D&D Smear Campaign

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:21 pm

Are there any good rules for propaganda and other forms of large scale social engineering for the D&D genre?

I'm talking stuff like inciting or defusing a riot, racketeering a neighborhood, winning favour in court politics, etc.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 3:55 am

No.

Unless you consider Exalted part of the DnD genre. It has rules that are quite good, and only as broken as the rest of Exalted.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 6:05 am

In the middle ages it was called "being a Baron". Defusing riots by killing everyone, protection money was the normal system of government, winning favour by being the biggest murder-noble in town. The Church didn't convert people, it just murdered them until they agreed to tithe.

There's rules for Baronies in the Companion Set for BECMI, and various end-edition books for 3e. It's what Fighters do by default at 9th level in AD&D 1st and 2nd. Some of those actually bothered to produce occasional adventure hooks.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 6:14 am

I am stunned by how completely Tussock managed to miss the point.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 6:42 am

Off-hand I'd probably say you're not going to find any subsystems for that so much. That aside though, lot of that does sound like using mix of Spells and skills.

Bluff can be used to instill rumors & propoganda, Diplomacy and coin can get those further under your cause. Inciting/defusing a Riot sounds could do it with Diplomacy/Intimidate?? (some may argue like a "Leadership' check) Nothing else, Dominate/Charm spells, and perhaps an illusion of someone throwing the figurative chair that causes the rioting. Racketeering sounds like what happens when adventurers stay in town too long with their murderous tendences, but hiring Thugs, gaining followers, use of Intimidate & own personal power should ensure can get some of that action going. Far as gaining repute in politics, I'm not sure, though I do like the concept of reputation systems, games like Morrowind had. To any consolation, Frank at one point, was going to make a Political System for Vampire, maybe it's adaptable?

Antariuk · Post by **Antariuk** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:20 pm

If you're looking for some hilarious d20 rules, Atlas Games had "Dynasties & Demagogues" and "Crime & Punishment". They were bloated and clunky and exactly what you'd expect, but I think a fun read nontheless.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:39 pm

Aryxbez wrote:To any consolation, Frank at one point, was going to make a Political System for Vampire, maybe it's adaptable?

It does look like it could be potentially usable quite nicely; but it'd require a fair bit of work to make cards. Another thing is that a murder hobo doesn't quite have the emergent requirement of hiding in the day, so having thugs would only be encouraged by making your goals required multi-pronged affairs.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:57 pm

@Chamomile, you should read more of my posts.

My point is, none of that stuff really existed in medieval times. Riots happened because the nobility forgot to lower taxes in times of mass starvation, and they dealt with that by killing people until there was enough food after all and then putting taxes up to pay for that. There's no real propaganda yet because that's an early-20th century science based around the mass media.

People weren't killing Jews because of a national sense of racial superiority yet, it was just a convenient way to make them forgive all your debts when you got in over your head. Because Christians weren't allowed to loan money and Jews weren't allowed weapons. Kinda inevitable, really.

What you should have is a system of people agreeing with your latest claims of land and tax rights because you can pay more up the chain than the other guys claiming the same thing (and also you aren't dead yet). Where payment takes all sorts of forms such as promising not to murder people. The guys who had the king's favour in court really were just the ones with the biggest estates paying the biggest tithes and taxes upstream and wielding the biggest armies: the defacto king.

And that suits D&D really well. Once you're high level and can kick everyone's ass they start paying you not to. If you're not the king it doesn't matter because he'll do everything you want anyway, so you don't murder him and support someone who will instead. When you're low level no one gives a shit about you unless you can pay them enough to care. As you rank up, people start wanting you to join the various clubs. Duke demands a loyalty payment, grants you a tiny border town and associated industry to tax at your leisure, as long as you keep the peasants in order and stop the monsters crossing through. Or the church gives you a parish in the area. Or the magic guild makes you set up a scroll shop. Or the rogue network gives you they keys to the city, literally.

Which is basically what various early systems did. In a midweight form that throws adventures at you now and then in the Companion Set.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 11:12 pm

tussock wrote:My point is, none of that stuff really existed in medieval times.

This feels really familiar, like we've been over this before...

