Post by Father on Sept 30, 2017 15:41:46 GMT 1
The major faultline of this time period is the perception that the status and prominence of knights is under attack by the king, as he is increasingly replacing knights from positions of influence and authority with men of scholarly training, from our perspective, that sounds like a good idea, and building up a competent bureaucracy based on merit has indeed historically been a boon to those who have done so. However, to muddy the palette is of course that you displace a lot of people from positions of power and they are not happy about it. The best knights are sort of like Westerosi rock stars, they have a following. Just take a look at our own democratically elected officials, most of them are populists, some more than others of course. If we elected people based on their competence at running a country rather than their competence at playing the courtly intrigue that gets them nominated and their skill at looking good on TV that gets them elected, we'd have some entirely different people at the top, unless they got seduced by the perks and lobbyists and power and turned out to be mostly the same. The point I'm trying to get at here is that the Daemon faction (or fire as I like to call it) have more modern parallels in so far as there's a large group of people that holds privilege and clout (the knights) which see this slipping out of their hands and into that of the elites (The Daeron faction, or blood as I like to call it) and this opens up fertile ground for the populists (Bittersteel et al) to reap the fears of change and loss of relative status.
Secondary is that everyone in the Reach hates the Dornish, and doesn't like that Daeron allowed the Prince of Dorne to keep calling himself the Prince of Dorne, among other things. Or that there's been a huge influx of Dornish at court. Lord Tyrell (father of the current one) was for example murdered in breach of guest rights by the Qorgyles, and King Daeron I was lead into ambush by the ruse of a peace flag (As far as the Reachmen are concerned anyhow). Lots of Reachmen died in the fighting that followed (30 years ago, but memories die hard).
The game uses a chivalry/virtue mechanic to represent the general incentives and sanctions that Westerosi culture imposes upon certain behavior, the design purpose is to try and provide guidance as to what sort of characters are idolized by society and what sort of behavior is shunned. There are very few who question these norms, and many chivalrous knights and virtuous ladies are loyalists while others are Blackfyre supporters, so that really has no correlation with Blood and Fire. Mostly it's a measure for the esteem in the eyes of others.
Secondly, there's a Blood and Fire mechanic, meant to represent the struggle between sides and the shifting winds of of the political game, throughout events and other scenes, as well as the rumor system, characters may manipulate these and thus nudge the political balance wherever they feel like.
Secondary is that everyone in the Reach hates the Dornish, and doesn't like that Daeron allowed the Prince of Dorne to keep calling himself the Prince of Dorne, among other things. Or that there's been a huge influx of Dornish at court. Lord Tyrell (father of the current one) was for example murdered in breach of guest rights by the Qorgyles, and King Daeron I was lead into ambush by the ruse of a peace flag (As far as the Reachmen are concerned anyhow). Lots of Reachmen died in the fighting that followed (30 years ago, but memories die hard).
The game uses a chivalry/virtue mechanic to represent the general incentives and sanctions that Westerosi culture imposes upon certain behavior, the design purpose is to try and provide guidance as to what sort of characters are idolized by society and what sort of behavior is shunned. There are very few who question these norms, and many chivalrous knights and virtuous ladies are loyalists while others are Blackfyre supporters, so that really has no correlation with Blood and Fire. Mostly it's a measure for the esteem in the eyes of others.
Secondly, there's a Blood and Fire mechanic, meant to represent the struggle between sides and the shifting winds of of the political game, throughout events and other scenes, as well as the rumor system, characters may manipulate these and thus nudge the political balance wherever they feel like.