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View Full Version : Writing advice: How do you DM as a BBEG anti-aristocracy revolutionary?



Leliel
2018-11-11, 10:46 AM
Something inspired by an episode of Terrible Writing Advice:

Beaubien makes a point in his video that the natural enemy of cliche courtly intrigue is non-aristocratic classes figuring out ways to get representation in the nobility, such as merchants being married in more for business ventures than wealth, and from there trying to limit the power of the king. That actually set off my brain a bit, effectively conjuring a "manipulative chancellor" character whose real motive is to break the power of the noble houses and give it to the middle class; exposure to how horrible the peasantry is treated in his world, and in his kingdom in particular, caused him to lose faith in the concept of aristocracy as a whole. His ultimate goal is to manipulate the two major houses, who appear at first to be "the good guys" and "the bad guys" (the latter of which he has blood relations to) into destroying each other's credibility-and from there provoking a revolution with his actual allies, the otherwise Good-tendencies clergy of the dominant religion and a resentful growing merchant class and force the creation of a constitution that greatly limits noble power and creates an Office of the Prime Minister (naturally, he plans to be the first elected or the actual first's trusted advisor, but he wants to be actually elected).

Of course, we live in the 21st century, and as soon as the players realize what his actual motives are, they're going to be seriously tempted to support his claim. I say, there's no problem in that, but I want to show he's not a nice man. In fact, in many ways, he's bound by the ideals of the very system he despises; he doesn't think serfdom is a problem, and he has a very strict, probably racist criteria of who gets to vote in his new utopia. Ideally (with some prompting) I want my players to realize his views are noble, but he's missing some pretty big things. Or feel a little bad about stabilizing the power structure, because they feel the status quo is better than his plans.

So, any advice? Especially on how to do this without being preachy or too railroady?

Knaight
2018-11-11, 10:58 AM
There's no particular reason for merchant classes to be any friendlier to the serfs than nobles are, so if that's the vector you're going on you're fine - especially if you emphasize that while they're hostile to nobility they adore the idea of aristocracy, possibly to even greater extremes (looking fondly on the idea of plantation slavery as a mercantile activity when the rest of the society won't go quite that far).

If you actually want noble views and him missing big things though, an obvious option is to make the timing bad. He's laying the groundwork for his merchant revolution during a famine with a probable war imminent, and doesn't seem to really understand the impact of either of those things, as he'll eat just fine during a famine and lives in a wealthy city with a lot of military might unlikely to be touched by the war.

TheYell
2018-11-11, 11:22 AM
Mob movements in the middle ages typically involved torture murder of key opponents of the serfs. So if you have a couple aristos hacked to pieces with scythes, which this guy celebrates with a parade, it might keep the players distant from the movement.

The notion of disrupting relief efforts during a famine is a good one. He might be hoarding grain for the People's Bread, while selling it secretly while prices rise.

Mastikator
2018-11-11, 11:49 AM
He could declare anyone who doesn't want him as their leader to be counter-revolutionary traitors, parade their heads on spikes. Everyone is required to publicly say positive things about the anti-aristocrat revolution, every serf, merchant and what not becomes a cog in the new machine, their liberty guaranteed to it therefore their lives owed to it as well.

Silly Name
2018-11-11, 12:26 PM
He could very well fall prey to the class divide: sure, he hates those lazy nobles who profit off the back of plebs (like him and his fellow merchants), and who have never had to work for anything... But why would he care about farmers or butchers? If you look at revolutions against aristocracy throughout History, they don't go from 0 (Medieval Kingdoms and Fiefdoms) to 100 (Contemporary Western Democracies).
In short, he could be seeking to tear down the current institutions, but that doesn't means he's looking to create an utopia of equality, or even something that might appeal to the players' modern sensibilities.

He can also just be an horrible, vile person. His ideals might appeal to the players, but the methods and the inclinations of the character might be enough to turn them off from him.

VoxRationis
2018-11-11, 01:25 PM
In a fantasy setting, the nobility might have some degree of supernatural importance or have their status reified by an objectively discernible effect. The Fisher King is an old example of this; a more recently-written setting, Legend of the Five Rings, has its nobility defined by their closer relationship to the gods and spirits. In such a system, the abuses against the commons might be very real and very worth avenging, but the act of overthrowing or curtailing the nobility might have negative consequences. That makes for a somewhat horrifying and dystopian setting, when you think about it (no matter what the people in power do, holding them accountable is impossible without making things even worse), but perhaps other factions in play want to change thing within the bounds of the system.

