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Aight, thanks! You guys are allright 
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Aug 30, 2017 08:15
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You may also want to consider relying on contemporary (to your time) fiction - Beowulf, assorted sagas, if you're just looking for general setting guidance.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:16
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Yeah if I was a player in your games I'd personally consider it more important that you hit the feeling of Beowulf or the Eddas than that you properly document the metallurgy technology of the period
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Aug 30, 2017 08:17
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I assume you already know this but you'll also want to read the Viking sagas. Those are written many centuries after the period in question, but modern archaeology/scholarship supports the idea that they are largely based on real events and contain useful historical information.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:17
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Grand Fromage posted:I assume you already know this but you'll also want to read the Viking sagas. Those are written many centuries after the period in question, but modern archaeology/scholarship supports the idea that they are largely based on real events and contain useful historical information. Such as: the Vikings loving loved lawsuits and complicated legal proceedings.
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Aug 30, 2017 08:22
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Keep in mind that Scandinavian history was effectively a verbal tradition until, well, more or less until they started invading Britain. Add to that the retreat of Roman influence (and with it, Roman writings) from the area, and you've got a bit of a tricky slot in time where we have a general feel for the artistic culture but very little in the way of writings from first-hand sources. You're going to probably end up splitting the difference between Roman sources and English ones where the Norse sagas don't provide enough info. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 08:25
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The Lone Badger posted:Such as: the Vikings loving loved lawsuits and complicated legal proceedings. I intend to lift the Haunted House: Ghost Lawsuit case from KoDP, for good measure!
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Aug 30, 2017 09:16
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cheetah7071 posted:There's definitely some weird technologies that you think are prehistoric but are actually invented in the bronze or iron ages. Like, depending when your story is set, the saddle might not have been invented yet, so you'd either ride horses bareback or use a chariot. I think the plow is also something that may not exist yet? Depending on what part of the Bronze age, there may not even be horsies. Sumerians used carts pulled by donkeys. No riding for them. Another thing to mention, some cities had sophisticated sewer systems. Most didn't.
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Aug 30, 2017 10:20
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Oh yeah that's one thing to get down, the bronze age was highly urbanized and had long-range, complex trade and movement. After the collapse things didn't get anywhere near as urban again until the height of the Roman Empire. So giant cities full of ziggurats would be a great contrast to the fantasy village type of thing.
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Aug 30, 2017 10:29
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One thing that adds a great level of scarcity to any primitive-setting RPG is to make metal weapons hard to acquire, and then add another tier of scarcity to swords specifically, and again for armour.
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Aug 30, 2017 13:57
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FAUXTON posted:
Hammurabi: The First Mod. If you're ever reading a rules thread and find one that makes you go "what the gently caress. . .?" know that somewhere in the past an exasperated mod wanted to stop having to adjudicate fights about something really stupid. edit: unfortunately mods aren't allowed to drown bad posters in the Euphrates. . . . yet.
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Aug 30, 2017 14:07
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Tias posted:I intend to lift the Haunted House: Ghost Lawsuit case from KoDP, for good measure! To be more specific, what kind of stuff were you looking to disprove exactly? We talk about everything under the sun here, might as well dive into this cause it might bring up some interesting topics. Like for example, you stated they were "just hammering out swords out of iron" which would be pretty untrue for the period. Iron swords in the Celtic and Germanic regions start showing up in like 500BC or so (I'm going off memory here)The Celts and Germans had steel swords by ~100BC, and obviously the Romans did, who the Scandinavians at least traded with occasionally once the Empire is going full steam. So while maybe northern villages themselves could not make them in 100BC, there were definitely steel swords circulating that the nobles would have (and would work as your +2 sword for instance.)
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Aug 30, 2017 14:23
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I remember having to read Njal's saga in college, which is an Icelandic story from ca. 1000 AD. There are a couple other eddas from the period, as well. Iceland is still Norse, anyway, and may give you some insights.
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Aug 30, 2017 14:28
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CommonShore posted:One thing that adds a great level of scarcity to any primitive-setting RPG is to make metal weapons hard to acquire, and then add another tier of scarcity to swords specifically, and again for armour. We don't know much about him, but Otzi had a really high-quality metal axe, and whoever killed him just left it there. So either they forgot to loot the body, or they already had a +2 axe and their pack was full.
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Aug 30, 2017 14:31
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sullat posted:We don't know much about him, but Otzi had a really high-quality metal axe, and whoever killed him just left it there. So either they forgot to loot the body, or they already had a +2 axe and their pack was full. given how he died I'm not sure a ranged specialist class would have had much interest in a high end melee weapon.
