Which campaigns are the most political?

[gogogome]

I'm tired of DMing games where I just throw one group of monsters after another at the PCs.

I want to DM a campaign where PCs have to watch what they say, get bullied around by stronger factions, have to pick their fights, and feels more open-world.

Any suggestions? Otherwise I'm going to have to design my own and I'm not that experienced, which will probably lead to me creating puzzles too hard to solve, or encounters that result in TPK, or not enough clue leaving to lead the PCs forward in the story.

[Ediwir]

You (seem to) want a city campaign. Possibly in some setting where corruption/intrigue is commonplace.
Notable examples that come to mind are Golarion's nation of Cheliax, Methyrfall's Theocracy of Nilmasia, or the city-states of the Underdark of Forgotten Realms.

I very much doubt there's premade adventures with that focus, but you might find some adventures with a decent amount of politics and emphasize that.

It mainly depends on how much adventuring vs intriguing you want to put them in. If they're used to Enter, Kill Mob, Grab Loot, Leave, you probably want to leave politics at a very mild level at least when starting.

Also, beware of bards. They are broken.

[Yahzi]

Otherwise I'm going to have to design my own
What you really want is a Sand Box. Google The Alexandrian and the West Marches for sandbox related stuff.

Basically, sketch out a world with several layers: bosses (kings and dragons), foes (barons and vampires), and thugs (bandits and zombies). Toss in a few dungeons of fabulous wealth and terrifying danger, and let your players create their own politics.

[jiriku]

I am unaware of any good premade political campaigns for D&D. However, the City of Lies and Imperial City boxed sets for the L5R game are both excellent political games with an open-world feel.

If you make your own campaign, understand that puzzles and combat encounters play a much smaller role. In a political game, it's entirely possible to run an entire game session without any combat at all. To design an effective political game, understand the truism that "all politics is local". You don't want a vast, globe-trotting campaign with PCs constantly traveling to new and foreign lands. Put them in a large city, and confine your plots and adventures to locations that are no more than one day's travel from the starting location (although the distance allowed by "one day's travel" does increase as players level up). Your preparation work as DM also changes -- you're less interested in encounter locations and monster statistics (although you still need those things). You're more interested in the names, personalities, plans, and motivations of NPCs. In a political game, players will meet and interact with NPCs over and over again without killing them (or at least without killing some of them), and those NPCs need to be interesting, well-developed people if you want your players to engage with them.

[OttoVonBigby]

I am running one of these right now (my first city-centered, "political" campaign in D&D 3.5) and it's going fairly well so far.

The one indispensable building block has been, I think, DMGII. Specifically pages 81-111. Stuff on society, law, and (critically) guilds.


Put them in a large city, and confine your plots and adventures to locations that are no more than one day's travel from the starting location (although the distance allowed by "one day's travel" does increase as players level up). Your preparation work as DM also changes -- you're less interested in encounter locations and monster statistics (although you still need those things). You're more interested in the names, personalities, plans, and motivations of NPCs. In a political game, players will meet and interact with NPCs over and over again without killing them (or at least without killing some of them), and those NPCs need to be interesting, well-developed people if you want your players to engage with them.
This is pretty much what I'm doing. I'll give you an example.

Party is asked by Quest-giver (a retired local tax man, who therefore isn't well-liked, which may matter later) to spy on his sister, whom he fears has become a vampire. Party has reason to think he's overreacting, but he has deep pockets, so what the hell. Turns out Quest-giver's sister is indeed a vampire, and a street chase at night ensues.

Now in a normal campaign, escaping (or defeating) the vampire is the end of it. But in this campaign I knew that the next question would be how she became a vampire, so I have a whole extra thing worked out concerning the identities and motivations of the secret vampire cabal behind this incident--and likely some future incidents.
They run a local guild of a type that furnishes them with plenty of perfectly-legal and not-at-all-suspicious fresh blood. And since it's a guild, that means they have automatic enemies AND allies, none of whom know--yet--about the vampire stuff. Which all adds up to plenty of future hooks: opportunities for local fame or infamy, rewards or punishment.

