If only he had done more than a superficial reading of Machiavelli's works. If you learn a little about the political environment in which Machiavelli wrote, you would understand that in all of the things that you quoted, Machiavelli was telling Cesare Borgia to do the opposite. But, a commoner (Machiavelli) can't really tell an Italian Duke (Prince) that his uncle was an a-hole (at least not if he wants to keep his head attached to his shoulders). So he was over-effusive with false praise, with the intent that Cesare would understand (and let Machiavelli keep his head where it was). For a better understanding of Machiavelli, read his "Discourses", then reread "The Prince"
Keep in mind also that the way players handle interactions can dictate the kind of quests they will end up on. Most courtiers would probably have some sort of personal trick for sizing someone up, an easy one is to give a person a seemingly frivolous or simple task that still gives the person the opportunity to screw them. Delivering a letter is a good example, the npc can give the pcs a gold piece and a letter to literally give to someone somewhere else in the castle as if the message is important. Really both npcs know this is just a test to see what the pcs do with the letter and gold piece. Do they give both over, do they keep the gold but give the letter, do they break the seal and read the letter, do they take the gold and not deliver the letter? You can even decide whether or not you want to pcs to realize they failed the test by making the letter a sealed piece of blank paper. The point is to try to think of everything a courtier does as both a way to convey and receive information. Every task is a test, every request is a question, and every action is a message.
For fun have the letter read something ridiculous like "kill the messenger who bears this letter". For any curious pc's it will wake them up to the intrigue of the court. If the PC's press the person who wrote the letter just have them say "it was just a private joke no harm intended" *warm smile*. For players who like more code and problem solving just scrambling the letters around or coding them in some other language should provide a bit of extra fun. For people who like a bit of history it can be a message about an impending invasion. (the letter is false, using the zimmerman telegram from IRL is a great way to highlight this) Lots of little ways this can be adjusted and tweaked for different kinds of players. It's a fairly simple request but it also helps the DM build a better idea of how their players are reacting to this world and how seriously they want to treat it. Excellent idea to gauge what your players are like
You have no idea how ridiculously excited I am to have discovered this channel. The way you approach common RPG topics from an academic History/PoliSci angle is really well done, and your analyses provide fresh perspectives and insight that really sets you apart from many other TTRPG UA-camrs I've seen. At the same time, your videos are concise and not overly long, which I appreciate. All this with fairly high production values. But by far, my favourite part of each video is the goofy smile at the end. I will be sorely disappointed if that is ever discontinued.
While it would definitely require a consistent ability to keep track of NPCs, just being a problem solving group for a single noble in a major city has enough content to last a whole campaign easily! Thanks for the upload, I'll be sure to keep these in mind in the near future!
Incidentally my group has been doing just this for 2 years now. At level 15 things have gotten ... a bit out of hand. It was all so easy, see the safe return of a body. Now more than 7 couriers have died, the crown has replaced the town guard with its own. Their are two scenichals vying for legitimacy, the churches are making their decisions on backing, the guild halls are in riots. Oh and many allies have turned out to be wolves in sheep's clothing. It's been fun.
Waterdeep Dragon Heist is probably my favorite WotC book because there is a significant amount of setting material that is focused on Guilds and Courts. With this video in mind, you could easily expand that 1-5th level campaign into upper tier. Thanks for the great work.
Machiavelli for politics + Sun Tzu for military = the perfect potential kingdom. Now all we need are the economics. Wait, you did that one already. Great work!. ; )
I'm now inspired to write not only a noble court....but have it in a city which has a vast "under-city". Perhaps the ruins of the past city or one that sunk from some event...with an Undercourt. Now it's truly one city with two rival courts...neither fully in control A mess for sure but RIFE with plot hooks
ooh makes me think of an Underdark city with representatives of drow, deep dwarves and possibly illithid? seems like lots of fun. Is your undercourt as structured as your upper court or how do they maintain their independence? Sounds super interesting. Maybe there's something only they can do or producie that the upper court can't live without.
