Politics in a D&D context

[STARP_President]

I know politics isn't allowed but this isn't about real-world politics but about the politics in D&D campaigns. How does it work in your campaigns? What are the power plays like, what participation do your players have, and so on?

In my old campaign, the city began as a despotic republic but became a democracy, and they had an election. Of course, my players wouldn't stay out of it, and ended up supporting different candidates. One of my players, not being from the city, was still involved by being a powerful mover-and-shaker in the local wizards' guild, and was a member of a ruling house of his homeland, and married a woman from another house, creating a super-bloc to basically take control of the government.

Oh, and one player always planned to run for office, but when he left I took control of the character as an NPC. He never ran for office because he was turned into a halfling (long story) but he did start a mercenaries guild and set himself up for a future bid, although the campaign ended shortly thereafter.

 

[Sunglar]

Are there any politics in my D&D game you ask? Well, if you ask my players, they’ll say “Heck yes!”

Politics always play a big role in my campaigns. Politics along with religion are two very important factors in society (religion even MORE when deities can actually act upon the world, or their “representatives” can bring you back form the dead, but I digress…)

I DM a pretty elaborate homebrewed world, that was created in 1983 and has been going on in its current incarnation since 1993. Some of the players have been along for most of the ride so they have become familiar with the history and how politics has shaped it.

There have been epic campaigns (in scope not levels necessarily) where the Players have had to negotiate as emissaries alliances between the human empire and the elven realms, highlighting political differences between cultures along the way. Marriages of convenience for political purposes have crushed relationships between PCs and NPCs, and for the first parts of the campaign, one PC married the ruler of the largest nation on the campaign and became the head of his church. Their deteriorating relationship and the political strife it caused was part of the second part.

The follow up to this two stories in the campaign was a very low key regional story, but even there they faced the despotic, not necessarily evil, baron and ended up becoming the heroes of the region and eventually important political players.

The results of politics, wars, diplomacy, reshuffling of power are always there in my games. If not in the forefront at least as background to the dynamic world the PCs love in.

All in all, I like politics in my game. My players know I run adventures with lots of role-playing, politics and religion, and only one of them (out of seven) really zones out when the politics get too heavy. They know my stile and we feel pretty comfortable around each other, these are my friends first my players second.

One bit of advice though, when playing politics in the game, try to avoid making your real life political convictions the correct ones in the game in detriment of others, that could possibly be the convictions of our players. Keep the politics in your game, game based, don’t bring real life politics to the table. That will just cause you trouble!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Some very interesting takes on in-game politics can be found in various storyhours - I think that particularly interesting ones are in early Piratecat stories set in "Eversink" where political factions have direct influence on the PCs and early Sepulchrave II stories where the PCs are basically overturning the established theocracy. I know that either of those will give good ideas, I'm sure that several other storyhours will too.

Cheers

 

[Zappo]

Hell yes... IMO, PCs will get involved in politics at some point in virtually any campaign. When you're powerful enough, rulers take notice, and at that point you're into politics whether you like it or not.

That, of course, doesn't mean that you can't have politics at low levels. But that depends on the campaign style.

Currently, the PCs in my Warcraft campaign aren't dealing with politics. However, the party in my Planescape campaign has just done their bit in a power struggle between the abyssal city of Broken Reach and the dark fortress of Mithrengo; an espionage work, mostly. When they come back, they'll find the situation has got... more complex. Get the adventure in my sig for more details.

 

[scholz]

I ran an entire campaign where the players "The Praetorian Guard" were a band of adventures trying to help along history so that certain prophecies would come to pass and their leader (a landless prince) would become Emperor. It was a very good plot device for the these reasons:
(a) it gave them incentive to relentlessly pursue adventures.
(b) it forced them to be political, they couldn't keep some powerful people as enemies, since the prince would likely need the support of such people.
(c) it gave a great game mechanic for introducing new PCs. They were followers of the prince from other areas. So they were implicitly trustworthy. I hate the whole problem of introducing new characters.
(d) it provided an alternative measure of success, other than levels and loot. They still got that stuff, but now they could be rewarded simply by seeing a reticent noble swayed to support the prince.
(e) there were some automatic allies and enemies. (Nice to thrown in when you are wanting for something)
(f) easy to come up with new adventures....

Gosh, you know the more I think of this, the more I want to run a campaign like that again.

 

[STARP_President]

In my present campaign I also did an adventure based around a boatload of refugees who were trying to reach a 'safe' island, but the island's ruler refused to let them in because he and his people were bigoted about the race of the refugees and he feared unpopularity - this in a country renowned for hospitality.

Australians in the audience will recognise this scenario as the circumstances of the 2001 election. I even used some of the same lines of dialogue in the adventure.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

I ran an entire campaign where the players "The Praetorian Guard" were a band of adventures trying to help along history so that certain prophecies would come to pass and their leader (a landless prince) would become Emperor.

Would you care to elaborate? It sounds very interesting, and would love to know everything about it.

The prophecies, the various plots/stories, the reoccuring/important NPCs.

 

[Sado]

In my present campaign I also did an adventure based around a boatload of refugees who were trying to reach a 'safe' island, but the island's ruler refused to let them in because he and his people were bigoted about the race of the refugees and he feared unpopularity - this in a country renowned for hospitality.

Australians in the audience will recognise this scenario as the circumstances of the 2001 election. I even used some of the same lines of dialogue in the adventure.

So will Floridians. I thought you were talking about Florida for a second. Happens all the time here. We have boat people from Haiti and Cuba trying to come over here constantly.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba-immigration.htm

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I have put a small kingdoms treasury within the grasp of my PC's & they are going to go wahoo!

Then, I am going to have the cash-strapped and war impoverished monarch + ruling council find out...

They are going to have to engage in some heavy duty political maneuvering to save even a portion of their new found wealth.

It is going to be a classic case of private ownership vs the needs of the state. The players are going to hate me, but given that I intend them to ascend to the ruling council (overthrow/support the incompetent monarch?) or thereabouts, they may eventually have preferred me to preserve the state from a ruinous defeat.

Politics is a very fun part of D&D and it really lets social characters shine.