[DGD] Feudalism

[Raymond Jennings]

The side topic about feudalism was a little off topic, but only because it
could mostly be googled.  I was looking more for a brief summary and
confirm/refute of if I got it right.

As far as gameplay goes, yeah.

This might well be why on ICO, the "king" (aka Don) is played by a staff
run NPC.

Come to think of it, most of the roles you suggested NPCing were at the
bottom end of the totem pole, but I completely forgot to ask about the
upper levels.

Any thought about having some of the ones at the top end treated similiarly?

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Schmidt, Stephen <schmidsj at union.edu>
wrote:

> This is getting a bit off the topic of this list. I'll make this reply to
> the list, but suggest that it go to private email if it continues further
> (unless other list members think it should be here).
>
> The feudal system operated for 500 to 1000 years, depending on your
> definition of "feudal", over most of Europe. Given that range of time and
> place, it operated in a lot of different variations. At some risk of
> reputation, let me quote Wikipedia's article on feudalism: "There is no
> commonly accepted modern definition of feudalism, at least among scholars."
> But with that caveat, I think the essence of feudalism is that there is a
> noble class which controls the agricultural working class (and artisans and
> merchants to a rather lesser degree) and within that noble class, there is
> a hierarchical relationship of lords and vassals, with the king at the top
> of the pyramid and the minor nobility at the bottom, with each (male adult)
> member of the noble class controlling a defined portion of the land and
> workers more or less unconditionally. There is also the question of how the
> clerical class fits into the system, but I think the concept of feudalism
> is relatively independent of that part of the social arrangements.
>
> In some places the king is very strong and controls the lords firmly (17th
> century France) and in others the king is very weak and the lords very
> powerful (15th century England). Which version you get depends on the exact
> nature of the obligations between the king and the lords, and between the
> lords and the vassals under them.
>
> For the purpose of a game (trying desperately to bring this back to topic,
> and probably not succeeding ;)  I think a strong-king concept is not good;
> it leads to one player telling everyone else what to do. The weak-king,
> strong-lords version leaves a lot more room for game play.
>
> For a game, assuming there'll be maybe 50 or so regular players, probably
> having about three levels makes sense. An upper level of experienced and
> connected players who have reasonable chances of being at the top of the
> pyramid; a middle level of players who have some experience and are working
> their way up towards the upper level; and a lower level of newbies and
> casual players. Anything below that level is NPCs. Serfs NPCs, knights PCs.
>
> Steve
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 5:41 PM, Raymond Jennings <shentino at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > So I'm still a bit curious here.
> >
> > How much detail should be here?
> >
> > I know that knights with serfs under them swear fealty to barons who in
> > turn supply them as soldiers for the king...at least according to the
> > multiple sources I've researched.
> >
> > Stephen...is that pretty much accurate?
> >
> > And on the side, what's a good level of detail to present?
> >
> > And relatedly, how much of those lower roles should be NPCed or PCed?
> > Maybe it would be a good idea to allow players to act as the serfs, and
> > maybe not.
> >
> > How much detail should go into a lord's management of his lackeys?
> should
> > the knights be NPCs?  Should the serfs be NPCs?
> >
> > At least on ICO, PCs act as "representatives", and the jobs people work
> for
> > their guilds generate tokens that represent resources and influence with
> > NPCs in the same trade as the PC.
> >
> > Do you think it would be a good idea for PCs to act as "delegates" of a
> > sort for the various pools of NPCs that surely exist in the world along
> > side the characters?
> >
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