I have once again been chosen as the one to bring a campaign to a group of friends. There will be in total Three. One I have gamed with for years, and two I have never gamed with. The one I do game with advised me that the other two generally enjoy a bash the skull in hit and run type game. They've recently been burnt out on D&D but are coming back to give it another try.
So I was thinking of making it Interesting. I was going to start them out being soldiers in a war between a Chaotic Good Kingdom and a Lawful Good Kingdom. Now this is just the beginning so why the two are fighting is still a bit in the future.
I would have them each start out at level 3 with any core class they choose. Each would have 3 level 1 henchman (they can choose a core class). This would make the entire party ofcourse 12 (9 npc, and 3 pc's) strong. They would start out infront of a 'stronghold' of what they believe to be the enemy kingdom's support line.. But as they go into the stronghold and go into the lower levels they find decay.. (Yea, I like undead.. it's fun)..
From there I was thinking perhaps alot of 'beat 'em' up stuff.. with an ending that shows the two kingdoms have been played against eachother, or perhaps one kingdom is not the goodness it proclaims.. So..Thoughts? Ideas?
Feel free to 'peach' or even come up with other thoughts..but this seemed like a fun idea.
(This is reposted to the right board, I put it in homebrew before..It's to late to post for me apparently)
KRIEGSSPIEL
THIS WARGAME FOCUSES ON THREE CRITICAL ASPECTS OF WAR: THE FRICTION OF WAR, CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION, AND THE ‘FOG OF WAR’; RELYING ON BATTLEFIELD EXPERIENCE OF THE UMPIRE TO ENSURE THAT WHAT HAPPENS IS WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF REALITY.
Your Scenario: This is a known rebel base on the fourth moon of Yavin and your PCs are Imperial Storm Troopers going in to search for rebel scum. You need to develop your conspiracy more. YOu have just put them in spitting distance of the BBEG behind the Conspiracy when the conflict should dominate every aspect of their lives. There should be nothing there that causes them to question what is going on around them as 'real'.
I've run wars before and I can tell you that it rarely goes to plan.
You can't have a chaotic good kingdom! The whole point of the "chaotic" part of "chaotic good" is a tendency against society. The closest you'd get to a "chaotic good" society is a frontier town like Deadwood, where a whole bunch of strong willed individuals just happen to be in the same place at the same time. As you increase population you'd start getting more and more situations where "there ain't enough room in this town for the two of us." Or some versions of socialist anarchy, in which cases you'd have fundamental problems in forming an organised military. Or maybe a really well-intentioned objectivist collective, which it takes something of a stretch of the imagination to see happening.
Sweet jeebers I hate the old three-by-three alignment grid. All the intellectual rigour and world experience of a primary school playground, with none of the charm.
Seeing as you've double-posted, I'll double reply:
You can't have a chaotic good kingdom! The whole point of the "chaotic" part of "chaotic good" is a tendency against society. The closest you'd get to a "chaotic good" society is a frontier town like Deadwood, where a whole bunch of strong willed individuals just happen to be in the same place at the same time. As you increase population you'd start getting more and more situations where "there ain't enough room in this town for the two of us." Or some versions of socialist anarchy, in which cases you'd have fundamental problems in forming an organised military. Or maybe a really well-intentioned objectivist collective, which it takes something of a stretch of the imagination to see happening.
Sweet jeebers I hate the old three-by-three alignment grid. All the intellectual rigour and world experience of a primary school playground, with none of the charm.
Sure you can have a Chaotic Good state. Its called a Republic Senate.
Sure you can have a Chaotic Good state. Its called a Republic Senate.
...or the Articles of Confederation. Chaotic good organization would tend to be heterarchical and devolutionary, trusting decentralized decision-making and individual freedom over a single hierarchy of power and authority. Of course there are gray areas here as with any duality. Is a confederation of independent states, each of which is rigidly hierarchical, more or less lawful or chaotic than a single imperial monarchy which may in practice have to delegate many of its powers to regional discretion due to size? Is the system promoted by a single powerful government which vigorously enforces anti-monopoly laws to preserve competition among powerful merchants more or less lawful or chaotic than one which lets monopolies "freely" prevail? Etc.