BECAUSE RAELIZM

Back to my original point; I gave specific examples of stuff like...

inciting riots

court politics

and racketeering. Those exist as actions before medieval times, and certainly have a place in D&D as a genre.

Wait, what am I doing? I gave up actually debating on this forum.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 11:51 pm

Then I'll be plain.

Your court politics system cannot fucking work in a game of D&D if some useless fop with points in "lol, I can make the king smile" can have any influence at all in the presence of a 20th level Wizard with a different opinion. If your system supports something other than the Wizard winning and everyone who's not a higher CR character losing, it's useless and just forces players to show you how D&D really works.

Is the Barbarian intimidating enough to have you give her your army? If she's higher level and in charge range, yes she is. Problem solved. Just, you know, you've only got one and if she breaks it there's no more. But it is up to her, because people who say no might lose their heads by round 2.

Not so much RAELIZM as naturalism. Facing facts and shit. Real world did it with armies and D&D does it with people who are better than armies. Same effect.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:34 am

That's dumb. "Might makes right" only works when you are the mightiest.

Who wins between that fop and a 10th level Wizard, in convincing the king? Well if the king is a 15th level Wizard, then both people are about equally crap in comparison, so yeah, he might pick the guy with "lol, I can make the king smile".

Sure, when you're the strongest in the world, you can pretty much ignore politics and do what the fuck you want. Until that point, they're still relevant. You're saying we shouldn't have rules for overland travel because eventually people can Teleport.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 9:36 am

1: it is kinda "dumb", yes, but it's entirely practical as a game mechanic which will not piss people off and is also chock-full of verisimilitude. It really is how the world works, and did work in the past, and will work in the future. Though in D&D, class and levels are more important than armies for force projection.

It's like if the world's wealthy had their money in oil reserves, and science was saying it will kill half the world do dig them up and burn them. Guess who wins. Hmm.

2: The King wins if he's the highest level character, yes. Well spotted. Your Wizard and the fop will both their receive orders and be on their way. Their opinions and desires simply don't matter to higher level NPCs. At all. Any mechanic which says they do is bullshit.

And I'm saying: when the adults are talking, the children should shut up and listen.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 3:52 pm

tussock wrote:@Chamomile, you should read more of my posts.

My point is, none of that stuff really existed in medieval times. Riots happened because the nobility forgot to lower taxes in times of mass starvation, and they dealt with that by killing people until there was enough food after all and then putting taxes up to pay for that. There's no real propaganda yet because that's an early-20th century science based around the mass media.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8175900123
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... .00064/pdf

http://www.historytoday.com/colin-richm ... wars-roses

People weren't killing Jews because of a national sense of racial superiority yet, it was just a convenient way to make them forgive all your debts when you got in over your head. Because Christians weren't allowed to loan money and Jews weren't allowed weapons. Kinda inevitable, really.

http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks ... ropaganda/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_antisemitism

Also see

http://publications.newberry.org/teache ... usades.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Englands-Empty-Th ... sideout-20

http://books.google.com/books?id=7SL1bV ... CHMQ6AEwDg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier#History

http://kottke.org/13/02/the-mass-media-of-1415

I'm not saying your wrong, but actually I'm saying that you're wrong. Inferior mass communications isn't the same thing as no mass communications.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 4:42 pm

tussock wrote: 2: The King wins if he's the highest level character, yes. Well spotted. Your Wizard and the fop will both their receive orders and be on their way. Their opinions and desires simply don't matter to higher level NPCs. At all. Any mechanic which says they do is bullshit.

And I'm saying: when the adults are talking, the children should shut up and listen.

People can care about the opinions and desires of others who can't force them to do anything. Oh, sure, the most powerful person in the world might be able to make any decision he wants, but that doesn't mean people can't talk him into making a different decision. Also, at most one person can be the most powerful person in the world, and it is highly likely the entire rest of the world put together has sufficient power to oppose him, so he can't piss literally everyone off.

