What do you think about people who always want to play as nobles?

Always playing as anything is pretty shit.

>copy of "The Prince" on your nightstand

Did I guess right?

>Princess Lace's room
>A copy of "The Prince" on her nightstand
>A gigantic, framed painting of Louis XIV on her wall
>A really sweet rig to play Crusader Kings II on
>A large window so she can enjoy the view of poor, filthy serfs working the land
She also has multiple copies of "Das Kapital" to throw in her fireplace

>I imagine that (if only for their own safety) these nobles would not be recognized by the average dirtfarmer.

I'd think that an adventuring noble would be pretty well protected. Aside from the other adventurers and likely being rather strong themselves, nobles enjoyed the most legal protections, to a dramatic degree. Attacking, stealing from, or even insulting a noble was often ten to a thousand times more costly than doing the same to a fellow peasant.

Depending on what country or time the nobles are based on, they could be the type of assholes who would run around their lands, destroying farms for sport, and treating any house they wished as a combination free inn and whorehouse, all while the peasants couldn't do anything without risking execution.

>setting is not!Bolshevik Revolution
suit yourself

>Nobles visiting the countryside are like Brits visiting the Costa del Sol except they're untouchable

>Players join the white guard, and attempt to uphold their standards of living, and having to confront their "Obvious superiority" with the fact that they're currently fleeing.
>Players have to beg for asylum in various countries.
>Have to judge your own goal of getting out the country with the chance of recovering territory.

Playing as a petty knight trying to prove his worth to the lady of his heart through striving for heroic deeds was pretty fun

They're probably sick of playing a nobody. I always wanted to play a noble, but I've never actually had the chance to.

You know, it can be fun for the entire party to be nobles, because that way the usual 'fight for the little guy' thing doesn't work. It's like, you can always point out to the PCs - "You have nothing in common with these people. They are an existence beneath you. Helping them is either an act of pragmatism or condescension."

It's great. I'm a huge fan of medieval-era dickery, and games that aren't the politically-correct version of history.

Book of the Courtier actually

It can be alright if the DM works with it. We had a noble kid in a more recent game and it was pretty neat some of the plots we could get into.

Note, an active noble not like a secret or banished noble, then what's the fucking point.

I like them, gives me a nice contrast to play off on when I play Scruffy McLowborn, Pitfighter Van Der Facebeater, or Slave Mcborntoserve.

> What do you think about people who always want to play as nobles?
They want to be differently simply because blue blood flows through their veins, but they don't understand that nobility is more than just ancestry.

Nobility is how you behave. Nobility is how you treat the others. Nobility is both your pride and your shame. You were born to reign people, you were taught about it your entire life, and this shows in every single aspect of your life.

Nobility is who you are, and while some people might think that when they pin the title of a noble on themselves they will somehow become actually noble, that is simply not the case.

*They want to be treated differently

How did Ribbon get big tiddies?

I'm glad to have them in my campaign.

I don't mind when someone clearly has a character archetype or style that they love. Don't get me wrong, I prefer diversity and I prefer that people play a litany of different classes and styles and characters and alignments and such, but I don't get upsetty when someone has a specific thing they wanna do every time.

It means they're passionate (or at least wistful) about a certain style of character, it means they'll roleplay that character well (or at least try to, and in my book you get partial credit for sincere effort) because they really like their character.

Por ejemplo: One of my PCs in my current session is a complete weeb who only ever plays the weebiest weeb shit since moe went to GLORIOUS NIPPON. Her character in our present sci-fi game is literally a cyborg ninja with shuriken magazines in her forearms, two tiger-drones, and a yandere-like obsession with another one of the PCs. Her last character was a rogue in a pathfinder session who reeeeeeaaaaaalllllllyyyy wanted to be a ninja. Before that she was a fighter who reeeeeeaaaallllyyy wanted to be a samurai. I have every confidence that if she ever gets around to playing a caster it'll be a magical girl of some kind. I'm pretty sure I could sit down to play a game of checkers with her and she'd find a way to play a weeb character.

