Political Campaigns?

[FlourescentKing]

Have any of you ever played a campaign where there was less fighting and dungeon-delving and more espionage and intrigue? I'm talking about something in a large city, with multiple factions vying for control, and where assassinations have to be carried out with delicacy rather than the usual run in and stabby-stab. What are your experiences with this type of campaign?

[MaxWilson]

I'd suggest that you also ask this same question in a Shadowrun forum, since that is basically what Shadowrun is all about. Not all of the ideas will be applicable to a D&D game, but you may find some that work for your D&D game, or you may find really cool ideas that wouldn't work for D&D which you nevertheless like well enough to run the game you're imagining in Shadowrun instead.

[Slipperychicken]

I've played a few games that have been advertised as such, but it didn't stay that way for long.

You'd be best off using a different ruleset for that sort of game. D&D is meant for playing larger-than-life heroes coming together to battle unambiguously evil monsters face-to-face. The further you get from that intended use-case, the less useful it will be. Using D&D for political intrigue, subtle assassinations, and delicate diplomacy is like using a Zweihander to eat a nine-course meal. At some point you'll realize that you're not even using the system anymore. You'll basically be playing a freeform RP with a near-vestigial set of combat mechanics on top. I know this because I have personally seen it happen multiple times and heard numerous accounts of it happening in other groups.

To sum it up: Use a game other than dnd, maybe ask people in the roleplaying general and/or "AD&D/Other Systems" forum about what games would be better suited for this sort of play.

[Sigreid]

I suggest you ask your players about it. That kind of a campaign can be fun, but it isn't for every group.

[MaxWilson]

Agreeing with slipperychicken here:

OP, you should read this article: https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/the-promise-of-dd/


Let it be resolved that: The promise of D&D is that all the important problems in life can be solved with violence.

That’s sort of a big bold statement, so let me carry on with immediately backtracking and clarifying.

Look, if your own personal D&D game involves 90% of the time spent talking to people, or peacefully marching through the wilderness, or otherwise not sticking sharp pieces of metal into squishy bags of meat, that’s just fine. I’m not trying to tell you you’re playing D&D all wrong or missing the point or anything like that.

I might suggest that D&D, as a system, doesn’t offer as much support as several other systems for problem-solving methods beyond the immediate application of stabbing. But you probably already knew that, so let’s move on.

And if you solved a couple of your big important D&D problems without resorting to violence, out of dozens, that’s fine too. I don’t believe D&D promises that you must solve all your important problems with violence — merely that you could, if you felt like it, which you probably will.

Emphasis added. As long as the campaign you're imagining still holds to that promise, I think it makes sense to do it in D&D. However, if holding to that mindset is likely to derail the game and/or get you permanently arrested or exiled, I think you need a system with more support for legal systems and social status and negotiation and politics and a whole bunch of things that D&D just basically doesn't have stats or rules for.

[Flashy]

Have any of you ever played a campaign where there was less fighting and dungeon-delving and more espionage and intrigue? I'm talking about something in a large city, with multiple factions vying for control, and where assassinations have to be carried out with delicacy rather than the usual run in and stabby-stab. What are your experiences with this type of campaign?

Playing in one now! Basically, you need to tell players that's what they're getting in advance.

It honestly works pretty well, as long as that's what people are building characters for. 5e talks a big game about the three pillars of play, but there are a fair number of classes/archetypes that are focused entirely on combat. We had a new player come into our long standing exploration/intrigue game about halfway through with a frenzy Barbarian, and he was super unsastified because the character didn't have abilities that catered to the social/investigative nature of the campaign the way the Knowledge Cleric and the Lore Bard/Paladin did.

[VoxRationis]

The Playground is of the opinion that it's not viable in D&D; I disagree. How much politicking is viable is entirely determined by the tastes of the players for roleplaying. My unsatisfactory experiences with RP-heavy sessions generally come from attempting to roleplay in scenarios which were not written with roleplay in mind—i.e., talking to a lot of people in town when only two lines are found in the DM's notes about the people and their experiences. This leads to a lot of time wasted on dead ends.
Make sure you have details, including mechanical difficulties for key tasks, noted, and make sure that, just like a key combat is not won or lost with a single roll, a key social encounter is not decided with a single Charisma check.

[Flashy]

Make sure you have details, including mechanical difficulties for key tasks, noted, and make sure that, just like a key combat is not won or lost with a single roll, a key social encounter is not decided with a single Charisma check.

Yeah, I ran a six hour session last week that literally did not involve a single attack roll. 5e is totally flexible enough to accommodate this sort of thing, you just REALLY need to have everyone involved on board.

