Best historical settings?

[SJB]

Just popping over from the “avoid bean counting thread”.

But if you are going to cross the line and bring in actual FACTS into our debate on fantasy wizard games (how dare you ), I have to point out that one of the main reasons RPGs struggle to model armour accurately is that probably the biggest determiner of armour use in history was cost.
If you have a choice of being completely covered in blade proof steel plates or basically a stiff puffer jacket, the only reason you ain't ironed up is you can't afford the purchase, maintenance and repair costs of the full plate armour.

There is certainly a reasonable amount of evidence that cost and armour protection had some relationship. For example:



However, that evidence is very patchy; snapshots rather than time series, and interpretation is difficult. For example, in this case plate was the cheapest option.

“When labour costs rose after the Black Death, then the price of mail rose accordingly. In an era of rising prices, it ceased to be an economically attractive way of making armour. Indeed, by the 15th century the cost of a mail shirt (4.59 gulden) at Iserlohn [Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia] was notably greater than the cost of plate armour (4.33 gulden).” [Williams, Knight & Blast Furnace].

Going back to the original imperial Roman example, it seems that whole units were supplied with armour. It’s the state rather than the individual making both the cost and tactical choices. The evidence is as clear as mud, however. No-one can really understand what the papyrus and epigraphic evidence means. Tacitus says in the Annals that, “military service was relentless and unprofitable; body and spirit were valued at two and a half sesterces a day, and out of this they had to pay for their clothing, weapons, and tents, and bribe vicious centurions to escape routine drudgery.” The consensus seems to be that he was exaggerating for effect and that soldiers were charged for breakages and losses. It is pretty clear that depreciation changed the system over time.

Roman soldiers made some reckless armour choices:

“Many of our men fell because they were fighting under the emperor’s eye and left off their helmets in the hope of being easily recognised and rewarded by him; this exposed them to the skill of the enemy’s archers.“ [Ammianus Marcellinus, Book 20, Siege of Bezabde, AD 360].

 

[Ravenswing]

One consideration in talking about central European "Free Cities" is that they were often extremely small: 1000 or less. It was a purchased status that bore far less relation to the size and importance of the "city" than to the size of the magnates' purses.

 

[Peter Von Danzig]

Well there were many many small ones, a fair number of 'middling' ones (5-10,00 people) and a few dozen that were fairly large by Central European standards (15-30,000), though these were still a good bit smaller than the largest towns of Italy or Flanders.

And even though that is tiny in today's world, barely qualifying as a village in many parts of the world, in say 1400 or 1500, those places were quite formidable in terms of cultural genesis (look, for example at the inventions which came out of Nuremberg or Augsburg) and in political and military terms. Especially if they were part of a confederation or a town league such as the ones I mentioned upthread.

Bern and Zurich were middling sized towns, but they certainly weren't taking any orders from any princes, even up to the Duke of Burgundy or the Holy Roman Emperor. When the princes tried to test their luck, it usually didn't go so well for them.

Larger towns like Nuremberg, Augsburg, Strasbourg, Cologne, Lübeck, Hamburg, Danzig, Breslau, Prague, Krakow, Frankfurt am Main, Riga etc. were certainly big enough to have their own foreign policies and exert significant, sometimes major influence on regional events. This also goes for even quite small towns which were part of significant leagues. For example the little towns of the Decapole or the Lusiatian League, in both cases, won a series of feuds and small wars which gradually tamed the regional robber knights and warlike minor nobility who had made the roads unsafe. That kind of thing can make for a fun adventure.

Even very small towns, such as for example the tiny community of Rottweil, which I think had roughly 500 citizens circa 1450, sometimes had substantial military 'street cred'. That was the basis of Rottweil being allowed into the Swiss Confederation eventually. Or the small community of Soest which successfully fought a war of independence of their own archbishop in the mid-15th Century. To me these are dramatic stories.

There were of course also hundreds of 'territorial towns' (mediatstadt) which could be of varying size but were usually under the thumb of some princely noble ruler, but even these were often interesting places with all kinds of intrigue, and sometimes had features like universities which made them extra dynamic. And like the Free Cities, they often had trade links to many far off lands, which entailed visiting merchants and nobles from very distant exotic regions.

So I think GMs and players can have a lot of fun with these kinds of settings. The town itself is often relatively free space, which defines it's own rules, and is frequently involved with other regional and international issues of compelling interest. Plus the towns were incubators of all kinds of new disruptive technologies - printing press, portable clock, wheel lock pistol, etc., which could have major consequences for the world.

