Politics plays a much greater role in stories than most people even realize, and that is very obvious in medieval imagination, with all their kingdoms, evil empires and what. For this reason, it is only natural to have a level of policy in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign, especially at a higher level of play.
But how do you ensure that your evil Emperor BBEG actually acts like an emperor and the right man instead of just a bad guy from a child's cartoon? How do you ensure that every nation behaves as it would be real? Well, it falls into your writing capabilities, but we can still help you with some tips.
Ground
High imagination does not pay taxes
Most nations can be bonded to the simple things they need to survive, which you could have done in thinking about your building-such as that x city earns money, what is known or similar. You can focus on it.
For example, a city near the river can have easy access to fish and its government can focus on the encouragement of the population to fishing and selling the fish, creating businesses. If it feels too real and boring, you can use something fantastic, such as having a mining city that uses ores for magical bombs and earns money from their sale, or use it for more dangerous purposes.
Start a small
Another key thing about building a world
Speaking of cities, starting with simple things such as small towns or villages, it is a good call, especially if the adventure is low -level. Sure, you can find out that the city belongs to the huge empire, but if you go big with the building of the world and try to immediately think about all the details from the empire, you can be burnt out.
Your players need something smaller to introduce them to things properly, so the city's policy and how the key characters from the city behave and deal with them are a great first look at the policy of your world. When they start going to other places, you can connect these things with a greater empire.
Focus on people
And their motivation
Why does the king do what he is doing? Once you introduce the main NPC city (related to government or entities that can influence it, such as the Church), you must correctly create their motivation and methods.
Are they good or evil? Are they whipped creams for rules, or are they willing to do some corruption here and there? Will they only call corruption in favor of power, or are they just playing a game of throne in your company? Once you have their personalities, it will be easier.
Make them “heroes”
Everyone thinks they are good boys
As stated, even BBEG Evil Emperor needs a reason for what they do. Yes, the reason may be complete waste and unwavering, but it is something that they could sincerely believe that this is the right call, even if their justification is used to justify the war against other nations or worse.
Every key character of your political game will think he is right and that their political enemies are too stupid to see the truth, no matter how they treat their political enemies.
Give them personal agendas
And well to hide them
Immerse deeper into the topic of motivation is necessary to ensure that they not only have a reason to do what they do, but also what is the plan, how does it happen? How will they perform their motivation?
What is more important, which parts of these plans are public and which parts are carried out behind the curtain? What do these characters want the public to see and how much their public personality is different from people who are in private and speak a party?
Use culture to form things
Let it affect people
We mentioned the building of a world affecting politics, but it does not end in basic geography. If you have given your society customs, traditions and things they consider morally or bad, it is natural for people to defend them in power or to try and try to change things.
If your world has a dwarf kingdom that, for example, despises the elves, is natural only for dwarves who are publicly encouraging untrustworthy elves in power and perhaps even causing a conflict with the neighboring Elven nation. It can even start a narration of how the elves are treated in the territory if you want.
Create more fractions
Choose your poison
We briefly mentioned the use of the Church as part of politics, because religion has always had a great influence on governments. It is nice to create more fractions between the NPCs you created for your policy.
One fraction may be related to religion and others may include traders or nobles. Some may include large criminal organizations (and public persons they represent), etc. Among the members of the same fraction may even exist intrigues.
It may not be a real fraction in a game or guild (even if they can be), but you can create characters that fight for similar things and cooperate.
Give them shortcomings
No side is perfect
Whether it is a war between nations or fighting between politicians from the same place, none of these characters can be perfect because it will feel too unrealistic. Although there is a fraction that is actually honest and just helps, they need negative, such as the need to do things that are unpopular, to improve the nation.
Nevertheless, it is increasingly likely that all fractions will be beneficial for a part of the population, and at the same time worsen things for a different part of the population, such as religious fractions that seek to reduce different religions in the territory, rich factions allow them to ignore certain taxes and charge more from the poor to compensate for things.
To make a party a lot of affecting things
The game is about them, eventually
Whether they are hired, they did work for more factions, or knew too much about things that they should not, it is important that your players have a great influence on these groups. Or that the story revolves around building a certain influence in order to affect things.
Once the meaning of the players is determined, it is necessary to show how much every faction wants them. They can try to convince players that they are right, they can bribe players, name it.
View the consequences
What did the players change?
Once your party selects the parties and decides, it will probably make some NPC stronger and more influential and at the same time completely remove the others from the game. So what do these people do for everything the characters of the players have done for them?
If they help someone in power, will this guy respect them, or try to get rid of them because they are no longer used? Depending on your story, this can be many ways, but it is important to think about these details.
- The original release date
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1974
- Number of players
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2+
- The length of the game
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From 60 minutes to hours at the end.
- Age recommendation
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12+ (although the younger one can play and enjoy)
- Franchise
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Dungeons & Dragons
- Publishing
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Wizards
