[3.5] Benevolent Dictatorship

[Black_Zawisza]

In my game, one of my character's goals is to overthrow every oppressive government in the world and replace it with an constitutional elective monarchy. The question is, though, how can one ensure that the rulers remain benevolent after one is dead and can no longer police the system? Is there a mechanical way one could force all future kings to obey a constitution as long as they lived?

[Acero]

"force all future kings to obey a constitution as long as they lived?"

Mindrape comes to mind...

[Thespianus]

Is there a mechanical way one could force all future kings to obey a constitution as long as they lived?

The threat of certain violence, in this life or the next.

There is no other way. You set up a huge army or you set up a religion.

Naturally, both of those can be organized in many different ways.

[Urpriest]

What about a magic trap of Sanctify the Wicked? Build it into a crib or something.

[Bang!]

Don't die.

[hamishspence]

Wouldn't work- STW only works on Evil beings, not Neutral ones.

Geas might.

Still, constitutional methods might make more sense, even in a D&D world, than magical ones- magic can be broken or subverted.

[peacenlove]

In my game, one of my character's goals is to overthrow every oppressive government in the world and replace it with an constitutional elective monarchy. The question is, though, how can one ensure that the rulers remain benevolent after one is dead and can no longer police the system? Is there a mechanical way one could force all future kings to obey a constitution as long as they lived?

In before mindrape-programmed amnesia suggestions:
Mark of justice will force rulers to act according a specific ideal.
Also a lawful good familiar/cohort and/or phylactery of faithfulness tied to the setting's lawful good god with the portfolio of benevolent ruleship will also help.

EDIT: Too late it seems

[Thespianus]

Still, constitutional methods might make more sense, even in a D&D world, than magical ones- magic can be broken or subverted.

Last I checked, that goes for constitutions as well. ;)

[hamishspence]

Also a lawful good familiar/cohort and/or phylactery of faithfulness tied to the setting's lawful good god with the portfolio of benevolent ruleship will also help.

Probably make more sense anyway- if the character wants a benevolent dictator- and they're not hypocritical-

one would expect them to use benevolent methods of keeping future dictators benevolent.

Last I checked, that goes for constitutions as well. ;)

True- main difference is- it may take more work to subvert. Especially if an enormous number of safeguards are put in- all of which need to be broken to corrupt the system.

To prevent a system from becoming corrupt- it may need to be renewed regularly- constantly tested- corrupt elements identified and corruption removed.

"Staying non-corrupt" is an ongoing process that requires continuous work.

"Who watches the watchers"? They watch one another. A lot.

[Acero]

Idea #2 paladin levels?

[Black_Zawisza]

Thanks for the ideas, guys!

In before mindrape-programmed amnesia suggestions:
Mark of justice will force rulers to act according a specific ideal.
Also a lawful good familiar/cohort and/or phylactery of faithfulness tied to the setting's lawful good god with the portfolio of benevolent ruleship will also help.

EDIT: Too late it seems

A familiar/cohort will die eventually, and a MoJ would need to be applied to each future ruler. The method I'm looking for can't require putting faith in anybody to maintain the system after I'm dead. I need to be able to apply the effect myself and have it exist for eons on each individual king.

[Seffbasilisk]

Sentient Crown. Dedicated purpose: Protect and aid in the benevolent rule of this realm. 1/year Mindrape. 3/day Suggestion. 3/day Mark of Justice. 1/day Sanctify the Wicked. At Will: Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Thoughts. Telepathy 120feet Blindsight 60 feet.

[hamishspence]

Mindrape has the Evil tag though. And StW is a spell that takes a year to have its full effect (for the whole of that year, the victim will be imprisoned in a gem).

Subtler methods may make more sense in this case.

[Seffbasilisk]

The crown itself would be neutral. It's goal, is that your guiding purpose, this realm, work.

[Dr.Epic]

Mark of Justice and make sure no one removes it for them.

[AslanCross]

Mark of Justice and make sure no one removes it for them.

Agreed. Make it part of a ritual performed every so often in public.

This of course, adds intrigue when someone can fake it.

[hamishspence]

The crown itself would be neutral. It's goal, is that your guiding purpose, this realm, work.

Isn't the whole point, that the realm not only work, but work benevolently? Would a Neutral crown really be able to not only keep the rulers Lawful Good, but keep the realm itself from becoming "functional but corrupt"?

