A Geek History of Time - Episode 23- Jeffersonian Agrarianism and D&D (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 28, 2019

Ed develops the connection between the "Stronghold" mechanic of 1st Edition AD&D and assumptions born out of agrarianism. Damian shares his favorite part of Cicero's defense of Milo in Rome.

You know, Stalin and the Nazis were these welfare state types. One of us is a stand-up comic. Can you tell me it is? Ladies and gentlemen, everyone, brick. Um. But the problem. Oh my god. That's like, I could use that to teach the whole world. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This is a geek history of time.

Where we connect nursery to the real world. I'm Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher and I have one section in English. It's an orphan class that yeah, here in Northern California and I have been a geek at the very least since I was in the fourth grade, no third grade, and got introduced to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons at a Weekend Richment Program through my school. And you, sir.

I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher, and soon to be a social science teacher, yet again, returning back to the Highloat Halls of Sacred History, teaching world history at the high school level again returning back to the hallowed halls of sacred history, teaching world history at the high school level. Welcome back to the club. Thank you. In addition to the Latin program that I have been building for these 12 years. And I have been a geek for quite some time. One of my most recent favorite geek memories is that my daughter is playing a wizard and they leveled in the middle of a dungeon. How is a wizard supposed to get new spells? Study, right? Spontaneous understanding okay. That's a sorcerer. Well okay so. She's got

a new spell to put nurse hell book and all that so it's gonna take time. So I basically aged some paper by spilling T on it, ripped it up a little bit, found a draconic alphabet. Very cool. Printed out a riddle that essentially was, I did this for three different spells because she has three new spells at her next level. There are all the things that she liked, but she had to decode the draconic alphabet and then figure out what the riddle was saying and if she could do that, she could have the spell. She wrote in and now she bought herself that green journal that you see over there

right next to the dragon writing book. Oh yeah yeah. She now is keeping those spells in that book. Oh very cool. So that's that's the geek that I am. I like it. Yeah. What you're reading? I like it. I am reading how the Scots invented the modern world The story the true story of how Western Europe's porous nation created our world and everything in it by Arthur Hermann As I've said before it sounds show vanistik. It is a little bit show vanistik It is it is definitely a It is definitely a raw rock kind of argument, but it does make some compelling points about how the unique characteristics of the Scottish Enlightenment led to the advancement of other ideas politically throughout Western Europe and thus to the modern world that we live in today.

How about you? I am reading Livy. All right. Just make me sound like an uneducated. Last time I was reading the far side. So I think you're fine. You're well, yes. But yeah, I'm reading Livy, who is a shitty historian, but for the time...

A little Roman historian. Yes. but for the time... A whole Roman historian, it's worth. For the time he was great. I mean, you know, they relied on Herodotus for God's sake. Uh-huh. Yeah, he went for Polybius. Yeah, okay. And yeah, he never actually visited the places he studied. No.

But the fun thing about Lviv was he loves giving this two-handed approach. He'll say Some people say the herati e-fought for Rome others say the kuryati e-fought for Rome Most of us think that it's a herati e. So I'm gonna go with that Or some of my other favorite explanations Some people say that the father of these two offspring was Mars having raped Rea Silwa. Other people say that she had sex with a guy, but she named Mars because it was better being a vessel virgin to have been raped by a god than having consensual sex with a human. Whatever the issue, she had two

kids. Or two more of my favorites. One, some say Ainius was born to Kreusa in Troy and followed his father all over the place. Others say he was born to Lavigne. Whatever the case may be, he started Albalonga. He just screen wipes through shit. Or my absolute favorite. Some people say that Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf. Other, yeah, we all know that myth. Right. Others say that because Laurentia's body was common to all the shepherds around, she was called a she-wolf, which is a Latin term for whore. Wow.

So he's like, you know, it might be supernatural. It might be mundane. No, we don't know. Right. Wow. Yeah. It might be mundane. No, no, no. Right. Wow. Yeah. Sorry, I love it. So, have you read the Foundation Series by Arthur C. Clark? No.

Not Clark. Sorry. Foundation is asthma. Sorry. Also, no. Okay. One of the interesting things about Foundation is that he specifically name checks as a late imperial period thing.

Historians who never go to the places that they study archaeologists who don't ever actually visit archaeological sites. Yeah, it's a tagged part of psychohistory history is this is one of the things to look out for. Yeah. So yeah, that's that's he did his research is what I'm saying so speaking of research. Yes in our last episode we were talking about the influence of episode we were talking about the the influence of agrarian ideas on the foundations of Dungeons and Dragons and especially this paradigm of what happens when you become a fighter at high level in in first edition AD&D.

Now it's important for me to clarify as time went, I want to talk a little bit about the development of the game from here. This was the very beginning of the game. When, on Earth, our cano was published in the early 80s. I remember what year I'll stop in my head. I don't have that book in front of me. When that got published, that was when Fighters got the ability to specialize with a specific weapon. That was kind of the one bone they got thrown because that book also introduced the barbarian class, which did everything Fighters did and some other stuff and the stuff that Fighters did, much of it they did better. Also introduced the

Cavalier class, which did everything fighters did and some other stuff on top of that and then did that same stuff that fighters did better. And so the, the, uh, stop that fighter players get thrown was, hey, now you get to specialize in a weapon because fighting is like your thing. Mind you if fighting is the same thing that Cavalier does, fighting is like your thing, mind you if fighting is the same thing Cavalier does, fighting is the same thing in Perbarian does. But anyway, you get to weapon specialize, yay you, and then we're going to give you some tables to use to determine what do your followers look like when they show up. When you build this freehold, you get to roll on a table because everything has to have a dice table

in first edition AD&D. Right. Like, you know, you can't just have the DM actually say, okay, here's what you get. No, no, it's gotta have a table. We gotta randomize everything because Eerie Guy Gags. And so that was basically it. Now, second edition,

kind of still stuck with the same idea, but everybody who was sort of like a fighter got the ability to get followers, Rangers in second edition got the ability to attract followers. They didn't get a freehold, that was not part of the process, because Rangers don't settle down. Rangers wander the wilderness.

