Creating a govement based on D&D reality

[Andor]

Well, It's a certainty that any form of Gov't must co-opt the personal power of adventurers or risk having it's head cut off. Of course that's possibly how the system works, the King/Oligarchy rules until another party defeats them and takes up the reigns, whereupon the servants/agents-of-the-crown all swear fealty to the new rulers and everything keeps on trucking. In other words the PCs can take over, but only the bureacracy is eternal.

 

[Stormborn]

Oligarchies and meritocracies of HLers would provide the most stable governing body. No single ruler to target, significant resources that can be brought to bear in times of need... hell, it's like having your own mini-pantheon running the country.

Exactly. Glad to see someone else agrees with me.

 

[sckeener]

I'm in the camp of political power is more important than level. After all the ECL of battle isn't based off the level of one person in the fight, but all the minons, traps, and treasure invovled. It is up to the leader to surround him or herself with people that will offset others in office.

I'd say skill at diplomacy would be more important than brute strength. If all character has is brute strength, then consider the character the weather because the character is not the government. Other people will be running the show even if the character thinks her/she is. As the weather, the character is either a bright sunny day or a terrible storm that refuses to move. People die in storms, but life goes on.

 

[Umbran]

Oligarchies and meritocracies of HLers would provide the most stable governing body. No single ruler to target, significant resources that can be brought to bear in times of need... hell, it's like having your own mini-pantheon running the country.

Remember the whole "Captain on the away mission" thing. If your leader(s) regularly stick their neck(s) out in dangerous situations, they die. Your HLers would have to do so to maintain their relative personal power. So, not much stability to be found there.

Take a look at Europe, the Middle East, and Asia from the beginning of time to about 1776. When in that time was theoretical stability a real determining factor? For how long did inherently unstable systems persist? Centuries? Millennia?

 

[Tonguez]

Reflecting on earlier posts about rich adventurers coming to town wielding their wealth, I can't help but think of a story of a caravan setting out from Timbuktu across the Sahara, hundreds of camels loaded down with gold, finally reaching Egypt, and the influx of this man's gold apparently totally destabilized the economy in that region for a decade.

I doubt either scenario gets much play in RPGs...perhaps not heroic enough...

I based an adventure on Mansa Musa's pilgrimage (the above mentioned journey from Timbuktu) he was travelling to Mecca.

IMC the Ras Benari Sekh had built a road which lead to the Imperial City and he set out across his lands to inspect his road and visit the city. The PCs played members of his entourage and engaged in various adventures as they travelled.

I think that if the DnD economy was real gold would be greatly devalued and most trade would be done through barter. Also it is likely that gems would become the main currency since they retain intrinsic value due there use as spell ingredients (imagine buying a sword with diamond powder)

 

[moritheil]

IMC, adventurers often have to pay taxes. If anyone has a problem with the notion of town authorities noticing that this group of well armed toughs showing up to sell load after load of goblin/orc/hobgoblin arms and armor, I'd like to hear about it. Seems abundantly clear to me that the powers that be would start to notice rich well armed rakes walking around town like they owned the place pretty fast. Not to mention the local Thieve's Guild. And well organized highwaymen just outside of town. Who would have no problem paying the innkeeper for information about who they are and where they stay.

It's not that they don't notice it - it's that the stereotypical adventure is based on "You're the only ones who can save our town!" Given that, it's a bit odd for the government to repeatedly just turn around and demand high taxes on the resultant loot.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Remember the whole "Captain on the away mission" thing. If your leader(s) regularly stick their neck(s) out in dangerous situations, they die. Your HLers would have to do so to maintain their relative personal power. So, not much stability to be found there.

Why would they?

The common cliche of "classic" D&D campaigns is the retired-adventurer-turned-king. Once you're already 17th level, do you *need* to keep adventuring to "maintain [your] relative personal power"? Obviously, this raises a problem with lines of succession, but then again, an oligarchy/meritocracy doesn't need to be built along family lines. In fact, one could create a nice positive-feedback loop by offering official patronage to adventurers with the expectation that "endorsed" adventurers who prove themselves to the established rulers of the land can be designated successors to those rulers. Not only would this work out nicely in play, since it gives the players additional motivation to adventure, but it has the effect of removing incipient conflict between the powers-that-be and adventurers.

