Political D&D Games: Power
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- When people talk about politically complex games, I think they come at this from the wrong angle. Politics is not necessarily about philosophy, it is about power. Here is the first in a series I am doing on how I use my experience and education in politics in my RPG games. This will give you a little insight on how I DM my games.
As always, you can do whatever you wish, but this is what I think about when running the game.
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twitch.tv/legalkimchi
legalkimchi
Most of the concepts in this essay are accumulated from my education and I don't think it is useful to list all of it.
Most of the concepts for this video related to
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics by Joseph Nye
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I run politics as horror. Distant forces that the players don't really understand, but the effects are always felt.
Too real.
Mgs2
Late reply, but this feels like it applies *perfectly* to Elden Ring (and to a lesser extent other cosmic horror)
I run a Vampire the Masquerade game, and this video is vital IMO for anyone wanting to get a grasp on how to handle politics in any game, but especially in one as politics heavy as vampire.
I started this video excited at learning how to write governments and politics in DnD.
I ended this video in a state of despair and disillusion with the way the world works.
10/10
Long form D&D content, informative, polished look and charismatic host...
subscribed, this is exactly what ive been looking for!
Wow! Hey thanks for dropping by and I'm glad you like the content!
I loved Matt Colville's politics series, but you go so much more into detaild shorter explanations. This video brings so many cool infos and takes into it. Love the deep dives.
Btw, is there any way to read up on your world (world anvil, google doc or the like)?
Not really. It is mostly in handwritten notebooks and my brain.
Found you through liberal cook, and you had me at, "forget all those old academic white guys, let me show you A WHOLE NEW GROUP OF OLD ACADEMIC WHITE GUYS!" That is a phrase I only usually hear in academic circles and I have missed it so.
I litterally laughed out loud at that point.
Nice video, I like to think of it not as "Power", but as someone's "Coercive Ability". You have two or more actors with differing interests, your coercive ability is the extent to which you can make someone else act against that interest and in favor of yours. You can wield this coercive in different ways, interpersonal, hierarchical or violently. You also have the ability to coerce some you might not have direct coercive power over indirectly by mobilizing third parties who do. Using coercive ability always has some cost that needs to be accounted for. I think through this framework the dynamics and paradoxes of power can be examined quite well.
This video rules. It's been sitting in my Watch Later for months, glad I finally caught up to it. I love that it's educational for both TTRPG folks as well as anyone just analyzing the way the real world works around them.
This video has cemented it. I really would love to player at your table or even a fly on the wall. This was just so dynamic and thought-provoking.
My current table is much more adventure driven and isn't huge into nuance (given how overwhelmingly nuanced real life is; I can't blame them), but at the very least I hope to take some of these lessons to heart to develop more complex NPCs.
Thanks for another great video.
I would love to learn about your world
I've been binging your library the past few days, it's a veritable treasure trove of insight, information, and inspiration!
Okay still chewing through this, but I feel like another solid example of traction or soft power is the concept of Heat in professional wrestling. A wrestler who is hot or has heat is beloved by the fans and can do almost anything he wants, he gets butts in seats when he's slated to perform and the company & him know this, giving him bargaining power to pick & choose his stories, matches, and his contracts. Thing is though, this power is still soft, because it is what the fans/crowd deign to give him. He has a bad match, or takes a bad story and they turn, *poof* whole thing goes up and he may have to struggle for a LONG time to get it back. See Daniel Bryant, Roman Reigns, CM Punk, and Cody Rhodes in his current AEW runs for examples. There's a phrase from the book on the WCW that talked about this, saying that, "When your hot you can do no wrong, and when you're not you can't do anything right".
I think Heat, functions as a solid entry point for those who might be coming to politics from the outside and looking for a familiar example that doesn't take much explaining to get caught up. Hell, wrestling commentators even sound like political pundits if you listen close enough XD.
I love this example!
