Welcome to Lawful GM -- the column where I attempt to enrich the legal and political foundations of your campaign!

Okay... that first sentence, while accurate to my intentions, has probably tempted you to close the tab and swiftly move on to another column. Law and politics bore a lot of people and aggravate the rest. I get that, but before you close the tab just hear me out.

In the real world, laws permeate everything. Forget for the moment the obvious -- laws enacted by a government to regulate society in some fashion. There are also laws based on religious beliefs, social norms, contractual obligations, and so forth and so on. You probably first encountered laws in your family; at the most basic level, parents make and enforce laws. In fact, all relationships have laws, often unspoken but laws nonetheless. Let me give an example: punctuality. This is a law. In some contexts, like a job, what is expected in regards to punctuality is clearly articulated, including the consequences for failing to show up on time. In other contexts, punctuality is more of a vague expectation. Let's say you have a date that starts at 7pm. When should you arrive? 7pm. That's a law everyone knows, yet with these soft laws we're the judge and jury. For some people, 7:15pm is the same as 7:00pm while others will show up 30 minutes early as that's what's they believe is required.

This bring us to politics -- the process of making and changing laws. Once again there is a continuum from governmental politics at the highest level to basic relationships at the lowest. You arrive at 7:15pm for your date, but you bring flowers -- that's politics to try to get 7pm redefined to mean 7:15pm.

Law and politics permeate everything in the real world, and thus also the imaginary worlds we create as GMs. It doesn't matter if your PCs are the ragtag crew of a starship, members of a vicious assassin's guild, or dungeon--sacking adventurers; the laws and politics of the setting define their campaign. The better you handle these aspects, the richer your campaign.

Consider the words of Henry David Thoreau:

If you have built castles in the sky
Let not your dreams go to waste;
Just build the foundations under them.

This is the point of this column -- building foundations to hold your castles in the sky aloft. I'll admit this sounds rather pompous. Here I am promising to lift your campaigns up in the sky with what? Discussions of law and politics? Well, yeah, because that is the glue that holds your settings together.

I'm going to be a little judgmental here. Most RPGs botch their handling of law and politics. This is a pardonable sin, because it's not an easy topic. If you have ever read a RPG that says something like ?this RPG is about adventure, not running inns or collecting taxes? what is really being said is ?those who wrote this RPG have no clue how to make running inns or governance interesting?. I wish they would say what they mean, but the dismissive approach is better than the traditional approach, which varies from amusing to dreadful. = I'm thinking of those RPGs that try to quantify law, politics, and economics (which is inseparable from law and politics) with numbers and dice rolls. For me, the Companion Boxed Set of BECMI Dungeons & Dragons (the green one) was my first exposure to a system to help a GM manage PC lords. This was a pretty good system for reducing a lot of complex ideas into a format for the uninitiated to grasp. The problem is that this approach, coupled with influence from computer games and boardgames, has led to most contemporary RPGs reducing governance to ?if you build X you get a +4 to reactions from your peasants? and so forth. Everything becomes number crunching and dice rolls removed from the drama of the moral and ethical decisions that are narratively compelling. In other words -- it's boring. = The real world is complicated, things are not easily quantified, and very, very rarely is there 'one right solution' to any problem.This is what a GM wants to capture: difficult problems that challenge players to make hard decisions. If you attempt to excessively simplify this stuff you rob your players, and yourself, of a lot of fun.

Let's break this down:

• Laws are the rules that shape the societies of a setting.
• Politics is the process of manipulating those rules to accomplish certain goals, including perhaps changing the laws.
• NPCs are the catalysts and create the problems that will challenge your players.

Considering all of this together, you need to make sure that the laws of your setting give your NPCs the tools they need to create dramatic, engaging problems and that the laws and politics of your setting are rational enough that your players can understand and utilize them to solve those problems.

There are couple of universal techniques to doing this.

