D&D Political Systems
- Thread starter Snoweel
- Start date
Eh, while it's true that a Feudal Kings power came directly from his control over his nobles, winning their loyalty was almost always a lot more subtle than "King Uber-Knickers the 3rd" threatning to personally go over there and start punching people in the face. 
Land, Titles, political marriages, military strength, diplomacy...these are the tools of a successful king. It's important to be seen as strong, but that's more about who you already have on your side than the size of the aspiring King's biceps. Now, having a track record of being successful on the battlefield, that's a big plus in winning the respect of other warriors, and is good for the resume, so to speak. But again, few historical rulers power hinged completely on how many dudes with swords they could personally smoke at once, so I don't see any reason to expect a D&D world to work that way.
It'd be more realistic to say that rulers would be expected to be capable individuals with a least a few levels under their belts, but Charisma is going to go a lot farther than being a notorious spiked chain master, imo.
Land, Titles, political marriages, military strength, diplomacy...these are the tools of a successful king. It's important to be seen as strong, but that's more about who you already have on your side than the size of the aspiring King's biceps. Now, having a track record of being successful on the battlefield, that's a big plus in winning the respect of other warriors, and is good for the resume, so to speak. But again, few historical rulers power hinged completely on how many dudes with swords they could personally smoke at once, so I don't see any reason to expect a D&D world to work that way.
It'd be more realistic to say that rulers would be expected to be capable individuals with a least a few levels under their belts, but Charisma is going to go a lot farther than being a notorious spiked chain master, imo.
Interesting conversation. Heres my $.02.
In the historical Medieval World, you had Monarchies, both weak and strong, you had Empires, mostly weak (like the HRE), and you had free cities, and republics and confederacies, some weak, a few very strong like Venice or the Swiss Confederacy.
The two biggest differences would be polytheistic religion and magic.
As had been mentioned, many polytheistic systems don't do nearly as good a job at supporting monarchy as monotheistic churches do. I think there would be more of a trend toward decentralization and democracy for this and some other cultural reasons (illiteracy and poverty don't seem to be nearly as widespread or extreme in any D&D world I've seen, Disease would be much more controlled by magic)
Magic is really the key difference though.
To be a monarch in a typical high magic D&D world, you would have to have very powerful wizards on your staff and / or a very strong allied church. The biggest danger would come from rogue Wizards (assuming they are randomly distributed in the population) and rival churches. In order to remain stable any kingdom or empire would have to have a strong magical secret police to root out rival religions and track down promising young wizards. The former would have to be immediately crushed, the latter would have to be either recruited or liquidated before they gained any power.
So I would see most big kingdoms or empires as lawful neutral or lawful evil working hand in hand with similarly aligned monotheistic relgious institutions..
One other major factor is the existence of monsters and evil / anti-human forces. Few D&D worlds seem to be completely stable or human dominant. Some huge external threat of nightmarish enemies on the border could be a very unifiying element and could trump other poilitical tendancies...
BD
In the historical Medieval World, you had Monarchies, both weak and strong, you had Empires, mostly weak (like the HRE), and you had free cities, and republics and confederacies, some weak, a few very strong like Venice or the Swiss Confederacy.
The two biggest differences would be polytheistic religion and magic.
As had been mentioned, many polytheistic systems don't do nearly as good a job at supporting monarchy as monotheistic churches do. I think there would be more of a trend toward decentralization and democracy for this and some other cultural reasons (illiteracy and poverty don't seem to be nearly as widespread or extreme in any D&D world I've seen, Disease would be much more controlled by magic)
Magic is really the key difference though.
To be a monarch in a typical high magic D&D world, you would have to have very powerful wizards on your staff and / or a very strong allied church. The biggest danger would come from rogue Wizards (assuming they are randomly distributed in the population) and rival churches. In order to remain stable any kingdom or empire would have to have a strong magical secret police to root out rival religions and track down promising young wizards. The former would have to be immediately crushed, the latter would have to be either recruited or liquidated before they gained any power.
So I would see most big kingdoms or empires as lawful neutral or lawful evil working hand in hand with similarly aligned monotheistic relgious institutions..
