Who Holds the Reigns

[Lotherio]

I don't know a good title to get right to the point.

I'm curious about In-Game politics and control. On the one hand, I've heard folks say the highest character in theme/sphere should be controlled by staff so they can retain control/direction. On the other hand, the Staff control everything else beyond the sphere of play, PC control help give direction while Staff can react if needed.

That' pretty simplistic, but I'm curious what everyone else thinks on this note.

But as an example, lets say the King of Faux Fantasy Realm where the focus of play is FF Realm. Some players want to aspire to be King, that's a good aspiration. Some staff want to control whether FF Realm wars with neighbors or whatnot so wants to maintain control of King.

My perspective, so everyone knows, staff control everything else. If the King is PC and goes to war with neighbor, I can account for other kingdoms to join neighbor against FF Realm if I really wanted, or let them invade and conquer and figure out what to do with the conquered. I can still respond with rebellions and insurrections and the like. Or embrace the conquerors to get them to attack another neighbor who has been an enemy for ages or whatever.

I'm curious on both sides. I want to understand keeping the reigns on like the upper eschelon. Some pros and cons might be interesting.

[mietze]

I've seen that done well and seen it done terribly.

Ultimately I actually do not think it matters very much, though its something a minority of a playerbase will get fixated on.

If staff are actively managing a game, and they have adequate spread to cover the size/scope of their game, as well as the ability to handle ooc problems that come up, chances are whatever the power structure is for the game will work well too.

If not, then it won't.

[Carma]

This post is deleted!

[Ganymede]

@carma said in Who Holds the Reigns:

Take the example of a king in Lotherio's example. That's a likely required character. Whether or not a game can support a king is irrelevant to the matter that there needs to be some "successor" or "backup" to that position. PCs disappear all the time, for many reasons. Without that leadership, an entire group's RP can suffer. Hence why there needs to be NPC backup in these cases.

In the example, I would make the Crown an NPC, but let PCs make up a Council that has substantial sway over how the Crown chooses. It's a good way to accommodate the recycling of PCs while keeping the story in staff control as needed.

[Derp]

For me, I've tried to let PCs run spheres before. I was a very big advocate of players having a say in things.

And then I saw the way that usually went down. The behind-the-scenes backstabbing and vitriol that comes with getting and holding those positions, the OOC politics that go along with it, and the general inactivity and resentment that it breeds.

Never again. I know players will hate it, they want to aspire to the pinnacles of everything, but it's my solid and firm belief that PCs being in positions to actually control other PCs with nobody above them to oversee those actions leads to misery all around, and most of them don't even do the job once their ass in on their respective throne. If they do try to do the job the other PCs just ignore them anyway.

Best to keep the highest echelons to an NPC. Tyrannical? Sure. But also practical.

[faraday]

@derp said in Who Holds the Reigns:

Never again. I know players will hate it, they want to aspire to the pinnacles of everything, but it's my solid and firm belief that PCs being in positions to actually control other PCs with nobody above them to oversee those actions leads to misery all around...

That's pretty much where I've landed. I've seen mostly badness from having PCs at the top of spheres:

• They disappear, resulting in a revolving door of leadership.
• They don't do the job (often because it's no fun). You may have to "fire" them, leading to strife.
• They don't handle power well, leading to strife.
• Other players get jealous, leading to strife.

There are, of course, exceptions. I've seen some gems of PC facheads through the years. But it's a rare player who can handle the responsibility well and stick around. Most often, it ends badly.

[Sunny]

I genuinely think that either policy choice (PC led politics, NPC led politics) is fine, as long as appropriate controls are in place to ensure that the downsides of said policy choice are accounted for, and as long as the staff team remains consistent with the rule.

Stagnation/Turnover
These are the same issue, just one or the other side of the coin depending on which choice you make.

With a staff NPC in a leadership role, stagnation of the domain (whatever game set there is) becomes a serious potential issue. These characters also tend to be either too competent (leaving no room for a lot of things), or too incompetent without recourse for the characters (which becomes a suspension of disbelief problem).

With PCs in leadership roles, the turnover is generally intense. The pressure on the players of these characters is also intense, without active steps being taken to combat it.

Character Accessibility
When your leadership characters are played by staff, it limits the access people have to them (or the quality of the access is shit), because staff have eleventy billion other things they have to be doing. Ensuring access is HARD. Ensuring FAIR access is impossible.

