How do you integrate politics in your campaign world?

[RFTD-blog]

Coming to read many of the threads on this board, many of you seem very experienced. And so I ask the community, how do you handle politics in your campaign? Obviously, some games/settings have much more of an emphasis on this than others. Do you prefer political intrigue in the background, or do you do as I prefer to do, using it as an impetus for every quest the PCs take on?

Here are a few thoughts I had based on what I'm playing right now, D&D 3.5, though a topic like this stretches across almost all roleplaying games.

One problem I've had with integrating politics is that factions often scheme and wage war on each other without much influence or input from the PCs. This sort of macro scale where armies destroy armies with the best wizards of the land behind it, can too easily take away agency from the PCs. When all these missiles are flying around them without any input, it can make them feel powerless. Obviously we don't want that. I see this is as a big danger from big, powerful political entities in a campaign setting, and I always am looking for ways around it. Here's one example:

For instance, in my current campaign where they're all part of one halfling clan (described here), they have racial connections and underworld connections that the politicians cannot reach. So while they may not be seen as much of a military threat, they have a very important role to play in the larger political system because of their social influence. Their missions then reflect what works better in a technical sense for D&D: small-scale skirmishes, using their skills, and weighing choices of who to trust and who to deceive.

Despite the costs, I think the benefits make politics worthwhile in roleplaying games. When quests are politicized, they take on additional meanings beyond the loot and XP. The PC choices of who to kill, who to help, and where to delve stretch beyond "what will make us richer" and into "what does this do to our position in society?" I don't think this is possible with random monster generation.

Finally, I wrote an article on political intrigue in which I define cool ways to insert politics, and I'm curious to hear what guidelines some of you may follow. For example, when I'm designing a campaign setting with politics I try to:

• Create a network of factions
• Give them each stark characteristics to better differentiate
• Slip in the occasional hearsay or rumor about a faction from another faction
• Factional in-fighting or fragmentation

[JohnnyCancer]

I like to create a timeline of what would happen assuming the PCs don't change the variables. In my experience, players do the great majority of their plotting and scheming in front of the GM, so you have the opportunity to contemplate how things might change once they take action.

[Rhynn]

I don't even understand the question... I handle it like everything else?

Politics comes down to certain power players (individuals or not, depending on the "scale" of things) having goals. These goals conflict. The conflicts are carried out in some fashion. This is the exact same as everything that happens in my games: characters or groups want things, and they do things, and they conflict.

Just like JohnnyCancer, I create a rough timeline of what will happen without the PCs' interference (often with separate "threads"), and once the PCs interfere, I start revising everything based on their actions and the results.

My favorite set-up is easily the whole "the King is close to death and there will be a battle of succession*" deal. I outline the nobility (starting from the top), the claimants, churches/cults, and other power players, the neighbors, and divide them all into camps (where they'll end up absent PC interference), figure out their plans and likely course of events, and then let the PCs loose to take sides, be manipulated, kill claimants, seek their own advantage, etc.

* In Medieval Europe, succession was basically never straightforward; even if you were the King's eldest son, in a system that had followed primogeniture for centuries, crowned king by your father (#justcapetianthings), and explicitly endorsed as his successor before bishops and dukes at his deathbed... you'd still have to enforce your claim with at least the promise of force against dukes, relatives, foreign kings, etc. For about 400 years after William I's conquest of England, the English throne didn't have a single completely peaceful or uncontested succession/reign. Most of the time, the successor marched an army into Westminster to ensure his coronation, etc.

Medieval monarchies just operating normally make for awesome and exciting settings for RPGs.

[Airk]

Well, one of the issues raised in your post is the issue of scale - "If there are huge armies clashing and stuff, won't that take away agency from the PCs?"

Absolutely not, but there is a difference in scale. The PCs may not be able to prevent the Kingdom of Landsfall from being subjugated. But they should be able to say, ensure that the village of Halliard's Ford is safely evacuated. Or help the defenders of Last Keep hold out against the horde a little longer to allow the royal family to escape.

This isn't even really "politics" in the way I tend to think of them, it's just 'events'.

I too support the creation of both motivations for key players (so you know how they'll act) and, essentially, a "timeline of what will happen if nothing changes" because at least in the near term, things probably won't change much. Outside of that, it's just important to think about consequences in the same sort of way it's ALWAYS important to think about consequences.

I guess all this comes down to the difference between "integrating politics into your campaign world" and "integrating politics into your GAME."

[JusticeZero]

It's also important to recognize that most politics do not involve armies marching around. Most politics are about ideas within the place. "The half-orc problem" or the debate over the mines of the western reach or the question of how to keep the supply of honey flowing to the Dwarven mountains and how, in turn, to keep the supply of caffe' open and flowing to the city. The wizards demand gems to keep the college open and should the city keep paying it? Stuff like that.

[Rhynn]

Well, one of the issues raised in your post is the issue of scale - "If there are huge armies clashing and stuff, won't that take away agency from the PCs?"

Absolutely not, but there is a difference in scale. The PCs may not be able to prevent the Kingdom of Landsfall from being subjugated. But they should be able to say, ensure that the village of Halliard's Ford is safely evacuated. Or help the defenders of Last Keep hold out against the horde a little longer to allow the royal family to escape.

