A Quick note before I begin...
Before I begin the proper review for
Dynasties and Demagogues, I need to make a confession: the author, Chris Aylott, posted on the
Steve Jackson Games Pyramid Message Boards looking for people that would be interested in receiving the book as a review copy. I answered this call, filled out the form on his
Space Crime web site and was selected to receive this book for free. Thus, some might see this as a bias in my review. I make every attempt to be as honest and unbiased in every review I write. I regularly go back through my reviews and edit them if I see that I had mis-judged something the first (or second, or third...) time around. I have raised or lowered ratings based upon experience with the book and the like. So, although I do not feel that I have reviewed this book in a biased way, I did want to make sure that this was known up front.
Judging a book by its cover
The first thing that struck me about the book was the painfully obvious play on words being used for the title. The book is about gaining political power --
becoming those that are regarded as gods among men -- and so the riff that is being played off of the
TSR/
WotC title of
Deities and Demigods is not only a cool marketing move, it is a rather appropriate parallel to make.
The book is a well made, 160 page hardcover. The cover design is a tad busy, but still easily read and distinctive. The internal layout is easy on the eyes and well organized. The artwork ranges from excellent (the large picture on page 5 for example) to the sub-par (the picture on page 7). Although I did not care for some of the art in the book, it was all well-placed and served to enhance the layout, not fill it. Some of the pictures seemed more 'action' oriented than seemed appropriate for a book on political intrigue. Still, it was all non-distrating and pleasant.
The open game content is relatively easy to find and is identified in a way that (although slightly distracting) is not too obtrusive. According to the back cover the recommended price of the book is $29.95 -- a bit hefty based upon page count, but overall, not too far afield from other books I have seen. And certainly worth the investment.
A quick look inside
Ok... what do you get within 160 pages. The short answer: a lot. Each section listed below, starting with page 4, I will go over in more detail in this review. The page breakdown goes like this:
001....: Black and white reproduction of the cover
002....: Credits, Open Game License
003....: Table of Contents
004-020: Introduction
021-045: Chapter 1 - Political Settings
046-060: Chapter 2 - Fantasy Races
061-073: Chapter 3 - The Magic of Politics
074-108: Chapter 4 - Characters and Politics
109-124: Chapter 5 - Political Maneuvers
125-138: Chapter 6 - Adventures in Politics
139-155: Chapter 7 - Political Campaigns
156....: Appendix I: Government and Titles
157-158: Appendix II: Bibliography
159-160: Appendix III: Index
The Introduction
The introduction begins by asking the question,
What are Political Campaigns? and by the time it ends, it does a fair job of answering it. The short of it is this:
political campaigns are open, not bound by the walls of a dungeon, keep or castle; political campaigns are about gathering power and influence, not wealth and treasure; political campaigns are about changing the world, not saving it; political campaigns are about reaching the heart of your enemy, not ramming your sword through it.
In this chapter, Chris Aylott introduces us to his conversational tone that the book is written in. He also displays the format that the book follows. The format is clean and effective: briefly describe the concept in terms of rules and ideas, then provide a detailed and usable example to illustrate that concept. When I say detailed, I mean worked, and ready to use.
In fact, the example adventure ('
Deception at Villa Zarios') takes up 13 of the introduction's 16 pages! This adventure is completely playable, requires little to no additional rules, and wonderfully shows how a political adventure is different than a more traditional adventure. It includes eight acts with plot twists and red herrings, five fully detailed NPCs, two monsters, a complete map of the estate of Villa Zarios, a stat block for the local community, and an interesting new potion ('
Winebane'). This adventure alone could easily be the start of any style of campaign a GM (in this book,
Game Moderator) wanted to run. Following the adventure, there is a brief look back at how this is similar to, and differs from traditional adventures.
The closer for this chapter, I have to admit, brought a wide smile to my face. Under the heading
Power and the Players, the author references the excellent
Steve Jackson Games publication
Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering (highly recommended, by the way) and shows how a political campaign may (or may not) appeal to the various classifications of gamers. There is also a brief discussion of cooperative vs. competitive campaigns.
Chapter 1 - Political Settings
The first step, according to this book, in setting up a political campaign, is understanding the machinations of government. There is a list of questions that should be decided upon prior to starting play in such a campaign provided on page 22. All very good questions I have found myself asking in the past (
yes, upon reading this book, I have discovered that many of my campaigns were political campaigns). However, in the early portions of the chapter, the best advice is given in two simple sentences.
