Common language

>le fun!
Meaningless buzzword who don’t understand the other uses that role playing has

*for people who

>>town guard
There is nothing wrong with that.

14th century.
It is worth noting that most priests and nobles were literate but only amounted to 1% of the population each. In cities, the percentage was higher, but there was like 2% of the population at the time that lived in a city. Even today, only 50% of the population does.

>common language
Like latin in real life, provided the character's educated enough
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
Proper bullshit
>peasants are literate
Don't know why you would ever give a peasant something to read
>standing army
Depends, the Ottomans had one long before central Europe caught on
>town guard
Why not?
>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
15th is a bit early for guns but you can have gnomes with magitech machine guns theoretically so whatever

Forgot the place. The statistics were about medieval France.

>town guard
Probably professional houseguards to what ever local lord their is. I don't see what the problem is.

Every village had several literate people even among the commoners also strangely enough silent reading wasn't common even among the learned elite. People gathered together and the literate people read whatever needed reading to the others. Writing was less common skill but still not impossibly rare, the syntax wasn't very standardized though and a every village writer probably did things slightly differently.

Others are okay points although people knowing multiple languages wasn't uncommon at all on any area where there was interaction between groups.

>common language

I mean, kinda? Not in the way English works today, but:
>German among traders in the area the Hansa operated
>French among noblemen
>Latin among scholars and holy men.

>standing army

Doesn't seem that crazy considering the roman's managed it.

Dutch still spoke their own language, some dialects of French and Germany were very different from the court or merchant language and commoners spoke whatever local shit they had like Finnish, Italian or Swedish.

That doesn't mean that communication was hard though. As you said there were standard languages in large organizations and it makes sense that people who knew those language helped those in the community who did not.

Yeah, among rural commoners (IE >95% of the population) it was still just the local dialect of whatever language, but no joke, during the height of the Hansas power German almost beat out Swedish as the most spoken language in the Swedish capitol.

>Not playing an 18th-early 19th century campaign so you can have all those and potatoes
GOML medievalfags.

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>Like latin in real life

Common people did not speak it. That's why it was a big deal when the Bible was translated from Latin.

not him but it is the common tongue, for a world built on the ruins of an empire that spread it everywhere. when all else fails there's always some nerd around who knows latin.

Any non-fun use role-playing has deserves to be ignored.

>language
keeps it simple
>standing army
was a thing. Not a large standing army unless you were Roman, but still.
>swords fighting before polearms
That one I'll give you
>literate peasants
Feasible
>no guns
Magic makes it redundant

Old sewers didn't exist

>Your gun takes 2 turns to reload and it accuracy is shit
Happy now?

No because my setting isn't the actual fucking earth you sperg.

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Empire-era Rome had sewers, I'm fairly certain. No idea how big they where, but they existed.

news for you user, old sewers did exist

Rome isn't a medieval setting though. Europeans were too dumb to figure out plumbing until like 19th century.

"Old", like said, is a pretty damn broad term.

also veritably false, you're 0 for 2 user

>applying autistic and largely arbitary as they will always still be influenced by your 21st century outlook, tenants of 'historical realism' to a fantasy world

You don't do this do you user?

Honestly anyone who claims their campaign is 'historically accurate' is full of shit unless they happened to live in the fifteenth century.

>just shit in the corner of the stairwell there, one of the servants will pick it up later
Wild times in Revolutionary France.

>50%
>only

Rome was a totally different beast from medieval europe in terms of social organization

>common language (latin for upper classes, german for lower classes)
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
>(some) peasants are literate
>standing army (of looting, raping fanatics)

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>he runs a fantasy setting

Sci-fi for life

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If you don't speak in Middle English to your party, you're just a filthy cokewold.

Well, Sweden was very petite back then, even in the 1900s chicago was the second biggest swedish city, in terms of swedish population

Oh yes, how terrible would it be for this fantasy setting with its own cultures and history and actual supernatural elements to not be a carbon copy of medieval Europe.