Also, the PCs are the focus of the game; why wouldn't they have the power and resources to decide the fates of realms? Why aren't they powerful nobles or even kings, high priests, generals, and so on?

Generally, for my Succession Crisis campaign model, I default to the PCs being of a single noble family, generally with a manor (maybe 2-3 held by different family members or branches), and servants thereof; with the assumption that they can advance themselves up very high by choosing sides and general conniving and ambitious back-stabbing (or just good service, if they want to be dull!).

That's not to say that a campaign where the PCs do small but significant things against the backdrop of large things can't be great, too. They're both valid. But a lot of GMs used to more traditional modern D&D-style play might not think of this stuff.

This isn't even really "politics" in the way I tend to think of them, it's just 'events'.

Same. I think politics really comes to the fore in a game where the PCs have the resources, power, wealth, position, influence, etc. to actually take part in it.

I too support the creation of both motivations for key players (so you know how they'll act) and, essentially, a "timeline of what will happen if nothing changes" because at least in the near term, things probably won't change much. Outside of that, it's just important to think about consequences in the same sort of way it's ALWAYS important to think about consequences.

Yeah. On the abstract or general game-running level, I don't see politics differing from other game content. Once you get into the specifics - situations, scenarios, plots, and methods of treachery - there's a lot to be learned, though. (History is a great place to start, but A Song of Ice and Fire will do in a pinch.)

It's also important to recognize that most politics do not involve armies marching around. Most politics are about ideas within the place.

In a medieval setting, it much does involve armies. Politics was much less "hearts and minds" - because the common people just didn't have much of a say in things, especially where they weren't wealthy burghers with storerooms full of arms & armor and the money to hire mercenaries. Seriously, English kings might have to bring an army - often after fighting a war - to be crowned, frequently while their brothers, uncles, and subjects-to-be were mobilizing their own armies.

Obviously, there were also trade treaties, and succession, and so on, but military might was essential to these questions.

Now, granted, some issues could be better resolved by means other than violence, especially in internal politics. That stuff is usually pretty administrative, and may or may not be interesting. Personally, I think it's much more interesting when the threat of force is involved - but then again, in real history, violence was involved in e.g. disputes between a monastery and a college, between neighboring manors, neighboring baronies, etc. ...

[RFTD-blog]

These are all great posts. I have to agree that the focus should be on "events" and not "politics." Every event and the actions the PCs decide has consequences on other parts of the world, whether that event is "political" or not.

I really like the issue of scale you elaborated on, Airk. Of course I should have realized that. And one of the joys of many campaigns is that the scale widens over time. First you're just helping a councilman rid the town of the bugbear under the bridge--a few levels and sessions later, the PCs are evacuating an entire town out of a war-torn kingdom. Utilizing a dynamic scale in relation to "politics" (whatever that means) is one of my favorite tools to illustrate change over time.

JusticeZero, I see exactly your point! I think "armies marching around," or more widely violence, is just one of the answers in the toolbox when confronted with a political challenge. Maybe they can negotiate, strongarm, or secretly siphon the honey to make it keep flowing to the Dwarven Mountains. If that fails then they might resort to violence in this...uh...sticky situation. :) The problem is, how long is too long between combat/violence? Maybe in other roleplaying games it would work, but I'd be skeptical of a D&D session that goes the whole time without even a single scuffle. I've noticed in really political campaigns, players can sometimes really be itching for a battle, and then one fires off an arrow at an inopportune time, and all of the suddenly they're fighting when they (perhaps) shouldn't be.

@ Rhynn, I like your points about history. I have my B.A. in history and love the Carolingians. Their version of primogeniture is rife with quest possibilities, as is the history of England.

As far as the timeline idea that others stated, I have a somewhat unique take on this. I imagine how a modern news organization would write about the news for that week, and every few sessions, I update the "Contemporary Events" section (in my DM notes, not for players).

[Yora]

I think it's a very important aspect of a setting, but I usually limit myself to the "socio-political landscape". I think i need to have a good idea what the major political factions are, where their primary differences lie, and how that affects life for the people. I tend to ignore specifics, like general plotting, lobbying, public realtions, administration, and so on. For the players it's usually enough to know that someone is a political rival of their employer, and what the employer claims would happen to the common people if the rival would remain opposed.
Otherwise, the main role of politics is to help the players know who could be a potential ally, enemy, or traitor, and how they could exploit the ideals or political career plans of certain NPCs to their advantage.

What matters is who is hating who, and who could mean trouble for someone else. What their disagreements are in particular is usually not that important.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: This is just a friendly reminder that this thread's topic (politics) should be treated with great caution here. Real world politics (and religion) are inappropriate topics on this forum. So keep your discussion firmly within the fiction realm and away from real world political references and comments, regardless of era, relevance, etc.

[LibraryOgre]

I like to create a timeline of what would happen assuming the PCs don't change the variables. In my experience, players do the great majority of their plotting and scheming in front of the GM, so you have the opportunity to contemplate how things might change once they take action.

I very much like this. There's also the "Skyrim" solution... provide the PCs opportunities to work for one or the other groups, and their actions will influence the flow of the story.

