The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: LlumThere is literally no way someone could hold a kingdom unless he can match other people who would take it from him. King Noble 3/Warrior 2 is going to get wrecked by anyone over 7th level. If people can get to 20th level, they are literally gods as far as people are concerned. It's impossible for a sub-level 10 person to control any kind of territory unless every over level 10 person lets them.  That's not even going in-depth to things like having to have teleportation counter measures, wish-counter measures, stopping a wizard from just blowing your castle up from a huge distance away and other high level magic non-sense.

Very interesting topic of debate.

I'd suggest that a lot of this depends on the specifics of:

(a) The precise system in question and how magic is handled.
(b) The number of high level characters present.

Here's the thing, though: even a very high level character can't actually rule a territory for any length of time unless they have major support from a large political and/or military body.  They might be able to kill the reigning ruler and wreak serious havoc, but they can't rule on their own:  they'll need administrators, generals, ministers, and the rest of the political apparatus, plus an army (maybe undead could work...).  It's possible, I suppose, that they could hold an entire realm hostage with their powers, but even then they've really got to be watching their back all the time.  They're going to need mechanisms in place that aren't tied to their personal prowess to keep everything working for them to maintain their power.

There are also lots of examples in history of rulers who were/are completely incompetent or incapable of rule who nonetheless remained technical rulers despite their utter inability to functionally rule.  The [ur=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_eral]Regency in England[/url] comes to mind.  Not that such things necessarily invalidate your points, but they're worth considering.

Well, as I stated, I was going after the exact example of Greyhawk in D&D.  But it applies to a large degree in any d20 class based game, though to differing degrees.

And I understand about the necessity of the political infrastructure; but the ability to take power, while not being the same as holding power, is still critical.  You point about poor rulers staying in power actually supports this.  It is easy for a super powerful poor ruler to stay in power than for a fragile, easily killed one.  And if a country gets used to powerful beings taking over the country semi-regularly, eventually the infrastructure gets used to it and deals with it, so some degree.

this is the particular windmill I am tilting at, since this is what the thread is about.  I played a lot of D&D growing up.  A LOT.  And a lot of friends created quasi-feudal or semi historical games in the same vein, with the same system.
Eventually, it came down to a logical schism with me.  (and why I went to a game with political and social skills that could be improved).  Level, and particularly. magical power level determines the political power in the D&D game in the normal quasi feudal setting.

Quote from: SteerpikeHere's the thing, though: even a very high level character can't actually rule a territory for any length of time unless they have major support from a large political and/or military body.  They might be able to kill the reigning ruler and wreak serious havoc, but they can't rule on their own:  they'll need administrators, generals, ministers, and the rest of the political apparatus, plus an army (maybe undead could work...).  It's possible, I suppose, that they could hold an entire realm hostage with their powers, but even then they've really got to be watching their back all the time.  They're going to need mechanisms in place that aren't tied to their personal prowess to keep everything working for them to maintain their power.

Well, I'm basically basing this off of some generic 3.x/PF D&D clone. I never said that high level characters would get rid of every low level person, just that whoever is calling the shots MUST have high level character power (ether through his/herself or backing from a high level PC). A 20th level character probably has a very large gathering of followers from Leadership. Even someone with -5 and neutral charisma will have over 20 loyal henchmen. High charisma means you'll have hundreds (Looking at you Sorcerer/Paladin/Monk).

As for ruling, how many times do you have to wipe out whoever is in charge before the people will just follow you because otherwise it'll mean more people die.

As for the regency era, George III didn't basically have the ability to blow things up with his mind, fight 100+ people at the same time or literally walk through shadows. If he did I doubt he would have been replaced as easily. All I'm saying is the presence of high level characters takes the decision of who has power out of the hands of whatever (government, armies, money) and puts it into the hands of high level characters. They simply have too much ability to do whatever they want without being stopped by normal people.

Trying to apply magic as manipulator of physics with any kind of long history as a logic exercise to define the current state of all affairs in the present, and to define a logical progression of technology, social development in something comparable to real world progression of civilization is not really feasible. I think most settings and systems used define the current world physics, history, progression in a vaccuum. Once the PCs enter the game, only their interaction can take the setting down a different road, advances/regressions in technology and all other variant aspects. Trying to define and equal power level that high level PCs represent, and the current state of the world, based on the same assumptions going back in time is an impossible task. I think most of world builders and setting players 'hand wave that off', so its not really a problem. Its only an issue for the armchair GM to contemplate as a thought exercise. I don't think theres a real need to be logical for a game world to work.'

