>Players want to overthrow the established order
>Look at me cow-eyed when I explain the obstacles they must overcome to get the party started
Seriously, do they not understand the gravity of something like that? They think it's about people in berets raising some flag in the middle of the city while onlookers cheer. In reality, likely millions dead during, then millions more in the aftermath that will last years... just so we can try some old philosopher shit again in the hopes that it works this time?
I mean, they didn't even vet their junta. Just a few truly evil people at the top (where they tend to end up) and you have another Misc pot situation.
These are games of fantasy, not of real sociopolitical simulation. Things work the way all players agree they believe they should work
Yes most cities are too safe, yes most urban environments that are as urbanized as these fantasylands surrealistically are would probably reek of human waste and be insufferable, yes revolution is way more complex than just getting rid of a dude at the top and then all evil systems just disintegrating. The players are moronic and/or haven't studied any of this shit, they just wanna play the game and feel good when they do things they envision and have 'em work out
So just pure wish fulfillment, no challenge or critical thinking involved. Sounds gay
>pure wish fulfillment
One could call them FANTASY games in fact.
Really weak response
>no challenge or critical thinking involved
You're running a game where you pretend to be a wizard, not a philosophy class
There obviously needs to be a certain level of verisimilitude. If you just allow everything the party tries to work exactly as expected, the whole thing collapses.
>more complex than just getting rid of a dude at the top and then all evil systems just disintegrating
Have you tried?
yeah my name is evgeny prigozhin it's way harder than you think
I genuinely hate players. They are all a bunch lazy brainlets.
>Things work the way all players agree they believe they should work
The GM is a player too, homosexual
>all players agree
I'm glad we're on the same page, but no need to act like a 14 year old about it, bud
It's easy to be an anarchist. It's easy to point out the problems in the current system. What's difficult is coming up with solutions, which is why governments, even bad ones, tend not to be easily overthrown.
American and French Revolutionaries had coherent visions for what they imagined the overthrow of the government to work out. And we can argue about the failings of the French Revolution, but nevertheless that vision is what allowed them to rally people around their cause and succeed in overthrowing the monarchy.
>It's easy to be an anarchist
Unironicly it isn't. It requires lots of hard personal work, soical intelligence, and either a well rounded person or loyal group with a diverse skill set. To be a successful one. You basically need a high IQ and high EQ unless you want a brief period of crazy before a Dictator/king/Warlord takes control.
You basically described why anarchism is a dumbass ideology and has never once succeeded.
Anarchists are only good at identifying problems. They're shit at coming up with solutions.
The lack of institutional mechanisms to maintain and perpetuate the regime do really hurt anarchism, yes... was that what you were trying to say?
Though I understand that the Spaniards made it work for a while and during a war, at that.
You pointed out that there's a difference between successful and unsuccessful anarchies. And that you need to be very smart to be a 'successful' anarchist and most people aren't.
The problem with anarchism is it fundamentally misunderstands how authority works. It's the question in Leviathan: Is government imposed from on high onto people, or does it arise naturally from the bottom? And the answer is clearly the former, otherwise anarchies could function once you've overthrown the government. However, at the end of the day people want policemen and firemen and hospitals functioning and for that to happen they need someone to collect taxes to fund those things.
Even in a night-watchman state you need the most fundamental government institution: The army. Because if you don't, you are making your land free for the taking. You point out the Spanish Civil War, which is an excellent example of that point. It didn't matter they had a 'successful' anarchy, because someone who had more guns just took them over anyway.
What, it didn't work, it literally ended in a few months (via commies murdering all the big ones) and it the brief moment it was ongoing it already showed than the ones than were in the rich parts got richer until they needed the parts of advanced machinary, and the others where collapsing (mostly in infighting).
>Anarchists are only good at identifying problems
And at throwing bombs.
While not related to social change, I have noticed that some players will want to accomplish some massive goal in just a few simple actions. Blow up buildings, overthrow local powers, acquire trade networks; and all while preferably with a single roll or maybe convincing some npc that they can delegate the task to.
