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Ummm....I disagree with the the original supposition that the idea that those of noble birth are inherently "foppish, spoiled, or lazy". There are tropes of characters who exist to embody that, but I don't think that means that all nobles are that way (and I doubt others do) and I rebuke the stance that it is a "pervading" idea.
However, you provide some useful information that people may not be aware of it.
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Interesting read, well-argued. Not big news, but then I'm from Europe :P
I think there's an aspect not mentioned though, that was maybe somewhat wishful thinking IRL, but in fantasy could be totally true: bloodline.
The idea that the nobility descends from gods or ancient heroes or suchlike is extremely common; and likewise the idea that this inheritance makes them better and stronger. In a fantasy world, that could totally be true.
Why doesn't everyone at the table play a lord or lady?
or at the very least a dame or a knight?
there's nothing wrong with a bit of elevated status, especially if you are going to interact with the locals a lot and/or the PCs are very different from the commoners (meaning PCs classes are rarer)
Whats the difference between a fighter and a warrior , noble birth access to better trainers/mentoriship, divine descendent, and/or chosen status.
a sorcerer witht he destined bloodline could easily be a noble; and so on.
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In a game where players saved a dying world and got to shape its future, my Fey Queen arranged marriages between heroes of the apocalypse and highborn fey as a reward for their success and future triumphs in rebuilding life on a bleak world. By doing so, she ensured that feybloods (and other related bloodlines like shadow, verdant, etc.) would be seen as of higher standing than the common folk, even when born to commoners.
Plenty of room was made for some good old fashioned fairy tale stuff, where some farmer and his wife will have a feyblood child who grows up to usurp the mundane king (who must obviously be illegitimate).
What fun!
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The problem with nobility (or any kind of elite really) in the real world is not its existence.
The true issue arises when this elite closes its doors to those who have all the necessary skills to become a part of it, just because they did not access it through the "proper ways" (birth, education, initiation).
This creates cause for people who have the exact same skills as those so valued by the elite to become bitter at the system and create their own center of power outside it, and likely with a view to get rid of the old inefficient system.
Obviously, this becomes reinforced when the elite promotes those who came through the proper channels mentioned above, even when they do NOT have the skills that were once synonymous with said elite.
I think things would happen pretty much the same in a fantasy setting.
BTW, an interesting parallel in the game are feats : when you do not have the prerequisites for the feat anymore, you do not benefit from its benefits.
A stodgy elite is like a feat where you would be able to benefit from it even after you lose the prerequisites. An open road to munchkinism of the highest order.
Back to the issue of nobles in games, it always struck me as very unrealistic that so many leaders of society in fantasy settings (especially nobles) have so many levels/ranks/whatever. The game rules have all PCs earning these the very hard way (and with already incredible speed), while the settings seem to uphold the rule that levels are granted with social station.
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Ah, but by spending feats and traits to "be Noble", you are now worse than the guy who just trained hard.
It's like training, to be borne Noble.
Also, you are always an "impoverished noble", or "fallen noble".
You are never just a Noble.
There is always a catch.
So, instead of being a prince, you are "falsely accused", or "you renounced", or some other nonsense.
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Ah, but by spending feats and traits to "be Noble", you are now worse than the guy who just trained hard.
In a feudal society, nobles are the only people who get to train hard at skills that would be useful in combat. The first son of the lord takes levels in Aristocrat, to prepare for when he will inherit his father's lands. The second son becomes a Fighter or Cavalier - his family will pay for him to become a Colonel or similar high-ranking officer. The third son will probably go into the church and become a Cleric. Any leftover sons can do as they please, perhaps becoming Wizards or Alchemists.
Everyone else is an apprentice field-hand, chimney-sweep, soap-maker, dung-gatherer...
Golarion has a bit more social mobility than that, and a larger middle class.
One of the problems with the feats and traits systems in PF is that they conflate background and training, in an effort to balance player choices. It doesn't take any effort to be born into nobility, and those born into nobility should objectively have more opportunities for martial training, education and arcane knowledge and so on. Not less.
But the game wants us to start with relatively balanced choices as PCs, so we get all kinds of less than logical trade-offs that need to be made. If player A started play as first son of a baron, with superior armor, weapons, gear, retainers and access to wads of cash, while player B began the game with a loincloth and a wooden spoon, we'd have a bit of a gulf in the balance department.
