Understanding Regency

[Birthright-L]

>

> > Well, a lot is mixed up. The Khinasi are probably the only "pure"

> > nation if we consider analogy with real world nations.

>

> And which nation is that? The Persians? The Arabians? The Egyptians? Or

> the

> Phoenecians? The Basarji (Khinasi is an abbreviated place-name dammit! :))

> are

> the fusion of the culture from the Dragon Isles and the Masetians. This

> provides the modern Basarji culture in Khinasi with its complicated mix.



Arabs, who have, too, been influenced by Persians, Phoenicians, Egyptians and other less famous nations too numerous to list here. Masetians represent those ancient nations, mostly Egyptians, probably because they are best known.



>

> > The Vos, the strangest mix, are mix of Mongols and Slavs.

>

> The Vos confuse the hell out of me, I`ll freely admit that!



Slavic language and constitution with Mongol clothes, hair color and warfare. Religion could be called unique, although probably a little influenced by Christians writings about evil pagans.



>

> > I`m not trying to copy the real world into everything. Yes, we can

> > use what we know about our late medieval world and apply a lot of it

> > in Birthright, but we don`t have to make an exact copy. For example,

> > Haelyn`s churches don`t have to be exactly the same as Catholic church,

> > although I guess that they would have similar buildings and clerical

> > hierarchy.

>

> Some of the Haelynic churches might be episcopal in structure, I expect

> some of

> them might be rather presbyterian though.



I have no idea what these two things mean although I know that "episkop" is a title equivalent to bishop in Orthodox churches.



>

> > Cerilia is based on a part of real world, yes, but it doesn`t have to

> > be a copy, and I don`t want "it didn`t work that way in middle ages" to

> be

> > an argument against my actions in some game.

>

> Some of BR is clearly inspired by our history. I think it is silly to

> ignore

> that.

>



As much as it is silly to assume that everything should be the same. If you want to play a historical game, than do it.

[geeman]

At 12:16 AM 2/4/2004 -0600, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> > Where real world medievals believe their leaders are divinely

> > mandated that mean their authority and power comes from God

> > alone. In BR, the power facility to rule (bloodline) comes from

> > divinity, but the actual power to rule (regency) comes from the people.

>

>Perhaps you missed my first post in this thread? Its posted on Jan 31, 1:57

>pm.



I read it. I don`t see how it`s much related to the statements above

except in very abstract terms.... Care to describe how it relates? Here

it is again:



>Regency is a mechanism for political capital. Politics is a game of multual

>obligation: I do this for you, you do that for me. As a ruler governs he

>has opportunities to help people out, to create personal loyalty among key

>officials, to get a suplus of favors owed to him. As the ruler spends

>regency the process works in reverse. People do favors for the ruler, take

>risks for his benefit, and develop the feeling that they have done enough.

>A ruler with a small pool of political capital can ask for small favors from

>many, or large favors from a few. Beyond that people will make excuses, and

>will be unwilling to do much for you. people with a large pool of political

>capital can go for a longer period of time asking favors as well as ask for

>larger favors.



How is that related to the issue of BR`s political power (regency) coming

from the people rather than from a mandate from heaven as was the medieval

standard?



> > That`s a vital difference, and very different in its basis than any

> > medieval concept.

>

>Which is why popular assemblies from the Estates General, the English

>Parliament, the Anglo-Saxon Wittan, the Norse Athing, the Italian commune,

>the German Diet, and so many others were so important? Check. This is why

>the elective nature of monarchy was so fundamental? English, French, and

>German monarchs were often elected, and when a presumptive heir had

>herititary claims, the motions of electivity were applied, such the

>presentation to the court, the royal oath (which in England was a guarantee

>of limits).



There seems to be a confusion of two different things here: the domain

structure and regency. Going from the existence of an early bureaucracy or

feudal relationship to something like the BR system of regency is quite a

leap... and, I`m afraid, it`s not to the point because the things described

aren`t very well connected to the concept of regency in BR since they might

more easily be defined as part of the whole province (or law holding)

structure rather than the fuel that provides regency (the people actually

being ruled.) All one needs to describe any of the things listed above is

a domain structure. Regency is an entirely different proposition.



