D&D Political Systems

[fusangite]

The original question is a lot more about the ramifications of vastly different levels of personal power on the politics of a world. The artifacts of the economics laid out in the PHB are there more for simplicity's sake than laying out a decisive worldview, so I'd consider them very secondary for the purposes of the (silly, but fun) discussion...

I think that's how most people see them. But the premise of this thread is, "How would political outcomes be different, given that the laws governing the D&D universe are different from ours?" If you run a campaign that handwaves these differences, this thread is probably not going to be a very fun place to be.

 

[fusangite]

I´m afraid I didn´t explain myself clearly, as usual. By saying "your approach is the wrong one" I mean that perhaps, instead of starting from the premises ("There are characters able to decimate an army. How would politics evolve?") we should instead try a different one, mainly "In may game I want large kingdoms ruled by relatively low level kings. How´s that possible?"

Okay. That's not what Snoweel asked. It seems that coming into a thread and suggesting that the thread's premise is uninteresting to you and should be ignored may not be the best way of getting a constructive discussion going about what you want to talk about.

Not necesarily. The premises are: characters don´t have their levels written on the face, so attacking another ruler is always risky*,

As you yourself acknowledge, this is not that hard to figure out, especially if the PCs are high level. But more to the point, the reason I was pointing out that the demographic distribution of levels is pyramidal in the RAW is to argue against your idea that people fall into the category of either the powerful or the masses. The people governing first-level characters would not be the 15th level characters; they would be the 5th level characters, leading to a non-despotic form of state organization. Secondly, half a dozen mid-level characters can take down a high-level character; your model seemed premised on the idea that the only people who could take down high-level characters are other high-level characters.

Now that's not to say the outcome you describe is impossible. I just don't buy your particular explanation of how to get there. I think an easier way to go is my general approach to setting up despotisms in D&D: divine intervention. Virtually every significant despotic regime historically has tended to depict its ruler as either a god or a direct agent of God. I personally find the easiest way to set something up in D&D is to ask: how did people in the historical moment it resembles explain this reality to themselves? This tends to produce simpler, less convoluted explanations for things that other methods do.

 

[Someone]

Okay. That's not what Snoweel asked. It seems that coming into a thread and suggesting that the thread's premise is uninteresting to you and should be ignored may not be the best way of getting a constructive discussion going about what you want to talk about.

Premise was a bad word. After all the premise is the existence of powerful characters. Let´s call it approach. If you´re not interested in my approach I´ll gladly leave the discussion.

As you yourself acknowledge, this is not that hard to figure out, especially if the PCs are high level

Specially if they metagame and behave like player characters, not real people.

But more to the point, the reason I was pointing out that the demographic distribution of levels is pyramidal in the RAW is to argue against your idea that people fall into the category of either the powerful or the masses. The people governing first-level characters would not be the 15th level characters; they would be the 5th level characters, leading to a non-despotic form of state organization.

That´s an interesting conjecture, and I´m expectantly waiting your experimental data on historical leaders and their character levels.

Secondly, half a dozen mid-level characters can take down a high-level character; your model seemed premised on the idea that the only people who could take down high-level characters are other high-level characters.

The OP was clearly talking about very powerful characters and how they would be the only ones that could seize and hold the thrones. I understand that implies a king of the hill scenario where everyone wants power; in that case, the ones in power would be sooner or later the very high levels. If we must, substitute "high ECL parties" when I say "high level characters" and we´re set.

Now that's not to say the outcome you describe is impossible. I just don't buy your particular explanation of how to get there.

Then we agree it´d be better if we don´t play in each other´s games, if my backgrounds can´t convince you and I can´t stand your approach to rules.

I think an easier way to go is my general approach to setting up despotisms in D&D: divine intervention. Virtually every significant despotic regime historically has tended to depict its ruler as either a god or a direct agent of God.

Suppose the setting doesn´t have actively intervening gods, like Eberron. Then what?

