Does anyone else feel that their players kinda fetishize Royalty?

[Berenger]

History and Crusader Kings II has taught me that no matter how great an empire you are able to build, your descendants will always eventually ruin it in a couple generations.

To be fair, that's hardly unique to empires and kingdoms. Every large political entity seems to get wrecked by inadequate leadership every few generations.


Okay, how can I express it... At the core of the problem, you seem to have an extra-strong aversion towards the concepts of nobility and the divine rule of kings. That's only sensible, from a modern point of view. But I am under the impression that your strong feelings on the matter render you incapable or unwilling to grasp the internal logic of the political system you chose to portray. This, in turn, makes it hard for you to emphatize with someone born into that fictional pre-modern world and to portray its kings and nobles in a sympathetic way because rooting for them would offend your real life convictions. Is that about right or am I on the wrong track?

[paladinofshojo]

To be fair, that's hardly unique to empires and kingdoms. Every large political entity seems to get wrecked by inadequate leadership every few generations.

The usual criticism against inadequate leadership in any setting, real or fictional, is that your leaders end up growing “out of touch”, elitist, and stratified against the masses.

My personal opinion is that monarchy is the logical conclusion of this trend as there is nothing more socially stratified than the concept that you have one individual with a hereditary right to rule appointed by God himself…

Okay, how can I express it... At the core of the problem, you seem to have an extra-strong aversion towards the concepts of nobility and the divine rule of kings. That's only sensible, from a modern point of view. But I am under the impression that your strong feelings on the matter render you incapable or unwilling to grasp the internal logic of the political system you chose to portray. This, in turn, makes it hard for you to emphatize with someone born into that fictional pre-modern world and to portray its kings and nobles in a sympathetic way because rooting for them would offend your real life convictions. Is that about right or am I on the wrong track?

That is technically correct, however, it’s not the main reason I choose to portray the kings and nobles as either incompetent inbreds or vicious power hungry thugs.

The main reason I do so is because a kingdom in decline is a much more interesting and nuanced world to play in than a kingdom that is well managed and organized.

If the King or even his ministers were competent than where would all the conflict and social strife which causes the need for adventurers arise from?

Let’s say hypothetically if my Players did kill the evil king or any sadistic noble they come across….then what? They’ll be considered murderers and guilty of regicide. Even if they supported a decent leader, the last king’s detractors would see them as usurpers and cause another civil war.

The reason why Game of Thrones is set at the end of the Targaryen Dynasty when the Iron throne of Westeros is at its most politically unstable position is the reason why it’s so intriguing. There’s chaos, and you should never let a good crisis go to waste.

[Mechalich]

If the King or even his ministers were competent than where would all the conflict and social strife which causes the need for adventurers arise from?

For all the normal reasons, plus the fantasy ones on top.

The state has limited communication capabilities, information resources, bureaucratic expertise, financial resources, governing powers, and military capabilities among others. Competent ministers may disagree, often vehemently, upon the proper direction to take a state, which options to prioritize, how to treat foreign powers, or other considerations, sometimes to the point of being executed for their convictions. Pre-industrial states were often particularly limited, and feudal ones doubly so. Many medieval states struggled to even undertake tasks as fundamental as taking the census. The Ming Dynasty famously believed their population was shrinking even though it was in fact growing due to mass evasion of the census to avoid (admittedly crippling) tax burdens.

Kings attempting to actively ruin the state they rule are historically very rare, because even the most sadistic individual is generally aware that should the state collapse they are among the most likely people to go down with the ship, and hereditary rulership actually provides a greater inducement to try and keep the state stable in order to maintain their legacy. Kings may be incompetent in their efforts to preserve their rule or they may just make drastic policy mistakes, especially in foreign relations (fight/surrender being a nice common one) that ruin their nation. Even a large percentage of historical atrocities were conducted in an intent to break rival power structures or to intimidate third-parties into capitulation. The efficacy of such measures is highly dubious, but mass fill-in-the-horrible-thing was rarely conducted on a whim.

The reason why Game of Thrones is set at the end of the Targaryen Dynasty when the Iron throne of Westeros is at its most politically unstable position is the reason why it’s so intriguing. There’s chaos, and you should never let a good crisis go to waste.

