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

[Hussar]

Feels like a good survey question someone that didn’t make a s-post and get on a bunch of ignore lists two weeks ago should ask. Would be curious how people portray d&d governments.

Hey, I'm not on that many ignore lists. Just a couple. I know because when I use my phone to read En-World, the folks that have me on ignore show up, but don't show up on my PC. So, I know who has me on ignore.

But, yeah, it's pretty common in RPG's too. Like you say, absolute monarchies are generally not nice. But, we have things like the Masked Lords in Waterdeep where it's just accepted and generally seen as a good thing. D&D is chock a block with "good kings" as is fantasy as a genre.

It is nice though that we are understanding each other.

 

[Voadam]

Like you say, absolute monarchies are generally not nice. But, we have things like the Masked Lords in Waterdeep where it's just accepted and generally seen as a good thing.

I am not sure how you are defining absolute monarchy here. The lords of Waterdep are a ruling council of lords with about 20 members, and no monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The open lord is not the absolute ruler.

I think for the most part D&D rulers are just seen as a thing. More just a neutral thing as far as the position, that depends on the individual government or ruler for whether it is considered a good thing or a bad thing. I don't really see a difference in general perception for whether we are talking a king or a lord or a council or a mayor or or an emperor or a viking Thing. Evil ones are evil, oppressive ones are oppressive, good rulers are good. If they don't intrude upon your consciousness that much you don't think about them one way or the other.

 

[Hussar]

I am not sure how you are defining absolute monarchy here. The lords of Waterdep are a ruling council of lords with about 20 members, and no monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The open lord is not the absolute ruler.

I think for the most part D&D rulers are just seen as a thing. More just a neutral thing as far as the position, that depends on the individual government or ruler for whether it is considered a good thing or a bad thing. I don't really see a difference in general perception for whether we are talking a king or a lord or a council or a mayor or or an emperor or a viking Thing. Evil ones are evil, oppressive ones are oppressive, good rulers are good. If they don't intrude upon your consciousness that much you don't think about them one way or the other.

Thus my point about lampshading.

Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good. Ok. Now, is everyone under that ruler also good? Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him. Are all of their underlings also good? So on and so forth. Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them? Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.

It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is. They're all autocratic dictatorships. At best you could call them anti-democratic. The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree. IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.

But, it's all okay because the king is LG. Hope his kid will be LG. And his grandchildren. And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.

 

[Faolyn]

Thus my point about lampshading.

Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good. Ok. Now, is everyone under that ruler also good? Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him. Are all of their underlings also good? So on and so forth. Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them? Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.

It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is. They're all autocratic dictatorships. At best you could call them anti-democratic. The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree. IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.

But, it's all okay because the king is LG. Hope his kid will be LG. And his grandchildren. And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.

Generally speak, in D&Dland, yes, most of the people who work for a Good King, especially in a Good-aligned city or kingdom, will also be Good. Because Good, in traditional D&D, is more than just being a decent person--it's actively working towards goodness, and part of that is not allowing Evil minions. Remember that, until fairly recently (at least up through 3e), spells such as detect evil would in fact detect Joe Evildude as being evil, even if he wasn't actively evil or supernatural, unless Joe was actively being protected via magic, like Nystul's undetectable alignment. It wasn't actually hard to determine if your underlings were evil or not. And also don't forget that again until recently, it wasn't hard to have your alignment change if your employees committed acts contrary to it and you were aware of those acts and allowed them. A Good King wouldn't stay Good if they allowed Joe Evildude to work as the royal torturer.

And as several of us have pointed out, in most big D&D cities, especially those not labeled as Evil, the citizens do have rights and often can vote for at least some of their leadership and aren't subjected to cruel and unusual punishments. Those cities that are Evil are done so that the PCs can topple the Evilness.

 

[Hussar]

Generally speak, in D&Dland, yes, most of the people who work for a Good King, especially in a Good-aligned city or kingdom, will also be Good. Because Good, in traditional D&D, is more than just being a decent person--it's actively working towards goodness, and part of that is not allowing Evil minions. Remember that, until fairly recently (at least up through 3e), spells such as detect evil would in fact detect Joe Evildude as being evil, even if he wasn't actively evil or supernatural, unless Joe was actively being protected via magic, like Nystul's undetectable alignment. It wasn't actually hard to determine if your underlings were evil or not. And also don't forget that again until recently, it wasn't hard to have your alignment change if your employees committed acts contrary to it and you were aware of those acts and allowed them. A Good King wouldn't stay Good if they allowed Joe Evildude to work as the royal torturer.

And as several of us have pointed out, in most big D&D cities, especially those not labeled as Evil, the citizens do have rights and often can vote for at least some of their leadership and aren't subjected to cruel and unusual punishments. Those cities that are Evil are done so that the PCs can topple the Evilness.

And you don't find any of that absolutely dystopian horrifying? We're randomly testing citizens with detect evil - note that in 2e that doesn't actually work, but, that's a separate issue. Paladins wandering around with Helms of Opposite Alignment to correct citizens and ensure maximum goodness.

And, no, if your employee commits an evil act, that doesn't change your character's alignment. I'm not even sure where you are getting that.

The point being, the citizens not being subjected to cruel and unusual punishments is part of the lampshading. They absolutely are. It's just that we elide over those facts. And vote? What setting has votes?

