Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 132 - Democracies in RPGs

Episode Date: July 10, 2022

Democracies are largely prevalent on planet earth but you hardly ever see them in an RPG setting.  In this episode, Jeremy discusses why RPGs are rare, the positive and negative aspects of a magical or futuristic society that can be emphasized by a democracy and the logistical challenges of designing a democracy for your game world.   #Pathfinder #DungeonsandDragons #RPG #DnD #Andoran

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. Direct democracies tend to not scale well, and they can become logistical nightmares in areas with large populations or empires that are spread over diverse geographical areas. But representative democracies are more easily corrupted and can lead to elected representatives voting for causes that contribute more money to their campaign than voting for those issues that would better benefit their constituents. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 132 of the Taking20 podcast, this week talking about democracies and RPGs. This week's sponsor, clouds, the suspended water vapor in the air, not the groups of computers that provide services.

People get really upset when it rains, but that's just crying out cloud. Okay, I'm allowed a shit pun every now and then, just get off me. The deadline for the contest is July 17th, so get in your ideas for a game accessory that you'd love to see 3D printed for your table. A winner will be selected from all ideas, even the half-baked one, so if you have a glimmer of a hope of a suggestion of an idea, send it in to contest at taking20podcast.com. Thank you again, Brenton of 3dcraftsandcurios.etsy.com for sponsoring the giveaway and the podcast these last couple of months. Everyone, go to his shop and buy something so that we can get more sponsors in the future.

Now, as a preface to this entire episode, it is a time of uncertainty in the United States as I sit down to finalize this episode. Most of it was written and recorded before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the previous Roe v. Wade decision. The issue is murky, difficult, and fraught with vitriol on all sides. Let me make one thing absolutely clear. This is not, nor will it ever become, a political podcast. Whatever my beliefs are, politically, religiously, socially, or any other, are not germane to the purpose of the podcast. Introducing players and DMs to RPG concepts, and hopefully bringing new people in

to enjoy this hobby with the rest of us. Please do not construe anything you're about to hear with endorsement of any particular political views or comments about any democracy past or present on planet Earth. No matter what you believe, I mean where you are in the political spectrum, what you believe about God, I don't care. Just know that I would happily share an RPG table with you as a player, GM, or just enjoy a meal or a game together. All I'm going to ask is that we love one another, learn to discuss any differences we may have without demonizing each other, and take care of those who need our help, now more than ever. I love you all and appreciate all the kind well wishes for recovery that I continue to receive. Now, on with the episode.

Well, I fucked up last week, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't realize that my episode release dates had gotten off by a week, so this is coming out on July 10th instead of my intended July 3rd. Well, like Fade said when he opened the Orkgate war portal, my bad. Sorry if it confused anyone, that's my fault, but let's dive into democracies. So why the heck would I cover this topic? Well, honestly, there's a ton of different government types past and present. But no matter how many different types of governments that we research, monarchies are the most often represented in RPG worlds. Why? Most fantasy media are based on medieval history in which most governments were

monarchies. Monarchies are easy to understand. The nation of Pupu Kachu is ruled by Queen Wetfart of Brizleton. One person makes decisions for the social and political lives of the entire nation, no matter what their title is. King, Queen, Emperor, Empress, Pharaoh, Maharaja, Tlatelani, Tenno, Tsar, whatever the title is, it doesn't matter. There's one leader. It is simple and clean. Having a single leader is an easy source of quests and resources. If the nation needs something, the Mansa reaches out to the party and asks them to perform a service for some reward. This person, single one person, has the authority to grant the party's request and demand the party fulfill their contract.

If the party needs to warn the nation of the Great Orc Uprising or the coming of the Octopedal God of Pain from beyond the veil of reality, they can beseech one person for aid in meeting this threat. Monarchies are easy to understand, easy to design, and easy to role-play as a DM. Whether they are familial monarchies where title passes from parent to child, elective monarchies where new leaders are selected when the previous one retires or dies, or some sort of dictatorship where the leader is the head of the military and a new one is selected when the old one is gone. But monarchies aren't the only form of government. You could have

an oligarchy where a small group of people rule over the majority of the people. The way the group is selected could be by lottery, contest, nomination, election, ability-based selection Hell, it could be just selected by height, it doesn't matter Point is, is that a small group of people leads an entire nation or a large group of people It could be a committee, a triumvirate, siblings, a cabinet Or even a junta, which is a military-based oligarchy where a group of military leaders runs the country. I've seen oligarchies in RPGs in the past, but one of the things I very rarely see are

true democracies in RPGs. Now, let's start by defining what a democracy is. A democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all of the eligible members within a population, typically through elected representatives. But it doesn't have to be. There's two main types of democracies that we have experience with on planet Earth. The direct democracy, where the electorate decides on policy initiatives themselves. Every single citizen or eligible voter is allowed a say in matters of state with their own voice.