@@LegalKimchi thank you XD. I was actually working some stuff for my homebrew involving cultural capital over the weekend and this was totally up my alley XD. You ever seen the Fame/Prestige system or downtime Capital system out of Pathfinder 1st edition? They try to commodify soft/hard power in a way that makes sense within the mechanics of ttrpgs in an interesting way. I've been fiddling with them and I have thoughts XD.
I got so much heat from my students for my wrestling references.
I love this analogy, well done, sir.
@@MisfitKotLD lol no problem. As someone new to the wrestling genre, I'm happy to hear my analogy going over so well with a longtime fan ^-^.
@@supinearcanum I will note the difference in heat and go away heat, which Reigns had during his face championship run. But sill, well done. Also, heat is the crowd hating you and being over is the crowd responding, so Reigns Tribal Chief has heat and is over. Fans didn't want his comuppance; they wanted him gone. Now they want his just desserts. But he's hot.
Going back a ways, the Midnight Express had so much heat and were so over, they drew like Ric Flair. But nobody was so good at drawing heat as Cornette; fans loathed him with the fire of a million suns.
Being hot just means you're over and the fans eat up what you're doing whether face or heel.
But yeah, nice job.
I would mention that on top of being a web, power is also like a series of tanks. It can be spent, and spending that power means you have less for one reason or another (meaning you can only spend so much at any given period of time).
Using your early parent-child example for instance: a child who abuses their whining to get their way will likely stop getting their way eventually. Instead, they'll get punished for the outcry, and will lose their power. Likewise, a parent who constantly punishes their child will lose power over their child, as the child will learn how to avoid the parent while doing what they want.
I developed most of the political stuff in my campaign after watching The Great War on TH-cam. It helped me think of politics as this ebb and flow of reactions due to shifts of power. Specifically money, labor, and hearts and minds.
I am here because of soft power. Someone shared your video in the Matt Colville subreddit saying it was a good inclusion to his series on politics, power, and using that in D&D. And I would agree. This video is great! Like his, I feel this is a video people that do not care at all about TTRPGs should watch because it just describes the rules under which the world functions.
I haven't finished this video yet, but it's already the smartest D&D video I've watched in two years, at least.
Watching a bunch of videos on this topic. This video has the best content. None of them have as realistic ideas. This is amazing. Expect MANY rewatches from me.
Another really thoughtful delve into a complex topic! Thanks for putting this together -- and helping us put the pieces together as worldbuilders and DMs and GMs.
Great piece! Having studied these concepts for my MS in International Relations and MA in Strategic Studies. Another great read is Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger
New subscriber, first time watcher here.
Interesting video! You've got me hooked. 🎣
I run my game as a Matryoshka doll. *Everyone* has an angle, *everyone* is trying to play each other, using each other to further their own agendas. But since everyone can only see their immediate surroundings no one realizes the nested nature of the plots and schemes except for the two archmages on top who are vying for control of reality. The adventurers got involved in a plot that ended up being an unanticipated side effect of a relatively inconsequential move by one of the wizards and they've been slowly working their way up from there.
I just started as a DM this year. This video and the one before it have already made my campaign world so much better. Thank you for this.
That Dang Dad soft-powered my ass over here and I'm not complaining.
This is one of the best comments I've ever seen.
Appreciate the video, especially the use of Go as a backdrop. I bring a Go board to every LARP game I've ever attended and always found a way to work it in and teach players; because it's one of the best training aids to understanding strategy I can think of. To your main thrust - I'm a research scientist creating simulations of state and non-state actor competitions. And trying to recreate "politics" with the math of calculus exposes exactly what you talk about. You cannot accurately simulate complex political struggles with high-brow philosophies. Instead you need causal mechanisms that accumulate scarce power, evaluates relative power between competitors, and then models the dynamics of what causally happens when power is used through decisions or policies that cause things to happen. Great intro, looking forward to more!
