Author Topic: Politics in your campaigns  (Read 1577 times)

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Offline Colin-ICE

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Politics in your campaigns
« on: June 08, 2017, 02:52:53 AM »
As it is election day here in the UK, I thought I would raise the question of how you deal with politics in your games.

On the whole I tend to avoid PC's getting too directly involved in democratic activity simply because it feels like there would need to be a whole heap of backstory for them to really understand the political landscape without straying too far into cliché.

Feudal societies and kingdoms are a lot simpler to slot in simply because it's "this person is in charge" or "this person is in charge of that person" but actual full blown democracies (I find) are just too difficult.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever been involved in a game based solely on political intrigue? If so, how did it go?

Offline bpowell

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Re: Politics in your campaigns
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2017, 10:19:14 AM »
I have a political undercurrent in my game.  While it is a Empire, there are various different factions vying for power in the Empire.  They are merchant houses, different groups of nobles, and even the underworld are trying to shape politics around them.

While the players are not directly "movers and shakers" they might be used as tools by one of the factions.  So my players look at each opportunity looking at how it might benefit or harm a faction.

-BP

Offline jdale

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Re: Politics in your campaigns
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2017, 03:15:11 PM »
Democracy feels anachronistic in a fantasy setting. I'd rather try to maintain a pseudo-medieval feel, bringing in attitudes that are too modern disrupt immersion. Of course feudal and other medieval societies provide plenty of opportunities for playing politics. If the players are interested, it can add a lot of depth. Even if the players aren't interested, it gives the important NPCs some motivation. For example my players just got dragged into a little battle between two neighboring barons; one claims the other has been trafficking in forbidden and evil artifacts. (Inconveniently, the players were there delivering a collection of antiquities, and had some forbidden artifacts hidden in their belongings.) They probably won't pursue the political side, but it did nicely cement an ally and made them an enemy as well.

I have more experience with this sort of plot in a LARP with 70-130 players, which is enough that you get politics between them, as well as currying favor with visiting (NPC) nobles, ousting current nobles in favor of more sympathetic allies, etc. I will say I have seen quite a few elections in this type of setting, but zero of them -- zero! -- were free, fair, and honest. Outright vote-buying, bribery, falsified results, slander and character assassination... it turns out democracy is pretty hard!


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Offline Peter R

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Re: Politics in your campaigns
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2017, 04:44:40 PM »
My face to face game meets so infrequently that political plot lines do not work well. The players simply cannot remember the intricacies of political twists and turns between the sessions.

I have found that play by post games and politics work really well as the characters can have almost perfect recall of events.

I tend to agree that inserting democracy into a fantasy setting can seem a bit false.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Politics in your campaigns
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2017, 05:16:55 PM »
One thing to note is that medieval political arrangements were actually a lot more varied than most people believe. We in the modern world tend to think that autocracy is the default of human political experience (e.g. humanity went from absolutist pharaohs to absolutist emperors to absolutist kings), but that is a mistake. In medieval Europe, there were certainly feudal monarchies, but these were not absolutist regimes: the nobles in particular were especially powerful, and in fact 'feudal' in scholarly circles is actually synonymous with 'decentralized', 'politically fragmented', and sometimes even 'anarchic'. Furthermore, feudal regimes were by no means the only ones around. In early medieval Europe, tribal associations led to generally weak kings, with local communities having a big say in things like justice and court cases: literally, it was the 'good men' (boni homines) of the community that rendered judgment. In the cities of Italy, from the eleventh century on, communes prevailed, hearkening back to the old Roman Republic (and at times trying to resurrect it). Their political systems were highly varied, even if, at times, they did become dictatorships. Consider also Iceland, which had essentially no central government (apart from the Allthing), and was almost an anarchy. The papal states were a theocracy, but the theocrat was elected by the local clergy (at least after the Gregorian Reforms and invention of the college of Cardinals). Towns in general often had a great deal of independence (even outside Italy).

All of this is just to say: even in 'feudal' societies, politics were often rich and vibrant. Absolutism and totalitarianism are rather recent inventions, and shouldn't be imposed upon medieval culture. The example of King John shows what could happen when the king tried to trample on the customs of the community and the privileges of the privileged.
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Offline Midarc

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Re: Politics in your campaigns
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2017, 06:14:26 PM »

The political aspect of the game is important, even only as simple background dressing for a campaign.
It adds a perceivable elements depth to the world.
The illusion orreality that events continue even if players are busy elsewhere.

Given the sandbox nature of campaigns I've run the political machinations of no s are running away on some level whether the players choose to engage with it or not (or, for that matter, have positioned themselves in a way that they have the opportunity).


Most satisfying event was when, after being willing and unwilling elements in npc she
Olitical plans, the players began to not only engage, but pursue their own agendas.
In particular, they were attempting to impede and harass the goals of a particularly mercantile Mage guild who were slowly expanding their influence in the world.
They'd had run ins with them before, in alliance and opposition, but they'd finally marked this guild as too much trouble and specifically started using influence and favour they'd earned to sow mistrust of the guild among groups and power structures. ( admittedly, wholly deserved mistrust however well the guild hid their actions.)
It descended into a game of oneupmanship between the players and the guild until it ended with an assassin group being coaxed by the players into targeting the guild.
On top of other pressures this distracted the leadership enough that a coup was attempted during which one balancing moderate factors in the guild died and another fled into hiding.
What was left fragmented into two groups.


While the guild in question isnt as influential a threat as they once were but in some ways the losss of those moderating factors has made them more unpredictable and dangerous albeit no.onger in the political sense.