Consider that castle defenses and architecture is designed to be effective against mundane threats, not magical ones. Any high level wizard can bypass defenses, and 'win a siege' in a single nights session - depending on who is defending the castle and what sort of arcane defenses it has. However, the castle in of itself, without magical aid provides no defensive capability against a powerful spellcaster. If playing the lets use magic and logic discussion and applying it to fortified places, architecture, defense design would be a completely different animal in trying to be effective against possible magical areas of effect (cones, spheres, circles, etc.) However, many people play D&Desque games with the intent of playing a pseudo medieval world with recognizable castles. Not that exotic worlds with exotic architectures to deal with magic as a progression of technology and power can't work for some people as a setting worth playing, the vast majority still want to pretend to appear as medieval Europe, more or less.

Should logic be the defining factor in fantasy world building or player expectations?

I think the power level of the rulers of Greyhawk or Faerun are unrealistic in a logical sense, but to be an immersive romp in fantasy pseudo medieval gaming for the fun of the entire table, logical setting development takes a back seat.

While I enjoy developing origin mythos, pantheons and how religion works, the complexities of arcane study and practice, I'm not really trying to apply a logic, physics and a progression of developed technologies to define how the world got to where it is today.

I like to create and run short campaigns to experiment with different defining ideas. Like your mention of dragons in the OP. Thinking logically, a large population of dragonkind in the world has all kinds of ramifications if applied logically. In a standard D&Desque world how dragons have not made the entire world into desolation is problematic logically speaking. Again, if logic is of no concern, it doesn't necessarily defy what one finds acceptable logically. So to deal with such issues I ran two different short campaigns with different solutions as kind of a logic exercise in building a  unique world.

In one setting if there really were large numbers of dragons, I handled it like the movie Reign of Fire, where the world indeed was a place of desolation - a post apocalyptic setting where dragons have wiped out many civilizations, most herd animals (feeding), and the heroes become dragon hunters. In the second setting, I decided that it doesn't matter what color/metal the parent dragons are, the hatchlings are born gray scaled and a neutral alignment. Over time and by adolescents, each dragon chooses a specific alignment and begins to change in color or become metallic to grow into a specific kind of D&D dragon by adulthood. So there was no need for multiple nests for every kind of dragon in the setting requiring vast dragon populations and vast food/support ranges to keep such numbers healthy while not overwhelming the world. In these situations I tried to apply logic to some degree to make unique specific settings.

It could certainly work in a full campaign and complete world if that's what you want to play. In my experience most players want a more standard D&Desque world, and nothing so exotic, which a process of logic might only lead.

Quote from: GPShould logic be the defining factor in fantasy world building or player expectations?

I think the power level of the rulers of Greyhawk or Faerun are unrealistic in a logical sense, but to be an immersive romp in fantasy pseudo medieval gaming for the fun of the entire table, logical setting development takes a back seat.

While I enjoy developing origin mythos, pantheons and how religion works, the complexities of arcane study and practice, I'm not really trying to apply a logic, physics and a progression of developed technologies to define how the world got to where it is today.

I like to create and run short campaigns to experiment with different defining ideas. Like your mention of dragons in the OP. Thinking logically, a large population of dragonkind in the world has all kinds of ramifications if applied logically. In a standard D&Desque world how dragons have not made the entire world into desolation is problematic logically speaking. Again, if logic is of no concern, it doesn't necessarily defy what one finds acceptable logically. So to deal with such issues I ran two different short campaigns with different solutions as kind of a logic exercise in building a  unique world.

In one setting if there really were large numbers of dragons, I handled it like the movie Reign of Fire, where the world indeed was a place of desolation - a post apocalyptic setting where dragons have wiped out many civilizations, most herd animals (feeding), and the heroes become dragon hunters. In the second setting, I decided that it doesn't matter what color/metal the parent dragons are, the hatchlings are born gray scaled and a neutral alignment. Over time and by adolescents, each dragon chooses a specific alignment and begins to change in color or become metallic to grow into a specific kind of D&D dragon by adulthood. So there was no need for multiple nests for every kind of dragon in the setting requiring vast dragon populations and vast food/support ranges to keep such numbers healthy while not overwhelming the world. In these situations I tried to apply logic to some degree to make unique specific settings.

