How would you handle social class in BRP?

[Nokaion]

At the moment, I'm designing my own version of BRP that tries to be a Middle-European version of Aquelarre playing in the 15th century. I'm thinking about adding social class as part of the character creation, but how would you handle this as a mechanic?

• Like in Aquelarre, where it just influences what professions you can pick?
• Like cultures in Mythras, where it influences what profession you can pick, and you can invest points into skills?
• Like in Renaissance, where it influences what profession you can pick, and it gives you flat bonuses to skills?

Thx in advance!

[Nozbat]

I think this really depends on how realistic you want to be, or maybe historical is a better term. You are setting it on the cusp of the break down of the Feudal system but I also think it depends where you are setting it. Northern Europe? Italy? Or in Spain on the borders of the Basque regions?

Northern Europe (the modern areas of North Germany, Belgium, Baltic) was throwing off the yoke of the nobility and Church and the rise of the Merchant classes and Guilds was allowing for a different power dynamic. But it was still highly stratified and moving between being a farmer and becoming a Merchant was highly unlikely. Peasants who went to the cities because they were starving ended up starving in the cities. I think it was more the profession that matters that determines the social class. And social class is then about what you can and can't do. Can you carry a sword? No. Can you break the Sumptuary Laws? No. The Social Class you were born into still mattered. 

In Southern Europe (Spain and France) the feudal system still held on and anyone not from the upper social class had very few options to escape drudgery, even with the help of magic. I think I said elsewhere in another thread that even in a more magical feudal society, IMO, power would still be exercised and jealously guarded by the First and Second Estate with little being transferred to the Third Estate and ruthlessly controlled to keep those lower classes down.

My immediate thoughts would be that Italy would be an excellent choice for your ideas. Constant wars between Royal Houses (Hapsburgs, Bourbons etc), the Papal States with schisms, several (or more) Popes, Independent City States and the burgeoning of the Renaissance and of course the Condottieri, where people from all classes could climb social ladders in a backdrop of wars, famines, plague, betrayal, intrigue, spies, vendetta and petty spite.

Having said all that, I think it's hard to break out of social class or conversely break into it. In my Renaissance campaign, I had all the Players be from one family of Merchants. Profession then determined social class and allowed at least some movement from place to place that didn't feel contrived (so I think, the players may have other views of large plot devices). I chose a low magic world (at least for the players) but magic is there. The fading remnants of Faerie, banished by the church, the rise of new (or classical) knowledge from the fall of Constantinople that drove Humanism and the Renaissance, the Qabalistic and Hermetic magic that flowed into Flanders and Brabant from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the mystical knowledge of the Arabic Hikmah and Oral traditions and of course Alchemy and the Old Religions of the witches and the goddess.

I think I've wandered off topic so a summary is... I'd recommend professions as defining social class particularly until you see where you want to go with your world and then gradually add bits that fit in with your thinking and the players goals. It doesn't need to be set in stone from the start and can be vague as long as it is consistent. Players apparently (and they tell me this regularly) like consistency. I prefer chaos and throwing them to the wolves

[Nokaion]

Thanks for the tips. My system would primarily be set in Central Europe, especially Switzerland during the Burgundian Wars, because I think it's a part of medieval history that gets easily ignored and because my players being Swiss mercenaries gives them an excuse to be sort of everywhere.

First I wanted to do a more general approach, for the case that I want to expand the system into a more general 15th century game.

[Nozbat]

Yes, excellent idea. On a fairly recent trip to Zürich I had decided to reacquaint myself with Swiss history having spent a night thinking how the Swiss managed to maintain their neutrality in the Early Modern Period.. and the answer was by defeating everyone who invaded more or less until Napoleon. So a fertile ground for a lot of role-playing.

Mind you women didn't get voting rights until 1971 after a referendum.. and 33% of the population voted against it !!!!! Does that say anything about equality of opportunity?

[Nokaion]

8 minutes ago, Nozbat said:

Mind you women didn't get voting rights until 1971 after a referendum.. and 33% of the population voted against it !!!!! Does that say anything about equality of opportunity?

Yes, unfortunately, that is true. Switzerland is a rather conservative country and women gained the right to vote rather late (there were multiple attempts, but they weren't successful for a time). Appenzell Innerrhoden (one canton, which is something akin to a US state) only gave women the right to vote on local and cantonal affairs in 1991, after the highest court ordered them to.

14 minutes ago, Nozbat said:

Yes, excellent idea. On a fairly recent trip to Zürich I had decided to reacquaint myself with Swiss history having spent a night thinking how the Swiss managed to maintain their neutrality in the Early Modern Period.. and the answer was by defeating everyone who invaded more or less until Napoleon.

It's rather interesting. Swiss mercenaries were, especially after the Burgundian Wars, in very high demand and revolutionized medieval/early modern warfare, because they made heavy use of halberds and pikes. The famous Landsknechte copied some of the tactics used by Swiss mercenaries.

[Nozbat]

 

8 minutes ago, Nokaion said:

The famous Landsknechte copied some of the tactics used by Swiss mercenaries.

But the Reisläufer were first.. I can see a useful passion Hate (Landsknecht) .. that will spawn many interesting narrative threads

Even my players have that, although they are merely Salt Merchants following an incident were a Landsknecht, Heyndrich Büchel, used his Katzbalger in an attempt to disembowel their father. He unfortunately didn't succeed due to the prompt intervention of the father's head servant and a well aimed poker. Büchel was identified as a Landsknecht by the sword he left behind. Fortunately for him he escaped with a broken arm and is still at large, no-one being brave enough to walk into a Landsknecht camp and accuse him of murder. My players have implicated him in several other murders. However I can't confirm or deny the truth of that.