>Localized trade languages like commoner's dwarvish, commoner's orcish, commoner's underdark. Literate languages like draconic and gnomish
>collapse of civilization leading to brigand bands and tribalism
>Peasants have the literacy of a small child, due to reading signs and simple words
>Town militia concisting of people who shoot targets in their free time. They're like amateur sports teams, and as such enjoy popular support.

Enjoy arming your untrained plebs and have them deliver volleys into trained infantry. If you have the cash, but not the training, it's a good way to get an army up.

No, I don't play historical games.

Hey, it worked for Rome.

>ever traveling so far language becomes a problem
Do you even farm turnips?

>common language
yes, but merchants and nobility are the ones who know it
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
not feudal
>swords are used first over polearms
of course not
>peasants are literate
only if they study, but they almost never have the coin and/or time to learn
>standing army
no
>town guard
yes, I like to charge tolls from my players
>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
they reverse-engineered guns that fell from the sky. Really suspicious, right?

Anyone who would be going around doing anything remotely approaching adventuring in the real middle ages would know at least some Latin.

>Even today, only 50% of the population does
Where? I mean, in my home country 50% of the population live in the greater area of ONE city, and I'm sure in countries like Singapore it would be much higher, for obvious reasons, and in Mongolia it would be much lower.

Why would landless knights and mercenaries know latin?

Peasants would know some Latin, almost certainly. Look at Muslims today. Most Muslims aren't native Arabic speakers, and most can't really read Arabic (especially not Quranic Arabic) but they surely know SOME Arabic considering they pray in it constantly.

They also would have been taught what's in the Bible, through sermons, art, and passion plays. The idea that the Bible was this thing hidden behind Latin to prevent the masses from knowing the truth is protestant propaganda.

>Anyone who would be going around doing anything remotely approaching adventuring in the real middle ages would know at least some Latin.
Sure. Norse raiders, bandits, mercenaries, landless knights, run-away serfs and all the pilgrims sure spoke proper Latin.

Why would people who go to other countries to fight want to know a lingua franca? Are you joking?

>They also would have been taught what's in the Bible, through sermons, art, and passion plays.
Which would likely be next to useless in day to day life theological terms.

I'm not running my game in 15th century Europe though, am I?

I'm running a game in a fantaasy setting with its own tropes and its own realities.

Suck my fucking dick and take your wrongfun meme somewhere else.

I was under the impression that latin was mostly for the highly educated, mostly within the church. That it was the lingua franca only in certain layers of society. Am I wrong?

>Why would people who go to other countries to fight want to know a lingua franca?
Because they don't go to other countries but serve local lords and cities? Or because only their captain can speak some garbled latin, and this is fine with the rest of them?

Don't bother with him, he is clearly an idiot. OP (despite being a poorly hidden "guns in medieval settings" troll) is right that in middle ages, the population spoke multiple languages. And it is also true that through out most of history, significant portion of the population, including peasants, could speak at least two languages. Scholars and high rulers such as kings and emperors were actually expected to know usually around four languages, sometimes even more.
But it's well worth pointing out that A) in middle ages, "knowing a language" meant something quite different from what we imagine today. It did not usually imply literacy (people talking about 30% literacy in 14th century peasntry are flat out lying), and things like grammar were adhered to much more loosely: to "know a language" meant "to be able to communicate in it", not "knowing formal grammar and speaking correctly according to external rulebooks".
Additionally, while even peasants often spoke multiple languages because of the ethnic/linguistic diversity of the population (for an example, up to 1/3 of members of Bohemian kingdoms spoke German, there was at least one or two german families per village, forcing everyone to branch out linguistically), kings were expected to know at least basics of languages of all the kingdoms they ruled, plus another one or two if they were educated - LATING was reserved EXCLUSIVELY for elite priesthood and scholars. It was actually deemed unfitting and even sacriligeous for commoners and townspeople to know latin.
Most priests actually did not UNDERSTAND latin, and only memorized the liturgic texts.
Scholars, high priests and theologicans were expected to know latin, greek, and usually at least two other languages (sometimes arabic being one of them) though.

>Is OP
>Sucks dick
After you explain that

Maybe if they were existing caves / mines that were repurposed

Of course no. I also do tons of art for the setting all by myself. My last PC looked exactly like this.

