Pathfinder 1E Looking for high level Pathfinder intrigue ideas

Hi there!
I am going to be running a high level home-brew Pathfinder campaign set in the Dragon Empires (starting at level 12) and am thinking that I may want to introduce secret goals for each character or groups of characters (I think I will have 6-7 players for this campaign), and am wondering how any fellow GMs out there would introduce them to the players? Ideally I would like the players to have reasons to need to keep them secret and perhaps even be at cross-purposes to the secret or known goals to others in the party.
Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks!

Unless your players generally love this time of game play, I would advise discussing the idea of secret goals with them as a group or individually. I would suggest having this discussion before they start generating a character/background. This way they can help you to create interesting goal(s) for their own character.

Without knowing any of your players background it's going to be impossible to suggest anything specific. However, here are a few things I would do if you do not have the above mentioned discussion with your players. Have a individual pre-session (or send an email) for each player, where you take some aspect of their background to either inspire/cajole/force the character towards a goal.

Here are some ideas on how hook your specific goal(s) to a player:

[1] A once though dead relative/friend/lover turns out to be in the clutches of someone. The captive will be returned after the character has aided the villain(s) with their plans. The villain(s) promise the character that each attempt to disrupt their plans, expose the villain(s), tell another about their situation, etc... the worse off the captive will be when returned.

[2] The family/clan/etc has a secret goal. This is best used for characters of noble birth and/or deeply embedded within a (thieves/assassin/etc) guild. While it seems boring, you've just provided your player with a group of NPCs who's goal matches up with their own. These NPCs should be willing to aid the player to the best of their ability in so long as they see it progressing their communal goal. Best case scenario, exposing the goal will result in the imprisonment/exile all key member of the group.

[3] A mentor or someone the character deeply respects has been wronged by someone who is well loved by the people, powerful and/or highly influential. It doesn't matter if the injustice is real or perceived, the character is intent upon some form of revenge. If this goal is revealed, the character can expect that the situation will worse for their mentor. In addition, the character might find themselves an outcast to society, with little to no political power or influence. It's never fun when vendors refuse to sell to you, your goods are treated as unclean and no inn keep will let you sleep with their stables let alone beneath their roof.

[4] The character is offered a position within a secret society. The character needs to at least perceive that their overall goal(s) are at least parallel to the society's. Similar to [2], the character should receive aid from NPCs, however; there should be more one time use NPCs used (being proxies for the society). Exposing the existence of the society, disrupting their plans, etc will earn the character a powerful group of enemies. Ones who are mostly likely all to happy to send assassin do deal with their problem.

[5] For a divine caster or highly devout character, he/she is given a task(s) by the entity they worship. Whether or not the one who contacted them is actually who it says it is, the character is told that the tasks must be kept secret. If asked why, the entity can explain that certain critial events will not come to pass if the others are aware of it's influence through the character's actions. In this case, you will need to hand this player a variety of things to achieve. Some should be obvious things the entity would request (like a god of healing wanting you to cure a particular individual) to the odd (ensuring that a particular woman purchases a lavender colored dress for the king' ball). Over the course these tasks, a picture of what the entity's goal truly is. In this situation, the player is going to be inclined to keep the secret for either mechanical and/or role-playing reasons.

[6] The character is secretly one of many potential heirs to someone well loved by the people, powerful and/or highly influential (probably the someone from [3]). Whether or not the character actually want to succeed this parent, at least one of his/her siblings will stop at nothing to eliminate this unexpected competition should the secret be revealed. If the player doesn't want to be named heir, have the parent look like an older version of the character, with many other similar aspects (like speech pattern, handedness , preferred combat style, etc). This will force the player to think of ways to hide these aspects from the other heir(s) and their minions. If the player wants to be named heir, give them a list of tasks that prove they are his/her true heir. The list should contain multiple tasks that an average adventure should be able tick 1 or 2 off. However, as the character accomplishes more and more of these tasks, the harder it is going to be to hide. Especially if the general populace is aware of at least some of the more critical tasks needed.

While not a secret, having one character who despises secrets and actively tries to expose them as part of the group would make the game very interesting.

For high level quests (non dungeon crawl) I recommend you to check Powers of Faerum (it is a 3.5 supplement).
It touches intrigue and politics and so on for characters who are extremely powerful (+lvl12).
Also you should check ultimate intrigue.

Thank you for commenting!

Not exactly for your exact scenario, but since your game is in the Dragon Empires, I've got a one-shot module designed for the Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) called Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House that involves haunts and a multi-CR ghost (CR: 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20), so that ghost might be adaptable to whatever your "high level" adventure you're working on. Might make for an interesting overnight stay. The reason I bring it, is at the heart of the story is a ghost that needs laid to rest, and involves an investigation by the party to realize the plot involving the death of the person becoming the ghost of the plot. It might also be worth looking at the rest of the available Kaidan products from Rite Publishing since it's ideal for adventures in the Dragon Empires and Minkai.