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Aug 30, 2017 15:06
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Tias posted:On the subject, kinda: Why are you reinventing Glorantha?
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Aug 30, 2017 15:08
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Sounds more like you want the Migration period? Climate shifts would be a decent impetus for adventurimg.
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Aug 30, 2017 15:36
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I still think he should aim for grand theft albion, start off as a nobody hopping off the boat at not-lindisfarne, camp on the beach, run raids against nearby farms, risking the fyrd getting raised if you stay too long or do too much damage, with non-violent options being available to accept bribes from towns and gain their fealty but at the expense of combat readiness because the fyrd might show up whenever, etc. It's a couple centuries after that iron age part but it's probably a lot easier to hit the historical accuracy due to actual contemporaneous written sources and first hand observations. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 15:43
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FAUXTON posted:I still think he should aim for grand theft albion, start off as a nobody hopping off the boat at not-lindisfarne, camp on the beach, run raids against nearby farms, risking the fyrd getting raised if you stay too long or do too much damage, with non-violent options being available to accept bribes from towns and gain their fealty but at the expense of combat readiness because the fyrd might show up whenever, etc. So basically a TT version of Expeditions: Vikings.
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Aug 30, 2017 16:26
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I know this was a last page argument, but what I got from that law about paying for beer is that it was prohibiting tavern-keepers from offering a discount if you paid with "money". Just like how gas stations sometimes offer cheaper gas for people who pay in cash instead of with a credit card.
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Aug 30, 2017 16:58
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FishFood posted:So I finally decided to start writing again, and I'm looking for some source material for my dumb lady-conan fantasy bronze age epic. Finding books, documentaries, lectures, etc on bronze age kings and war and elite poo poo is easy enough, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good books on everyday life and society in the late bronze age Mediterranean/middle east. I know that's a broad category, but even something like a paper on the evolution of the shekel as a weight/money would be useful. I'm looking to answer questions like did anything like inns/restaurants/taverns exist? What was currency like before the invention of coinage? Is there any information on the day-to-day function of the palaces? In return, I started a post a long time ago on Hellenistic Navies that I thought was pretty cool. This book might help you, though I haven't read it myself and don't know whether or not it will answer your specific questions.
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Aug 30, 2017 17:00
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I know this was a last page argument, but what I got from that law about paying for beer is that it was prohibiting tavern-keepers from offering a discount if you paid with "money". Just like how gas stations sometimes offer cheaper gas for people who pay in cash instead of with a credit card.
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Aug 30, 2017 18:46
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HEY GAIL posted:Since beer is made out of grain i wonder if the law was referencing some sort of attempt to undercut the grain sellers, like she would be accepting the corn under the table Its goal might be anti-discrimination. Those paying in "cash" would generally be the upper class, while those paying in barter would be peasants. Charging more to those who can least afford it tends to keep them out of your place of business.
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Aug 30, 2017 18:53
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sullat posted:Depending on what part of the Bronze age, there may not even be horsies. Sumerians used carts pulled by donkeys. No riding for them. Even when they got horses, they weren't really ridden on until the iron age. I think it's kinda controversial or there's no consensus yet, but as I recall the Scythians are thought to have been the first group to do it without chariots, well into the first millennium BC. Grand Fromage posted:I would say that in broad strokes, life for your average peasant did not change that much until the modern era. There are important differences like money not existing and the evolution of technology, but if you read accounts of peasant life in more documented eras a lot of it is generally applicable even back in the bronze age. I dunno, I think this is too reductionist. Textile technology, wheelbarrows, better draft technology and animals, these things were transformative. And then if you look at different regions like East Asia, bronze did comparatively poo poo all for peasantry in general; they kept having to use bone, stone and wooden tools right through to the iron age, which meant no irrigation or canal works except in places with limitless manpower like the Central Plains of China. Yields also increased probably by several orders of magnitude which had a hell of an impact on life expectancy. Plus over time as mankind transformed the landscapes, things like attacks from wild animals became much less of a fact of life. I guess in the broadest strokes of "working on a field all day" things didn't change much, but in terms of actual quality of life as a peasant things changed a heck of a lot.
