| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I was reading “Why Nations Fail” (Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson), and as a thought experiment sought to apply what I could of its conclusions to the fantasy RPG context with the goal of creating more detailed worlds and more fulfilling games.
(TL;DR: Andoran will probably be ruling Golarion within the next 50-100 years because democracy is such a superior form of government.)
If I say something stupid, please point it out! If something doesn’t make sense, tell me! It’s how we all learn. If a prediction or statement doesn’t ring true, point it out!
Assuming I’ve read the book correctly (an iffy prospect, since I dropped Poli Sci halfway through my first semester of college 10 years ago and never went back to the subject), nations fail in two main ways:
1. When no actor is able to establish a monopoly on violence within a given territory, leaving it devoid of law and order and prey to banditry.
2. When the state centralizes all power in the hands of a tiny elite that ignores the rule of law whenever doing so is convenient and governs overwhelmingly in its own narrow interests.
An example of Failure Mode 1 would be the Mwangi Expanse on Golarion (or Somalia in the real world). Failure Mode 2 is the default position of any feudal kingdom or imperial despotate, and includes nearly all nations in recorded history as well as most fictional nations, including Cheliax et. al. on Golarion.
The detriments of Failure Mode 1 (anarchy) are obvious: it is impossible to establish a prosperous society when barbarian tribes, bandits, monsters, and similar dangers wander the countryside attacking any would-be settlers.
But the detriments of Failure Mode 2 (authoritarianism) are less obvious, to the point that many GMs don’t fully consider their consequences when worldbuilding. The Mode 2 society, wherein the power of the state is in the hands of a relatively small, closed oligarchy (often but not always hereditary), is very brittle. The elite, with no legal checks on their power, eliminate any nonviolent methods of displacing them (assuming they ever existed in the first place), politicize the justice system until the law effectively means whatever they want it to mean and applies only to those they don’t like, and engage in massive corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and all manner of selfish practices that undermine the very government they purport to lead. In extreme cases, their misrule can precipitate the collapse of the state via peasant revolt, military coup, or similar events.
In a Failure Mode 2 society, power centers independent of the ruling clique are a threat to its power and thus to social stability, especially independently wealthy entrepreneurs, merchants, adventurers, or businessmen. The ruling clique will seek to co-opt any such power centers, buying them off if such can be done at a reasonable price (keeping in mind that “reasonable” for a dictator can be quite a sum, since none of it is actually his money). Independent power centers that refuse to be co-opted or corrupted are harassed out of existence by crooked tax collectors, or simply destroyed by violence in the less subtle dictatorships.
In Mode 2 societies, trade (especially long-distance trade) is almost always a government monopoly, either carried out directly by the Crown or else by a monopoly trust that acquired exclusive rights to a particular trade via corrupt connections to the ruling clique.
Education (other than apprenticeships in simple trades) is discouraged in Mode 2 societies save for the children of the ruling clique, and perhaps the clergy if the nation is a theocracy based on the contents of a sacred text (or at least what the ruling clique says are its contents). Literacy in particular is a threat, promoting the concepts of the rule of law and accurate knowledge of history and current events that could be damaging to the ruling elite’s hold on power.
Taxes in Mode 2 societies are very high, as without any nonviolent legal means of opposing the rulers they are free to set the tax burden at whatever level they can competently administer without sparking famine and state collapse, rather than the level most conducive to widespread prosperity. This tax revenue is then mostly wasted on luxury goods, payoffs required to co-opt rival elites, various white elephant projects, and pointless wars.
The highly unequal wealth distribution in Failure Mode 2 societies makes control of state revenue a prize of immense value, to the point that a series of civil wars sparked by greed can ultimately destroy a civilization and cause a society in Failure Mode 2 (authoritarianism & dictatorship) to revert to Failure Mode 1 (anarchy & barbarism).
Access to supernatural powers is extremely limited in Failure Mode 2 societies. Wizardry and alchemy are only taught and practiced by members of state-sanctioned guilds with arbitrary and capricious membership rules written to keep the magical arts under the thumb of the state. Attempts to practice either art outside guild strictures are harshly punished by the authorities. Sorcerers, psychics and other mystical practitioners not affiliated with the ruling clique are usually deemed enemies of the state, as are members of schismatic religious orders, foreign cults, Druidic circles, witches’ covens, and any other alternative mystical or spiritual practice not beholden to the ruling elite.
But the most pernicious trait of Failure Mode 2 societies is their tendency to squash innovation and growth purely out of the leaders’ paranoia. Any technological or magical breakthrough that might increase productivity and save labor is usually outright banned by the ruling elite, out of concern that anyone rendered unemployed or underemployed by the advance would begin contemplating rebellion.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the preceding paragraph. For nearly all of human history, economic growth and technological advancement were essentially nil because the negative consequences of authoritarian government were so serious. The absence of the rule of law, confiscatory tax rates, frequent civil wars, and an elite that actively undermined their own citizens in the name of stability ensured that for most of human history, stagnation was the rule. But when the Glorious Revolution of 1688 reined in the near-absolute power of the English Crown and put parliamentary democracy on a firm footing, England and its colonies rapidly industrialized and within two centuries effectively ran the world.
