DnD 5 with a more political setting

[forgottensoul]

First of all I'd like to say hi to everyone here. I haven't visited this forum in years! Can barely believe my account is still available.

I haven't done any table top roleplaying in several years now and I've recently acquired a Dnd 5th edition player handbook with the intention of DMing a campaign with a few friends.

I really like the setting and set of abilities and rules of the DnD world and also I have very fond memories of playing DnD 3 and 3.5 so here we go!

Here's my problem though. DnD is clearly very much balanced towards a lot of dungeon crawling and combat, and I truly believe these experiences are much more fun in a video game and would really like to focus my campaign on things like politics, exploration and diplomacy with just a little bit of combat.

The problem with that (at least from my experience with 3 and 3.5) is that some classes become much more useful than other. Bards become insanely OP as they thrive in diplomatic challanges. Immediately followed by the spell-casting classes that pretty much never run out of spells (as encounters tend to be short and very much in-between). Classes like the Fighter really suffer greatly from such a campaign, having very little to add to non-combat situations.

Do any of you run "low on the combat side of things" campaigns? And if so, how do you solve the problem of classes that are useless in non-combat scenarios?

Regards,

Arseney

[Gnomes2169]

I personally run my games with very little combat, and rather prefer the whole political and diplomatic thing myself. I tend to ignore the persuasion skill entirely, and instead let my players roleplay dialogue (that is entirely personal preference, since I find diplomacy to be highly subjective and single-roll wins for basically saying hello to be entirely too immersion breaking. There are corner cases where the skill makes a cameo (like the party trying to convince the dragon who's lair they are invading not to murder them horribly), but for the most part it can be ignored by most party members.

Instead I allow my players to use their other skills; Insight to tell the creature's mood or how truthful it is being, History to understand references or the actions of a particular creature, Arcane to understand magical phrazes/ writing/ references, Intimidation for torture/ threats, etc, etc. I've found that 5e gives me quite a few avenues to change and otherwise influence the difficulties of diplomatic checks, just based on how my players act and how well they know the person that they are interacting with. It's gotten fluid and entertaining enough for me that I've begun to grow tired of the eventuality of combat and I've begun to give my players ways to sneak around, talk themselves out of or otherwise avoid most non-essential combats (they still typically fight or otherwise take down everything along with the boss, but I like giving them options to not do so).

But that's me and my table. What will work for you does depend on the group and the DM, particularly how the DM decides to interpret and implement the skill system. So here's hoping that you find one that works for you, and good luck to you!

[Gnaeus]

I'd start by looking at birthright(2e) or kingmaker (pf). Create a system of downtime actions. Apply modifiers based on class/level. Use 5e.s casting progression as a base.

For example:
Military level (corresponds to caster level for caster classes)
Fighter, Monk, Barbarian contribute 1 for 1
Half casting classes and Rogue add 1/2 level.
Full casting classes do not contribute (or maybe contribute at 1/3 for some archetypes)

Level 1-3 No benefit
Level 4-8 Character can take the Raise Troops or Lead Troops Actions. Proficiency bonus applies to certain actions
Level 9-14 Character can take the Raise Elite Troops and Recruit Officer actions. Can maintain or direct troops at reduced cost/time
Level 15+ Character can take some Raise Troops and Lead troops actions at highly reduced cost/time, as followers seek out the character for a share of glory and booty.

Make similar charts for rogues with Guilds, etc. Decide what kind of bonuses skills will contribute.

[Tenmujiin]

Make similar charts for rogues with Guilds, etc. Decide what kind of bonuses skills will contribute.

And casters with academies/colleges. Maybe pacts for warlocks as they give out a portion of their own power, mimicking their patron.

People may consider casters to have more to contribute to non-combat but that isn't a reason to bar them from contributing to a portion of the game (I also disagree with martials not getting out of combat abilities though 5e is better than 3.pf there).

[Shining Wrath]

What you are proposing is a campaign where Charisma and Intelligence rule and Strength and Dexterity are nearly useless. That in turn will make some classes a lot more fun than others.

Just make certain your players know this. I don't think there's any way to make a politics / social campaign barbarian friendly.

