Does anyone else feel that their players kinda fetishize Royalty?

[paladinofshojo]

The wild idea would be to have them be loyal to someone actually nice.

The rightful king with a good claim and all, who is actually just and nice (think noblesse oblige to the extreme I guess). And the ones trying to usurp them actually are the bad guys with less claim to power.

I dunno, just live the fantasy that in a world of powerful mages and interfering gods (Forgotten Realms is full of that) there are nobles and royals who are good and nice, but also competent enough to have stayed in power.

Putting aside the fact that I loathe the idea of the “good king” archetype as a symbol of legitimate authority. There are two reasons why I won’t go this route.

1) If you have a benevolent monarch that is actually competent, chances are your setting is idealistic where there is little to no corruption or abuses of power, no infighting, no turf wars between nobles. And that just sounds way too boring. Why would a stable nation need morally compromised mercenaries?

2) This is supposed to be a sandbox game where the players decide their own stories, if I introduce some “big good” character then it stops being about the player characters and starts being all about the “big good” character and how they plan on creating change to establish more equality and justice for all.

The creator of the thread did not even say if he included a kind and nice rebel that have great plans for the kingdom that sacrificed his life for defending a rebellion with a good cause and just got resurrected and is trying to make sure to overthrow the corrupt and evil royals.
Without a super good and nice and kind alternative to royalty how would the players decide to go against it?

I’ve had a Robin Hood styled rebel leader of peasant soldiers and yeoman that had been shafted by the wars they fought in the name of their lords and king appear at least once or twice in my campaigns.

But instead of joining them, the party usually sides with the King…