I'm sorry, I still don't give a shit about getting fake property in a fantasy game. Money, money, money, who do you trust? It's all about income. Okay, it's all about wealth, it's all about power, and it's all about the underlying trappings and the world building involved in it. It's prestige.

Okay, okay, you're the one, as the fighter, you're the one who gets to be a lord at the end of everything, and you get to be the founder of the kingdom that everybody is working toward trying to achieve, because that's the thing, I guess. Big swing and a mess for me. Yeah, it will. But no, I get it.

I get it. Like, yeah, it's very much a product of, like I said, last time. Yeah. He's a product of where he grew up. Yeah. He's a product of the ideology that last time. He's a product of where he grew up. He's a product of the ideology that he swam in. Yeah and it's a product of the same idea that led to well of colonial ideas, the idea of the core idea of colonialism, which is you set out, you establish civilization in the benign wilderness and

You know the idealized view of it is you wander out of the wilderness and you spread the civilizing influence of Whatever civilization you're coming from right so in second edition That's how it grew in Third edition they do away with the idea of establishing a freehold altogether In third edition, they do away with the idea of establishing a freehold altogether. That goes away completely. And everybody gets the ability to attract followers by taking the feet leadership. Oh yeah. At fourth level, you can take the feet.

You had to be at least fourth level. Right. You could pick up the feet as part of your advancement process, part of the skills tree. You get leadership at fourth level and that means okay, now we take your charisma score, which no longer is completely a dump stat because now you can do this with it. And you use that to determine how many henchmen do you get, which is like people who are like, no, no, you're my dude, you know, I'm with you, right?

They're basically counting at jars. Yes. Yeah. Basically. And they're there to mini tank for you. Yes. Yes. And so, you know, and then different mechanics existed

in fourth edition. I haven't actually looked closely at how it works in 50 yet because we haven't gotten anywhere near where lots of thing in the campaign we're we're planning. But in the very beginning of the game, this was what made Fighters Special High level. Okay. Because again, Wizards gained Infinite Cosmic Power with the Wish spell, with time stop, with all the high level kind of magical fuckery they could do

right everybody else you know druid's had the ability to change well they they had the ability to get the spell to allow them to change shape at this at this point in the game you know clerics were the ones that could resurrect anybody when they died right you, so other characters get all these supernatural wacky stuff and as a fighter, you're rooted in the very physical reality of hitting stuff with a sword or an axe or a mace or whatever. And so your toy is followers. You're the one who gets to be the Lord, you're the one who gets to be the king of the end

of everything. What about thief? Well again, thieves went into the city and they established themselves as mob bosses. So they did the urban version. They did the urban version of this. Now what's now what's interesting and I didn't bring this up in the last episode is that when a thief establishes a thief's guild, they don't get the same constant level of income that you get from establishing a freehold. If I flip here to talking about thieves, any thief character of 10th or greater level may use his small castle type building. Oh, sorry, I gotta go back there, Graff.

Thieves cannot build strongholds as some other classes of characters do. Some other class, we mean fighters. So they're the only ones. So Thieves can't have real estate? Yeah. Hold on. They can, however, build a tower or fortified building of the small castle type for their own safety. But this construction must be within or not more

than a mile distant from a town or city. There's zoning laws. Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Gary Gai-X. Of course he introduced zoning laws. Okay. So, any thief character of 10th or greater level may use his small castle type building to

set up a headquarters for a gang of thieves and he or she will accordingly attract from 4 to 24 other thieves. However, this will bring the enmity of the local thieves guild and they will struggle to do away with the rival organization once begun, warfare will end only when and if all the master thieves on either or both sides are dead or if the thief character removes to another locale. Number one, there's the automatic assumption there is a thieves guild wherever you're setting up because it's urban because it's urban. By the way, this is all taken straight out of Fritz Lieber and Lankmar.

If you want to read a fun set again of like there's some issues in here based on what it was published for the age well, but it's a really there really fun set of adventure stories. Fawford and the Grey Mouser. It's awesome. Okay, but anyway, this is taken straight into that. This is also Cugill the clever and the dying earth. And like we said, the underlying idea that you know it's an urban area so automatically it's corrupt. So you're automatically going to have a mob war and, you know, you're hopefully going to be able to convince your fighter buddy and your other friends from your adventuring

days to help you, you know, win it. This is a campaign hook in the same way that the fighter clearing the area around as strong hold as a campaign hook. That's what you do for the last couple of levels before he max out in the PHP. Now notice when you do that, it just says there's automatically going to be a gang war and you have four to 24 thieves working for you. It doesn't say anything about having a fixed income. This is a fighter gets seven silver pieces of fucking hat.

