How can Politics (in game) change the entire Game Environment?

[Boy Who Codes]

I am planning to make an extensive Politics System in RMMV. I know it is ridiculous, but if you're looking for a way to make games a little bit more exciting, you'd want some changes, right?

Anyway, I'd like to know your feedback, of what do you think are the things involved to make a Politics System properly correct if we are to implement it in a game?

 

[Zebestian]

@LTN Games Wouldn't this belong in the "Theory & Development" section? Just wondering. :P

Anyway... politics. Hoo boy, where do I even start...? As someone who has somewhat studied a few semesters of political science I can safely tell you that implementing a complex (and dynamic?) politics system would be a massive endeavour. That is, if you want to be as close to reality as you can be. For every country in your game you would need to establish a political system, complete with all the actors and structures necessary. Is it a republic? A kingdom? Dictatorship? If we're gonna be democratic what parties are there? Are people organized in parties at all? What do they stand for? How is the country's political system structured? Do they have separation of powers? And I don't even want to start with international relations.
You see, it's not just "politics". There's a whole huge number of other things you need to consider when wanting to create a system like this. You'd need to create whole fictional societies if you want to make it believable and... good luck doing that. :D

 

[MinisterJay]

And then there are so many unexpected variables. Some people love being under a dictatorship, and other despise being under a democracy. Will there be monarchies that are just ceremonial or will they have power, and delegate power through feudal Lords and Ladies of differing titles and powers. Two forms that are challenging are theocracies and fundalmentalistic government, where there is no separation of church and state. Church is state. Politics may not even involve a national governing system, as it occurs daily within almost all business environments. It occurs in family structure. I too had some poli-sci courses, the land of where professors used their own published textbooks. Politics is a very complicated system, as there are so many factors. People may elect a person to a position, governing or business, due their likability or charisma. They may support them due to their platform. Promises are made, and that influences the persuasions. I this political system for small groups of intermingling or for governing bodies?

 

[cav_dan]

I guess what Soul is asking for is more in line with "Political powers x Public opinion" kinda deal. Not that I wouldn't love to discuss political economy, representation and other juicy matters with you guys, but maybe keep it in it's own post, maybe?

Well, my favorite kind of "Political System Simulation" is probably "Democracy 3". In it, you have a lot of systems that talk to each other. Since it's a democracy, you're a president/prime-minister/something that's running a country just after the elections.

So, each country has a bunch of policies sub divided into areas. For example, you have the "Public Safety " area, and there you have "Military Police" policy, which is a kind of police responsible for ostensive patrol of the streets. This policy drains money for upkeep and keeps the upper-class happy. If you increase the funding of this policy, the upper-class is happier and the lower-classes can get pretty pissed at you, making you lose influence on the next elections/months.

So you can spend your influence on changing policies, creating new policies and removing policies. Some of them make money (taxing Tobbaco is specially easy to do, and you only let down a small amount of the population), some drain it, some are in the middle. There's a lot more complexity, like who are your secretaries, what kind of background they have and so on...

It's really tricky and I could never get very far in it. It's still very interesting as a learning tool to understand a bit of how democracy works, made me really respect some of our politicians, there's never an easy answer.

That all said, maybe you can make the player have a say on some of the policies along the main story, and people he/she knows react to those policies accordingly. In the end, I can never see what kind of script would fit into it. It's a lot more about storytelling than not...

 

[MinisterJay]

Another part of the puzzle in politics is the interactions between victors and victims. How each is viewed is determined by which side you are on. This can occur between families, tribes, nations, etc. Look at some of the modern situations, one country celebrates its independence from another country, yet they are amongst the strongest of allies. @Soul, which type of politics are you looking at?

 

[PhilteredKhaos]

Will you include a region of peoples akin to the Zomia?

 

[Boy Who Codes]

I want to start one by one on the discussed systems. Let's start it with one way or the other. What system do you want to get implemented about it that has something to do with control of Politics?

