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Ah, politics, or perhaps AHHHHH politics.

Anyways what level of importance does politics play in worldbuilding for a story for you? Do you go into it heavily, minimally, keep it lurking in the background but still prevalent? Somehwere in between.

Has anyone here come up with any interesting political systems for the factions in their stories? 

 

 

Depends on the story. If your story mostly takes place in one city worldbuilding isn't a huge deal. If your story involves you going around and conquering the world then yea, it would matter.

I agree with Killa, it depends on the story. However, I think political issues can be relevant to the plot or add to the world in any story, especially one that solely takes place inside a city.

Probably the stories where I really bothered with such things to a major degree was Eternal and Rogues. More so in Rogues though.

The author neglecting that part of the world building is something I think is more noticeable in science fiction than in fantasy. With fantasy there's a lot that can get handwaved with 'uhhh, the king declared that whatever' and no one will question it too hard.

Any setting where any sort of actual laws are a plot point would technically be a reflection of the world/city's/whatever's politics, but characters that are such badasses they're above all that are obviously popular in escapist fiction.

But for me, if there's controllable magic then there realistically HAS to be some semi-believable way their society deals with the existence of the super powered people among them. So that's one thing that fantasy and the superhero genre shares. The difference typically being that in the latter, technology leaves normal people with some leverage, while with the former you kind of have to wonder why wizards aren't in control of everything.

Politics and various factions add depth to any story of any scale though and are a good vehicle for conflict. Factions can be goal driven the same way characters are, but of course there can be various characters within them with conflicting motivations and so it can be layers within layers depending on how much focus you want to put on it.

I just cheat by stealing the system from whatever historical shit the faction is based on. From that point forward, anything political plot-wise is based on characters with political ambitions or with a particular political bent whose actions would influence the outcome. I could go on and on with the finer points of administration, but that just isn't fun for me and usually distracts from the story anyway.

Honestly never bring up any unique ways of taxation in a fantasy world.  You will wrap yourself in more details than what really matters.

Really depends on how much of the story involves politicking.  If you're changing the fate of nations / regions and doing power shifts, sure politics matter.

Or you know, you're just killing a big old troll under a bridge.  Nothing there other than public service.

I think in World Building the politics will tie in with the cuture of the society in question. A lot of classic works of science fiction like Asimov's Foundation Series or Herbert's Dune books would probably fall apart if you tried to remove the politics. Even a work of fantsy like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has to pay some degree of attention to politics, despite (or maybe because) of the fact that he's basically dealing with Feaudalistic monarchies that put a big emphasis on birthright. Anyway, I think it adds spice to the stew, so I'm not adverse to it.