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shadow_archmagi
2015-12-19, 10:56 AM
For example:

Why are elves and humans allies? They compete for the same resources.
How does an orc society function if they're as stupid and violent as they're often portrayed? If they're not that stupid and violent, can we use them as antagonists without feeling racist?
How can there be this many spellcasters but society isn't progressing into magitech?

Stuff like that. I'm having fun doing rationalizations and revisions on my own, so you don't need to offer solutions. Just nitpick at a straw-man D&D verse!

VoxRationis
2015-12-19, 11:26 AM
Why is everyone's armor so impractical?
Humans and elves can be allies for the same reasons that humans and humans can be allies. The real question is "why are we making alliances with all of the elves at once?" Do they not have political divisions of their own?

Tzi
2015-12-19, 02:38 PM
There are several ways around that alleged problem.

Core to it is remixing what the separate "races," actually are. Perhaps Human, Elf and Orc are just variations of some earlier forerunner species. Or literally creations by some other being.

One setting idea I had was primarily that Humans, Elves and Orcs have a primordial forerunner. But at present the Elf and Orc strain have instabilities. Elves suffer crippling mental diseases in their later lives. A kind of madness in old age is not uncommon for Elves, think magical Alzheimer disease. Orcs have brute strength in droves but are often born with grotesque mutations and sometimes debilitating mental impairments from birth. Today the vast majority of Elves and a third of all Orcs are Half-Human for that reason. The Elites bred with humans as they were remarkably stable and healthy creatures.

sktarq
2015-12-19, 03:28 PM
Impractical fortresses not just away from strong support systems but with no alternate means to compensate for them. And towns with the same issue.
And tiny mini-societies with the complex hierarchical systems that generally need large numbers of people to work.

Elf food production

Dwarf food production

Orc food production/population densities on "marginal lands"

Lack of price variation from town to town

Elf skill relative to shorter lived creatures skill levels

Predator density

Unchanged murder and inheritance laws in a world where speak to dead is at least somewhat available

Clear post death results having little to no impact on mortal society. (Don't need the details-we have specialists for that but help from Devils lead to torture while help from angels leads to bliss high - with verifiable, repeatable results)

Lack of money making services that use even a small amount of magic to greatly increase profits. A commodity price information agency would make a killing off a couple dozen agents half that number of wizards and whispering wind spells.

Tzi
2015-12-19, 04:16 PM
For me, the first thing that really broke it was languages. Somehow humans had diverse names and appearances but spoke "Common," a uni-language that unites the whole species. Likewise for Elves and Dwarves, I just could not suspend disbelief after that.

The Great Wyrm
2015-12-19, 04:44 PM
I always thought of Common as something like Latin during the middle ages/renaissance. People spoke other languages (Italian, French, etc.), but those with education (the upper classes + clergy) could use Latin to communicate with each other. In this scenario, most or all writing would be in Common; there would also be regional vernacular spoken languages, but D&D simplifies it to "all the important people can communicate without much effort."

sktarq
2015-12-19, 05:15 PM
As for "common" I find it best to give it a name and a touch of history. And have mostly the educated or those who deal with outsiders know it. (somewhere between Latin the Middle Ages, Greek from way back when through the Byzantine Empire or German in Eastern Europe either during or post the Hapsbergs)
Then have people do most of their daily stuff in a local language-which the PC's should learn if they want to become movers and shakers.

Some setting though to cover it via having Greyhawk's Old Kingdom, Eberron's Galifar Empire etc that were dominant enough that their languages are still common even though they have fallen.

As for elves and dwarves-I give some leeway for the "fewer generations" argument but think that the various racial nations need some regular contact to keep the language together over time. Otherwise I would think cultural splits (like Gold vs Shield dwarves in FR would speak different languages)

Oh and the one nation per humanoid race/subrace thing always got me.

Dusk Raven
2015-12-19, 06:09 PM
In my case, humans and elves don't compete all that much for resources, per se. They do on some level, but they tend to specialize in different techniques and materials.

As for languages, even though, as a casual linguist, I love working on languages, in my favorite of my fantasy settings (non-D&D), there's actually only one language. There's lots of dialects, but the gods didn't create the races just to have them speak a different language each. In addition, the gods were in contact with the mortal races until about 300 years ago, so there was some standardization. Dialects have started springing up in the meantime, though, but it's not terribly worse than the American/British split over English.

My own pet peeves... hard to say. Automatically-evil anything annoys me. Most of my pet peeves are on a micro-level - things like driving horses harder than they would survive - but on a worldbuilding scale, I dislike seeing blatant ignorance of psychology.

Also! Darkness as evil and light as good. But that's more a fantastic design choice than something that makes me say, "That's not reasonable..."

avr
2015-12-20, 12:56 AM
In a setting where there are bigger nastier things who want to eat people I don't have a problem with elves and humans allying against those things.

What does bother me is unreasonably long histories, especially when characters from those histories are alive, kicking, and still acting like teenagers.

Ultimate evil I'm not a fan of either.

Yora
2015-12-20, 04:43 AM
More often than not, any fantasy timeline is vastly improved by removing one 0 from every number.

Everyl
2015-12-20, 07:47 AM
The idea of "lost lore" in a world where immortal demons, devils, and angels that have existed since the dawn of time are available for questioning to the right spellcaster. Not to mention the Gods themselves - no piece of historical, technological, and/or magical knowledge should be capable of becoming "lost" unless most or all of the immortal, actively-invested-in-mortal-activities Gods want it to become lost.

And I have actually been forced to extend the timeline of a setting, due to poor planning around the lifespans of various races. I had some events that I wanted to have faded largely into legend for the common people, with only well-connected scholars knowing the true details. Originally, I figured 750 years in the past would be plenty... until I realized that there would be an entire generation of somewhat-elderly elves who would have heard all about that time period from their parents, or even remember it themselves from early childhood. Ultimately, I guess this should add "extremely long-lived mortal races" to the things that break my verisimilitude, since information would pass through the generations so radically differently in a race that lives 700 years than in a race that lives 70.

I'll echo others above in disliking the way non-human races get a subrace for every distinct culture or nation, while humans can have dozens of times as many cultures/nations without a single subrace to their name.

Blake Hannon
2015-12-20, 09:21 AM
For example:

Why are elves and humans allies? They compete for the same resources.

Not necessarily. In pre-industrial times, most large scale agriculture was practiced in river valleys and along gentle hillsides. If the elf forests are mostly in the mountains, or rainforests far from the rivers, then they're unlikely to compete with humans for living space, and the two would have plenty to trade with each other.

That's assuming you want to keep the generic straw DnD-verse status quo, of course. In my own setting humans and elves are NOT typically allies, because both of them are land-grabbing *******s who are always trying to transform nearby lands into their own preferred biome (humans expand their farmlands, elves expand their eco-engineered forests). When they're able to get along, its usually because either a) there's a geographical barrier that makes landgrabs impractical, or b) they have a mutual alliance with dwarves who act as mediators. Neither of them really compete with dwarves.


How does an orc society function if they're as stupid and violent as they're often portrayed? If they're not that stupid and violent, can we use them as antagonists without feeling racist?

I...dislike "orcs" as a concept. In Lord of the Rings, the orcs were dysfunctional mutants who can only barely survive without the oversight of the dark gods who sired them. They really don't make sense outside of the context of that setting. This goes for both literal orcs, and the various serial-numbers-filed-off orc substitutes (goblinoids, ogres, kobolds, the list goes on).

If you want to use the orc archetype, and you don't want to give them a supernatural explanation like Tolkien's, the solution is to make them less stupid. Look at various raider cultures from throughout history for inspiration and adapt things as you wish to account for the non-humanlike aspects of the species in question.

To stay as close as possible to the description given to orcs in the monster manual (tribal nomads from harsh wastelands who periodically raid the civilized lands), I'd have them be herdsmen. Herding cultures can survive in harsh environments, they can eventually build up large populations while still having a tribal structure, and they tend to be very violent. Read up on the pre-Islamic Arab tribes, or the mongols before Genghis Khan.


How can there be this many spellcasters but society isn't progressing into magitech?

If the spells/feats/whatever to create magic items are very rare and only a few master magicians have them, that would explain it. You wouldn't even need to change the prereqs for PC's who want to take those abilities, if you're going with the typical DnD assumption that the PC's are exceptional, larger-than-life heroes.

Alternately, just make casters rarer.

Yora
2015-12-20, 12:40 PM
They really don't make sense outside of the context of that setting.

That goes for so many things in Lord of the Rings! Middle-Earth really is a case of a very specific and unique setting, but way too many people treat it as a generic template.

Dusk Raven
2015-12-20, 05:28 PM
In a setting where there are bigger nastier things who want to eat people I don't have a problem with elves and humans allying against those things.

What does bother me is unreasonably long histories, especially when characters from those histories are alive, kicking, and still acting like teenagers.

Ultimate evil I'm not a fan of either.


More often than not, any fantasy timeline is vastly improved by removing one 0 from every number.

Ah, yes, I notice that a lot. One egregious example is the PSX JRPG Legend of Dragoon. Love that game, but they have the events of the Dragon Campaign as 11,000 years ago. Eleven thousand?! We're modern day and we barely know anything about what happened to us that long ago! I think you could take off two zeros from that one! Of course, I could say the same for Fallout, at least as far as the terrain is concerned...

Anyway, that's why my own original setting is just under 800 years old. Turns out, when you start describing the history of a nation bit-by-bit, a lot can happen in even a century...


That goes for so many things in Lord of the Rings! Middle-Earth really is a case of a very specific and unique setting, but way too many people treat it as a generic template.

Yeah. Tolkein put a truly admirable amount of work into his setting, right down to figuring out how the armies of Sauron get fed (basically, Mordor isn't all wasteland), but a lot of the later writers just lifted the aesthetics from his settings without the underlying lore to support it. In Tolkein's world, pretty much everything that wouldn't make sense in a generic fantasy setting has reasons for it.

Sadly, if anything becomes popular enough it gets imitators and becomes cliche. I'm not sure if D&D had things as well thought-out in the early days, but now, if you want lore for anything you're going to have to dig for it...

avr
2015-12-20, 08:57 PM
Ah, yes, I notice that a lot. One egregious example is the PSX JRPG Legend of Dragoon. Love that game, but they have the events of the Dragon Campaign as 11,000 years ago. Eleven thousand?! We're modern day and we barely know anything about what happened to us that long ago! I think you could take off two zeros from that one! Of course, I could say the same for Fallout, at least as far as the terrain is concerned...
If you think that's bad, look at the Eberron timeline (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Timeline). The Gatekeeper druids have apparently survived as an organisation for ~16 000 years, vaguely game-relevant stuff starts 100 000 years ago, the goblinoids of Darguun are apparently trying to revive an empire which fell 9 000 years ago (the memory of which has apparently been kept alive by oral history, among races with human-like lifespans) ... and it still falls victim to Everyl's problem where they forgot how many elves and gnomes would remember the events of the Last War.

Edit: basically Keith Baker is a good writer, terrible with numbers. He also put up sizes and orbital distances for the moons in an online article, without first working out that this meant the largest would cover IIRC 1/4 the width of the sky. 9 times the apparent width of Earth's Moon. And population numbers which made Khorvaire less thickly populated than the Australian Outback.

AcerbicOrb
2015-12-21, 06:20 AM
Humans and Elves allying isn't too bad in my opinion. They can ally for the same reasons two groups of humans do: to achieve common goals, or for mutual defence. What I do find odd, though, is the rivalry between Elves and Dwarves in most settings. One lives on the surface, the other lives underground - why is there conflict between them?

Nobot
2015-12-21, 10:17 AM
Level 20 townguards with vorpal blades.

VoxRationis
2015-12-21, 10:33 AM
Humans and Elves allying isn't too bad in my opinion. They can ally for the same reasons two groups of humans do: to achieve common goals, or for mutual defence. What I do find odd, though, is the rivalry between Elves and Dwarves in most settings. One lives on the surface, the other lives underground - why is there conflict between them?

Simply because Tolkien did it and most derivative authors can't tell the difference between a necessary aspect of the genre and a specific case in a specific world.

AcerbicOrb
2015-12-21, 11:01 AM
Simply because Tolkien did it and most derivative authors can't tell the difference between a necessary aspect of the genre and a specific case in a specific world.

It does seem that way sometimes. There's a lot of Middle Earth clones out there. Strangely, most of them settings don't have Hobbits/Halflings, but have most of the other stuff.

jqavins
2015-12-21, 01:32 PM
How can there be this many spellcasters but society isn't progressing into magitech?
Just the opposite, magitech bothers me. If magic is used to make devices, why should those devices bear such resemblance to our own? Some resemblance in function, sure, since we invent the things we want to have and those wants may be largely the same. But why should there be any resemblance at all in form and means of operation?

Maybe there's been enough said on languages, but... Each race (or well defined group of races) has its own language. A person might speak another race's language, but they are very rarely shared. Except Common.

And the limit on language learning. It's well known of human brains in the real world that learning languages makes it easier to learn more, not harder.

Standard spell lists. Every Sor/Wiz gets to learn and pick spells from the same list. Every Cleric gets to pick spells from the same list. Etc. Unless someone goes through the arduous process spell research, which most players don't. Making up one's own spells should be both a lot easier and mandatory.

On a similar note, the standard list of magic items. This is on a similar note because they both amount to "magic is too standardized." How can magic be suitably wondrous when both spells and items are listed like a Chinese take-out menu?

Unsustainable predator:prey ratio, which is a result of all the predatory monsters. Or, if one addresses that by saying that the monsters are really rare, then there are too many dangerous random encounters.

Most monsters are just stat balls in costumes. Each one should have it's own reason for being, and for being where it is. DMs don't have to use all the monsters in the Manual(s), but most of us (including me) never make up our own abbreviated lists and corresponding random encounter tables.

And, while I'm on the subject of random encounter tables, they are based on climate and terrain, but are not regional. Identical climates and terrains can have wildly different animal populations just because they're in different places, but we don't see that. For a small scale real world example, chipmunks and grey squirrels occupy essentially the same niches, but you'll usually see only one or the other is a given location because they compete. You'll see both in a few places where there's lots of food to scavenge, but more often in my experience just one or the other. Or, on a larger scale, American and Eurasian lynxes; the primary reason that one is there and one is here is the ocean between them. The same ought to be true of, say, orcs and goblins, on an appropriate geographic scale.

BootStrapTommy
2015-12-22, 09:02 PM
For me, the first thing that really broke it was languages. Somehow humans had diverse names and appearances but spoke "Common," a uni-language that unites the whole species. Likewise for Elves and Dwarves, I just could not suspend disbelief after that. In my campaign setting, Common is a simplistic trade language. Basically an excuse for vendors to always be capable of interacting with players.

But I explicitly forbide the use of Common to communicate complex ideas.

Likewise, languages are national/regional, not racial.

Blake Hannon
2016-01-06, 05:01 AM
Impractical fortresses not just away from strong support systems but with no alternate means to compensate for them. And towns with the same issue.
And tiny mini-societies with the complex hierarchical systems that generally need large numbers of people to work.

I'm not sure what you mean by these two. Could you elaborate?


Elf food production

That's easy. Elves are all about nature magic, right? They can be masters of ecological engineering, manipulating their home forests into perfectly suitable elf habitats. The bushes and shrubs all have berries, the herbs and smaller plants are all edible or have starchy roots, the trees all bear fruit or nuts, the fungi that colonize the fallen trees are all edible, even the insects and spiders aren't bad fried. The fruit tree canopies are shaped in just such a way to attract flights of roosting doves and pigeons, the rivers and ponds shaped to catch nutrient waste from the forest and grow huge schools of carp and catfish. An elf forest only looks natural to the untrained eye.

Its still not as efficient as human agriculture, but since elves typically have a slow birthrate and long lifespans their population density is likely going to be lighter than ours, so they can get by.


Dwarf food production

This is trickier.

One solution is to have dwarves practice conventional agriculture and pastoralism in the sheltered valleys and plateaus within their mountains. That makes them less of a subterranean race though, which kind of ruins them.

I remember someone on the old WOTC boards suggested dwarven aquaculture, with huge natural or artificial lakes under sun-windows. You'd still need the dwarves to get some kind of fish food to support that though, and the space requirements to raise enough fish for a decently sized dwarven city would be kind of ridiculous.

The best option is probably just to go full fantasy and invent a whole underground ecosystem that isn't based on photosynthesis. The underdark in a lot of settings has forests of giant, luminous mushrooms all over the place. Maybe those mushrooms (or a similar underdark producer) saps energy from the spirit of the earth or something, which in a DnD world is no more or less mystical than being fed by the light of the sun. Maybe there are heat-using plants that create huge tangled forests around underground hot water and magma vents? These producers are then food for all sorts of underground fauna. This could feed not only the dwarves, but also all the various underdark races who typically have the same issues.

If you use that last approach, dwarven cuisine is going to be very different from what the surface dwellers eat, since its all derived from an alien ecosystem. Maybe there's a roaring trade in exotic foods between the dwarf caverns and the cities of the surface races? Major cities might have pricey dwarf restaurants where you can order glowy mushroom salad with authentic blind cave shrimp sauce, while meanwhile wealthy dwarves in their caverns are paying top dollar for such exotic delicacies as mashed potatoes and lamb chops?


Orc food production/population densities on "marginal lands"

Like I said earlier, herding makes sense for orcs.

You might also want to make them natural scavengers, with digestive systems like bears or pigs, able to eat just about anything organic, even if they prefer proper food.


Lack of price variation from town to town

This one is pretty much impossible to justify, unless you do something like the Tippyverse and have a teleportation network that makes it easy to move goods across the world.


Elf skill relative to shorter lived creatures skill levels

This one is easy.

Elf NPC's are all a few levels higher than their counterparts among other races, which also compensates for elves being fewer in number. If you're playing an elf PC and starting at level one, just say that you're a very young elf.


Predator density

One approach is to have the world be absurdly bioproductive, everything overgrown and teaming with life. Your campaign setting is going to look very different than most if you do this, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Another is to just change the lore for a bunch of the monsters and make them herbivores. That won't stop you from using them as enemies; some of the most violent and territorial animals in real life, like hippos, rhinos, and wild bulls, are herbivores.


Unchanged murder and inheritance laws in a world where speak to dead is at least somewhat available

How much of a change would this really cause? Speak With Dead would just give you a new way of gathering (very strong) evidence for such cases. The laws themselves wouldn't necessarily be different.

jqavins
2016-01-06, 09:40 AM
Dwarf food productionOne solution is to have dwarves practice conventional agriculture and pastoralism in the sheltered valleys and plateaus within their mountains. That makes them less of a subterranean race though, which kind of ruins them.
It only ruins one conception of them, i.e. dwarves as altogether subterranean. Personally, that's never been my concept of Dwarves. I see them as masters of stonework and mining, but with most of them having homes on the surface. Their stonework includes a lot of surface buildings, they trade with other surface dwellers, etc. Sure, some prefer to spend all or most of their time underground, but there are dwarven farmers just as there must be Klingon farmers we never hear about.



Unchanged murder and inheritance laws in a world where speak to dead is at least somewhat available
How much of a change would this really cause? Speak With Dead would just give you a new way of gathering (very strong) evidence for such cases. The laws themselves wouldn't necessarily be different.
I agree, but how about murder and inheritance laws where resurrection is at least somewhat available?

LudicSavant
2016-01-06, 10:21 AM
Warriors in high heels.

JoeJ
2016-01-06, 04:57 PM
The worst offender for me is polytheistic religions that act like monotheistic religions.

MrZJunior
2016-01-06, 05:24 PM
Magical deus ex machina devices.

Tzi
2016-01-06, 05:28 PM
The worst offender for me is polytheistic religions that act like monotheistic religions.

This for certain is part of my gripe with standard D&D religion. Mainly the whole Gods are universal aspect. I.E. no matter what culture you are in all gods and goddesses are uniform across all societies.

Really, Palor is Sun God good guy law guy everywhere? EVERY CULTURE HAS PALOR?!

JoeJ
2016-01-06, 09:49 PM
This for certain is part of my gripe with standard D&D religion. Mainly the whole Gods are universal aspect. I.E. no matter what culture you are in all gods and goddesses are uniform across all societies.

Really, Palor is Sun God good guy law guy everywhere? EVERY CULTURE HAS PALOR?!

And Pelor, along with every other god, has missionaries and evangelists that try to get people to convert, and an ethos that his priests give sermons about to a congregation that meets once a week, and has faithful believers who go to be with him after they die. The developers apparently have absolutely no idea how polytheistic religions actually work.

Tzi
2016-01-06, 10:51 PM
And Pelor, along with every other god, has missionaries and evangelists that try to get people to convert, and an ethos that his priests give sermons about to a congregation that meets once a week, and has faithful believers who go to be with him after they die. The developers apparently have absolutely no idea how polytheistic religions actually work.

Eh, its not ..... errrrr the most incorrect. All of those are features of SOME religions, even some mystery cults of the late Roman Empire and post Roman world.

But like ALL OF THEM!?

JoeJ
2016-01-06, 11:37 PM
Eh, its not ..... errrrr the most incorrect. All of those are features of SOME religions, even some mystery cults of the late Roman Empire and post Roman world.

But like ALL OF THEM!?

The developers obviously used modern American Christianity as their model and either didn't know or didn't care how different that is from the religions of the ancient world.

Blake Hannon
2016-01-07, 05:00 AM
The developers obviously used modern American Christianity as their model and either didn't know or didn't care how different that is from the religions of the ancient world.

Oh god so much this. The writers, from Gygax onward, clearly had/have no idea how paganism actually works.

The different gods and temples in DnD actually have more in common with the different Abrahamic faiths in the way they interact. They compete for worshipers, have their own self-contained clerical hierarchies, etc. The problem with that is that the gods in question aren't described as monotheistic overgods like God or Allah or Hashem; they're described as each having authority over a very specific aspect of the world, like pagan gods, and that kind of structure doesn't work at all for pagan religions.

Its a failure of both education, and imagination. The writers knew a little bit of pop culture trivia about ancient religions, but their only practical knowledge of religion was modern Abrahamism. So they stuck the two together and created a Frankenstein's monster of stupid.


The way I've done religion in most of my campaigns is kind of Bronze/Iron Age style. Each society worships different gods with different names and associated rituals, but almost everyone recognizes each other's gods to just be different interpretations of the same cosmic forces.

For instance, a nation of human farmers might believe that Pelor is the head of the pantheon (crops need sun more than anything), his younger brother Kord is of secondary importance (storms bring the rains, which crops also need), and Artheyan the earth goddess is Kord's wife and equally important. Maybe they have fertility rituals during the rainy season, when they believe Kord and Artheyan are annually re-consummating their marriage, and spend the rest of the year worshipping Pelor as the king of the gods as the sunlight does its work.

Meanwhile, the orc tribes in the nearby mountains aren't farmers. The sun and earth are important, but much less so. Due to their windswept and weather-battered mountain home, the most important god for them is the storm god, who they call Gruumsh. Like the humans, the orcs believe that the sun god and the storm god are brothers, but they believe that Gruumsh is the older brother and king of the pantheon, and that Pelor (or whatever their name for him is) is the younger, submissive brother. Artheyan (or Arkten as they call her) is a lesser goddess for them, and conversely they also worship a god of wild beasts who the humans only acknowledge as a minor demigod.

If a human priest and an orc shaman met, they would recognize that Kord and Gruumsh are the same god, or at least similar enough for it not to matter. They might disagree about the relative importance of the various deities, but there would be some overlap in both belief and practice, and if the humans and orcs started coexisting you would probably start getting interesting hybrid cults that combine traits from the human and orcish versions of the gods.

Of course, there will also be some outliers. Some societies will have religions that are totally alien from most. For instance, the dorfs might worship a goddess of the deep underdark who no one else has even heard of. Maybe there's a nearby dragonborn empire that eschews paganism entirely, and worships Io as the monotheistic overgod of everything, believing that the "gods" worshipped by other societies are just primitive anthropomorphizations of different aspects of Io. Maybe when humans and dragonborn start exchanging ideas, you get a mystery cult within the human farming society that continues to worship the human version of the gods, but does so within the framework of them all being different faces or avatars of Io, a la some versions of Hinduism. Etc.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-07, 05:43 AM
This for certain is part of my gripe with standard D&D religion. Mainly the whole Gods are universal aspect. I.E. no matter what culture you are in all gods and goddesses are uniform across all societies.

Really, Palor is Sun God good guy law guy everywhere? EVERY CULTURE HAS PALOR?!

Well that's because in D&D gods are presences in the world, not independently serviced faith systems. Pelor's messengers and agents descend across the world to do pelor stuff. Clerics that worship pelor can conjur pelor-y life bolts because pelor gives them tangible magic powers. It's the kind of universe where fairly regularly at least on a historical scale people die get resurrected and can go "Yep. Was dead, visited the afterlife pelor was there". Resurrection and Raising isn't even a miracle it's something that can be done by any cleric that decides to go out and thump some beasties for a few months.

Pelor has an actual house that you can go see with a 5th level spell. Pelor is the good guy law sunshine guy everywhere because he's actually the good law sunshine guy. In the D&D-style cosmology god's aren't cultural artifacts, they're verifiable facts that can be verified within the adventuring lifespan of most PCs.

Which isn't to say you couldn't have I guess every culture that worships a god cause it to form in reality by just by the power of their faith I guess. I've seen settings take that approach. Just it's hardly unreasonable or surprising that all the world's cultures would converge on the worship of one sun deity when worshiping him gives you flashy magic powers, and a mid-level PC class (relatively common by 3.P city generation tables) can take people back & forth to visit his home on a daily basis.


Particularly because PCs are the lens by which we view these settings. It's not like you can have PCs meet a bunch of people with a totally different worship system and not have them go "Well lets cast plane shift and go see who is right."

Blake Hannon
2016-01-07, 05:46 AM
Well that's because in D&D specifically gods actual presences in the world, not independently serviced faith systems. Palor's messengers and agents descend across the world to do palor stuff. Clerics that worship pelor can conjur pelor-y life bolts because pelor gives them tangible magic powers. It's the kind of universe where fairly regularly at least on a historical scale people die, get resurrected and can go "Yep. Was dead, visted the afterlife pelor was there".

Pelor has like an actual house that you can go see with a 5th level spell. Pelor is the good guy law sunshine guy everywhere because he's actually the good law sunshine guy. In the D&D-style cosmology god's aren't cultural artifacts, they're verifiable facts that can be verified within the adventuring lifespan of most PCs.

Which isn't to say you couldn't have I guess every culture that worships a god cause it to form in reality by just by the power of their faith I guess. I've seen settings take that approach. Just it's hardly unreasonable or surprising that all the world's cultures would converge on the worship of one sun deity when worshiping him gives you flashy magic powers, and a mid-level PC class (relatively common by 3.P city generation tables) can take people back & forth to visit his home on a daily basis.

That's one approach. I personally prefer the gods to be more distant, closer to the Eberron end of the spectrum; there's definitely SOMEONE granting spells to clerics, but the details are up for debate.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-07, 05:54 AM
That's one approach. I personally prefer the gods to be more distant, closer to the Eberron end of the spectrum; there's definitely SOMEONE granting spells to clerics, but the details are up for debate.

Right but the specific objection was to Pelor, and breaking verisimilitude is generally about some lack of internal consistency or something that doesn't make sense as a "real" within the context of the setting. The lack of hugely separated systems like we have IRL is fairly sensible there, because our world's faith systems arose in an environment where I can't go "OK. I've killed enough Orcs, let me go check which religion is correct. Be back in literally 5 minutes".

My point was in a setting like the one Pelor is from, it might be something of an unfair or unreasonable expectation that different cultures wind up with vastly different gods. We shouldn't just attempt to make our settings mirror our own worlds, but take into account what the implications of that world and the rules it has are.

In a setting where you can't visit gods with a 5th level spell, the whole culturally separate thing is a fair approach. However that winds up being as much about the reach of the settings magic as it does the religions it contains.

Blake Hannon
2016-01-07, 06:09 AM
Right but the specific objection was to Pelor, and breaking verisimilitude is generally about some lack of internal consistency or something that doesn't make sense as a "real" within the context of the setting. The lack of hugely separated systems like we have IRL is fairly sensible there, because our world's faith systems arose in an environment where I can't go "OK. I've killed enough Orcs, let me go check which religion is correct. Be back in literally 5 minutes".

My point was in a setting like the one Pelor is from, it might be something of an unfair or unreasonable expectation that different cultures wind up with vastly different gods. We shouldn't just attempt to make our settings mirror our own worlds, but take into account what the implications of that world and the rules it has are.

In a setting where you can't visit gods with a 5th level spell, the whole culturally separate thing is a fair approach. However that winds up being as much about the reach of the settings magic as it does the religions it contains.

Ah, fair enough.

To be honest, even though its not my favorite approach, I'd like to see a world like that with objectively real and active gods that really takes itself seriously. There are so many implications of verifiable divinities that are rarely addressed.

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-07, 11:11 AM
I wholeheartedly agree with the "magic hasn't progressed or been adapted in X,000 years."

My Buddy Cop campaign on here (which has gone dark mostly due to my own lack of time to devote to it) was very tongue in cheek, but it applied some common sense - a city guard for a large city would conscript the local Wizarding school and temples to recruit clerics and have magical items on hand.

Standard issue stones of sending to coordinate efforts and communicate emergencies across the city. Clerics to heal and even revive veteran guards who the city has spent lots of time and money training. Using Speak With Dead and other spells to gather evidence (although I pretty much MacGuffin'd this right from the get go).

In addition, the Wizard school has realized enchanting mundane items with basic cantrips or low-level spells could make them FORTUNES. Broom of Prestidigitation - cost to craft, less than a hundred gold. Value - broom that cleans an area immediately, replacing at least a few servants to clean.

Take that further - manufacturing, smithing, construction... all would benefit greatly from cheaply created magical items. The market for making these would have to be huge, especially if the Wizards could reduce costs with industrialization, mass production (allowing them to also secure "expensive" material components in bulk at discount prices) and economies of scale. Suddenly, magic could be everywhere, even without it being "magitech" futuristic implementation. We don't need jet packs or robo armies (although backpacks of levitation and Warforged say hi), but the fact that not a single business owner or even wealthy noble stops to think "man, this magic stuff could make my life a LOT easier and earn me a TON more money" is a little silly.

sengmeng
2016-01-07, 04:39 PM
The biggest breaker of verisimilitude, and it's basically all my DM's making the same mistake, is creatures who are mindless fighting exactly like thinking creatures. Bandits, predators, and "cowards" like goblins would all flee after taking a relatively small amount of damage/casualties, while golems and zombies would fight until destroyed. No lion would fight a wildebeest to the death; if it got badly gored, it would take off.

Sam113097
2016-01-07, 04:49 PM
I think that this has been brought up before in the thread, but one of the things that bothers me in most fantasy settings is that people know about the existence of gods with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.
Think about how much that would affect a society. Why would anyone choose to actively follow an evil god when there is documented proof that it will lead to them suffering in fantasy Hell? If everyone knew that certain behaviors would lead to Heaven or the Upper Planes or whatever, why would they ever choose otherwise?
I like a little uncertainty.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-07, 04:56 PM
The biggest breaker of verisimilitude, and it's basically all my DM's making the same mistake, is creatures who are mindless fighting exactly like thinking creatures. Bandits, predators, and "cowards" like goblins would all flee after taking a relatively small amount of damage/casualties, while golems and zombies would fight until destroyed. No lion would fight a wildebeest to the death; if it got badly gored, it would take off.


Side note that this can just be a mode-switching problem for GMs. Unlike a player who is their PC all the time the DM is many NPCs in the same session all with different motivations and goals. The switch to combat can often just be clicking into "OK. These guys are trying to bash the PCs" mode without really considering the full range of their actions beyond "Make attack rolls, get past their initiative count".

It's not that the GM thinks it's sensible for bandits or goblins to fight to the death specifically, just "Hey these guys might want to flee" just isn't quite in occupying space in their mind at the moment.

As a player if this bothers you a good way to give you GM a bit of mental reminder is to say ask something like:

"A lion? Seems tough. Can I make a Nature roll to see if I know what might scare it off, or if there are any injuries that will make it back down?"
"Goblins. Sure are a lot of them. What do I roll to know about goblin tactics? Will they fight to the death or can we break their morale?"

Even if the GMs answer to this is "No roll allowed!" or you simply fail calling it out might do something to put these options in the GMs immediate mental space. I know I certainly fall into the camp of GMs that generally don't make things flee as much as they should not because every enemy is a crazy kamikaze fanatic, but instead because it isn't at the forefront of my mind whenever circumstances conspire to make combat happen.


EDIT:

There's also the issue of "Fleeing" in the combat engines of some systems and especially D&D that basically makes attempts at doing so the equivalent of "Lay down and die" in terms of your survival odds.

Players also need to be willing to accept a certain amount of "They flee. Initiative drops. If you want to pursue we're using non-combat chase rules". Since the way movement and actions are handled simply moving away is just asking to be charged even harder next turn, at best. I've had players object to this and it really does make any attempts to flee pointless.

Mith
2016-01-07, 05:35 PM
As thoughts on the fact that gods all share the same name across multiple cultures, I think that can be solved more to say that various cultures focus on different gods as more important to them. There are "Ruling Gods", but they are more first among equals more then actual heads of the pantheon, so you focus on those that matter to you. As for the names being the same across the board, I argue that that is a translation of the actual dialogue. If I were writing a book, I would differentiate between names. In a game setting that is going on in real time, I want to keep details to a minimum.

JoeJ
2016-01-07, 06:00 PM
Right but the specific objection was to Pelor, and breaking verisimilitude is generally about some lack of internal consistency or something that doesn't make sense as a "real" within the context of the setting. The lack of hugely separated systems like we have IRL is fairly sensible there, because our world's faith systems arose in an environment where I can't go "OK. I've killed enough Orcs, let me go check which religion is correct. Be back in literally 5 minutes".

My point was in a setting like the one Pelor is from, it might be something of an unfair or unreasonable expectation that different cultures wind up with vastly different gods. We shouldn't just attempt to make our settings mirror our own worlds, but take into account what the implications of that world and the rules it has are.

In a setting where you can't visit gods with a 5th level spell, the whole culturally separate thing is a fair approach. However that winds up being as much about the reach of the settings magic as it does the religions it contains.

My objection is not that everyone knows Pelor, but that worship of Pelor (like just about every other god) is treated like American Christianity and not like worship of Apollo, Ra, or Belenos.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-07, 06:08 PM
My objection is not that everyone knows Pelor, but that worship of Pelor (like just about every other god) is treated like American Christianity and not like worship of Apollo, Ra, or Belenos.

My post was not in response to yours, but in response to someone whose complaint was that everyone worships pelor:


This for certain is part of my gripe with standard D&D religion. Mainly the whole Gods are universal aspect. I.E. no matter what culture you are in all gods and goddesses are uniform across all societies.

Really, Palor is Sun God good guy law guy everywhere? EVERY CULTURE HAS PALOR?!

VoxRationis
2016-01-07, 07:56 PM
My thoughts about the demonstrably real gods are that it would seem to me that they should somewhat reduce cultural diversity. If the god of the sun is real, important, and accessible, his preferences, even regarding pretty petty things (say, fashion) should make themselves known in the real world. Every cleric who plane shifts to Pelor's realm is going to see what kind of dress, what kind of architecture, what language their god most likes, and it would seem very odd to me if they didn't carry that back to their respective peoples and influence them. One might argue that some people would think they shouldn't defile the holy by imitating it, but the priests can just ask Pelor if he minds or if he would be flattered. The same ideals, the same aesthetics, would show up every place Pelor had preeminence. I suppose Pelor could show himself to one culture in a chiton and another in a loincloth, but why would he, especially at the beginning, before people have had a chance to diverge significantly? Cultural diversity implies that the gods consciously go about instilling differences in different populations, going well out of their way to do so.

GorinichSerpant
2016-01-08, 12:10 AM
My thoughts about the demonstrably real gods are that it would seem to me that they should somewhat reduce cultural diversity. If the god of the sun is real, important, and accessible, his preferences, even regarding pretty petty things (say, fashion) should make themselves known in the real world. Every cleric who plane shifts to Pelor's realm is going to see what kind of dress, what kind of architecture, what language their god most likes, and it would seem very odd to me if they didn't carry that back to their respective peoples and influence them. One might argue that some people would think they shouldn't defile the holy by imitating it, but the priests can just ask Pelor if he minds or if he would be flattered. The same ideals, the same aesthetics, would show up every place Pelor had preeminence. I suppose Pelor could show himself to one culture in a chiton and another in a loincloth, but why would he, especially at the beginning, before people have had a chance to diverge significantly? Cultural diversity implies that the gods consciously go about instilling differences in different populations, going well out of their way to do so.

This can be solved by making everyone perceive the Gods in different ways. People seeing his physical form differently could be something not in Pelor's control, just a property of being a God. Say, a God's true form is to much for a mortal mind to handle so eyes adjust it to something they can understand.

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-08, 09:53 AM
The biggest breaker of verisimilitude, and it's basically all my DM's making the same mistake, is creatures who are mindless fighting exactly like thinking creatures. Bandits, predators, and "cowards" like goblins would all flee after taking a relatively small amount of damage/casualties, while golems and zombies would fight until destroyed. No lion would fight a wildebeest to the death; if it got badly gored, it would take off.

But then what about loot???! :)

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-08, 09:59 AM
EDIT:

There's also the issue of "Fleeing" in the combat engines of some systems and especially D&D that basically makes attempts at doing so the equivalent of "Lay down and die" in terms of your survival odds.

Players also need to be willing to accept a certain amount of "They flee. Initiative drops. If you want to pursue we're using non-combat chase rules". Since the way movement and actions are handled simply moving away is just asking to be charged even harder next turn, at best. I've had players object to this and it really does make any attempts to flee pointless.

For the record, combat systems tend to reflect the concept that running away leads to certain death simply because that's how it is in real life.

Military history is rife with examples where the highest amount of casualties an army suffers is often when their ranks break or they are fleeing battle. Without an effective defense OR an ability to mount a retaliatory offense, combat quickly becomes a one-sides affair that wipes out the fleeing force.

Just a little sprinkle of I'm sure useless knowledge.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-08, 12:17 PM
For the record, combat systems tend to reflect the concept that running away leads to certain death simply because that's how it is in real life.

Military history is rife with examples where the highest amount of casualties an army suffers is often when their ranks break or they are fleeing battle. Without an effective defense OR an ability to mount a retaliatory offense, combat quickly becomes a one-sides affair that wipes out the fleeing force.

Just a little sprinkle of I'm sure useless knowledge.

Military history and military battles are an inappropriate point of comparison. Nothing about the scale of military scale engagements is applicable. D&D combat is not a clash between two large forces during wartime where you have the appropriate numbers to encircle an enemy or cavalry to run them down with. D&D battles do not typically take place in open, nor is either side of a D&D fight typically going into the engagement with extended battle plans.

D&D fights are extremely small affairs usually numbering less than 5 on each side. Often with the PCs (the most likely persuers) being the outnumbered ones when against the kind of enemies that might flee (teams of bandits, goblins). It probably wouldn't even be fair to categorize the average D&D affair as a skirmish. Combat takes place in dungeons, deep wilderness areas or urban environments most frequently. These are places where the combination of numbers and terrain would make escape a very real possibility. They're pop affairs that happen spontaneously with the immediate surroundings likely being more familiar to the opposing side than PCs just because PCs go to the adventure, not the other way around.

The simple fact is that uniform movement speeds, simplistic terrain rules and lack of variability in running efforts means that any relative change in positions is nearly impossible. If your opponent moves away from you in any fashion 9/10 you can wind up in the space relative to them with no checks or variability involved. This just wouldn't be the case in a more measured simulation of movement with regards to the kind of numbers and spaces D&D operates in.

jqavins
2016-01-08, 12:38 PM
It's not that the GM thinks it's sensible for bandits or goblins to fight to the death specifically, just "Hey these guys might want to flee" just isn't quite in occupying space in their mind at the moment.

As a player if this bothers you a good way to give you GM a bit of mental reminder is to say ask something like:

"A lion? Seems tough. Can I make a Nature roll to see if I know what might scare it off, or if there are any injuries that will make it back down?"
"Goblins. Sure are a lot of them. What do I roll to know about goblin tactics? Will they fight to the death or can we break their morale?"

Even if the GMs answer to this is "No roll allowed!" or you simply fail calling it out might do something to put these options in the GMs immediate mental space.

Well that's because in D&D gods are presences in the world, not independently serviced faith systems. Pelor's messengers and agents descend across the world to do pelor stuff. Clerics that worship pelor can conjur pelor-y life bolts because pelor gives them tangible magic powers. It's the kind of universe where fairly regularly at least on a historical scale people die get resurrected and can go "Yep. Was dead, visited the afterlife pelor was there"...
You, sir, do not deserve that forum name.

sktarq
2016-01-08, 03:32 PM
If you think that's bad, look at the Eberron timeline (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Timeline)....

Edit: basically Keith Baker is a good writer, terrible with numbers. He also put up sizes and orbital distances for the moons in an online article, without first working out that this meant the largest would cover IIRC 1/4 the width of the sky. 9 times the apparent width of Earth's Moon. And population numbers which made Khorvaire less thickly populated than the Australian Outback.

