Have you ever considered how leaders in your setting would govern the land? I mean ruling is hard. What would be their tax policy? Do they maintain a standing army or do they rely on levy? What do they do in a time of natural disaster? And what about all those non-humans?
>Inb4 depends on the setting
Yeah, that's what I'm asking.
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No, because it's just a game
Kings rely mostly on property taxation and levy. The levies aren't going to be "peasant" types, though, they're the sorts of well-off freemen who can afford their own shield, spear, and some amount of armor, like the hoplites of ancient Greece.
Given PCs exist, its generally speaking "rule" is a question of either being, or controlling, beings of superhuman ability and using them to quell revolt, destroy dangerous elements [monsters, foreign invasion, etc], and guarantee your economy continues to function.
Given the levels of technology and magic involved, the main skills needed for a ruler is the ability to find and exploit superhuman talent to solve the problem at hand.
>PCs
>capable of beating armies
Why would a group of adventurers be capable of beating professional soldiers? Most people who fight for a living would be level 20 or close to it.
Why would a group of adventurers be capable of beating professional soldiers?
Because 90% of people only play D&D where 99% of soldiers are lv 1 warriors with no chance to level.
Because the challenges presented are based around the danger of the enemy they're fighting. Soldiers, when applied correctly, are meant to fight and win with as little loss as possible, and so are more likely to out-number their enemies, use tactics and subterfuge that remove any actual challenge whenever possible, as well as splitting the meta-game xp by more people.
Meanwhile, four nutcases have been wandering around killing everything from intelligent fire-breathing dinosaurs to mobile, hungry, piles acid or even reality-warping madmen.
Yes, soldiers do at times face real dangers, particularly against well-matched armies and the like, and you can technically have PC campaigns based around military encounters, but at that point you're likely to alocate your most capable warriors and assets (PC Soldiers) to the greatest threats and most vital (and therefore well-guarded) objectives. Think Legolas and Gimly on the fields before Minas Tirath in the movies; killing rank-and-file orcs and uruk-hai like it was nothing and slowing down for things like giant oliphant cavalery/weapons-platforms and trolls.
Then you get the stupid shit like Rider there drawing enemy armies into his own pocket-dimension where His personal army is and essentially taking out an army "By himself" to all outside perspectives.
Nevermind the whirling blenders that several of his other peers.
>Show
Daily reminder That D&D wanted to beat Breaking bad record
"Soldiers" aren't all hard-trained warriors and killers. Depends on the setting obviously, but in a lot of situations "Soldiers" are the plow-shares and farm hands you drafted because your uncle made a power-grab and failed but has enough influence to recover and try again if you don't go shove a pike up his ass with 100 of your own peasants to put down his fifty. Boot-camp is a modern thing, and the Actual PC Level Soldiers in the army are more likely officers, elite divisions, chosen men, etc. People that really do dedicate their lives to it more than the rank-and-file who're there because they were naive and believed in fighting For King And Country, or the alternative was prison for stealing a horse or even you got drunk one night at the wrong tavern and got shanghai'd.
Modern era army with good training and a well funded operational budget? Yeah, most of the enemies you'll see will be likewise dangerous because there's enough surplus population that you can Have people that are dedicated to War as their proffession rather than rounding up all the people working at Walmart, Target, Safeway, and the ABC stores in town and giving them a shotgun, twelve shells and a two-minute talk about how it works before sending them out to take on an Abhrams tank or attack helicoptor.
If you mean making more seasons that drag more and more as time goes by, you are correct.
Well, Season 7 would be the extreme opposite of that.
Actually season 7 is great example of that. Just because they are rushing to finish the story doesn't change the fact. If you removed all pointless scenes that don't further the plot or character development; season 7 would fit in three or four episodes instead of seven.
Still pissed how Dabid and Dabid handled Dorne.
Even the actors were pissed
Those retards unironically think that Dorne is fantasy Brazil. I wish someone would take their crayons away.
I have to ask these questions all the time when I'm playing Crusader Kings.
Yes, because I enjoy the process of creating detailed and internally consistent worlds. This stuff can be a great source of plot hooks but even if it never comes up, these details trundle along in the background and help build an immersive setting.
What I don't do is hit my players over the head with a large infodump on minor details they didn't ask for.
Really
Generation Z is the most conservative to be born since before World War II, and may I say, as a member, that the first people we're going to stuff into gas chambers will be Martinposters. You're a cancer on the literary world and George R.R. Martin is Millennial dreck. He's never written anything good and I could shit better theorists before breakfast. I often do.
Anyone who posts about "Tax policies" should be fucking executed. Nobody cares about economics anymore, that's 2008 shit. That entire discussion died with Rand Paul. What we care about now is race, culture and nation. Get with the fucking program or die clawing at the door to a gas chamber with the Jews. Faggot.
