all politics and no play

[AoiRorentsu]

I wanted to get people's opinions on a campaign concept I am just starting to develop. Basically, the idea is a (nearly) entirely city-based campaign, where the PCs would be drawn into local political intrigues. The occasional fight with criminal gangster-types aside, combat would play a distinctly secondary role.

I guess I was wondering if players tend to enjoy these kinds of games, or if anyone could offer me advice as I set out in the design process to help me avoid or at least be aware of any pitfalls you all have experienced.

My sense is that intrigues tend to be uber-heavy on the roleplaying, and rather complicated (imagine the half-dozen or so groups vying for political control, a few significant criminal organizations, and the like). I think they can be fun, but then I saw the recent "Curse of the Golden Flower," and realized that politics and no play (and by play, I mean combat) can make you a dull boy if you're expecting a typical "adventure," or if you're of a fighter-type class.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I realize I may not have provided much specific info as to the plot I'm going for- I guess I was looking for general tips on designing and running a political intrigue-heavy campaign.

Thanks!

[Renegade Paladin]

Depends entirely on the player. I love them, but there are a lot of players that simply don't. This is probably something you should talk over with your group first. Not the specifics, but to find out if they want to do this kind of thing at all.

[Behold_the_Void]

Seconded. Know your players and what they like before using a setting like that. Really, same applies for all hack-'n-slash.

[AoiRorentsu]

Ahhhh makes sense, for sure.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention this before, but I don't (yet) have a group to play this campaign. So, I meant like assuming players were generally okay with the idea of a politics-heavy campaign, are there any pitfalls I should know to avoid in the design process?

thanks again!

[Green Bean]

Depends entirely on the player. I love them, but there are a lot of players that simply don't. This is probably something you should talk over with your group first. Not the specifics, but to find out if they want to do this kind of thing at all.

Agreed. Always talk it over with the players first.

Another thing you should check is experience. Have your players ever played in a politics game? There's quite a few difference in play style, and inexperienced players can easily get confused.

That said, if they haven't played this before, you can still run a politics game. A couple good things to do if you want to get your players used to this sort of things are:
1. Be willing to do recaps for your players. If you only have a session every week, they might not remember the who's who of every faction
2. Give them a combat every now and then. Nothing too big, but assassination is pretty big in politics games
3. Early on, give them someone to work for or with. For the first few sessions, give them a patron who won't betray them (until later on), so they can learn about the system without the risk of immediate screwup because of their lack of knowledge about the way local politics goes

[cupkeyk]

That being said, DnD was never much an intrigue based game but has evolved into one after the popularity of such games like Vampire: The Masquerade. If you will be playing with people who have also played V: tM then you will all be in your element.

It wouldn't hurt if you told them that they will be playing in a political game too, so they can Meta-build their characters. You will be surprised by the number of Rogues, Bards and Diviners you will get. LOLz

[Renegade Paladin]

This is my character in the current intrigue/mystery based campaign that I'm playing in. The character is the leader of a kind of counter-thieves' guild operating in Westgate in the Forgotten Realms setting; he's attempting to root out the Night Masks. It's been a looooong uphill slog, and we're not even halfway there yet.

[oriong]

Goals are your friend.

Political and social focused games can be highly player driven, but this also means they can be massively unfocused. This is often a bad thing.

If the PCs (or just a few of them) don't have a specific goal in mind, and your particular game doesn't provide one theb they could easily sit around doing nothing until the next thing happens that forces their hand, or maybe just making endless 'aid another' checks while one of the more goal oriented PCs does his thing.

If the PCs are too goal-oriented it can be a problem too. If each PC has their own agenda and no middle ground to meet on then there's trouble. You'll either have the group splinter whenever they are not simply forced together, leaving you doing an insane juggling act, or even worse they might have competing goals, or it might end up a situation where one or two more focused and persausive (or bullying) PCs manages to take over the game, forcing everyone their way.

