Advise requested: political adventure

[Wraith Form]

Hi,

I'd like to run some 1st level gamers (ha! pun intended - i.e. mostly noobs) through a D&D adventure, most likely in the Forgotten Realms. (I'll probably chose an out-of-the-way small town along the Sword Coast.) Our previous DM--who will now be a player--ran us thru the free WotC adventures "Dark & Stormy Knight" and "Burning Plague" in the Silver Marches area.

Now that the players have been exposed to dungeoning & fighting (see above adventures for details), I'd like to run a more political game with some new PCs, give them a chance to have some interaction and ROLE playing instead of ROLL playing.

I was thinking a cliched adventure where the PCs unveil a sinister plotter/advisor behind the small town's mayor-kinda thing would be fun & easy. Once they defeat the big bad guy, the locals would be inclined to "revere" the PCs, which would give them some political power.

I have access to all manner of D&D books, and can easily purchase PDFs if required. I also have Atlas Games' Dynasties and Demigogues.

Any suggestions on how to make a vague idea like this into a full-blown plot line would be appreciated....remember, they're only 1st level! If I get some neat ideas, I'll post my development on the adventure (writing & running) as I go along.

Thanks in advance for the help--you guys always have good ideas, so I feel confident that I'll get great responses!

 

[frankthedm]

Make sure the players are up to it. Some players really prefer "NPC opposing me = dead" and get easily frustrated if the game winds up being a session of Yackmaster

Make sure some of thier political enemies can be killed so to alieve these frustrations.

Also, some players will often take up NPC's requesting believing them to be "adventure hooks to be biten to progress the game" rather than the NPCs political mechanations.

It works best if there are "areas" where the PCs know "come here for politics" or "come here for butt kicking"

My suggestion, look up the Old racial hatred table from the DMG. Have dungeons and regions where lower level PCs can play minotaurs against gnolls or inform a band of hobgoblins where some subjegatable goblins lair, then assault them both after the goblins have been subdued and the hobgoblins are resting up.. .

 

[Wraith Form]

Mmm. Yeah. It *will* be interesting to poll them and see if they'd be up for this type of thing. (If not, I sure won't force them...)

 

[frankthedm]

My players spents 2 weeks on an sea voyage to the mildly corrupt city of Spiceport{scaled down Dungeon magaine adveture "the styes"]. {The original adventure called for divintation magic to find clues, most info was available through politics as well for this game [Cleric free party ALMOST has divintation magic] They had headed off there based on it being mentioned in a shipping ledger obtained from a merchant working with Deep Ones[evil fish dudes]. Party were there 2 sesions before they realized the players were not intrested in the labrinthine politics.

 

[The Hound]

When I've done this sort of thing it's usually been on a larger full campaign scale, which takes some time of course. My modus operandi is to take some situation from history or literature, change the names to protect the guilty, and use it as a background for the game. For example, I once ran a sci fi game where major events in a galactic civil war were modelled on events in the War of the Roses. The players were placed in a position where they could aid one of the factions, or aid their rivals as it ultimately turned out. I have also borrowed and mutated sections of plots from my favorite fantasy books and from Shakespeare for smaller scale stuff happening in various locales.

 

[The Hound]

Another thought - you might want to check out the 'Age of Worms' modules that have been appearing in Dungeon magazine for the past few issues (and will be running for quite a bit more). It's more of an epic "investigate and defeat the evil cultists threatening to destroy the world" type of campaign, but it has more than just hack and slash.

 

[Wraith Form]

Another thought - you might want to check out the 'Age of Worms' modules that have been appearing in Dungeon magazine for the past few issues (and will be running for quite a bit more). It's more of an epic "investigate and defeat the evil cultists threatening to destroy the world" type of campaign, but it has more than just hack and slash.

That's pretty much what I was going to do if I didn't see a lot of positive response from my players about a political game. I was really looking forward to creating my own plots (thus I wouldn't forget any details!) but Age of Worms is a very acceptable alternative.

Waiting a month between each section is a little daunting, but then again the 2 WotC adventures I mentioned above took us 4 weeks....and they're smallish adventures. I'd be willing to bet that my group couldn't adventure faster than the issues arrive.......at least, I hope....

And thanks for the replies so far!

 

[Wraith Form]

Moderator: if you want to delete this post, please feel free--I think Age of Worms is my ticket! Thanks again, everyone!