But besides direct democracies, there are also representative democracies, where electors select representatives who vote on matters by proxy on behalf of those they represent. Both types of democracies have their advantages and disadvantages, and again, this is not a political podcast. We're not going to go into some sort of deep dive at what type of government should exist on planet Earth. Just know that if you're rolling these types of democracies out for your RPG world, both types of democracies have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, direct democracies tend to not scale well, and they can become logistical nightmares in areas with large populations or empires that are spread over diverse geographical areas. A direct democracy also requires a populace that's willing to educate

themselves about a wide variety of topics in order to vote in the society's best interest. But representative democracies are more easily corrupted and can lead to elected representatives voting for causes that contribute more money to their campaign than voting for those issues that would better benefit their constituents. Now, if you play Civilization VI, there's also a future look of a democracy called the digital democracy, where voting becomes easier and connectivity to the populace becomes easier because of a wide variety of technological advancements, if you will. because of a wide variety of technological advancements, if you will. Ostensibly, this allows for a greater level of grassroots participation in the political process.

So most of the people who live in this particular democracy who are eligible to vote have the ability to contribute to discussion and voting on various issues. So digital democracy may be something that we get to sometime in the future, or if you're running a sci-fi campaign, it may be something to research. Now, democracies can be examples of both noble and ignoble ideals. On the good side, in democracies, all are equal and have a vote, or at least all eligible voters are equal and have a vote. More on that in a minute. All are encouraged to become part of the entire governing process. All have the opportunity to become part of the government and shape the future of the state.

Plus, democracies can be inspirational for those around them. Individuals that are living in monarchies or feudal states where they don't have a lot of freedom may look with envy at the amount of freedom that citizens in democracies may have. Now, it's not all good, though. There are bad aspects of democracies as well. Democracies could be set up so that only certain types of people are allowed to vote. It could be set up that only certain types of people can hold office, even if they are allowed to vote.

set up that only certain types of people can hold office, even if they are allowed to vote. Each new elected official may spend most of their time in their office undoing the actions of the previous person who held the office, especially if they have very different idealistic beliefs. Voters tend to vote for parties or ideals, not individual qualifications, which encourages a herd mentality and a zero-sum game belief where in order for me to win, you have to lose. Democracies can descend into the tyranny of the majority, where minority groups receive maybe lesser benefits and maybe don't have the same capabilities in the government, simply because they don't have enough votes to get changes enacted that would benefit them. Decisions in democracies can be slow,

and changes to the democracy can come even slower. If you look throughout Earth's history, very few democracies have lasted more than a few centuries. There are tons of democracies on Earth right now, which is a great thing. Sweden, Australia, Japan, Germany, the U.S., tons of others, but they are mostly about 100 years old. The U.S. is less than 250 years old as a democracy, and even in that relatively short time,

the wheels have almost come off multiple times. The Roman Republic lasted about 500 years, from 509 to 27 BCE, when the Senate voted to give powers to Octavian, effectively turning it from a democracy into a monarchy. When I started my research, I legitimately thought that the Roman BCE when the Senate voted to give powers to Octavian, effectively turning it from a democracy into a monarchy. When I started my research, I legitimately thought that the Roman Republic was the longest lasting democracy in the history of the earth, but I was wrong. The one that I found surprised me. In Iceland, there's a parliament called the Althing. It's part of the Icelandic Commonwealth, and it was founded in 930 CE, and it still exists today. By the way, I know the CE and BCE terminology have been around for a little while, but I'm still getting used to it. CE still reads as chaotic evil when I see it. So

when I first read that sentence, it's founded at 930 chaotic evil. Well, that sounds like a lot, and maybe we ought to address that. No, 930 what used to be called AD, so now 930 CE. This finally brings us to the heart of the episode. How would democracies operate in an RPG world? Well, there are a number of types of campaigns that would be conducive to having a democratic nation being the heart or the focal point of the campaign. Maybe a role-play-heavy campaign, or political campaign, or maybe one focused on societal or social issues, if you will. But the fact that a certain nation is a democracy doesn't have to be a central point of the campaign.

