Intrigue, plot help.

[Hand of Evil]

Another idea is to timeline the plots, this moves the plot along even if the players do not show interest in it. Remember, for every action, there is a reaction.

Also, think about flow charting your clues and steps of your plot. simple yes to advance the players or no to advance the plot. Example, do players find clue 1, if yes; players move on to next step of the plot having a chance to impact it, if no; the next step of plot takes place as scheduled and players hear about it and have to find clues to go to next step.

Note: impacting a plot does not mean stopping it. Result can be a delay based on the level of success the players had to start plan B to continue plot, Ad Hoc to take out the players, or burnt earth to start cover-up.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Need some more information on the plot.

• What was the NPC, framed for?
• Has hue & cry started? If not, you have to wonder why.
• What is the connection to the event? Why the frame would work?

It could be that just meeting the party is part of the frame (inside man and henchmen) and it has just been put into play. Each action now is to put the party at the scene of the crime. Using the party to take out another noble or weaken a guild, so that the protagonist has clean hands (this is good for a non-evil foe).

 

[Karak]

I've learned that a lot of times, and as long as it isn't happening every time, it matters less that the clues get them to the right place, as long as later in the story they'll be able to look at what happened, and the line of clues they hadn't figured out and have an "Aha! THAT'S why the washerwoman had Lady Broomfeld's necklace in her pocket! If only we had figured that out sooner!" moment.

So true. Most of my games involve a good deal of clues, some missed, some found, and we still talk about "this game, or that game" years later. The best part is when a player informs me that I dropped a clue I wasn't aware of or that they picked up on something and it wasn't a clue at all but it fit into the story.

Admittedly I freestyle all my games so I have been doing it long enough to understand when and where to put things. But I adore these kinds of games.

One thing I LOVE to do is to throw at least 2 or 3 red herrings or really unique twists. Even if its the town priest also being the sheriff. I have found that 1-3 very memorable things really traps the players into the game plot. Using the cards like I do, these come up almost often enough that I can throw some away. But it leads to incredibly interesting twists.

I would say my major rule is that in most of my games with intrigue based plots I hold true to the fact that good people do bad things for good reasons and the opposite as well. Leading to bad guys that really barely are, or good guys that the players end up HATING at the end.

As for tracking story plots I use a simple piece of paper and a pencil and a cloud chart or mind map. This very basic way of tracking things allows for me to ad lib when I need but also glance at the piece of paper and come up with connections .

 

[Herobizkit]

I believe the XBox video game Mercenaries had a ring of 52 villains who all matched up to the cards in a playing deck. Similar to one of the posters above, each suit dealt with a specific flavour of villainy/crime with an overlord in the Ace slot. I never did finish the game, but I'm sure you can see how the in-game story played out at sites such as GameFaqs and similar.

If you want a massive crime syndicate, you could do worse than borrow the idea.

 

[Karak]

I believe the XBox video game Mercenaries had a ring of 52 villains who all matched up to the cards in a playing deck. Similar to one of the posters above, each suit dealt with a specific flavour of villainy/crime with an overlord in the Ace slot. I never did finish the game, but I'm sure you can see how the in-game story played out at sites such as GameFaqs and similar.

If you want a massive crime syndicate, you could do worse than borrow the idea.

Indeed. It does have one that is based on the 52 cards the US government had concerning military targets of a personal kind.

The cards really do amazing things for me. Something about having a mix of randomness with the suits that allow me o think outside the box.

For large organizations we usually made a pyramid of 8-9 cards and for smaller ones we have maybe 3-4. Its nice because you can put the two pyramids on a table in front of you and you can sort of draw connections between them. Things like the smaller gang doing small jobs for the larger corporation but only every having contact with the character represented by the 4 of clubs. This works awesome for me because at times the smaller group may actually NOT want to assist the larger group and partners become enemies. It works really well.

Another thing we did was chose a card for each character and placed in between the 2 pyramids. Allowing me to get a visual representation of where the player characters are, who they might run into and how their continued investigation would dig deeper into the pyramids(organizations).

I really had to flesh a great deal of this out for our RPG AfterEarth. It seemed to get a good deal of positive response from play-testers.

 

[Roffen]

Thanks for the good advice from everybody. Short and long replies have been read and pondered upon.
There are some of the ideas that I've been shuffling in my head before the post, some ideas are new, while others are being used with some tweaking.

I'll be building a long-term plot that is wagely plotted for short-term, so I can adapt it to the players' action to a certain extent. The main NPC's will be sketched, alon with their personal motives and allys. The main badguy will most likely be undetermined for now, but I have a reasonable idea of how to portray him, when it comes to that.

Our gaming sessions are only about once every three weeks, so it's important that all of us are having fun every time. So that all the players feel that they are contributing every time with their special abilities, and I'm not ripping my hair out after each session!

 

[haakon1]

Not all groups are inherently interested in following clues about bureaucratic corruption...

I was thinking the same thing. PC's need to have a reason to oppose whatever the plot is. For me, what usually works is a "threat to the realm" where the PC's are good guys whose job is to protect the realm from all threats, foreign and domestic -- either they are the military or they are "on retainer" problem solvers for the good guy ruler.

And just because the country & ruler are good guys doesn't mean there can't be lots of nefarious folks up to no good, some of them even "on the good side" (officially, but pursuing evil ends -- like various Earth-bound baddies in Stargate: SG1).

Another plotting idea -- 3 way conflicts work for me. Good guys country v. enemy country v. third party taking advantage of the conflict works wonders for me as a plot.

Product recommendation -- get "Chronicle Starter" for Song of Ice & Fire RPG if you want some ready made intriguing nobles. It's Stygian, the best . . . I would say hagga to a slayer such as you?

Actual play suggestion -- Do NOT move the ball on your players. Decide before hand who the major NPC's are, what their resources are like, and what their goals are. Don't pull the "they figured it out so I need to change it" stuff, or conversely the "they think the innocent guy did it, so I'll change my mind and make them right" . . . that works very badly to my mind, as it undercuts the player's attempt to make sense of their world.