M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?

[billd91]

What is the government of Iuz?

That actually would be despotism since Iuz has pretty much absolute power with no checks or any restrictions by law. The Free City of Greyhawk is not really an example of despotism since nobody wields absolute power and various power groups in the city do need to be appeased/mollified. Sneaky and devious politics and deals in the room where it happens (the room where it happens, the room where it happens) doesn't indicate it's a despotic government - just one of any number of other forms of government that has a significant degree of corruption.

 

[John Dallman]

Pretty well all my paying and running of D&D-family games has been in homebrew worlds, some of them very long-standing. There's been a distinct shortage of oppressive governments, mostly on the grounds that there tend to be people around with an amazing capacity for violence, wielding both holy and arcane powers, uninterested in taking up government themselves, but very liable to side with oppressed populations.

 

[Faolyn]

In what way is that not a despotic tyranny? Or are we going down the nit picking road that I'm not using exactly the right word to describe this?

It's not nitpicking if you're going for only the most technical definitions of the word and over-applying it. Being a tyrannical despot suggests oppressive rule, few or no rights, threats or actuality of violence, and rule by fear.

From the most technical definitions, where you strip the words down to their very earliest definitions, you're sort of right--although even then, only sort of, because tyrannical despot also means a single leader, and Waterdeep has a Council, and Greyhawk holds public elections for at least some of their offices, and apparently has legislative, judicial, and executive branches where the rulers have limited areas where they have power.

When 99% of gamers hear tyrannical despot, they're going to think something like Falkovnia (especially pre-5e) where the citizens live in constant fear of being extorted, enslaved, tortured, raped, or killed for any reason at all by the ruler or their goons. They're not going to be thinking a bright, open, clean city where everyone has rights and few fears. So it's very disingenuous to say that 99% of D&D cities are tyrannies ruled by despots.

 

[Faolyn]

I addressed this in the other thread I started, but Greyhawk contains a staggering number of different government types, including elected governments such as the Yeomanry (a kind of Republic) and Hightown.

Not being a fan of Greyhawk (in that I never got into it, not that I dislike it), I had to look it up for my response, and was somewhat surprised to see that the city actually had an elected public council. I probably shouldn't have been, since I know that Greyhawk was based on... Chicago? Some other American city? something like that.

 

[darjr]

Chicago

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Chicago

Explains all the Vote for Daley posters.

 

[darjr]

Another Greyhawk-Chicago Correspondence

Yes, it's widely known that Gary Gygax explicitly said that the city of Greyhawk in his original campaign was located on an altered map of N...

rolesrules.blogspot.com

I seem to recall that Castle Greyhawk was supposed to be Lake Geneva. However I can’t find a reference.

 

[pemerton]

Whether the individual I am responding to reflected on what I wrote when I noted that arranged marrriages, and the societies that produce them, inflict harm on people I care about.

There are people I care about whose agency you are ignoring and/or questioning.

There are people I care about who get harmed by liberal cultural forms, day-in day-out.

I think that's a reason to avoid generalisations about the cultural forms of hundreds of millions of people.

 

[pemerton]

I'm going to go with (1) no and (2) probably not.

(2) is a cheap shot, and you're a better person than that.

 

[pemerton]

the Free City of Greyhawk

I think it counts as a despotic tyranny by @Hussar's standards. More technically it's an oligarchy.

The "free" means (roughly) "free of the feudal structures that surround it", not "conferring political freedom on those who live in it".