Preserving Mideval Paradigm

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hey.

One issue that my group faces when we play Ars is preserving the Medieval Paradigm, and I'd like to know how other groups deal with it. The fundamental problem is that taking a society and throwing in a major, chaotic aspect and expecting it to stay the same just doesn't work. If you have a game world that is exactly like real Europe in 1200, except there's a band of people in it with awesome magical powers, Europe in 1250 is not going to be exactly the same -- even if the PC's keep only to the strictest rules about not interfering with mortals. Things that just weren't possible with Medieval technology because possible with magic, and they are things any reasonable person would invariably want to pursue.

For example -- in one game, we had a very small covenant. Just the Magi and a half-dozen grogs, all of whom were essentially lab assistants (or librarians, or bookbinders, etc). As a result of the small size of the covenant, everyone in it could read -- something the Magi took advantage of for the sake of convenience. When new grogs arrived one or two at a time and the covenant grew, it rapidly became irritating to not be able to leave these new people chalk notes or written directions, so the Magi required all new arrivals to learn how to read. As the covenant's library grew to include several books on useful trade skills, it was proposed that we should allow all our covenfolk free access too these trade books. After all -- the more skills they know, the more valuable they are as laborers...

Oops, we just invented the public library and universal literacy a few hundred years early. @#$#! :angry:

Things like this, accidental or otherwise, can seriously move the feel of the game away from medieval paradigm. On the other hand, preventing this from occurring at all would be unrealistic and makes the game feel artificially constrained. How do your groups deal with this?

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A tough problem indeed.
I would suggest that if you see something like that happen, then circumvent it in some way. The covenant is attacked, a grog uses a laboratory without supervision and burns down half of the covenant, including the library, etc.

Another thing you could think of, is wether universal literacy and the public library are not a part of the mideval paradigm. Sure, this wasn't in mideval times, but under the conditions, it could be, so it's alright if that happens.

Furthermore, listen to something I thought of a while ago. This may not be relevant, as this is an idea regarding modern times ArM which I have been thinking of:
If you don't like the direction your game is heading, you could have a magus, whose father fell off the edge of the world, so he saught to correct that and make sure that doesn't happen. So he spent all of his years MuTe, and eventually, at the age of 100 and something, he creates a massive ritual, intended to build a wall around the rim of the earth. He suffers a massive botch, evaporates into final twilight and the world is made round. subsequently, everything looks different.

Another thing I thought of, is making ME a regio inside real Europe, although I didn't really think that one through...

Hope I've helped

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World was already round in the Medieval paradigm. Saint Augustus demonstrated this fact before the Order of Hermes was founded. Was St Augustine really a wizard? Maybe. But in any case, Medieval philosophers knew the earth was round. If it was flat, then something could be beneeth it. Only as a sphere could the earth be the center of existance.

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Oh. Ooooopsy....

So ignore what I said about the earth being made round, and notice the rest of the post, please.... :slight_smile:

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:smiley:

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I think what people tend to forget is what goes on behind the paradigm. Yes, you could teach everyone to read. Yes, you could share out the books... but since it's such an obvious and good idea, it could have happened in the real 1220's. Why didn't it? The answer to that lies, at least partly, in people's attitudes.

Reading is a privileged skill possessed only clerks, priests or the wealthy. Even if you did ask an average farmer if he wishes to learn to read (and why would you - he's a grubby farmer whose place to raise crops and serve his betters), he would likely refuse: "No, mi'lord. I'm happy with my lot and I've no wish to rise above my place."

Books are precious things to be protected. After all, you spent three months of painstaking labor, to say nothing of ink, parchment, dyes, wood and leather all costly enough to feed a peasant family for those same three months, copying that book. Give a book out to a mere tradesman? Are you mad, it might get damaged!

That's the paradigm that I think people have trouble with. We get lost in our 21st century assumptions about how people think and behave, about what makes sense to them and on what basis decisions are made. The way to "enforce" the paradigm, IMO, is to remind the players of the way people think and act. Naturally, as PCs, they are free to think and act as they see fit. However, if they go against the expectations and assumptions of the day, they will get into trouble. Imagine if your town mayor suddenly demanded everyone start calling him "my lord" and bowing to him... he'd probably get locked up!

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Overall, I think anachronisms are inevitable, as the players are modern people. I don't let them really bother me. I do make changing society at large, especially outside the covenant, nearly impossible, however. Unless it's a direction the players want to take on as a story.