The tropes of fantasy literature and gaming can sometimes obscure this (especially the tropes of the Good or Wise King), but absolute monarchies (hereditary or not) are authoritarian systems by definition and are prone to all of their flaws, including the ones mentioned above. The absence of authoritarian rule is such a strong predictor of prosperity that, barring democratic backsliding, total military conquest, or supernatural calamity, democracies such as Andoran which practice Common Rule are almost guaranteed a level of prosperity that will grant them global economic hegemony within a century or less.
Long-lived races such as the elves are better capable of the self-restraint required for an authoritarian state to function reasonably well for an extended period, but when an elf or dwarf of bad character gains the throne, centuries of misrule can create truly hellish dystopias that more than squander the fruits of their predecessors’ reigns.
As far as the game impact of all this goes, in a Failure Mode 2 society, the player characters are on a collision course with the state from level 4-5 on: either they will join forces with the state, or ultimately destroy it. The paranoia of authoritarian government is too strong for any other outcome to be likely over the long term, barring extenuating circumstances.
Distributing political power more widely (particularly among a merchant class whose wealth is based on business savvy rather than corruption or inheritance and who have both the motivation and the means to check the power of the Crown) produces less abusive government, and sometimes results in the creation of rule-of-law constraints on the Crown’s power that ultimately lead to parliamentary democracy, but the discovery of overseas colonies loaded with natural resources and natives easily exploited for slave or near-slave labor lock in a country’s authoritarian bent by freeing the Crown from reliance on its own population for state revenue.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note that dictatorships wherein the dictator receives guidance from supernatural entities may escape some or all of the traps described above, depending on the nature of the entity.
Note further that these traps are merely very strong trends rather than physical laws, and many dictatorships do not follow them all. However, a dictatorship that doesn’t follow any is likely to be overthrown relatively quickly.
| 20 people marked this as a favorite. |
Can you articulate for me how the Mwangi Expanse has 'failed'? It's a geographic region, not a centralized state. Likewise, it's hard to get more authoritarian than Nidal, whose unelected Black Triune have ruled for over 8,000 years of truly remarkable stability.
It sounds like you're reading a lot of specific, historical, Eurocentric assumptions onto an entire fantasy planet, and I would gently advise against that. It's telling that "barbarian tribes" are cited as a threat to civilization and not being treated as the local law themselves in your analysis here. This is a world with magic. It's also not claiming to be any kind of accurate political model, as the presence of Ice Age hunter-gatherers, demon-fighting crusaders, and androids from another galaxy all as next door neighbors may have tipped you off to.
I'm glad you read something cool about the perks of democracy as a political system. I'm not so sure it's got ready applications here.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would say that the Mwangi Expanse has “failed” from an economic perspective, not a cultural one, because there is no such thing as a “superior culture.”
The Mwangi Expanse obviously has no centralized government capable of enforcing contracts or exercising a monopoly on legitimate violence, and therefore urbanization on a large scale and the economic growth made possible by labor specialization will not occur until those facts change.
Now is it Eurocentric to say that urbanization and growth are inherently worthy goals and that a region without them is a failure? Perhaps yes. But urbanization and growth are measurable, which nerds like me love.
As far as treating the “barbarian” tribes as a threat to civilization, I perhaps wasn’t sufficiently clear: if there is one tribe with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, they are the government even if they wear nothing but leather loincloths. A written constitution and capital city full of marble statues are unnecessary. On the other hand, if land or resources can be seized by any actor in the region with an affinity for violence, and preventing or avenging such violence is the sole responsibility of the victims, there is no “civilization,” even if everyone is dressed in silk.
And finally, I understand that this exercise has a bit of a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” quality to it, and that Golarion is in no way an accurate example of political formalism, what with the robots and zombies and wizards and whatnot. I just think that exploring WHY Golarion (and other fantasy RPG worlds like Eberron and Faerun) don’t follow political science models can help spark creativity and can potentially make for a better game, provided one keeps in mind the limitations of the exercise.
After all, most of the entities described in the bestiaries follow some sort of logic, even if strange, and their behavior can thus be subject to qualitative analysis.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just think that exploring WHY Golarion and similar fantasy RPG worlds don’t follow political science models can help spark creativity and can potentially make for a better game, provided one keeps in mind the limitations of the exercise.
Because they're game worlds, not political science models, and they develop as their authors want to in order to tell stories they want to tell.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because they're game worlds, not political science models, and they develop as their authors want to in order to tell stories they want to tell.
Well, yes, but political science models can help authors tell their stories, because ultimately political science models are just another kind of story designed to help clarify the forces involved.
