Messages

1

Far East Island / Re: Southern Wars (Starting Sept. 2011)

« on: September 07, 2011, 06:09:08 AM »

Egamma, she does...Which is why I posted them    She likes being bragged about.

She does...

And she does

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Background / Re: Getting orders across via Trumpets and Banners ect

« on: May 26, 2011, 05:23:20 PM »

I'm way behind on reading the forum, but I really dug this post.  This is exactly the sort of thing (or one of the sorts of things) that I've been hoping to see from the background thread:  interesting, relevant, and very usable information (in this case lovingly extracted from some reliable sources.)

Thanks!

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Far East Island / Re: Reviving the South

« on: May 08, 2011, 04:56:15 AM »

And yes, Artemesia, he's a bit like that. Except in BM no one is surprised when their strongest attacks fail and Jenred saunters out of the rubble unscathed  :p

When will people realize that the gods smile upon Jenred!  He personally and Arcaea generally have had some really handy turns of the cards.  At some point you have to figure that he's got an in with the higher powers.

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Background / Re: Religious freedom?

« on: April 22, 2011, 05:45:55 AM »

Yes, the middle east did have a big influence on Medieval Europe. So did migrant steppe tribes. Frankly, so did India; even China had periodic influences.

But the game is not about those places.

Moreover, even in places with "religious freedom," it would mostly be for commoners. You won't find tons of Christian knights running around holding lordships in Fatimid Egypt. A very few perhaps, but not many. The Byzantine Empire had a few high-ranking Muslims in its later days, if I remember correctly.

If a realm RPed itself as allowing religious freedom, but nobles of religion X received 1/2 has large of oaths, or perhaps paid 2x as high of duchy taxes, that might be realistic. But even that is a stretch, given that most Medieval powers, even the Arab ones, had state religions. Some limited exceptions do exist in China and India at times, and I'm unclear what the religious status of nobles in Moorish Spain might be. But, by and large, religious diversity among the nobility was tightly restricted, even more than among the commoners.

Since we don't have a Catholic Church and we don't have Christendom but rather dozens of completely contradictory religions, we can't really use Medieval Europe as a particularly good model for how religion should be handled in Battlemaster.  There's no correspondence between them.

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Background / Re: What do you think is wrong?

« on: April 21, 2011, 05:54:18 AM »

Ok I am going to have to dig up Sundars RP's if they are still able to be found. Secondly Sundar never made prophecy, thirdly I complained OOC because it was ridiculous serving in a realm of roleplay telepaths, and lastly you didn't like the fact that Sundars roleplay was the only person ever to roleplay around you that didn't lick your balls, you couldn't handle it and you had issues with it instead of being a good sport and interacting with Sundar, you had a hissy fit and wouldn't do it because Sundars whole roleplay was about being a two faced, fake noble who  wanted to be king. Dude you have serious mental problems when you have to put a guy on ignore because you don't like his roleplays...get over yourself

Sadly I just checked Sundars RP's are all gone from the list, anyone else able to post them?

This is flatly untrue and grotesquely unfair.

You did an incredible amount of roleplay regarding actions that your character was doing publicly not to mention the letters which you sent to the realm and exchanged with other nobles.  These public actions and public letters indicated that your character was a grotesquely fat, lazy, gluttonous buffoon with a hard-on for fancy slippers.  What about that person was likely to win positions and influence in the realm?

Personally, I found your RP amusing and enjoyed exchanging a few messages with Sundar.  When it got /not/ cool was when you started whining OOC that you didn't get promoted because we were mind-readers about Sundar's secret plans to overthrow Jenred.  Newsflash!  That's not why!  It's because your /Roleplayed/ character was a useless buffoon.

If you had RP'd a competent noble who secretly wished for Jenred's downfall...you totally would have been promoted!  That's the kind of thing that makes for really good RP...fun character development!  Secret plots!  That's good stuff.  Instead, you wrote yourself into a corner and then you want to blame Matt /OOC/ because his /character/ doesn't think that your /character/ is a good choice for a lordship. 

This OOC attacking is /crap/ and you are just plain wrong in every regard.

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Background / Re: What do you think is wrong?

« on: April 20, 2011, 08:28:20 PM »

What I feel is what is most wrong, is the rampant disrespect, incivility, and insulting attitude among the nobility. Too many players think that the proper way to respond to something you don't agree with is to fling insults and vitriol. It has become pretty commonplace for nobles to insult their lords, question the competence of councilors, and other such blatantly disrespectful and insulting behavior.