But still, that's fine. She's clearly enjoying herself at the table, she's clearly passionate about her characters, everyone at the table is glad to share it with her, and since we already know what kind of character she's going to be playing it gives all of the other players a fixed point of reference when coming up with their player's personalities. I dig that, especially since I GM for a lot of new players.

tl;dr I think of them slightly less than diverse players, but they're still fun to have around.

age and hormonal food supplements

She had a growth spurt

Historically, in my campaigns, nobles have by far generated the most collateral damage with their actions.

Nobles are genetically and spiritually superior to the other castes so I'm happy to feature them.

It's her wish-fulfillment self insert character.

They are filled with jealousy.

It's cool, I always want to play commoners or mercenaries or commoners who didn't want to be farmers and became mercenaries

I'm partial to the Fire Emblem method. Being a noble means

1. Normies may be more likely to respect you
2. You can generally receive lodging at the homes of other nobility.
3. You get to call yourself Lord or Prince such and such.

Other benefits, such as large homes or servants are generally either kept as out of game resources [Your PC is too far away from home to call upon them] or would require you be a higher level [generally 5+]

An alternative question: What do you think of people that just play a normal-ass dude?

>Other benefits, such as large homes or servants are generally either kept as out of game resources
Though to be fair, you can walk up to an army and order them around as you please because you're a noble. If you're in a city that swears fealty to your family, you can demand pretty much anything meaning you don't need to pay for a lot of equipment and supplies. If the peasants are lucky and the system is somewhat just, the only thing that changes is that your family is supposed to compensate those affected later on (for example, if you order a farmer to give you his horse, he can ask your family to compensate him with an equivalent horse).

Not saying this is bad, just saying these are things to keep in mind. In early game this can utterly break balance, but later on (when magical weapons become the only weapons worth a damn) it's fine.

That Hector is pretty slender though. Shouldn't Hector be a fucking human wall?

Fire Emblem style generally means that the actual standing military is under the direct command of someone above you (Even if you're the prince, the king is the one calling the shots, so the military needs his permission before they march off on your orders) and you have to at least respect the rules of commerce in your own kingdom. Fair pay for fair services or goods. Generally, the good guys also respect it everywhere else too, so they garner goodwill and make friends.

Yeah, the only military most Fire Emblem nobles command is their own personal retainers (Almost always assigned to them by their family's leader, but personally loyal), friends, stragglers after their nation goes tits up, and whatever mercenaries and weirdos they can drum up personally during their adventures.

Absolute indifference. Absolute.

...

My fellow republican!
Popular monarchs who act like Roman style dictators when the Republic is in crisis are fine though

Noble birth only goes so far when you're knee deep in zombies.

>Nobles are genetically and spiritually superior
But they've been working hard for centuries towards the exact opposites, so I'm not sure how much any original merits are worth by now.

Sure, but let me remind you that we're playing in the Soviet Union and aristocratic origin is a heavy disadvantage.

>Soviet Union
Kill Royalists
Kill Communists
Rip and Tear
L I B E R T É

Well, there we go. Now I've got to pen a comic about the French Revolution, except with zombies, including a scene with a gala of nobles enjoying themselves in a parlor, only to be beset by peasant zombies, all while crying out "You can't do this! Do you not know who I am?!" while the zombies devour them.

Hell, this thing is writing itself, with the Storming of the Bastille not to retrieve muskets, but to take one of the two lunatics imprisoned there, a zombie that the organizers of the revolution hoped to use to infect a mass of peasants in order to create a undead force strong enough to overcome the army. The plan gets out of control, and soon the entire country is plagued by the undead, a crisis that is only exasperated by the removal of the Catholic church.

I think the zombie problem should largely diminish over time, but still plague the country for about a century or so.

There is this French TTRPG where the Supreme Being is not only real, but some Eldritch horror. Not sure if it has zombies, but it wouldn't surprise me.

This has a lot in it that makes me think that they might have some grounds to sue Wizards for their Return to Innistrad set.