The first, when using the metaphor of the play
Mc Beth to describe how to run a political campaign, the author states '
For all this talk of kings, however, the play never gets bogged down in the workings of the Scottish government.' In other words, if it is not paramount to the plot and story the players and GM are telling, skip over it. The second, in a section on painting the set, is '
...just because you are skimming over the daily details of a government doesn't mean that you shouldn't give it some color.' In other words, use even the parts that are not paramount to the plot and story if it will serve to make the story feel alive and real. The full text here describes a conundrum that has floored many a Game Master... how much detail is too much detail?
Following these short pages of advice comes a series of government descriptions. The book covers Anarchy (
three separate forms), Democracy (
three separate forms, pointing out that two of them are as old or older than Feudalism), Dictatorships, Feudalism, Mageocracy (
rule by the magical elite), and Theocracy (
with special attention to games where the gods often show up to reinforce things). Additionally, the chapter covers two sub-systems within governments (
Bureaucracy and
Empire) and how they can be used to add details to your political games.
Each government description is accompanied by a fleshed out community operating under that government type. This community comes complete with detailed NPCs, ways to use that government type in a campaign to give various
feels to the game, several adventure and plot hooks, as well as a look at that government's strengths, weaknesses and methods of gaining power. Additionally (as if that were not enough), campaign ideas are listed to spark the imagination of the Game Master. Honestly, if you are a GM and do not come away from reading this book with a hundred-and-one ideas to launch a new political campaign, you were not reading very closely.
A couple of areas from this chapter deserve some additional comments:
First: the Theocracy section includes some interesting rules for how to maintain 'Holy Communities' (sanctified cities) such as what one might expect in Jerusalem or Jericho in a world with D&D magic. One example of such a city that is strongly implied in the text is the
City of Mithril from the
Scarred Lands setting.
Second: the section of Bureaucracy includes the most devious trap I have ever seen described. I will not detail it here, suffice it to say that although not directly lethal, I can certainly a party of any level (even EPIC characters) getting themselves lost in that maze of confusion... All I can say is, I hope my players are ready to face hell...
Overall, I found this chapter interesting and informative. I did want more background on the governments, but the information provided was a good start.
Chapter 2 - Fantasy Races
This chapter covers how to handle the various cultural and physiological differences the fantasy races have. Special attention is given to the Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Halflings, and Orcs. Again, each is given some fleshed out communities, NPCs and campaign/adventure ideas. Even a new Deity is presented for the Dwarves.
The campaign ideas range from the traditional (
Dwarves) to the completely unexpected (
Elves). The races are examined for how their political aspirations, motives and methods might differ from humanity, based upon their nature in fantasy literature and the D&D rules. I was especially impressed with how the half-blood races were described and the (as I stated, unexpected) campaign description for Elves. Overall, however, I found this chapter to be well written and useful, although I would not have personally used the examples the author uses for minority races ruling over a majority.
Chapter 3 - The Magic of Politics
Looking to history can give you one perspective on warfare. Add active and very real magic into the mix, and things change drastically. A political perspective is no different. This chapter discusses how magic changes the political landscape. Discussions include how several simple and low level spells can be used to great advantage, variations on the traditional uses of other spells, and a decent discussion of espionage/counter-espionage in a magic-filled medieval society. The chapter includes two new organizations and seventeen new spells, and fourteen new magic items. The discussion is intelligent, the spells balanced and the magic items interesting. All in all, a very good chapter.
Chapter 4 - Characters and Politics
If any chapter of this book can be called the 'meat' -- this one is it. After all, role-playing games are about playing roles. Roles require characters and this is where we discuss them. The chapter opens with a discussion on how party make-up is a little trickier in political campaigns. Then, we go into the Rules for Personality.
A new type of feat, called the Personality Feat, is introduced. The feat is acquired exactly like any other feat, and follows the same basic principles. However, the mechanics for all personality feats is the same:
Whenever your character can accomplish something (called the 'condition')
defined by the personality feat, they acquire 1 Action Point. Action points are then spent as the character wishes to either add a bonus 1d6 to any d20 roll the character attempts; or to add bonus experience at the end of an adventure. As a character advances in level, they are able to roll multiple d6 and choose the highest rolled.
The mechanic is very much akin to the Action-Point system of d20 Modern.
Although a character is limited to a single personality feat, there is a 'Transition' personality feat that can allow the character to change personalities over time. This mechanic allows the personality of the character to be more re-enforced in political campaigns, as well as simulate the character's growing and shifting loyalties relatively easily. The system seems very suited to political campaigns, but I can see no reason why it would not be effective in more traditional campaigns as well. The personality feats cover the gamut from Ambitious to Comic Relief to Manipulator to Team Player.
Next, the chapter dives into skills. One of the things that always bothers me to see in a d20 supplement is new skills. It is not that I feel that no new skill of use can be created, it is that I feel that new skills skew the balance of the game unless well thought out in advance -- and most are not. This supplement introduces no new skills, but instead goes into detail on how the existing skills can (and should) be used in political adventuring. This section is very well written.
