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Overall Impressions: As part of the Penumbra line of d20 supplements Atlas Games puts out, Dynasties and Demagogues is an excellent resource for DMs wanting to take a break from more traditional fantasy games, where problems are solved with swords, and elaborate speeches are usually confined to the Dwarf’s clan history. While it does provide the framework one would need for a full-scale political campaign, where it really shines is as a source of alternative adventuring. A party, flush with their latest triumph, may find themselves caught up in an elaborate power game, giving characters new ways to shine. Fighters must suddenly negotiate, and learn that the threat of violence will often get one just as far as its application. Bards and rogues move from being supporting characters with specialized roles to being the leaders of the party, and have a chance to stretch some skill muscle that
Simply put, Dynasties and Demagogues is what I wanted the Epic Level Handbook to be. The party no longer has to fit simply scaled up versions of monsters with progressively more hit points. They make become kingmakers, power brokers and spymasters.
The Book:
Dynasties and Demagogues is a 160 page, hardcover supplement. The binding is of excellent quality, and survived the packing of a dorm room, haphazard stuffing in a laptop bag, and reading on a cross-country economy flight. The cover is attractive, as is the interior black and white artwork. The images themselves are fairly sparse, the book crammed with info, but those that are there are large, beautifully done epic scenes that help the mood of the book dramatically.
The actual substance of the book is divided up into four sections, plus Appendices: In Theory: Setting up the nature of a political campaign and laying the foundation for a campaign world where politics matter. Introduction: A brief adventure, to get you “in the mood” In Character: A guide to playing characters in a political game, as well as new rules for political “battles”. In Practice: A guide for running political campaigns and adventures. Appendices: Various useful governments and titles, a bibliography and very helpful reference of all the OGL content in the book.
Introduction: One of the problems many of the political games I have encountered have is setting the mood, especially in d20. Dynasties and Demagogues takes an interesting path, throwing the reader directly into an adventure. The adventure is by no means a truly complete one, nor is it particular complex. For fear of giving it away, should someone choose to use it, it involves rescuing a troubled vineyard owned by a local Dona. But the adventure does give the reader an idea of what kind of campaigns the book is talking about, mixes of action and intrigue, and includes helpful, and occasionally incredibly insightful hints to both players and moderators reading the book. All in all, while a straightforward adventure, it does its job to an admirable degree.
Following the adventure is a brief two-page post-mortem discussion on the nature of political gaming.
In Theory: In Theory is the discussion of how historical forms of government, typical fantasy races, and the presence of magic fit into the gaming world. It includes the major forms of government around today as well as a Mageocracy and Theocracy. Of particular use are the adventure-seed governments, complete with a defining and full statted NPC for each type of government. Particularly useful is the Bureaucracy rules, “Maze of Bureaucracy”, which makes the process of delaying player characters or adding unexpected struggles as simple as a roll on the table. While for the most part unoriginal, the government forms section of Dynasties and Demagogues is well written, helpful and eases players and DMs into a political campaign.
The racial chapter follows the same basic pattern, presenting each of the common fantasy races in the context of a campaign seed, many with very welcome twists, like a not-so-benevolent Elven kingdom, and a Dwarf nation torn by infighting and the split between the surface world, and the world of mines and dark things. All the major fantasy races, although with varying degrees of space, Dwarves and Elves getting by far the most attention in terms of plot-seeds and fleshed out NPCs, all of whom were exceedingly well done, and fit archetypal roles such as “Changing Chieftain” or “Old Political Infighter” allowing them to be yanked out of the book and patched into your own campaign with very little difficulty.
The magic chapter presents a single new magical organization, yet more compelling and original adventure hooks, plus a ton of new and useful spells for sorcerers and wizards more interested in getting the truth from a witness, rather than frying them right than and there. A small but useful collection of magical items follows.
And thus ends the “In Theory” section of the book. While nothing presented within those pages is particularly ground breaking, there is a feeling of originality and transparency to everything written. A little bit of adjustment and each and every bit of new material prevented could slide smoothly into your campaign, with nary a continuity error. The section accomplishes its goal with solid, clean style, allowing campaigns to start up, or switch, to a political campaign with very little effort.
In Character: This section is where Dynasties and Demagogues really shines. It begins with some basic “who is your character” questions, than introduces an entirely new class of feats, and rules to boot: the Rules of Personality. The system uses a long list of feats that define a characters personality, each with a brief description, restrictions (as with normal feats) and a condition. Whenever the character meets this condition in a game, they are awarded Action Points, similar to the Drama Dice of 7th Sea and the roll-boosting dice of Spycraft, which can also be turned in for extra experience. These feats, of which a character can only have one, are a great way to introduce in game rewards for roleplaying a personality, which is especially useful for campaigns where the DM is trying to move a party more towards character development and method acting, rather than killing their foes and taking their stuff.
A brief section, which seems mandatory these days, on the new uses of old skills follows, before the reader is hit with another set of excellent, useful but balanced feats. Meant for courtly characters, or those leading armies rather than small war bands, these feats give boosts to long neglected aspects of most characters, boosting the character’s power in ways beyond the strength in which they hit things. While all useful, none of them come off as sickeningly overpowered “must have” feats, each one appealing to different character strengths. These are followed by a long list of prestige classes.
Here is where the author and I split for a moment. I have never liked the current use of prestige classes as replacements for the old AD&D kits. I because attached to them as essential elements in a campaign, representing power groups and the like. I always thought with the flexibility of multiclassing, and the number of feats out there, especially all the new ones presented in this book. However, if one agrees with the use of prestige classes as “kits”, allowing characters to go down specialized paths, there is an impressive collection. Ranging from Bodyguard, a useful class for fighters who suddenly find themselves protecting weaker, but more skills-heavy characters, not the other way around, to Discreet Companion, for characters who know that a coy glance and night between sheets can glean as much information as months of careful sleuthing.
The flood of crunchy bits continues as the Chris introduces “Political Maneuvers”. Similar to combat, and the driving system of Spycraft, the system allows for characters to select “maneuvers”, which are compared against an opponent’s “Political Defense”, a kind of intellectual AC. For those of you looking for an elegant way to recreate epic debates on the floor of the Roman Senate, even if your characters are trained in classic logic and the works of Cicero, this is your stop. The mechanics for the public sphere continue with rules for elections, allowing characters who want to be kings, or king makers, to sway the public to their point of view. Essentially, Dynasties and Demagogues has taken some very difficult concepts, which tend to get glossed over, and given them some solid mechanics, but still leave enough room for roleplaying.
In Practice: In Practice is a simply guide for DMs planning to run a political campaign or adventure. It’s a short section, as compared to In Character, but provides a solid background in planning a political campaign through a number of sample campaigns, charting the development of each one, before ending in a full outline for a sample political campaign, as well as a great deal of helpful advice. While less meaty than the other sections, it is none the less very well written, and provides a good deal of extraordinarily helpful advice for running a political campaign.