Game of Thrones is an unreasonably chaotic scenario. That's a key part of why the novels are perma-stuck and the show crashed hard: Martin generated a scenario in which 'ice zombies, everyone dies' was the only logical outcome without massive deus ex machina intervention. It's also worth noting he had to take multiple active measures to cause such an outbreak of chaos, such as having a highly placed minister actively engaged in bringing down the state (Varys) including through assassination, and placing a mad king on the throne (Joeffery) and allowing that king to defy his councilors and start a war by executing Ned Stark.

[Faily]

For all the normal reasons, plus the fantasy ones on top.

The state has limited communication capabilities, information resources, bureaucratic expertise, financial resources, governing powers, and military capabilities among others. Competent ministers may disagree, often vehemently, upon the proper direction to take a state, which options to prioritize, how to treat foreign powers, or other considerations, sometimes to the point of being executed for their convictions. Pre-industrial states were often particularly limited, and feudal ones doubly so. Many medieval states struggled to even undertake tasks as fundamental as taking the census. The Ming Dynasty famously believed their population was shrinking even though it was in fact growing due to mass evasion of the census to avoid (admittedly crippling) tax burdens.

Kings attempting to actively ruin the state they rule are historically very rare, because even the most sadistic individual is generally aware that should the state collapse they are among the most likely people to go down with the ship, and hereditary rulership actually provides a greater inducement to try and keep the state stable in order to maintain their legacy. Kings may be incompetent in their efforts to preserve their rule or they may just make drastic policy mistakes, especially in foreign relations (fight/surrender being a nice common one) that ruin their nation. Even a large percentage of historical atrocities were conducted in an intent to break rival power structures or to intimidate third-parties into capitulation. The efficacy of such measures is highly dubious, but mass fill-in-the-horrible-thing was rarely conducted on a whim.

And a lot of the "terrible rulers" are more likely to have been painted with a political brush to cast them in a bad light by rivals, as history is always written with a bias too (Caligula is one, but it's more popular to cling to the stories of the crazy stuff he did). Not to mention how Roman Emperors for a good while lived by the grace of the kingmakers that were their guards

Game of Thrones is an unreasonably chaotic scenario. That's a key part of why the novels are perma-stuck and the show crashed hard: Martin generated a scenario in which 'ice zombies, everyone dies' was the only logical outcome without massive deus ex machina intervention. It's also worth noting he had to take multiple active measures to cause such an outbreak of chaos, such as having a highly placed minister actively engaged in bringing down the state (Varys) including through assassination, and placing a mad king on the throne (Joeffery) and allowing that king to defy his councilors and start a war by executing Ned Stark.

Yep. GoT is basically Wars of the Roses on magical steroids with an ice-zombie apocalypse + dragons added on top, and people who were all about causing as much chaos as possible (Littlefinger) pretty high up in the hierarchy. And the tv-show's ended kind of glossed the ending into "and then everything was fine and they set to rebuild stuff", with very little about contention surrounding the new monarch, remnants of other factions being out for revenge/sabotage, political fallouts, restoring peace to a pretty war-torn kingdom, etc...

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm just thinking that it sounds like Magna Carta time. Have the nobility revolt with the intention of setting up a ruling body higher than the monarch.

[TeChameleon]

If the King or even his ministers were competent than where would all the conflict and social strife which causes the need for adventurers arise from?

...

Undead, monsters, demons, devils, abberations, incursions from the Far Realms, dimensional instabilities (do you want bits of the Elemental Plane of Fire in your backyard?), cultists, evil gods, good/neutral opposing gods, enemy nations, political intrigues against the crown (just because the king and most of his ministers are good and competent doesn't mean that there isn't some yutz who thinks s/he could be doing a better job or that they deserve it more or whatever), ancient conspiracies, dragons, holy wars between bickering gods and their followers, outbreaks from the Underdark (seriously, that place is less of a food chain and more a food blender), magical plagues, leftover superweapons from some ancient war waking up, an order of druids deciding that the kingdom has messed up the balance of nature, merfolk attacking shipping routes, hostile giants, once-a-century migrations of some species with more teeth than brain cells, tarrasque mating season, the kingdom being designated as a clandestine hookup spot between archons and succubi...

Human and demi-human politics don't have to be much more than background noise for a gigantic adventure if you want to go that direction.

[Batcathat]

No my main problem is that they’re not engaging the world and are just doing whatever the king tells them to… with little to no character growth or building.

This is a roleplaying game and their characters should have their own backstories, goals, experiences, and aspirations.