Yes, yes, yes.  Horrible, blatant disrespect of nobles /up/ the food chain including their own lieges, Council members, even their ruler...rudeness in speech and in "action" (in RPs).

On some levels, realm leaderships have some responsibility.  Judges should fine people for egregious discourtesy in public discourse or action (and should be supported by their Ruler and the rest of the Council).  Honourable duels as a means of settling disputes shouldn't be outlawed.  Rulers should lead the way in expecting proper behaviour and modelling it.

There have definitely been time when I wished there was still some sort of "question nobility" action that I could take (even if it didn't have the same sorts of effects as the old mechanic).  There have been some people whose letters and publicly RP'd actions would absolutely lead me to doubt their nobility!

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BM General Discussion / Re: Medals what whatnot

« on: April 20, 2011, 05:28:41 PM »

There is rarely such a clear cut divide, WarMaid, when dealing with OOC clans, especially when it can encompass groups that are completely different in outlook and how they play a game.

Also, a player can be both open and fun to play with, while at the same time being part of a group outside the game.

The scary scenario was that if just one member of a wicked clan got enough medals, they'd spam them to their dastardly OOC crew who would then bounce them around between each other creating a super-medaled group of evil.

If someone is also engaged in /other/ realms and with /other/ people in the game and playing in such a way that they're earning medals from those people and realms...then I think that they are less likely to be the sort of player who makes a big effort to get their evil empire all medally.  I also think that they are less likely to be the sort of player to participate in a true "OOC Clan".

I know that there are jerks out there who will try to game every system that there is, but I just can't see the Captain of the Evil League of Evil putting in the /effort/ it would take to make other players reward him...and if he did, would he still be evil?

8

BM General Discussion / Re: Family Name Origins

« on: April 20, 2011, 05:11:21 PM »

I came up with my family name in such an unoriginal way, that I'm almost ashamed...but obviously not completely or I wouldn't be posting it here.

With my brother standing over me, making me sign up for his awesome new online game, I had to immediately come up with a family name...family made me think of "kin" and the medieval aspect had "kingdoms" running through my mind...

You can see where that went.

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BM General Discussion / Re: Medals what whatnot

« on: April 18, 2011, 09:02:27 AM »

That just makes it all the more prone to abuse, while keeping people who deserve medals left out in the dust. All it takes is one person from an OOC clique to get enough medals that they can give out medals to others from their clique. Then they begin giving it to other members of their clique until they can give out medals. It becomes a vicious cycle, fueling rather than stopping OOC cliques from giving out medals to others in their clique.

But those initial medals came from somewhere...from someone who had medals and who thought that that person was fun to play with or trustworthy...which means that they deserved them.  It would be almost impossible for some complete OOC person who only cared about their "OOC clan" and only played with them to ever get enough medals to pass them around to the clan.

You can't have it both ways...either your hypothetical person is an evil clanner or he's fun enough and open enough to get medals from people who have them already.

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BM General Discussion / Re: Dukes, Power, and Families

« on: April 13, 2011, 01:03:40 PM »

I can see how it makes sense for your characters IC, and that's all to the good...and as your realm seems to be one that has no problem with one family holding multiple positions (or individuals holding them) then I guess it's cool.

Personally, I don't really dig realms like that.   While it can be a fun to play nobles who want to hoard all the power, if you're not one of the people who have it, things can be pretty dull.  While it might be more artificial to limit the number of positions one noble or noble family can have, it seems more in keeping with the idea of sitting around playing games at a friend's house.

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BM General Discussion / Re: Visiting family home

« on: April 10, 2011, 05:50:41 AM »

Bah, that's nothing! Hang has the health of a 68 year old despite being only 43!

That can't be right. The aforementioned Hang would be only 21 years old under that system...

Hang's been around almost five years...which would be about 21 1/2 years under the 12 RL weeks = 1 BM year system.  He'd be close to your 43 year number (depending on his age to start.)  How did you get your number?

I'm always curious how other people count BM time.

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Atamara / Re: The Current War

« on: April 04, 2011, 10:43:03 AM »

Heh.  Killing the Duchess of Ash'rily after attacking a Carelian army despite claiming "neutrality" really pissed Caergoth off.  Dunno about Suville, but last I heard, Caergoth was using the word "crusade"...(grins)

Duchess of Wor'ight!  She was a legend!

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Background / Re: Human Nature

« on: March 20, 2011, 10:52:08 AM »

PART of the fourth is intended. Rights and freedoms. That bothers me some, but not tons. What DOES bother me is the highly modernized sexuality of especially women, but some male characters as well.

Another thing that bothers me:
The infrequency of marriage.

