Quote from: TrippyHippy;948873I'm not trying to be difficult, as I like the Pundit's work on Dark Albion and other things, but hasn't 'authentic medieval' been done before as a thing, several times before?

I was going to respond with something a bit more positive, but I looked at my shelf and thought, 'y'know, I got this already!'

I was thinking similar but more direct given I'm Capricorn. I'm bored with this idea. At least the India thing was interesting.

Europe's middle ages are a fascinating period but I think it's harder to make it stand out because people have a passing familiarity with it that undermines their desire to play in it.  I think it would be important to represent the different customs and dress of different places and times and the flow of such from place to place.

I think you'd want to make poetry socially important.  If it's not in a song or written down it didn't happen as far as most folk are concerned.  I'd want a real advantageous mechanical tie, perhaps a recruiting and morale modifier.  Torture would be used pretty extensively but there'd also be the belief that it provides real evidence, so if you could withstand it, you might well be acquitted.

I generally believe that you have to treat magic and the supernatural as very real things if you want players to act in appropriately superstitious ways.  On the other hand, you want the magic to be less flashy and more fundamental.  Relatively simple technological knowledge.  A nitroglycerin fireball might be possible or boiled bandages and surgical implements.  But if I were handling diseases they'd be the primary form of magical attack and they'd take a few days to set in once the spell was cast.  Demons would be half seen shadows, but the damage caused as their victim thrashes around, physically acting out their psychic struggle would be very real.

Quote from: Marleycat;948817Seriously, you want to roleplay that? You're just trolling given you know it would not be fun and end with people hating each other and especially you. At least CK knows what might actually work in a given OSR game. SMH.

Goodness, someone piss in your Cheerios this morning?

The man asked what would be important, I gave an opinion. It may not be an opinion you like, but it hardly seems worth getting pissed off about.

Anyway, most RPGs make disease completely irrelevant, although they still laughably have the trappings of such things because they model medieval Europe, where disease actually happened. In my opinion (please don't have an aneurysm of rage!), an "authentic" medieval game should have a rules system which supports the possibility of disease, so that when the authentic village/town/city has a healer/doctor/hospital the players aren't standing around wondering "why would you have such a thing in a world where 8 hours cures all injury?".

Moreover, plagues, and the fear of plague, was a significant political factor, with entire armies in the real world changing their minds about invasion if a target was currently suffering from the plague. An "authentic" game should have a rules set that allows for such possibilities.

Or he can just handwave it all away. It's his game, I can respect that...and won't go apeshit if he decides that he can't come up with a way to make such concerns interesting for a game.

Quote from: David Johansen;948887Europe's middle ages are a fascinating period but I think it's harder to make it stand out because people have a passing familiarity with it that undermines their desire to play in it.  I think it would be important to represent the different customs and dress of different places and times and the flow of such from place to place.

Some players would like to play in actual medieval Europe. I don't think it's the familiarity that has others not wanting that, but rather the fear or distaste for the unpleasant realities and the uncertainty of the obstacles. Players who like empowerment and safety and rewards and the fantastic may think they don't want mud and disease and other grit.

However, Pundit said he's not making a setting book, but a book about medieval authenticity in general, and I think I'm not the only one who thinks that sounds rather interesting and very relevant to many of the campaigns we run. If the book offers many examples of interesting and possibly fun things that can be picked and chosen from, I think that sounds like something many people would be interested in.

What I'd want is a book that covers many subjects such as people have mentioned. The main thing I notice about such discussions and books on the subject is that there are many variations of explanation of how things worked, and their details tend to be extremely varied, but can be fascinating and quirky and fun, and most of the players I know delight at such details in games. I would try to avoid making blanket assertions about the way something always is, as those are mostly subjective and not always true. One person observes something about serfs or trade or castles or hermits or clergy or brigands or medicine or law or feudalism or cavalry or whatever, and three other people offer completely different views, and most or all of them seem to apply to different times, places and perspectives, and any of them could be used by a GM. So instead of singular assertions about things, I'd want to see a variety of ways things can be, and explain them enough so you get a logic to them that can then be chosen or not chosen by GMs for their own games.

Quote from: Spellslinging Sellsword;948763

• Some of the differences between the medieval person's world view and a modern person's view

Especially their take on morality and how to treat others. Stuff like this:

Quote from: WikipediaA scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, they would both drown. Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When the frog asks the scorpion why, the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so.

Though the fable is recent, its outlook that certain natures cannot be reformed was common in ancient times, as in Aesop's fable of The Farmer and the Viper. Here the scorpion’s reply indicates that what is fundamentally vicious will not change.

Pick a "where" and a "when" and stick to them.  Don't do all of medieval Europe. Do Spain during the Reconquista, or England circa 1066. Or some other distinct slice.  Palladium Books "Valley of the Pharh

Have magic and monsters work as they did in folklore of the period. Religion likewise.  The game mechanics should reflect the beliefs of the people at that time.

1) status and mechanisms for social climbing
2) property and mechanisms for gaining, developing and managing it
3) mass combat and warfare, which should loop back to the first two things

Quote from: CRKrueger;948808A system which can express through mechanics Oakeshott's Sword Types.

Funny you should mention that, I once used Oakeshott as a basis for sword types.  I think I wound up with two or three basic types because a lot of his types were very close to each other.

Can't get my mitts on my copy of Oakeshott right now, I wonder where the hell it is?

Quote from: jahud;948839Random ideas:

Scarcity: Typically, pre-modern societies were inefficient in terms production, nearly all labor was done by muscle, and the surplus was meager. The level of specialization is low, 90% of the population works the fields. You can pretty much swap any two peasants with one another without effects: they have more or less the same skills and values.