[RickAllison]

One thing I've always kind of wanted to try is debate combat. Combat rules (initiative, mainly), but the combat is using pathos (Charisma), ethos (Wisdom), and logos (Intelligence) checks. Kind of shafts the barbarians, etc. that might dump all three, but that comes with the territory! My current DM is new, so we haven't gotten to do much yet in cities.
Except for performing a play to thank some villagers for hospitality; we had our sorcerer (a 13-year-old girl) as the evil wizard flinging fire around while our druid became a giant constrictor that our two monks fought in mock combat. Played out exactly as combat (I actually knocked out the sorcerer the very first round :smallwink:), but each round concluded with a Performance check, with (dis)advantage depending on if we flubbed anything or made particularly exciting actions. It concluded with my monk rescuing the princess (who was actually an ancient silver dragon) and then turning into a giant ape right above the druid. Knocked him out of his form, swept him off the stage, and walked off into the sunset as King Kong!

[JumboWheat01]

A political campaign, ne? So, Dragon Age meets Dungeons and Dragons?

...I'd play that.

[Slipperychicken]

The Playground is of the opinion that it's not viable in D&D

It's not so much that it's not viable, but the rules don't support it. Outside the idea of rolling d20s with skill numbers, political intrigue in dnd is either freeform (no rules) or homebrew (writing your own rules). And that can work, it's just that the ruleset is not helpful in running those kinds of games.

For one example of a game that has rules better suited for political intrigue is ACKS. It has much more fleshed-out and elegant mechanics for managing realms, organizations, and relationships with NPCs. That is to say, it actually has rules for those things, while dnd focuses on combat to the exclusion of those topics.

[Sigreid]

I go back to whether it's viable or not depends almost entirely if it's the kind of campaign that everyone is interested in. It really doesn't matter how elegant the social rules are if some of the party gets bored and starts bumping off the stable boys.

[JumboWheat01]

I go back to whether it's viable or not depends almost entirely if it's the kind of campaign that everyone is interested in. It really doesn't matter how elegant the social rules are if some of the party gets bored and starts bumping off the stable boys.

Depends on the kind of "bumping off" we're talking about here. If the party member in questions happens to be noble of birth, one of those "bumping off" styles could cause quite the political scandal, and influence the campaign.

[Sigreid]

Depends on the kind of "bumping off" we're talking about here. If the party member in questions happens to be noble of birth, one of those "bumping off" styles could cause quite the political scandal, and influence the campaign.

True, but I think I was pretty clearly talking about going full murder hobo for the entertainment value.

[RickAllison]

True, but I think I was pretty clearly talking about going full murder hobo for the entertainment value.

Why would you murderhobo for fun? That's awful, just awful (except for maybe CE, or maybe someone who wishes to urge on people to the realm of the dead). Now, fun and profit? That's just fine :smallwink:

[JumboWheat01]

True, but I think I was pretty clearly talking about going full murder hobo for the entertainment value.

*sigh* You chaotic types and your need to knock off people because you can. Can't you just bump uglies and go about your business like normal, lawful folk?

[Sigreid]

Why would you murderhobo for fun? That's awful, just awful (except for maybe CE, or maybe someone who wishes to urge on people to the realm of the dead). Now, fun and profit? That's just fine :smallwink:

Sometimes your finger paints just aren't the right shade of red...

[Sigreid]

*sigh* You chaotic types and your need to knock off people because you can. Can't you just bump uglies and go about your business like normal, lawful folk?

Um, no? Besides you can make a game of trying to frame other people. D&D the CLUE edition!

[RickAllison]

Um, no? Besides you can make a game of trying to frame other people. D&D the CLUE edition!

That actually sounds like a lot of fun... My public art group is finger-painting a mural on Saturday, I'm sure we might need some reds!!!

[EvilAnagram]

Um, no? Besides you can make a game of trying to frame other people. D&D the CLUE edition!

Well, there's already a Clue, the D&D edition, so why not?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

My games generally end up as action/espionage combos, but tend to lay on the politics. And my party has loved doing them for years now. AND, we always use D&D.

So poo poo to those who say otherwise. Poo poo!

[Cespenar]

I had run Murder in Baldur's Gate to a party of one thief, one monk, and one warlock. In social encounters, it was less their "build" and more their "character" in play, so everyone had developed a different rapport with different characters, and everything played out pretty well.

I don't think you need that many special mechanics to resolve every single thing that the players do. Despite that, in 5e, there are even more "roleplaying material" embedded in the characters than 3.5, due to backgrounds, ideals, and all that stuff.

[Regitnui]

"D&D doesn't support roleplay. There's no mechanics for it." Pardon my Common, but why the Khyber do you need mechanics for talking to people and interactions? 5e (I'm not going to touch 3e or 4e) does support character alongside build. I mean, it's not FATE where the character is your build, but FATE's combat feels a bit tacked on, so it balances out.