They aren’t making rivals, personal enemies, friends, lovers, merchant-customer relations with anyone in this world.

While I understand your complaints, I'm not sure how much of it has to do with their relation to royalty. If they had done what you expected and turned on the king, would that really have fixed their lack of "backstories, goals, experiences, and aspirations" or given them more relationships with the world?

[Xervous]

I think I’m finally starting to see the real conflict here. The OP expects drama but the players expected, enjoy and pursue beer & pretzels. Were expectations of drama established at session 0?

The players are deriving enjoyment just from engaging with the game. Just like tossing a frisbee around at a party there’s no expectations or much in the way of structure, it’s just something you can enjoy on idle. Going for a walk, playing solitaire or watching a sports game are other examples. OP instead assumes the premise of frisbee means Ultimate Frisbee and is disappointed.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think I’m finally starting to see the real conflict here. The OP expects drama but the players expected, enjoy and pursue beer & pretzels. Were expectations of drama established at session 0?

I somewhat suspect that there was no session 0.

The players are deriving enjoyment just from engaging with the game. Just like tossing a frisbee around at a party there’s no expectations or much in the way of structure, it’s just something you can enjoy on idle. Going for a walk, playing solitaire or watching a sports game are other examples. OP instead assumes the premise of frisbee means Ultimate Frisbee and is disappointed.

Pretty much this. There isn't anything wrong with getting the job, kicking in the door, and killing the things or other genres along those lines. Despite the name theres nothing about role-playing games that actually requires role-playing except for maybe a few niche systems.

I mean, despite the fact I might sometimes use it as an argument for why you shouldn't run certain things in D&D, there's nothing wrong with not playing the game either. To me role-playing head been at least half an excuse to hang out with friends, we'd have still meet up even if it was for Carcassonne (but we all liked RPGs, so we played them).

At the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with how the OP's players want to play make believe unless they're not making anybody uncomfortable.

[Xervous]

Carcassonne

Carcass one? Sounds like a neat transhumanist system.

[King of Nowhere]

The usual criticism against inadequate leadership in any setting, real or fictional, is that your leaders end up growing “out of touch”, elitist, and stratified against the masses.

My personal opinion is that monarchy is the logical conclusion of this trend as there is nothing more socially stratified than the concept that you have one individual with a hereditary right to rule appointed by God himself…

my personal opinion is that monarchy is the logical conclusion of a subsistance economy without public schools.
nobody is teaching you to make bread. the only way to learn is to apprentice to the baker; the baker teaches his son, who then inherits the bakery.
nobody is teaching you to make shoes. the only way to learn is to apprentice to the cobbler. the cobbler teaches his son, who then inherits the shop.
the king teaches his son to administer the kingdom, and the prince then inherits the kingdom. and he may be good or decent or terrible, but at least he's been trained since young age for the task. which is more than you could say for everyone else in the kingdom.

Let’s say hypothetically if my Players did kill the evil king or any sadistic noble they come across….then what? They’ll be considered murderers and guilty of regicide. Even if they supported a decent leader, the last king’s detractors would see them as usurpers and cause another civil war.

all good reasons, but modern fantasy is less idealistic in that regard, and more rooted in realistic hystorical reconstruction. hystory is full of situations where there was a bad leader, and the bad leader is deposed, and the country plummets into anarchy, and things get worse. Or maybe the corrupt despot was ousted by a revolution, and the revolutionary leader turns out to be just as bad, or worse. Or perhaps the evil despot is ousted, and then it is discovered that the despot was actually a decent person, that the problems of the country were caused by other factors, and that anyone else trying to fix them is going to make a worse mess. Perhaps the corrupt despot if the only one who knows how to keep stuff running.

And yes, I am using tvtropes links. they are most appropriate to this discussion.

so, while kings and nobles should not be held as sacred, one should also eschew the extreme opposite of using "murder the nobles, overthrow the system" as the standard solution to any problem is also wrong.
personally, i prefer to have some complex moral decisions, and i support those kinds of dilemmas. Do you kick out the tyrant who makes the trains run on time, knowing that things will get worse in the short run, but hoping they'll eventually get better with the villain removed? or do you try to make an alliance with him, use his skills as administrator for a worthy cause?

in any case, your players specifically may have too much of a thing for royalty. the part about bathing in blood and the other about killing civilians suggests so. You, on the other hand, judging by the large number of "robin hood-esque" figures and corrupt nobles you threw at them, are probably leaning too much on the other side.

