Greetings!

How do you deal with social activism, rebellions, and urban riots in your campaigns?

In my Thandor world, I usually create some reasonable conflicts, natural conflict points between various social classes and groups. However, I think it is important to remember that some chaos and bloody riots are not always based on anything logical or reasonable. In ancient times, various religious cults would start riots and pogroms against rival religions, where temples and followers of such religions would be slaughtered, their temples burned, and businesses they owned raided and burned to the ground. In ancient Constantinople, the "Blues and the Greens"--rival sports factions, supporting their respective teams in the great arena, would frequently have huge riots that would kill thousands of people, and require the intervention of thousands of imperial troops to crush and restore law and order.

Social activism and violent, urban riots can often be entirely stupid, and have no connections to anything logical or rational, but instead are based mostly on emotions and the passions of the moment--and/or inspired by actual demagogues, intentionally working to stir the masses up, and manipulate them into embracing slaughter, chaos, and mayhem.

I like that element of crazy stupid. It makes urban life very interesting, and unpredictable. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

My favorite example of a riot in D&D was from the module B6 The Veiled Society.  I think it is an accurate description of how a medieval government would handle a protest or riot.

There is a quarrel between two factions in the streets of Specularum, the Duke's horsemen show up and some idiot throws a rock at them.  Then the horsemen start slaughtering the rioters.  Not very nice, but definitely realistic.

Quote from: SHARK on April 03, 2024, 04:03:46 PM
How do you deal with social activism, rebellions, and urban riots in your campaigns?

My Cyberpunk Red game has the Zoners Antifa, who are exactly what you might expect. They have a very sympathetic, anti-police writeup in Danger Gal Dossier https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/441424/Danger-Gal-Dossier (which is pretty Woke, far morso than the core book), so naturally I'm running it from a police/NCPD perspective.  The main thing I do is make sure everyone feels justified in their actions from their own perspective. They're the good guys; the ends justify the means.

I created a new swarm monster for these occassions- The harrangue-u-tan. These creatures come in two main varieties, the viritol slinging naysayers and the fawning sycophants. Either group could be encountered in urban environments for the sole purpose of making adventurer's lives miserable.

Birthright allows Agitation as a Ruler Action, which is basically causing the masses to cause all of the above in your topic. Predominantly reserved to the Social/Religious slice of the Province, it is best managed by the Cleric archetype, so the Priest class. This useful disruptive action gives cause for Rulers elsewhere, like Military, Law, Commerce, & Mana to work with or against the Social Ruler to pursue their agendas. 

As for how I run it in my games? Depends on the campaign's atmosphere AND setting AND the small slice & scope I am using within that setting. Forgotten Realms (and possibly connected Kara-Tur, Zakhara Al-Qadim, Anchorome Maztica, etc.) is a good example of deeply diverse social and political structures that'd change the approach to instability. So it is extremely context dependent.

That said, it'd be pretty sure that power holders curtailing a rebellion or riot would involve violence of some kind along the way (even oblique legal, social, and economic violence used by typical "non-violent" groups that profess "pacifism"). Once power's authority is challenged it is cornered to expend its power in a display of maintenance -- it may or may not work. But given the longevity differences between so many intelligent species that could play out in even more diverse ways.