One thing to keep in consideration is that a court will likely have churn by design. It doesn't matter if the minister of roads is great, eventually favor will be revoked and they will be sent out into the relative cold and replaced with a new minister of roads. Now the new minister of roads knows that there is the old minister of roads who can come back and take their position, and the old minister knows they serve purely at the pleasure of the ruler and that competence at a position isn't leverage they hold over the ruler. That is, nobody ever tells the ruler: you can't fire me, only I know what I know about the roads. It also has the current and former ministers of roads spending their time plotting against each other instead of the ruler. Eventually the ruler will to swap their positions at some point. So for every court position, there is someone looking to regain that position and adventurers can help make that happen sooner than later. For every out of the way holding, there is potentially a former minister of the roads who still has friends at court and is waiting for their return to court. So every ally in court the players make, they can see it replaced with an enemy, and for every enemy the players make in the countryside they could see them again in a powerful position.
Thank you for this video! so often we can expect players to just waltz into nobles courts but we never ask why is it they can get the kings ear on a whim! I'd love to know how you'd treat noble courts in settings with lots of magic! Lastly I think the most important take away from this video was your part about how fixing a problem hurts someone else, and drilling into that with the merchant, the thieves guild, and the patrols example.
The lovely part of this topic is how we as GMs van play with how courts may work differently for each place and different fantastic lands. This is a great source of world-building or campaign setting differentiators. Thanks for the great learning!
The two most important people that have the Commandant's (basically regional general/king) ear are the High Paladin of Heironeous, god of justice, and the High Priestess of Zilchus, god of commerce. The High Paladin assists in wartime strategy and is mechanically more powerful, but the High Priestess effectively functions as the Exchequer both in times of war as well as peace, with her and her clergy reading omens from their deity and using learned economic principles to contribute to the continued growth of the city/country. Being priests of a god of wealth, pretty much every guild and non-guild business has their needs brought up at and/or addressed at the church, with all of their points either being solved there. Those that aren't are "concentrated" through the High Priestess to the Commandant for an executive decision, matters that require something like an increase in taxes or contracts for roads to be made. Once he makes a decision on that front, she goes back to the church where they pen up the legislature to be submitted back to the Commandant for approval. Most recently, there was a festival of tournaments where the High Priestess wanted each guild that contributed to the construction, organization, and equipping of the tournament grounds and their participants to have a named shout-out, but the Commandant felt that such blatant advertisement was disingenuous to the spirit of the tournament's idea of showing integrity and humility even under stresses of battle. They eventually compromised on having the announcer (a diplomat that was on vacation and wanted to flex his bard skill back home for once) invite representatives of each guild as a co-host to speak for their opinions during the combat rounds, and advertise for themselves should they choose. Having a public essence to it kept them from shilling too hard and made them appear knowledgeable on their craft during commentary.
All those quest hooks in one room :D One of my favorite (mini) campaigns is to win over the people in the court to side with the party's candidate for a political scheme/ vote. You can throw in so many stories between different characters and depending on the background of the PCs even directly involve them or their (bigger) family.
Thank you for doing this one! I think courtly dealings, even if only rudimentally simulated in the background, can add a LOT to a player's sense of being in a world that actually functions. I was wondering, all those different people with different functions at court, do they ever go to places where the common folk could run into them? Or are they really isolated from non-court people at all times?
Possibly. It depends on where your players put themselves in the setting. A basic field laborer in the back corner of the plot might see important NPCs riding by but taking a level in tradesman might let them interact directly. For example, IRL, I work in a department store and my city's mayor shops here. At work, I know my store's leadership team and they know me and have spoken highly of me to district leadership and I've met a few of the regional leadership as well. Joining organizations in the setting will grant access to more important characters. As an IRL example again, through Boy Scouts and the organization that charters our troop, that's where I first met the mayor and sheriff. Scouts and chartering organization's leadership through state and national levels. I've also met our state representative and US representative and also one of our US Senators. Players from our professional sports teams. Local business leaders. So, yes, a commoner can meet some pretty important people in their setting.
you are very well educated. grats. of course, in the prince, machiavelli was pointing out the absurd and highly laughable nature of renaissance courts. his works were often banned by rulers.
Excellent and needed commentary as always You kinda scratched the surface here, but this is a large iceberg. Next video needs to go into how a king would run a city/nationstate, what the structure looks like, who does what and how the King interacts with the nobles. Probably a series in its own right.