Some games start everyone as nobility: Pendragon, for example. Ars Magica started everyone as a wizard. Chivalry and Sorcery had random birth tables, and your starting resources were directly related to your social class. Pathfinder gives us a huge variety of choices, many of which are less than fully logical, and require hard choices to be made.
Back in the 70s, we wrote up tables for randomly determining starting race and starting birth in D&D. It worked, after a fashion, but I think I prefer the current Pathfinder system which abstracts all of that into irrelevancy - or into the realm of roleplaying. Which works for me.
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There's this pervading idea that any character of noble birth is inherently foppish, spoiled, and lazy. Why do we do this? For centuries (if not longer) our greatest heroes and villains have come from the ranks of the nobility. This week's Improved Initiative update provides a little background, a few ideas, and links to some resources for those who want to try giving their own member of the gentry a test drive.
Well, you see there is this problem that happened that made Nobles into "foppish, spoiled and lazy" people. It was called FIREARMS.
Knights were no longer required to actually fight anyone since all of the nobles, knights were nobles, had armies of people with guns to do it for them. Sure, they were there as commanders but the knowledge that a bullet from 200 yards away is lethal kept them out of the fight itself.Nobles were also highly educated. They learned to aspire to great and fantastic things. Sure, there were yeomen who likely learned quite a bit on what they focused in, but the top-dogs were the Nobles.
Heroes and Villains are typically Nobles in Medieval literature as well as into the Gothic because they were the people who understood the stakes and had the most to lose. The best villains just so happen to be the people who truly believe that what they are doing is actually the best thing that could happen, maybe it is, but the methods are so objectionable that only those who are educated or smart enough to understand the why will not stand against it and even then they might just resist it on principle.
Ah, but by spending feats and traits to "be Noble", you are now worse than the guy who just trained hard.
It's like training, to be borne Noble.
Also, you are always an "impoverished noble", or "fallen noble".
You are never just a Noble.
There is always a catch.
So, instead of being a prince, you are "falsely accused", or "you renounced", or some other nonsense.
There's also the whole "adventuring away from my access to power and money" idea, but that's also contrived.
But that is the problem with a concept that implies lots of power and money, but playing at a level where that's inappropriate (1st level).
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In one campaign, my brother had wanted to switch characters, and so we got to a point where it fit the story for his current character to follow less adventurous activities (in charge of setting up a church), and he brought in a new character.
The new character was a noble, and as he was coming in at ~10th level or so (can't remember, it's been a while), he was decked out pretty good compared to the average person, but was in line with the current adventuring party.
Nobles would probably make great "mid-game replacement characters" for exactly that reason.
How to mechanically represent to value of noble wealth leading to training and mechanical advantages?
Use the training/retraining rules from Ultimate campaign. Without training you just gain levels in NPC classes, with training you gain levels in player classes. Training is also costs quite a bit of money. The cost to go from a level 1 NPC class character to a player class in 30 Gold. This monetary concern makes for a near insurmountable barrier for those that are not Nobles to overcome. When, as a GM, you start presenting the majority of Nobility as a having player classes, your players will notice the advantage nobility offers.
Now I'm not recommending that you force players to buy levels in player classes, so much as showing how a mechanical system applied to the setting can shape the world to achieve desired results.
Personally, I hate how much personal prowess is tied to wealth in Pathfinder specifically because it cuts off interesting character concepts that should have access to wealth.
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The wealth issue is something you need to talk around a bit at low level. Why do you start with the same resources as non-noble PCs? It needs a bit of lampshading, but it's not a showstopper. Some of the following might be the case;
* You're on a quest to prove yourself to the family, to prove that by now you're skilled enough that you can succeed without relying on them.
* You're from impoverished nobility. There's quite a bit of that actually.
* You used to have ancestral lands and wealth but lost them in a war. So now you're adventuring and eventually you'll kick out the usurpers and reclaim your birthright.
* You're the fifth son and you don't get all the perks that the primary heir gets.
* You're incognito because you're madly in love with the daughter of a rival family and want to win her affections.
