Leadership
March 1st, 2011
Hello everyone and welcome back to another exciting Grave Plots, where we bring you new and exciting adventure hooks and plot ideas each and every week. This week is Leadership Week, and so I would like to present you with a plot highlighting one of the many different challenges you can give PCs with a mind to be leaders in order to make that role more interesting and, ultimately, more rewarding.
While there are many kinds of leaders (social, political, and military to name just a few), today we will focus on only one kind: political leaders. This isn’t by any stretch because those other kinds of leaders aren’t important or that they couldn’t make for some interesting adventurers, but rather because political leaders can encompass all other roles, especially in the case of the kind of central despotic leaders common to fantasy. For those of you interested in hearing about other kinds of leaders, fear not – I’m sure that they will make an appearance in Grave Plots someday soon.
Political Leaders
Players often leap at the chance to play leaders of state, trying their hand at the game of government with the goal of creating a strong and unique culture or even civilization in fitting with their values and ideals. This sort of in-game leadership is perhaps the most appealing to both players and DMs because it allows a chance for all involved to do something normally beyond the reach of ordinary men: to create and manage a society. And while there are numerous computer games designed to create this same experience, they ultimately lack in the sort of adaptability and investment in the simulation one can achieve with face-to-face roleplaying. By choosing this style of plot one can, for a few hours at least, join the ranks of great men like Sancho II of Navarre, Roger II of Sicily, and Thomas Jefferson.
These plots always focus on the PCs coming to power and the struggles of their newfound leadership position. The rewards are almost always represented by tangible progress in the society for which they are governing. In order to achieve greatest success with an adventure of this style, it’s important to focus on the things perceived to be most important in governance: economics, taxes and resource development, defense and other military matters, various social factors including education and labor. Another important factor is the people’s attitude as influenced by perceivable factors including observable differences in the demographic makeup of society and the presence of external threats and malcontents. For best results you should customize your plot to focus more heavily on the individual issues of governance that your group is most interested in examining.
While these kinds of plots clearly work best as a long string of related adventures that take your PCs on a journey through the formation of a brave new society, it’s important to develop this kind of story organically, leaving the resulting consequences of the PCs’ actions to drive the future of the story. The following sample plot could result in any number of possible futures for the PCs depending on how they choose to address their chief concern.
Sample Plot: The Isle of Ilsis
The PCs have been named jointly the Lords of Ilsis, a small but strategically important island located in a sea which divides two great empires, Briyon and Tendin. Ilsis is a crossroads in the world, religiously, culturally, and economically. The people of Ilsis are a diverse group consisting of immigrants from both empires, natives, and cultists from abroad in search of religious freedom, all of whom had been forcibly unified by the orcish horde which occupied the island for the past half century. Due to its strategic position located between the two great powers in the region Ilsis has endured many wars for control of its borders, most recently resulting in the extermination of every pure-blooded orc on the island by the Knights of Ellusia, an independent group of poor knights dedicated to the destruction of savage humanoids, an act which has been something of a sore spot for the large half-orc minority on Ilsis. Following the purge the knights departed Ilsis and a council of barons who had grown powerful during the forced unification elected the PCs to rule Ilsis in order to both hold onto the power they had gained and avoid a brutal war to determine which among them should lead.
Now, though the PCs sit on their thrones in Ilsis’s capital of Wulen, it has become clear that they hold no real power in Ilsis. The barons who asked them to rule, who swore fealty to them, rule their burgs without regard for the PCs’ mandate, often treating their citizens quite harshly and and causing social tension to be at an all-time high. As time goes on it is becoming increasingly clear that if the PCs can’t grab the reins of power soon, they will likely see a number of bloody rebellions ravage their new lands and destroy any hope for a strong, peaceful, and unified Ilsis.
The PCs have a few options open for them to seize power and it’s up to them to decide which course of action is best for their people. Both Briyon and Tendin have offered to allow them to join their empires, remaining the lord governors of their lands, but with the full backing and authority of the imperial crown. While imperial authority will surely solidify their position in a quick and absolute fashion, with imperial backing comes imperial law and imperial troops, and, in addition to placing certain obligations on the PCs, imperial membership will likely increase tension between citizens who immigrated from the opposite empire, not to mention likely earning the ire of the rival power. Further, membership might have a negative economic impact if the two empires were to declare sanctions on one another or go to war. Various churches could be approached, winning the hearts of the people by appealing to their souls; however, these organizations have an intense rivalry with one another and may require some pretty steep convincing. The barons could be bought or extorted into working with the PCs, allowing them to rule through the existing aristocracy, but the barons are a very byzantine group and gaining the help of one baron will likely gain them enemies elsewhere and advance schemes to which the PCs may be unaware. Finally the PCs may be able to try something else entirely, such as organizing a military campaign, led by one of their number, while one or more PCs remain behind to cement their standing with the populace.
Whatever action the PCs take will fundamentally change the future of Ilsis, allowing the PCs to see what impact they had on the society in their role as a governing power. These changes will also likely foreshadow future events and conflicts which they will need to address in that role.
Well, that’s it for Grave Plots in Leadership Week; until next time please allow me to wish you all the best in your gaming endeavors.