 

[Someone]

So the logical thing to believe is that D&D worlds have the physics medieval people believed the world to have. In pre-Franciscan economic theory, a fixed amount of gold always had the same objective value. This is clearly the way to read D&D rules if you don't want the above to happen. If one used Aristotelian physics, if each GP contained ten times as much gold, it would be worth 10gp because value is objective.

See: if you make value subjective, all the calculations go haywire, as you yourself point out. If value is objective, everything works smoothly.

I believe we´re walking in circles in this particular derail from the thread´s OP, so I´ll try to break it. I´m I don´t understand you porperly, excuse me. Your position is, I think, to have D&D rules as the absolute axioms that define the world and build logically from there. Everything in the RAW go: people can walk and speak, dragons fly, bones and non magical quarterstaffs don´t ever break. The internal consistency of the rules are very important, and lead to adopting certain background flavor.

I think that´s fine, everyone can play the way they want, and from that opint of view, you´re absolutely right. I, sorry to say that, would only play in such game at gun point.

My approach is to understand that rules are not axioms: they are approximations to model Fantasy Physics (let´s poor Aristotle rest in peace). In Fantasy Physics people walk and talk, dragons fly, heroes can kill orcs by the dozen despite having seven broken ribs and quarterstaffs break when you strike a 20 ft thick wall with them, no matter what the rules do not say. Rules must not get in the way of the game, they are tools, not the way I must play, because if I overdo and take them as totally accurate descriptions of reality they would destroy my suspension of disbelief: I would spend the evening wondering why are not swords made of bone if bone is indestructible, and the plethora of other weird things and inconsistencies you can find by the dozens in the rules forum and would surface in the game from time to time.

Therefore, in my twisted point of view, if rules are not perfect and are meant for certain circumstances it´s a bad ruling to apply them where they are no meant to be applied. Yes, in the deranged ladscape of my mind applying the RAW to certaing things is a house rule. Before you ask, the one endowed by the mighty Rule 0 to decide when the rules should and should not be applied is the DM, therefore trusted with the task of preserving internal consistency. We already know you don´t like my approach and won´t play in my game even while on crack, so we´re even.

 

[fusangite]

Specially if they metagame and behave like player characters, not real people.

Wanting to figure out how powerful someone is and successfully doing so is not metagaming. It is gaming.

That´s an interesting conjecture, and I´m expectantly waiting your experimental data on historical leaders and their character levels.

Actually, if you assess the power levels of medievals based on the value of their gear, my argument works very well if you look at who fought whom and who ruled whom. Given that this was true simply based on a geometric progression in gear value, I see no reason that geometric progression in combat ability would not further reinforce this kind of social order.

The OP was clearly talking about very powerful characters and how they would be the only ones that could seize and hold the thrones.

I did not construe his argument quite so narrowly.

Then we agree it´d be better if we don´t play in each other´s games, if my backgrounds can´t convince you and I can´t stand your approach to rules.

Seems fair.

Suppose the setting doesn´t have actively intervening gods, like Eberron. Then what?

I don't know anything about Eberron except snippets of what I've picked up on ENWorld. I haven't had much of an incentive to learn more because it doesn't seem to be about stuff that interests me very much. The idea of making polytheism deistic does not impress me very much. Generally, deism is something that one only associates with monotheistic systems or the over-god in a monotheistic philosophy operating within a monotheistic matrix (like certain relatively deistic approaches to Hinduism).

Your position is, I think, to have D&D rules as the absolute axioms that define the world and build logically from there.

Dead on. The rules are the physics of the D&D universe. They are absolute because they are a set of universal and empirically replicatable laws of cause and effect.

The internal consistency of the rules are very important, and lead to adopting certain background flavor.

Indeed. If I want a universe with a different set of physics I either modify D20 or use a game system that is consistent with the setting I want to run. For me, rules and "flavour" are two sides of the same coin; they are inextricable. If I want to depict a world with different laws of nature, I find or make rules that are consistent with those laws of nature.

