Tuesday, April 5, 2011

D is for Democracy

D is for Democracy! Okay, I'm not actually taking part in the A-Z Blogging Challenge going around, mostly due to a general lack of time to post, but I couldn't help putting this one out. Today is Election Day here, and I got to thinking about just how rare it is to encounter democratic or republican modes of government in our fantasy worlds. Most published settings default to monarchies of some sort, be they mundane, magical or divine in nature. However, we need only look at our own bloody American history to find the adventure possibilities inherent in the democratic process. "Gangs of New York" anyone? There are all manner of power struggles possible, as well as subterfuge, espionage, and dirty tricks. Voter manipulation? Intimidation? Payoffs? Manipulation of polling results? This is seriously uncharted prime waters for any D&D campaign to wade into, with a wealth of adventure ideas available in any local daily newspaper. Fizban for President!

3 comments:

  1. From my point of view the whole oldschool gaming and retroclone rule designing are completely unnecessary. Because there are lot of games (for example odnd) and you don't have to publish n+1 vaersion. Why don't you redesign the original dnd?

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  2. @roleplay: From my point of view, your comment has nothing to do whatsoever with the content of this post. I play 4e D&D with old-school adventure design ideals. Judging from the content of your own blog, you're just trolling here.

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  3. @ Sully

    Fizban for president...classic.
    Gandalf would be my choice candidate...over Fistandantilus and Raistlin any day.

    Maybe even Leroy Jenkins can get in on the action. If Arnold can do it, the possibilities are endless.

    @ roleplay

    Dude, live and let live. It must be an awful heavy chip...

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