Does anyone else feel that their players kinda fetishize Royalty?

[paladinofshojo]

Oh thats simple.

The wizards and diviners are either get corrupt, dead or mysteriously vanished, all the claimants see the party as remnants of the old regime, as goons that that did the kings bidding to stomp their boot on them and thus want to kill them on sight, so it doesn't matter who is the legitimate ruler to them if all the claimants don't like them and don't want their help anyways because they're symbols of the old king oppression, when they already have their own goons to be symbols and enforcers of their brand of oppression.

This sounds a lot like railroading… which I am against on principle. I’d rather have my characters play as fascist lapdogs then to contrive scenarios which don’t make any sense but to corner them into being forced to play a certain way or force a certain outcome.

For starters, why wouldn’t a claimant to the throne want the old king’s enforcers serving him? It adds to his own legitimacy…

Secondly, my party apparently understands the concept of ransoming and “chivalry” in that you don’t mistreat highborn enemies or prisoners of war. Which leads to them being politically savvy enough to know that “anyone above a Knight on the feudal scale deserves humane treatment” as they only seem to butcher peasants indiscriminately. So it’s not like they had made any powerful enemies.