Frequently Asked Questions About Rosewar.
If an answer to your question isn't here, please mail me and I'll try to reply as best I can.
Q1: Have you ever heard of the Avalon Hill game, "Kingmaker"?
A1: Yes! It's one of my favourite boardgames and was the inspiration for Rosewar. As a boardgame, Kingmaker is first class but as a simulation of the Wars of the Roses, it is limited by being a boardgame. Also, I had legitimate criticisms about a few aspects of the game. Principally the way the Royal pieces are mere pawns and that the game is based entirely upon dynastic conflict. Rosewar aims to be a more complete reflection on the period, though it too is very imperfect.
Q2: How did you come to pick these eighteen nobles as player characters?
A2: I divided all the peers around in 1460 and after into three groups. Group One consisted of ten nobles who I felt had to be PCs. Group Two contained twelve nobles that were "maybes". Group Three was all those were never going to be PCs in the foreseeable future. Then I asked each player to list their top three choices for character in order of preference. I went through the preferences allotting PCs to players ensuring that each player got a noble as high up his list as possible commensurate with finding players for all my Group One PCs. This meant that about half of Group Two became PCs. There was a strong subjective element at every stage of this process and the final list of PCs is obviously controversial.
Q3: So which nobles were in which categories?
A3: OK! Category 1, the "mustbes": Beaufort, Bourchier, Clifford, Grey de Ruthyn, Herbert, Lancaster, Neville, Percy, Tudor and York. Plus Tiptoft when he comes on line.
Category 2, the "maybes": Courtenay, Fiennes, Fitzalan, Greystoke, Lovel, Mowbray, Roos, Stafford of Southwyk, Stanley, Talbot, Vere and Wydeville.
Q4: Why choose January 1460 as the start date?
A4: The start of the Wars of the Roses is debated by academics and can be taken to lie somewhere between 1450 and 1460. I chose the latest date possible to ensure that the Wars would definitely happen. Before this, the PCs might easily have avoided conflict by peaceful negotiation. In 1460, the rebels had to resort to violence to recover their position, half the nobility of England were polarised into supporting one side or the other and the Duke of York finally laid open claim to the throne, marking the beginning of the Wars as a definitely dynastic struggle.
Or, more succinctly, for dramatic effect!
Q5: I would like to ask you - is there a possibility to open the game up for people around the world for whom the only chance to communicate is the E - mail? Or is it going to break the rules of the game or the way it runs?
A5: I might open the game to be PBEM eventually but at the moment there are things that can only be sent by mail. About half my players do not have E-mail and I still have to post letters from them to other players.
There is also a lot of behind-the-scenes telephone calls and international phone charges are pretty expensive.
Finally, even if the game went PBEM, I'd still have to post the starter packs out and take subs.
But I can envisage going PBEM eventually, when I have more experience. Rosewar has still to complete a calendar year in real time and I don't want to run before I can walk, but one day Rosewar could open up to a truly international field!
Q6: I'm wondering which house was represented with the red rose and which house was represented by the white rose. I've looked through a lot of material and this seems to be the one piece of information that I can't find.
A6: Oops! You're right! I haven't mentioned the roses, have I?
The Wars of the Roses are misnamed, actually. The red rose was just one of a number of badges used by the House of Lancaster, [see the Arms of the Merchant Venturers], but there is little evidence that the white rose was used until right near the end of the period. Henry VII took the two and combined them to make the Tudor rose, which is shown here. This probably preserved the rose motif for posterity. Shakespeare may also have had something to do with it by inventing an entirely fictional confrontation between York and Somerset in the gardens of the Temple in London.
York: "....Let him that is a true-born gentleman and stands upon the honour of his birth, if he suppose that I have pleaded truth, from off this brier pluck a white rose with me."
Somerset: "Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer but dare maintain the party of the truth, pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."
[Henry VI, part 1, Act 2, Scene 4, vs. 27 - 33.]
