Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Politics in Dragon Commander

Allow me a deeper note. I dont know the design process here but according to Lar's blog it seems like you may be a little too much inspired by modern-day problems. It won't work in fantasy world. First you need to set the society and religion in Rivellon at the time of the game. Some modern-day problems are out of place there, because now we live in COMPLETELY different society, we have much bigger centralized government and social systems (schools, hospitals etc.), much bigger access to info (!), bigger intelligence, different style of live etc. In fantasy world most people have to work hard and dont have time and intelligence and info to think about some philosophy themes or euthanasia etc.


So my notes on Lars topics:

- Euthanasia - out of place. Rivellon is not land with modern hospitals when you could masivelly nourish patients for years. Even if someone could do it by magic its very rare. The point is that this is NOT some wide and common problem that would cause attention in the world. Poor people accepts the circle of life and death.
Of course I can imagine situation like this - "some preacher start to tell the people that they could live longer by magic means, mages are too secretive and dont help people as they could. So solution is revolt and force mages to give more... etc. - What will you do with this preacher? Put him in jail to prevent more chaos in the society? Let him kill (I will be more feared as tyrant, people will shut up and work for me)? Do him some secret support (because I agree with the preacher that mages/mage guilds should give more support for me grantly and this is fine opportunity to push them)? Or support him officialy (may be more efficient than secret support but it may cause diplomatic problems with other rulers and angry mages in other lands)?" So yes, I can imagine problem that partially deal with this topic, but euthanasia as some wide problem is out of place.

- Abortion - its ok, all races have to deal with unwanted children/too young mothers, rape etc. Ask yourself - what religion/god should deal with this kind of problems in your world?

- Illegal immigrants - if you type "illegal immigrants" it sounds like problem of modern world, out of place. But it could be very fine if you mean this - "I allow members of different race/clan to settle in area habitated by older culture (because they will pay taxes and give me soldiers). But now arise problems between the old and new settlers...".

- Healthcare - ok, but there is hardly any centralized medical system in Rivellon. I assume it works on local level - in towns and villages there live some herbewomen, healers, priests of some god are healers etc. Or there can arise some order of healers. Its ok, but its still not equivalent of modern-day hospitals.

- Same sex marriage - out of place. Too minor problem, heavily "resolved" by culture. There is no independent, informed and rich (!) gay community that would publicly vote for this when all the people have common problems with taxes, or thieves, or goblins etc. Poor villagers and commoners have to work hard, pray and especially obey to earn for a living. See gays debating and organising some revolt for same sex marriages seems like nonsense here. Sorry.

- Drugs - ok, some herbs can be drugs.

- Religious tolerance - ok, but be carefull. Polytheistic world is generally more tolerant than modern-day "one true god" religions. Also its not wise to design religions fighting each other vigorously. If there will be too many gods and too big fanatism the world will be in almost contant war. Its not much plausible in the long terms because no ruler would allow this. All rulers would try to bring peace in own land and solve the religious intolerance officially. So it could be fine in game with proper design.


So its my view of the problem.
Quick summary - design it to FIT THE FANTASY WORLD and dont try to bring it there for "we can finally have some controversy in games" or because "its cool and common problem nowadays" or "I like drugs so I want it in every game/world".