Most settings I have seen, especially among D20 games, use absolute monarchies as the default for their fantasy realms. Often they also only really detail the monarch and his or her immediate family.
And this is completely sufficient if you use nobility as questgivers or tyrants to be disposed. Though if you want to set up a game focused on intrigue, either as as background to explain the motivations of the questgivers or maybe even for the PCs to participate themselves this might not be enough. Or you could simply want a different background flavour for your setting.
So as inspiration, here are some, but certainly not all variations on the absolute monarch template (which I tend to call Disney monarchy. Not because its an invention and never existed, but most people are probably most familiar with this kind of system through Disney movies
Ways to power. How to even become king.
The usual way to become king, baring a violent coup or revolution, is usually that the eldest (often male, sometimes regardless of gender) child inherits the throne. Everyone else has though luck. That is actually a fine system for adventuring. You have a clear list of people in line for the throne in order and an obvious motivation for the children to be evil and kill either their father or their siblings. Other common tropes are that the rightful heir is evil and needs to be deposed or that he is good but gets deposed by someone else.
Everybody gets a piece
Instead of one child getting everything it was actually rather common that every child gets something, carving up the realm and dividing them among all children. After all this is fair, right? You can't leave some of your children with nothing after all. Sometimes that meant everyone becomes a king, other times one becomes king and the others get land but must swear fealty to him/her.
This lead to possibly more content children who have less of a reason to murder their siblings (although it far from removes that danger. Especially if several years or even generation has passed, but everyone still remembers that the land was once united and all rulers could claim that it belongs to them, especially if the ruler of one of the smaller realms dies without heir). It also has the downside that each of the children now has a powerbase, so if he really wants to wage war for the whole kingdom he is now better prepared for it.
It also makes the kingdom weaker as it gets ever more divided into smaller realms (barring the influx of new land through conquest).
This type of succession can be useful for a more sandbox civil war style game where the PCs are free to get to know each of the children while the king is still alive and later can decide themselves whom to support.
Enter the Thunderdome. Let them fight it out.
While often the succession system tried to avoid conflict and war some also gave up on that idea and instead embraced the violent side. Your first thought likely is having the potential heirs fight it out in single combat, after all that is very D&D and also used in many movies with fantasy monarchies (Black Panther or Aquaman for example). If one of the contestants is a PC this fits very well into D&D.
The historical version is a bit different though (although selecting the ruler through combat might have also existed, I am not sure). In the Ottoman Empire as soon the children heard of the death of their father they raced to the capital and build up support there (meaning the children who lived near there had an advantage). If they managed to gather enough support to be made sultan they had all of their siblings killed (strangulation with a silk rope was the traditional method).
After a few close calls when the new sultan failed to have children they changed it into imprisonment for live though so that they have some "spares" when needed.
I do not want to comment on the historic Ottoman Empire, but in RPGs today this could be used to undercut that a evil kingdom is evil. A imprisoned sibling could also be the target of a quest for example.
Oldie but Goldie
In some systems it is not the children that inherit the title of king, or equivalent, but brothers and uncles. That was often common with merchant republics which did not had the trappings of nobility, thus the family patriarch, the oldest male of the household, was the leader.
The Ottomans also, after their Thunderdome phase, started to have the oldest family member be the next Sultan instead of one of his children. (Downside was that each member of the family was put under house arrest until it was his turn to be sultan which could take 40 years or more in some cases).
While interesting I personally do not see an advantage this type of succession would offer for gaming. Maybe of you want all the PCs to be related and noble without the hassle of one of them being the heir.
Summon the Elector Counts! Elective systems
Kings getting elected was certainly not the norm, but several of those systems existed. The further you get back in time the more common it is, even if it is implicit, simply because the other nobles of the realm tended to be powerful and no one could be king without their consent. More on that later.