[NichG]

I've tried to run campaigns with complex politics in the past, but I find that its very much a matter of taste for the players whether or not its actually fun. Dealing with 'realistic' factions, in the sense that a guy asking for a meeting and re-telling them things they already know won't generally change their stance or behavior, can be extremely frustrating to players because it makes it hard to figure out just what they should be doing to move forward on their own agenda. I've found that the player thought process tends to be - 'I'll get an audience with this guy and tell him why what he's doing is stupid and is threatening the world, and then he'll stop doing it' followed by 'that didn't work; so now, assassination'.

Now, having political impetus for events in the setting is different, but I'm talking about a game where the players are basically expected to go and perform intrigues and manipulations of their own.

I think in some sense, you need to build the game from the ground up to make 'political moves' something that the players can make at any time, and allow the game system to abstract them a little bit. Essentially you need to make it clear to the players exactly what knobs exist that they can turn, so they don't waste a lot of time getting frustrated. A big part of the problem is the lack of information - in a realistic political system, there's a wealth of information that is going to be processed before large groups of people make 'moves' - things that tell them 'if I go to war, I will get crushed' and 'this country depends on my copper resources and will protect me' and 'the heir to the throne in that country has very different ideals than his father' and things like that. Getting all that info to the players without boring them to tears/having them forget most of it is challenging. It'd be like if in a combat, every orc's stance had to be recorded and made a big difference in the efficacy of different attacks - too much distracting detail to track.

But if you did design the game to be political from the ground up, you could introduce abstractions that would give the flavor of political maneuvering without necessarily getting bogged down in those details. For example, create an abstract concept called 'Leverage' which represents the degree to which a particular organization/faction/country/etc depends on you to do or not do something. Have abilities that generate leverage, or abilities that sacrifice leverage with one country to gain it with another, or abilities that cash in leverage to make it so that either those countries perform certain specified actions or they take penalties (with a concrete game-mechanical representation on the nation-scale). That way, a lot of the complications are reduced to something fungible that the players can think in terms of, which helps them modularize the overall political situation.

Basically, its easier to deal with 'okay, if I complete this particular intrigue successfully it'll get us 10 points of leverage' than 'okay, if I complete this particular intrigue successfully, then its going to cause this one noble to dislike this other noble, and maybe that means they'll maneuver in the court to make that other noble less prominent which will provoke him to...'

If you designed it to be unobtrusive, you could slowly layer on those greater degrees of complexity on top of a base system that the players can basically retreat to when the fully nuanced thing becomes overwhelming.

[Dawgmoah]

The last time I revised my campaign world I asked for input from the players: what would they like to see and interact with?

What I created was a world loosely based on early feudal Europe with a resurgent empire on the frontier and a new religion threatening to overturn the established order. Oh, and they liked ships so lots of islands and things for ship-based adventures. Several dozen kingdoms and other realms were laid out, their ruling familes, the dynastic clashes and feuds, etc. And what I called my potential chart: there is a 10% of unrest in this country, a 30% of civil war in that country, etc.

This was all promptly ignored and the party just wanted to go dungeon-delving for a decade or two. The wars and political intrigue I had spent so much time and effort on was a total bust. No one cared.

Then came along a player who wanted his character, and if not his character his family, to rise in power and build a strong dynasty. Suddenly all of that work came into play. The player character made it to Duke while his son married well and became King. A grandson killed his two brothers and a cousin and seized the throne upon his father's death. Wars and the effects of war ravaged the known world as all of the various dynasties struggled for influence and power. Loads of fun.

Then that player moved and it went back to dungeon-delving with an occasional popping up to see who was in control of the land so they could evade taxes properly.

In summary I painted a potential history with broad strokes of my paintbrush and filled in places as necessary during game play and when player characters became involved in the politics of the realms. Most of the time they either avoided them or used them to their advantage.

[veti]

Obviously, as far as all-out war is concerned, the players' agency is going to be limited in terms of affecting the outcome (except on a local level, occasionally). But there will still be plenty of opportunities for players to intervene to help innocents (if good), enrich themselves (neutral) or grow their own power bases (evil). And there are still lots of quests they can undertake that will affect either the outcome, or (better) the starting conditions of the war.

Spying: we're getting reports of strange goings-on in neighbouring (or distant) lands - go find out what's really going on.

Diplomacy: we have a proposal for the King of Queens. Before you put it to her, you'll need to chat up or bribe certain advisors, and there's a faction that will be strongly opposed whatever we do - you'll need to work out how to deal with them.

Intrigue: the time is right for us to crush the vile Big-Endians once and for all. However, we can't just go to war with them for no reason, or the Mid-Endians will support them against us. We need you to create some border incidents between the Big and Mid-Endians, kill the High Panjandrum and frame the Great Naboob for it, and above all don't get caught.

Missions like these are easily small enough for PCs, and success or failure of the missions can easily make the difference between war and peace.

But politics isn't all about wars. There are such things as trading rights, mining rights, monopolies, treaties, charters, councils, cartels, concessions, syndicates, vassals, puppets, clients, pretenders, emissaries, missions, spies and assassins, agitators, rivals/competitors, refugees, smugglers, heretics and even... liberals. All of these have a political dimension. In fact, just about any plausible quest-giver has a political agenda in mind. The hard part isn't "integrating" it, it's keeping track of it.