[Berenger]

You seem a little caught up in the idea of all monarchies as absolute monarchy, in which the monarch is omnipotent and can de facto and / or de jure act on a whim and unrestrained by the support the population, the high-ranking nobles, the churches, the state of the royal treasury, military considerations, technological constraints, laws or customs. Are you aware that this is not an accurate portrayal of kingship during the european middle ages (since those seem to be what you try to to emulate), 'divine right to rule' notwithstanding?

[Anonymouswizard]

You seem a little caught up in the idea of all monarchies as absolute monarchy, in which the monarch is omnipotent and can de facto and / or de jure act on a whim and unrestrained by the support the population, the high-ranking nobles, the churches, the state of the royal treasury, military considerations, technological constraints, laws or customs. Are you aware that this is not an accurate portrayal of kingship during the european middle ages (since those seem to be what you try to to emulate), 'divine right to rule' notwithstanding?

Yeah, even absolute monarchs only rule due to the agreement of their subjects and even the worst tyrants have to keep the nobility on their side. And while I've never finished even the first book of ASoIaF I'm fairly certain it's the exact problem Joffery faces.

[paladinofshojo]

While I understand your complaints, I'm not sure how much of it has to do with their relation to royalty. If they had done what you expected and turned on the king, would that really have fixed their lack of "backstories, goals, experiences, and aspirations" or given them more relationships with the world?

At the very least they’d have to start making their own decisions instead of just mindlessly following someone else’s orders…

If they want to play evil characters that’s fine, but they can at least have their characters be evil in their own agency instead of just blindly following orders.

Undead, monsters, demons, devils, abberations, incursions from the Far Realms, dimensional instabilities (do you want bits of the Elemental Plane of Fire in your backyard?), cultists, evil gods, good/neutral opposing gods, enemy nations, political intrigues against the crown (just because the king and most of his ministers are good and competent doesn't mean that there isn't some yutz who thinks s/he could be doing a better job or that they deserve it more or whatever), ancient conspiracies, dragons, holy wars between bickering gods and their followers, outbreaks from the Underdark (seriously, that place is less of a food chain and more a food blender), magical plagues, leftover superweapons from some ancient war waking up, an order of druids deciding that the kingdom has messed up the balance of nature, merfolk attacking shipping routes, hostile giants, once-a-century migrations of some species with more teeth than brain cells, tarrasque mating season, the kingdom being designated as a clandestine hookup spot between archons and succubi...

Human and demi-human politics don't have to be much more than background noise for a gigantic adventure if you want to go that direction.

The question goes is that why would the Kingdom need random mercenaries off the road to fight their battles against these existential threats instead of doing it themselves?

If the village is protected by the king’s personal elite paladins and knights then why do they need a party of random vagabonds to deal with those Orcs or bandits?

That’s the main problem with trying to have an adventure in any setting, there has to be some level of chaos and anarchy or else a bunch of outsiders would not be able to be in the middle of such politically and socially important events….

If you had a problem involving criminals harassing you, chances are that unless you live in a part of the world with no institutions or infrastructure, you wouldn’t hire a bunch of random goons you’ve met at the local bar to take care of it for you…

That’s why the settings in games have to have at least SOME level of corruption or decline in them, otherwise your characters won’t be able to monopolize a crisis to gain fame and notoriety for themselves…. The Kingdom’s armed forces would solve the problem themselves.

my personal opinion is that monarchy is the logical conclusion of a subsistance economy without public schools.
nobody is teaching you to make bread. the only way to learn is to apprentice to the baker; the baker teaches his son, who then inherits the bakery.
nobody is teaching you to make shoes. the only way to learn is to apprentice to the cobbler. the cobbler teaches his son, who then inherits the shop.
the king teaches his son to administer the kingdom, and the prince then inherits the kingdom. and he may be good or decent or terrible, but at least he's been trained since young age for the task. which is more than you could say for everyone else in the kingdom.

Except that cobblers and bakers don’t hold the literal power of life and death over 99% of the population….

so, while kings and nobles should not be held as sacred, one should also eschew the extreme opposite of using "murder the nobles, overthrow the system" as the standard solution to any problem is also wrong.
personally, i prefer to have some complex moral decisions, and i support those kinds of dilemmas. Do you kick out the tyrant who makes the trains run on time, knowing that things will get worse in the short run, but hoping they'll eventually get better with the villain removed? or do you try to make an alliance with him, use his skills as administrator for a worthy cause?