A story can help answer questions like “how are the civilizations on this planet tens of thousands of years old yet nobody has technology much beyond rudimentary steam power?”
One answer, or part of an answer, is that, when it comes to destroying prosperity and blocking progress, the hereditary absolute monarchies that dominate fantasy RPG settings seem almost tailor-made for the job.
After all, authoritarian systems cannot handle the creative destruction that comes with innovation, because the lack of nonviolent means of changing rulers leaves them too brittle. Large numbers of unemployed people can lead to a dead ruler, so labor-saving ideas are often banned by the ruling elite.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, where has the OP gone?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Based on what I'm gleaning from your guys' posts, it seemed to just be some racist dude being racist? So easy to see why it'd get nuked.
| 15 people marked this as a favorite. |
Empirically, the reason most inner sea nations fail is "meddling adventurers."
Like a major difference structurally between "the game of Pathfinder" and "actual history" is that Pathfinder by its nature as a storytelling game has to allow for major historical events to be driven by 4-6 exceptional individuals. Whereas this is a largely discredited theory of what drives actual earth history.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A world like Golarion with magic as the basis for technology and active gods that provided immediate, demonstrable power in a highly equitable fashion would develop so much differently than any real world analogue we have that it's not even worth trying to explore the reality of what would occur in such a world.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Empirically, the reason most inner sea nations fail is "meddling adventurers."
Like a major difference structurally between "the game of Pathfinder" and "actual history" is that Pathfinder by its nature as a storytelling game has to allow for major historical events to be driven by 4-6 exceptional individuals. Whereas this is a largely discredited theory of what drives actual earth history.
Yeah, it all comes down to resources, which in the real world is represented by land & wealth (including technology) to support armies, plus all the ideologies to sway the masses, a.k.a manpower.
But in Golarion there's also magic & superpowers, and ideologies made manifest. Those dwarf any but the most modern real-world military technology. The discrepancy was exemplified in Rasputin Must Die where heroes chop apart tanks in seconds and even advanced Earth troops need to be represented as coordinated hordes to have any viability. So while the same resources are valuable on Golarion, they're all in service of gaining an even greater main resource: high-level entities and high-level magic.
Plus yeah, Golarion's a world built for drama, so drama gonna happen at every scale, including past & potential world cataclysms.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I like arm-chair geopolitical speculation more than most, but this doesn’t seem like a fruitful discussion for this forum.
Far too many assumptions imbedded in the original post that are going to bleed into arguments about real-world politics.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I like arm-chair geopolitical speculation more than most, but this doesn’t seem like a fruitful discussion for this forum.
Far too many assumptions imbedded in the original post that are going to bleed into arguments about real-world politics.
I can't really respond to the original post without getting into real world economics and politics.
So yes I agree.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
All of OP’s posts vanished for several hours last night before coming back earlier today. Strange.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
It just seems perverse to try to apply real world political theories to a setting with actual magic (so you could trivially provide food and healthcare for everybody) and extraplanar beings who have an interest in the goings on in Golarion.
Like we know that Cheliax could have fallen due to corruption and incompetence, but we also know that it's not going to be allowed to because it's far more satisfying to let the PCs address the problem (like Galt didn't "get right" until Night Of the Gray Death, when some PCs got involved.)
Like Irrisen got a new leader because Baba Yaga intervented, Mendev needed a new head of state because Iomedae needed a new Herald (and some friendly PCs closed the Worldwound for her.) Ravounel was recognized as an independent state when it was discovered it was never legally part of Cheliax after Kintargo's erstwhile leader tried to manipulate an Archdevil and a soul anchor.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because they're game worlds, not political science models, and they develop as their authors want to in order to tell stories they want to tell.Well, yes, but political science models can help authors tell their stories, because ultimately political science models are just another kind of story designed to help clarify the forces involved.
A story can help answer questions like “how are the civilizations on this planet tens of thousands of years old yet nobody has technology much beyond rudimentary steam power?”
One answer, or part of an answer, is that, when it comes to destroying prosperity and blocking progress, the hereditary absolute monarchies that dominate fantasy RPG settings seem almost tailor-made for the job.
After all, authoritarian systems cannot handle the creative destruction that comes with innovation, because the lack of nonviolent means of changing rulers leaves them too brittle. Large numbers of unemployed people can lead to a dead ruler, so labor-saving ideas are often banned by the ruling elite.
I'm playing this game to kick ass, earn XP, level up and have a good time, not to ponder whether the current socio-economic development of the country where the campaign is taking place has realistically developed across 12450 years of hereditary feudalism that works just like our world did except our world doesn't have dragons and magic and isn't a story that somebody came up with.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’m still waiting for any kind of counter to Nidal being the most stable and longest-lasting nation on the face of Golarion. Surely the inevitable power of Andoren democracy will do what Earthfall couldn’t!
