DnD Political Intrigue Suggestions

[TheGreatVolare]

Hey folks,

My party and I are running a long campaign and we're getting into a political intrigue "chapter" of the campaign. Lots of court intrigue and backstabbing, along the lines of House of Cards or the politics of GoT. I've played a very intrigue heavy campaign before and it was a ton of fun so I'd love to try to do something similar with my party. I'm a moderately experienced DM at this point, but the more I try to think through this module, the more I realize that I'm in over my head.

Does anyone have any suggestions of political intrigue heavy modules or even full campaigns that they've played in the past that I could use for inspiration? It could be in 5e, older versions, or even outside of DnD, I'm just looking to try to see what works. Thanks for any suggestions that you might have!

[Sigreid]

I'd just do your own. Create a bunch of NPCs that want different things. Develop different plans and goals for them. Develop alliances and rivalries. Run their plans regardless of what the PCs decide to do and see where the PCs insert themselves.

[Laserlight]

Create two main factions. divided by whatever issue you want. Let's pick "Religious Freedom" just for example. One side is for freedom, the other wants everyone to worship the Patron God (or Patron Pantheon). Each side has a couple of sub factions, some of which are unobjectionable and some of which make their own allies cringe. The Freedom side has the "forced attendance isn't spiritually valid" and "we don't feel the Approved Church is dealing with our hot button issue well" and "we want to worship The One Called Night who will wipe out all life". (The Freedom faction kinda wants to disavow the wacko extremists, but on the other hand the nutjobs are reliably active in promoting the issue and will even provide fighters /rioters; the more respectable sub factions tend to be halfhearted).

Assign a couple of colors. So now you have the Greens (and their aggressive subfaction, the Blues) vs the Oranges (and their thugs, the Golds).

Pick out a couple of leaders / spokesmen for each faction.

When you generate NPCs, decide which subfaction they support, and how strongly.

[Damon_Tor]

The intrigue system they built for the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Game is worth a look if you haven't seen it. Effectively, it turns social interaction into a challenge as complex as combat. The long and short of it is, everyone has an equivalent of "hitpoints" (IIRC they called it "composure") and your various "persuasion" attempts do "damage" to that score. There are teams and an initiative roll and everything. Any social encounter can be an intrigue as long as multiple parties enter into it wanting to get something out of it; a ball or a feast or a trial or just a carriage ride can all make use of the system.

[Specter]

A basic, but good plot is 'siding up with the big, dishonest guy' vs. 'siding up with the little, good-hearted guy and getting in trouble with the big guys'.

I tell you, every time I ran this kind of plot (with regular, non-evil players) they always help the good guys. Once they spent two sessions protecting a regular old farmer to get home with all kinds of authorities wanting to kill him, just so he could spread a good word for them and a revolution against abusive kingdoms could begin.

[Sigreid]

IMO intrigue works better if no side is clearly a better thing than the other options. Every faction should have a somewhat reasonable argument.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Create two main factions. divided by whatever issue you want. Let's pick "Religious Freedom" just for example. One side is for freedom, the other wants everyone to worship the Patron God (or Patron Pantheon). Each side has a couple of sub factions, some of which are unobjectionable and some of which make their own allies cringe. The Freedom side has the "forced attendance isn't spiritually valid" and "we don't feel the Approved Church is dealing with our hot button issue well" and "we want to worship The One Called Night who will wipe out all life". (The Freedom faction kinda wants to disavow the wacko extremists, but on the other hand the nutjobs are reliably active in promoting the issue and will even provide fighters /rioters; the more respectable sub factions tend to be halfhearted).


I was planning one out before my game fell apart, back when I was DMing. I was basing it loosely around the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf. Rebellious faction manufactures a "monster" which terrorizes the countryside, showing the ineffectiveness/unworthiness of the ruling faction. There's some religious themes mixed in, "favored by god" stuff. Seemed like it'd be fun to play out (although the monster would be entirely real and merely supported/manipulated by the faction).

[Bohandas]

Create two main factions. divided by whatever issue you want. Let's pick "Religious Freedom" just for example. One side is for freedom, the other wants everyone to worship the Patron God (or Patron Pantheon). Each side has a couple of sub factions, some of which are unobjectionable and some of which make their own allies cringe. The Freedom side has the "forced attendance isn't spiritually valid" and "we don't feel the Approved Church is dealing with our hot button issue well" and "we want to worship The One Called Night who will wipe out all life". (The Freedom faction kinda wants to disavow the wacko extremists, but on the other hand the nutjobs are reliably active in promoting the issue and will even provide fighters /rioters; the more respectable sub factions tend to be halfhearted).

Another possible conflict is use of zombie labor.

And speaking of the undead, a good cloak and dagger twist for any intriguey setting could be an official secretly killed and then brought back as a ghoul, vampire, or other undead that can pass as not undead under some third-party's control.