My point is, only evil cities are places where evil things are done is part and parcel of the lampshading. You just got through talking about state run mind control to enforce alignment. Anyone who is evil, even if they haven't done anything evil, is called out as evil. I wonder what happens to them then? That's an nightmare that would scare Orwell.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Thus my point about lampshading.

Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good. Ok. Now, is everyone under that ruler also good? Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him. Are all of their underlings also good? So on and so forth. Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them? Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.

It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is. They're all autocratic dictatorships. At best you could call them anti-democratic. The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree. IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.

But, it's all okay because the king is LG. Hope his kid will be LG. And his grandchildren. And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.

What on earth are you on about? Are you really not able to tell the difference an oligarchy (ie what Waterdeep looks to be) and an "autocratic dictatorship". Waterdeep is not a dictatorship (neither is the City of Greyhawk), since it doesn't have a dictator. It's not autocratic by definition (the state does not wield ultimate power over its citizens' lives and there is not one person in sole control of the state). You seem to be under the impression there are two forms of government, your favoured idea of what a modern democratic state is, and then everything else which you keep conflating a variety of different government forms into "tyranny" or "autocratic dictatorships" as if they are all identical and all the same. You've been pulled up multiple times yet you keep digging in. I genuinely don't understand it.

The only D&D examples that come close to autocratic tyranny are well established to be evil societies. (And let's leave aside once again that autocracy as a form of government is practically unworkable in any pre-modern society)

 

[Hussar]

I keep digging in because I simply do not care what you want to call it. It really doesn't matter to me that you are distinguishing between an an oligarchy run by anonymous "lords" (again, since no one answered me the first time - how exactly does one become a Lord of Waterdeep when there is no one there to make you a lord?) with absolute authority and an "autocratic dictatorship". The point being, these are absolutely horrible forms of government, prone to extreme abuse, and completely lacking in any sort of real freedom.

Think about it for just a second how horrifying the Masked Lords of Waterdeep would actually be as a system of government.

But, yeah, it's so deeply ingrained into people's views of fantasy that we can have these horrifying forms of government and they're considered "good". Yay, slap on a LG moniker and it doesn't matter how dystopian and evil a form of government is. The system is good because the king is good. Long may he reign and don't mind the massive abuses of power of anyone not in the ruling class. They're just peasants after all and don't matter.

 

[AnotherGuy]

But, yeah, it's so deeply ingrained into people's views of fantasy that we can have these horrifying forms of government and they're considered "good". Yay, slap on a LG moniker and it doesn't matter how dystopian and evil a form of government is. The system is good because the king is good. Long may he reign and don't mind the massive abuses of power of anyone not in the ruling class. They're just peasants after all and don't matter.

D&D mimicking real life.

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit, I could not have asked for better examples of how far people will go to ignore the underlying icky stuff.

By the way, I'm not saying I'm any different. I mean, I play D&D too and I certainly don't play rebels who are out to overthrow the monarchy or spread democracy. And the settings I create for homebrew games are every bit as deep in the shade of the lamp as anyone else's. Like I said way upthread - lots of people like Grand Theft Auto or First Person Shooters. I know I do.

But, I just find it really funny when people will absolutely flip out over something like The Wall of the Faithless or The Cataclysm in Krynn but have no problems with a centuries old government of anonymous rulers governing a city without anything remotely approaching any sort of democratic principles. Well... it's Good, so, it's no problems.

 

[Voadam]

Thus my point about lampshading.

Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good. Ok. Now, is everyone under that ruler also good? Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him. Are all of their underlings also good? So on and so forth. Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them? Who made them lords?)

Lord in this case simply means person on the ruling council. They apparently come from all walks of life and are non-hereditary but chosen as a person of influence when there is an opening on the Council.

or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.

Or a democracy. In Ancient Athens the citizens democratically voted the death penalty for Socrates. The buck stops with that democratically enacted decree.

The buck stops with the rulers whether they are a monarch, an oligarchy, a republic, or a democracy.

It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.

Right, to an extent. Rulers/ruling bodies make the rules.

They're all autocratic dictatorships. At best you could call them anti-democratic. The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree. IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.

I do not know what you mean by autocratic dictatorships here.

Governments vary in form greatly and in the level of power they exert and what rights they respect or not. Even monarchies can be absolute central powers or weak symbolic figureheads or a variety of places on a spectrum in many dimensions.

You are providing no differentiation between democracies and non-democracies here.

Rights are not dependent on whether you vote in leaders or not. Jumping from the buck stops with the rulers to they are all autocratic dictatorships worse than North Korea is a huge jump that you seem to feel is self evident but does not seem to follow.

What rights there are is going to depend on what the system in place is and the specific culture. This is often rarely defined for fantasy settings.

In a fantasy game with a mythic romantic pseudo-medieval flavor this can mean a variety of things from full modern society with an overlay of platemail and people with the title king or lord, or a full on historical medieval based society, or a different system entirely because of magic and gods or just because fantasy and the sky is not the limit. This can vary for things like Waterdeep, different DMs could run Waterdeep by the book and portray it as a mostly modern base with a light overlay, try to match historical guilds and nobility models for a coastal trade hub city state, or play it as a fantasy society different from both. There is a lot of ways to go with a D&D setting.

There is no must on how it must be in a fantasy RPG setting.