ibusoe
Clueless newb
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Post by ibusoe on Jul 12, 2019 11:11:13 GMT -5
The historic crime of "Impersonating a Noble," means something specific. It doesn't really relate to someone trying to illicitly gain power over other people. It wasn't something that a commoner was going to do in order to sneak into a party or something - there were better ways to do this, that bore less risk. It was never part of some secret plot by someone to act important or humiliate other people. If you think about that one, an urban peasant would have been bowing all the time, so if you found out at the end of the day that you bowed to someone unnecessarily it wouldn't have bothered you. For a peasant, it's always better to bow and scrape under circumstances where the requirement to do so is unclear.
"Impersonating a Noble," meant you were trying to embezzle money. I spent an evening a few days ago carefully researching the topic and found that there was scant information about it on the internet. I was able to access a few transcripts of medieval trials. Joan of Arc's trial was an interesting read, but there wasn't much in the way of case law available to me for Impersonation.
I point this out because I want to admit that I'm speculating about what I'm about to write, but the primary reason for anyone to impersonate a noble, I'd think, would be financial fraud. Generally, nobles had money and peasants didn't have money. When money was metal coins, it was heavy and not secure and you couldn't transport much of it with you even if you wanted to. If you were a peasant and you ran out of money while you were traveling, you begged for what you needed because you didn't have any credit to borrow upon. If you were a noble, you could get a letter of credit because someone would have heard of you or recognized your ring or your House or something, and they could have sent a bill to your family.
So if you were good at (the crime of) impersonating a noble you could have gotten your hands on a fair amount of cash. The motive would have been financial.
The nobility wouldn't have cared if some peasant put on airs and pretended to be a noble and went out to a little village and lorded over the other peasants. Actual nobles weren't going to go to the expense of sending their guards (e.g. paying mercenaries) to go track the offender down. This would have been the peasants' problem. This sort of 'crime' wouldn't have been prosecuted.
The nobility wouldn't have cared if some peasant dressed up like a noble and wanted to hob nob with higher society. Presumably minor nobles were always doing this to more important nobles anyway. If your ruse would have been exposed, you would probably have been thrashed and kicked out of the party. Another non-prosecution. You can't imagine that this would have happened very often.
I was trying to envision a scenario in which someone would have attempted to influence government policy by pretending to be a noble, but pretending to be a priest would have been nearly as effective and would have carried a much lower criminal penalty.
The conclusion of my speculations is that without a financial motive, there wouldn't have been much of a criminal case against someone.
For one peasant (e.g. non-noble) to bow to another peasant (e.g. non-noble) is NOT impersonating a peasant. Even if it were, the person being bowed to would not be the one to get in trouble. Playing a character that has significant anxiety about having people defer to your character (e.g. especially bowing) is inappropriate for the setting of Armageddon. Medieval society was hierarchical and so peasants were probably often deferring to other peasants if those peasants were smarter or older or had a bit of money, or if they were kulacs.
In Allanak, presumably chieftans, warlords and minor nobles from the outlying villages are probably often attempting to claim Noble blood in the city of Allanak. Presumably the more established Nobles merely ignore them. It wouldn't be worth investigating for the militia, how would men at arms even sort out claims to nobility? You're a noble if the other nobles recognize you as a noble. If you're not embezzling money, it's not illegal.
Players get this one wrong a lot, to a startling degree.
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Post by lyse on Jul 12, 2019 12:58:29 GMT -5
The way I see it: At the very least, you’d need a signet ring to pull it off. Having the signet ring is going to net you a theft charge. It’s probably going to be some pretty heavy consequences for stealing from a noble, probably death.
I was listening to a podcast call Lore where something like that happened. A captain found some guy that looked like him. He was so amused he made the guy his valet. He would let the valet pretend to be him for lulz. The captain died and the valet took his place. Obviously, he couldn’t do his job, so he got brought up on charges. He confessed he wasn’t the captain and told his story. When they put him back in jail to figure out what to do with him, he escaped.
As far as Arm goes, it would probably make for a cool plot. Arm being Arm, it wouldn’t work.