Self-consistency, for me, is integral to suspension of disbelief. Forgotten Realms drives me batty because the laws of cause and effect near the characters are different from the laws of cause and effect in places remote from them.

My approach is to understand that rules are not axioms: they are approximations to model Fantasy Physics (let´s poor Aristotle rest in peace). In Fantasy Physics people walk and talk, dragons fly, heroes can kill orcs by the dozen despite having seven broken ribs and quarterstaffs break when you strike a 20 ft thick wall with them, no matter what the rules do not say.

Fair enough. I think most people game this way. I personally don't find that satisfying and so I am quite enthusiastic about discussions here on ENWorld where people ask the kind of question Snoweel is asking here.

My solution to your quarterstaff problem would be to create a house rule modifying the conditions under which objects can be sundered. By making it a house rule, rather than over-ruling the rules every time, one could have the best of both worlds -- the staff would have the physical properties you want, and the world would remain self-consistent. Furthermore, players would have a greater sense of fairness because the properties of physical objects would be both consistent and predictable.

Rules must not get in the way of the game, they are tools,

Agreed. I use rules as a tool for describing settings; modifying the rules and creating a setting are the same process for me. Rules are not merely a tool for resolving conflicts; they are a tool for describing the kind of world in which the characters are adventuring.

not the way I must play, because if I overdo and take them as totally accurate descriptions of reality they would destroy my suspension of disbelief

I can see that. For some people, suspension of disbelief is contingent upon the degree to which a D&D world is consistent our own world; for me, it is contingent upon which the world is consistent with itself. My feeling is that if you can make giant exploding balls of fire out of words, objects not accelerating on their way down or wounds working like an action movie is pretty minor by comparison.

 

[Someone]

Ah, well, I´m glad I found out the source of our disagreement. Just a couple things before i´m done with the thread:

For some people, suspension of disbelief is contingent upon the degree to which a D&D world is consistent our own world

It´s not a matter of being faithful to our own world, but to the setting; I have no problem accepting that in World of Homebrew 2 lb things fall twice as fast as 1 lb things, if it´s an integral part of it and play without worry. On the other hand, I won´t let a needlessly (IMO) strict interpretation of the rule the rules dictate that in my World of Homebrew indeed 2 lb things fall faster than 1 lb things, or that I have to make a house rule if so, instead of accepting the rules are just an approximation and live with it.

About the quarterstaff problem, it´s not a problem for me. Remember that I think that rules for quarterstaff damage are intended for striking creatures with them, not walls. If a player tries to do that I just have to say "Sorry, but you´ll break the quarterstaff before you dent the stone.", there´s no need to house rule anything.

 

[fusangite]

Okay Kamikaze Midget, I’m procrastinating writing an essay so I’ll respond to your posts now.

The kings may have been more or less influential depending upon how good they were at manipulating the institutions, but the very fact that they could be called Feudal Kings shows that it was the institution of feudal kingship that ruled the people, not the individual kings.

This is not correct. The entities that ruled people were city governments and feudal lords. The ability to enforce laws in fiefs or cities that disagreed with them was contingent upon one’s ability to mobilize sufficient military force that could smash the defiant lord or city government. There were virtually no national institutions that enabled contact or governance between the throne and individuals unmediated by the power of a local bishop, abbot or lord, except on the lands that a royal family held as its own fief.

To provide a modern analogy, think of a medieval king as equivalent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Without the consent of powerful lords (comparable to nation states like China, the US, etc.), the king does not have sufficient resources to put down a rebel lord. Furthermore, although the kingdom has various institutions (compare to UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, UNEP, UNHCR), these institutions are designed to interact with lords not citizens and are essentially invisible at the level of the populace being ruled. Similarly, if one is in trouble, one appeals to one’s local lord not to the remote and irrelevant throne.

The practice of polytheism isn't the practice of choosing one god over another in a world full of gods, but rather devoting oneself to the correct gods for the job.

