City Government Power Bases – Overview

This entry is part 1 in the series City Government Power Bases

The topic of city government causes GMs big yawns. Other than picking a government type, you find it a difficult city element to make interesting for game sessions, adventures and city design. However, it is an important part of urban environments that should not be ignored. And it does not have to be a difficult […]

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City Government Power Bases – Law and Affiliation

This entry is part 2 in the series City Government Power Bases

In the introduction last week I covered the goal of this series, which is to use the idea of power bases – where do fantasy governments, government officials and factions get power and influence? – to make your cities interesting places to adventure. Each part in this series will cover two or three power bases […]

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City Government Power Bases – Class and Level

This entry is part 3 in the series City Government Power Bases

The city power base series picks up again this week with thoughts about something you will not find in real life, but which affects fantasy cities in a huge way: levels. Think about it – most fantasy RPG systems offer class levels that create huge disparities between those who have them and those who do […]

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City Government Power Bases – Leadership

This entry is part 4 in the series City Government Power Bases

Popularity Being popular earns a government a lot of power, though it is always a fragile thing. Think of popularity as a form of temporary affiliation. Popularity is often restricted to a subset of urban society – you can’t please everyone. Strengths With a large amount of consent, a government can rule with fewer objections […]

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City Government Power Bases – Social Leverage, Marriage and Wealth

This entry is part 5 in the series City Government Power Bases

A power base is an asset you can use to achieve goals. It serves as a foundation or tool. You can wield it like a weapon, use it like a tool or draw upon it like a resource. Governments are typically boring game elements. However, design a power base for each government or government agency, […]

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City Government Power Bases – War and Military plus Software Giveaway

This entry is part 6 in the series City Government Power Bases

A strong military is real, solid power. A city with a skilled, well-equipped and well-led army can protect itself, fend off its neighbours, go on a conquering binge, and keep its own citizens under control, though not necessarily all at once or in that order. A politician with a private army can often get away […]

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City Government Power Bases – Magic and Psionics

This entry is part 7 in the series City Government Power Bases

We resume the city design series this week with thoughts about how to use magic and psionics to build interesting city government power bases. For the purposes of this article, magic and psionics are treated the same. Your game system might make this thinking incompatible, but hopefully you can take the thinking that follows and […]

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City Government Power Bases – Religion

This entry is part 8 in the series City Government Power Bases

Religion, spirituality, and ideology make excellent government power bases because they are powerful sources of influence, prestige, and affiliation. Religion and cosmology varies from campaign to campaign, but it’s likely gods do exist in your world and they imbue certain, devout followers with spells and special powers every day. Even if your current campaign has […]

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City Government Power Bases – Land

This entry is part 9 in the series City Government Power Bases

In many societies, landowners have great power. With all the economic, defensive, military, and strategic benefits land provides, most governments use this as a starting power base for their regimes. For high fantasy games, consider land as an abstract concept that encompasses many possible dimensions. Land can be the ground, the clouds of sky realms, […]

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