This relates to what I alluded to in the topic on Noble dress:  if you grant a society that has complete equality of men and women, you can't then just plug real life medieval mores onto it and say that's how life /should/ be.

Is it more or less likely that an equal society would have "modern" views on sex?  Consider particularly how much of historical "rules" about sex related to the concept of wives as property and being sure that some other man's baby didn't inherit.  How might those things be treated differently if (most) inheritance doesn't run through the male lines only?

A big part of the reason that I believe that the sexual mores would be more relaxed than those of medieval Christendom is that it is unlikely that BM's equal society could have developed unless there was some method of highly effective, readily available birth control.  Effective birth control may not necessarily lead to greater sexual permissiveness, but it certainly seems to have been part of that trend in the modern era.

As I said in another thread, I've seen quite a number of marriages on the FEI and been party to several.  Likely there would be more, but RPing relationships makes some people uncomfortable (or makes their partner uncomfortable!)  It would be nice to see a bit more being made of the opportunity to gain politically by marriage, though.  I don't think that people really usethe idea of allying with another house enough.

14

Background / Re: Noble clothing

« on: March 20, 2011, 08:03:52 AM »

Anybody want to show me a picture of form-fitting medieval dresses?

Some tight(er) clothing does exist for women after around 1200; but, again, nobody goes to battle in that. You don't just go chill out in it.

One essential part of womens' formal wear that BM players rarely include: the hat! Giant hats were in for a long time. Especially pointy ones.

Tight clothing was really more for men than women.

The trouble with this sort of thinking is that what makes sense for women's fashion in /actual/ history doesn't make sense for Battlemaster.  In the real Middle Ages, women (barring a few extreme exceptions) didn't lead troops into battle, have true equality with men, or hold much power in their own right (with some notable exceptions).  That means that BM women will dress and act differently than real medieval women.

Silk is definitely possible, but expensive. It is true that rulers might demand it: but even high nobles like BM nobles should not be regularly running around in silk clothing. Silk is an emperor's formal wear (unless you have a special RP for your realm that establishes you as a silk-producing region).

Why on earth would this be true? BM is /not/ medieval Europe.  There are six different continents which have regular ship traffic between them.  You don't think that there is trade or that we, as the very highest of nobles would have the best that we can get our grabby hands on?  We are Queens and Dukes and Barons (and the family members of such) for the most part and even those "mere" knights are wealthier and more important than 99% of the other inhabitants of the realm (those NPC minor nobles and peasants).

Silk was expensive in the real middle ages, but not out of reach for the elite. * We are exactly the people who would be wearing those expensive fabrics.

Note that, in my mind, if a fashion only BEGINS to appear in 1300-1400, it isn't medieval. I would define medieval as widely popular by 1300-1400 at the LATEST. None of this 1492 or 1452 nonsense. BM is pre-gunpowder, so we should be thinking pre-Hundred-Years-War in terms of mood and dress. 800-1200 is the best bet for cultural models.

I think that there is little point in trying to history-Nazi around reasonable fashion choices.  For one thing, even people who are /trying/ to get the dress right mostly fail.  (I rarely see anyone wearing hose and codpieces, for example, or talk about hats...even the /men/ wore hats or hoods regularly.  If someone is making a genuine effort to describe reasonable fashion, then I'm not going to quibble that /properly/ they should be wearing a tunic and hose, and where, by the gods are their tabards and codpieces?)  For another, real world fashion was influenced by religion in a way that just doesn't exist in Battlemaster.  There is no central Catholic church to exercise political control over morals (including what would be appropriate dress).

There is no point in imposing real-world fashion into a light-fantasy world where it would just not make sense.
____

* There was a silk industry in Italy by the 13th century (before that, Western Europe got its silk from the Byzantine Empire or from trade with the East and was more expensive).  There were quite a number of references to silk and its uses in historical sources, but one that Matt found relates to the Sumptuary Laws (laws which restricted what level of finery and decoration people could wear).  A 14th century law restricted the wearing of silk to Esquires (and rich merchants) and those above them in the social hierarchy.  That there was even the possibility that someone below that level could wear silk suggests that it was not restricted to Emperors.   http://rosaliegilbert.com/sumptuarylaws.html

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Atamara / Re: Hail Norland!

« on: March 20, 2011, 06:45:25 AM »

I don't think the purpose of this forum is to call out or bash individual players (or characters) for having annoying RP.  Just ignore it rather than driving people away from the game because they don't play the way that you want them to.

One of the things that I love most about Battlemaster is that it isn't like the rest of the internet.  Is that going to change now that we have a forum?