One other major factor is the existence of monsters and evil / anti-human forces. Few D&D worlds seem to be completely stable or human dominant. Some huge external threat of nightmarish enemies on the border could be a very unifiying element and could trump other poilitical tendancies...
BD
Any chance you could direct me to some reading on this. Given how anthropologically exceptional it is, I would really like to get a handle on it for my own academic work.big dummy said:
Very curious. Just to get a sense of the time period, what years are we talking about and how broad is your definition of Norse?
I recall Saxon conversion being pretty brutal but did not get that sense of the conversion of the Scandinavian Norse. In particular, the Danes seem to have been a real pushover.
No polytheistic society did. It was a term invented specifically to deal with Christianity and has no real linguistic analogue in cultures that do not practice Abrahamic faiths.
Indeed. Military might was a necessary condition but not always a sufficient condition to rule. However, titles, lineage and diplomacy were neither necessary conditions not sufficient conditions; they were just helpful.Mad Mac said:Eh, while it's true that a Feudal Kings power came directly from his control over his nobles, winning their loyalty was almost always a lot more subtle than "King Uber-Knickers the 3rd" threatning to personally go over there and start punching people in the face.
Land, Titles, political marriages, military strength, diplomacy...these are the tools of a successful king.
In the real world, yes. In D&D, I'm not so sure. The number of people you can kill with a spiked chain in six seconds is a whole lot greater, whereas non-magical charisma skills are quite under-powered, compared to human reality.
fusangite said:
I was actually working on a book for another RPG on the Norse. The period I studied was from the initial raid on Lindesfarne (and Island off of England) in 792, through the Battle of Hastings in 1066. When I say Norse I mean primarily the people living in what is now Norway, Denmark and Sweden in the same time period and before (they are apparently indiginous going back to the Neolithic in this area).
The Norse changed a lot in the Viking Age though, converting to Christianity and falling under Monarchy by around 950 or so, so you might call the modern Pagan Norse era from 750 AD when their new ships started coming into use to around 950 AD when the infleunce of Continental EUrope really began to undermine their culture.
Yes the conversions of the Norse were very bloody particularly in Norway and parts of Sweeden, involving torture and a great deal of warfare. Even in Denmark which was under the heavy influence of the HRE there was considerable violence in some areas. Harald Bluetooth first brough it in but it took another couple of generations to sitck.
Here is part of my bibiography for the book I was working on:
Primary Sources:
Bede (673?-735) Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. (“the venerable bede”?)
Njals Saga
Egils Saga
The Saga of the Volsungs
The Saga of the Jomsvikings
Edda, Snorri Sturluson. JM Dent & Sons 1987 (translated by Anthony Faulkes)
Poetic Edda translated by Lee M. Hollander University of Texas Press 1962
The History of the Danes Saxo Grammaticus (translated by P. Fisher) D.S. Brewer 1980
The Russian Primary Chronicle
Anglo Saxon Chronicle
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh (The War of the Irish against the Foreigners)
Beowulf (Seamus Heaney translation)
Alexiad Anna Comnena
Interpreted Sources:
Stories and Ballads of the Far Past, N. Kershaw, Cambridge University Press 1921
Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology
Norse Poems, WH Auden & Paul B. Taylor (tr), Faber and Faber 1983
Northern Lights, legends, and sagas folk tales, Kevin Crossley-Holland (ed.), Faber and Faber 1987
The Vikings Else Roesdahl
The Vikings Johannes Brondsted
The History of the Vikings Gwyn Jones
Osprey Elite Series #3 The Vikings Ian Heath
Osprey New Vanguard #47 Viking Longship Keith Durham
Osprey Warrior Series #3 Viking Hersir 793-1066 AD Mark Harrison
Osprey Men-At-Arms Series #333 Armies of Medieval Russia 750 – 1250 AD
Historical Novels and Films
The Long Ships Frans Gunnar Bengtsson
The Vikings 1958
There are also numerous good online sources. One of the best is probably "The Viking Answer Lady", a woman from the SCA who did a great deal of resaerch on Vikings. Also several re-enactment groups in Europe have good material available online.