And doesn't it require you, or one of your associates helping you to create it, to be able to cast the spell itself, to install it in a magic item?

Plus, on page 288, the DMG states that alignment of an intelligent magical item is "same as the creator".

[Chilingsworth]

While Mindrape has the evil descriptor, programed amnesia doesn't. They both do the same thing, as far as I'm able to see.

[hamishspence]

Biggest differences:

Programmed Amnesia has a 10 minute casting time and a 500gp material component.

Mindrape has a 1 action casting time, and no expensive component.

Mindrape also specifies that you can "leave the target insane" after all changes are done- Programmed Amnesia doesn't.

[Black_Zawisza]

Sentient Crown. Dedicated purpose: Protect and aid in the benevolent rule of this realm. 1/year Mindrape. 3/day Suggestion. 3/day Mark of Justice. 1/day Sanctify the Wicked. At Will: Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Thoughts. Telepathy 120feet Blindsight 60 feet.

I really like this idea, but the king could simply make a visually identical crown and wear it, and the peasants would be none the wiser. This would be near perfect if the Sentient Crown could somehow independently let the public know if it was incapable at any time of exercising its influence over the king.

[Jack_Simth]

Sentient Crown. Dedicated purpose: Protect and aid in the benevolent rule of this realm. 1/year Mindrape. 3/day Suggestion. 3/day Mark of Justice. 1/day Sanctify the Wicked. At Will: Detect Evil, Detect Law, Detect Thoughts. Telepathy 120feet Blindsight 60 feet.

You need to add Detect Good. The absence of an Evil alignment is not proof of a Good alignment. But Detect Good will foil a Ring of Mind Shielding, or a Mind Blank effect ... or at least detect that such might be in play.

I really like this idea, but the king could simply make a visually identical crown and wear it, and the peasants would be none the wiser. This would be near perfect if the Sentient Crown could somehow independently let the public know if it was incapable at any time of exercising its influence over the king.

Sentient items can activate their own powers. Make it a Ring of Telekinesis, rather than a crown, and use it as the royal seal. It can now move itself around, at will, as well as other objects.

[Black_Zawisza]

Sentient items can activate their own powers. Make it a Ring of Telekinesis, rather than a crown, and use it as the royal seal. It can now move itself around, at will, as well as other objects.

It wouldn't be able to just leave the castle any time the king was abusing his power. Couldn't he just shove it in a closet or something? What's needed is a method of informing the population that the king is misusing his power and must be replaced.

[Jack_Simth]

It wouldn't be able to just leave the castle any time the king was abusing his power. Couldn't he just shove it in a closet or something?

It doesn't need a wielder to activate it's own powers. You lock it in a drawer. It uses Telekinesis to open the drawer, picks itself up, heads over to your writing desk, telekinetically gets out some parchment, a pen, and an inkwell, writes up whatever decree it needs to, uses telekinesis to make flint and steel light up a candle, floats the candle to drip the wax onto the parchment, and then uses Telekinesis to move itself to imprint the royal seal on the parchment. It then floats the decree to whoever needs to see it, then heads back to the drawer for safekeeping.

[Callista]

Give the people a good deal of power; and make it easy for people who don't have power to gain it. What you want is not stability but controlled instability. If you make an extremely stable government, which is extremely hard to change, it will also be extremely hard for it to respond to outside events--war, famine, or just social changes--and, unable to adapt, it will fall. Establish a government that can be changed at need.

I'm assuming here that the people are usually true neutral, right? Well, in that case, their goals will average out to "Keep myself, my family, and my friends happy, healthy, and supplied with what they need." A true neutral population will want very nearly the same thing that a Good-aligned person will want; it's just that the Good-aligned person wants it for everyone. (Neutral and Good get along very well that way.) This is why you establish basic equality from person to person: True neutral people will realize that if everyone gets the same thing, then it's rational to want everyone to get what you want. And this is also why you give everyone some amount of power to change things: If they are all acting out of self-interest, then everyone will try to pull in his own direction, and things will end up somewhere in the middle--a compromise.

[Black_Zawisza]

It doesn't need a wielder to activate it's own powers. You lock it in a drawer. It uses Telekinesis to open the drawer, picks itself up, heads over to your writing desk, telekinetically gets out some parchment, a pen, and an inkwell, writes up whatever decree it needs to, uses telekinesis to make flint and steel light up a candle, floats the candle to drip the wax onto the parchment, and then uses Telekinesis to move itself to imprint the royal seal on the parchment. It then floats the decree to whoever needs to see it, then heads back to the drawer for safekeeping.