So, it's best to give the PCs something that binds them together and hopefully provides them something to work towards. Perhaps they're all a part of the same political faction, so that even if they disagree on the how they're all working towards the same end. Or even make an arrangement where the players 'take turns' working towards a given agenda of each PC (okay, after we're done dealing with the theive's guild spy in the treasury we'll tackle the problems of overlogging in the Ash Forest). This may be an in-game or metagame agreement but your goal should be to preserve some semblance of party unity and game direction.

[Dreads]

Prepare and print information for the players before the game begins. A breakdown of the major players in the city (the ones they know anyway), A brief description of the city districts and what can/might be found there, notes on places of pc importance (relevant temples/bars/guilds etc.), A summary of the military/legal situation, traditions and local habits (can they carry swords, how the locals feel about magic).

Essentially a brief player’s guide, this will let them begin to take the initiative from the very beginning and not have to keep asking you about things their characters should know.

I try to find pictures for the npcs when I do this and include them. Pictures of actors ran through an art program to make them look like drawings are useful here. If paper/ink is not an issue then use one page for each npc and leave the blank space under the picture for the players to keep notes on encounters with that npc.

Lastly, download one of the many lists of fantasy games found on the net for random merchants, guards, ladies of the night etc. the npcs run into.

In politics games, notes rule!

[daggaz]

yeah i was gonna say more or less what Oriong said, but as well point out the difficulties the DM has, running all the different NPC personalities. In a typical adventure, you have your various badguys/factions, and they have more or less simple goals to act as seeds to their behaviour. But in this game, the whole thing is gonna revolve around the NPC political factions and how your players interact.. So each NPC will/should have extremely detailed morals/desires/goals/quirks/personalities etc... It could get pretty hard to do, but hey, still its a pretty cool idea!

[Dreads]

You could watch some soap operas; many of them have ridiculous convoluted plots and schemes which you could draw upon. Many involve large families (perfect for infighting noble families) which just need fantasized with more appropriate names.

Perhaps J.R. from Dallas could become Jor the Fallen and Cliff Barnes Cibar the wretched!

Most players will never see you schemes. I ran a fairly successful fantasy game which was based around Neighbours (Aussie soap opera) and the players were clueless.

[hewhosaysfish]

Goals are your friend.

Political and social focused games can be highly player driven, but this also means they can be massively unfocused. This is often a bad thing.

If the PCs (or just a few of them) don't have a specific goal in mind, and your particular game doesn't provide one theb they could easily sit around doing nothing until the next thing happens that forces their hand, or maybe just making endless 'aid another' checks while one of the more goal oriented PCs does his thing.

If the PCs are too goal-oriented it can be a problem too. If each PC has their own agenda and no middle ground to meet on then there's trouble. You'll either have the group splinter whenever they are not simply forced together, leaving you doing an insane juggling act, or even worse they might have competing goals, or it might end up a situation where one or two more focused and persausive (or bullying) PCs manages to take over the game, forcing everyone their way.

So, it's best to give the PCs something that binds them together and hopefully provides them something to work towards. Perhaps they're all a part of the same political faction, so that even if they disagree on the how they're all working towards the same end. Or even make an arrangement where the players 'take turns' working towards a given agenda of each PC (okay, after we're done dealing with the theive's guild spy in the treasury we'll tackle the problems of overlogging in the Ash Forest). This may be an in-game or metagame agreement but your goal should be to preserve some semblance of party unity and game direction.