[Kid Jake]

I very much like this. There's also the "Skyrim" solution... provide the PCs opportunities to work for one or the other groups, and their actions will influence the flow of the story.

Or related to the Skyrim solution, have a dozen things going on at once and only give them enough time to alter four or five of them at a time.

[Knaight]

I tend to focus less on the really big political stuff - the clash of empires and such can be fun, and I'm more than willing to use it as a backdrop, but I favor things a little more personal. Fortunately, they have cities for that. Even extremely large cities in the pre-modern period (e.g. Rome, Constantinople, Hangzhou, Chang'an, Baghdad) will generally not be that much bigger than 1,000,000 people at their height, and smaller yet still very major ones (Cairo, Cordoba, Luoyang) might be 500,000, with still pretty major ones (Paris, Milan) around 100,000. It's a smaller setting, and it makes it easier for the PCs to have more influence.

This is particularly true when you have things like guilds, individual noble houses, etc. to work with. It's a smaller scale, and with the PCs directly involved in (and perhaps in charge of) one of these major organizations they can be involved directly with the politics in a way that's harder to manage with gigantic states.

[Garimeth]

Great topic!

First off, there is definitely a type of group that responds well to politics, and a type that does not.

Pre-game:
1. Setting must be fleshed out, who are the players (not PCs) what are their resources, what are their goals, and who likes who?
2. Recent history. How is the play area doing in terms of weather, food, neighbor relations, religious/racial tension, economically, and politically?
3. Have the player's kind of think through where they stand on important issues, even if where they stand is that they don't care.

In Game:
1. Like JohnnyCancer said, have a timeline in place - these events will happen if nothing changes.
2. Have the powers of the land take interest in the PCs as they rise in level or do things that make them known or affect events the powers care about. make them choose who they are allied with, and if they ally with nobody, then make them hated by all. This is New Vegas baby, and you gotta choose a side.
3. Make the world's politics "trickle down". If its a period of unrest because XYZ is going on then the players should KNOW that. And it should permeate the whole game, not just the halls of power. The bar tender comments that the price of ale has gone up due to the shortage of farmers who have all been conscripted away to help Duke Douchebag secure the throne. The half-elf in the party is refused a room at the inn because of the tension with the neighboring kingdom.
4. Let the players choose the scale to which they are involved. If you come out with some big sweeping political thing, and they don't seem to be interested in really taking part in it, then try using number 2 to get them into it. If they are not seeming interested, just ask them very open endedly: "so hey guys I'm thinking about the next few session, what are you all's gooals, and what are you thinking of doing?" If no interest is displayed in pursuing you politics game then switch focus and use the politics to create a real, immersive world that the players feel they live in.
5. In regard to the players feeling like they have no agency... I'm a fan sometimes. Sometimes the events are just bigger than the hero and the hero feels frustrated and powerless. This should NOT permeate the game, but if its an ocasional thing here or there it can be good, but it needs to be balanced with the times they CAN stop the XYZ from happening. I'd say 4/5 times the players should be able to accomplish their goals, depending on how realistic they are for their level/resources.

Lastly, I agree with Knaight. I use factions and the like to scale up and down the level of involvement. I als make there be benefits in game to being in those factions and let the players CHOOSE to be in them. The above have really worked well for me.

[LibraryOgre]

One example I've done. I set it in the Dalelands, during the Year of the Risen Elf-kin. I had a bunch going on, and only so much the players could deal with.

1) The Elves returned to Cormanthor, reiterated their commitment to the Dales Compact, and also, incidentally, said that meant that they'd have to approve any new land clearance. "You can settle anywhere cleared" didn't mean you get to clear anywhere you like.

2) The Drow were moving into Cormanthor... mostly rebels from Lloth's domain, you had a mix of Eilistraee followers (good, somewhat loosely allied with the Cormanthyri elves) and some Vhaerun followers (evil). The Vhaerun followers, however, had captured some Lythari (CG elven werewolves) and tortured them, turning some of the drow into Lythari... meaning you had evil drow werewolves running through the forest, building support.

3) Hobgoblins had taken over one of the abandoned Dales... Sessrendale... killing the nearby dragon (it's amazing what you can do with a LE alignment and enough cannon fodder). They showed up at the Dales Council and declared themselves a dale.

4) Sembia was pushing the southern border of the Dales, and, IIRC (it's been a few years), they were starting some archaeological excavations for ancient magic at the urging of the Red Wizards.

5) The Zhents were starting to flex their muscles around Daggerdale. The Hillsafarians were alarmed at the sudden appearance of an empire of elves telling them where they couldn't go in the Dales. Cormyr was pushing up to secure Tilver's Gap. The Shadowvar were rumbling in the Anauroch, pushing against the Saurials.

In short, everyone was pushing everywhere, and in the middle, you had a bunch of quite, retiring Dalefolk who found themselves between every power faction imaginable, everyone trying to win their own position. The PCs were directed to be Dalefolk (of pretty much any standard race), who could only deal with a few things at a time... but there's tons going on that they can't personally see to, that will continue whether they want it or not.

