plays aristos is of no more moment than how one plays slave NPCs.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;899113That's where Americans tend to get it wrong.  Say "All men are created equal" to King Henry II of England and he'd stare at you for a while, and then burst out laughing.

Because nobles and peasants aren't the same at all. "Blood will tell, don't you know." Calling both a noble, much less a king, and a peasant "men" is ludicrous in the case of the peasant, offensive in the case of  the noble, and treasonous in the case of the king.
   
I think that one thing moderns often don't get is that aristocrats have a lot more in common and more empathy with others of their own class from a different country then they have with fellow countrymen of a different social class. Often peasants, who seldom travel far, often don't know anything about or trust peasants from other villages within their own country that are more than a couple of days walk away.

The other thing western moderns don't get is how in grained bowing to authority is in hierarchical societies and how much social pressure there is to show proper deference. People often play their PCs as with no notion of deference to anyone who can't physically (or magically) swat them like a bug.

Ever waited tables at a posh restaurant?

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

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

Quote from: JeremyR;899087Wear a monocle?

Hear! Hear! I say, rather. What, What?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;899113Most aristos are, and were, arrogant bastards.  And very conscious of their own power and class.  And class based societies are not nice if you're not on top.

That's where Americans tend to get it wrong.  Say "All men are created equal" to King Henry II of England and he'd stare at you for a while, and then burst out laughing.

Exactly. This is why it's so difficult to play them "right". In the modern West most people are clueless as to how nobility behave/behaved.  Imagine how the average person treats their car, and you're getting close. To the real "blue bloods" there is very little difference between a "commoner" and a car. In fact I would argue that for most the car is far more significant and valuable.

Shemek