The only good thing you worthless homosexuals came up with was SAGE, so it goes in all fields. Go slice your childrens' balls off or whatever it is your fags do, but leave MY hobby out of it. And it is mine. Not yours. We'll outnumber you in two years and we'll throw you out. Being rid of you disgusting liberals will be the best thing to ever happen to gaming. You can bring a thousand, I'll bring a million, and we'll outvote you. Long live democracy, right faggot-enabler?
>What we care about now is race, culture and nation.
you racist faggot
1: "Racist" stopped being an effective slur somewhere in mid 2015. Sorry bro.
2: "Faggot" is my insult, you don't get to use it. To use some more made-up insults, you're a homophobe and a nazi.
Suck a dick, faggotron.
Maybe I will, then I'll sue your bakery, kikeblood.
faggot gypsy
You are putting a lot of faith in marketing research that doesn’t provide its sources performed in the UK and used to “prove” that marketing has been less successful to millennials because marketing to generation stereotypes doesn’t work. You are then making up your own set of wild stereotypes and applying them to generations yourself, all in the effort to prove to yourself that white-centric authoritative nationalism will take over.
You are literally invalidating the same research with your reaction to it, because generations are a stupid method to measure things. Enjoy your team sport politics, bro.
>Adventurers exist
>Either they get powerful enough to kill/stop whatever big bad there is
>or the king recruits them into his personal guard, providing a life of wealth, status and security
Kings are in power for a reason.
Please don't feed the trolls.
It's actually the Hispanic Heritage Foundation in the US. You're thinking of a study of British Youth which is obviously slanted because the UK's youth are all Muslims now.
Same effect. Faggots will be thrown off of buildings and die screaming as their little bones shatter on the pavement. You voted for it, you'll get it.
Dorne has always been a pointless waste of time, but they did make it worse somehow.
>Gypsy
Below the belt.
There's this little thing called 'mercenaries' who are professional soldiers, and those most definitely aren't a modern invention.
This is why the GoT mod for Crusader Kings 2 is so much fun.
You haven't seen shit until you see King-Beyond-The-Wall Mance Rayder sit upon the Iron Throne. Or more usually his child due to time. It's admittedly a shit show of rebellions and revolts due to cultural and religious differences but it does result in the Asbestos Idiot from the east running into a wall of wildlings and wildling converts.
>Have you ever considered how leaders in your setting would govern the land?
I always write the politics of my setting first. Usually I pick an ideology I happen to come across then build the setting around it.
I got Stratocratic, Fascist, Divine Right Monarchic and Syndicalist settings so far. All quite fun as long as the players are.
If I had a drink every time I've seen Jeyne Poole become queen in the north, I'd die of liver poisoning
Half the plot of my game is political shenanigans, including labor uprisings and trade policy. The PCs are part of a mercenary company that has become the de facto police of a prosperous city-state balanced between two great powers.
The other half of the plot is demons and sex. We have fun.
People like you always want to believe you're the new majority, your time is coming, most people secretly agree with you, etc.
You're always wrong. You're always a minority of hostile losers. Occasionally you manage to unite enough to actually inconvenience regular people, which reminds society that you exist and you're a problem, and then you little trolls get forced underground for another couple decades.
There's also this thing called "money" which they usually cost a lot of, especially when compared to drafted peasants
>pic
How the fuck do you build something like that?
Did they divert all the water away from the waterfalls for the century or so it took to build?
Yes. Also, they carved it out of the preexisting rock, so they didn't need to divert much.
Beyond depending on the setting, it depends on the country within the setting. Even though it's rather unrealistic, I like to make different countries in my settings have wildly different government types that rarely ever exist at the same time in the real world. It spices the game up a little bit. Who cares if the players will never know about all the depth, it will shape what happens to them even if they don't know, and I have fun figuring it out. I aim to make an experience where even if the players just run around fighting human soldiers, they will feel a difference in what they fight.
Are you asking for specifics? Because your question seems a bit vague as a sort of "Hey do you worldbuild?" sort of thing.
goddamn, now I want a Dinotopia game
...
Fuck, can you imagine the noise?
Who are those people?
BIIIILL
>Most people who fight for a living would be level 20 or close to it.
Are you kidding? Level 20 is "champions of the gods" to "nascent godling" tier power level.
At best, professional soldiers would be around levels 4-6, veterans would be 5-8, and exceptionally skilled champions might be 9-10.
>Have you ever considered how leaders in your setting would govern the land?
Hierarchical nested councils. Townships, villages, and municipal districts are ruled by councils, which elect a single minister to act as both the sovereign of that area, as well as to serve as a councilman on the greater city/municipal council.