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Aug 30, 2017 21:57
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Deteriorata posted:Its goal might be anti-discrimination. Those paying in "cash" would generally be the upper class, while those paying in barter would be peasants. Charging more to those who can least afford it tends to keep them out of your place of business. Depends. Do we know if "money" in this context is actual silver, or silver-denominated credit? I'd guess it might be about maintaining the silver to grain exchange rate.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:18
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Mr Enderby posted:Depends. Do we know if "money" in this context is actual silver, or silver-denominated credit? Hammurabian LIBOR. I like it.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:20
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I've also read that "working on a field all day" is something that's less universal than you'd think. A small farmer who owns their own land will have considerably more rest days than a serf, slave, or renter working somebody else's land. It was a major shift in the mid to late middle ages when big landowners became powerful enough to compel peasants to spend their rest days working their lord's fields. I was about to say something about China inventing a plow that was an order of magnitude more efficient than European plows and it not making the transition westwards for centuries here but a quick google can't find anything corroborating that story other than pro-Chinese propaganda pages so I dunno
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Aug 30, 2017 22:25
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the Chinese plow thing is mentioned in 1491, might be where you got it from. i was also a bit skeptical when i read that though, he says a few other things that are kinda iffy.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:32
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cheetah7071 posted:I've also read that "working on a field all day" is something that's less universal than you'd think. A small farmer who owns their own land will have considerably more rest days than a serf, slave, or renter working somebody else's land. It was a major shift in the mid to late middle ages when big landowners became powerful enough to compel peasants to spend their rest days working their lord's fields. Well, there's often a lot of time of the year in any period of farming where you don't need to do all that much out in the field. It's not that you're doing nothing at all, but that the chores you have to keep up with aren't that much for long stretches of the year. Of course the times of year where you did need to be out in the field all the time would be quite grueling.
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Aug 30, 2017 22:39
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Didn't they also have to develop horses big enough to ride before a saddle would be practical?
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Aug 30, 2017 22:41
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I know this was a last page argument, but what I got from that law about paying for beer is that it was prohibiting tavern-keepers from offering a discount if you paid with "money". Just like how gas stations sometimes offer cheaper gas for people who pay in cash instead of with a credit card. HEY GAIL posted:Since beer is made out of grain i wonder if the law was referencing some sort of attempt to undercut the grain sellers, like she would be accepting the corn under the table Deteriorata posted:Its goal might be anti-discrimination. Those paying in "cash" would generally be the upper class, while those paying in barter would be peasants. Charging more to those who can least afford it tends to keep them out of your place of business. Mr Enderby posted:Depends. Do we know if "money" in this context is actual silver, or silver-denominated credit? I'm still on the "maintaining a stable rate of exchange" wagon, pegged to beer so nobody can go around abusing the metal-grain-beer exchange arbitrage.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:37
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You might want to check out Icelandic folklore, too. They have pretty neat legends with elves, trolls, giants, serpents, etc. Side request: anybody know a good place to find information on Scythians? Specifically Tomyris and her war with Cyrus. I have The Histories by Herodotus, but I'm looking for more scholarly references.
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Aug 31, 2017 01:01
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What's being referred to as 'corn' here, by the way?
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Aug 31, 2017 11:24
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Interesting question. I'd assume either it's corn because the original term refers to any of the available cereal crops (wheat and barley were the main Sumerian ones) or because the original term doesn't make a distinction so the old German dude couldn't say for sure.
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Aug 31, 2017 11:36
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mossyfisk posted:What's being referred to as 'corn' here, by the way? nevermind. E: I didn't parse the question or GF's post properly Fo3 fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Aug 31, 2017 |
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Aug 31, 2017 11:50
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Grand Fromage posted:Interesting question. I'd assume either it's corn because the original term refers to any of the available cereal crops (wheat and barley were the main Sumerian ones) or because the original term doesn't make a distinction so the old German dude couldn't say for sure. The word used for "corn" here (something like se'im, plus or minus your transliteration) is translated as "grain" in the 1904 Robert Francis Harper translation.
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Aug 31, 2017 16:27
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ulmont posted:The word used for "corn" here (something like se'im, plus or minus your transliteration) is translated as "grain" in the 1904 Robert Francis Harper translation. Sounds like it's just nonspecific then.
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Aug 31, 2017 16:30
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Grand Fromage posted:Sounds like it's just nonspecific then. Yeah, "corn" just means the actual seeds of the grain. Barley corns, wheat corns, rye corns, etc.
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Aug 31, 2017 17:01
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Was it in this thread a while back where someone came in raging about conspiracy theories because their copy of the Gallic Wars had Caesar talking about securing his supplies of corn (i.e. whatever kind of cereal provisions) and they were convinced it was evidence of transatlantic trade with Mesoamerica
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Aug 31, 2017 18:28
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This is why my favorite SA username is 'corn in the Bible'.
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Aug 31, 2017 18:35
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