BD
There are three issues (A, B and C below) with this discussion thread rendering it useless and one problem (D below) rendering it a rules violation.
A. The majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are ignoring – either through ignorance or deliberately – the fact that rules for governing have already been presented, both by WotC and by second party publishers.
This includes, but is not necessarily limited to; Empire, Fields of Blood and Power of Faerun.
However, majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are blithely ignoring these rules and chattering endless with time-wasting, space taking clap-trap as though the rules did not and do not exist.
B. The majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are sloppily using terms that actually have specific definitions. If the people involved are not agree on what, for example, the term monarchy despotism means (and further they refuse to acknowledge that they are not agree on the definition of the term) then they are simply talking past each other, in which case the discussion automatically becomes a narcissistic masturbatory waste of time.
C. As a strictly fictional construct from beginning to end, the only government’s that will ever work will be whatever ones the writer and/or DM dreams up as a manifestation of their personal despotic fantasies. Any other considerations are at best incidental and at worst offer the writer and/or DM sport in the chance to stomp on people who have the temerity to disagree with them.
D. The rules of this board strictly forbid political discussions. This thread should not have been started, let alone allowed to continue.
And everyone knows King Uber-Knickers the 3rd was a half-wit, but his son Fancy Pants was a real go-get 'um tyrant...
A. The majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are ignoring – either through ignorance or deliberately – the fact that rules for governing have already been presented, both by WotC and by second party publishers.
This includes, but is not necessarily limited to; Empire, Fields of Blood and Power of Faerun.
However, majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are blithely ignoring these rules and chattering endless with time-wasting, space taking clap-trap as though the rules did not and do not exist.
B. The majority of the people involved in this “discussion” are sloppily using terms that actually have specific definitions. If the people involved are not agree on what, for example, the term monarchy despotism means (and further they refuse to acknowledge that they are not agree on the definition of the term) then they are simply talking past each other, in which case the discussion automatically becomes a narcissistic masturbatory waste of time.
C. As a strictly fictional construct from beginning to end, the only government’s that will ever work will be whatever ones the writer and/or DM dreams up as a manifestation of their personal despotic fantasies. Any other considerations are at best incidental and at worst offer the writer and/or DM sport in the chance to stomp on people who have the temerity to disagree with them.
D. The rules of this board strictly forbid political discussions. This thread should not have been started, let alone allowed to continue.
And everyone knows King Uber-Knickers the 3rd was a half-wit, but his son Fancy Pants was a real go-get 'um tyrant...
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Some of us are not big consumers of published material beyond the core books. So, instead of assuming that we know of these publications, why not tell us a little about what they have to say. I personally would welcome this additional information.The Grumpy Celt said:
This is an interesting approach to non-core material. Why, in your opinion, is it a waste of time to discuss approaches different from non-core material? My understanding is that non-core material is optional and that ENWorld has offered, from time to time, a font of practical alternatives to it.
Would you be this angry if there were a discussion of additional weapons that failed to mention the Arms & Equipment Guide or From Stone to Steel?
So, are we going to become like The Forge and start every thread with a set of academic definitions of terms now?
I agree that there has been some sloppy use of terminology but, as you can see, the process of debate is actually causing us to come closer to shared and agreed-upon definitions. Is it happening slower than I would like? Of course; this is an internet forum.
So you feel that issues of suspension of disbelief and self-consistency do not merit discussion here? Surely what a DM dreams up needs to have some kind of relationship to the laws of cause and effect in a D&D universe, unless you believe in hand-waving on a massive scale.
Can you clarify what you mean here? I had assumed that this thread would be valuable to those of us who build homebrew worlds to think through what range of options we have in building societies therein.
Correct me if I am wrong but don't all D&D worlds, both published and home-brewed have politics and religion in them? Is it really your contention that these elements of world-building should never ever be discussed here? I suppose all discussions of WOTC's published Deities and Demigods should be shut down immediately because to even mention the book violates your hyper-literal interpretation of our forum's rules.
SmokestackJones
First Post
Kamikaze Midget said:
You forgot the Mafia.
-SJ
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