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Message: <blockquote data-quote="buzz" data-source="post: 3899065" data-attributes="member: 6777">Oh, no need to apologize. I'm just certain that the thread will implode if we start talking about Alignment. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Well, I mentioned Reign above, but I can't speak to how it plays. But some other examples:<a href="http://tsoy.crngames.com/" target="_blank">The Shadow of Yesterday</a> has a mechanic called Keys (which has been <a href="http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html" target="_blank">ported to d20</a>) which essentially lets the player define their PC's focus or goals. Pursuing these goals is how the PC earns XP. Ergo, if a PC has "Key of the Revolutionary," they will only earn XP when they act to overthrow the current ruling class.<a href="http://burningwheel.com/" target="_blank">Burning Wheel</a> has Beliefs, Instincts and Traits (BITs), which are, respectively: core tenets of the PC, predefined reactions of the PC, and general abilities and deficiencies of the PCs. Playing to the PC's BITs is the main way PCs earn Artha (sort of like Drama Points), and Artha is a VERY important resource in the game. Assuming a PC has a Belief about uplifting his home village, the player is going to drive for that pretty hard.Judd Karlman (from Sons of Kryos) also put together a D&D hack where the PC's hit points were tied to their home community; taking damage would result in both wounds AND the community suffering hardship. I was just reading a thread of his over on Story games where he's talking about assigning Hit Dice to organizations, i.e., to bring down a tyrant, you take actions that do "damage" to his kingdom's total hit points.<a href="http://arcdream.com/wildtalents/" target="_blank">Wild Talents</a> has an option where PCs regain Willpower (a resource used to make superpower function) by, say, defending their home city. E.g., the best way for Batman to maintain his abilities is to protect Gotham; acting on behalf of his own interests won't reward him as much.Now, I'm certainly not saying that you can't do a political campaign with D&D as-written. People do it all the time. I just think that you're kind of swimming against the tide. It's a central conceit of D&D that adventurers are their own social class; they have few ties to the community and exist outside normal social strata. That's why they can traipse around the world risking their lives in dungeons. Their community typically doesn't extend beyond the rest of the party.</blockquote>

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