treason by the book

[contracycle]

Well, I'm not entirely sure about the appropriateness of this post, but I've come across a marvellous book for historically interested gamers.  I'm not sure it is actually RPG theory, though, but lets steam ahead and get rapped over the knuckles if not:

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0670892920.asp
Treason By The Book, by Jonathan D. Spence

This is a fascinating and IMO well written account of an investigation into treason carried out by Emperor Yongzheng of the Qin dynasty.  Its significant for two reasons: first, the paperwork survived, and second the paperwork is remarkably extensive due to the nature of the case and the rigour with which it was carried out.

In capsule, a stillborn uprising of the Ming against the Qin emerges and is investigated by the Emperor, shocked at the extent of popular discontent.  He writes and publishes a rebuttal to the seditious letter, and later seeks to turn the writer by exposing him to the actual workings of the state.  This documentation is copied back and forth to various officials, and hence the case file provides a fascinating snapshot of Chinese life and bureacracy in the 18th century.

One of my favourites is the accusation that the Emperor had banned the making of bronze implements becuase he was secretly hoarding copper in order to build himself a copper palace in the north.  Yonghzheng responds by explaining that the copper content of the coinage was so high that it was being melted down for copper to make bronze tools of higher value; hence Yongzheng had first banned the making of these implements and then adulterated the coinage because increasing scarcity of copper cash was inflating the market price of copper coins against silver coins and causing many economic woes.

The whole thing is full of these snippets becuase of the (quite literal) reeducation of the letter writer.  He even gets to read the Emperors own annotations on the letters written in vermillion ink, and gets to study legal cases and provide his own commentary on the Emperors decisions.  

I think this book would be of use to anyone interested in historical authenticity becuase of the quantity of horizontal detail.  Especially, of course, I am thinking of players of L5R and the like; this whole episode was just crying out for Emerald Magistrates.  It really is interesting to see both the methods and the ideological imperatives displayed by the investigators as they pursue the matter, as well as some insight into the practical ramifications of iron age infrastructure (such as the "Emperors Eyes Only" yellow-wrapped courier boxes)

Does any of this constitute RPG theory?  Probably not.  At a stretch I might claim that its the kind of thing I would love to explore in the hard sim vein.  But mostly, I am just so enthused about the book, and know that other history buffs inhabit these pages, that I just felt I had to pass on the reccomendation.  I DO, seriously, think that from the hard sim perspective, it is just this sort of procedural information that brings a world to life for Exploration.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gareth,

I agree with you about the direct utility of material like this for Hard-Sim Setting play. I also think there are other benefits as well.

From my perspective of a lot of my role-playing, which might be classified as Vanilla-to-mildly-Pervy Narrativist, this kind of work provides exactly the same benefit in terms of Setting Exploration - which then gets turned to the metagame goal of creating a thematic story.

Before I begin, I suspect that Gareth and I have different outlooks on humans, culture, behavior, and values. So I'm not presenting this in order to argue our views against one another, but to show how the book he's cited would be useful to me as well.

My view on stories and culture is a little weird for some people, so let me break it down.

First off, in my view, kinship is kinship, and society is society. Marriage is marriage, infidelity is infidelity. Fraud is fraud, same goes for theft, assault, and graft. Land is land, and money is money. People are pretty much the same, place by place, time by time.

Second, the medium and modes of these interactions vary tremendously, and in non-trivial ways. If money has to be represented by Thing X, then certain features of X, physically, are going to influence how money can operate in that society (and for whom). If land gets managed through male-to-male inheritance, the role of females and marriage undergoes radical redefinition.

Third, stories told/created in unfamiliar media and modes (ie about a different culture from that of the audience or even creator) take on extraordinary power - when we see that the medium/mode of that issue in that culture still illustrate the principles that we are familiar with. "Oh my God, they can have multiple wives over there!" becomes "Oh man, jealousy and wife-wife competition get really brutal in that story," becomes, "Wow, women have a lot of issues about that whose-man-is-it thing, don't they? I see that in my life all the time."

Anyway, what a book like this one can do is provide insight into those unfamiliar media and modes, so that their unfamiliar constraints and interactions in that other culture can become clearer - and the potential arises for addressing the nifty human-ness issues in that unique, powerful fashion.

Best,
Ron