[The Insanity]

I don't. hhhhhhh

[JusticeZero]

In a medieval setting, it much does involve armies.

Now, granted, some issues could be better resolved by means other than violence, especially in internal politics. That stuff is usually pretty administrative, and may or may not be interesting. Personally, I think it's much more interesting when the threat of force is involved - but then again, in real history, violence was involved in e.g. disputes between a monastery and a college, between neighboring manors, neighboring baronies, etc. ...

I'm not saying that military might is unimportant to those questions. I am saying that most of those questions, the role of the military is purely theoretical. Furthermore, a great many political things do not involve the ruling class, but rather the mercantile class, who are trans-national. Many of those questions I mentioned are not so heavy on the head of the king as they are on the head of the merchants, and the merchants are the ones to worry people with it and make the king ponder whether or not the army might theoretically need to wander around on behalf of the people who sell him or her all that cool swag. Plus, people get remarkably uppity if their supply of the imported staple of the decade is threatened, which in turn has some effect on the security of the State.

This is important because well.. what do adventurers often do for spending cash? Caravan guard.. Some of the things that can affect those staples are very much adventurer class things, where a bit of close in problem solving can swing things.

[RFTD-blog]

Essentially you need to make it clear to the players exactly what knobs exist that they can turn, so they don't waste a lot of time getting frustrated. A big part of the problem is the lack of information - in a realistic political system, there's a wealth of information that is going to be processed before large groups of people make 'moves' - things that tell them 'if I go to war, I will get crushed' and 'this country depends on my copper resources and will protect me' and 'the heir to the throne in that country has very different ideals than his father' and things like that. Getting all that info to the players without boring them to tears/having them forget most of it is challenging.

I just wanted to reiterate this. Your knob metaphor is great! The question is, how do you make them aware as quickly as possible what those knobs really are? Like you said, a lack of information makes it hard, and you don't want to overload them. What can be done to make those knobs appear clear and quickly? One way I do it is by giving the different factions very stark characteristics. They're like, "oh yeah, those were those flying monkeys who smuggled guns," or "oh yeah, those are the brainwashed sorcerer ladies working for the dragons."

I wonder if anybody else has tips for making the choices clear, the campaign world complex, but all in all explained quickly?

NichG, you point out one cool idea, but I have some reservations below:

But if you did design the game to be political from the ground up, you could introduce abstractions that would give the flavor of political maneuvering without necessarily getting bogged down in those details. For example, create an abstract concept called 'Leverage' which represents the degree to which a particular organization/faction/country/etc depends on you to do or not do something. Have abilities that generate leverage, or abilities that sacrifice leverage with one country to gain it with another, or abilities that cash in leverage to make it so that either those countries perform certain specified actions or they take penalties (with a concrete game-mechanical representation on the nation-scale). That way, a lot of the complications are reduced to something fungible that the players can think in terms of, which helps them modularize the overall political situation.

I'm not so sure about this. I feel like it's bringing combat mechanics into a non-combat arena. I'd be interested to hear how this works out, if anybody has tried something similar. I'd be scared it would result in something similar to Diplomacy checks, where players craft their strategies in roleplaying situations based on their skill checks rather than on what's actually happening around them. In this case it'd be "Leverage" instead of skill checks. I have a variation on it just below in this post though called "Relations."

This was all promptly ignored and the party just wanted to go dungeon-delving for a decade or two. The wars and political intrigue I had spent so much time and effort on was a total bust. No one cared.

Then came along a player who wanted his character, and if not his character his family, to rise in power and build a strong dynasty. Suddenly all of that work came into play. The player character made it to Duke while his son married well and became King. A grandson killed his two brothers and a cousin and seized the throne upon his father's death. Wars and the effects of war ravaged the known world as all of the various dynasties struggled for influence and power. Loads of fun.

My big question about this is, how did your other players react when only one in the party was being political, especially considering how uninterested they seem at first? Do you think you were successful in managing multiple plotlines at once, some about dungeondelving and only one about the dynasty? I have found it a major struggle in roleplaying adventures when players in-game would love to branch out but know that out-of-game it's constricted by the narrative style of D&D. Perhaps other roleplaying games handle this better?

The hard part isn't "integrating" it, it's keeping track of it.

So true! Never thought of it that way. I wonder what ways there are to keep track of it? I keep a Relations chart in a spreadsheet which tracks how much each faction/NPC likes each PC. But I keep it secret. When somebody helps an NPC or really pisses him off, I record it quietly in my notebook and then put it into the spreadsheet later. I try to hide it from the PCs as much as I can because I don't want them to try to game the Relations chart and treat it like Diplomacy, as I explained above in this post. And this way I can at least keep track of politics in relation to the PCs. Doing more than that sounds like perhaps too much time. But are there other ways of keeping track of complicated political developments?

Or related to the Skyrim solution, have a dozen things going on at once and only give them enough time to alter four or five of them at a time.

