ZEITGEIST My Try on Zeitgeist. Comments appreciated

[Korzak]

Hello!

I am looking forward on starting a Zeitgeist campaign with my group. I am GM for a while now and want to start into a new direction.

As i am low on time and dont know if i will get a very good overview about the campaign until the very start of it i am asking you if my idea of the "feeling" - the interpretation of the game world doesnt contradicts the heart of the campaign. I am planning to play the campaign but with a few changes (perhaps none as i dont know exactly how others play the campaign)

My idea is that Risur is a militaristic lead government with very hard punishments on Betrayal, Theft or anything like it. The people of Risur are mostly poor workers who suffer a lot from bad Hygiene and sickness (Syphilis, Rickets (working under the earth) and hunger). They are loyal to the system as it is demanded of them. The social problems are increasing and some people are not accepting their fate but they are a minority as the rest is surpressed effectively.

The group starts as one of those poor people, having a job like the rest and then start to be part of the system itself with all of the advantages like good health care, meals and rights over large parts of the people.
They are lead with a iron hand and need to be committed to the system and absolutely loyal - at least in the beginning until they start to grow more powerful.

They have the option to choose an evil alignment (lawful or neutral but not chaotic) since the government itself is very pragmatic in the ways it chooses to stop crime and betrayal. It is left to the party if they themselves commit repressive crimes or not. But everything they do is itself looked at very critically as the government doesnt want to surpress the community too much or to let injustice reign over the people of Risuri (reasonable arguments can even be made to justify a system like the distrustful system as described).

The people of Risuri itself are stoically accepting their fate as they are hard to themselves, they are not only working hard, they are also systematically checked over like the people in the DDR by the the Ministry for State Security (germany).

I would appreciate your opinion or critics as i think most of the more experienced GMs -especially with Zeitgeist -here can tell me if this idea can be followed or has to be changed.


Thanks a lot in advance

 

[hirou]

First, I think you've just described Danor in some areas
Second, it's somewhat integral to adventure 9 that Risuri king is "representative" of Risuri people, with his power tied to his approval by the nation. You can change it so that this "power support" is forced instead of natural, but IMHO the original version feels interesting enough.
Third, you didn't tell why exactly do you want to play with such environment. If it's all done so that party can switch to Obscurati at some point, the default setting already allows such a transition (I suspect at least 2 of my 5 players will be sympathetic to Ob's goals).

Before starting the campaign I've thought about portraying Risuri government as a bit more sinister, and decided that nothing actually has to be changed to achieve that, it all depends on accents and how you present the facts. Just straight on facts:
-Risur was at almost constant war with its neighbors for the last 500 years (with wars mostly "justified" as self-defence) against culturally weaker nation (Ber with relatively primitive army) and a nation with significant militaristic handicap (Danor with no magic weapons);
-there's nothing about wars with Crissiliur... except it's not totally clear on which side Risur was in wars against Eifaivar (perhaps Risur saw an opportunity for expansion to north...), and Crissiliur privateers are more than happy to attack Risuri ships (adventure 3 and later can support that), you can paint some political tension from here;
-Flint government repeatedly ignore workers' protests against harsh conditions and injustice from wealthy factory owners;
-Risur king talks about peace treaty from the board of perhaps the most powerful military ship in the world... this can be interpreted as almost mockery;
-RHC constables spend the exorbitant amounts of money for "equipment"; compare the salary of 4ed middle-class (hundreds of gp tops) and RHC constables stipend, they're basically robbing the nation!
-and so on.

Altogether, I think there's enough grounds for making Risur "a wolf in sheep's skin" of a sort, militaristic nation with strong government, which at the same time paints itself as peaceful pastoral country (btw, I didn't even mention ritualistic druidic sacrifices...). In the end I decided that all of the mentioned above will be presented to party from the foreigners, so the players themselves can decide how much of this is anti-Risuri propaganda and how much is true.

 

[Korzak]

Thanks a lot, thats a very helpful answer. I think i will use your advice.

What do you think about the aligment? Should i allow evil alignments (except chaotic ones) - if i do i will demand from the players that they are not spread too much into alignments (they would have to choose a common group of possible alignments).

Perhaps you can give me additionally some advice for preventing the players to be too much into only strong in fighting. Right now i have got some very strong highlevel characters in my campaign (Pathfinder) with very much damage but nearly no utility and skills.

I will talk to them at the start of the Zeitgeist campaign but i think the pure focus on fighting is something i have to restrict more heavily as it is very much on their minds that only a character with high damage-per-second is a good one (former MMO players ...).

Regards

 

[RangerWickett]

On that last note, I always recommend making characters as a group. Have the players sit together to brainstorm their PCs, and you should start off by saying that characters will only be acceptable if they would be a useful part of the RHC. That means that, before designing combat abilities, the players should give each PC some talents useful for investigation.