Right. Like, for everybody who settles in his territory, because happy farmers. This goes back to Rome. This 100% goes back to Rome. And here's why. If you wanted to retire and you wanted a lot of land, 40 acres, let's say, you have to go out to the provinces,

the edges of the provinces, you were a 25 year veteran of the war Yeah, your Caesar At least yeah Some people got to retire earlier, but you got the idea yeah, so now the province Border is dotted with people who are really good at fighting those same folk. Yeah If you didn't want to get 40 acres, if you wanted to be closer to Rome, therefore closer to the center of power,

you could get 20 acres inside the borders. OK. If you wanted to get real close to Rome, maybe 10 acres, if you wanted to take a stipend and just live free in the city, you could do that too. Huh. You know what soldiers are really good at doing in a city? Holding sharp pieces of metal in front of other people, it's saying, give me all your cash.

Yeah, I mean, you can't wear your soldiers' garb. But you can wear it too and act and have your own bag or ship. Yeah, yeah. So very often that was what former soldiers did You can have your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back.

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You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your own back. You can take care of your They would also hire themselves out to politicians to be rabble rousers at public events like trials. Nice. Yeah. In fact, during the trial of Milo, Milo, who killed Clotius on the Appian way, they were both traveling with about 30 gladiators and other Slay-Tiger. Slay-Tiger. Yep. And they're traveling and then they get into a big surrmission and I mean, Mielo didn't mean to kill Claudius, but once Claudius got hit in the arm with the spear, he's like, well, fuck, I gotta kill him now because if he stays alive, then he's gonna be more dangerous.

And then Mielo gets put on trial about four days later. Rome burns. There is a giant, like, yeah, the body clodias gets brought back in, his wife, Fulvia, like incites the crowd to riot, they then take his body, make it as it is, and put it in the courier as the funeral pyre, and they burn the shit down. Wow. This is why Caesar got killed in the Pompeian theater by the way, not in the Korea.

Yeah. So the Korea burns out, which is like if, I don't know, like say, I don't know, Bruce Willis gets killed by a rival acting gang or something. And then everybody's like, fuck that, we're gonna take it to the Capitol building and then they burn down the Senate house Wow, that's how big that a deal it so so then He gets put on trial. Okay, my look is put on trial and sister a defense him and sister was like well

Yeah, my client killed him, but you know he had to and besides here's my favorite part of the defense Clotius is probably fucking his sister and she's a whore. And then a group of people started singing songs already prepared about how Claudius was banging his sister. Okay, wait. And then they all started spitting at each other and then like Pompe had to leave because it was turning into a riot. And I think sister got thrown off the rostrum.

Okay, wait. And then a few days later they finished the trial. Yeah. Wait, back up. Sure. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You lost me at the point where Cicero, who is one of these people that we point to in

the western canon as, you know, the king of recreation. Yeah. Um, resorted to, he was having carnal relations with his sister. Yeah. Yeah. Cause she's like, really? Yeah. And she's older.

So I mean, obviously, Ipso facto, you know, to engage in a little bit of dog love yeah I so I Wink wink not much I sign now more so clearly she's a goer Just go a little further yeah Mustro yes Because you'll love the end of this Cisro Had to be killed for the second triumvirate to work. Mark Antony said,

I ain't joined it unless he's on the dead horse. Yeah, Augustus reluctantly agreed and Cicero gets killed. Now, Mark Antony hated Cicero, Cicero, hated Mark Antony. Mark Antony at one point promised Cicero, I will nail your hands to the Korea door. Oh no. So he did. They also brought back his head. Fuck, seriously? Yeah, no, he's dead already. I know, but like went to the trouble

to presumably have somebody cut his hands off. Yeah, actually Mark Antony might have been the one to do it, I don't know. He was a brutish man. So here's, here's, I'm just saying when we're talking about Romans, simply anybody out as a brutish man So here's I'm just saying when we're talking about Romans Sinkling anybody out as a brutish man. Yes mean something. Yes, it does I'm gonna point out again

These are people who thought that a public execution was a good day out. Yes. Wow so the best part they also removed his head It was placed in the forum They also removed his head. It was placed in the forum. Claudius' wife, Fulvia, goes up to his head, takes out her hair pins and stabs his tongue. Wow! So anyway, the civilization that we point to is the pinnacle of the founding of Western civilization, ladies and gentlemen. Yes.

But if you were in the city, you were potentially- Clearly, potentially. With your skills, whereas if you were in the country, you were a respected- Yo-men farmer.

Mm-hmm. All right, so, wow, holy crap. So that idea of the corruption of the urban and the respectability of the Yom and all that, carries from the Romans all the way up through, the founding of the Republic,

when you're talking the last episode about Jefferson and Hamilton, or Madison, I should say, not Hamilton, not of no, not Hamilton. Jefferson, Madison, Washington, to a lesser extent, Washington was not as loud about it, but the ideology that they all carried was the Oman farmer is the foundational figure of a successful Republican, small art,

Republican government. Horace wrote about this in his satire. Yeah, and they were all actively constantly looking back to the Roman Republic as the model for everything they did. That's the reason all of our government architecture looks the way it does. It's the story of the town mass and the country mass. Yes, very much. So and as I pointed out at the very end of our last episode, this is also a regional division between urbanized, murkantile, north, and the agricultural slave-owning south. It's part of what drove the sexualism that eventually led to this session. And this ideology, this holding farmers on a pedestal drove government policy

for centuries. Well, maybe not centuries, but many decades to start with, as you mentioned at the very end of our last episode, Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase. Yes. Specifically to secure a vast area for the nation to expand westward precisely because he saw it as vital to the Republic's survival. He was convinced that if the nation was not able to expand, that it would automatically, inevitably, descend into urbanized despotism. That specifically urbanized.

