Rules/Mechanics for Politics?

[TheRinni]

So, in my next campaign, I'm planning something with a lot of political intrigue. I have no experience with running this kind of game, and can only assume it'll be heavily roleplay based. However, I was wondering if there were any set mechanics for this sort of thing.

Also, because there are giong to be very few dungeon crawls in this type of campaign, I want to be careful to ensure I have some combat in this game, as I'm sure my players are going to want it. For combat encounters, I intend to have: open warfare, battles, and assassination attempts. I want to toss some more ideas in, and was hoping the playground could help me brainstorm a few.

Thank you for the help.

[Zenith Knight]

I wow, I was just thinking about this exact thing today! I hope we can bounce some good ideas around.

I haven't been DMing for a while, so I can't help much with a set mechanic that might exist, but I can toss some ideas concerning encounters:

I was thinking about having one of the nobility frame the PCs for assassination, and having them fight their way out of a city.

I don't know if a siege encounter would make sense in your story, but it's an idea, whether they're assailing a castle/city or defending the walls for some number of rounds.

You could try having a chase scene encounter, where they run across building tops or try to kite the victim and catch up when he/she starts bleeding out.

Also, you could actually have a LITERAL dungeon: perhaps where political prisoners are kept, and they have to break someone out. All the encounters would probably be humanoid guards though, or at best some sort of dog.

[Psyren]

DMG2 and Cityscape have lots of advice for a political campaign. Eberron is also a highly metropolitan setting and so has plenty of that sort of thing to check out. (e.g. ECS, 5 Nations, Secrets of Sarlona etc.)