D&D 5E [5e] Intrigue Campaigns: Cons, Heists and Secrets

[generic]

I'd like to take a thread here to plumb the collective wisdom of EN World. I'm in the midst of writing an intrigue campaign, plus some rules overlays to help facilitate it, but before I get to far I'd like to see what some other folks have come up with for intrigue campaigns as far as builds, tricks and combos goes. I haven't had the pleasure of playing an intrigue heavy campaign in 5th, and while I trust my reading comprehension, I'm quite sure there is a bunch of cool stuff that I haven't though of.

Here's what I would love to hear about and discuss here:

1. Social interaction builds for any and all classes. Some SIP builds are obvious, but I'm sure there's a ton of cool stuff. I'd like to have some templates to present my players to give them some cool ideas outside Yeah, I'm playing a rogue too... So, whole builds, small class mods and tweaks, whatever has worked for you.

2. Party builds for intrigue heavy campaigns. Ideas about how to plit skills and responsibilities over a four PC party while avoiding too much duplication.

3. Rules stuff. Uses for offbeat spells, skills and feats. Combos and sneaky stuff. Players are devious monkeys, and I'd rather know about as many good tricks as I can beforehand, rather than having to dodge flung dung mid-session when a player busts out something sexy.

4. Homebrew. I'd also love to hear about any hacks and rules people are using in their own campaigns to help 3rd pillar play.

5. I'd really appreciate it if we could just skip the whole D&D isn't built for this so why bother conversation. Been there, done that.

Whatever you have to add about any of the above, I'd love to hear.

I love intrigue campaigns. I can't remember all of the details of the document, and it seems to have vanished, but I had a collection of rules for Intrigue games or games heavy on social interaction that was something akin to:

1. Use the free-to-download "Social Combat" rules from DMsGuild, one of them is actually rather fun to use, and adds a bit of crunch to role-playing without making it merely a contest of die-rolling.

2. Keep in mind the fact that Bards, Inquisitive and Mastermind Rogues, Enchanter Wizards, and some Warlocks, as well as all Monks, are viable classes in a "Social" campaign.

3. Don't be afraid to punctuate the social combat with at least some combat and some exploration. I am a firm believer that every campaign needs all three.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I maybe should have been more speficic about the pillar use. I agree, intrigue campaigns shouldn't ignore combat and exploration, and my campaign will have both.

I'm going to check out that social combat right now

 

[Krachek]

Be sure you’re players can follow your plots.
dnd is not a book that you can read in a week or less. In DnD past event can be six month away.
In a series of book the writer take time to remind important clue with flashback.
there is a limit of complexity that can be afford in a DnD game.

dont maze your players in too much lies, hidden agenda, and subtleties that you only will be able to understand.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, that is an obvious pitfall. My plan is to have available information index the main obstacles of the narrative. Some of that is floating so I can stick it in no matter where the players go look, and some of it (indexed by the information I just mentioned) will be more NPC/faction specific. I don't want to hem the player in by making every clue or nugget dependent on them picking a particular way of approaching things or a specific source of info, but I do want to clues and information they gather to not too subtly lead them in one general direction. Call it a gated sandbox rather than a railroad.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'd like to take a thread here to plumb the collective wisdom of EN World. I'm in the midst of writing an intrigue campaign, plus some rules overlays to help facilitate it, but before I get to far I'd like to see what some other folks have come up with for intrigue campaigns as far as builds, tricks and combos goes. I haven't had the pleasure of playing an intrigue heavy campaign in 5th, and while I trust my reading comprehension, I'm quite sure there is a bunch of cool stuff that I haven't though of.

Here's what I would love to hear about and discuss here:

1. Social interaction builds for any and all classes. Some SIP builds are obvious, but I'm sure there's a ton of cool stuff. I'd like to have some templates to present my players to give them some cool ideas outside Yeah, I'm playing a rogue too... So, whole builds, small class mods and tweaks, whatever has worked for you.

2. Party builds for intrigue heavy campaigns. Ideas about how to plit skills and responsibilities over a four PC party while avoiding too much duplication.

3. Rules stuff. Uses for offbeat spells, skills and feats. Combos and sneaky stuff. Players are devious monkeys, and I'd rather know about as many good tricks as I can beforehand, rather than having to dodge flung dung mid-session when a player busts out something sexy.

4. Homebrew. I'd also love to hear about any hacks and rules people are using in their own campaigns to help 3rd pillar play.

5. I'd really appreciate it if we could just skip the whole D&D isn't built for this so why bother conversation. Been there, done that.