It could certainly work in a full campaign and complete world if that's what you want to play. In my experience most players want a more standard D&Desque world, and nothing so exotic, which a process of logic might only lead.

Not going to gainsay, but I will add on.

I think you are right that even today (and certainly, this was more true in the past), a lot of players when they pick up their d20 variant of choice, this is the experience they want.  But this also is part of maturation process of the Player.  Personally, and this is speaking for me and my players, not everyone, D&D and the normal quasi-military-Dragon Age-esque setting was a heck of a lot of fun.  But as we played longer campaigns, and got into college, I and my players bent over backwards trying to make the socio-political side of the game work. 
So a few of my guys went of and played in other games where the emphasis was on pure adventuring and combat, not WHY the characters were engaged in adventuring and combat.

In the terminology of the Title of the thread, one of the implications I posit is that gamers grow up, and sometimes (not always, this is a game) grow restless with a logical schism between setting and system.

Quote from: Xathan
I think the problem with your assumption is the "If other things are roughly equivalent" problem. Rarely, if ever, are wars fought between roughly equivalent forces. High level characters and their followers can drastically alter the course of a battle, but I think how much so is often overstated, even for full tier casters. But really, the argument that you made is "If all else is equal except for one side having a distinct advantage, the side with the distinct advantage will win."

However, there is no reason lower level leaders couldn't employ higher level characters to counterbalance the high level would-be-leaders. High level characters become just another military asset - a powerful one, but not much more than that. Sort of the ninja stealth bombers of the fantasy world.

I had been working on a post, but this one sums it up much better.  

I do see the point about how higher-level servants of a lower level ruler COULD seize power, however.  There may be any number of reasons why they don't though.  They could have a family connection, there could be legitimate respect, there could be an honor code in place that discourages it, or a magical curse set up on king-slayers.  Perhaps the low-level king has access to something that high-level allies require, and seizing power would piss off someone even MORE powerful. 

But yeah, I am seeing the point about how the D&D/d20 system encourages the leaders to be high level characters.  Even for not fighting and magic slinging, every skill improves with levels, so a 18th level character with 6 Charisma can still be better at diplomacy than a 10th level character with 18 Charisma.

Quote from: LlumAs for ruling, how many times do you have to wipe out whoever is in charge before the people will just follow you because otherwise it'll mean more people die.

You could certainly seize power.  But maintaining that power and using it to leverage the cooperation of an entire realm's political, economic, and military system to support your rule is a very different kettle of fish.  If you're a complete tyrant who kills anyone who threatens his power you're going to have rebellions everywhere; no servant will be trustworthy, no guard truly loyal, every politician looking for an opportunity to remove you.  Every time you eat you're going to have to make sure your dish isn't poisoned.  Every time you sleep you're going to risk a knife in the dark.  You're going to face uprisings, secessionist nobles, challenges, and revolts.  What it amounts to is that you're going to need to play traditional political games (rewarding your supporters, for example, or using rhetoric to convince the masses you'll be good for them, or implementing policy to improve the lives of your citizens, or whatever) in order to maintain your power and actually go about the day to day business of giving orders and having them carried out reliably.  You're going to need traditional generalship and a conventional military to fight the inevitable civil war(s) that will wrack your newly-acquired realm.

I'm not saying magic isn't useful in ruling, just that having sorcerous power doesn't ensure you'll be an effective ruler or be able to keep your rule long-term.  For a day or a week, maybe, but for a year?  A decade?  Longer?  Magic becomes less and less important and playing the system properly becomes vital.  Heck, if you can't govern effectively your realm is going to disintegrate into smaller states/anarchy anyway.

Quote from: LlumAs for the regency era, George III didn't basically have the ability to blow things up with his mind, fight 100+ people at the same time or literally walk through shadows.

That's my point: he's head of state even though there were plenty of people out there who could have, like, just shot him and be done with it.  But such an individual couldn't just waltz in, kill George, and proclaim themself King.  Parliament would never support them; they'd instantly be declared a tyrant.

Quote from: Seraphine HarmoniumEven for not fighting and magic slinging, every skill improves with levels, so a 18th level character with 6 Charisma can still be better at diplomacy than a 10th level character with 18 Charisma.

That's a really good point.

I think one of the points Llum and I are positing is that a setting with a parliament would never have the opportunity to exist in a world actually governed by a D&D 'physics engine', not the opposite.  And to that point, all governments would eventually be used to the 'master race', the level-capable, ruling them. 

