You've toppled the King. Now What?

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I've not had anyone go through with it. In one high level campaign, a particularly amoral character had decided to kill a king he disliked. The other players talked him out of it. Which was a shame really.

We had some experience of 'social engineering through leader removal' in a Hell on Earth campaign I played in. That all went shockingly badly. The last time we tried it eventually wound up with us being hunted through our own town by a heavily armed survalist lynch mob.

I've often wondered about the thermodynamic efficiency of dungeons. If we consider a dungeon to be a heat engine for converting monsters into XP and gp, where is the optimal operating level? Is it better to have lots of little monsters, or a few big monsters? What if you couple dungeons together?

That all depends if you can kite the big monsters...

And just what is the calorific content of a bugbear?

 

[Agemegos]

Tell your stories from your own campaigns, please.

The first campaign in my setting Gehennum centred on a struggle with a bad and unpopular (but not at first tyrannical) emperor over who should marry his daughter and inherit the throne. The emperor had his daughter kidnapped by pirates, offered ennoblement and an estate to whomsoever should rescue her, and supplied his secret bastard son with magical doodads that would set him up to win the prize. The PCs rescued the girl, the bastard tried to re-rescue her from them, and they killed him. So the rest of the campaign went on with the PCs becoming heroes, the princess falling in love with one of them, and the Emperor hating them for reasons that he dare not tell anyone but his closest co-conspirators.

Everything the emperor did to cheat, shaft, humiliate, or destroy the PCs only ended up making them more famous, richer, and better-loved by the Opposition (which was powerful). In the end he went right around the twist and attacked them outright with his army. They ended up beating the army and killing the king, though the princess died in childbirth and the PC she married went into the Shee and was never seen again.

That left the only survivor of the original four players in the following position:

• He had inherited one of the duchies of the realm: the one with the Spartan military tradition.
• He owned three quarters of the choice 10% (by volume) of the hoard of the dragon Khlorophane (who had been the oldest dragon in the world until the PC and his buds killed him).
• He was married to the daughter of the last great military genius of the realm, who had been the main prop of the old Emperor's throne, and had inherited the loyalty of his late father-in-law's personal troops.
• He was adored by the Populace, and the Army, and had been the leader of the powerful independent-minded nobles in their late victorious Civil War.
• The Imperial family was extinct.

The thing is that the character didn't want to be emperor, but no-one else had the prestige to make it. He was offered the Crown by the Parliament, but refused it. Parliamentary government didn't work very well, and shortly collapsed. The nobles overthrew the Parliament, and made the PC emperor. He set up a republic and then abdicated. After a bit over a year the Army got fed up with republican government, staged a coup, and made the PC emperor. He abdicated again, and the whole empire fell apart.

Teh next campaign was set 100 years later. That PC's great-grandsons ruled three quarters of Gehennum.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I've often wondered about the thermodynamic efficiency of dungeons. If we consider a dungeon to be a heat engine for converting monsters into XP and gp, where is the optimal operating level? Is it better to have lots of little monsters, or a few big monsters? What if you couple dungeons together?

It depends on several factors: What specific kinds of monsters are available, what sort of tools do you have (the tool called wizards, for example, is good at many weaker monsters at once), how long the daily working hours are, and so on. Generally, you could say that the optimal choice is not one of the extremes, but a value in between.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The thing is that the character didn't want to be emperor, but no-one else had the prestige to make it. He was offered the Crown by the Parliament, but refused it. Parliamentary government didn't work very well, and shortly collapsed. The nobles overthrew the Parliament, and made the PC emperor. He set up a republic and then abdicated. After a bit over a year the Army got fed up with republican government, staged a coup, and made the PC emperor. He abdicated again, and the whole empire fell apart.

Having responsibility sure is annoying, isn't it? That's a lesson the characters in my Exalted campaign are currently learning...

Nice story. I also like the "ick factor" of the plan of the old Emperor. Did the PCs ever learn the details of this? Did his daughter?

 

[guildofblades]

I had played in a campaign when I was younger where all the player's principle PCs had their hands in key positions in the leading guild's that dominated the eastern third of the continent. None of the guild's ruled the city states directly, but the leading guild's had so much power that many of the rulers of said cities were more puppet rulers than anything else. Or if the ruler was not controlled directly by one guild or another it had to walk a tight rope between them. The eastern cities were very large city states and had powerful armies and powerful agents.

Into that campaign setting the other players and myself started new characters which campaigned amongst the guild intrigue and on the fringes of the developed lands. My character ended up getting stuck in the middle of a power play by one of the powerful guild and the opposition by another led to a nasty war. The PCs tried to chart their way through the war with minimal involvement, but my character's NPC girlfriend ended up being played as a pawn and to get her out of that situation my character had made a true enemy of one of the guild's. It was the best the other guild could do at the peace talks to save my character from the headsman and instead he was banished from all the known lands.