Who was eligible for election and who could vote for them differed. For example under Tanistry (Tanistry - Wikipedia) only members of the male line of the current monarch could be elected. In the Holy Roman Empire (Imperial election - Wikipedia) only the (usually 7) Elector Princes (prince in that case means member of the Empire who is currently not the Emperor) could vote, but every prince could be elected. And in Poland every noble could vote and be voted for (and the numbers of nobles attending the election easily surpassed 10.000 Royal elections in Poland - Wikipedia).
Those type of election system are in my opinion perfect for intrigue games. Especially Tanistry or the Holy Roman Empire system as you have a limited number of people you have to detail and the players have to remember. The polish system is too much of a mess for RPGs, although it can serve as background for a couple of semi-unrelated quests.
Downsides of those systems is that often the electors had no interest of electing a strong leader who can tell them what to do, but preferred a weak leader who leaves them alone. And in Poland civil wars happened after half of those elections as someone disputed them.
Limits of power
I am the state
Lets start again with the system most common (in my experience) in RPGs, that of the absolute ruler. You have the king and his word is absolute. If you have other nobles they are more decorations, advisor or people who want to schmooze up the king because they want something. But apart from their personal power, be it martial, evil magic, poison and maybe some personal guard they are powerless.
For most games this system works fine. The PCs do not have to worry to step on someone's toes when doing a quest for the king nor if they have to worry about the king being allowed or able to pay them. And other nobles need adventurers because they do not have much power themselves other than the name and money.
First among equals
Especially in the earlier middle ages nobles tended to be powerful, often equalling or even surpassing the king himself. The Holy Roman Empire or France before the 100 years war is a good example for that.
Under this system a king can't get away with whatever he wants. When the nobles, or just the majority of them, say no then the king is powerless to oppose them (or has to risk a civil war).
This is again good for an intrigue heavy game as you have multiple actors, each with a powerbase but not so many that the players lose oversight about who is who and wants what.
Parliament/constitutional monarchy and other hybrid systems
First, to my knowledge, used Britain you have both monarchy and a parliament with different levels of power. This kind of system might feel a bit too modern for most fantasy games (although if you want to present a country to be very progressive that might actually be exactly what you want). For gameplay I do not see an advantage of this system over elective systems.
There was also the Dutch Republic which was structured like a republic with each state having a representative, but that post was not elective but hereditary. Here to I do not see a gameplay advantage over elective systems unless you want a bit more exotic (because fewer people will know about this system) feel.
What else is out there? Nobility besides royals
Especially if you want to have an intrigue game you often need other nobles than just the king and his family. Sometimes it is enough to just assign them some random title like duke or count without any power or meaning behind that title. Other times, be it for flavour or because of the type of campaign though you want the title to mean something. So what was out there and how was their relation to the king?
One book, in a RPG context, I found interesting was the Knights of the Grail supplement for Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2E. It touches, in typical over the top warhammer fashion, the feudal system and what it means for the structure of nobility, including some edge cases when the king was also a duke (actually rather common) and what it means when you are vassal to this person as king versus this person as his function as duke. All that without being so in depth or complicated to make it unsuitable for gaming.
Duke and Counts
I lump them together because they are just different levels of nobility with dukes controlling more land and have more vassals than counts. Some countries had another level between them, different names and some persons made up their own titles to differentiate them from the common nobility like archduke. But in the end they have no special powers or obligations.
Depending on the power balance between the king and the nobles they might rule absolutely within their own lands, or they might be more like governors and have to listen to the king all times.
Barons
Barons are a special case. When it comes to power they are often, not always, the lowest level of nobility which hold land slightly above knights. What makes them special is very often they are not subjects of a count or duke who controls the land in which their fief lies, but are vassals to the king himself.
This means the only laws that apply to them are the ones the king makes and no one else. If you want your players to be land holding nobles (or at least one of them) barons are a very good choice. They do not hold enough land to turn the game into a management simulation and they also do not need to care about a chain of feudal obligations.
Margrave
Margrave is the other noble title very suited to PCs and adventurers in general. Magrave was a special title given to people, together with territory on the border and the order to make this territory, henceforth called march, defensible. And in a monster infested fantasy world that certainly includes driving all of them off which is basically what adventurers do anyway.
