"Conspiracy" Fantasy: have you ever done it?

I'm a first-time DM who's trying to get some ideas on how to run a very conspiracy-oriented fantasy game. This will probably be a fairly low magic setting, and will have little or no demi-humans or standard MM critters. I'm thinking a late Renaissance tech level (i.e. exceptionally rare, but existant, gunpowder/guns) that is just on the cusp of seeing a clockwork/steampunk-style industrial revolution wash across it's societies.

My influences for this setting:
Geoffrey Rush's character Francis Walsingham in Elizabeth
Iago in Othello, especially the Kenneth Branagh film interpretation
Oliver Stone's JFK
Atles' Dynasties & Demagogues and, to a lesser extent, Crime & Punishment
Call of Cthulhu-related Delta Green and it's "sequel," DG: Countdown
Looking Glass' Thief computer game series, specifically the clockwork & steam tech in Thief 2 -> forward
Gibson & Sterling's The Difference Engine
...and of course, my main source of inspiration, Chris Carter's X-Files and Millennium TV shows (Millennium has the Owls and the Roosters).

You'd think with these rich sources to draw from, I'd be able to whip together a kick-butt plot for a group of PCs to adventure through.... I'm a bit too--challenged? dumb? uncreative or unimaginative?--to generate plotlines, and have no experience in thinking "conspiracy"--how to leave clues, how to have a layered, circle-within-a-circle plot, etc.

So I'm turning to you. This is a very open question, so I'm looking for any form of feedback. In particular, I'd like some "plot hooks" that can easily be tied back to a fantasy government: low level adventures that I can throw at PCs that, after a second glance, will hint at a government conspiracy. For example, several of the X-Files episodes looked like your typical "monster of the week" show until the end, when they showed (or implied) a deeper level of government involvement.

Please help--feed me reference materials, your experiences, plot seeds/hooks, opinions of the type of government to use, whatever. I assume that creating a modern, quasi-X-Files level of conspiracy is going to be difficult to transition into a fantasy/Renaissance/almost-Industrial Revolution era....but have you done it successfully? And how?

Thank you in advance.

I'm running a somewhat similar game right now.

It's set probably a bit higher-tech than yours, with one nation being steampunk and boasting 19th century tech and the other being more 17th century, with extremely advanced plate armor that's rapidly becoming obsolete, extensive sword use and (poor) firearms available that are in many ways inferior to longbows.

The King of the latter country (the one the PCs serve) is a morally ambiguous figure at best, a common-born knight and spy who was involved in a series of ruthless assassinations and double-crosses. He finally rose to the throne by taking advantage of a massive civil war, the exhaustion of the old nobility due to nearly 60 years of knightly conflict, and the trust and affection of a niave princess.

The steampunk nation is the worst sort of 19th century technocracy, convinced of its inevitable progress but unable to address the most basic spiritual and material needs of its citizens. A decadent and depressed upper class presides over an overworked and desperate lower class, with extensive, and unfufilling, crossover between the two. Their ruling oligarchs are ambitious and driven idealists who refuse to acknowledge the misery of their populace.

And the remnants of the wicked eldritch empire that ruled both areas 5000 years ago are desperate to regain their power...

IMO, the key to a good conspiracy campaign is to set up the factions, their leaders, the motives and goals of both, how they operate, and, most importantly, what each group knows about the others.

For example, I have basically seven major power groups - the Kingdom of Ivalice, the Kingdom of Ordalia, the Republic of Romanda, the old nobility of Ivalice, the Murond Glabados Church, the ancient Murondi Empire, and the lower-class rebels of Ivalice. The Church is allied to the Kingdom and the lower-class and noble rebels, the Romandans to the Ordalians, and the Empire to the lower-class rebels and the Ordalians.

The Ordalians (led by their current monarch, old and hidebound, and his son, an impetuous warrior prince) want to weaken Ivalice so they can press old territorial claims, and the King of Ordalia personally wishes to oust the King of Ivalice because the latter replaced relatives of his. To accomplish this goal, Ordalia is working with Romanda (its traditional ally) and the remnants of the Murondi Empire (with which it shares a religion). Ordalia doesn't know the details of either ally's power, but has a general grasp of what they can accomplish. It prefers direct conflict to espionage and is the junior partner in the present cold war, but should open war break out it would be a powerhouse. It employs limited magic but frowns on overt displays of eldritch might, such as summoning demons.

The PCs, assuming they constitute a faction unto themselves, generally know nothing, at least to start.

Spolier

The Shackled City Adventure Path (from dungeon) with some modification sounds like it would be right up your alley.

Okay, you're feeling the same thing I felt when I tried this! Rule One is "don't panic." Start small and manageable, and work upwards. I'm going to talk about how I'd handle this in your place. I'm not going to try and second-guess you, so you'll want to change all this around to fit your own ideas.

I'd make the country a church-run theocracy. The ruler is (apparently) divinely mandated to rule the country, there are several religious schisms in the true church (each of which wants different things), and there are several other churches struggling for control. There is also the deposed royalty that was thrown down when the church took over; they're supposedly all dead, but no one really believes that. The church licenses individual merchant houses to handle certain specific aspects of international commerce; one family may import and export spices, for instance, and no one else is allowed to by law (or it's heresy!)

This gives us lots of potential power groups in the game, lots of people manipulating others, lots of possible patrons for the PCs.

