[Game Theory] A Note on Running Medieval Cities & Society - It's All About the Relationships

[This ended up being its own post, though it started as a note regarding the City writeup I was doing.]Something that bothers me about most RPGs is that pre-modern cities are not treated differently sociologically. So there are police, firefighters, post-industrial shopping (standardized goods on offer), etc. Weird OSR RPGs or the Judge's Guilde Wilderlands are usually better about this, but then they replace the modern city with weird sociology that's usually just a twist on the modern (e.g. Demons are the Bureacracy!). 

The truth is society should be structured differently if we're going to pretend we're in a medieval town, and it is cool. In the past, instead of regularization, forms, standardization, everything is anthropocentric. This means human relations, who you are in relation to your neighbors, who your father is, your trade and skills, your family's reputation and actions, determines how you get treated and what you can do.

Here are some principles to understand about actual pre-modern (Medieval and Renaissance) cities:

1. There is no (centralized) bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are expensive endeavors - you have to employ all these specialists who aren't making anything useful except regularizing and standardizing procedures and interactions. That's all great when you have millions of inhabitants and need sanitation, identification records, etc., but you don't really have that in pre-modern times.  I know, bureaucracy is a word based on the Byzantines, but this really refers to specific pockets: the court of the emperor kept payment records for military purposes, household expenditures, keeping rent; the church may have baptism records, etc. You certainly don't have the all-encompassing bureaucracy where you can find information in archives, file reports, identification records are kept, etc. Instead, it's all decentralized and ad hoc, and a municipal government is not structured like one. 
2. Courts and law exists, for the rich. These are preeminantly spheres for nobles to resolve their property disputes, rights of voting on taxes and privileges (so-and-so can collect the forestry tax, keep the tolls for entering the city, whatever). They are not for everyday crimes, and you do not get a lawyer if a common man did something. Instead, whatever corporate body you belong to handles that on your behalf. And there are no records except what you keep (reallly, there are plenty of records about land and inheritance disputes, but those are kept by the Guild, nobleman, or King's court).
3. Justice, Rights, Law, and Security is Based on Your Status and Affiliations. So how did things work, surely you weren't just summarily executed or allowed to be killed in the streets on accusation? Well, all this stuff was handled through whatever affiliation you had, starting with your family. Your family was probably butchers or bakers or candlestick makers, and they would be part of a guild that would have its rights determined by the larger body they belonged to - the town, the burghers, and ultimately the king. Within the family, you'd be subject to your husband, then him to his father (unless the man had left that household to start his own), and he to the council of candlestick makers, in turn subject to the council of the burghers of the town, who would dispute with the nobles, church, and king for the rights their members had. All those body worked out competing rights and duties with each other, and would dispute and conflict over them. 
4. What does this class/guild/corporate (meaning 'body' not capital) mean for the adventurer? A few things: (1) Anybody can fuck with you if you don't have some guild to defend your interests. Baselessly accused of murder or theft? Too bad hobo, the Tavern Keeper, recognized member of the Publicans Guild, says you stole from him, and he asked the Court of Justice of Nuremburg to chop off your hand. Better flee. Or maybe he just says that when he doesn't like you and won't go to Court at all. He'll sort it out later with breaking Guild rules about how he treated the travelers (remember, "customer" means you go there alot; if you're a traveler unlikely to be seen again....) .  (2) If you want some rights, you better join up with someone - declare loyalty to a noble house, etc. Generally, this means you better get a patron, and you want him to be powerful. Or maybe you become a patron yourself. You set yourself up as the Free Company of Dumbledorf and pay a lawyer to have your charter recognized by the king and pay some laborers who are sick of living with dad on the farm to be your guards and shit. You'll probably treat them better than the Lord of the village, right? (3) Friends are a big deal. If you're friends with the publican's actual customer, you're likely to get treated alot better, not robbed etc. Suddenly, all those in-character dialogues/Charm/Charisma rolls are a much bigger deal, even for just sleeping for the night. Also, people are likely to ask you and care about where you're from and why you're in their town. None of this anonymous modern traveling for "business." Makes for fun jokes about being minstrels or whatever.