[Mrmox42]

I am currently running a campaign where the political side is major - but with a twist.

The players all started as peasants with a knack for one of the Classes, such as Fighter, Cleric etc. They became the heroes and the protectors of their small city, but then their entire community got swept up in a great peasant rebellion.
They and most of the men of the city (about 400 men) joined the rebellion and marched to the large peasant army that was gathering - this was about 25.000 peasants.
They met with a rebellious Knight who agreed to train them and the men from their city, and with a couple of weeks training, they all became somewhat adept with fighting as a cohesive unit of spearmen.
This was just as well, because then the Noblemen's amy arrived and brutally crushed the rag-tag rebellious peasant army. Our heroes managed to keep their city's company (named the Black Company) together and led them out of the battle. Several hundred other peasant rebels joined them in their headlong flight.
It soon became apparent that the nobles had singled out the players city as one of the founding places of the rebellion (it wasn't, but who would listen?), so our heroes had to evacuate everybody from their homes and lead them in a headlong flight south, out of the empire.
Now they have arrived in the Bandit Kingdoms, an area of petty kingsdoms, that all fight against each other, and here they have established a new city, named after the old one.
Inexorably they are drawn into politics, as the neighboring petty Kings try to manipulate our heroes, their fellow escapees and - especially - the men of the Black Company. They now work hard to play out one king against another.

I have made a lot of special Cards, each of which shows either a prominent member of their peasant community, a Group of ordinary people, or people from other kingdoms. Each of the players try to gain the allegiance of these people, and when they do, they can keep the Card. This gives them Votes to be used, when important things are to be decided in their city.
Thus, there is a political game within the game, and the players greatly enjoy hoodwinking each other and gaining more influence in their city, while they are trying to survive the cut-throat politics, and occasional wars, amongst the petty Kings.

Good fun.

[Falcon X]

There are two major optional rules I would pay attention to, as in a political game will often span months, or years, and will involve property and power.

1. Utilize Lifestyle rules - Your person actually has residency in a city. Your status is important, so you may have someone rise up from a lower lifestyle and be a man of the people, or you may have someone start out wealthy, maintaining high lifestyles.

2. Training to Gain Levels Optional Rule (DMG131) - This is because your game may span a long period of time. With this, you don't gain experience from slaying goblins. Instead, you gain experience in your downtime through months of training and using money to purchase training supplies and tutors.
This is very realistic, and can add some social and flavor aspects of the game that are appropriate.

[Xetheral]

Do any of you run "low on the combat side of things" campaigns? And if so, how do you solve the problem of classes that are useless in non-combat scenarios?

Based on 5e guidelines in the DMG I run very combat-light games. On (IC) days where there is combat at all, there's usually only one or two. I'm worried about the new system with the interaction of its two different rest types, but it's still too early for me to know if my usual methods to address potential problems are working.

I typically address the problem of class imbalance at character creation to make sure that everyone has something to do out of combat both temperament-wise and mechanically-wise. (Heavily encouraging multiclassing also helps ensure more well-rounded characters.) Here, 5e's skill system is both a help and a hindrance. On the one hand, it's easy for almost any class to be (ostensibly) good at a skill. On the other hand, the d20 overshadows skill bonuses to the point that it's hard for anyone (except a rogue or bard) to feel that their skill training makes much of a difference to their chance of success.

The issue of casters casting all their spells at once I deal with by having occasional lengthy strings of 3-5 encounters in the same day. Combined with casters freely spending slots on utility spells, the idea is to create enough paranoia that the casters are somewhat stingy.

[Slipperychicken]

Talk to your players first and make it clear that the game isn't about combat. Then, they can make characters accordingly. A rogue could obviously find uses for dexterity skills like stealth and slight of hand. Even a stereotypical minmaxed barbarian can do some social stuff with Strength(Intimidation), and Strength(Athletics) can also come in handy when you need to manhandle someone or hold them still to perform other social actions.


Also, I think it can be hard to get through the players' mistrust about social games; whenever a GM has told me he's going to run for a social/political-intrigue game, it usually turns into a mindless hack-and-slash meat-grinder in the first few sessions.