So if I understand this right, there are nobles that each rule a chunk of territory (which can include cities), and holds a court as the bureaucratic center of their territory. They send their relatives to the courts of other nobles as ambassadors to manage relations between territories. But the main ruler, let's say the king, also has his own court. Do the nobles usually send their relatives there too, or are they expected to actually attend in person most of the time?
most likely depends on the culture and level of authority the king has. For Instance from real life the French Sun King court had the proper nobles and sub rulers commonly attend normally at high cost though the sun king would cover their finacess , making them finaccaly in debt to him and comepltly relient on him. but he was a absolutist monarch and these nobles by this point in time had almost no authority.
Could you address ancient civilizations. In particular, I'm looking at Bronze Age, Chalcolithic and even Neolithic civilizations. I have a good idea of what things look like between villages, but the politics inside are a bit fuzzy.
This is the kind of stuff I love seeing/hearing from other GMs. Too often it's "you should do this or that" it's too opinionated. Or rather it's generally too subjective, but even though there's a presupposed opinion here - that I'll take all this information and use it - there enough variance to flex it into a workable system for my own settings, and it's mostly grounded in historical background information. Tl;Dr: this is great, and you rock. Coming from a gm that doesn't like see or use what other GMs do - for whatever godforsaken reason.
So I noticed a few White Wolf books in the background, I would love to see you use these ideas to reflect the Vampire the Masquerade Prince's court, or the Changeling Fae Dreaming Courts.
Good stirring of the idea pot! Thanks. What do you think of the argument that Macchiavelli's "The Prince" was a work of satire criticizing his experience with the Florentine court? I tend to agree since it's so over the top, and especially since his other works are arguably more republican. I think Macchiavelli's court intrigue is a good basis for a GENRE, but not necessarily to create realism.
I disbelieve it was satire, and think it was much more pejorative. He's observations are accurate but rather bold and scathing in tone. He loved republics, and dedicated such a brutal observation to the Medici family who replaced him.
Fantastic video ! Is there any document available somewhere where we could have an overview and explnation of each position and job of a royal court ? That would be so useful for any dm. Thanks a lot !
He was exiled by the Medici family (a princely house), and the language he used when discussing despotic rule paradigm for state stability was very... Oh... What's the word.... Negative. There is an ongoing scholarly debate about weather the prince was entirely satire or not. As someone who has an extremely dry sense of humor who was laughing hysterically through reading the prince, I identify with Machiavelli the same way someone who finally feels understood by someone else while reading neuromancer or seeing the film ex machina if they work in the tech industry.
@@DungeonMasterpiece Maybe I should clarify what I mean here. I understand that The Prince is a negative portrayal of monarchy/aristocracy from a writer who clearly has strong republican sentiments. That's pretty clear to me. But the term "prince"? My understanding is that's generally a pretty neutral term for a head of state. Now, I'm not an expert on the Italian Renaissance by any stretch, so I could certainly be missing some subtext here, but I don't really get what makes the term itself pejorative. Do you simply mean that, since Machiavelli was anti-aristocratic, terms that reference aristocracy are, from him, inherently pejorative?
Great job explaining the subject and how it partain's to TTRPGs also loved the inclusion of your family history! Whichthise was great advice and imsperation for me for both GMing, writing and game design!
I'm a big fan of your videos, thank you for bringing some serious history, geopilitics and geography into D&D! Of course, threre were as many ways of organizing courts as there were courts, but I'm not sure I completely agree that Stewards would be today's Attorney Generals. I think that they'd rather be equivalent to a chief of staff, mayor of the palace (French history), Grand Vizier, Shogun or Hand of the King. Sometimes they and their d3scendants would even supplant the ruling house, for example the house of Stewart in Scottish history and the Carolingians in French history. Or Denethor in LotR.
This is very useful info for my game. Is there a chart or list of court positions somewhere that shows the titles, responsibilities and connections to other roles?
For Eberron, I’m finding an interesting area of operating in Sharn, where new industry and immigration are in conflict with existing power structures. My players are on course to stage a communist revolution at this point lol.
It would definitely be a good thing to have since they were the only people in the court who were allowed to speak plainly and point out things that, should any other person mention them, would result in scandal or worse... but because it was veiled in jokes, they were much easier to bring up without seeming rude. Much like how comedians are supposed to be able to work, and it's quite possibly the evolution of the court jester
Perhaps a flow chart of authority and privileges granted by the ruler to the varying courtiers and their subsequent influence in policy to direct taxation and cultural benefits back to the ruler would be helpful?