QFT

If you want a roleplay-heavy game then you need a reason for the party to be a party. In a dungeon-crawl you can get away with "you all meet up in a tavern and all become best of friends".
They need either a joint goal they have to ally to achieve (or interconnected goals that it will be easiest to all complete together) or some sort of emotional/social/financial reasons to help each other out.
When they're fleshing out character concepts, you might want to look for elements in their backstory that can be used to connect them (if the backstories don't connect them already): some person two character might both know who could ask them for a favour, some place they might both both conceivably when an Earth Shattering Event (tm) requires a temporary alliance (that becomes more permanent), some common enemy they can team up to kill/get fired/bankrupt/otherwise annoy.
That last one is an easy one because even if there isn't such an enemy in their backstory, you just pick something from that a charcter holds dear and have your candidate nemesis stomp on it. Even if this prefab badguy doesn't turn out to be a minion of Machiavellian sociopath plotting to usurp the king/emperor/president/high priest, then by the time they've hit plot, they should have develop the necessary relationships with the other characters to stop them for half an hour during the game trying to think of an in-character reason why they would ever speak to to the rest of the party ever again.

Mind you this is just my 2 cp (or 3cp from the length of it...) from the player perspective, so I don't necessarily know how it pans out form the GM's perspective.

[Telonius]

I would suggest that you make sure to award RP experience points. If there are going to be very few opportunities to fight, there will be few opportunities to gain in wealth and power in the usual D&D way ("Kill the dude and take his stuff!"). A social encounter can still be an "Encounter," and should be rewarded as such.

[Gamebird]

I ran role play heavy Vampire games for over a decade and one thing I found that inevitably occured was the effect of gaining xp and levels on how PCs role played. When they were weak compared to the average antagonist, they would negotiate, role play, talk to NPCs and try to befriend various powerful NPCs who would help them against the antagonist. The game was good.

When they became clearly more powerful than the average antagonist and powerful enough that mere surprise would give them the edge against antagonists of their own power level and a bit above, then things changed. While some of the players would still try to negotiate, most of them would make only a token attempt and when they ran into an uncooperative NPC they'd quickly resort to the powers and abilities gained with xp. Why bother to talk to someone and allow them the possibility of lying when you can merely read their thoughts or compel them to tell the truth? Why threaten someone when you can just beat them up and force them to do what you want?

By then too, they were locked into working with certain powerful NPCs. They only rarely talked to others because they didn't want to court the illusion of disloyalty to their main patrons. Besides, anyone not already on their patron's side was against them, at least somewhat.

It changed the dynamics.

You have to be careful not to create plots where the solution is to remove (ie, kill) a troublesome NPC. Otherwise, the PCs will seek that solution. The rules support it, in D&D and in V:tM. There are lots of rules to hurt people and kill them. And whenever winning them over is codified, like Charm Person, Entrancement, blood bond, etc. - then you lose a lot of the role play aspect of it. "Oh, so he's not going to do what we want? Fine. We abduct him and blood bond him, then have him explain to his friends that he got the stomach flu real bad and had to stay home for a few days." Where's the role play? It's simply gone. Once players have the stats and abilities to reliably manhandle NPCs and force them to do what the players want them to do, then they will. Not to do so is sort of dumb, even if it might be more ethical.

You also have to work out how (and if) you will deliver treasure to the PCs. Role play heavy games have lots of mechanisms available, but they lack the simple "boot 'n loot" treasure dispersion of combat games. You also have to worry about people investing their money and working for a living. This is a problem because few games adequately cover economics or how they relate to PC abilities. And with a lot of money, PCs will circumvent a lot of plots.

[clericwithnogod]

Mechanically, it's kind of tough to get this to work.

If the party is built so that all of the players can participate and contribute equally in roleplay (having the CHA, Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, Intimidate, Gather Information, appropriate feats to improve their social abilties, etc.) to do so well, they're going to be that much less capable in other areas. If you toss those skills and rely solely on the ability to roleplay, you're lookng at a ton of preparation and talent needed to simulate the complex machinations, varied motivations, psychological quirks, verbal and non-verbal cues and other things of many NPCs needed to convey a complex and realistic political atmosphere.

When the focus of the game is on heroic activities, wonky, trite or poorly played out motivations or characterizations are a minor irritant. When the focus is on the motivations and characterizations, every one that isn't quality really detracts.

