[TSoY 2nd] Free-ranging attributes of Near
Eero Tuovinen:
Something Harald mentioned here reminded me of this thing I've been meaning to write about:
Near has some questions that are not answered very comprehensively in the canonical texts. This is just fine for me, and I'm going to make this explicit in my text. The following dimensions may be determined on a per-campaign basis, and I'll be adding sidebars where necessary to address how different choices will impact certain elements of the setting.
Development level: As the text has it, all of Near is at all but subsistence level. They don't even have money, not even the Ammeni. Regardless, I've witnessed and played a lot of games where this sort of "nuance" has been happily ignored, which convinces me to not push this point very strongly. In my book the Ammeni may range anywhere from early Assyrian to renaissance Italy in their level of development. I know that individual groups differ a lot in what sort of things they focus on (not the least because of the knowledge and interest bases of everybody involved), but at least at my table it's sort of important to have a sense for this stuff, as something like whether there are professional linguists in large cities (or whether there are large cities in the first place) is often something we want to figure out based on something else than a "rule of cool". While the basic relationships and elements of the game certainly work at almost all societal development levels, they will express themselves differently at different development levels. Also, scale - different levels of development often imply different scales, as saying something like "the Ammeni don't have cities, only port towns and large manors" says quite a bit about the imagined scale of Ammeni and Near in general.Magic level: Just like development level, I see a lot of variation on how "flashy" and common magic is in people's games. I'm notoriously against utility myself, it's just not real magic to me if it's not difficult and awesome. The book will thus give the tools for going either way - how to deal with threecorner magic so that at least improvised workings will basically have to be done at a laboratory, how to describe Zu summonings so that Eero's brains don't start leaking out of his ears. Also, how common or uncommon rated equipment is or should be; individual games range between "all swords have a rating" and "if a sword has a rating, then it's magic".This is similar to how Dogs in the Vineyard does not care about the level of supernatural an individual campaign will adopt, it's all good for the rules system. In practice I see the SG making these calls most of the time, but if the group finds it interesting to choose for themselves, that's all good. Some character concepts and such might be more believable with a certain sort of set-up as regards these dimensions.
Are there other "dimensions" of freedom I should take into consideration when doing my write-up? I was going to make the issue of how true the monomyth history of the Skyfire is into a dimension, but it's really not that, it's just a bunch of facts that might not prove so facty in actual play after all. Different peoples of Near will naturally have their own ideas of how it all went down. So I'm not looking here so much for places to insert soft truths, but for fundamental aspects of the setting that genuinely need to be addressed by either fixing them down or facilitating them in the way I'm planning to do for different levels of magic and development.
dindenver:
Eero,
I think the reason people sort of default back to a coin-based economy is that the economy of Near is not well documented in the rulebook. And to top it off, there is Key of Glittering gold to muddle the matters a bit...
If you look at the text critically, you can see that Clinton is very careful to avoid any reference to money. But he doesn't actually say there is no money. And he definitely doesn't explain how merchants operate in these harrowing times.
Also, its hard to imagine 200 (I have heard 100 and 300 as well) years have passed and people haven't reconstructed any of the old systems (meaning money and tech and what not). Honestly (and this is not a jab at the game or Clinton, I respect them both), the economics of TSOY feels more like a "reaction" to fantasy RPG tropes and less of a creative inspiration than any other part of TSOY.
I think it would be a vast improvement if it was laid out that all trade is done via barter because no one respects any leader enough to assign any value to a coin with his face on it. Instead of pussy-footing around like we have now.
As far as magic goes, I think the text does a decent job of conveying the rarity and oddity of magic in Near. But, I think this is just offset by the fact that every culture has a magic tradition (if you stretch magic to include the alchemy that the Ammeni have going on) and that the rules are so cool.
Also, the technology of the setting is a little muddled. At points I get the feel that there is a real fight for survival/subsistence thing going on. But in other areas the book talks about printing presses and Demolitions. I understand that this is an uncertain age and that different areas will have access to different levels of technology. But the difference in technology and rarity is not very well addressed. for instance:
1) Can we expect a village to have access to some of the higher levels of tech (watch making, demolitions), or is this reserved to cities with higher concentrations of people, wealth and central authority?
2) Can we expect one village to have a medium level of tech (whatever that is) and its adjacent neighbor to be bereft of even basic knowledge like irrigation?
3) Are all the cities relatively high tech because of the concentration of people? How rare is the exception?
4) Are there fantasy metropolises? Even in the dark ages London was around 1 million people (before the plague obviously). Is there a confluence of events (trade routes, good harvests, infrastructure, etc. To support urban sprawl at this level in Near?
5) What is the length and breadth of naval technology? For instance, can they leave sight of shore?
For instance, reading the book, I can't answer these questions. I can make up answers. And something tells me Clinton would be happy if I did, but I think that this philosophy hinders communication between players.
Eero Tuovinen:
These are the questions I plan to address, but not particularly by nailing them down, but by confessing to flexibility regarding them. Personally I like the pre-financial economic state of Near, but realistically that would mean losing many specialized, cool social functions that Maldorians and Ammenites would benefit from. So my personal preference is for Maldor and Ammeni to be relatively highly developed, while the rest of the world can muck about with barter.
The value of coins is not in the seigniorage (royal stamp), by the by, but in the precious metal they are made of. So we can have situations where people already have "money" in the sense of respecting a particular metal as a common trade good, while they don't have actual standardized coins to account for the weight of the metal. This is how the vikings had it for a while, and perhaps it's how Khaleans trade now.
But considering how I'm not planning to splurge on loving essays about the economical details of Near, in practice it's every group for themselves in regards to the less important issues. Just look at the cultures and issues you're really going to use in the game and make the appropriate choices for those.
dindenver:
Eero,
Two followup questions:
1) If Ammeni has little to no metal, what do they use for money? I agree with you that they could/would be culturally advanced enough to use money as opposed to barter. But, what would they use as coinage?
2) I think it would be beneficial (if for nothing more than giving Key of Glittering Gold some context) to define what each culture sees as wealth. I mean how much more interesting would it be if the Qek measured wealth as how many wives a character has as an example? I feel like you might be over thinking it. I don't think you have to come up with a whole ecology of Near economics, but a one sentence description could change this game profoundly.
I hope you don't feel like I am harping on you, its just one aspect of the game that has been difficult for me to reconcile and convey to my groups (I am running two games both starting this week).
oliof:
In Ammeni, debts are tattooed on your forehead by an alchemical ink only the appropriate money lender has the formula to make the dye go away. Ammenites never take debts lightly, and this procedure is a reason why 'trade arrangements' and 'partnerships' are usually preferred.
Trying to find out how to undo an alchemical debt tattoo is one of the many ways to make your life full of various dangers, of course. People who are often in debt are also known as "Bleakheads" since their facial skin and hair turns into a sick greyish color over time.
Ammenites have learned not to give debt tattoos to Elves about a generation ago.
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