 

[A'koss]

Why would they?

The common cliche of "classic" D&D campaigns is the retired-adventurer-turned-king. Once you're already 17th level, do you *need* to keep adventuring to "maintain [your] relative personal power"?

Exactly. And not only that, but the fact that at that level there are fewer and fewer problems that demand their direct intervention.

Obviously, this raises a problem with lines of succession, but then again, an oligarchy/meritocracy doesn't need to be built along family lines. In fact, one could create a nice positive-feedback loop by offering official patronage to adventurers with the expectation that "endorsed" adventurers who prove themselves to the established rulers of the land can be designated successors to those rulers. Not only would this work out nicely in play, since it gives the players additional motivation to adventure, but it has the effect of removing incipient conflict between the powers-that-be and adventurers.

Absolutely. This would be a very desirable model for rulership in D&D.

Remember the whole "Captain on the away mission" thing. If your leader(s) regularly stick their neck(s) out in dangerous situations, they die.

Ignoring the fact for the moment that "dangerous situations" requiring HL intervention should be relatively few and far between, death is hardly more than an inconvenience to these people. Old age is a far greater concern.

 

[drothgery]

I'm in the camp of political power is more important than level. After all the ECL of battle isn't based off the level of one person in the fight, but all the minons, traps, and treasure invovled. It is up to the leader to surround him or herself with people that will offset others in office.

Oh, that's certainly true; I doubt rulers would be the highest-level guys around in a world where D&D rules dictated the things they cover. But keeping high-level allies around while mainting real power (rather than becoming the puppet of the high-level Grand Vizier) is not a job for a low-level guy; you'll either gain levels, or be deposed/killed/shuttled off into irrelevance.

I'd say skill at diplomacy would be more important than brute strength.

Thing is, skill at diplomacy in D&D-world is tied to, you guessed it, levels. Yeah, it's possible to get sickening diplomacy bonuses at relatively low level, even in an NPC class, but a dedicated bard is always going to be better.

 

[Hussar]

Orcs, Gnolls, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Halflings

There are so many different races, and some of them are nomadic/Semi-nomadic, and most of them are entirely hostile. Governments are incapable of exercising power outside of their spheres of influence. Even presuming that there's a powerful central government. Wouldn't we be looking at City-States rather than a unified national government?

And all things considered, I have to go back to some of my own PBM experience from the pre-internet days. The leader of a faction wasn't necessarily the smartest, or most powerful, or the senior most. In many cases, it came down to 'who is least opposed to the idea of doing all this work?'

To me, both of these are very, very true. Pratchett takes the same approach in his Ankh-Morpork Discworld books. The Patrician is hardly the most dangerous physically. However, he's the one who does all the work.

And yes, I think that city-states is a MUCH better model than nation states. Never mind that nation states are horribly anachronistic in D&D, it just makes much more sense given the high level of individual power that very large political bodies would be extremely difficult to manage. The existence of HLC's and HL monsters simply make travel too difficult to properly have a large nation state.

City states would be much more feasible IMO. Each city state is ruled by a HLC (or possibly HL monster) and controls the surrounding area of peasantry. Something to remember is that nation states require huge amounts of infrastructure and population to work. IMO, any nation state that attempted to amass that much land would get smacked down by neighbouring city states in fairly short order.

There is also the point of speciesism as well. Why would elves, for example, who remember when your human ancestors were scratching themselves in a tree, possibly join a nation of humans? Trying to build any sort of nation is extremely difficult in the RL where it is marginally possible to have homogeneous populations. In a D&D world, it would be virtually impossible to get any large body to agree on what a nation should be.

I really do like how Scarred Lands did this - mostly nation states with one or two nation states ruled either by gods (such as the Chardunni Dwarves) or extremely powerful individuals backed by gods (such as Calastia).