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How do you use oligarchs?

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Wed, 2016-04-13 10:28
#1
Redroverone Redroverone's picture
How do you use oligarchs?
Long story short, I came up with an idea, but just from even a cursory glance at the scenarios I've sketched out, oligarchs seem to be much much too potent for PC's to deal with in a campaign. They live forever, have hella money and influence, and the will to use all of it to make people miserable. What sort of weak spot could you possibly hit in a being that's lived two or three times at least as long as your PC's, and has all those advantages? You can't even say kill them, because death is temporary. If you used them in your campaigns, how did you work around the obvious power imbalance?
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Wed, 2016-04-13 10:41
Panoptic Panoptic's picture
I imagine a good source for
I imagine a good source for ideas would be conspiracy fiction and games. The oligarchs have the resources, time, and motivation to set up extremely long term and subtle plans to achieve their goals. An entire game could be set around Firewall becoming suspicious of the truth behind an event, which turns out to be but a miniscule part of a larger, and largely unknown, power-play.
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On 'IC Talk': Seyit Karga, Ultimate [url=http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46317#comment-46317]Character Profile[/url]
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Wed, 2016-04-13 11:08
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
You know that phrase about
You know that phrase about how to fight fire? Well, it can apply here too. Firewall does have the support of certain oligarchs, and having one as an ally can be an immense boon when dealing with another. Also, near-immortality won't save your reputation. If word comes out of some of the blackest, nastiest, or most horrifying thing an oligarch has done, no amount of memetic warfare or social engineering is going to stop their rep from taking a nosedive. Of course, that's not going to stop them from hurling all of their resources at the party responsible for destroying their not-so-immortal reputation (which is probably going to turn out to be the PCs), but that's why you got the backing of your own Firewall-friendly gerontocrat, right?
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Wed, 2016-04-13 11:26
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
even oligarchs do not have
even oligarchs do not have perfect security. The first takeshi kovacs novel has takeshi perma killing an oligarch
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Wed, 2016-04-13 11:49
Redroverone Redroverone's picture
Lemme add a little detail
It starts with my idea on this thread. We know from Firewall that one very common conspiracy theory involves the fact that several people and corps knew what was coming before the Fall and took advantage. Attempts to contact Earth would definitely draw the interest and interference of these oligarchs. The PC and Morningstar would hate for Earth to be repopulated because of the loss of status. Firewall probably wouldn't like it both for the potential X-Risks and the desire to keep balance in transhuman society. Reclaimers would insta civil war if they found out Earth was habitable after all. The big problem I have with this scenario is that I can't figure out what good leverage even a skilled Firewall team would have that could compare with what top figures in the PC and Morningstar would have available. Add to that I know at least half my prospective party wouldn't like an ending that didn't give them a chance for some kind of victory. At this point, I'm pretty much putting the idea on the shelf, unless someone smarter than me comes up with something.
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Wed, 2016-04-13 14:58
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
Well, the easiest solution is
Well, the easiest solution is to play the sides against each other. Morningstar and the PC are not friends. The Consortium wants the value of Venusian hypercorps back into their fold and Morningstar wants to be independent of the PCs rubber stamp railroad that the Tharsis League is mostly reduced to. This lends itself to a lot of political maneuvering which a set of Spies could help shake up. Can always throw in a third axis in the LLA, a pro-reclaimer polity with as much Oligarchy density as anywhere else who is also not eager to be enfolded by the Consortium. Other than that, individual weaknesses and leverage comes from the characters. There is no "generic" blackmail. To give the players ways to defeat this "enemy" you will have to develop them and work on ways for the sentinels to study them and work on them to make their weaknesses manifest.
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Wed, 2016-04-13 17:57
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
They're basically vampire elders.
Onyx Path probably has a supplement that you can plunder for ideas. Seriously, don't wait for us to write about it. WoD has this one covered. :)
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J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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Wed, 2016-04-13 18:15
thepedant thepedant's picture
What does it mean to be the "hero"?
This is, I think, a more gamemaster philosophy than game fiction question. The question is, "does your campaign expect your players' characters to be able to single-handedly change the course of political events?" EP can be read to imply that, barring a revolution the players will only be a small part of, macro-level politics are basically going to run on autopilot around the players. In that view, getting to and getting at an oligarch will be because the campaign fiction allows it at that particular moment, not really because the players made an entrance for it. Sure, they'll still work for it, but it will be partly an issue of luck -- the oligarch had to make a rare exposed appearance due to events the players could only partially engineer kind of thing.
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Thu, 2016-04-14 01:34
ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture
It's worth pointing out that,
It's worth pointing out that, in the default game assumption anyway, the players aren't working alone - Firewall is behind them. If they're going after an Oligarch, chances are this means they're being [i]sent[/i] after an Oligarch. That's a high-risk, high-value target, they won't be working alone. They may be the boots on the ground, but there will be infosec specialists, rep specialists, all kinds of specialists having worked he job for months, maybe years, setting this guy up to fall, subverting his security systems, subverting his guards, etc. Depending on how well those specialists did their job, your players may be able to walk right up to the Oligarch while all of his security crumbles around him, put a gun to his head, and extract his stack while his bodyguards walk away.
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Wed, 2016-05-04 02:30
cyclopean cyclopean's picture
yeah, i was going to
yeah, i 2nd orcacommander's recommendation of 'altered carbon' as a good example of exactly this scenario. Also a rad book in general!
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Wed, 2016-07-27 15:16
Panoptic Panoptic's picture
Looking up old Vampire books,
Looking up old Vampire books, a few names keep cropping up for elder plots: ​Elysium: The Elder Wars The Prince's Primer Counsel of Primogen
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On 'IC Talk': Seyit Karga, Ultimate [url=http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46317#comment-46317]Character Profile[/url]
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