FOR THE EMPIRE!!! and similar such quests

[Blackhawk748]

Ive never actually run a quest where the PCs have helped a dethroned monarch return to the throne, or quiet frankly ever really gotten involved in politics. They do it on occasion, but usually its for a very short time. So i was just wondering if anyone else has done this sort of thing and if they liked it?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well for one thing The Empire should be the force that conquered the Kingdom to begin with. This gives the PC's an occupying army to fight rather then their fellow countrymen.

[OrlockDelesian]

I Dm'd a Birthright Campaign where an (illegitimate) heir to the last Emperor had to unite a crumbled empire after 500 years. It tied to a large Multiversal Campaign, but for the year it took us to finish the birthright chapter my players and I had great fun!

If your players are mature enough to play it politicaly instead of killing everything and can understand that even at epic lvls if you face an army alone would die, then it is worth it.

[Aedilred]

I had one campaign where the Emperor was assassinated in front of the PCs which was supposed to gear up to them assisting his True Heir (TM) to take the throne. The campaign was eventually abandoned before we got that far, as they went chasing a different rabbit down a different hole and while it would eventually have circled back round, the group separated physically before that and when we eventually reconvened about four years later we wanted to start a fresh campaign.

While all my players were up for the political parts of the campaign in theory, in practice their approaches differed and some coped with it a lot better than others. In retrospect it probably wasn't the best party to try that campaign with, just because of some of the characters they ended up creating.

Ironically the players who got most invested in the politics were those with the least appropriate characters for the job. The druid and the ranger were all over it, but the wizard saw the political interactions as a speedbump before his next hit of combat XP, and the paladin appeared to be convinced that there was combat XP hiding in these political interactions somewhere if he just looked hard enough (he wasn't a very good paladin). Meanwhile the bard (who was played as Chaotic Neutral in the "LOLZ RANDOM" sort of way) was more interested in finding the most annoying and disruptive thing to do at any given moment, or trying to use Bardic Knowledge to metagame.

[VoxRationis]

Just make sure you incorporate ways that the PCs might actually affect the course of nations besides just "assassinate leaders of countries they don't like" or "destroy this invading army single-handedly."
I mean, it's not exactly a bad campaign style, but it's not necessarily what you seem to be getting at.

[EugeneVoid]

This style of campaign really depends on the levels of the characters in question.

Levels 1-3 They can be foot soldiers in a larger army.
Levels 4-6 (Or higher with a lack of system mastery) They can act as highly specialized mercenaries that are ultra-strong etc They do tasks like assassinate places. Scouting, escorting important personnel. Clearing out places. Finding things.
Levels 7-10. They begin to eliminate large threats, destroy small forces. Capture towns by themselves. Fight political battles against brooding forces. Other dimensional armies. Other stuff happens.
Levels 11-15. Gods of War. Eliminate vast armies by themselves.
Levels 16+ Blah

Or give them Leadership and Stronghold building (Landlord?)
That can help them start their own kingdom

Make rules for building houses and infrastructure.
Could be fun.

[cakellene]

This style of campaign really depends on the levels of the characters in question.

Levels 1-3 They can be foot soldiers in a larger army.
Levels 4-6 (Or higher with a lack of system mastery) They can act as highly specialized mercenaries that are ultra-strong etc They do tasks like assassinate places. Scouting, escorting important personnel. Clearing out places. Finding things.
Levels 7-10. They begin to eliminate large threats, destroy small forces. Capture towns by themselves. Fight political battles against brooding forces. Other dimensional armies. Other stuff happens.
Levels 11-15. Gods of War. Eliminate vast armies by themselves.
Levels 16+ Blah

Or give them Leadership and Stronghold building (Landlord?)
That can help them start their own kingdom

Make rules for building houses and infrastructure.
Could be fun.

Would assassinating places involve Locate City Bomb?