This would have made a great series
Book rec: I've gotten a bunch of use out of _Renaissance Diplomacy_ by Garrett Mattingly. Where one side of a border is some approximation of a nation-state, and the other side isn't, what goes on there? How is that conceptualized on the side of the "barbarians"? What way-points are they likely to hit as they adapt to the pressure of a formally organized neighbor just existing? How do things work if your setting is starting to consolidate out of iron-age city-states for the first time? Great reference.
You can thank the soft power of the TH-cam algorithm for bringing me to your channel!
Lots of crunch in this vid, a great watch thank you
Part 2 just released!
This was absolutely lovely
Leagal Kimchi...fermented law is THE best law!
Dude, how are you not bigger on YT? Great video.
Verrry good shit... The whole time you were talking, I was thinking about drive and draw, principles that can be used for animal handling. Drive is push, it is moving yourself or an aspect of yourself into the physical or cognitive space of a creature, but drive is pull. It is the attraction, the something existing in either the animal or yourself that brings them closer. Curiosity, food bribery are obvious factors but some of them are more emotional. Sensory draw, body language, the sense of security, the sense of mystery, the shadow to hide behind. All manner of subtle and often intangible and unknowable things (as you can only ever make assumptions about the behaviour of a being that cannot articulate them).
Ethically, I can't help but feel deeply negative about many of the ways the game of power is played, but acknowledging the reality of it is ultimately important. This feels like a good bridge into the topic past my instinctive distaste, especially the book recommendation.
this is an insanely good video
I believe the British monarch also has the ability to review any legislation before it is put before parliament and demand modification of any parts that.might effect the royal family. Some articles in The Guardian about this recently. So some hard power even if its.well hidden.
SUBSCRIBED !
This is why I'm coming back to TTRPGs. I'm starting a campaign in the world of Guildes, a 90s french RPG where the setting resembles the 16th century's Earth. A new continent has been discovered with strange but familiar inhabitants and power struggles ensue.
This game is for my kids. 11, 12 and 14. I want to Game of Thrones them big time and use RPG to sensitize them to the impact of their actions on a big scale.
Your depiction of politics is what I was going for (politics in the background) but I was looking for some insight into how the web of power manifests itself.
Damn. Insight I got.
Thanks.
Hey; this LegalKimchi guy is pretty cool.
From the video, I had a thought based on Dominate Roman politics by Foojer.
A king who had elite troops among his limited army units but can't send help to beleaguered frontier due to potential usurpers who have their own army and are ready to strike once the king doesn't have his retinue. So either A. bribe them into compliance but probably delay the inevitable, plus they would be stronger due to said bribe, B. goad them into war against each other, but only if there's a stalemate since a winning tribe will be a dangerous tribe.
Also, the reason why competent subordinates will be both your asset and liability (even if loyal, people would coerce him or her into leading a rebellion). Hence the saying "pay your army well, or they'll murder you".
Your homebrew campaign sounds very interesting indeed!
Great video although all I could think is why would anyone run this game in D&D rather than Burning Wheel.
Also, the discussion of soft versus hard power was really clear and easy to follow and honestly got kind of inspirational (one suggestion I have is that examples from pop culture like GoT or history are much easier to follow than examples from your campaign world).
Also, I'm no expert in political philosophy but a lot of your discussion reminded my of Machiavelli.
I think this is exactly the kind of rpg content we need on youtube.
Your example of the drug lord reminds me of the parable of the unjust steward a teaching few understand but it is an application of soft power
In my campaign the players are members of a unique mercenary company that basically provides security and small scale forces for several different countries, it was the result of a compromise by those countries to end and prevent future conflicts. The company has a very good reputation and treats it's members well. The players believe they are working for the good guys, and in many ways they are, but to keep the peace, there is a darker chapter within the organization that does the things that need to be done to keep competition and ambition from destabilizing the systems they have put in place. I am so looking forward to the time when they players have to balance the common good against the indiovidual ethics and morality of doing the "right" thing.
Amazing video, subscribed
That Dang Dad exercised his soft power to send me to this channel
My players said they didn't want a political game, and I breathed the sigh of relief. But they wanted to play in sharn in eberron. I suspect so that they had access to buying magic items easily.