Dude, protecting a "thieve's guild" does not maintain the high prices of stolen goods. If anything the increased supply of stolen goods available would bring down the price. What police corruption does for fences is insure market stability. That is very likely to result in lower prices for stolen goods, but because more goods actually get fenced instead of confiscated by police or re-stolen by competitors, a LOT more stolen goods are moved. Plus it is often cheaper to get police to leave you alone, that rely on kleptomaniacs to guard your stuff. It is way more accurate to say "Heavy patrolling in the right places maintains high PROFITS for stolen goods." And don't even get me started on the fantasy trope of "thieve's guilds".
@@DungeonMasterpiece Bad economic understanding is how we end up with plots like this. NO EXCUSE!! :-P ua-cam.com/video/SYExETbLL1E/v-deo.html Thanks for responding! Super cool.
I’d like to see your take on the Birthright campaign setting and if you have a recommendation for rules that support domain level play (as a lot of people including me found Birthright’s rules too cumbersome)
My man just nonchalantly drops his cousin, Sophie Karlowna von Buxhoeveden, the "Lady in waiting" to Princess Alexandra Feodorovna, Consort to Tsar Nikolaus Alexandrowitsch Romanow...
There is no non-socially awkward polite way to say this, I will exemplify with sarcasm. "Wow, really great information about this distant cousin of yours. Can't wait to hear more". Your videos are great, you are one of the only dnd youtubers that wants to teach more than make content (or matt colville, who back in the day got famous doing videos in which he just wanted someone to hear him talk 1 hour non-stop, really, like i had 10 hours to learn 10 topics out of 500 in dnd) and you know the 80% of knowledge that is worth our time and the 20% that is not (pareto's law). You have been making good to the channel's name, masterpiece video after masterpiece video, but watch out for this family mentions
What did bards actually do in a court? Where they entertainment for the courtiers or are they messengers for nobles who couldn’t travel, did they also need to relay new laws to the population?
Technically all of these things can easily fit the DnD concept of a bard as well. I also know in real life famous bards (of the more musical nature) tended to have patrons, who could steer what they sang or talked about in one way or the other.
Please be careful when making references to Machiavelli's most infamous work, as it so often isn't considered in its original context. Machiavelli was, as history and his other writings attest, strongly in favor of what we would call democratic forms of government -- the people ruling themselves. 'The Prince', therefore, was essentially satire. Yes, his book is a thorough examination of how to be a shrewd and ruthless tyrant, but it was written with an eye towards exposing his readers to the tools and techniques rulers used to maintain their power and influence. 'The Prince' is essentially Machiavelli taking the role of Dorothy, pulling back the curtain to show everyone how "the great and powerful Oz" is just a conman projecting false power through deceit and misdirection.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Woah, it's been such a long time since Machiavelli collaborated with another creator!
I know right!?
If you want another Machiavelli collaboration and if you like anime, check out "How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom".
So your saying holding puppies hostage works?
@@starbugmechanic5236 Only if those puppies' lord can pay their ransom...
😅
If only he had done more than a superficial reading of Machiavelli's works. If you learn a little about the political environment in which Machiavelli wrote, you would understand that in all of the things that you quoted, Machiavelli was telling Cesare Borgia to do the opposite. But, a commoner (Machiavelli) can't really tell an Italian Duke (Prince) that his uncle was an a-hole (at least not if he wants to keep his head attached to his shoulders). So he was over-effusive with false praise, with the intent that Cesare would understand (and let Machiavelli keep his head where it was).
For a better understanding of Machiavelli, read his "Discourses", then reread "The Prince"
There is literally zero fat on this. Awesome, lean, jammed packed with goodness. I doff my hat to you good sir.
Keep in mind also that the way players handle interactions can dictate the kind of quests they will end up on. Most courtiers would probably have some sort of personal trick for sizing someone up, an easy one is to give a person a seemingly frivolous or simple task that still gives the person the opportunity to screw them. Delivering a letter is a good example, the npc can give the pcs a gold piece and a letter to literally give to someone somewhere else in the castle as if the message is important. Really both npcs know this is just a test to see what the pcs do with the letter and gold piece. Do they give both over, do they keep the gold but give the letter, do they break the seal and read the letter, do they take the gold and not deliver the letter? You can even decide whether or not you want to pcs to realize they failed the test by making the letter a sealed piece of blank paper. The point is to try to think of everything a courtier does as both a way to convey and receive information. Every task is a test, every request is a question, and every action is a message.