5. As a corollary, there's really no police and corruption (as we understand it) was rampant. Robert Peel in the 1830s invented policing (don't give me that vigiles in Rome crap; those were private firestarters, just ask Crassus or Lepidus maybe). The King has men-at-arms and knights, but your town may just have the right to call up all able-bodied citizens or loyal subjects or whatever. Some Guilds will be better armed than others, though the peace is kept between them by the bigger body - the king or duke or mayor's guys. Hence, all the old west stuff too about Sheriffs or Marshals deputizing folks - that's kind of how it worked. As you can imagine, this leads to alot of (unpunished) violence. Probably the number 1 cause of death in pre-modern times, along with drunken accidents (if it wasn't a plague year). Corruption too flows from this, a guild (or individual in it) that was taking too much in 'taxes' could be brought to court, usually by the higher noble authority who thought those taxes should go to them. But otherwise, they're probably just going to pocket whatever and only pay the higher ups if they want their favor (who in turn may get suscipious if Bobby Merchant suddenly has a fine house filled with the latest Flemish cloth). 
6. Gaming wise, then, any "guards" are going to be in the employ of a notable ruling body of your choice - the Mayor maybe in the largest cities, the most powerful local lord. This means the 'guard' doesn't neutrally enforce the law, it goes out and enforces what that master wants them to do. To buttress 'the guard,' people known to have rank (I'm Sir Montagu, Vassal of the Lord Buttface of this Town, as you know and can see from my fine codpiece, and I order you to arrest that man!) can conscript the able-bodied (who often are required to train and hold arms by royal decrees) to enforce 'the law' - i.e. arrest or kill their enemies. The Lord or Master of those notables will sort it out legally later. Again, a lot of violence results, often with youths (frequently university students) taking it upon themselves to arrest and beat people known to be disliked by important people, in hope of getting their favor ("Will no one rid me of that troublesome priest" being a super famous example). So if the PCs piss of an important family, expect people to jump out of the woodwork to kick their ass or get kicked out of town.
7. In the countryside, where the vast majority of people live because most everybody dies from disease and malnutrition in the cities (except well ordered (Germanic) small towns maybe ? don't know enough), it is even worse. If you're a peasant, you give all your stuff to your lord. Also, he's basically the only place you can appeal for justice (the church kept their own courts, for divorce - not allowed - and trying of priests in some times and places). That's why being a smallholding farmer called a Yeoman or Freeman (whose official title was usually Goodman, so like Goodman John instead of Mr. John) was such a big deal. You could actually keep most of your stuff, maybe even accumulate enough wealth to pay the fees for inheriting your childless cousins land after 50 years of backbreaking farming. Though still good luck of the powerful and rich lord's son decided to rape your daughter or something - you can go to the King's court, but unless the King has beef with the Lord too, you're likely SOL. Technically, it's still a crime against the king's peace, but he's not going to arrest a powerful and useful supporter just for killing and raping someone. That's why too it's better in the cities; teaming up with a bunch of skilled craftsmen who can boycott an arbitrary lord is a better bet.
8. On goods: This point has been made before, but I will make it again: there is no standarized production of goods. This was true about the world until the 20th century basically (some places started earlier). So the good you see on RPG lists are really being made for each buyer or resold. The prices Gygax wrote down when making D&D were based on military orders for wartime (I need 2000 plate harnasses), many from around the Hundred Years War or War of hte Roses. So they're a good guide if you're buying in bulk (of course merchants buy wool, sheep, eggs, lumber in bulk too) and give a rough rule of thumb. But for an individual buying something, he needs to find a craftsman and special order it. Nobody is going to invest hundreds of hours of work into a suit of armor to have it sit on the shelf (maybe the dude has a few display copies). Game this as you will, but basically except for poor quality (salvaged) arms and armor, I make the PCs find the right craftsman and have it take some time. This means they can lose all their coin invested with the guy if they end up (invariably) getting accosted by the guard.

If you want to read more about the general outlook and thinking of these things I recommend all the D&D and medieval posts on skerple's blog, especially this one about the pre-modern society generally. Beyond reading sociological histories, you can also just agree with Foucault about the past - he went on deep dives into medieval parish death records and shit. All this changes with the Enlightment, because after a few centuries of inefficient government like this, the kings and nationstates start keeping more records, regularlizing, and removing the rights of intermediate classes to more efficiently pay for armies and navies to fight their enemies, and more efficiently enforce their tax collection efforts, etc. A nice cycle.

These considerations are good thinking for Warhammer and other fantasy rpgs set in the more human-centered times of the past. The fact that you need to have a relationship, based on your trade and actions, should give some great roleplaying opportunities. I'd recommend it over just treating your game as modern, capitalist thing where you shop off impersonal lists and assume you can roll into town and keep your stuff and your secrets without interacting with the powers that be.