how do you introduce your characters to political intrigue?

[redwing]

In a game I will be DM'ing shortly, the campaign will be focused heavily on politics. Nations are warring. However, there is no "good" nation full of paladins and evil nation full of necromancers. Each nation has LEGITIMATE reasons for doing what they are doing.

I want the campaign to be focused on the characters and their choices. How do I introduce them to each nation's reasons and let them choose which side to be on IN GAME?

I want them to be able to uncover reasoning behind each political figure's actions and realize what is actually going on behind the scenes, then make their choice. But how do I get them involved with all the key players on each side? What if I add more factions? What if there are 6 different political factions?

 

[Piratecat]

You'll want to make the PCs members of a neutral party, and then introduce the factions slowly. Make sure you write up a campaign background that lays out (in neutral terms) which faction is what. It helps tremendously to have something like that to refer to in game.

Remember, politics are boring. Adventures that happen because of politics can be totally exciting. Don't mix up the two!

 

[Umbran]

If you're doing a full campaign of this, you have time, so you don't have to introduce them to it all at once.

When in doubt, make them the unwitting tools of some political player. They'll slowly learn about the parties involved as they interact with them. The party can eventually come to know enough to make their own decisions about how they want to play in the political arena.

 

[Afrodyte]

Don't forget: The personal is political.

 

[GSHamster]

Make the conflicts, especially the initial conflicts, obvious. It's easy to get caught up in like triple-layers of intrigue, but that can be very hard for players to follow. Remember that while you have the big picture in your head, your players can only see bits and pieces, and it's very easy for them to get lost in the subleties.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

For my old Romance of the Three Kingdoms campaign (no, there was no romance, must have been a translation error) I tossed the PCs into a confusing situation. Deliberately.

The PCs had been part of an army, and once the combat was over, they had nothing to do but get rewarded at the capital. Once there, they quickly picked up a patron, who they found out was horrendously (but affably) evil.

They had to learn about other factions to find allies, as their (now former) patron was too powerful to murder, or anything like that. (He was the emperor's brother-in-law and was always surrounded by bodyguards. Killing him wasn't much of an option.)

 

[Foxen]

Here's some thoughts...

One option is to have the PCs as the "diplomatic" envoy or escorts for a diplomat/ambassador who needs to deliver messages or negotiate trade or border disputes, etc. and/or visit various countrymen or sworn knights etc. to gain their support or swords in upcoming call to arms etc. That was a mouthful, sorry.

As a player, I always appreciated a ton of background information provided ahead of time, about different factions (perhaps just a little info on the who's who's of a region, etc. with a few quirks and rumors about them). Our local homebrew GM usually comes up with several dozen pages of background info on his homebrew game worlds.

I also really like rumors being whispered by the countrymen... conversations overheard in the bars and taverns, or by old mid-wives at the local produce market. Even farmers complaining about their local lord, and ultimately the king, or the forresters and hunters proclaiming the glory of their local liege.

If you haven't done so already, try read a few George R.R. Martin novels...starting with "A Game of Thrones". A d20 version of his novels had come out...titled, "A Game of Thrones". Dunno if it's still available but the game includes, and in fact, encourages political intrgiue and what not. Reading his novels will GREATLY inspire your deep politically intriguing fantasy setting games.

Hope this helps.

Fox

 

[Tervin]

One way would to let them originally work as some kind of secret agents for one of the sides, travelling around and getting to know the other ones. Over time though, give them impulses to "go native" as tehy see that much of what tehy themselves believe in is at least as well represented in their different enemies as it is in their old home country.

For this to work you need to make sure that the characters have deep backgrounds and personalities, and that they have a background that is not too closely tied to their original employer.

I think the spy/secret agent approach is a very good tool for giving the characters an inside on what the political leaders' real agendas are. this suggestion would also give them a chance to find out things gradually, which is usually a lot better than just getting a huge background text to read.

 

[Peni Griffin]

The first thing you've got to ask yourself is: What do my players respond to?

If you have any players who like reading intricate background detail, you're in clover. Give them a Gazeteer of Playerworld laying out, in general terms, the possible PC backgrounds - rich dwarfs from Dwerrostan make their money from manufacturing and trade, poor ones scrape out a living in the mines and resent the conspicuous consumption of the ruling classes; the conquered halflings of the Share who do not cling to subsistence farms in the hinterlands are crowded into refugee colonies in the urban centers of the conquering humans; noble human political ambitions are centered on the person of the Emperor but, as he ages without naming an heir, jostling for position among his seven children becomes intense with the aristocracy, the rising middle class, the urban poor, and the free farmers each pinning their hopes on a different candidate - and requiring that they choose some general background and provide a reason for being in Campaignville. After character generation, but before play, you tailor-make a "What your character knows about the world" precis with more detailed, focused information. Then begin introducing the various factions in the course of each adventure until they spontaneously develop sympathies, antipathies, and friendships. Do not base the early adventures on politics, but let the politics intrude - a riot complicating a mission here, a secret messenger crossing your path there.

If you have players who never read handouts or e-mails and are bored with creating character backgrounds, you're in a much trickier situation. The kind of person who is "all about the build" or who says "I'm a fighter and I wanna get rich" is hard to involve naturally in political intrigue and is often bored by it. Work with that, not against it. There's no reason a PC in a political game has to know or care about the issues. How many people IRL blunder through political situations in pursuit of their own goals without understanding the ripples their actions initiate in the world of the greater pond? Plant hooks in the adventures baited with the PC's (and the player's) motivations. Want to be rich? Lord Hackysack would pay good money to read the note from Lady Sylvestra you found in the pocket of that street thug you accidentally killed in the alley behind the Drunken Gith Tavern. Want to meet foes worthy of your carefully min-maxed skills? Can't get into the League of Adventurers without a rich patron. Want to get drunk and assert dominance over NPCs? Amazing how every bar you go into is crammed to the gills with factional thugs, interested observers, recruiters, slumming nobles, and otherwise connected people. Sooner or later, they'll be tangled up in stuff they don't understand and don't care about, trying to track down the dirty so-and-so who made life hard on them or rescue that high-charisma noble who did them a favor.