So, my group blew up. I'm not quite foreverGM, but I alternate with one other guy, and we pass off running campaigns back and forth for our Dragonquest group. My latest was a sandboxy setting, and the players gravitated towards a series of wars waged by some of the smaller countries off in the north end of the map.You had this one country, The Republic of Oleria, which was in the process of attacking, overrunning, and absorbing most of its immediate neighbors, and the desperate cries for foreign mercenaries to try to hold off the Olerians from their victims is what brought the PCs into the region.They join a campaign, fight a battle, keep the Olerians out of their patron country for a year, but things are looking bad. They drift their way into Oleria itself, try to see if there's a way of toppling the juggernaut from the inside; to find a society that I modeled after the Roman Republic in a lot of ways. So you have a highly militarized, aristocratically dominated republic with limited ways for the poorer folk to express their political views. But also all this militarism and expansionism is pretty popular among those lower classes; Oleria wins almost all of their wars, and that usually means loot and/or tribute and/or more land to take over. The conqueror game pays if you're in the position of a middling Olerian farmer.And now my e-mail inbox is blowing up for either pitching them into an impossible situation or being an edgelord somehow. I don't think this game is going to survive and I'm honestly pissed that if one of my games is ending, that it's doing so for such an idiotic reason.
>>93255901I hope for the best for you anon, and others too.
>>93255901>design the enemy after one of the most effective empires ever>it's too effectiveDon't know what you expected.
Give them a hint about the weaknesses you designed the republic to have? Unless they truly are giving up without even trying, they probably just need you to toss them a bone or a clue to follow up on.
>>93255926That's just the thing, they're not even really "The enemy" except insofar as the players choose to oppose them. There's absolutely nothing preventing them from signing on with the Olerians. Or just walking away from the region. Or doing the actual hard work of trying to stitch together a coalition that's able and ready to contain them. My players honestly seem upset that there's a geopolitical problem that can't be solved by "Kill the bad king or evil aristocrats tricking the people into war!"
>>93256008I'd say the problem is more that the indicated solutions aren't ones that they want to do; they really pinned some ridiculous hopes on staging some kind of coup in the capital and replacing the aggressive expansionistic government with one better able to get along with their neighbors, hopefully by getting rid of the aristocratic clique running things at the moment.There are weaknesses, and I have dropped hints (I suppose I can be more obvious about this), but the plan that they embarked on isn't hitting on those weaknesses.
>>93256010I mean, considering the history of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, killing a few key aristocrats or generals would probably be a good way of igniting a power struggle that would explode into civil war.This would pretty likely result in them not bothering anyone for a while, but by the same token make the players partially responsible for the ensuing bloodshed.
>>93256057If we're edging into history, that's really more of the Late Republic, especially in the Marian/Post Marian period. Oleria's more modeled after the sort of Rome you're seeing in the 3rd century B.C., where individual nobles/generals don't have that kind of sway, largely because the campaigns are shorter and downstream effects of that.That being said, there are some stress points, especially the places that Oleria has relatively recently conquered (Going back to the historical parallels, these are the Capuas and the Tarentums that threw in with Hannibal during the 2nd Punic War) but have incorporated into their system of recruitment and overall military machine despite some doubts about their loyalty. There are also large pools of tappable manpower to oppose Oleria, they are NOT popular outside their own borders; granted, it would take wealth to arm them and some organizational ability to get them pointed in the right direction, but there are always dungeons to loot and tough adventurers to rally around.
>>93256080Given your response to my suggestion, I get the impression you've already decided on several ways to 'address' the issue but you and the players are both getting frustrated because they're not following your plan(s). Players will always do things you do not anticipate. I remember very clearly having an entire Mercenary Ticket in Classic Traveller that I had planned out in excruciating detail be derailed entirely in the 2nd session because the players decided they wanted to follow the rampaging warbots and not the plot relevant NPCs. Players will always follow the WarbotsThe players find it constraining and not thematically appropriate to the type of setting they signed on to play. You are frustrated because they're seeing the same puzzle and are consequently not attempting to solve it in the same ways.Clearly, this is an issue of expectations. Maybe work with the players to construct an out to this narrative that you can both enjoy?
>>93255901It seems like there's a paragraph missing between 3 and 4. What impossible situation are you pitching them into? Why do you need to be an edgelord? What are you talking about? Why did you communicate everything except the important information?
