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omnipus
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Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Sat 29 Jan 2022, 05:21

People mean lots of different things by feudalism. I used to be a medieval historian and went to college and grad school at a time when feudalism was under attack as an unhelpful construct. The reason that feudalism is inapplicable to the post-Twilight War situation in my view is that feudalism concerns land tenure. Lords grants land to the vassals who in return perform military and other service. In the classical conception, this basic system of "I let you live on my land, so you work for me" goes from the king down to peasants. Despite the mentions of the cantonment system, I can't see land tenure as being all that important in the post-Twilight War world and certainly not formalized to that extent. Fundamentally, no one is that settled! Also, relations within the military aristocracy wouldn't embodied in land at all. Why soldiers follow other soldiers in this setting may be complex, but I think in approximately zero cases does it involve something like "Johnson follows Smith's orders because Smith granted Johnson the fief of Farmville." (Why anybody can order anybody else around in this setting when they both have guns is an interesting question.)

So I think what you really have is nonterritorial warlordism. It could mimic aspects of feudalism after a few decades if the cantonments stabilize. They would not be stable in 2000.
You may need to expand on what this idea of "nonterritorial warlordism" is. For all but a few, a nomadic life is basically certain death. And most warlords will lack the resources to do much travel in any case. If you mean it in the sense that there are squatter bandits, then sure. They are the unstable part of 2000. Most of them will be gone soon. Either dead or they went legitimate in the service of a higher power.

Which is also the answer to your other question. All over the world there are people with guns who listen to other people with guns. Social fabric didn't vanish overnight when the war came. In fact, more likely, it became tighter and more important. So there's plenty of really good reasons you don't just have a shootout with the guy trying to boss you around, first one being that you might not win. Close behind that is that people tend to have friends. Friends and alliances are what keep people alive, and the bandits hiding in the woods will rapidly run out of those. The same reason you don't go gunning for Tony Two-Toes because he took 10% of your profit is the same reason Lt. Smith isn't going to just shoot Col. Rogers in the face.

In this world social currency will be based on who can provide food, and in many cases that means there will be a very strong overlap with who is well-armed enough to secure the fields and workers. So governance in general will probably have a much heavier military/paramilitary presence to it than any division of power we know now, but there's still a lot of power to be derived from the social norms, titles, and structures that existed in 1995.
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG
 
andresk
Posts: 177
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Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Sun 30 Jan 2022, 00:19

What are you feeding the livestock and why aren't you eating it yourself? I don't doubt many people in such a situation would want to create storybook farm operations that include meat-raising operations, but that's inefficient, particularly since you may be turning part of your harvest into fuel. If you want meat, hunt and fish.
Animals can eat stuff that humans can't digest. The land that provides this food may not be (or most likely is not) suitable for any kind of farming. You're also transforming that plant based feed into quality food with better nutrition. Chickens are a good example of how you can raise animals on pretty minimal feed, they will eat pretty much anything, let them run around the yard hunting bugs and worms, then toss them your vegetable scraps, keep some kind of grain for winter/emergencies and you're pretty much set.
 
SykesFive
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Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Sun 30 Jan 2022, 20:19

By nonterritorial warlordism I mean that rulership comes from control of an armed force not title to land as part of a chain of allegiances. The latter is the distinctive feature of feudalism.

Maybe if the big militaries stayed cohesive there would be a quasi-feudal structure based on the areas occupied by each unit and preserving a version of the military chain of command.

The armies of 2000 are not much less mobile than pre-20th century armies particularly after they end their reliance on motor vehicles.

Another sense in which the warlordism is nonterritorial is that the warlords may not really want to rule this particular land and would perhaps leave if given the opportunity. Take some American colonel in 2000: is he more interested in controlling this patch of Polish territory that will let the few hundred personnel left from his brigade continue to live their bleak existences, mount some level of opposition to the Soviets, etc.? Or would he really just like to go home? Almost nobody in the setting signed up for this. They are products of a vastly different society.

Which is also the answer to your other question. All over the world there are people with guns who listen to other people with guns. Social fabric didn't vanish overnight when the war came. In fact, more likely, it became tighter and more important. So there's plenty of really good reasons you don't just have a shootout with the guy trying to boss you around, first one being that you might not win. Close behind that is that people tend to have friends. Friends and alliances are what keep people alive, and the bandits hiding in the woods will rapidly run out of those. The same reason you don't go gunning for Tony Two-Toes because he took 10% of your profit is the same reason Lt. Smith isn't going to just shoot Col. Rogers in the face.
The game is about answering this question, with the caveat that in most cases the player characters will have a very high level of solidarity. Do we do what the colonel says because he has higher rank? Maybe--maybe not! Do we stick with other Americans/NATO personnel? Maybe--maybe not! Is the goal here to survive, get home, win the war, what? The characters decide. That for me has always been a draw of the "end of the Twilight War" setting: things are really breaking down and after years of following orders and being good soldiers, the characters are on their own and have to decide what to do.