As there were not enough carrots to go around, those specialized in wielding power had to use bigger sticks, i.e., the work force was forced to work (serfs, slaves). The (open) labor market is small. The world with its professions and options was not a leveled field.

Travel: the roads typically are bad, travelling is dangerous and costly, and especially outside of river valleys the culture is dominantly local. This leads to (as was suggested above) the fragmented and unstable power structure. Due to the friction from distances and poor transporation, there is endemic scarcity of reliable information. Those in power are somewhat paranoid and for a good reason. Often, the local magnates have the means to challenge the central power. Emperors and archbishops need to be (personally or by proxy) constantly on the move: their realm of power is where they are.

Money: Nobles spend money to display wealth and to gain influence (through gifts, wars, construction, weddings, feasts, tournaments, flamboyant lifestyle). Only visible wealth arouses awe and only visible power arouses fear. Nobles tend to maximize affluence instead of profit. Only merchants are interested in money for its own sake. The most important form of wealth is land, but it's not a liquid asset. Gold carries no names, and thus large quantities of it bend the morality like a black hole.

Bulk trade is carried out in a sphere of trust because moving large quantities of gold or silver is risky. Outsiders will find it hard to gain that trust. Transactions are not anonymous. Doing business with dubious people harms one's reputation.

Family: Connect the PCs with the world and its people. If you don't know anyone, you are no one. Usually, you can rely on your family, relatives, and clansmen. Of course, in exchange they will have a say in what you do.

Social mobility: there is none (or very, very little and even then you're regarded as an upstart). You don't talk to a baron/ess — unless you're nobility — you talk his/her servant.

Literacy: there is very little of it (see scarcity).

Justice: from the modern point of view, social injustice is the baseline. (see scarcity)

This.  Sweet Jesus on the Cross, this.  The Middle Ages was NOT like your local Renaissance Faire.

DON'T make a huge elaborate and detailed combat system.  I HATE that sort of shit.  I don't give a pile of rancid dogshit about the difference between "slashing" and "piercing" and "bludgeoning" or any other fucking damage type or other shit.  People who wore armor wore armor, they didn't go rummaging around worrying about "damage type."

Set things up in combat so that "Armor good.  More armor gooder."

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948899Especially their take on morality and how to treat others. Stuff like this:

Or stuff like "Foreigner" means "from ten miles away."

Medieval justice.  Give a good, solid, if basic guide to how and why medieval justice is NOTHING like our modern system.  Yeah, they had the idea of a "jury," but the resemblance ends there.

Also, I probably don't need to tell you this, Pundy, but this is gonna be a niche product.  Some of us will be all over this like a cheap suit, but there's a reason I use the term "pseudeomedieval" fantasy.  What the vast majority of people want is a Renaissance Faire with magic.

That said, I did a shitload of work on prices some 35 years or so ago, would you be interested in any of that?  I ended up with a page or two of common stuff with prices in English money.  Unfortunately it was for my own use so I never footnoted it.

Quote from: jahud;948839Random ideas:

Scarcity: Typically, pre-modern societies were inefficient in terms production, nearly all labor was done by muscle, and the surplus was meager. The level of specialization is low, 90% of the population works the fields. You can pretty much swap any two peasants with one another without effects: they have more or less the same skills and values.

As there were not enough carrots to go around, those specialized in wielding power had to use bigger sticks, i.e., the work force was forced to work (serfs, slaves). The (open) labor market is small. The world with its professions and options was not a leveled field.

Travel: the roads typically are bad, travelling is dangerous and costly, and especially outside of river valleys the culture is dominantly local. This leads to (as was suggested above) the fragmented and unstable power structure. Due to the friction from distances and poor transporation, there is endemic scarcity of reliable information. Those in power are somewhat paranoid and for a good reason. Often, the local magnates have the means to challenge the central power. Emperors and archbishops need to be (personally or by proxy) constantly on the move: their realm of power is where they are.

Money: Nobles spend money to display wealth and to gain influence (through gifts, wars, construction, weddings, feasts, tournaments, flamboyant lifestyle). Only visible wealth arouses awe and only visible power arouses fear. Nobles tend to maximize affluence instead of profit. Only merchants are interested in money for its own sake. The most important form of wealth is land, but it's not a liquid asset. Gold carries no names, and thus large quantities of it bend the morality like a black hole.

Bulk trade is carried out in a sphere of trust because moving large quantities of gold or silver is risky. Outsiders will find it hard to gain that trust. Transactions are not anonymous. Doing business with dubious people harms one's reputation.

Family: Connect the PCs with the world and its people. If you don't know anyone, you are no one. Usually, you can rely on your family, relatives, and clansmen. Of course, in exchange they will have a say in what you do.

Social mobility: there is none (or very, very little and even then you're regarded as an upstart). You don't talk to a baron/ess — unless you're nobility — you talk his/her servant.

Literacy: there is very little of it (see scarcity).

Justice: from the modern point of view, social injustice is the baseline. (see scarcity)

While this is HIGHLY accurate, given what we know of history of that time period, it also means that adventuring is not an option.  Unless you belong to a noble house, and they have better things to do than to send valuable man-at-arms off on any venture that won't produce results for them, adventuring will get you arrested for banditry, very few will do business with you and likely most adventurers will end up starving to death or killed in very, very, very short order.

And that's not touching magic in any way.  Just having it will make massive changes in how society would have developed to the point that it wouldn't be very medieval or authentic.

As a gaming product, Gronan is correct, it's VERY niche, and will need a lot of hand-waving that most of the fans of this sort of stuff away before they'll start.

Religion.

I think in general modern westerners have a really hard time understanding just how important and all pervasive religion and belief were.