It is easier to create quality action than quality social interaction in DND because the action mechanics of DND are much stronger and more diverse than the social mechanics.

You can dominate people with spells, wipe their memory, sneak in and steal documants and such which is a kind of extension beyond pure politics into an espionage sort of theme. But, you have to watch that it doesn't become a game of win-button casting. Go through and nerf or remove spells that would otherwise completely destroy your plots and scenarios.

[clarkvalentine]

I'm running such a game quite successfully at the moment.

I think the key is not to have any particular plot planned ahead of time. Instead, set up conflicts but do NOT have any particular solution to them in mind. Let the players come up with the solutions, and just run them through the resulting mayhem.

Of course, you control NPC reactions to the players' actions - use these reactions to drive additional conflict - no action is without consequence. Again, leave it up to the players to come up with solutions.

[AoiRorentsu]

Wow! Thanks for all the great advice, and so quickly! Definitely helpful, and keep it coming!

I'll have to start brewin' and see what pops out. Maybe instead of a standard adventure format, have kind of a timeline in my mind for what would happen if the PCs didn't do anything at all, and then have backup plans for each of the actors. Sort of a matrix-type adventure using a kind of "tree and branches" plot.

[Fax Celestis]

I find that people have more fun in intrigue games, since (a) their results are more tangible; and (b) they get to roleplay more than "HULK SMASH".

But then again, I game with actors.

[Renegade Paladin]

I ran role play heavy Vampire games for over a decade and one thing I found that inevitably occured was the effect of gaining xp and levels on how PCs role played. When they were weak compared to the average antagonist, they would negotiate, role play, talk to NPCs and try to befriend various powerful NPCs who would help them against the antagonist. The game was good.

When they became clearly more powerful than the average antagonist and powerful enough that mere surprise would give them the edge against antagonists of their own power level and a bit above, then things changed. While some of the players would still try to negotiate, most of them would make only a token attempt and when they ran into an uncooperative NPC they'd quickly resort to the powers and abilities gained with xp. Why bother to talk to someone and allow them the possibility of lying when you can merely read their thoughts or compel them to tell the truth? Why threaten someone when you can just beat them up and force them to do what you want?

By then too, they were locked into working with certain powerful NPCs. They only rarely talked to others because they didn't want to court the illusion of disloyalty to their main patrons. Besides, anyone not already on their patron's side was against them, at least somewhat.

It changed the dynamics.

You have to be careful not to create plots where the solution is to remove (ie, kill) a troublesome NPC. Otherwise, the PCs will seek that solution. The rules support it, in D&D and in V:tM. There are lots of rules to hurt people and kill them. And whenever winning them over is codified, like Charm Person, Entrancement, blood bond, etc. - then you lose a lot of the role play aspect of it. "Oh, so he's not going to do what we want? Fine. We abduct him and blood bond him, then have him explain to his friends that he got the stomach flu real bad and had to stay home for a few days." Where's the role play? It's simply gone. Once players have the stats and abilities to reliably manhandle NPCs and force them to do what the players want them to do, then they will. Not to do so is sort of dumb, even if it might be more ethical.

You also have to work out how (and if) you will deliver treasure to the PCs. Role play heavy games have lots of mechanisms available, but they lack the simple "boot 'n loot" treasure dispersion of combat games. You also have to worry about people investing their money and working for a living. This is a problem because few games adequately cover economics or how they relate to PC abilities. And with a lot of money, PCs will circumvent a lot of plots.

It seems you forgot what is possibly the DM's most important tool: There is always, always, always a bigger fish. That's a (small) part of why I run Forgotten Realms; if the players get out of line, well, they can have an encounter with one of the big-name NPCs if they think they're so tough. I've never had to actually do that, but it's there. There's no such thing as becoming so powerful that you needn't use caution.

[Quietus]

Wow! Thanks for all the great advice, and so quickly! Definitely helpful, and keep it coming!