It will be interesting to see if future published adventures push the players toward winning the war (accomplishing Operation Reset), Going Home (wherever that is), or whatever else (e.g., troubleshooting in Poland/Sweden, building a nice base, etc.).
Last edited by SykesFive on Sun 30 Jan 2022, 20:30, edited 1 time in total.
 
SykesFive
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue 07 Sep 2021, 21:15

Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Sun 30 Jan 2022, 20:22


Animals can eat stuff that humans can't digest. The land that provides this food may not be (or most likely is not) suitable for any kind of farming. You're also transforming that plant based feed into quality food with better nutrition. Chickens are a good example of how you can raise animals on pretty minimal feed, they will eat pretty much anything, let them run around the yard hunting bugs and worms, then toss them your vegetable scraps, keep some kind of grain for winter/emergencies and you're pretty much set.
Can't digest or choose not to digest? Animals you can set loose to forage are fine. I'm saying that any time the calculation is based on feeding the cattle (etc.) so much grain from our harvest so we get so much meat, you should stop.
 
User avatar
omnipus
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Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Mon 31 Jan 2022, 07:47

By nonterritorial warlordism I mean that rulership comes from control of an armed force not title to land as part of a chain of allegiances. The latter is the distinctive feature of feudalism.

Maybe if the big militaries stayed cohesive there would be a quasi-feudal structure based on the areas occupied by each unit and preserving a version of the military chain of command.

The armies of 2000 are not much less mobile than pre-20th century armies particularly after they end their reliance on motor vehicles.

Another sense in which the warlordism is nonterritorial is that the warlords may not really want to rule this particular land and would perhaps leave if given the opportunity. Take some American colonel in 2000: is he more interested in controlling this patch of Polish territory that will let the few hundred personnel left from his brigade continue to live their bleak existences, mount some level of opposition to the Soviets, etc.? Or would he really just like to go home? Almost nobody in the setting signed up for this. They are products of a vastly different society.

Which is also the answer to your other question. All over the world there are people with guns who listen to other people with guns. Social fabric didn't vanish overnight when the war came. In fact, more likely, it became tighter and more important. So there's plenty of really good reasons you don't just have a shootout with the guy trying to boss you around, first one being that you might not win. Close behind that is that people tend to have friends. Friends and alliances are what keep people alive, and the bandits hiding in the woods will rapidly run out of those. The same reason you don't go gunning for Tony Two-Toes because he took 10% of your profit is the same reason Lt. Smith isn't going to just shoot Col. Rogers in the face.
The game is about answering this question, with the caveat that in most cases the player characters will have a very high level of solidarity. Do we do what the colonel says because he has higher rank? Maybe--maybe not! Do we stick with other Americans/NATO personnel? Maybe--maybe not! Is the goal here to survive, get home, win the war, what? The characters decide. That for me has always been a draw of the "end of the Twilight War" setting: things are really breaking down and after years of following orders and being good soldiers, the characters are on their own and have to decide what to do.

It will be interesting to see if future published adventures push the players toward winning the war (accomplishing Operation Reset), Going Home (wherever that is), or whatever else (e.g., troubleshooting in Poland/Sweden, building a nice base, etc.).

Yeah, those are all good questions as far as the player characters go -- and you're right, one way or another they have to have the agency to come up with their own personal answers (even if they are what turn out to be bad ones). My response was in a more general sense, as to why the hundred thousand NPCs in the general area aren't all just going full The Purge on each other all the time. Another good reason is that most people just aren't murderers, even if pushed. But self-preservation above all else, in most cases. The interesting situations in T2K develop when groups (like a whole division) start to have deviant answers to the questions.
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG
 
andresk
Posts: 177
Joined: Mon 05 Oct 2020, 16:38

Re: How many people are actually living in towns and cities?

Mon 31 Jan 2022, 11:32

Can't digest or choose not to digest?
I mean if you feel like you can choose to digest grass/hay, then good for you. :D
Though I'm not sure that's exactly how people work really.

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