 

[cav_dan]

I want to start one by one on the discussed systems. Let's start it with one way or the other. What system do you want to get implemented about it that has something to do with control of Politics?

Maybe reputation and public opinion (different groups have different opinions on a topic) would be a nice start.

 

[Boy Who Codes]

Is Reputation the same thing as having good or bad? I haven't had much knowledge on it exactly myself.

 

[eivl]

for every opinion someone has there should be two scales.
1. How much do you care about this.
2. How important is this for you.

the first one can be represented by a number from 1-100 (it does not matter) and the second one is a scalar.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalar_(mathematics))

this must be in my opinion something from 0-2.
the sum of any number of opinions is your stand on any subset of political ideas. your opposite faction (the one you are talking to for example)
will use your 1 value (the one in which you care) and their own scalar to judge how likable you would be.

examples
opinion 1 : you care much about this and it is important for you -> 80*1.2 = 96
opinion 2: you feel indifferent about this and it is not important for me. -> 15*0,2 = 3
opinion 3: Do not care but it is very important -> 10*2 = 20
sum : 119

faction 1:
1: crazy important issue : 1.8
2: crazy important issue: 1.8
3: somewhat important: 1.1
sum : 1.8*80 + 1.8*15 + 1.1*10 = 182
standing with faction 1 : 182 / 119 => alrigth

faction 2:
1: could not care a bit : 0.1
2: super important : 2.0
3: could not care a bit: 0.1
sum: 0.1*80 + 2*15 + 0.1*10 = 10.5
standing with faction 2: 10.5 / 119

there should also be a threshold to determine what is good and bad values when comparing factions.

In a easy and normal system you would just have 1 scale, called reputation and the more you have the more someone likes you, i find this kind of system indicate when it comes to political issues. This works with karma, a system that tracks how good or evil you have been, but political systems are multidimensional and hence more then one scale to track.

Hope i made some sense, i made this on the fly ;)

 

[MinisterJay]

Reputation is a neat attribute to work with. And it can also be worked within political systems. The people could love a leader that want to expand their area and resources by forceful land acquisition. They may hold him or her in high esteem, and he would have a high favorable reputation. On the other side of the border...The people may look at the same leader as a brutal murderer and enslaver. They may hold him in low esteem, and he would have a high non-favorable reputation. The leader's reputation is high for both sides, but how each side views that reputation may differ.

In political systems, unfortunately, character does not have much play in modern days. What acts a leader may do that harms character, may not harm the ruled perception on the leadership ability.

In political systems, we may karma. Karma may be biased too. I see an orc, I attack the orc. That helps my karma. To implement a true karma system, there must be an option not attack the orc. In RPGs, we often find ourselves in racial/monster profiling. This profiling is also an unfortunate part of political systems. There must be a good side, our side, and a bad side, their side.

In a political system do we want o do similarly like an alignment system?
Lawful Good---Lawful Neutral---Lawful Evil
Neutral Good---True Neutral---Neutral Evil
Chaotic Good---Chaotic Neutral---Chaotic Evil

In politics two people can be classified as being the same, and at the same be opponents. In politics two people can appear to be totally against each other, but at same time have family meals together.

The variables...the statistical crunching...

Do you want a simple political system or a very complex? The formulae await to be calculated.

 

[cav_dan]

To implement a true karma system, there must be an option not attack the orc.

That's probably the most difficult, yet most rewarding system of all (imho). Think an open-world kind of game where nobody has to be killed.

Then I remembered there IS a game like that: Undertale.

Also, most Megaten games have non-violent options you can use sometimes (but not all the time).

And the first Fallout could be played all Charisma, I think.

 

[Alberth Kierminto]

. . .political. . .does that mean you also want to, or need to implement law system?. . .
. . .based on real life, it really depends on each countries, different countries have different political approach. . .
. . .which will lead to different aspects of impact to the civilization and its progress. . .
. . .if you really want to implement this kind of system, you'd probably need to delve a bit about the government system. . .

