Author Topic: Noble or not so noble...  (Read 2565 times)

Eldargard

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Noble or not so noble...
« Topic Start: January 24, 2013, 05:59:18 PM »
Bars and such. I keep running into options within the game for my noble character to partake in what I consider to be rather inappropriate behavior. I can not imagine a noble "Buy(ing) drinks - invite everyone to a local inn (will cost 3 gold)." Or Trawling bars with his men, or any other such behavior. I like the options and the ideas behind them but feel the flavor text should be different.

For example, "Buy drinks - invite everyone to a local inn (will cost 3 gold)" could become "Hold a feast - invite your fellow nobles to a pleasant knight of eating, drinking, discourse and entertainment."

As far as the entertainment options go, I am sure some creative thinking could come to play here. I was thinking of limiting the options to a simple "Give your men a few coins and let them lose" that is very generic and low powered option. Then, upon gaining a captain you have additional options, like today. the difference being is that the noble tells the captain to have take the men out to "Do X". In reality, I can not imagine many nobles being as involved as they are in with their troops. None of my characters would go whoring with their en, or even bar hopping. It seems more likely that the noble would not really care what his troops did for entertainment as long as they stayed out of trouble.

In short I would prefer to see most of these "Get chummy and the local bar/inn" get replaced with things like feasts, balls, courts, or the like.

Anaris

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #1: January 24, 2013, 06:01:48 PM »
My understanding is that it's not so much that nobles never ever went to inns and bars. It's just that they had inns and bars that catered exclusively to nobles.

So when you've got a tournament going, all the riffraff are cleared out and inns in a large sections of the town near the tournament grounds are reserved for the nobility.
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Eldargard

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #2: January 24, 2013, 06:06:03 PM »
I can see that. I really do not have enough period knowledge to say. It is certainly not to my taste.

Dante Silverfire

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #3: January 24, 2013, 06:37:46 PM »
I've always wondered about this as well.

For instance, how accurate is a book like Game of Thrones with regards towards feudal society and interactions between lords and non-lords? There are multiple instances of nobles at bars and inns.
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Kwanstein

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #4: January 27, 2013, 01:37:53 AM »
I don't think nobles would have had need of bars. They have their own estates to drink in, with their own wine cellars, and if they're travelling they could stay at a friend or relatives place if they wanted to get drunk.

Dishman

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #5: January 27, 2013, 01:49:21 AM »
For instance, how accurate is a book like Game of Thrones with regards towards feudal society and interactions between lords and non-lords? There are multiple instances of nobles at bars and inns.

From my understanding, the different castes stayed segregated as much as they could. A better analogy would be the first book in the Mistborn series, with nobles having constant parties/balls at one another's estates.
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Bedwyr

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Re: Noble or not so noble...
« Reply #6: January 27, 2013, 04:42:37 AM »
Which nobles where and when?  The Niederadel of the Germanies might just have a few more pigs than their neighbors, and would certainly be in bars and inns alongside said neighbors, although loudly holding forth about their demands to be treated better would be expected.  A Hochadel probably wouldn't be caught dead in anything except an establishment that catered specifically to their kind...Unless there was a war on, or they had been dispossessed, or they were trying to keep out of the eyes of those they owed money to, or had an eye for that miller's daughter that worked on their father's land, etc.

As a wit once put it, English was the language developed by Norman knights trying to seduce Saxon barmaids.  Being a "knight" meant vastly different things in different times and places.

That said, our characters (by sheer population numbers) have to be the highest of high nobility.  I can't imagine the top .1% slumming in bars.  But, we also call our characters mere "nobles" and "knights"...Which certainly could have.
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