I have done this very, very much. I think it's great. However, I have discovered one problem with it, and that's endless side quest land. Once they have such a multiplicity of choices, they start to lose sight of the central theme. And all of the sudden, none of the quests really mean anything but gold anymore—the exact thing I'm trying to avoid by doing a political-based campaign! :)

5. In regard to the players feeling like they have no agency... I'm a fan sometimes. Sometimes the events are just bigger than the hero and the hero feels frustrated and powerless. This should NOT permeate the game, but if its an ocasional thing here or there it can be good, but it needs to be balanced with the times they CAN stop the XYZ from happening. I'd say 4/5 times the players should be able to accomplish their goals, depending on how realistic they are for their level/resources.

And one other thing I'd like to add—perhaps they can solve it 3/5 times, but as the campaign progresses, they improve to 4/5 times. That sort of dynamic change gives the game a more compelling narrative, allowing the PCs to appreciate their progress in the game beyond just the numbers and items.

[NichG]

I just wanted to reiterate this. Your knob metaphor is great! The question is, how do you make them aware as quickly as possible what those knobs really are? Like you said, a lack of information makes it hard, and you don't want to overload them. What can be done to make those knobs appear clear and quickly? One way I do it is by giving the different factions very stark characteristics. They're like, "oh yeah, those were those flying monkeys who smuggled guns," or "oh yeah, those are the brainwashed sorcerer ladies working for the dragons."

Thats basically why I suggested mechanics. Mechanics are a way of explicitly saying 'this is what you can do, and this is what happens if you do it', which lets players think about things offline rather than having to feed everything through the DM.

Another way to do it would be to explicitly show the players examples of political maneuvering - e.g. give them an NPC mentor and have the first quests be carrying out that mentor's intrigues, but then the mentor gets out of the way and the players have to design the followup intrigues. That basically lets the players know that they're not going to be shot down because of DM 'I don't think that would work' since the DM has already demonstrated specific things that do work. Having the mentor use specific jargon in relation to the various manipulations will help compartmentalize things for the players - e.g. 'okay, this is a Scapegoat Job; this is a False Fire Job; this is a Bait and Switch Job'. Once you've introduced those jargon terms, the players can start thinking 'okay, when we did a Scapegoat Job, those two guys went to war with eachother, so if we want to make war happen its called a Scapegoat Job and it just works'

NichG, you point out one cool idea, but I have some reservations below:

I'm not so sure about this. I feel like it's bringing combat mechanics into a non-combat arena. I'd be interested to hear how this works out, if anybody has tried something similar. I'd be scared it would result in something similar to Diplomacy checks, where players craft their strategies in roleplaying situations based on their skill checks rather than on what's actually happening around them. In this case it'd be "Leverage" instead of skill checks. I have a variation on it just below in this post though called "Relations."

This is in fact the idea. The problem is that 'what's actually happening around them' is probably too hard to get a handle on in most cases, because its really all happening in the DM's head and is strongly governed by what the DM is biased to think would or wouldn't work. By giving an explicit mechanic, you give the players something they can own in the scenario - regardless of what the DM's preconceptions are, they've been promised 'if I do X, then Y', which means they can rely on that.

Its then necessary for the DM to construct a set of mechanics that don't interfere with the DM's internal view of what makes sense. E.g. Diplomacy checks are an example of doing this poorly, because 'Here is a thimble, give me your kingdom' is something that no NPC should ever accept in a realistic model that still has kingdoms in it, but because the Diplomacy rules are such a blunt instrument that kind of thing can happen and there's no reason to ever do something more subtle.

On the other hand, using mechanics that levy penalties and advantages means you can a more nuanced interaction. For example, what if instead of Diplomacy making someone acquiesce, it assigns a particular penalty for failing to acquiesce? For example, here's an alternate rule:

Spoiler

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Diplomacy

In a diplomatic encounter, one side is called the 'diplomat' (the one proposing a deal), and one is the 'opponent' (the one who the deal is proposed to). Each side is generally representing some larger concern whose scale can be 'trivial, person, group, organization, country, empire' in order of significance. Terms of a trade are also associated with each of these scales - for example, 'give me gold equivalent to what a skilled worker makes in a year' is a person-scale request; 'give me leadership of your company' is an organization-scale request. Penalties from diplomatic failure are restricted to the scale of the largest involved terms being offered by the diplomat - that is to say, if you offer someone a goldpiece for their kingdom, the maximum penalty for refusal that you can enact would be on the 'trivial' scale.

The diplomat proposes a trade - material goods, terms of a treaty, whatever. If the opponent refuses this trade, the diplomat may make an opposed Diplomacy check. If the opponent succeeds, then they can choose that negotiations have been successfully broken off (in which case, there is no more ability to use Diplomacy between those two parties until the one who broke it off initiates it) or can propose a counter-offer and becomes the Diplomat.

If the diplomat succeeds, then the opponent may still refuse but negotiation continues and the Diplomat can assign a penalty to the opponent. These penalties come from a specific list, and are associated with various scales. A sufficiently high Diplomacy check is needed to enact penalties at a particular scale.

Penalties of lower scale can be used freely when higher-scale things are involved.

For example:

Misgivings: Trivial-scale or above. Requires a DC 10 Diplomacy check. The opponent suffers misgivings about turning down the deal, causing them to suffer a -4 morale penalty to other Diplomacy attempts for a month if negotiations break down.