So if you want one or more PCs to be nobles but also be able to go on normal adventures this is the ideal title.
And this is completely sufficient if you use nobility as questgivers or tyrants to be disposed. Though if you want to set up a game focused on intrigue, either as as background to explain the motivations of the questgivers or maybe even for the PCs to participate themselves this might not be enough. Or you could simply want a different background flavour for your setting.
So as inspiration, here are some, but certainly not all variations on the absolute monarch template (which I tend to call Disney monarchy. Not because its an invention and never existed, but most people are probably most familiar with this kind of system through Disney movies
Ways to power. How to even become king.
The usual way to become king, baring a violent coup or revolution, is usually that the eldest (often male, sometimes regardless of gender) child inherits the throne. Everyone else has though luck. That is actually a fine system for adventuring. You have a clear list of people in line for the throne in order and an obvious motivation for the children to be evil and kill either their father or their siblings. Other common tropes are that the rightful heir is evil and needs to be deposed or that he is good but gets deposed by someone else.
Everybody gets a piece
Instead of one child getting everything it was actually rather common that every child gets something, carving up the realm and dividing them among all children. After all this is fair, right? You can't leave some of your children with nothing after all. Sometimes that meant everyone becomes a king, other times one becomes king and the others get land but must swear fealty to him/her.
This lead to possibly more content children who have less of a reason to murder their siblings (although it far from removes that danger. Especially if several years or even generation has passed, but everyone still remembers that the land was once united and all rulers could claim that it belongs to them, especially if the ruler of one of the smaller realms dies without heir). It also has the downside that each of the children now has a powerbase, so if he really wants to wage war for the whole kingdom he is now better prepared for it.
It also makes the kingdom weaker as it gets ever more divided into smaller realms (barring the influx of new land through conquest).
This type of succession can be useful for a more sandbox civil war style game where the PCs are free to get to know each of the children while the king is still alive and later can decide themselves whom to support.
Enter the Thunderdome. Let them fight it out.
While often the succession system tried to avoid conflict and war some also gave up on that idea and instead embraced the violent side. Your first thought likely is having the potential heirs fight it out in single combat, after all that is very D&D and also used in many movies with fantasy monarchies (Black Panther or Aquaman for example). If one of the contestants is a PC this fits very well into D&D.
The historical version is a bit different though (although selecting the ruler through combat might have also existed, I am not sure). In the Ottoman Empire as soon the children heard of the death of their father they raced to the capital and build up support there (meaning the children who lived near there had an advantage). If they managed to gather enough support to be made sultan they had all of their siblings killed (strangulation with a silk rope was the traditional method).
After a few close calls when the new sultan failed to have children they changed it into imprisonment for live though so that they have some "spares" when needed.
I do not want to comment on the historic Ottoman Empire, but in RPGs today this could be used to undercut that a evil kingdom is evil. A imprisoned sibling could also be the target of a quest for example.
Oldie but Goldie
In some systems it is not the children that inherit the title of king, or equivalent, but brothers and uncles. That was often common with merchant republics which did not had the trappings of nobility, thus the family patriarch, the oldest male of the household, was the leader.
The Ottomans also, after their Thunderdome phase, started to have the oldest family member be the next Sultan instead of one of his children. (Downside was that each member of the family was put under house arrest until it was his turn to be sultan which could take 40 years or more in some cases).
While interesting I personally do not see an advantage this type of succession would offer for gaming. Maybe of you want all the PCs to be related and noble without the hassle of one of them being the heir.
Summon the Elector Counts! Elective systems
Kings getting elected was certainly not the norm, but several of those systems existed. The further you get back in time the more common it is, even if it is implicit, simply because the other nobles of the realm tended to be powerful and no one could be king without their consent. More on that later.
Who was eligible for election and who could vote for them differed. For example under Tanistry (Tanistry - Wikipedia) only members of the male line of the current monarch could be elected. In the Holy Roman Empire (Imperial election - Wikipedia) only the (usually 7) Elector Princes (prince in that case means member of the Empire who is currently not the Emperor) could vote, but every prince could be elected. And in Poland every noble could vote and be voted for (and the numbers of nobles attending the election easily surpassed 10.000 Royal elections in Poland - Wikipedia).
