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Characters & Activists

Characters are the people of Lawmaker. Your party recruits activists — the public faces who front your bills and fill cabinet posts. There are also journalists: independent, game-controlled characters who comment on politics but can't be recruited or hold office.

Recruiting activists

Recruiting costs 10 PP and shows you 3 randomly generated candidates — each with a name, age, backstory, and a set of traits. Pick one and they join immediately, or decline and try again later (for another 10 PP).

There's no hard limit on roster size, but each recruit costs PP and most successful parties run a focused core of a few strong activists rather than a crowd.

Traits

Every character has 3–5 traits. Some change how effective they are; others are pure flavour.

Traits with gameplay effects

These shape an activist's persuasion (how convincing their proposals and speeches are), profile growth (how fast they gain followers), authority (credibility), and starting followers:

Trait Effect
Charismatic +Persuasion, +Profile
Awkward −Persuasion, −Profile
Fantastic Speaker ++Persuasion, ++Profile
Poor Speaker −Persuasion, −−Profile
Media Savvy +Persuasion, +Profile, more starting followers
Reclusive −−Profile
Well Connected +Authority, more starting followers
Academic / Former Military +Authority
Former Banker ++Authority
Outsider −Authority
Celebrity (very rare) Huge starting followers, ++Profile, +Authority

Some traits can't coexist (e.g. Charismatic and Awkward, Fantastic Speaker and Poor Speaker). The rest — Loyal, Ruthless, Idealist, Ambitious, Firebrand, and so on — add personality without mechanical effect.

When recruiting, favour persuasion traits (Fantastic Speaker, Charismatic, Media Savvy) for activists who'll sponsor bills and front campaign events, and avoid putting Poor Speaker activists on high-stakes appearances.

State traits: energy

Activists have an energy level that drains when they run campaign events and recovers with rest. As it falls they pick up state traits automatically:

  • Tired (low energy) — reduced effectiveness at campaign events.
  • Exhausted (critically low) — significantly reduced effectiveness, more gaffes at interviews and speeches, and higher backfire risk on viral stunts.

If you see Tired or Exhausted in your activist list, ease that person's schedule — or assign upcoming events to a fresher colleague.

What activists do

  • Front bills. When proposing a law, assign an activist as front person; their persuasion makes the bill more convincing.
  • Hold cabinet posts. Cabinet positions build a character's authority, followers, and profile over time.
  • Become monarch. In countries with a monarchy, an activist can be nominated for a vacant throne. If they win, they leave the party, take a regnal name (e.g. King Arthur I), and reign as the Crown.

Activists grow with experience — sponsoring successful bills and serving in cabinet builds authority and followers — so your most valuable people are usually the ones you've developed over several cycles.

Expelling and free agents

You can expel an activist for 25 PP; they leave immediately, vacating any cabinet post, and become a free agent. Free agents keep their traits, followers, and authority, and any party can recruit them for the normal 10 PP — including your rivals. It's expensive and irreversible, so expel sparingly — but do keep an eye out for strong free agents other parties have let go.

Social media and growth

Activists post automatically in response to events, and their follower counts grow with activity:

Activity Follower boost
Sponsoring a bill +5,000
A sponsored bill passes +15,000
A sponsored bill fails +8,000

Profile-boosting traits (Media Savvy, Celebrity, Fantastic Speaker) multiply these gains. A sponsored bill passing also lifts the activist's authority by ~5% (a failure costs ~5%).

The country social media feed

Every country has a public social media feed — a timeline that chronicles its politics. Four kinds of account post to it:

  • Your activists, automatically, in response to game events; characters with more followers generate more engagement. Reigning monarchs also post here as the Crown.
  • Journalists — independent, game-controlled characters who comment on events and add colour. They aren't affiliated with any party and can't be recruited. Each country has a small press corps of up to four journalists, each with a distinct outlet and voice: a broadsheet correspondent (measured, authoritative), a tabloid reporter (punchy and vivid), a gossip columnist (chatty, personality-first), and a wonk (an economics correspondent who owns the budget/IMF beat with plain-language analysis). Whoever's best suited covers a given story, and on the very biggest news two contrasting voices sometimes both weigh in. Bylines read "Journalist @ Outlet Name" — e.g. "Jane Doe (Journalist @ The Aldland Chronicle)" — so it's always clear who's writing and for which paper.
  • Ordinary voters — a sampled slice of electors post their own reactions to what's been happening, in their own voice, tagged simply as "Voter." Some react to recent national events (a proposal passing, a budget landing, an election result); others post a "change of heart" when a rival party's persuasion campaign actually shifts their view on an issue. These posts are colour only — reading them doesn't change anyone's opinion — but they're a live read on how the public is taking your politics.
  • Game bots — LawBot (laws and proposals), NewsBot (announcements), GameMaster (administration), and EconBot (economy) — which post automatic updates for major events: new and resolved proposals, constitutional changes, elections, government formations, bloc activity, successful rallies, and monarchy events.

You can filter the feed by poster (Journalists, Politicians, Voters) and by country, from the Filters card above the feed.

The feed is where the story of your country's politics is told, and where your activists build the followings that make them effective bill sponsors.

Next steps