On 31Aug2020 1155, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml
list) wrote:
>
>
> On Sunday, August 30, 2020, 04:08:22 PM MST, David Johnson
> <xxxxxx@zarthani.net> wrote:
>
> The described distinctions between a "charismatic dictator" and a
> "non-charismatic leader" don't seem to make a lot of sense from
> player-character perspective. Neither does the difference between
> "self-perpetuating oligarchy" and "charismatic oligarchy."
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> I finally concluded that the diff 'tween 'charismatic' &
> 'non-charismatic' would be like comparing Orwell's '1984' to an
> identical system except that 'Big Brother' was absent.
>
> Not sure what diff it would make to PC's but it appears that MM saw
> something.
>
> Always seemed to me that they would both be exceptionally dangerous
> places to visit.
>
> But then I guess that's what the die-roll to determine whether there's
> harassment from the local authorities is for.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've always assumed that with 'charismatic' governments, the problem
would be that the local citizenry would helping the government enforce
all it's rules, etc. It's not the secret police seeing you spit on the
footpath that's the problem, it's all the normal citizens dobbing you in.

The flaw with this assumption is that a Type 3 government is a
"Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy", while a Type C is the "Charismatic
Oligarchy", making the one that doesn't rely on or necessarily have
popular support the one that most likely has the looser laws and less
harassment of travellers.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>