Anyhow, I'd get past alignment and dig into the interesting part of describing exactly what your two civilizations are, what their conflict as about and what choices your PCs will have to make. It's never really a conflict between 'chaos' and 'law' or 'freedom' and 'order' or any other duality - that's just your starting framework (and perhaps the official propaganda), the choice should be much more tangible and the trade-offs more difficult to estimate.
Are you letting your PCs choose which kingdom they start out fighting for? Perhaps part of the intrigue is that they win great battles for their side, then find out they're on the wrong side (or a coup happens displacing their good leader with a sinister one) and they switch - but by that point the empire is ascendant and they're going to have to go underground with their henchman, and often take cover in caverns and ruins where there may be all manner of strange bedfellows.
...or the Articles of Confederation. Chaotic good organization
Realising there's other threads on this, I still can't help responding. Chaotic is, on the nine point grid, diametrically opposed to Lawful. It's not just respecting the primacy of the individual, it's a fundamental rejection of law and of organisation. It's a slap in the face to the idea that society can to any extent determine what is best for its constituent members. Consensual organisation of any non-selective group of chaotically-aligned individuals is an oxymoron.
The alignment grid doesn't have to be balanced. You don't have to have equal numbers of entities of each alignment. The vast majority of people are lawful or neutral. Likewise, you don't have to have every alignment type represented by a government type. Civilisation is essentially a Lawful construct and should be seen as such.
But as I said in the other thread, I think what the OP is really aiming at is an authoritiarian state versus a rights-oriented state, and it's probably more helpful to discuss that without recourse to the horrible alignment grid.
However it is certainly possible to envision a war between two well intentioned nations with greatly different cultures. The first is more organized with a strong central government while the second is a loose confederation of smaller allied, but largely independent, tribes, houses, or villages.
I think having the kingdoms played against each other by a mutually antagonistic enemy is more interesting then one having one of them be secretly evil. Although, you could go with an even crazier solution where the rulers of both nations were evil all along and maybe secretly one in the same being or organization. Maybe a council of powerful beings (dragons are a popular choice) founded both nations as an experiment to see if what philosophy produces a stronger military. The council let them grow and guided their development and now plans to play them against each other.
Obviously, propaganda will be important for whatever said the players start with. The "chaotic" nation believes its enemies to be tyrannical and oppressive while the "lawful" nation believes its enemies are primitive and self centered. After interactive with the other side, the players could slowly learn these characterizations are wrong (play them up a bit first though) and that something sinister is going on.
That's interesting.. Now, ofcourse, I'll let the players dictate the game and where it leads - but if they continue on.. It'll probably end with them having a choice between CG who wants to keep it secret but save them.. or LG who wants them destroyed, or atleast brought to light (thus destroying any credibility the two might ever have).. Might go deeper then that if the group is into it..
Thanks for all the ideas.. Feedback is still appreciated though!
...It's never really a conflict between 'chaos' and 'law' or 'freedom' and 'order' or any other duality - that's just ...the official propaganda...
What you need to do is develop the history of the region and the relationship between nations.
Reasons for a conflict
- The Definition of Dictator is: a Magistrate appointed temporarily to deal with a crisis.
- What if the Crisis was a chaotic good government next door that had opened its borders to refugees from a nation The Lawful Good State was destroying?
- What if it was a conflict between A Paladin Militocracy and a Halfling Shire simply because the Halflings have 'weak borders'?
- How about a single state conflict (that would be a civil war) over the change from militias to professional troops and the lack of trust of a centralist government that would feel the need to do so?
The great thing about my politicaly oriented friends is it helps me discern such scenarios as this. This is just purely my speculation and you can take it or leave it.
