Is anybody any good at starting off political-intrigue adventures?

[monks_are_op]

So my group that I'm DMing is amazing to watch in action, but I have the sort of players who, if asked to save a village from a rampaging dragon, would immediately ask if the villagers have heard the dragon's side of it and then start a dragon rights movement. My next adventure plan involves an evil lord who's trying to take over their home city, who they have to stop. However, I just know they won't do it. Can anybody supply me with a good adventure hook that might get them moving?

[Zhorn]

Think less on how you'll make them jump to action, and instead focus on what will happen whether they do or don't.
Make a world that doesn't wait for the players and let them worry about themselves.

Secondly, if you haven't watched any of his stuff, I highly recommend Matt Colville's videos. Not just the Running the Game episodes, so much of them are a gold mine for world building, game design, and just general interest.
But more to the point he has a video on central tensions and launching political games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpiT6RTlLYc

[stoutstien]

i guess i don't see any real issue here. If the party is presented with a urgent problem and the decide not to take action then the consequences for failing to act should take care of the rest. if the big goal is to stop the BBEG from taken over and they fail then either its game over or move to the next question.

if the players are not taken action then either they player/character have not been properly motivated or they don't have a clear idea of available options.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I don't have specific advice on how to build intrigue campaigns or make them bite the plot hook, but how often does their instinct to dig deeper before acting pay off?

It seems like this political intrigue adventure is the perfect opportunity for you to embrace this tendency. When they inevitably ask, "I wonder if this is the whole story?", it turns out it isn't! There's a deeper layer! And another one after that!

Actually, if you bury your intended plot several layers deep, they might be more motivated to follow it if they feel clever for discovering it.

[Azuresun]

My next adventure plan involves an evil lord who's trying to take over their home city, who they have to stop. However, I just know they won't do it. Can anybody supply me with a good adventure hook that might get them moving?

Maybe if they're eager to see his side of the story, they unwittingly end up helping him take over the city? He feeds them a line about how he's trying to unite the land / root out hidden enemies / stand up for an oppressed group. Then once he's in power, he shows his true colours, and attempts to clean up "loose ends", like that band of off-the-books adventurers who got him this far.

[Quoz]

If you are writing intrigue, dont just have one clearly evil opponent.

Have multiple factions, each with a goal. These need not be directly opposed, but should cause them to come into conflict.

Every faction should have a goal and world view that makes their objective make sense. Each should try to use the party to achieve their desired end state.

Here are the factions we are trying to navigate through an impending end of the world scenario at my table. Take any inspiration that you want.

A young and inexperienced king at war to avenge his assassinated father.

The various highprinces under his rule. Not openly at war with each other, but more interested in profit and power than war.

A foreign king with powerful divination, seeking to ensure his kingdom comes out of the calamity in the strongest position. Keep likes to work through assassination and other deniable assets.

A religious cult trying to bring about the apocalypse to force the gods to intervene and put the church back in charge of the country

A secretive order of paladins who will use the force of law to stop the party at any cost.

An association of trans-planar criminals seeking to collect wealth and powerful magics. Beyond this their goals are unknown.

(For any who recognize the list, it is based heavily on the Stormlight Archive series. Lifting the plot from a favorite book and inserting your party into it is a great way to seed an adventure on the fly)

[Sorinth]

Is this really a political-intrigue adventure is it more of a mystery where they are expected to uncover BBEG secret plot, or a bit of both?

Generally speaking you probably want several small seemingly unrelated quests that provide clues that if put together/followed will uncover the plot. So for example, if part of the BBEG plan is to buy up the waterfront properties maybe he's released a monster that is plaguing the area and killing people and driving the price down. The monster isn't native to the area and as they investigate or after they defeat the monster they find some clues that it was summoned/brought here.

Once you have a plan for how the BBEG is going to take over the city it should be easy to come up with plot hooks that bring the PCs in.

[noob]

So my group that I'm DMing is amazing to watch in action, but I have the sort of players who, if asked to save a village from a rampaging dragon, would immediately ask if the villagers have heard the dragon's side of it and then start a dragon rights movement. My next adventure plan involves an evil lord who's trying to take over their home city, who they have to stop. However, I just know they won't do it. Can anybody supply me with a good adventure hook that might get them moving?

You can also show the evil lord do cartoonish evil such as killing half of the inhabitants of a village by cleaving them with swords, burning all the crops and then causing an horrible sandstorm (despite the lack of sand around) burying everything under a meter of sand thus killing the last plant life then the evil lord proceed in torturing a small innocent celestial right in front of everybody to prove how extra evil they are while declaring stuff like "I hate peace and good" or "Maximising suffering is my primary task" or yet "You will all be doomed as soon as I impose my rule over the entire world".
The evil lord might also replace the villagers by unthinking plant people or some other horrors like that to stack on all the edge-lord horrific nonsense.
Because else it seems your adventurers will just not want to stop the evil lord if the evil lord does not proves they are the evillest evil that have ever maimed people (they did not want to stop a rampaging dragon that probably killed dozens of people).

