Dark Ages Political LARP Tools

[mindwanders]

OK folks,

I'm working on a late dark ages based political LARP system. I think I've got all of the main tools that a player will need to actually engage in politics.

Here's the list of stuff I've included, can anyone think of anything I've missed?

Income
From businesses, lands and parishes.

Personal reputations
Public to the other characters so you can tell roughly what a person is like.

Tournament style combat
For glory and prizes

Army combat
For invasions and raids

Spies
To find out what other characters are up to

Gossip
Attacking or praising characters to affect reputations.

Songs
Attacking or praising characters to affect reputations.

Church Sermons
Attacking or praising characters to affect reputations.

Quests
Hunting great beast for glory and protecting your lands from bandits etc.

Relationships with other chracters
Fealty to kings, relatives, old rivals etc.

Dirty deeds
Kidnappings etc.

[Ron Edwards]

Optional suggestion from Sorcerer:

Kickers: what has just happened to this character that will, in retrospect, be the beginning of the most important personal change in his or her life?

Or actually, it's not a Kicker unless the player writes it, so if it is assigned, then I guess it's more like a Hook. (Also see "Trigger Event" in Uknown Armies 2nd ed).

Best,
Ron

[mindwanders]

Strikes me as more of a narativist tool than a gamist one (the direction I'm trying to push for). I'll have a think about it and see if I can include something like this without getting away from the gamist focus.

I think this is something that might work well, the problem is that I actually want the characters to feel more like they are continuing as normal rather than undergoing the start of major character growth.

I may be better to include something more like a Hook in the the rleationships section.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Those are some good points. I think that a good Hook might be useful in a Gamist context, though - really puts on some pressure. Shall we say a Challenge-based Kick rather than a Premise-based one? Seems like a smooth shift-in-emphasis to me.

Best,
Ron

[mindwanders]

Ok,

I'm not to sure what is meant by Kickers and hooks, so I've moved the discussion of it over too this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12271

Anyone got any other things that a character needs to be able to do in order to play the politics game properly?

[Walt Freitag]

Depending on the exact time period, place, the scope of the politics, and the specific player-character roles, here are a few more things you might want mechanics (or at least how-to background information) for:

Bloodlines
Politically potent claims, based on legitimate or falsified geneologies, for the rights of succession.

Dueling
Alternate recourse in cases where personal reputation is suffering (rightly or wrongly) from scandal, gossip, or satire. Often, formalities for when and why, and how to offer or accept challenges must be observed.

Personal combat
There's army combat, tournament combat, and formalized (public) dueling, which all have rules or conventions of one sort or another; then there's just trying to kill the other guy by whatever means possible.

Patronage
Reputation or other benefits can be gained by supporting fine artists, scholars, architects, and theologians. (See also: military technology; heresy.) Patronage of powerful religious orders is practically a whole category of its own.

Banditry
Rengade soldiers, when well-organized (or just unusually numerous) can make territories ungovernable. Can be fought or secretly supported for political purposes.

Marauders
Armed nomads or migrants, in force. Can be fought or secretly supported for political purposes.

Military technology
New developments in arms, armor, and tactics can shift the balance of power, whether or not actually deployed.

Heresy
Accusations of heresy, witchcraft, or other hard-to-disprove evils can be a powerful, if dangerous, political tool.

Pestilence
Not something any characters have any control over (most likely), but a more powerful shaper of political events than any other force of nature.

Taxation
Income doesn't just march into your treasury by itself. It has to be collected by force or threat of force. Revolt or famine (usually both together) result from unwise policies.

This is just a start, off the top of my head. There could be many more. Do crusades fit into your era, and if so how? The support of the Papacy, coexisting with inquisitions, policies on Jews and converts, all figure dramatically into politics at various times and places.

- Walt

[mindwanders]

Bloodlines
Politically potent claims, based on legitimate or falsified geneologies, for the rights of succession.

That's part of the relationship system.

Dueling
Alternate recourse in cases where personal reputation is suffering (rightly or wrongly) from scandal, gossip, or satire. Often, formalities for when and why, and how to offer or accept challenges must be observed.

Good point. I'll have to write something on that.

Personal combat
There's army combat, tournament combat, and formalized (public) dueling, which all have rules or conventions of one sort or another; then there's just trying to kill the other guy by whatever means possible.

This doesn't really work, one of the stipulations is that your character cannot die unless you want them to. You can hurt them and inconvenience them, but they cannot die unless the player chooses to let thier character die.

Patronage
Reputation or other benefits can be gained by supporting fine artists, scholars, architects, and theologians. (See also: military technology; heresy.) Patronage of powerful religious orders is practically a whole category of its own.

Already included in the reputation system.

Banditry
Rengade soldiers, when well-organized (or just unusually numerous) can make territories ungovernable. Can be fought or secretly supported for political purposes.

[mindwanders]

Bloodlines
Politically potent claims, based on legitimate or falsified geneologies, for the rights of succession.

That's part of the relationship system.

Dueling
Alternate recourse in cases where personal reputation is suffering (rightly or wrongly) from scandal, gossip, or satire. Often, formalities for when and why, and how to offer or accept challenges must be observed.

Good point. I'll have to write something on that.

Personal combat
There's army combat, tournament combat, and formalized (public) dueling, which all have rules or conventions of one sort or another; then there's just trying to kill the other guy by whatever means possible.

This doesn't really work, one of the stipulations is that your character cannot die unless you want them to. You can hurt another character and inconvenience them, but they cannot die unless the player chooses to let thier character die.

Patronage
Reputation or other benefits can be gained by supporting fine artists, scholars, architects, and theologians. (See also: military technology; heresy.) Patronage of powerful religious orders is practically a whole category of its own.

Already included in the reputation system.

Banditry
Rengade soldiers, when well-organized (or just unusually numerous) can make territories ungovernable. Can be fought or secretly supported for political purposes.

Marauders
Armed nomads or migrants, in force. Can be fought or secretly supported for political purposes.
 

This would be an example of a Quest. There's a whole system to handle stirring up this kind of trouble on an enemy domain.

Military technology
New developments in arms, armor, and tactics can shift the balance of power, whether or not actually deployed.

I considered this, but decided that it was a bit too sim. Troops are represented as simply as possible.

Heresy
Accusations of heresy, witchcraft, or other hard-to-disprove evils can be a powerful, if dangerous, political tool.

This is the sort of thing the church semon system is supposed to represent.

Pestilence
Not something any characters have any control over (most likely), but a more powerful shaper of political events than any other force of nature.

Again, something that I deemed a bit too sim for my liking.

Taxation
Income doesn't just march into your treasury by itself. It has to be collected by force or threat of force. Revolt or famine (usually both together) result from unwise policies.

Again this would be covered by a Quest arrising on your domain that makes it harder to collect your income.

This is just a start, off the top of my head. There could be many more. Do crusades fit into your era, and if so how? The support of the Papacy, coexisting with inquisitions, policies on Jews and converts, all figure dramatically into politics at various times and places.

All of these are things that I've deemed as too Sim to be directly included. They can all be covered by the Quest system.

It looks like I've got most things things you've mentioned covered, the main thing is that the system is very abstract, so a lot of this stuff can be covered by the rules, they just aren't obviously included in my description of the tools that are available.