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I know this is b8 but even Tolkein, a master linguist who would understand this better than any of us, knew that it'd make for a shitty story if everyone was unintelligible to everyone else.

>It's fantasy bro, you can accept wizards and dragons but not this?

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they can't accept fun

Okay, so if the game isn't fun what's it supposed to be? Aren't games supposed ot be fun? Isn't that their purpose?

>any kind of entertaining, interesting or fun things existing at all before like 1950 at the earliest

Boy, I sure hope you don't engage in this anachronism!

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>fun didn't exist before the Korean War
Go away.

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>any kind of entertaining, interesting or fun things existing at all before 1933 at the earliest and after 1945 at the latest
ftfy

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>Common Language
No Tower of Babel in my setting, unlike Earth, and none of the Gods are powerful or relevant enough to pull that shit. So everyone talks the same.
>Nationalism
Not really, just straight racism. Both casual racism like calling elves "boy" or "girl" like how black people were treated back in the day and active violent racism like lynching people for being born with the wrong skin tone. Humans born in an Elf kingdom feel more connection to nearby Human leaders and would gladly turn traitor on their native land if the Humans invaded.
>Swords used first
You fight however you want and if you fight wrong you get killed. That said, not everyone carries polearms with them everywhere they go, but most armies would have them as standard issue, I guess.
>Literate Peasants
Nah, they can totally read, just at the same level as a modern low-grade twelve-year-old and have trouble with hard words. Public Education is a thing in most kingdoms, but it doesn't go very far and isn't always high quality.
>Standing Army
You need on if everyone is constantly thinking about invading somebody so you can try to prove you were better than the last king by conquering something. Lots of pointless wars over small useless patches of land just to show you're a "Good King" and won something.
>Town Guard
You gotta have somebody to alert the local militia if invaders are coming. Thanks to teleporting wizards armies can show up almost anywhere
>No guns
Why the hell would I want a gun when I can buy a magic staff that shoots fireballs and will never jam or run out of ammo?

Intellect stimulation
Self actualization
A study of the human condition
A chance to observe ones own perspective one life
Those are just off the top of my head

>Intellect stimulation
A form of fun.
>Self actualization
A form of fun.
>A study of the human condition
>studying human condition through thought experiments
A form of mental retardation.
>A chance to observe ones own perspective one life
Literally what?

>self actualization
>fun
Who hurt you?

I LEIK SPIKY ARMOR

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>self actualization
>not fun
No user, the better question would be: who hurt YOU? actually I don't give a shit.

I do all of them.
Because fuck you.

>MUH WEAPONS HAVE TO BE PRACTICAL

youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc
Meme answers only.

Why aren’t they practical?
>inb4 Some redditor says le rule of cool xD

I'm just harping on people like Skallagrim.

SuccesSuccesus can even get a slave to bang him what a dork

My fantasy setting is a fantasy setting, so yes I do all of these things (except guns, guns are fun)

>setting autistically follows the development of Europe, whilst ignoring both the multitude of outside forces which heavily and contributed to European supremacy and the fantastical elements of the world
A1 bait, my man

Meant for
And also I cant spell jesus christ

Im doing all this things OP, and im also going to harvest my potato crops in the spring

>15th is a bit early for guns
That's where you're wrong, pal. Check out them Hussites.

>433 KB JPG
>common language
playing charades is not fun
and having an interpreter is just a longer version of just speaking the same language
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
having easily seperable and distinct countries is easier for both the players and the DM
and most settings end up making one-city countries anyway, so there really isnt a meaningful distinction from a gameplay point of view
>swords are used first over polearms
nobody in real life walks around with an assault rifle ready to be used
most people carry handguns instead, with rifles reserved for frontline combat

also, rule of cool
swords have a bigger pop culture impact
like it or not they are here to stay
>peasants are literate
reading is a useful skill if books and pamphlets exist in the setting
heck, having a library is a sign of univeral literacy
also, from a gameplay point of view, nobody wants to play the "find the priest because he is the only person who can read your map" game anyways
>standing army
easily justified by mercenary companies hired on a permanent basis
>town guard
well, it takes more than insults to stop a thief
>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
gunpowder was invented only once, by accident, in china
and other than the impractical fire lance, only ever used it for fireworks
no gunpowder is a very easy thing to handwave away, given how it only reached europe and adapted into weapons purely by luck

>common language
No, but effectively there will always be someone who speaks their language because convenience.

