Wednesday 26 September 2012

Medieval England Did Not Have Dragons

What's new, Monsters & Manuals? How's the world been treating you? You haven't changed a bit. Lovely as ever, I must admit.

Apologies for the hiatus. This has been the busiest summer for me ever - my PhD thesis is finished, I have a flash new job in a flash new city (well, Newcastle), and things are very much looking up, but it has been a time-sapping experience and I have done very little gaming and very little thinking about gaming. I've missed the blog, though, and it is good to be back.

Today, my topic for discussion is history. On a forum I frequent there was recently a little to-and-fro-ing about true population figures in medieval England, the number of manors and parishes in the Domesday Book, and so forth, and it made me think, with a strange clarity, what a bizarre pursuit historical research is when it comes to fantasy gaming. Why, as a DM creating a D&D setting, would you care what the population density of medieval England was as something relevant for your game, when medieval England did not have dragons, orcs, elves and magic in it? How can we possibly believe that the existence of such factors would not make a D&D world very, very different from medieval England in almost every respect?

The need for historical accuracy is one that I understand, but like almost everything else in gaming, it is an odd impulse when you think about it. If you are running a fantasy game, it actually makes more sense not to think about historical accuracy at all - the furniture of high fantasy requires a pseudo-medieval society which superficially resembles our own, but that resemblance must by necessity be entirely superficial. The moment you start thinking about accurate population figures and densities, trade routes and pricing, natural resources and so forth, you immediately have to consider: How would the existence of dragons affect this? What about magic? What about orcs? And suddenly you are not so much creating a fantasy setting as you are considering speculative, academic questions which lead to interesting pub or forum discussions but not much in the way of game-able content if you take it seriously.

To illustrate, think about what farms would look like if there were giant flying predators like dragons, griffins, hippogriffs and so on in the world. Nobody would keep cows or sheep, because they would be being eaten all the time. No cows or sheep means no leather or wool. Good luck trying to extrapolate a setting from that which you could base a game on. It's an interesting thing to think about while you're staring out of the window of the train on your daily commute, but it isn't something you could really play D&D with.

Fantasy gaming rests on a fiction: that you could have a society like England in 1200 AD which also has supernatural beings, magic, and active deities. That fiction, in turn, rests on the understanding that nobody thinks about it too hard.

40 comments:

  1. If you're talking about a Forgotten Realms-style campaign with vast tracts of land controlled by elves, dwarves, and orcs, normalized diplomatic relations between demi-humans, a wizard in every tower and a dragon in every mountain - absolutely.

    But something like George RR Martin's Westeros does a very good job of being recognizably Medieval-Europe-like, while also including

    MILD SPOILERS

    elves, dragons, and magic.

    END SPOILERS

    The trick is to make that stuff weird, crazy, and fantastical - something to find at the fringes of society. Basing your world in something with an authentic 1200AD English feel gives you a backdrop against which the fantastical really stands out as special.

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    1. I think Westeros is the classic example of what I'm talking about: it works because it's superficial. George R R Martin doesn't think about the details of his world's economy, politics or history, because if he did none of it would make sense. He created a world to serve the fiction. And in the same way, D&D worlds are created to serve the game.

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    2. Hmmmm... Not sure I agree with that analysis of Game of Thrones and Martin's methods. Here's what Martin himself has to say on the topic:

      "I use a "total immersion" method. [...] A writer cannot do too much research... though sometimes it is a mistake to try and cram too much of what you learned into your novel. Research gives you a foundation to build on, but in the end it's only the story that matters."

      He seeks (and, I would say has found) a deep understanding of the machinations of the world he's writing for. His world seems living because it seems real, familiar, and true.

      And that's because of understanding the historical realities. Without understanding the most similar historical antecedents, there's no way you can extrapolate what things would be like in your fantasy world.

      That's why I, for one, think historical research makes sense in the context of a fantasy world.

      As S'mon points out, anyone with a bit of common sense or historical knowledge will balk at a Medieval-era society with villages 75 miles apart, or an agricultural community 1/4 the size of the urban population.

