Here's a few thoughts on a system for quickly rolling up a royal household that's full of messy, juicy drama - in the vein of Game of Thrones, of the Greek Gods, or indeed, of real history.
Simply make a numbered list of all of the important characters in the royal household. I'm going to run a quick example using a few Greek gods, as familiar figures.
- Zeus
- Hades
- Poseidon
- Athena
- Ares
- Apollo
- Aphrodite
- Hera
Then, take the first character, and roll 3d8. The first number rolled is his confidant, the second his flame, and the third his rival. I got 4, 4, and 2.
So Zeus is very close with his daughter Athena, in some unnerving ways - but incest is hardly out of place in a system inspired by Game of Thrones and the Greek pantheon! If you don't want incest, though, you can reroll, or simply have Zeus not have a flame. We also see that Zeus has a rival in Hades.
Now, I'm going to skip ahead to Athena and roll her 3d8. I get 7, 2, and 2. So she's friends with Aphrodite, and has some weird relationship going on with Hades, as both her Flame and Rival. Does that make sense? Absolutely! Reconciling that kind of thing is half the fun of this system. This roll also goes back and sketches in some context to Zeus' rivalry with Hades - he's jealous of his relationship with Athena.
For one final example, I'll roll for Hades. He gets 7, 6, and 6. Him and Athena are both friends of Aphrodite, that's interesting - it probably indicates that she's trying to play matchmaker for them. We also now have a love triangle emerging, with Hades torn between Athena and Apollo.
Hopefully this example shows how much juicy drama can emerge from a relatively simple system.
This is cool!
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