Yes. Yes. I just really want to pound that home. Yeah. The thief is not the one you can't trust. Is in the city. Yeah. Yeah.

And he probably winds up taking a zilgot and James and founds a bank. Right. Because, hold the gun. You can't trust bankers. Right. And by the way, who died in debt? Let me think. Jefferson. Yeah. So, you know, bankers suck clearly. Right. They're the problem. Right. They're totally the problem. Not the fact that he didn't know how to run his business affairs to save his goddamn life. How shity a person do you have to be that we're standing for bankers? I know. We, we are standing for bankers right now. Yeah. Yeah.

So Louisiana purchase is the first most obvious example of this as policy. I talked about the revolution as being the very beginning of this. I mean, we can't say it's policy because there wasn't anybody to make it really policy, but you know, it was the motive. And now we get to talk about our other favorite president, whose last name begins with a J. Oh, I know who this is. Yeah. Yeah, he's one of, he's the first Western president. Yes.

Um, he set up Latifundia, but pretended to be a commoner. Yeah. Uh, he had, I think the most slaves out of all the presidents that we had up to that point. You know that I don't know. Pretty close. I know we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 something. Holy moly. Uh, I think I want to say 210, but, uh, you know what? that point. You know that I don't know. Pretty close. I don't we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 something. Holy mulley. I think I want to say 210 but okay. You know what?

Those you out there in the Twitter world. Feel free to get at me at duh harmony on Twitter and and correct me. Yeah. Or at geek history time. And and please correct me. Yeah. But yeah, he had over 200 slaves, and the only president to ever be a prisoner of war. Yeah. Yeah, he was the only president to have been captured. This is true.

And I like presidents who weren't captured. Oh, weird. Oddly enough. So yeah, and the one who said, you know, wipe them all out, has national policy. So, yeah, and the one who said, you know, wipe them all out has national policy. Yeah, pretty much. So, we are, of course, talking about Andy Jackson and the policies that have been obliquely already referred to are the Indian Removal Act, which led to the Trail of Tears.

And that was carried out specifically to clear land for white settlers to take ownership of it and expand this independent land owning class. Never mind the fact of course that the Cherokee were themselves essentially already Yomon farmers. Right.

Like, and better at it than the people who moved into their territory. They literally had a field advantage. They, well, yeah. And, and they, they had actually adopted scientific methods for farming like they'd figured out how to do it better. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and then,

going farther forward, westward expansion across the Mississippi onto the great plains, and up until the close of the frontier. All of it. 1896 was just D&D fighter advancement written on a massive scale. Every single one of these guys in his own head is that ninth level fighter heading out setting up his his freehold literally freehold. I mean, that was the term in many cases they were used, that they used, find a patch of land, cut down the trees, drive off the natives and the wolves and plant a farm, growing wheat, corn, whatever it is in that part of the country.

The Mexican war was a land grab. It was a territory grab. Wait, wait, wait, wait wait Ronald Reagan said we never fought a war for territory though Yeah, well Reagan probably got C-minuses in history It's a good point. I'm just saying yeah, I you know, yeah We did We did We we owned we owned Cuba for a very short period of time and we owned the Philippines for a slightly longer period of time on a historical scale slightly. And so the Mexican War was what got us California, what got us Texas, I'm just saying.

And now that specifically of course was very much driven by attention over slavery. Right. Because by that time we had the Mason Dexon line having been established, and so it needed to be territory far enough south that the land owning class that were descended from Jefferson could have slaves on the land that they were now wanted to take. Because again, they're just human farmers writ large.

Right. No, they're not. But anyway. No, no, it's just a matter of skill. I mean, totally. You know, skill. And human bondage. Yeah, well, you know.

I don't want to kink, champ. And an economic system built on ownership. Chattel's flavor, yeah. Well, okay, that's all it is. Now you're nitpicking. That's all it is, yeah. and an economic system built on ownership. Shadow flavor. Yeah, well, okay. That's all it is. Now you're nitpicking. That's all it is. Yeah, you know.

So again, you still see the same tension that Jefferson was talking about though. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's almost like he was talking about that tension because that system creates that tension. Yeah, yeah. So we'll go back to the Romans tension. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll go back to the Romans again.

Yeah. And that system does create that tension. You ever need expansion. Yeah. If any colonial kind of system, unless it figures out how not to be a colonial system, when it stops expanding, it's going to wind up folding in on itself.

That's what happened to the Roman Empire. Mm-hmm. That's what happened to the Roman Empire. That's the reason. With a few hiccups of reasonable leaders, actually saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's pull back just a little bit and build walls to keep out the redheads. Well, yeah.

Yeah. Now, I will say this, Rome prior to the accidental inheritance of the Carthage Empire. Okay. Prior to that, they were doing pretty well with Yomon farming, but that's not to say that they had an expanded for the first several hundred years. They had the Italian Wars. Yeah, you know, Sicily, all that like they logically to them, the big deal with the Italian

Wars was if we don't kill off the Celts the Celts are gonna kill all of us off And because they had a very primal like Identitarian existential kind of fear and a legit one too. They've been sacked in the 400. Oh, yeah No, I'm not I'm not arguing against it I'm just saying I was it they kept fighting with their neighbors because that's what happened in the boot of Italy at that time That just was how shit happened. Well, and that's the way the Iron Age worked for basically everybody. Yeah, and they kept winning.