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I should point out that the River Kingdoms would have similar strengths and weaknesses to the Mwangi Expanse. One thing they have in common is that the authors of the game books cobbled them together as single regions, even though neither of them has ever really been unified in any way that the inhabitants would accept. So these regions are not truly in chaos -- they are batches of smaller nations whose borders are not shown clearly in any of our game books. Neither of these regions can really be said to succeed or fail as any sort of unified whole.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think there really is a 'counter' per se, other than to acknowledge that fantasy and RPG writers tend to glorify authoritarianism and great man theory.
... It's sort of interesting seeing some of the normal script flipped in terms of who's talking about what in this thread though.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think there really is a 'counter' per se, other than to acknowledge that fantasy and RPG writers tend to glorify authoritarianism and great man theory.
... It's sort of interesting seeing some of the normal script flipped in terms of who's talking about what in this thread though.
I doubt much of anyone is glorifying the place that’s exclusively been framed as a nonstop nightmare of suffering since its inception. My point in bringing it up is that OP is acting like a very Western model of a democratic government is some inevitable final shape “end of history” for nationhood; Golarion puts the lie to that pretty thoroughly, because there’s much more than just normal Earth factors - like god-granted immortality and protection - in play.
Don’t read that as any praise of the system Nidal uses, just an acknowledgement that OP’s theory says they should be done for by now, having lasted as a brutal authoritarian theocracy for 9,000 years.
It’s a bit like saying railroads are inevitable and doing no thinking about the existence of teleportation magic or elf-gates. If you’re not going to acknowledge the fantastical… then why is this on a Parhfinder forum?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My favorite example for "Magic lets you solve social problems, we just don't because that's not the place we want to tell stories about" is from 1e, where the Kinetic Chirugeon archetype allowed you to apply Paladin Mercies to Kinetic Healing. Kinetic Healing is noteworthy in that you were allowed to take the Burn yourself or give it to the person you're healing, and all Burn goes away after a complete rest.
So a 12th level character with Kinetic Chirugeon could just cure any disease, blindness, loss of limb, etc. at zero cost to themselves and no materials needed- they just needed to tell the patient to get a good night's sleep and you'll feel better tomorrow.
Nevertheless, Golarion has people who suffer from diseases, limb loss, blindness, etc.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
snip
Are 12th-level characters all that common, though? The average town in Isger or on Kortos probably doesn’t have access to a Kineticist who could slay many demons solo.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
ITT Whiggism.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
snipAre 12th-level characters all that common, though? The average town in Isger or on Kortos probably doesn’t have access to a Kineticist who could slay many demons solo.
Not especially, but it would basically take one person who just makes it their mission to go around and heal everybody they encounter to make a very significant dent on public health.
Like "lost a limb in a farming accident? Travel to [nearby place] to get it back" is an option that would improve a lot of people's lives.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
snipAre 12th-level characters all that common, though? The average town in Isger or on Kortos probably doesn’t have access to a Kineticist who could slay many demons solo.Not especially, but it would basically take one person who just makes it their mission to go around and heal everybody they encounter to make a very significant dent on public health.
Like "lost a limb in a farming accident? Travel to [nearby place] to get it back" is an option that would improve a lot of people's lives.
I’ll take anything that adds more pilgrimages to a fantasy setting. “Travel to this Thuvian village, the fire-tamer there can cure any ill or wound!” is just a lot of fun.
One has to wonder if any especially gifted healers set up shop in Mendev or the Sarkoris Scar post-Crusade. It seems like a natural fit, whether they’re some kind of retired Iomedean Paladin, a celestial Sorcerer or Oracle, or maybe even a Sarkorian Druid/Shaman/Witch.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Like the "the bartender at the tavern is actually a retired high-level adventurer" trope but more interesting!
Exactly! The most hale and hearty crusaders likely took off for Tanglebriar, the Gravelands, or private adventuring, but I imagine a lot of people fought the Worldwound their whole lives and got old doing it. Sure, you don’t bust out the full plate much anymore, but you still earned those class levels tangling with the worst scum of the Abyss.
The visual of little lonely chapels full of respite dotting Mendev and Sarkoeis is a lovely one.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now I see. This guy read a book and is applying the book model to fantasy worlds. A book based on a particular theory as applied to Golarion attempting to use real world analogues.
I haven't read the book. Don't know if the theory is valid. Using words like failure and success seems hard to rate as every empire seems to have periods of rising and falling. Very few nations or empires remain static and humans certainly don't. It would be especially hard to apply such a theory to any fantasy world.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, fundamentally models are not true or false. Models are useful where they apply and not useful where they don't apply. We judge utility based on "how well does the model explain a thing that happened or predict a thing that's going to happen?"
So it seems especially weird to try to apply models intended to explain human history on earth to something where "what happens" is solely determined by one or more human authors that exist outside of the diagesis.
Like if James Jacobs *really* wanted to drop a meteor on Andoran rendering it a smoking crater (say, the Aboleths tried again), he most likely make that happen in a way the Andorans could not prevent by voting.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, fundamentally models are not true or false. Models are useful where they apply and not useful where they don't apply. We judge utility based on "how well does the model explain a thing that happened or predict a thing that's going to happen?"