A Ring of Telekinesis has no nonmagical method of movement, right? Antimagic Field. Done.

Give the people a good deal of power; and make it easy for people who don't have power to gain it. What you want is not stability but controlled instability. If you make an extremely stable government, which is extremely hard to change, it will also be extremely hard for it to respond to outside events--war, famine, or just social changes--and, unable to adapt, it will fall. Establish a government that can be changed at need.I'm assuming here that the people are usually true neutral, right? Well, in that case, their goals will average out to "Keep myself, my family, and my friends happy, healthy, and supplied with what they need." A true neutral population will want very nearly the same thing that a Good-aligned person will want; it's just that the Good-aligned person wants it for everyone. (Neutral and Good get along very well that way.) This is why you establish basic equality from person to person: True neutral people will realize that if everyone gets the same thing, then it's rational to want everyone to get what you want. And this is also why you give everyone some amount of power to change things: If they are all acting out of self-interest, then everyone will try to pull in his own direction, and things will end up somewhere in the middle--a compromise.

One should trust an average peasant only slightly more than one does a king. The bolded goals above can be in conflict with what my character considers to be good. A powerful state unchecked by the will of the masses is needed to prevent the peasants from either voting themselves money or taking it by force. The question is, if the government is made up of self-interested creatures, why should we give it ultimate control over our lives? Unfortunately, in the real world, we have no answer to that question. In D&D, we do: rule by a magical item who has no interest but the defense of the rights of sentient creatures.

[Jack_Simth]

A Ring of Telekinesis has no nonmagical method of movement, right? Antimagic Field. Done.

Actually, that curiously doesn't work. Antimagic Field specifies "no effect on golems and other constructs" - and the Intelligent Items section says "Treat them as constructs".

But even so: You'll need to keep it in a permanent antimagic field. At which point, you'll have better luck with Disjunction, or a set of wire cutters anyway. Nothing's totally foolproof - but you can make things tricky.

[peacenlove]

Thanks for the ideas, guys!


A familiar/cohort will die eventually, and a MoJ would need to be applied to each future ruler. The method I'm looking for can't require putting faith in anybody to maintain the system after I'm dead. I need to be able to apply the effect myself and have it exist for eons on each individual king.

The draconomicon has Lair Wards, whole caverns permanently enhanced with a magical effect. The official crowning room should be enhanced as such, by the effect of your choosing (for example mark of justice), and only when the effect triggers (in a flashy way) will the king be crowned.
Since they are effectively items they can be made intelligent, thus using the suggestions presented above.

[Flickerdart]

None of this is a problem if the OP just makes himself immortal.

Alternatively, place a Contingent Gate on each throne with a trigger of something like "if the lord of this country stops being LG, call a Solar to knock some sense into him". Costly to set up, but Solars fix everything. It'll only work once, unfortunately, but if you're also immortal you can go and put it back.

[Copacetic]

Agreed. Make it part of a ritual performed every so often in public.

This of course, adds intrigue when someone can fake it.

That's what she said.


In all seriousness, I don't think there's a magic bullet to this question. Keep people honest from beyond the grave without acutally returning is possibly impossible, but I think your best bet would be to form a group of paladin-esque advisors very similair to Soon's. Failing that, intelligent magic crown as Seffbasilisk suggested.

[peacenlove]

None of this is a problem if the OP just makes himself immortal.

Alternatively, place a Contingent Gate on each throne with a trigger of something like "if the lord of this country stops being LG, call a Solar to knock some sense into him". Costly to set up, but Solars fix everything. It'll only work once, unfortunately, but if you're also immortal you can go and put it back.

I am curious to learn how many days of crafting time this would take ...not to mention the alignment detection problems. Also

The method I'm looking for can't require putting faith in anybody to maintain the system after I'm dead. I need to be able to apply the effect myself and have it exist for eons on each individual king.

That's what she said.


In all seriousness, I don't think there's a magic bullet to this question. Keep people honest from beyond the grave without acutally returning is possibly impossible, but I think your best bet would be to form a group of paladin-esque advisors very similair to Soon's. Failing that, intelligent magic crown as Seffbasilisk suggested.

This. or be immortal as flickerdart pointed out.