D&D Royal Courts, Explained

Functioned like labour unions ..... lol sounds like price fixing imo but i know nothing.

Guilty to proven innocent, and it's rules for thee not for me...I got rid of royalty

Umm Baron, hate to break it to ya, but guilds were more like cartels than trade unions

Dang, your videos are so dense with content.

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 !

Watched this once normally for the info, then again while high for fun.

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.

Could you do one about the interworkings of republics, like Rome or Venice?

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.

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?

Great piece. I don't play DnD much and I still appreciate your work.

amazing advice. ^^

Can we get a video on merchant republics and how their politics work?

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!

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?

The way you talk, along with your suit and set pieces, reminds me so much of legal eagle.

I'm curious, why do you consider Machiavelli's use of the term "The Prince" to be pejorative?

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?

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.

This is a great video. It got all the right juices flowin for me. Thank you!

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.

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.

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".

Super bien

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.

noice

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.

Fantastic! id love a deeper dive into how to create a complicated web of intrigue like that! you rule man keep it up

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!

Thanks!!! I was excited ever since I saw this in the survey. Never knew I needed something in my world so badly!

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’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)

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.

You play crusader kings don't you

There is literally zero fat on this. Awesome, lean, jammed packed with goodness. I doff my hat to you good sir.

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.

Blech, really hate the ad in the middle of the video, almost clicked off because I thought it was over

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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.

Your videos are great! I've subbed and am looking forward to seeing your channel grow in the future

Thank you thank you.

I'd like to see something about the role of fools and jesters at court.

great vid!

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