That’s kinda the point, I want my players to start to have philosophical dilemmas over the outcomes of their actions…. Right now they are safe from any kind of responsibility as both players and characters because all they do is follow the words of the King, as such it’s the King who directs the story and the world… not the players.

I want them to think about the long term consequences of their actions, I want them to think “should my character do this?”, I want them to be deal with moral conundrums on questions of utilitarianism. Hell, I’d settle for them being anti-authoritarian murderhobo outlaws who are dictating their story with their own antics.

It’s THEIR story they should start playing it for themselves, not for some Joffrey knock off.

[Theoboldi]

At the very least they’d have to start making their own decisions instead of just mindlessly following someone else’s orders…

If they want to play evil characters that’s fine, but they can at least have their characters be evil in their own agency instead of just blindly following orders.

If you want them to make their own decisions, you need to do three things.

First, check with them out of character if that is the kind of game that they want and that they're going to work with you to make it happen.

Second, demand they create characters that have goals of their own starting out. Work together with them to craft a party that has meaningful, long-term goals that they can then proactively pursue. If they start out without any character goals, they will not suddenly find them in play. Do not permit any character that does not have some form of long-term goal, even if it is only assisting another character with their own.

Third, instead of providing them with missions, provide them with situations and opportunities that will let them act on those long-term goals. Your first session can be a linear adventure to get them situated in the world and introduce their immediate surroundings, but after that they need to become their own quest givers if a sandbox is what you're after.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

1) My party had killed many a Robin Hood type thief in at least four different settings that I remember, two of the times they didn’t even do it for a reward but rather to “restore order”

My take: This might not be royalty worship. Being against theft under all circumstances is weird for adventurers (who tend to be thieves, grave-robbers, pillagers, etc) but unless these Robin Hood thieves were explicitly also revolutionaries I wouldn't jump to "this is Royalty worship".

2) I’ve once had one campaign where the main antagonist was an Evil Empress who bathed in the blood of children and made pacts with demons. When they finally confronted said Empress, she would give the usual “evil villain monologue” about her “divine right to rule” and how without her, her “Empire will fall apart” and off about social order and the need for a class hierarchy. Keep in mind, this sorceress consorted with devils and BATHES IN THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN, but after she “explained herself” everyone but the Paladin were tempted to take her side, and I am pretty sure that the Paladin player would have tried to join her too if I didn’t threaten him with an automatic fall.

This is sort of baffling to me. Did they have a reason to think the Empire would fall apart? Did they have a reason for wanting to stop them Empire from falling apart? Did they honestly believe the generic ****ty self-justification of every dictator ever? The fact that she explicitly went on about preserving the government and the need for social hierarchy makes it even worse, IMO.
My take: This is definitely Royalty worship. Cringe.

3) On two separate occasions, my party had absolutely no problem on destroying entire communities of peasants if a king told them to, they literally killed women and children because they refused to pay taxes/harboring magic users. I was once planning on starting a campaign loosely based on the American Revolution or the German Peasant’s War but I decided against it because I feel like I know which side my players will lean towards.

There's no polite way to say this, but "my players will slaughter whole communities for crimes that aren't worthy of death" is deeply messed up. Being that willing to automatically follow a King's orders sounds like a weird amount of devotion to monarchy to me...

4) There was one encounter where a King once had my party “deal with” a Count who refused to pay his taxes… This Count was objectively richer than anyone else in the Kingdom due to literally having a goldmine on his land, when the party confronted said Count, he offered to pay triple what the King was offering if they spared him, but nope… they didn’t even humor the Count, they decapitated him and offered his head to the King.

Killing a greedy Count who was refusing to pay his taxes for no damn reason doesn't have to be royalty-worship, but in light of your previous examples I'll agree with you.

Your examples suggest that you're 100% correct, and that your party does indeed have a strange devotion to royalty and social order.
To avoid this, I suggest you play with people whose IRL politics are very different. That bit about the queen's speech on the need for hierarchy being accepted uncritically suggests that this is more than just "Kings are cool and are in stories I like", and is more of a difference between how you view society's structure and how they do.

