Politics within Shadowbane

[Martok]

This is a post I found on the Shadowbane forums.  I found it to be interesting.  There is going to have to be a balance between politics and the military in order to have a successful empire.

This is in response to a post by KniteFlux in my Shadowbane and Real World Talent thread. It was being pushed down on the boards by drivel, so I'm posting it here so the topic doesn't get drowned. It's also a slight tangent from the original subject and could be considered a topic all in itself.

From KniteFlux's post:

In reply to:

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While guilds who are backed with strong leaders and the IC charisma will be effective, will their be guilds out their who won't care about politcs at all? Will these guilds of PKers grow large enough to actually win by pure numbers of members?

....A game like SB seems to attract those that are interested in PvP, that is the nature of the game. This leads me to think that the number of people who will give little thought to lore, politics, etc will be high.

....What I have questioned isn't will personal ability play an important part in SB (I'm sure it will), but will/can it be overwhelmed by pure numbers of those that don't give a...

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First, a guild won't be able to avoid politics. There is a huge difference between past games and Shadowbane - the fact that guilds can actually hold territory....and lose it.

One critical thing to remember is that in order for a large group of random PKers (this is the type of person described) to lead their hordes to assault, they have to have a base of operations - a city of their own. If they aren't competent in managing that city, one of the many other guilds can sack it, quite easily. Then they're forced to operate out of a safehold, where they won't be able to affect other guilds to any serious degree.

They're forced to have certain skills in order to have a city. As WP has said many times, the roving bands of PKers aren't going to survive in SB. They'll need cities, they'll need a place to go. Scorn made a post a while back about the combat system. From what they describe, this combat system will get quite complex, and those that can use different classes and powers and abilities in combination with each other (i.e. as a group) will have a serious advantage, especially against those who are not as organized or disciplined to fight that way.

To simplify, the random PK guilds will be an endangered species, and those that are there will not be a problem. Guilds are forced to not only to have a city in order to be significant, but the members will be forced to organize and work with each other if they want to have any degree of success. And even then, quality members working together will have power that exceeds the mob-mentality.

The bottom line is that WP has been gearing their game to ensure that the sort of thing that worries you will not happen. When I look at the mechanics they've revealed, I see a system that accomplishes that. The combat design, level design, and other aspects, combined with the whole city-building system forces a guild to deal with the appropriate skills in order to pull to the top. When they start playing the city vs city game, or kingdom vs kingdom game, they are forced into dealing with politics.

Now for a small tangent on the subject - politics and roleplay. Some guilds will follow the SB fiction, and some will not. This in mind, it's not too difficult to see that a ruler or guild will be dealing with both kinds of neighbors. This amplifies the value of knowing the game lore, as many guilds will be using the lore and ideologies as a basis for how they act. A ruler who knows the lore and fiction can better predict what his fiction-following neighbors might do in a given situation, and how they will react to other fiction-following (and non-fiction following) neighbors and players. Knowing the enemy, and more importantly - predicting the enemy is a huge step in manipulating and/or conquering him. Knowing the fiction can be a large help for even those who don't wish to follow it.

Some more of my semi-coherent thoughts....