Yeah. But you don't see a shift in the farming and roam until they defeat the Carthaginians. Because then you have an influx of about 150,000 slaves. And so the rich get a lot richer. Oh, yeah. They start all over night. Yeah, because that kind of influx,000 slaves. And so the rich get a lot richer. And they start, yeah, because that kind of influx of the framework capital. Yeah, so America is not, it skipped over that part. Yeah, like you had stable, you had stable

yomundry in Rome for a few hundred years. That's the stuff that Horace was looking back to. That's what Livy was looking back to. That's the Rome was great back when we were poor. Livy specifically says. And Jefferson cribbed that without actually doing the work for it. Jefferson Cribbed that without actually doing the work for it And Jackson jumped from there. Yeah, like none of them actually had there was not a time where America was just small farmers You could say they were up in in the north Interestingly enough you could say if you're talking about the rural countryside of of, of Vermont, of... And places near cities. Three states and places near cities.

Places near cities were by necessity. By necessity, small farms. Small farms. You could say that. But if you were a plantation owner, you had a vested interest in not noticing that. And in expanding. Yes.

And in expansion, because that was your economic model for survival. Now, the homestead acts. Yes. A loud settler's to take ownership of land they essentially squatted on and improved. You know, it's important to note that the definition of improved was changing prairie into farmland. Cut down, cut down the native grass, cut down the trees, level it all out, irrigate it if you got to and or was it year and a day or something like that. I want to say there was some specific span time.

And then the promise made to freed men in the wake of the Civil War Forty acres in a mule is tied to the same idea. Now in this case, it's being pushed by the radical Republican Congress as part of reconstruction. We have to take all these people who have been kept in a state of no education, kept in a state of bondage, kept, you you know we need to turn them into reliable citizens how do we do that we give them land we make them free farm we make them yeoman back it up just a hair that was Jefferson's approach towards civilite quote finger quote civilizing the Indians yeah give them land which is, but make them farmers also ironic. But it's the exact, it's kind of like we have people who aren't white that we've dispossessed

for generations. How do we deal with it? Fuck, we'll give them land. Yes! How much? How much works for us? That much. Okay, good.

Like, that seems to be, it's kind of like in the Odyssey and the Trojan War. How much? How much works for us? That much. Okay, good. Like, that seems to be... It's kind of like in the Odyssey and the Trojan War, Odysseus had the plan of hiding in the belly of the Trojan horse. Yeah. Later on, when he's trying to escape from polyphemus, he has the idea of hiding under the bellies of larger animals. He really was a one trick pony.

Yeah. Nice. Thank you. He's scruffy like, midden-keeper. But in terms of like that, that seems to be America's one solution. It's baked into the culture. Yeah, which, yeah, it's baked into the culture because we had Jefferson as one of our founding fathers. Right. And because Jefferson was cribbing all of this from a bunch of ideas From the enlightenment and taken from the fact that he was himself the descendant of a second son coming from the aristocracy in

England where What separated you from the peasants was you owned the land that the peasants were working on right? You know and I mean I can get more into feudalism and say that, you know, we then come back around to our D&D fighter because the argument was, why do you own the land? Because I'm the one with the weapons in the armor to defend it. By the way, Edward Gibbons, the rise of all the Roman Empire, which published between 1776 and 1788, I want to say. Yeah. You know, right around the time where we're coming up with national policy.

Oh yeah, well, and Jefferson is known to have been a fan of Gibbon. You know, we know he was reading the Holy Daylights at everything Gibbon put out. We know the other founding fathers were reading everything, you know, because they were consciously much like folks in the Renaissance had done in the Enlightenment. Yep. They were looking back to the Romans and in the case of the founders, they were looking at the Roman Republic.

And anything related to the Roman Republic has their inspiration. And so they had this glowing soft focus smear some Vaseline over the lens, kind of the view of what those systems had been because again, Livy never saw primary sources. Right. You know, never, never, never talked to and I witnessed he liked. And so, you know, they, they had this very, very pronounceably idealized view of this. Mm-hmm. And then this, this then got picked up as this is how we're going to maintain an honest,

virtuous, republic. Right. Going forward. And when that is the rootstock that you're growing your tree from. Right. The fruit you're gonna get at the end, even if you graft something else on there, the fruit or nuts, well, nuts,

in the case of our country, lots of nuts, that you're gonna get at the end is gonna be affected. There's gonna be terroir, and I know I'm mispronouncing the French there, but you know, it's the reason you plant roses at the end of a row of grape vines for wine is because the root stock affects the soil which affects what goes into the grapes which affects the oil

Everything that happens in the wine. It's it's a thing like it sounds like pseudoscience, but it's demonstrably a thing Is that what Rose is? No. Oh, okay. No, that's a blend of red and white. Oh, basically. One of us doesn't drink. Can tell who it is.

No, yeah, can you tell who it is? And the other one is Mary to a wine drinker, because one of us is a beer guy, but I'm wine adjacent. So, I genuinely come back around of what we were talking about at the end of the last episode. The fighter are actually first at the beginning of the last episode. The fighter is the most blood simple of all of the classes in facing D&D. Or in A&D. It has the least stringent stat requirements. It gets absolutely the fewest toys and abilities. Like if you're gonna have somebody who's never played the game before, ever you always give a fight.

It's like here's a fighter, just when it comes time, he'll tell you what to do, when it comes time to do it, when your turn comes around, here's how we do stuff. Because they don't need to worry about spells, they don't need to worry about,

you know, rolling for sentile dice, which kind of takes a little bit of a learning curve to get used to how that works. There's none of that going on. It's just there are monsters run up and hit them. Right. Right. So it's a very democratized class.