If you want to build a tank you need to tell me how you acquire the metal, and forge it, and which electronic components you source for it. I'm not asking you which temperatures the forges run at or how to wire the fricking thing, but you have to be able to tell me how you went from sitting on your ass to being a tank commander. I mean frick.
The vast majority of anarchists do not live in a state of anarchy, and face no hardship associated with their beliefs. Acting like they do is like thinking all communists need to be swift to outrun the the state's kill squads, as if Stalin or Mao were still around. Separate real world and imagined world, please.
>You basically need a high IQ and high EQ unless you want a brief period of crazy before a Dictator/king/Warlord takes control.
A brief period of calm before a dictator/king/warlord takes control isn't much better, or much likelier.
Is this new cope?
Anarchists are bigger homosexuals than hippies.
>French Revolutionaries had coherent visions
Well... eventually. People seem to forget that was like, take 6.
>failings of the French Revolution
A terror regime, chaos ensues for the next two hundred years (and we even could say to today times), I wouldn't call those just failings. The french made three empires just after that, regional languages and cultures where surpressed hard, without counting the civil wars like the vendeé one.
This is just the mudcore version of "uh how dare you think you could defeat a mighty dragon >:("
Defeating a dragon is actually a way smaller problem.
uh that sounds very conseeted of you, for a dragon is mighty and has flight and fire breath. Only a foolish party would ever dream of encountering one and surviving...
That but revolution instead.
Trying to force a shitty strawman after it already fell flat on its face just makes you look moronic and your points weak.
Bit rich coming from the tard arguing that a superhero is mightier than a kampfpanzer leopard
Huh.
My group has always leaned much more heavily into the bloodthirsty aspects of revolution. We inevitably end up reenacting the Terror or the worst of Misc Pot and Stalin's abuses, at best we'll be installing ourselves as harsh but not excessively bloodthirsty autocrats. I think the only time we've had a genuinely good revolution was when we were returning a rightful king to the throne by deposimg his corrupt half-brother.
Most of the group have a fairly good level of knowledge when it comes to history and political theory so maybe that explains it. Or maybe we're just cynics.
Actually, things might go smoothly enough in our current campaign. The plot is heavily driven by the conflict between a power-hungry king and the council of powerful lords who are attempting to move things in the direction of constitutional monarchy with themselves as a proto-parliament.
Given most of the party is good or good-leaning and related to a leading figure in the parliamentary faction we might actually get a revolution without too many abuses in the aftermath.
Always nice to see how massively player groups differ.
My group is the opposite of these. For them throwing out the current leadership doesn't even occur. No matter how evil they are. King is actually a leader of a child-eating devil worship cult? "Oh boy we got DIRT on him now! Lets go extract favors to in exchange of keeping his hobby out of the public."
Win an outright war between countries? Install puppet on top, keep checks and balances in place.
Local leader is an ass AND has a personal feud with the party? Assasination? Instigate a mob? No. They rat the guy out to his superiors.
>Seriously, do they not understand the gravity of something like that?
No.
>childhood is idolizing revolution
>adulthood is knowing that all revolutions devour their children
>disillusioned old age is knowing that and going in full speed anyway because frick humanity
In a game like Exalted, these obstacles are expected in setting the tone - but that game actually has tools to mitigate or in some unique cases completely nullify the consequences of the actions you have wrought through ingenuity with consummate consequences of you becoming a control freak
In other games that barely have social project systems or where the tone is explicitly based around general heroism, I don't bother with overplaying the extent to which this can be an obstacle - because the system usually isn't built to make it a fun thing to interact with beyond just doing freeform guessing scenes.
For the past 20 years, most of the interactive media portrayed revolution as blowing up all of the random towers because an off-brown woman told you to. Majorily it's just a way to get into a setting where you fight exclusively humans, and perhaps even call the murdered enemies "evil disgusting pig cops", so you also feel great about yourself. I've yet to hear a story where 'adventuring party' with something like 'dragons ruining the land' rapidly changing gears to become an actual political party worth following with meaningful political agenda and actual strategy to acquire power. Usually it's just
>I kill the king because he's a poopy head.
