politics and plot twists

[aura59]

going over my book of things negotiated all campaign - my only stipulation to my players investing in a town was that there was a yearly election for mayor.

they're nemesis is a charismatic tiefling assassin/jelly lycanthrope who's only goal in life is self entertainment. he's rich, powerful in all ways, and is extremely resourceful

Should I throw in a political plot twist?

[ArcturusV]

Depends on the nature of your game. Note that Political Plotlines, least when you have an adversary like that, are dependent on something that is entirely out of your control.

That being a reason the players don't just go, *Stabomatic* "What? He's evil!"

Political Plots involve having your antagonist having some level of Plot Armor, and usually for thinly veiled reasons that only really work on Lawful Good types. Sometimes on Chaotic Good types.

In the case of the former it's usually that the nemesis isn't in fact a criminal necessarily, just not a good leader, and they trust in the system to right itself, and will act within the bounds of the system.

Within the latter it's usually the Sword of Damocles sort of thing. Like, the BBC series of Robin Hood where they find out if anything happens to the Sheriff, if he fails to check in regularly, the army is going to come and kill, burn, and destroy everything in Nottingham.

But really it tends to be heavy handed stuff like that. Or depending entirely on the will of your players to stick to "legal" means and working within their Lawful Stupid alignments.

Also it helps if the players are low level when you try this political plotline. At some point Political disagreements get kinda... strange... when your party realizes it can just Planeshift any political rivals into the Gulag of Positive Energy or something.

[aura59]

Depends on the nature of your game. Note that Political Plotlines, least when you have an adversary like that, are dependent on something that is entirely out of your control.

That being a reason the players don't just go, *Stabomatic* "What? He's evil!"

Political Plots involve having your antagonist having some level of Plot Armor, and usually for thinly veiled reasons that only really work on Lawful Good types. Sometimes on Chaotic Good types.

In the case of the former it's usually that the nemesis isn't in fact a criminal necessarily, just not a good leader, and they trust in the system to right itself, and will act within the bounds of the system.

Within the latter it's usually the Sword of Damocles sort of thing. Like, the BBC series of Robin Hood where they find out if anything happens to the Sheriff, if he fails to check in regularly, the army is going to come and kill, burn, and destroy everything in Nottingham.

But really it tends to be heavy handed stuff like that. Or depending entirely on the will of your players to stick to "legal" means and working within their Lawful Stupid alignments.

Also it helps if the players are low level when you try this political plotline. At some point Political disagreements get kinda... strange... when your party realizes it can just Planeshift any political rivals into the Gulag of Positive Energy or something.

luckily "planeshift" isn't in my parties vocabulary - they tend to be overly lawful as well