      Although to be fair, things like that don't matter much if your characters aren't going to be getting into politics, trade, or domain-level play.

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    3. Westeros is a special case, though, don't you think? I mean it basically is England during the Wars of the Roses, apart from a bit of low fantasy stuff - until of course it all gets going with magic coming back to the world, etc. The further away you get from actual historical fiction, the less and less realism is about "reality" and the more it is about "the veneer of reality".

      I'll raise you a JRR Tolkien: Middle Earth doesn't make sense and doesn't map to the reality of feudal Western Europe at all, although it has the furniture of it. I don't think anybody cares particularly.

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    4. Actually, Tolkien does bug me! When I found out that Osgiliath had apparently been abandoned for thousands of years after very brief habitation, for instance. Or how can the Misty Mountains be full of caves, mountains being made of hard rock while caves form in soluble rocks... Or Arnor; Tolkien doesn't really explain Arnor and I have trouble understanding how it makes sense, if at all.

      I bet the languages are great, though. :p

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    5. That is a great point, never noticed that before... You'd have to have folded strata with a strong layer of lava overflow, over a previously sedimentary baseline.. Or some kind of earth upheaval that could turn an area upside down, or some absurd magic nuke capable of fusing a vast chunk of land.

      Or some other stuff.

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  2. No kidding. The trouble one runs into when considering any of this too deeply - the air, water and food requirements of even a small dwarven settlement spring to mind - is simply overwhelming.

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  3. Well, dang. Hit Publish without finishing the thought. Anyway, a certain accuracy with things you can get accurate with is valuable on its own merits, and makes for a far richer gaming experience. It's like those little details hedging around a Norman Rockwell painting, things that are almost not in the picture at all but which indicate far more than is necessarily described. Plus, as Charles more or less implied, you have to keep in mind that medieval villagers really believed stuff like that could and did happen - in spite of the local herdsmen somehow keeping enough sheep without a covered pasture. It just wasn't part of daily life outside the bards' tales. It was "out there" somewhere, not very far but maybe in the woods by that hill. Flocks of griffons would cause major issues for livestock, winged cavalry being common would cause an entire revision of castle design and history, and sorcerers being more common than barbers would entirely change society; but in any normal level of magic (meaning, don't get all Faerun-crazy), these things can exist along with what we normally think of as medieval European culture. Think about it, sure. Just... you know, not too hard.

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  4. Yes, but did the medieval English *think* they had dragons, elves, orcs (goblins) or magic?

    There's a point in there, but it would probably turn out long. Maybe I'll post a response on my own blog tonight.

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    1. There is a point in there, yes.

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    2. They may have thought that goblins curdled the milk, elves lived under the elf-mound, that old woman might be a witch, and certainly there were or had been 'dragons' out there somewhere - the one George killed at Antioch, or the Lambton Worm killed by spiked armour - but fictional dragons have taken many levels in badass since those tales. The typical dragon of legend seems to have been about the size of a horse (Fafnir was bigger) and I don't recall any of them actually *flying*! They might wander about ravaging the land in tales - but so did very well documented real threats such as brigands, crusaders, that other lord's knights, border reivers, etc etc.

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    3. And there in is the setting I prefer to play in and run if the desire for a little historic realism rears its ugly head my way.

      I much prefer Ars Magica to D&D (both in setting and system), where the 'Kingdom of The Elves' is most assuredly beneath the hill at the center of the wood. On a full moon's night, walk round it three times forward and three times backward. Then sing. If they like the tune and the tone they will open a passage to their wonderous land. If it is a fine tune but nothing special they may do nothing or sing along to improve it. Sing weakly or poorly or ruin the rhythym, tempo or words and we shan't meet again in this life or the next.

      Even in Ars Magica however, my historical precision is only as accurate as would appear in a folktale.

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  5. Uhm... you can have a fantasy setting where griffons and dragons are rare enough that sheep being eaten by them is the exception rather than the rule!