I would define the lawful good society as probably a mixture of my friend Jame's Plutocracy and David's Monarchism fetish. That is to say, the rich and powerful control the world. Yeah, that's nothing new. But most nations are not founded on it, nor blatantly speak of it like it's a good thing. I see the lawful good nation as a rigoureous battle between rival occupants trying to claim the throne based on the sortof influence they have on the economy, the masses they can gather on their side, and generaly are considered best fit to govern. So there's actually a secret council. Descended from child to child to "pick" who runs the country. But ultimately this monarch runs the state. And this "council" simply picks who runs it. That in alot of ways is simaler to The American system in "congress picks the president" except the power with-heald by "this president" is far far greater, and the "will of the people" isn't even humored.
The Chaotic Good society is ofcourse a united confederatation. (Not really how I'd like things, but would prefer it over the former...) Where the states all kind of do their own thing, and the culture/general feel can change from location to location. Their only unity is in a small but federal power that oversees the individual states. This "little monarch" (or little republic, doesn't much matter at this point) cannot make a decision on his own. He can merely suggest a "universal rule" and then the individual state represenatives vote on it. And if the majority rules, it is a law that applies to all the states. This again, is simaler to America in how we run the surepeme court. Though actually this would be given the supreme court far less power being at the will of state represenatives...
This actually gives plenty to have war about. The lawful good society could tout that the random and haphazard laws from state to state hurts minorities who "slip through the cracks". Imagine a human being incarerated for marrying an elf because they move to a state where biracial couples are not permitted! There is also some states that might disregard human rights concerns.
The chaotic good society touts that there is no greater threat to liberty then a big government. That the states might be flaawed, but ultimately most people can easier move in and out to avoid tyranny, and there is generaly more freedom then if the law is concentrated.
You can imagine because of these vast differences, the general sortsof PCs are going to be different. The lawful good society will focus more on martial classes. Ala: a strong military. Though infact because of state laws making beurocracy more complicated to enforce, weapons of all kinds might be cheaper in the chaotic good states. So on one side you'll probably have typical citizens who've served a couple years in the military vs typical citizens who have access to blue octopus poison "to defend property and life".
Divinity wise, where as the lawful good states are more unified and strict, the chaotic states will have smaller churches. Though there's nothing wrong with this persay, the lack of continuity with the religious faith causes less reliance on "healing brackets". Expect the typical healing visit to cost more in the confederate states... But for the people who live there obviously, the less rigid rules is a god send. (Hahaha. Pun..)
This is just my interputation. I'd suggest you google different countries, different political ideologies, and look around to find what you feel would be best for this sortof campaign. It could be totally awesome if done right. I was to be in an American Civil War steampunk campaign. It was gonna' be awesome I figured. The Civil War interests me alot and that's why alot of what I said kind of revolved around that.
I even went through the trouble of finding out who was historicaly alive at that time and was going to be a Joseph Smith Jr of the binder class. I didn't know a whole lot about him at the time and just figured I'd summon demons and crap for power and "form my own church". I did know that historicaly Joseph wasn't much favored on either side but the north liked him a whole lot less.. But I forgot this was over the net. And the internet is full of pricks who want to cry and get offended over everything. Apparently more Mormons play D&D then I ever could've guessed... The only real mistake I made was historicaly he was like "hmmm, what denomonation should I be?" And God told him "Don't be a tool. Make your own!" And he read some gold tablets or something "Cool story Brah'!" So I probably should've made him a Favored Soul.
Greg makes several good points, actually. Chaos does not necessarily mean destruction and disorder (well, ok, disorder perhaps); a Chaotic Good society (I use the term lightly) would be an anarchy where everyone lives in relative harmony, with no soul presiding over another, while a Chaotic Evil society would be a bloody, destructive environment where the strong do as they will, and take what they want from whoever they want, while the weak likely perish.