Yeah. And anyone can do it. Yeah. And it only takes up. I'm going to show you the book here. Yeah. This right here, page 22 of the first edition AD&D players handbook. This is a recent reprint, but all the formatting is exactly the same. It only takes up less than

half of one page of page 22 in the book, and that's including the level advancement chart. It's got five paragraphs. One of them has a two sub paragraphs to it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. It is followed immediately by the paladin, which starts on page 22, gets a full page splash, but one of the most iconic illustrations out of the phb, a paladin in hell on page 23, and then goes on to page 24, before ending, and then you get the ranger next. So you know it is, it gets nothing. It's bare-bone. But it gets this automatically get rich at this level mechanic. Nobody else gets that. Paladins don't get it because the Paladins are holy warriors who aren't allowed to have excess wealth. But thieves, who you'd think, like if there's any class, you get to a high level, it's like, okay, look, your whole class is about wealth acquisition. One of my friends who like

to make fun of me, because again, if gonna play a thief call to thief don't say rogue One of the guys in a campaign I played in like to refer to himself as a wealth reallocation engineer Which I'm okay with that. It's it's really technical and flowering sounds like a euphemism, but at least it's it's straight It's honest. Yeah And and you'd think they would get that you'd think being a thief You're gonna form a gang We're just gonna make the simple and say you're gonna get X number at X amount of income a month because you've got Cut-pursus working for you. They got to give you a cut or you'll send one of your former right one of your former soldier employees

To go break their legs, you know, to bring the Romans back into it. And the whole reason for being for a thief was like you said, wealth acquisition. Yeah. What do I do? Oh, you see jewels encrested on the wall. I steal some. I'm picking them out.

I got a dagger. I'm picking them out of the wall. Right. And it's like, what purpose does that serve in the game? It really doesn't. Yeah. Other than to engage in the economy more. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And you get the ability to backstab. Yeah. And you're the, in first edition AD&D, your whole thing is you are the skills guy. You know, monks didn't open doors in first edition. Oh wow. How'd they get it anymore? Yeah, well.

I'm referencing an in-joke from other campaigns that Damien has played in that I've heard about. Oh. Other games anyway. 3.0. Yeah. What? What are you gonna play? I'm gonna play a monk. Oh that's awesome. Okay I open the door, run through it and close it. Sorry you got to the door. You're gonna have to wait a whole round to open it. Okay, open the door. I walk through take a partial action. Yeah, yeah, I open the door. I walk through and I close it next turn. Well, you can open the door and walk through it, but you can't close it until the next round.

Because that's an action. Right. Okay, an extra on a closet. All right, and then your friend gets to the door. I open the door, grab him and then close it. Can't do that. You're gonna have to wait All right open the door. I grab my friend. Yeah, I close it. No, you don't So what amongstu? Oh After that every time you had a big bad evil guy all of his butlers were monks Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, that's funny. I like that. So You know the thief is the skills guy the wizard gets infinite cosmic power the cleric is the guy you run to when you get smacked over the head the fighter

hits things over the head yep and and then Mm-hmm at high level Has this I automatically get rich because I don't have anything else going for me, kind of mechanic. Right. You know, thieves can establish a gang, but there's no guaranteed amount of income. Like I can't harp on this quite enough.

Right. GuyGaxx didn't write thieves with an automatic amount of income. Well, markets are fickle. Well, yes, but, you know, so are harvests. So are, you know, taxation, taxation fluctuates from year to year. Yeah. And if you're going to go under the assumption

that you are a benevolent dictator over your happy farmers Uh-huh. If the harvest isn't any good and you're still charging them seven silver pieces ahead You're kind of a dick. Yeah. Just saying you're literally rent seeking you're you literally yes Well, and and again all your power stems from Your ability to hit shit. Yeah Yeah stems from your ability to hit shit. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. There's, see, again, this is like, and again, you know, you were saying, you know, who wants to go poke holes in all this?

Come on, it's a decimal system for money. Why do you gotta go get like that? There are plenty of other people who are right now listening to us talking about this going, why do you have to get all morally philosophical? Come on, for God's sake, it's a game. Just go ahead, dragons, man. I just want to go beat up dragons. Well, you know, dragons are intelligent beings.

I'm just gonna say, this is not untrue, too. You know, and so, you know, you're killing a sentient creature there, you know. And you invaded it's house. And you showed up in its home. It has the right to stand it's grounds specifically to steal all of its shit. And yes, it does have the right to stand its ground.

You know, so I mean, yeah, we can we can we can we can get into you know, how ethical is murder hobo and really, you know, but this game is clearly his has set up fight privilege. Well, yeah, clearly. Wait, except that you wind up being the guy with all the privilege. Wait, oh my god, it's making a philosophical statement about the wheel of revolution. And oh my god, this just got a lot deeper. No, really, it isn't. It can be if you're pointy headed like we are,

but what I come back to here in my notes, which you already brought up, is that inherent idea of virtue. At the end of the day, the assumption that GuyGax is making, just in the way, this is just this matter of fact, okay, and look, you're gonna get seven silver pieces ahead from all these people, you know,

figure out roughly how many people it's gonna be between you and your DM, and here's how it works. And of course, the whole game is built around the idea that you are the good guy. Unless you intentionally decide you're gonna be a bad guy. And GuyGax had very pointed opinions about trying to run an evil party who said it doesn't work. If you're gonna be a bad guy. And GuyGaxe had very pointed opinions about trying to run an evil party. He said it doesn't work.