Then they chose to live in the economically disadvantaged lower level of town. Then they wanted to change it for the better.
The head of A crime family they kept butting heads with was was also the councilwoman for the district. They did not have enough hard power to go all John wick and take down her whole organization through violence, just enough to protect themselves and their allies.
So they decided to try and beat her in an election and put one of their friendly NPCs in her place. They succeeded, because she was only above the law because she could kill any investigations against her through bureaucracy. No longer.
They had to thwart a couple of assassination attempts on their guy, and prevent voter intimidation, and all that kind of thing, as well as projecting soft power by providing Street lighting and other services that the opposing faction had never bothered to do.
I had recently developed a cloak and dagger campaign with strong political conflicts within the setting.
The topic of soft power really helped me see a major lacking piece in my setting.
I rather think that in your setting, the Countess will decide who wins, especially if she is unmarried, by joining herself to the one she favors. That will combine her wealth will either the greatest army and war leader...or the idealist revolution. For dealing with the empire, joining the warleader is the safest bet.
Polisci major. The WW callout is entirely accurate 😂
Politics: how people exercise decision-making in groups.
If you aint got the glove, you aint got the power. Nintendo Power.
You're amazing!
RIP to the great monarch 😢. Prince will always be missed.
23:30 Yes, the soft power of Caelan Conrad, Mainely Mandy, Mica of Ponderful, The Leftist Cooks, and Hoots of Little Hoot. (AKA the regulars on F the Algorithm.)
Other political videos I've used in my games
CGP Grey's The Rules of Rulers th-cam.com/video/rStL7niR7gs/w-d-xo.html
Colville's Politics videos th-cam.com/users/mcolvillesearch?query=politics
Definitely recommend look at Blades in the Dark and Star without Numbers for their faction systems!
Most relevant DnD video to me, although not much of a fan of Nye's book. You helped me better organize my points and determinate key elements and story beats.
I'm currently designing a campaign about a succession war in a fantasy Byzantine Empire undergoing a rapid modernisation unto XVIII century French administrative monarchy, with the idealistic heiress apparent having respectively the support of the High nobility who think she would make for a weak ruler, most of the military and the slaves who she truly want to free, and her just as legitimate brother having the support of the Senate, by extension the wealthy urban elites and the whole state apparatus, imperial guard included. Both are pragmatic idealists, but their visions - an aristocratic and militaristic, slighly old-fashioned Empire; a prosperous and relatively liberal, but bureaucratic state - raise just as much enthusiasm as rejection.
I mean Marx very much understood and talked at LENGTH about the nature of politics stemming from power. Communism is about levelling that power and sharing it between the people, in particular workers.
Liking this video before watching it seems like a safe bet.
If you have nobles fighting for control of something, odds are that what they're fighting over isn't a nation. It may be a dynastic imperial or post-imperial state, or a confederation of the Fourteen Tribes of Madeupplacename, or whatever. But nations are modern enough that the overlap between them and nobles fighting for control is fairly narrow.
The Dragon Age games are all about politics and power. Yes, the games always ends with a big battle and you defeat the big bad, but the whole story up to the is about power.
In the first game, each main location is struggling with power dynamics: who will be the next Dwarven king? Who will survive, the clan of elves or the werewolves? Will you kill the mages after the demon outbreak?
The second is about a city under the influence of the mages, the templars, and the qun.
The third one spans entire nations with many conflicting groups.
The ending of each game is determined by how the player uses their power to influence the world.
This is really cool
Part Three:
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How a mother of two makes 5 figures every month!
This is excellent, thank you so much.
Also, thanks to supergeekmike for exercising his soft power and flagging your channel and your equally awesome D&D racism video.
Arabesque… so beautiful… oh yeah, the video!
Man, I need to try go again sometime.
That opening game of go... That solitary white piece surrounded by shouldve been taken off the board as it has no liberties, and while the move you just did was legal, I'd argue it seems to overwhelmingly be strategically pointless.
