I'm fascinated by the Three Orders of medieval European society - the laborer, warrior, and priestly castes, or laborares, bellatores, and oratores, respectively.

I've been meaning to check out Chronica Feudalis, to see the extent to which it covers the entrenched classes of euro-medieval culture, but for now, I know this: I would like to make a game that focuses on the tensions between these three groups. I think Joan of Arc and the Knights Templar provide a fine example of what I want to do - the former was a peasant whose military leadership and religious fervor propelled her to new heights, but ultimately pushed her up against adversaries she never would have encountered, otherwise, and they were the death of her.

The Knights Templar were pilgrim-guardians who ended up quite fabulously wealthy from their labors, the envy of both noblemen and the Church. This led to their branding as heretics and their dissolution and deaths.

What I've got so far is, more or less:

- characters of the peasant caste have the virtue of Industry - whatever labor they may put their minds to, rest assured that they will see it completed.
- characters of the knightly/noble caste have the virtue of Courage - any daring deed they put their minds to, they will be victorious.
- characters of the priesthood/other clerics have the virtue of Piety - if they put their trust in God, He will provide.

Also: no idea about the whole death/not death thing, when it comes to both succeeding at and surviving a grand deed. I'm thinking that the better the rating in your Order's virtue, the better you are (somehow) at handling any fallout/complications that arise from doing the thing (simplest way of mapping that could be to start out at a high number and tick down to a flawless "one" rating).

And also: I think that it's possible to start developing another virtue, but the complications you develop around it relate to people who find your actions presumptuous - what's wrong with the role God saw fit to give you? Complications would actually be more difficult to fend off when using this "cross-virtue", though you would still be able to get what you want (it's just that the situation would go all pear-shaped in the process).

One last thing: it's somehow a tossup when two people of the same caste do something either outlined or forbidden to their caste - any two non-knights fighting, for instance, would have to be settled based on their relative levels of virtue. But there's no question at all that most any knight could beat a peasant, or a priest, in a test of arms.

On reflection, I think this basic idea could also work for crossing gender/culture lines, too - if you set it up that the women of a family (the family being the focus of the story?) can readily get what they want through family and family-friend connections, but cannot, say, physically defend themselves (against men) without being seen as presumptuous, that could be very interesting, indeed. There could be an odd trick to playing this in a way that doesn't feel icky - you set up the things that your characters feel limited by, the ways in which your culture blocks your free actions, and then keep acknowledging that *society* feels one way, and *you-the-player* feel differently (or not, I guess). The extra-icky part would probably come from fetishizing or objectifying some not-your-own-culture, and using it for a milieu for the game. Historical distance is one thing, but it could be akin to Blackfacing to set such a game like this in 21st century Afghanistan. Buuut that's a whole topic, unto itself.

That all aside, I think that a given game would really have to focus on a fairly close-knit community or segment of a community; I'm imagining a guy who has really racked up points in Comforting Others, which, in his community, is considered a not-men behavior. As a result, he can definitely push some physical boundaries with others in order to settle a conflict, all non-violently of course, but there's the chance that people will react angrily or with confusion to him for doing so. At the outset of a possible bar-fight, he might bring a guy to tears instead of having to knock him on his ass, but there's a chance he might get his ass beat by the same guy, *at another time*, for making him look "like a fag" in front of the whole damn bar.

I'm now debating whether auto-success should happen or not, but I'll see where that goes.

Wow, okay. Cool! Here's hoping you found reading this interesting, while I worked out some of these ideas. Any and all thoughts and comments are welcomed!
[cross posted at story-games.com]

Hmmm.
Interesting.
But .......
The game idea is ...... what?
Is it the Post-Crusade Times, or Is it the Cross-Virtue System?

Confounded Cat

I think the idea is to create characters who either a) cling tightly to their categories or b) find themselves between categories or c) both? And then the drama unfolds as the characters do their best to accomplish what they must, while trying to avoid being harassed or killed for "ignoring what God gave them".

If you go with the feudal idea, you play a character who picks up a point in a cross-virtue, and his Kicker relates explicitly to what caused this to happen. Maybe bandits have forced a peasant to defend his farm violently; maybe a warlord has seen the light of Christ; maybe a monk breaks with a corrupt Church to devote himself to *real* charity and good works. This will both shake some people up, and give some people hope and purpose.

If you go with the identity-politics idea, you play a character whose community is witness to a) an event in which someone blatantly crosses category-lines, or b) the arrival of someone who is a walking threat to existing categorization. Race and gender-expression are two fairly obvious, visual categorizations you could set up: frex, in a sleepy Colorado town, the small handful of Asian people living there have to contend with it being the White-only prerogative to be confrontational, for example. When an Asian home is burglarized, and the police seem to be soft-balling their investigation.... *cue the Kicker, and go!* This will definitely create a space in which some people in town will feel vindicated, but others will probably feel threatened or scandalized to hear about this happening. I imagine both white folks and POCs will land on the side of "ally" and "opposition", as well.

In either case, you're going to then have people who are happy about the "break", and people who are angry about the "break". I suppose, through cunning use of Kickers, you could establish a bit more structure around what the story is going to be about and what end point you might shoot for. Other than that, though, it's going to be "hey! THIS situation! Annnnd go!" and seeing where it, and the rules, take you.

Does that help, Cat?

Ok, so the Idea is really the "Confining and Crossing Categories"-thing.

Hm, wouldn't Jeanne d'Arc really be of all three noted Categories in the example above?
I mean, Peasant tuned Knight through Religion?

Yeah, I'm sticking with how characterization works.
I posted a more concrete example here: http://abbysgamerbasement.blogspot.com/2009/12/boys-dont-cry-rpg.html
And you're right about Joan of Arc - otherwise, she wouldn't have been burned as a witch! Although, maybe that's all the more reason why the English saw her that way... a mere peasant-turned-warlord(!) might not have met with quite that level of villification?