I'm splitting a more general topic here off from a recent Blue Rose thread.  

So a common feature of fantasy is explicit good and evil.  The heroes and their allies are good, and their enemies are evil.  Another common feature, though, is monarchy -- i.e. a true king, born of royal blood and/or chosen by the holy oracle, yadda yadda.  

However, as modern-day people, we don't generally think of monarchy as good.  So if my PC fights for Aragorn to be king, is my PC a brainless sheep tossing away her right of self-determination?  And yet it seems like a wacky anachronism at best to have your knights in armor and sorceresses pressing for their civil rights within the system.  As I quoted in the earlier thread,

QuoteListen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcicial aquatic ceremony!

Be quiet!

Oh but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Is this dilemma really a problem for people?  For me, I'm not concerned by it.  I can accept as a premise that a given monarchy really is good within the game, though I wouldn't want all my games to be like that.

I think there are plenty of idealized kings that work well for fantasy. The mythic Arthur, Prester John, or closer to more realistic Charlemagne. Now, I admit I personally wouldn't want to live under a monarchy. Yet in fantasy I can let go and assume that sometimes the good king--is just a good person, who is king.

Fantasy is full of "if only.." and that carries on up to the monarchy.

There's a term I've heard, something like "Ohio Renaissance Fair role-playing," where the characters are really modern Americans with modern American sensibilities, who happened to be dressed up in "fantasy middle ages" clothing.  Especially when presented with issues of race, gender, slavery, etc., players may tend toward modern political correctness.

I've never seen anyone be bothered by monarchy in a game, although having players participate in something like the French Revolution in a fantasy world could be interesting.

(By the way, I've been lurking for a while, and this is my first post.  I didn't see any sort of "introduction" threads, but if there is one, please point me to it).

I live under a monarchy and its just fine, so long as those pesky princes don't throw their weight round too much and keep their mouths shut...
I think a benign monarchy woudl be a refreshing change in one of our games. If we ever find such a thing its generally a Humperdinck regime.
God we are cynical.

I guess it's a context thing, you know? There are better kings and worse kings, and if your character is raised as that being the way things are, then he's probably going to advocate for the monarchy. Representative government probably never even occurred to PCs.

OTOH, you know, I'm a big fan of democracy. I don't think monarchies are a great thing. Your rights have the opportunity to be severely curtailed, and you're basically relying on the monarchy to advocate for you because you can't enact any change yourself.

On the gripping hand, people today still love their fucking kings and queens, and I'm pretty sure there are still places where they have a governing voice. So even though PCs are distinctly less free under a monarchy then they are in, say, a representative democracy, some people like how that works. It's not like there isn't a precedent.

And there are also those who are of the opinion that it doesn't matter how you're oppressed, just that you are. If, say, you're ruled by corporations who have all the real power and it's only lip service that's paid to the voices of the people, then it doesn't really matter if it's Exxon or King fucking George who's got you bent over an oil drum, does it?

So, not a direct answer, just some perspective.

As a system, monarchy is vulnerable to bad kings:  A bad monarch makes for piss-poor government.

But within the span of one person's life-time, under a good king?  I'd venture that monarchy beats democracy all to pieces in terms of making for good life and (indeed) more freedom.  The freedom not to be killed by rampaging bandits, for example ... life, liberty and the pursuit ... a good king is in a prime position to be caretaker of all the rights of his citizens.

If anything, monarchy belongs in a Good-vs.-Evil game more than democracy does:  When you're pretty sure that you can find men and women of unalloyed virtue and competence, the throne is where ya want to put 'em! :-)

Quote from: jhkim;232815Is this dilemma really a problem for people?

Nope. 'Course, it depends on the genre and setting, too.

Seanchai

It's not like I had a choice between Aragorn and The United States of Eriador.

Monarchy in a game is fine, and unrelated to good/evil. If the peasants don't like it, they can revolt; that's worked a couple of times in history.