If you're playing true to your alignment, you can't actually make it work because evil is all, you know, consumes itself. And you're all evil. You're gonna stab each other in the back, murder each other, whatever you can't hang together. Right. Now it's interesting to note that one of the iconic characters

from the beginning of the game, Lord Robelar, who his name shows up in a number of magical items from the DMG because... But anyway, Lord Robelar was lawful evil and was known at higher level for getting through dungeons, through liberal use of higherlings as cannon fodder. Oh, Lord. He was, he was the first player to figure out, okay, wait, so hold on. According to what you're telling me, I can hire guys to act as tanks for me for this many silver pieces a day per head, right? Silver piece a day per head, right? Okay, okay, figure out my income, how much money have I got and reserve? Okay, all right, so based on what I know about what we're going up against,

I can afford to lose 20 guys. Wow. Like, did the math, and no, no, we're getting through this dungeon, it's just a question of how much capital am I gonna lose on the way? You know, and by capital, I mean, how many mercenaries lives am I gonna spend? Right. And since it's my expenditure, I get first pick of the treasure.

Well, yeah. Predatory capitalism. Well, yeah. Yeah. And stage capitalism. Yeah. And vision in a fantasy game. So, and that's pretty much, I mean, where this all ends up, is this very clearly the

world building has these assumptions baked into it. This is another one of those cases of walking into a room and going, wait, that's the pattern on the wallpaper. For me, when we started talking about doing the podcast, trying to think of what can I connect to what? At first, this was something that was like, well, it sounds pretty pointy headed and like a lot of a stretch. But the more I researched what agrarianism was,

how it worked historically, and then really just looked at what's on the page, it's one of those, it's again, one of those kind of slender man moments, wait, he was hiding in the closet the whole time, you know, kind of thing. Right. And, and like I said last time, and, and like you've been at pains to point out, like making that leap before me, this is a regional thing. This is a very American thing. I didn't, in my notes, I didn't go so far as to say regional. I think there is something too regional.

But I think at its very basis, this is a very American game because we are the biggest example of the most successful example of a colonial nation becoming a republic and then having to take that colonial nature and then run with it. And the way that colonialism gets expressed, that idea that you go out into the wilderness, this is what you do, and you get an income and you spread civilization. And the underlying assumption is this is a good thing,

because this was an era of popular fantasy before we started thinking about, well, you know, orcs are people too, which is another episode I have in mind that I'm gonna rant about, and I'm not gonna come down on the side, you might think from the way we're talking in this episode. Okay.

But anyway, this was, no, no, there are orcs. You hit them over the head they die. They're there to be the disposable army of evil. Right. And that's it. And so, you know, going out and driving them out of the area and letting, you know, civilized settled humans and halflings and dwarves and maybe a couple of elves show up and settle and do this is inherently a good thing.

You know, yeah, is is this very American very frontier. Man mentality. Manifest destiny. Yeah. So that's that's my thesis that that is that is the closure of my thesis and I just wonder if if Gai Gai had been a European. If he'd been English, if his attitude toward this this kind of thing would have been the same. Mm-hmm. Or how different it would have been because again of course Great Britain was the largest of all of the

Imperial powers. Right. So like how would that have looked differently if he had been German? How profoundly would it have been different if he had not been a middle class white guy which historically having the ability to spend the time in the effort to develop this hobby into this business means he would have had to be. But if he'd come from any other kind of background, right, how would this have looked different? And it's interesting to note that a lot of the games that we've played since AD&D have been written by people from different backgrounds. That's true. From a European outlook, from a millennial outlook in the last few years, from, you know, other there have been other lenses pointed at the same kinds

of ideas and they've all in one way or another been reacting to what, what guy gags and harness and all their harness and didn't come up with this mechanic. So I'm not picking on him today. But, but they're all reacting to this. And so this is an inescapable part of geek culture. Right. That if you play a tabletop game.

Yeah. You're responding to this. One way or another, somehow there's some part of what you're doing that is some kind of reaction to it. And again, it's the pattern on the wallpaper. It's the water we're swimming in as fish. And so there you go. So the logical outcropping ends up being, if you're a fighter, and the whole point of being a fighter is to

fight in the name, and to overcome and essentially to dominate. Yes. And so the end game for the fighter, and it wasn't quite the end game because you could get to level 11. Yeah. But the end game, and I assume level 11 is just like better versions of being a lord. Yeah, essentially. But the end game for being a fighter

was one of dominion, one of domination. And of dominating essentially, nameless faceless masses. Yes. Well, NPCs, at this stage of the development of the hobby, NPCs don't matter. Right. And NPCs are props for whatever gets you to the next combat encounter. So the faceless part, I think, is worth consideration, but I think it's just that again, it's a default part of the rest of the level of the art

at this point in history. Yeah, that's something. Yeah. I'm just thinking about like, what it took to be a farmer, a young and farmer, and there were all kinds of efforts to allow any squatters that chance.

There were all kinds of programs set up to encourage people to go do it. There were all sorts of avenues of entry to that in the history of our country and the early nascent part at least. Almost all of it involved taking land from someone else or or finally using the land that had been taken from someone else. Yeah. And you had to go through a certain period of time of being impoverished before you get to it. Yeah. And then I think about being a fighter, it has the lowest requirements of any of the requirements.