Edit: I take that last point back, it does seem useless but I can see reasoning behind the move. Not particularly strong reasoning and would not be my preferred move but I personally find it as pretty unoptimal. I'd like to know the reasoning behind the move.
Thanks for the video, it helped a lot!
4:55 Ah yes let's quote one of the guys that ran a beloved TV Show in to the ground by the very fact they didn't follow the themes laid out by the source material.
The rest of the video is great though.
Nice video.
IF your game does not have politics and power struggle. It's just a dungeon crawl.
0:01 What a terrible move
So when are you hiring writers to publish your setting on Drivethrough ?
I LOVE YOUR WORK! You're AMAZING 🤩 you make the Videos that I want to see made and you're an inspiration to the craft. Thank you SO MUCH, Keep Creating & #FightTheGoodFight - Mike
seriously love you
How can you call it a beautiful game while playing such an ugly move in a nonsensical position?
One correction: the Warsaw Pact did not prevent war between member states. The USSR twice invaded another Warsaw Pact member, in 1956 and 1968.
But the most important part: this video inspires me a lot on how to shape a political fantasy campaign (using Burning Wheel) that I've been thinking about starting. But first I've got to lead my Shadowrun campaign to the upcoming elections.
That all depends on what game you think I'm playing. Because it is not Go...
I knew about the 1956 invasion of Hungary. I didn't know about the invasion of czechoslovakia.
Nice singing! Alright, onward, only 0:48 in.
Everything is political, so every game is political and all life is political.
Oh, and the way, the pieces on the board would never be played by anyone with a dan in their ranking...
there's more than 1 game played on this board with these pieces...
@@LegalKimchi yes, but 圍棋 is the game.
I do think power is immoral. I appreciate your perspective and what you have to say. But I do think there are better ways to approach the world.
Sheesh, even for D&D which has a very US-heavy audience, the level of American exceptionalism in this video is frankly unhealthy
I think you can do a lot of interesting stuff with politics in your world if you first grasp well how to write interesting and realistic characters. Because if the people involved are realistic and interesting, then the politics that involve them will also be interesting and realistic. And by realistic I don't mean real world politics, just stuff that makes sense, IE no obviously evil empire who leads armies of faceless goons around to beat eat babies and kill bunnies.
You can mix and match politics with fantastical elements to make things interesting, like a government made up of magic users who taxes it's people in magical energy that get funelled into government mandated spells and essential services, like keeping the capital afloat (literally, in this case), or the social problems of a local city who has to manage a population of refugees who due to a curse or some event victimized them, just happens to make them extremely vulnerable to demonic possession or somesuch.
Yeah, so the soft power is basically ideology.😅
You figured it out, politics is a game of manipulating peoples beliefs to cause things to happen, good or bad, that's the soft power game, read dune and look at how Paul's father leto tries to appease to the freemen, in the book he admits he only does it to make his position more adventagous for when the harkonens come, and that being loved is more beneficial that being feared
In the vaguest sense, yes. In that respecting someone is ideological in itself.
I loved the video, but my hatred of The West Wing compels me to chime in that that show isnt about politics, its literally just a royal court intrigue show dressed up for Americans.
Its the least political show ever. Its just pagentry and worship of institutions. Aaron Sorkin has set back drama writing back so far. That show was and remains a fucking menace. it needs to die along with everything Sorkin ever wrote.
I don't disagree with you. But that is something i realized in my older age. 19 year old me... well, he had a lot to learn.
You are such a postmodern...
🗿👍🏿
Have been a while subscribed to this channel, but somehow I have not watched this video, and now the opening made me mad. That was probably one of the worst move you could have done there!
I don't think it's a bad move at all. I think you assume i'm playing a different game... :-)
@@LegalKimchi Maybe that is true, I thought you play Go, the game that is usually played with those pieces. But indeed, maybe you are playing something different with it. Anyway, I really enjoy the content of your videos!
🥳🫂👍🏿
You are spot on about west wing fans
Power may have no inherent moral nature, but it often reveals the true morality of those who have it.