Having the villain want to go beyond simply making a constitutional monarchy and enact some sort of French Revolution-esque Terror, complete with executing noblewomen and children who had little to no power to affect the situation or oppose the abuses of the nobility, would probably do more to make the villain seem more villainous.

Finally, bear in mind that sometimes, players are just going to do their own thing and make their own decisions. Your players may decide that whatever negative elements are in the villain's plans and processes do not outweigh the good, and decide to throw in with him. You may therefore want to make "backup villains": forces which are working, mostly in the background, against the primary villain's plans, and can be made retroactively more capable of thwarting them if the PCs decide to throw their lot in with not-Robespierre.

awa
2018-11-11, 02:10 PM
His plan could revolve around something that simply doesn't/ cant work. In which case no matter how noble his goal the actual out come will be negative.

He might have ideas for economic or political reform that are simply not viable

Lets say the nobles trade alliances are marriage based, and an uprising will destroy your economic standing. Now our merchant might believe that every one has a price and the other countries will simply have to deal with the new government, but that might simply not be the case. The other countries nobles may refuse to deal with a bunch of jumped up commoners who murdered their betters and that's if they don't become actively hostile to the people who killed their relatives.

VoxRationis
2018-11-11, 02:57 PM
His plan could revolve around something that simply doesn't/ cant work. In which case no matter how noble his goal the actual out come will be negative.

He might have ideas for economic or political reform that are simply not viable

Lets say the nobles trade alliances are marriage based, and an uprising will destroy your economic standing. Now our merchant might believe that every one has a price and the other countries will simply have to deal with the new government, but that might simply not be the case. The other countries nobles may refuse to deal with a bunch of jumped up commoners who murdered their betters and that's if they don't become actively hostile to the people who killed their relatives.

That said, "noble goal that is doomed to failure" is perfect adventurer-bait, as the players will consider the "doomed to failure" part to be a challenge. Those adventurers might go about waging war against the hostile foreign nobility, or finagling ways to keep the revolution's economy afloat through persuasion and skullduggery in spite of the collapsing trade network.

Excession
2018-11-11, 04:39 PM
He might perhaps be using some really unpleasant tactics to create a rebellion. Like indirectly organising protests or riots, then making sure the response is excessive. In the opposite direction, he could use fake rioters to kill off moderate nobles, with bonus points if those nobles' children are killed as well. A spiral of violence and reprisals can push moderates among both sides to be more extreme and kick off a full rebellion, but it's also going to get a lot of people killed. It could also just be used as an excuse to remove a moderate king who is now seen as weak, followed by brutally putting down said rebellion.

I'm not sure how you would show that to the players; maybe they could see the person who throws the first rock at the protest, and later learn that he's one of the chancellor's servants or something. Could work well if one of the party has super-high insight so would be likely to spot this where others wouldn't.

Edit: Maybe just show the players a wealthy family being pulled from a carriage and beaten to death; ought to remove the idea that the populace is all sunshine and rainbows. Many players would even try to intervene, which could get messy. If it does, a group of ultra-violent adventurers might be exactly what the noble needs, so that gives him a reason to engage with the PCs.

awa
2018-11-11, 09:33 PM
That said, "noble goal that is doomed to failure" is perfect adventurer-bait, as the players will consider the "doomed to failure" part to be a challenge. Those adventurers might go about waging war against the hostile foreign nobility, or finagling ways to keep the revolution's economy afloat through persuasion and skullduggery in spite of the collapsing trade network.

it depends on how you set it up, if you set it up as something that can be easily fixed by stabbing level appropriate encounters yeah adventures are likely to get on board with it. But if its a matter that cant be easily solved and fixing one thing means letting 10 other things collapse because you were focused on a diffrent problem or even worse their problems that simply cant be solved with your skill set.

ecological collapse is an example, if the merchants plans require him to massively deforest and over-hunt the region to make up for the losses in trade created by his revolution, based on a poor-understanding of ecology (something that has happened many times in the real world to one degree or another) Conan, robin hood, and Lancelot have very few ways they can solve mass starvation because you misused the land for shortsighted profits.

Ive used this kind of thing it my games before you just tell a player with the proper knowledge that the guys plan simply wont work, that things are more complicated then he thinks and their arnt any easy solutions if their were people would have done them already.

Pauly
2018-11-11, 09:57 PM
Paging Mr Cromwell, paging Mr Cromwell. Is there a Mr Oliver Cromwell in the house?

zimmerwald1915
2018-11-12, 09:58 AM
Paging Mr Cromwell, paging Mr Cromwell. Is there a Mr Oliver Cromwell in the house?
This, but unironically. The English Civil war and the rest of the early modern period is actually great fodder for unsympathetic people making revolution for the middle class - you have all kinds of primitive accumulation dispossessing the peasants and driving urbanization and proletarianization, extermination or near-extermination of "backwards" populations in the name of increasing the productivity/profitability of land (fen dwellers in East Anglia, highland Scots), imperialistic foreign wars that separated families on the home front for long stretches of time and were brutal in themselves. . .

awa
2018-11-12, 03:30 PM
I like that, i hadn't thought of those particulars.

