Lords and Ladies Game Design
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@Gashlycrumb said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:
When plot-stuff flows both ways, PC power is constrained by the powerful PC’s need for IC support from the less powerful. If it always flows top-down, well, not so much. Not at all if you let the mighty get away with taking no action/ineffective action/action only involving off-camera NPC minions.
My post was not meant to imply that plot stuff can’t flow both ways. I was arguing that factionheads should be NPCs so that the overall direction and policy-making of that faction can kept on a leash by administration, rather than risking a PC factionhead completely derailing or sinking an entire faction because their player decided the character needed to hold the idiot ball.
Alice, Bob, and Carol, a trio of town guards, could be the ones to come across the zombie horde and report it to their sergeant, the commander of the town guard, or the mayor. However the mayor, assuming they are the head of the faction in the particular scenario where the factions in the setting are the various towns in a kingdom, would then issue a command to the commander of the town guard, a PC, who could handle it themself or delegate it down the chain. But somebody better do it or the mayor is going to be pissed. It may not even need to get to the mayor. Once it reaches the commander of the town guard’s ears, again a PC, they could make a decision and act how they feel would be appropriate. Bit, again, they better be right about the course of action, because, if they kill the zombies when the mayor has a pro-brain eating policy in place the mayor is going to be pissed.
Players get to play US cabinet positions but the President is an NPC. A PC isn’t going to be able to order that we nuke Russia because their player got fired from their real world job and they want to watch the world burn. The players can be representatives in the National Assembly, but the heads of their parties are NPCs. If the players deviate too far from the tenets and positions held by their party, the head of the party can kick them to the curb and they likely won’t be re-elected in the next election cycle without party support. So on and so forth.
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@Ominous said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:
Alice, Bob, and Carol, a trio of town guards, could be the ones to come across the zombie horde and report it to their sergeant, the commander of the town guard, or the mayor.
But what happens when Alice, Bob & Carol, a trio of town guards, come across a zombie horde and horde that information to themselves because they want the plot? IDK there’s no real perfect way to ensure everyone gets a bite of the plot cake except to just put the information out there for everyone.
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@bear_necessities said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:
@Ominous said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:
Alice, Bob, and Carol, a trio of town guards, could be the ones to come across the zombie horde and report it to their sergeant, the commander of the town guard, or the mayor.
But what happens when Alice, Bob & Carol, a trio of town guards, come across a zombie horde and horde that information to themselves because they want the plot? IDK there’s no real perfect way to ensure everyone gets a bite of the plot cake except to just put the information out there for everyone.
They probably die trying to fight it, new mystery where did they go?