Ideally, somebody would get a hold of a ring and pretend to be lord or lady Boopsie Oash for a little while. Somebody from the family wouldn’t recognize them and suspicion would start to build. Templars would be called in, they wouldn’t cut the mustard. Then there’d be a trial, followed by an execution. Cool story that lasted a few weeks depending on how much staff let them do and how many players they involved in the fraud.
Reality on Arm: Fake Boopsie Oash wouldn’t be able to get into the noble quarter, a player would try to get them to lead them into the noble quarter, get blocked by an npc guard ‘cause code, a staffer would animate an npc to point out Boopsie is a fake. A Templar would come in, accuse Boopsie of theft, execute them in Red’s on the spot. Plot done, nobody would remember it because it lasted about two days total.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2019 12:45:18 GMT -5
The way I see it: At the very least, you’d need a signet ring to pull it off. Having the signet ring is going to net you a theft charge. It’s probably going to be some pretty heavy consequences for stealing from a noble, probably death. I was listening to a podcast call Lore where something like that happened. A captain found some guy that looked like him. He was so amused he made the guy his valet. He would let the valet pretend to be him for lulz. The captain died and the valet took his place. Obviously, he couldn’t do his job, so he got brought up on charges. He confessed he wasn’t the captain and told his story. When they put him back in jail to figure out what to do with him, he escaped. As far as Arm goes, it would probably make for a cool plot. Arm being Arm, it wouldn’t work. Ideally, somebody would get a hold of a ring and pretend to be lord or lady Boopsie Oash for a little while. Somebody from the family wouldn’t recognize them and suspicion would start to build. Templars would be called in, they wouldn’t cut the mustard. Then there’d be a trial, followed by an execution. Cool story that lasted a few weeks depending on how much staff let them do and how many players they involved in the fraud. Reality on Arm: Fake Boopsie Oash wouldn’t be able to get into the noble quarter, a player would try to get them to lead them into the noble quarter, get blocked by an npc guard ‘cause code, a staffer would animate an npc to point out Boopsie is a fake. A Templar would come in, accuse Boopsie of theft, execute them in Red’s on the spot. Plot done, nobody would remember it because it lasted about two days total.
What are you basing this on?
This literally has happened in Arm. The faking Noble wished up in advance. The guard got animated and let the Noble through. Him and his mark moved on to a bench, sat down, chilled and discussed business.
It didnt pan out too far, because everyone died to unrelated stuff. If I recall correctly it was some kind of a con revolving Kuraci wagon manufacturing lore.
You are literally talking shit no for good reason, Lyse.
I suppose it depends a bit on how profound nobility is in their right to rule and concepts of wealth. The most common problems revolving around pretending to be noble probably comes from a conflict of Nobility and wealthy merchants. Wealthy Merchants are supposedly richer then Nobility, but lack the social standing of the noble due to birth. Ambitious merchants tend to want to outmaneuver that obstacle and nobility guards that distinction, because it's literally the main thing that they have. Wealthy merchants gain authority and power due to their wealth. Nobles gain authority and power due to their blood. It is natural for Nobles to guard that ethereal distinction, because 'theoretically' they dont always have the wealth that can match the merchants.
The idea for the nobility is to make nobles an entirely different species, compared to commoners. To create a point where for a commoner to pretend to be a noble would sound as ridiculous as for a human to pretend to be a half giant. It is less so about economical fraud and more about authority. A noble should be able to enter a room full of people and just due to his bloodright be immediately the most important/deferred to person in that room.
So yes. If a Noble were to stumble upon a commoner pretending to a noble, things should end badly for the commoner. As far as what's going on in neighbouring villages, or whatever. That depends on the outreach, the level of giving a fuck, and familiarity of that village. I can see a Noble assigning their aide to 'deal' with it and then forgetting it next moment.
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Post by lyse on Jul 26, 2019 14:53:57 GMT -5
You are literally talking shit no for good reason, Lyse. It was a shitpost response to a shitpost. Are you really that dense? Nobody else responded because they realized it was a shitpost. Are you really that intent on running into threads to clean shit up? Also I’m well aware of that “plot”. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2019 15:46:08 GMT -5
... Um. Okey.
I am understanding your post as "This whole thread is about talking shit. Expecting common sense or some level of reason is very dense of you, Qwerty."
Am I understanding your response correctly? If I am then okey, my bad! Keep at it. I'll stay out of this.
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