Also the nominal "election" of many medieval monarchs would hardly apply to

the concepts being presented here in that they were very far from what

would be represented by regency. An "election" by peers does not equate

very well to the concept of gaining political power through the

masses. Aside from the elections described above being a oligarchical they

are still better reflected by a system of holdings, not the system of regency.



The reality of the matter is that in the politically and theologically

orthodox world of the medieval period people were burned at the stake or

drawn and quartered for far less controversial suggestions than that rulers

derived their political power from what BR calls the "kismet" of the

people. Such a thing would have been considered heretical or treasonous,

and does not have the kind of role in the medieval mind that has been

suggested. It`s alien the medieval mind, the product of several centuries

of fantasy fiction culminating in later 20th century pop fantasy. That`s

all well and good, but to describe it as actually having a medieval basis

is fallacious and, frankly, not a very good portrayal of either the use of

historical analogy for the game or a very clear interpretation of regency.



>Listen, you can make a case that there are differences, but no one is making

>that an issue but you. You seem to lack the imagination to understand that

>I can selectivly take ideas from history (and I have plainaly stated on

>numerous occasions I don`t limit myself to medieval history) and build a BR

>setting totally within the descriptions of the texts, entirely without

>inventing a new concept.



Would that it were so difficult a thing to imagine....



>Remeber, I am only trying to mine ideas from human

>history to serve the BR game in order to fill in concepts that game has not

>filled in. Judging by the ideas the game has already presented, their

>source is simply the human past as well. There is nothing new in BR.

>

>What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is

>nothing new under the sun.



Well, I`ve argued that the source of the BR materials is not, in fact,

simply the human past. It is really fantasy fiction, which is in some

cases connected to history, but in others not. Regency is one of those

things that is not.



> > Furthermore the nature of BR divine rule is that it can be transferred,

> > both in the transfer of bloodline and the exchange of regency. One

> > could hardly make the same argument of a real life medieval concept

> > of divine right to rulership.

>

>This is an absurd statement. Certain you write this just to troll around

>here. Fiefs were never transfered by marriage, purchase, vassalage,

>inheritance, peace settlement, donation to religious orders, escheatment,

>will, charter (usually to cities, but also monastaries), forfiture,

>wardship, or transfer for service? Titles never moved from one person to

>another by the same list as I presented for fiefs? The people of the new

>fief, county, duchy, kingdom, &c never accepted the new ruler because this

>was untransferable? The Roman concept of adoption has no parallel to

>transfer of bloodline or right to excercise the rights of the paterfamilias?

>Upon what principle exactly did Henry VII claim to be a Lancastrian?

>Regarding regency, as it is political capital, it is transfered whenever a

>king wins the cooperation of his vassals, or a noble wins the support of his

>liege.



Wow, lots of stuff in that paragraph. Let`s see if I can address them in

some sort of order....



OK, in the above paragraph we`ve got "marriage, purchase, vassalage,

inheritance, peace settlement, donation to religious orders, escheatment,

will, charter (usually to cities, but also monastaries), forfiture,

wardship, or transfer for service," the transfer of titles and domains,

Roman paterfamilias, Henry 7, and the mutual support of nobles and lieges.



None of those things are very well represented by regency, nor (I`ll argue

below) bloodline. There are much more direct BR analogies for each of

them. For most, it seems to me to be a basic confusion of bloodline (the

divine right to rule) with regency (the power gained/manipulate through

rule.) Vassalage, of course, does have a regency transfer involved in BR,

but again the nature of regency is not defined by vassalage in

BR. Vassalage would exist in a system without regency. Other than peace

settlement--which I`m not sure has to do with anything at all here--most of

the above examples are handled by simple domain or money/asset

transfers. Regency and bloodline don`t even factor into them.



