Terrorism and Genocide

[ZeroCharisma]

Hmmm.... this topic inspired the germ of a cool idea for a story arc.. A cabal of powerful casters create a reign of terror (illusory as well as substantial) through many of the methods expressed above, except that they are doing it to make their own defensive services more desirable and expensive... pretty basic but could make for some cool gaming.

[The black raven]

The basic factor of success for terrorism is that it takes a lot more efforts to build something than it takes to destroy it.

In other words, anyone who puts his/her energy, mind and resources into destruction will have a far greater impact than he/she would have had putting the same into creation, or even just maintaining the status quo.

Which is why it takes an extraordinary amount of organised resources to stop a few, but focused, destructive persons.

Have your terrorists be the lowly servants/cogs of the system. Just by not doing their job as well as before, they will already be doing some nice damage (and pass it off as the sad results of laziness/incompetence). And if they use their position and skills to actively undermine the system, you can get some very good things.

No need to invoke a powerful demon and set it loose on a rampage if the Archmaster already summons it for VIP students' educational purpose and it just so happens that the lowly servant tasked with cleaning the place beforehand has "accidentally" erased part of the restraining circle.

[LazarX]

Terrorism depends on several things, a crucial one that's not available in a setting that's not modern enough.

Mainly fast and widespread communication. If I blow up the Chase building in Manhattan at 8 am today people in Hong Kong will know about it in 8:15. Internet buzz will circulate around the planet at the speed of light.

When most communication however travels at the speed of a horse drawn carriage, you don't have the immediacy effect that's a large part of terrorism, because weeks and months pass before the news gets around. You can terrorise individuals easily enough but countries and the world just isn't going to happen the way you're used to things in the 21st century. And even now... terrorism has much more of an impact than it did in the 1950's and 60's because of the greater speeds of communication.

If you want to do a campaign that's focused on 21st century style of terrorism you can't do it in Greyhawk, or Golarian, you might get a start in Forgotten Realms, but what you really need at the minimum, is Eberron, which is advanced enough to have a commonly read weekly newspaper that spans the continent.

[TarkXT]

LazarX wrote:

If you want to do a campaign that's focused on 21st century style of terrorism you can't do it in Greyhawk, or Golarian, you might get a start in Forgotten Realms, but what you really need at the minimum, is Eberron, which is advanced enough to have a commonly read weekly newspaper that spans the continent.

Greyhawk? No. But I think you're underestimating Golarion a touch. Remember you ahve widespread empires who can mobilize with remarkable speed. In coundil of thieves

Spoiler:

the chelaxian empire mobilizes one of its best generals with an army to sail to westcrown from egorian in a matter of hours of a massive riot.

Magic can send messages as well as spy and see things then communicate them long distance in a relatively short time.

[Ravingdork]

Golarion has printing presses. Word of terrorists can get out pretty quickly I'd imagine.