Duets

Today we are beginning with political campaigns – where the action is via diplomacy or governance. With a duet you can run campaigns you normally couldn’t get away with such as a PC ruling a dominion, managing an interstellar ministry, serving as an ambassador, or trying to advance in a church, corporation, or guild. Success or failure in political campaigns is all about finding solutions to problems – in fact that is pretty much politics in general. Finding solutions is tricky though and that’s where the adventures are to be found, especially as most RPGs embrace the fantastic. Solutions usually require someone to do (or not do) something the PC wants done, but to convince that person shouldn’t be about a dice roll it should be about roleplaying. On a personal note I think most RPGs that try to apply rules to handle political situations fail abysmally. This is because this is a very complicated process, tactics are fairly linear but politics is by definition nonlinear. Don’t worry though; because this is one of those areas I have successfully taught people how to manage and in the next 1-2 installments we’ll go into how to handle politics from the player and narrator sides of the screen. Today I just want to hit two key points from which we will begin.

Things to Do

There are two limits in a political campaign: narrator and player. These limits come in the form of knowledge, ability, and motivation. One should always roleplay one’s character but the capabilities of the player always affects the capacities of the PC.

Knowledge is a tricky matter. If the narrator has more knowledge about some pertinent matter such economics, political science, or psychology then the narrator should rein in their abilities if necessary. Usually this isn’t a problem, but when the player is more knowledgeable there can be problems. The problems though are really of perspective. Just because you have someone with a PhD in astronomy in your Star Trek campaign doesn’t mean you should be nervous as the narrator. Usually the player will dumb themselves down, but even better is to use their expertise. Consult with them and use them as a resource. I have had players in my campaigns help design scientific research rules, governments, economic systems, and so forth. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Ability is a little trickier. Once again if the narrator has better ability at politics and the like it’s not that big of a deal as long as the narrator reins herself in if necessary, but what about when the player is more cunning than the narrator? This does happen and it can be frustrating and difficult for both sides. The trick is for the narrator to signal to the player her difficulties and also cajole the player into helping with the campaign. Have the player draw up aspects of the setting or tackle other issues – you might even have the player flesh out the goals of some of his political opponents. Yes, this works very well for good players want challenges and sometimes they are the best for creating their own challenges.

Finally is motivation. A narrator and player can only handle as intense and challenging a campaign as they can manage. Sometimes this can be highly variable for the same person. I’ve seen many players who one month can tackle the nearly impossible for the next month as real life is dragging them down can only manage the slightly probable. Both sides need to adjust and read each other, roleplaying is a cooperative game. It’s not narrator v. player it’s narrator + player.

I should note that none of these limits is absolute. Players and narrators can grow and improve over time and I’ve seen tremendous leaps in players in all these categories over a few years of practice.

Drop Preconceptions

A lot of people have strong political views that color their perceptions of things before they even get to roleplaying a character. First, all your political views are biases and you need to drop them and if you’ve got to accept the other side has biases. Politics is about negotiation and interacting with others and that begins with the person across the screen. Listen. If a player makes a sound logical argument why his plan X will do Y then the narrator should give him the benefit of the doubt, regardless of your political views. Also if the narrator explains some concepts that she accepts as truth then don’t fight it and just incorporate it. Seriously, if you can’t bend a little on stuff then you shouldn’t be trying to do a political campaign with the other person.

Personally, I find it very valuable to lay out any assumptions the narrator has about reality before a campaign begins. I’ll be blunt ALL narrators have biases. Good narrators know their biases and try to adjust for them. This brings me to a big, big point: CAMPAIGNS AREN’T ABOUT MAKING POLITICAL POINTS! It is good to explore concepts and ideas in a campaign, but when the narrator tries to make a point then the campaign is in jeopardy.

Okay that’s enough for this time as we’ll delve more deeply next time into some ways to help narrators adjudicate political conflicts and some tips for narrators. Till then think about how you would run a campaign where the PC was a ruler or in the center of political intrigues. How would you determine if the PC succeeds or fails in a machination? How would you determine if the PC succeeds in convincing someone to do (or not do) something? How would you help the PC in making plans and decisions? There are lots of considerations for these sorts of campaigns and it can seem daunting, but I guarantee the next installment or two will give you all the tools you need to navigate political campaigns.