Having spent many hours trying to fix the population issues (I actually just used arcseconds and orbital period for moons myself) I have to second this. But would really have to point out Sharn as his worst example. They give tower hieghts, diameters, and height per floor (thus giving a rough amount of floor area of a tower) figure out how many towers are around (map/basic mentions/point to point distances) and you then realize that the population given is not close to enough to make the place feel busy-its almost a ghost town even using a 40% usable space ratio (the other 60% being walls, roads, hallways, utilities, lift shafts etc)

Jendekit
2016-01-08, 05:15 PM
One solution is to have dwarves practice conventional agriculture and pastoralism in the sheltered valleys and plateaus within their mountains. That makes them less of a subterranean race though, which kind of ruins them.

I remember someone on the old WOTC boards suggested dwarven aquaculture, with huge natural or artificial lakes under sun-windows. You'd still need the dwarves to get some kind of fish food to support that though, and the space requirements to raise enough fish for a decently sized dwarven city would be kind of ridiculous.

The best option is probably just to go full fantasy and invent a whole underground ecosystem that isn't based on photosynthesis. The underdark in a lot of settings has forests of giant, luminous mushrooms all over the place. Maybe those mushrooms (or a similar underdark producer) saps energy from the spirit of the earth or something, which in a DnD world is no more or less mystical than being fed by the light of the sun. Maybe there are heat-using plants that create huge tangled forests around underground hot water and magma vents? These producers are then food for all sorts of underground fauna. This could feed not only the dwarves, but also all the various underdark races who typically have the same issues.

If you use that last approach, dwarven cuisine is going to be very different from what the surface dwellers eat, since its all derived from an alien ecosystem. Maybe there's a roaring trade in exotic foods between the dwarf caverns and the cities of the surface races? Major cities might have pricey dwarf restaurants where you can order glowy mushroom salad with authentic blind cave shrimp sauce, while meanwhile wealthy dwarves in their caverns are paying top dollar for such exotic delicacies as mashed potatoes and lamb chops?

This operates under one kind of assumption for dwarves that I don't think I've ever actually seen. That assumption that dwarves live entirely underground. Personally, the way that I run dwarves in my Dawn setting is taken straight from the Inca in South America (if someone conflates the Inca with Aztecs or Maya then so help me I will find a way to punch you through the internet). They don't live underground, but instead they live at the tops of mountain ranges.

But if you do go alien-subterranian ecosystem then look up the life at deep ocean vents. No light, no photosynthesis, but still (to quote Jurassic Park) life finds a way.

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-08, 11:19 PM
Military history and military battles are an inappropriate point of comparison. Nothing about the scale of military scale engagements is applicable. D&D combat is not a clash between two large forces during wartime where you have the appropriate numbers to encircle an enemy or cavalry to run them down with. D&D battles do not typically take place in open, nor is either side of a D&D fight typically going into the engagement with extended battle plans.

D&D fights are extremely small affairs usually numbering less than 5 on each side. Often with the PCs (the most likely persuers) being the outnumbered ones when against the kind of enemies that might flee (teams of bandits, goblins). It probably wouldn't even be fair to categorize the average D&D affair as a skirmish. Combat takes place in dungeons, deep wilderness areas or urban environments most frequently. These are places where the combination of numbers and terrain would make escape a very real possibility. They're pop affairs that happen spontaneously with the immediate surroundings likely being more familiar to the opposing side than PCs just because PCs go to the adventure, not the other way around.

The simple fact is that uniform movement speeds, simplistic terrain rules and lack of variability in running efforts means that any relative change in positions is nearly impossible. If your opponent moves away from you in any fashion 9/10 you can wind up in the space relative to them with no checks or variability involved. This just wouldn't be the case in a more measured simulation of movement with regards to the kind of numbers and spaces D&D operates in.

Okay... I'm not sure variable movement speed would matter much, if at all. Sure, you have differences in gait speed and experience handling terrain. But this is a setting where you can cast a magical missile within 120 feet that will never miss. Not to mention ranged weapons, which every well-rounded character should have at their disposal.

If you turned your back and ran away from me, while I walk my normal speed and occasionally stop and shoot arrows at you until you are half a football field away from me, I don't think your Real Life run speed is going to makes retreat any more realistic in any scenario.

JoeJ
2016-01-08, 11:57 PM
My post was not in response to yours, but in response to someone whose complaint was that everyone worships pelor:

Oops! Sorry.

raygun goth
2016-01-09, 01:41 AM
Potatoes, carrots, tobacco, pumpkins and other squashes. Purple dye. Almost always without explanation that isn't racist. In fact, any kind of pretendy-Europe culture like D&D's default without also depiction of other pretendy-cultures from other places. If there gets to be a pretend-France I would very much like there to be a pretend-Silk-Road and a pretend-India and pretend-Americas... but please don't put them right next to each other. Drags me right out of the setting.

JoeJ
2016-01-09, 02:19 AM
Potatoes, carrots, tobacco, pumpkins and other squashes. Purple dye. Almost always without explanation that isn't racist. In fact, any kind of pretendy-Europe culture like D&D's default without also depiction of other pretendy-cultures from other places. If there gets to be a pretend-France I would very much like there to be a pretend-Silk-Road and a pretend-India and pretend-Americas... but please don't put them right next to each other. Drags me right out of the setting.

I'd add platinum to the list, too.

kraftcheese
2016-01-09, 06:42 AM
Potatoes, carrots, tobacco, pumpkins and other squashes. Purple dye. Almost always without explanation that isn't racist. In fact, any kind of pretendy-Europe culture like D&D's default without also depiction of other pretendy-cultures from other places. If there gets to be a pretend-France I would very much like there to be a pretend-Silk-Road and a pretend-India and pretend-Americas... but please don't put them right next to each other. Drags me right out of the setting.

Purple dye was rare and expensive, sure, but it was from a specific Mediterranean island's snail goo so it IS still technically European.

But yeah, personally the vegetables and analogous countries/peoples don't fuss me overmuch when I'm suspending my disbelief of magic and dragons and Drizzt's stupid tiger to be honest.

I mean if you're looking at Forgotten Realms none of the European based lands are even particularly true to their historical counterparts; theyre vaguely based on them but it's not really a one to one reproduction+magic so it doesn't worry me.

Mr.Moron
2016-01-09, 09:40 AM
Anyway to add mine: No fantastical elements to food, livestock or other relatively mundane things. It's like:

So what kind of terrain you guys got around here?

Oh you know. Forest. Talking forest. Lake filled with boiling water. Volcano with portal to hell. Underground spider kingdom.

Neat. What kind of large predators live there?

Dragon. Owlbear. 3-Headed Troll. Living pile of acid. Guys with goats for heads.


I see. What kind of animals do you guys raise?

Cow Chicken Pig Sheep. WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS THAT?



Seriously. How everything in the setting fantastic and different, except for the animals and foods in wide use. Of all the crazy and fantastic creatures and plants this world has not a single one was useful for domestication?

jqavins
2016-01-09, 10:35 AM
Potatoes, carrots, tobacco, pumpkins and other squashes. Purple dye. Almost always without explanation that isn't racist. In fact, any kind of pretendy-Europe culture like D&D's default without also depiction of other pretendy-cultures from other places. If there gets to be a pretend-France I would very much like there to be a pretend-Silk-Road and a pretend-India and pretend-Americas... but please don't put them right next to each other. Drags me right out of the setting.

Doesn't bother me so much. After all, it is pretendy-Europe. It's fantasy, not historical fiction. This is not to say that all fantasy needs to be in pretendy-Europe; I too would like to see things like pretend-India etc., but historically inaccurate food stuffs there wouldn't bother me either. I agree with not putting radically different cultures right next to each other, which would be one of the nice things about a pretendy-silk road. But while this would be nice, I don't find it's lack to be jarring.


Anyway to add mine: No fantastical elements to food, livestock or other relatively mundane things. It's like:

So what kind of terrain you guys got around here?

Oh you know. Forest. Talking forest. Lake filled with boiling water. Volcano with portal to hell. Underground spider kingdom.

Neat. What kind of large predators live there?

Dragon. Owlbear. 3-Headed Troll. Living pile of acid. Guys with goats for heads.

I see. What kind of animals do you guys raise?

Cow Chicken Pig Sheep. WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS THAT?

Seriously. How everything in the setting fantastic and different, except for the animals and foods in wide use. Of all the crazy and fantastic creatures and plants this world has not a single one was useful for domestication?
Now here, I see your point, but this one doesn't bother me much either, and there's actually a good reason for it. The sense of drama and of the fantastic, I think, is enhanced by having a transition from the familiar in one area - at home, in town, etc. - to the utterly fantastic in another - out on "the adventure." Of course, medieval Europe isn't exactly familiar to modern Americans and Europeans like most of us reading this, but it's a lot closer than the outside town world of dragons, living acid pools, etc. Also, a pretendy-medieval Europe can be made even more familiar by the inclusion of familiar but anachronistic elements like potatoes and squash. And, to me, that's good for the fantastic feel.


I'd add platinum to the list, too.
Here, I agree. This should fall under the same arguments for being not a big deal as the rest above, but it (hypocritically, I admit) doesn't, and for two reasons. First, I'm an engineer with more interest in chemistry and metallurgy than agriculture. Second, platinum isn't really all that much more valuable than gold.* Why is this one anachronism (and inaccurate anachronism at that) more bothersome to me than the others? Like I said; it's just because of who I am.


* Today, gold is US$35.56/gram and platinum is US$28.30/gram. Their price ratio has been different historically, and often favors platinum, but not generally by anywhere near 10:1.

JoeJ
2016-01-09, 12:46 PM
Here, I agree. This should fall under the same arguments for being not a big deal as the rest above, but it (hypocritically, I admit) doesn't, and for two reasons. First, I'm an engineer with more interest in chemistry and metallurgy than agriculture. Second, platinum isn't really all that much more valuable than gold.* Why is this one anachronism (and inaccurate anachronism at that) more bothersome to me than the others? Like I said; it's just because of who I am.


* Today, gold is US$35.56/gram and platinum is US$28.30/gram. Their price ratio has been different historically, and often favors platinum, but not generally by anywhere near 10:1.

I can see that. Anachronisms like that probably matter more to me because I'm an archaeologist in r/l. For that same reason I get bothered by ancient abandoned ruins with the contents mostly intact, sometimes even to the point of having non-magical tapestries or even books that have survived centuries in a damp (i.e. mildew on the walls) dungeon.

sktarq
2016-01-09, 01:40 PM
Here is my thing with potato field in "pretendy France circa 1250" issues. . . Unless things are aiming at a very tight historical match (like say Seventh Sea) then a one-to-one historical match concerns me less than does the not-france have significantly different food than the not-Inca. The idea that wheat or wild goats have a historical range in the game world matters more than if that range correlates to the range in our world.

As for fantastic plants and animals not appearing in canon DnD - yeah that's an issue. 2E Darksun was a wonderful exception and was what made it obviously missing in all the other settings before or since (I will give some credit to the Vos lands of Birthright and the Eberron setting for it optional component section, and things like dark/glamer weave type stuff-but still thin on the ground)

And another thing-the GP sink for magic item creation. It is highly illogical. No reuse of special tools/alters/spaces for a discount? Those exotic oils/components have to be endemic to somewhere-which would lead to that place to have having an economic advantage in making certain magical item types. I home rule this to link certain magics to cultures. Magic carpets come from place X because the special baths you have soak to wool in are made with fresh herb there-otherwise you have to teleport there and back to get some or hauls lots of infused water to where you want to make your carpet (for example). But the whole process is just riddled with these kinds of issues.

Tzi
2016-01-09, 02:24 PM
Here is my thing with potato field in "pretendy France circa 1250" issues. . . Unless things are aiming at a very tight historical match (like say Seventh Sea) then a one-to-one historical match concerns me less than does the not-france have significantly different food than the not-Inca. The idea that wheat or wild goats have a historical range in the game world matters more than if that range correlates to the range in our world.

As for fantastic plants and animals not appearing in canon DnD - yeah that's an issue. 2E Darksun was a wonderful exception and was what made it obviously missing in all the other settings before or since (I will give some credit to the Vos lands of Birthright and the Eberron setting for it optional component section, and things like dark/glamer weave type stuff-but still thin on the ground)

I always come at world building from a language/culture perspective first. Partly a reflection of the field of study I do IRL. But glaringly obvious foods like that I try to have an explanation for. In my setting its not so subtly hinted that Humans, and indeed most conventional life was BROUGHT to the current world from another. Thus there is a dichotomy between the flora and fauna that is familiar and the aberrational and fantastical which may be a result of this incredibly ancient magi-tech colonization and or pre-colonization flora and fauna in the case of aberrations.

In general from all of this I think I've learned to stop worrying so much about verismilitude because D&D isn't a strict simulation game and to some extent it just has to be worked with. In my experience players will ignore certain things if they feel you've put the effort in in other areas and its not glaring. My players have come to love the attention to history, language and culture that I focused on, so they ignore that peoples resembling British Isles Celts have crude Blackpowder weapons and potato and corn crops. Or that there is already contact with Native Americany type people in an area that sort of resembles the 1000's in some respects.

raygun goth
2016-01-09, 03:04 PM
Purple dye was rare and expensive, sure, but it was from a specific Mediterranean island's snail goo so it IS still technically European.

But yeah, personally the vegetables and analogous countries/peoples don't fuss me overmuch when I'm suspending my disbelief of magic and dragons and Drizzt's stupid tiger to be honest.

I mean if you're looking at Forgotten Realms none of the European based lands are even particularly true to their historical counterparts; theyre vaguely based on them but it's not really a one to one reproduction+magic so it doesn't worry me.

They bother me because they basically eliminate the cultural groups I grew up with in favor of ignoring their contributions to the cultures being emulated. Basically erasing a entire continent full of awesome cultures because it's convenient. It's a kind of stealth racism on the part of the world builder, and it yanks me right out of a setting.

Tzi
2016-01-09, 03:25 PM
They bother me because they basically eliminate the cultural groups I grew up with in favor of ignoring their contributions to the cultures being emulated. Basically erasing a entire continent full of awesome cultures because it's convenient. It's a kind of stealth racism on the part of the world builder, and it yanks me right out of a setting.

I personally think its an artifact of having lots of races, and a flat understanding of culture.

I try very hard to come at things from a language standpoint. Right there it breaks from traditional D&D with Common as this universal Human language. "As roith ún gant as ún deng ai ulla'r dhouan." and "Agus bhí an domhan teanga amháin agus urlabhra amháin" carry different meanings and cultural nuance even if those are word for word the same basic sentence in English. "And the world had one language and one speech."

I find Europe usually becomes England..... or Germany.... or France.... or Rome. Africa becomes the Congo, all Deserts become Arabian Nights, and all Asia oddly becomes Japan (Poor China ain't never getting any love D:) ect.

If the peoples have different languages they are assured different cultures IMHO.

kraftcheese
2016-01-09, 03:32 PM
They bother me because they basically eliminate the cultural groups I grew up with in favor of ignoring their contributions to the cultures being emulated. Basically erasing a entire continent full of awesome cultures because it's convenient. It's a kind of stealth racism on the part of the world builder, and it yanks me right out of a setting.

Ahhh okay I get you; explaining it that way I pretty much agree with you.

raygun goth
2016-01-09, 05:23 PM
I personally think its an artifact of having lots of races, and a flat understanding of culture.

Oh, yeah, I always assume it's unintentional. That it's just an artifact of the way we usually build worlds.


I try very hard to come at things from a language standpoint. Right there it breaks from traditional D&D with Common as this universal Human language. "As roith ún gant as ún deng ai ulla'r dhouan." and "Agus bhí an domhan teanga amháin agus urlabhra amháin" carry different meanings and cultural nuance even if those are word for word the same basic sentence in English. "And the world had one language and one speech."

I find Europe usually becomes England..... or Germany.... or France.... or Rome. Africa becomes the Congo, all Deserts become Arabian Nights, and all Asia oddly becomes Japan (Poor China ain't never getting any love D:) ect.

If the peoples have different languages they are assured different cultures IMHO.

I agree. Honestly, the amount of Rome-centric settings is so saturated it's an artifact of our modern obsession with Rome. I mean, around the time Rome was conquering "the known world," the Han dynasty was twice its size. The Mayans had constructed elaborate sewer systems that used negative pressure (and rivaling modern New York sewers in their size). The Persians had a kingdom at least as big as Rome.

And oh man, I have so wanted to build a Chinese-themed setting forever. Maybe something deep in the aforementioned pretendy-Han dynasty and chronicles its collapse into three five? kingdoms.

Tzi
2016-01-09, 05:49 PM
Oh, yeah, I always assume it's unintentional. That it's just an artifact of the way we usually build worlds.



I agree. Honestly, the amount of Rome-centric settings is so saturated it's an artifact of our modern obsession with Rome. I mean, around the time Rome was conquering "the known world," the Han dynasty was twice its size. The Mayans had constructed elaborate sewer systems that used negative pressure (and rivaling modern New York sewers in their size). The Persians had a kingdom at least as big as Rome.

And oh man, I have so wanted to build a Chinese-themed setting forever. Maybe something deep in the aforementioned pretendy-Han dynasty and chronicles its collapse into three five? kingdoms.

I vaguely fall into that, though I am more Celtic-centric or Insular Celtic centric. I think I focus more on the cultures AROUND Rome than Rome-esque itself. I get the move away from Europe bit.

I am more into the cultures that were more victim of Rome than Rome. XD

ALSO it could be an artifact of historical reference, many people on this board Speak English as a first language and thus the Roman Empire looms large historically in the English speaking world.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-09, 06:31 PM
I agree. Honestly, the amount of Rome-centric settings is so saturated it's an artifact of our modern obsession with Rome. I mean, around the time Rome was conquering "the known world," the Han dynasty was twice its size. The Mayans had constructed elaborate sewer systems that used negative pressure (and rivaling modern New York sewers in their size). The Persians had a kingdom at least as big as Rome. At its greatest extent in around 100 CE, the Han dynasty was about 6.5 million square kilometers. 17 years later, at its greatest extent, Rome was about 5 million square kilometers. Bigger, yes. But no, the Han empire wasn't twice Rome's size.

However, at the empire's height, the Roman Emperor ruled over almost 12 million more subjects than the Han Emperor ever did. In fact, the Roman Emperors ruled more people than any rulers until Genghis Khan. Approximately 35% of all humans on Earth lived in the Roman Empire at its height, more than lived in the Mongolian Empire at its height.

The Romans do not receive undue credit. Though the Chinese might not get the credit they deserve...

As for the Persians, yes both the Persian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire were bigger than Rome (both for size, the Persian Empire also for population by percentage). They were both bigger than the Han dynasty as well. The Sasanians were even contemporary to the late Roman Empire.

sktarq
2016-01-09, 06:56 PM
There is a very simple and very reasonable why Europe, Rome, and Egypt get used so often and it is a good one. Knowledge Resources -both for the DM and the utilization of the limited shared knowledge of the players/DM. For the former it is just easy to find info on the Romans or the 12th Century Brits vs what was going on in early Mongol led Empire of China for most Anglophones.
Also the Romans wrote stuff down that had become part of our modern cultural knowledge. . .

Which leads me to the second half of the resources issue-shared knowledge. If I call a leader a Satrap some players will think I'm making up funny words for my new culture, some will have heard of it-maybe even as an "old-timey-leader-title" but few (one if I'm lucky) will have any idea how this NPC relates in rank to to the Duke/Duc they have been running msgs to in rank ability to make decisions etc (which may be important to game play).

Most players are historically illiterate -so much so that elimating a few markers/words (Pyramids, pharaoh, animal headed gods for for Egypt, "Senate", "Legion", Lorica Segmenta, Coliseums, for Rome) actually blinds the vast majority of players to the historical ripoff they are adventuring in.

The details still engage players well but often they think I'm making them up. The problem comes when if I am running Bronze Age China the players have so little knowledge of what is coming out of my mouth that it requires a ton of work and long description to bring the world to life. . . And that may be disruptive for players and DMs-especially beer and pretzels types.

Things like the City Walls eing usually square and taking in regions of farmland etc to be larger than the city is really a hallmark of China in a certain age but it requires planning and description to get that across to players. Describing a hundred foot tall tower with each brick being glazed with a different image was something that at least two of my PC's insisted had to magic when I tossed it into OA inspite of its real world origin. And that disrupted to flow of the game so I see why people avoid it. Doing it well requires skill or educating both yourself AND your players.

Tzi
2016-01-09, 07:06 PM
There is a very simple and very reasonable why Europe, Rome, and Egypt get used so often and it is a good one. Knowledge Resources -both for the DM and the utilization of the limited shared knowledge of the players/DM. For the former it is just easy to find info on the Romans or the 12th Century Brits vs what was going on in early Mongol led Empire of China for most Anglophones.
Also the Romans wrote stuff down that had become part of our modern cultural knowledge. . .

Which leads me to the second half of the resources issue-shared knowledge. If I call a leader a Satrap some players will think I'm making up funny words for my new culture, some will have heard of it-maybe even as an "old-timey-leader-title" but few (one if I'm lucky) will have any idea how this NPC relates in rank to to the Duke/Duc they have been running msgs to in rank ability to make decisions etc (which may be important to game play).

Most players are historically illiterate -so much so that elimating a few markers/words (Pyramids, pharaoh, animal headed gods for for Egypt, "Senate", "Legion", Lorica Segmenta, Coliseums, for Rome) actually blinds the vast majority of players to the historical ripoff they are adventuring in.

The details still engage players well but often they think I'm making them up. The problem comes when if I am running Bronze Age China the players have so little knowledge of what is coming out of my mouth that it requires a ton of work and long description to bring the world to life. . . And that may be disruptive for players and DMs-especially beer and pretzels types.

Things like the City Walls eing usually square and taking in regions of farmland etc to be larger than the city is really a hallmark of China in a certain age but it requires planning and description to get that across to players. Describing a hundred foot tall tower with each brick being glazed with a different image was something that at least two of my PC's insisted had to magic when I tossed it into OA inspite of its real world origin. And that disrupted to flow of the game so I see why people avoid it. Doing it well requires skill or educating both yourself AND your players.

I had a similar problem with a setting set in a kind of Mesopotamian/Babylonian/Sumerian analog. More over the only things they recognized were vaguely things mentioned in the Old Testament of the bible and they somewhat found it dis-pleasurable. What a Moloch is/was, Ziggurat, ect, It did require a bit of leaps to get people into it.

Cultural literacy and knowledge is a factor.

JoeJ
2016-01-09, 08:22 PM
One element that I always have a problem with is magic being common yet useless to most people. That is, every little hamlet has a resident spell caster and even magic items for sale, but almost all of their spells and/or items are only useful for adventurers. How many spells that just do damage does a little village need? How many generations will it take an average peasant family to accumulate enough injuries to use up a wand of Cure Light Wounds?

If magic is that common, there should be a spell to make planting turnips easier, and one one to help bring in the harvest, and a find lost animal spell with a range long enough to actually be useful. In the city, the wizard's guild probably doesn't care if you cast Fireball (unless it's at one of them), but you'd better not cast Mending or Locate Object unless you're a member of the guild, because that's infringing on their business.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-09, 08:52 PM
If magic is that common, there should be a spell to make planting turnips easier, and one one to help bring in the harvest, and a find lost animal spell with a range long enough to actually be useful. In the city, the wizard's guild probably doesn't care if you cast Fireball (unless it's at one of them), but you'd better not cast Mending or Locate Object unless you're a member of the guild, because that's infringing on their business. I don't think this is not the case in almost any high magic setting. Remember, no one plays an RPG to be a farmer harvesting turnips. So obviously sourcebooks aren't gunna talk about those kind of magic items, since they aren't really that relevant to players...

sktarq
2016-01-09, 10:08 PM
Except there are plenty of references to how hard and labour based the peasant class lives are. Lots of shovels and scythes with any glowing force blades or unseen helper collecting the grain to been found.

Basically it would appear in the fluff and have societal & social consequences that would appear in the books but does not.

raygun goth
2016-01-10, 12:00 AM
There is a very simple and very reasonable why Europe, Rome, and Egypt get used so often and it is a good one. Knowledge Resources -both for the DM and the utilization of the limited shared knowledge of the players/DM. For the former it is just easy to find info on the Romans or the 12th Century Brits vs what was going on in early Mongol led Empire of China for most Anglophones.
Also the Romans wrote stuff down that had become part of our modern cultural knowledge. . .

Yeah, the Muslims got their hands on most of it and if it weren't for the Crusades, much of Greek and Roman mythology would be as lost and mysterious as Mayan legend to the Europeans.



The Romans do not receive undue credit. Though the Chinese might not get the credit they deserve...

I might consider saying that the Romans conquered the known world as undue credit - as even academics like to say about Alexander the Great. But that wasn't my point at all: The crux of my post is that there were certainly civilized people with writing and technological achievements that rivaled Rome withint or even before their time period, but that they simply do not get enough credit.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-10, 12:16 PM
Yeah, the Muslims got their hands on most of it and if it weren't for the Crusades, much of Greek and Roman mythology would be as lost and mysterious as Mayan legend to the Europeans.Probably not exactly true. The Byzantines didn't exactly misplace their Greco-Roman heritage and they were certainly Europeans. And intellectual exchange with the West was not unheard of pre-Crusades.


I might consider saying that the Romans conquered the known world as undue credit - as even academics like to say about Alexander the Great. But that wasn't my point at all: The crux of my post is that there were certainly civilized people with writing and technological achievements that rivaled Rome withint or even before their time period, but that they simply do not get enough credit. "Known" is the key word. Not sure how aware the Romans were of much outside their sphere of influence. At their height, their borderlands would have seemed like the ends of the world.

As I said, the Romans ruled 35% of the world population, a feat only historically outdone by the Persians (~ 44%).

I agree, the Persians might not get the attention they deserve. But I think that might be in part due to the afore mentioned Alexander the Great, who over a matter of a a little over a decade conquered most of their Empire.

Kind of hard to take an empire seriously after it gets taken down by one prima donna with a god complex.

kraftcheese
2016-01-10, 03:42 PM
Probably not exactly true. The Byzantines didn't exactly misplace their Greco-Roman heritage and they were certainly Europeans. And intellectual exchange with the West was not unheard of pre-Crusades.

"Known" is the key word. Not sure how aware the Romans were of much outside their sphere of influence. At their height, their borderlands would have seemed like the ends of the world.

As I said, the Romans ruled 35% of the world population, a feat only historically outdone by the Persians (~ 44%).

I agree, the Persians might not get the attention they deserve. But I think that might be in part due to the afore mentioned Alexander the Great, who over a matter of a a little over a decade conquered most of their Empire.

Kind of hard to take an empire seriously after it gets taken down by one prima donna with a god complex.

Rome certainly KNEW about nations outside their sphere of influence; and though their info on each other wasn't incredibly accurate, the Han and Rome knew about each other, and had indirect trade relations via kingdoms/empires between each other.

Rome called China "Serica", and China called Rome "Da Qin".

Fast Jimmy
2016-01-10, 04:00 PM
Except there are plenty of references to how hard and labour based the peasant class lives are. Lots of shovels and scythes with any glowing force blades or unseen helper collecting the grain to been found.

Basically it would appear in the fluff and have societal & social consequences that would appear in the books but does not.

Basically, I feel this would naturally hasten the end of traditional Medieival society, just as technology did in ours.

A +1 Scythe of Precision, which allows using your Bonus Action to attempt to reap an extra bushel of grain with Advantage on your Attack roll while also doing an additional +1 damage to the field's HP (Harvest Points) would be a huge advantage (pun intended) to a farmer, allowing them to more easily farm their own land without a huge number of field servants, the backbone of the entire feudal structure. And if you need less people farming, more can be focused on other tasks, such as craft specialization, which leads to a larger middle class and the rise of guild power to rival nobles. And these can, in turn, benefit from the Legendary Loom of Weaving or the Anvil of Automation.



Sadly, I haven't really seen a setting that embraces this that doesn't go either the ShadowRun or the Steampunk routes.

Tzi
2016-01-10, 04:13 PM
I tend to try to avoid those consequences, Mainly because I long ago learned players rarely have a huge amount of "game breaking,"verismilitude shattering thresholds like the world builder might. I think its weird that all the world has the same currency, but in game terms having unique currencies basically bog the game down into an unfun game of exchange rates.

I think as world builders and DM's we have to consider that what might ruin verismilitude for us might not matter to players.

gtwucla
2016-01-10, 08:27 PM
Dwarf food production



This! If they live underground, what's feeding them! There's no way a medieval society could import enough food to eat and if all they're eating is mushrooms, those should be some malnourished dwarves.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-10, 08:42 PM
This! If they live underground, what's feeding them! There's no way a medieval society could import enough food to eat and if all they're eating is mushrooms, those should be some malnourished dwarves. Unless of course dwarves evolved to suffice on mushrooms. And that in a magical fantasy world containing massive networks of underground tunnels, the available fungi possess an excess of biodiversity to meet dwarves nutritional needs.

gtwucla
2016-01-10, 09:17 PM
Unless of course dwarves evolved to suffice on mushrooms. And that in a magical fantasy world containing massive networks of underground tunnels, the available fungi possess an excess of biodiversity to meet dwarves nutritional needs.

There is that, but even through evolution, many animals adapt to eat the vegetation available to them, but with adverse effects. For example, howler monkeys live primarily on leaves, which are mildly toxic and low in nutrition. To combat this they eat at a steady pace and they evolved throat pouches to produce loud howls, which warn other howler monkey troops. The howls notify other troops of their territory, so that both troops can conserve energy. So the result of having to eat nothing but leaves is they are unable to expend too much energy. Point being, they would have to be not only very special mushrooms, but especially diverse with a nearly impossible range of nutrition value. Granted in a magical world, it could happen, but very few species evolved to eat only one type of thing, unless its meat.

kraftcheese
2016-01-10, 09:25 PM
There is that, but even through evolution, many animals adapt to eat the vegetation available to them, but with adverse effects. For example, howler monkeys live primarily on leaves, which are mildly toxic and low in nutrition. To combat this they eat at a steady pace and they evolved throat pouches to produce loud howls, which warn other howler monkey troops that this is their territory, stay away so that they can conserve energy, because they are unable to expend too much energy. Point being, they would have to be not only very special mushrooms, but especially diverse with a nearly impossible range of nutrition value. Granted in a magical world, it could happen.

I guess you could use the "mushroom nutrition" argument to explain the slow growth/small size of dwarven populations compared to humans, and their short stature?

gtwucla
2016-01-10, 09:31 PM
I guess you could use the "mushroom nutrition" argument to explain the slow growth/small size of dwarven populations compared to humans, and their short stature?

Heyyy, that's a good idea. I also like the idea of dwarves having salt mines to supplement their nutrition.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-11, 12:43 AM
Granted in a magical world, it could happen, but very few species evolved to eat only one type of thing, unless its meat. Since you brought it up, nugs.

A very simple addition to the dwarves' diet would be tameable, mushroom-munching cave dwellers. Some sort of cave livestock to some what supplement their diets.

Congrats, guys. In one fell swoop, we've anwsered the question of what dwarves eat and why they're, well, dwarves...

kraftcheese
2016-01-11, 12:53 AM
Since you brought it up, nugs.

A very simple addition to the dwarves' diet would be tameable, mushroom-munching cave dwellers. Some sort of cave livestock to some what supplement their diets.

Congrats, guys. In one fell swoop, we've anwsered the question of what dwarves eat and why they're, well, dwarves...

Honestly, salty nug and mushroom stew sounds like it would be pretty good (maybe you'd need to add a few herbs, but other than that, you're good!).

kraftcheese
2016-01-11, 01:07 AM
Granted in a magical world, it could happen, but very few species evolved to eat only one type of thing, unless its meat.

Well there's koalas, monarch butterfly larvae and pandas off the top of my head, but I guess if something survives on one specific plant it's usually because there's no other animals eating it because of its natural defences (koalas and hard-to-digest eucalyptus leaves, monarch larvae and poisonous milkweed and pandas and tough, nutrient-deficient bamboo).

avr
2016-01-11, 02:34 AM
Mushrooms can recycle energy from elsewhere in the food chain (with some losses, not as a closed system) but they can't convert solar or geothermal or mineral energy into an edible form of energy. For that you need something else.

Though that something might look just like a funny sort of fungus. Some sort of microorganism which converts mineral or geothermal energy to a form the mushroom can use and lives a symbiotic existence with the fungus - like algae in coral, or bacteria in tube worms - seems possible.

Eldan
2016-01-11, 09:35 AM
That's why my (deep) dwarves live around hydrothermal vents in the deep underdark and mainly eat worms. And what they can trade with the surface for rare minerals like sulphur.

sktarq
2016-01-11, 12:59 PM
The biggest problem with "mushroom farming" (besides the giant needing an external energy source part) is that it is massively transformational to dwarf society-a large part (majority or near majority) of the population becomes food production specialists. Now that might be very realistic but it throws players for a loop. Personal experience has been that players are more accepting of a more Gnomeish semi-subteranian lifestyle for dwarves if they are farming/herding (with things like buckwheat/potato/quinoa and goats/short cattle/fantastical creatures as livestock).

Also- Dwarf tailings-these would be a thing and they almost never come up. And with how oversized the fluff has dwarven public spaces it would be an issue.

Sam113097
2016-01-12, 01:59 AM
My solution for dwarven food production is underground lakes. Geothermal vents heat the lakes and bring energy, which led to microbes, and an entire underwater and underground food chain. There could be strange forms of fish and crustaceans, which could provide both dwarven livestock and the source of biodegradable material for mushrooms or other weird plants to grow. In one setting, I had dwarves that used large, cavern-lake-dwelling crabs to move cargo.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-12, 02:30 AM
Also- Dwarf tailings-these would be a thing and they almost never come up. And with how oversized the fluff has dwarven public spaces it would be an issue. Yes, in general, fantasy settings tend to overlook what societies do with their industrial waste. Though I'm not sure without good reason...

Roxxy
2016-01-13, 04:38 AM
If you think that's bad, look at the Eberron timeline (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Timeline). The Gatekeeper druids have apparently survived as an organisation for ~16 000 years, vaguely game-relevant stuff starts 100 000 years ago, the goblinoids of Darguun are apparently trying to revive an empire which fell 9 000 years ago (the memory of which has apparently been kept alive by oral history, among races with human-like lifespans) ... and it still falls victim to Everyl's problem where they forgot how many elves and gnomes would remember the events of the Last War.

Edit: basically Keith Baker is a good writer, terrible with numbers. He also put up sizes and orbital distances for the moons in an online article, without first working out that this meant the largest would cover IIRC 1/4 the width of the sky. 9 times the apparent width of Earth's Moon. And population numbers which made Khorvaire less thickly populated than the Australian Outback.That does kind of bug me about Eberron. I especially don't like how the big war that colors everythig happened over a century ago. My setting borrows a lot from Eberron (though is meant to be more Sixties), but the continent wide war against demonic invaders that stands as a massively important historical occurance only ended twenty years ago, rather than over a century ago. That's why the aftereffects (Such as massive concern about another invasion, a certain degree of paranoia regarding anything involving percieved demonic activity, a huge spike in the Tiefling population, immense bigotry against Tieflings, and so on) are such big deals culturally and politically. People in their late twenties to mid thirties have childhood memories of the horrors of this war. People in their forties and up most likely either fought or supported the war effort in other ways (Gotta have blades, beans, and bandages to fight demons. Also need functioning railroads to move it all.). Pick somebody at random, and they can probably name at least one close friend or family member who died in the war, very often more. A quite substantial proportion of those deaths were civilians. The political class remembers the war intimately, and the young adult generation that doesn't remember it heard the stories of their parents.

Going further back, the magitek revolution is about seventy years old. The whole collapse of the divine Celestial Bureaucracy that removed the rule of selfish and capricious gods from the world only goes back two centuries, and the colonization of "America" a little longer (The first is directly related to the second). My elves and dwarves are subraces of human with the same average lifespan, so they don't remember those days, but they aren't massively far off, either.

Roxxy
2016-01-13, 05:58 AM
I personally think its an artifact of having lots of races, and a flat understanding of culture.

I try very hard to come at things from a language standpoint. Right there it breaks from traditional D&D with Common as this universal Human language. "As roith ún gant as ún deng ai ulla'r dhouan." and "Agus bhí an domhan teanga amháin agus urlabhra amháin" carry different meanings and cultural nuance even if those are word for word the same basic sentence in English. "And the world had one language and one speech."I went with Common being Celestial. When the faction of dieties known as the Celestial Bureaucracy took over the world, their language became a world trade language, kind of like Latin or English in Europe. Enough people know it as a second language that you can use it to get by most places, but people still have their own languages.


I find Europe usually becomes England..... or Germany.... or France.... or Rome. Africa becomes the Congo, all Deserts become Arabian Nights, and all Asia oddly becomes Japan (Poor China ain't never getting any love D:) ect.

If the peoples have different languages they are assured different cultures IMHO.


Oh, yeah, I always assume it's unintentional. That it's just an artifact of the way we usually build worlds.



I agree. Honestly, the amount of Rome-centric settings is so saturated it's an artifact of our modern obsession with Rome. I mean, around the time Rome was conquering "the known world," the Han dynasty was twice its size. The Mayans had constructed elaborate sewer systems that used negative pressure (and rivaling modern New York sewers in their size). The Persians had a kingdom at least as big as Rome.

And oh man, I have so wanted to build a Chinese-themed setting forever. Maybe something deep in the aforementioned pretendy-Han dynasty and chronicles its collapse into three five? kingdoms.My setting gives China some love. Japan and Vietnam, too. It's set in "America", but the immigration rate is high. The Sixties with some Old West/New Old West added in is the main flavor point, but I always wanted a deep East Asian flavor to my Westerns to go with the Northern European, American Indian, and Latin American flavors of the Old West. Chinese Americans had quite an important role within the Old West as it stands, and by creating a setting that never had that blasted Chinese Exclusion Act, they can have an even bigger role in my Eberronish "American" setting, since they have a much bigger share of the overall population. India has a role to play, too. "East Asian" immigration tapered off with time as conditions changed, and "South Asian" has been a major wave of the last couple decades. There is also a "West African" influence just like IRL, though it stems from voluntary immigration rather than the slave trade (My "Americans" used to use slaves, just not black slaves.).

I imagine Inca are still important, but that's outside of where I usually set things.

jqavins
2016-01-13, 08:16 AM
That does kind of bug me about Eberron. I especially don't like how the big war that colors everythig happened over a century ago.
IRL, there was a war that colors everything today, at least everything in Europe and the middle-east as we as a lot in other places, which was going on a century ago and ended not much less than that. It's called World War One and we owe our current world map to it. I don't know Eberon at all, and the numbers that were cited earlier in this thread are outrageous, but to have such a world-shaping war a mere century ago sounds like the zeros have already been knocked off.

Tzi
2016-01-13, 08:33 AM
I went with Common being Celestial. When the faction of dieties known as the Celestial Bureaucracy took over the world, their language became a world trade language, kind of like Latin or English in Europe. Enough people know it as a second language that you can use it to get by most places, but people still have their own languages.



My setting gives China some love. Japan and Vietnam, too. It's set in "America", but the immigration rate is high. The Sixties with some Old West/New Old West added in is the main flavor point, but I always wanted a deep East Asian flavor to my Westerns to go with the Northern European, American Indian, and Latin American flavors of the Old West. Chinese Americans had quite an important role within the Old West as it stands, and by creating a setting that never had that blasted Chinese Exclusion Act, they can have an even bigger role in my Eberronish "American" setting, since they have a much bigger share of the overall population. India has a role to play, too. "East Asian" immigration tapered off with time as conditions changed, and "South Asian" has been a major wave of the last couple decades. There is also a "West African" influence just like IRL, though it stems from voluntary immigration rather than the slave trade (My "Americans" used to use slaves, just not black slaves.).

I imagine Inca are still important, but that's outside of where I usually set things.

My setting is sort of progressing on a....

Imagine if the Anglo-Saxons never came, the Romans barely ruled, and Britain stayed Celtic and was then conquered by an Irish King. Brigantia is essentially loosely based on that concept, though obviously a ton of fantasy remixing. The setting is essentially told from their perspective so the world is big and filled with very very very large numbers of peoples and languages BUT the Briganti only really keep track of or know much about a few of them. Lydia could be by crude Rome analog, but realistically is stylistically and culturally very Byzantine and even a tad Minoan at least with inspiration. They know of tribes of Heglanders whom are very obviously a recast Germanic Tribes/Vikings. They know of the Sydonesians or Andulasia meets Carthage. And across the Seas they know that to their west or east there is Sineca as they call it, which is basically glorious sweet beautiful Tang Era China...... with a lot of others, but still the world seems KINDA small just because its presented from a specific perspective.

In my own creation, with distant Gods that cannot be confirmed, I've sort of painted myself into the corner of HAVING to grant each people a unique language or alter a real world one.

Roxxy
2016-01-13, 02:29 PM
IRL, there was a war that colors everything today, at least everything in Europe and the middle-east as we as a lot in other places, which was going on a century ago and ended not much less than that. It's called World War One and we owe our current world map to it. I don't know Eberon at all, and the numbers that were cited earlier in this thread are outrageous, but to have such a world-shaping war a mere century ago sounds like the zeros have already been knocked off.It's not that I think it unrealistic. Of course not. We Americans still aren't over the Civil War. It's that it's so incredibly common it eventually starts to grate a bit. And I have to admit that, in a setting meant to emulate the Twenties, not having many sirviving "Great War" veterans was a little disappointing. It seems like the big, politically important wars are usually beyond the lifespans of anybody living, across the majority of settings that have such wars. After a while, I start wanting to see a "Great War" where the veterans largely are still alive.

sktarq
2016-01-13, 03:44 PM
Well to be fair in 3.5 at least the war had only slowed with Day of Mourning 4 years before official start date and the peace treaty was only two years old. The war had started a century ago. So it would make sense that it would dominate.