Oml, I love those kinds of games
For fun have the letter read something ridiculous like "kill the messenger who bears this letter". For any curious pc's it will wake them up to the intrigue of the court.
If the PC's press the person who wrote the letter just have them say "it was just a private joke no harm intended" *warm smile*.
For players who like more code and problem solving just scrambling the letters around or coding them in some other language should provide a bit of extra fun.
For people who like a bit of history it can be a message about an impending invasion. (the letter is false, using the zimmerman telegram from IRL is a great way to highlight this)
Lots of little ways this can be adjusted and tweaked for different kinds of players. It's a fairly simple request but it also helps the DM build a better idea of how their players are reacting to this world and how seriously they want to treat it.
Excellent idea to gauge what your players are like
You have no idea how ridiculously excited I am to have discovered this channel. The way you approach common RPG topics from an academic History/PoliSci angle is really well done, and your analyses provide fresh perspectives and insight that really sets you apart from many other TTRPG UA-camrs I've seen. At the same time, your videos are concise and not overly long, which I appreciate. All this with fairly high production values.
But by far, my favourite part of each video is the goofy smile at the end. I will be sorely disappointed if that is ever discontinued.
I think it accidentally became part of my brand, so it's not going anywhere.
While it would definitely require a consistent ability to keep track of NPCs, just being a problem solving group for a single noble in a major city has enough content to last a whole campaign easily! Thanks for the upload, I'll be sure to keep these in mind in the near future!
Incidentally my group has been doing just this for 2 years now. At level 15 things have gotten ... a bit out of hand. It was all so easy, see the safe return of a body.
Now more than 7 couriers have died, the crown has replaced the town guard with its own. Their are two scenichals vying for legitimacy, the churches are making their decisions on backing, the guild halls are in riots. Oh and many allies have turned out to be wolves in sheep's clothing.
It's been fun.
@@Abornarazine wow, cannot imagine trying to manage all of that, must be a full-time job.
@@dauchande
Labor of love to be sure.
Waterdeep Dragon Heist is probably my favorite WotC book because there is a significant amount of setting material that is focused on Guilds and Courts. With this video in mind, you could easily expand that 1-5th level campaign into upper tier.
Thanks for the great work.
Machiavelli for politics + Sun Tzu for military = the perfect potential kingdom. Now all we need are the economics. Wait, you did that one already. Great work!. ; )
I should!!!!
Truly the best GM channel I've ever set my eyes upon. You are the bee's knees, my friend. You are doing the work of the TTRPG Gods
He's the breathing orifice for winged insects?
I'm now inspired to write not only a noble court....but have it in a city which has a vast "under-city". Perhaps the ruins of the past city or one that sunk from some event...with an Undercourt.
Now it's truly one city with two rival courts...neither fully in control
A mess for sure but RIFE with plot hooks
ooh makes me think of an Underdark city with representatives of drow, deep dwarves and possibly illithid? seems like lots of fun.
Is your undercourt as structured as your upper court or how do they maintain their independence? Sounds super interesting. Maybe there's something only they can do or producie that the upper court can't live without.
One thing to keep in consideration is that a court will likely have churn by design. It doesn't matter if the minister of roads is great, eventually favor will be revoked and they will be sent out into the relative cold and replaced with a new minister of roads. Now the new minister of roads knows that there is the old minister of roads who can come back and take their position, and the old minister knows they serve purely at the pleasure of the ruler and that competence at a position isn't leverage they hold over the ruler. That is, nobody ever tells the ruler: you can't fire me, only I know what I know about the roads. It also has the current and former ministers of roads spending their time plotting against each other instead of the ruler. Eventually the ruler will to swap their positions at some point. So for every court position, there is someone looking to regain that position and adventurers can help make that happen sooner than later. For every out of the way holding, there is potentially a former minister of the roads who still has friends at court and is waiting for their return to court. So every ally in court the players make, they can see it replaced with an enemy, and for every enemy the players make in the countryside they could see them again in a powerful position.
Thank you for this video! so often we can expect players to just waltz into nobles courts but we never ask why is it they can get the kings ear on a whim!
I'd love to know how you'd treat noble courts in settings with lots of magic! Lastly I think the most important take away from this video was your part about how fixing a problem hurts someone else, and drilling into that with the merchant, the thieves guild, and the patrols example.