I'll have to start brewin' and see what pops out. Maybe instead of a standard adventure format, have kind of a timeline in my mind for what would happen if the PCs didn't do anything at all, and then have backup plans for each of the actors. Sort of a matrix-type adventure using a kind of "tree and branches" plot.

That works out quite nicely; I've got an adventure set up on an IRC chat that I'm running that's pretty much going along those same lines. The first day we played, they ran into some Unseelie butterflies I custom-carved for this campaign, and the sorceror has proven trigger-happy... he wanted to rest well before dusk. The party Kender just kept going.

Later that day, the Kender ran into some of the larval form of these things... didn't bother mentioning it to the party, however. The day after, there was a great number more butterflies, and the rest of the party encountered some of the larval forms. They've also encountered some Unseelie directly.

What the players don't know, is that there's a link to the Unseelie Courts inside the city that's slowly leaking beasties onto the material plane. As things get worse, it'll be things other than just critters... if the players continue ignoring anything that isn't currently spitting acid at them, it won't be much longer before the city starts being taken over by plant life. The longer they wait, the harder the situation will be to deal with.

[Beleriphon]

I would suggest that you make sure to award RP experience points. If there are going to be very few opportunities to fight, there will be few opportunities to gain in wealth and power in the usual D&D way ("Kill the dude and take his stuff!"). A social encounter can still be an "Encounter," and should be rewarded as such.

Actually the best way to do this is to build NPCs as usual at their normal CR, and treat them as such. Their skills checks then replace the combat stats for the purposes of your encounter. It works pretty well, although only up to a point since a 20th level bard with maxed diplomacy and a charisma in the mid to high 20s is no longer credibly threatened in a social situation by a scheme noble fifteen levels lower then the bard.

[Gamebird]

It seems you forgot what is possibly the DM's most important tool: There is always, always, always a bigger fish. That's a (small) part of why I run Forgotten Realms; if the players get out of line, well, they can have an encounter with one of the big-name NPCs if they think they're so tough. I've never had to actually do that, but it's there. There's no such thing as becoming so powerful that you needn't use caution.

No, I didn't forget that. The thing is, D&D, Vampire and most systems assume there are a lot of low level folks and fewer high level folks. Thus, when the PCs aren't powerful, they're on a par with most people they'll run into. Yes, they'll be overawed by the prince or mayor or what-have-you, but even the random policeman/town guard is a challenge.

Fast forward three years of playing. Now they're as powerful as the prince, mayor, grizzled old adventurer mentor, etc. unless the GM has advanced the NPCs at the same rate as the PCs (and if you do that, the howling about unfairness will never end, as gaining xp won't really change their ability to impact the game world). And now the random policeman is easy to control. In fact, nearly everyone is. Sure, there's bigger fish out there. There's always tougher and greater NPCs. However, unless you've changed the game world along with the PCs, there's still a vast majority of the game world that the PCs can pwn easily.

Where you could once get entertaining role play out of mundane encounters, now an encounter has to be with an important, earth-shaking individual for it to be anything other than the PC dictating the entire thing. You run a really serious risk of the player saying, "Okay, listen, my character has a bajillion ranks in Diplomacy/[insert social skill here] and I don't. How about we reduce this to a roll?" Which is a very reasonable thing for the player to do, but it ends the role play (and at high levels, it ends the encounter because the PC will almost certainly win).

Campaigns oriented around social abilities and role playing will inevitably have the PCs advance in their ability to manipulate people socially. Now, the DM can toss ever-more-difficult-to-manipulate people in their way (DM: "Oh, this guard is immune to Charm Person!" DM: "This diplomat is secretly an undead using a Hat of Disguise, so your Dominate Person fails." DM: "The beggar is really a ragamuffin..."), but this will quickly strain credibility. The players wonder why everyone in the city suddenly seems resistant to their abilities, when 10 levels ago they weren't.

You can introduce new NPCs, but this causes its own difficulties. The PCs have no track record with the newcomers and are likely to view them as enemies. Fine, if you want it that way, but enemies of powerful PCs have a tendency to go missing.