Roxxy
2016-01-13, 03:58 PM
Did I just mistake "War 100 years ago" and "100 years of war"? Something tells me I just did. What I get for using the setting primarily for inspiration.

Tzi
2016-01-13, 05:10 PM
War and general chaos can have a profound impact.

In my setting a 15ish year civil war only a few years came to a close. To an extent the current monarch is much more despotic, tyrannical, authoritarian and to some extent people tolerate it because "Hey, there is finally peace, law, and order!" Which is both historical in the sense of both English Civil War, and generally all protracted civil unrests.

People endure the censorship, police state actions, and militant intrusion ect and spying. Why do they endure it? Because veterans of the civil war and its many victims struggled through the chaotic period and people just want Law and Order.

War changes things from time to time.

Roxxy
2016-01-13, 05:31 PM
My setting is sort of progressing on a....

Imagine if the Anglo-Saxons never came, the Romans barely ruled, and Britain stayed Celtic and was then conquered by an Irish King. Brigantia is essentially loosely based on that concept, though obviously a ton of fantasy remixing. The setting is essentially told from their perspective so the world is big and filled with very very very large numbers of peoples and languages BUT the Briganti only really keep track of or know much about a few of them. Lydia could be by crude Rome analog, but realistically is stylistically and culturally very Byzantine and even a tad Minoan at least with inspiration. They know of tribes of Heglanders whom are very obviously a recast Germanic Tribes/Vikings. They know of the Sydonesians or Andulasia meets Carthage. And across the Seas they know that to their west or east there is Sineca as they call it, which is basically glorious sweet beautiful Tang Era China...... with a lot of others, but still the world seems KINDA small just because its presented from a specific perspective.In my Britain, I imagine that the Romans never came and the Normans never came, but the Anglo-Saxons did. Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia are all islands, and eventually they got unified under one ruler, who was smart enough to let different cultures have their ways as long as they gave the High King his tribute and deference. Over time things shifted over to a Democratic form of government with a figurehead monarch, but the idea of not crushing ethnic groups as long as they remain loyal to Britain has stuck, and it's just accepted that Swedes, Finns, Irish, and Saxons are all British. Bigots often question the loyalty of Travellers and Sami, however, and the government has had trouble controlling some of the Scottish (mostly the more insular clans out in the boonies, not the urban Scots who don't even use clans anymore), so it's not like everyone is getting along perfectly well.

Then again, most of the stories in my setting take place in "North America", not my version of Britain, so this gets little coverage.


In my own creation, with distant Gods that cannot be confirmed, I've sort of painted myself into the corner of HAVING to grant each people a unique language or alter a real world one.My gods are individually not that powerful (maybe CR 30, though PCs don't get to go above CR 12), but they are numerous. Or, at least, they used to be numerous. The fall of the Celestial Bureaucracy changed that. The majority of dieties weren't part of the Celestial Bureaucracy (Bunch of dieties who ruled the world. Kind of jerks.), and when it collapsed there was a vicious war in the sky that killed a massive number of gods and ended with a treaty stating that dieties are no longer allowed to interfere with mortals. Some break that rule, but dealing with them is getting into dangerous territory. For the most part, humans need to take care of themselves.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-20, 02:36 AM
In regards to Humans speaking "Common", allow me to introduce you to Koine Greek:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek
"Koine Greek (UK English /ˈkɔɪniː/,[1] US English /kɔɪˈneɪ/, /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ or /kiːˈniː/;[2][3] from Koine Greek ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, "the common dialect"),"
(emphasis mine)
At one time, people right here on earth, did in fact speak a language they called "Common".

From that, allow me to expand you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koin%C3%A9_language
"In linguistics, a koiné language (κοινή common language in Koiné Greek) is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two or more mutually intelligible varieties (dialects) of the same language.[1][2]"
In particular, note the lists lower down, which indicate that there are several groups of people speaking "Common" today, though they do not call it that.

Now perhaps you might want to take exception to certain "Common" languages described in certain settings which do not properly meet that second definition, but the concept is not merely sound, but quite historical.


In regards to "every" culture having Pelor, allow me to introduce you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_graeca
"Interpretatio graeca (Latin, "Greek translation" or "interpretation by means of Greek [models]") is a discourse[1] in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It is thus a comparative methodology that looks for equivalencies and shared characteristics."
From that you would need to wander through a vast array of topics that are too extensive to list, though I would suggest checking out Frazer's "The Golden Bough", as well as looking up "syncretism". Ultimately it comes down to that yes, it is quite historical for various powers to be recognized as "equivalent" across cultural lines, and so it is not particularly outrageous for "every" culture to have Pelor.


As for all the fantasy religions being too "Christian", you would need to expand from the previous.
On doing so, you would discover that, for example, Norse religion contains the melding of at least two distinct faiths - one group that followed the Aesir and one that followed the Vanir.
Greek religion includes the faiths of the Titans followed by Olympians, combined with later admixtures.
Egyptan religion is likewise complex, having the merging of the pantheons of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, followed by dynastic development and three distinct generations of divine beings.
Mesopotamian religion is even more confounding, with multiple layers of divine beings from successive ruling peoples being added to a genericized myth cycle.
Most of these religions featured specific local cults and city patrons, with those of conquered cities subsumed into existing divine beings or added to the pantheon.
So in fact, even among pantheonic religions there was quite often competition for worshipers. In particular, one might consider:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism


As for techno-magical "stasis", that is more linked to the literature, the semi-mythical "Appendix N", that was used as inspiration for the game.
Whether we are particularly enamored of it, such was all the rage back in the day, with empires of static development thriving for thousands of years before disappearing in cataclysms to be replaced by other empires of static development that would endure for thousands more, the cycle repeating until we reach modern times and the current readers of the tales of times long past. (Or of times yet to come, as the cycle will continue after us of course.)


In regards to demographics, for the most parts such complaints are valid. There are two issues:
First, one reason population density is so low is to account for all those dragons and other magical predators. The land humans and what not should be living off of is taken up supporting those monsters.
Second, its boring. Seriously. It really is rather boring. If you are that interested in it I'm sure you can do some searches and find various references on how to "role-play" a medieval/fantasy farm, but it is going to be primarily "roll-play" - rolling dice for 50 different harvest factors, plus doing spreadsheets to see how badly you starve to death when your crops fail 3 years out of 10 (more if you get hit with a climate minimum/ice age). With that you could build a grand record for your world, allowing you to calculate just how large each orc and goblin horde can possibly be, how much tribute others can pay to dragons to keep them from destroying cities until you can get a high enough level spellcaster to show up, and how far you can build up before one of the players discovers the locate city bomb and triggers a magical apocalypse as per the previous note, or you get bored watching the players roll dice and talk about wheat futures rather than kill orcs and decide to unleash an elder evil on them causing said apocalypse.

Tzi
2016-01-20, 10:37 AM
In regards to Humans speaking "Common", allow me to introduce you to Koine Greek:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek
"Koine Greek (UK English /ˈkɔɪniː/,[1] US English /kɔɪˈneɪ/, /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ or /kiːˈniː/;[2][3] from Koine Greek ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, "the common dialect"),"
(emphasis mine)
At one time, people right here on earth, did in fact speak a language they called "Common".

From that, allow me to expand you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koin%C3%A9_language
"In linguistics, a koiné language (κοινή common language in Koiné Greek) is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two or more mutually intelligible varieties (dialects) of the same language.[1][2]"
In particular, note the lists lower down, which indicate that there are several groups of people speaking "Common" today, though they do not call it that.

Now perhaps you might want to take exception to certain "Common" languages described in certain settings which do not properly meet that second definition, but the concept is not merely sound, but quite historical.


In regards to "every" culture having Pelor, allow me to introduce you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_graeca
"Interpretatio graeca (Latin, "Greek translation" or "interpretation by means of Greek [models]") is a discourse[1] in which ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths are used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures. It is thus a comparative methodology that looks for equivalencies and shared characteristics."
From that you would need to wander through a vast array of topics that are too extensive to list, though I would suggest checking out Frazer's "The Golden Bough", as well as looking up "syncretism". Ultimately it comes down to that yes, it is quite historical for various powers to be recognized as "equivalent" across cultural lines, and so it is not particularly outrageous for "every" culture to have Pelor.


As for all the fantasy religions being too "Christian", you would need to expand from the previous.
On doing so, you would discover that, for example, Norse religion contains the melding of at least two distinct faiths - one group that followed the Aesir and one that followed the Vanir.
Greek religion includes the faiths of the Titans followed by Olympians, combined with later admixtures.
Egyptan religion is likewise complex, having the merging of the pantheons of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, followed by dynastic development and three distinct generations of divine beings.
Mesopotamian religion is even more confounding, with multiple layers of divine beings from successive ruling peoples being added to a genericized myth cycle.
Most of these religions featured specific local cults and city patrons, with those of conquered cities subsumed into existing divine beings or added to the pantheon.
So in fact, even among pantheonic religions there was quite often competition for worshipers. In particular, one might consider:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism


As for techno-magical "stasis", that is more linked to the literature, the semi-mythical "Appendix N", that was used as inspiration for the game.
Whether we are particularly enamored of it, such was all the rage back in the day, with empires of static development thriving for thousands of years before disappearing in cataclysms to be replaced by other empires of static development that would endure for thousands more, the cycle repeating until we reach modern times and the current readers of the tales of times long past. (Or of times yet to come, as the cycle will continue after us of course.)


In regards to demographics, for the most parts such complaints are valid. There are two issues:
First, one reason population density is so low is to account for all those dragons and other magical predators. The land humans and what not should be living off of is taken up supporting those monsters.
Second, its boring. Seriously. It really is rather boring. If you are that interested in it I'm sure you can do some searches and find various references on how to "role-play" a medieval/fantasy farm, but it is going to be primarily "roll-play" - rolling dice for 50 different harvest factors, plus doing spreadsheets to see how badly you starve to death when your crops fail 3 years out of 10 (more if you get hit with a climate minimum/ice age). With that you could build a grand record for your world, allowing you to calculate just how large each orc and goblin horde can possibly be, how much tribute others can pay to dragons to keep them from destroying cities until you can get a high enough level spellcaster to show up, and how far you can build up before one of the players discovers the locate city bomb and triggers a magical apocalypse as per the previous note, or you get bored watching the players roll dice and talk about wheat futures rather than kill orcs and decide to unleash an elder evil on them causing said apocalypse.

I don't mean every culture.... IN EUROPE.... I mean all cultures ON THE PLANET EARTH. In a way your doing exactly what those of us who dislike "common," or conventional D&D religion do. Flatten the world and have a narrow planet. OKay, a standard dialectic language, WAS IT SPOKEN BY ALL HUMANS?! Could I go to the Incans and speak it and they nod knowing what I am saying? China? Japan? Hawaii? Iceland? Scotland? Slovenia? Kiev? The Congo?

More over, was there Zeus in China? India? Australia? Heck even among the Celts we have no exact match. "intercultural translation" does not mean two cultures worship the same God but instead one culture decides another culture is worshiping THEIR god. I.E. its kind of an act of imperialism. Not two cultures deciding they worship the same God in different forms.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-20, 04:11 PM
I don't mean every culture.... IN EUROPE.... I mean all cultures ON THE PLANET EARTH. In a way your doing exactly what those of us who dislike "common," or conventional D&D religion do. Flatten the world and have a narrow planet. OKay, a standard dialectic language, WAS IT SPOKEN BY ALL HUMANS?! Could I go to the Incans and speak it and they nod knowing what I am saying? China? Japan? Hawaii? Iceland? Scotland? Slovenia? Kiev? The Congo?

Allow me to introduce you to the concept of "specific campaigns/settings versus core rules".
You know, where someone goes through the effort to design multiple languages for every race, not to mention having totally different races in different regions, and either has multiple "Common" languages, or dispenses with it altogether.

Of course that then crosses over into the rules imposing a skill tax on characters to be able to communicate with anyone beyond the village they are born in.
Why is it so hard to suspend disbelief to avoid requiring every character to spend a dozen or more skill points to be able to get dinner?


More over, was there Zeus in China? India? Australia? Heck even among the Celts we have no exact match. "intercultural translation" does not mean two cultures worship the same God but instead one culture decides another culture is worshiping THEIR god. I.E. its kind of an act of imperialism. Not two cultures deciding they worship the same God in different forms.

If you had bothered to read the links I provided and the expansions I suggested, you would know that the answer is "Yes".
A quick web search:
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Celtic/deitiesl-m.html
"Considered the chief Lord of the Tuatha De Danaan, the Celtic Zeus."
(Referring to Lugh.)
Meanwhile this:
http://mythology.wikia.com/wiki/Taranis
"Taranis is the Celtic god of thunder and was equated with Thor, Zeus and Jupiter."
Suggests Taranis.
And this:
http://www.wisdomlib.org/celtic/book/lectures-on-the-origin-and-growth-of-religion-as-illustrated-by-celtic-heathendom/d/doc118694.html
Is an examination of "Celtic Zeus" in a very generalized manner.

As for whether the divine entity is the same or not, who are you to declare one way or the other?
Shouldn't that be up to the divine being in question?
Is there some law that they are not allowed to have different aspects, including different names, or even different sexes, for different cultures?
Could those aspects also have somewhat different portfolios as well?

Maybe instead of saying "that's not realistic!" about so much so quickly, you should try doing some research about just how much is within human experience first, and then perhaps recognize that while things might be rather simplified within the game, mostly because most people aren't philologists, comparative mythologists, and other specialists, and wouldn't appreciate the detail if it were there, but overwhelmingly they just don't care. And that is before considering the sheer amount of work it would take for anyone to design that many languages and fantasy religions, because let's face it, any language system with less than 500 languages and any pantheon with less that 100 divine beings is just not "realistic", and so "must" take away from the immersion as well.

Tzi
2016-01-20, 06:29 PM
As for whether the divine entity is the same or not, who are you to declare one way or the other?
Shouldn't that be up to the divine being in question?


As I am the author of the planet and the Divine being in a given setting, um, yes it is up to me. Thats what World Building is.



If you had bothered to read the links I provided and the expansions I suggested, you would know that the answer is "Yes".
A quick web search:
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Ce...eitiesl-m.html
"Considered the chief Lord of the Tuatha De Danaan, the Celtic Zeus."
(Referring to Lugh.)
Meanwhile this:
http://mythology.wikia.com/wiki/Taranis
"Taranis is the Celtic god of thunder and was equated with Thor, Zeus and Jupiter."
Suggests Taranis.
And this:
http://www.wisdomlib.org/celtic/book...doc118694.html
Is an examination of "Celtic Zeus" in a very generalized manner.


From writings of people at the time we have ziltch that tells us the actual worshipers of said Gods thought that way outside of Imperial influence due to conquest. Funny thing about the Celtic world, they didn't write things down, save for the Irish, Centuries after Christianization. Modern reinterpretation is what your displaying here.




Allow me to introduce you to the concept of "specific campaigns/settings versus core rules".


A specific campaign setting such as mine is theoretically an Entire planet's worth of places. The theoretical linguistic issue with Forgotten Realms is that "Common," is a language of a whole planet or a language of a great many people. Via core D&D this for me breaks a degree of believability because I find it hard to believe that all of Faerun there is this one all encompassing super language and no local languages. Even Europe with Latin in the Middle Ages didn't supplant Welsh, Danish, German ect.




You know, where someone goes through the effort to design multiple languages for every race, not to mention having totally different races in different regions, and either has multiple "Common" languages, or dispenses with it altogether.


The idea of an entire species having a common language as well seems sketchy, especially sense Elves as presented are scattered all over and not living in a single community.

My setting has just humans and theoretically Hundreds or thousands of Languages.



Of course that then crosses over into the rules imposing a skill tax on characters to be able to communicate with anyone beyond the village they are born in.
Why is it so hard to suspend disbelief to avoid requiring every character to spend a dozen or more skill points to be able to get dinner?


Because its the world I'm building and I don't want to feel locked into specific tropes which ultimate force certain things on the game world I don't want being there.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-20, 07:08 PM
In regards to Humans speaking "Common", allow me to introduce you to Koine Greek:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek
"Koine Greek (UK English /ˈkɔɪniː/,[1] US English /kɔɪˈneɪ/, /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ or /kiːˈniː/;[2][3] from Koine Greek ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, "the common dialect"),"
(emphasis mine)
At one time, people right here on earth, did in fact speak a language they called "Common".

From that, allow me to expand you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koin%C3%A9_language
"In linguistics, a koiné language (κοινή common language in Koiné Greek) is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two or more mutually intelligible varieties (dialects) of the same language.[1][2]"
In particular, note the lists lower down, which indicate that there are several groups of people speaking "Common" today, though they do not call it that. I'd add to this the concepts of lingua franca (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca) (you can tell the French coined that term) and pidgin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin). "Common" is quit solidly a bastardized Frankstein's monster of those three concepts. And quit obviously a creative short cut for campaign setting writers. And not an uncalled for one either.


I don't mean every culture.... IN EUROPE.... I mean all cultures ON THE PLANET EARTH. In a way your doing exactly what those of us who dislike "common," or conventional D&D religion do. Flatten the world and have a narrow planet. OKay, a standard dialectic language, WAS IT SPOKEN BY ALL HUMANS?! Could I go to the Incans and speak it and they nod knowing what I am saying? China? Japan? Hawaii? Iceland? Scotland? Slovenia? Kiev? The Congo? How is it that much of a stretch for a koiné/pidgin/lingua franca of human origin to be nearly universal in worlds where wizards, dragons, and demons are all real things? English is making a good show of trying in our world, where those things don't!

There comes a certain point where suspension of disbelief is clunky, ridiculous, or unnecessary. This thread highlights much of it. But honestly, the idea of "Common" is far from that mark. Regional versions of the concept have real world examples. The stretch from that to a worldwide version is hardly a huge suspension of disbelief.

I guess I will always have a problem with those who struggle with verisimilitude in the face of concepts less outlandish than the tropes they readily embrace. I would caution those people to at least take the time to check if that is the case.

Talion
2016-01-20, 07:17 PM
If a setting isn't supposed to take itself too seriously, I'll be willing to let a few things slide. Moreso if it establishes some rules and doesn't deviate from them.

On the other hand, if a setting is taking itself seriously and fails to establish rules, and deviates heavily from the ones it presents, we've got a problem.

For example, we'll use Westeros. If we accept G.R.R. Martin at his word, that the continent is about the size of South America (though it seems to be closer to about Brazil sized) and has a population of 40 million, then we get a population density of approximately 5.8072 people per square mile. Naturally this isn't evenly spread. The North, while claimed to be about 1/2 of Westeros, is closer to 1/3 of the total land area controlled by the Iron Throne. A semi-canon source (per the wiki) tells us that the North can, potentially, raise an army with an absolute total of 45,000.

Thus we see: 2,296,000 (theoretical area of The North) * 5.8072 = 13,333,331 as it's theoretical population. However, this is where we start running into some issues.

1. While 5.8072 sounds about right for what we've seen of the north's population density (it's practically a barren wilderness) it doesn't seem even remotely right to maintaining a feudal society.

2. The North is the least densely population of the 7 kingdoms, by a significant margin. However, the average population density is such that even drastically altering the equation doesn't help the matter. Specifically, reducing the population density of The North to accommodate for the other 6 kingdoms (and the riverlands), likely from something short of Wyoming's population density to Alaska's, would remove what little hope of maintaining that feudal society remains.

3. If we accept our number from above, then if Rob mobilized the North so that even 1 in 200 of his total population (1 in 100 men to account for that little detail) he should be able to reasonably raise an army of approximately 66,000, almost 50% higher than the semi-canon source and 3 times as many as he is ever stated to have.

4. His stated 20,000 (which never seems to change) is such a strain on his population that he cannot defend the North against the Iron Born, and that his own people are worried about the harvest. This is indicative of a significantly lower population.

5. This suggests a military that is eating up 5% or more of his total population. For argument's sake, we'll use that figure: 5%. 20,000 * 20 = 400,000. Which is a population density of approximately 0.1742 per square mile. That means you'd see an average of 1 person every 5 to 6 square miles, and is somewhere in the vicinity of 1/7th of Alaska's population density. Which is quite literally under-developed wilderness.

6. Regardless of any of this, his forces are seemingly never enhanced with Riverland soldiers (save for one unsavory sub-faction), who control one of two of the most heavily populated areas of the kingdoms (the other being the Reach).

Suffice to say, the numbers are just awful. However, that's just one factor that has been a nuisance to me, personally. Other factors, for such a politically motivated world, include (but are not limited to):

1. Why are the Boltons still a family after the incidents from 500 years ago?
2. Why did anyone think it was reasonable to leave the Greyjoys in charge?
3. The use of 'Gold Dragons' as a the currency standard for virtually everything except in...about three instances I can think of, off hand, which is extremely jarring.
4. The freakish height of the Wall.
5. How do you feed an army of 100,000 (sometimes cannibal) Wildlings without even the physical capacity to farm in that climate?

A little effort, a little research, and a touch of common sense goes a *LONG* way in world building. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you shouldn't be left wondering "How is any of this even remotely possible?" in something that is toted as "Serious" and "Realistic". (As a final note, I enjoy GoT mostly to tear it apart and as a reminder of what all I have to worry about when designing an intricate, realistic world).

Tiktakkat
2016-01-20, 09:45 PM
As I am the author of the planet and the Divine being in a given setting, um, yes it is up to me. Thats what World Building is.

You challenged me with questions about the real world.
I answered with real world examples.
Unless you happen to be the author of the real world, then no, the answers to those are not up to you.


Because its the world I'm building and I don't want to feel locked into specific tropes which ultimate force certain things on the game world I don't want being there.

Then don't include them.
I didn't say anyone HAD to have a Common tongue or a universal pantheon.
I simply said that such things have a very real historical justification here on earth, so they don't have to break any suspension of disbelief to appear within the game.

JoeJ
2016-01-21, 12:38 AM
As for all the fantasy religions being too "Christian", you would need to expand from the previous.
On doing so, you would discover that, for example, Norse religion contains the melding of at least two distinct faiths - one group that followed the Aesir and one that followed the Vanir.
Greek religion includes the faiths of the Titans followed by Olympians, combined with later admixtures.
Egyptan religion is likewise complex, having the merging of the pantheons of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, followed by dynastic development and three distinct generations of divine beings.
Mesopotamian religion is even more confounding, with multiple layers of divine beings from successive ruling peoples being added to a genericized myth cycle.
Most of these religions featured specific local cults and city patrons, with those of conquered cities subsumed into existing divine beings or added to the pantheon.

Not quite. In each of those cases what actually occurred is that people added deities into pantheons as they encountered them. There weren't separate religions competing for followers. It would have been considered absurd, in fact, for a person to choose one set of gods and reject another.

You're also seeing the motif of the war between tribes of gods that is ubiquitous in the mythologies of Indo-European speaking peoples: Aesir-Vanir, Olympians-Titans, Tuatha De Danann-Formoians, Devas-Asuras, etc., and is also found in a different form in some Semitic mythologies (Marduk-Tiamat for example). This element in myth does not appear, on the evidence, to reflect any actual prehistoric religious behavior by those peoples, however.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-21, 01:21 AM
Not quite. In each of those cases what actually occurred is that people added deities into pantheons as they encountered them. There weren't separate religions competing for followers. It would have been considered absurd, in fact, for a person to choose one set of gods and reject another. Akhenaten, the famous King Tut's father, founded a religion dedicated to a god called the Aten (the Egyptian God Ra). It was a henotheistic tradition which existed, ever so shortly, along side traditional Egyptian polytheism.

And it bears a striking resemblance to how fantasy RPG polytheisms works.

Henotheism, or the worship of only one god while acknowledging the existence of others, was actually pretty common, historically speaking. The Vedic religions (precursors to Hinduism) functioned this way, as did many religions in ancient Canaan (arguably an influence on the Abrahamic religions), as while as earlier Judaism. Arguably, modern Mormonism is henotheistic. More arguably, Trinitarianism (the vast majority of Christianity) is a weak form of henotheism.

Not alot is actually known about Mithraism, but it appears to have had henotheistic elements. In Late Antiquity, many of the common polytheistic traditions began to take on henotheistic traits under influence from Platonism and other Hellenistic philosophies (which often spoke of the Logos, later identified as Jesus by Christians). The 2nd Century Roman Neoplatonist Maximus of Tyre wrote on the subject, "In such a mighty contest, sedition and discord, you will see one according law and assertion in all the earth, that there is one god, the king and father of all things, and many gods, sons of god, ruling together with him." Truth is, Late Antiquity paganism had many branches which look more like D&D than what people on this thread want to believe.

The writers of D&D didn't just befuddled paganism and Abrahamic traditions. The henotheistic faiths of D&D are another thing on this thread that actually has some historical precident.

VoxRationis
2016-01-21, 11:12 AM
Of course that then crosses over into the rules imposing a skill tax on characters to be able to communicate with anyone beyond the village they are born in.
Why is it so hard to suspend disbelief to avoid requiring every character to spend a dozen or more skill points to be able to get dinner?
Most people do not have to speak a dozen or more languages in order to get dinner unless they are actively traveling far out of their respective homelands. Even those who are far out of their respective homelands will likely only require one or two to get dinner in whatever country they currently are in—unless your system is particularly harsh in skill costs for learning languages, "a dozen or more" is a gross exaggeration.


And that is before considering the sheer amount of work it would take for anyone to design that many languages and fantasy religions, because let's face it, any language system with less than 500 languages and any pantheon with less that 100 divine beings is just not "realistic", and so "must" take away from the immersion as well.

This is an argument from perfectionism, that is, "if we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't bother to try." It's a venomous way of looking at things if it's applied at all consistently. After all, you'll never fully realize the experience of wandering through a ruin, killing monsters, so why bother putting effort into that dungeon crawl? Why don't you just roll a few times on the treasure tables and call it a day?



How is it that much of a stretch for a koiné/pidgin/lingua franca of human origin to be nearly universal in worlds where wizards, dragons, and demons are all real things? English is making a good show of trying in our world, where those things don't!
Because wizards, dragons, and demons rarely are spending their time and energy creating mass media structures allowing for homogenization of cultures through continual information transfer, and even in the grandest of fantasy empires, rarely ever create a world-girdling one in the fashion of the British Empire. In most fantasy settings, the vast majority of the world exists in pre-modern societal structures with limited knowledge of and interaction with other cultures.



There comes a certain point where suspension of disbelief is clunky, ridiculous, or unnecessary. This thread highlights much of it. But honestly, the idea of "Common" is far from that mark. Regional versions of the concept have real world examples. The stretch from that to a worldwide version is hardly a huge suspension of disbelief.

I guess I will always have a problem with those who struggle with verisimilitude in the face of concepts less outlandish than the tropes they readily embrace. I would caution those people to at least take the time to check if that is the case.
This is the "But Dragons" fallacy, where the existence in a setting of a fantastic element is used to excuse failures of verisimilitude that have nothing to do with that element. An excellent example of it elsewhere is with armor: people excuse ridiculous armor designs because it's a fantasy world, even though the principles underlying the armor's effectiveness and those underlying the effectiveness of weapons are still fundamentally the same as in our world. That is to say, the thing which makes armor effective (the hardness and toughness of metal allowing it to absorb impact elastically while preventing a dangerous object from passing through it to the body of the person beneath) is still in play, and therefore the issues which prevent many designs from working (the armor getting stuck on itself or the person within normal ranges of motion) are also still in play.
In the same way, having a few wizards doing magical things doesn't change linguistic evolution that much, because:
1) People are still cognitively the same, and therefore the same mental processes of linguistic evolution are still in play;
2) The ability of a few people (people who often are polyglots or have translation spells, no less) to travel widely does not make a world of difference to the large populations in linguistic isolation; that is, Marco Polo being able to visit Yuan China doesn't stop medieval Italian from being different from medieval French or Chinese.
3) Wizards rarely are shown committing their time and energy to the public infrastructure required to encourage or enforce linguistic unity over wide sections of the world. They aren't establishing public school systems that teach in one language and affect the majority of the children of their domains. They aren't establishing broadcasting systems which allow the residents of rural hamlets to observe the standard dialects in a direct and personal way. They probably aren't even establishing a centralized bureaucracy which deals with the populace on a regular basis. Therefore, at best the native or preferred language of a wizard, even with a wide domain, will only supplement, not replace the local languages in that domain.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-21, 02:10 PM
Not quite. In each of those cases what actually occurred is that people added deities into pantheons as they encountered them. There weren't separate religions competing for followers. It would have been considered absurd, in fact, for a person to choose one set of gods and reject another.

You're also seeing the motif of the war between tribes of gods that is ubiquitous in the mythologies of Indo-European speaking peoples: Aesir-Vanir, Olympians-Titans, Tuatha De Danann-Formoians, Devas-Asuras, etc., and is also found in a different form in some Semitic mythologies (Marduk-Tiamat for example). This element in myth does not appear, on the evidence, to reflect any actual prehistoric religious behavior by those peoples, however.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely the opposite!
There is very much evidence of conflict between the peoples that worshiped the Aesir and the Vanir, the Olympians and the Titans, and the Devas and Asuras.
The conflicts are a direct element of mytho-history of the peoples that worshiped the Tuatha De Danaan and the Fomorians and other races that inhabited Ireland.
The history of the Semitic mythologies is intricately tied to the succession of nations that ruled Mesopotamia.

And there is strong indication of changes in worship among them, most notably among the Greeks, with a change from "chthonic" rituals to more "standard" forms with "mystery" faiths developing to the side.
There is also the direct history of Athens, featuring a challenge between Athena and Poseidon to become the patron of the city.


.Henotheism, or the worship of only one god while acknowledging the existence of others, was actually pretty common, historically speaking. The Vedic religions (precursors to Hinduism) functioned this way, as did many religions in ancient Canaan (arguably an influence on the Abrahamic religions), as while as earlier Judaism. Arguably, modern Mormonism is henotheistic. More arguably, Trinitarianism (the vast majority of Christianity) is a weak form of henotheism.

Exactly.
That is why I cited it as such a critical element in trying to understand how D&D fantasy religions work.


The writers of D&D didn't just befuddled paganism and Abrahamic traditions. The henotheistic faiths of D&D are another thing on this thread that actually has some historical precident.

Depending on which writer you are talking about, the didn't "befuddle" them, they just weren't writing a canon text or dissertation on them.
The point was just to have some names to attach to clerics and druids, not to have actual rituals to perform in character.


Most people do not have to speak a dozen or more languages in order to get dinner unless they are actively traveling far out of their respective homelands. Even those who are far out of their respective homelands will likely only require one or two to get dinner in whatever country they currently are in—unless your system is particularly harsh in skill costs for learning languages, "a dozen or more" is a gross exaggeration.

So . . . people like player characters - adventurers - who I specifically noted.
As for the skill cost in learning languages, it is a cross-class skill for most classes. For a fighter or cleric, it generally costs all of his skill points for a level to add a new language.
As for a dozen or more . . . Draconic, Giant, Sylvan, Celestial, Abyssal, Infernal, Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Terran, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Halfling - that is 14 just to talk to PC races and most important monsters. Add in Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, and Undercommon for lesser humanoids. And then you FINALLY want to start speaking with different people around the countryside of an average kingdom.
As an example, England around 1100 AD:
Norman/Anglo-Norman
Welsh
Cornish
Scottish Gaelic
Galwegian Gaelic
Pictish
Norse
Norn
Old/Middle English/Scots/other dialects
And that's just one small island.
Wander through places on the continent and it gets positively complex.


This is an argument from perfectionism, that is, "if we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't bother to try." It's a venomous way of looking at things if it's applied at all consistently. After all, you'll never fully realize the experience of wandering through a ruin, killing monsters, so why bother putting effort into that dungeon crawl? Why don't you just roll a few times on the treasure tables and call it a day?

No, it is an argument from playability.
At a certain point, level of detail detracts from the playability of a game, bogging it down in book-keeping complexity that does nothing but show off your particular field of specialty.
I mean really, the unarmed combat rules do nothing to distinguish between knife hand strikes delivered with the palm up versus those delivered with the palm down or those delivered with the palm vertical, and certainly not between those and the ridge hand, the inverted ridge hand, the vertical punch, the corkscrew punch, the uppercut, the different elbow strikes, palm heels, finger strikes, and so on, and then it doesn't even address the relevance of the different targets.

And as opposed to your argument of absolute realism, that is, "if we cannot do it "right", we shouldn't bother to try." How venomous is that if applied consistently? After all, you'll never fully appreciate the grand scope of a milieu unless you can reference hundreds of pages of tables, charts, and dictionaries on all the various languages. Indeed that is why everyone knows Tolkien primarily for his work on the Oxford English dictionary rather than just some minor scribbles he tossed off as an aside in his researches.

VoxRationis
2016-01-21, 04:28 PM
As for the skill cost in learning languages, it is a cross-class skill for most classes. For a fighter or cleric, it generally costs all of his skill points for a level to add a new language.
As for a dozen or more . . . Draconic, Giant, Sylvan, Celestial, Abyssal, Infernal, Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Terran, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Halfling - that is 14 just to talk to PC races and most important monsters. Add in Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, and Undercommon for lesser humanoids. And then you FINALLY want to start speaking with different people around the countryside of an average kingdom.

I'm not sure why your (presumably) D&D fighter has an interest in speaking to demons (which usually fight rather than talk) or elementals. Or why he is presumed to be the party translator and thus must speak the languages of every encountered monster on his own. Or why it's critical to the party that they must wander across continents (leaving the domain of one lingua franca and entering another) without the simple preparatory step of learning local languages/finding a translator/preparing comprehend languages. Lord knows most historical adventurers didn't speak all the local languages. In an environment where cultures meet and interact, translators will not be particularly hard to find. The effect of knowing a local language, then, would be in using social skills without penalty and in saving a few coins—an advantage, as is a proper trade for investing skill points or whatnot, but not a necessity.



And as opposed to your argument of absolute realism, that is, "if we cannot do it "right", we shouldn't bother to try." How venomous is that if applied consistently? After all, you'll never fully appreciate the grand scope of a milieu unless you can reference hundreds of pages of tables, charts, and dictionaries on all the various languages. Indeed that is why everyone knows Tolkien primarily for his work on the Oxford English dictionary rather than just some minor scribbles he tossed off as an aside in his researches.

I'm not sure that's in opposition; your quote is almost the definition of a perfectionist attitude.
Where did I ever say that we shouldn't bother to try? I believe I didn't want to do things at the absolute minimum of detail. But I feel that becoming closer to "right," by having characters in China speak a different language from those in Brittany, is worth doing.

JoeJ
2016-01-21, 04:46 PM
Absolutely the opposite!
There is very much evidence of conflict between the peoples that worshiped the Aesir and the Vanir, the Olympians and the Titans, and the Devas and Asuras.
The conflicts are a direct element of mytho-history of the peoples that worshiped the Tuatha De Danaan and the Fomorians and other races that inhabited Ireland.
The history of the Semitic mythologies is intricately tied to the succession of nations that ruled Mesopotamia.

And there is strong indication of changes in worship among them, most notably among the Greeks, with a change from "chthonic" rituals to more "standard" forms with "mystery" faiths developing to the side.
There is also the direct history of Athens, featuring a challenge between Athena and Poseidon to become the patron of the city.

Where are you finding this evidence? I have been researching Indo-European religions off and on for quite a few years and I've never seen anything remotely like you're claiming.

Tzi
2016-01-21, 04:55 PM
So . . . people like player characters - adventurers - who I specifically noted.
As for the skill cost in learning languages, it is a cross-class skill for most classes. For a fighter or cleric, it generally costs all of his skill points for a level to add a new language.
As for a dozen or more . . . Draconic, Giant, Sylvan, Celestial, Abyssal, Infernal, Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Terran, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Halfling - that is 14 just to talk to PC races and most important monsters. Add in Gnoll, Goblin, Orc, and Undercommon for lesser humanoids. And then you FINALLY want to start speaking with different people around the countryside of an average kingdom.
As an example, England around 1100 AD:
Norman/Anglo-Norman
Welsh
Cornish
Scottish Gaelic
Galwegian Gaelic
Pictish
Norse
Norn
Old/Middle English/Scots/other dialects
And that's just one small island.
Wander through places on the continent and it gets positively complex.


This seems like a none-germane or a Counter-verismilitude point of "playability of game!" But playability fundamentally will handicap any world. In the linguistics department, if I'm limited only to 14 languages because heck my players may wish to go everywhere and damnit they want to be able to smoothly talk to everyone, Then really why have different languages at all? Why not one absolute language?

The issue with Common also arises because in game you have 1 basic Human language and no mention of and sort of linguistic diversity as on earth. BUT then somehow The desert Humans have Arabic language names without an Arabic name, or maps have names loosely in other languages but nobody speaks any such gibberish?

Basically on foot could you easily leave Cornwall? If your a guy who only speaks Cornish, your unlikely to be leaving Cornish. As a DM, or a Game World Builder I would say its the rules you work around. I am noting going to send players to an area they can't understand, and in fact the fact they couldn't speak to anybody from a design perspective creates a kind of soft barrier that allows one to focus heavily on a specific region.

So I have a region with 16 languages. I could design the whole region SUPER well and it takes forever. OR I could focus on little Cornwall and use the lack of Anglo-Saxon linguistics as a soft barrier to keep my players in an area were the actions at.

Grinner
2016-01-21, 05:01 PM
So I have a region with 16 languages. I could design the whole region SUPER well and it takes forever. OR I could focus on little Cornwall and use the lack of Anglo-Saxon linguistics as a soft barrier to keep my players in an area were the actions at.

Sorry, I'm just visiting this thread, but I had an insight perhaps you hadn't thought of:

What if the players try to learn more languages?

Tzi
2016-01-21, 06:12 PM
Sorry, I'm just visiting this thread, but I had an insight perhaps you hadn't thought of:

What if the players try to learn more languages?

I build around that. Typically I tell my players about the setting. Setting is different from World. So Ríoltad Brigantí is a single main Kingdom, an Island maybe the size of Tarmania. They know about the surrounding area but I put an emphasis to players that "Hey so the campaign will center in this area." Most players aren't absolute ***** and say "Hey I want to sail to this far flung corner of nowhere, I have language knowledge!"

A) Players general enjoy the settings.
B) Four players are unlikely to all go along with "Hey we will sail to **** off to wherever."

Players in my setting usually start with a Native language, AND a number of fluent spoken languages equal to ones Intellect modifier. Learning languages, thanks to me using 5e is much more fluid and an IN GAME RP factor. So I suppose depending on your rules system it becomes easier to learn languages or not.

Grinner
2016-01-21, 06:51 PM
I build around that. Typically I tell my players about the setting. Setting is different from World. So Ríoltad Brigantí is a single main Kingdom, an Island maybe the size of Tarmania. They know about the surrounding area but I put an emphasis to players that "Hey so the campaign will center in this area." Most players aren't absolute ***** and say "Hey I want to sail to this far flung corner of nowhere, I have language knowledge!"

Oh. Yes. I saw your setting thread the other and wanted to compliment you on it.

I haven't actually read it through, but what I saw of it seemed quite promising.

Tzi
2016-01-21, 08:43 PM
Oh. Yes. I saw your setting thread the other and wanted to compliment you on it.

I haven't actually read it through, but what I saw of it seemed quite promising.

Thank You ^_^ Honestly I was getting worried if the lack of comments meant "OMFG ITS SO GOOD WE ARE UNWORTHY!!!!" or "OMFG ITS SO BAD I'M STABBING OUT MY OWN EYES WITH A PROTRACTOR!!!!!"

The factor of language is to me the essence of how I design cultures. Language reflects how people not just talk, but how they fundamentally SEE their world on some level. More over the different names suddenly have context. Which gets at me issue with "Common," in a visceral way I go batty at a party of 5 humans named Alma Salinaz, Viktor Lichtenstien, Margot Mallistrani, Brigit O'neil, and Al-Gideon. They all speak Common as a first language, its their main language, yet its such garbled nonsense that how could so many names and sounds be produced? What does any of that mean? But I focus on History and Linguistics, which I guess makes it more Verismilitude breaking FOR ME.

Grinner
2016-01-21, 08:52 PM
Thank You ^_^ Honestly I was getting worried if the lack of comments meant "OMFG ITS SO GOOD WE ARE UNWORTHY!!!!" or "OMFG ITS SO BAD I'M STABBING OUT MY OWN EYES WITH A PROTRACTOR!!!!!"

It's important to remember that only a fairly small number of people visit this subforum, and it's a lot to digest. Additionally, you keep putting "more to come" on your posts, which I personally found a bit discouraging. Didn't want to break the continuity of your posts.

Tzi
2016-01-21, 09:13 PM
It's important to remember that only a fairly small number of people visit this subforum, and it's a lot to digest. Additionally, you keep putting "more to come" on your posts, which I personally found a bit discouraging. Didn't want to break the continuity of your posts.

Ah, well I don't particularly mind. I guess that is a good point, I do intend to finish up a few more posts shortly.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-21, 10:23 PM
I'm not sure why your (presumably) D&D fighter has an interest in speaking to demons (which usually fight rather than talk) or elementals. Or why he is presumed to be the party translator and thus must speak the languages of every encountered monster on his own.

Well, the wizard often speaks to demons, while the druid regularly converses with elemental, and neither of them is particularly trustworthy. Especially that wizard. He says he didn't trade the paladin's soul to that last demon, but I'm not so sure.


