Bleah, I didn't care for where my review of the Other service ended up. I am okay with how I got there and the interpretations I made however it is not a pleasant view at the end. Which shows this is a valid way to approach making the OTU into MTU.
My favorite character class in D&D is the Paladin and I generally try and run for players who want to be heroes. Bet you wouldn't see that from the last post would you? I didn't expect when I started these posts that I would be developing as much setting material while doing them as I have.
I started with the idea no one leaves their own world but the universal draft means almost everyone does. Because it is a draft it is seen as a burden like taxes rather than a display of patriotism. So you get forced off world to serve the Emperor in whatever way he sees fit down to what you get trained to do.
The Imperium heavily encourages all kinds of lottery and or gambling. Join the service and hope to win the open slot lottery to keep your job because nothing about you improves your chance to stay in. All done in your service? Spin the wheel o' benefits and maybe win a life of moderate income or get nothing. Hey! Ho! reach into the hat and draw what skill area the Imperium has decided you will be trained in.
It is also a more paranoid Imperium than I originally envisioned with the 3 military branches looking at local governments and each other with a wary eye. My view of nobles has changed as well. There are going to be a lot more Knights than I suspect in most campaigns, 1 for every 250 people. This is because everyone has a local noble they can run to if they have a problem they can't fix otherwise. So every world government knows they can do mostly whatever they like but there are a bunch of people they have no control of and who are not bound by planetary laws running around.
The Scouts and Others are the Imperium having people they can point to and go "See we really do care". Both of them seem to me to be groups with non-specific mandates to fix whatever happens along without a dedicated organization to back them up. Leading Scouts to JOT and Others to less than legal means to solve issues.
The separation games idea for mustering out along with the lottery elements gives a very Romanesque bread and circuses feel I am okay with. The Imperium is less about solving individuals problems than distracting the population away from said problems. The emphasis on random chance and distraction gives an impersonal feel leading to a population with little regard for minor laws.
All of these actually enhance my premise to a great deal. Mustering out is the start of your adventuring because before that you where serving your required duty. The randomness of character generation can be used to explain people feeling like the end of an imperial career would be the start of them having some control of their own life. So the Imperium is good everyone has a job and skill but it isn't likely anyone is really impassioned by a system that give very little input in the direction their life takes.
No comments:
Post a Comment