    Also, if we do start with "looks a bit like the middle ages" then that does set some basic limits, within a wide margin. People walk to get around, or maybe ride, so you are not going to have villages 75 miles apart like on a lonely bit of US Interstate. With medieval tech the village 75 miles from anywhere is non-viable - even less so when you include monsters.

    It doesn't much matter whether medieval England population 1086 AD was 1 million or 2 million etc, but it does matter if you create a setting the size of medieval England, that is supposed to behave like medieval England, with a population of 20,000, 15,000 of whom live in Capital City without visible means of support.

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    1. It doesn't much matter whether medieval England population 1086 AD was 1 million or 2 million etc, but it does matter if you create a setting the size of medieval England, that is supposed to behave like medieval England, with a population of 20,000, 15,000 of whom live in Capital City without visible means of support.

      Why?

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    2. Someone - probably the GM - asks "So, what do they eat?"
      If the setting makes no sense at all at a fundamental level, it hurts the game. And I don't mean your "well, griffons would eat the sheep!" level, I mean the "there are no sheep, and nothing else to eat" level.

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    3. So really it boils down to: don't make things so divorced from reality that it is impossible to suspend disbelief.

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    4. Which I think feeds back to my original point: the superficial veneer of realism is all that is required.

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    5. Yes - and knowing a bit about the real world helps a lot with that veneer. Eg I used to live in Cambridgeshire, I remember that the villages tend to be about 4 miles apart, so I use that as rule of thumb for my settings. 4 miles was a convenient number - it's a bit less in say Kent - you can till the fields around the village, there is some Waste for firewood, you can walk to the nearest village and back, etc. I can have 30, 50, 100 or 150 people per square mile, and it will all all work out and can look fairly medieval. I know not to have a population of 0.1 per square mile, and if I see that in a publication I know to change the population or the map scale. That has saved me a lot of grief. When a setting doesn't make sense at all, the players feel it and they start to lose any sense of connection to it.

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  6. Welcome: It's good to have you once more unto the breach!

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  7. That dungeon you're exploring? It started out as a hippogriff-proof underground sheep silo.

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  8. Agh, now Noisms has me thinking about how I ran 'Orcs of Stonefang Pass' recently, which starts with a hippogriff attack a few miles up the mountain from a farming village... lemme think...

    OK, I'm thinking the shepherds/pig farmers have some really big guard dogs trained to attack predatory hippogriffs. Hippogriffs are not that much tougher than a war dog (3 hd in 1e, skirmisher-5 in 4e), and nor are they great fliers, they're not designed to snatch grown sheep on the wing. So when they land, the sheep-dogs go for them. This generally keeps them away from the sheep, although there are occasional losses.

    Simples. :)

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    1. Now there's another idea for that series of dog posts I was doing a year or so ago.

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  9. A long time ago I would have scoffed at this post, but nowadays I find it very accurate. I especially like the comment, "don't make things so divorced from reality that it is impossible to suspend disbelief". That's how some very good fiction works.

    I know players can dive into more Q&A sessions than the average book reader, though, so this approach probably works best in a group that has similar acceptance levels for their disbelief.

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    1. Yes, it very much depends on the group, but I think that as people get older they generally have more and more tolerance for "whatever works for the game" and worry less about accuracy and detail and things making sense.

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    2. While I don't doubt that maturity often maps to good-natured tolerance, my core group has run from the ages of 14 through 40 without ever raising an eyebrow at the medieval veneer, much less debating the details & rationale in question. On the other hand, my Uncle's group was constantly embroiled in such discussions from the word go.

      I actually think the issue is whether key players build their 'social stock' around niche expertise/mastery. No such players, no such questions.

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  10. Heheh. I'm reminded of my oft mentioned disdain for those 'Ecology of The...' articles in Dragon Magazine.

    The ecology of the Tarrasque is that if there were really a Tarrasque, there'd be no ecology.

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    1. That is the most perfect ecology line I've ever read.

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    2. I love those Ecology articles, but mostly because they are such great fodder for in-game craziness. They are often ridiculous, but they spawn all kinds of creative thoughts.