Some examples in the other direction:
For example I regularly play with French people, and maybe 70% of the time they start with "all royalty is illegitimate and should be guillotined" at the back of their heads, judging royalty extremely harshly when anything bad happens in the Kingdom and not being especially motivated by "save the King from assassins" type plotlines. From time to time I have to remind them that most historical Kings just didn't have the state capacity to resolve every injustice, and that "he says nice things but his Kingdom isn't great" might be a sign of weakness and not of hidden evil Sometimes it goes even further - many of my players will automatically side with peasant rebels even if they're very obviously pawns of an evil cult or whatever. I have "eat the rich" players who sympathised with murderous bank robbers ("Lenin robbed ban and helped them when I'd expected them to fight them (although this became a really fun adventure focused on breaching bank vault security, stealing what they could carry, and then falsifying paperwork to let them "legally" retrieve even more money they'd never deposited in the first place). One of these players is currently playing Crusader as a class (3.5 game), immediately said "my character is devoted to the ideals of anarchism", and now causes problems like insulting Fey royalty to their face at very low level despite the risk of imminent party kill this represents.
My take on this is that in-game behavior often reflects IRL politics simply because the value systems of your players don't change when they pick a character to play, or when they make judgements (even trying to be "in-character"). When players deliberately try to roleplay something very different from what they believe this might not be a problem, but unless they're doing it on purpose it's unlikely they'll break this pattern as it likely reflects deeply- or unconsciously-held views. You should either change the IRL values of your players somehow (or at least get them used to thinking critically of monarchist propaganda whwen it's obviously being used to defend evil), or adjust your expectations and plotlines accordingly.
I suggest adjusting your expectations and plotlines, it's easier

Incidentally, anyone who says that feudalism is "the only option" for the period being emulated by D&D is completely wrong. Not only did non-european political systems often function differently IRL, but D&D has the communication systems that facilitated centralization of power in Europe due to magic and whatnot. Just remember that you have other choices than "Louis the 14th with wizards" !
Some possibilities: "medieval Europe" struggles between Kings and strong local noble leaders, absolute rulers, priest-kings (or priest-nobles), local peasant communes, tribal governance coexisting with an independent theocratic social class, a more technocratic and bureaucratic system ripped off China, city-states copies from various stages of Greek Antiquity (democracy, oligarchy, populist dictatorship - lots of stuff is easy to make work at this scale), systems where land ownership isn't even a concept and most basic things are communal except for what is effectively a sign of wealth and social/military "clout", systems that run a straight-up palace economy and centralize distribution of goods like food or high-grade metals/reagents... My current campaign's main polity's political system is 50% decentralized feudalism, 50% "East India Company town", and I think the players enjoy the change of pace. And yes, I picked that last one because I knew they'd enjoy messing with Big Business, so I built a campaign setting in which Big Business worked both as allies, employers, and enemies depending on the situation.

[Berenger]

The question goes is that why would the Kingdom need random mercenaries off the road to fight their battles against these existential threats instead of doing it themselves?

If the village is protected by the king’s personal elite paladins and knights then why do they need a party of random vagabonds to deal with those Orcs or bandits?

Because the king's personal elite paladins and knights are not stationed at random villages on the outskirts of the realm just on the off chance that some orcs or bandits might appear there. Maintaining a strong military presence is super expensive and knights and paladins are rare. Given a fairly realistic demographic, one in a hundred persons might some type of warrior by profession and one in a thousand might be an elite warrior such as a paladin or knight. Even fewer will be elite veterans or, in game mechanics, mid or high levels. Even if those are not kept at court as counselors, or in service as bodyguards to some VIP, or busy going to war or on crusades or on a heroic quest or managing their own landholdings - there just aren't enough of them to station them at every village. You are basically saying "Nah, who needs adventurers, just call in a SWAT team or the Navy SEALs!" in a world where the only way to actually do so is physically travel to some police station or military base several day's march away, without knowing whether the guys are even there or otherwise occupied.

[Xervous]

This is sort of baffling to me. Did they have a reason to think the Empire would fall apart? Did they have a reason for wanting to stop them Empire from falling apart? Did they honestly believe the generic ****ty self-justification of every dictator ever? The fact that she explicitly went on about preserving the government and the need for social hierarchy makes it even worse, IMO.
My take: This is definitely Royalty worship. Cringe.

My observation is a lack of investment, not royalty worship. Path of least resistance + no moral weight attached to this make believe elf game makes it more akin to GTA than anything. Mission is to steal a military cargo helicopter? That’s what you direct the guy on screen to do. Keep the woman’s purse you got back from the thief? Saves time getting to something else you wanted to do. Work for the queen of blood? Simple enough so far let’s see where this plot line leads.

