What governments have you brought down in a game?

[Anders]

You realize you are all on the terrorist list now?

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Anders

You realize you are all on the terrorist list now?

The way GCHQ and the NSA carry on, everyone is on the terrorist list anyway.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

The way GCHQ and the NSA carry on, everyone is on the terrorist list anyway.

True enough. And one ought not to live in fear. If they make a list from such innocent comments, I'm happy to help dilute the list further.

I don't think I've ever had PC's do it to me. Though now that I think about it, I've offered nice situations a couple of times. It seems its a certain kind of game AND a certain type of player that goes for such things.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yes, please.

It turns out that player characters in my campaigns fairly frequently get involved in political change or advocacy, but "brought to an end" is a bit narrower. Let's see:

In Unmoved Movers, after the economic and political collapse of the United States, the city of Chicago ended up as a city-state ruled by a coalition of federal bureaucrats and local mob, which sustained itself by sending out requisitioning parties into the countryside. The player characters got involved in overthrowing their rule and in fact helped the uprising along considerably.

In Ghazi, the player characters used their Allah-granted superpowers to drive the First Crusade out of the Near East.

In Under the Shadow, the player characters played a major part in the resistance movement that brought down Sauron after his conquest of nearly all of Middle-Earth.

In Sovereignty, at the very end, one of the PCs, who had been given superpowers long ago in ancient Greece by Ares to settle a bet with Athene, was contacted by her opponent, who had been given powers by Athene, with a proposal to take the superteam to challenge the gods and demand release from their empowerment/curse. In fact, they ended up defeating both Ares and Athene, despite Athene's being armed with Zeus's thunderbolts, and at that point Prometheus showed up and proclaimed that this was the prophecy he had concealed from Zeus, that mortals would overthrow the gods and take their place, and the reign of the Olympians was at an end.

In Water Margin, with the Chinese Empire falling apart, the admiral of the North Atlantic proclaimed himself as the new Son of Heaven. The PCs were recruited by one of the local Eyes of Heaven to sneak into his house on the Isle of Wight and blow him up; they did so, but in the process they assassinated the Eye of Heaven as well, in the hope of freeing Britain from the Chinese protectorate that had been established over it.

How's that for a list?

[seaweedbrain]

During one game a few years ago,we accidentally cause the collapse of a small island nation's government due to poor communication kills. We were told about one person who was meant to be removed,but due to my character being bad with names and a loud mouth one thing lead to another....

[David Johnston2]

Come to think of it, there was a GURPS/Ravenloft game where they visited the land of Harmonia, a music obsessed land ruled by bards and they introduced the power of rock and roll. That probably brought down the government.

[marvin]

When I played 2300AD in college we started the game during the in-game year of 2276 with characters just out of college. Our GM mixed up the TL a bit to have France just finishing a successful war against Italy the left Italy divided into Padania and Ausonia with Rome/Vatican an independent city state. This led to Ruffin's election as President of France and renewed French interest in the affairs of Canada, which was a loose federation of 14 provinces ; Prince Edward's Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Hudsonia, Kenora, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Columbia, Vancouver, Yukon and the Turks and Caicos.

French meddling in Canada renewed the covert conflict between France and America, which had been on and off since the post-Twilight War era. The PCs were instrumental in exposing the Canadian government's involvement in running extraterrestrial organisms past OQC for secret research in a refurbished pre-Twilight bunker located in the Yukon. Needless to say the Quebec dominated Canadian government fell but Ruffin escaped squeaky clean.

Benjamin

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Anders

You realize you are all on the terrorist list now?

I've been on their watch list for a while. I ain't bothered much. ;)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It turns out that player characters in my campaigns fairly frequently get involved in political change or advocacy, ...

How's that for a list?

Seems like something of a theme, really. I haven't done nearly so much of that.

In the Fantasy Campaign That Continues Forever, there have been a few cases. In the back-story, there was a military dictatorship that was overthrown as a consequence of the changes due to the emergence of a new style of magic: the army that was running it left the city in question when it was clear they were going to lose, since there seemed no point in getting destroyed themselves and trashing the city. As the ruler put it, "I'm a military dictator, not a Dark Lord."

Early on, there was a very strange government that was basically there for knocking over; the PCs financed the necessary logistics.

Later on, a small country that had been set up by (different) PCs found itself menaced by the exiled military dictator, but managed to avoid war by going directly from "still easy to take, let them get a bit richer" to "tough enough that fighting them will require wrecking the place."

In Steam!, the Martian invasion was resolved by changing the constitution of Belgium. It was a bit complicated.

In Infinite Cabal, the characters try to stay below governments' radar. They could overthrow quite a few governments if they wanted, but there are more important things to do.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

In Infinite Cabal, the characters try to stay below governments' radar. They could overthrow quite a few governments if they wanted, but there are more important things to do.

"Eventually we will probably have to take over a few worlds, but magical constructs are both more aesthetically pleasing and more flexible than massed human labour."