Nationalism in Fantasy RPGs

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Let's talk Nationalism

An interesting thing which isn't really touched upon when you talk about fantasy RPGs. Nationalism ... wasn't really a thing until the late 1800s, when revolutions became a big thing. The idea of countries wasn't quite a concept as such.  Instead, it was more a case of "this ruler rules over this region, and you just happen to live on their land."

This video above goes into the idea of national anthems and touches on how and why nationalism became a thing - when people stopped thinking of themselves as people under the crown, and people of the place itself (a big thing that happened in North America and such). Before that however?  Well, God Save the King was a big hit, it wasn't so much a song about the land and not the crown, but about the fact that the crown exists. A lot of other kingdoms decided to use variants of the that same song - because it was a popular song, thus got borrowed liberally.

So, here's the thing - in some ways, the game settings which don't have nations - but have shifting borders under different crowns, is actually more accurate than the idea that there is the 'Kingdom of X' where people have national pride.  That ... just wasn't a thing. You had the people who were pro-royal, and then you had the people who were anti-royal, and then you had the (hopefully) majority who just didn't give a damn.

Wars were fought by people who were paid (or conscripted) by the crown to fight, and mercenaries were a big thing. You didn't have peasant uprisings shouting "For Asgard!" at being invaded.  They kind of continued about their business going, "So, who are we giving our taxes to now?" unless the invading forces were being jerks to them.  We're talking before the mid-18th century - before the Corsican Republic and the American Revolution (1755 or so). These, of course, set the template for the French Revolution (1789) which made the rest of Europe sit up and take notice.

If we're not mistaken, though, a lot of fantasy RPGs float around the 1600s or so -  before the Industrial Revolution (1760) - when the idea of national economies were starting to become an idea. So, essentially, the concept of the 'nation' was really created by a confluence of factors - revolution, industrialisation, and the idea that a people were a part of something greater, rather than beholden to something greater.

So, something to consider when world-building a fantasy campaign - rather than setting down the idea of nationalism and nations, where people fight 'for their country', consider the idea of kingdoms with blurry lines and borders, and a general public who just doesn't really give a crap unless the ruler is just that damn awesome or that damn horrible. In which case, they're still not nationalistic, they're more 'can we get a new ruler now?'

Things to consider.

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