Most games give huge advantages to whoever strikes first. If the DM does this to the players, it's often seen as foul play. If the PCs do it to their foes, in a high level game, then it's over. No roll, end of encounter, bad guys die. It's like teleport-bombing. There are few, non-contrived ways to challenge high level characters. This is even more of a problem in a role play oriented game than in a combat game.

That's all I'm trying to say.

[Talyn]

I find that people have more fun in intrigue games, since (a) their results are more tangible; and (b) they get to roleplay more than "HULK SMASH".

But then again, I game with actors.

*gives a look of EXTREME jealousy*

I game with engineers and math majors... Getting them to RP beyond "hulk smash" or flirting (dubiously in-character) with players of the opposite gender is like PULLING TEETH.

Sometimes I feel like I should give it up and just to back to playing Warhammer...

[Ravyn]

As long as you know you've got a group that's into the RP aspects, there's a lot that can be worked out. I can't emphasize enough the importance of concrete goals, preferably shared, and foreknowledge. (My group recently got plunked into politics, and I realized two sessions in that I really should've exposited at them first. Plan on fixing that tomorrow.)

Big thing to remember is to know your NPCs and make them interesting--that'll encourage the players to talk more. And make sure you can advise your PCs on what NOT to do--otherwise, one person who doesn't know how to handle intrigue can ruin everyone else's day.

[Renegade Paladin]

No, I didn't forget that. The thing is, D&D, Vampire and most systems assume there are a lot of low level folks and fewer high level folks. Thus, when the PCs aren't powerful, they're on a par with most people they'll run into. Yes, they'll be overawed by the prince or mayor or what-have-you, but even the random policeman/town guard is a challenge.

Fast forward three years of playing. Now they're as powerful as the prince, mayor, grizzled old adventurer mentor, etc. unless the GM has advanced the NPCs at the same rate as the PCs (and if you do that, the howling about unfairness will never end, as gaining xp won't really change their ability to impact the game world). And now the random policeman is easy to control. In fact, nearly everyone is. Sure, there's bigger fish out there. There's always tougher and greater NPCs. However, unless you've changed the game world along with the PCs, there's still a vast majority of the game world that the PCs can pwn easily.

Where you could once get entertaining role play out of mundane encounters, now an encounter has to be with an important, earth-shaking individual for it to be anything other than the PC dictating the entire thing. You run a really serious risk of the player saying, "Okay, listen, my character has a bajillion ranks in Diplomacy/[insert social skill here] and I don't. How about we reduce this to a roll?" Which is a very reasonable thing for the player to do, but it ends the role play (and at high levels, it ends the encounter because the PC will almost certainly win).

Campaigns oriented around social abilities and role playing will inevitably have the PCs advance in their ability to manipulate people socially. Now, the DM can toss ever-more-difficult-to-manipulate people in their way (DM: "Oh, this guard is immune to Charm Person!" DM: "This diplomat is secretly an undead using a Hat of Disguise, so your Dominate Person fails." DM: "The beggar is really a ragamuffin..."), but this will quickly strain credibility. The players wonder why everyone in the city suddenly seems resistant to their abilities, when 10 levels ago they weren't.

You can introduce new NPCs, but this causes its own difficulties. The PCs have no track record with the newcomers and are likely to view them as enemies. Fine, if you want it that way, but enemies of powerful PCs have a tendency to go missing.

Most games give huge advantages to whoever strikes first. If the DM does this to the players, it's often seen as foul play. If the PCs do it to their foes, in a high level game, then it's over. No roll, end of encounter, bad guys die. It's like teleport-bombing. There are few, non-contrived ways to challenge high level characters. This is even more of a problem in a role play oriented game than in a combat game.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Sure, striking first is a tactical advantage, but an intrigue-based game is a strategic one, even more so than a war campaign. If the PCs' enemies just start disappearing, it will attract attention... including that of some of the aforementioned bigger fish.