[FocusWolf413]

My favorite political module is Bloodstone Pass, but because it's first or second edition, it will take some time to convert. The politics of the region also allow a lot of potential for expansion.

[GilesTheCleric]

To extend the reach of your game beyond a single city, consider using cults and churches. Further, if you introduce blood relations/relatives in places of power in different places, then different cities can be tied to one another through shared (or conflicting) goals.

If you're not bored to death of FR, then City of Splendours: Waterdeep gives you a fair amount of information about just that city. Churches in FR are some of the most interesting in my opinion, due to the long history of gods. Check out Lost Empires of Faerun and Faiths and Pantheons.

Running a game in any other large, well-known city can work, too (Sigil, Baldur's Gate, Amn, etc). The key is making it your own by finding out what kind of politics are your players' favourite (court drama, law/power maneuvering, religious pressure, guild infighting, etc), and focus on that. Building an emotional investment is key. I find that tying characters backstories into the politics helps, but so does making strong (in terms of personality) NPCs that the players either really hate, or would hate to have bad things happen to.

Even in a political game, there can be a whole lot of combat. After all, there's pawns in every plan.

[Hiro Quester]

The Savage Tide adventure path begins in the city of Sasserine. the player's guide to Sasserine (link to 14 Mb .pdf from Pazio (https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/SavageTide/SavageTide_HR.pdf)) includes a lot of the history of the city, it's guilds, secret societies, political organizations and prominent citizens and families.

We're playing that game now, and I'm a player not DM, so I don't know how much is in the original guide and how much has been adapted by our DM.

But it's pretty political so far (though we have just left the city on a mission, and it's unclear how long we'll be away; perhaps that political part of the adventure is done now?).

I don't want spoilers, so I'm happy to remain ignorant of how political it continues to be. You have different aims, and might want to look further into that. (Those of you who know the adventure path, please don't spoil anything in this forum.)

At least for a while, (up to level 6 for us, and we will probably come back to this) the players get caught up in a web of interlocking machinations, with diverse motives, involving these different organizations, families, etc.

But check out the players' guide for a setting for the kind of political campaign you are thinking of.

[goto124]

Does OP want to jump straight from a murderhobo hack-and-slash to one that's nearly no-combat and all politics?

The logic involved is so different. Will the players and DM be able to adjust so quickly? Or will it turn into 'roll Diplomancy and hope for the best' because the players are unable to keep up with the highly complicated story?

Also, do 'railroady' adventure paths work well for more social-oriented games? A tabletop campaign becoming a case of players scrambling about wondering where in Mordenkainen's name is the information they need to move on to the next step... how often does this happen?

As a player, I steer clear of political campaigns due to the above. Any attempt I've made to understand even a fictional plot with politics in it transforms my mind into a mess of long names and fancy-looking but meaningless words. What is wrong with me?

[OttoVonBigby]

The logic involved is so different. Will the players and DM be able to adjust so quickly? Or will it turn into 'roll Diplomancy and hope for the best' because the players are unable to keep up with the highly complicated story?
As with all things, depends on the individuals involved. But it DOES seem to me that characters for such a campaign need to be rolled up with the express expectation of the campaign being like that, and pretty much staying like that.


Also, do 'railroady' adventure paths work well for more social-oriented games? A tabletop campaign becoming a case of players scrambling about wondering where in Mordenkainen's name is the information they need to move on to the next step... how often does this happen?
It's a risk. In the campaign I'm running now, there are plenty of reasonably-friendly, highly-placed NPCs who might know one key fact that helps move things along, and who can be persuaded to reveal it. This has led to moments of utter misinterpretation of such clues and going off in the totally wrong direction, which fills me with glee as DM.


As a player, I steer clear of political campaigns due to the above. Any attempt I've made to understand even a fictional plot with politics in it transforms my mind into a mess of long names and fancy-looking but meaningless words. What is wrong with me?
Well, the term "politics" as used in this context (by me, at any rate) doesn't necessarily mean "elaborate House of Cards-style story full of manipulation so subtle that the BBEG practically needs to speak to the camera for it to be at all clear." I feel the nature of a D&D game means that even "political" stories should be fairly black-and-white, and not really very convoluted. Cityscape discusses this point IIRC.