Likewise, city councils elect a single minister to act as their sovereign, who also serves as a councilman on the regional council.
Likewise, the regional council does the same for the imperial council, who in turn elect a supreme minister.
Ministers are nominated amongst the councils themselves.
>I mean ruling is hard. What would be their tax policy?
Usually simple property tax, but the chain of taxation also mirrors the chain of command. Local councils directly tax the people for the local coffers; the city taxes local councils for some amount, then the region taxes the cities, and finally the empire taxes the regions.
(cont)
>Do they maintain a standing army or do they rely on levy?
Depends on the level of goverment; local councils are usually too poor to afford anything beyond a small amount of lawmen, but some of the councils that rule over richer city districts might be able to support a standing police force, or even a battalion of professional soldiers. In any case, levies definitely are a thing at that level.
At the city, regional, and imperial level however, enough wealth accumulates to maintain multiple standing battalions, a proper army, and even multiple armies.
In general, the Imperial army does all of the conquering (and thus spends most of its taxes on that) and leaves stuff like "defensive armies" or "civil services" to the regions, but from time to time it'll request regional armies to bolster its forces, especially from interior regions that don't really need them.
Interestingly enough, this tends to result in city and regional armies (except for those on the frontier) to be the most highly trained and disciplined, while the imperial army is definitely quantity over quality to keep up with conquest.
>What do they do in a time of natural disaster?
Usually leave it up to the lowest level relevant government. If a grain house burns down, the local council deals with it.
If a fire destroys half the city, the city deals with it.
If a massive storm razes the countryside and countless farms, the region deals with it.
>And what about all those non-humans?
Depends on the area, but generally speaking, the local districts and cities range from "non-human enclaves" to "diverse" to "purely human", but the regions tend to be human-only, and it's almost unheard of for a non-human to get on the Imperial council, let alone be elected as Emperor.
All in all, it's a fairly decentralized but highly structured government. The higher levels don't really care what the lower levels do so long as they stick to the structure and pay their taxes.
Grimdark of Thrones bullshit, it seems.
I didn't understand that reference.
Put on the Middle-Earth Project.
Play as Galadriel at the War of the Ring bookmark
Take The Ring when Frodo offers it to you.
At some point she is going to declare Holy War for Barad-dûr. Sauron is going to be awoken from his sleep slumped upon his dark throne by an elf witch kicking his door in and she going to be all "IT NOLDOR TIME BITCH!" and he's going to be sobbing on the floor "No Galadriel, no!"
I and my players usually not give much of a shit about it.
Noblebright setting with grimdark monsters. It's extremely fantastical and not grounded in reality. I've had enough of laws, taxes and bills IRL...
The King's far away and benevolent, the Noble Houses/Lords all great and helpful. There is very little corruption and most government is capable. The Church is great if you're on their good side, and heresy/burnings if you're on their bad side. The tax policy is nonexistant unless you own land/castles. Your Lord might have some whatever taxes that adventurers don't pay because they don't own a house, or land, or anything. Taxes are low.
A standing elite force is helped by a bigass levy of capable men. Natural disasters happen only if there's plot, hurricanes/volcanoes are dispersed by mages. Smaller things, like forest fires or floods, are braved by the brave and capable people.
Non-humans are all okay except Orcs and other monstrous fucks.
Even then, as long as you have a human on a good standing in your party, you can enter anywhere. Non-humans (and females/women, hurr) are equal in law and everything else imaginable, though because I don't like doing girly voices, I don't have NPC women in most of my games.
Honestly, it's almost never important in my games that are hard-ass dungeon fuckery filled with orcs and other deep scary lootable things.
Stannis is a Dark Lord. how does Veeky Forums Reconcile with that fact?
By killing him in Renly name
Played as Robb Stark and won the war. I executed Joffrey, Jaime and Tyrion and took Cersei and Myrcella prisoner. I impregnated Cersei a couple of times before she was barren. I fucked ten babies into Myrcella. Legitimized all of them so she loved me. I declared war on Lord Tommen and made my son with Cersei the lord of the Westlands. Then I declared war on Queen Shireen Baratheon and put Myrcella on the Iron Throne. Unfortunately her heir wasn't my heir. In the next generation, Robb's younger son was King of the Iron Throne and declared war on Robb's heir (me), for the North. I lost and had to bend the knee to my younger brother. It was worth it.
That was a while ago. The last version I played prevents "honorable" Robb from fucking prisoners. No fun allowed.
>Dark Lord
>Serves the Lord of Light
>Level 20
Oh buddy if you're talking about d&d, remember the scale, most mortals don't make it above level 5, those that do are rare individuals