Quote Originally Posted by paladinofshojo View Post
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.
1) The existence of Ned Stark, legitimate Hand of the King and lord of Winterfell, doesn’t make Westeros a nice place. You could have PCs work for someone like that.

2) After Ned Stark gets himself outmaneuvered and killed, that would be a good time for the PCs to take some initiative before they join him.

Or just put the PCs in the Ned Stark role, trying to hold things together for a well-intentioned king (okay, that might be giving Robert too much credit) who isn’t great at the job. “The PCs have to act on their own initiative to hold the kingdom together on behalf of the rightful king while his enemies try to eliminate them” is a perfectly cromulent campaign concept, IMO.