Does anybody else get unreasonably annoyed at the vast majority of rpg games that are feudal societys on a surface level but are actually capitalist societys under a thin vineer. I was trying to play pillars of eternity but became incredibly annoyed at the frist quest of the game revolving around a mill which is in a lord’s domain but is privately owned and operated and which the townsfolk sell their grain to in exchange for currency (to later buy back with the same currency). I had to put the game down right there.
I think a lot of the time it’s an outgrowth from developers feeling the need to have a commonly circulated currency. Although the answer in my opinion isn’t to faithfully recreate feudalism but to create a unique social formation for the conditions of the world, I’ve always loved the eberron campaign setting for that reason.
Your right that Pillars of eternity probably isn’t a particularly good example it just stuck out to me so much because the first actual quest of the game revolves around a moral dilemma that doesn’t make much sense. The currency isn’t as out of place as it would be in a medieval setting but the operation of the mill that way is still very strange.
It’s a lot more obvious in the second game, as it’s almost entirely about feuds between Caribbean-analogue trading companies
The second game is also interesting as the fantasy expy of Polynesians have totally different concepts of ownership and exist into some form of communes but sadly the devs had brainworms and so had to create some parts that didn’t really mesh and also had to include colonial exploitation.
The caste system they had was inherently exploitative, but it worked until they had to fully centralize in their larger cities and capitalists began to infiltrate the society through trade.
I agree it could’ve been done better, but the worse parts of their society only pronounced themselves post-colonization which is, yeah I agree, at least a sort of an interesting thing to explore.
It’s above average world building at the very least, if by what are obviously lib writers lol