The result of that meant he and his NPC wife and NPC brother and law had to venture into the "wilds" which were basically lands that comprised the center, mostly unpopulated (by humans) half of the continent. The few human settlements were often ravaged by powerful Orcish tribes and lots of other nasties. My character stumbled upon a modest sized settlement out in the wilds and ended up saving it from attack numerous times. Not that he was the type of character that would actually care, excepting he really didn't have much of anywhere else to go, being banished and all. Eventually he started a training school and began teaching many of the more promising youth of the city plus used some of his wealth to hire teachers to offer instruction in areas of knowledge he didn't have. After severals years of that, one of the guild members from one of the powerful eastern guild's had stumbled upon the settlement and reported its and his presence. That led to a underground war with the guild trying to take over the city for itself and that war ended up with the agents of the guild being defeated, but not before they had taken the town center and killed the entire ruling council. In the very same last battle, the town leading military commander and both of his underlings were killed.

My PC had been offered the position of king by a number of leading nobles mostly because they felt he was the only one who could protect them and the town. He turned them down, wanting nothing to do with ruling. So the darn fools elected my character's NPC wife as their queen to oversee a new city council. Nearly half of the new city council were elected from my PC's School of Blades. So he didn't technically rule, but every time the council, city, or his students, which came to lead ever increasing rolls of importance in the military and the Guild they council formed. The town became more successful after its military expansion and the extra security allowed its trade to prosper. Of course, not getting sacked a couple times per year by the Orc tribes helped too. All of the other towns in the region asked for protection and then eventually for union with the town and hence the world's first real empire had been born. The council decided to declare my character's NPC as Empress. Which would not have been too bad if she weren't half way insane by then.

Ultimately my PC and the leading movers and shaker PCs from the powerful guilds all had to band together to thwart a massive power play by one of the world's gods. They succeeded in killing all her minions and stopped her plan, but at the end they all fell prey to a trap she had left behind and all of their soul's became trapped. Leading NPC characters assumed control over the various eastern guild and some of the larger city states largely shook off the influence of the guilds and began empire building aspirations of their own. This led to some large scale conflicts with the Empress's empire. We ended up playing a new set of low level characters in that new era. The empire out in the wilds had ended up with some fairly low level characters trying to lead armies and managed the reins of power and it was overwhelming for them. Most ended up dead.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

 

[Bardsandsages]

Well, in one session when a regent was killed, the country rallied around the heroes, as the nation was already involved in a bloody war. But as the war came to a close, the various nobles started making power-plays. Eventually, one of the party became king, slowly moving the country from a monarchy to a diplomacy. It actually extended the life of the game for quite some time. There were about seven or eight sessions where there was no combat, just political games and negotiations. Trying to get the nobility to accept the changes was the hardest part (obviously), while making sure the different factions (merchants, craftspersons, etc, etc) didn't try to exert too much power.

 

[Brain]

The Halfling Action Militia (H.A.M.) from the Jester's halfling story hour had this situation - they deposed the ruler of an island (who called himself a king) and had to deal with the power vacuum. Due to their transient nature, they worked on setting up others to rule, and spent a little bit of time and effort making sure the place was in good hands and the authority was legit before taking off once more for more adventures.

It's too bad that my character who had been interested in the politics of revolution died before it was realized. He was a paladin / freedom fighter (cydra home brew prc) who desparately wanted to free the people from the yoke of oppression and set up a new, better government. If he had been alive at the time, I would have been much more involved in the efforts and it would have been done more thoroughly.

 

[Crust]

In my FR Age of Worms campaign, after the party killed the chieftain of the Twisted Branch tribe (a draconic lizardfolk bar7 in my campaign), the lizardfolk druid in the party, Kel-drak, was made chieftain by right of birth (the draconic chieftain slew the PC's father and exhiled him). Kel-drak thrust the chieftan's trident into the hands of a wide-eyed, lesser warrior, relenqueshing his rule, and strode out of the lair to continue his quest with his true family.

 

[Warren Okuma]

We had some experience of 'social engineering through leader removal' in a Hell on Earth campaign I played in. That all went shockingly badly. The last time we tried it eventually wound up with us being hunted through our own town by a heavily armed survalist lynch mob.

You should have waited a coupla levels, and plan.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Another problem with the "bully the government into submission" idea is that this sends a signal to other adventurers

Right, so treat adventurers nicely.

and other countries that this country can be bullied - so these other people will probably attempt to do it as well, further weakening the realm.

Absolutely, so now loot the enemy countries, first by guerrilla warfare and hit and run raids then when they are weak take them down. Think XP.

A strong nation, on the other hand, will probably (a) raise the killed ruler and (b) set a very large price on the heads of the killers (after all, they do have the wealth of a kingdom at their disposal).

Correctamundo, so hit the treasury first. Gather information and scrying is your friend. And get the crown jewels.