When it comes to the Roman concept of adoption, however, that is a very

interesting point. In general, I again think this is the real world

version of bloodline not regency being defined here, so I still think we`re

talking about the bloodline/regency distinction that seems to have been so

confused here, but I would be more inclined to think the transfer of the

imperial power of a "Caeser" might be closer to the BR equivalent of

regency in certain respects. I don`t know what it was that the Roman

empire had, but in the absence of a much larger domain system (a continent

spanning "empire level" of play) I`m content to call it regency, so I`ll

bow to that one as the exception that proves the rule. If one were

describing the more common, local versions of that Roman legal system,

however, then no I don`t find a lot of regency in it. It can still (and

probably should) be better exemplified with estate/domain and asset transfers.



In regards to the transfer of bloodline, I don`t think any of the above is

a good reflection of a real world analogy because what`s being transferred

is not something embodied in a person (which bloodline is) but the airs and

distinctions of an office. It`s the difference between controlling a

regent`s domain and having his bloodline. What one gains by marrying up,

inheriting a title, etc. are position, not bloodline. Bloodline exists

whether the character has those things or not. Bloodline is something

extraneous to the real world things described above. Furthermore, titles,

estates, inheritance, gifts to monasteries, etc. can all exist in BR

without a bloodline or regency, so why read bloodline or regency into them

when they don`t even exist as such in the setting?



It`s a mistake IMO to go further in defining regency or bloodline any

further than they do in the BR materials. Finding real life or fantasy

fiction inspiration for BR themes works and is a good way to enhance play,

but to do the reverse--to take BR themes and applying them to real life--is

a very shaky proposition. When it comes to Henry 7, for instance, I think

that he could work quite well as an argument that things like bloodline and

regency are not transferable in the real world.



Gary

[kgauck]

Gary must be supremely confident that his reading of Br is ironclad, well

supported by the text, and that it is in fact orthodox. Some other reading,

just as authentically obtained, is simply to be contradicted if it does not

suit him. And what readonable person would go around contradicting someone

else`s reading if they were not so confident that they, and only they, had a

monopoly on how BR should be played.



How cavalierly he declares another interpretation is not really what regency

ot bloodline represents. He addresses an intentionally eclectic mining of

historical ideas and concepts by tying to insist that a single idea must

conform to the contextual whole from which it was drawn. He thus demands

not only commitment to his own othrodoxy, but bows before the orthodoxy of

other eras and places.



Indeed such a narrow, unimaginative, and crimped reading surely must qualify

Gary to succeed Lavalan Briesen in the Orthodox Imperial Temple.



Nevertheless, I cannot see the point in a continuing and ongoing exchange in

which one person, such as myself, attempts to understand the other person on

their own merits and then to discuss those merits from his own point of

view, and another person simply imposes upon ideas their own rigorous test

of orthodoxy, declaring ideas not in humble conformance to be heretical.

Since the purpose of my writing is not to submit it to someone else`s

approval, I see no point in writing when that is the only apparent standard

being applied. As always I am more than happy to engage in a fruitful

discussion, wherein disagreement might occur, but the emphasis is on

understanding and appreciating, not in applying a test of one`s own

orthodoxy.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[irdeggman]

Ouch.

I haven't 'pissed' you off lately have I Kenneth?

[Birthright-L]

> Nevertheless, I cannot see the point in a continuing and ongoing

> exchange in

> which one person, such as myself, attempts to understand the other

> person on

> their own merits and then to discuss those merits from his own point of

> view, and another person simply imposes upon ideas their own rigorous

> test

> of orthodoxy, declaring ideas not in humble conformance to be

> heretical.



