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2020-05-04, 09:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2019
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Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
So I’ve poured dozens of hours into my homebrew campaign setting, making sure that all the history matches up, all the nations are consistent, etc. But recently I noticed it’s very skewed to my tastes in D&D; there’s not a lot of dungeons and always chaotic evil orcs lying around, every creature with an intelligence score above 8 is given cultural and political treatment like the PHB races. All the throwaway minion races have been lumped together into a single continental political entity, and all the nations hate each other and are going to enter another war the moment some adventurers from another nation trapeze into their territory. But now I’m concerned that this setting will only fill a very niche role with the usual groups of murderhobos. I’ve even been thinking about eliminating the alignment system, but I’m not sure about that either.
Spoiler: Total War
AsThe Celestial Empire of Longshan
Spoiler: Domination Victory
Equinox League
Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire
(Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。
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2020-05-04, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2019
- Location
- Somewhere over th rainbow
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2020-05-04, 04:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2017
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
Some observations:
-First, there are less "Default" enemies to fight unless a country is at war. One way to adapt would be to give other types of enemies elsewhere- criminals, maybe players can find some sort of equivalent to a privateer arrangement. If you opt to reduce combats significantly, you might want to shop around for systems a bit- D&D's noncombat rules are pretty anemic, and it's very much built around a paradigm of dungeons and "dungeons". For example, the mechanism of spells-per-day and "rests" (system-dependent) is designed for a particular scale of time pressure which may not exist in an intrigue game.
-Second, an environment in which a single group of adventurers can set off a war by accident puts players under a lot of pressure if they have to continuously worry about setting off a war- they might simply resolve the issue by not caring about it rather than considering all the ramifications involved. A game where you can't do anything for fear of setting off the much stronger powers-that-be is no fun. You might consider providing some cushion before a full-scale war erupts, and let them know about tensions as they rise so they have some time to back off or reconsider.
-Eliminating alignment is pretty easy to do- it either does nothing in some editions, or requires some minor class/spell tweaks in others.Last edited by aimlessPolymath; 2020-05-04 at 04:40 PM.
My one piece of homebrew: The Shaman. A Druid replacement with more powerlevel control.
The bargain bin- malfunctioning, missing, and broken magic items.
Spirit Barbarian: The Barbarian, with heavy elements from the Shaman. Complete up to level 17.
The Priest: A cleric reword which ran out of steam. Still a fun prestige class suitable for E6.
The Coward: Not every hero can fight.
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2020-05-04, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2019
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Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
I thought so too, which is exactly why it’s so skewed to intrigue. Mostly I’m developing it for future online games, since everybody in my town plays my least favorite edition of D&D.
Honestly, the idea was that you’re perfectly able to start a war. You don’t have too, but if you want, you can. If you want to be a peacemaker, sure, go for diplomacy, but I’ve statted and written out a ton of armies, allegiances, and what-if wars for my inner epic conflict nerd.
-Second, an environment in which a single group of adventurers can set off a war by accident puts players under a lot of pressure if they have to continuously worry about setting off a war- they might simply resolve the issue by not caring about it rather than considering all the ramifications involved. A game where you can't do anything for fear of setting off the much stronger powers-that-be is no fun. You might consider providing some cushion before a full-scale war erupts, and let them know about tensions as they rise so they have some time to back off or reconsider.
But honestly, I don’t want to cushion them. Part of the fun of accidentally causing a war is fighting it.
-Eliminating alignment is pretty easy to do- it either does nothing in some editions, or requires some minor class/spell tweaks in others.Spoiler: Total War
AsThe Celestial Empire of Longshan
Spoiler: Domination Victory
Equinox League
Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire
(Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。
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2020-05-04, 06:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2017
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
My second point is mostly that players' actions would be constrained to the point where they won't have any ability to not start a war while still having fun. Only having one political "hit point" before all-out war means that there's very little middle ground between playing excrutiatingly safe and saying "screw it, let's start a war", so players may feel railroaded into one of the two approaches. Having a cushion means that players have more ability to sacrifice portions of their safety net for specific objectives- they might be able to steal an artifact, but at the cost of food rationing and forced conscription as the city gears up for war.
What sorts of adventures do you envision the players going on (pre-war, that is)?My one piece of homebrew: The Shaman. A Druid replacement with more powerlevel control.