The lovely part of this topic is how we as GMs van play with how courts may work differently for each place and different fantastic lands. This is a great source of world-building or campaign setting differentiators. Thanks for the great learning!
The two most important people that have the Commandant's (basically regional general/king) ear are the High Paladin of Heironeous, god of justice, and the High Priestess of Zilchus, god of commerce. The High Paladin assists in wartime strategy and is mechanically more powerful, but the High Priestess effectively functions as the Exchequer both in times of war as well as peace, with her and her clergy reading omens from their deity and using learned economic principles to contribute to the continued growth of the city/country. Being priests of a god of wealth, pretty much every guild and non-guild business has their needs brought up at and/or addressed at the church, with all of their points either being solved there. Those that aren't are "concentrated" through the High Priestess to the Commandant for an executive decision, matters that require something like an increase in taxes or contracts for roads to be made. Once he makes a decision on that front, she goes back to the church where they pen up the legislature to be submitted back to the Commandant for approval.
Most recently, there was a festival of tournaments where the High Priestess wanted each guild that contributed to the construction, organization, and equipping of the tournament grounds and their participants to have a named shout-out, but the Commandant felt that such blatant advertisement was disingenuous to the spirit of the tournament's idea of showing integrity and humility even under stresses of battle. They eventually compromised on having the announcer (a diplomat that was on vacation and wanted to flex his bard skill back home for once) invite representatives of each guild as a co-host to speak for their opinions during the combat rounds, and advertise for themselves should they choose. Having a public essence to it kept them from shilling too hard and made them appear knowledgeable on their craft during commentary.
All those quest hooks in one room :D One of my favorite (mini) campaigns is to win over the people in the court to side with the party's candidate for a political scheme/ vote. You can throw in so many stories between different characters and depending on the background of the PCs even directly involve them or their (bigger) family.
Thank you for doing this one! I think courtly dealings, even if only rudimentally simulated in the background, can add a LOT to a player's sense of being in a world that actually functions.
I was wondering, all those different people with different functions at court, do they ever go to places where the common folk could run into them? Or are they really isolated from non-court people at all times?
Possibly. It depends on where your players put themselves in the setting. A basic field laborer in the back corner of the plot might see important NPCs riding by but taking a level in tradesman might let them interact directly. For example, IRL, I work in a department store and my city's mayor shops here. At work, I know my store's leadership team and they know me and have spoken highly of me to district leadership and I've met a few of the regional leadership as well.
Joining organizations in the setting will grant access to more important characters. As an IRL example again, through Boy Scouts and the organization that charters our troop, that's where I first met the mayor and sheriff. Scouts and chartering organization's leadership through state and national levels. I've also met our state representative and US representative and also one of our US Senators. Players from our professional sports teams. Local business leaders.
So, yes, a commoner can meet some pretty important people in their setting.
you are very well educated. grats. of course, in the prince, machiavelli was pointing out the absurd and highly laughable nature of renaissance courts. his works were often banned by rulers.
Excellent and needed commentary as always
You kinda scratched the surface here, but this is a large iceberg. Next video needs to go into how a king would run a city/nationstate, what the structure looks like, who does what and how the King interacts with the nobles. Probably a series in its own right.
So if I understand this right, there are nobles that each rule a chunk of territory (which can include cities), and holds a court as the bureaucratic center of their territory. They send their relatives to the courts of other nobles as ambassadors to manage relations between territories. But the main ruler, let's say the king, also has his own court. Do the nobles usually send their relatives there too, or are they expected to actually attend in person most of the time?
most likely depends on the culture and level of authority the king has. For Instance from real life the French Sun King court had the proper nobles and sub rulers commonly attend normally at high cost though the sun king would cover their finacess , making them finaccaly in debt to him and comepltly relient on him. but he was a absolutist monarch and these nobles by this point in time had almost no authority.
Thanks!!! I was excited ever since I saw this in the survey. Never knew I needed something in my world so badly!
The way you talk, along with your suit and set pieces, reminds me so much of legal eagle.
Watched this once normally for the info, then again while high for fun.
Could you address ancient civilizations. In particular, I'm looking at Bronze Age, Chalcolithic and even Neolithic civilizations. I have a good idea of what things look like between villages, but the politics inside are a bit fuzzy.
Great piece. I don't play DnD much and I still appreciate your work.