I forgot about those crazy fucks. Any man who decides to wear black leather in Africa for the sake of fashion has won my respect.

They make good targets for "unfortunate" accidents.

...
I love it!

>She also has multiple copies of "Das Kapital" to throw in her fireplace
Oh, that reminds me!
What is the best BBEG, and why is it the Communists?

>The Holy Imperium of Man is neither Holy nor Imperial nor of Man.

We had quiet the opposite problem. Our Party was just a bunch of foreign commoners. Gave us a lot of trouble to contact the nobles or investigate in the City against a Cult.

I think they understand how history actually worked, and that if you weren't a noble life sucked serious amounts of dick.

Because it makes the paladin gradually get more and more cynical and jaded.

>I kill the goblins because they are evil!
>I kill the thieves because they steal and stealing is evil!
>I kill the Revolutionary Vanguard because they seek to bring down the Crown, and that is evil!
>I kill the demagogues because they question the Crown, and questioning the Crown is... Evil?
>I kill the starving peasants because the Crown tells me to. Disobeying the Crown is evil.
>I kill innocents because the Crown has told me they are evil.
>I kill, and I am evil.
>No, I kill because the Crown is evil!
>Viva la Revolution!

>BBEG

Grow up.

Initial reaction is "Well, okay, everybody's got their thing"

Later reaction is universally just better than the guy who always plays a meathead, or some neutral-aligned mercenary type.

Obviously there's a lot of redundancy, but there's a fair more variety in the 'noble' archetypes than other character types that roleplayers enjoy.

You fucking what?

The way the feudal system works is the nobility protects the land and its people. Nobles would never burn down the farms on their own land, let alone rape the peasants there. Its the modern equivalent of setting fire to your rental property and raping your tenant. I'm sure some asshole actually did it but it was never the norm in any country or time in history.

The more farms they have on their land the larger their income.

When there are instances of nobles being arson-rapists they do it on a rival nobles land. You burn your neighbours farms and kill his peasants you deprive him of an income. Naturally if you're caught in the act then the noble a step above you can punish you for starting shit because he is also getting a percentage of your rivals earnings.

Its a really simple system.

>Peasants give you a % of their grain etc
>You give a % of that grain to the lord above you
>There is usually a lord above him to that gets a %

If the King runs a centralized realm that counts all these little percentages and its found out that one noble is causing trouble and throwing the whole thing out of order they will be punished. Hell a minor nobles lord could use arson and rape as an excuse to confiscate all your property for himself.

What are you, new or stupid?

>Nobles would never burn down the farms on their own land, let alone rape the peasants there.

It was such a big issue, that the clergy tried to combat it by initiating movements, primarily the Peace and Truce of God. It was largely as a response to Frankish nobles after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, and sadly these movements were largely ineffectual towards reducing the amount of violence towards the peasants.

You're right, in that nobles would not want to burn down houses in their own lands, the decentralization of the nobility from large countries into smaller counties centered around castles made it so that as far as most nobles were concerned, the next town over, while still technically all subjects of the king and your fellow countrymen, were little more than the assets of your rival nobles.

And, destroying farms in your own lands was not uncommon either, especially due to the effective legal impunity that most nobles enjoyed since they were effectively the legal representative of the region, and more importantly had no true power over them. While still technically allegiant to the king, nobles who held castles were effectively autonomous, since it was extremely costly to try and expunge a noble sequestered inside of a fortified castle in order to bring them to justice. Nobles burning down farms in their own lands as part of games was one of the many terrible things done that helped inspire the Peace and Truce of God.

And, nobles were well known for traveling through their own lands, eating through the stores of whatever house they decided to stay at while staying as long as they wished, before moving on (usually once their hosts had run out of food).

While some of this may sound like exaggeration, you need to keep in mind that there are plenty of terrible rich people today who do even more terrible things.

>communism
Grow up.

Quit getting butthurt every time someone calls your pet phrase stupid or childish already. It was coined to sound stupid and childish.