Those type of election system are in my opinion perfect for intrigue games. Especially Tanistry or the Holy Roman Empire system as you have a limited number of people you have to detail and the players have to remember. The polish system is too much of a mess for RPGs, although it can serve as background for a couple of semi-unrelated quests.
Downsides of those systems is that often the electors had no interest of electing a strong leader who can tell them what to do, but preferred a weak leader who leaves them alone. And in Poland civil wars happened after half of those elections as someone disputed them.
Limits of power
I am the state
Lets start again with the system most common (in my experience) in RPGs, that of the absolute ruler. You have the king and his word is absolute. If you have other nobles they are more decorations, advisor or people who want to schmooze up the king because they want something. But apart from their personal power, be it martial, evil magic, poison and maybe some personal guard they are powerless.
For most games this system works fine. The PCs do not have to worry to step on someone's toes when doing a quest for the king nor if they have to worry about the king being allowed or able to pay them. And other nobles need adventurers because they do not have much power themselves other than the name and money.
First among equals
Especially in the earlier middle ages nobles tended to be powerful, often equalling or even surpassing the king himself. The Holy Roman Empire or France before the 100 years war is a good example for that.
Under this system a king can't get away with whatever he wants. When the nobles, or just the majority of them, say no then the king is powerless to oppose them (or has to risk a civil war).
This is again good for an intrigue heavy game as you have multiple actors, each with a powerbase but not so many that the players lose oversight about who is who and wants what.
Parliament/constitutional monarchy and other hybrid systems
First, to my knowledge, used Britain you have both monarchy and a parliament with different levels of power. This kind of system might feel a bit too modern for most fantasy games (although if you want to present a country to be very progressive that might actually be exactly what you want). For gameplay I do not see an advantage of this system over elective systems.
There was also the Dutch Republic which was structured like a republic with each state having a representative, but that post was not elective but hereditary. Here to I do not see a gameplay advantage over elective systems unless you want a bit more exotic (because fewer people will know about this system) feel.
What else is out there? Nobility besides royals
Especially if you want to have an intrigue game you often need other nobles than just the king and his family. Sometimes it is enough to just assign them some random title like duke or count without any power or meaning behind that title. Other times, be it for flavour or because of the type of campaign though you want the title to mean something. So what was out there and how was their relation to the king?
One book, in a RPG context, I found interesting was the Knights of the Grail supplement for Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2E. It touches, in typical over the top warhammer fashion, the feudal system and what it means for the structure of nobility, including some edge cases when the king was also a duke (actually rather common) and what it means when you are vassal to this person as king versus this person as his function as duke. All that without being so in depth or complicated to make it unsuitable for gaming.
Duke and Counts
I lump them together because they are just different levels of nobility with dukes controlling more land and have more vassals than counts. Some countries had another level between them, different names and some persons made up their own titles to differentiate them from the common nobility like archduke. But in the end they have no special powers or obligations.
Depending on the power balance between the king and the nobles they might rule absolutely within their own lands, or they might be more like governors and have to listen to the king all times.
Barons
Barons are a special case. When it comes to power they are often, not always, the lowest level of nobility which hold land slightly above knights. What makes them special is very often they are not subjects of a count or duke who controls the land in which their fief lies, but are vassals to the king himself.
This means the only laws that apply to them are the ones the king makes and no one else. If you want your players to be land holding nobles (or at least one of them) barons are a very good choice. They do not hold enough land to turn the game into a management simulation and they also do not need to care about a chain of feudal obligations.
Margrave
Margrave is the other noble title very suited to PCs and adventurers in general. Magrave was a special title given to people, together with territory on the border and the order to make this territory, henceforth called march, defensible. And in a monster infested fantasy world that certainly includes driving all of them off which is basically what adventurers do anyway.
So if you want one or more PCs to be nobles but also be able to go on normal adventures this is the ideal title.
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