It could be just this thing that exists, and they still get quests just like they would if it was from a monarchy or an oligarchy or whatever. It just happens to be from a democratic set of leadership, not one where the same family has ruled for a thousand years. Now, there are some problems with democracies in an RPG setting. Because think about this. What if someone had mass access to mind-controlled magic or technological hacking, where they could get people to vote a

certain way or do a certain thing through use of magic or technology. Well, I would argue you have that same problem in both a direct democracy, but it's even a bigger problem in a representative democracy, because I only have to be able to control, say, 500 people as opposed to 10,000. But you could also argue that that same problem exists in a monarchy, where if I can control the actions of a king or queen or empress or what have you, I can affect whatever change that I want. So that problem with a democracy is a fairly minor one, but still something to consider. Also, in role-playing games, many times there are vastly different ancestries.

Here on Earth, the only people that vote are human beings right now. But if you go to, say, a fantasy world, where you have so many different cultures with different priorities, maybe even vastly different lifespans, because think about this. If you had humans and elves voting on a particular topic, humans live for about 100 years, so they're going to take a very short view on a particular topic. Humans live for about a hundred years, so they're going to take a very short view on a lot of things, whereas these elves, depending on your world, they may live for hundreds, thousands, or may even be immortal creatures. So they'll take a much

different view on political issues, a much longer view than the humans would. So that can create a natural tension within your game world. Another problem with democracy is voting logistics. If you have a world where travel times are long and it's a geographically diverse type country, I mean, imagine one country where you have a surface-dwelling population like the humans, an aerial population that dwells on the mountaintops and other high places, and then the dwarves, which when the last time you saw them, they were digging a beeline for the balrog nests in the center of the world. Trying to get all of the votes from all of these different places

in a very short period of time would be a logistical nightmare without heavy use of technology or magic. Democracies also, by nature, are more complex beasts. There are many more bureaucratic layers to navigate through. It takes a lot more convincing of various levels of leaders to get something done than simply making demands for the schmuck sitting on the throne. Also, in a democracy, deciding who has the right to vote is more complicated in a fantasy setting. I mean, think about this. Even throwing all racism out, so humans and elves and dwarves and gnomes, and they all get together and they all hold hands and they all sing kumbaya together.

What about creatures like golems or created races like the warforged? These creatures are sentient. They have their own will and their own thoughts. Are they allowed to vote? If so, couldn't that create a potential issue where if I wanted voting to be done a certain way on a certain topic, I could just basically build hundreds or thousands of golems to vote the exact same way I wanted to, thereby throwing democracy off kilter a little bit. Another issue is what about extra planar creatures who have come to live in an area like diva and devils and modrons and whatever else? Are they allowed to vote as citizens? Again, a lot of these creatures are immortal. They are going to

have a vastly different view and set of priorities than, say, the mortal races would. So are they allowed to vote? Is there a special citizenship procedure they have to go through? Fantasy settings, by the way, going back to something I mentioned earlier, could be straight up racist, where centaurs or orcs or maybe even humans are not granted the right to vote simply because of the ancestry or race that they are. So they have no say in the country's future. That's a great campaign idea, by the way, having a democracy where, say, one group of people aren't allowed to vote and they're kept as second-class citizens. And so your goal is to overturn the current administration, whether through force of words or force of action, to, say, win gnomes the

right to vote. Now, in my research, I found one example of a democracy in a major game system, Andoran on Galarian. Andoran set up a government under the idea of common rule, the belief that every citizen should have a voice and that all are equal to each other. It started out as a province of the nation of Taldor at a time of their history where the nation was, Taldor was much more glorious than it was today. As Taldor's glory began to fade, though, Andoran seceded and joined its strong neighbor, Cheliax. Fast forward 600 years, and Cheliax has become more and more integrated with the devils, and a prominent philosopher decides to write a treatise critical