From the perspective of non-priests, this is true. One sacrifices to the appropriate god based on the god’s region or portfolio.

But institutionally, it functions as a collection of cults. Aside from the Brahmin system in India, one cannot be a generalized priest; one must be a priest of a single particular god. And clearly, the D&D rules are not talking about Hindu polytheism; there is no Brahmin equivalent in D&D. Priests are always of a single particular god and their acolytes and initiates are members of the cult associated with this god.

This is what I meant by you shifting the goalposts. You were making an argument about institutions. I replied that, from an institutional perspective, polytheistic systems are a collection of cults. Therefore, there can be no role for a kind of national high priest as you posit. Powerful national high priests emerge only in monotheistic systems (and not even in Hinduism I might add) as in ancient Judea, Samaria, Byzantium, Imperial Russia, etc.

There were never Priests of Odin and Priests of Thor, there were kings and warriors who paid them both devotion when either was due it.

You are saying that there were no priests whatsoever in Norse polytheism. This seems a very doubtful claim to me. Every polytheistic system I have studied had priests.

I make this claim based on what polytheism is for those who practice it, which is not just a bunch of competing monotheisms, but rather one system for dealing with the supernatural world

But the institutional reality and the lay experience are not identical. We are not talking about lay culture; we are talking about institutional formation.

Platonism isn't polytheism, though, and neither are (most kinds of) Buddhism, Confucianism, or Taosism.

What I said was that they were movements backing cosmological systems for seeing a unity within the matrix of polytheism. But philosophies, unlike religions, function, to use a modern term in Marxist political thought, like vanguard organizations rather than mass organizations. Platonism was a way for elite Romans to comprehend the polytheistic reality in which they lived. But Aristotelian, Platonic and Pythagorean academies, from an institutional perspective did not constitute the kind of power base a church in a monotheistic system would because they did not reach down to the common level. Common lay worshippers were happily making sacrifices to the god of the river over there, or what have you.

In fact, many of those Roman and Chinese philosophies lacked any kind of real theism at all, being more concerned with a moral guidance than the world of the unseen.

Incorrect. Each philosophy had at its core a cosmological system that resembled monotheism because in Classical thought, the naturalistic fallacy was implicit. Every philosophy presented itself as the logical entailment of natural law.

Epicurean ideas about morality were inextricably yoked to a belief in an eternal, uncaused, atomic universe in which gods, human beings, etc. coalesced out of random collisions of atoms. Stoic ideas about morality arose directly from their theory of the divine logos. For Aristotelians, their belief in hierarchical, corporate, ordered society was directly entailed by their theories of causation, physics and their belief in the nous. Platonic ethics were yoked to the idea the superiority of the world of forms to the sense-perceptible world.

Once again you have taken an idea about how things work in the modern world, in this case ethics, and applied it in a totally ahistorical way to the past.

Polytheism itself is no way to run a nation, but ideologies based in those assumptions absolutely can be.

I have no problem with this assertion. But simply because a system of thought entails that a place be run a particular way, it in no way follows that the people controlling the institution that produces the thought will therefore be in charge. For instance, Eastern Orthodox state theory was historically the basis for the subordination of church to state. To bring it down to a personal level, Confucius was not only a political failure; he didn’t even get promoted in the imperial bureaucracy.

The institutions of governance and rulership, the tradition of the people, the logistics that allows public works, the framework of the military, the designation of a holy site, the power to manipulate people through established, transcendant authority that goes beyond the individuals excising that authoirty.

I see the problem developing here. You are conflating institutions and ideologies. This is a mistake. In order for you to come up with reasoning that makes sense, you will need to clearly distinguish between the ideology produced by an institution and the power of the institution itself.

Rulership is evidenced by getting people to do what you want. If you get the peasants to pay their taxes, go to war for you, and say "Long live the king!" congrats, you're a successful monarch. If you have a revolt under your rule and managed to be killed by a bunch of revolutionaries, you're not. Rather, the leaders who got them to revolt are the successful rulers. People won't do what they don't believe in unless forced, and force only gets you to get them to do it 'till your back is turned.

