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beccaelizabethI've been pondering army uniforms lately, as part of thinking about Wrath of the Righteous.
The thing with symbols is they have no meaning until they make meaning. We've all got a store of them from our particular path through our particular culture, but we won't quite match. Which is a line of thought that leads to concluding true communication is impossible, but.
Costumes are a whole set of communications. Connotations. Symbols.
And in things set in a vaguely real world, or an urban fantasy using the here now, or some heightened version thereof, you have a very rich visual language to draw on, because it includes everything from daily fashion for the last lifetime of years to haute couture by way of comic books and stage plays. The visual language is already heavily populated with meaning.
But sidestep into another world, and you defamiliarise, everything.
In theory tou have to rebuild everything from scratch.
In practice of course everyone imports their existing decoder modules with a side order of You Are Wrong.
I've read so many Pathfinder books that I have a lot of instant associations with symbols they gave meaning in the rule books, like holy and unholy symbols. I don't have most of the colors memorised though, and I have looked them up repeatedly so it's not for want of trying. I might remember some of the national flags, maybe, since I've read the world guide. But national fashions are mostly going to go right past me, except for Osirion, because they don't wear much and it's ancient egypt style.
So playing Wrath of the Righteous I recognised Iomedae's sword, but none of the other things on shields, first time through.
And the crusader army all have their colors, and I guess when you run around camp you can find out which are which sort of, but then what do they mean? Not a lot, then or later, as it turns out.
So you've got empty signifiers that take a bunch of learning, add nothing, and turn out not to be necessary anyway.
Not ideal.
So I was thinking how in fantasy stories we default to clothing styles that were worn at very roughly the same century as the armour styles they go with - very very roughly, you kind of get a five hundred year range sometimes - but, while some of that would depend on cloth technology, a lot of it was optional fashion. So it's there to give the player/viewer/reader a general impression of 'welcome to the crusades, demon edition'.
... how much about the crusades the demon edition is becomes a whole other story...
... I mean using the word to try and reclaim an emptied iut land from actual literal demons has some *layers* if you think about it...
But I was wondering, whats the cost consequence on that kind of dressing? What do we gain vs what do we lose? What else could we be doing instead?
Like modern dress productions of Shakespeare, you get a different set of layers brought to the fore, just by putting your players in a different jacket.
So I have been looking up current ish British army jackets, and thinking how practical it might be to put soldiers in them, what with the armour situation etc.
... velcro makes a lot of difference to the putting on or armour, and I'm not sure how any clothes stand up to melee combat vs swords, so do they actually want jackets? I mean, they're wearing a bunch of cloth for allegiance purposes, it's like everyone has a flag on, but wearing a jacket and lots of pockets seems like it would meet a sword and go Poorly.
But there's a lot of classes that are not planning on meeting a sword? Alchemists and spellcasters can use all the pockets they can get.
Wrath of the Righteous on the xbox differentiates between character classes by outfit, only you have to pick the right one first or you're stuck wearing the other one for the whole game. Not the most varied of character builders. But you get a situation where gender isn't the important marker, character class is. Which makes sense in terms of why would you need to treat people differently anyway.
But does mean you get a lot of clues on who to aim at first if you want to trash the healers.
So putting everyone in identical uniform jackets would change the practicalities as well as the vibe.
But I don't know that people look at all them knights in armour and jump straight to 'mostly young people who just got drafted into a grinding ongoing war'. Or even 'mostly veterans of the grinding ongoing war, but not particularly distinctive heroes, so already the Knight Commander kicks more arse than them, after a week, because xp'.
Translating any part of that visually seems like a tough problem.
But modern uniforms aren't going to be a good fit for practicalities, I reckon.
Thing is though the outfits a PC can turn up in range from 'skins wrapped with thongs' through 'kind of highlander with more fur' up to your basic bag of robe and then on to trousers, assorted, or one picture that looks Ustalavic ie setting for Dracula ish. It's a kitchen sink setting with kitchen sink fashion and time is space because every place gets knocked flat so much (in universe) and because they don't want you to have to change planets to change genres (writers side). And yet all those fashions are rules as written equally useful and appropriate, which leaves you wondering how.
So I'm back to, how much modern army uniform can you put on your standard shining armour footman to convey or translate their place in this world?
