This evening I had a few thoughts about the cultural or psychological aspects of historical European fantasy role playing. Probably most people don't try to emulate medieval styles of thinking or acting when they play, say, dungeons and dragons. And yet, I feel like there is very interesting material there to explore. I don't even mean to restrict that statement to a medieval mindset. Even when I think about, say, certain cultural attitudes that are implied or between the lines when you read Tolkein (i.e. Tolkein's respect for commoners, basically, during World War I, and how that formed his basis for his portrayal of hobbits) there is some interesting stuff you could work with.

I've already written on an earlier date how I feel that Ashton Clark Smith was one of the few fantasy authors who tried to really write his characters as having a medieval perspective, especially in his weird tales that take place in the south of France with monastaries and the like. If you haven't already, read one of his awesome stories in this vein: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short...st-of-averoigne

Right now, however, what's on my mind is Tolkein's writing and the influences of World War I, and how that could fit into role playing a character.

If you're posting on a role playing forum, you probably know about a lot of the major themes or ideas that various commentators have attributed to Tolkein. You've got critiques of industrialization or the industrial revolution. You've got as I mentioned above, the idea of the author's respect for the agricultural soldier from World War I, whereas before World War I because of his social class he had little interaction with or detailed knowledge of those people.

Reading military history, I've noticed that a lot of famous war heroes, such as Carlos Hathcock, have an agricultural background. I think that perhaps having a farming background might help you have the right mindset to fight well, and be like a hobbit attacking a ringwraith, so to speak.

Maybe having too much education makes you weak in a fight. This is because you tend to overthink things, doubt yourself or your cause, and lose that connection to the immediate where you drop everything else out of your mind, bring that aggression, and not worry about the bad things that might happen. If you play combative sports, you know that if you go into a boxing or wrestling or MMA match and you've got too much abstract thought, or you're afraid you're going to get hurt, you'll be weak. You won't be able to ramp up the aggression, you'll be cowed by being hurt, and you won't be willing to sacrifice more to the fight than your opponent. Worrying or speculating about the future is like the anti-fight.

The thing is, as someone who grew up in New York City and had a lot of eastern establishment education in my day, I can remember nothing from my history or social studies classes but revisionist history. Lots of cynicsm, lots of elaborate monday morning quarterbacking, lots of emphasis on or fascination with who was the victim at any given time. But, if you go into, say, a World War I type situation with your head full of that stuff, you're probably going to end up being weak and self serving. You're going to think something along the lines of, "Oh, gee, the government really dicked me over this time, putting me in this situation. The whole thing is pointless and unwinnable and morally bankrupt. Clearly I'm here because some corporation is making money off it. I'd better do everything I can to get out of it."

On the other hand, if you for whatever reason take it for granted that your side is right, you're more likely to act like a hobbit, and try to apply yourself as much as possible, for better or for worse, right?

I've been reading World War 1 memoirs lately, and notice that there seems to be quite a lot of battlefield heroism or at least stoicism described in those memoirs. Perhaps most of the people involved in fighting those wars had a special mindset from before when cynical revisionist history was invented sometime in the 1960s. I recently read a memoir describing the battle of Ypres, and I felt like the soldiers on the recieving end of the first gas attack of the war as described in that memoir were really, really, really fucking brave. Considering that people were dying horribly while frothing at the mouth and nobody really knew why or what exactly was going in.

I feel this is also related to industrialization. Agricultural communities tend to be family and group orientated. People stay in areas and acquire reputations for their actions. Someone is more likely to self-sacrifice for the good of the community because this is more the nature of a pre-industrial society. In an industrial urban society, families are smaller, there is more anonyminity, you don't depend as much on your neighbors, and people are more likely to be self-serving and to try and sneak off and not be stuck holding the bag whenever possible. So, again, this probably affects how people would behave if they found themselves in a World War 1 type situation.

When it comes to fantasy role playing, you are often basically dealing with a World War 1 type situation. You've got big nations, epic battles, good and evil. Since you are usually having a medieval type society, you also probably don't have many characters who would have been exposed to revisionist history.

With these thoughts in mind, it seems to me that a fantasy role playing setting would be enriched by special attention to the mindset of persons portrayed in the setting. You've got agricultural communities, lower levels of education compared to say the US today, and probably more of a sense of social duty or social sacrifice. However, perhaps these qualities in the context of a war produce a lot of stoic or heroic behavior.