Another idea maybe the "people" are particularly intolerant in some form or fashion, and the nobles because they travel more and interact with foreign courts are more open.

as an idea
So the people just want to genocide/drive out/ enslave/ civilize the elves living in the woods in order to properly make use of the land but the nobles don't like that because they have been intermarrying with them for generations. It could be part of the conflict that the nobility many of whom are half-elf and mimic elf culture are out of touch with the people they rule, elven might even be the court language which basically no commoner speaks.

Of course the bad guys plan assumes the elves and druids are push overs who will crumble before the might of a "modern" army whether this is true or not is up to the dm.

Beneath
2018-11-12, 05:12 PM
"The people as a whole want a war with xyz" is probably unlikely, or at least not enough to actually rise up and fight far away from home and possibly die for whatever might be taken entirely spontaneously (armies don't organize themselves, but mob attacks against one's neighbors do). Though "some faction with which the revolutionary has allied themself wants this war and there are passions among the people they can inflame to do so, and along the way innocent half-elves living in the city get murdered is more likely. This also, of course, isn't something that just revolutionaries can do; likely those pre-existing prejudices are fueled by the existing ruling class using them to deflect popular anger that is their rightful due. In other words, the people don't just hate the elves of the woods because the court speaks elvish and the peasants don't, but because the court has been blaming their unpopular decisions on the elves for generations.

Another possibility is to make it personal for the PCs. Give them personal connections among nobility (like, invite them to make PCs who are from noble families, marry them into the nobility, etc. etc) that this guy decides to direct anger against.

The other things about how he's only using the true commoners also works well. While merchants and serfs (and laborers and for that matter journeymen) may nominally be part of the same estate, that doesn't mean that a merchant seeking to advance his own and his class's interest is going to evenly lift the whole estate. He might, for instance, support a campaign for freedom of movement to liberate a bunch of serfs to leave their lord's estate while at the same time lending money to their landlord to oppose that, then as soon as the serfs win he calls the debt due, and one of his co-conspirators offers to buy the land the serfs had been renting off the landlord for just enough to cover the debt, then dispossesses the serfs of the land, possibly the land their ancestors are buried on, and encloses what had been their fields to use for sheep pasture, hiring a few people who had been dispossessed in another part of the country (to prevent building local solidarity) to tend the herds while leaving the majority of dispossessed former-peasants to not be his problem.

Pauly
2018-11-12, 06:57 PM
This, but unironically. The English Civil war and the rest of the early modern period is actually great fodder for unsympathetic people making revolution for the middle class - you have all kinds of primitive accumulation dispossessing the peasants and driving urbanization and proletarianization, extermination or near-extermination of "backwards" populations in the name of increasing the productivity/profitability of land (fen dwellers in East Anglia, highland Scots), imperialistic foreign wars that separated families on the home front for long stretches of time and were brutal in themselves. . .

My suggestion was serious, even if my tone was flippant.

The other good historical templates are Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin. While they overthrew Spanish colonial power they replaced it with what was more or less a local aristocracy/kleptocracy - not true democratic representation for the masses.

ngilop
2018-11-12, 07:10 PM
Think of Vladmir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.


It may look good on paper (everybody is treated equally even distribution of wealth, etc etc) But when you get into they start killing off millions of people because [Reasons]

Knaight
2018-11-12, 07:25 PM
Think of Vladmir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.


It may look good on paper (everybody is treated equally even distribution of wealth, etc etc) But when you get into they start killing off millions of people because [Reasons]

Though some of these are also good examples of thinking about the opposition. Historically speaking support for Lenin makes a lot more sense once you start looking at the state of Tsarist russia.

Alabenson
2018-11-12, 07:33 PM
Given the nature of the question, I'm honestly surprised no one's brought up Maximilien Robespierre yet. After all, it was called the Reign of Terror for a very good reason, and the players might be a bit more inclined to oppose the BBEG if he decides that they or their allies have become "enemies of the revolution".

ngilop
2018-11-12, 10:46 PM
Though some of these are also good examples of thinking about the opposition. Historically speaking support for Lenin makes a lot more sense once you start looking at the state of Tsarist russia.