[svensson]

It depends on the society in question.

A wealthy American can have friends who are middle class if that American is 'new money'. British society [and those Americans who follow British aristocratic customs] requires all parties to 'know their place', where each side can be 'friendly' but not close friends as we currently think of the term. Think Lord Crawley and Mr. Bates from 'Downton'. My sense of the German nobility is rather similar to the British but far more formal and 'im Ordnung'. My sense of French society is more 'republican', but that certain families 'put on airs' even to this day. Those families tend to be in the middle between the British and the American nouveau riche.

And, of course, you're gonna have to adjust for the time period as well, as your Landsknecht discussions have shown.

In a medieval context, I might direct you to the Harn RP milieu. Harn is a medieval fantasy setting that was modeled after but is not directly related to Western Europe of about 1100 AD or so. Social class is of prime importance and that class defines and limits the hopes and expectations of the player characters.

[Nozbat]

1 minute ago, svensson said:

In a medieval context, I might direct you to the Harn RP milieu. Harn is a medieval fantasy setting that was modeled after but is not directly related to Western Europe of about 1100 AD or so. Social class is of prime importance and that class defines and limits the hopes and expectations of the player characters.

I'd agree with @svensson on the social class statement .. and I use Renaissance Deluxe rules along with Renaissance 1520 supplement. Simple and easy to use as the basis is BRP. I don't do much combat in my games as it's deadly and the players are better at Commerce and Music than using the pointy end of their swords.There are things I'd add from other BRP games such as passions as I don't think Factions cover it all and are a bit unwieldy. 

I find it more interesting that the Capo of the Condotiterie they hate with many passions invites them for dinner at the Curia Regus Artus in Danzig and watch them panic. In Antwerpen, they had both got each other condemned to death for the murder of a Papal Legate, but both had escaped execution. He had said let bygones be bygones and come to dinner In the best restaurant in Danzig before Lent starts. They worry that the Capo might be behind some murders of a Notary investigating embezzlement and the possible theft of a Triptych. He has form in both. And it is more terrifying than marching off to war.

[svensson]

@Nozbat When I was a medieval reenactor I had several friends who LOVED the Late Renaissance in Central Europe, with the Landsknechts and Codottiere, with dinner parties being more dangerous than battlefields, where a piece of art we now consider a classic of its form being considered a political statement by either the artist or their sponsor...

Me, I was more Medieval with it. My real interests stopped at about 1200 or so. A lot of it was that I didn't like the clothes a whole bunch. Slash and Puff sleeves, finicky Italian or French codpieces and points holding your pants up, pointy toed shoes with bells on them, none of that appealed to me at all.

But a game in either era can educational as Hell for people who were raised in a Humanist Democracy... where one's birth counted for more than one's deeds, where death was more random than the weather, where people had to persevere through fires that gutted entire cities, plagues that depopulated regions, Inquisitions, wars, and the petty jealousies of noble could ruin a whole region for spite's sake alone.

[Jason D]

Without going too far into the woods, I'd simply identify the primary social classes appropriate to your setting (for example: Slave, Peasant, Landholder, Laborer, Soldier/Man-at-arms, Merchant/Crafter, Minor Nobility, Greater Nobility) and give each a list of 8-10 skills, and let players pick 5 of them for a +20% bonus. 

[Nokaion]

9 hours ago, Jason D said:

Without going too far into the woods, I'd simply identify the primary social classes appropriate to your setting (for example: Slave, Peasant, Landholder, Laborer, Soldier/Man-at-arms, Merchant/Crafter, Minor Nobility, Greater Nobility) and give each a list of 8-10 skills, and let players pick 5 of them for a +20% bonus. 

Funnily enough, this sounds like how Mythras handles culture, where you get 100 points that you can invest into your cultural skills and was basically my first idea. Wouldn't 20% be kinda high? I think it'd be better if they'd get a flat 10% bonus to all 10 skills, or they had to invest at least 5% into every skill.

[Atgxtg]

It's also similar to how Flashing Blades did it. 

There you picked your background (Rogue, Gentleman, Soldier, or Nobleman; Sailor and Marine were added later) and that determines what your character's background skills were. Background skills., During chargen a character could pick a skill outside of their background at an increased cost, or learn them in play normally.

Flashing Blades also had a Social Rank score, rated from 1 (peasant) to 20 (the King). A character's starting Social Rank was determined by their background, although it could be altered during chargen and in play.  Social Rank had it's advantages, such as how you were treated socially, who you (could be seen to) hang out with, what social groups your could join, influencing rolls for favors and such (if the King wants to borrow your peasant's hut for some reason, you don't say no). There were downsides to Social Rank, too. Social Rank determined your monthly expenses (you had to dress the part, eat the right foods, drink the appropriate wines, etc.), leave you vulnerable to scandal (no one cares if a peasant was found in a den of iniquity, but everyone cares if a nobleman was), makes it harder to do things clandestinely, since people know of you, and sort of pains a target on your back since anyone successful is bound to have made some enemies.

The nice thing about it being  number was that it made it much easier to determine a pecking order, tell if someone was appropriate for a place (or vice versa), and climb the social ladder, especially for the middle class, as the military and aristocracy had a built in rank structure.

 

It was designed for the social structure of 17th century France though, with a rising middle class. It might work for a more feudal society.

 

As for how I would handle something like this, it depends on what sort of setting I'm trying to recreate. Social Rank is handled very differently in Dodge City in 1887 compared to Rome in 287, London in 1287, Paris in 1687, or Yedo in 1987.