So it seems especially weird to try to apply models intended to explain human history on earth to something where "what happens" is solely determined by one or more human authors that exist outside of the diagesis.
Like if James Jacobs *really* wanted to drop a meteor on Andoran rendering it a smoking crater (say, the Aboleths tried again), he most likely make that happen in a way the Andorans could not prevent by voting.
I think the OP's question seems to be why authors don't follow a particular theory or model when world building.
I would say the answer to that is that authors follow mythology with some loosely associated history to build a world filled with mythology from around the world as well as an attempt to satisfy all possible options for a diverse group of players with different tastes and expectations. Every single fantasy game always tends to be a hodgepodge.
I have a buddy who was more irritated by RPG map makers that put different types of geography and climate together in places they are unlikely to exist. We all roll our eyes because most authors are not experts at the how and why a particular climate or geography exists within close proximity to the other or its relation to the equator and the sun. I doubt fantasy mapmakers think too much about it when they are trying to model some fantasy society on a real world analogue without thinking why that nation and people might look and develop a certain way due to their climatological and geographical circumstances.
It will drive you nuts trying to apply real world science or theory to fantasy world building created by authors who spend more time reading fantasy novels and mythology than geography and political science books.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm playing this game to kick ass, earn XP, level up and have a good time, not to ponder whether the current socio-economic development of the country where the campaign is taking place has realistically developed across 12450 years of hereditary feudalism that works just like our world did except our world doesn't have dragons and magic and isn't a story that somebody came up with.Because they're game worlds, not political science models, and they develop as their authors want to in order to tell stories they want to tell.Well, yes, but political science models can help authors tell their stories, because ultimately political science models are just another kind of story designed to help clarify the forces involved.
...
My players, in contrast to Totally Not Gorbacz, care about the political structure of their adventure setting. I am running a PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion adventure path. The players are quite disappointed at how the national government of Nirmathas cannot organize to defend the country and even more aghast at the slave-taking society of the Hadregash-worshipping hobgoblins of the Ironfang Legion. They want to change society: How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion?
Nirmathas and its sister-state rival Molthune fit Prosperum's definition of failed states. In game design, Golarion is a patchwork of campaign settings based on popular stories. Nirmathas is Robin Hood and his Merry Men in Sherwood Forest and Molthune is Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. Unfortunately, the story does not function well on a national scale, because Nirmathas is not taxed by the greedy authorities of Molthune. Instead, the conflict plays like an endless bitter aftermath of a civil war with the two now-separated nations doubling down on their ideologies rather than trying for good government.
Nirmathas
The people of Nirmathas have always been fiercely independent, willing to fight and die to protect the freedoms they’ve claimed. Once part of Molthune, the forest folk saw the fruits of their labors claimed by the elites in Canorate and decided they’d had enough of domination. They first enacted work stoppages and sabotage, but ultimately took up outright rebellion to claim their independence. The crafty woodsfolk fought the armies of Molthune to a standstill and established themselves as an independent nation ...
Nirmathas’s government is loose at best, as individual Nirmathi settlements chafe at being subject to any laws but their own.
Molthune
The imperialistic and territorial nation of Molthune was merely a province of Cheliax until it declared its independence—and its willingness to fight to keep its sovereignty—in 4632 ar. To solidify control within its borders, the Molthuni established a military oligarchy of nine general lords and created a burdensome series of taxes to fund a standing army. While the elite in the southern cities of Canorate and Korholm benefited from these measures, the northern territories found the taxes onerous and, in 4655 ar, rebelled to form the fiercely independent nation of Nirmathas. Since then, Molthune has warred with Nirmathas to reclaim its lost territory, with the conflict alternating between bloody combat and uneasy cease-fire.
... Residents of Molthune have, traditionally, been divided into imperial citizens and indentured laborers. Although indentured laborers cannot vote and have their travel and trade limited to specific regions within the nation, they can—as of 4710—ascend to citizenship with 5 years of military service or some other, regulated service to the state.
Molthune's citizenship through military service backfired due to broken promises. Lord General Vetrigan Sebine recruited the hobgoblin Ironfang Bandits into one of Molthune's so-called monster divisions. But when the Ironfang leader Azaersi learned that monstrous humanoids were at best second-class citizens in Molthune, she recruited all the other monstrous humanoids into the Ironfang Legion and went rogue. In my campaign she is still trying to carve her own nation out of western Molthune and southern Nirmathas. (In the Lost Omens World Guide, which documents the state of the Inner Sea Region after Ironfang Invasion, she had partial success.) This is better than Failure Mode 2, but it has the same causes. I have played up how Azaersi exploited the blindness of the Molthune ruling clique and fooled them into blaming the dwarves in Kraggodon--technically part of Nirmathas but really an independent city-state--for the current border war,
TL;DR: Andoran will probably be ruling Golarion within the next 50-100 years because democracy is such a superior form of government.
