Homework!

[sythyry]

Several of you gave me things to think about. Two of you -- kris_schnee and foomf -- even gave me homework. I shall do this homework, albeit somewhat flippantly. I am not being flippant because the questions are bad or irrelevant -- the questions are quite good, and the answers matter. I am being flippant because I am tired and I do not wish to write very much today.

(By the way, why do fantasy races always seem to be Capitalized? We don't write about "Humans".) The names of prime species are given the markers of respect in the language and orthography in question. The names of non-prime species are not. Actually we are being relatively nice -- some orthographic systems don't capitalize the names of individual non-primes: "Vae" would be "vae" in such systems.

What's the purpose of a city? To provide a place where many primes or (and?) monsters may live comfortably, fashionably, safely, and happily in close proximity.

How is that different from the purpose of a government? Well, flippantly, a government is not a place. Less flippantly, I think governments have other purposes (some of them worthwhile).

Does government and governance require a city? I can't see why it does.

Can there be a form of governance that works for all sentients living in an area? If the area is small enough, yes. For an area that contains two or more sentients, I suspect not.

Why did Primes form cities in the first place? I'll have to ask a relative about that. My vague impression is no more than, "It seemed the thing to do at the time." Mutual defense and all was crucial. It still is.

Why did non-primes form their cities? I have no idea. I don't even know if there's anyone around to ask.

Why did Primes exclude non-primes from their cities? Mostly because non-primes exist to trouble us, and we don't want to be troubled that way at home. This reason still obtains.

What benefits accrue to forming a mixed-prime-and-non-prime city? Vae is a lot happier. Some foolish concept of justice that I seem to want to observe will be satisfied.

What detriments would be inevitable? Trouble. Lots and lots of trouble, of the forms suitable to the non-prime inhabitants.

What detriments would be easily managed? Um ... if we let taptet in, we could outlaw potion-making, I suppose.

Who decides on the form of governance? The founders of the city.

What do the Gods of the World Tree think about all this? I can't see why that could possibly matter. It's not as if they'll be nice to us even if they like it.

Comments

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Let me try to recall a conclusion I had in a descussion with Delight, some time ago, with regards to Taptet.

1.) Many 'monsters' seem to have some aspect about them that innately challenges Primes, in one way or another.

2.) Taptet's main features of note are that they are cute, seem harmless, mostly are harmless most of the time, but can make potions that make them exceedingly good at doing armed uprisings against oppressors.

3.) Taptet generally seem to have most of the same moral and ethical capacity for behaviors as any Prime; there are good ones and bad ones, most of them seem to just want to get by, and be treated with dignity, and have a meaningful voice in affairs that impact them.

4.) It can be inferred that the 'trouble' that comes from Taptet is that they are a Social Puzzle to prime society; the more you treat them deplorably, the more downtrodden they are, the more you oppress them, the more you make their lives miserable, the more you act without respect towards them and treat them as you treat most monsters, the worse it will come back to bite Primes. But if a prime society instead treats them equitably, and doesn't treat them as an underclass, then they have nothing to fear -- they could then let them in walls like they could any Prime.

5.) A Prime society's inability to treat Taptet magnanimously doesn't say anything about Taptet being monstrous or really especially 'oppressible' or anything, it says more about the faults of the Prime society itself.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

This is all quite significant. The problem with taptet is that they're small and (usually) weak, and thus they get marginalized. They'd rather be protected by larger societies without being subject to them, which is also unfair, but what they usually get is outright subjugated. A middle ground might still see some of them being unreasonable, but it's not as though primes are immune to irrational and/or criminal behavior, either.

To be honest, wherriwheffle probably have bigger problems integrating on an equitable level with a prime society. Their proclivity for grabbing shiny things makes them expensive nuisances, and they have free Mentador spells. Taptet, as long as they have reasonable protected rights, would generally be safe - you just can't treat them like mherobump, who actively need to perform hard labor(and thus are quite useful to many prime cities).

Some people will point to any evidence of troublesome taptet(despite equal treatment) as disproving the whole notion, but by that logic, not a single one of the prime species is safe in a city, either; I'm pretty sure there have been criminals from them all. With the possible exception of Zi Ri due to lack of opportunity, but a troublesome Zi Ri could be fearsome indeed. (Paingang is referred to in our reference material in a way that suggests zie could have been either a Herethroy colover or a Zi Ri; none of the other primes have sexes that don't translate to common standard binary-gender language.)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

My mean GM said that weffles cost cley, just because it doesn't say that they don't.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

((I asked about this a while back. Obviously GMs might house-rule things, but I believe the official response was that they can use any verb with those specific nouns, no cley. I wish I could find where I'd asked this...))

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Another official response was that official responses were not official. n.n

There are lots of things that I clearly remember hearing officially that turn out not to actually be in the rules per se. Like levitate being attended whenever you use it to move (only fly like a bird specifies that) or triumph 6 giving you two critical hit options. Or scawn being extra annoying by using magical traps.