Do you have any example of a person having a huge amount of power (I am talking lvels like being the most powerful person in a country) revelead that someone was a very moral person? I can't think of any. It's usually not being as bad as others but still kinda bad.
@@neltymind Cyrus the great
This video was the first one I've seen from you, and I gotta say...
HOW ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DO YOU HAVE ONLY 1K SUBSCRIBERS? :O
The video was really really good. I hope to see more in the future, best of luck!
The thing about Hideyoshi and the Imjin war … is that, for the Toyotomi clan, it was not really about the foreign conquest of Korea and China. It was about holding on to their precious grasp on “national” power. Hideyoshi had become the nation’s unifier by luck, clever manipulation and delicate consensus building. He had risen from a humble merchant to military dictator in a culture where pedigree of birth was almost everything. He had the hard power to become a Shogun; however, without the pedigree he and his descendants never could claim that office. He had essentially mounted a wild tiger 🐅 or ticking time bomb. He was “in charge” of jealous lords who would sooner rather than later seek to undo him. What do you do with a nation of Samurai who only knew the way of war and the sword once you declare peace? You disarm the peasants and send the most ambitious and least loyal warriors abroad on a grand military adventure. It wasn’t so much about gaining new territories as it was about bleeding his potential rivals of their military capacities.
this is very true.
But for those in the path of this army, the internal politics of why Hideyoshi did this mattered little to the situation they found themselves in. Koreans were looking at the potential annihilation of their kingdom and possibly culture, while china faced a potentially losing battle for dominance of the region.
either way, it is a fascinating time in history, and one that i wish was taught more.
I forgot this was a dnd video until 4 minutes in, this is great stuff
Thank you. Once again helping me understand my own characters in my writing. I didn't have a name or concept of soft power, but now I see it & have more confidence in my characters wielding it! Phew!
I will say that, though American conservatives don't reference Hobbes and American liberals don't reference Rawls and whatnot, philosophical justification is often relevant to power. Just look at the importance of religion in theocratic institutions, or look at the importance of looking like a liberal Enlightenment leader to many historical "enlightened despots," or the importance of Marxism to the legitimacy of the Eastern Bloc, and of course troops fight with more morale if they think it's a just war; issues of legitimacy and looking smart and so on are often very notable to Soft Power.
Crushed it again Kimchi, very thoughtful breakdown of real world decision-making by states. Can’t wait for more of these videos
Note, that the founding fathers in turn were inspired by the Dutch republic (first modern European state to drop its king) with the 'Akte van Verlatinghe' (act of leaving) in 1581(!) which said a people may leave an unjust king (the then Spanish overlord Philips II) and determine their own destiny. Parts of this document were almost literally copied into the US declaration. Just educating.
That comment on economic sanctions at 16:23 tho...
Thank you this was very interesting and useful. Especially as I am currently running a WFRP game based upon political intrigue. Though the title is misleading as this video is system agostic and not only relevant to D&D. Now is it only relevant to games. These issues apply to everything. There are two types of people 'Wolves' and 'Sheep' 'Don't be a sheep' Best advice I got from my Dad.
My only suggestion would be that you bookmark the parts as i found it difficult to navigate your video when i wanted to go back and rewatch sections of it.
"power is a web" 🤯
As a creator who also comes from a Poli Sci background (though mine is International Relations), I am glad to see this. Thank you!
More example of defused soft power acting in recent years would be the Arab Spring or the young Environmentalists like Greta Thunberg, social movements inspiring others to do the same.
Fwiw, hope this isn’t your only video in this series, as this is tremendously helpful!
I have a politics Playlist and I will be adding more videos to this series.
Best politically complex scenario ever written is "The Power Behind The Throne" for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Ooo. I'll check it out!
@@LegalKimchi it is the kind of thing that might make a good essay, in my opinion.
Loved the “wise man’s fear” reference
That looks like Five in a Row played with Weiqi pieces?
You're the first person to guess right. It's omok 오목.