Need I remind people that Eberron (I'll stop banging on about it one day) specifically underlines the 'fantasy noir' feeling and even in 3.5 encouraged investigation and intrigue over combat? The game mechanics might be more in favour of combat, but D&D simply refuses to add in the tabletop equivalent of dialogue and persuasion minigames. The DM rewarding in-character play, character traits, and the generally lighter rules of 5e allow plenty of roleplay opportunity.

3.5 was a lot of crunch and 4e was WoW without computers. Bleh.

[UberMagus]

Need I remind people that Eberron (I'll stop banging on about it one day) specifically underlines the 'fantasy noir' feeling and even in 3.5 encouraged investigation and intrigue over combat? The game mechanics might be more in favour of combat, but D&D simply refuses to add in the tabletop equivalent of dialogue and persuasion minigames. The DM rewarding in-character play, character traits, and the generally lighter rules of 5e allow plenty of roleplay opportunity.


And don't forget, 2nd Edition had Birthright, which had plenty of intrigue, and actual kingdom management systems. :smallsmile:

I don't think anyone is saying you CAN'T do it, I think they're just pointing out that, if you DO, you're going to be going to a lot of places where the rules are vague or nonexistent in this edition.

[YCombinator]

This is basically every D&D campaign I've played in. There have been a few hack and slash dungeon crawls here and there, but for the most part, my characters have focused on espionage, government over throws, control of trade routes, diplomacy, with combat thrown in where necessary.

This is entirely because of the people I play with and how I like to play. I am currently running a campaign and I gave the players a menu to choose from. Among the choices were some combat heavy stuff, any prefab adventure that's been printed, and a political intrigue. They chose that. It's important to get buy in from players always. The DM is just one of the people getting together to play.

That being said it works really well. There might be rulesets that work better for this but honestly, the rules of roleplaying games are so secondary to what you're actually doing that just about any ruleset can work for just about any type of campaign. That's potentially too strong of a statement and I don't have experience with all of them, but D&D 5e is perfectly well suited to this campaign. I am running one at the moment and it's great.

One key component to my campaign is that there are no opponents that cannot be reasoned with. I don't mean that you can always talk your way out of anything. It's just simply a rule of my that there are no NPCs that simply want to destroy the players because that's D&D. All of my NPCs have motivations. It is the players job to discover those and figure out if they are going to get int he way, help, or attempt to change those motivations. There are consequences and benefits to all options.

I always want my players to feel like in most fights that they have the option to fight. They take it some times. They also always have the option to run. The option to try to discuss with the would-be enemy. Bribe, threats, promises, deception, they all are options just like any conflict you've ever been in.

Given the situation so options are much less possible. When fighting the Drow, persuasion was much more difficult, but enough enough coin, illusionary magic, psychic manipulation, and good charisma rolls might have done it. But fighting or running was not so hard.

When it came to the army, on the other hand, fighting was a much, much harder option. You don't always have to allow every option. It was impossible. But diplomacy was at a much lower difficulty check.

My players have to decide what they want to affect in the world and how and they like that. There's no mindless goblins that just think "Oh hey we're next to try to kill the players. Go go go."

Now as for all the other stuff... skill checks, in character discussion, puzzles, and a good filled out history on the NPCs goes a long way. Yes my characters have some badass combat spells they might not always use but I find they often chose the slightly less powerful fire spell over the thunder spell because it's fire. I love that my players consider damage type in choosing a spell. Fire Bolt has had tons of out-of-combat uses. If you take that spell you're basically Pyro from the X-Men and that's super useful.

In short:
D&D 5e works great for less combat focused campaigns.
Make sure you're always playing the game your players want to play.
Realize there are a ton of abilities that are applicable outside of combat.

[Tanarii]

D&D is designed to be a cooperative game for a team of players working in concert to overcome enemies, and physical and magical obstacles and traps. It's not designed to handle the complex interplay of things going on behind the scenes.

That means it works best for emulating dungeon delving, military recon / special ops, assassination squads, MI teams, Heist movie scenarios, CIA espionage (team version), or the like. It doesn't work very well for heavy diplomacy or large scale military scenarios ... or IMO even trying to play the equivalent of the average fantasy novel or historical epic tale.

D&D evolved from large scale wargaming, brought down to squad level, then layered over with Tolkienesque flavor. That's why it works best if you think of it as squad action military/espionage type conflict with a fantasy feel.

I find it interesting that Shadowrun was brought up, because IMO in *theory* it's designed for the same kind of thing, just with more focus on the out-of-combat thing. But it doesn't do it as well, because in actual game play it becomes 'player A does everything, player B does everything, player C does everything', instead of every player contributing together as a team. 5e D&D doesn't suffer from that issue as much, unless your DM allows it to, since every character can make all the skill checks, and the range of success is at worst a 60% swing in chance of success (but more often far less than that). Teams still have specialists, but their effectiveness over a non-specialist is intentionally a smaller amount.