The Numerian party of my former Iron Gods campaign is using the political science from the history of planet Androffan to organize an industrial and cultural revolution. I threw in a subplot that an invasion from the interstellar Dominion of the Black is voyaging toward Golarion and will arrive in 300 years. They, especially the long-lived young dwarf technologist, want to prepare for that invasion and know of forms of effective government beyond Andoran's current form. They will find willing cooperation from the Nirmathi party in my current campaign.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
snipAre 12th-level characters all that common, though? The average town in Isger or on Kortos probably doesn’t have access to a Kineticist who could slay many demons solo.
As a baseline, I personally use the "rule of third" in my world to decide how common high level characters are. Basically, only one third of the population have *any* class level, and of those, only one third go beyond level 1, etc. That way, the group aren't random smuck at level 1, but they're not particularily exeptionnal either, just stronger than most people.
So with that in mind, there would be around 2 level 12 people for every million of people in the world (and 2 every three million for level 13 people). And since not all people with class level are spellcaster, and not all spellcaster can cast healing spells, we're left with... Something like 1 person able to cast regenerate for every 5 million people? Definitively the kind of people that would be very impactfull if they were known even a bit, and a lot of people would do a "pilgrimage" to see them if they were sedentary.
It also kinda explain why evil cult are so numerous, if the only person in a thousand mile radius able to regrow your missing leg is a priestess of lamashtu, you may be tempted to convert.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly, I always pump up the number in every settlement (especially the non human numbers). I get that they are supposed to be in line with medieval time demographics, but it never quite made sense to me, "there are 1200 people in sandpoint, but also 4 different tavern, 2 alchemy shops (and an herbalist), a cathedral hosting 5 different congregation... Oh and also we have 13 gnomes. Not one more". I always pump up the non human number (so that there is always at least a viable community) and multiply the general population at least by two (but often much more).
Beside, population growth in medieval time is limited by high infancy mortality, food shortage and epidemy, but magic as present within the world would heavily mitigate these. But I agree that the "one third" rule is heavily flawed, it's just a quick shortcut to have an estimate for me.
As for OP analysis, I think it's flawed because, as PossibleCabbage said, the thing that drive power shift in golarion aren't socio-economic trends, but the actions of a few incredibly powerfull individual, be they the PC or some villains. Cheliax may be inneficient as all hell (literally), it system will only ever fall when PC get involved in it. As stable as andoran might seems to be, if a Tar-Baphon like villain decide to wreck it, it will get wrecked (until, you guessed it, PC decide to get involved to defend it).
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I reject the notion that Golarion is supposed to be medieval. Golarian is something like 10,000 years from Earthfall, but real earth is something like 7000 years from "all tools are made from stone and wood." What preceded Earthfall was more advanced than any earth society was as well.
So there's no reason Golarion has to resemble "Earth, 400 years ago" since it's much further along on its development timeline than we are. It's just that the presence of magic etc. has lead them to develop differently.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I dislike the rule of thirds because it doesn't fit with the setting. While yes creatues with levels are "rare" they are a lot more common than 1 every X million. More like 1 every X thousand. Rule of 3/5 (5/9 would be better but messier) makes more sense for Golarion since it gives around the right amount of high level casters to match settlement stat blocks (at least according to PF1). For example, the PF1 Magnimar stat block list a 16K population with at least 1 15th lv caster but under the 1/3 rule there would be 0.001 15th lv casters there, the 3/5 rule by comparison states there are 7.7 15th lv casters. 3/5 however does say there are ~3.6 lv 20 characters for every 100K, so its probably more complex than a simple exponential.
An exponential distribution like 2/3rds (67%) 1st level, 2/9ths (22%) 2nd level, 2/27 (7%) 3rd level, etc. gives a quick rule of thumb, but I find that plot and setting require more people at 2nd and 3rd level in the small town where the party starts the campaign. We need some lowly town guards who can arrest a 1st-level party if they start a barroom brawl, and elite guards could manage the arrest of a 4th-level party doing the same. We need smiths who can make the 2nd-level full plate and they cannot all be the guildmaster. So for common townsfolk, I declare that people can level up over the years from regular activity. The 18-year-old waitress in the tavern will be 1st level, but the 45-year-old bartender has reached 3rd level just from brewing and serving beer for three decades. Furthermore, PF2 rules officially declare that level means challenge in an encounter, so the townsfolk could have skills far beyond their challenge level, because those skills are not used against the PCs. Only adventurers, whose life is about challenge, have their skills capped by level.
But I want to tie this back into the failed state discussion.
As for OP analysis, I think it's flawed because, as PossibleCabbage said, the thing that drive power shift in golarion aren't socio-economic trends, but the actions of a few incredibly powerfull individual, be they the PC or some villains. Cheliax may be inneficient as all hell (literally), it system will only ever fall when PC get involved in it. As stable as andoran might seems to be, if a Tar-Baphon like villain decide to wreck it, it will get wrecked (until, you guessed it, PC decide to get involved to defend it).
