RPGaDay 2019 Day #24 Noble

Today’s theme is “Noble.”

I haven’t used noble ranks and titles in my games. Most of them haven’t gone on that long, and the one that did found me totally unprepared for that occurrence. So instead, I’m going to discuss the American version of nobility, which is not reliant upon blood or heritage, but upon character.

This might wind up as something of a political post, but this is something that I’ve formulated as a balance between the two major forces of American politics these last few years. I have friends on both sides of the aisle and an interest in keeping them as friends.

There are two things that a good and noble person must do. They must oppose evil and they must uphold goodness. Everyone has their opinion on the evils of the world. That’s their prerogative. But the thing that I find most telling is how someone upholds goodness. What do they do when evil is defeated and how do they prevent it from returning? What do they build over the ruins?

This is one of the questions that has fascinated me about the RPG Exalted. The characters are so powerful, even at the beginning of the game, that it’s hard to prevent them from doing what they want. They can defeat any mundane mortal that tries to challenge them. As they become more powerful, they begin to be able to challenge the spirits and gods of the setting. The game isn’t about challenging them. It’s about revealing who the character is by how they decide to change the world.

It might also be what interests me in domain-level play in OSR games (I haven’t tried it, but it’s part of my “ultimate sandbox” campaign concept). Destruction is easy, but it only tells you so much about the characters. It’s more difficult to build and much more revealing of the kind of person you’re dealing with and how noble they truly are.