I’m not thinking favorably of RL organ harvesting when I suggest rimworld. Heavy pollution speed run on an Eco server doesn’t have me endorsing such policies. So why should players who are casually engaging with the sandbox like it’s GTA be anywhere near monarchists for acts that clearly carry no moral weight? This is in the same bucket of logic that leads people to say violent video games make kids violent.

[paladinofshojo]

Because the king's personal elite paladins and knights are not stationed at random villages on the outskirts of the realm just on the off chance that some orcs or bandits might appear there. Maintaining a strong military presence is super expensive and knights and paladins are rare. Given a fairly realistic demographic, one in a hundred persons might some type of warrior by profession and one in a thousand might be an elite warrior such as a paladin or knight. Even fewer will be elite veterans or, in game mechanics, mid or high levels. Even if those are not kept at court as counselors, or in service as bodyguards to some VIP, or busy going to war or on crusades or on a heroic quest or managing their own landholdings - there just aren't enough of them to station them at every village. You are basically saying "Nah, who needs adventurers, just call in a SWAT team or the Navy SEALs!" in a world where the only way to actually do so is physically travel to some police station or military base several day's march away, without knowing whether the guys are even there or otherwise occupied.

And you don’t consider any of this to be clear sign of neglect of infrastructure and mishandling of military logistics?

Being part of a kingdom means that the crown is obligated to protect you correct? Otherwise why are you even bowing before the king and paying him a percentage of your crop yield?

[Berenger]

And you don’t consider any of this to be clear sign of neglect of infrastructure and mishandling of military logistics?

Being part of a kingdom means that the crown is obligated to protect you correct? Otherwise why are you even bowing before the king and paying him a percentage of your crop yield?

I think you vastly overestimate what can be physically done by a society with a roughly medieval tech level. It would be, for example, flat out impossible for such an agrarian society to maintain a standing army large enough to station even a handful of low-level infantry within running distance of each little settlement. This has nothing to do with neglect or mishandling and much with the hard practical limitiations of administration, economy and logistics. In a medieval context, it's the job of a king (or a local noble) to protect the community as a whole, not every single individual, since that is flat out impossible with the resources at hand.

Of course, you can keep throwing magic at the problem - some god that boosts the crop yields by 1000% of what is natural so that not 10% but 90% of your population are available to do stuff other than agriculture for a living. You can have nearly instant long-distance communications facilitated by legions of bound djinns. You can have emergency teams of supernaturally enhanced elite knights standing in constant vigil, awaiting to be summoned to the magic circle installed at the center of each village in case of an emergency. But at that point, you are not playing in a world comparable to anything medieval.

[Satinavian]

Otherwise why are you even bowing before the king and paying him a percentage of your crop yield?

You basically get what you pay for.

Feudalism is relatively cheap because it forces its warriers to also do all the bureaucratic stuff when they are not fighting and thus can work even if most of your farmers produce barely beyond subsistence. It generally has comparably minimal tax rates.

If you want a every random village to be protected by several paladins/knights, the taxes of that village need to pay for those paladins and knights. And squires. And their families. And equippment. And horses. And then you still haven't paid anything for infrastructure or the organisation of the country.

[Berenger]

It generally has comparably minimal tax rates.

To elaborate: it generally has comparably minimal tax rates because higher tax rates (comparable to those of modern industrial nations) would kill medieval peasants dead. Production is so inefficient that there just isn't that much surplus over the subsistence threshold that can be taxed, even if you want to. Combine this with a society that has to live spread out over a large, thinly populated area (because it's agrarian) and low travel and communication speeds (hard limit: the speed you can force out of a horse on a cobbled road on a sunny day, gods help you if there is heavy rain or, you know, winter, or worse: spring).

[King of Nowhere]

That’s kinda the point, I want my players to start to have philosophical dilemmas over the outcomes of their actions…. Right now they are safe from any kind of responsibility as both players and characters because all they do is follow the words of the King, as such it’s the King who directs the story and the world… not the players.

I want them to think about the long term consequences of their actions, I want them to think “should my character do this?”, I want them to be deal with moral conundrums on questions of utilitarianism. Hell, I’d settle for them being anti-authoritarian murderhobo outlaws who are dictating their story with their own antics.