That`s fine. You don`t have to. You are both very enaging and

passionate about your topics of interest and while it`s often

interesting to read the posts when you guys go into it, you`re not the

first one to be turned off by the conversation. Both of your opinions

on Cerelian history, real world historical models, and methods of

rhetoric are legend around here. Your objection to Gary`s posts lie far

beyond this current thread and if you don`t want to through with it

anymore... It`s okay. Believe me, we understand. Many of us stopped

following the conversation awhile ago. But that doesn`t mean we want to

read a three page troll about how insulting you can be to an active

member of our community or how your insult should be the final

difinitive post on the thread and its pointless to say anything beyond

the fact that you feel Gary`s a jerk. Keep it to yourself, okay? Or at

least make your insults short and witty so as to entertain the rest of

us....



You know for a fact that Gary is the Moderator of our list. He`s gonna

post something about not trolling people. He has to. It`s his job; we

elected him to do it. And you know it`ll make him look petty. Why do

that? Because this goes to the forum, I`m sure Irdegmon will post a

link to his "we should all be friends" post again just to try to keep

things civil.



This was largely unnecessary. And I`m not saying it because I have to.



Damn. I`ll probably get reprimanded too, now...





--Lord Rahvin

[geeman]

At 09:57 AM 2/4/2004 -0800, Lord Rahvin wrote:



>This was largely unnecessary. And I`m not saying it because I have to.



No, no. Nothing like that. Since its been brought up, however, here are

some guidelines that I wrote a while back that seem particularly apt to

describe this situation:



Recently there`s been a couple posts pretty much dedicated to hating

Gary. Now, as Gary, that`s pretty much OK by me. In the past plenty of

people have hated Gary, and in the future I`m sure many more will join

their ranks. Eventually, I imagine it`ll be a kind of club--like the Elks`

Lodge or the Shriners--with it`s own set of bylaws, membership dues, secret

handshake, etc. There will not, sadly, be any female members. (They

already have their own club for hating Gary and new membership is strictly

monitored.) The club could even have its own theme song... lots of things

rhyme with "Gary."



Anyway, as moderator of Birthright-l, I would like to offer up a few

guidelines for participation in the Gary Haters Club (GHC.) I call these

the "I hate Gary" rules.



1. "I hate ONLY Gary."



When hating Gary please refrain from letting any of that hate spill out

into hating other participants in the BR community. That is, put as much

hate into posts in response to Gary as you like, but should other folks

chime in please don`t subject them to the same level of hate directed at

Gary. They are, after all, innocent bystanders merely putting in their

two cents. For all you know, they might hate Gary too! Let`s avoid

collateral damage to other people who may not yet have learned to hate

Gary. Have faith in your own hatred of Gary that eventually their time

will come. Specifically, when hating Gary it`s easy for the insults to

start flying (after all, we hate Gary) but if someone new chimes into the

conversation don`t make the mistake of directing comments at that new

person that are really inspired by your hatred of Gary.



2. "I hate Gary AND..."



Try to make some sort of attempt at remaining on topic by not _just_ hating

Gary. At least maintain the pretext of discussing Birthright related rules

and themes by posting some sort of discussion of such things in the posts

dedicated to hating Gary. Even a little "Hey, guys, what do you think of

using rule variant X in BR" as a post script will do.



3. "I hate Gary gosh darn it!"



While Gary isn`t personally offended by "bad language" and wouldn`t be

concerned by reading naughty words directed at him, near him, in his

general direction, or performed in his presence, the use of obscenity and

profanity are not allowed by WotC who sponsors Birthright-l and allows so

much of their material to appear on Birthright.net. Please don`t use

obscene language in hating Gary--or for any other reason--when posting.



So there we go. If we abide by these few simple guidelines we can all hate

Gary and discuss Birthright in harmony.



United in Hatred of Gary,

Gary

[Nikolai II]

There have been a lot of talk about medievals not being able to grasp the idea of 'power from the people'.

If we ignore the elected kings and the long-lived tradition of a king having to 'pass the muster' (Eriksgata in Swedish) there is still another problem with the complaint - it can be ignored.

That's right, that regency comes from the land or the people can be completely ignored, since it is a rule and only a flavor one at that. The important thing is that regency is collected and that it can be spent, not where it comes from or even what it is (all that is flavor).

