Serious Medieval Atmosphere

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Revision as of 18:03, 19 January 2008 by Tom (talk | contribs)
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Summary

This is our term for roleplaying the game as it is meant to be. That does not mean pages upon pages of text, but rather playing your character as if he were a real human being in a real world. You can be as short or elaborate as you want to in doing that, but try to be realistic.

Here are a few short guidelines, and further down you will find some points in more detail. Remember that all these are guidelines. Every now and then, there is a good reason to ignore one or two of them.


Do's

  • Address everyone properly. The king is "your highness" or "your majesty" at the very least, better yet use his full title ("Your majesty king Edward of Somerealm"). Your liege-lord is "my liege", not "hey, John". Fellow nobles should at least be called "Sir (lastname)" or "Lord (lastname)" in the case of landed nobility. You would very, very seldom use the first name of anyone.
  • Speak properly, you are a noble not a pig-farmer. No 1337-speak or Internet shortcuts. Write proper sentences. Saying "We will attack them at sunrise tomorrow morning" makes a huge difference compared to "move next turn".
  • Behave like a real, living noble. Among other things that means valuing your honour, being at least a little afraid of pain and death (you don't have to show it), having likes, dislikes and ambitions. Also treating commoners (including adventurers) like the pig-farmers they are.
  • Bring everything you know about courts, intrigue, gossip and medieval nobility into the game.

Don'ts

  • No powergaming. If the only reason you do something is game-mechanics, you should probably not do it. No declarations of war if you don't actually intend to fight, for example. No "assassinate me so the bounty stays within our realm", etc.
  • No nonsense. If you want to pray to the holy Doughnut, roleplay you are a vampire or include a reference to South Park into every letter, then BattleMaster might not be the game for you, and wherever we look for a serious medieval atmosphere, you are very much not welcome.
  • No silly names. Not for your character, not for your unit. Just don't.


Some Points in Detail

Terminology

Playing the game sometimes requires use of terms that can be considered OOC. That's really not a big deal. Two guidelines might help in smoothing everything out:

  • If you have a better, in-character, roleplaying term, by all means use it.
  • In case of doubt, try to look for the game for guidance. For example, the game almost never talks about "turns". It does, however, name them precisely: "Sunrise" and "sunset". So instead of "next turn", use whatever the next turn is ("We attack at sunrise.").

Titles and Forms of Address

Very good information on these can be found in the Roleplaying Primer Wiki Page. One thing to add that is not mentioned there is that a Knight (an unlanded rank of Nobility) would be referred to as Sir <firstname> rather than sir <lastname> as is usual with other ranks. In addition, a female Knight is a Dame - a Lady is the wife of a Knight or someone of landed rank.

The most important part about this, however, is to create and sustain the proper atmosphere, not to be fanatic about names or titles. Remember: Even the real nobles did make mistakes, and it wasn't always 100% clear just how to call someone.


Nonsense, "Fun" and Silly Names

We all play to have fun, but there is a difference between humour and slapstick. In a serious medieval atmosphere, there is still place for humour - the witty kind that nobles would use. There is no place for humour of the US College Comedy Movie kind.

Likewise, we don't want to see anyone named "Darth Vader" or a unit called "=={XCW}== Da Cr8z1es". Names are important in a medieval world, and should be real. Some realms on other islands have a "funny" atmosphere to it. Vikings are fine, but they aren't just crazy lunatics, and you can properly roleplay a viking realm. Outer Tilog, well OT is unique. Don't try to copy it, especially not where we are looking for serious medieval atmosphere.

Tom has said in the Discussion mailing list that as the game is an English-speaking game, the name should be relatively acceptable as a name to a speaker of the English language - hence most European names and name-like derivatives are acceptable as well as "Foreign Words" that sound like a name (so long as they are not offensive). A good guide would probably be - if you met a person in the real world who was named as such (and they were not something unusual like a celebrity's kid) would you find their name unusual or bizarre? If you would, it's probably out of place (unless it's supposed to be unusual and bizarre for some roleplay reason).

Non-European Realm/Religion Concepts

While these are acceptable on other islands, we are very, very sceptical about them on any island where we are looking for a serious medieval atmosphere. Some will be ok, a little bit of orient can spice things up, but the vast majority would only dillute and disturb the atmosphere. That goes especially for any asian or american concepts. Basically anything that the middle ages did not have much contact with. Again, there are other islands in BattleMaster where these ideas can be explored.

There is still an incredibly broad and deep variety of themes and cultures in Medieval Europe that you can draw inspiration from (Spaniards, Greeks, Baltics, Eastern European Cultures). There is quite enough variety without having to blend cultures that realistically never would've had much to do with one another. A little bit of research will turn up a lot of results.

This also extends to political concepts - if you insist on being the Socialist Knight you will probably be stripped of your title. Likewise, the Government System Wiki Page points out that Democracies are not like modern Democracies - they are more akin to the Parliaments of Medieval England than anything you would see today. So when you talk about "Democratic" ideals - be sure that you understand just what sort of Democracy you're touting.

Enforcement

On any island explicitly marked as one we want to have a serious medieval atmosphere (currently: Dwilight), the above guidelines will be enforced, which means anyone breaking them repeatedly or so blatantly that it hurts the atmosphere will find his character deported to some other random island.


See Also


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