Same is true of democracy, really. Which is why I'm voting for Cthulhu this election. Yup, writing him right in. I'm done with the whole lesser evil thing.

As a Brit and a monarchist myself...

Rulership depends on the consent of the governed.  The Anglo-Germanic and Celtic concept of kingship has always been that the king rules because he's the best choice; if he fails the people (the free men) are entitled to get rid of him.  So I don't see much difference between monarchy and representative democracy.  If anything, our modern 'democratic' government is much less constrained in its power than was the 18th century executive monarchy.

Quote from: Thanatos02;232824Your rights have the opportunity to be severely curtailed...

Your rights can be severely curtailed in a democracy, too.  Usually in the name of 'Democracy', 'Human Rights', 'The People's Democratic Revolution', 'Feedom' et al.

Quote from: jhkim;232815So a common feature of fantasy is explicit good and evil.

I have to question this premise. It's fairly explicit in Tolkien, less so (but still evident) in Arthurian myth. It may be prominent in modern "high fantasy", however a great deal of this is highly derivative of Tolkien; much is also RPG-derived fiction.

I also question the premise that fantasy associates monarchy with good, in terms of representing it as a good in itself (or very close to a good in itself) rather than as a political-social given. There are good kings and bad kings in fantasy.

I find the hyper-romanticization of monarchy--to the point where the king or the system of government is metaphysically guaranteed and defined to be "good" somewhere between dull and distasteful.

I've refrained from commenting in the Blue Rose thread because I haven't read the game and I really have no interest in it. But based on what I've read in BR threads, the objection to the BR system of government can't be equated to calling for the overthrow of traditional monarchies in all fantasy games, since BR kingship is nothing like the kingship in other fantasy settings. It strikes me as an attempt to make monarchy completely acceptable to modern liberal values, by removing the hereditary aspect in favor of a supposed meritocracy, but it fails because it relies on a mystical guarantee of goodness. Even given all your corrections to what people have said about the game (which I can only take at face value) I don't think it would be entirely unfair to compare the government of Aldis to the idealized view of 20th-century "people's democracies", under which the lack of visible dissent is supposedly due to the unelected leadership's embodiment of the will of the people. Since it's fiction, the authors can just "make it so" and not write gulags and secret police into the setting. But that doesn't completely exonerate the fantasy.

Keep in mind that Knights fought not for the "good" king nor the "good of the kingdom", but to insure their own place in the hierarchy. As for the peasants well they agree to live under the current/future king or get slaughtered.

Quote from: RockViper;232856Keep in mind that Knights fought not for the "good" king nor the "good of the kingdom", but to insure their own place in the hierarchy. As for the peasants well they agree to live under the current/future king or get slaughtered.

Yes, but that's the answer for evil or morally neutral regimes ... not for kingdoms infused with raw Good.

Well...Bad kings just make such good villains that the good ones rarely show up.

I do occassionally have my PCs encounter good Lords serving bad kings.

They were on the run from the Robber King of Northgard and thought they'd crossed into a neighbouring land but it was actually on of his vassels.  The young knight who led the party asked for shelter at the castle and they were allowed entry only to learn at dinner that they were still in enemy territory.

The lord was a thin and muscular man with hands callused from a long life spent serving his king on the field of battle, who ate gruel while his guests feasted, explaining that the harvest had been poor and he refused to eat better than his people did (besides he'd lost ten stone since he started).  After the dinner he retired to clean out his stables.

The PCs were flabberghasted and tried to turn him against Northgard but he refused pointing out that he had sworn his fealty and would not turn from his oath for anything less than violent betrayal.  Still, they were his guests and as no messanger had come in the short time they had been there, he provisioned and gifted them as richly as he could and sent them on their way, as was his duty as their host.

When they had the crown for a year while the High Kingdom was trying to sort out the secession (and our young knight had a decent claim to the throne but no military or political clout to back it so he was the perfect choice for the job of regent) the PC's tried to get said lord to take the throne but he wouldn't hear of it.