Or why it's critical to the party that they must wander across continents

They wander where the adventure. Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in Greyhawk/Waterdeep/Sharn, with ten lifetimes of adventures available within walking distance.


(leaving the domain of one lingua franca and entering another)

Did you miss the part where my comments were rebutting complaints about the existence of lingua francas?


without the simple preparatory step of learning local languages/

You mean paying the skill tax I mentioned.


finding a translator/

Or paying some NPC whose trustworthiness is completely unknowable.


preparing comprehend languages.

Or best of all paying a magic spell tax, which also risks offending local sensibilities, and once again puts all trust in a single character to be an honest broker.


Lord knows most historical adventurers didn't speak all the local languages.

Most historical adventurers spoke around 5 or 6 languages.


In an environment where cultures meet and interact, translators will not be particularly hard to find. The effect of knowing a local language, then, would be in using social skills without penalty and in saving a few coins—an advantage, as is a proper trade for investing skill points or whatnot, but not a necessity.

Trusting the translator is even more important.


I'm not sure that's in opposition; your quote is almost the definition of a perfectionist attitude.
Where did I ever say that we shouldn't bother to try? I believe I didn't want to do things at the absolute minimum of detail. But I feel that becoming closer to "right," by having characters in China speak a different language from those in Brittany, is worth doing.

Which . . . is precisely what I said: the core rules go with one simple language per relevant group; specific campaigns can afford 5-10; but let's not get crazy with hundreds.
Perhaps you shouldn't read things into what I say, then I won't have to presume you are suggesting the exact opposite.


Where are you finding this evidence? I have been researching Indo-European religions off and on for quite a few years and I've never seen anything remotely like you're claiming.

Where are you not finding this evidence?
I have been researching socio-history for a good 30 years, and the evidence is hardwired into any comprehensive examination of the history or comparative/analytical mythology overview.


This seems like a none-germane or a Counter-verismilitude point of "playability of game!" But playability fundamentally will handicap any world. In the linguistics department, if I'm limited only to 14 languages because heck my players may wish to go everywhere and damnit they want to be able to smoothly talk to everyone, Then really why have different languages at all? Why not one absolute language?

Why does playability fundamentally have to handicap a world? If it does, then it fundamentally destroys any aesthetics in gaming from the get go.

Who said you are limited to only 14 languages?
Only you, projecting RAW as some absolute controlling force over your individual setting design.


The issue with Common also arises because in game you have 1 basic Human language and no mention of and sort of linguistic diversity as on earth. BUT then somehow The desert Humans have Arabic language names without an Arabic name, or maps have names loosely in other languages but nobody speaks any such gibberish?

Again, that's purely an artifact of the RAW of a generic, core, world.
It in no way prevents development of individual settings with distinct languages.
Greyhawk has a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.
Forgotten Realms has a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.
Birthright had a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.


Basically on foot could you easily leave Cornwall?

Umm . . . yeah.
Just walk east until you are in Wessex.
Or walk east then north then west and you are in Wales.
Or walk east then way north and you are in Scotland.


If your a guy who only speaks Cornish, your unlikely to be leaving Cornish. As a DM, or a Game World Builder I would say its the rules you work around. I am noting going to send players to an area they can't understand, and in fact the fact they couldn't speak to anybody from a design perspective creates a kind of soft barrier that allows one to focus heavily on a specific region.

So I have a region with 16 languages. I could design the whole region SUPER well and it takes forever. OR I could focus on little Cornwall and use the lack of Anglo-Saxon linguistics as a soft barrier to keep my players in an area were the actions at.

Or you create a "Common" tongue, and while you have 16 other languages, people can wander hither and yon, with adventures all over the place, and you don't have to worry about imposing barriers on travel.


But I focus on History and Linguistics, which I guess makes it more Verismilitude breaking FOR ME.

As I said above, I've studied socio-history for 30 years. 99.999% of every history of every setting would annihilate verisimilitude for me if I didn't catch myself in the middle of saying "In what fantasy would could anything like that possibly happ- . . . never mind."
On the other hand, 99.999% of everything people say is "INCONCEIVABLE!" makes me go "Uhhh . . . no", with examples ranging for the blatantly obvious to the randomly obscure but still with a precedent.
In this case, "Common" languages are exceptionally common in history, with the Trope namer being literally called "Common".

Tzi
2016-01-21, 10:37 PM
Why does playability fundamentally have to handicap a world? If it does, then it fundamentally destroys any aesthetics in gaming from the get go.

Who said you are limited to only 14 languages?
Only you, projecting RAW as some absolute controlling force over your individual setting design.


Well, errrrmmm you did since your very worried your character cannot get food at an inn or hit on the barkeeps daughter because she might not speak the same language as you.



Did you miss the part where my comments were rebutting complaints about the existence of lingua francas?


Most common language =/= Only spoken language. The issue of D&D isn't that there IS a "common language," but that there is ONE LANGUAGE called Common that ALL HUMANS somehow know as their first language. By RAW that is.



Again, that's purely an artifact of the RAW of a generic, core, world.
It in no way prevents development of individual settings with distinct languages.
Greyhawk has a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.
Forgotten Realms has a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.
Birthright had a distinct language for its "Arab" culture.


Not "Again." That is what people are talking about, creating worlds with lots of different languages, or at least I AM. Because the linguistically shallow standard D&D world has little linguistic diversity which breaks my personal sense of immersion into a game world.



As I said above, I've studied socio-history for 30 years. 99.999% of every history of every setting would annihilate verisimilitude for me if I didn't catch myself in the middle of saying "In what fantasy would could anything like that possibly happ- . . . never mind."
On the other hand, 99.999% of everything people say is "INCONCEIVABLE!" makes me go "Uhhh . . . no", with examples ranging for the blatantly obvious to the randomly obscure but still with a precedent.
In this case, "Common" languages are exceptionally common in history, with the Trope namer being literally called "Common".


I think your not really reading what people are saying. But you are definitely looking for an argument.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-22, 12:15 AM
Well, errrrmmm you did since your very worried your character cannot get food at an inn or hit on the barkeeps daughter because she might not speak the same language as you.

Which is totally the same thing except for it being completely different.


Most common language =/= Only spoken language. The issue of D&D isn't that there IS a "common language," but that there is ONE LANGUAGE called Common that ALL HUMANS somehow know as their first language. By RAW that is.

That is you projecting way too much onto the rules and blaming it on RAW.


Not "Again." That is what people are talking about, creating worlds with lots of different languages, or at least I AM. Because the linguistically shallow standard D&D world has little linguistic diversity which breaks my personal sense of immersion into a game world.

No, "again".
I am quite aware of what people are talking about. You however seem determined to ignore what I have been talking about so you can treat the whole thing as a personal attack just for whatever reason.


I think your not really reading what people are saying. But you are definitely looking for an argument.

That is yet again your projection, as it is you who have gone out of your way to argue with me because I disagree with you as to just how egregious a problem it is to have only a single common language for humans within the core rules, while leaving elaboration to specific and individual campaigns.

VoxRationis
2016-01-22, 01:00 AM
You mean paying the skill tax I mentioned.


It's not a tax, it's a donation... Like PBS. You don't have to spend points knowing local languages, since there are ready workarounds, but you get fun bonuses if you do! A tote bag! The ability to overhear additional information!


Well, the wizard often speaks to demons, while the druid regularly converses with elemental, and neither of them is particularly trustworthy. Especially that wizard. He says he didn't trade the paladin's soul to that last demon, but I'm not so sure.
...

Or paying some NPC whose trustworthiness is completely unknowable.


Or best of all paying a magic spell tax, which also risks offending local sensibilities, and once again puts all trust in a single character to be an honest broker.

...

Trusting the translator is even more important.
You have some serious trust issues if you think that level 0 nobodies hired purely for their multicultural backgrounds have deep, insidious agendas to subtly destroy you through mistranslation. Also if your characters have difficulties trusting people they entrust with their lives on a tactical level several times per day to translate accurately, you may have some problems with your gaming circle. You should try to keep the PvP down a little, or at least in-character try not to go adventuring with people like that.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-22, 01:48 AM
It's not a tax, it's a donation... Like PBS. You don't have to spend points knowing local languages, since there are ready workarounds, but you get fun bonuses if you do! A tote bag! The ability to overhear additional information!

If it costs resources, it's a tax.
You have to be able to communicate.
Whether that it is by finite skill points, finite spell slots, finite magic items, or finite consumables, you still have to find a way to do it.
But you get fun bonuses whether you pay the tax or not! Failing other skill rolls by 1 point! Missing out on critical plot clues!


You have some serious trust issues if you think that level 0 nobodies hired purely for their multicultural backgrounds have deep, insidious agendas to subtly destroy you through mistranslation. Also if your characters have difficulties trusting people they entrust with their lives on a tactical level several times per day to translate accurately, you may have some problems with your gaming circle. You should try to keep the PvP down a little, or at least in-character try not to go adventuring with people like that.

So . . . eliminate any plots that involve spies or treachery, and eliminate any chance of even modest PvP, just to indulge in some philological showing off.
Hmmm . . .
That seems like a pretty poor trade-off to me, but if it works for you then go for it.

Tzi
2016-01-22, 12:17 PM
Umm . . . yeah.
Just walk east until you are in Wessex.
Or walk east then north then west and you are in Wales.
Or walk east then way north and you are in Scotland.


How far do you walk in a day IRL? Would YOU have a reason to leave say Cornwall? Why are you going to Wessex? Heck its possible Wessex is in the hands of the evil Anglo-Saxons, unless your going to Kill them that is you wouldn't have cause to leave.

Wales and Cornish are similar enough that in South Wales some know Cornish and in Cornwall some know Welsh. Bilingualism exists shockingly enough.

Cornwall, lets assume is almost entirely Cornish speaking (it isn't currently) but lets say it is. Cornwall county is 3,563 km2 (1,376 sq mi), to walk from Mousehole to the County border with Devon is 66.21 mi (106.55 km). Do you regularly make little jaunts like that on foot without some clear purpose in mine? Without preparation. Pack a water bottle? Spare clothes? Heck do you even leave your hometown without a travel bag for a couple days trip? If my players went unprepared to some new area then I would say the deserve what they get. Its like saying "I'm going to werewolf town. but don't expect me to pay that silver weapons purchasing tax, that is absolute BS and slows down my murderhobo fest!"



I am quite aware of what people are talking about. You however seem determined to ignore what I have been talking about so you can treat the whole thing as a personal attack just for whatever reason.


Well you are seemingly freaking out about the idea of a Campaign World with a lot of different languages, acting like I'M YOUR DM! I don't even know whom you are.

What your talking about is often inaccurate to what I am saying OR a case of mild revisionism or MODERN rewrites of the past. We know the ROMANS saw their gods as universal and all others as similar, but then again they were conquering people and trying to absorb other cultures. We don't know what the conquered thought about their Gods being just "other faces of the roman gods."



That is you projecting way too much onto the rules and blaming it on RAW.


The rules are what I have to work with, so I work with them. Otherwise it isn't D&D. Jesus Christ you're just wanting to be contrarian at this point.



That is yet again your projection, as it is you who have gone out of your way to argue with me because I disagree with you as to just how egregious a problem it is to have only a single common language for humans within the core rules, while leaving elaboration to specific and individual campaigns.


You come at me like "OMFG YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING!" I am saying that I have changed it to suite my specific campaign setting. ALSO often DM's I've played under have typically left linguistic differences off the table. Common is literally the "Human language." somehow.



If it costs resources, it's a tax.
You have to be able to communicate.
Whether that it is by finite skill points, finite spell slots, finite magic items, or finite consumables, you still have to find a way to do it.
But you get fun bonuses whether you pay the tax or not! Failing other skill rolls by 1 point! Missing out on critical plot clues!


It costs resources to do combat.... OMFG THOSE TERRIBLE DM'S TAX YOUR POOR CHARACTER OMFG I CANT BELIEVE ITS LIKE LIVING IN COMMUNIST RUSSIA OR SOMETHING!!!!!!!!

Tiktakkat
2016-01-22, 02:31 PM
How far do you walk in a day IRL? Would YOU have a reason to leave say Cornwall? Why are you going to Wessex? Heck its possible Wessex is in the hands of the evil Anglo-Saxons, unless your going to Kill them that is you wouldn't have cause to leave.

Nowadays? Or when I was younger and regularly walked 10-15 miles a day, plus my workouts?
Of course I was never a professional adventurer, wandering hither and yon for quests to complete.
And why would I have to go to Wessex to liberate it from the West Saxons? Couldn't I just go there to slay some rampaging monster and get paid by the West Saxons?


Well you are seemingly freaking out about the idea of a Campaign World with a lot of different languages, acting like I'M YOUR DM! I don't even know whom you are.

As opposed to your freaking out about the idea of a campaign world with only a few different languages, acting like the WotC Game Police will show up at your home and confiscate your dice if you dare to add any?

I'm just not utterly freaked out by the concepts of a common language for all humans, or a single world-wide pantheon, or any of the other extreme simplifications contained with the core rules. While they are rather excessive simplifications there are sufficient historical precedents that I can casually ignore them, expanding on them if I see fit, without feeling oppressed by their mere existence.

Tzi
2016-01-22, 03:12 PM
Nowadays? Or when I was younger and regularly walked 10-15 miles a day, plus my workouts?
Of course I was never a professional adventurer, wandering hither and yon for quests to complete.
And why would I have to go to Wessex to liberate it from the West Saxons? Couldn't I just go there to slay some rampaging monster and get paid by the West Saxons?


Have you ever bothered to Walk 60+ miles to another country lets say, but say "F' that I ain't getting a phrase book on their language or learning their language, GOD should just make everyone speak some common language, and I mean everyone from the toothless peasant to the King and priests.... I mean come on, I want to just walk everywhere!

Even as a professional adventurer, starting is say "Mousehole," why would you wander over to an area with a different language that you don't know without preparation. As a DM I'd say you deserve the frustrations you get. Like, say wandering into a dungeon without any healing spells, or is needing healing spells a tax too?

You totally could, but if you don't know how to talk to anyone, why go? Why not go to Tintagel and help fight off the invading West Saxons and their hobgoblins or whatever?



As opposed to your freaking out about the idea of a campaign world with only a few different languages, acting like the WotC Game Police will show up at your home and confiscate your dice if you dare to add any?


Title of thread "Brainstorming Things that break verismilitude for you in a fantasy setting", FOR ME it breaks verismilitude that there is a language called "Common," that everybody seems to speak. Humans either have only one language or no language unto themselves and races seem to all be monoglots. I also never said such thing. I said monoglot or shallow languages BROKE verismilitude for me. JESUS christ.....

Brainstorming Things that break verismilitude for you in a fantasy setting
Please read the title of the thread very closely, read it a few dozen times if you have to.



I'm just not utterly freaked out by the concepts of a common language for all humans, or a single world-wide pantheon, or any of the other extreme simplifications contained with the core rules. While they are rather excessive simplifications there are sufficient historical precedents that I can casually ignore them, expanding on them if I see fit, without feeling oppressed by their mere existence.


Good for you, cool beans, have fun and play on. No need to be insanely contrarian and angsty about some whom does find the RAW rules and fantasy setting via RAW and others as being kind of verismilitude breaking. Thus my desire to have a HOMEBREW world that changes it.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-22, 11:40 PM
Please read the title of the thread very closely, read it a few dozen times if you have to.

In the process, re-read that thread title a few dozen times yourself, and go look up the definition of "verisimilitude" while you are doing it.
You are complaining that things that have real-world equivalents do not seem true and real to you when presented in a fantasy context.
Uh huh.

Tzi
2016-01-23, 01:02 AM
In the process, re-read that thread title a few dozen times yourself, and go look up the definition of "verisimilitude" while you are doing it.
You are complaining that things that have real-world equivalents do not seem true and real to you when presented in a fantasy context.
Uh huh.

As I have said previously, you're not exactly responding to what I have said.

Lingua Franca / trade language =/= only spoken language by a species. Which is what I find difficult to see as real. I get the feeling you and I are not even talking about the same topic anymore so I think we will have to just politely agree to not agree.

Blake Hannon
2016-01-23, 04:36 AM
I don't think there's ever been a lingua franca for the entire planet. Modern English is probably the closest thing there's ever been, and even that isn't anywhere near as ubiquitous as Common.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-23, 01:15 PM
As I have said previously, you're not exactly responding to what I have said.

You haven't responded to a single thing I've said.


Lingua Franca / trade language =/= only spoken language by a species. Which is what I find difficult to see as real.

Which is why the core rules flexible enough to allow those other languages to be developed for specific settings while just listing the "common" languages for a generic, default setting.
One might also note that is why the specific settings do not use the core pantheon. (Greyhawk being an exception as the core pantheon is just a selection from the greater list of Greyhawk powers. Non-core Greyhawk also has a dozen additional human languages, not to mention different human "sub-races" to go with the expanded pantheon.)


I get the feeling you and I are not even talking about the same topic anymore so I think we will have to just politely agree to not agree.

I realized that 10 posts ago.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-23, 01:23 PM
This is the "But Dragons" fallacy, where the existence in a setting of a fantastic element is used to excuse failures of verisimilitude that have nothing to do with that element. An excellent example of it elsewhere is with armor: people excuse ridiculous armor designs because it's a fantasy world, even though the principles underlying the armor's effectiveness and those underlying the effectiveness of weapons are still fundamentally the same as in our world. That is to say, the thing which makes armor effective (the hardness and toughness of metal allowing it to absorb impact elastically while preventing a dangerous object from passing through it to the body of the person beneath) is still in play, and therefore the issues which prevent many designs from working (the armor getting stuck on itself or the person within normal ranges of motion) are also still in play.
In the same way, having a few wizards doing magical things doesn't change linguistic evolution that much, because:
1) People are still cognitively the same, and therefore the same mental processes of linguistic evolution are still in play;
2) The ability of a few people (people who often are polyglots or have translation spells, no less) to travel widely does not make a world of difference to the large populations in linguistic isolation; that is, Marco Polo being able to visit Yuan China doesn't stop medieval Italian from being different from medieval French or Chinese.
3) Wizards rarely are shown committing their time and energy to the public infrastructure required to encourage or enforce linguistic unity over wide sections of the world. They aren't establishing public school systems that teach in one language and affect the majority of the children of their domains. They aren't establishing broadcasting systems which allow the residents of rural hamlets to observe the standard dialects in a direct and personal way. They probably aren't even establishing a centralized bureaucracy which deals with the populace on a regular basis. Therefore, at best the native or preferred language of a wizard, even with a wide domain, will only supplement, not replace the local languages in that domain. The only people who call it a fallacy are those who have it used against them. Those people are just as guilty of inconsistently applying logic as your example.

If your fantasy setting completely eschews the laws of physics in the name of multi-ton, flying, armored, fire breathing, apex predator reptiles, than the idea that a koiné language/pidgin/lingua franca could not transcend regionality is a tad on the picky side. They exist regionally in our world, in a world with magic it's kinda hard to imagine the tools to create them don't exist. And I, unlike you, have no problem believing that at some point Wizards would tire of wasting incredibly valuable, limited spell resources on being able to talk to foreigners.

I guess my issue is, the former has no basis in reality. The latter, however, is merely an extrapolation on something that actually exists. Making the latter a tad more reasonable than the former, in my mind.

What I was trying to address was that, for me, nothing breaks verisimilitude more then when content creators embrace the impossible, while nickpicking the improbable. I caution people to self-evaluate whether they might be falling into that trap.

EDIT: Just to clear some things up, I too have effectively removed "Common" from my own campaign setting. The vestigial remains are merely an excuse for players to always be able to purchase equipment, no matter where they are. In other words, "Common" is the universal language of intense staring, flashing coin, gesturing, and grunting. Maybe with some basic mathematics.

Tzi
2016-01-23, 02:13 PM
The only people who call it a fallacy are those who have it used against them. Those people are just as guilty of inconsistently applying logic as your example.

If your fantasy setting completely eschews the laws of physics in the name of multi-ton, flying, armored, fire breathing, apex predator reptiles, than the idea that a koiné language/pidgin/lingua franca could not transcend regionality is a tad on the picky side. They exist regionally in our world, in a world with magic it's kinda hard to imagine the tools to create them don't exist. And I, unlike you, have no problem believing that at some point Wizards would tire of wasting incredibly valuable, limited spell resources on being able to talk to foreigners.

I guess my issue is, the former has no basis in reality. The latter, however, is merely an extrapolation on something that actually exists. Making the latter a tad more reasonable than the former, in my mind.

What I was trying to address was that, for me, nothing breaks verisimilitude more then when content creators embrace the impossible, while nickpicking the improbable. I caution people to self-evaluate whether they might be falling into that trap.

EDIT: Just to clear some things up, I too have effectively removed "Common" from my own campaign setting. The vestigial remains are merely an excuse for players to always be able to purchase equipment, no matter where they are. In other words, "Common" is the universal language of intense staring, flashing coin, gesturing, and grunting.

I think it depends on the logics of a given campaign world. One key thing here is by RAW rules a lot of things become logical conclusions of the rules that otherwise make worlds broken and unworkable. Theoretically no economies exist in these worlds because Magic can create Iron, gold, ect materials and utterly overrun an economy.

IF say the logics of a world are that spellcasters are fairly rare, far apart, not exactly common place, and subsequently there aren't thousands of individuals whom with a handwave can understand any given speech than that falls apart.

Putting it another way, the problem with that line of thinking is essentially it becomes, "Why worldbuild," if you cannot create the aesthetic you want because all a player has to do is say "<Blank Limit> is stupid, I mean there is flying fire breathing dragons so therefore <blank> should be allowed." As an example I long ago made a world that was a kind of Colonial era 1700's ish level technology and aesthetic. Set in a "New World," type continent. A player wanted to play a female human child whose arms and legs were ripped off and Aliens (Like space aliens) replaced them with automail. Now the physical existence of dragons, even Wish granting DBZ style dragons would by that logic imply that as a DM and world builder I MUST comply because hey, the world has other fantastical elements! At a certain point your essentially making it impossible to do any world building beyond RAW mechanical rules and the DM or Worldbuilder can have zero aesthetic choice or control over their creation .... BECAUSE DRAGONS AND MAGIC!?

At its core that challenges the very point of world building.

VoxRationis
2016-01-23, 02:37 PM
The only people who call it a fallacy are those who have it used against them.

Well, obviously. The people making use of a fallacy in their rhetoric rarely have motivation to identify it.



What I was trying to address was that, for me, nothing breaks verisimilitude more then when content creators embrace the impossible, while nickpicking the improbable. I caution people to self-evaluate whether they might be falling into that trap.
Fundamentally, the problem with this thinking is that it assumes the rules of a setting are evaluated only based on how possible/impossible they are in real life; that is, if we imagine the entire realm of possibility as a point, within a fantasy setting, everything in an equidistant sphere, whose radius from that point is determined by such metrics as (for example) the presence of dragons, is possible within the setting.
But that's not necessarily reasonable as an assumption. A given thing may be possible in a setting that is quite impossible in ours, but that thing doesn't necessarily allow unrelated aspects of reality to be broken. For example, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, some people can shoot fire from their hands, which is obviously impossible in real life. But lots of things (such as, for example, changing an ordinary rock into a person with a wave of a wand) are impossible in that setting, even though they're about as impossible in real life.
What really happens with world-building and setting construction is that you're taking the Textbook of Physics and editing select passages of it, not just throwing it out. The constraints presented by the newly-edited rules apply to the fantasy world just as much as our physics apply to our world, even though the area within those constraints is differently-shaped than ours.
Thus, the presence of multi-ton flying reptiles doesn't necessarily imply anything about human economies or languages, except as in economies relate to the efficacy of muscle-powered flight. Saying as an author "The fact that dragons exist implies either that muscles are more powerful for their weight than in our world, or that gravity is lower, and therefore humans can fly Icarus-style if they develop their pectoral muscles enough" is reasonable. Saying "The fact that dragons exist implies that human languages don't evolve and diverge over time" is not.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-23, 04:01 PM
Saying "The fact that dragons exist implies that human languages don't evolve and diverge over time" is not.

But that is not what he said.

What he said was:
"The fact that dragons exist implies that human languages being outrageously static is not particularly improbable."

If direct cause and effect was needed as you suggest, then it would be more along the lines of:
"The fact that technology and culture is outrageously static implies that human languages are outrageously static as well."

Note the differences between those two and your construction.

Saying "It's magic!" for everything is indeed exceptionally lazy design. Something I've seen and called out repeatedly, and which to some extent is inherent to the CoDzilla/Batman dominance of D20.
That's not what this is.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-23, 04:09 PM
I think it depends on the logics of a given campaign world. One key thing here is by RAW rules a lot of things become logical conclusions of the rules that otherwise make worlds broken and unworkable. Theoretically no economies exist in these worlds because Magic can create Iron, gold, ect materials and utterly overrun an economy. The first law of economics is that resources are scarce.

Magic, as modeled by the rules of every RPG I've encountered, is a scarce resource. I shudder to think how an RPG where that was not the case would even function.

There are a finite amount of casters, casting a finite number of spells, creating a finite number of effects. That's scarcity. Magic follows the same rules of economics.

As a trained economist, it is a small pet peeve of mine that this misunderstanding oft arises.


Well, obviously. The people making use of a fallacy in their rhetoric rarely have motivation to identify it. Another pet peeve of mine is the coining of fabricated "fallacies" among the RPG community in vain attempts to guard commonly held, flimsy arguments from criticism. Probably because my other degree is in Philosophy.

There is nothing fallacious about pointing out the logical inconsistency of using real world examples to justify one creative choice while rejecting another despite similar real support, creative pressures aside.


Fundamentally, the problem with this thinking is that it assumes the rules of a setting are evaluated only based on how possible/impossible they are in real life; that is, if we imagine the entire realm of possibility as a point, within a fantasy setting, everything in an equidistant sphere, whose radius from that point is determined by such metrics as (for example) the presence of dragons, is possible within the setting.
But that's not necessarily reasonable as an assumption. A given thing may be possible in a setting that is quite impossible in ours, but that thing doesn't necessarily allow unrelated aspects of reality to be broken. For example, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, some people can shoot fire from their hands, which is obviously impossible in real life. But lots of things (such as, for example, changing an ordinary rock into a person with a wave of a wand) are impossible in that setting, even though they're about as impossible in real life.
What really happens with world-building and setting construction is that you're taking the Textbook of Physics and editing select passages of it, not just throwing it out. The constraints presented by the newly-edited rules apply to the fantasy world just as much as our physics apply to our world, even though the area within those constraints is differently-shaped than ours.
Thus, the presence of multi-ton flying reptiles doesn't necessarily imply anything about human economies or languages, except as in economies relate to the efficacy of muscle-powered flight. Saying as an author "The fact that dragons exist implies either that muscles are more powerful for their weight than in our world, or that gravity is lower, and therefore humans can fly Icarus-style if they develop their pectoral muscles enough" is reasonable. Saying "The fact that dragons exist implies that human languages don't evolve and diverge over time" is not. My issue has little to do with the acceptance of the impossible, despite impossibility (the definition of fantasy). My issue is the rejection of the possible on the grounds of improbability.

You have done very little to defend the claim that "Common", despite some real historical precedent, is impossible and thus a challenge to verisimilitude.

It is improbable, maybe (less so in a world with magic). But not impossible. Therefore, I'm inclined to say that it can be a useful tool in the hands of those who appreciate the benefits it provides in gameplay.

Given its possibility, rejection of it is a hugely personal choice (like most questions of verisimilitude), not a question of whether it could actually happen.

Thus I think rejection of it requires some self-reflection with regards to why. Is it because that improbably bothers you? If so, why doesn't impossibility? Is it because of other choices you've made about how magic works in your setting, that other settings might not share? Choices about how the people behave? Or, like me, is it because you like the gameplay implications better?

When something is not impossible, just improbable, than it is completely legit to call into question why it challenges verisimilitude.

I guess, for the sake of dialogue, I feel most conversations about verisimilitude should start there. If it is not impossible, what reasons are there that it should not be included? Opinions will always differ on that matter.

Tzi
2016-01-23, 04:41 PM
You have done very little to defend the claim that "Common", despite some real historical precedent, is impossible and thus a challenge to verisimilitude.

It is improbable, maybe (less so in a world with magic). But not impossible. Therefore, I'm inclined to say that it can be a useful tool in the hands of those who appreciate the benefits it provides in gameplay.


Not all settings are the same. Common as presented in RAW and often in many settings I've played in, the DM has essentially presented it as THE HUMAN LANGUAGE and ALSO the lingua franca planet wide. This in it of itself would not be the verisimilitude breaking factor for me, its that this is presented with a counter-intuitive vast cultural diversity, somehow emerging, without vastly different languages.

One DM had an island, obviously modeled on Ireland, with so many name for people and places being Gaelic. Okay I can run with that, but all these humans speak Common. The Elves speak Elvish, the Dwarves? Dwarvish! Sail south and I encounter this DM's fantasy France. So many French names, place names ect, yet the Humans speak Common, the Elves, Elvish ect. Do you see what I am getting at?

Basically it becomes versimimilitude breaking when somehow the same language produces places called caisleán ard, gaztelu handiko,
hoë kasteel, alta castell, caer uchel. How does this come about when all those names translate the High Castle? As presented all these humans should be speaking the same language. FOR ME, that drives me kinda nuts in that its inconsistent and clashes aesthetics.



Given its possibility, rejection of it is a hugely personal choice (like most questions of verisimilitude), not a question of whether it could actually happen.

Thus I think rejection of it requires some self-reflection with regards to why. Is it because that improbably bothers you? If so, why doesn't impossibility? Is it because of other choices you've made about how magic works in your setting, that other settings might not share? Choices about how the people behave? Or, like me, is it because you like the gameplay implications better?

When something is not impossible, just improbable, than it is completely legit to call into question why it challenges verisimilitude.

I guess, for the sake of dialogue, I feel most conversations about verisimilitude should start there. If it is not impossible, what reasons are there that it should not be included? Opinions will always differ on that matter.


Aesthetics is the main issue. As with my player who in a setting with a 1770, colonial America aesthetic wanting to play a small child with alien made automail arms and legs, or say someone who creates a setting with a bronze age aesthetic is faced with a player demanding to be One Punch Man with Ironman power armor at a certain point a campaign world's designer and DM has to just say no for the sake that aesthetic clashing can break the inner reality of world.

Sort of like a Cell has a membrane that is semipermeable, yes some things go in and out but not everything.

From a gameplay perspective the legions of languages creates a soft barrier to extensive farflung travel. Thus as a DM I can have a big wide world, but focus heavily on the specific area of the campaign and paint very specific details without having to worry excessively about the rest of the world knowing that at character creation players will be playing characters to the setting. More over linguistic challenges creates the very real possibility that they might encounter people they don't understand, or have to struggle (Which from a game perspective isn't that the point? To throw challenges at players?)



The first law of economics is that resources are scarce....


Apologies, I'm a history major not an econ major.

Yora
2016-01-24, 05:41 AM
The first law of economics is that resources are scarce.

Magic, as modeled by the rules of every RPG I've encountered, is a scarce resource. I shudder to think how an RPG where that was not the case would even function.

There are a finite amount of casters, casting a finite number of spells, creating a finite number of effects. That's scarcity. Magic follows the same rules of economics.

But just as important than scarcity, or perhaps even more, is distribution and access. It doesn't matter if we have more food and water in the world than all people could ever consume if these resources just can't reach certain people and places. Transportation costs are just as deciding a factor as the rarity of a resource.

Sredni Vashtar
2016-01-24, 08:07 AM
I don't think there's ever been a lingua franca for the entire planet. Modern English is probably the closest thing there's ever been, and even that isn't anywhere near as ubiquitous as Common.

Not to get into a "let's bludgeon each other with walls of text" fight, but how many settings really have one language for an entire planet anyway? On a related note, how often is it that a campaign spans the globe in general?

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-24, 11:44 AM
But just as important than scarcity, or perhaps even more, is distribution and access. It doesn't matter if we have more food and water in the world than all people could ever consume if these resources just can't reach certain people and places. Transportation costs are just as deciding a factor as the rarity of a resource. To translate that into economic speak: transportation is a scarce resource.

VoxRationis
2016-01-24, 12:10 PM
There is nothing fallacious about pointing out the logical inconsistency of using real world examples to justify one creative choice while rejecting another despite similar real support, creative pressures aside.

My issue has little to do with the acceptance of the impossible, despite impossibility (the definition of fantasy). My issue is the rejection of the possible on the grounds of improbability.

You have done very little to defend the claim that "Common", despite some real historical precedent, is impossible and thus a challenge to verisimilitude.

It is improbable, maybe (less so in a world with magic). But not impossible. Therefore, I'm inclined to say that it can be a useful tool in the hands of those who appreciate the benefits it provides in gameplay.

Given its possibility, rejection of it is a hugely personal choice (like most questions of verisimilitude), not a question of whether it could actually happen.

Thus I think rejection of it requires some self-reflection with regards to why. Is it because that improbably bothers you? If so, why doesn't impossibility? Is it because of other choices you've made about how magic works in your setting, that other settings might not share? Choices about how the people behave? Or, like me, is it because you like the gameplay implications better?

When something is not impossible, just improbable, than it is completely legit to call into question why it challenges verisimilitude.


Ultimately, because while the impossible is usually allowed in a setting because of explicit (at least to the author) changes in the rules of the setting (that is, the physics of the setting are changed so that people can throw fireballs or whatnot), the improbable is rarely so justified. People just use the now-possible, formerly impossible, things in the setting as a smokescreen. The rules relating to the improbable (i.e., linguistic homogeneity among the human race) are rarely changed—or are rarely changed in a fashion which would lead to the improbable—so we are left with situations where highly specific, highly unlikely circumstances are accepted without question.
Common has historical precedent in the fashion of languages which are widely used for trade in a particular region. It does not have precedent in the fashion of there being a single language which all humans know, such that it is the only birth language for most humans, with no other local human languages (and as Tzi said, in spite of local nomenclatures being vastly different), across a continent or more of inhabited area. To compare English or Latin to Common would be to say that across the Roman Empire, or across the ex-British Empire and the regions affected by American influence, everyone speaks English or Latin fluently, as a native language, and only the exceptionally intelligent have ever bothered to learn other languages. If you go to Hong Kong, they have signs in English and never speak in a Sinitic language. If you go to the highlands of northern India, speaking only English, you will have no problems communicating with everyone you see.
That would imply very unusual circumstances, like a Roman Empire that brutally crushed out other languages, in a fashion even more thorough than that of the colonial empires of the 19th century (and mind you, the colonial empires were pretty thorough), and ruled one or more continents (but only the humans in those continents, as the elves and dwarves still have their languages). Or possibly a massive and very recent expansion campaign across a previously uninhabited continent (such as if millions of humans were living in sheltered arcologies to escape a cataclysm and then went out to colonize the land in the last 100 years), with no time to experience linguistic radiation. These are very specific scenarios, not found in most settings, and yet the circumstances which require those scenarios to exist are treated as a default. That is improbable to the point of being impossible. That's what breaks verisimilitude.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-24, 12:59 PM
Unless, of course, you have a confounding factor which greatly affects all things.

Like, say, magic.

I guess I need you to explain exactly how and why magic cannot, and would not, have an effect on language and how it is spoken.

Just like magic would likely render castles and fortesses obsolete, I fail to see why magic would not greatly affect the way languages evolve.

And don't even get me started on what actually present deities could do to effect language. For a case study on that, check out the work of one particularly angry diety in Genesis 11:1–9.


One DM had an island, obviously modeled on Ireland, with so many name for people and places being Gaelic. Okay I can run with that, but all these humans speak Common. The Elves speak Elvish, the Dwarves? Dwarvish! Sail south and I encounter this DM's fantasy France. So many French names, place names ect, yet the Humans speak Common, the Elves, Elvish ect. Do you see what I am getting at?

Basically it becomes versimimilitude breaking when somehow the same language produces places called caisleán ard, gaztelu handiko,
hoë kasteel, alta castell, caer uchel. How does this come about when all those names translate the High Castle? As presented all these humans should be speaking the same language. FOR ME, that drives me kinda nuts in that its inconsistent and clashes aesthetics. It must really confound you and Vox that most American placenames are not English, huh?

Though, for the record, I can't think of an official campaign setting where this is the case. Most either jam English words together (Neverwinter, Greyhawk) or completely fabricate words that sound cool (Chult, Eberron).

Tzi
2016-01-24, 01:18 PM
Unless, of course, you have a confounding factor which greatly affects all things.

Like, say, magic.

I guess I need you to explain exactly how and why magic cannot, and would not, have an effect on language and how it is spoken.

Just like magic would likely render castles and fortesses obsolete, I fail to see why magic would not greatly effect the way languages evolve.

And don't even get me started on what actually present deities could do to effect language. For a case study on that, check out the work of one particular angry diety in Genesis 11:1–9.


Well first, I would need an explanation of how magic spells WOULD create a monoglot or nearly monoglot planet, but with nomenclature from languages that never existed somehow inexplicably were varying culture is that somehow arose without varying language patterns. Okay going from RAW, magic is what it is in RAW. Lets go a different route, Lets ask, how and why the presence of spellcasting WOULD create this inexplicable reality AND lets look at Genesis and the implications for world building.

So, As worldbuilders we must all hammer whatever setting we have to include anything and everything conceivable because "HEY! DRAGONS AND MAGIC!" Doesn't matter if the setting has a bronze age aesthetic, "I want to be One-Punch man and Inuyasha's secret love child who has Ironman power armor and a Uzi who was flung back in time from a parallel dimension, also did I mention my character is super sexy and is a race that doesn't even exist in this world?! WHAT?! WHY NOT?! I MEAN DRAGONS AND MAGIC!?" Your line of reasoning basically makes worldbuilding pointless.



It must really confound you and Vox that most American placenames are not English, huh?


Whats fun is that I am aware this majestic continent was once populated by peoples whom spoke said languages that gave these areas place names. Now if every human on Earth spoke English and had ALWAYS spoke English and yet somehow places like California, Sierra Nevada, Quinnipiac River, Okeechobee County, Shoshone County ect existed I would be most confused as NONE of those names make any sense in English and would be utter gibberish and nonsense and I'd be curious why the entirely English speaking Human race, WHOM HAS ALWAYS SPOKE ENGLISH SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, is able to conjure what seems like another language without actually have the concept of OTHER LANGUAGE at all.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-24, 01:42 PM
Well first, I would need an explanation of how magic spells WOULD create a monoglot or nearly monoglot planet, but with nomenclature from languages that never existed somehow inexplicably were varying culture is that somehow arose without varying language patterns. Okay going from RAW, magic is what it is in RAW. Lets go a different route, Lets ask, how and why the presence of spellcasting WOULD create this inexplicable reality AND lets look at Genesis and the implications for world building.

So, As worldbuilders we must all hammer whatever setting we have to include anything and everything conceivable because "HEY! DRAGONS AND MAGIC!" Doesn't matter if the setting has a bronze age aesthetic, "I want to be One-Punch man and Inuyasha's secret love child who has Ironman power armor and a Uzi who was flung back in time from a parallel dimension, also did I mention my character is super sexy and is a race that doesn't even exist in this world?! WHAT?! WHY NOT?! I MEAN DRAGONS AND MAGIC!?" Your line of reasoning basically makes worldbuilding pointless. I realize you think you are making a reductio ad absurdum argument here, but it is a false equivalence.

The stretch between "in a world of magic, real world things might transcend their current state, making the improbable more likely" and "elements contradictory and impossible to setting aesthetics are fair game because magic defies everything" is rather ridiculous.


Whats fun is that I am aware this majestic continent was once populated by peoples whom spoke said languages that gave these areas place names. Now if every human on Earth spoke English and had ALWAYS spoke English and yet somehow places like California, Sierra Nevada, Quinnipiac River, Okeechobee County, Shoshone County ect existed I would be most confused as NONE of those names make any sense in English and would be utter gibberish and nonsense and I'd be curious why the entirely English speaking Human race, WHOM HAS ALWAYS SPOKE ENGLISH SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, is able to conjure what seems like another language without actually have the concept of OTHER LANGUAGE at all. Which is, of course, not actually the case in most official materials...

Might I draw your attention to 3.5's Suel Arcanamach prestige class, whose roleplaying requirement makes it very clear that in Greyhawk a race of humans long passed once spoke a language that wasn't Common. And the campaign setting Adaption section? It lists numerous similar candidates in Forgotten Realms.

Point is, I'm not sure what lead you to think that wasn't the case in most official campaign settings, since the source materials seem sprinkled with references to that being the case. Those long dead acient empires? Campaign settings rarely say they spoke Common, except those which say that those empires invented it.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-24, 01:52 PM
That would imply very unusual circumstances, like a Roman Empire that brutally crushed out other languages, in a fashion even more thorough than that of the colonial empires of the 19th century (and mind you, the colonial empires were pretty thorough), and ruled one or more continents (but only the humans in those continents, as the elves and dwarves still have their languages).

The Roman Empire did crush out other languages, they just didn't do it brutally. To get ahead in the bureaucracy, you had to be able to write in the "classic" manner. That effectively eliminated the vast array of languages of the conquered peoples, with the exception of Greek which they adopted as an upper class affectation . . . and because so much of the trade around the Mediterranean was done in the Greek "common" language. And even after the Western Roman Empire fell, Latin was so dominant that virtually all of the conquerors abandoned their native tongues for corrupted versions of Latin.

Compared to that, the 19th century colonial empires did almost nothing to local languages. Africa and India are still a trove of languages, so much so that they need the colonial languages as a "common" language in many instances.

The problem isn't with the rules, but with your misconceptions about real-world comparisons.