[Lupine]

Trust Zhorn. They can react how they want. The world moves on.

[Dienekes]

Agree with Zhorn here for the most part. One thing I would suggest is before you start the big picture political intrigue plot first prime them so they understand that their delay has consequences first. Something smaller stakes but personal to the PCs. In my experience it really only just takes one such time for them to get the memo.

While they went to go create their dragon rights movement the dragon went off and burnt the next village down. Bonus points if they get there to watch the place burn and the horror it entails.

This keeps them on their toes, and also allows you a potential to actually throw in times when they really do want to hear the other side. Just be make certain to allow them the chance to hear it. The goal is to make them decisive but willing to hear new info to change their set goals.

[sithlordnergal]

So my group that I'm DMing is amazing to watch in action, but I have the sort of players who, if asked to save a village from a rampaging dragon, would immediately ask if the villagers have heard the dragon's side of it and then start a dragon rights movement. My next adventure plan involves an evil lord who's trying to take over their home city, who they have to stop. However, I just know they won't do it. Can anybody supply me with a good adventure hook that might get them moving?

Just make the evil lord's demands unreasonable. No need to make them cartoonishly evil, but make them unwilling to compromise. For an evil Lord, I would have their motivation be mainly about greed. Think of them like the owner of an unscrupulous corporation. He cares about money, and doesn't care how many people get hurt in the process. If cutting corners can save him a few gold pieces, but poisons the water supply, then so be it. He can import his own water.

Make sure the PCs get to see the results of this Lord's work, and the harm he does.

[Krobar]

Maybe the evil lord has heard of the PCs, knows they'll be an eventual problem, and decides to just take care of them now so he doesn't have to worry about them later.

[monks_are_op]

I don't have specific advice on how to build intrigue campaigns or make them bite the plot hook, but how often does their instinct to dig deeper before acting pay off?

It seems like this political intrigue adventure is the perfect opportunity for you to embrace this tendency. When they inevitably ask, "I wonder if this is the whole story?", it turns out it isn't! There's a deeper layer! And another one after that!

Actually, if you bury your intended plot several layers deep, they might be more motivated to follow it if they feel clever for discovering it.

It's less of a tendency to dig deeper and more of a general enjoyment for messing up plans. I know this because they never actually research anything, they just bargain people into giving them siege weaponry before starting a dungeon crawl, for instance.

[CornfedCommando]

If you’re a reader, check out the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. I think he does an excellent job of weaving politics and war into a fantasy setting. Plus, they’re relatively quick reads.

Like others have said, for political driven games, it’s best to have a variety of factions that have opposing or sometimes overlapping goals. And they need not all be “eeeviiiil.” Just different. Then your players have choice and agency in the narrative.

But if you want to predispose your characters against a certain faction, just Skyrim it and have the characters start the campaign imprisoned. Not sure if it’s as cliche as meeting in a tavern, but it does put them all in a shared predicament right off the bat.

[Cheesegear]

but I have the sort of players who, if asked to save a village from a rampaging dragon, would immediately ask if the villagers have heard the dragon's side of it and then start a dragon rights movement.

...And the first thing an Evil Dragon would do, is attack the party, too.
"I do not need you to speak for me. I give myself rights."

[Man_Over_Game]

In response to a recent increase of crime during a war campaign, the Lord has mandated that anyone can become conscripted as needed in recompense for a crime you are responsible for.

Everyone thought it was a necessary evil. But then rumors came out of children being stolen by soldiers into the night, dragged off to pay for supposed wrongdoings done by the child or their parent.

The adults taken this way usually are seen several months later. The children...were not. "Casualties of war", they'd day. "Children are not fit for war". As if the children were to blame.

It took 3 days to gather the gold needed to advertise and hire you. You are fighting a 3-day lead to find them before their trail goes too cold, or have nothing but the hopes of finding the next stolen child.



Leave the expectation that bad things will keep happening unless they do something about it. This requires the initial problem to be more than a single entity. It could be a regularly enforced law, or a psionic parasite that forces itself into a community to make its own, or a shadowy plot of leaders that are planning to swap the prince with a changeling, etc.

Hide what/where the problem is, and they won't be able to make assumptions on their own. But also make the problem too obvious to ignore. It creates a regular sense of tension and fear, and that's what draws players to instinctively decide if something is evil.