"Medieval" fantasy with tech 2?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Anyone middle class & up had trained themselves from childhood to not notice the help.

Plus, it's probably a thing where the only one the upper middle classes and upper classes noticed was the butler, who was essentially the "chief of staff" of the household. The gentry interacted with the butler, who managed the hiring and firing of the cook, maids, stable hands, etc.

Dialing that back to TL2... Even in Classical Greek times the wealthy families had a "head servant" or "chief slave" - depending on city and culture - who basically ran the place in the master's name. If going a "medieval" TL2, I don't see that changing.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I think he meant spontaneous human combustion. That's a famous bizarre myth.

Bah, that's just vampires lighting themselves on fire. ;)

[Polydamas]

Leaning back to the original topic, low-tech societies without cities and a lot of specialists (like say Britain in the 1st century BCE or 6th century CE) tend to be unpopular settings for adventure fiction. Most of our culture's tropes are build on urban civilizations and powerful kingdoms or states which make travel a matter of spending money not humbly paying tribute to the chief of each village so he will lend you a hut and a meal rather than stick your heads over the gate of his hut (and if you are generous and drop the right hints, maybe throw in some trash which happens to be scarcer in your culture than his) or complicated negotiations involving everyone's genealogy. So a TL 2 setting like the Han Dynasty could work, but one like the Carolingian empire would probably require open-minded players and a GM who likes to read nonfiction.

On the Internet and in KotDT, I notice that many gamers' 'olden times' now includes beds with springs in cells with solid iron bars, dry ice, milled lumber, and other things which they see in Western and Steampunk films (TL 5-6).

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

On the Internet and in KotDT, I notice that many gamers' 'olden times' now includes beds with springs in cells with solid iron bars, dry ice, milled lumber, and other things which they see in Western and Steampunk films (TL 5-6).

I don't think I've had PC thrown in a cell with a sprung mattress yet, even at high TLs. It just doesn't seem wise.

My low TL cells do tend to have solid iron bars, if they're of the luxurious type that lets a bit of air and light in (makes it easy for the jailer to enforce basic hygiene too). Otherwise they're a hole (in the wall rather than the floor if you're lucky) with a solid wooden door barred over it. There might be a lumpy straw mattress if the cell owner is in a generous mood.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I don't think I've had PC thrown in a cell with a sprung mattress yet, even at high TLs. It just doesn't seem wise.

My low TL cells do tend to have solid iron bars, if they're of the luxurious type that lets a bit of air and light in (makes it easy for the jailer to enforce basic hygiene too). Otherwise they're a hole (in the wall rather than the floor if you're lucky) with a solid wooden door barred over it. There might be a lumpy straw mattress if the cell owner is in a generous mood.

Depends on the feel of the jailers in the game, too, IMO. If the feel is an "old west" type, then cells with a cot or mattress and bars instead of a solid door may be viable; if the jailers are of the oppressive sort, then you get into dungeons (and not the kind you go into to kill stuff and take loot from, either).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Depends on the feel of the jailers in the game, too, IMO.

Iron bars generally depends on cheap iron, which depends in turn on the developments from TL 5 industry.

It's not impossible to have iron barred jail cells at TL 3, but that's going to be a very special situation.

[Flyndaran]

No one wants a rehash of D&D adventures where the adamantium walls are worth far more than any treasure.

[AlexanderHowl]

I remember looting the jail cells instead of continuing with the adventure...

[warellis]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Read a clip about Sherlock Holmes -- he figured out that posing (in disguise) as a servant or beggar was to be de facto invisible.

Anyone middle class & up had trained themselves from childhood to not notice the help.

Also weren't there servants mentioned with the elves, or other places, often mentioned in a generic "and then *insert event* occured"? Like "and that's when dinner was served." For Tolkien I mean.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by warellis

Also weren't there servants mentioned with the elves, or other places, often mentioned in a generic "and then *insert event* occured"? Like "and that's when dinner was served." For Tolkien I mean.

In Mirkwood, the Elvenking had a butler who got drunk with the chief guard, and also a group of laborers who tossed the "empty" barrels into the river that flowed down to Laketown. Of course, that was a grandiose sort of establishment.