. . .you should start with the leader, how the leader is chosen in the country, then from that you connect it to the reality. . .
. . .for example: a monarchy chooses its leader based on a certain bloodline, which will. . .

. . .then from that you move on to the people, it starts small. . .then when it got big it needs a government system to control them. . .
. . .and so on and so on. . .do you really want to implement complex Political system?. . .if so, I can help you with that. . .

 

[eivl]

.political. . .does that mean you also want to, or need to implement law system?. . .

IMHO yes

if you really want to implement this kind of system, you'd probably need to delve a bit about the government system

true.

.do you really want to implement complex Political system?. . .if so, I can help you with that. . .

I can also offer coding assistance if it is needed.

 

[Boy Who Codes]

I'm going to try in doing this Alignment System soon. Sounds like a nice way to implement how good, evil, or neutral a nation is to the other.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

Depends on how much you want the player to interfere or be able to change the politics.

Political games have been done plenty, heh... you only need to look at Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex, to see how far human politics can go to make good games, especially where player choice comes in.

Personally, I like to avoid alignment systems, mostly because all my games are linearly interrelated in ways. Typically in any political game I make, the player is pitted into an unfair, cruel totalitarian environment which they strive to through the avatar they role play as, correct.

No one likes totalitarian systems, after all, do they? Except for the one running them.

And even that gets depressing after a while, you know? You develop such a bleak outlook. Knowing that no matter what you do, no matter how many cruelties you inflict, people will just go on and give up, not care, it's only the few that do who give you a buzz.

And you'll have them killed, challenge them, so that one day, they might end it all for you. You see, I have had this power myself.

THE POWER OF A GOD.

Seeing the same old friends again and again, meeting the same old enemies, over and over.

After a while, you begin to just let time go on without you, hoping something new will happen.

Limiting player choice isn't a bad thing, just depends what you're going for. An expansive ever changing narrative in an rpg maker setting?

Well, take it from me, buddy. It very rarely works. Which is weird, considering you have all the tools, powers and now even plugins to make it as fiendishly twisted as you like.

But the amount of games like this that see the light of day... are very few!

Because they take effort, devotion, and a LOT OF RIGOROUS BUGTESTING.

But, I believe if one put their mind to it, they could very sufficiently make a good game with variables of this sort.

And I myself, have had cruel ideas while entertaining the plugin I linked.

 

[polar_fawkes]

I've got a form of diplomacy in the works for my game between the player's fortresses and the neighboring countries. ultimately the questions are this: what interests you about the idea of using a political system? make a list and quantify all that, then constantly check those values against eachother. either event switch pages or copy-pasting the map for drastic changes the player sees(architecture populace etc).

this, of course, requires you plan out the entire system in advance. you've got to design the mechanic before you can get to work implementing it. you have to know exactly at what points you want the rpgm engine to plug into your diplomacy engine(likely running as a parallel process inside your game loop common event)
[doublepost=1450942260,1450942023][/doublepost]another note, if you mean political systems ie communism, capitalism, youve got to keep in mind that these systems (irl) are a means of distributing scarce resources with multiple uses. if you wanted the politics to affect the economy, you would have to redesign shops from the ground up, as they don't actually 'contain' items, so prices cant fluctuate/scarcity can't occur(unless you create a 'scarcity' event that fires when certain conditions are met)

 

[Boy Who Codes]

Currently, I finished one system that has to do with Politics, which is currently the Tax System. This means that the tax will vary depending who the president / ruler is. Kinda like Gemfire's different resource gathering abilities depending who the vassal is.

 

[Isaac The Red]

If I had any suggestion for this, I'd start simple and expand. But question, Are you building this as a plugin? Or through event scripting and variable handing only?

 

[Boy Who Codes]

Entirely through plugins. I dislike the limitation of eventing. My Tax System is entirely through plugin as well.