When we read the words “Once Upon a Time” we usually expect to find a fairy tale. When we see a multivolume series of fantasy novels, we usually expect some sort of link to the Middle Ages. By no means all fantasy trilogies have a medieval base, but enough have those links for it to be an understandable expectation.
The kind of link varies from writer to writer and the links are not always there at all even when the publicity for the volume claims them, but we still expect them. Today I want to explore just one type of link. It’s a particularly important one, for it doesn’t just connect the reader with what they think might be the Middle Ages, it links the reader with gaming and Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) and other types of play.
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The play aspect of our stories is critical in helping us decide how important they are, so the play aspect in a series of novels can be critical for the honour those novels are given by readers and it can also help shape the way we see the Middle Ages through the stories in this fiction.
Medieval fiction’s links with games changes the way the gamers see the period. Authors such as Raymond E. Feist – whose novels reflect actual games and game worlds, that is, they are scarcely one remove from the gaming world – provide a structure for a false Middle Ages that helps its followers interpret arms and armour, war and marriage. How it does this is particularly interesting.
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To play a board game or an immersive game of any variety requires rules. Even when a Dungeon Master or other game manager leads a particular round, rules lie at the heart of the game. The games’ master interest the underlying built world and that interpretation follows accepted paths – i.e. rules. Those rules enable players to make decisions regarding how they will play. The built world for the game and the way that world is interpreted are both part of the underlying fabric of games. While there is a significant difference between set rules and interpretative guidelines or traditions, given that I don’t have tens of thousands of words to explain, I’ll use ‘rules’ to summarise both.
When a game is based on any period of history, the rules for the game may be based on the designer’s knowledge of history, or they may be drawn from popular history books. In the case of games played in worlds such as Feist’s, they may be drawn from fiction that is more or less linked to the Middle Ages. We’re not looking at any or all medieval fantasy fiction today, then: we’re looking at books that tell stories set in the same world as a game and that has rules and interpretative traditions to bring that world to life for both readers and players. Raymond E Feist’s work is an excellent example of such novels, for he was an early leader in this field.
Human lives might have rules (rule of law, for instance, cultural traditions, religious obligations) but they’re seldom universal and they’re almost always dynamic. The reality is that everyday life, historically, is immensely complex. Historians often look for simple ways to describe these complexities and those simple ways are somewhat similar to the way some of the rules used in world-building for gaming works, but they’re not the same thing at all. Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society is the type of work that is critical for much medieval world-building for gamers. These works give overviews of society as a whole and these overviews give simplified pictures from which rules can be drawn. They are not the only place rules are drawn. Other fantasy novels and simply working out possibilities on a page from prior knowledge and years of gaming experience are also influential.
From an historian’s point of view (mine, in fact) Bloch’s work is classic. It was part of a big shift in the way the Middle Ages was examined by scholars. It is also dated. The concepts of feudalism that were considered accurate almost a century ago are now treated very differently by experts.
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Expert knowledge is a dynamic discourse, and gaming requires a static understanding. Without those rules and without that shared (static) understanding, playing in a world is much more difficult. This is why the Medievalish world of Feist’s novels doesn’t read, to a medieval historian, like the Middle Ages at all.
Gillian Polack is an Australian writer and scholar who focuses on how historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction writers see and use history, especially the medieval period. Among her books is The Middle Ages Unlocked. Learn more about her Gillian’s work on her website, or follow her on Twitter @GillianPolack
By Gillian Polack
When we read the words “Once Upon a Time” we usually expect to find a fairy tale. When we see a multivolume series of fantasy novels, we usually expect some sort of link to the Middle Ages. By no means all fantasy trilogies have a medieval base, but enough have those links for it to be an understandable expectation.
The kind of link varies from writer to writer and the links are not always there at all even when the publicity for the volume claims them, but we still expect them. Today I want to explore just one type of link. It’s a particularly important one, for it doesn’t just connect the reader with what they think might be the Middle Ages, it links the reader with gaming and Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) and other types of play.
The play aspect of our stories is critical in helping us decide how important they are, so the play aspect in a series of novels can be critical for the honour those novels are given by readers and it can also help shape the way we see the Middle Ages through the stories in this fiction.
Medieval fiction’s links with games changes the way the gamers see the period. Authors such as Raymond E. Feist – whose novels reflect actual games and game worlds, that is, they are scarcely one remove from the gaming world – provide a structure for a false Middle Ages that helps its followers interpret arms and armour, war and marriage. How it does this is particularly interesting.
To play a board game or an immersive game of any variety requires rules. Even when a Dungeon Master or other game manager leads a particular round, rules lie at the heart of the game. The games’ master interest the underlying built world and that interpretation follows accepted paths – i.e. rules. Those rules enable players to make decisions regarding how they will play. The built world for the game and the way that world is interpreted are both part of the underlying fabric of games. While there is a significant difference between set rules and interpretative guidelines or traditions, given that I don’t have tens of thousands of words to explain, I’ll use ‘rules’ to summarise both.
When a game is based on any period of history, the rules for the game may be based on the designer’s knowledge of history, or they may be drawn from popular history books. In the case of games played in worlds such as Feist’s, they may be drawn from fiction that is more or less linked to the Middle Ages. We’re not looking at any or all medieval fantasy fiction today, then: we’re looking at books that tell stories set in the same world as a game and that has rules and interpretative traditions to bring that world to life for both readers and players. Raymond E Feist’s work is an excellent example of such novels, for he was an early leader in this field.
From an historian’s point of view (mine, in fact) Bloch’s work is classic. It was part of a big shift in the way the Middle Ages was examined by scholars. It is also dated. The concepts of feudalism that were considered accurate almost a century ago are now treated very differently by experts.
Gillian Polack is an Australian writer and scholar who focuses on how historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction writers see and use history, especially the medieval period. Among her books is The Middle Ages Unlocked. Learn more about her Gillian’s work on her website, or follow her on Twitter @GillianPolack
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