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  11. It's easy to imagine that the fantasic creatures and beings cancel each other out, leaving the normal peasants and rulers and soldiers to go about their normal (Earth-like) business. And people seem to like the idea of a human-dominated world, with the wizards and dragons and so forth being rare enough that when they do appear and cause trouble it's no different that if, say, a tornado or earthquake were to hit a region. So realism and historical accuracy do have a place in fantasy gaming IF you are interested in such things to begin with. Fantasy doesn't mean throwing all the rules of the real world out the window, otherwise there's no grounding whatsoever and it makes it hard to invest anything in the game (or make rulings as a GM, for that matter.)

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    1. That's kind of what my post was saying, I thought.

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  12. There are three primary reasons to do this kind of research and have this kind of discussion:

    1) We are geeks/nerds. We love learning new things, then discussing those things to death. Practical application of said things is largely irrelevant.

    2) Verisimilitude is important. Note that this is different from realism. It is, specifically, the veneer you are talking about. But, the deeper the veneer goes, the more convincing it is. Everybody's suspenders of disbelief snap somewhere different, so it's helpful to cover as many of the stress points as possible.

    3) Plot points. Once you start diving into the details, it's kind of amazing some of the wacky things you can find. Places where a bad guy can attack the infrastructure, or where an unusual creature can find a niche (the otyugh being the prime example).

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  13. You've started an awesome discussion here. I blogged about it:

    http://boringabsurdcontemptible.blogspot.com/2012/09/branches-of-geek-tree.html

    It's pretty clear to me that the reason we fantasy gamers do this research is because fantasy gaming developed as an extension of wargaming, where there is a strong tradition of research. Like Marshall Smith says, we enjoy discussing these issues to death, and the same kinds of folks that are drawn to wargaming are drawn to fantasy gaming. It's just a matter of whether you like to think about Napoleon, Soviet Submarines, or displacer beasts.

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  14. I usually think more about what would make a good game, than what would be historically accurate.

    On the other hand, maybe this sort of historical research helps DMs believe in their setting more. Because a DM who doesn't believe in his setting, who doesn't feel it's a living breathing world, isn't going to run it nearly as well.

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    1. Good point. I definitely spend a good bit of time thinking about how my version of EGG's Yggsburgh setting works - especially the highway banditry, which is a major campaign plot point.

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  15. I think a point being missed here is the difference between borderlands and civilized realms. Just as wolves and mountain lions, and indians had to be "cleared" from america for european style farming and civilization to succeed; civilized fantasy lands can be assumed to be free of dragons and orcs and what have you, while such dangers are common in the frontier.

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    1. Why would there be any civilized fantasy lands if there were dragons around? Part of the process of "civilizing" an area of land involves removing the megafauna. Would that have been possible if it had been inhabited by dragons?

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    2. 0e-BX-1e dragons? Sure, why not - they do tons of damage, but go down fast themselves to a hail of arrows, never mind a high level adventurer group.

      I tend to treat most dragons as either smart enough to know that they can't fight humanity and win, so they don't engage in large scale ravaging, or else they're the big old ones who spend decades sleeping in their caves, only emerging very occasionally to ravage the surrounding area, with effects similar to other natural disasters, but limited in scope

      There are exceptions - stupid young dragons that think they're invincible, or old rogues that are driven to ravage far beyond their normal boundaries. These are often killed by mid-level adventurers and by epic heroes, respectively.

      I tend not to use 3e-style dragon stats, which are unstoppable demigods.

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    3. I don't think you're thinking back far enough. Small dragons are killable by groups of guys who have had thousands of years of metallurgic development, infrastructure improvements, and technological advances necessary to get them to a position where they have steel armour and arrow heads and quasi-organised militaries. Would they have even developed to that stage in a world of monsters unlike our own, though?

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    4. "Would they have even developed to that stage in a world of monsters unlike our own, though?"

      Perhaps, if the people in question also have gods that actively help them out, which D&D assumes they do.

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