>nationalism in a feudalistic society
Nope, nope, nope.

>swords are used first over polearms
Depends where you are; in a town, traveling, walking about a city, sneaking into buildings, yeah, swords will be used because that's when swords were used. In battle or ambushed by people, etc there'll be polearms.

>peasants are literate
Some were to a degree, so again depends on plot. Most aren't.

>standing army
No, but there are some mercenary companies and such that are long standing enough.

>town guard
City Militias? Yeah. They were common as fuck; it wasn't a professional police force as we think of today,, it was the people living in the town who, under law, had to maintain armour and do service in watches x amount of days etc. But people in a city with authority of the ruling bodies, backed by a charter, etc in armour with weapons keeping the peace? They existed.

>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
I fucking love my medieval guns, so no, we have guns but players tend not to fuss around with them too much.

>common language
That's what happens when a handful of second princes take a bunch of soldiers and peasant levies and start their own little empire by transplanting the extant ruling class in an enemy empire.
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
Well when your city state is ruled by an immortal killing machine, a dragon, or the avatar of a god, you tend to have some pride in serving them. As opposed to that city state down the river, they just follow the mad whims of some jumped up merchant.
>swords are used first over polearms
I can see situations where this could happen, but it's be stupid. My setting has mostly wooden spears, bows, and shanks, because metal deposits are too rare to make swords practical.
>peasants are literate
In some areas, especially with mandatory worship/education/laws. Mostly priests and ruling class, merchants, and so on, though.
>standing army
Well, there are monsters and enemy city-states, so... yeah? I mean, there's the noble class of commander-warriors who are outfitted much better, and they have their own retinues, but many rulers find it satisfying to have a thousand big sweaty guys with spears and armor doing their bidding.
>town guard
Well smaller towns are at greater risk of talking, man-eating spiders, risen dead, possessed hexapod bears, and giant snakes. So yeah, towns usually have a well-developed system of watch-posts and training. The actual guards are sent from the capital city (from the standing army) and do most of the organizing, training, collecting taxes and so on.
>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
The metallurgy isn't advanced enough for guns (they have some steel, but it's not great, and super rare), but wizard-alchemists do have explosive powders. I don't know enough about 15th century technology in other areas, though.

>Too dumb.

Existing ordnances and methods worked effectively enough until population growth overwhelmed them. As soon as it did, they worked out sewers pretty quickly and likely could have done so earlier.

Huge swathes of the world are illiterate.

>>standing army (of looting, raping fanatics)
catholic detected

>town guard
I fail to see the problem with this one.

>common language
I'm good here, but I have a trader's tongue which is fairly widespread geographically, but still contained to coastal areas. Definitely not akin to the "common" popularised by DnD and the like, and different areas/countries still have their own languages. Trader's Tongue is also very rudimentary, and meant to be supplimented by other languages to convey more complex ideas.
>nationalism in a feudalistic society
What's wrong with this? Although I supposed it's more all down to xenophobia rather than genuine nationalism.
>swords are used first over polearms
Of course not, besides, polearms are cooler.
>peasants are literate
Of course not, but they recognize common words on signs and whatnot.
>standing army
How else are they waging war?
>town guard
What's wrong with that? If your setting has roaming monsters but no town guards, that's way dumber than each town cobbling together a tiny amount of guards to protect the lives of the inhabitants.
>no guns in a civilization with 15th century technology
Gunpowder doesn't exist, or is extremely rare. That was hard. It's fantasy, not historical.

But a fantasy setting isn't a different beast from medieval europe?

In order to have nationalism, you need to have an idea of a nation. This didn't exist until around the 17th century.

>nations didn't exist until aroudn the 17th century
What am I reading?
Besides, I even said it's more xenophobia than genuine nationalism anyway.
Also refer to
>It's fantasy, not historical.

>fun is a buzzword
This is the future we chose.