Your opinion is even stupider in the real world, where the people with the most individual power are probably special forces soldiers and not in charge. Kings ruled by the force of their armies, but you can't exactly threaten your own army into following you because you have an army. Furthermore, it turns out that threatening to kill anyone who doesn't do what you say does not necessarily mean everyone does what you say even if you are able and willing to do that.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:00 pm

One thing I'd like to have available is misinformation campaigns. I want the party to only find out the Wolf Duke exists after careful investigation into mysterious wolf attacks. I want the party to make the Duke of Wolves think they're vulnerable to fire before they meet for the scheduled duel at sundown. I want the party to discover that the Wolf Duke isn't actually a werewolf when they loose a silver arrow.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 5:33 am

hyzmarca wrote:
tussock wrote:@Chamomile, you should read more of my posts.

My point is, none of that stuff really existed in medieval times. Riots happened because the nobility forgot to lower taxes in times of mass starvation, and they dealt with that by killing people until there was enough food after all and then putting taxes up to pay for that. There's no real propaganda yet because that's an early-20th century science based around the mass media.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8175900123
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... .00064/pdf

http://www.historytoday.com/colin-richm ... wars-roses

Cool. So that basically says that people didn't engage in propaganda at all, except for during wartimes and even then not to actually raise soldiers (which was still a process of feudalism), where the usual call was "he's a bastard" or "his marriage isn't sanctioned" and thus doesn't have claim to the throne after all.

A Bastard he would have been, in all the history books, had he actually lost. I concede that in matters of legal fact that certain people were rightfully king by birth, the facts of their birth had to be changed if you intended to cut their heads off and claim the throne.

But that doesn't really apply to D&D. People aren't anything by right of birth. I suppose you could argue the King's not even 4th level, and thus his orders don't mean shit. Unless you do have 1st level hereditary Kings, in which case Dominate them and be done with it.

People weren't killing Jews because of a national sense of racial superiority yet, it was just a convenient way to make them forgive all your debts when you got in over your head. Because Christians weren't allowed to loan money and Jews weren't allowed weapons. Kinda inevitable, really.
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks ... ropaganda/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_antisemitism

That's better. Poisoning the Well. You'll note the lead up, where Jews are the sole substantial minority group present in nearly every city, while also being the bankers. For centuries.

You know how people hate bankers? Just in general? On account of how people suck with risk assessment? When all your bankers are Jewish and a lot of your Jews are bankers, by law no less, people over the centuries took to suspecting Jews of being selfishly cruel.

So when a mystery plague was killing half the population, everyone in some places, and they had no fucking idea what was happening, and praying to God did nothing, and even the priests were dying, ... in some places they guessed wrong and blamed the Jews. But no one seems to have deliberately instigated that. It wasn't anyone's plan, and it didn't spread to neighbouring cities and towns at all.

Kings defaulting on their loans and shipping all the Jews in a country out to make it difficult for them to claim, that happened. That was planned. But it's also not associated with propaganda, they just announced what they'd made the new law and that was that.

More of your links.

http://publications.newberry.org/teache ... usades.pdf
"Propaganda" only appears in the title. It's a list of religious people believing things which aren't true. Which is like religion today as well. Dogma != Propaganda.

http://www.amazon.com/Englands-Empty-Th ... sideout-20
That's again where there's a law that says (IF A; THEN B; ELSE NOT-B), and people who were not A already had B by taking it in war, so the just said A was true even though it wasn't. After winning the wars and having B already. By force.

http://books.google.com/books?id=7SL1bV ... CHMQ6AEwDg
So that's a thing where the king wears lions rampant on red, so after you've made yourself king by force of arms you also wear lions rampant on red. Because you're king now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier#History

http://kottke.org/13/02/the-mass-media-of-1415

Which, according to your first links, were almost always used to inform people of changes to the laws and regulations and the reasons and justifications for those changes. That's a common-law thing were a law not possible to be known is not possible to breach, and people couldn't read, so you had to have copies and made and people read them out in public on market days and stuff.

I'm not saying your wrong, but actually I'm saying that you're wrong. Inferior mass communications isn't the same thing as no mass communications.

Bully for your google skills. Shame about the reading comprehension.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 7:34 am

I think this thread is a good sign of how all jews are cruel.
/jokeinpoortaste

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 8:52 am

If you want to get a smear campaign going against something, just hire tussock as the spokesman for the other side. It's foolproof!