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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Byrons_Ghost" data-source="post: 1561413" data-attributes="member: 7396">I've had some political negotiation type adventures that had non-combat endings.I ran an adaption of the old Tree of Life adventure in which the elven forest is threatened by a tribe of invading barbarians. Under the influence of "the spirits" (the party's mysterious foes), the chief has been convinced that the elves were evil and that the forest needed to be destroyed. Since the elves had no chance in open warfare, and there was a literal army of tribesmen, the PCs had to find a way to convince them to leave. They finally used stealth and sorcery to pose as other spirits, tell the chief that he was being tricked, and to move his people somewhere else. The main complication was that the chief didn't want to back down to the elves for fear of loosing face to his people and being challenged for his position. So the party also had to arrange for some demonstrations of the chief's new "spirit powers". I guess the actual climax scene was when they arranged a meeting between the chief and the elves and worked all this out.Another adventure (different group) ended with a sort of "Night of the Knives" scenario. A country, formerly under the grip of a group of evil clerics, had been liberated in the previous sessions when the PCs smashed the cult and destroyed the demon-in-charge. Now, though, the country was without any kind of leadership and falling into chaos. The general of the military decided to try and stage a coup to take over, and the previous resistance force worked to oppose him, not wanting to see another absolute ruler come to power. The result was a civil war. Not to mention the fact that remnants of the demon cult were manipulating things and pushing people toward violence.After a lot of searching and shows of good faith, the party finally managed to get the general and the resistance leader to the palace for a weekend of negotiations. However, both the general and the rebel leader were planning to have each other killed. Everything ended up with a sort of subdued search-and-destroy on the first night: the military, rebels, demon cult, and party all sneaking around, dodging each other, and foiling one another's plans. No one wanted an open fight because no one was sure what the palace guard would do, and because if word got out there'd be rioting and possible attacks from the two armies camped outside town. In the end, the general was assassinated, the cult was finally destroyed, and the rebels and palace guard worked out a sort of power-sharing deal. The climax was somewhat combative, but not in the traditional "square off and fight" kind of way.</blockquote>

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