D&D 5E Political campaign?

[Erechel]

I agree. But we're using different rules. My games are 3.5e (with elements of AD&D), and I suspect you're using a 5e rules. If there's Reputation in the editions I'm using, it's deeply buried in supplemental rules . . . so easier to wing it.

My players do use Diplomacy skills a lot, which can help.

And I agree with track resources, like money, carefully when politics and setting are important in the campaign.

Well, yes. After all, we are in the 5e forum [emoji14] . But if you are playing 3.5 I can understand how the rules can be an obstacle more than a help (I don't plan to start an edition war, but there is the main reason why I'm not a fan of 3.X). I'm quoting specific rules of 5e.

Enviado desde mi XT1063 mediante Tapatalk

 

[DerekSTheRed]

My current campaign is set in Birthright and has a bunch of political intrigue type elements but is still pretty standard D&D fare because that's what my players want. Here's how I sneak in some intrigue into my campaign.

I recommend creating a flow chart for the adventure and each box is an encounter. This way it feels like a dungeon and gives the PCs the some minor choices that affect the story. Instead of coming to a fork in the dungeon and having to decide to go left or right, you create a decision point in the story where the PCs pick the next encounter. The links between the encounter are bread crumbs or clues to the next one. Try to come up with a default path in case they don't find any clues.

Another recommendation is to think what a faction is doing or attempting to do if the PCs weren't around. If the PCs fail to find the clues or ignore them, the faction succeeds by default. Once you know what a faction is trying to do, you can think of a few ways PCs could try to foil them and design encounters ahead of time. Put those encounters in boxes of your flow chart and think of ways the PCs could arrive there from other boxes.

Intrigue involves NPCs lying so make sure you introduce a few minor characters that are memorable. You then have mysterious figures that could be suspects in a plot.

Your next adventure should probably start with the General asking for the PCs help in finding a double agent. He knows there's a double agent that tipped off his location to his enemies and resulted in his capture. Could it be someone from the rival city, or a member of his staff that secretly joined the cult, or perhaps a jealous rival in his own city. Come up with interesting NPCs and figure out which one really did it. Then work backwards to create clues that lead the PCs to the correct conclusion and maybe a few red herrings as well.

Make sure there are more clues than necessary since its likely the PCs won't find them all. The clues will be located in places with traps or are in the testimony of people that need to be defeated in a contest or even a combat encounter. Once the PCs start to close in on the double agent, the double agent can call in enemy reinforcements to deal with the meddling PCs once and for all.

 

[Quickleaf]

Hello, I'm a new DM who has DMed a few dungeon crawls, but nothing beyond that. I've never actually played, either, I've only DMed. I wanted to run a campaign with some of my friends (none of whom play), but unbeknownst to me, it seems it's recommended that new DMs run modules for their first campaign. So I'm in a bit over my head because the player that is most intrigued wanted to do a political campaign. I can't back out of it now. I've already started and I'm tired of making my players create new characters for the fifth time, not to see them reach level 3. Currently, the story is that there are two rival cities close to each other, and the city the adventurers start in captured a general of the other city whilst he was on patrol. The players are needed because the general was captured by a cultist, looking to sacrifice him so his diety would grant him eternal life. The players have already rescued the general from the cultist and returned him to the city and that's where we stopped, but know I have to start doing the political side of this campaign.

Can't comment on your game because that's not a lot to go on... I wonder if the PCs have received public acclaim for saving this General? What are the General's views on adventurers? Does he wish to recruit them to strike at the cult in an off-the-books operation? Or distance himself from them because he feels humiliated? Or even belittle and disgrace them for "ruining his reputation"? Was he horribly traumatized by his captivity, did he manage to gain critical intelligence while he himself was being interrogated, or did he give up state secrets?

So basically I have no idea what to do, and I would be grateful for some tips on how to run/create fun political campaigns.

I can share my quick recap of an intrigue-focused campaign I ran years ago, if that would be helpful?

Basically, I can distill it down to 5 pieces of advice for such a campaign...but, as they say, "the devil's in the details"...

1. Craft a compelling villain with a well thought-out strategy (with at least 3 steps) toward a clear goal. If the players fail or do nothing, the villain advances toward that goal. Also, come up with at least one reason why the PCs can't just solve the problem with an all-out offensive against the villain (e.g. "Prince John" is untouchable so long as he has support of the kingdom's nobles); you want to facilitate opportunities to engage with the villain without violence (e.g. speaking thru scrying devices, state dinners, etc).
2. Create open-ended but clear quests, such as rescuing an informant from prison; even better if you include the PC's backgrounds into each quest & introduce a complication to each quest, for example, making the informant a gnomish PC's uncle & giving him a false tooth with an encoded message. Each quest should feed into another quest (that was basically the format for my 1st-10th level intrigue campaign).
3. When introducing secrets for the PCs to uncover (e.g. the princess *is* the monster stalking the streets at night), make sure to plant numerous clues. Definitely read The 3 Clue Rule on the Alexandrian blog and implement those suggestions.
4. Create scenarios/encounters that *encourage* or even *require* the PCs to engage in multiple pillars of the game (combat, exploration, interaction) simultaneously. For instance, I had a chivalric tournament where a killer was hidden among the knights and was going after allies the PCs were trying to woo; the PCs had to simultaneously place someone in the tournament to ID the killer, someone in the stands to protect their charge / schoomze, and someone to take out a crossbow sniper in a tower behind a puzzle-trap door.
5. Consider implementing a 4e style skill challenge approach (essentially tracking how PCs accrue victory points / failures / complications) for certain PC-NPC interactions when the PCs have a specific goal (e.g. interrogate the captive cultists, or convince Lord Palfrey to abandon his support of "Prince John"). This is a bit of an advanced technique & requires some imagination, but once you get the hang of it, the technique can really enhance an intrigue-laden campaign.

In addition, I usually only run games with low-level characters, and it doesn't seem enough to me that clerics can only cast cure wounds twice, especially when low-level characters are killed so easy. So I was wondering if allowing spellcasters to regain 1 spell slot on short rests, +1 slot every 5 levels, would be balanced, especially in late game.

Don't worry. With a political campaign, it's entirely possible to reduce the number of combats they face per day, thus minimizing the need for curative magic.

 

[pemerton]

It's hard to give generic advice, when the stuff about a game that excites a group can be pretty varible.

That said: my own view is that prep can sometimes be over-rated, and that giving your PCs something to get enthused about here and now in the session is more important that having an elaborate backstory that makes sense of everything, but that only you as GM are aware of.

I would suggest, as a start, putting the PCs into a situation where they have a reason to be friendly to X (eg X is the General they saved) and they have a reason to be hostile to Y (eg Y is a cultist) but X has a reason to be friendly to Y (eg Y is X's sister). That should get the playres discussing possible approaches, subterfuges, how to persuade X that Y is really a villain, etc.

Build from there and follow their leads. It can be helpful to take notes so you don't contradict yourself too much, but also remember - your notes don't have to be any more reliable than the players' memories! And (at least according to urban legend) even Raymond Chandler didn't know the backstory behind one of the murders in The Big Sleep - and you don't have to produce material to the same standard that Raymond Chandler did!