So after a few levels, why doesn't your family welcome you back and shower you with wealth inappropriate to your level? Well, maybe they do, but you have a noble lifestyle to maintain as well, and that costs a lot of money. So you quietly agree with the GM that you get "show wealth" that you spend on feasts and fashion and entertainment and charity to the poor and all, but not magic items or other classic WBL investments. So game balance-wise you're on par with the other PCs, despite theoretically having more wealth.
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In the Chaosium game Stormbringer the players rolled randomly for class, with modifiers for nationality. The chance of being a warrior was about 20%, the chance of being a noble was 5%, and the chance of being a farmer was also 5%.
There was a note: if the percentages reflected a medieval reality, then the chance of being a noble was far less than 1% and the chance of being a farmer around 99%. This historical accuracy would make for a poor game.
'What are you?'
'Farmer'.
What gear do you have?'
'Hoe'.
'...I only asked!'
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In my current campaign I am playing a noble. She started out at level 3 and is not impoverished nobility nor disowned or for some other reason cut off from her wealth. The reason she isn't totally decked out above the other players is more because of her personality then anything else; she is supremely arrogant, and wants to rely on her own skill and power. In addition, her family spends the vast bulk of it's wealth on rather illicit extra-planar activities and as a result they simply have more important things to spend their money on then one of their own who happens to be foolish enough to go adventuring.
Personality-wise, she's a cunning, ruthless, selfish, arrogant, reckless, spoiled, greedy, narcissistic, hedonistic, sadistic, bloodthirsty brat who sees herself as above most others. She also travels with a slave who acts as her butler, attendant, chef and punching bag, who is NPCed by the DM. Combat-wise, she, along with the party's Paladin, is probably one of the most dangerous characters in a fight.(She is a dex-based magus and the party's -only- arcane caster) It's been a fun experience thus far, and the party seems to enjoy her. However, we have a crazy party, including a 7 cha archery ranger who is played out as being creepy and stalker-ish to hilarious degrees and a channeling cleric who's signature spell is enhance water. So we're a pretty crazy bunch.
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There is a film starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery, which purports to be about King Arthur.
In those days, noble boys trained from the age of eight to be knights. They could train full-time, since they didn't have to scratch a living from the soil, and were trained by the best warriors available.
Up comes Gere who, at around 25-30 years old, decides to pick up a sword and train himself, by attacking trees in a five minute montage, after which he is the best swordsman in the world!
I think we can use the training rules to simulate this. Take a level 1 commoner, take one day, expend no gold pieces at all, and emerge as a 20th level fighter.
I'll have a word with my DM tomorrow.
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I think much of it has to do with people mixing their aristocracy with their nobility. (The line between them is blurry - but for my purposes - the nobility shifted to the aristocracy approx the time that the middle ages shifted to the renaissance.)
Historically - nobles were as much a warrior class as a ruling class.
The aristocracy were the leftovers of nobility after gunpowder etc made a warrior class antiquated and armies were generally better off with a bunch of peasants with guns.
The aristocracy had the ruling power & wealth, but they had few of the old responsibilities left from the days of the warrior class. Most stereotypes of foppish gentlemen originate more in the age of aristocracy.
There's this pervading idea that any character of noble birth is inherently foppish, spoiled, and lazy. Why do we do this? For centuries (if not longer) our greatest heroes and villains have come from the ranks of the nobility. This week's Improved Initiative update provides a little background, a few ideas, and links to some resources for those who want to try giving their own member of the gentry a test drive.
Respect means shooting them with poisoned arrows from cover, right?
The post is a good point, I agree, and they are unthinkingly derided in many forms of media. They had some serious problems though, and were dicks on an immense scale. Some of them also got very good in certain areas, like command and fighting, and this should be acknowledged. Certain societies have a far less problematic arrangement with the nobility, and valorise them far more than they criticise them - but the French revolution and propaganda against nobles is still with the West in its cultural baggage. Cheers.
P.S: very good points on tutors and the potential therein, and as a tutor I often think that what so many parents want for their children, is not a flawed common typical education - they want their children to be the elite, they want an older form of education reserved for nobility. That I find quite amusing (and it is very undemocratic, but so many schools fail to actually teach students, tutors fail far more rarely with the 1 on 1 tutor to student ratio).