It’s THEIR story they should start playing it for themselves, not for some Joffrey knock off.

wait, maybe the problem is not that they follow kings, maybe the problem is just that they are pushovers? do they just accept missions from anyone paying them high enough, and perform those missions without thinking twice? maybe they don't want to face difficult choices, they want instead to just be given a mission, go somplace, slay some enemies, take the loot, minimal roleplaying involvement, rinse and repeat?

i don't know enough of your table from your description, but it may just be this.

[Faily]

Having standing armies, historically speaking, is actually a pretty modern thing. It's nothing about "mismanaging the funds of the realm", it is just that having a standing army was waaaay more expensive than to bring in levies and mercenaries in times of need. Some kingdoms didn't even have armies but instead paid out for mercenary armies (which was more expensive to shell out right then and there, but saved them a ton of money in the long run).

Not having a standing army and fighting forces is the more fiscally responsible solution in medieval times.

Soldiers are expensive. Trained soldiers are even more expensive.

PCs (as mercenaries, adventurers, fortune-seekers, bounty hunters, etc) in a fantasy-medieval setting excellently fill in the role of "we need someone to go investigate/search for/fight/save [insert plot], we will hire you as you have good recommendations/belong to the guild, and pay you for your services". PCs can also be deniable external assets in case of shady work too.




Recommended reading: Prussia's history as an "army with a country" is an interesting view on how a mercenary army becoming a nation's army revolutionized how nations thought about armies on the whole for their time period.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Honestly I've had more issues with parties randomly trying to fight monarchs of any variety...

[Anonymouswizard]

This thread has got me thinking about the Empire in Warhammer. They are significantly better off than many societies of their technology level would be because they have magical support (a lot of money goes to Jade Wizards in particular), but because there's never a time when some part of the Empire isn't at war. If not with anybody outside their borders than with the Beastmen and Skaven inside them.

[HidesHisEyes]

Well I and most of the people I play with are British, and it’s well known that all British people want to **** the queen, so yes.

[Mechalich]

This thread has got me thinking about the Empire in Warhammer. They are significantly better off than many societies of their technology level would be because they have magical support (a lot of money goes to Jade Wizards in particular), but because there's never a time when some part of the Empire isn't at war. If not with anybody outside their borders than with the Beastmen and Skaven inside them.

Warhammer is a deliberately grimdark setting. It is essentially impossible for things to get better.

Now, it is certainly possible to think of a world at a medieval tech level as grimdark, since by modern standards there aren't any 'good guys' - even the most virtuous of medieval characters is fairly horrifying by modern standards. And it's certainly possible for fantasy to have the right combination of magic, gods, non-human species, and rampaging monsters to be actually grimdark. 'Who do I support?' becomes a rather tricky question in a grimdark world, and may have counter-intuitive answers. It's possible the PCs mentioned in this thread are operating at least partly on grimdark principles, such as prioritizing stability above all because all rulers will inevitably become corrupt tyrants so minimizing civil wars is the best option for the common people.

[Clistenes]

Warhammer is a deliberately grimdark setting. It is essentially impossible for things to get better.

Or course it can get better! All you have to do is wait until everybody is dead!

After the IoM, the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Chaos, the Orks, the Tyranids, Necrons and small factions like the Tau, Fraal, Hrud, Khrave...etc., have wiped each other and the rest of the galaxy out, the Immaterium will quiet for a few millions years thanks to the disappearance of the cuatrillions of sentiences feeding Chaos, combined with the quieting effect of a galaxy-spanning Tyranid Shadow in the Warp, and whatever shenanigans the Necrons pulled to kill the other factions.

The few thousands of surviving humans, hidden in stasis in vaults deep inside barren planets will then emerge and timidly start to rebuild...

[Wizard_Lizard]

Or course it can get better! All you have to do is wait until everybody is dead!

After the IoM, the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Chaos, the Orks, the Tyranids, Necrons and small factions like the Tau, Fraal, Hrud, Khrave...etc., have wiped each other and the rest of the galaxy out, the Immaterium will quiet for a few millions years thanks to the disappearance of the cuatrillions of sentiences feeding Chaos, combined with the quieting effect of a galaxy-spanning Tyranid Shadow in the Warp, and whatever shenanigans the Necrons pulled to kill the other factions.

The few thousands of surviving humans, hidden in stasis in vaults deep inside barren planets will then emerge and timidly start to rebuild...

And undoubtedly start fighting each other...