Renrik
2011-04-30, 05:22 PM
Heya, playground, it's me, back from a long, long absence,
Now, this is a discussion that could easily touch on some controversial politics, so I want to lay down the ground rule that the politics here are indeed driving the campaign I'm working on and contextualizing the action, but that the goal here is to discuss how to construct the campaign, NOT the validity of the political ideas. We're all trying to avoid discussions of politics here- it's forum rules, and it's a good rule to avoid the forum getting polarized and at each other's throats. We need a place to relax without hot button issues setting people off. So no political arguments, only the discussion of how to construct the campaign for the feel I'm trying to get here.
So, last time I visited the forums, I was running a game set in the Eldeen Reaches fighting an invasion of the Aundarian military, in a campaign that had a lot of political themes that ran the gamut from anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism (the Aundarians invading), to right-libertarianism and Jeffersonian republicanism (small farmers telling the King to leave them alone), to environmentalism of all sorts (druids, the Aundarian plans for the Reaches, and the farmer's objections to some of these plans), to racism and religious fundamentalism (hardline Silver Flamers committing genocide on shifters, hardline Ashbound killing Aundarian settlers) to ethical questions regarding terrorism (the players eventually resorted to attacking economic and military targets in Aundair), to some aspects of land reform and agrarian leftism, to a whole sort of criticism of the duplicitousness of foreign policy decisions by major powers towards resource-rich but militarily weak nations (because all of the five nations started meddling and supporting different factions). It was all interesting, and it was good because the group I'm playing with these days is pretty strongly political. It also didn't present much of a challenge, because it was pretty straightforward how we played it; the group was a guerilla band alternating between fighting large albeit not-always-conventional battles against the army, to doing covert actions.
I'm having new challenges, however, with the campaign we want to do next; we've already done a lot of rural struggle, but now we're trying to figure out how to do a game where they play radicals in an urban setting-namely, Sharn.
Again, before we continue, a reminder that we're not discussing the actual politics here, only how to get the feel I as the dungeon master am looking for in this campaign. We're about to get into some seriously Marxist stuff here, so if you don't feel you can talk about that without getting into a discussion on the politics themselves, turn back!
The basic premise is that it's after the Last War, and the inventing power of the Houses has been used to create new technologies that challenge their own economic power, and indeed the whole social order (in other words, an industrial revolution of sorts using magitech). Meanwhile, the returning veterans of the war and displaced Cyran refugees swell the ranks of the poor, artisan businesses are being driven under by the power of the machines, and the warforged are putting a squeeze on the working class by offering their services for almost nothing. Sharn is the epicenter of these new, sweeping changes. While the main political movement is the movement to replace the monarchy with a Republic (a movement that has gotten much more influential thanks to the support of non-noble businessmen getting in on the new economic power), a new, radical movement is forming within the bowels of Sharn and finding voice among University students; a movement for the abolition of the current system of property, and the installation of a socialist or syndicalist worker's society.
The reason I'm having trouble is because I don't want to do this in the way we did the last one- with the players being guerillas. I want to have this be an adventure, but still have it be somewhat true to how revolutions are played out- by creating popular support, building dual power, etc etc etc. I want the aesthetic to be more 'we are part of a huge movement, check out the squares filled with our angry friends', and less 'we are the elite vanguard of the revolution changing the world one assassination at a time'. There can and probably will be some 'propaganda of the deed' missions, but I'm looking to include some more big, sweeping crowd scenes, and get the sort of feel you get watching one of those big social epic films. I'm just having trouble trying to construct the adventures to get the feel I want while still having good D&D.
So, any suggestions? How would you run this sort of game?
Now, this is a discussion that could easily touch on some controversial politics, so I want to lay down the ground rule that the politics here are indeed driving the campaign I'm working on and contextualizing the action, but that the goal here is to discuss how to construct the campaign, NOT the validity of the political ideas. We're all trying to avoid discussions of politics here- it's forum rules, and it's a good rule to avoid the forum getting polarized and at each other's throats. We need a place to relax without hot button issues setting people off. So no political arguments, only the discussion of how to construct the campaign for the feel I'm trying to get here.
So, last time I visited the forums, I was running a game set in the Eldeen Reaches fighting an invasion of the Aundarian military, in a campaign that had a lot of political themes that ran the gamut from anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism (the Aundarians invading), to right-libertarianism and Jeffersonian republicanism (small farmers telling the King to leave them alone), to environmentalism of all sorts (druids, the Aundarian plans for the Reaches, and the farmer's objections to some of these plans), to racism and religious fundamentalism (hardline Silver Flamers committing genocide on shifters, hardline Ashbound killing Aundarian settlers) to ethical questions regarding terrorism (the players eventually resorted to attacking economic and military targets in Aundair), to some aspects of land reform and agrarian leftism, to a whole sort of criticism of the duplicitousness of foreign policy decisions by major powers towards resource-rich but militarily weak nations (because all of the five nations started meddling and supporting different factions). It was all interesting, and it was good because the group I'm playing with these days is pretty strongly political. It also didn't present much of a challenge, because it was pretty straightforward how we played it; the group was a guerilla band alternating between fighting large albeit not-always-conventional battles against the army, to doing covert actions.
I'm having new challenges, however, with the campaign we want to do next; we've already done a lot of rural struggle, but now we're trying to figure out how to do a game where they play radicals in an urban setting-namely, Sharn.
Again, before we continue, a reminder that we're not discussing the actual politics here, only how to get the feel I as the dungeon master am looking for in this campaign. We're about to get into some seriously Marxist stuff here, so if you don't feel you can talk about that without getting into a discussion on the politics themselves, turn back!
The basic premise is that it's after the Last War, and the inventing power of the Houses has been used to create new technologies that challenge their own economic power, and indeed the whole social order (in other words, an industrial revolution of sorts using magitech). Meanwhile, the returning veterans of the war and displaced Cyran refugees swell the ranks of the poor, artisan businesses are being driven under by the power of the machines, and the warforged are putting a squeeze on the working class by offering their services for almost nothing. Sharn is the epicenter of these new, sweeping changes. While the main political movement is the movement to replace the monarchy with a Republic (a movement that has gotten much more influential thanks to the support of non-noble businessmen getting in on the new economic power), a new, radical movement is forming within the bowels of Sharn and finding voice among University students; a movement for the abolition of the current system of property, and the installation of a socialist or syndicalist worker's society.
The reason I'm having trouble is because I don't want to do this in the way we did the last one- with the players being guerillas. I want to have this be an adventure, but still have it be somewhat true to how revolutions are played out- by creating popular support, building dual power, etc etc etc. I want the aesthetic to be more 'we are part of a huge movement, check out the squares filled with our angry friends', and less 'we are the elite vanguard of the revolution changing the world one assassination at a time'. There can and probably will be some 'propaganda of the deed' missions, but I'm looking to include some more big, sweeping crowd scenes, and get the sort of feel you get watching one of those big social epic films. I'm just having trouble trying to construct the adventures to get the feel I want while still having good D&D.
So, any suggestions? How would you run this sort of game?