Kraydak said:
For an average american, yes. For practical purposes... no, Rochester doesn't really count unless you are willing to foot the bill for air travel
(writing on a Mac, so no VTT for me
)
Hey, it's the same state!
I feel that that works for the minimal political effects deriving from the power of HLCs in a butt-kicking campaign, but likely not for a deliberately political campgain... I'd like to be proven wrong, but it sounds unlikely :\
Well, to begin with, people who have the personal, financial, and magical power required to change the world (like HLCs) are not going to generate "minimal political effects" unless they're deliberately trying to stay in the shadows. Numerous examples abound in fantasy literature; Gandalf, Sparrowhawk, and the like can't
help but change their worlds through the pursuit of their own (sometimes more esoteric) goals.
That said, since my personal campaign anecdotes are likely to be less convincing to you (you don't know me), I'd encourage you to read the C/M module series for a published-module example of how high-level characters can be the levers in a political campaign... and those modules (especially CM1
Test of the Warlords and M1
Into the Maelstrom) are all about politics on a world-shaking scale. I ran a hugely political campaign around that module series that was a whirlwind of intrigue and ended with the empire-builder PC (the other three PCs being the kingdom's general, its chief loremaster, and its queen/empress) ruling a vast swath of the Known World and building a gigantic empire into whose future he was forced to travel in order to save it (and the world) during the reign of his great-great-granddaughter.
Another campaign I ran had the PCs establish a small realm centered around the town of Glister (in the FR) and eventually sweep out into a vast kingdom across the northern Moonsea. Tons of intrigue involving the internal and external machinations of Zhentil Keep and Mulmaster, the merchant-lords of Melvaunt and Thentia, and the greed of various autocratic factions in Hillsfar, as well as monstrous kingdoms, disaffected ogres with spelljamming connections, raiding drow cities, etc. I ported over the dominion and combat rules from BECMI (though I would have preferred something more complicated), and players got very, very into how the crops were doing, whether one of their vassals had been the victim of espionage or corruption, and the like. I even ran a second campaign after that one in which the PCs were spies of the former PCs' kingdom's Archmage.
[EDIT: If anything, the problem with running empire-building campaigns is the same one as running campaigns involving endless dungeon crawls: Some players may be turned off by the style of play. Players may WANT freedom for their PCs, and the ability to run around and explore the gameworld without being forced to look in on their kingdoms.]