It's the difference between the Intimidate skill and the Diplomacy skill.

First of all, Intimidate works as long as the conditions for intimidation remain the same. The inequality in power that makes most of the difference is not something that changes when your back is turned. Operationally, there is little difference between Diplomacy and Intimidate. If conditions change, it doesn’t matter how charming you are and how much your peasants love you; they will go along with the guy whose siege engine just destroyed your gate.

That’s not to say there are not other incentives for being popular with your peasants but, at the end of the day, what is going to matter is your ability to protect them and your ability to kill them. If you don’t have those things, all the good will in the world won’t make any difference.

Secondly, a village of first-level commoners just isn’t going to be able to do much in a revolt, given the RAW. How much is 100 peasants worth in a revolt if you have a party of 12th level characters, half of whom are casters with evocation magic?

The mere existence of the Aristocrat class implies that some people rise to the top despite not being ludicrously mighty weavers of magic and steel, that there are some things birth or wealth can get you that slaying orcs cannot.

Aristocrats have cumulative hit points and BAB progression like everybody else.

It's not nessecary to bully the court into acting, nor is it wise. This would quite obviously be a use of the Intimidate skill, not Diplomacy. And Intimidate doesn't last long, nor does it get people to follow you unless you remain constantly in their presence.

But when you are not around, they remain rational actors. They don’t forget you have the power to kill and replace them. Not that I am suggesting constantly threatening people is the logical way to go once you have power. But when it comes to transferring power, it makes way more sense.

Historically, think of the Bedouin conversion to Islam. The Bedouin were undoubtedly stronger, tougher, faster, and better warriors than the civilized folk of Mecca and Medina. In order for the Islamic Empire to even come to first fruition, it was nessecary for the Bedouin to embrace a theology of a militarily weaker people, an ideology that they didn't need.

This is an incorrect reading of Islamic history. Islam was the ideological basis on which the Bedouin attacked and triumphed over the group you are talking about, led by Mohammed, an angry dissident on the outs with this group.

Institutions are a human norm, from the rites of initiation in tribal societies to the Catholic Church, people look for traditional systems to measure new changes by. It's not based on the rule of law, but on the human desire to believe in something beyond themselves, on the imaginairy sphere of faith, devotion, and ideology.

Maybe "institutions" is too precise a word. Traditions? Social structures? Whatever.

Whatever? This is like saying “that colour – you know, green, blue, orange – whatever.” If you treat “tradition,” “institution,” and “ideology” as synonyms, is impossible to have a discussion about social organization. These terms cannot be used interchangeably because they refer to different components of a social order. By conflating them, you are able to sustain inaccurate beliefs about institutions.

It's not self-evident that feudal monarchy outlived any individual feudal monarch?

Actually, which fiefs comprised a particular monarchical state was in pretty regular flux. Not until about 600 years into the Middle Ages is there any kind of monarchical or dynastic stability at all. And what Snoweel and I are arguing is that the fluidity and ephemeral nature of kingdoms in early medieval vassalage would likely hold permanent sway in a D&D world because of the way power and demography work.

The true intended thrust of the point was that there will be social structures built before the PC's come on the field in which personal power is not the measure of a ruler, but rather the ability to manipulate those structures.

Of course there will be operators who can gain power without the capacity for direct coercive force. The case we are making is that the conditions in a D&D world will be such that these individuals would be much rarer and would have much less power. Certainly, these individuals finding their way to the top of kingdoms would be profoundly exceptional. As in Carolingian times, a kingdom might be able to survive at most two generations without a powerful martial figure in control.

The fact that the game has an Aristocrat NPC class also provides evidence that people without powerful magic or martial skills can and often do become rulers, leaders, and champions, without the virtue of character levels or stat-boosting items or heroic deeds.