The bargain bin- malfunctioning, missing, and broken magic items.
Spirit Barbarian: The Barbarian, with heavy elements from the Shaman. Complete up to level 17.
The Priest: A cleric reword which ran out of steam. Still a fun prestige class suitable for E6.
The Coward: Not every hero can fight.
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2020-05-04, 06:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
- Gender
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
While trapeze-based travel systems sound cool as hell, I'd maybe look at a few other items:
- Are these nations monolithic? Are there any factions or people who can be pitted against each other? Are there political parties within a nation, for instance, who could be manipulated into a civil war or a coup? I've found that the more factions (and sub-factions!) you have, the more fun intrigue becomes as a pillar of play. Keeping them straight can be a challenge, but it's quite rewarding, especially when your players start linking a faction in Country A with a heretical sect in Country B in order to supply arms to revolutionaries in Country C. Or they just burn it all down. That's cool, too.
- Are these nations all equally lawful? You don't have chaotic evil orcs, but do you have bandit gangs? Elven death squads killing journalists for an autocratic regime? Manticores who enjoy disemboweling their prey and then playing jazz trumpet to entertain the target while they bleed out? A gnomish Manhattan Project? A church full of life clerics who kill some of their acolytes every year to ensure scarcity of clerical healing, thus commanding higher rates? You can do a lot with groups of people who either don't conform to or actively subvert archetypes.
- Finally, to actually answer your question, it's very much dependent on group. Hell, sometimes it's dependent on the day - if someone's had a terrible week and they are not here for complex political machinations tonight, it can really crimp things. You can still run a group of murderhobos in an intrigue-heavy setting, though. For an example, look at how you would run a murderhobo group through Eberron or Ravnica. That's where you can really leverage intrigue or political actors as patrons for the party, and the murderhobos start to look like highly skilled mercenaries or retainers for a lord, who tolerates their disruptions because darn it, they're just really, really good at their jobs.
This is awesome, good on you!
I'm curious - why can't you have chaotic paladins? I mean, how else would you characterize Ancients or Vengeance Paladins (assuming you're playing 5e here; if I'm wrong, let me know).
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2020-05-04, 07:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2019
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- Somewhere over th rainbow
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
Did I just... did I just read gnomish manhattan project?
coz if I did... If I did... I want. I want that so bad.
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2020-05-04, 08:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2016
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2020-05-04, 09:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2019
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Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
You’re right, maybe I should give them a few more political hit points. I have issues with railroading, so you can probably think this through better than me.
What sorts of adventures do you envision the players going on (pre-war, that is)?
Well... there’s a single human nation with a government-in-exile off continent and a single on-continent city-state which is basically ignoring the original government. There’s also a ton of denominations of only three pantheons, as well a bunch of secret organizations like a necro-army and such. But I’ll keep that in mind, I definitely think I need a lot more factions for my elven democracy.
- Are these nations all equally lawful?
You don't have chaotic evil orcs, but do you have bandit gangs?
Elven death squads killing journalists for an autocratic regime?
Manticores who enjoy disemboweling their prey and then playing jazz trumpet to entertain the target while they bleed out?
A gnomish Manhattan Project?
A church full of life clerics who kill some of their acolytes every year to ensure scarcity of clerical healing, thus commanding higher rates?
You can do a lot with groups of people who either don't conform to or actively subvert archetypes.
- Finally, to actually answer your question, it's very much dependent on group. Hell, sometimes it's dependent on the day - if someone's had a terrible week and they are not here for complex political machinations tonight, it can really crimp things. You can still run a group of murderhobos in an intrigue-heavy setting, though. For an example, look at how you would run a murderhobo group through Eberron or Ravnica. That's where you can really leverage intrigue or political actors as patrons for the party, and the murderhobos start to look like highly skilled mercenaries or retainers for a lord, who tolerates their disruptions because darn it, they're just really, really good at their jobs.
I'm curious - why can't you have chaotic paladins? I mean, how else would you characterize Ancients or Vengeance Paladins (assuming you're playing 5e here; if I'm wrong, let me know).