In Assault on Longshadow my PCs saved the city of Longshadow from the Ironfang Invasion. The module had many preliminary activities for improving the defenses of the city, such as repairing its stone walls. The PCs threw their hearts into recruiting and training new militia in preparation for the invasion. Since key members of the city government had been assassinated, they encouraged lesser townsfolk from the Longshadow overview article in the back of the module to step up to leadership positions. And many of those recruits fought alongside the party and I leveled them up. The 10th-level party had found off an army with the aid of the militia, but the Ironfang Legion had other armies. When the party departed on further quests, I reassured my players by pointing out that many of their recruits in Longshadow, such as the messenger Amelia, had earned 8th level and could now defend the city without the PCs.
Longshadow is in Nirmathas, the anarchy country. Its method of solving problems is to wait for heroes, such as the legendary Chernasard Rangers, to show up and fix the problems. The Chernasardo Rangers live hidden in the forest, away from the towns, so they are not easy to contact. The party changed this. Longshadow now has a permanent Chernasardo liaison, Cirieo Thessaddin, living and recruiting in the city. The party provided him with an artifact to send a message them, or other Chernasardo Rangers, if necessary.
The party is pulling from the education of the players in knowing what a functional government looks like, but we can justify it in game because the catfolk monk is a world traveler from Garund, the goblin champion is a scholar raised in a library, the elf ranger was trained as a Chernasard Ranger, and the halfling rogue is an escaped slave from Nidal with painful experience in oppression. The gnome rogue, gnome druid, and leshy sorcerer are local and have little to say about government.
Powerful high-level characters come and go. They can destroy society or repair it. But unless they set themselves up as permanent rulers, as Azaersi of the Ironfang Legion intends, they are temporary. When the adventurers depart, society will be affected by socio-economic trends again. Even in real life, a few heroes can set a new trend and then other more ordinary heroes continue it. For example, in the United States George Washington was a hero in commanding armies in the American Revolutionary war. Later he was a hero again when the United States wrote a new Constitution after the Articles of Confederation proved too weak and he served as the first President. But after President Washington we had other presidents, most of them less heroic yet nevertheless continuing the path of national democracy.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, fundamentally models are not true or false. Models are useful where they apply and not useful where they don't apply. We judge utility based on "how well does the model explain a thing that happened or predict a thing that's going to happen?"
Because Golarion is a fictional setting for a game, the true purpose of the model is to make the setting immediately recognizable. We courrent have another thread, Where do Alkenstar's "European / Western" aesthetics come from?, asking how come Alkenstar residents dress in cowboy and steampunk styles when all their Osirion and Mwangi neighbors dress differently. How did they adopt a style without any examples to copy? The true out-of-game reason is that the writers and artists want us players to recognize Alkenstar was a Wild West setting with steampunk elements, so the residents dress like Wild West setting with steampunk elements.
Likewise, Galt is the French Revolution regardless of the socio-economic forces, Osirion is ancient Egypt with its fables come to life, and Minkai is fantasy Japan. They are stuck that way until a new story, i.e., an adventure path, changes them. Nirmathas and Molthune were stuck in the Robin Hood story, a good setting for Pathfinder Society Scenarios set in a forest, until the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path came along. Then the countries changed. Some of the changes are published in the Lost Omens World Guide and in the Knights of Lastwall.
But we want the changes to be immediately recognizable, too. When my players ran the Jade Regent Adventure Path and replaced the corrupt regent with a new empress, the empress is going to keep Minkai much like Japan. But it will progress from chaos to something else. What else would be easily recognizable? In the real world, when the Warring States period of Japan ended in 1477 it moved on to a trade-heavy period. Seventy years later they were trading with the Portuguese. This history is fairly well known, so it would be a recognizable next step for Minkai. Furthermore, in game the new empress was raised in Avistan and belongs to the trade-oriented Amatatsu clan.
Modeling after the real world is easy on the players.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I get that pathfinder isn't "just" medieval, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the setting was made to fit a medieval aestetic, and that the settlements population were decided with medieval cities in mind. Magnimar is supposed to be a giant city, one of the biggest of varisia, and an important trade hub... But according to the P1 source book, only 16 thousand people live in it.
Actually, now that I think about it, it was probably less to ground pathfinder in medieval time, and more simply a remnant of DND 3.5 that carried over (in which "large cities" had between 12k and 25k people, and "metropolis" are any city with more than that). And I'm pretty sure that the DND city size were supposed to be in line with medieval times.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like it's more just a writing blindspot when it comes to figuring out population sizes that make sense.