My reading of this is quite different than yours. My idea of a low-level aristocrat is someone like Edward VI – a king too young or incompetent to rule in his own right and effectively controlled by a regency.

Someone like Ivan the Terrible might start out cowed and marginalized in his own court and would have to accumulate aristocrat levels until he was the martially significant based on his BAB, hit points and, yes, diplomacy skill, something than can’t be very high unless the individual in question is high-level.

You fail to explain how all of your beauracracies, 'capable' governors and much-lauded institutions would even arise in the first place, given the existence of D&D-type power levels.

I'd say they were there before any person achieved D&D-type power levels.

What Snoweel is asking is how they arise in society given that there have always been high-level characters. The PCs are not born into a world of first-level characters. They are born into a world with level distribution based on the DMG’s demographics.

Some examples of insititutions that have outlasted individuals:

The Roman Catholic Church

Okay. But we are talking about a D&D world.

Feudal Monarchy

As I mentioned before, you are conflating two different definitions of “institution.” You use the term “institution” sometimes to mean “organization” and at other times to mean, “concept or tradition.” I think the best way out of this is to use the term “organization” when you are referring to organizations and “ideology” or “concept” when you are referring to things that are intellectual constructs with no specific organizational being. That way you can avoid the absurdity of arguing that the following things constitute organizations through which one can exert power:

Imperial Governance
Taxes
Military organization
Public education
Agriculture
Democracy
Captialism
Marriage

The fact that imperial governance existed as a universal idea in the minds of medievals did not bring it into being in the physical world. Much as medieval people believed, overwhelmingly, in the desirability of reanimating the Roman Empire, they were organizationally unable to do so except in situations where individuals were personally powerful enough to give that dream being. But the Carolingian and Ottonian attempts at doing so died as soon as a weak ruler or succession problem came along and their empires collapsed into nothingness within a few years.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

New Feat

Abdicate (General)
Prerequisites: Cha 13, Leadership
Benefits: Upon taking this feat, you permanently and irrevocably forgo half of your experience points, giving them to a designated heir.

Heir to Power
Prerequisite: Aristocrat Level 1
Benefit: A character with the Abdicate feat may designate you as his or her heir.

 

[fusangite]

Abdicate (General)
Prerequisites: Cha 13, Leadership
Benefits: Upon taking this feat, you permanently and irrevocably forgo half of your experience points, giving them to a designated heir.

Heir to Power
Prerequisite: Aristocrat Level 1
Benefit: A character with the Abdicate feat may designate you as his or her heir.

Wow! That's insanely cool. What a brilliant fix, Arbiter! Interesting, creative, etc.

 

[big dummy]

You are saying that there were no priests whatsoever in Norse polytheism. This seems a very doubtful claim to me. Every polytheistic system I have studied had priests.

Thats actually true, at least in early (pagan) Norse society. One of the interesting things about the Norse, which probably says a lot about European prehistory, is that they defied the conventional anthropological model, in that while they had very high level technology (arguably best in the world in certain aspects of Metalurgy and naval architecture to name just two) and sophisticated culture in many ways, they did not have true specialists. Norse people were multi-talented individuals. A given individual could primarily be a farmer, yet also be a fisherman, a lawyer, a trader, and a blacksmith in addition to being a warrior.

Another of the side jobs or hobbies people adopted was in acting as religious figures during public ceremonies such as at the 'Thing' or common legal / governmental / religious assembly.

One of the major difficulties the Christians had in converting the pagan Norse was that they had no local priest class to contend with, in the long run they ended up having to root out individual pagans and pagan families, which is partly why the conversion of the Norse ended up being so brutal.

It's also worth noting that the Norse had no word for "religion" itself.


Of course all this changed once they were converted, society began to stratify along the Christian / Feudal model, you had a professional soldier class emerge around the royal bodyguard ('Huscarls") the Baendir landholders or "Karls" who once had the equivalent legal status of an English Saxon Lord (according to surviving treaty documents) were pushed down in status to become english "Churls" or serfs.

BD