First, good problems usually involve prioritization of resources. This is the foundation of most games and for good reason as it's a fundamental issue of human existence. As GM you need to inform the PCs clearly of what resources they have and where those resources are needed as well as potential consequences if they fail to commit enough resources to a need. For example, the PCs control a large mercenary unit and after a few rough months are running out of money. Are wages to be cut, which would affect morale? Personnel released, which would require hard choices of who to let go? Equipment sold, thus reducing operational capacity? Maybe they need to borrow money from a questionable lender or take an extremely risky contract? You need to give the PCs enough information for them to understand the problem and yet not too much information, as that will limit their creativity and ability to develop novel solutions.

The reverse of the above situation can be nearly as compelling, and perhaps more enjoyable to the players -- that's when they have more resources than they need and can allocate them to expanding their assets. Perhaps the mercenary unit had a good year. Should they pay bonuses? Add more personnel? Buy more equipment? Build a base? This is an iconic part of most RPGs -- the PCs acquire treasure and then they get to spent it. This is a political situation. How the PCs divide up a dragon's hoard between themselves is politics at its best.

Second, the best problems pose ethical and moral dilemmas. These touch on a lot of issues, but generally deal with fairness and the sanctity of life and liberty. Ethical and moral dilemmas represent conflicts between NPCs and PCs or perhaps between the PCs themselves over basic rights. Properly structured, these sorts of problems can lead players to great roleplaying as they weigh factors and try to make the 'right' decision. This can create very compelling scenarios.

The trick is to keep your own personal moral and ethical biases out of the discussion. You can project NPC views but you need to step back and let the NPCs and PCs do their stuff. Remember there is rarely 'one right solution' to any problem. This doesn't mean you shouldn't deliver consequences for the decisions of the PCs, but make sure the consequences are appropriate and fair. GMs who get this wrong can create all manner of problems in how their players react to the setting. The classic example involves the GM who every time the PCs show mercy to a NPC ensures that the NPC will show up later to seek vengeance . . . of the fact that they showed him mercy. This is insane because it eventually leads to PCs who just decide to kill all prisoners to avoid problems down the road. This is why your consequences must be appropriate and fair.

Third, the whole goal is to engage and challenge your players. To do this you need good problems to present them. Good problems are ones that don't have clear answers yet are grounded by the rules of the setting (and when appropriate, reality), so that your players can use reason and a little imagination to develop solutions. Good problems should be solved by player decisions, not dice rolls. Never let a player solve a political problem with a dice roll! Perhaps a dice roll might help uncover more information or help execute a player's plan but the solution must come from the player. Once again, remember: there's no 'one right solution'.

Fourth, your setting's political structures should be designed so there are multiple ways to address a problem. For example, if you have a kingdom where humans and elves can't marry and a PC wants to change that law, then you don't want the only option to be that the Queen must change it. That's simple, but it's not engaging. Instead, set up political institutions so that PCs can come at the problem from different angles. Even better, have those different angles able to play off one another to add more depth and drama to the situation. So you could set it up so that either the Queen or the Parliament can pass a new law but the other can also veto it. Now the PCs have more options and more obstacles as well. You want competing political powers that are redundant while also providing checks upon one another. The same logic applies to a thieves' guild, a noble family, even the inn the PCs own. A small caveat is not to go excessive in detail here (or at least not more excessive than your players enjoy), but varied options for political action are important. This will probably be an area I write a lot about as this can be fairly complicated to execute.

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, you need to think things through. Identify the wrinkles in your setup and find ways to fix them. This is the ultimate goal of this column. If you can find a way to work through your problems mentally and spot check the hiccups before you use them then you will be in good stead. Many GMs get tripped up at his point and I suspect this will be a major focus of this column as well.

That's the basic strategy.

In subsequent articles I'll be tackling various issues arising out of above approach. How do you design governance scenarios for a PC who is actually a king? How do you break down the economic numbers for a PC who is running a space station? How do you setup a good government for a political campaign? How would a thieves' guild actually work? If you have any requests or suggestions just comment below on the link to the forums for this column.