This is the kind of stuff I love seeing/hearing from other GMs. Too often it's "you should do this or that" it's too opinionated. Or rather it's generally too subjective, but even though there's a presupposed opinion here - that I'll take all this information and use it - there enough variance to flex it into a workable system for my own settings, and it's mostly grounded in historical background information.
Tl;Dr: this is great, and you rock. Coming from a gm that doesn't like see or use what other GMs do - for whatever godforsaken reason.
Fantastic! id love a deeper dive into how to create a complicated web of intrigue like that! you rule man keep it up
So I noticed a few White Wolf books in the background, I would love to see you use these ideas to reflect the Vampire the Masquerade Prince's court, or the Changeling Fae Dreaming Courts.
This is a great video. It got all the right juices flowin for me. Thank you!
Good stirring of the idea pot! Thanks. What do you think of the argument that Macchiavelli's "The Prince" was a work of satire criticizing his experience with the Florentine court? I tend to agree since it's so over the top, and especially since his other works are arguably more republican. I think Macchiavelli's court intrigue is a good basis for a GENRE, but not necessarily to create realism.
I disbelieve it was satire, and think it was much more pejorative. He's observations are accurate but rather bold and scathing in tone. He loved republics, and dedicated such a brutal observation to the Medici family who replaced him.
In the uk the top financial figure is still called the chancellor of the exchequer
Watching this video has made me realise how accurate the worldbuilding of Ascendance of a Bookworm is
Fantastic video ! Is there any document available somewhere where we could have an overview and explnation of each position and job of a royal court ? That would be so useful for any dm.
Thanks a lot !
I'm curious, why do you consider Machiavelli's use of the term "The Prince" to be pejorative?
He was exiled by the Medici family (a princely house), and the language he used when discussing despotic rule paradigm for state stability was very... Oh... What's the word.... Negative.
There is an ongoing scholarly debate about weather the prince was entirely satire or not. As someone who has an extremely dry sense of humor who was laughing hysterically through reading the prince, I identify with Machiavelli the same way someone who finally feels understood by someone else while reading neuromancer or seeing the film ex machina if they work in the tech industry.
@@DungeonMasterpiece Maybe I should clarify what I mean here. I understand that The Prince is a negative portrayal of monarchy/aristocracy from a writer who clearly has strong republican sentiments. That's pretty clear to me. But the term "prince"? My understanding is that's generally a pretty neutral term for a head of state.
Now, I'm not an expert on the Italian Renaissance by any stretch, so I could certainly be missing some subtext here, but I don't really get what makes the term itself pejorative. Do you simply mean that, since Machiavelli was anti-aristocratic, terms that reference aristocracy are, from him, inherently pejorative?
Your videos are great! I've subbed and am looking forward to seeing your channel grow in the future
Great job explaining the subject and how it partain's to TTRPGs also loved the inclusion of your family history! Whichthise was great advice and imsperation for me for both GMing, writing and game design!
I'm a big fan of your videos, thank you for bringing some serious history, geopilitics and geography into D&D!
Of course, threre were as many ways of organizing courts as there were courts, but I'm not sure I completely agree that Stewards would be today's Attorney Generals.
I think that they'd rather be equivalent to a chief of staff, mayor of the palace (French history), Grand Vizier, Shogun or Hand of the King.
Sometimes they and their d3scendants would even supplant the ruling house, for example the house of Stewart in Scottish history and the Carolingians in French history. Or Denethor in LotR.
This is very useful info for my game. Is there a chart or list of court positions somewhere that shows the titles, responsibilities and connections to other roles?
My very first video has that information!
@@DungeonMasterpiece Thank you, so much!
For Eberron, I’m finding an interesting area of operating in Sharn, where new industry and immigration are in conflict with existing power structures. My players are on course to stage a communist revolution at this point lol.
absolutely based
Say goodbye to all that nice industry 😎
@@feral_orc it’s the workers’ industry now.
cool! how large are the mass graves going to be?
@@orangmawas3858 smaller than the ones from the Last War.
I'd like to see something about the role of fools and jesters at court.
It would definitely be a good thing to have since they were the only people in the court who were allowed to speak plainly and point out things that, should any other person mention them, would result in scandal or worse... but because it was veiled in jokes, they were much easier to bring up without seeming rude.