That is kinda my point. the less-enfranchised members of society will be like 'yaay our savior cuz he is anti-rich peeps in charge! Then when they get in charge.. the REAL bad stuff comes to the surface and the players now understand 'hey this dude was the big bad evil guy all along'

Pauly
2018-11-12, 11:04 PM
That is kinda my point. the less-enfranchised members of society will be like 'yaay our savior cuz he is anti-rich peeps in charge! Then when they get in charge.. the REAL bad stuff comes to the surface and the players now understand 'hey this dude was the big bad evil guy all along'

Well all of the examples Cromwell/Robespierre/Bolivar/Lenin have more or less have the same start point, it then goes in different directions
- Cromwell introduced what effectively was a theocratic state.
- Robespierre introduced anarchy
- Bolivar was more like The Who Song “Won’t get fooled again” a “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” effect.
- Lenin and assorted commies were as you say.

Knaight
2018-11-12, 11:54 PM
That is kinda my point. the less-enfranchised members of society will be like 'yaay our savior cuz he is anti-rich peeps in charge! Then when they get in charge.. the REAL bad stuff comes to the surface and the players now understand 'hey this dude was the big bad evil guy all along'

My point is that even with the REAL bad stuff there's a serious case to be made that people are still generally better off. It's not a case of the BBEG all along so much as a case of how if you start with sufficiently bad conditions improvements can still leave you in a terrible place.

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-13, 01:40 AM
We're not supposed to reference real world politics - but if you want an example of disaster following an otherwise noble ambition to strip a privileged class of their power, look at Zimbabwe. In fact, I've yet to hear of any revolutionary particularly keen on power sharing of any kind.

Tajerio
2018-11-13, 05:26 AM
This, but unironically. The English Civil war and the rest of the early modern period is actually great fodder for unsympathetic people making revolution for the middle class - you have all kinds of primitive accumulation dispossessing the peasants and driving urbanization and proletarianization, extermination or near-extermination of "backwards" populations in the name of increasing the productivity/profitability of land (fen dwellers in East Anglia, highland Scots), imperialistic foreign wars that separated families on the home front for long stretches of time and were brutal in themselves. . .


Well all of the examples Cromwell/Robespierre/Bolivar/Lenin have more or less have the same start point, it then goes in different directions
- Cromwell introduced what effectively was a theocratic state.


Neither of these is really fair to the ECW or to Cromwell. On the first point, Christopher Hill's arguments have been pretty well exploded, and there's a general consensus that though socioeconomic tensions provided some of the context for the ECW, the wars weren't fought about them. The changes you're talking about there did happen, but less consciously and systematically than the idea of "people directing a revolution" implies. Cromwell would also have recoiled from any idea of anti-aristocracy, and indeed did (see the Putney debates for his reaction to the Levellers). On the second point, the brief attempt at theocratic rule (Barebone's Parliament) failed in 1653. Cromwell's rule is better understood as a military dictatorship with a very strong religious current running throughout it than as a theocracy.

As for the main point of the thread, I think the OP has the right idea. Present a character who has a very narrow idea of who deserves the revolution. It's just for the middle classes, and only the humans (or whatever) at that. No peasants or elves need apply. Unless the players are bourgeois revolutionaries of the 1840s, that should do just fine at limiting their sympathies.

exelsisxax
2018-11-13, 12:55 PM
What more do you need? You said you don't want rails, so just flesh out what you already have. BBEG are railroady, just stick with what you have: a center of power with goals, beliefs, and methods that can be judged and interacted with by the players. Trying to tip your players that he's the "bad guy" is railroading, setting him up as specific opposition is railroading, presenting him as an icon greater than the situation merits is railroading.

Decide and expand upon why he wants to enact revolution, the goals being aimed for with the revolution, his desired and actual methods for doing so(and possibly his limits), and relevant circumstances as to how these may relate to the PCs. Do it for all the main power centers. Congrats, you now have a working sandbox that is virtually immune to PC hijinks and responds reasonably to PC meddling.

Arutema
2018-11-14, 04:54 AM
The OP's description reminds me at once of Delita Heiral from Final Fantasy Tactics, a lowborn squire and friend of the protagonist.
By the end of the game, he's played enough of the factions against each other to become the new king, at the cost of having the protagonist condemned as a heretic by the church due to his actions. And when his queen figures out his schemes, he casually murders her.

Another nicely flawed, fictional, revolutionary leader is Ulfric Stormcloak. He wants to create a Skyrim where Nords can openly worship Talos as they did up until the Great War. He and his top general are also openly racist against non-Nords, forcing Windhelm's dark elves and Argonians to live in ghetto conditions. If your BBEG starts ramping up rhetoric like that to outright genocide, the PCs will probably figure out he needs to be stopped.