Fuel Ambition: Person-scale or above. Requires a DC 30 Diplomacy check. The opponent suffers strong doubts about their current situation. If negotiations break down, then a random existing agreement or relationship they have with a third party will be broken.

Loyalty penalty: Group-scale or above. Requires DC 15 Diplomacy check. All of the opponent's allies receive a non-stacking -1 morale penalty to saves, skill checks, and attack rolls (-2 at DC 30, -3 at DC 45, -4 at DC 60); should negotiations break down, this lasts for one month per -1 applied.

Embargo: Group-scale or above. The opponent's group/organization/country loses access to all bonuses both indirect and direct associated with the Diplomat's equivalent. That is to say, they lose access to trade, exchanges of information, passive buffs, etc (which would be detailed elsewhere). Requires a DC 20 Diplomacy check. This is permanent if negotiations break down, unless lifted as a term of future diplomacy.

If negotiations come to a satisfactory conclusion, then such penalties are lifted.

Because each side can always refuse in this mechanic, the NPCs and PCs can still decide if that penalty is a sufficient reason to give in, or if they still want to hold out. Its a more nuanced mechanic because it still allows the details of the scenario to matter rather than overriding them.

[veti]

I wonder if anybody else has tips for making the choices clear, the campaign world complex, but all in all explained quickly?

I think this is a mistaken goal. The "knobs" aren't supposed to be "obvious".

Even in our world - most of us live in, basically, democratic pluralist societies, but we still don't get any handy-dandy User's Guide to the Political System, listing exhaustively what the factions are and how to influence them. How much less help would we get, living in a (basically) aristocratic system where commoners aren't even supposed to think about such things?

I think a better metaphor would be a huge, impossibly interconnected set of spiders' webs. Each web (representing one faction's interests) interconnects with many others, in ways that even the spiders who built them aren't always fully aware of. A spider moving about its own web will cause vibrations and reactions in several others (thus each spider quickly learns to move very carefully, even within its own web). There are numerous flies caught in the webs, and each spider has to plot a complex path to gather as many of them as it can before its rivals get to them.

If you want to document this system (probably a good idea...), it would look like a list of factions, with leaders, supporters, sympathisers and - most importantly - interests, a list of the things that are of core importance to them, things that are of secondary interest, and things that they can affect but don't need to control directly (and thus can form the basis of deals with other factions).

For instance, the owner of a mine is passionately interested in the mine, the mining town, the land on which it stands, and local mining rights - they will have very strong and basically non-negotiable views on anything that directly touches these things. They will also be interested in trade rights, trade routes, road building, policing, markets, local industry, banditry and nearby agriculture - things that affect them, but which they can't control directly, so need to negotiate with other factions to influence. They will notice any significant changes in each of these areas, and constantly assess whether these are for better or worse and whether they need to intervene.

But, and this is important, nobody would explain this to the PCs. Unless one of the PCs happens to be heir to a local position, or a government appointee responsible for something in these domains, why would anyone care whether they know it or not? They'll have to work it out for themselves.

The only circumstance I can think of where you'd actually tell them about the factions and "knobs" is if they make a successful Knowledge check - and even then, I'd only tell them a fraction of what they needed to know. Politics isn't easy.

[NichG]

I think this is a mistaken goal. The "knobs" aren't supposed to be "obvious".

This is great for making a deep, nuanced, and completely unplayable game.

Look at combat in D&D. A realistic model of combat would mean that people who go and fight four life-or-death battles a day for a year wouldn't live very long. Those who do survive would be the best of the best of the best - tactical geniuses, masterful warriors, etc. But for actually having a game where such hardened warriors are played by people who don't live with that and deal with it on a day to day basis you have to simplify things and make them easier.

In practice, the way this is achieved is that the game is designed so that its almost impossible for the PCs to actually lose. The PCs have a baked-in, unrealistic advantage (in the form of CR guidelines limiting their exposure to disadvantageous scenarios, better ability distributions and wealth than NPCs, better classes, etc).

Your average player is not going to be a political science major or someone who has performed in political office or a diplomat or whatever - they're going to be someone who has to step into a world where they have very limited information and very little out of character ability, and has to act against the fact that the DM has unspoken preconceptions (often wrong) about how people's psychology should work. So if you want them to actually play politics rather than just listen to a political story, you need to give them advantages.

[veti]

This is great for making a deep, nuanced, and completely unplayable game.

I disagree. There's nothing unplayable about that game. Politics will be going on all around the players; they'll be affected by it constantly, just as we all are in our daily lives. But - again, as in our daily lives - taking an active part in that politics is optional, and it takes a lot of work.

You make a good point about the DM's preconceptions, and that probably justifies a goodly amount of OOC negotiation and discussion between DM and players discussing whatever plans they come up with, and the DM giving a good deal of feedback on their plans (to simulate the knowledge that they don't have access to, as players). But that still doesn't mean you can, or should, reduce the political system to some sort of deterministic machine, where you can Press Button B To Get Your Coin Back.

[NichG]

I disagree. There's nothing unplayable about that game. Politics will be going on all around the players; they'll be affected by it constantly, just as we all are in our daily lives. But - again, as in our daily lives - taking an active part in that politics is optional, and it takes a lot of work.