On, as for RAW:
RAW presumes a single human ethnotype and culture, and thus a single human language.
In settings with multiple human ethnotypes and cultures, there are invariably multiple human languages.
This is projecting a rules simplification for a core base into an overriding mandate for all design.
If you are designing your own setting, or elaborating on a published one, and you wind up with a single human language, then the problem is not with the rules but with your design.

Tzi
2016-01-24, 01:58 PM
I realize you think you are making a reductio ad absurdum argument here, but it is a false equivalence.

The stretch between "in a world of magic, real world things might transcend their current state, making the improbable more likely" and "elements contradictory and impossible to setting aesthetics are fair game because magic defies everything" is rather ridiculous.


But it isn't. In my time playing D&D and tabletop RPG and DM'ing and worldbuilding I have encountered this exact line of reasoning. That the presence of one impossible thing basically binds me to allow anything and everything conceivable. Your line of though is precisely "elements contradictory and impossible to setting aesthetics are fair game because magic defies everything" or basically if its plausibly explained away via "MAGIC," then its totally fine. The Half-Alien/Half-Robot Undead reincarnation of Goku? Totally fine in Bronze Age Mesopotamia inspired setting. What? You want to play Joseph Stalin sent back int time and to an alternate dimension to learn the error of his ways? Well magic can theoretically allow ANYTHING so I must allow EVERYTHING! As a DM I've had....


Little girl who was abducted by aliens after her arms and legs are wripped off by a cthulhu spawn and replaced with automail so she can save the planet from a Mind Flayer invasion..... in a campaign setting with a 1776 colonial America aesthetic.
A WW2 soldier thrown into an alternate dimension but adopted by elves who is basically magic Captain America and founds fantasy USA..... in Bronze Age Mesopotamia aesthetic setting with zero elves mind you.
Rasputins daughter whom hitched a ride on Baba Yaga's magic hut and traveled to my 1776 colonial America aesthetic setting.


I rejected all three even though all three players used the ironclad logic of ".... but there's MAGIC!!!!" So I said "No, that is so improbable and verismilitude breaking that I wasn't going to allow it.

If the presence of magic basically means I have to allow everything it makes the process of world building impossible since the worldbuilder and DM cannot establish the parameters by which a worlds aesthetic exists.



Which is, of course, not actually the case in most official materials...

Might I draw your attention to 3.5's Suel Arcanamach prestige class, whose roleplaying requirement makes it very clear that in Greyhawk a race of humans long passed once spoke a language that wasn't Common. And the campaign setting Adaption section? It lists numerous similar candidates in Forgotten Realms.

Point is, I'm not sure what lead you to think that wasn't the case in most official campaign settings, since the source materials seem sprinkled with references to that being the case. Those long dead acient empires? Campaign settings rarely say they spoke Common, except those which say that those empires invented it.


As a world builder are any of us BUILDING the Forgotten Realms setting? I was under the impression world builders built new worlds? So for the sake of pleasing you and Tiktakkat I have to ensure some ancient empire invented the super language that everyone speaks. Yet somehow in defiance of this same language all have inexplicably separate cultures and nomenclature but totally all speak the same language because.... F' it... DRAGONS AND MAGIC!

..... All worlds must be forgotten realms or more!

Tiktakkat
2016-01-24, 02:21 PM
If the presence of magic basically means I have to allow everything it makes the process of world building impossible since the worldbuilder and DM cannot establish the parameters by which a worlds aesthetic exists.

You are conflating players being jerks with their character background with core rules with some sinister plot of oppression if you dare to introduce more languages into your campaign.

None of those are even remotely true.

I routinely impose race and class restrictions on adventuring parties, and once let a player kill his character because he insisted on being a Faerunian elf on Greyhawk. If a player won't get with the program that is his problem, not a flaw in the rules.
Core rules are a baseline, that's all.
More critically, it is not a "houserule", as if that were some sort of inferior thing or derogatory label to be assigned, to have more languages in your campaign. Nobody with any sense thinks it is bad. Rather, if you do it really well they will be impressed and want to use it themselves.


So for the sake of pleasing you and Tiktakkat I have to ensure some ancient empire invented the super language that everyone speaks.

Not at all. Your setting, you design it, whatever.
But you want more than that: for the sake of pleasing you and Vox, I have to deny that super languages are a reasonable and functional core rule.

Tzi
2016-01-24, 02:39 PM
You are conflating players being jerks with their character background with core rules with some sinister plot of oppression if you dare to introduce more languages into your campaign.


No, I'm point out that the logic of "... well magic, so shut up and accept it!" Is perilously bad and basically inherently flawed. Just because something IS possible doesn't mean it IS going to happen.

Native Americans COULD have invented bronze alloys and iron weapons and the wheel, but didn't, it just never happened. Could a single language dominate the whole planet and an entire species so thoroughly yet somehow individual areas have different nomenclature that would seem to be from some non-existent other human language? I guess theoretically yes, that doesn't make it dumb. I mean sure for gameplay speed that fine, but I personally find it immersion breaking.

And your core contention is essentially "Players being jerks," type reasoning. "OMFG I can't talk to every person within 3000 miles of were I am? You mean there might be people who won't understand me? F' way to tax me!!!!"



I routinely impose race and class restrictions on adventuring parties, and once let a player kill his character because he insisted on being a Faerunian elf on Greyhawk. If a player won't get with the program that is his problem, not a flaw in the rules.
Core rules are a baseline, that's all.
More critically, it is not a "houserule", as if that were some sort of inferior thing or derogatory label to be assigned, to have more languages in your campaign. Nobody with any sense thinks it is bad. Rather, if you do it really well they will be impressed and want to use it themselves.


Cool beans so you agree with me? I can change them and define the setting to the aesthetic I wish?



Not at all. Your setting, you design it, whatever.
But you want more than that: for the sake of pleasing you and Vox, I have to deny that super languages are a reasonable and functional core rule.


Reasonable? For speedy easy game play sure? If YOU don't personally care about that aspect of gameplay and wish to just handwave that away sure?

A super language being in every setting and encompassing a planet seems really weird to me. To you it seems fine and dandy. good for you.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-24, 02:49 PM
But it isn't. In my time playing D&D and tabletop RPG and DM'ing and worldbuilding I have encountered this exact line of reasoning. That the presence of one impossible thing basically binds me to allow anything and everything conceivable. Your line of though is precisely "elements contradictory and impossible to setting aesthetics are fair game because magic defies everything" or basically if its plausibly explained away via "MAGIC," then its totally fine. The Half-Alien/Half-Robot Undead reincarnation of Goku? Totally fine in Bronze Age Mesopotamia inspired setting. What? You want to play Joseph Stalin sent back int time and to an alternate dimension to learn the error of his ways? Well magic can theoretically allow ANYTHING so I must allow EVERYTHING! As a DM I've had....


Little girl who was abducted by aliens after her arms and legs are wripped off by a cthulhu spawn and replaced with automail so she can save the planet from a Mind Flayer invasion..... in a campaign setting with a 1776 colonial America aesthetic.
A WW2 soldier thrown into an alternate dimension but adopted by elves who is basically magic Captain America and founds fantasy USA..... in Bronze Age Mesopotamia aesthetic setting with zero elves mind you.
Rasputins daughter whom hitched a ride on Baba Yaga's magic hut and traveled to my 1776 colonial America aesthetic setting.


I rejected all three even though all three players used the ironclad logic of ".... but there's MAGIC!!!!" So I said "No, that is so improbable and verismilitude breaking that I wasn't going to allow it.

If the presence of magic basically means I have to allow everything it makes the process of world building impossible since the worldbuilder and DM cannot establish the parameters by which a worlds aesthetic exists. At this point you are being extremely disingenuous. And misinterpreting my argument. And honestly, being a tad disrespectful.

I'm talking about the improbable. Things which are possible, but unlikely. Things that require only the smallest suspension of disbelief, because they actually could happen. The entire list you gave is the impossible, elements of fantasy that require the strictest suspension of disbelief. These two things are not logically equivalent!

My belief that rejection of the improbable, made much less improbable by one of the core elements of fantasy, requires careful reasoning, does not logically require that I embrace all impossibilities. That, my friend, is a false equivalence.


As a world builder are any of us BUILDING the Forgotten Realms setting? I was under the impression world builders built new worlds? So for the sake of pleasing you and Tiktakkat I have to ensure some ancient empire invented the super language that everyone speaks. Yet somehow in defiance of this same language all have inexplicably separate cultures and nomenclature but totally all speak the same language because.... F' it... DRAGONS AND MAGIC!

..... All worlds must be forgotten realms or more! You can't talk about worldbuilding without paying come respect to those worlds that have already been built. It's a pretty ****ty worldbuilding discussion that fails to speak of Middle Earth, Faerűn, and whatever you call the lands in Greyhawk (all, as Stavrost pointed out, small parts of a larger world).

Especially if the discussion is of an element that originated within the context of certain settings. A discussion of Common that ignores Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms is like a discussion of crazy powerful magic rings that ignores Middle Earth.

That being said, while I think rejection of the improbable involves some question of preference, I acknowledge that its inclusion does too. Yes, completely unjustified Common is a stretch. But I'm inclined to believe based on experience that such Commons are, well, uncommon.

Common is not a completely irredeemable concept. It has its merits for those who prefer its use.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-24, 03:46 PM
No, I'm point out that the logic of "... well magic, so shut up and accept it!" Is perilously bad and basically inherently flawed. Just because something IS possible doesn't mean it IS going to happen.

But that isn't the logic, that is just your strawman.
And you are contradicting you own complaint about verisimilitude, because if something is possible then it isn't unreasonable to suspend disbelief to accept it.


And your core contention is essentially "Players being jerks," type reasoning. "OMFG I can't talk to every person within 3000 miles of were I am? You mean there might be people who won't understand me? F' way to tax me!!!!"

Not at all.
Management of design resources is completely different from design within parameters.
Reducing design resources to satisfy an aesthetic is reasonable up to a point, after which it becomes the DM being a jerk because the players won't design the characters he wants to watch them play.


Cool beans so you agree with me? I can change them and define the setting to the aesthetic I wish?

No, I don't agree with you.
Your reasons for finding the concept of a common human tongue to be unrealistic are poor, and fail to be in any way convincing.
That is distinct from whether or not you can or should change them and define a setting to whatever aesthetic you wish.
No one ever said otherwise. Yet you continue to battle that strawman in an attempt to get validation of your reasons for abandoning it.

Mechalich
2016-01-24, 11:54 PM
Common, as a concept, can be verisimilitude breaking, or not, like any concept. Like all concepts, Common doesn't exist in isolation. So, in order for Common to exist as it does by RAW, certain things should be true about a setting, otherwise Common breaks verisimilitude.

Generally, for Common to work it implies a common origin of all humans such that they existed as a worldwide monoculture that all spoke one language, and any subsequent cultural divergence simply failed to impact the language aspect of things because there was sufficient communication to maintain one language. Also, since other races have acknowledged Common as the trade language, the human population has to have been strong enough to be dominant in trade and probably in population as well.

The generic D&D explanation for Common is actually that it was the language used by Humans when they were all Illithid slaves and part of a single plane-wide culture as slaves of the Illithid Empire across ten thousand Crystal Spheres. And that language, which had utility on an interplanetary and interplanar scale, was maintained in use by the human powers that be and their obstinate trading partners and enemies (elves, neogi, etc.). The wierd aspects of interplanetary and interplanar trade and warfare as they impact a generic D&D world serve a major forcings to reduce linguistic change. Ex. when a devil lord shows up and conquers some principality, he makes sure everyone speaks the common as he knows it - which might be thousands of years old - and this sort of thing happens regularly enough to keep Common cycling back toward its initial forms. This also explains why the Githynaki and Githzerai, who underwent considerable isolation, did undergo linguistic change.

Part of the reason this can be confusing by RAW is that 'generic' D&D actually means random Planescape+Spelljammer crystal sphere, not 'rules without setting' because the authors of 3.X took all the common 2e assumptions and baked them into the generic aspects of the rules. Most of the established settings, such as FR or Greyhawk, break with those rules and have different assumptions built in, which creates contradictions.

jqavins
2016-01-25, 06:02 PM
To translate that into economic speak: transportation is a scarce resource.
Alternatively, transportation between two given places may be literally or effectively impossible, so local scarcity exists in one place and not another. Then the economics of a given commodity would be fundementally different in those two places. Which is similar to saying the transportation cost is infinite, but another way of looking at it.

The first law of economics is that resources are scarce.

Magic, as modeled by the rules of every RPG I've encountered, is a scarce resource. I shudder to think how an RPG where that was not the case would even function.
There is one. Wies and Hickman made an RPG out of their Darksword trilogy, with the one and only rule book printed in mass market paperback format like the books that inspired it. In this setting, virtually everyone is a mage, and those rare people who have no magic are considered unclean, revolting mutants. The game was a real dog, but only because of its god-offal mechanics, not because of everybody using magic.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-25, 10:12 PM
There is one. Wies and Hickman made an RPG out of their Darksword trilogy, with the one and only rule book printed in mass market paperback format like the books that inspired it. In this setting, virtually everyone is a mage, and those rare people who have no magic are considered unclean, revolting mutants. The game was a real dog, but only because of its god-offal mechanics, not because of everybody using magic. I'd have to look at the rules.

But even if nearly everyone were a mage, magic is still scarce since the number of spellcasters is still finite (bigger, but still finite). And storytelling and natural conflict break down in the face of magic which is itself infinite (every caster becomes an omniscient and omnipotent deity).

Basically, as long as any part of the equation of magic involves a degree of finitude, then magic is finite and thus scarce and likely to follow the known laws of economics.

Jettisoning finitude and scarcity is effectively jettisoning a fundamental feature of our reality, and the results are quite alien to our experience.

In other words, even Star Trek's replicators could not actually create the Federation's post-scarcity utopia.

Aedilred
2016-01-26, 11:29 AM
Hmm.

I have to say, on the "Common" issue, I tend to agree with VoxRationis. The "but, DRAGONS!" line of thinking (whether fallacy or not) is, I think, one of the most pervasive and dangerous enemies of good world-building.

Recently I was introduced to the (terminology of; the concept was already familiar) "Watsonian" versus "Doylist" argumentation. In its original form, it relates to discussion of Sherlock Holmes stories, and the difference between an essentially in-universe explanation (i.e. as narrated by Watson), and one that takes account of the fact that the whole setting is in fact the creation of a separate author (i.e. as narrated by Doyle). So in asking why things are a certain way, one can provide a Watsonian answer (the killer set up an elaborate locked-room mystery because he had a huge ego) or a Doylist one (the killer set up an elaborate locked-room mystery because it makes for a more interesting story). Both are valid, but they're fundamentally different ways of looking at the same issue. In particular, it's important to distinguish between Doylist questions and Watsonian ones, because providing Watsonian answers to Doylist questions makes it look like you're you're missing the point, and providing Doylist answers to Watsonian questions makes you look like a smartarse.

I think this is to an extent what is going on here. The "Dragons!" argument is fundamentally a Doylist one, but one of the keys to maintaining verisimilitude, I think, is that a Watsonian perspective should be used as much as possible. In fact, the existence and maintenance of a Watsonian perspective is essentially what verisimilitude is all about. If a child in our hypothetical world asks his parents why all humans speaks the same language across the world but the elves next door speak a different one, an answer of "well, there are dragons, so anything goes" isn't going to cut the mustard.

Obviously, Doylist explanations have to come in every now and again, because we don't have the ability to develop a world completely organically and we're necessarily going to have to take creative shortcuts. Reasoning of "I think it's cool" and "it's easier this way" and the like is inevitable. But I think that every time a Doylist element enters into a world without a corresponding Watsonian justification, it tends to weaken the overall verisimilitude.

To take a look at the impossible/improbable thing as mooted by Tommy, yes, it's true that the introduction of an impossible element has no bearing on whether one should accept improbable ones. But that cuts both ways. That one impossible element is present does not mean that all improbable elements are present. At best, it provides a licence to question elements that we previously took for granted, but the default assumption largely has to be "things are as they are in reality unless stated otherwise" because anything else would quickly become unmanageable.

In this instance, the existence of dragons flags up that this is not our world, and means that queries can be pursued as to other elements that could be different, but the existence of dragons has no direct bearing upon the history of linguistics, and there is no reason to presuppose that just because there are dragons there has also developed a single global common language. Moreover, the impossible/improbable calculation is fundamentally a Doylist one, as from a Watsonian perspective dragons are not impossible (they exist!). In order for "dragons -> Common" to work from a Watsonian perspective, there have to be some intermediary steps (e.g. the dragons taught the humans language, and so they now all speak a derivation of that).

There is, I suppose, something else that needs to be taken into account, and that's what the purpose of this world is. A world developed for a novel has different requirements to one developed for a game. In a game, a variety of languages can be a real pain, as described by a number of people in this thread, and so it's often just easier to ignore that and introduce one common one, and most players will accept that as a gaming convention for ultimately Doylist reasons. But in a novel, taking the same line without a Watsonian reason looks a lot more like laziness and is much more likely to break verisimilitude.

There's also an element of personal taste. Some people like their fantasy to be, well, fantastic, and break with reality at almost every opportunity. Others like their fantasy to cleave relatively closely to reality with only a handful of exceptions, and all manner of middle grounds. Nobody in that calculation is, I think, wrong, although my tastes run closer to the realistic than the truly fantastic.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-26, 02:10 PM
To take a look at the impossible/improbable thing as mooted by Tommy, yes, it's true that the introduction of an impossible element has no bearing on whether one should accept improbable ones. But that cuts both ways. That one impossible element is present does not mean that all improbable elements are present. At best, it provides a licence to question elements that we previously took for granted, but the default assumption largely has to be "things are as they are in reality unless stated otherwise" because anything else would quickly become unmanageable.

In this instance, the existence of dragons flags up that this is not our world, and means that queries can be pursued as to other elements that could be different, but the existence of dragons has no direct bearing upon the history of linguistics, and there is no reason to presuppose that just because there are dragons there has also developed a single global common language. Moreover, the impossible/improbable calculation is fundamentally a Doylist one, as from a Watsonian perspective dragons are not impossible (they exist!). In order for "dragons -> Common" to work from a Watsonian perspective, there have to be some intermediary steps (e.g. the dragons taught the humans language, and so they now all speak a derivation of that).

There is, I suppose, something else that needs to be taken into account, and that's what the purpose of this world is. A world developed for a novel has different requirements to one developed for a game. In a game, a variety of languages can be a real pain, as described by a number of people in this thread, and so it's often just easier to ignore that and introduce one common one, and most players will accept that as a gaming convention for ultimately Doylist reasons. But in a novel, taking the same line without a Watsonian reason looks a lot more like laziness and is much more likely to break verisimilitude. For the record, the "But, Dragons!" argument is just a straw man Vox invented.

To use the wonderful new language you have provided, my argument is and always has been that if you reject things that do in fact possess some type of plausible Watsonian justifications, you do so primarily for Doylist reasons, not Watsonian reasons as some are claiming. If there exists potential Watsonian justifications, than it is a Doylist choice to reject one set of Watsonian justifications in favor of another, not a Watsonian one. It was a Doylist reason that I actually like the idea of Tiktakkat's dreaded "skill tax" that motivated my rejection of "Common" in my own campaign setting. The mechanical complications actually appeal to me as a DM. But I acknowledge that "Common" is merely a unlikely extrapolation of some real linguistic trends.

Vox invented the "But, Dragons!" argument out of my statement that I find seemingly inconsistent applications of your Watsonian/Doylist paradigm to be some what of a challenge to my own verisimilitude. Fantasy does not necessarily require the rejection of logic (which is ironically exactly what the you "realist" types claim to believe). That, and I feel like a creative enough imagination does a lot to close some gaps.

VoxRationis
2016-01-26, 04:32 PM
To use the wonderful new language you have provided, my argument is and always has been that if you reject things that do in fact possess some type of plausible Watsonian justifications, you do so primarily for Doylist reasons, not Watsonian reasons as some are claiming. If there exists potential Watsonian justifications, than it is a Doylist choice to reject one set of Watsonian justifications in favor of another, not a Watsonian one. But I acknowledge that "Common" is merely a unlikely extrapolation of some real linguistic trends.

But we have that Watsonian argument; it's highly disingenuous to imply that we don't. The argument is that in a widely spread (often geographically isolated) series of human populations, divorced from one another's origins by hundreds (if not thousands) of years of history, it is highly improbable, to the point where in-universe it would never seem a reasonable possibility, that all humanity would speak one language as their first and only mother tongue. We are not Doylistically rejecting Common out of an out-of-universe hatred for linguistic homogeneity, or for a mechanical desire for increasing the complexity of roleplaying, as you are. We are arguing that in-universe it doesn't make sense.


Vox invented the "But, Dragons!" argument out of my statement that I find seemingly inconsistent applications of your Watsonian/Doylist paradigm to be some what of a challenge to my own verisimilitude. Fantasy does not necessarily require the rejection of logic (which is ironically exactly what the you "realist" types claim to believe). That, and I feel like a creative enough imagination does a lot to close some gaps.

For the record, "But Dragons" is the name of the philosophy I was arguing against, not an actual argument involving dragons; until you picked up the "dragons" argument in the specific sense, I was arguing in a more general way, and referring to wizards (a more plausible, if still insufficient, in-universe instigator of linguistic unification) rather than dragons.

Sam113097
2016-01-26, 05:01 PM
The issue of a Common language is, at least to me, directly to the size of the setting. If the setting focuses on only one continent or part of the world, it is perfectly reasonable to have a "lingua franca" known by most of the people. Historically, Greek and Latin have been the "Common" languages around Europe and the Mediterranean, which is where a lot of fantasy settings draw their inspiration from. In medieval Europe, most educated people spoke Latin. So it makes sense that one language has become the default language for a continent or region.

However, on a larger scale, the idea of a global "Common" language makes no sense. When the first Europeans landed in the Americas, the Native Americans weren't speaking Latin. From a worldwide perspective, languages from different continents would be unrelated.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-26, 05:23 PM
But we have that Watsonian argument; it's highly disingenuous to imply that we don't. The argument is that in a widely spread (often geographically isolated) series of human populations, divorced from one another's origins by hundreds (if not thousands) of years of history, it is highly improbable, to the point where in-universe it would never seem a reasonable possibility, that all humanity would speak one language as their first and only mother tongue. We are not Doylistically rejecting Common out of an out-of-universe hatred for linguistic homogeneity, or for a mechanical desire for increasing the complexity of roleplaying, as you are. We are arguing that in-universe it doesn't make sense.
I feel like a creative enough imagination does a lot to close some gaps. And my response to that was that I found the idea that magic would have absolutely no effect on how languages are spoken to be suspect at best (which contributed to the "But, Dragons!" strawman getting fabricated). The confounding element here is a piece of the impossible that does have a direct effect on the improbable, since it has the potential to affect everything. It's the tricky thing about magic! While you guys were asking what dragons have to do with language, I was trying to point out that magic, period, would have an effect on language.

And I'm inclined to believe that closing the improbable gaps in "Common" are not too big of a stretch for what that might be like.

There are a few reasons I believe this. First off, the philosophical reason. Any philosopher or scientist can tell you just how huge of a confounding factor language is. Not only do different languages provided linguistic barriers, but linguistic barriers exist within a single language itself. "The limits of my language means the limits of my world." said Ludwig Wittenstein, a philosopher who spent his whole life tackling the philosophical issues resulting simply from vagueness in language (for the record, Wittenstein would probably argue that we all actually agree on "Common", but English is getting in the way of us realizing that). If it is bad for scientists and philosophers, imagine how bad it must be for wizards. The moment a magocracy exists (pending the existence of such ancient empires in the setting), the tools come into play for this become a reality. And future mages, no matter how far removed from said magocracy, would all have a vested interest in its preservation.

Secondly, there is the economics issue. Why waste incredibly valuable spell resources on the short term solution, rather than developing a long term solution? Then, there are deities. When "Common" is as simple a function as "Unlike Yahweh, the gods didn't find their people's pride insulting and didn't babel the **** out of them." it's supposed "improbability" becomes somewhat questionable.

The above, combined with the actually existence of approximate concepts in our world, are Watsonian reasons for "Common". So yes, you are ignoring Watsonian reasons that "Common" might exist in favor of your Watsonian reason that language is immutable and cannot be affected that way by magic. It is your Doylist preference for a world where magic cannot affect language that way.

It's not like I disagree that "Common" can be improbable bordering on impossible in a medieval setting. A medieval fantasy setting on the other hand, is a whole different animal. I think the implications of one hugely common element of fantasy should not be overlooked when evaluating verisimilitude. Doing so feels more Doylist than Watsonian. And as I said before, that is actually something that challenges my own verisimilitude, when done clumsily.

Tzi
2016-01-26, 05:38 PM
The issue of a Common language is, at least to me, directly to the size of the setting. If the setting focuses on only one continent or part of the world, it is perfectly reasonable to have a "lingua franca" known by most of the people. Historically, Greek and Latin have been the "Common" languages around Europe and the Mediterranean, which is where a lot of fantasy settings draw their inspiration from. In medieval Europe, most educated people spoke Latin. So it makes sense that one language has become the default language for a continent or region.

However, on a larger scale, the idea of a global "Common" language makes no sense. When the first Europeans landed in the Americas, the Native Americans weren't speaking Latin. From a worldwide perspective, languages from different continents would be unrelated.

While Latin is a historical precedent, it was the educated elite of Europe, which constituted at least less than 10% of Europes people at that time. Even at the height of Latin as the Elite Interlingua of Europe, most Europeans knew only a few Key words.

My gripe with Common is with each campaign I've played in, there has been a ubiquitous amount of "Common," as this intrinsic human universal language. While people in here have crafted plausible in universe explanations, in my experiences never is an explanation given for the RADICALLY diverse cultures, nomenclatures, ect Yet there exists a single ubiquitous pan-human language and there is no mention of a previous linguistic diversity or how this circumstance came about. Indeed the very existence of Common as a universal language of Man negates the other contentious issue and that is one universal Pantheon for the whole planet. Even with the idea of each culture having its own version of a God but its just many faces of the same being, run smack into the problem of Common as the sole language of Humanity.

Now, lets take a real Monoglot society. Islamic North African and Middle Eastern culture. One language, slight dialectical variations by region but ONE languages.... So like Common. God = Allah. Ask anyone in that area, even a Christian whom also speaks Arabic and God = Allah. In Algeria? Allah, In Egypt? Allah! in Iraq? Allah? Be you a citizen of Bahrain or a Bedouin in Tunisia Allah is Allah is Allah.

Now lets look at Europe with its 28+ languages. God is God in England but God is Duw in Wales. Theoretically the Same Deity, different name. Bog in Balgerian, Jainkoa in basque country, Dievas in Lithuana, and Guđ in Iceland. Now this makes sense since Europe possess well over 100 or so different languages, thus having different names for the same God makes a bit of sense. This different naming of God however would be most perplexing if the Whole of Europe spoke Latin, had always spoke Latin and this was the case since forever. Indeed place names like England, Wales, ect would be rather odd if Latin had been the sole language of Europe since FOREVER.

What has made common verismilitude breaking for me has been the incredibly vast diversity in culture presented within a single fantasy race, and YET zero explanation for how such diverse nomenclature, names for Gods, or Gods at all came about. Even within Non-Human races you have legions of types of Elves, Dwarves ect living wildly different lives, with wildly different names for leaders, Gods, place names yet Ostensibly speaking one universal language.

If you want to make the "Magic can have an influence," fine, but you would have to likely follow that to its absolutely logical conclusion linguistically and culturally. Your viking-esque King, Your Roman-esque Emperor, Your Duke of a petty duchy? All would have to have the same nomenclature, same naming conventions, and the same names for Gods across the board or the universality of Common becomes insane to explain.

Mechalich
2016-01-26, 08:08 PM
If you want to make the "Magic can have an influence," fine, but you would have to likely follow that to its absolutely logical conclusion linguistically and culturally. Your viking-esque King, Your Roman-esque Emperor, Your Duke of a petty duchy? All would have to have the same nomenclature, same naming conventions, and the same names for Gods across the board or the universality of Common becomes insane to explain.

Having the same language does not inherently imply identical title usage or identical culture. It depends on why the common language exists, what method is being used to preserve it, and how cultural divergence is or is not occurring. This sort of thing is very dependent upon the specific circumstances involved.

There are certainly settings where the usage of Common makes little to no sense, but then most published D&D settings are poorly designed and have much bigger problems so this should not be surprising. Heck, probably a majority of published fantasy novel settings are poorly designed (the most popular post-Tolkien fantasy - Harry Potter - is a setting design trainwreck).

Having a lingua franca in a setting is of vast storytelling utility. It is particularly helpful in D&D style settings where the ability to teleport exists and therefore characters can traverse the world with even greater rapidity than modern characters. A mid to high level D&D campaign can easily traverse ten or more cultural regions. Not only does that impose a massive 'skill tax' by RAW, it is also verisimilitude breaking to have characters learning a new language every month.

That said, I do think the Gods should have universal names, though not necessarily due to linguistics, but simply because the gods are individuals capable of making their preferences known. In D&D, if Thor's actual name is Thor, he can make that very clear to his priests and still be called Thor, even if they speak Mongolian.

Aedilred
2016-01-26, 09:23 PM
For the record, the "But, Dragons!" argument is just a straw man Vox invented.

I don't know if Vox was the creator of it; but it predates this thread. It's been around on this forum at least for a number of years. And it is an argument that I have seen seriously advanced: while nobody on this thread has replicated it precisely, people have flirted with it.

Essentially the argument is an all-or-nothing one. If you accept the existence of dragons*, you forfeit the right to complain about any other "unrealistic" elements of the world. The existence of one (or more) fantasy element(s) invalidates any other assumptions one can make about the world on the basis of our reality. For this view, there is no need to provide a causal Watsonian link between the existence of dragons and the other element in question. It essentially boils down to "this is a world with dragons in it, so why does it matter if the economics wouldn't work?"

To an extent, we all have to suspend our disbelief when dealing with a fantasy world - especially in D&D where extrapolating logically from the magic system as described would give us something like the Tippyverse, rather unlike the standard medieval-skinned world of the setting (and further ignoring that in many respects it can be argued that a D&D world bears more resemblance to a Bronze Age setting than a medieval one). But the degree of handwave that people are prepared to take varies extensively, and I don't think that merely setting foot in the realms of fantasy is enough to suggest that verisimilitude should be abandoned altogether, which is the line suggested by the "but, dragons!" argument, and something Tiktakkat has come close to.


*Or other fantastic element, such as magic, but dragons are the textbook one.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-27, 12:05 AM
Now, lets take a real Monoglot society. Islamic North African and Middle Eastern culture. One language, slight dialectical variations by region but ONE languages.... So like Common. God = Allah. Ask anyone in that area, even a Christian whom also speaks Arabic and God = Allah. In Algeria? Allah, In Egypt? Allah! in Iraq? Allah? Be you a citizen of Bahrain or a Bedouin in Tunisia Allah is Allah is Allah.

Now lets look at Europe with its 28+ languages. God is God in England but God is Duw in Wales. Theoretically the Same Deity, different name. Bog in Balgerian, Jainkoa in basque country, Dievas in Lithuana, and Guđ in Iceland. Now this makes sense since Europe possess well over 100 or so different languages, thus having different names for the same God makes a bit of sense. This different naming of God however would be most perplexing if the Whole of Europe spoke Latin, had always spoke Latin and this was the case since forever. Indeed place names like England, Wales, ect would be rather odd if Latin had been the sole language of Europe since FOREVER. Just have to poke a small hole in your argument here...

Deus would have conveyed the same meaning to all those people as any of the words you listed in any of the languages you listed (save maybe Bulgarian, since the Bulgars were Orthodox and thus more likely to respond more to Theos).

It's hard to give a homily about scripture that no one understands. Thus there is good evidence that many European Catholics would have had a rudimentary understanding of Latin in the context of worship, at least by the High Middle Ages. You're selling Latin proficiency a bit short there.

Tzi
2016-01-27, 01:25 AM
Just have to poke a small hole in your argument here...

Deus would have conveyed the same meaning to all those people as any of the words you listed in any of the languages you listed (save maybe Bulgarian, since the Bulgars were Orthodox and thus more likely to respond more to Theos).

It's hard to give a homily about scripture that no one understands. Thus there is good evidence that many European Catholics would have had a rudimentary understanding of Latin in the context of worship, at least by the High Middle Ages. You're selling Latin proficiency a bit short there.

Possibly, of course if it didn't we would have a theoretical reason why it wouldn't. There exists an exact historical reason why that word might have meaning. Considering the protestant reformers complained mightily that "Hey nobody knows Latin save for the priests and monks, why do we perform liturgy in a language almost nobody actually knows?" Which seems to imply even after 1000+ years of Latin being this international Language, it still had almost no widespread use or proficiency outside an educated class. If anything Hebrew had a better success in that Jews world wide often knew enough of it to communicate between the Yiddish Ashkenaz, Ladino Sephardi, ect ect. Tyndale, the Lollards, and others more than showed that Latin never got much traction with the public. After 1000 years they knew Deus Vult..... not exactly a parallel with "Common."

Mechalich
2016-01-27, 01:46 AM
it is perhaps worth noting that, by RAW, the population of D&D setting is massively more literate than any actual Middle Ages society. In fact, the average D&D setting is quite possibly more literate than 21st century Earth (currently rocking 84.1% literacy), at least among the core races. That's actually a strong argument for a sustained literary lingua franca - the widespread presence of a large cultured class across history. Something like the situation with written Chinese - a single written language that encompasses populations speaking many languages orally - makes perfect sense for a D&D setting, and its only a modest extrapolation to extend that to the spoken language from there.

Tzi
2016-01-27, 10:57 AM
it is perhaps worth noting that, by RAW, the population of D&D setting is massively more literate than any actual Middle Ages society. In fact, the average D&D setting is quite possibly more literate than 21st century Earth (currently rocking 84.1% literacy), at least among the core races. That's actually a strong argument for a sustained literary lingua franca - the widespread presence of a large cultured class across history. Something like the situation with written Chinese - a single written language that encompasses populations speaking many languages orally - makes perfect sense for a D&D setting, and its only a modest extrapolation to extend that to the spoken language from there.

I would much more accept a written "Common," writing system for lots of languages versus Common as a specific spoken and written language.



Having a lingua franca in a setting is of vast storytelling utility. It is particularly helpful in D&D style settings where the ability to teleport exists and therefore characters can traverse the world with even greater rapidity than modern characters. A mid to high level D&D campaign can easily traverse ten or more cultural regions. Not only does that impose a massive 'skill tax' by RAW, it is also verisimilitude breaking to have characters learning a new language every month.


Speaking specifically to this point, perhaps its not generally shared but among the DM's of my D&D circle and WorldBuilders I've talked to the greatest frustration in D&D is precisely that tendency to world hop and to some degree break down any attempts at barriers in the world.

Perhaps it is also because all of my experiences as a DM, Worldbuilder ect have driven me to a "Just say no!" position. I.E. I follow a specific aesthetic and bend the rules to suite that. So for example a teleport spell does not exist and I don't consider a 1-20+ level campaign a necessity. The campaign ends when the story ends which could be at 3rd level, 6th level 10th level 20th? Idk it depends on when the story arc is concluded not when a level is reached. Perhaps it is one reason of have latched onto 5th edition rules is simply the weakening of magic and the liberalizing of some rules has allowed me to ad hoc more and more easily adopt the "NO!" policy.

So to me its "vast storytelling utility," is overridden by the fact that I as a worldbuilder have to work harder to color in as they say more bits of the map with specific details and thus yes, a lingua-franca, or more specifically a mostly monoglot world is EASIER to write. But I chose to selectively limit magic so its not a problem, operate under a rules set that doesn't necessarily impose such a tax, and use the linguistic diversity of the world as a soft barrier to the players to keep them roughly in the geography I want so as to allow me to color in with rich detail one or two countries.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-27, 06:02 PM
Recently I was introduced to the (terminology of; the concept was already familiar) "Watsonian" versus "Doylist" argumentation.

What if you just get Holmesian: "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true."
It is "impossible" that multiple languages exist, therefore, however improbable, that single language must have evolved in some fashion.


It was a Doylist reason that I actually like the idea of Tiktakkat's dreaded "skill tax" that motivated my rejection of "Common" in my own campaign setting. The mechanical complications actually appeal to me as a DM. But I acknowledge that "Common" is merely a unlikely extrapolation of some real linguistic trends.

Just to be clear, it is not "my" dreaded skill tax, but that of the designers and the "skill mastery" concept, combined with the structure of a skill system.
The designers made it so that EVERY resource, no matter how minor a player might imagine it, is of vital importance, and that you must learn precisely how and when to use them in order to "succeed" in playing the game.
One inevitable consequence of an exclusive skill system is that when you do not have some skills you simply cannot do some things, even when allowed "untrained". MegaTraveller was horrific for this, wherein if you didn't have the social skills your chance of asking someone directions on the street was 1-in-12 at best.

That said, as you note, there is nothing inherently wrong with such a system, but you need to know what you are getting into when you do it. Part of that is why 3.5 had hard and fast Knowledge skills rather than the fully open-ended list of 3E.


Then, there are deities. When "Common" is as simple a function as "Unlike Yahweh, the gods didn't find their people's pride insulting and didn't babel the **** out of them." it's supposed "improbability" becomes somewhat questionable.

I'd been wondering if I should bring the same point up myself.
Particularly with the other complaint about different fantasy religions, where is the justification for them confusing language?
And without it, Common becomes implicit.


While Latin is a historical precedent, it was the educated elite of Europe, which constituted at least less than 10% of Europes people at that time. Even at the height of Latin as the Elite Interlingua of Europe, most Europeans knew only a few Key words.

At what time?
During the Roman Empire?
Very few local languages even survived Roman Conquest - Greek of course, the previous Common language, which became a new Imperial language; Brittonic, because Britannia was never fully assimilated and was conquered by non-assimilating Germanic peoples; Basque, because they kept causing trouble; Aramaic, because the region was split with the Persians; and Coptic, likewise conquered before full assimilation.
Just after the fall of Rome?
While "High" Latin remained theoretically pure, "Low" or "Vulgar" Latin flourished, until it finally splintered into the multitude of Romance languages and dialects that we have today.
The utter absence of surviving pre-Roman languages is rather indicative of just how many non-elites spoke Latin, whether as the Romans preferred it or in their vulgar dialects.


Now lets look at Europe with its 28+ languages. God is God in England but God is Duw in Wales. Theoretically the Same Deity, different name. Bog in Balgerian, Jainkoa in basque country, Dievas in Lithuana, and Guđ in Iceland. Now this makes sense since Europe possess well over 100 or so different languages, thus having different names for the same God makes a bit of sense. This different naming of God however would be most perplexing if the Whole of Europe spoke Latin, had always spoke Latin and this was the case since forever. Indeed place names like England, Wales, ect would be rather odd if Latin had been the sole language of Europe since FOREVER.

English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language.
Welsh is a Celtic language, not a Romance language.
Bulgarian is a Slavic language, not a Romance language.
Basque is a language isolate, not a Romance language.
Lithuanian is a Baltic language, not a Romance language.
Icelandic is a Germanic language, not a Romance language.
Why would any of them have the same name for the same deity?
Further, of those lands, only the Welsh and Basque were under Roman domination. (While Bulgaria was part of the Roman empire, the Bulgarian peoples migrated in after thee Western Roman Empire was gone.)
However . . .
The English and Icelandic words are nearly identical. Not surprising for two Germanic languages.
The Welsh word is nearly identical to Deus, the Latin word, indicating some adoption.
Likewise the Lithuanian word, suggesting adoption from when the Teutonic Knights invaded and it later merged with the Catholic Poles.
Only the Bulgarian and Basque, late-comers and an isolate, remain truly distinct.
Really bad examples there.


Considering the protestant reformers complained mightily that "Hey nobody knows Latin save for the priests and monks, why do we perform liturgy in a language almost nobody actually knows?"

Except most of those people were from non-Romance speaking countries.
Why should it be surprising that reformers in Germanic speaking England, Germanic speaking "Germany", and Slavic speaking Bohemia would note that their people were not proficient in the Common language of a long-fallen Empire?


Speaking specifically to this point, perhaps its not generally shared but among the DM's of my D&D circle and WorldBuilders I've talked to the greatest frustration in D&D is precisely that tendency to world hop and to some degree break down any attempts at barriers in the world.

Perhaps because it is not shared among authors, particularly the Golden Age authors that inspired the game.
Characters routinely wandered hither, yon, back again, and further.
Of course they routinely spoke a dozen languages, including Common ones, but they didn't have to worry about character design limits.


So to me its "vast storytelling utility," is overridden by the fact that I as a worldbuilder have to work harder to color in as they say more bits of the map with specific details and thus yes, a lingua-franca, or more specifically a mostly monoglot world is EASIER to write. But I chose to selectively limit magic so its not a problem, operate under a rules set that doesn't necessarily impose such a tax, and use the linguistic diversity of the world as a soft barrier to the players to keep them roughly in the geography I want so as to allow me to color in with rich detail one or two countries.

So then as I said some time ago, it is not actually an issue with the rules, but with you as a designer - you want to limit your setting, to an outlier of the genre, and you want to blame the rules for "ruining" your self-imposed aesthetic.
That's not the rules breaking the verisimilitude of a setting.

Tzi
2016-01-27, 06:39 PM
What if you just get Holmesian: "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true."
It is "impossible" that multiple languages exist, therefore, however improbable, that single language must have evolved in some fashion.