Whatever you have to add about any of the above, I'd love to hear.

I am not really good at this sort of campaigns either, I would love to be able to run such campaigns but usually for me the most difficult part is coming up with good stories in the first place. My "mysteries" get solved too quickly :/

Nevertheless, here are some thoughts of mine about the genre...

Keep the character level low - The higher the level, the more likely someone will have a nuclear spell which will spoil an intrigue entirely. Anyway, high level is mostly required for fighting high-CR monsters, but presumably an intrigue campaign won't be combat-heavy so you don't need PCs with lots of HP, high ability scores and so on.

Favor roleplay over roll-play - Solving a mystery using your brain is 1000 times more rewarding than solving it using your dice. That's another reason why you don't need high scores and level. Asking the right questions to NPC, looking for clues in the right places, and making decisions in general are the important things.

Still, it wouldn't be D&D if you only relied on roleplay, so you have to make room for characters abilities to matter. But low-level spells are great because in order to provide dramatic benefits they might require a more creative use of that, compared to high-level spells that may immediately provide a resolution to a problem.

Handle Knowledge checks with care - Just don't immediately ask for a skill check (especially a Knowledge check) in every situation, wait until perhaps all players are a bit stuck on a matter. However another approach is to regularly allow a pre-emptive Knowledge check to unlock a few bits of knowledge from a list (so for example compile a list of hints per knowledge type per scenario, then depending on the roll reveal a certain number of them). The aim is to avoid Knowledge roll to become more important than player's thinkining, but at the same time a PC's knowledge proficiencies should matter.

Emphasize the importance of ability names - Sometimes it's a good idea to tell a player "you are a Cleric of XYZ, therefore you can...", or "you have a Noble background, so why not..." and even "you have chosen the Healer feat, thus you might...". This way you can make the choice of abilities at character creation/advancement matter, even when you're not actually having the PC using the mechanics of such abilities.

Dissuade players from strongly combat-oriented characters - You can find ways to make even the most iconic Fighter or Barbarian to shine in a low-combat game, but it's not easy... I would not be afraid to flat-out tell a player if they are designing a character that might end up with most of their abilities unused. After all, you would not be afraid to tell someone that their chaotic evil assassin won't work well in a good-aligned campaign, right? Keep in mind the principle by which an intrigue-oriented adventure is supposed to attract appropriately intrigue-oriented characters, while a brute door-bashing type would rather stay in the tavern guffing down casks of ale until something more exciting (for them) comes up.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

While a well-done bit of foreshadowing or a call-back can be really great, yeah, you don’t want to lay things on too thick. And if the PCs don’t care about a particular hook, I think DMs should be ready to either let it die on the vine, or play out the repercussions of ignoring it in a way that is interesting to the PCs.

If a scheming merchant jacks up the price of glass, the PCs might not care that a spyglass now coasts 2,000 GP. And maybe that scheme fails and prices fall in a few months. But if they’ve like planar adventures and suddenly a wizard can’t get the glass they need to create the thingamabob that can open a planar rift, now it’s interesting to them.

dont maze your players in too much lies, hidden agenda, and subtleties that you only will be able to understand.

 

[77IM]

I have a lot of advice for this but I'm gonna start by just leaving this right here: View attachment Long Knives.pdf

 

[Beleriphon]

5. I'd really appreciate it if we could just skip the whole D&D isn't built for this so why bother conversation. Been there, done that.

Whatever you have to add about any of the above, I'd love to hear.

Whilst I wont bag on that particular line of thought, since I don't think its helpful either, what do you expect from the 5E engine that makes you use it? Familiarity, fun combat, clear cut roles? Knowing what you can do will make it easier to establish how you want to handle things that D&D doesn't do particular well.

So, with that in mind how much combat do you expect? Are we talking next to none with most functions achieved by character interactions and maybe skill rolls? Or at we talking skills rolls and stuff to get to the point where they characters get into a fight, for example intrigue and rolls to figure out where the Maltese Falcon is hidden and then a climactic fight in the warehouse with the Baron's goons?

D&D works well for the later, not so great for the former. So knowing what gaps you need to fill in is helpful, because you might honestly not need to fill any depending on what you want the end result of an a "intrigue" adventure to be.

tweaking the skill system to keep the whole party involved is also on my list. Currently, I'm looking at decoupling the 1-1 skill-ability relationship to open things up a little. Obvious stuff, like using STR for intimidation, but also for less obvious reasons. For example, using INT to persuade with logic and reason. I think it allows some narrative flex for the characters and there will be less time where characters will just be sitting around.