Mm-hmm. Long as you have a nine strength, you can do this. Yeah. Both of those are inherently democratic. Yeah. Both of those are inherently egalitarian. Yeah. And yet both of those are just like the stepping stone to elitism. Yeah. Now, something I want to point out, and I think this gets overlooked in discussions of our American mentality about the frontier. We know now from the historical record that the land that your ancestors and mine expanded on to across the continent and a couple of white guys had been the property of other people

before us. But our perception of it is moving out into the trackless wilderness. Right. And the reason for that is because the Native American population had been so vastly decimated by disease before anglishments showed up on the continent. Yeah, wiped out like 95% percent. 95% plus percent. Enormous plague. And the survivors were living in what for them was a post apocalyptic wasteland. Yeah, you know, I mean it was essentially it was the 17th century version of Mad Max. For them.

Right. You know, because all of the prior social structures they'd had had completely fallen apart, just because of the massive mortality. And they were a, you know a desperate, struggling group of survivors. And so, the perception of when the pilgrims moved out into the forests, and when the other people in the north moved out into the forests, and when folks in the south moved

and established plantations on one land, they did. To them, it was just empty land, lying around not being used. And the people who had a claim to it were different enough that they, they, we can get into the other ring of the people who were there before. But there's a very big part of the mentality was just, well, there's

nobody using it. Right. So it's the wilderness. So it's not like we're stealing. Mm-hmm. And, and again, we get back to this mentality of well moving out there and doing this is, is a good thing. Right. We're, you know, by virtue of your virtue. Yeah, by virtue of your virtue Yeah, I love that phrase. That's a good one You know and and so I think that that bears mentioning as part of this Discussion when we're when we're talking about that I like it. Yeah, I like it so now ultimately the end of all of it. Yes. Having gone over all of that and having again revisited the stuff that was our

takeaway at the end last time. Is there any any elaboration on that or any new anything you you take away from it now? take away from it now. Thinking about it specifically in light, maybe of the specific policies that were enacted or whatever, just to throw somehow away the way they don't. Yeah, I think of Oklahoma. Okay, I think of... I try not to.

Yeah, well. My grandmother's from there. Sure. And I think of the Sooners. Okay as modern-day You know ladder. Yeah, yeah, I modern era. Yeah, yeah, um, I think of yeah, the people who squatted you like your say Oh, yeah I think of that kind of stuff as absolutely and again those would those areas would have influenced Gary Guy acts

Mm-hmm culturally Would have been a part of the local imagination definitely And yeah, I think that I'm Curious as to comparing that first dead to fifth because 5e doesn't really talk about property at all. I mean, he'll barely talks about having a mount. Yeah, you know, it's really become a footman's game Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that But it's it's much and of course it's a very different game

But it has none of that stuff to it. There's a few Tables of things to buy as you pass through town, but now it's much more the gig economy In 5e. I hadn't even thought of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, so there's a generational element to it as well. Yes. Fifth edition is, you know, you and I are both exers.

Late exers, but exers nonetheless. The guy's writing the people, because they're not just men, but the people writing fifth edition are enough years younger than the two of us that they're millennials. Yeah. They're probably older millennials,

but they're part of a newer generation. Yes, they are. For whom the economic assumptions are different. And so, yeah, that's a meaningful argument, and that's probably something one of us ought to take a look at and delve into as, you know, to look at the development of the additions over time. I think that would be something cool. Something to look at, for sure.

Well, I'll tell you what, I'll let you do do that because I'm doing a wrestling over time compared to friends Right it's gonna be a long time before I have a podcast for because I mean 1996 Jesus I started in 1983 Yeah, there's some really good wrestling through the whole thing. I'm sure. And it fairness, friends didn't start until 94. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, but it's a fun thing. Well, the wrestling, the wrestling, you're having more fun watching the wrestling than friends. Yeah.

Although there are decided shifts that are happening. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, we've talked about it. That predict politics now all the way back in 96 in the wrestling and in friends. Really? Yeah, but that's going to be another episode. But I like the idea of a longevity study between the different additions. Like I said, there was a good amount of simulationism going on. And 3.0 and 3.5 was a great way to turn the simulationism into a game.

Yeah. But it was still simulative. It was heavily simulative. And then I think when it, I think honestly a great episode would be like the addition wars. Oh yeah. Well now that we talked about it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to sit down and do it. That sounds good. So, well in the meantime, where can people find you to

yell at you about how wrong you were about all of this? Not ever mentioning Thaco. You know, I liked Thaco. Second, I have fond memories of Second Edition. I liked Thaco a lot. They can reach me at EH Blaylock on Twitter. They can reach both of us at Geek History Time on Twitter and they can reach you at the harmony. The harmony. Harmony.

At on Twitter. All right. So yeah, you can find me in these streets. And you can go to our website. Yes. www.geakhistorytime.com Yep. I don't know if we have a comments option.

There's a comments option setup. There is a comments option setup. Nobody's used it yet. Yep. Feel free to. Be the first. And... If you're the first, I will make sure

that you're entered into a raffle when you get to heaven Wait, what no, there's been a whole reformation about that Okay, you can do it. You can you can you can also I'm the atheist at the table, so what's a hell? I'm the Catholic stop working my side of the street the Catholic stop working my side of the street fair all right I tried people so I'll make I'll make sure to have a a a novum said said for you if you're the first one you're really not gonna indulge me on this I just did I know not Not even. Not even. All right. Well, for Geek History, for Geek History of Time, I am Damien Harmony. And I made Blalock and keep rolling 20s. Unless you're going after my Thaco in which place, Rolla 1.