You make a good point about the DM's preconceptions, and that probably justifies a goodly amount of OOC negotiation and discussion between DM and players discussing whatever plans they come up with, and the DM giving a good deal of feedback on their plans (to simulate the knowledge that they don't have access to, as players). But that still doesn't mean you can, or should, reduce the political system to some sort of deterministic machine, where you can Press Button B To Get Your Coin Back.

If you want the game to be about the players messing with politics, you need to make it easier. Otherwise you're just telling them a political story that they can't really practically influence.

[veti]

If you want the game to be about the players messing with politics, you need to make it easier. Otherwise you're just telling them a political story that they can't really practically influence.

Well, that's the difference between us. I'm assuming that the players "messing with politics" is purely optional on their part.

If I actually wanted them doing it, I'd either have one of them be someone who's involved in the system and knows this kind of stuff from their own background, or - more likely - they'd have a quest-giver (patron) who falls into that category, who would tell them no more than they want them to know. Anything more, they'd still have to work out for themselves.

[VoxRationis]

For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For the want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For the want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For the want of a rider, the battle was lost.
For the want of the battle, the war was lost.
For the want of the war, the kingdom was lost.
All for the want of a nail.

A little push in the right place, at the right time, can make all the difference. I have a campaign going on right now where a sleeping princess type, upon waking up, is going to set out to take her kingdom back, and the actions of the PCs and NPCs all around will determine her access to resources. Third or fourth session, level 3, and the players, by neglecting an adventure hook dealing with a couple of ogres and a podunk little village in the middle of nowhere, have already destabilized an entire region of the setting by allowing the conflict to blossom into a full human-ogre war. Good luck getting anything useful out of that region, Princess...

[Knaight]

Even in our world - most of us live in, basically, democratic pluralist societies, but we still don't get any handy-dandy User's Guide to the Political System, listing exhaustively what the factions are and how to influence them. How much less help would we get, living in a (basically) aristocratic system where commoners aren't even supposed to think about such things?

This is working off the assumption that the PCs are commoners, and even then commoners with less political influence (there were some very rich merchants who weren't nobles, and if you can bankroll an army you can insert yourself into politics). That's not necessarily the case. It's also worth noting that our world has a much larger population, with a much wider reach - thinks like global communications make things much more complicated.

Then there's the game aspect - we're in our world for 24 hours a day. Sure, some of this is spent sleeping, and plenty of it is spent doing things other than analyzing political situations, but that still leaves a fair amount of time. The typical game PC is probably upwards of 18 years old, and the campaign notes at the beginning might maybe be half an hour's reading. Meanwhile an actual 18 year old, even one who studiously avoided everything political, is going to have well over a half an hour aggregate seeing real politics in action, and that's before getting into highly relevant related fields like just operating in society and learning anything about history. The knobs being more obvious makes a lot of sense here, as a necessary abstraction.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Depends on what you mean by politics.

IMO, there's five states for events as far as PCs are concerned - above their pay grade, on the fringes, participant, instigator, beneath their notice.

So, if it's, say, two countries going to war with each other, then low level adventurers aren't going to be able to affect anything, no matter what they do - it's above their paygrade. Whatever you plan can go ahead in the background. Even at on the fringes, they're still not really doing anything vital.

Participant would be mid-high level, who're used by one side or the other to further their plans - depending on the plan, they might be completely necessary to it's success, or one of a number of groups involved. Most of it will still work, although you might need to decide what happens if the party succeeds or fails in their specific task.

But it's only really at the high level/ instigator state that they can really affect things - and if it's a war between countries, then they're probably at the point where their normal enemies aren't even other adventuring groups, they're the bodies of state of the other countries, or gods and demons.

At this point, if they're not running the country, thanks to their power level and their potential influence, they're either hiding from the world or spending all their time trying to survive everything from old enemies with grudges, to servants of rival deities, to foreign powers trying to eliminate them as a potential threat, to wannabes looking to make a name for themselves by taking down a legend.

If you're gaming at this level, then you can leave the politics to the players to decide what happens - they're in complete control of their side, and all you have to do is decide what their opponent's planning and how they'll react to the players decisions.

But if it's smaller scale politics, then obviously the levels move down - two villages arguing over fishing rights for a certain section of stream could potentially have 1st level characters as participants, if not instigators, while anyone of mid level would consider it beneath their notice.

[Garimeth]

Hmm, I can see both sides of the "knob" debate. I think part of it has to do with how sandboxy you want the game. If you're players are the type to form their own goals and motivations then yeah hide the knobs, but if they aren't then you kind of need the knobs to be visible. I have a group of great roleplayers in my game, but I am the first GM they have had that didn't railroad the hell uout of them. So in our last campaign there would be moments where they are like "well we have to go here next because that's where we are supposed to go." My response was more in lines with "you just got your own sailing ship! This is like in FF7 when you get the Highwind! You can go wherever you want, you don't HAVE to follow up with this next lead on the BBEG."

So with some groups you kind of need to railroad them a little bit, and with a group like that the hidden knobs approach is NOT going to work. Also, Veti, for the record your "patron" scenario - which I love and use myself - is NOT hiding the knobs, and with plenty of groups when the Patron stops handing out quests they will go: "so now what?"