Apprentices at TL4

[Luke Bunyip]

Was bouncing ideas of a mate on modelling the apprentice relationship for an upcoming one-off, and just thought I'd check in with the collective consciousness.

Game is set in about TL4, and the players are all masons or apprentice masons working at a fine stone quarry. I take it if someone takes on the role (ie ads/disads) of being an apprentice, someone else will need to likewise as their sponsor.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[The Colonel]

You could always have the master as an NPC patron. Disads will be interesting given that an apprentice was legally indentured labour and didn't necessarily have a salary (masters were contracted for upkeep but that didn't need to include spending money).

I'd wondered myself about an "apprentices campaign" centred around medieval teenagers - albiet with the emphasis mainly on squires rather than stonemasons, but never got around to doing anything about it. I would suspect the GM needs to limit the scope of adventures to relatively prosaic things that can be done in limited amounts of game time, but has relative freedom to assign tasks to the PCs on behalf of their masters. Dungeon delving is pretty much out of scope but scooby-gang adventures around town and castle are more the thing - although combat is still certainly possible (medieval apprentices were often at the bottom of civil disorder) and children being what they are, some poking about underground is possible (again, assuming the sort of mini-dungeon that can be found in town or castle and can be explored in an afternoon). In between, expect conspiracies to avoid work and chat up the maids/ladies in waiting depending on social status.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

You could always have the master as an NPC patron.

Given that we've got a bunch of parents/guardians with a pair of teenageers rounding out the group of players, I thought I'd give a parent / child pair the option of playing a master mason and his/her apprentice. It's just stating that later relationship which is why I'm checking in here.

But your castle squires and/or apprentices campaign idea sounds like a hoot.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Game is set in about TL4, and the players are all masons or apprentice masons working at a fine stone quarry. I take it if someone takes on the role (ie ads/disads) of being an apprentice, someone else will need to likewise as their sponsor.

For clarification, I think you mean master, not sponsor. Usually the apprentice's father would sponsor him. While I couldn't say for certain that it would be particularly the case for a stonemason, it certainly wasn't unknown for the apprentice [or his sponsor] to pay the master to take the apprentice on in say, the jointers' guild.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

You could always have the master as an NPC patron.

Again for clarity's sake, while you could have the master or guildmaster as a patron, the apprentice will be apprenticed to a master and not to a journeyman.

One additional point that you may want to research is low treason. I got to wondering if there was such a thing given how often treason ends up being referred to as high treason. Somewhat to my surprise, at one time there was an offence of low treason. It was a charge involving the betrayal of one's superior in a relationship. While not necessarily exhaustive, some of the people who could be charged with low treason were: a wife by her husband, a servant by his master and an apprentice by his master, emphasis mine. I'd also suggest that an apprentice wasn't considered to be in exactly the same position as a servant, indentured or otherwise, given that the two relationships were called out separately, though there were likely many similarities. The most immediate and obvious difference to me was the requirement in most [possibly all] surviving contracts that the master 'teach the arts and mysteries of the craft' to the apprentice. I'm afraid I don't have a ready reference for you. It was something I ran across several decades ago and I can't remember where I saw it, though I strongly suspect it was in the reference section of a public library.

[Luke Bunyip]

Curmudgeon, ta muchly. Nice specificity in there; I'll need to take some notes.

And nice pointer on low treason. Nicely rescued from the rabbit hole.

[aesir23]

The primary game mechanical effect of apprenticeship is Duty. Master's might be Allies rather than Patrons--the apprentice might have as many or more points, just not concentrated in the area of expertise.

The Master could take the apprentice as both Ally and Dependent.

[Not]

The point value calculation is relatively easy. The real juice here is the relationship the characters will have starting at day 1. Burt Ward to Adam West. Sancho Panza to Don Quixote. Sam to Frodo. Patroclus to Achilles. Take your pick.

[Luke Bunyip]

Yeah to both of youse.

Think I'm done here. Ta muchly folks, this one is nailed for me.

Done and dusted.