[lordmarcoos]

I think something people have missed here is that the bigger fish should ALWAYS be there, from the start. Sure, they may never even see the king, or the wizards council, but they should sure as hell know that they exist. Maybe they start in a decent-sized town, fiddling around with various noblemen, and just when they think they got the hang of it, and the town wrapped around their fingers, BAM! something happens, they are forced/told to/need to for some reason go to the capital city. Suddenly, they know very few people, but they do know some... maybe one of the guilds they worked with in the town has a chapter in the capital, with many high-ranking members often going back and forth, but the important thing is, have a few pre-planned moves, where each time they realize again that even though they think they're hot ****, they quickly find out again that they're very small fish in a very big pond.

And that doesn't just mean making the NPC's get continuously more powerful. Some of them should, as they interact with more powerful people. Certainly the capital city's captain of the guard is going to be a bit higher level than the sheriff of crapland, but encounters change. Early on, finding out where a certain person IS is a huge challenge, and the PCs should spend a while doing that. At high levels, they SHOULD be able to divine, or rough up a few minions, and give them the information they want. This allows the PCs to feel the tangible effects of their power, while still not being able to just derail everything. And keep in mind, that perhaps in the capital city, detect type spells may well be outlawed, and you better bet the king's got a whole armament of crowns/necklaces/rings/robes/scepters of "no you can't check my alignment, you jerk. Guards!"

[Thomas]

I wanted to get people's opinions on a campaign concept I am just starting to develop. Basically, the idea is a (nearly) entirely city-based campaign, where the PCs would be drawn into local political intrigues. The occasional fight with criminal gangster-types aside, combat would play a distinctly secondary role.

I guess I was wondering if players tend to enjoy these kinds of games, or if anyone could offer me advice as I set out in the design process to help me avoid or at least be aware of any pitfalls you all have experienced.

Not all players will enjoy it; some will enjoy it immensely. All-social MU*s certainly draw plenty of players interested in intrigue and politics (such as the one linked in my sig).

I love it, myself. I just had some plans that have been laid out over the last year (i.e. 12+ months) start drawing to fruition, and it's immensely gratifying. Feeling like an evil genius is a real high...

Goals are your friend.

This is so true (as it the rest of oriong's post). Players who do not have goals for their characters become lost, frustrated, and annoyed. The GM can be a big help here; you have to provide goals at the outset:

• At character creation, work with the players to connect their PCs to your world and city; a bunch of strangers would have no reason to stick it out and stay for the duration, so to say, but characters with families, property, land, businesses, inheritance, tenure, etc. in the city will. Make sure they're connected to each other somehow, too.
• Give each player several (2-4) goals at the start, privately. They can discuss these among each others or keep them secret, but must work toward them.

The biggest pitfall of intrigue-based games, though, is that it requires a lot of thought and some smarts. It's not for casual players who don't put a lot of thought or effort into the game.


Dreads' suggestion of print-outs is great, too. The players will need to have a LOT of information about the city and the world, and some information about important people and locations and events. It has to be readily available and referenceable, so a print-out is great. (Some old RuneQuest adventures used to come with booklets of "Player Information," which did all of this very well.)

This ties in to another important thing: you need to have a lot of things written up in case the PCs come into contact with it, indirectly or directly. Guilds and their prominent members, religious groups and priests, rulers, criminal organizations and bosses, important craftsmen, influential land-owners, and so on and so on. You have to be prepared for as many situations and player decisions as you possibly can.

I think the key is not to have any particular plot planned ahead of time. Instead, set up conflicts but do NOT have any particular solution to them in mind. Let the players come up with the solutions, and just run them through the resulting mayhem.

Of course, you control NPC reactions to the players' actions - use these reactions to drive additional conflict - no action is without consequence. Again, leave it up to the players to come up with solutions.