Why am I not surprised that the French are involved?

>I'm pretty sure I could sit down to play a game of checkers with her and she'd find a way to play a weeb character.

>I don't want you to king me, I want to be Shogun!

>pinochet
Grow up, comrade.

>Being this autistic over an acronym
Did your parents never love you or some shit? Calm your tits.

You are the one being autistic here over an acronym.
Someone called it childish. Oh no. The way to deal with that isn't to throw a fit and try to deny that, but to ignore the comment if it offends you so.

>still replying
Lel, this shit is gold.

French nobles are a great example of some of the worst people to ever live.

Peace and Truce of God was an attempt to stop nobles fighting each other. They weren't burning their own land, they burned the lands and people of their enemies/rivals within the kingdom. It was a period of complete anarchy and can't even be assumed as the norm for most of the medieval period.

Sure the act was meant to stop them killing non-combatants but they weren't killing their own peasants at all. They were as I said killing their rivals peasants.

If you are the law over your own land you have no need to burn your property, just raise the taxes/demand what you want, there is no need to burn anything. It wasn't a game the negatives of burning your own property always outweighed the possible benefits until insurance became a thing.

>And, nobles were well known for traveling through their own lands, eating through the stores of whatever house they decided to stay at while staying as long as they wished, before moving on (usually once their hosts had run out of food).

This is more of an issue among nobles, minor nobility might have done it to an extent but they were already getting a cut directly from their peasants so it would just hurt them in the long run to basically starve their people to death. However among higher tiers of nobility the possibility of the lord above you stopping by for a visit with his 100+ knight sized retinue + attendants and eating all your supplies existed. A Duke wouldn't stop at a small farm because there wouldn't be enough food or room to house all his men.

Is this some epic new meme I missed out on?

No. There is a grand total of one whingey bitch user who spams threads where people use the term, then calls people who speak up in its defense 'oversensitive.' Just report him and move on.

I play a noble. Being a noble gives you the excuse to play a character with heroic entitlement. My group can occasionally get bogged down by moralistic debate, and while it's a fun exercise to consider the world and our actions in their full complexity, it also ends up with 2 hour conversations about moral philosophy by a bunch of guys in their late 20s with MAYBE a total two semesters of intro philosophy under their collective belt.

When you play a noble, you get to play as someone who sees the world from the perspective in which you are part of the social class which defines truth and justice. That predisposition to rely on your own assessment as correct makes the game run more smoothly, thus allowing for easy segues into the fun part of the game: action.

Part of the reason this thing has started to gather momentum is your continued insistence that it's just one person. Do us all a favor, and ignore it. Don't reply to it and then tell people to ignore it, just ignore it.

Part of the Peace and Truce of God was actually dedicated to governing the mock battles between nobles on their own lands (which would eventually develop into medieval tournaments). Killing peasants was rare, but violence against them, including the burning of their property during these mock raids and battles, was common enough that the clergy even demanded for an end to this form of sport, which was largely ignored.

I think you have a rather lofty idea of what nobles were, especially this strange belief that everything these nobles did was intelligent, pragmatic, and disciplined. We're talking about nobles who enjoyed live birds in their pies.

>the fun part of the game: action.
You spelt boring part of the game wrong. But interesting opinion besides.

You've got an awfully cynical view of the world and seem to think people not only enjoy violence for violence sake but that that nobility would throw their own economic prosperity away for an afternoon of rape and pillage. I've not said anything lofty at all about the nobility, I don't deny they killed peasants and burned farms. I'm just saying your original claim that they went out regularly to burn their own peasants farms and rape peasant girls was bullshit.

The Truce was an attempt to stop the violence and anarchy of petty nobles trying to destroy one another through a war of attrition, they didn't do it for fun, it was not a mock battle. Killing another lords property and burning his crops was not fun and games. Doing those things is basically private warfare between two competing lords.

If it helps you bring it into a modern context, early prohibition mobsters didn't really kill each other either, they just destroyed their rivals operations through arson etc. Eventually they started shooting each other but it started as a war of attrition.