In the Chaosium game Stormbringer the players rolled randomly for class, with modifiers for nationality. The chance of being a warrior was about 20%, the chance of being a noble was 5%, and the chance of being a farmer was also 5%.
There was a note: if the percentages reflected a medieval reality, then the chance of being a noble was far less than 1% and the chance of being a farmer around 99%. This historical accuracy would make for a poor game.
'What are you?'
'Farmer'.
What gear do you have?'
'Hoe'.
'...I only asked!'
One game I started everyone as frontier peasants (a bit different to agriculturalists orbiting a city). Peasants with dreams, but peasants nonetheless. It was good fun, they had to survive the winter and deal with emerging threats. Eventually they became adventurers and did great things.
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My hope was that people would read it and think to themselves "hey, I've never tried playing a duke with fighter levels or a viscount who's also a magus. I should try that!"
My friend played a viscount magus. Well, he ended the campaign as a viscount (promoted from baronet) and ended up becoming a count by marriage in the epilogue. A ladder-climber, obviously, and a bit of a schemer. We started at level 5 so wealth wasn't an issue, and all the PCs had some connections so the viscount just accounted for the high-society piece of that.
Another friend played a Cavalier who was lord of a small estate (on holiday). Very courteous; his only flaw was being occasionally over-formal. His fine mount and armour accounted for the portion of his wealth that wasn't in his land.
Before that we had a runaway prince incognito. Squeamish about violence but otherwise perfectly capable of pulling his weight. Had a fun session when the rest of the party found out about his rank - his parents had caught up with him and we had to help him escape again.
And then two of us played noblewomen in the same campaign. Mine was an arrogant sorceress, the other a naive cleric. The premise was that we were shipwrecked in the first session, so again wealth and connections weren't a balance issue - though my sorceress of course insisted that she was still better than the commoner party members. Her sense of entitlement probably came the closest I've seen to a spoiled, lazy, foppish noble but still she was nothing to laugh at. The cleric did seem like someone to laugh at sometimes - until she bashed the BBEG into submission with a dire flail and drowned him in his own swimming pool.
i have no problems with Nobles, as long as they don't use it as an excuse to start off with too much money
Like being of House Jeggare ?
Feat: Noble Scion (Jeggare) +200Gp, additional 10,000 at 10th level.
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Like being of House Jeggare ?
Feat: Noble Scion (Jeggare) +200Gp, additional 10,000 at 10th level.
if you want to spend resources to start with additional money to buy better gear, i don't have a problem with that
it is when you try to get quintuple the wealth you should have for your level off the bat without spending any character specific resources, that it becomes an issue
Yeah, that is just cheating.
Yeah, that is just cheating.
truesies. a level 1 character should not be a massive leader of any organization really, level 1 is basically apprentice, or recent fresh graduate level. not that you can't have higher level people who still considers themselves squires or apprentices
Game worlds that equate Middle Ages nobility into a fantasy game would best be served by saying only nobles could have most adventuring classes. Only nobles could be fighters, paladins, cavaliers, samurai, wizards, sorcerers, summoners, or alchemists. If nobles were the only class allowed martial training above the NPC warrior class, it would certainly make sense that arcane casters would be highly restricted to nobility classes as well.
If only nobles could have plate armor, lance, and armored horse in the Middle Ages - what greater restrictions would there be for magical training?
All other classes could be for common born or nobles alike.
Most fantasy game worlds provide escapism, and thus equal opportunity to become such classes. Since a commoner or a noble could have equal chance of becoming a Paladin, it would usually be an "unfair" advantage if one PC had a noble title while the rest of the group wasn't as upwardly mobile. It's like Star Wars roleplaying - it works best if either the whole group plays Jedi, or no one in the group are Jedi. The same can be said of nobility in a Fantasy game.
Game worlds that equate Middle Ages nobility into a fantasy game would best be served by saying only nobles could have most adventuring classes. Only nobles could be fighters, paladins, cavaliers, samurai, wizards, sorcerers, summoners, or alchemists. If nobles were the only class allowed martial training above the NPC warrior class, it would certainly make sense that arcane casters would be highly restricted to nobility classes as well.
Except sorcerers cast from magic within their blood, so pretty much anyone could be a sorcerer.