>>93256128You make good points. I'll keep that in mind, but I do also think that there are points where a GM should say 'no, this is never going to work.'Reduce it to the level of a single fight, and if your players want to I don't know, kill the fire elemental by setting its lair on fire, no, that's dumb and you're going to fail if you try. And you can try to make it clearer that the course of action they're on is prone to failure, but at some point if they keep doubling down, you have to show the consequences.>>93256162I'm sorry, I thought I was clearer than I guess I was. The impossible situation is stopping the Olerians in a way that leaves things wrapped up with a nice pretty pink bow; delete the evil force that's making the people want to lash out at their neighbors, and everything should settle down right?That there is no external evil force, that the broad mass of the Olerians are perfectly fine with plundering and conquering their neighbors is both what makes me an edgelord and what makes the situation 'impossible', since the preferred method of some kind of coup and getting everyone to play nice afterwards isn't looking like it's possible.
>>93256445Sounds like you're not communicating well enough that your setting does not operate based on modern morality.
>>93255901>But also all this militarism and expansionism is pretty popular among those lower classes; Oleria wins almost all of their wars, and that usually means loot and/or tribute and/or more land to take over.Considering the party's abilities and the overall state of potential opposition, what are the chances of delivering a blistering loss to Oleria? Enough of a loss that makes the lower classes pay attention.
>>93256520In the short term, not really existent. They were able to hand the Olerians a bloody nose, but that's losing a battle, not a war.If they organize things more, then yes, they can build up a coalition to really batter Oleria down, especially if they can pry away some of their more recent conquests get some revolts brewing outside of the actually voting population. But that's going to take some work and some time, as well as money, which would mean more time and work to raise it.
>>93256445How is that impossible? They can just join the Olerians.
>>93256592Didn't public support in Rome wane heavily after the brutal loss at Cannae? Couldn't a similar individual loss coupled with their coup idea have some promise? Inflict a devastating defeat, support the anti-war movement and install a more pacifistic government?
>>93256606Sure, nothing's stopping them. But as of last session, the players were pretty firmly in the anti-Olerian camp.
>>93256620So what's the problem?
>>93256592Are the players just allergic to digging their characters' heels in due to the time required?
>>93256619>Didn't public support in Rome wane heavily after the brutal loss at Cannae?Only source we have is Livy, and Livy is very much about patriotic Roman toughness prevailing in times of hardship. Still, if we believe him (and he probably is more or less accurate, especially when talking about stuff in Italy), no, Rome's response to Cannae was to double down further. They raised an absurdly big army, including forming two legions by freeing slaves and letting people out of prison, imposed limits on public mourning of war dead, forced people to sell off their jewelry to raise money for the war, and even resorted to human sacrifice, a practice they normally found repugnant.We do have independent verification of the jewelry ban thing still being in effect later and the attempt to get it reversed about 20 years after the war ended, it's one of the only times that women in Rome were active political participants. It does make me think that Livy is being reasonably accurate.That being said, I could see repeated defeats blunting Rome's eagerness and their Olerian counterparts. But it would probably be on the level of actually losing a war, not just losing battles, even very large battles.
>>93256624>>93256645I think this anon nailed it >>93256490 I didn't do a good enough job of making it clear that Oleria might be a republic, but that it's very much an ancient style republic and not a modern liberal democracy. I think I triggered some weird short-circuit in their brains by making the demos hungering for war and where the poorer sorts who are serving in the army are actually completely fine with it and getting rich from doing so.So they think that someone 'has' to be pushing them to war, and that someone 'has' to be benefiting from it all except for the people in the sharp end of combat. And not providing that is the problem. Got to think of a way to clear that up.
>>93256674Have you tried telling them?
>>93256682I was going to wait for tempers to cool a little first, but yeah, direct GM to player is probably the way to go here.
>>93256696What? You never mentioned anything about tempers. What are they mad about?
>>93256682>>93256696>>93256674>/tg/ - Couples Counseling for Gaming Groups.
Even when things are going well there are friction points in a society. Has there been any indication of those?
>>93255901I meanCaesar was stabbed in the back 23 times, the last by his friend. Murderhobo saves and dooms the republic. Could make a two/three empire problems, raids on either side requires too much attention, so it's split for that attention and infighting starts between the two/three rulersA greater threat from beyond requires all of the status quo or be destroyed. Set aside differences for Winter is coming, or the reapers.