Yes. You should know what happens in the world independent of the PCs - events, timelines, and so on - but you shouldn't craft plots where you need the PCs to do X. You just push the events out there, and see what happens to them. PCs act, NPCs react, NPCs act, PCs react, PCs act... it should all be self-sufficient and self-generating. Remember: there is always a reaction, and that reaction will (must!) invariably create more RP and activity.


Unlike Gamebird, I feel coercion and force are viable options in RP focusing on intrigue and politics - but you should make sure a lot of powerful NPCs are beyond them (after all, if they could be killed, charmed, controlled, or removed so easily, they would already have been). They don't have to be personally powerful, but if they're still around, they are obviously somehow capable of dealing with people like the PCs.

However, I feel "you do X, which is quite cunning, so Y happens, no dice rolls involved" is a lot more viable in this sort of game, where the focus isn't on skills and chance, but on decisions. Making right decisions and cunning plans should almost invariably lead to success, without a chance for die rolls to screw things up. (Although mixing things up with random misfortune now and then is also a good idea.) It shouldn't be about your Bluff against his Sense Motive - it should be about finding out what the best thing to say is, and the other person reacting as he must react to what you say...

This sort of game is where real powergaming really comes to its own; the true powergamer crafts elaborate and meticulous plans that entrap opponents in the desired outcome - the very essense of intrigue! Oh yeah.


You can do this in D&D because the mechanics shouldn't come into play that much, but frankly, you'd be better of running this sort of game in another system - one that actively supports intrigue and social RP (D&D actually actively hinders both, in some small ways).

[Beleriphon]

The concept of the bigger fish always bugged me. Why can't my character, after working very hard, become the biggest damn fish there is? Eberron actually encourages this by not having any leaders be above 12th level, unless they are also set up as a primary campaign villains, even some of the primary villains aren't that powerful in a stand up fight.

This makes things more fun for an intrigue style game. Sure your group of 25th level epic cheese wads can kill all the rulers of all of the kingdoms, but you have a more significant problem when all of those countries fall into civil war. Yay, for civil war!

[AoiRorentsu]

You can do this in D&D because the mechanics shouldn't come into play that much, but frankly, you'd be better of running this sort of game in another system - one that actively supports intrigue and social RP (D&D actually actively hinders both, in some small ways).

A good point - I agree that D&D was clearly not built for RP with a lot of dice-rolling. I think the combat mechanic is more thoroughly laid out because a lot fewer people understand how combat works and there is a lot more that could potentially be outright unfair without a structured combat system. Hell, I've been doing various martial arts for nearly a decade and I still don't know how it works.

I wonder though, what are you referencing when you say D&D actively hinders intrigue and social RP? Are there any house rules (like the Giant's IMHO quite excellent variant Diplomacy skill) that you would recommend? Alternatively, assuming I can both find the right books or whatever, are there any other systems you would recommend?

thanks to all! Everyone's advice continues to be really really helpful, and has made me think about issues I would have totally never predicted before! Again, anything more anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

[Quietus]

It doesn't really support roleplay that well where dice are concerned. Sure, you can roll in, make a couple Diplomacy checks, and make the city love you, making the excuse that "my character is better at smooth talking than I am". But that's hardly exciting roleplay, is it?

Conversely, you might have a political intrigue adventure. This time, there's much LESS dice-rolling; You do most of the important things through roleplay directly, with perhaps a single Diplomacy check, modified by how well you roleplayed an encounter. Maybe a couple Bluffs/Intimidates here and there, or a quick Diplomacy to smooth accidentally ruffled feathers. This will involve a lot less die-rolling, and more roleplay on the part of the players. You don't really *need* to have dice rolling to do a social interaction scene at all.

That said - I wouldn't say that D&D actively hinders anything. It simply doesn't have as robust a system for supporting roleplay/intrigue as it does for combat. In all honesty, I think that's a good thing - roleplay is roleplay, dice-throwing is dice-throwing. They're not meant to be treated the same.