D&D 5E Best social intrigue published adventure?

[CanadienneBacon]

What's a well-designed high-intrigue published adventure you have direct experience with or know enough about to feel confident recommending? I'm looking for something heavy on social encounters, intrigue, and plot twists. Something Charisma-based characters would excel at. Preferably for 1st-level characters. Any publisher is okay, but my preference is 5e (I'll convert it if need be). My tentative thoughts ran to Hell's Rebels: Into Hell's Bright Shadow, War of the Burning Sky (but I don't know enough about the latter to form a judgment on whether it's got enough social intrigue to satisfy my goal), volume three of The Mummy's Mask (research-based, though not for 1st-level characters), or Skull and Shackles. Or possibly something Cthulhu. The adventure needn't be urban--though urban is fine. Setting is irrelevant to me.

Thoughts?

 

[Merchant of Shadows]

5е is not really a good system for heavy social intrigue due to the binary nature of the social interaction.
Published adventures are not really a good source for heavy social itrigue due to the sandbox tendencies of such interaction.
War of the Burning Sky is pretty good if you readjust some of the more stupid mechanics in place, so it is the closest to something I would recommend. The 4E adventures for the Eberron campaign setting are also decent sources for inspiration.

If you want intrigue - I'm afraid you will have to learn to make it yourself.

 

[Morrus]

ZEITGEIST. Social intrigue, politics, investigation, any mystery all the way through.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My go-to for a pre-published adventure that involves mystery and social interaction is 'The Last Breaths of Ashenport' (4E module from online Dungeon #156.) Weird town stuck in perpetual rainfall because most of the townsfolk have begun worshipping Dagon. It's written for 8th level 4E characters, but by swapping over to 5E and using substitutions like kuo-toa instead of the modules "fish men", using Commoner and Cultist NPCs, and adapting the stats of an otyugh for the final tentacle creature, I've been able to run it for 2nd and 3rd level characters quite easily.

I actually had access to the Tyranny of Dragons 5E Expeditions module 'The Secret of Sokol Keep' (which also involves a water demon mystery on Thorn Island in the Bay of Phlan), and ran that one first, leading into the grander Dagon worship plot of 'Ashenport'. My group have really enjoyed trying to uncover the whole plot.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Cities of Bone, an Al-Qadim sourcebox from 2e, has a few adventures in it that are really diplomacy-or-be-vaporized situations. A creepy dinner scene with some necromancers, some surprising plot twists; it's been one of my go-to module setups for about 20 years now. It works in pretty much every campaign and campaign style I've ever run, from Al-Qadime itself to Ravenloft/Masque of the Red Death to Dark Sun to Mystara to Primeval Thule.

Come to think of it, quite a few of the Al-Qadim adventures fall into this category. And the stakes can be pretty high; in one case, if the heroes don't play their cards right they end up slaves to a genie for a thousands years or something.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

ZEITGEIST. Social intrigue, politics, investigation, any mystery all the way through.

[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], any chance you'd consider offering Zeitgeist as a copper-level subscriber benefit? I downloaded the first chapter and think it fits the bill for exactly what I'm looking for, but the other chapters are off limits to me without being a silver or gold subscriber. I understand if economics require the answer be "no."

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Or, in the alternative, is there a way I can purchase Act One?


EDIT: Answered my own question. It's available for purchase at RPGNow.com. Zeitgeist, Act One. Thanks!

 

[empireofchaos]

I wrote this as a 1st level intrigue module that I'm thinking about putting up on RPG.net if I reformat it and maybe find someone to do illustrations. The adventure is primarily political (with the amount of combat largely left up to player choice). It's also supposed to situate new characters in a new setting, and has a pretty extensive list of NPCs (in the appendices) that may or may not come into play during the adventure. So if you find anything useful, you can run as is, plunder, riff from, as you see fit.

Feedback is appreciated, obviously.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Thank you for sharing your writing, [MENTION=6800918]empireofchaos[/MENTION]. Gamers are, indeed, an amazingly generous bunch. I've downloaded the .doc and skimmed it (looks interesting). If I put it in play, I absolutely will PM you with feedback.

 

[empireofchaos]

Thank you for sharing your writing, [MENTION=6800918]empireofchaos[/MENTION]. Gamers are, indeed, an amazingly generous bunch.

Either that, or we need the exposure!