Then we get new (traditional) Feats. The feats deal with social and political aspirations and are all balanced with each other, although they seem a bit weak in comparison to the core feats, although not unreasonably so. I can certainly see myself making some religions characters in traditional campaigns with one or more of these.
Onward, we find Prestige Classes. These are the Bodyguard, Chieftain, Conspiracy Leader, Demagogues, Diplomat, Discreet Companion (modified from the
Fantasy Flight Games version found in
Traps and Treachery)Information Mage, Politician, and Religious Leader. Each is a distinct and unique 10-level class. All are interesting and well conceived. Most are ones I can see using in games whether they be political or not (I love the Bodyguard and the Information Mage). None seem overpowered or out-of-place.
Last in this chapter, we get to a wonderful discussion of the core classes and how they can be used in political games. Each core class is given a couple of paragraphs on how to use them to their best advantage in such campaigns such as the Fighter which states '
Like clerics, fighters don't have many skills to work with. Unlike clerics, fighters have lots of feats. Their bonus feats may be reserved for battle, but they can use their regular feats to boost their political potential without sacrificing many of their traditional abilities.' It then goes on to speak of a few that are especially effective to the fighter. Very good advice all around.
Chapter 5 - Political Maneuvers
Chapter five caught me off guard. It was not something I was expecting. After a page discussing simple and super simple ways to handle debates, the remaining fourteen pages are dedicated to a very detailed debate system and some rather interesting election rules.
The debate system involves a whole new form of combat (Political Combat') that is complete with maneuvers (attacks and defenses), a political hit points system, as well as discussions on how to role play them as well as award experience for such things. To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed when I first caught glimpse of the huge chart on pages 114 and 115, as well as the list of more than twenty political combat maneuvers. Still, upon reading the material, it all appears to be rather smooth and straight-forward after you read it all and let it sink in.
The election system is well written and can be easily used in conjunction with the debate system. It works equally well for democracies (elections for office) as well as votes in legislative bodies (such as congress or parliament). How to handle faction voting is included, as well as experience for such things is covered.
Chapter 6 - Adventures in Politics
More than a set of rules, this is a guide for political adventure design. In fact, there are five worked examples of how to take an idea and make it a premise of your adventures. According to the author, the three parts of such things are the thesis, the antithesis and the synthesis. Once you have these worked out, it becomes time to flesh things out with teasers, pitches, twists, encounters, and challenges. Then he goes into the little extras that can be added in the form of comedy, action, personal connections, and narrative techniques.
As you can imagine, that is a lot to cover in one chapter -- in thirteen pages. I thought a lot of the discussions in this chapter were far too short. Although the author could not have covered much more ground, he could have covered it more deeply. What was covered was covered well, and left you wanting more.
Chapter 7 - Political Campaigns
When I go to this chapter, I asked myself what more the author could possibly talk about when it comes to this topic. After all, the better part of 138 pages had already covered it. Then I read and saw that it was not done: villains, the relationship of setting to character, goals, power bases and motivations as well as campaign styles had not been covered yet. Chris Aylott covers them here and covers them well. All sorts of styles and campaigns are covered from a baseline and a general overview level -- with good advice on how to handle any sort of political campaign.
Final Analysis
Would I recommend the book to my fellow Game Masters? Yes. If you want to add an element of political intrigue to your games, then I highly recommend this book. If you want your player to be a direct part of that, or even the pawns in the game being played by the various movers and shakers of society, then this book can be a great asset in that.
Is the book perfect? No, far from it. I would have liked to have seen the chapter of governments fleshed out further to include such things as feudal titles and their interrelationships, how various religions might handle Theocratic governments differently, how a low magic (i.e.: Dusk) campaign might be ran as opposed to a standard D&D campaign (i.e.: Greyhawk) or a high-magic campaign (i.e.: Forgotten Realms). I would like to have seen how the various communities detailed in the book might have been used together in one massive uber-campaign. I would like to have seen how an Epic Political Campaign might be handled... and so on and so forth. But these were not in the book. I have been told that I often get ideas in my head on what I am expecting to see and get myself upset when I do not see them (see my review on the EPIC LEVEL HANDBOOK for more information there). Still, once I remove such things and look at the book for what it is, not what it is not, I see that this is a wonderful and high-quality volume that I am sure to use. Still, this appears to be a shortcoming of many Atlas Games products: an over-restrictive page count; especially for a hardcover publication. Sometimes it seems that they are trying to write
Reader's Digest versions of their books without showing us the full thing.