You've gone from saying its possible for their to be one world language, to its impossible that there would be multiple languages, Jesus Christ were is the springboard you used for that?



At what time?
During the Roman Empire?
Very few local languages even survived Roman Conquest - Greek of course, the previous Common language, which became a new Imperial language; Brittonic, because Britannia was never fully assimilated and was conquered by non-assimilating Germanic peoples; Basque, because they kept causing trouble; Aramaic, because the region was split with the Persians; and Coptic, likewise conquered before full assimilation.
Just after the fall of Rome?
While "High" Latin remained theoretically pure, "Low" or "Vulgar" Latin flourished, until it finally splintered into the multitude of Romance languages and dialects that we have today.
The utter absence of surviving pre-Roman languages is rather indicative of just how many non-elites spoke Latin, whether as the Romans preferred it or in their vulgar dialects.


Within a few centuries after Rome's demise, there was little Left of the Latinate speaking Empire. Indeed much of the west became speakers of various Germanic languages for a time, and then slowly of Romance Languages which I should point out are not mutually intelligible.

So in a realism sense all D&D settings must happen in extremely rare circumstances, OR we are just going with "Well Dragons and Magic, and you know what F' it a player shouldn't have to worry about "CAN I UNDERSTAND THE PEOPLE OVER THERE?!" before wandering off into some new area.



English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language.
Welsh is a Celtic language, not a Romance language.
Bulgarian is a Slavic language, not a Romance language.
Basque is a language isolate, not a Romance language.
Lithuanian is a Baltic language, not a Romance language.
Icelandic is a Germanic language, not a Romance language.
Why would any of them have the same name for the same deity?
Further, of those lands, only the Welsh and Basque were under Roman domination. (While Bulgaria was part of the Roman empire, the Bulgarian peoples migrated in after thee Western Roman Empire was gone.)


As per the whole "Multiple names for the same deity theory," that becomes tricky when nobody has a different language with which to create a new different name.



Except most of those people were from non-Romance speaking countries.
Why should it be surprising that reformers in Germanic speaking England, Germanic speaking "Germany", and Slavic speaking Bohemia would note that their people were not proficient in the Common language of a long-fallen Empire?


I think my point is somewhere very far from where you're going.



Perhaps because it is not shared among authors, particularly the Golden Age authors that inspired the game.
Characters routinely wandered hither, yon, back again, and further.
Of course they routinely spoke a dozen languages, including Common ones, but they didn't have to worry about character design limits.


I can forgive Tolkien mainly because he did think up languages and theoretically two different sorts of humans did not necessarily speak the same language.



So then as I said some time ago, it is not actually an issue with the rules, but with you as a designer - you want to limit your setting, to an outlier of the genre, and you want to blame the rules for "ruining" your self-imposed aesthetic.
That's not the rules breaking the verisimilitude of a setting.


No, again you magical miss the point. I have played in other settings under different DM's and have found the miraculous language of Common to be completely and utterly weird. It bothers me, PROBABLY because I studied History of Languages for my BA and MA. I noticed that in a setting you would have 20 different HUMAN cultures, one Chinese obviously, another Anglo-Saxon, some Italian, this Arabic one and in each, somehow they all spoke Common as their language. No mention of others, AND somehow they all had different nomenclature, place names, names for tomes and cursed artifacts ect ect, YET somehow there is no linguistic explanation for how so many names came into being. For example there could be an NPC in one country named Xīwŕng (希望) whom speaks only Common, and another NPC named Hope (HOPE) and also only speaks common. Funny how both their names translate to the English name/word Hope but yet somehow, the same language produced two completely different names Yet somehow are the same language. Okay, so we go with "A WIZARD DID IT!"

Fine, A WIZARD DID IT! you say. Then either the NPC Xīwŕng (希望) or the NPC Hope (HOPE)'s name is complete gibberish and makes no sense, a logical conclusion that has unfortunate implications no matter which way you slice it. OR all humans have the same culture, in which case I guess problem solved unless your player wants to play either a Ninja in the world were all humans are Anglo-Saxons, ORRRRR wants to play a Norman Knight in a world that is entirely populated with Chinese humans, which begs the question of why are there so many different country with often names that make no sense considering the other countries names. Or why haven't the Wizards who wisely made every human speak the same language, but failed to get the Dwarves, Orcs, or Elves to go along, didn't also similarly push the whole world into a single superstate.

Now I could make a setting with 4-5 petty human duchies fighting occasionally with each other. Trading but not trusting the Dwarves in the mountain mining fortresses, fending off Orc raids from that volcanic wasteland over there and trying very hard to befriend the elves in the southern woods, Use all the standard RAW, and you have Common, Elvish, Orcish, Dwarvish ect.... I could do that. But considering we have a thread for World Building I suspect I am not alone in finding other settings and worlds not to my liking and wishing to change it. Sincere apologies that I find the presence of monoglotness annoying and chose to comment that I find it personally irksome and explain why. I had no idea it would start World War 3.

Mechalich
2016-01-27, 08:07 PM
Speaking specifically to this point, perhaps its not generally shared but among the DM's of my D&D circle and WorldBuilders I've talked to the greatest frustration in D&D is precisely that tendency to world hop and to some degree break down any attempts at barriers in the world.

Perhaps it is also because all of my experiences as a DM, Worldbuilder ect have driven me to a "Just say no!" position. I.E. I follow a specific aesthetic and bend the rules to suite that. So for example a teleport spell does not exist and I don't consider a 1-20+ level campaign a necessity. The campaign ends when the story ends which could be at 3rd level, 6th level 10th level 20th? Idk it depends on when the story arc is concluded not when a level is reached. Perhaps it is one reason of have latched onto 5th edition rules is simply the weakening of magic and the liberalizing of some rules has allowed me to ad hoc more and more easily adopt the "NO!" policy.

From this statement I suspect your objection is not to Common as such, but to the tendency to construct 'medieval with fantasy gloss' D&D worlds that do not make sense whatsoever via 3.X RAW, and the various elements attached to that. I sympathize pretty much completely, which is why my campaign world (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?438881-Resvier-A-P6-Setting) is a P6 setting that disallows all that and doesn't have the 'evolves into the tippyverse' problem.

Common is most useful for something like Planescape, where a party can visit three to four universes in the course of a single adventure and every single encounter might involve members of a different race. Planescape is a also a weird and kooky setting that approaches world building using he Jackson Pollock method. Common makes much less sense in a smaller, more contained setting without high-powered magic that allows a global network of communication during the equivalent of the bronze age.

Some form of lingua franca, though probably of less utility than common, is probably viable in a setting up to about the size of the historical limits of the Roman or Chinese empires, but that's about as far as it can go with limited magic.

Tzi
2016-01-27, 08:47 PM
From this statement I suspect your objection is not to Common as such, but to the tendency to construct 'medieval with fantasy gloss' D&D worlds that do not make sense whatsoever via 3.X RAW, and the various elements attached to that. I sympathize pretty much completely, which is why my campaign world (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?438881-Resvier-A-P6-Setting) is a P6 setting that disallows all that and doesn't have the 'evolves into the tippyverse' problem.


That would be an absolutely fair characterization. I have almost universally encountered such worlds were the aesthetic of "Its basically the Middle Ages," comes crashing into "Well Wizards!" or "Well Common exists because, idk F' it!" More or less they built the setting around RAW 3.x rules and basically crafted explanations as they came up.



Common is most useful for something like Planescape, where a party can visit three to four universes in the course of a single adventure and every single encounter might involve members of a different race. Planescape is a also a weird and kooky setting that approaches world building using he Jackson Pollock method. Common makes much less sense in a smaller, more contained setting without high-powered magic that allows a global network of communication during the equivalent of the bronze age.


Having read up on Planescape, I can say if Planescape is the governing rules than Common can make more sense.



Some form of lingua franca, though probably of less utility than common, is probably viable in a setting up to about the size of the historical limits of the Roman or Chinese empires, but that's about as far as it can go with limited magic.


I am more in that camp. Big languages exist, some as residual effects of Empire, trade networks. In the main region of my own setting, One Kingdoms language most certainly wields power over the others simply by virtue of its geo-political dominance. ect Like English in the British Isles at around the year 1600. Cornish, Welsh, Scots-Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic all exist, but English is a fairly prominent language.

BootStrapTommy
2016-01-27, 09:11 PM
Likewise the Lithuanian word, suggesting adoption from when the Teutonic Knights invaded and it later merged with the Catholic Poles. Due to my nearly uncontrollable urge to correct things, I have to point out that Dievas was the name of the supreme deity in Lithuanian paganism. So in classic Catholic syncretic style, the Church did little to correct the use of the name to refer to Yahweh.

That being said, the word is similar because both Deivas and Deus have the same Indo-European roots.

Tiktakkat
2016-01-27, 09:48 PM
You've gone from saying its possible for their to be one world language, to its impossible that there would be multiple languages, Jesus Christ were is the springboard you used for that?

Why from you of course.
You complained about RAW being so overwhelming.
Now it is inconvenient to your argument.


Within a few centuries after Rome's demise, there was little Left of the Latinate speaking Empire. Indeed much of the west became speakers of various Germanic languages for a time, and then slowly of Romance Languages which I should point out are not mutually intelligible.

That would have required all of the native speakers of Latin to either be exterminated, which they clearly weren't.
Further, to adopt the language of the Germanic newcomers, means they wouldn't have been able to evolve their Vulgar Latin since nobody would speak it anymore.
Clearly something isn't working with that premise.

As for the mutual intelligibility of the various Romance languages, the national versions aren't, but those are only the dominant dialects within the current countries. Each has multiple dialects or regional languages or other current term, that form a continuum within, and often across, those national language lines.


So in a realism sense all D&D settings must happen in extremely rare circumstances, OR we are just going with "Well Dragons and Magic, and you know what F' it a player shouldn't have to worry about "CAN I UNDERSTAND THE PEOPLE OVER THERE?!" before wandering off into some new area.

rare = "however improbable"


As per the whole "Multiple names for the same deity theory," that becomes tricky when nobody has a different language with which to create a new different name.

Other than the dwarves. And elves. And gnomes. And halflings. And goblins. And orcs. And draconic races. And giants. And . . .


I think my point is somewhere very far from where you're going.

Your point goes only to your aesthetic sense, denying anything that contradicts it, no matter how realistic and reasonable it could be.


I can forgive Tolkien mainly because he did think up languages and theoretically two different sorts of humans did not necessarily speak the same language.

There is a vast arrant of fantasy literature beyond Tolkien.


No, again you magical miss the point. I have played in other settings under different DM's and have found the miraculous language of Common to be completely and utterly weird. It bothers me, PROBABLY because I studied History of Languages for my BA and MA.

And?
Once again you ignore anything that doesn't validate your position.
I've studied history of history, with an array of sociology and anthropology to support it. Every bit of background in settings outrages me for its sheer absurdity. Then I recall some history and shrug it off.
None of it is any sillier than multiple European ethno-linguo-cultural groups, and even trans-European ethno-linguo-cultural groups sharing a single language because it makes the rules easier.


Sincere apologies that I find the presence of monoglotness annoying and chose to comment that I find it personally irksome and explain why. I had no idea it would start World War 3.

Nobody said anything about find it irksome.
It was you who chose to start WW3 when I suggested it wasn't that bad.


Due to my nearly uncontrollable urge to correct things, I have to point out that Dievas was the name of the supreme deity in Lithuanian paganism. So in classic Catholic syncretic style, the Church did little to correct the use of the name to refer to Yahweh.

Really?
Dangit. I knew I should have checked that. I get weak past the bounds of the HRE.


That being said, the word is similar because both Deivas and Deus have the same Indo-European roots.

That explains it.

Milo v3
2016-01-28, 08:15 AM
Languages (as has been discussed in this thread), and Magitech that is just realworld technology or steampunk technology given a coat of paint.

jqavins
2016-01-28, 11:23 PM
I'd have to look at the rules.
Then, apparently, you are a glutton for punishment. You will probably get a headache.

But even if nearly everyone were a mage, magic is still scarce since the number of spellcasters is still finite (bigger, but still finite). And storytelling and natural conflict break down in the face of magic which is itself infinite (every caster becomes an omniscient and omnipotent deity).
I have no argument with this worth stating. In the Darksword game, magic was indeed limited, and not everyone could use the same level of power, so access to effects is scarcer as the power of the effects are more powerful, just as one would expect.

choryukami
2016-02-03, 10:30 AM
More often than not, any fantasy timeline is vastly improved by removing one 0 from every number.

Absolutely. My entire homebrew world's history is 1000 years. And not all of that is recorded history. A LOT can happen in a hundred years. Just look at our own world and then the world of 1916, and then the world in 1816.

VoxRationis
2016-02-03, 11:16 AM
Absolutely. My entire homebrew world's history is 1000 years. And not all of that is recorded history. A LOT can happen in a hundred years. Just look at our own world and then the world of 1916, and then the world in 1816.

Is your setting the result of quick divine creation?

Tiktakkat
2016-02-03, 05:21 PM
A LOT can happen in a hundred years. Just look at our own world and then the world of 1916, and then the world in 1816.

I did that while working on the timeline of Sheldomar history in Greyhawk.
After I had collected the references and put them in the proper order, I added real world equivalent dates to try and get a perspective on "how long ago" everything happened compared to the current date, and compare how many first, second, and third hand accounts have survived.
I think more setting designers should keep such things around to help control themselves in their urges to one-up other designers with how ancient and immutable their setting/pet empire/Mary Sue villain happens to be.

BootStrapTommy
2016-02-03, 05:32 PM
For example, we'll use Westeros. If we accept G.R.R. Martin at his word, that the continent is about the size of South America (though it seems to be closer to about Brazil sized) and has a population of 40 million, then we get a population density of approximately 5.8072 people per square mile. Naturally this isn't evenly spread. The North, while claimed to be about 1/2 of Westeros, is closer to 1/3 of the total land area controlled by the Iron Throne. A semi-canon source (per the wiki) tells us that the North can, potentially, raise an army with an absolute total of 45,000.

Thus we see: 2,296,000 (theoretical area of The North) * 5.8072 = 13,333,331 as it's theoretical population. However, this is where we start running into some issues.

1. While 5.8072 sounds about right for what we've seen of the north's population density (it's practically a barren wilderness) it doesn't seem even remotely right to maintaining a feudal society.

2. The North is the least densely population of the 7 kingdoms, by a significant margin. However, the average population density is such that even drastically altering the equation doesn't help the matter. Specifically, reducing the population density of The North to accommodate for the other 6 kingdoms (and the riverlands), likely from something short of Wyoming's population density to Alaska's, would remove what little hope of maintaining that feudal society remains.

3. If we accept our number from above, then if Rob mobilized the North so that even 1 in 200 of his total population (1 in 100 men to account for that little detail) he should be able to reasonably raise an army of approximately 66,000, almost 50% higher than the semi-canon source and 3 times as many as he is ever stated to have.

4. His stated 20,000 (which never seems to change) is such a strain on his population that he cannot defend the North against the Iron Born, and that his own people are worried about the harvest. This is indicative of a significantly lower population.

5. This suggests a military that is eating up 5% or more of his total population. For argument's sake, we'll use that figure: 5%. 20,000 * 20 = 400,000. Which is a population density of approximately 0.1742 per square mile. That means you'd see an average of 1 person every 5 to 6 square miles, and is somewhere in the vicinity of 1/7th of Alaska's population density. Which is quite literally under-developed wilderness.

6. Regardless of any of this, his forces are seemingly never enhanced with Riverland soldiers (save for one unsavory sub-faction), who control one of two of the most heavily populated areas of the kingdoms (the other being the Reach).

Suffice to say, the numbers are just awful. However, that's just one factor that has been a nuisance to me, personally. Other factors, for such a politically motivated world, include (but are not limited to):

1. Why are the Boltons still a family after the incidents from 500 years ago?
2. Why did anyone think it was reasonable to leave the Greyjoys in charge?
3. The use of 'Gold Dragons' as a the currency standard for virtually everything except in...about three instances I can think of, off hand, which is extremely jarring.
4. The freakish height of the Wall.
5. How do you feed an army of 100,000 (sometimes cannibal) Wildlings without even the physical capacity to farm in that climate?http://i.imgur.com/I2RgM3g.png
Been bothering me for a while now...

3,420 miles by 1410 miles is 4,822,200 square miles. That assumes Westeros is a perfect rectangle, which it obviously isn't. The number is realistically smaller than that. Your more accurate guess of 1/3 by size however is a 1,607,400 square mile max for the North, much smaller than your math. That's an overall population density of ~8.2950 persons per square mile as a whole for Westeros. Which inflates the North's population significantly assuming uniform density.

Let's look at comparable large empires in our world. The Persian Empire is very comparable, with 50 million people and 3.38 million square miles of territory. That's a population density of 15.2439 persons per square mile, nearly twice Westeros'. At its height, with 70 million people and 1.93 million square miles of territory, the Roman Empire had a population density of 36.2694 persons per square mile, over 4 times the density of Westeros.

According to the World of Ice and Fire companion book co-written by Martin himself, the North can muster up to 45,000 troops if necessary. At your supposed crippling 5% of the population (was that just a guess? or do you have a base for that?) that's 900,000, making a minimum population density of 0.5599 persons per square mile, just under 1/2 of Alaska's. A minimum however, given that realistically the totally-not-a-rectangle North is less than 1,607,400 square miles. This is even more complicated by the fact that, save the Night's Watch, it's implied no one really live north of Last Hearth, which is nearly a fifth of the North basically said to be unpopulated.

Honestly, I don't know how dense a population has to be for a feudal society to form, which leaves that question open.

One correction though, 20,000 Rivermen joined Robb's army. That books do in fact say that.
And the Wall is very solidly handwaved "magic". But a 200m tall block of ice? That's 12.5 times smaller than the largest glacier on our planet.


I did that while working on the timeline of Sheldomar history in Greyhawk.
After I had collected the references and put them in the proper order, I added real world equivalent dates to try and get a perspective on "how long ago" everything happened compared to the current date, and compare how many first, second, and third hand accounts have survived.
I think more setting designers should keep such things around to help control themselves in their urges to one-up other designers with how ancient and immutable their setting/pet empire/Mary Sue villain happens to be. My own setting spans 3,422 years from cataclysmic world shattering start to the current day.

In the scale of Chalcolithic "cradles" of civilization to now, that's about "the Roman Empire is founded".

jqavins
2016-02-03, 06:55 PM
Absolutely. My entire homebrew world's history is 1000 years. And not all of that is recorded history. A LOT can happen in a hundred years. Just look at our own world and then the world of 1916, and then the world in 1816.
It is often pointed out that the last couple of centuries have seen an amazing rate of change. But even so, look at 1716, 1616, and 1516; the differences seem small from here but when you look close they are substantial. And those designers who like to throw millennia around should look at the difference between 1516 and 516.

Sam113097
2016-02-03, 07:39 PM
One of the things that annoys me most about fantasy settings is their need to stretch the timeline out over thousands of years. One particularly egregious use of this trope, to me, is in the world of Eberron. In the setting, the Last War shapes the current nations' borders and is meant to give the setting a post-World-War-I, pulp fiction vibe. The problem is that the Last War is set 100 years in the past. That means that every human that fought in the war is long dead, along with most other races. If the authors wanted to use a setting that was heavily impacted by a recent war, they should have set the war a few years or decades ago. That way, players in the game could interact with/play as veterans of the conflict.
As mentioned by others, this also leads to ridiculously slow technological advancement.

BootStrapTommy
2016-02-03, 07:44 PM
It is often pointed out that the last couple of centuries have seen an amazing rate of change. But even so, look at 1716, 1616, and 1516; the differences seem small from here but when you look close they are substantial. And those designers who like to throw millennia around should look at the difference between 1516 and 516.I would like to point out, however, how greatly the two millenia period from the 3300BC to 1300BC differs from that single millenia.


One of the things that annoys me most about fantasy settings is their need to stretch the timeline out over thousands of years. One particularly egregious use of this trope, to me, is in the world of Eberron. In the setting, the Last War shapes the current nations' borders and is meant to give the setting a post-World-War-I, pulp fiction vibe. The problem is that the Last War is set 100 years in the past. That means that every human that fought in the war is long dead, along with most other races. If the authors wanted to use a setting that was heavily impacted by a recent war, they should have set the war a few years or decades ago. That way, players in the game could interact with/play as veterans of the conflict.
As mentioned by others, this also leads to ridiculously slow technological advancement.Humans and their immediate kin are the only races that would not have a century gone war within living memory. For most races, the children of that generation are just now adults. I think we might be ignoring the effect the long lived races might have on the scope of time lines. For elves alone, 300 years is within living memory.

Also, we people living in 2016 still feel the geopolitical effects of the First World War, a century past. There is a lot to be said that the West's intervention in the collapse the Ottoman Empire has profound effects on today's conflict in the Middle East, for example. And we still deal with specters of the Cold War, which emerged out of the Second World War, which was a direct result of the First. And it just so happens that a handful of humans who experienced that war are still alive even today. So, something to take into account...

Talion
2016-02-03, 07:58 PM
http://i.imgur.com/I2RgM3g.png
Been bothering me for a while now...

3,420 miles by 1410 miles is 4,822,200 square miles. That assumes Westeros is a perfect rectangle, which it obviously isn't. The number is realistically smaller than that. Your more accurate guess of 1/3 by size however is a 1,607,400 square mile max for the North, much smaller than your math. That's an overall population density of ~8.2950 persons per square mile as a whole for Westeros. Which inflates the North's population significantly assuming uniform density.

Let's look at comparable large empires in our world. The Persian Empire is very comparable, with 50 million people and 3.38 million square miles of territory. That's a population density of 15.2439 persons per square mile, nearly twice Westeros'. At its height, with 70 million people and 1.93 million square miles of territory, the Roman Empire had a population density of 36.2694 persons per square mile, over 4 times the density of Westeros.

According to the World of Ice and Fire companion book co-written by Martin himself, the North can muster up to 45,000 troops if necessary. At your supposed crippling 5% of the population (was that just a guess? or do you have a base for that?) that's 900,000, making a minimum population density of 0.5599 persons per square mile, just under 1/2 of Alaska's. A minimum however, given that realistically the totally-not-a-rectangle North is less than 1,607,400 square miles. This is even more complicated by the fact that, save the Night's Watch, it's implied no one really live north of Last Hearth, which is nearly a fifth of the North basically said to be unpopulated.

Honestly, I don't know how dense a population has to be for a feudal society to form, which leaves that question open.

One correction though, 20,000 Rivermen joined Robb's army. That books do in fact say that.
And the Wall is very solidly handwaved "magic". But a 200m tall block of ice? That's 12.5 times smaller than the largest glacier on our planet.

I'll try to answer these as best as I can. I'll also mention that I haven't read the books, but have watched the first 4 seasons of the show and have done some wiki walking when things made absolutely no sense to figure out what happened.

First and foremost, making any assumptions off of 'a perfect rectangle' North doesn't provide us with any particularly useful information, as the base numbers are more flawed. From the graphic provided, the North appears to have a more triangular shape, since it includes the region referred to as "The Neck". Rather than trying to determine the exact area of Westeros' irregular shape, I merely went with what was given to us as raw numbers, hence the "South America". "1/3", and "40 Million" points.

Naturally, as I had stated before, Westeros, for its many flaws, does not have uniform population density, most prominently displayed with the North's more than apparent lack of population, which is a point in its favor. Artificially inflating the North's population to accommodate a more uniform density, in direct contrast to proven evidence, provides us with nothing more than an absolute population cap. We can simply break it down to three simple figures: That the North has a lower population density than the other kingdoms, that at the very most they can raise an army of 45,000, and that even Rob's 20,000 leaves the North both vulnerable to attack and struggling economically.

Now, this wasn't suggested to be to the degree of, say, Russia in World War One, in which they eventually ended up fielding close to 10% of their total population, and suffered complete economic collapse. I'll admit I can't remember quite where I got the source for 5% or more (it was from a long time ago) but I've seen it on more than a few forums, including this one, over the years; I'll try looking again when I have more time. However, it is enough to place significant strain throughout the North and rob it of its ability to protect itself from even casual raiders and bandits. Again, this suggests a very limited population, further troubled by the empty territories of "The Gift", along with the Wolfswood, which takes up an incredible amount of territory. It is also important to note that, as is the case in most of the world of Fire and Ice, the women of the North are treated as non-combatants, and thus something such as an army that eats up 5% of the available population is really saying more of "10% of all physically able young men who would otherwise be farming and preforming other manual labor".

Now, for numbers concerning medieval populations, this (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm) is a fairly good resource for medieval populations, though it does stray more towards late medieval France's numbers. That being said, I'm not sure precisely which Persian Empire you're describing, but regardless, most of them take place before 1,300 and the one you describe, again, has a significantly higher population density than Westeros. Roman is even higher, as you clearly pointed out. Suffice to say, I think we can at least agree that Westeros is woefully underpopulated? (In all likelihood, Essos is probably even worse, but at least it has the excuse of being largely hunter, gatherer, and raider.)

That being said, my bigger concern with the army sizes themselves (I can understand them being smaller than expected due to the relatively sudden outbreak of combat and other factors) is more along the lines of "They never seem to change". Tywin always has twice as many troops as Rob, Rob always seems to have 20,000 men, the Riverlands supposedly has an army but is functionally useless and never included in anyone elses calculations and is often pointedly excluded (cue: "We need our men more than Tywin needs his!"), even though Rob is supposedly winning every battle. Even after the battle at the Wall Mance's Army "Still outnumbers us a thousand to one" in regards to the Watch....even though the Watch lost at least a couple dozen of their men of all sorts to the attack on Castle Black, and probably didn't even put a dent in the Wildling Army's size (other factors, such as the White Walkers and even straight up starvation, however, are another story...).

On that note, my more prominent concern with the Wall isn't necessarily it's height (though it could still stand to be halved or something) but more of its apparent width, or rather the lack there off. I'd even accept that it was reasonably built by human hands if one or two of its dimensions were altered to be more reasonable.

Mechalich
2016-02-03, 08:33 PM
One of the things that annoys me most about fantasy settings is their need to stretch the timeline out over thousands of years.

Fantasy settings that have long-lived beings need to have long timelines - and they need to have a mechanism to deal with their timeline length and the 'static' development problem that results.

D&D demands elves that live for centuries, dragons that live for millennia, and outsiders that are immortal. Not even counting gods, most D&D settings will have beings, usually powerful outsiders, who have existed from the beginning of the setting. As such, there is no prehistory there is only history, and in fact all history is living memory of something - often a very perceptive something that is extremely smart (ex. Pit Fiends have an intelligence of 26).

The history of modern humans stretches to maybe 50,000 BCE, though admittedly we're talking about nothing more than scattered hunter gatherers for most of it, but there's no reason why a fantasy setting can't have a history around that long and be aware of all of it. Since D&D history is far more cyclical than actual Earth human history - it is far easier for knowledge to be persistently lost, and most settings have undergone multiple 'apocalyptic' events. That's perfectly workable. The Forgotten Realms has a roughly 37,000 year history, which is manageable, especially given that only about 5,000 years of that is the modern human period.

Hundreds of thousands or millions of years of history is indeed ridiculous, but various points in the low five figures can work out fine.

Milo v3
2016-02-03, 08:48 PM
I got around the timeline issue in one setting by having it only "start" around 250 years after creation of the universe.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-03, 08:56 PM
Humans and their immediate kin are the only races that would not have a century gone war within living memory. For most races, the children of that generation are just now adults. I think we might be ignoring the effect the long lived races might have on the scope of time lines. For elves alone, 300 years is within living memory.

Also, we people living in 2016 still feel the geopolitical effects of the First World War, a century past. There is a lot to be said that the West's intervention in the collapse the Ottoman Empire has profound effects on today's conflict in the Middle East, for example. And we still deal with specters of the Cold War, which emerged out of the Second World War, which was a direct result of the First. And it just so happens that a handful of humans who experienced that war are still alive even today. So, something to take into account...

I was explaining this effect elsewhere recently, particularly how it cascades with longer lived races.

Example:
The last verified Confederate veteran died in 1951, while the last surviving Union combat veteran died in 1953.
That means someone born at the end of WWII could have directly heard 1st hand accounts of Civil War combat.
Such a person could have served in Viet Nam, and then be able to pass that knowledge on until an expected point sometime around 2020 at the earliest, directly influencing someone born in the last few years, with second-hand accounts of the Civil War.
That person will very likely make it to the next century.
Now granted that is just "anecdotes" and not "data", but this is social memes, not hard research.

Compound that with a 750 year maximum Elven lifespan, and you have the potential of "My teacher told me about when his teacher told him about Caesar crossing the Rubicon." (Or campaign equivalent of course.)
And thus when Elves talk to humans, you get the "My father told me when he watched your ancestors migrate to this land. My son will tell his children about when you left" trope.

BootStrapTommy
2016-02-03, 09:12 PM
I'll try to answer these as best as I can. I'll also mention that I haven't read the books, but have watched the first 4 seasons of the show and have done some wiki walking when things made absolutely no sense to figure out what happened.

First and foremost, making any assumptions off of 'a perfect rectangle' North doesn't provide us with any particularly useful information, as the base numbers are more flawed. From the graphic provided, the North appears to have a more triangular shape, since it includes the region referred to as "The Neck". Rather than trying to determine the exact area of Westeros' irregular shape, I merely went with what was given to us as raw numbers, hence the "South America". "1/3", and "40 Million" points. South America is 6.888 million square miles. The "rectangle" measures are the max length and max width as stated by the author, 4.822 million square miles. The obvious problem being that your estimates are even more wildy inaccurate than the "rectangle" and dilute the numbers.


Now, this wasn't suggested to be to the degree of, say, Russia in World War One, in which they eventually ended up fielding close to 10% of their total population, and suffered complete economic collapse. I'll admit I can't remember quite where I got the source for 5% or more (it was from a long time ago) but I've seen it on more than a few forums, including this one, over the years; I'll try looking again when I have more time. However, it is enough to place significant strain throughout the North and rob it of its ability to protect itself from even casual raiders and bandits. Again, this suggests a very limited population, further troubled by the empty territories of "The Gift", along with the Wolfswood, which takes up an incredible amount of territory. It is also important to note that, as is the case in most of the world of Fire and Ice, the women of the North are treated as non-combatants, and thus something such as an army that eats up 5% of the available population is really saying more of "10% of all physically able young men who would otherwise be farming and preforming other manual labor". I actually thought this might be a tad low, honestly. The Plague claimed 30-50% of Europe's population within seven years. That certainly reshaped society significantly, but oddly not nearly as much as the collapse of the Western Roman Empire...


Now, for numbers concerning medieval populations, this (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm) is a fairly good resource for medieval populations, though it does stray more towards late medieval France's numbers. That being said, I'm not sure precisely which Persian Empire you're describing, but regardless, most of them take place before 1,300 and the one you describe, again, has a significantly higher population density than Westeros. Roman is even higher, as you clearly pointed out. Suffice to say, I think we can at least agree that Westeros is woefully underpopulated? (In all likelihood, Essos is probably even worse, but at least it has the excuse of being largely hunter, gatherer, and raider.) My calculations are putting 11th Century Britain about half the number proposed there. Still grossly outnumbering Westeros though.


That being said, my bigger concern with the army sizes themselves (I can understand them being smaller than expected due to the relatively sudden outbreak of combat and other factors) is more along the lines of "They never seem to change". Tywin always has twice as many troops as Rob, Rob always seems to have 20,000 men, the Riverlands supposedly has an army but is functionally useless and never included in anyone elses calculations and is often pointedly excluded (cue: "We need our men more than Tywin needs his!"), even though Rob is supposedly winning every battle. Even after the battle at the Wall Mance's Army "Still outnumbers us a thousand to one" in regards to the Watch....even though the Watch lost at least a couple dozen of their men of all sorts to the attack on Castle Black, and probably didn't even put a dent in the Wildling Army's size (other factors, such as the White Walkers and even straight up starvation, however, are another story...).
Robb Stark gathers near twelve thousand northmen to Winterfell, including two thousand foot and three hundred horse from Karhold. Robb's force includes three hundred or four hundred knights among the other three thousand northern cavalry. Others wait to join them when Robb marches south along the kingsroad. With the addition of near fifteen hundred Manderlys, the northern force numbers eighteen thousand men at Moat Cailin. When they arrive at the Twins, Catelyn Tully warns Lord Walder Frey that Robb has twenty thousand troops against Walder's four thousand, but the Starks and Freys agree to an alliance, with the Freys contributing one thousand knights and near three thousand foot. While Lord Roose Bolton leads the northern foot and a tenth of the cavalry south along the eastern shore of the Green Fork, Robb takes the majority of the northern cavalry west to Riverrun. Robb's host is augmented by House Mallister and other forces as they travel near the Blue Fork. Their six thousand defeat Ser Jaime Lannister and three-quarters of his two or three thousand horse in the Battle of the Whispering Wood, and Jaime's twelve thousand foot are then defeated in the Battle of the Camps. The TV show seems to take liberty with the numbers presented in the book. Worth noting the Battle of Camps goes the way it does due to nighttime surprise and the fact that Jaime's army is caught between the rivers, Riverrun (containing the Rivermen), and Robb's army. Later in the books, Ser Rodrik Cassel, the castellan of Winterhold, raises an army in the thousands to oust Theon. That army gets massacred when Ramsey Snow betrays them.


On that note, my more prominent concern with the Wall isn't necessarily it's height (though it could still stand to be halved or something) but more of its apparent width, or rather the lack there off. I'd even accept that it was reasonably built by human hands if one or two of its dimensions were altered to be more reasonable.I can't seem to find a figure for width, which would be my main concern. At 200m high it would have to be 8km wide to be structurally stable! Even then it would still flow like a glacier. That being said the books don't in the least bit skimp on the detail that it was originally built with magic, during a generation long winter/perpetual twilight when powerful magic being still inhabited the world. Presumably the same magic that kept people feed...

Which brings me to a point, why question the Wall in face of the even more impossible variable seasons thing?


I was explaining this effect elsewhere recently, particularly how it cascades with longer lived races.

Example:
The last verified Confederate veteran died in 1951, while the last surviving Union combat veteran died in 1953.
That means someone born at the end of WWII could have directly heard 1st hand accounts of Civil War combat.
Such a person could have served in Viet Nam, and then be able to pass that knowledge on until an expected point sometime around 2020 at the earliest, directly influencing someone born in the last few years, with second-hand accounts of the Civil War.
That person will very likely make it to the next century.
Now granted that is just "anecdotes" and not "data", but this is social memes, not hard research.

Compound that with a 750 year maximum Elven lifespan, and you have the potential of "My teacher told me about when his teacher told him about Caesar crossing the Rubicon." (Or campaign equivalent of course.)
And thus when Elves talk to humans, you get the "My father told me when he watched your ancestors migrate to this land. My son will tell his children about when you left" trope. To add a personal ancedote, my grandmother was old enough to have remembered the First World War ending. And to have meet her great granduncle, Newton Knight. Newton Knight rebelled against the Confederacy during the Civil War, leading Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy. Matthew McConaughey is gunna play him in a movie that comes out later this year. No, I'm not totally absurdly siked about it or anything...

Thus I was able to here a secondhand account of how much of a badass my great-great-great granduncle was over 150 years ago! And I'm totally not an elf or anything. What would make you think that?

Talion
2016-02-03, 09:36 PM
South America is 6.888 million square miles. The "rectangle" measures are the max length and max width as stated by the author, 4.822 million square miles. The obvious problem being that your estimates are even more wildy inaccurate than the "rectangle" and dilute the numbers.

I actually thought this might be a tad low, honestly. The Plague claimed 30-50% of Europe's population within seven years. That certainly reshaped society significantly, but oddly not nearly as much as the collapse of the Western Roman Empire...

My calculations are putting 11th Century Britain about half the number proposed there. Still grossly outnumbering Westeros though.

The TV show seems to take liberty with the numbers presented in the book. Worth noting the Battle of Camps goes the way it does due to nighttime surprise and the fact that Jaime's army is caught between the rivers, Riverrun (containing the Rivermen), and Robb's army. Later in the books, Ser Rodrik Cassel, the castellan of Winterhold, raises an army in the thousands to oust Theon. That army gets massacred when Ramsey Snow betrays them.

I can't seem to find a figure for width, which would be my main concern. At 200m high it would have to be 8km wide to be structurally stable! Even then it would still flow like a glacier. That being said the books don't in the least bit skimp on the detail that it was originally built with magic, during a generation long winter/perpetual twilight when powerful magic being still inhabited the world. Presumably the same magic that kept people feed...

Which brings me to a point, why question the Wall in face of the even more impossible variable seasons thing?

Admittedly, Westeros has undergone some serious depopulation issues of its own in the last 300 years. Of course there was the intial Targaryian invasion, which was excessively brutish, wiping out untold families and old powers, which would require its own restructuring. More recently we've seen Robert's Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the War of Five Kings, but these alone do not seem to account for Westeros' universally and unusually low population.

I'll admit 5% still seems within relatively reasonable boundaries for a large nation that needs an army of that size. Moreso if the country in question happens to have all the resources it needs to maintain and equip that army. Though, again, as the percentage increases, so does the inherent strain on the supporting economies. At 7%, where I'm given to understand the military starts to become truly out of hand, we're really looking at 14% of the total male workforce, itself an even larger percentage of the healthy male worker population. By comparison, the United States military comes to somewhere in the range of 2 million people including reserves, which is less than a percent of the total population. Of course, all of this is without accounting for the various weapon, armor, and other industries needed to support all those troops as well. All of which amounts to a more than healthy chunk of the country's budget and economy, but at the same time nowhere near enough to create an actual deficit of workers in other industries.

And the width is the truly concerning point, since without it the darn thing should have collapsed on itself some time ago, particularly with the ever lowering frequency and quality of maintenance. The seasons I can deal with more readily because that is blatantly magic, and heavily based on the actions of the White Walkers (or "Others" as the book refers to them and their associates). The multiple year summers are harder to justify, since it doesn't have an apparent force that contributes to it, but the long winters I can believe without much difficulty.

Sam113097
2016-02-03, 10:26 PM
Admittedly, Westeros has undergone some serious depopulation issues of its own in the last 300 years. Of course there was the intial Targaryian invasion, which was excessively brutish, wiping out untold families and old powers, which would require its own restructuring. More recently we've seen Robert's Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion, and the War of Five Kings, but these alone do not seem to account for Westeros' universally and unusually low population.

I'll admit 5% still seems within relatively reasonable boundaries for a large nation that needs an army of that size. Moreso if the country in question happens to have all the resources it needs to maintain and equip that army. Though, again, as the percentage increases, so does the inherent strain on the supporting economies. At 7%, where I'm given to understand the military starts to become truly out of hand, we're really looking at 14% of the total male workforce, itself an even larger percentage of the healthy male worker population. By comparison, the United States military comes to somewhere in the range of 2 million people including reserves, which is less than a percent of the total population. Of course, all of this is without accounting for the various weapon, armor, and other industries needed to support all those troops as well. All of which amounts to a more than healthy chunk of the country's budget and economy, but at the same time nowhere near enough to create an actual deficit of workers in other industries.

And the width is the truly concerning point, since without it the darn thing should have collapsed on itself some time ago, particularly with the ever lowering frequency and quality of maintenance. The seasons I can deal with more readily because that is blatantly magic, and heavily based on the actions of the White Walkers (or "Others" as the book refers to them and their associates). The multiple year summers are harder to justify, since it doesn't have an apparent force that contributes to it, but the long winters I can believe without much difficulty.
Additionally, if you can field an army of ten thousand soldiers, it means that you have an army of far more than ten thousand men. It takes a hell of a lot of people to keep troops fed, led, and trained. A military has what is called the "tooth-to-tail" ratio: the proportion of soldiers (teeth) to support personnel (tail). In modern armies, there are a lot more support personnel than there are combatants, somewhere around 2-to-1 for the United States (my data is as of 2005). Older armies had fewer support personnel (probably closer to 2 troops for every non-combatant), but it still would take thousands of men to support a ten-thousand-man army. You need doctors and nurses, cooks, builders, messengers, etc.

Mechalich
2016-02-03, 10:31 PM
In terms of Westeros, GRR Martin has made it explicitly clear that he's bad with numbers and doesn't think about them too hard. It is an acknowledged weakness of the setting. So it actually should be verisimilitude breaking since the author hasn't invested energy in preserving verisimilitude in the area of numeric values.

Yora
2016-02-04, 09:43 AM
Fantasy settings that have long-lived beings need to have long timelines - and they need to have a mechanism to deal with their timeline length and the 'static' development problem that results.

No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Anyone working in Law and History knows that eyewitness accounts are always highly dubious and have been filtered and restructured countless times before they are being told. It's a first start to get an idea where to look, but to learn something for certain you have to find material evidence that supports those reports before you can start to tell which parts might have been true and which must have been misremembered. Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-04, 12:48 PM
No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Anyone working in Law and History knows that eyewitness accounts are always highly dubious and have been filtered and restructured countless times before they are being told. It's a first start to get an idea where to look, but to learn something for certain you have to find material evidence that supports those reports before you can start to tell which parts might have been true and which must have been misremembered. Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.

Which is exactly why they have such an impact on society.
It isn't whether the individuals "remember" and "report" what is true; it is that the individuals "remember" and "report" what "they saw with their own two eyes!" And what others can "remember" and "report" what those people told them about "what they saw with their own two eyes!"
Clinging to a grudge becomes much easier when you have a direct participant complaining about it for two centuries instead of just two decades.