Is that ribbons older sister?

Is she single?

>people not only enjoy violence for violence sake but that that nobility would throw their own economic prosperity away for an afternoon of rape and pillage.

But, some people DO enjoy violence for violence's sake, and have gone on rape and pillage sprees.

>I'm just saying your original claim that they went out regularly to burn their own peasants farms and rape peasant girls was bullshit.

Define regularly. Because, this was a dramatic problem for the period, and you need to understand that the Peace and Truce of God is not just a single effort, but a collection of movements to try and stop the nobles from harming the peasants in a variety of ways with a variety of motivations, including as part of sport.

This isn't a particularly cynical view, and it's hardly a unique one either. It's a well understood reality of medieval existence, and a consequence of nobles being able to gather a dramatic amount of power and independence through castle fortifications. This isn't to say that all nobles were terrible people, or that even most were, but there was a fair amount of them who treated the peasants like livestock or worse.

You've completely misunderstood.

The vast majority of people do not enjoy raping women, killing the womans families and burning the womans house down. To say that nobles are all part of a tiny minority that do is bullshit. So saying that some people do enjoy it has nothing to do with the conversation.

No sane noble would gather his men and destroy his own property intentionally. No sane person today burns their car and kills their dog for fun. No sane noble would go and destroy his neighbouring nobles property as a game or joke.

>haha I raped property!
>oh nooo you burned my farm haha!

You think of it as sport because that's how it was described, however destroying another nobles property was an act of war. Imagine if your neighbour killed your dog and torched your car and then said "Its just a game bro." Peasants were not this endless resource that was considered expendable especially for rural estates that relied completely on their labour.

You keep saying they treated their peasants like livestock but you seem to think farmers treat their animals poorly. A farmer feeds and protects his livestock and profits off what his animals produce. Dairy, eggs, meat etc. You'd be had pressed to find a farmer that enjoys terrorizing and starving his animals. Even if you did find one they can not be used to represent all farmers.

Lower tiers of nobility would have worked closely with their peasants for generations, these were people that they might not have known well but they did know. So when another lord kills them and burns down your farm the average noble isn't going to sit idle and accept it. This kind of thing also happened in Italy a lot before central governments managed to control family feuds, which is basically what this was, extend feuds between different families of landholders. These sorts of acts of violence against the peasants probably escalated from completely irrelevant.

The fools, they don't understand the ancient power of being a small town farm boy with big dreams and a bigger heart.

Does 5e do noble good?

Source on image?

Reverse search is giving me nothing.

Its fun.

Farmers profiting from their animals has not prevented animals from being mistreated. Sure, they were unlikely to be, but unlikely does not mean at all or never.

What was the motive for war between nobles?

>The vast majority of people do not enjoy raping women, killing the womans families and burning the womans house down.

The vast majority could not do so without any real repercussion.

>You think of it as sport because that's how it was described, however destroying another nobles property was an act of war.

I'm talking about noble's destroying their own farmers' property during proto-tournaments. These games involved mock combat with absolutely no boundaries, and holing yourself up in a peasant's house was fair game to avoid capture. When one noble barricades himself inside a house, often destroying what meager furniture was available in order to do so, it was considered a fair strategy to smoke them out by setting fire to the house. As wild as this may seem, this and similar acts of wanton destruction were common enough for the clergy to spend decades trying to ban the sport.

Compared to modern sports riots, at least these belligerents were on a far smaller scale.

>you seem to think farmers treat their animals poorly.

Farmers kill their livestock when they feel it necessary. Also, you reaaaaally need to stop imagining humans as completely responsible and pragmatic. Keep in mind many farmers mistreat their animals today (with some countries without strict animal rights laws doing so on massive scales), and figures such as bestiality rates being as high as 15% in some rural areas.

Laws protect humans differently than they do animals, and you should be glad, because it would be terrifying for humans to be treated like this.
youtu.be/FN53hAOEQzg

People tend to do whatever the law permits, and in the case of medieval nobles, many were effectively the law.