Reminded that in Paizo's other game, the cultural, economic, and political heart of an interstellar confederation has the population of a medium sized modern city. Not just Paizo though, you see weirdly low numbers in a lot of media.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In our skepticism about the population of settlements in Golarion, consider that Golarion is often described not so much as a Medievally-inspired fantasy world as drawing more of the aesthetic from an Early Modern vibe. Even so, it turns out while the population of Europe (if we use that as our baseline for the Inner Sea at least) did grow between 1500 and 1700, there were reportedly less than 20 cities with a population over 100,000 by 1800.
Perhaps we should not consider that the population of each city is unduly small (after all, no matter how big these cities get, most of them have to be traversed on foot by most inhabitants, and the food demands on the surrounding countryside grow alongside), but that the number of settlements we see on the map isn't the full picture of how many exist in the setting.
(This actually we know in part to be true--while Lepidstadt in the northern parts of Ustalav is the only settlement in its county on the map, adventures take you to a number of smaller outlying settlements around it which are not noteworthy enough to make the Inner Sea map.)
--
On the other hand, when it comes to extraplanar cities, I would agree the population numbers seem improbably small. The population of Dis may be greater than that of modern New York City... but it's also arguably the major city of Hell and makes up more or less an entire layer of that plane.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My headcanon if I have to explain the weirdly low population count is that it only account for the most well accepted ancestries, while the other are kinda battling for the same ressources. All the wild array of gremlins aren't counted, no giant humanoid are counted, until P2 no goblinoid were counted... That and I'm considering that there is a large nomadic population of people who spend their time "in between towns", and thus never show up in these statistic. So basically, there's a pretty big "invisible population".
Even with them I personally inflate the population count in my games tho, because magnimar having less people than my (quiet and boring) native town don't mesh well with the way I'm trying to portray the city. 50 thousands is more like it, it feel more bustling and sprawling
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For comparison, my suburban neighbourhood has a larger area than a fair sized medieval city with thr population of a large town. Even if we accept that medieval demographics (or early modern) cannot be used as a hard rule, modern comparisons are also not particularly useful.
That said, I don't want to sound like I'm telling anybody how to enjoy their game--if it works for you it costs nothing to me!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I thought it was clear that the reason was the much smaller agriculture in Golarion in general. That and the fact that Golarion does not have a high mortality and death rate which is one of the biggest reasons why IRL earth had such a big population. The fact we constantly were at war and children were notoriously vulnerable meant that they have to have a lot of kids. But Golarion does not have those issues (at least not in the modern setting).
This does not strongly corroborate with my knowledge of either Golarion or Earth history. Certainly war and disease are clearly factors which gave an impact on lives in Golarion. A 5th level cleric may be able to cure many of the low-level diseases which children would be more likely to succumb to, but it's not like children under 2 are really all that relevant to the population census in this manner of setting anyway. Meanwhile, there are more than enough plagues out there resistant to such magics.
Furthermore, who is making the executive decision, "I don't need to have another child, there probably won't be enough war to kill them all when they're older"? If you live on a farm you have plenty of reasons to add hands to work the land and make the labour easier and grow your family of loved ones. Maybe you end up with surplus children and the youngest go off to the city to make their way or maybe die of one of those city diseases.
I find the subject of using realistic demographics to understand the world of a fantasy settings entertaining, knowing full well that there are some things which can never be accounted for under thus banner if realism. Provided I avoid making any such bold an unprovable claims about the nature of the published setting or spoil other people's fun I should think these exercises mostly harmless to those who prefer to ignore realism.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a curiosity, do we have any solid evidence, either for or against, the prevalence of diseases in the Inner Sea? I don't know of any reason to suggest that the population is considerably less affected by disease to the point where it ceases to be a factor that limits population. I'll grant, neither do I know of any strong evidence in favour of widespread disease, but owing to the nature of the setting, unless an outbreak serves the needs of a adventure plot, I wouldn't expect there to be much catalogue of disease in the first place.
As for war, no doubt there are several places in the Inner Sea where one could argue for the lack of widespread outbreaks of war between nations, but between the grand and light scope of the timeline and the simple facts of adventuring life, it would seem to me that one hardly needs a large or formalized war to meet a violent end. We may not call it a war when a band of ogres overruns a town, or goblins go on the march, but that doesn't mean the result isn't the same. Drawing again on the medieval period, battles were far less common than sieges in warfare, so one might argue that regular skirmishes between settlements and creatures who live outside of civilization would give even more opportunity for death by violence than in a proper war.
Finally, I'm still skeptical that a culture either of war or peace would be the deciding factor in how many children a farming family chooses to have. Up to a limit, more hands on the farm means more ability to work the plot of land provided, which yields more food to supply the family. When agriculture is the dominant form of production, there are numerous incentives to bear enough workers to keep up with the back-breaking work of farming. That some families end up overshooting and ending up with more children than a farm can provide for is an inevitability if/when the year turns lean, which in history served to keep the cities populated in turn (most cities could not maintain their own population without steady immigration from rural areas due to higher death rates than birth rates).
...
(Maybe if I have time tomorrow I'll even read OP)