 

[Peter Von Danzig]

The Hanseatic towns won wars against the kings of England and Denmark in the 14th-15th Centuries. The Swiss ended the valois Dynasty of Burgundy and crushed several princely Hapsburg armies. The Prussian towns, in addition to helping defeat England in the Anglo-Hanseatic War, joined forces with Poland to overthrow and face down the Teutonic Order. So not trivial in terms of military capabilities.

 

[GianniVacca]

6) But, and this is an important detail, birth rates in the towns were not as high as in the countryside, and did not usually meet replacement rates. It was usually like around 3.8 or something, with infant / child mortality taking out about half before they came of age (birth rates in the rural areas could be double this). So they had to bring in people from the countryside. Town officials also made deals with people in the rural areas. To what extent this happened varied enormously, but over time, a town in Poland became more and more Polish, a town in Hungary became more and more Magyar, at least in terms of genetics.

She does mention this factor, solved either by further immigration or by people from the countryside moving to the city and adopting its culture & language.
In one instance (the “Saxon” areas of Transylvania) the countryside itself became German-speaking.

 

[AsenRG]

She does mention this factor, solved either by further immigration or by people from the countryside moving to the city and adopting its culture & language.
In one instance (the “Saxon” areas of Transylvania) the countryside itself became German-speaking.

Yeah, those are the cases I've studied about.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I've recently read a French scholarly book about the history of Central Europe (can't remember the title...

Was it Démystifier l'Europe centrale: Bohême, Hongrie et Pologne du VIIe au XVIe siècle by Marie-Madeleine De Cevins?

 

[Peter Von Danzig]

She does mention this factor, solved either by further immigration or by people from the countryside moving to the city and adopting its culture & language.
In one instance (the “Saxon” areas of Transylvania) the countryside itself became German-speaking.

That's quite interesting, I always thought Transylvania was one of the more polarized areas with less flow between town and country, but I guess there too, people crossed these thresholds. I know at one point the Saxons were allied with the Székely people (Central Asian nomads who lived in Transylvania- that's who Louis C.K.'s real last name comes from) and kind of against the Wlach who were the poorest folks in that zone.

 

[GianniVacca]

Was it Démystifier l'Europe centrale: Bohême, Hongrie et Pologne du VIIe au XVIe siècle by Marie-Madeleine De Cevins?

Yes, that's the one! An excellent book.

 

[TimWest]

I think this kind of setting would benefit from tables to generate the content as you go rather than having everything pre-created (outside of the broad strokes of the setting and the largest well known cities, Danzig, Prague etc.).

For example, say you wan to generate city or town.

Is it a Free City

1. Yes completely autonomous: 33%
2. Free, but not completely autonomous: 33%
3. No: 33%

Majority Ethnicity / Language

1. German: 60%
2. Estonian: 20%
3. Polish: 20%

Major Source of Income:

1. Trade
2. Artisans and Crafting
3. etc.

Alliances

1. No alliances: 20%
2. Part of the Hanse League: 20%
3. etc.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I think this kind of setting would benefit from tables to generate the content as you go rather than having everything pre-created (outside of the broad strokes of the setting and the largest well known cities, Danzig, Prague etc.).

For example, say you wan to generate city or town.

Is it a Free City

1. Yes completely autonomous: 33%
2. Free, but not completely autonomous: 33%
3. No: 33% ….

By odd coincidence, I was looking at Volker Bach’s Philos Basilikos, a short GURPS supplement for the Hellenistic era that suggests a broadly similar approach—choose a location and generate your own version within some general guidelines—though without the random tables. For a lot of towns in that era we know very little anyway.

 

[AsenRG]

I think this kind of setting would benefit from tables to generate the content as you go rather than having everything pre-created (outside of the broad strokes of the setting and the largest well known cities, Danzig, Prague etc.).

For example, say you wan to generate city or town.

Is it a Free City

1. Yes completely autonomous: 33%
2. Free, but not completely autonomous: 33%
3. No: 33%

Majority Ethnicity / Language

1. German: 60%
2. Estonian: 20%
3. Polish: 20%

Major Source of Income:

1. Trade
2. Artisans and Crafting
3. etc.

Alliances

1. No alliances: 20%
2. Part of the Hanse League: 20%
3. etc.

By odd coincidence, I was looking at Volker Bach’s Philos Basilikos, a short GURPS supplement for the Hellenistic era that suggests a broadly similar approach—choose a location and generate your own version within some general guidelines—though without the random tables. For a lot of towns in that era we know very little anyway.

I just wanted to say that I love that idea!

 

[dragoner]

Mythic Constantinople is great for this too. I did 1450 for my Caverns of Cyrene (Thracia) game.


Sung to the tune of London is Burning