The Machiavellian SG sounds good in theory, but I strongly doubt it would make a particularly fun game, especially if it's an SG.
First of all, "complex political environment" is not something you can just
have in a game, it's something that you need to develop, otherwise it doesn't really work. This is because of several reasons - firstly, if you put it in there, it needs to be one of two things - populated by NPCs or populated by players.
- If it's populated by NPCs, you get the issue where the political environment becomes shallow - try as you might, you're still one person, and realistically simulating a purportedly complex political environment requires that there be many different (both in personality and in goals) characters, all vying and competing against one another, which one GM is simply incapable of doing to a convincing level without massively multiplying the workload and wracking their brains to the limit.
- If it's populated by other players, the political situation has the potential to eventually become complex, but initially they're all just people who've just come into the setting without a real (that is to say, one that isn't pure fluff that reflects any sort of player competence or agency) past without any experience at what they're currently doing. If you get lucky, things will develop into a properly complex political environment, but this hinges on the game's success in the first place.
Secondly, the game's basic premise, if done faithfully, is completely unsuitable for a suggestion game simply because it's implausible that the suggester base groupthink could play it in a competent or compelling way, due to the democratic process is not known for its quick and dynamic decision-making abilities. The creativity and adaptability of a single person is quite beyond a larger group of the same. To say nothing of the Machiavelli levels of humor that having a game inspired by The Prince being run by democracy of all things creates. And even if somebody in the player base comes up with a clever plan of some kind, it needs the support of the groupthink entity, which robs it of some of its player agency, and if it succeeds, it doesn't really benefit the player who came up with it in any way. In suggestion games, actually fun plotting and execution of plans cannot physically be done.
Thirdly, a complex political environment is vastly less interesting than you'd guess from the name, similarly to the running and advancement of a merchant house. It's a fun thing to mention as happening, not so much to actually deal with. Especially if the game's a Renaissance Italy period piece, which tend to be depressingly boring simply because they feel like they've been pretty much been done to death after not having been particularly interesting in the first place. A suggestion game carries the additional problem that it, by necessity of the format, progresses slowly at best and has few payoffs when compared with the time invested.
In conclusion, I can't help but feel that the interest behind the idea is largely because people look too much at the words contained within it (the look of words such as "Machiavellian", "complex political environment", "ruthless action" and other similar ones is no doubt appealing, but they're really just glorified buzzwords when you think about them) rather than their implications.
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Topic: Area Samarkand: I Set My Stuff Here, Next to a [POLL] (Read 9916 times)