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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1711468" data-attributes="member: 3146">There's no such system, nor can there be. Even IRL, there's plenty of situations where the kind of questions raised in this thread don't have easy answers. Why did it take so long for economic and social development to take hold in Russia but happen so rapidly in Britain? Why did the English give up their empire? Why didn't the Aztecs make anything useful with the wheel? Sociologists and historians debate the answers to these questions. So, even a perfectly "realistic" setting would not necessarily yield satisfactory answers to these questions. At a lot of points, the answer will be "because that's the way it happened."As for games, any time you create your own setting or try to understand how a published setting works, asking these kinds of questions is how you go about it. In Shadowrun, you might ask why the multinational corporations were given sovereignty over their buildings or why they wanted it. You might ask why Lonestar doesn't keep a close watch on DocWagon (since so many of their customers are runners) and nab runners while they're recovering in the hospital. In the Forgotten Realms, one asks what life is like for farmers in the contested dales and why they continue to live in lands that are a constant battleground between the forces of Hillsfar and Zhentil Keep. One might ask how the hidden Lords of Waterdeep manage to keep their identities secret in a world full of scrying, divinations, Contact Other Planes, etc. One might ask how adventurers actually go about buying that +4 belt of giant strength--do they really just take some old guy in a Oldred's bazaar's word for it's powers? Answering all of these questions is what makes the campaign come alive and suggests plots and adventure hooks. Lonestar doesn't want to tick off DocWagon because DocWagon's high-level contacts and political power enable them to strong-arm any individual in Lonestar who ordered such an op.  That's why the ambitious LoneStar leader is hiring a group of runners to infiltrate DocWagon and deliver the UCAS's most wanted felon anonymously to a location where he can make the high profile arrest. Using runners rather than cops gives him the plausible deniability he needs to cover his ass. The farmers don't blithely continue to farm while the war is going on, nor do they share the resist to the death ethos of the combatants. That's why the zhents regularly find communities are willing to betray the Red Plumes and let them inside the palisade as long as the community itself is spared. It's also why there are more beggars in Shadowdale and Hillsfar than there used to be and why there seems to be a never-ending supply of brigands. The hidden lords of waterdeep really aren't that hidden; at any given time, a high level bard probably knows who 75% of them are and there's an assassination attempt every few years due to either internal or external politicking. Sometimes adventurers do buy phony magic items. Of course, cheated adventurers have a vengeful streak a mile long. That's why the Boon Companions hunted down every single cutpurse who ever swore allegiance to the Crook Street Lords thieves' guild and impaled them on stakes in the guildhouse's entry hall. Of course, they had to bribe the governer to keep from being punished but he didn't require a large bribe; as far as he was concerned, it was good riddance to bad rubbish and the Fishtown Sharks who own the governer are glad the rival guild is gone.</blockquote>

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