Keep in mind that this isn't a tweak, its actually part of the rules. There's a reason that Ability Checks are presented as Wisdom (Perception) or Strength (Athletics). The idea is you're asking players to make a specific ability check, and applying appropriate proficiencies if you as the DM think they should apply.

 

[Fenris-77]

Whilst I wont bag on that particular line of thought, since I don't think its helpful either, what do you expect from the 5E engine that makes you use it? Familiarity, fun combat, clear cut roles? Knowing what you can do will make it easier to establish how you want to handle things that D&D doesn't do particular well.

So, with that in mind how much combat do you expect? Are we talking next to none with most functions achieved by character interactions and maybe skill rolls? Or at we talking skills rolls and stuff to get to the point where they characters get into a fight, for example intrigue and rolls to figure out where the Maltese Falcon is hidden and then a climactic fight in the warehouse with the Baron's goons?

D&D works well for the later, not so great for the former. So knowing what gaps you need to fill in is helpful, because you might honestly not need to fill any depending on what you want the end result of an a "intrigue" adventure to be.

Combat is going to happen most sessions. It won't be hordes of Orcs or whatever, but Thieve's guild toughs, assassins in the Dark, warehouses full of cultists and the like is all on the table. If I wanted low-to-no combat I would just pick another system. There are two reasons I'm using the 5e engine for this. First, the players I have available, and second, that I'm an inveterate tinkerer with rules and I enjoy the process. Sure, I could play BitD, and I do, but this is going to be a 5e game. I'm also planning on shuffling in some breakout sessions where the party leaves the city for 'reasons' and those sessions will probably feel a little more traditional.

The actual goal, or at least one way to define it, is that I want to make the social part of the campaign a little bit more like the combat pillar. Not so much at the encounter level, but everything else. Tracking influence, favors owed, and probably reputation should help give the party some concrete handholds on the shifting dynamics of politics and intrigue, and provide some more concrete goals for planning where to go next. There are some ideas from Gumshoe and BitD that are good at those things, and I'm going to adapt them, and I'll write the rest to stitch the pieces together.

Keep in mind that this isn't a tweak, its actually part of the rules. There's a reason that Ability Checks are presented as Wisdom (Perception) or Strength (Athletics). The idea is you're asking players to make a specific ability check, and applying appropriate proficiencies if you as the DM think they should apply.

That's true, but it's also true that the base RAW is 1-1 about which ability is paired with each skill. The variant is there to just be able to mix and match, but I'm not sure that's exactly what I want either. D&D is very DM focused when it comes to ability checks (DM states roll X + X), and I'd like to devolve some of the responsibility for narrative choices on the PCs in order to give them a little more agency. That's a big change though, so it might be more work than it's worth. Just using the variant from the PHB might be the easier road.

The struggle is to keep the changes and rules overlays as light as possible.

 

[Beleriphon]

Combat is going to happen most sessions. It won't be hordes of Orcs or whatever, but Thieve's guild toughs, assassins in the Dark, warehouses full of cultists and the like is all on the table. If I wanted low-to-no combat I would just pick another system. There are two reasons I'm using the 5e engine for this. First, the players I have available, and second, that I'm an inveterate tinkerer with rules and I enjoy the process. Sure, I could play BitD, and I do, but this is going to be a 5e game. I'm also planning on shuffling in some breakout sessions where the party leaves the city for 'reasons' and those sessions will probably feel a little more traditional.

The actual goal, or at least one way to define it, is that I want to make the social part of the campaign a little bit more like the combat pillar. Not so much at the encounter level, but everything else. Tracking influence, favors owed, and probably reputation should help give the party some concrete handholds on the shifting dynamics of politics and intrigue, and provide some more concrete goals for planning where to go next. There are some ideas from Gumshoe and BitD that are good at those things, and I'm going to adapt them, and I'll write the rest to stitch the pieces together.

Gotcha.

That's true, but it's also true that the base RAW is 1-1 about which ability is paired with each skill. The variant is there to just be able to mix and match, but I'm not sure that's exactly what I want either. D&D is very DM focused when it comes to ability checks (DM states roll X + X), and I'd like to devolve some of the responsibility for narrative choices on the PCs in order to give them a little more agency. That's a big change though, so it might be more work than it's worth. Just using the variant from the PHB might be the easier road.

The struggle is to keep the changes and rules overlays as light as possible.

https://theangrygm.com/being-in-flex-able/

Angry has some good insights into how to approach this and keep it interesting.