Notably, I was a contributing author for The Empty Throne module of the Jade Regent AP. I wrote parts of the City of Kasai Gazetteer and I created the original hand-drawn map for the City of Kasai.

One end game Idea is to have two different players looking for the same individual unknowingly ( like one PC knows the Mark by ONE name while the 2nd PC knows the mark by a completely different name).
Each Player secretly works for different patrons that are aligned against each other and wants the mark for completely different reasons...One to help maybe and one to hurt?
Players both believe they have duped the Other player ( and the group) into helping to fulfill their goals but of course at some point ( maybe even not until the end climax) they realize they both are rival agents and the rest of the pc's are caught in the Middle. What happens now. Do they all kill each other? has enough of a REAL friendship formed that one agent betrays their patron and turns double agent now meaning that his new PC friends have to help protect HIM?
Its good sh*t

Thanks for the additional comments, really appreciate it! Especially like Brandegoris' idea.

LabyrinthLord718 said:

and am thinking that I may want to introduce secret goals for each character or groups of characters

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Never do this.

BlackSeed_Vash said:

I would advise discussing the idea of secret goals with them as a group or individually. I would suggest having this discussion before they start generating a character/background. This way they can help you to create interesting goal(s) for their own character.

Click to expand...

Always do this instead.

In other words, let the players decide what their personal goals will be, secret or not. Feel free to suggest ideas to them (that's awesome and helpful), but they should have the final say in their characters' motivations.

LabyrinthLord718 said:

Ideally I would like the players to have reasons to need to keep them secret and perhaps even be at cross-purposes to the secret or known goals to others in the party.

Click to expand...

Be careful about setting up an antagonistic or competitive story where the PCs are at odds with each other. Make sure that the players are all good with this style of play and that they still have reasons to adventure together and cooperate to some extent, or they're going to have a hard time holding the group together. At its best it can be a lot of fun but at its worst it can create some bad feelings between the actual players and lead to an early end to the game.

Off topic but tangentially connected: The group I play with/run for always provides the DM with a list of goals. Each goal falls into at least 1 of the following categories:

[1] Character, Short Term (These goals are ones the character hopes to achieve within the next month or so; Example- Prevent the King's assassination at next week's tourney, preferably in such a way to earn his favor.)

[2] Character, Long Term (These goals are ones the character shouldn't expect to accomplish for at least a few month if not well beyond his/her lifetime; ; Example- Gain a high enough position within the king's army to create and control/lead an anti-magic squad.)

[3] Player, Short Term (These goals are ones that a player hopes to achieve within the next few sessions and/or next few levels; Example- I want to gain patronage from one of the members from the Silver Hand.)

[4] Player, Long Term (These goals are ones that a player aims for over the course of a campaign. Example- I want to try out my idea for a switch hitter Slayer.)

Now these goals can and will change over the course of playing the game, especially the short term ones. Between the goals we provide the DM and discussing what happened last session from the character's perspective, the DM gains additional insight what is important for his players in that particular game.


OT: There are a lot of inherent problems with running a game with as you described that potentially, as [MENTION=6801611]RedSiegfried[/MENTION] put it, "...it can create some bad feelings between the actual players and lead to an early end to the game. " As I've said before, discussing with your players before the game starts about this idea will alleviate a good many of the risks in such a game. The other way to reduce the risks this game can cause is to work with the individual players to create a secret that they care about at least as much if not more than their character does. If you don't do both, there is a real possibility of unpleasant tension between the player both toward each other and yourself. Some of the problems are as follows:
[1] Forced secret can feel like agency has been stolen from the player (rail roading at a micro scale).
[2] Each player is going to need to separate from the party on multiple occasions to deal with some aspect of their secret (If they don't, the player is less likely to feel invested in the secret... see #4)
[3] More work for you. Unless your players are incredible about not meta gaming, you're going to have to make time either in session or out to deal with what a character does during their secret time.
[4] From my experience, the less invested a player is in a particular aspect of the game (ie their secret) the more likely they will either ignore it or seriously with it. Neither of these are good, because it means the player isn't having fun... and at worse it might spread to the other players.
[5] There is the risk that a misunderstanding between information your or another players/character provides causes one or more secrets to conflict where you had not intended.
[6] Keeping important secrets over a long period of time causes tension between players/characters. Tension or even outright conflict between characters can often be used to great effect in stories/movies/etc; however, in pen&paper games like these, where each major character is controlled by a person, such tension only detracts from the overall enjoyment of getting together and playing.