Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Rules of the Game/Basics

Summary

You will control a gentry family as it attempts to raise itself from relative obscurity to high status and position over the course of a century or more.

Scoring Points (summary)

I won’t tell you all the ways you can advance your family, since part of the game is figuring out how to improve your situation. However, you can score points (fortune points) that both add to your personal score and can be spent to allow your family to do something. They act like good luck. Most points come from contributing to the Wiki. You can also score points by linking your family to historical events discussed in class or as part of document discussions. Other ways of earning points will appear later. Your personal score is the sum of points you have earned whether from scoring points via the wiki, scored in class discussion, or from bonuses when your family goes up a rank.

Wiki.

I use a wiki (http://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:History_344_Nasty_Families) for this course as a means of organising the research that students do. You get points for working on the wiki as follows: A substantial page (over 200 words) that needs no revision = 4 points. A good page that could use editing = 3 points. A page that needs a fair bit of editing, few sources or an incomplete page = 2 points. A page that needs a lot of editing, is very small etc. = 1 point. Significantly rewriting a page = 1 point. Adding a useful piece of evidence, with references, to an existing page = 1 point.

Your Grade

Your grade will be derived from your score. This is competitive, and since I don’t know what score people will get to I will fit the grades of the class to a curve. No matter how low you score compared to other students decent effort and participation will net you the equivalent of a C. No matter how high the score of your family you will get an F if you don’t contribute (although it is pretty unlikely that you would get a high score without contributing heavily).

Phases.

The game is divided into phases corresponding to periods. The game starts in 1603, and the first phase corresponds to the reign of James I. At the start of every class we will have a discussion about what to do about your families, how to spend points, etc., although this will take place after primary source discussion if there is any.

Family Details

Family Structure

Families need to decide how they will operate. One consideration is whether or not to have a single student who passes on family decisions to me, or even a team leader who will be trusted to make smaller decisions on their own. In any case this person would not be able to do something like marry off the heir or sell off the patrimony without the consent of the family as a whole. You might want someone to keep track of family assets as well (particularly money and luck).

The class will be divided into five teams representing each family. Each family is a fertile one with a father (age 40, the head of the family), a mother (30), two sons (12 and 8) and one daughter (10). Grandparents are dead. Generally students do not have to ‘play’ a particular family member (this is not a role-playing game, although you can divide up the people in the family if you want). Rather, all members of the team help the family as a whole. Later, students will be encouraged to break off and form new families (cadet branches, if you will).

Status and Influence.

Families have a rank to signify their status. This represents their honour, reputation and class standing. Each family starts out at rank 1, indicating that it is what was sometimes known as parish gentry. They are prominent and wealthy people but only in their own parish (the area and people associated with a particular country church). They are almost unknown to the more powerful gentry families, let alone the nobility. They hold no offices and have no distinctions. However, they have all slowly and gradually risen to gentry rank over centuries, so they have long since overcome any stain of rustic background and their family histories are respectable enough.

Your first ambition should be to break into county society. County gentry are well known throughout the shire and are much more important people. Almost anything a family does could, potentially, raise or lower its status. Certain goals will need to be achieved in order to rise in status. Some of these goals are specific, in the sense that a specific thing will need to be achieved by your family in order to rise to a specific rank. Some are more general, in that your family simply needs to do better in any of a number of ways.

Status (along with a few other things, such as high office) generates influence. Influence represents the various webs of patronage, connections and owed favours that made early modern society function. Influence needs to be spent (much like game points) in order to gain many of the things families want. At first your family has no influence and generates none (or at least, it is all connected with your own tenants and parish locals, and so doesn’t count for enough in the game).

Money and Estates.

Your family has one modest manor to start with that generates an income each phase that it can invest or spend in any way it wants. At the start it has £4000 to work with after maintenance and upkeep costs like a steward and work hands. You have also already paid for a modest staff of maids and household servants. You family is well clothed but not fashionable, and is rudimentarily educated. You also already cover the various incidental costs associated with being a prominent figure in the parish, like tithing, contributions to the poor rate, and small charities that cannot be avoided. Later in the game you may wish to consider ‘improvements’, but you will have to pay for them some way. You will get new money only with a new phase, so this must last many years (unless you find a way to get more).

Be warned that some ways of making money are not respectable, so you could be rich but low status.

House and Grounds.

Your family starts off with a small country house, what the nobles would call a cottage but you probably call a ‘hall’. Right now you pay for the tending of a small lawn and some rose bushes in a garden, but not a stable or kennel.

Upkeep of family members.

Gentry families are expensive to maintain, and as children age they will be more expensive to keep in the proper style. Any change to your family, like marriages or additional children, may cost and therefore reduce the amount you get each phase. Widows cost less and older children considerably more.

Decisions to make as a team right away: 1. Give your family, and its members, decent names. 2. Pick your home county, any in England or Wales, first come first choose. I may restrict one family per larger region, like East Anglia or the North. 3. Choose Roman Catholic, Church of England, or Puritan as your family’s starting religion.

Things you need to think about soon:

The youngest generation is growing up fast. Whatever shall they do?

Being a country gentleman is not good enough. The locals are a solid, worthy lot, but hardly fit society for your family. Perhaps there is some way to make others recognise your family’s worth?

References