BootStrapTommy
2016-02-04, 01:17 PM
Life spans of individuals should have a very low impact on how history plays out. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.No. A human can expect to live no longer than 110 years in D&D. That creates a set of economic preferences very different than the elf who can live as long 750 years.

Life expectancy has a huge effect on how people behave economically, even with the variability on our planet and within our own species. A race that expects to live for centuries? They would possess a completely different set preferences than any human has ever experienced. The longer you live, the less likely you are to feel the necessity of rushing. Not to mention the conservative effects century old rulers would have. If your king potentially rules for 500 years or more, your society only has the capacity to change only insofar their ruler is willing to or insofar as they are willing to rebel. Not to mention how being long lived would effect reproduction...

Mith
2016-02-05, 09:44 PM
To add a personal ancedote, my grandmother was old enough to have remembered the First World War ending. And to have meet her great granduncle, Newton Knight. Newton Knight rebelled against the Confederacy during the Civil War, leading Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy. Matthew McConaughey is gunna play him in a movie that comes out later this year. No, I'm not totally absurdly siked about it or anything.

Congrats! That will add some awesome points to the movie if I see it, although it will obvious be infinitely less than your experience.

Mechalich
2016-02-05, 10:54 PM
Long life spans also impact things simply because every species that actually qualifies as a species - and not a group of magical outsider entities like demons - needs to put a few generations between itself and the beginning of time.

Most D&D worlds experience some kind of Creation event. Either the gods bamf everything into being, the world is opened to the planes/wildspace, or whatever, but regardless there is some singular date, at some measurable point in the past, when things began. Generally, because evolution isn't happening and everything was specially created int its current form, that date wasn't millions of years ago - and if it was you have a whole different set of weird problems because what were all your dragons/demons/mind flayers getting up to for millions of years or if they were then you're running the Malazan Book of the Fallen and your setting is so overburdened by its history as to be positively obtuse.

The longest lived thing that is generally both important and in possession of an actual reproductive cycle in most D&D settings is dragons. A draconic generation is around 500 years, while individuals have a lifespan capable of easily pushing 3k. If you want there to be ten draconic generations and you want to make sure all the dragons who were born/around during the creation of your world have managed to die off, you're looking at 5000 years of history minimum. It doesn't have to be a history of civilization - a number of D&D settings have an early 'draconic period' where the dragons fly around ruling at their whims and everyone else cowers as hunter/gatherers, but that block of time needs to exist, and people should be aware that it exists.

Milo v3
2016-02-05, 10:57 PM
needs to put a few generations between itself and the beginning of time.
Not necessarily. Not every setting needs hundreds of generations of history before the present.

Mechalich
2016-02-06, 05:35 AM
Not necessarily. Not every setting needs hundreds of generations of history before the present.

I wasn't talking about hundreds. I was talking about maybe ten.

Dragonlance is a good example. It's got a roughly 10,000 year history. it's managed all of like 5 dragon generations during that time and actually a frightfully small number of elven generations. Yes there have been hundreds of human generations during that timeframe, and that's something the setting has to address, but considering that multi-generational events involving both elves and dragons are a thing in the setting it really can't compress the timeline any further.

Fantasy settings often place long-lived races like dragons and elves and even dwarves 'in decline' with humans as a newly developing rising power. Partly that's cause Tolkien did it, but it's also because it works. It gives you the years necessary to set up mature cultures of long-lived species without having to stretch complex human history over too much time.

Milo v3
2016-02-06, 06:24 AM
I wasn't talking about hundreds. I was talking about maybe ten.
Even that's not necessary IMO. :smalltongue:

I think any number greater than -1 is fine As Long As The Results Of The Timeline Is Still Sensible... The second part is very important.

jqavins
2016-02-06, 11:08 AM
No, they don't. While an individual might live very long, day to day activities don't happen any slower. And most memories aren't well preserved very long. After some days or weeks you only have a memory of a memory left. Societies can cling to grudges for centuries, while individuals can reconcile after pretty violent conflicts after a decade in some cases. Whether any currently living people have been alive during events that are long past doesn't make a big difference.
Good point, as far as grudges, recalled glory, etc. go. Not the only consideration, but a big one (and the one mostly focused on prior to this post.)


Which is exactly why they have such an impact on society.
It isn't whether the individuals "remember" and "report" what is true; it is that the individuals "remember" and "report" what "they saw with their own two eyes!" And what others can "remember" and "report" what those people told them about "what they saw with their own two eyes!"
Clinging to a grudge becomes much easier when you have a direct participant complaining about it for two centuries instead of just two decades.
But if those individuals don't keep complaining to centuries, as was Yora's point, the societies don't get that boost in grudge duration. If the participants spend centuries saying "But, that was a long time ago, and the world has to move on; forgive and move on" then it might even make societal grudges die out faster, not slower. Maybe. I guess it could plausibly go either way.


No. A human can expect to live no longer than 110 years in D&D. That creates a set of economic preferences very different than the elf who can live as long 750 years.

Life expectancy has a huge effect on how people behave economically, even with the variability on our planet and within our own species. A race that expects to live for centuries? They would possess a completely different set preferences than any human has ever experienced. The longer you live, the less likely you are to feel the necessity of rushing. Not to mention the conservative effects century old rulers would have. If your king potentially rules for 500 years or more, your society only has the capacity to change only insofar their ruler is willing to or insofar as they are willing to rebel. Not to mention how being long lived would effect reproduction...
Well, now, that too is a very good point. Leaving behind societal and personal grudges etc., there should, indeed, be economic and other societal effects which are well worth exploring. Just an initial thought: elves in a predominantly human society, predominantly elven societies, and humans in predominantly elven societies would all manifest differences as compared to the people in wholly human societies such as those irl, as well as all different from one another.

OK, here's another perspective. What if the lifespans of these creature was decided on by game and setting designers to fit their long timelines, rather than the other way around. "I'm designing this 15 thousand year timeline. I need some creatures that have seen it all within just two or three generations, so I'll give dragons a 10 thousand year lifespan." This whole conversation has got me thinking that, in my own slowly peculating setting, I'll shorten life spans as well as keep the timeline short. Perhaps elves with a 200 year average and exceptional individuals reaching 250 (similar to Vulcans.) Dwarves don't need to be long lived at all, and exceptionally long lived species like dragons top out at about 1000 years.

Yora
2016-02-06, 05:52 PM
But if those individuals don't keep complaining to centuries, as was Yora's point, the societies don't get that boost in grudge duration. If the participants spend centuries saying "But, that was a long time ago, and the world has to move on; forgive and move on" then it might even make societal grudges die out faster, not slower. Maybe. I guess it could plausibly go either way.
Take France and Germany for example. Pretty much 1000 years of endless conflict, but then in the 1950s people said "Okay, this has really gotten out of hand. We can't keep doing this. This insanity has to stop." And they did, just like that, while they were pretty much still clearing away the debris.
And it's not unique. There are plenty of conflicts in the past and present that are dragging on for many generations. But when these finally end it's often not only once the last people who actually were involved in direct hostilities have all died. Sometimes you even have the older people having to stop the younger ones from making the same bad mistakes that they did themselves 20 or 40 years before.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-06, 06:39 PM
And it's not unique. There are plenty of conflicts in the past and present that are dragging on for many generations. But when these finally end it's often not only once the last people who actually were involved in direct hostilities have all died. Sometimes you even have the older people having to stop the younger ones from making the same bad mistakes that they did themselves 20 or 40 years before.

So do the previous participants cause the next conflict or stop it?
The answer is "both", and that is what you are missing about the effects of age on a society.

Extended lifespans will tend to reinforce existing social conditions, contributing to social stagnation.
If the society tends towards vengeance, having elders harping on what happened will keep the antagonism going.
If the society tends towards reconciliation, having elders harping on what happened will keep the next generations from restarting the conflict.

That's why you can have Elven society failing within 5 generations due to stagnation from living as if it were one thousand years ago and the political, technological, and magical milieu were completely different, and thoroughly incompatible with the current milieu, while the 10 generation Human society is still expanding due to rapidly adapting without elders from 200 years ago looking over their shoulders, nagging them constantly.

jqavins
2016-02-08, 10:52 AM
Extended lifespans will tend to reinforce existing social conditions, contributing to social stagnation.
Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do?


That's why you can have Elven society failing within 5 generations due to stagnation from living as if it were one thousand years ago and the political, technological, and magical milieu were completely different.
From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan. So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.

* I mean skills in the general sense of being good at what one does, not in any game mechanical sense. That's another topic.

Tzi
2016-02-08, 11:05 AM
The easier solution might be to simply "remove long lived races from the world," not necessarily get ride of them but remove them from the sphere of play-ability and make them substantively OTHER.

Even in Tolkien Elves were substantively isolated and by the end entirely retreated from the world.

One method of avoiding weird problems like that is simply carving the Elves and other "1000! year lifespan," races from playability and from the mortal world.

Yora
2016-02-08, 11:09 AM
I feel pretty happy with having elves who live for over 300 years, assuming they survive three centuries without being killed by disease, war, or accident in a premodern society. Some do, but they are more rare than 80 year old humans.

jqavins
2016-02-08, 12:01 PM
I feel pretty happy with having elves who live for over 300 years, assuming they survive three centuries without being killed by disease, war, or accident in a premodern society. Some do, but they are more rare than 80 year old humans.
OK, interesting point about disease, etc. But it raises another question: How or why would such a long lifespan evolve? I would guess that these elves would have to be more resistant to early death in its various forms than humans, or else it would be advantageous to "live faster" as it were. (I read somewhere that most animals from mice to elephants get about the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime.) Which means all the long lived races should have to have a better ability to avoid and/or to survive accidents and illness than humans. (Poor, poor, pitiful us!) To some extent this is built into D&D, with elves' higher dex and dwarves' higher con, etc. But dex doesn't help the elves with disease.

Yora
2016-02-08, 12:23 PM
That's the point where I am content to say "it's fantasy" and leave it at that. :smallbiggrin:

Tiktakkat
2016-02-08, 12:35 PM
Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do?

"learn, develop, and grow" is not the same as "change your cultural paradigm".
One of the reasons we are so awed by musicians who change genre from album to album is that so few do it, compounded by so few doing it well.


From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan.

Yes, they practice their craft; they do not develop a new craft.
Elves become awesome at working with mail, long bows, and long swords. Then their armies die in droves against humans with plate that their weapons cannot defeat, and heavy arms that crush through their mail. And if gunpowder shows up . . .
Elves become awesome at dealing with goblins and orcs that can barely maintain stable villages with one thousand inhabitants. Then they are out-thought by humans with cities with one million inhabitants.
Elves become awesome with the spells they developed at the dawn of magic. Then their kingdoms are laid waste by magic advanced hundreds of times over the centuries.


So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

Or, more commonly, it means they keep redoing the same experiments over and over again.
Their art becomes defined by a single idealized form that is copied and recopied to the exclusion of any variations or new forms.
Their science becomes "settled" and nobody even contemplates new theories.
Their technology is "perfected" at the level it is at, with innovation "unneeded".
Politics is fossilized by tradition.
Religion is dominated by orthodoxy.


OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.

Pretty much.
Especially since a lot of issues with life expectancy have more to do with birth, infant, and child mortality than with senescence, with battle deaths causing even more issues.
To some extent though there seems to be a confluence between social change, which affects the rate of technology change, and general lifespan.

One critical thing to note in addition is observer bias.
Our milieu, and thus our core paradigm, is predicated on change to the point that there are even discussions about The Singularity.
We live expecting, even planning, for things to be dramatically different before we graduate/have children/our children graduate, both socially and technologically.
Especially in the standard fantasy paradigm of near-total technological stasis, the effects of long life, and the influence of elders set in their ways that have worked not merely for their father and their father's father, who was around when civilization was created, but has worked for them for the past two centuries, on all facets of development is going to be compounded.

BootStrapTommy
2016-02-08, 12:57 PM
Well, now, that too is a very good point. Leaving behind societal and personal grudges etc., there should, indeed, be economic and other societal effects which are well worth exploring. Just an initial thought: elves in a predominantly human society, predominantly elven societies, and humans in predominantly elven societies would all manifest differences as compared to the people in wholly human societies such as those irl, as well as all different from one another. In the context of D&D, the elf would outlive every human he grew up with and be a wizened eldest elder of the human community by the time he reaches the age his people acknowledge as adulthood (min 110). The human would die of old age before the elves he grew up with were even considered adults. D&D addresses this problem with half-elves, who sit oddly in the middle.


Why? Why shouldn't long lived people continue to learn, develop, and grow throughout their lifetimes just as we poor humans do? Because we are notorious bad at that.


From what does this follow? In the sciences and art, people tend to grow more skilled as they continue to practice their craft. The stereotype of creativity declining quickly with the bloom of youth may have some basis in truth, but 1) it is far from universal and B) there's no reason to suppose that the youthful creative period might not ne extended along with the lifespan. So long lives would mean people who have more decades to develop skills*, taking those into extended creative periods, and extending their own work many decades rather than having to pass it on after only a few. Science, technology, the arts, and presumably magic would thus advance faster when long lifespans allow experts continue contributing for a very long time. Politics, religious thought, and other aspects of a thriving society may or may not follow a similar pattern.

OK, maybe some of us won't buy this. You don't have to, it's all conjecture. But how can one state the opposite, that stagnation would be the result of long lifespans, with any certainty? In the real world, the human lifespan has been lengthening as the pace of scientific and technological development has been increasing. It is usually assumed that the latter is the cause and the former the effect. I wonder if it is not that simple, that each may already be contributing to the other synergistically.You're looking at is as "We have more time to perfect our talents" when the elves are honestly more likely to be like "Well, I do have more time to learn my talent, so I'll take my time". This is a race that waits as long as the maximum human lifespan just to grow up, after all. They don't appear to be in a rush...

VoxRationis
2016-02-08, 04:02 PM
"learn, develop, and grow" is not the same as "change your cultural paradigm".
One of the reasons we are so awed by musicians who change genre from album to album is that so few do it, compounded by so few doing it well.



Yes, they practice their craft; they do not develop a new craft.
Elves become awesome at working with mail, long bows, and long swords. Then their armies die in droves against humans with plate that their weapons cannot defeat, and heavy arms that crush through their mail. And if gunpowder shows up . . .
Elves become awesome at dealing with goblins and orcs that can barely maintain stable villages with one thousand inhabitants. Then they are out-thought by humans with cities with one million inhabitants.
Elves become awesome with the spells they developed at the dawn of magic. Then their kingdoms are laid waste by magic advanced hundreds of times over the centuries.



Or, more commonly, it means they keep redoing the same experiments over and over again.
Their art becomes defined by a single idealized form that is copied and recopied to the exclusion of any variations or new forms.
Their science becomes "settled" and nobody even contemplates new theories.
Their technology is "perfected" at the level it is at, with innovation "unneeded".
Politics is fossilized by tradition.
Religion is dominated by orthodoxy.



Pretty much.
Especially since a lot of issues with life expectancy have more to do with birth, infant, and child mortality than with senescence, with battle deaths causing even more issues.
To some extent though there seems to be a confluence between social change, which affects the rate of technology change, and general lifespan.

One critical thing to note in addition is observer bias.
Our milieu, and thus our core paradigm, is predicated on change to the point that there are even discussions about The Singularity.
We live expecting, even planning, for things to be dramatically different before we graduate/have children/our children graduate, both socially and technologically.
Especially in the standard fantasy paradigm of near-total technological stasis, the effects of long life, and the influence of elders set in their ways that have worked not merely for their father and their father's father, who was around when civilization was created, but has worked for them for the past two centuries, on all facets of development is going to be compounded.

Except the elves had to come up with their technology and magic and art at some point. It doesn't make sense that an entire culture, an entire species, was extremely productive at the very beginning and then became constitutionally incapable of improvement after that. Even China continued developing technologically and culturally after its big period of innovation. If elves and dwarves are intelligent in any meaningful sense of the term, they will learn, adapt, and innovate.
Frankly, the culturally stagnant elf thing is another aspect where Tolkien's world-specific scenarios—and remember, everyone except the bad guys were culturally and technologically stagnant in that setting—which others have copied, regardless of whether it makes sense. Tolkien's elves were stagnant because their society and culture were, like the societies of all good things, in decline, largely because they were all waiting their turns to get out of Middle-Earth (it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time in building your society when you'll have to leave it soon anyway). In most settings of the modern period, Blessed Isles-analogues don't exist, and the elves aren't trying to go anywhere. Furthermore, in most modern settings, the Classical/medieval paradigm of "everything's slowly going to pot," which was one of the key aspects of Tolkien's world, isn't found.

Also, science that doesn't end up contemplating new theories is either not really science or extraordinarily lucky, lucky enough to strike gold every single time.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-08, 04:30 PM
Except the elves had to come up with their technology and magic and art at some point. It doesn't make sense that an entire culture, an entire species, was extremely productive at the very beginning and then became constitutionally incapable of improvement after that. Even China continued developing technologically and culturally after its big period of innovation. If elves and dwarves are intelligent in any meaningful sense of the term, they will learn, adapt, and innovate.

The China that destroyed its entire fleet of ocean-going vessels capable of multiple trips to Africa just to maintain social stability?
Or the China that went through multiple dynasties burning all books of competing philosophies?
Or the China the set the tests for its bureaucracy around a dozen or so classic works and absolutely nothing else?
Really bad name to drop when discussing cultural stagnation.
Pretty much the only reason China managed any sort of cultural development over the centuries is because its dynasties constantly fell, compounded by the times they were replaced by non-Han dynasties.

Intelligence, and wisdom for that matter, have nothing to do with cultural tendencies towards adaptation and innovation.


Tolkien's elves were stagnant because their society and culture were, like the societies of all good things, in decline, largely because they were all waiting their turns to get out of Middle-Earth (it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time in building your society when you'll have to leave it soon anyway).

Tolkien's elves were stagnant because they either never went to the West, or because they did and were cursed for leaving, or even doubly cursed for the crimes they committed when leaving.
Also, as far as technology, magic, and culture, Tolkien's elves were almost completely taught such by their divine entities rather than actually developing those themselves.
So yeah, Tolkien's elves are a lousy model for other elves, but also a useless model for stagnation patterns.


Also, science that doesn't end up contemplating new theories is either not really science or extraordinarily lucky, lucky enough to strike gold every single time.

Just because it stops producing more doesn't mean the body of what it has stops being science.
It just means its development is stagnant.

VoxRationis
2016-02-08, 08:23 PM
The China that destroyed its entire fleet of ocean-going vessels capable of multiple trips to Africa just to maintain social stability?
Or the China that went through multiple dynasties burning all books of competing philosophies?
Or the China the set the tests for its bureaucracy around a dozen or so classic works and absolutely nothing else?
Really bad name to drop when discussing cultural stagnation.
Pretty much the only reason China managed any sort of cultural development over the centuries is because its dynasties constantly fell, compounded by the times they were replaced by non-Han dynasties.
Exactly that China. A culture almost wholly dedicated to not changing or advancing, and it still experienced technological progression and one-way cultural shift while remaining within the same cultural continuity.


Tolkien's elves were stagnant because they either never went to the West, or because they did and were cursed for leaving, or even doubly cursed for the crimes they committed when leaving.
Also, as far as technology, magic, and culture, Tolkien's elves were almost completely taught such by their divine entities rather than actually developing those themselves.
So yeah, Tolkien's elves are a lousy model for other elves, but also a useless model for stagnation patterns.
Isn't that what I said? That the Tolkienesque precedent of stagnant elves isn't a useful model for other settings?




Just because it stops producing more doesn't mean the body of what it has stops being science.
It just means its development is stagnant.

No, at that point the body of what it has is knowledge. Any culture, no matter how unscientific, can have a body of knowledge. Science, its etymology notwithstanding, is a process of investigation, as well as the body of knowledge it has produced.

Edit: Fundamentally, the question of whether elves, a specific long-lived race with specific ties to certain themes, is given to stagnation is one matter, separate from the issue of whether longer generational times in general lead to stagnation. On that, we have some (admittedly limited) data, and none of it points to that conclusion. Human lifespan has increased dramatically in the past few centuries, with no commensurate trend towards intellectual stagnation. Humans are long-lived by the standards of most mammals, and significantly longer-lived than our closest relatives, and have much greater capacities for innovation. Now, this isn't the best data, since there are several unaccounted variables, but it still is more than supposition about the effects of elders or the comparative abilities of individuals and societies to hold a grudge.

Sam113097
2016-02-08, 08:34 PM
Here's an interesting theory: perhaps elves and other long-lived races are the reason that most settings have medieval-level technology stagnation?
In most settings, elves, as a race, are depicted as prideful, resistant to change, and holders of ancient grudges. What if they simply refuse to adopt new technologies? If elves were the first race to build civilizations, wouldn't they think of themselves as inherently superior? Additionally, most settings have magic that can do the same thing as machines. Elves could purposely reject new technology, preferring their traditional magical lifestyles.
This could also be used in a sinister way, where elvish agents seek to prevent scientific advancement so that their magic will remain the predominant power in the world.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-08, 11:06 PM
Exactly that China. A culture almost wholly dedicated to not changing or advancing, and it still experienced technological progression and one-way cultural shift while remaining within the same cultural continuity.

Except it didn't experience technological progression.
While the West was developing airplanes, automobiles, and steamships, China was developing . . . kites, carts, and barges.
While the West was exploring art forms through the Renaissance and beyond, China was exploring . . . reiterations of "classic" forms.
While the West was creating armies with rifles, China was maintaining armies with . . . spears and bows.
China completely shut down innovation for centuries. It took a massive cultural shift for it to break out of that, but it still is nowhere near close to catching up.


Isn't that what I said? That the Tolkienesque precedent of stagnant elves isn't a useful model for other settings?

Yes, but you had the reason wrong, missed that it is not a useful pattern for any kind of cultural stagnation.


No, at that point the body of what it has is knowledge. Any culture, no matter how unscientific, can have a body of knowledge. Science, its etymology notwithstanding, is a process of investigation, as well as the body of knowledge it has produced.

Ignoring the definition is never a useful way to define something.


Edit: Fundamentally, the question of whether elves, a specific long-lived race with specific ties to certain themes, is given to stagnation is one matter, separate from the issue of whether longer generational times in general lead to stagnation. On that, we have some (admittedly limited) data, and none of it points to that conclusion. Human lifespan has increased dramatically in the past few centuries, with no commensurate trend towards intellectual stagnation. Humans are long-lived by the standards of most mammals, and significantly longer-lived than our closest relatives, and have much greater capacities for innovation. Now, this isn't the best data, since there are several unaccounted variables, but it still is more than supposition about the effects of elders or the comparative abilities of individuals and societies to hold a grudge.

Nothing in the increase in human lifespan is anywhere near the level of elven lifespans.
Comparison to other mammals is utterly irrelevant given their level of sapience.

As for what evidence there is, the more people can know of the past, the more likely they are to desire to imitate it. That has been a pretty general constant across cultures. It is only when there is significant disruption that a culture will look forward to change, and that has just as strong a feedback loops as cultural stability.
Lifespan, as a mechanism for "remembering" the past, will just generally tend to increase cultural stability, and inevitably lead to stagnation


Here's an interesting theory: perhaps elves and other long-lived races are the reason that most settings have medieval-level technology stagnation?
In most settings, elves, as a race, are depicted as prideful, resistant to change, and holders of ancient grudges. What if they simply refuse to adopt new technologies? If elves were the first race to build civilizations, wouldn't they think of themselves as inherently superior? Additionally, most settings have magic that can do the same thing as machines. Elves could purposely reject new technology, preferring their traditional magical lifestyles.
This could also be used in a sinister way, where elvish agents seek to prevent scientific advancement so that their magic will remain the predominant power in the world.

That . . . makes perfect sense.
It can even expand to explain most "core" racial conflicts, with the various races having different standards for the "proper" level and rate of cultural development, and being fundamentally in conflict with others at different levels and rates of change.

Tzi
2016-02-09, 10:42 AM
On alternative solution I played with was that Elven long lives were less than natural. Elves in a Historical sense sustained exceptionally long lives through Alchemy, technology and some degree of sorcery. This eventually had long term health effects such as a type of debilitating Alzheimer disease like state some Elves are left in incredibly old age which over time became more and more common. Intensive use of Alchemy and other issues to sustain themselves eventually became world damaging as the grew dependent on Magic-Tech to both control the worlds weather and create the idyllic lands they lived on AND to sustain their health with lifespans lasting up to 1000 years.

Elves today are now mostly Half-Elves shepherded by a handful of dying Elves who act as Elders and guides. Drow especially took advantage of this project to breed with captive humans.

In that setting at the present age, "Elves," are mostly pointy eared Half-Elves guided by a handful of Elven elders who act as guides to tribes of their own offspring.

So Elven Long lives are explained and even the consequences of them are given, and it isn't pretty.

To put it simply, Maybe Elven Longevity is the result of technical and Alchemical brilliance and not just some innate Elfy trait.

jqavins
2016-02-09, 11:27 AM
The "long life equals stagnation" view is not necessarily a bad one. My only argument - and I think this goes for others - is with the view that it is inevitable. We have absolutely no evidence to draw on regarding the rate of scientific, cultural, or other change in societies of sentient beings who live for centuries. None. So we can all speculate and make things up to our hearts' various contents, but there's nothing to support one view or another as inevitable.

The only evidence we have that is even related is the correlation between the extension of the human life span and the acceleration of change in human societies. It's weak evidence indeed, but since it is all we have it leads me personally to lean away from the stagnation idea.

As for science, the word has two meanings. One, which would better be called "scientific knowledge" does indeed continue to be scientific in nature in that it was developed by scientific methods and is backed up by solid evidence even after progress has stopped. The other is the practice of advancing that body of knowledge, so science in that sense can never be stagnant; stagnant science is an oxymoron.

Here's my next radical statement on the subject: Many, and perhaps most fantasy game and literary settings that involve long lived people like elves do not depict stagnation. That's because they depict only a particular time. Saying that the average D&D setting is technologically stagnant is like saying that the 1330s were technologically stagnant. (I pulled that decade out of my backside; it has no specific significance.) Settings don't last for decades and decades, so once shouldn't expect to see significant change, whether it is occurring over the course of a century or not. The subset that describe the distant past sometimes, perhaps usually show little or no change since then, but this is by no means all such settings. And of those that do, sometimes it is due to the habit of carelessly tossing around excessively long timelines, not because of a well considered choice. Sometimes. That's where all this started, if you recall. (When it is indeed due to a considered choice, perhaps it should also be a substantial part of the story line.)

Tiktakkat
2016-02-09, 02:28 PM
On alternative solution I played with was that Elven long lives were less than natural. Elves in a Historical sense sustained exceptionally long lives through Alchemy, technology and some degree of sorcery. This eventually had long term health effects such as a type of debilitating Alzheimer disease like state some Elves are left in incredibly old age which over time became more and more common. Intensive use of Alchemy and other issues to sustain themselves eventually became world damaging as the grew dependent on Magic-Tech to both control the worlds weather and create the idyllic lands they lived on AND to sustain their health with lifespans lasting up to 1000 years.

. . .

If you can get through the weirdness, you could get some inspiration for such a concept from the movie Zardoz, which has pretty much that concept, only with humans doing it and separating themselves from other humans.
Just be aware that the weirdness quotient of the movie is beyond extreme.


The "long life equals stagnation" view is not necessarily a bad one. My only argument - and I think this goes for others - is with the view that it is inevitable.

Well of course.
On that level, the only truly "inevitable" thing in social analysis is that you WILL find an exception.
As it goes, as I noted earlier, we are moving from near stagnation to The Singularity.
With enough additional factors, you can construct an elven society that utterly revises its core cultural assumptions and functioning even 20 years or so. Of course the question is how that affects other setting material.


Here's my next radical statement on the subject: Many, and perhaps most fantasy game and literary settings that involve long lived people like elves do not depict stagnation. That's because they depict only a particular time. Saying that the average D&D setting is technologically stagnant is like saying that the 1330s were technologically stagnant. (I pulled that decade out of my backside; it has no specific significance.) Settings don't last for decades and decades, so once shouldn't expect to see significant change, whether it is occurring over the course of a century or not. The subset that describe the distant past sometimes, perhaps usually show little or no change since then, but this is by no means all such settings. And of those that do, sometimes it is due to the habit of carelessly tossing around excessively long timelines, not because of a well considered choice. Sometimes. That's where all this started, if you recall. (When it is indeed due to a considered choice, perhaps it should also be a substantial part of the story line.)

To a large extent that depends on the setting.
And to a large extent it depends on the era.

Generally, most settings that cover the equivalent of say, 1000 BC to 1500 AD are reasonably safe with "stagnation", as there weren't any of the grand changes we associate with technology over that time beyond gunpowder which thoroughly disrupted the military status quo. (Which of course is why most settings handwave gunpowder out of existence.) (Which then has some verisimilitude issues with naval tech and armor and weapons.)
Sure the horse collar and stirrup showed up, along with iron working, and windmills and watermills were rather important, but none of these have much direct relevance to characters and general adventuring. (Mills especially being nearly irrelevant since most settings love some anachronistic clockwork action.)
The issues arise when those settings start adding gratuitous 0s to the age of their empires, insisting the current tech, social order, and even ruling family, have endured for utterly ludicrous periods.

Then it becomes a question of trying to reconcile such, hard redacting it, or enduring it.

VoxRationis
2016-02-09, 04:32 PM
Generally, most settings that cover the equivalent of say, 1000 BC to 1500 AD are reasonably safe with "stagnation", as there weren't any of the grand changes we associate with technology over that time beyond gunpowder which thoroughly disrupted the military status quo. (Which of course is why most settings handwave gunpowder out of existence.) (Which then has some verisimilitude issues with naval tech and armor and weapons.)
Sure the horse collar and stirrup showed up, along with iron working, and windmills and watermills were rather important, but none of these have much direct relevance to characters and general adventuring. (Mills especially being nearly irrelevant since most settings love some anachronistic clockwork action.)
The issues arise when those settings start adding gratuitous 0s to the age of their empires, insisting the current tech, social order, and even ruling family, have endured for utterly ludicrous periods.

Then it becomes a question of trying to reconcile such, hard redacting it, or enduring it.

But almost nothing stagnated during that time period! Aside from the evolution of plate armor, the near-complete replacement of archers by crossbowmen (except for cavalry archers and British longbowmen), and other military changes, society changed greatly, shifting the balance of power increasingly to centralized kingdoms. The last vestiges of the Roman Empire were eroded during this period. Intellectual thought shifted with the contacts, peaceful and warlike, between Western Europe and the Muslim states. Architecture changed dramatically, evolving such refinements as the flying buttress and the curtain wall. The printing press was invented and the proliferation of written material increased manyfold, carrying profound social and intellectual repercussions forever after. The Reconquista occurred in Iberia, succeeding at what the Byzantines had failed to do and creating new, major players in the politics of Western Europe. Language shifted in many places, with English and French losing much of their noun declension systems (and English acquiring a wide variety of Franco-Latin vocabulary words). While there were aspects of life which did not change considerably during this time (the Church retained power in Western Europe, a system of aristocracy supporting a monarch remained the predominant societal structure, and Latin continued to be important if one wanted to be considered educated), stagnation was hardly typical of the era.

jqavins
2016-02-09, 04:59 PM
But almost nothing stagnated during that time period!
I'm not sure where you stand on the point I made, which was that all of this was functionally stagnant from, let's just say, 1330 to 1339, which is why stagnation in a given single game setting so common. (Of course, I could be missing some key invention or idea that was developed and very rapidly spread in that particular decade, but it was just a random example.)

Mechalich
2016-02-09, 07:50 PM
Technological stagnation in fantasy settings is weird. There are lots of reasons why it might or might not be the case overall. In D&D it is quite likely that typical 'science' doesn't even work and utilization of the scientific method leads towards a 'magitech' development instead of typical chemistry. The periodic table doesn't exist in D&D after all. There are any number of reasons why civilization as a whole could stagnate in a fantasy scenario - the most common excuse is that essentially all intellectual resources that would be devoted to scientific and technological development are devoted to magical or religious development instead, but others are possible.

As to the relative stagnation of various species against each other, that's a bit different. Usually long-lived species are presented as being in decline, and they aren't developed significantly past the shorter-lived ones as a result. This is often appended to a sort of burden-passing - in that various settings often have some constant and horrible threat present to civilization, usually goblinoids, and one race after another gradually exhausts themselves fighting the things off and leaves it to a new, rising, civilization to take over. This is explicit in Tolkien, with the pattern going elves-dwarves-humans, and directly emulated by the Forgotten Realms and others.

But there are other options. Most importantly, there's no reason other species should develop in the same pattern as humans do. Elves and dwarves aren't driven in the same way humans are - their hierarchy of needs is structured differently. Long-lived species are better at developing individual skills because they have more time to practice them, but there's no reason their societies should be of equal efficiency. In D&D by RAW an individual skill - mastery of magic - trumps all group skills, but assuming your fantasy doesn't function that way, there's no reason to force the developments to match. Tolkien provides a good example - the best elven smiths were flatly better than the best dwarven ones (because Tolkien elves were just better than you), but they produced a whole lot less swords and axes than the dwarves did because it just wasn't as important to them.

jqavins
2016-02-10, 11:10 AM
In the world I'm slowly planning and building, the characters will start in a part of the world populated predominantly by humans, with a good number orcs and half-orcs, some goblins and maybe ogres. The orcs and goblins, and the maybe ogres, are not seen as monsters and are accepted in some areas within the region more than in others, as long as they behave themselves. There are a few dwarves, enough that dwarves are well known. But elves and half-elves are all but totally absent, to such a degree that some people think they are myth. (Yes, there's a relevant point to this.)

Elves are dominant in another region of the world, separated from the starting region by very, very difficult mountains. I've decided, as a result of this discussion, that if and when the characters ever get there, they will find a civilization more advanced than their own, both in magic and science. Their tech may or may not be especially advanced, as magic does many if not all of the jobs we expect tech to do, but their scientific knowledge is.

There's a synergy between scientific and technological advancement in the real world. Everyone knows how new scientific knowledge enables new tech advancements, but often overlooked is how new tech allows for better instruments that enable scientific advancement. We'd never have learned about cells (science) without the invention of the microscope (tech.) Relativity might not have been developed without the Michaelson-Morely experiment, which relied on the ability to make lots of bricks, refine lots of mercury, and make very, very sensitive measurements of the speed of light. And so on. So my elves may use magic in place of tech, but that same synergy will exist allowing magical instruments to advance science and advanced science to inspire new things that can be done through magic.

All that said, has anyone got any new things to pick on that break verisimilitude?

Tiktakkat
2016-02-10, 02:56 PM
But almost nothing stagnated during that time period!

Well, yeah, it did.


Aside from the evolution of plate armor,

I noted that.


the near-complete replacement of archers by crossbowmen (except for cavalry archers and British longbowmen),

Well no, not really, but that's an extremely convoluted subject.


and other military changes,

Again, I noted those.


society changed greatly, shifting the balance of power increasingly to centralized kingdoms. The last vestiges of the Roman Empire were eroded during this period.

The Roman Empire was a centralized kingdom.
So what you had was the expansion of a centralized kingdom, its contraction, and then finally, at the end, the re-assertion of authority in multiple kingdoms.

A much bigger change in the era was the expansion of the agricultural zone into central and eastern Europe, allowing the region that was effectively the "Roman Empire" to expand greatly.


Intellectual thought shifted with the contacts, peaceful and warlike, between Western Europe and the Muslim states.

It shifted but it did not particularly change, as it first suffered a severe contraction before returning to its previous state and then expanding.


Architecture changed dramatically, evolving such refinements as the flying buttress and the curtain wall.

Neither was particularly relevant to the overall social status quo until the very end.
Certainly it enabled the building of major cathedrals, but there was already a strong religious status quo.


The printing press was invented and the proliferation of written material increased manyfold, carrying profound social and intellectual repercussions forever after.

In 1440. Note my time period ending in 1500.


The Reconquista occurred in Iberia, succeeding at what the Byzantines had failed to do and creating new, major players in the politics of Western Europe.

Again, that was more a return to the status quo ante of the end of the Roman Empire than a new expansion.


Language shifted in many places, with English and French losing much of their noun declension systems (and English acquiring a wide variety of Franco-Latin vocabulary words).

Which is irrelevant compared to England abandoning Salic inheritance, and everyone embracing primogeniture instead of dispersal of inherited property.
Which does mean there was a significant social change, though one that only magnified after the Renaissance.


While there were aspects of life which did not change considerably during this time (the Church retained power in Western Europe, a system of aristocracy supporting a monarch remained the predominant societal structure, and Latin continued to be important if one wanted to be considered educated), stagnation was hardly typical of the era.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."
"A difference that makes no difference is no difference."

2500 years of history succeeded in homogenizing the majority of Europe to the merged values of three small tribes. Someone from the beginning of the period would be shocked at who wound up the winners, but would fully understand the social and technological order.
In the next 250 years, the variants of half a dozen fringe tribes and sub-cultures would explode that into competing empires that overran the world. Someone from the beginning of the period would be thrilled or horrified at the changes, and thoroughly impressed by the technological changes, but they would still be able to make a place for themselves.
The 250 years after that would transform the world into an ever-accelerating feedback loop of near-constant evolution. We are at a point now where things that were amazing advancements when people were children are so obsolete as to be completely unknown to their grandchildren.
That's the difference in the level and scope of the changes.

Tzi
2016-02-10, 08:40 PM
Well, yeah, it did.


Absolutely not true. Later Renaissance and "Enlightenment era" writers cast the Middle Ages as backwards, stagnate or intellectually, scientifically, and politically poor but the actual facts do not bare this out. If you like city life then yes, sure much of Middle Ages was terrible, but if you enjoyed concepts of Common Law (England in the Middle Ages), the concept of trial by jury, parliament, and not dying in a war of religion than the Middle Ages was surprisingly good compared to the age of Absolutist monarchies, Civil War and Multiple protracted wars of Religion across Europe.

Much of the "Stagnate Dark Ages," is a fiction conjured up by later writers during the Renaissance, and particularly by Protestant writers who wanted to paint an image of an era choked by the recalcitrant Roman Catholic Church. All of which is largely propaganda.

VoxRationis
2016-02-10, 09:37 PM
...

Though I made an error in my post, it was in thinking you had written 1000 AD, not 1000 BC.

You said the period you quoted was stagnant; i.e., that nothing changed. I came up with massive changes on numerous aspects of life (and didn't even mention, on account of the aforementioned error, the enormous demographic changes, or the change in the very nature of organized religion) in a fraction of your quoted timespan, and you just dismiss it with little more than an unsupported "that's not relevant." I don't know how to argue with that.
The cultures which in 1500 were being emulated or lauded by an entire continent were barely locally important in 1000 BC. Technologies abound in almost every area of life, majorly affecting every area of life, that were invented at some point between those two dates. Cultures, languages, art, politics... Everything changed between those dates.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-10, 10:24 PM
Absolutely not true. Later Renaissance and "Enlightenment era" writers cast the Middle Ages as backwards, stagnate or intellectually, scientifically, and politically poor but the actual facts do not bare this out. If you like city life then yes, sure much of Middle Ages was terrible, but if you enjoyed concepts of Common Law (England in the Middle Ages), the concept of trial by jury, parliament, and not dying in a war of religion than the Middle Ages was surprisingly good compared to the age of Absolutist monarchies, Civil War and Multiple protracted wars of Religion across Europe.

Much of the "Stagnate Dark Ages," is a fiction conjured up by later writers during the Renaissance, and particularly by Protestant writers who wanted to paint an image of an era choked by the recalcitrant Roman Catholic Church. All of which is largely propaganda.

Ummm . . . where did I say it was horrible?
Or backwards.
Or politically poor.
Or even intellectually poor?
None of those are in any way synonymous with "stagnant".

As for science, I noted that most of its scientific achievement simply did not have any effect on the social or cultural order, and it didn't.
Manorial aristocracy and monarchy were not superseded by republics, despite the advances in mechanical power and agricultural technique.
Kingdoms grew from counties but none ever exceeded the scope of Rome, even if their combined area exceeded that of Rome.
Improvements in mining and metallurgy were made, but other than particulars of design, warfare remained the same.
That is leaves things being "stagnant" as a whole, no matter the individual advances.


Though I made an error in my post, it was in thinking you had written 1000 AD, not 1000 BC.

You said the period you quoted was stagnant; i.e., that nothing changed. I came up with massive changes on numerous aspects of life (and didn't even mention, on account of the aforementioned error, the enormous demographic changes, or the change in the very nature of organized religion) in a fraction of your quoted timespan, and you just dismiss it with little more than an unsupported "that's not relevant." I don't know how to argue with that.
The cultures which in 1500 were being emulated or lauded by an entire continent were barely locally important in 1000 BC. Technologies abound in almost every area of life, majorly affecting every area of life, that were invented at some point between those two dates. Cultures, languages, art, politics... Everything changed between those dates.

No, you came up with minor changes, that had little cumulative effect on day to day life, the general social order, or the overall culture.
If you want to argue it, show how any of the things you mentioned effected a radical change.
Did plate armor change the nature of war? No.
Did crossbows change the nature of war? No.
Did the centralized kingdoms change the nature of politics? No. (At least not until 100 years later.)
Did the changes in intellectual thought have any profound effects? No. (Again, at least not until the next century.)
Did the architecture change the culture? No.
Did the printing press change anything? No. (Once again, not for another century.)
Did the Reconquista change the political status quo? No. (Still, not for another century.)
Did the language evolutions change anything? No. (Though guess what? It would in another century.)