And it's almost never
>What do you mean he's a level 15 Wizard, that's why this country can exist at all, and his level 8 royal guard descend on me in multiple dozens??!?!?!?!?!?!
>I mean, they didn't even vet their junta. Just a few truly evil people at the top (where they tend to end up) and you have another Misc pot situation.
So? Good rule isn't a requirement for a revolution to succeed. Indeed, you mention an example where revolution resulted in objectively terrible rule that killed a full quarter of the population and which was supported by ideological allies all over the world, often with deliberate propaganda, even as refugees were streaming out of the country. In fact, revolutions can and do start frivolously. During the Arab Spring it was one dude lighting himself on fire that was finally enough to devolve an unstable situation into revolution. Not only in his home country, but across the entire Arab world, resulting in such nice things as the drag-out civil war in Libya and fricking ISIS. The Zanzibar genocide was the result of one crazy dude spouting nonsense in a tense post-colonial climate, and this man was so crazy even African dictators considered him so unworkable they got rid of him. And in a more Medieval setting, before Menno Simons introduced pacifism to the faith Anabaptists were often violent radicals, a group of which took over Münster on the strength of a few nutjobs pretending they were speaking to God. The Taiping Rebellion started because a failed clerk claimed to be the brother of Jesus in a country that doesn't even worship Jesus.
If the situation is unstable enough a few idiots deciding to act absolutely can start a revolution. For the French revolution there's a theory that Marquis de Sade is partly responsible for it, as he was confined in the Bastille during that time for being a pervert, and reportedly shouted from his cell "they're killing people in here".
You should let them do it. Just watch as the setting turns more and more dire. If they b***h, keep a notebook with real life sources. If there’s a woman, tell her to go watch Les Miserables. It’s a musical in movie form so she won’t be able to say no.
Then at the end do turn it into a Misc Pot situation. And make sure they know it’s their
I once had my players put down a revolution because despite it being anti-theist, it was in fact birthing a new god. In most worlds it wouldn't be a problem, but the last time a god was born on this planet it was the equivalent of a continent levelling nuke. Thankfully our fighter was a lawyer and made the most exact wish possible to the genie they had looted in the aforementioned nuked lands, and stopped the revolution and the birth of a new god.
Don't shit on your players, OP, if a revolution is what they *really want*, have them fall upon a 'sons of liberty/rebel alliance' type organisation to steer them in doing what they do best: punch things.
It ain't rocket science, don't fool your players into mudcore grimderp where the canals are stacked with body because the local lord felt like it this morning.
>we want to play a cool revolution plot
>we are hyped about the game
>GM ruins it by going autismo instead of making a fun experience with interesting obstacles out of it
This is a /tg/ thread alright
My players are planning on participating in a revolution against a pretty shitty king that "wants to bring his brother to the throne as the legitimate ruler". This is complete bullshit. The brother has been dead for multiple years and the revolutionaries only use him as a way to garner support and to get legitimacy to their revolution. The leadership of the revolution is, in fact, a cult worshipping a primordial alien God of madness and their goal is simply to create dissent and all-out civilwar within the kingdom to then infiltrate the royal institutions with loyalists to their cause, accusse the leadership of those institutions as revolutionaries use the kings paranoia in their favor.Then they will hopefully have the king appoint their loyalists to high ranking positions in the church, army, intelligence agency, and everything else. They will then, after gaining complete control of the kingdoms institutions, "lose" the civilwar and go into hiding while the faces of the revolution get charged as the organizers of it all.
No one is aware of this, with the exception of a single spy, extremely deep undercover, but his communication lines with the spy agebcy has been cut so he can't say shit. The players are, so far, 100% on board with the revolution and they don't have any idea so far of what the frick is going on behind the scenes, and I am eagerly awaiting them finding out the fact that they've been used. Hopefully they'll figure it out before it's too late to turn back.