of Cheliax and how their devilish pacts have betrayed humanity. This sets the stage for Andoran's people's revolt to rebel against Cheliacs and become a nation of its own. Now, when the nation was founded, it embraced these ideas written in the original treaties, codifying them in a constitution called the Associative Act. The act was built on three main principles, the tolerance of all benevolent religions, a transparent government, and an efficient, prosperous system for trade. To ensure that all were treated fairly and that no one abuses the power of their office, public servants in Andorran are regarded with a measure of suspicion, like people don't trust

them inherently, and they are subject to regular scrutiny by those they represent. There's a group of 350 representatives called the People's Council, and the People's Council votes for a single leader called the Supreme Elect. It is a noble example of what democracy can be in an RPG. They abolish slavery in this new nation, basically freeing all the former slaves. It's created chaos in neighboring nations, though. But an underwater nation of Gilman led the world in the acceptance of this new nation of Andoran. But the other nations really haven't embraced Andoran that much. I think many of them are still waiting to see how this democratic experiment shakes out.

Cheliax still thinks that Andoran should be part of their empire, but the House Thrun that leads Cheliac does not have the military might to reconquer the land. Nations that embrace slavery as a core part of their economic structure like Cheliac, Katapesh, Osirian, and Thuvia despise Andoran and their aggressive anti-slavery stance. God, I am running way long, and there's still so much here. The economy of the nation, how it's tied in with a group called the Lumber Consortium, the first hints of corruption starting to show in the government, but I really need to move an episode further along. Look up Andoran and read more about it. It's a fascinating take on a fledgling democracy

in an otherwise fairly traditional fantasy world. One last source of information about democracies that I want to point you to is from Earth's history, the Pirate Republic of Nassau. It was the first democracy in the Western Hemisphere. It was set up by pirates and became a loose confederacy, had voting for leadership of the colony, etc. Do some research there if you want to see how democracies can struggle when not backed by a formal system of leadership, if you will. Now, I will grant you, setting up democracies is difficult as a GM. Besides the myriads of possible structures and titles, there are policies on voting and leadership,

how and how often elections occur, who is and isn't considered a citizen, how these decisions are made, who has what power, what checks and balances exist. Fuck, this could be a weeks-long endeavor just to come up with the logistics of a democratic society. But just because it would be difficult doesn't mean you shouldn't include democracies in your world. But just because it would be difficult doesn't mean you shouldn't include democracies in your world. I mean, honestly, if I were setting up a democracy in my game world right now, I'd probably just hand-wave a lot of the logistics of it all and say the nation counts the votes magically or manually via a slower process and make the big decisions ahead of time. If any of the finer details become important, I can improvise something at the table

and then write it down and incorporate it into the nation's history later. One thing about democracies, though, democracies give high charisma characters an opportunity to shine. Imagine your high charisma cleric has to give an impassioned speech in front of the multi-species equivalent of, I don't know, the House of Lords to convince them to allocate funds to address the disease outbreak in the canal cities where kobolds are facing medical emergency after a medical emergency. If they can succeed in convincing this group to allocate some funds, it buys your party longer to find the magical source of the disease and can reduce the death and disease and suffering in those areas. Or what if your heroes, having just saved the nation from

the marauding human tribes, start getting pushed to hold elected office and either have to run a successful campaign to win an election, or, what I think would be a lot more fun, find a way to lose the election without appearing to tank their campaign? As I mentioned earlier, monarchies are easier to design and run from behind the GM screen. And if you want to make every nation a variant of a monarchy in your world, no one's going to judge you. But I think if you even include a single democratic or oligarchic nation in your world and craft some quests that have some complications in it because of this governmental structure, I bet you and your players would have

fun doing it. If you haven't done so already, please like, subscribe, and rate this podcast wherever you found it. Also, get your contest entries in to me, deadline next week, the 17th. You're going to want to win this tower. It is gorgeous. Thank you again for 3dcraftsandcurios.etsy.com for sponsoring the giveaway, and specifically to the proprietor, Brenton Galbraith. But before I go, I also want to thank our secondary sponsor, Clouds. Clouds are great sources of humor. I mean, they are seriously funny. This has been episode 132, all about democracies and RPGs. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.

The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.