On some level, because settings and rules are incomplete and imperfect, there is always going to be some disconnect between the setting as presented and the outputs of the game rules. No matter the system or setting, this will happen-- sometimes, the cognitive dissonance is pretty awful, so I'm not saying some settings don't succeed more than others at being 'harmonious'-- but, at the end of the day, what exists is what exists in the imaginations of the group playing (and that's all) and everyone is probably ok with a handwave here and quietly ignoring a logical inconsistency there to help create the feel of the game that everyone wants.

Quote from: Steerpike
I'm not saying magic isn't useful in ruling, just that having sorcerous power doesn't ensure you'll be an effective ruler or be able to keep your rule long-term.  For a day or a week, maybe, but for a year?  A decade?  Longer?  Magic becomes less and less important and playing the system properly becomes vital.  Heck, if you can't govern effectively your realm is going to disintegrate into smaller states/anarchy anyway.

Disintegration due to bad governing does not explain how low-level people should be able to rule. It's rather an argument for large states to not exist (barring cases where the high-leveled overlord actually happens to be a competent ruler) in this kind of a setting. The expected outcome would seem to be lots of tiny kingdoms under the yoke of petty supermen.

Quote from: Steerpike
That's my point: he's head of state even though there were plenty of people out there who could have, like, just shot him and be done with it.  But such an individual couldn't just waltz in, kill George, and proclaim themself King. Parliament would never support them; they'd instantly be declared a tyrant.

A character who is willing and able -with virtual impunity- to remove not only the present ruler but each and every successor as they step up, will quickly result in no sane person wanting to ascend to the throne without seeking said character's consent. The expected outcome from this situation would be an agreement between the new "legitimate" ruler and the superpowered character, whereby the former, though officially in charge, will be more or less a puppet obedient to the whims of the latter.

Of corse, a similar thing could be set up even more effectively through magical means of domination and manipulation. A character who rules covertly rather than openly, through enslaved figureheads, is a scenario very difficult to guard against without resorting to other personally-powerful characters as countermeasures. The hidden puppeteer doesn't even have to be politically competent, since he can leave the details of running the kingdom to his minions. And should those minions be overthrown by a rebellion, he can simply dominate the new regime and carry on the game.

Quote from: Ghostman

Quote from: Steerpike
I'm not saying magic isn't useful in ruling, just that having sorcerous power doesn't ensure you'll be an effective ruler or be able to keep your rule long-term.  For a day or a week, maybe, but for a year?  A decade?  Longer?  Magic becomes less and less important and playing the system properly becomes vital.  Heck, if you can't govern effectively your realm is going to disintegrate into smaller states/anarchy anyway.

Disintegration due to bad governing does not explain how low-level people should be able to rule. It's rather an argument for large states to not exist (barring cases where the high-leveled overlord actually happens to be a competent ruler) in this kind of a setting. The expected outcome would seem to be lots of tiny kingdoms under the yoke of petty supermen.

Now this seems a very interesting point to me.  For a game, having lots of bickering city-states and petty kingdoms can provide all sorts of campaign fodder.  Two petty rulers conspiring against a third, oust a tyrant from power, come to the aid of an allied nation, etc.  It also means that if the characters don't like (or just get bored of) the kingdom they are in, or the politics, they don't have to go far to escape it.  And if they've started to make a name for themselves, at least one of the surrounding kingdoms (potentially all of them) may be very pleased to have them around, working for THEM. 

Quote from: GhostmanA character who is willing and able -with virtual impunity- to remove not only the present ruler but each and every successor as they step up, will quickly result in no sane person wanting to ascend to the throne without seeking said character's consent. The expected outcome from this situation would be an agreement between the new "legitimate" ruler and the superpowered character, whereby the former, though officially in charge, will be more or less a puppet obedient to the whims of the latter.

That's a good point.  This is part of why it might make sense to ban magic as witchcraft under religious auspices, or at least to regulate it very carefully - and/or to cultivate powerful bodyguards.  One might imagine, for example, a king ruling by dynastic right with a bodyguard of 10th level Inquisitors and a cadre of highly trained Mage Hunters to track down Sorcerers and put them to death, or something similar.

Basically, the heart of my point is that personal power cannot be equated neatly with political power.  You need physical power and abilities (magic or military) to rule effectively, but the actual ruler doesn't necessarily need to possess those powers personally.

Of course, the "mass of city states ruled by super-men" is also totally plausible.