... not that I'll get the opportunity to, but...
The thing with symbols is they have no meaning until they make meaning. We've all got a store of them from our particular path through our particular culture, but we won't quite match. Which is a line of thought that leads to concluding true communication is impossible, but.
Costumes are a whole set of communications. Connotations. Symbols.
And in things set in a vaguely real world, or an urban fantasy using the here now, or some heightened version thereof, you have a very rich visual language to draw on, because it includes everything from daily fashion for the last lifetime of years to haute couture by way of comic books and stage plays. The visual language is already heavily populated with meaning.
But sidestep into another world, and you defamiliarise, everything.
In theory tou have to rebuild everything from scratch.
In practice of course everyone imports their existing decoder modules with a side order of You Are Wrong.
I've read so many Pathfinder books that I have a lot of instant associations with symbols they gave meaning in the rule books, like holy and unholy symbols. I don't have most of the colors memorised though, and I have looked them up repeatedly so it's not for want of trying. I might remember some of the national flags, maybe, since I've read the world guide. But national fashions are mostly going to go right past me, except for Osirion, because they don't wear much and it's ancient egypt style.
So playing Wrath of the Righteous I recognised Iomedae's sword, but none of the other things on shields, first time through.
And the crusader army all have their colors, and I guess when you run around camp you can find out which are which sort of, but then what do they mean? Not a lot, then or later, as it turns out.
So you've got empty signifiers that take a bunch of learning, add nothing, and turn out not to be necessary anyway.
Not ideal.
So I was thinking how in fantasy stories we default to clothing styles that were worn at very roughly the same century as the armour styles they go with - very very roughly, you kind of get a five hundred year range sometimes - but, while some of that would depend on cloth technology, a lot of it was optional fashion. So it's there to give the player/viewer/reader a general impression of 'welcome to the crusades, demon edition'.
... how much about the crusades the demon edition is becomes a whole other story...
... I mean using the word to try and reclaim an emptied iut land from actual literal demons has some *layers* if you think about it...
But I was wondering, whats the cost consequence on that kind of dressing? What do we gain vs what do we lose? What else could we be doing instead?
Like modern dress productions of Shakespeare, you get a different set of layers brought to the fore, just by putting your players in a different jacket.
So I have been looking up current ish British army jackets, and thinking how practical it might be to put soldiers in them, what with the armour situation etc.
... velcro makes a lot of difference to the putting on or armour, and I'm not sure how any clothes stand up to melee combat vs swords, so do they actually want jackets? I mean, they're wearing a bunch of cloth for allegiance purposes, it's like everyone has a flag on, but wearing a jacket and lots of pockets seems like it would meet a sword and go Poorly.
But there's a lot of classes that are not planning on meeting a sword? Alchemists and spellcasters can use all the pockets they can get.
Wrath of the Righteous on the xbox differentiates between character classes by outfit, only you have to pick the right one first or you're stuck wearing the other one for the whole game. Not the most varied of character builders. But you get a situation where gender isn't the important marker, character class is. Which makes sense in terms of why would you need to treat people differently anyway.
But does mean you get a lot of clues on who to aim at first if you want to trash the healers.
So putting everyone in identical uniform jackets would change the practicalities as well as the vibe.
But I don't know that people look at all them knights in armour and jump straight to 'mostly young people who just got drafted into a grinding ongoing war'. Or even 'mostly veterans of the grinding ongoing war, but not particularly distinctive heroes, so already the Knight Commander kicks more arse than them, after a week, because xp'.
Translating any part of that visually seems like a tough problem.
But modern uniforms aren't going to be a good fit for practicalities, I reckon.
Thing is though the outfits a PC can turn up in range from 'skins wrapped with thongs' through 'kind of highlander with more fur' up to your basic bag of robe and then on to trousers, assorted, or one picture that looks Ustalavic ie setting for Dracula ish. It's a kitchen sink setting with kitchen sink fashion and time is space because every place gets knocked flat so much (in universe) and because they don't want you to have to change planets to change genres (writers side). And yet all those fashions are rules as written equally useful and appropriate, which leaves you wondering how.
So I'm back to, how much modern army uniform can you put on your standard shining armour footman to convey or translate their place in this world?
... not that I'll get the opportunity to, but...