So it might be interesting to, instead of going with the Homeric style narrative where the heroes are everything and the spear carriers are nothing, try and have your story emphasize the contribution of the spear carriers a little more, while you try to stress that psychological aspect.

You could do this in a D&D type game possibly by working with the critical hit rules. Let critical hits be absolutely brutal, and make sure that everyone has at least a 1% chance of scoring a critical hit. If there are enough spear carriers involved in combat, on rare occasion one of them could do spectacularly well with a critical hit. Narrate it as a heroic moment. If you're lucky, maybe one such hit will even happen at a critical moment in a boss fight, or something like that.

At the same time, maybe you could have the beginning of industrialization starting in some cities, and the people there are all self serving, too clever for their own good, etc. It could make for an engaging or interesting story with some food for thought.

It sounds incredibly boring for PCs, while at the same time being exactly what everyone always does with NPCs. They're mindless peons who serve as wallpaper for the heroes, and they should be. By the same token, the 'medieval mindset' is completely conventional for some characters ('Lawful Stupid paladin'), though the very fact that PCs are heroes is usually enough explanation for 'unrealistic' ways of thinking. I sure wouldn't want to play a nobody with a random chance of being 'heroic' by accident, but a much better chance of being a dead nobody.

But what if your cause (or the cause you've been sent to fight for, at any rate) really is morally bankrupt? What if you're a German soldier invading Poland in 1939? To my mind, a soldier's duty to question is at least as great as his duty to obey.

That might be due to the fact that, at least for WW2 and the wars before, many people had an agricultural background. And those who had a higher education were less likely to be sent on the front lines. So maybe it's just a matter of probabilities.

Though I do agree that with a higher education you're more likely to question the reason you're fighting, especially since you're less likely to be manipulated by government propaganda.


WW1 was fought by very patriotic people, who were eager for war. And they did war by charging the enemy lines, which means that "heroism" was visible and had to be put forward. It's easier to write heorically about how someone charged into an enemy trench and killed dozens of enemies than about how someone on a plan pushed on a button in his plane far above the battlefield and killed between 5 and 10 enemies.

I do agree that we tend to see too much 21st century thinking in medfan settings, but I don't think it's just in the way war and fighting is seen. In some cases, though, it's a good thing: in a true medieval setting, a female adventurer would, at best, not be taken seriously.

To me an adventurer is an anomaly. Most people would not be delving into the pits of the underdark, wandering the world, etc.

They would be the kind of people that buck the system for whatever reason. Not the average person.

Magic changes that some, but still they are not normal people.. and it's rare talent so they get taken out of the normal way of things (though some settings magic is more prevalent than fleas)

It why some settings adventurers are treated with difference due to their power, but also not well liked because of the fact they are not bound by the same bonds as the farmer in the fields.

1. WW1 was a conscript war where before most wars, where the british at least had been involved, was a professional war.

2. there is a chance that the cynicism came from the higher ups being so utterly out of their depth with the advent of machine guns and long range artillery, that a lot of them resorted to ordering futile frontal assaults that basically had the men run into the lead spray of the machine guns time and time again. There is a short but telling video out there of the early days where a formation of cavalry is trotting along in the open, and suddenly some artillery shells slam down and basically wipes them out. The artillery guns themselves where beyond the horizon, but somehow they had gotten the message about location and movement direction of the formation. Events like that will turn a person cynical about the "glories" of war.

Yep, one do not need to look further then Jeanne d'Arc to see what the real life treatment of a female adventurer would be.

I think it would be an interesting idea and you'd need some mature players to do it. Also, I don't think it would be much fun, unless all had a similar social station. Also, you'd have the PC's as part of some heirarchy. Some players can handle taking orders, others cannot, or get bored cause they can't go off the reservation as easily. The point about female PC's and then racial tensions could also be problematic.

The fantasy world of Yrth is exactly a "true fantastic medieval" setting.
Of course, they changed a lot of true medieval behavior was changed or completely ignored in order for better gaming experience.
For instance, there isn't a prejudice against female people as something cultural, just individuals.
I suggest taking a look at the GURPS 4th ED - Banestorm, you might find something intresting in there.