When players play leadership roles, they typically only have that one character there (or maybe an alt or two). LOTS more access / involvement can happen. Including things like the seven hundred year old vampire prince of the city going to Starbucks and pretending to sip coffee while talking about Becky's poodle, because their priority is RP.

Plots
With staff controlling the leadership roles, these characters can be a source of plots / information for plots. They do not, generally, get to participate. When players control the leadership roles, you have the seven hundred year old vampire prince of the city helping track down a guy who robbed the convenience store and stole Becky's poodle.

Getting things done
When staff controls leadership roles, handling things that involve leadership roles can be a +request. When it's a player, player personalities and conflicts get involved. As well, you either get mini staff (that you didn't really choose), where they have responsibilities and requirements on them, or you don't, which gums up the entire works. PC leadership means that when IC laws/etc get broken, you're going to have players dealing with this.

Agency
Players in leadership roles give the orgs they are part of far, far more agency in determining the direction of their spheres of influence. Staff in leadership roles remove a significant amount of agency from the player characters that are part of their sphere of influence. Mind, this isn't wholly a terrible thing, as it allows for significant control of possible thematic drift, and so on.

Engaging Characters
PCs are like 99% of the time just going to be more interesting than NPCs are to regularly engage with. They're "more real" people because they get played a ton more, and have personal connections with characters that NPCs don't really have time to have. While NPCs get crowd-bombed when they step somewhere accessible, PCs are just part of the tapestry of PCs, so they can have rich levels of involvement.

All of these varying points have different solutions that are more or less work. This is not even remotely an exhaustive list, I'm just trying to illustrate the breadth of differences. Both are 100% workable, valid, reasonable ways to go, you just have to pick one and then address the logical consequences of that choice for the game in question, your staff team, and your players.

[Misadventure]

In a slight variance from Ganymede's suggestion of a council advising a king, you could also just have the actual leadership form BE a group itself. That lets them reach a pinnacle, and vie for it among other PCs, and lets staff offer up changes in NPC attitudes, positions, and persons to keep things grounded in theme and setting.

That all works with advising a leader or leading couple too.

And in reality often the crown cant just do what they want anyhow. Others have critical resources and must be consulted before a decision is presented to the general public.

[Ominous]

@misadventure

I am going to disagree with this idea. First hand experience on that Arx off-shoot Elf game taught me that doesn't work. I took a character that was at the highest echelon of his faction, which was the ruling council of that faction. Other factions had different rulership types - of note, two of the neighboring factions were autocracies of sorts. Those two factions were gobbling up territory and the our faction was puttering around with each council member doing their own thing, instead of unifying the resources of the whole faction to compete. I kept pushing for meeting with the other heads to discuss things and get organized but I would only hear crickets back. I am of the opinion that they took top of the pyramid positions because they wanted the shiny title only.

Also, Firan was government by council. Boy was that fun.

Anyways, I agree with most everyone else. Roster turnover, abuses of power, shiny title syndrome, etc. means players are shit and can't be trusted with all the power. Top position should be an NPC for stability and oversight and seconds in command, King's Council, viziers, powers behind the throne, etc. can be held by players.

[Pyrephox]

I think part of it going to depend on how much you want to maintain a consistent theme that isn't in line with modern 21st century first world normative assumptions. The more you want to keep things that aren't 'now time standard', the more of your upper structure needs to be NPCs who are very committed to the status quo. If your theme is more modern-day friendly, or you are okay with it going in that direction, more PC leadership can happen.

But, honestly? I think the biggest thing is that IC leadership positions need to be divorced from OOC leadership responsibilities if you're going to have PCs in those spots. There's a tremendous pressure on PC leaders to be 'good leaders' by whatever crazed and entitled way that other PCs define that, and it's both hugely stressful and harmful to having a game with a consistent 'back and forth' of IC conflict and drama. A 'bad' IC leader can drive more and often more interesting story than a 'good' one, IMO, where 'good' is 'tries to please everyone and not Make Trouble with unreasonable demands'.

NPC leaders have more freedom to drive RP and action by being...not great people IC. They can be drunkards who order PCs to try and do something frankly stupid, or they can have a blood feud with another faction that means people can't just 'sit down and talk out' a thousand year old grudge the way PCs are inclined to. And they can do it without taking the IMMENSE amount of OOC flack that PC leaders get whenever they make...almost any decision at all.