Bret Devereaux

I desperately need to finish figuring out next fall's game--which will be fun and I'm excited and what-not!--but I really just want to play New Vegas again. I'm definitely teaching it fall 2022.

Could duck out of the story-driven RPG space to do mechanics-driven simulations, like Crusader Kings III or Mount&Blade: Bannerlord to get into how the mechanics repackage assumptions and perceptions about the medieval world.

Please elaborate on Bannerlord.

Very briefly, I suppose - it is striking that Bannerlord types troops based on their point of origin, making it impossible to retrain recruits in non-native fighting styles. It is striking that it is impossible to raise anyone up into the nobility (except yourself)...

...it is interesting and notable that the forms of wealth ownership - noble landholdings, urban craftswork and long-distance land-based trade - are the ones that dominate a lot of popular thought, but small landholdings (the gentry), and banking are excluded from the game.