Much like how comedians are supposed to be able to work, and it's quite possibly the evolution of the court jester
Genuinely nice love your Videos as always excellent work! And a good Kickstarter to have 😋
The historical related stuff is awesome dude! Keep it coming :D
Perhaps a flow chart of authority and privileges granted by the ruler to the varying courtiers and their subsequent influence in policy to direct taxation and cultural benefits back to the ruler would be helpful?
Nice breakdown
I can use some of this information
Honestly the Prince by Machiavelli is such a good tool to use to help Dungeon masters!
Dude, protecting a "thieve's guild" does not maintain the high prices of stolen goods. If anything the increased supply of stolen goods available would bring down the price. What police corruption does for fences is insure market stability. That is very likely to result in lower prices for stolen goods, but because more goods actually get fenced instead of confiscated by police or re-stolen by competitors, a LOT more stolen goods are moved. Plus it is often cheaper to get police to leave you alone, that rely on kleptomaniacs to guard your stuff.
It is way more accurate to say "Heavy patrolling in the right places maintains high PROFITS for stolen goods."
And don't even get me started on the fantasy trope of "thieve's guilds".
High profits is a better word. But I am talking about raiding orcs, so, tropes abound!
@@DungeonMasterpiece Bad economic understanding is how we end up with plots like this. NO EXCUSE!! :-P
ua-cam.com/video/SYExETbLL1E/v-deo.html
Thanks for responding! Super cool.
Could you do one about the interworkings of republics, like Rome or Venice?
I’d like to see your take on the Birthright campaign setting and if you have a recommendation for rules that support domain level play (as a lot of people including me found Birthright’s rules too cumbersome)
Fantastic video.
My man just nonchalantly drops his cousin, Sophie Karlowna von Buxhoeveden, the "Lady in waiting" to Princess Alexandra Feodorovna, Consort to Tsar Nikolaus Alexandrowitsch Romanow...
There is no non-socially awkward polite way to say this, I will exemplify with sarcasm. "Wow, really great information about this distant cousin of yours. Can't wait to hear more".
Your videos are great, you are one of the only dnd youtubers that wants to teach more than make content (or matt colville, who back in the day got famous doing videos in which he just wanted someone to hear him talk 1 hour non-stop, really, like i had 10 hours to learn 10 topics out of 500 in dnd) and you know the 80% of knowledge that is worth our time and the 20% that is not (pareto's law). You have been making good to the channel's name, masterpiece video after masterpiece video, but watch out for this family mentions
Can we get a video on merchant republics and how their politics work?
Good idea! I'll add it to the backlog
great vid!
I found that using the ideas or treatise of people like machiavelli to be a good base to worldbuild a believable government,culture or religion.
I'm running a Ancient Rome campaign and I'm waiting for my players to arrive so I can do stuff like this.
Bidet! Weirdly, this is exactly what I tried to find lately :D
Thank you thank you.
amazing advice. ^^
What did bards actually do in a court? Where they entertainment for the courtiers or are they messengers for nobles who couldn’t travel, did they also need to relay new laws to the population?
Technically all of these things can easily fit the DnD concept of a bard as well.
I also know in real life famous bards (of the more musical nature) tended to have patrons, who could steer what they sang or talked about in one way or the other.
Do Voivode courts next
What do you mean “pejoratively”. That’s what a ruler was called. It was a generic name for any ruler
Please be careful when making references to Machiavelli's most infamous work, as it so often isn't considered in its original context. Machiavelli was, as history and his other writings attest, strongly in favor of what we would call democratic forms of government -- the people ruling themselves. 'The Prince', therefore, was essentially satire. Yes, his book is a thorough examination of how to be a shrewd and ruthless tyrant, but it was written with an eye towards exposing his readers to the tools and techniques rulers used to maintain their power and influence. 'The Prince' is essentially Machiavelli taking the role of Dorothy, pulling back the curtain to show everyone how "the great and powerful Oz" is just a conman projecting false power through deceit and misdirection.
"... who he pejoratively called 'The Prince'..."
Super bien
👍👍👍👍👍
noice
Dang, your videos are so dense with content.
You play crusader kings don't you
Functioned like labour unions ..... lol sounds like price fixing imo but i know nothing.
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Blech, really hate the ad in the middle of the video, almost clicked off because I thought it was over
Guilty to proven innocent, and it's rules for thee not for me...I got rid of royalty