There certainly were some significant developments. I noted the really critical ones in inheritance that would contribute to utterly changing the map of Europe and then the world. But even those still didn't do much to day to day life. It was simply the same.
That doesn't mean it was horrible.
It just means it was pretty the same as it had been for centuries in the past.

Yes, the cultures in 1500 were being lauded. That's why I picked that particular break point.
However, those cultures in 1500 AD were all predicated on three particular cultures that very much did exist in 1000 BC. It simply took that long for all the little cumulative effects of the past 2500 years began to manifest in major changes.
But even those would take 250 years to show any significant differences.
But at that cusp, warfare changed radically with the introduction of gunpowder, education changed radically with the spread of the printing press, politics changed rapidly as the Reconquista led to the Hapsburgs in Spain, leading to near constant war until modern times, ultimately causing the end or revision of the monarchies.
Those are significant changes impacting day to day life.

If it makes you happier, consider those dates as having ~ before them, and covering 100-200 year periods. That's what most historians do when they discuss various eras, as it always took time for notable changes to cover large areas.

And note, "stagnant" does not mean "absolutely no changes".
It means slow or sluggish changes, with no significant differences.

VoxRationis
2016-02-10, 10:47 PM
In 1000 BC, slavery was a strangely egalitarian institution, applied to pretty much anyone who had run afoul of poor fortune. The Christian church strongly discouraged this, and by 1500 AD, slavery had largely fallen by the wayside (replaced by serfdom, which was significantly different in many respects) and then come back in a fashion integrally linked with concepts of ethnicity and religion (one could enslave a pagan or Muslim, but not a Christian). This had effects both in the future and in the society of the time; in classical Rome you could find your neighbor, whose smithing business had fallen on hard times, in the markets, while in early Renaissance Rome you could not.

In the latter half of the first millennium AD, Viking raids were a perennial threat to anyone on a coastline or major river in the northern half of Europe. By 1500, this sort of endemic raiding by the Vikings had abated, and such threats to peace and security were the results of formal wars, not the quotidian way of life of a different ethnic group. Try telling a peasant on the Seine that that's not a significant difference.

In the classical era, religion was synonymous with the state, with the deification of emperors and pharaohs and whatnot. In the medieval era, the religious hierarchies fought against the power of kings and nobles as often as they supported them. The storylines of political intrigue between Pope and king would make no sense, even with period-appropriate analogues, in the classical era.

In 1000 BC, travel overland was ridiculously slow and water only slightly better, with ships obliged to follow coastlines at all times and incapable of sailing against an unfavorable wind. By 1500, the lateen sail, the stern rudder, and the compass made it possible to sail across open water (as far as one's provisions would hold out) and to make headway against the wind without using oars, and overland travel was made far easier by the Romans' road system, which did not exist at all at the beginning of this period.

In 1000 BC, cavalry was, although by virtue of its expense tied with the aristocracy, only useful as an auxiliary force. In the Middle Ages, the introduction of the stirrup, the breeding of larger and more powerful horses, and the increasing weight of armor made cavalry useful as front-line attackers, all the way up until the end of the era (and there was a brief resurrection of knights as gendarmes, even after gunpowder and pike became a thing). This massively changed how warfare was fought and reinforced, for many centuries, the feudal order, because of the increased importance of a mounted warrior elite compared with the previous and following eras.

All of these things would alter a game world dramatically. They would alter how an individual moves through it, how they are affected by society, how the storylines of an adventure unfold. You can't just write them off.

Tzi
2016-02-10, 11:02 PM
Ummm . . . where did I say it was horrible?
Or backwards.
Or politically poor.
Or even intellectually poor?
None of those are in any way synonymous with "stagnant".

As for science, I noted that most of its scientific achievement simply did not have any effect on the social or cultural order, and it didn't.
Manorial aristocracy and monarchy were not superseded by republics, despite the advances in mechanical power and agricultural technique.
Kingdoms grew from counties but none ever exceeded the scope of Rome, even if their combined area exceeded that of Rome.
Improvements in mining and metallurgy were made, but other than particulars of design, warfare remained the same.
That is leaves things being "stagnant" as a whole, no matter the individual advances.


Repeated revolutions in cultural, political and social thought changed things over the course of the Middle Ages. For example by the reign of Richard II of England you have not only a politically engaged peasantry but one that has a definite grasp on rights, laws, and legal system which leads them to their open rebellion and to target feudal charters, tax records and tax law documents. Heck the whole legal revolution that emerged out of Carolingian feudalism that can be credited to founding the notion of contract law from the feudal contract, and the subsequent court-systems to deal with feudal contract disputes.

More over since the Norman conquest there was the Leet court, in which peasants often ran their own affairs, thanks in part to protracted foreign wars such as the crusades and the the 100 years war which indeed led to the politically engaged and capable peasantry of Richard the II's nightmares.

Likewise the revolutions in legalism changed English society especially to a much more litigious and law centered society.

There is the change in concepts of Kingship from the strongman, the an idea of a Law centered Kingship, Christ Centered Kingship and other developing legal theories throughout the middle ages.

One could even argue to some extent women in general enjoyed some freedoms that would be lost to her in the subsequent "Enlightenment," which often coincided with religious fanaticism, a refocusing on biblical patriarchy, and the rapid spread of biblical literacy radically undermined folk culture that had dominated the bottom up legal systems and common law practices of germanic law customs that all but vanished in Europe save for in the British Isles.

The core reason people interpret this bygone era as stagnant is principle fanciful romanticism from the 1800's which painted it as some idyllic era of pre-Industrial innocence, or as some quaint superstitious age vilified by the protestant reformers and the upheavals of the absolutism of later thinkers during the renaissance era. The trope of a technologically, culturally and politically stagnant "Middle Ages," is IMHO a product of generally poor education on the subject.

More over some must be said of the relative "Alterity," of the Middle Ages. That world was a corporate world, with a corporate ideal. Every person was part of a collective whole, few great works have an authors name, and great buildings were communal projects, not an architects vision. But because Europe ditched that idea, we have in the successive centuries vilified it for its differentness to us. Written off its achievements and to some extent misattributed the sins of later eras to it in the popular imagination.

jqavins
2016-02-10, 11:38 PM
The opposite of "stagnant" is not "advancing." The opposite of "stagnant" is "moving," or in this context "changing."

"The expansion of a centralized kingdom, its contraction, and then finally, at the end, the re-assertion of authority in multiple kingdoms" is a series of changes.

The re-conquest of Iberia may have been "more a return to the status quo ante of the end of the Roman Empire than a new expansion," but that means there was a deviation from the status quo ante (the Moorish conquest) followed by its return, so again a series of changes. Far from stagnant.

Several other changes were noted as being unimportant because they didn't change society at large. Leaving aside the question of the truth of that (a subject on which I am wholly unqualified) if these things changed, and undoubtedly changed the day to day lives of some people, then they were not stagnant.

HOWEVER:
This all has nothing to do with the likelihood that elves who live for hundreds of years would have a stagnant society or a be a stagnating influence on a mixed society. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Furthermore, we have very clearly established that the stagnation of society, perceived or real, and the effect or lack thereof that the presence of said elves should logically have on said stagnation, is something that breaks verisimilitude for some of us here, and not for others. Can we please move on now?

Tzi
2016-02-10, 11:43 PM
I think from Human perspective, Elves would appear stagnant or unchanging, even immortal. 1000 years is a long LONG LONG time.

Say a man in 1066 meets an elf. You follow his descendants till the year 1966, and he meets that elf's son. By that time the Human would look nothing like his ancestor who met the father of the current elf. But the current elf might look like the exact same person based on the description given.

Perceptively Elves would appear unchanging, immutable, and immortal because of that alone.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-11, 01:47 AM
In 1000 BC, slavery . . .

In 1000 BC, over 90% of the population worked on farms to feed the rest of the population.
In 1500 AD, over 90% of the population worked on farms to feed the rest of the population.
Whether they were slaves on latifundium, serfs on manors, or freedholders on other parts of manors, they were still farmers.
While it is a neat philosophical and legal point as to the extent of their rights and privileges, such fades to irrelevance when they were all still subject to absolute monarchs or lesser, more immediate, feudal rulers.


In the latter half of the first millennium AD, Viking raids were a perennial threat to anyone on a coastline or major river in the northern half of Europe.

Replaced by pirates from the Mediterranean, raiding as far as Scotland and Ireland.

This also affects the issue of slavery, as while you wouldn't see your blacksmith friend in the markets of Rome, it was because he had been carried off to another land. He still wound up a slave, just not at home.


In the classical era, religion was synonymous with the state, with the deification of emperors and pharaohs and whatnot.

Who fought battles.
Like Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Or Emperor Julian the Apostate.
Or the Catholic Franks and the Arian Visigoths and Ostrogoths.


In 1000 BC, travel overland was ridiculously slow and water only slightly better, with ships obliged to follow coastlines at all times and incapable of sailing against an unfavorable wind.

And yet there was trade.
The Greeks established a trading empire across the Mediterranean and into the Black Sea.
The Carthaginians sent ships to England and Scandinavia.
As for the Roman roads, they were primarily military, not commercial. It was the stability of the empire that allowed trade to flow.


In 1000 BC, cavalry was, although by virtue of its expense tied with the aristocracy,

And of course everyone could afford the armor and horses of knights, and so infantry virtually disappeared.
Or not.


All of these things would alter a game world dramatically. They would alter how an individual moves through it, how they are affected by society, how the storylines of an adventure unfold. You can't just write them off.

Which is why they changed things so dramatically in history.
Except that they didn't.
Slavery was present at the beginning of the era; it was present at the end; its replacement with serfdom altered the proportion of rural farmers to city dwellers not one bit.
Foreign raiders were present at the beginning of the era; they were present at the end; their shift from predominantly northern to predominantly southern changed the threat not one bit.
Religious states fought wars at the beginning of the era; they fought wars at the end; the evolution in what religions were fighting changed their destructiveness not one bit.
Travel was difficult and dangerous at the beginning of the era; it was difficult and dangerous at the end of the era; it changed whether people would risk it not one bit.
Infantry was the main force at the beginning of the era; it was the main force at the end; the nature of warfare changed not one bit.

All of those changes were certainly important on a small scale, and together they synergized to affect the large scale, but it took many years for those synergies to begin effecting significant social and cultural change.


Repeated revolutions in cultural, political and social thought changed things over the course of the Middle Ages. For example by the reign of Richard II of England you have not only a politically engaged peasantry but one that has a definite grasp on rights, laws, and legal system which leads them to their open rebellion and to target feudal charters, tax records and tax law documents. Heck the whole legal revolution that emerged out of Carolingian feudalism that can be credited to founding the notion of contract law from the feudal contract, and the subsequent court-systems to deal with feudal contract disputes.

Repeated tweaks in cultural, political, and social thought occurred throughout the course of the Middle Ages. They didn't affect any profound change.
Richard II was overthrown by his cousin, not the peasantry. Kings of England had fought their relatives since William II, and monarchs of England and the Heptarchy had fought their relatives since the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes landed in England.
The rights and privileges claimed by most of the rebels following William I were based on rights brought by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from their homelands. While technically that was significantly different from the rights and privileges of the native Britons and their Roman conquerors, they were still social customs dating back to the beginning of the era. The only "revolution" was the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes moving in.
As for the overall social effect of Henry IV deposing Richard II, there was none. Henry IV ruled as an absolute monarch just as Richard the II had. This continued until the Wars of the Roses and the victory of the Tudors. It continued under the Tudors until the death of their line and the ascension of the Stuarts. It continued under the Stuarts until after 1500, and the first actual political revolution that changed the status quo of how things worked.


The core reason people interpret this bygone era as stagnant is principle fanciful romanticism from the 1800's which painted it as some idyllic era of pre-Industrial innocence, or as some quaint superstitious age vilified by the protestant reformers and the upheavals of the absolutism of later thinkers during the renaissance era. The trope of a technologically, culturally and politically stagnant "Middle Ages," is IMHO a product of generally poor education on the subject.

While conventional wisdom regarding the era has certainly evolved over the centuries, and significantly in recent decades, for the most part is has been focused on upgrading the default level of science and culture in the past, rather than attributing any degree of remarkable changes within the period. You are conflating the two, and drawing your own equally incorrect conclusion.
You now want to create a model of near modern social and technological evolution. On what basis? That it sounds more romantic that a period of stagnation?


Several other changes were noted as being unimportant because they didn't change society at large. Leaving aside the question of the truth of that (a subject on which I am wholly unqualified) if these things changed, and undoubtedly changed the day to day lives of some people, then they were not stagnant.

You are unqualified to judge the truth as to whether they changed society at large, yet you can declare that they "undoubtedly" changed the lives of people.


The topic is "verisimilitude" - the appearance of being real.
Comparisons to reality are at the core of that.
If you move on from that, you are left with changing the topic to whether elements of fantasy ruin individual aesthetic preferences, not verisimilitude.

jqavins
2016-02-11, 09:57 AM
You are unqualified to judge the truth as to whether they changed society at large, yet you can declare that they "undoubtedly" changed the lives of people.
Yes. Changes that seem small when looked at from one point of view, that of whether or not they had profound effects on the overall structure of society are still changes. Serfdom may be tantamount to slavery, and free peasants are still farmers, but there is more to the question of "did anything change?" than "did the ratio of farmers to city dwellers change?" Those free peasants had different lives than their slave predecessors, because they were free. I don't have to be a qualified expert on the big things that you seem to think are the only things in order to see that peasantry isn't the same as slavery. So there was change, which is the opposite of stagnation.

Just as the decline of a large power center, followed by a temporary period of small power centers, followed by the establishment of new large power centers is change. Just as the conquest of a region ruled by one ethnic people by another, followed by the re-conquest of that region by its original people is change. It's dynamic, It's, again, the opposite of stagnation.


The topic is "verisimilitude" - the appearance of being real.
Comparisons to reality are at the core of that.
OK, then lets compare the effect of fantasy people with 1000 year lifespans on the rate of societal change to the effect of real people with 1000 year lifespans on the rate of societal change.

In any case, the subject is "Things that break verisimilitude for you in a fantasy setting." The "you" in that subject line refers to each responder to the thread individually. The appearance of stagnation is something that does for some responders to this thread. How is that not the end of the story? Are you saying "it shouldn't break verisimilitude for anyone because it doesn't for me"? Too bad; it does. It actually doesn't for me either, because I don't see that there is stagnation in most fantasy settings, only that there is negligible change in the very short time. But an attempt to convince others that it shouldn't break their own sense of verisimilitude is pointless. And trying to convince them by concentrating only on some notion of the big picture and ignoring all other changes is bogus.

In the very big picture, people are born, spend their lives in toil, reproduce, and die. So there's been no change since the dawn of civilization. So there is now and has always been complete and utter stagnation, right?

Tiktakkat
2016-02-11, 04:10 PM
Those free peasants had different lives than their slave predecessors, because they were free.

They did?
How?


I don't have to be a qualified expert on the big things that you seem to think are the only things in order to see that peasantry isn't the same as slavery. So there was change, which is the opposite of stagnation.

No, you don't have to be an expert.
You do however have to be employing proper terms, including being aware that stagnation is not the absolute absence of any change whatsoever.


Just as the decline of a large power center, followed by a temporary period of small power centers, followed by the establishment of new large power centers is change. Just as the conquest of a region ruled by one ethnic people by another, followed by the re-conquest of that region by its original people is change. It's dynamic, It's, again, the opposite of stagnation.

Which is cosmetic change, with no significant alteration from the status quo, particularly when you also consider that the conquerors adopted a significant amount of the culture of those they conquered, particularly their language.


OK, then lets compare the effect of fantasy people with 1000 year lifespans on the rate of societal change to the effect of real people with 1000 year lifespans on the rate of societal change.

Nice try, but that's not how you do such analysis.


In any case, the subject is "Things that break verisimilitude for you in a fantasy setting." The "you" in that subject line refers to each responder to the thread individually.

Which does not change that the issues should still have some basis in realism:
"The game doesn't allow me to be a pink elephant and still be human - it is unrealistic!"

You also seem a bit confused:
I am one of the people who finds the stagnation excessive to the point of disrupting verisimilitude.
All I've been doing is quantifying the degree to which stagnation can be present without causing that disruption.
It is others who are arguing that no such stagnation even exists, or that it is necessary under any circumstances.
It seems you should be challenging them to stop trying to invalidate my complaint.


In the very big picture, people are born, spend their lives in toil, reproduce, and die. So there's been no change since the dawn of civilization. So there is now and has always been complete and utter stagnation, right?

Nope.
But once again, nice strawman.

VoxRationis
2016-02-11, 05:09 PM
They did?
How?


Well, depending on local laws, serfs often had significant protective rights (not so many as those of truly free people, then or now, but still more than slaves). Most notably is of course, the fact that the possession of a serf is indirect, and is predicated on possession of the land the serf works on. With slaves, it's often obscenely profitable to breed them like livestock for sale, with no regard for the slaves' feelings about their breeding partners or progeny. With serfs, even if one technically has the right to make those kinds of decisions about their personal lives (and one may not, again depending on jurisdiction), there's not the same kind of strong incentive, since you can't get rid of them without selling your land as part of the package deal, and that's about the opposite of what a feudal lord wants to do if possible.

And regarding jqavins' broad-strokes argument: it's not really a strawman argument, because that is, regardless of what you might say, what you are doing. You are drawing on broad-scale commonalities between different time periods and saying that the era was not dynamic, in spite of the many, many specific examples we have collectively given you of changes in all aspects of human life, both reversible or semi-reversible and one-way.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-11, 09:58 PM
Well, depending on local laws, serfs often had significant protective rights (not so many as those of truly free people, then or now, but still more than slaves).

Which altered their day to day life how?


Most notably is of course, the fact that the possession of a serf is indirect, and is predicated on possession of the land the serf works on.

So in addition to being property, they were also forced to remain in their social class, with no potential for social mobility, which slaves actually could have.


With slaves, it's often obscenely profitable to breed them like livestock for sale, with no regard for the slaves' feelings about their breeding partners or progeny. With serfs, even if one technically has the right to make those kinds of decisions about their personal lives (and one may not, again depending on jurisdiction), there's not the same kind of strong incentive, since you can't get rid of them without selling your land as part of the package deal, and that's about the opposite of what a feudal lord wants to do if possible.

Except you could allow a serf to buy himself free of his land, so he could wander off and marry whoever he liked, become a tradesman, or otherwise improve his station, allowing you to profit quite nicely from their breeding.
Which still had what profound difference on their day to day life?


And regarding jqavins' broad-strokes argument: it's not really a strawman argument, because that is, regardless of what you might say, what you are doing. You are drawing on broad-scale commonalities between different time periods and saying that the era was not dynamic, in spite of the many, many specific examples we have collectively given you of changes in all aspects of human life, both reversible or semi-reversible and one-way.

You seem as confused about the difference between a broad-strokes analysis, and a strawman argument.
One presents a general analysis based on the overall effects of a number of factors.
The other presents an argument not made as part of the broad-strokes analysis and then pretends that is proof the analysis is flawed.
Likewise your confusion as to the difference between merely naming specific factors and demonstrating exactly how those factors influenced things.

jqavins
2016-02-11, 10:21 PM
No, you don't have to be an expert.
You do however have to be employing proper terms, including being aware that stagnation is not the absolute absence of any change whatsoever.
From the Google results page:

showing no activity; dull and sluggish.
"a stagnant economy"
synonyms: inactive, sluggish, slow-moving, lethargic, static, flat, depressed, declining, moribund, dying, dead, dormant
"a stagnant economy"
antonyms: active, vibrant
From Merriam Webster:
not active, changing, or progressing
but also:
not advancing or developingSo there's one for you that perhaps a change which is subsequently reversed might not count.
From dictionary.com:
3. characterized by lack of development, advancement, or progressive movement:
a stagnant economy.
4. inactive, sluggish, or dull.So, again, could go either way.


Which is cosmetic change, with no significant alteration from the status quo, particularly when you also consider that the conquerors adopted a significant amount of the culture of those they conquered, particularly their language.
Cosmetic? Tell that to the Jews of Spain who went from - well, I don't recall how persecuted or disenfranchised they were in Roman Spain as it's been a long time since I studied this - to fully respected and even favored under the Moors, to the Inquisition after the re-conquest. How is that merely cosmetic? How is that remotely stagnant?


Nice try, but that's not how you do such analysis.
Of course it's not. It's not because you can't. Perhaps I should have been more explicit in my point, which was that because you can't, the comparisons of fantasy worlds to the real world are of very limited value. As I think you have pointed out, verisimilitude is not realism but the feel of realism.


Which does not change that the issues should still have some basis in realism:
"The game doesn't allow me to be a pink elephant and still be human - it is unrealistic!"
We need Ray Bolger here to play the king of straw men. No one would claim that playing a character that is both a pink elephant and a human has the feel of realism, or that not being allowed to do so would break that feel. It's a hell of a long way from "stagnation [does|does not] break my sense of verisimilitude" to "I wanna play a human that's a pink elephant but still a human and if I can't then this doesn't feel real."


You also seem a bit confused:
I am one of the people who finds the stagnation excessive to the point of disrupting verisimilitude.
All I've been doing is quantifying the degree to which stagnation can be present without causing that disruption.
It is others who are arguing that no such stagnation even exists, or that it is necessary under any circumstances.
It seems you should be challenging them to stop trying to invalidate my complaint.
Perhaps, but now I'm definitely confused. You say that stagnation is excessive and does disrupt your sense of verisimilitude, yet you argue that stagnation is realistic; I don't get it. In any case, I've been challenging all in my most recent posts to stop trying to invalidate each others complaints and to drop this particular line of argument. I have not been trying to invalidate your complaint, but only to point out the flaws in your argument. However, in my effort to get this line dropped, I shall not respond to it again.


Nope.
But once again, nice strawman.
Not a straw man, exactly. It is only a small exaggeration of your straw man. You set up a notion of stagnation such that only "big" changes can counter it, and also that you get to define "big." All I did was define "big" a little bit bigger in order to point out the flaw. Reductio ad absurdum. Again, I guess I should have been more explicit.

VoxRationis
2016-02-12, 12:52 AM
Except you could allow a serf to buy himself free of his land, so he could wander off and marry whoever he liked, become a tradesman, or otherwise improve his station, allowing you to profit quite nicely from their breeding.
Which still had what profound difference on their day to day life?

Not really, since the marginal utility of serfs has a steep drop-off due to their working on the same land; if a serf has 8 children instead of 7, they're just going to have to split the income 8 ways instead of 7, and will be less likely to be able to manumit any of them. Unless the manumission were by property rather than by head, at which point the lord gets the same amount regardless of family size. In any case, part of the perks of that was that you weren't forced to reproduce with someone based purely on the business decisions of someone else—ironically, a freedom that nobles didn't have that the lower classes did.

What, you want a daily schedule for agricultural laborers? How much detail do I have to go into to prove to you that any of the numerous major changes in all aspects of human life have an effect on people? Your entire argumentative strategy is based on unsupported denial of others' assertions, of strength only because of repetition, and demanding an unreasonable burden of proof for non-controversial statements.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-12, 02:27 PM
So, again, could go either way.

Thus the proper thing to do is defer to context.
Which you refuse to do because then you have nothing to object to.


Cosmetic? Tell that to the Jews of Spain who went from - well, I don't recall how persecuted or disenfranchised they were in Roman Spain as it's been a long time since I studied this - to fully respected and even favored under the Moors, to the Inquisition after the re-conquest. How is that merely cosmetic? How is that remotely stagnant?

The Jews in Spain were not fully respected and even favored under the Moors.
Your history in this, as in much else, is flawed.


Of course it's not. It's not because you can't. Perhaps I should have been more explicit in my point, which was that because you can't, the comparisons of fantasy worlds to the real world are of very limited value. As I think you have pointed out, verisimilitude is not realism but the feel of realism.

Then the very concept of "verisimilitude" in fantasy is a complete and utter oxymoron, and any discussion is less than moot.
If so, then what are you objecting to?


I don't get it.

Then perhaps you should have asked for an explanation before insisting I was wrong.
The same with your attempts to parse terms in an effort to have something to object about.


Not really, since the marginal utility of serfs has a steep drop-off due to their working on the same land; if a serf has 8 children instead of 7, they're just going to have to split the income 8 ways instead of 7, and will be less likely to be able to manumit any of them. Unless the manumission were by property rather than by head, at which point the lord gets the same amount regardless of family size. In any case, part of the perks of that was that you weren't forced to reproduce with someone based purely on the business decisions of someone else—ironically, a freedom that nobles didn't have that the lower classes did.

So then the owner of the manor had a direct financial incentive to have his serfs reproduce to the point that some had to pay to leave the land before the land got divided too much.
You also seem to miss that serfs owed service by labor on the land of the manor owner, a way to gain additional income from them.
And serfs were restricted in your ability to reproduce based purely on the business decisions of someone else. A serf who wanted to marry someone from another manor had to pay for the privilege.


What, you want a daily schedule for agricultural laborers? How much detail do I have to go into to prove to you that any of the numerous major changes in all aspects of human life have an effect on people?

I want you to provide something beyond telling me I'm wrong, based apparently on your misperceptions of history.
You don't need to prove that major changes have an effect on people; that is obvious.
You do however need to do something to show that minor changes, no matter how numerous, have any significant effect.
I know that is difficult, but if you are going to do actual analysis and competent setting design, you should at least make the effort.

JoeJ
2016-02-12, 03:36 PM
Where are you not finding this evidence?
I have been researching socio-history for a good 30 years, and the evidence is hardwired into any comprehensive examination of the history or comparative/analytical mythology overview.

I can only guess, then, that you're starting with the premise that mythological events are reflections of real life events, and I'd starting with the premise that they probably aren't.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-12, 08:58 PM
I can only guess, then, that you're starting with the premise that mythological events are reflections of real life events, and I'd starting with the premise that they probably aren't.

No, I'm starting with the premise that various peoples have a history that we not only know very little about, but that we have a very difficult time discovering that history, and that one element of their history is their religious beliefs.
That's it. Any premises beyond that would be vulnerable to confirmation bias, and so be more likely to produce false positives than accurate analysis.
Too many myths have been shown to have physical foundations, and too many true stories have been exploded as utter nonsense, to allow for premises one way or the other.

So if we find a pattern of localized beliefs becoming widespread and integrated, and we see that appearing in parallel with stories of migration and conquest, then we can begin to suspect there is a direct correlation, even causation, between the two. Sufficient researchers have found such that accepting such as valid for certain peoples and their beliefs is far from outrageous.

JoeJ
2016-02-13, 12:34 AM
No, I'm starting with the premise that various peoples have a history that we not only know very little about, but that we have a very difficult time discovering that history, and that one element of their history is their religious beliefs.
That's it. Any premises beyond that would be vulnerable to confirmation bias, and so be more likely to produce false positives than accurate analysis.

If that's your starting premise, then you need to present a whole lot more evidence than you have so far to support your previous statement that:


There is very much evidence of conflict between the peoples that worshiped the Aesir and the Vanir, the Olympians and the Titans, and the Devas and Asuras.
The conflicts are a direct element of mytho-history of the peoples that worshiped the Tuatha De Danaan and the Fomorians and other races that inhabited Ireland.

Where is this evidence? Are you talking documents, either primary or secondary? Archaeology? What sources are you using? If this idea were being taken seriously by scholars I'd expect to see at least some discussion of it in Mallory's (1989) In Search of the Indo-Europeans, or Davidson's (1988) Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, or Zagreb's (2010) A Reader in Comparative Indo-European Religion, or Lindow's (2001) Norse Mythology.


Too many myths have been shown to have physical foundations, and too many true stories have been exploded as utter nonsense, to allow for premises one way or the other.

So if we find a pattern of localized beliefs becoming widespread and integrated, and we see that appearing in parallel with stories of migration and conquest, then we can begin to suspect there is a direct correlation, even causation, between the two. Sufficient researchers have found such that accepting such as valid for certain peoples and their beliefs is far from outrageous.

I notice you've got a big "if" there in the bolded part, implying that such a pattern has been found but not presenting any evidence to support that implication.

Are you aware of of Don Laylander's (2004) Remembering Lake Cahuilla, showing that it becomes impossible, on purely internal evidence, to separate historical from fictitious details in oral narratives of ancient Lake Cahuilla after 200-300 years? Or Mason's (2007) very comprehensive demonstration in Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and Native American Oral Traditions that extracting accurate history from oral narratives requires outside evidence?

The widespread, almost ubiquitous in much of Eurasia, distribution of the War of the Gods motif referenced above is itself enough to make it seem likely that the explanation lies in psychology and not history, as folklorists and anthropologists including as Jung, Campbell, Levi-Strauss and Eliade realized long ago. Leonard and McClure's (2004) The Study of Mythology give a good brief history of scholarship in mythology that covers this in more detail.

Crusadr
2016-02-13, 08:14 PM
I don't suppose there's any way this thread could get back on topic is there? Or has it been abandoned in favor of this stagnation discussion?

Tiktakkat
2016-02-13, 08:27 PM
Where is this evidence? Are you talking documents, either primary or secondary? Archaeology? What sources are you using? If this idea were being taken seriously by scholars I'd expect to see at least some discussion of it in Mallory's (1989) In Search of the Indo-Europeans, or Davidson's (1988) Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, or Zagreb's (2010) A Reader in Comparative Indo-European Religion, or Lindow's (2001) Norse Mythology.

Secondary and tertiary sources, like you; I am not a primary researcher.
As for what I've referenced, you can start with The Story of Civiliation by Durant and Durant and The Golden Bough by Frazer.


I notice you've got a big "if" there in the bolded part, implying that such a pattern has been found but not presenting any evidence to support that implication.

I've made it quite clear repeatedly that EVERY conclusion of sociology is to be treated as a big "if" under ALL circumstances.
That I defend my position forcefully should in now way be taken to indicate it cannot be wrong in any degree. If you wish to, feel free, but I operate under no delusions of perfection, personal or sourced.


Are you aware of of Don Laylander's (2004) Remembering Lake Cahuilla, showing that it becomes impossible, on purely internal evidence, to separate historical from fictitious details in oral narratives of ancient Lake Cahuilla after 200-300 years? Or Mason's (2007) very comprehensive demonstration in Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and Native American Oral Traditions that extracting accurate history from oral narratives requires outside evidence?

No, I'm not aware of them.
I am surprised at them expressing such obvious conclusions, which are similar to what I said I require for evidence.
If anything I am shocked they could get away with so blatantly challenging oral narratives like that.


The widespread, almost ubiquitous in much of Eurasia, distribution of the War of the Gods motif referenced above is itself enough to make it seem likely that the explanation lies in psychology and not history, as folklorists and anthropologists including as Jung, Campbell, Levi-Strauss and Eliade realized long ago. Leonard and McClure's (2004) The Study of Mythology give a good brief history of scholarship in mythology that covers this in more detail.

Perhaps.
Then again, Jung and Campbell have their own serious flaws, and even Levi-Strauss and Eliade have their critics.
Don't fall into a trap of appeal to tertiary authority as proof of something effectively unprovable.

JoeJ
2016-02-13, 09:26 PM
Secondary and tertiary sources, like you; I am not a primary researcher.
As for what I've referenced, you can start with The Story of Civiliation by Durant and Durant and The Golden Bough by Frazer.

So all your information is coming from scholars that are decades (at least) out of date? That explains a lot. History and archaeology have advanced tremendously in the past 70 years, and more than a few ideas that were considered definitely established in the early 20th century are no longer taken seriously today.


I've made it quite clear repeatedly that EVERY conclusion of sociology is to be treated as a big "if" under ALL circumstances.
That I defend my position forcefully should in now way be taken to indicate it cannot be wrong in any degree. If you wish to, feel free, but I operate under no delusions of perfection, personal or sourced.

Nice attempt at a dodge, but I'm not complaining that your argument isn't perfect in every detail, I'm pointing out that you made a specific claim about warfare between tribes worshiping different gods but, when challenged, presented no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim.


No, I'm not aware of them.
I am surprised at them expressing such obvious conclusions, which are similar to what I said I require for evidence.
If anything I am shocked they could get away with so blatantly challenging oral narratives like that.

Perhaps.
Then again, Jung and Campbell have their own serious flaws, and even Levi-Strauss and Eliade have their critics.
Don't fall into a trap of appeal to tertiary authority as proof of something effectively unprovable.

Tertiary sources are indexes, encyclopedias, and similar compilations. I didn't reference anything like that.

I have read Jung, and Campbell, and Levi-Strauss, and Eliade, and I'm well aware of each of their limitations. But any analysis of mythology that does not at least take into account their respective theories, and the work of others that build on them, is not worth taking seriously. You have to understand what has already been done before you can move beyond it.

So, to restate what I said earlier, the way religion is presented in settings like the Forgotten Realms or Golarion, as a bunch of competing Protestant denominations but with different and non-omnipotent deities, breaks verisimilitude for me. it's not objectively wrong, because in a fictional setting the gods can demand whatever the author wants them to, but it's not the way religion actually worked in the European societies that were used as inspiration.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-13, 10:39 PM
So all your information is coming from scholars that are decades (at least) out of date? That explains a lot. History and archaeology have advanced tremendously in the past 70 years, and more than a few ideas that were considered definitely established in the early 20th century are no longer taken seriously today.

Yes, I know they have advanced considerably.
And that various ideas come in and out of favor.
I'm also aware that I said "start" with those.
And that new ideas frequently wind up being not merely worse than old ideas, but have their refutations exploded in turn.


Nice attempt at a dodge, but I'm not complaining that your argument isn't perfect in every detail, I'm pointing out that you made a specific claim about warfare between tribes worshiping different gods but, when challenged, presented no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim.

No, what you are doing is to try to play Citation War, and hoping that your Appeal to Authority can beat mine.

[QUOTE]Tertiary sources are indexes, encyclopedias, and similar compilations. I didn't reference anything like that.

Tertiary sources are also analyses of multiple previous researches, which it looks like you did reference.


I have read Jung, and Campbell, and Levi-Strauss, and Eliade, and I'm well aware of each of their limitations. But any analysis of mythology that does not at least take into account their respective theories, and the work of others that build on them, is not worth taking seriously. You have to understand what has already been done before you can move beyond it.

So we have to consider the superseded ideas that you like but not the superseded ideas that I like?
(You know, another volley in your Citation War of Appeal to Authority.)


So, to restate what I said earlier, the way religion is presented in settings like the Forgotten Realms or Golarion, as a bunch of competing Protestant denominations but with different and non-omnipotent deities, breaks verisimilitude for me. it's not objectively wrong, because in a fictional setting the gods can demand whatever the author wants them to, but it's not the way religion actually worked in the European societies that were used as inspiration.

Or to restate what I said earlier:
The way religion is presented in those settings, as henotheistic, syncretic, euhemeristic, and competitive, is quite reasonable.
It is not objectively wrong because that may very well be the way religion actually worked in the . . . well actually, more than a few are non-European, but . . . societies that were used inspiration.

JoeJ
2016-02-13, 11:50 PM
Yes, I know they have advanced considerably.
And that various ideas come in and out of favor.
I'm also aware that I said "start" with those.
And that new ideas frequently wind up being not merely worse than old ideas, but have their refutations exploded in turn.

Which may or may not happen someday. As of right now, it hasn't.


Tertiary sources are also analyses of multiple previous researches, which it looks like you did reference.

What are you referring to here?


So we have to consider the superseded ideas that you like but not the superseded ideas that I like?
(You know, another volley in your Citation War of Appeal to Authority.)

Superseded by whom? What, specifically, are you referring to? Bare assertions don't make a convincing argument for anything.

Citation is the primary way that academics present evidence they didn't personally gather, or that they did personally gather and have already published somewhere. So far all you've presented is the opinion of some guy on the internet.


Or to restate what I said earlier:
The way religion is presented in those settings, as henotheistic, syncretic, euhemeristic, and competitive, is quite reasonable.
It is not objectively wrong because that may very well be the way religion actually worked in the . . . well actually, more than a few are non-European, but . . . societies that were used inspiration.

And there very well may have really been unicorns and dragons, too. After all, there's no actual proof that they didn't exist.

Tiktakkat
2016-02-14, 01:17 AM
Which may or may not happen someday. As of right now, it hasn't.

It has happened quite a bit.


What are you referring to here?

Meta-research. Something common in all fields - analyzing what people have written regarding their views on primary sources.


Superseded by whom? What, specifically, are you referring to? Bare assertions don't make a convincing argument for anything.

I'm referring to your sneering dismissal of the Durants and Frazer.
You are right, your bare assertions do not make a convincing argument.


Citation is the primary way that academics present evidence they didn't personally gather, or that they did personally gather and have already published somewhere. So far all you've presented is the opinion of some guy on the internet.

If you know that, then how do you not know that tertiary research appears outside of indexes, encyclopedias, and similar compilations?


And there very well may have really been unicorns and dragons, too. After all, there's no actual proof that they didn't exist.

How do you know?
"So far all you've presented is the opinion of some guy on the internet." Well, plus a bunch of random book titles.

And no, citing authorities doesn't count for this.
Proof means you can point at a primary source that explicitly declares how those religions operated. Which you can't. The simplest evidence can be found with the Romans:
they had state supported religions and privately supported religions (henotheism)
they imported foreign religions (syncretism)
they had deified emperors and other legendary figures (euhemerism)
they had banned religions (competition)

You can also demonstrate that Germanic pagans:
did not keep separate and distinct shrines to various major divine figures (competition)
kept communal shrines to all of their divine figures (and I mean every last one, no matter how minor) (universality and family relations)
did not have different tribal patrons/accounts of divine heritage of their leaders (more competition)

You can also explain how in Egyptian religion:
not all deities were actually related (family relations)
how some deities didn't appear until much later (absolute construction of the pantheon)
how the leader of the changed (competition)
how the leader evolved (competition and syncretism)
how conflict and forced transfer of power is inherent to the cycle (really outrageous competition)

Then discuss for the Mesopotamian/Semitic faiths:
how they all had nearly identical divine figures with only slight differences in their names (syncretism/adoption)
the distinct evolutionary changes in their cosmogony tracking with conquests (more syncretism/adoption)
the dominance of specific figures in the varying city-states (henotheism)

Really. I'm totally curious as to how you manage to explain all of this away, and demonstrate by direct and absolute primary evidence that religion functioned in whatever alternative manner you conceive of, and have yet to explain.

JoeJ
2016-02-14, 02:45 AM
Proof means you can point at a primary source that explicitly declares how those religions operated.

Then by all means, do so. You claimed that:


There is very much evidence of conflict between the peoples that worshiped the Aesir and the Vanir, the Olympians and the Titans, and the Devas and Asuras.
The conflicts are a direct element of mytho-history of the peoples that worshiped the Tuatha De Danaan and the Fomorians and other races that inhabited Ireland.

You have, however, repeatedly refused to reveal any of this substantial evidence that you claim exists. Until that changes, I can only conclude that you are mistaken, and there is no such evidence.

Tzi
2016-02-14, 03:24 AM
You have, however, repeatedly refused to reveal any of this substantial evidence that you claim exists. Until that changes, I can only conclude that you are mistaken, and there is no such evidence.


You are wasting your breath, Tiktakkat has all world knowledge, has studied every topic, has multiple PhD's in any/all/every field, and actually went back in time and personally observed every event in the history of everything and alternate dimensions.

Yora
2016-02-14, 07:08 AM
When your posts consists of individual quoted sentences or paragraphs, you are usually no longer debating the subject but just insisting that you're not wrong.
Arguments like that almost never lead to anyone agreeing on anything or learning something new.

jqavins
2016-02-14, 10:10 AM
Puzzles and riddles that are instantly recognizable as coming from modern sources. Y'know, the perfectly good trope of "solve the puzzle to open the door" but with, just for example, logic puzzles quoted directly from Martin Gardner. I used to do that as DM myself, but quickly gave it up as it just didn't feel right, and it still doesn't.

Tzi
2016-02-14, 11:02 AM
Puzzles and riddles that are instantly recognizable as coming from modern sources. Y'know, the perfectly good trope of "solve the puzzle to open the door" but with, just for example, logic puzzles quoted directly from Martin Gardner. I used to do that as DM myself, but quickly gave it up as it just didn't feel right, and it still doesn't.

Dungeons in general really struck me with how weird the were. These labyrinths built basically as death traps, I stopped and was like "Who does that?"

MrZJunior
2016-02-14, 11:31 AM
Puzzles and riddles that are instantly recognizable as coming from modern sources. Y'know, the perfectly good trope of "solve the puzzle to open the door" but with, just for example, logic puzzles quoted directly from Martin Gardner. I used to do that as DM myself, but quickly gave it up as it just didn't feel right, and it still doesn't.

I almost did this once before I stopped myself and thought "wait, these people probably don't use Arabic numerals."

Tiktakkat
2016-02-14, 11:49 AM
You have, however, repeatedly refused to reveal any of this substantial evidence that you claim exists. Until that changes, I can only conclude that you are mistaken, and there is no such evidence.

I just did.
Do you have explanations for any of the factors I listed that are part of ancient religious practices?
Or do you just have more claims that I'm wrong because you can produce a list of books?
The answer seems rather clear.

Steckie
2016-02-14, 02:21 PM
Adventurer guilds, those really annoy me
I've seen them pop up in a few games, they get used as a cheap way to deliver quests to players. They always work in ways not even remotely connected to how a real guilds used to work. They don't offer training, don't control prices, often don't have political influence and are generally poorly arranged.
A game like Morrowind did it a bit better, at least they had a fighters guild, mages guild an thieves guild that arranged people by their craft and not just some random assortment of people with the job of 'adventurer' that got grouped together.