Also, peasants rioted and revolted constantly against the nobles. Though these almost always ended in failure, on average there was at least one peasant uprising taking place in Europe, and these even occasionally expanded to full-scale rebellions.

It's her Mary Sue.

>And she is so beautiful that people go mad with lust
That'd be a more detrimental flaw. That must suck though: whenever you go outside, everyone wants to rape you. The only reason your party doesn't pin you down and tear your clothes from your body is because they have stupidly high will saves.

Explains why the common-folk were happy to exterminate them.

All you'd need to do is cover up a bit.

I always like to play as nobles because they have a lot more opportunities to be Veeky Forums

I think you may be mistaking "action" for "battle". I play 5E. Combat isn't completely boring, but D&D overall isn't winning any awards in the area.

But action is just decision making that drives the game forward-- whether that decision is battle or not.

There are obviously differences between how a person treats an animal and a human, animals (especially farm animals) reproduce faster than humans making their death less of a loss, animals also do not need to be taught over a decade about how perform basic skills. I am not saying peasants were never mistreated only that if a noble was performing acts of violence on their own peasants they were obviously not exactly sane or he had a very good reason (in his mind) to punish them so harshly. People always assume peasants were a cheap resource that was easy to replace and akin to farm animals, the truth is that without going into philosophical ramblings about the value of a human life is greater than the value of a farm animal. Not only can a peasant family look after all your farm animals but they can also grow various types of crops and be used as a labour force when needed. There is a reason the myth that medieval armies were mostly peasants being forced to fight has become less accepted in recent years, peasants were simply too valuable to waste in battle.

The cause of a war between petty nobles could have been anything but its safe to assume the wars were rarely large in scale, it could have started as an insult that escalated into what could be described as tribal warfare, raid your enemies tribe and take all their women and livestock, kill everything else. That's not to say a war never started because of a raid on another nobles property but if you look at how neighbourly feuds start today you can see they always start with something stupid and petty and can take decades for ferment into violence. This sort of process would have been much faster among a group of guys that had legal right to do almost anything however.

(cont)

Destroying a peasants house is much different to killing all the peasants and burning everything to the ground. Burning a peasants home is nothing at all, burning a lords farm, peasants and livestock is a completely different matter. Again, I'll repeat, the truce was an attempt to stop warfare between nobles, the way the nobility fought each other was a war of attrition. They would not have destroyed another nobles property intentionally during a tournament, if they did and wanted to avoid offence they would compensate the owner.

Farmers do kill their livestock, however that is a completely different matter, livestock is less valuable than a peasant that maintains it. The death of livestock is also valuable, the death of a peasant is not. Your comment on mistreated animals only applies to modern animal rights activists definition of mistreat and the "large scale" animal mistreatment is a product of large scale farming operations. Bestiality has nothing to do with the discussion, it does not effect an animals ability to pull a plough or produce milk or meat. Your video has nothing to do with the discussion.

Peasants did not revolt constantly especially in the medieval period, during this time they would have had the most value, during periods of massive population decline (right after a plague or famine) their labour was extremely sought after. You find that the larger the peasant population gets the worse they are treated because their individual value decreases as they are easy to replace. This is why revolutions became more popular during the 1700s.

Not true in England, local courts had the codified authority to bring anyone including the lord to trial, and the king was legally obligated to enforce their decisions

This is by far my favourite archetype, or starting point for making a new character. It's not the only thing I'll play, but it's what I enjoy the most.

If you read a game and see skills like farming or fishing, and wonder if anyone ever actually picks those, then I can tell you that I often do. It's usually completely useless, but I just like the idea that in addition to swinging a sword and casting a spell, my character can fucking till that soil like there's no tomorrow.

is that you travis?

>Destroying a peasants house is much different to killing all the peasants and burning everything to the ground.
you are so stupid you should just kill yourself. how about I burn down all of your home and money and see how long you live.