 

[RangerWickett]

Altogether, I think there's enough grounds for making Risur "a wolf in sheep's skin" of a sort, militaristic nation with strong government, which at the same time paints itself as peaceful pastoral country (btw, I didn't even mention ritualistic druidic sacrifices...). In the end I decided that all of the mentioned above will be presented to party from the foreigners, so the players themselves can decide how much of this is anti-Risuri propaganda and how much is true.

Man, you are exposing my psyche in ways that make me a teensy uncomfortable. I might actually steal this and put it in the mouth of the Obscurati.

 

[hirou]

What do you think about the aligment? Should i allow evil alignments (except chaotic ones) - if i do i will demand from the players that they are not spread too much into alignments (they would have to choose a common group of possible alignments).

Honestly, all my parties with inclusion of evil-aligned PC either end up good, or spiral into counter-productive backstabbing, shouting and drama. Once again, it all depends on what exactly do you want to achieve by that; most of the people are actually NOT ok with torture, murder and so on, once given some detailed descriptions. Just as a note, there're a couple of unquestionably evil NPC in adventure 4 (Eleonor, her buyers, Boone), which serve as a warning to what hunger for power can lead to.

Perhaps you can give me additionally some advice for preventing the players to be too much into only strong in fighting. Right now i have got some very strong highlevel characters in my campaign (Pathfinder) with very much damage but nearly no utility and skills.

Are you playing Pathfinder version? I'm not actually that familiar with it, unfortunately... You may try to use the opening scenes to show them that RHC agents are supposed to prevent fighting, not excel in it (i.e. they fail to find the disgrunted dockers in the crowd and end up putting them down right in front of the king and governor, which earn them some stern talking from Delft).

Man, you are exposing my psyche in ways that make me a teensy uncomfortable. I might actually steal this and put it in the mouth of the Obscurati.

Glad to be of help.

 

[hirou]

Another piece of food for thought (as above, this is "point-of-view" information, which may or may not be close to truth):

2000 years ago Kelland basically banished fey lords to the Dreaming and, in typical fey way, they will never forgot this. Unseen Court is both a closest friend and an eternal enemy to Risur, graciously accepting tribute and bestowing boons but always looking for an opportunity to invoke Kelland's Rites and take what they consider their own by force.

But for the past several centuries Risuri kings had a hidden ally which helps striking a delicate balance with Court. The secretive organization which declares a noble and just goal of protecting the weak, declining to be restricted by common law, which has tight connections with Fey Realm, which mildly opposes technological breakthroughs and loathes Danor and Crissilyir - Vekeshi mystics. By fey logic, i.e. occasional murdering of Crissilyir cleric by the hand of the goddess counts as a gift to Court as long as it's done by citizen of Risur and withing Risur borders. This way most of Vekeshi operations can be presented as favors from Risur to the Unseen lords, and, together with the innate fragmentation and debates within the Court, this is enough to prevent the possible war (which would be disastrous to humans as fey army can appear almost anywhere; this would truly be a war without front). Because of this Vekeshi mystics are secretly supported by government, and RHC agents almost never exert themselves hunting the elusive white-masked killers. Some even could say that mystics occupy high-ranked positions within RHC itself and other places of power (although king himself is surely too closely watched to be an initiate).

On the other hand, should the way of peace fail (which is likely due to impeding treaty with Danor), monarchs of Risur have long been searching for the way to fully extort fey from Risur, this plane or another, by total extermination, if so needed. The main "weapons of mass destruction" of the Court are, of course, fey titans, which, if fully awoken, could annihilate armies in an instant. What could possibly oppose, say, a hundred-feet kraken, able to crush whole ships in his grasp?.. Why, a 300-feet golem would be very useful in this case. And while engineers under Cauldron Hill think that the golem is intended for war with Danor, Leone Quital knows that it is a result of international effort to kill 5 colossi too dangerous to be left in this world. The project was likely started by Aodan's predecessor or some king even before that, and is still secretly overseen by Katrin Romana, his descendant. The current king may actually be left in dark, as his involvement, if discovered, would undoubtely lead to an immediate declaration of war from the Unseen Court.

All of the above stemmed from a single line in Campaign guide, which states that Leone Quital doesn't know the true goals of Obscurati. Only after adventure 5 he will likely be contacted by Nicodemus and fully enlisted, so before that he's able to whole-heartedly convince the party that this whole time they were in fact ruining top secret military project, just as McBannin told them.

 

[ediz]

HI, in response to the evil question. In my game, one of the characters was Lawful Evil and he fit in pretty well with the rest. Alas, he was killed when the waves of Axis island overcame the lighthouse and washed him out to sea. NE would be almost too apathetic to work for the RHC and CE wouldn't have anything to do with them at all.

I really like the grayness of the AP, especially Adv 2. Nilesa IMHO deserved to get got...