Politics 101: The Central Tension | Running the Game

“It’s election season here in the US,” Mathew said with playful tone. Little did he know that that election season would never end.

"By the end of this video, you will have...watched this video." Well, I'm sold.

I am reminded of a great quote by Henry Adams about Order and Chaos: "Chaos was the law of Nature; Order was the dream of Man."

"At the end of this video, you will have watched a video." New fave quote xD

The central tension between wanting more diary videos and not wanting you to go completely bonkers.

Eberron has a built in cold war where each nation thinks that another nation might have this doomsday weapon that may or may not exist.

I went with a rather simple yet effective method for creating political tension. Here is the basic idea: Nation A and Nation B are historically antagonistic but are in a state of peace for the time being. BBEG comes in and slowly starts chipping away at both of their territories. Now Nation A and B are looking at each other, waiting for the time when the other has been weakened enough they could win a war decisively. Problem is, the longer they wait the less powerful they become and the fewer resources they have as well, but if they jump the gun and move too soon both nation's fighting capacity might be obliterated in the war and BBEG will swoop in and take them over. This sets a ticking clock, gives the BBEG menace and power, creates factions within each nation (the war nows, and war laters), and gives the players a goal (unite both nations to fight the BBEG, or prop up their nation of choice, or prevent the inevitable looming war, etc). It also gives the opportunity for the BBEG to have lackeys or "generals" that the players must deal with first, letting them build up to the BBEG. It can also give you the excuse to drastically change the landscape as you see fit to build drama. Maybe that safe starter village the PCs loved gets burnt to the ground in a skirmish, maybe it gets taken over and is now part of another country. There are TONS of options. It's a plausible yet simple way to both bolster the BBEG and insert political tension into the campaign to where the story sorta writes itself.

An empire is a collection of different states unified under a central supreme authority, usually, an emperor or empress. Empires are not simply governmental bodies ruled by an emperor/empress, they are states which have enveloped, absorbed or in most cases, conquered other states and have practiced imperialism in some measure or another. It's a specific term which, when you take a look at it, can very easily be applied to a lot of modern governments right now even though most governments are lead by posts named president or minister.

"At the end of this video, you will have watched a video. That's the best I can do!" You know, when I think about it, that's all I'm really asking for. Already a happy viewer!

Just realized that Matt Mercer created a genius central tension between gods versus no gods in CR campaign 3. How much time the players have spent talking about whether they’re for the gods, against them, or just don’t care either way but want a specific outcome for themselves and/or their family in the end.

"it's election season here-" top 10 photos taken right before disaster

I hope the renovations are going well! And my head is fairly exploding with ideas for our own campaign setting! Take care of yourself! -Nerdarchist Ryan

Matt Mercer one day stumbled upon this video and was like "I like this" and so the Dwendalian Empire vs Xhorhas war began...with some hell portals thrown in for fun :D

As someone from the south, some mountainfolk in the South fought for the North because they hated the rich plantation owners

Watching the entire Politics series again because of the latest release (#5). Favorite quote, so far: "But there were other people who thought 'This is great! This is fantastic! Because [Caesar]'s going to get stuff done.' ... and he did, by the way."

The political intrigue is always one of my favourite aspects of an alternate world.

Not to take anything away from Colville, who's great, but this video provides an interesting example of the death of Unionist ideology in American memory: In Colville's account, a Southerner might fight because he wants to preserve slavery or because he wants to expel Northern invaders, but the only reason a Northerner would fight other than abolitionism, which was fairly rare, would be money. In fact, Unionist nationalism, which regarded the US as the last "free" country after the failed European revolutions of 1848, was a powerful rhetorical motivator against the "aristocrats" who sought to destroy the union by seceding from it. The historian Gary Gallagher argues this better than I can as an amateur. Look him up if this sounds interesting. Anyway, cool video! The idea of a central tension sounds really productive, and I'll have to incorporate it in my adventure and campaign writing.

The best thing about seeing your videos is your confidence and excitement. A lot of DnD speakers seem like they're a professor at the college of boredom. Good job ma dude

I played in a group that taught me about using a character's alignment as the basis for a dilemma situation where for instance a Lawful Good character is presented with a choice of doing something law-abiding but that ultimately is evil, or for instance a Chaotic Good character has to do something good for someone, but that requires strict attention to procedures or laws. The conflict is that part of their alignment is appeased, while the other part is subverted. The player has to decide which approach would be ultimately the most likely for the character to use. After learning of this tactic, I went on to develop over 10 types of dilemmas that work in different situations. Dilemmas like this are usually not as big as a central tension, but I suppose that they could be used that way if desired. The great thing about dilemmas is that it requires player choice, so the player has total agency, and the outcomes can be said to have come totally from the player and are not arrived at due to GM railroading.

Battletech did the central tension you describe in L5R long before 1997... basically the same idea. Star League fractures, Noble houses feud, Amaris rebellion, etc.