I'd start the PCs in a relatively small city of a kingdom that has at least two or three larger cities, including the capitol. The town the PCs are in is generally considered a backwater. Nevertheless, there is something there that makes the place important to certain factions within the government. I would decide that there's a ruined monastary somewhere under the city that contains important information: maybe there's a "heretical" religious prophecy that supports one faction, or damages another. The PCs get drawn in when they are hired as dupes to find the monastary. Things snowball from there.

For maximum fun, have different PCs begin loyal to people in different factions of the church.

Grunk said:

The Shackled City Adventure Path (from dungeon) with some modification sounds like it would be right up your alley.

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I'll look into that--I have the Dungeons with that storyline, and will reconsider if they're appropriate....but for a low-magic, no-demihuman campaign? "Some modification" becomes a serious understatement. Thank you, though, and I'll look into it further!

If you want to read through my initial efforts to start a political game, you may want to look at the very beginnings of my story hour from the old boards. It's very rough and starts poorly, but there may be ideas you can steal. You can download it here.

Piratecat said:

I'm going to talk about how I'd handle this in your place. I'm not going to try and second-guess you, so you'll want to change all this around to fit your own ideas.
** SNIP **

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First, thanks for the fast reply! Second, I...uhh...like your avatar.

You're welcome to second-guess me....I'm pretty flexible and can mold your ideas to suit mine. (What's that old saying? "I may be dumb but I ain't stupid.")

The church, hunh? Hmm. Have to admit I never thought of that one. 1) It's not like they don't have the financial resources, 2) it's not like they don't usually have dirty little [OK, big] secrets that need to be hidden, and 3) even with low magic they still wield some incredible power in the form of spellcasting. Heck, they even have a "secret police" if you look at paladins and crusaders in a certain light....

What kind of clues can I drop that imply or suggest the church's involvement within a particular adventure? i.e. Joe Innocent is being blackmailed & ask the PCs to investigate; how do I achieve that plot-within-a-plot onion-ring effect that I'd need to get the govt...err, sorry, church....involved?

PCs investigate, follow the trail back to Mr. Blackmailer. They interrogate him, he leaks that some of his info came from a shadowy benefactor. They tell Mr. Blackmailer to set up a meeting with the benefactor, and the PCs trail the benefactor back to--(drumroll please)--the church. (OK, getting the hang of this, now.) If the PCs stop the benefactor before he enters the church, they discover that he's some grubby low-life who denies all involvement. Further (painful) interrogation reveals that he gets his info from "some hooded guy in the church" whom he was about to meet, and has no additional info from there...... Yeah, I can see where that might be going. (Hooded guy turns out to be a paladin, ha ha ha ha ha)

Hmm. Thanks, PC!

Piratecat said:

If you want to read through my initial efforts to start a political game, you may want to look at the very beginnings of my story hour from the old boards. It's very rough and starts poorly, but there may be ideas you can steal.

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Wow, even more thanks!!! Consider yourself officially *yoinked*!

I'm in more or less the same boat myself. I've never DM'd before, but some friends of mine who have never played before want me to run a game and I've been kicking around ideas for a world for months. Tonight I was finally going to start drawing up a world map, and I was thinking that it might be best to have some solid thoughts on a meta-plot first, in order to make sure the world has the right places to fit the story. But I'm not sure what story I want to tell. I have a some ideas for various conflicts needing resolution, and BBEG's but I don't know how to make it into a cool story all tied together with lots of twists and turns. I have a spider more or less, but I can't figure out how to build the web.

So, to expand on Wraith Form's original request, does anyone have any good resources/advice/suggestions on developing a meta-plot in general? Like Wraith Form, I am also interested in lots of intrigue and inexplicable goings-on.

Thanks.

Wraith Form said:

The church, hunh? Hmm. Have to admit I never thought of that one. 1) It's not like they don't have the financial resources, 2) it's not like they don't usually have dirty little [OK, big] secrets that need to be hidden, and 3) even with low magic they still wield some incredible power in the form of spellcasting. Heck, they even have a "secret police" if you look at paladins and crusaders in a certain light....

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The church makes a phenomenal source of political and conspiracy-based adventures, especially in a low magic world. Think about this: in a low magic world, the church literally wields the power of life and death. If you cross them, they interdict you from future healing, and your wife dies in childbirth because any cleric who tries to help her will find himself or herself sinning. This is a very powerful notion that can easily be used to manipulate non-adventuring types.

Within a church you may have an elite faction of scholars who consider themselves enlightened. You may have a faction who hoard knowledge because they believe it is not fit for the unholy. You may have a cult who believes that people should not hold property, and you may have a faction that (based on an obscure line in a holy book) believes that wealth is the path to heaven. All these people are going to be butting heads and trying to out-maneuver one another, all while currying the Ruler's favor.

For adventuring, you'll want to tie the knowledge and conspiracy to a fun meta-plot. Something with ancient, suppressed evil is always nice. Let's say a cleric believes that only man can bring about the Harrowing that has been foretold. She then manipulates her superior in her order to give her resources, and she uses the leadership feat to build up loyal followers who help her seek out the location to the Apocalypse Song, the last echoes of a dying god's voice that may be used to destroy the unworthy. Another faction gets wind that someone is looking for the Apocalypse Song and, without knowing who is behind it, hires the PCs to stop them. You get the idea. So long as this cleric continues to play politics and rise in power, there's no reason for her to break from the church hierarchy and turn "evil." Remember, to a large extent the church IS the government, and they have resources aplenty.

And when you get tired of religion, run some intrigue in the merchant houses for a while.

Suggested reading:

- Cerebus: Church & State (underscoring the power of religion)
- Eco's The Name of the Rose (different church factions, the power of secrets)
- Sagiro's story hour (best long term meta-plot I've seen)