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the key is to not restrict things based on social status, but saying nobles normally spend their skill points differently than commoners. a noble would naturally have more need for things like diplomacy, sense motive and history because they have to both identify and confirm their own heritage to gain any social benefit
not that all nobles are diplomancers, but a noble fighter is less likely to have time to develop the strength a farmhand does, because they are busy learning the history of their lineage, how to identify slander from enemy noble families and how to persuade the nobles in the court.
an older noble character with more time to train things is just a higher level nobleman and you can technically have a noble scion that shirks their education and focuses more on an adventuring profession for their dungeon hobby, but those nobles in question, have to worry about the social ramifications of shirking their duty for what amounts to "childlish dallying" and well, a great many 20 Strength 7 int 7 cha fighters who claim to be nobility, usually don't have the skills to back their claims and are shirkers.
Nobility gives you perks, but it also exposes you to risks
It is a good point, and I see where you are going with it. The problem is when you stop seeing it in the viewpoint of a character, and see it in the perspective of a team.
As a lone character, you have perks (wealth, entitlement in your home realm). This can be counterbalanced if you are on the run by political enemies.
As a group you have one PC that has access to wealth and entitlement if they are in a certain location. Cool if that PC is the generous sort, yet the group is now at the whim of a single player. As for the risks, your group now can be attacked by opponents of a single PC. Those opponents would not have attacked the group if that certain PC was not there to begin with, a trouble magnet if you will.
Metagame-wise, if the campaign soon becomes the political intrigues of one PC, the group may feel cheated of the limelight as it becomes less about the group and more about one PC in the group.
This reinforces that in a group, either all should be nobility or none should.
I'm not saying "no nobles", just that it is best to make sure every player feels they potentially can contribute equally. Jade Regent did this by making the noble an NPC, and the rest of the PCs gain some equal stake in the affairs of the campaign.
Game worlds that equate Middle Ages nobility into a fantasy game would best be served by saying only nobles could have most adventuring classes. Only nobles could be fighters, paladins, cavaliers, samurai, wizards, sorcerers, summoners, or alchemists. If nobles were the only class allowed martial training above the NPC warrior class, it would certainly make sense that arcane casters would be highly restricted to nobility classes as well.Except sorcerers cast from magic within their blood, so pretty much anyone could be a sorcerer.
or Summoners, because anyone could form a bond with an Eidolon
or Witches, because anyone could make a deal with a patron
or Bards, because anyone with natural confidence and training in how to project themselves can learn the magic of a bard. which can be done by spending a long period talking to people
or Bloodragers. because they are enhanced by the magic in their blood
i guess that leaves Magi, Arcanists and Wizards as the 3 spellcasting classes that require highly specific and highly specialized training
Except sorcerers cast from magic within their blood, so pretty much anyone could be a sorcerer.
True, yet that means that a system could be devised to ensure those born as sorcerers were either adopted into nobility (much as exceptional soldiers could be knighted), or destroyed. After generations of such a system, most sorcerers would be noble born anyway as the majority of living sorcerers would be nobles and thus pass the bloodline along with lineage.
anyone could be a sorcerer, does not mean anyone would be freely allowed to be one. The same is true of the other inherited arcane casting class.
The point was control. Noble classes have power and more control systemically. If they let people run loose that could control minds, summon outsiders, and control the forces of nature, the balance of power shifts away from Middle Age feudalism and turns nobility into aristocracy (much like firearms did with our history). This turns our nobles into fops once more.
a lot of people forget something else important about Noble Adventurers, the majority of the ones from history. is that they would often venture far outside their sphere of influence and thus not have the backing of their family for a free on the spot resupply
not that nobles would travel across the world, but a lot of them entered a variety of places where their influence wasn't guaranteed to work and if you look at it
if a Noble has a family that can provide them a free home, a magic mart equivalent and free resupply of alchemical consumables in their circle of jurisdiction, it should also be important to consider, that the "Noble's Companions" become identifiable as the companions of the lord or lady and would be provided similar treatment as the lords proxies.
unless the companions kept changing every session or something. well, constantly changing companions requires something like a pirate crew or explorers guild in a vein similar to Etrian Odyssey. where recruited companions work seperate missions in changing groups and new companions are freuqently joining and trained as appropriate.