Goblin Communists

[tassander]

If you're in my game, don't read any further. (I'm looking at you, Tilo!)

In my game, the heroes are fighting against a vicious republic trying to reinstall the monarchy. Soon they're going to enter a region where a few half-mad priests of the republic (who are, unknown to themselves, actually serving Baalzebul) are trying to create a communist paradise.
Thing is, they didn't simply impose communism over a few human villages, they also invited their Goblin allies in to share the fun. Needless to say, the whole idea results in chaos, bloodshed and cruelty.
The Goblins take whatever they want, simply stating that as everyone owns everything, they have a right to "borrow" it. They pillage, rape, murder etc. Of course, there are a number of humans, as well, who use the situation to their advantage.
Now, I'm on the lookout for specific scenes/encounters. Frex, when the players approach the first farm in the area, they find that the harvest is not brought in, tools are lying around, unused, ganwed on human corpses, and communist graffiti is semared on the walls. Of course, some Goblins linger around, as well.
Another scene, when they enter a larger village, they will be surrounded by Goblins and humans, demanding that they "share" their magic items and their money.

The campaign is both gritty and tongue-in-cheek...
So, what scenes/encounters come to your mind, when you think about that premise? Anything that's interesting or that's tastelessly (or tastefully) making fun of hollywood communist stereotypes? Or, of course, of real communist ideas?

The group is level 5, and can handle difficult encounters quite well, due to a Chaos Mage and a Half-Ogre Psychic Warrior. What kind of iconic equipment would you give the priests or the Goblins? What critters would you use (in addition to Goblins and Worgs)?

 

[Turanil]

Goblin Communists

LOL! (I wanted to post before this thread is closed...)

 

[exile]

I always like the idea of a goblin archer mounted on a worg. I used several of these in the opening combat of my last campaign (actually, I just put them on normal wolves- didn't want to overpower the party too much). Most were straight goblins, but one had a few fighter levels.

The party burned a lot of action points to kill that little goblin- a frustration for me, for sure, as I wanted to use him as a recurring villain throughout the campaign.

Some backstory I had for him was that he was previously the prince/king of the goblin tribe, but when a bugbear moved into teh lair and declared himself king, the poor little goblin was reduced to being the bugbear's master of hounds.

Your little goblin wolf-riding archer could have been similarly displaced by communism; he might even be swayed to ally with teh party to overthrow the current communist regime.

Chad

 

[exile]

The thought of a displaced goblin princess, think Anna Karenina, also comes to mind.

I worked with a Russian guy last year who, before coming to the US to pursue a career in surgery, had spent some time in the Russian military. I fondly recall him saying (in his thick accent) that he could no longer look a horse in the face. I didn't get it. It turns out that most of their food in the military consisted of oats, and he jokingly felt guilty for depriving the horses of their meals. Maybe you could use that to make the goblin communists a straggly lot who are even in direct competition with tehir mounts for food.

Chad

 

[Piratecat]

(I wanted to post before this thread is closed...)

Stay on fantasy politics, and there's no reason to close this at all. Kind of a cool concept, actually. Carry on!

 

[fredramsey]

They could be at war with the Dwarven Capitalists...

 

[green slime]

Well, by bringing in a RW political idea, the obvious is to go in search of RW occurances that happened during the implementation of this idea.

1) Read George Orwell's "Animal Farm".
2) In order to prevent complete anarchy (what you are describing sounds like anarchy, more than a political idea being implemented ie, the bullys just muscle out the others), you need to exercise control. For this you need a secret police, an NKVD of sorts. Of course in the beginning you have aspects of anarchy, which soon settle down to a state-controlled voilence.

Then on to certain scenarios:
a) Mock trials of "corrupt capitalists". People accused of acts of subversion against the will of the state, who, although they know they are innocent, admit to their guilt because they believe in its ultimate goal, and that the will of the few must subjugate to the will of the many.
b) Looking beyond Leninist and Stalinist Russia, we see the wonderful ideas of Mao: Sparrows are a threat to grain production. Therefore we are going to eliminate all sparrows in the nation. Mountains of sparrows are slaughtered for the bounty on them. Result: No birds exist to keep the insects from destroying the entire production of grain in the following years. Starvation and death abound.
c) Civilized nations are noted for their steel production. Therefore we must produce more steel. Build a smelter in every village. Collect all the metal in the village and work it into steel! What a fantastic idea. I wonder what ma is going to cook in now.... especially since the resulting glob is the lowest quality of any metal known to man. But man did we really show the western world steel production numbers!
d) 5 year plans: For simplicities sake, we measure our production in tons. Last year we produced 5,000 tons of tractors. Next 5 year period , we tell our factories to produce 6,000 tons of tractors. So the tractor producers make heavier tractors, not more. Which are, by the way, useless in the soggy eastern European ground.
e) Because we have a planned economy, we know that we are going to have certain demands on efficiency. IOW, if we last year produced X tons of tractors with Y tons of steel, they (the central steering committees) are going to require we produce more with less. Therefore, we order far more steel than we require today, in order to be able to cover for a possible deficiency in the future. This leads to a situation where on paper there is a shortage of commodities, where in reality, we have huge stockpiles of commodities rusting/rotting away.
f) Because there is no incentive for an individual to use initiative or thought, you end up with directives being followed, but only to the letter, not the intent. So you end up with a year's supply of fertilizer in a mound in the middle of a field, rather than spread out over the field over the year.

So how to implement these aspects of communism into a D&D game?

NKVD, is easily implemented. Spies are everywhere. Apparently the "government" knows everything the PCs say, do, or dream of. Except even more. The temptation to fabricate lies about such dangerous and obvious enemies of the state is strong. PCs try to help someone: they are patronising, showing off their wealth/status/knowledge. They ignore someone needing help, they are obviously not willing to participate in the communal spirit.

Ideas from the above list is that any workmanship is bound to be shoddy and well below par. Those with any real skill have been "re-educated" or slaughtered as enemies of the state. Therefore you have a huge number of individuals trying their hand at skillsets they have never trained for. With no skilled armour or weapon smiths, their weapons will be crude.

In your game you could promote the idea that civilized nations are noted for their production of cheese (Your most civilized nation is a nation of cheese-lovers), therefore all goblins are forced to breed goats and produce cheese in large quantities....

Blame game and paranoia will abound, as will a seemingly unshakeable faith in the righteousness of the cause.

 

[green slime]

In fact, owning a superior weapon would be regarded as being counter-revolutionary, capitalist, anti-communist, and be punishable with death by goat.

 

[painandgreed]

You need a charismatic Stalinesque demagogue (one of the mad preists?) to lead everybody by cult of personality. People cheer him on and pray to the gods for his safety while they starve and he gets fat. Give him some ridiculous charisma or even a magic item so that if face to face with the PCs, even they'll have a hard time not being in awe.

 

[Macbeth]

I just finished readong 1984, and all I can say is "What's the goblin word for Big Brother?"

Also, you might consider what happens when the 'thought police' can use magic to actually read your mind...