And, even if one were to use the rule that RPs come from the people the people need not know - it might be divine blessings as far as they are concerned, since they can't even (individually) affect the gathering of RP there is no way that they could ever prove that RPs didn't come from the gods - since it needs a major problem to crimp RP gain, and major problems are surefire signs of divine wrath, right? B)


(PS:I'm not a hater - yet :P )

[Birthright-L]

>

> >>The Mongol/Slav mix of the Vos (kind of need to throw the Rus in there

> >>too for the sake of generality) is slightly more vague, but has a

> similar

> >>thing going on in that there was the occasional horde running around to

> >>suit the mix.

> >

> >The Rus? If you mean russians are they not slavs?

>

> I don`t mean that so much as that I think Rus is a bit more general than

> Slav. "Slav" nowadays probably has more of a southeastern European

> connotation, while tossing in the Rus extends the concept a bit. Just me

> maybe.

>



Nope, "Slav" really extends over all Slavs, even those who technically live in Asia. Rus is not equal to Russian and it is older. Old theories say that Rus is a Nordic tribe to which Rjurik and his band belonged. Rjurik and his brothers, Sineus and Truvor, established rule in Novgorod. When his brothers died of unknown cause(I guess he killed them), Rjurik moved his capital to Kiev and formed the first Slavic state. Old slavists reached such conclusion because first mentions of "Rus" hailed from that period. However, recent finds testify that "Rus" is much older than Rjurik and Slavic in origin.



Now, if you wanted to copy the real history into Birthright, just create a Rjuven adventurer with a part and maybe one unit of followers and try to forge your realm somewhere in Vos lands :-)

[Birthright-L]

> >This was largely unnecessary. And I`m not saying it because I have to.

>

> No, no. Nothing like that. Since its been brought up, however, here are

> some guidelines that I wrote a while back that seem particularly apt to

> describe this situation:

>

> Recently there`s been a couple posts pretty much dedicated to hating

> Gary. Now, as Gary, that`s pretty much OK by me. In the past plenty of

> people have hated Gary, and in the future I`m sure many more will join

> their ranks. Eventually, I imagine it`ll be a kind of club--like the

> Elks`

> Lodge or the Shriners--with it`s own set of bylaws, membership dues,

> secret

> handshake, etc. There will not, sadly, be any female members. (They

> already have their own club for hating Gary and new membership is strictly

> monitored.) The club could even have its own theme song... lots of things

> rhyme with "Gary."

>

> Anyway, as moderator of Birthright-l, I would like to offer up a few

> guidelines for participation in the Gary Haters Club (GHC.) I call these

> the "I hate Gary" rules.

>



Come on people, I can understand hardcore nazi freaks who fight all the time on political lists and forums, but why fight about your opinion about Birthright? I took a small part in this discussion, too, and it was my pleasure to hear Kenneth`s opinion about "Understanding Regency" topic which is radically different than mine, but I don`t hate him because of that. I mean, shouldn`t this list and forum be used to exchange opinions, to allow you to hear something new and reassess the matter in different way, to look at it from a different angle and see if you still think you are right?

[Birthright-L]

> And, even if one were to use the rule that RPs come from the people

> the people need not know - it might be divine blessings as far as

> they are concerned, since they can`t even (individually) affect the

> gathering of RP there is no way that they could ever prove that RPs didn`t

> come from the gods - since it needs a major problem to crimp RP gain, and

> major problems are surefire signs of divine wrath, right? B)



I`ll be damned if I understand what you are asking about. How do people have an idea of a Regency Point? IMHO, people can feel their bond with the ruler, and ruler can feel his bond with the people and the land, but they don`t have idea of Regency or Regency Points as we use them in game mechanics. That`s why, in my games, I allow Regency tribute for vassalages to be specified only in percents and only when the vassalage is created. Changing the RP tribute requires another Investiture, and RP tribute actually defines the strength of vassalage.