Roleplaying the Gorean City

People enter the room, socialize, spend an inordinate amount of time fussing over their slaves, and drink (Gorean society being made up mostly of acoholic lushes if room activities are to be believed). The slaves scamper around acting as waitresses and chambermaids. The slaves are assigned a variety of chores to make the roleplay "real" while the Frees watch and nod approval, beaming at them with loving smiles as if their poodle just learned a new trick.

Eventually, no surprise, this gets boring.

Then people start wandering around to other cities to socialize and do the same thing somewhere else. In the meantime, if this were an actual city, it would be falling apart at the seams. People have too much time on their hands and start getting into all manner of weird interpersonal dramas, the bickering starts, and soon everyone takes off for a new city where the cycle begins all over again.

Now obviously, I'm presenting an extreme scenario here simply to illustrate a point, but bear with me.

The primary unit for a community in the Gor novels is the city. There are a variety of other types of social structures; tribes, camps, etc. but the major social unit of Central Gor is the city. We base much of our roleplay of Gor around the idea of cities and correctly place a lot of importance on citizenship in these.

However, this very structure seems to end up causing an enormous amount of trouble for the various Gor rooms and seems to be difficult to maintain. I think this is due in large part to some misunderstanding as to just what a city is supposed to do and how life there operates.

The idea of the city in the novels is based roughly on the idea of the ancient Greek Polis, the city-state. The Greek city-state, or polis was a small unit of territory, about the size of a county, which was a politically independent, self-governing unit comprising one or more urban centers and the agricultural land in the countryside around the urban center.

In the Gor novels, some of the cities like Ar begin to grow in power and expand much like the rise of the Roman Empire. The city passed its own laws, maintained its own food production, and maintained its own military. There was certainly trade, and that increased dramatically with the rise of Roman power, and merchants became a major power in the various cities. Each city had its own cultural and intellectual life.

To maintain a city is an enormous undertaking. Where is the food coming from? What territory do the warriors need to maintain? How are various tasks being performed? Cities were also in constant competition with other cities, all vying for power and prestige. Which city had the strongest army, the greatest wealth, the finest art and architecture, the most material resources, the most famous academies of learning?

All of this mattered because a city that was high in power and prestige stood a greater chance of survival. A city-state may make alliances with other cities or have colonies that owe fealty to the mother city, but a city-state is always ultimately alone in maintaining itself. The well-being and survival of a city cannot come from simply having warriors ready to fight and Free Women physicians who like to patch them up to break the monotony.

This subject has been on my mind a lot as we work to set up a new city in Brundisium. Having pride in a city comes from more than just wearing a tag and shouting HAI!! periodically. It comes from having built something tangible.

This means doing the actual work of the city; running the marketplace, overseeing agriculture, constructing roads and buildings, running festivals and performances. Having that little red silk bringing you ale is a lot more satisfying when you actually did something to justify your thirst and hunger.

Enjoying unearned comforts is the mark of the earth culture we profess to disdain. Better to have people doing meaningful work than sitting on their asses, drinking too much and gossiping. Not to mention, maybe some slaves won't be as whiny and petulant when they see the supposedly superior Frees actually doing something to earn their place of power.

So, lest I be accused of idle philosophizing, here are few thoughts about the elements that make up a city-state, what needs to be done to maintain an independent polis and stimulate roleplay in the room.

• Determine what material resources you would have based on the books {animals, minerals, lumber, etc) then determine what kind you DON'T have. If all rooms do that then it provides the basis for merchants to engage in trade that means something to the city. Enjoyable though it may be, you can't base an economy on selling weapons and naked girls alone.
• Establish what kind of manufacturing you have (weapons, shipbuilding, clothmaking, oil production). If you don't have someone making it in the city, then you need to get it from somewhere. Again, it stimulates trade and encourages people to open merchant businesses based on more than being "trinket peddler of Gor."
• Determine diplomatic and military objectives beyond "nyah nyah you cant raid us." Send out patrols that actually question people at your borders, determine what territories are yours based on the Gor map, send diplomats to debate with other cities over rights to trade routes and resources. Warfare and diplomatic intrigue was a constant amongst cities ( its all roleplay, you can still love each other in the morning).
• No city-state would be without a theatre and an academy of learning. Give the scribes, musicians, performers something to do with some substance. Hold debates on Gorean philosophy in the forum, recite that awful poem you wrote about the slave girl that got away. Experiment.
• Create the items you use realistically. Where do all these ramships and coliseums and fine clothes and jeweled goblets come from? If you're a port, build ships. Start a building program. Determine that your city must have the grandest Council Hall complete with mosaics and carved columns and gold leaf on the dome. Then get the stuff you need to build it. Then roleplay building the thing. Make a fuss over it, get some civic pride going. When its done, stick a picture of the building on your website and throw a big festival.