As a consequence, the way I as DM satisfy my own preference for "grey area" is to cloak a lot of things in mystery--ensure only limited access to/trust from the NPCs with lots of knowledge, for example. It does lead to more of that wild speculating around the table than I'd like, but probably less than if (for example) the city was truly a place of Trust No One, No Not Even Them. (That said, paranoia is inevitable!)

[jiriku]

Also, do 'railroady' adventure paths work well for more social-oriented games? A tabletop campaign becoming a case of players scrambling about wondering where in Mordenkainen's name is the information they need to move on to the next step... how often does this happen?

Railroading and political games definitely don't mix. The nature of politics is that there are many factions, many conflicting goals, and no single obvious best path. Player choices are incredibly important. Railroading eliminates those choices and reduces the game to a traditional hack-n-slash with lots of pointless dialogue getting in the way.


As a player, I steer clear of political campaigns due to the above. Any attempt I've made to understand even a fictional plot with politics in it transforms my mind into a mess of long names and fancy-looking but meaningless words. What is wrong with me?

I'd say there's nothing wrong with you and everything wrong with your DMs. One of the cardinal sins of dungeon masters is to get carried away with excessive world-building. Coming up with lots of "fantasy-sounding" names for things is a warning sign that the DM is mistaking style for substance.

[atemu1234]

Presidential.

[OttoVonBigby]

Railroading and political games definitely don't mix. The nature of politics is that there are many factions, many conflicting goals, and no single obvious best path. Player choices are incredibly important. Railroading eliminates those choices and reduces the game to a traditional hack-n-slash with lots of pointless dialogue getting in the way.
Agreed, and I'd like to add that one thing I especially like about campaigns with "many factions, many conflicting goals, and no single obvious best path" is that it results in unintentional ... well, maybe not comedy exactly, but certainly irony. When the DM sets up these nascent conflicts and allows the players' meddling to influence their outcome, crazy stuff can happen, but it's got a tinge of verisimilitude, reflecting what I feel is a truism of real-world politics/conspiracies/incompetence/villains ... which is that a huge proportion of historical outcomes are consequences not of mustache-twirling Evil Schemes coming to fruition, but to bumbling upon bumbling. You look at human history enough and you start to perceive all the occasions where authorities who were way less well-informed than anybody thought at the time made decisions they thought were good (or profitable) and ended up screwing up things for any number of people, themselves often included, for generations. That right there is worldbuilding gold.

[gogogome]

Does OP want to jump straight from a murderhobo hack-and-slash to one that's nearly no-combat and all politics?

Yes, this is what I want. I cleared it with my group, they want to try something new. Besides a no combat all politics campaign can turn murderhobo if the PCs just get fed up and try to resolve the problems by force.

The most ideal scenario is where I find a campaign for 3.5 that has a BBEG controling a town/city/castle/kingdom by using enchantment spells from the shadows and the party has to fish him out.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you're aiming for a minimal combat game, then a system other than dnd might be a better choice. Dnd's strength is its combat mechanics and complexity regarding those. The skill system and other rp-type things aren't as strong.

[goto124]

Was thinking about that. DnD has, what, 'roll for Diplomancy'?

Heck, why bother with a system for social-focused games? You can do a freeform! You guys just want to RP a lot anyway, you could be able to trash mechanics altogether!

[whisperwind1]

Was thinking about that. DnD has, what, 'roll for Diplomancy'?

Heck, why bother with a system for social-focused games? You can do a freeform! You guys just want to RP a lot anyway, you could be able to trash mechanics altogether!

You could do that if that's what the PCs want, but in my experience most players want tangible proof that they are doing well or that they are capable of what they say they do. Less charitably put, PCs want to see their numbers and exult in their + high bonus in their abilities.

Hence its usually a good idea to use a social combat system, like the one in ASOIAF or L5R (not sure what other games have a dedicated social combat system). Exchanging skill rolls is not as fun I find, and if the player is minmaxed for social skills then they win like 90% of the time. This leads to EVERYONE being a super charismatic political animal, and its not realistic.