>normalgays that just want to emulate their favourite media vs OP the Hearts of Iron sperg
Truly a battle of the midwits
>revolution plot
>step 1
>establish contact with various anti government groups
>do some odd jobs for group A to gain their trust
>settle a dispute between group B and C so they will work together
>convince some inside force to switch sides when its going down
>step 2:
>prepare the uprising
>gain intel
>raid smaller outposts
>divert main loyalist forces
>assasinate someone important
>give hope to the populace
>sabotage some shit
>step 3
>shit hits the fan
>storm some fortress
>kill some leaders
>repell counter attack
>someone betrays you
>step 4
>establish new order
>fight remaining loyalists
>convince other loyalists to put down arms
>revolution group A wants to revenge mode, stop them
>sub group of revolution group B wants to take over and betrays you, fight them and their supporters
>repell third party actors, opportunists and agents of chaos
>do some quests to prove new leadership is good
There. Flesh each point out a bit and you can have
>step 4
>epilogue about how the new order now runs things
There you go. Flesh some points out, add some new ones or take some away and you have the guideline for a grand revolution campaign
Youre very clever for knowing that political change and social upheaval are complicated processes, its an insight few people possess. How else do you plan to enlighten your players? Point out that really individual warriors cant fight dragons due to the size difference and the limits of human strength?
Your group are most likely aware that there is more to revolution in real life than whatever they wanted or tried, they were however operating under the assumption that this is a game of fiction rather than your lecture on why the french revolution was bad. Noble revolutions, knights saving princesses and slaying dragons, overthrowing the corrupt noble for his handsome and good natured son and then going for a fun round of drinks at a local tavern named something like "the smoking dragon". All of it is romanticized and doesent deal with the gritty realities any of those things would involve.
When your players want to travel to a far off land they want to traverse wilderness and go on adventures, to forge their way into the unknown and brave all sorts of fun and exciting quests, rather than spend every session dealing with border officials, documents and the payment of fees and tariffs or haggling with local shipmasters and caravan leaders regarding payment for transportation.
If you have a less romantic notion of how things should go you should communicate that to your players, so they will know that you want to do a campaign more preoccupied with the nitty gritty and the realistic, so they dont set out to slay the mighty dragon and save the princess only to be told that they spent half a year tracking a migratory lizard into a dank and treasureless cave to find some shat out bones. You are the gamesmaster, you set the tone and theme of the campaign, but it is therefore also your job to communicate that with your players and your responsibility to make sure you find ones they can enjoy and get behind.
Nth post best post
We need a revolution against the enslavement of mankind by the predatory debt based fiat central banking system.
>likely millions dead during, then millions more in the aftermath that will last years
imagine all that XP
Haha yes, Revolutions shouldn't be fetishized...
However!
>In reality, likely millions dead during, then millions more in the aftermath that will last years... just so we can try some old philosopher shit again in the hopes that it works this time?
They don't want the French revolution you dumb homosexual, they want the American revolution or wanna be IRA members blowing up black and tans. """""Millions dead""""" is hardly the norm, and in a fantasy world with superpowered individuals capable of taking on entire armies, killing all the high level leadership and replacing them can be relatively bloodless.
Reminder that Dark Sun is literally a revolution-focused setting where the party overthrow literally draconian rulers who have morphed into actual dragons through their intense accumulation of wealth and personal power at the expense of nearly dooming the planet and destroying the environment for short term gains.
>Fetishization of Revolution
Is that a bad thing?
Being pro-revolutionary is good. Being smoothbrained about it is bad.
>Players want to overthrow the established order
Instead of arguing about the moral/feasibility platitudes of revolutions with your players you should simply ask them "how?" and then highlight the most immediate challenges to that endeavour: are they strangers or have ties in the local population? If it's the first case they probably need to start working on that, nobody is going to listen to a deranged vagabond speaking ill words to the establishment. Second, how are you going to build consensus under the radar of the establishment? They think overt discourses of subversion go just unnoticed from the authority? Third, how they're going to keep the movement consistent? They seriously think that no other group of interest would not sneak in some agents to use the movement to their advantages? And so on. Aftermath consequences of a successful revolution are then to be presented after obviously (eg: picrel goodman's lich gay marriage) being obviously telegraphed in course of action.
Funny story that may or may not have happened aside, I think I would immediately tell anyone whose first question was about who they could marry and not about where we were going adventure wise to shut the hell up.