It's always wise to talk with the group before hand to settle the overall tone, of course. Do you accept such anachronisms, or not? To what degree will the world resist them?

A big problem is messengers. Really, there is no good reason not to develop better communication methods. It was only a problem once for me, and I let the players have their walkie-talkies. Arcane connections make rampant use of this dangerous, and its against tradition so it's wrong.

Another problem are books. Covenants can quickly come to have huge libraries, and ones with shelves and so on. I just ignore that. Printing presses are more of a problem, and in my games we just didn't go there.

Then, there was the case where my players wanted to start a communist revolution. It never got played to fruition, but I was intending to let them do that - eventually.

By RAW, feeding whole kingdoms with relatively few He and An pawns is possible. It wasn't a problem we ran into in practice. I'd generally disallow it by fiat - raising the spell's level, making the produce induce Warping, imposing botches and Twilight, or so on.

Again, the important thing is to make sure people are playing on the same page. If you want medieval Europe to change drastically, do so. If you want to maintain the paradigm, do so. Most likely you want small breaches but nothing too major - that's a fine option, too.

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Well that might not be the best example of something "unrealistic", as there is some reason to believe that while FORMAL literacy was rare, the use of a simplified writing system may actually have been widespread.
The "reasons" are simple wooden or bark tablets from 10th century forward found in several places (Sweden and Russia has had the biggest finds) when such has had the fortune to end up in places where they didnt wither away over time as quickly as normal. The tablets have been written on with all kinds of stuff, from business formalia to shopping lists to simple letters...

And with these items normally being extremely perishable, its probably sheer luck that any has been found at all.
Also, similar tablets have been found from the 16th and 17th century as well, so its quite possible that the practise existed all the time in between and quite possible that it was widespread and general, but we dont know. So effectively, you simply dont have a problem with this at least, you just improved the level of literacy rather than invent it. Adding a public library to the world, well you didnt, you added a private library limited to the covenant and its people, and even if the practise spreads i doubt it will change much, books still remain prohibitively expensive to produce.

If however you just "happen" to start selling a good quality printing press, now THAT might cause a BIG rush in time. :wink:

Well, one big possibility is to keep it locally or regionally, which happened historically as well with many improved practises and inventions...

And then of course, you can "let it happen", the world doesnt have to go exactly according to history, in fact, its almost guaranteed that it wont. Something like magic being added in means its even unlikely that your starting year will have major differences. Of course, you can decide what those are yourself. And the same goes for the "let it happen", dont forget that adding a new idea or invention may not give the same result as it did historically, or the result that prevailed historically. An example, the phone was more or less invented at least half a dozen times, that we KNOW about, over a period of at least 50+ years.

Gunpowder was almost certainly in limited use in Europe before 10th century(ie probably just decades or even just years after its appearance in China), but it wasnt until hundreds of years later that it become a major factor, because not enough people knew how it could be used or how it was made with good quality, or even knew about it at all.

:unamused:

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:wink:

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The Romans had public libraries. And it doesn't matter if you create universal literacy in a tiny area, that already exists in parts of Europe. Small religious parts, sure...

1220 Mythic Europe looks a lot like 1220 real Europe, but after that all bets are off.

I let the players wreck the place. Indeed I find the alternate history effects charming, myself.

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You, however, are phenomenally rich and lack the concerns and expenses of most nobles or towns. As such, things like literacy and a library of books (well, two or three, loaned out under very strict control, since they're extremely valuable things) are a worthwhile expense for you.

For anywhere else, where magi aren't around to take the edge of difficulty off things and perhaps enhance the yields as well, money is better spent on other things. Add in that magi don't really care about money in general, as their prestige is independent of it, as largely is their comfort, and it becomes easier for them. The odds of it spreading, however, are low. There's a reason Covenant Upbringing is a flaw - people who hover around magi develop strange ideas.

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One thing that's easy to forget is how very hard travel was, that will certainly limit the reach of any innovations. And that's if you can get past the whole 'tradition' thing, which can take decades to work out. Magi COULD make huge changes in Europe, even without pissing off mundane authorities, but, frankly, it's a lot of work, and magi just aren't interested in putting their time in. Not to mention, all the things that could go wrong or inhibit it...

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And of course, the magi might WANT it to stay local, because then it benefits THEM and not a bunch of other people they dont care about... :wink:

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The muslims will have libraries as well, at least in their lands post 800.

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