Oh, I get it. But then the problem remains that that the coups are planned democratically and in plain sight of the leader. If there was a mechanism with the players writing one ode and presenting another as convincingly as possible to smuggle their policies in or writing alternative odes and handing them to each other under the table with the danger of being found out or backstabbed I would get more of an idea of a coup d'etat instead of basically the electoral college, but with murder (which is still cool).
I love the mix of politics & myticism; my only issue is with the voting mechanism. I don't see how a player should ever vote against the current Sunlord if that so critically disadvantages them. They have to level up from peasant to vizier, then issue their favored candidate, and then win more than half of the votes to not lose all progress immediately.
I'd also like to know how far-reaching the policies can become. What if someone asks if the Sunlord could be abolished in favor of a two-party system and it somehow goes into effect? Would that just be the end of the game?
Thanks for the comment. You're very right about everything. :-)
I mentioned on the game page that I failed to incorporate the theme (I had a pretty bad idea about working in the sunlessness of your average seminar room and trashed it shortly after) and it just kind of developed in this direction. I still met the basic ruleset in my opinion and didn't want to drop out, so I posted the result nonetheless. I kind of like the idea that the role one plays will be fixed to "student with mindset x" and expresses itself through writing and research rather than the usual methods, but I'm convinced that won't be everybody's cup of tea.