Mostly it was the halflings accidentally detonating a Locate City on their magical capital. The gnomes are really downtrodden in this world because they weren’t included in resistance talks during the fall of the last great empire, so don’t have their own nation.Spoiler: Total War
AsThe Celestial Empire of Longshan
Spoiler: Domination Victory
Equinox League
Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire
(Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。
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2020-05-04, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2019
- Location
- Somewhere over th rainbow
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2020-05-04, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2017
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
Mostly helping with exploration and various non-war skirmishes. Every nation is vying for as much territory and resources as possible, so kings and nobles are going to pay a lot to say, clear a cave system of kobolds or take over a mountain dungeon from a lich.My one piece of homebrew: The Shaman. A Druid replacement with more powerlevel control.
The bargain bin- malfunctioning, missing, and broken magic items.
Spirit Barbarian: The Barbarian, with heavy elements from the Shaman. Complete up to level 17.
The Priest: A cleric reword which ran out of steam. Still a fun prestige class suitable for E6.
The Coward: Not every hero can fight.
-
2020-05-05, 09:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
- Gender
Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
So I'm seeing only a few organized nations from your description, which I'm also seeing as a lot of blank space to explore. The great point here is that you can apply that to both types of players along the political-to-murderhobo spectrum. Murderhobos just need a patron to point them at a dungeon. Politically savvy players will enjoy having multiple patrons with conflicting goals, all of which can collide either in the wilderness or in a civilized setting, so it's more a question of how you present the hooks.
I guess I'm a little confused by this. How would you say bandit gangs are anachronistic? I would say that bandits arise from a breakdown of central authority. Central authority can be either present or absent in high fantasy, so I'd argue bandits are perfectly viable. However, if you're thinking that bandit gangs couldn't compete with powerful mages, then the solution is simple: the bandit gangs are run by magi. Maybe some of these gangs are run by mage-school dropouts, little better than sadistic thugs with heat metal and a rod. But maybe some bandit gangs are actually run by a mage patron who handles arcane countermeasures (casting nondetection or supplying the bandits with amulets of proof against detection and location for example). What if a powerful mage has several bandit gangs on the payroll, and each of them have contingent spells set up so that if the bandits try to rat them out under interrogation, the bandits suffer some horrible fate (fireball? dominate person? brain melting? Knock yourself out!). There's a lot you can do there.
Hells yeah, brother!
Yeah, I'd definitely recommend Eberron as inspiration, then. Sounds like exactly what you're going for.
Disregard this point; it doesn't apply to 3.5. I remember the Dark Times.
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2020-05-05, 10:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2019
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Re: Is a world primarily focused on intrigue and politics widely sustainable?
Thanks for the advice, I now realize that the setting is probably able to sustain both play styles well enough.
That makes a lot of sense actually. I can see how this could lead to a lot of great plot hooks for most players, not just people who enjoy intrigue.
I guess I'm a little confused by this. How would you say bandit gangs are anachronistic? I would say that bandits arise from a breakdown of central authority. Central authority can be either present or absent in high fantasy, so I'd argue bandits are perfectly viable. However, if you're thinking that bandit gangs couldn't compete with powerful mages, then the solution is simple: the bandit gangs are run by magi. Maybe some of these gangs are run by mage-school dropouts, little better than sadistic thugs with heat metal and a rod. But maybe some bandit gangs are actually run by a mage patron who handles arcane countermeasures (casting nondetection or supplying the bandits with amulets of proof against detection and location for example). What if a powerful mage has several bandit gangs on the payroll, and each of them have contingent spells set up so that if the bandits try to rat them out under interrogation, the bandits suffer some horrible fate (fireball? dominate person? brain melting? Knock yourself out!). There's a lot you can do there.
Now that I think about it, I already have several political movements in the area, so it makes sense to fill some of the gaps.
Yeah, I'd definitely recommend Eberron as inspiration, then. Sounds like exactly what you're going for.
Disregard this point; it doesn't apply to 3.5. I remember the Dark Times.Spoiler: Total War
AsThe Celestial Empire of Longshan
Spoiler: Domination Victory
Equinox League
Red Aurora College - Fae of the Four Courts - Khalos Guild - Celestial Empire
(Pretend there’s more spoilers here because I haven’t found the will to digitize my campaign setting yet)
寧教我負天下人,休教天下人負我。