D&D 5E Political campaign?

[Erechel]

Before I leave more specific advice, 5e might not be the best system for this - would you consider running something else or are you locked into 5e?

It is very possible to play a political campaign, and you can even use the existing rules without too much tweak if you focus on political encounters, though they are pretty much scattered throughout the books.

As for "caster supremacy" here, it is nonsense. Charms are pretty obvious: anyone targeted by a charm will know after a minute or so, which isn't at all the common span of any social interaction. Besides, most spells are obvious when casted, and so trying to charm a king will become an unbalanced combat pretty fast. More so, any decision under a spell influence will be ignored. Even minor buffs as Guidance will be banned.

A bard, though,will be pretty OP, as it has both the proper main stat and Expertise without having to cast anything. I suggest that most encounters don't rely in one check, but several, which vary in difficulty depending on the approximation (intimidation will be easier with a peasant than with a King). A few useful rules in the DMG and PHB:

a) Renown: You could easily use it as a prerequisite to interact with a important figure, or at least to be taken seriously. You could gain reputation by winning tournaments or arguments. You could also use it as "social HP". NPCs could also have reputation, which could be destroyed or increase difficulty in checks when you interact with them. (DMG pp. 22-23, 78, 129)

b) Resolving social interactions: NPC Attitudes and difficulty of basic Charisma checks are detailed on the DMG, pp. 244-245. You could use Renown (as above) to change attitude or modify the check difficulty. A basic increase would be in one step (5) for each rank in a faction. So, an interaction with a world figure (like a Zhentarim dread lord) will be fairly difficult, even for very small concessions if they are friendly (20). Treat each rank in a faction as if they were nobility ranks: 1 for free men, 2 for low nobility and knights, 3 for intermediate nobles, 4 for high nobility (think dukes and princes) and the fifth rank for Kings and other world-class leaders.

c) Influence (DMG p 78) could be used to auto succeeding in a check or interaction,or as advantage in a check. Track it as inspiration with a person. Even more, you could use it as favors you own. Pulling a favor is a risky endeavor. You may ask a little one or a big one, but a big favor will usually put you in debt or be interpreted as extortion.

d) Lifestyle (PHB): a beggar in a Duke's palace will be thrown away, but a wealthy character will be welcomed. Nice clothes, jewelry and other attributes of the wealthy will attract sycophants, and an Aristocrat lifestyle will bring your character to the forefront of the intrigue.

e) Alignment: knowing the alignment will be invaluable in any interaction, as it allows you to predict certain behaviors, and think who you can trust. This could be inquired via ideals.

f) Backgrounds: Another invaluable resource in a political campaign. Military types will be more prone to help a soldier or a knight, whereas a noble character will have many doors open. Even criminal or urchin backgrounds allow you to contact the streets, etc.

All in all, there is a lot of ground you could cover with these rules. My advice is that you integrate the rules with the campaign, and you include sessions with many elements of intrigue, but don't forget exploration and a small amount of combat to have all players involved. Track things also, so as the players have the sensation of expending resources. Money, position and influence will have a lot more importance here than in your typical dungeon crawl.

 

[Wulffolk]

If you have access to them or are willing to spend some money, the Vampire: The Masquerade game by White Wolf is a very political RPG. There are a ton of resources in those books that can be applied to other games. Most of the books have sections about improving your role-playing or story-telling abilities. White Wolf made a real effort to help players improve the quality of their games and the stories they told. There are books completely devoted to different aspects of the game such as The Prince's Primer. It is all about the subtleties of political manipulation and controlling others. The layers of conspiracy and factions in VtM can be a great source of inspiration for what you are interested in.

Beyond that, I would suggest that you keep several things in mind.
- For every action there is a reaction, often many different ones.
- Define factions by their goals, not by some arbitrary label.
- Color everything in a shade of gray. Good guys and bad guys are a matter of perspective. Bad guys usually have good reasons to justify their means, and good guys usually hurt somebody else while trying to help others.
- Every action must have consequences. Think things out like a chess player, looking several steps ahead, instead of just the immediate result.
- In addition to obvious factions, there should be other influences behind the scenes.
- Consider how the resources of the area are controlled by the factions or how the factions are influenced by changes in their resources.
- Have strong motives and defined methods for the major NPCs in you setting, and have them proactively pursue their agendas, rather than just react to what the PCs do.

Hopefully some of that helps. Another resource that might help you plot thing out some is a simple game called Kingdom. It can be useful for brainstorming things you might not normally consider, even if you just go through the motions on your own instead of playing with others.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

My real issue with political campaigns is that it leaves out a few classes. Rogues, Bards, Wizards, Clerics and to a lesser extent Sorcerers with have the most play due to skills needed. The other classes can be used but will be out of their element so to speak.

I would also add warlock to that list. Some of their invocations are fantastic in a political context.

 

[Earth2Carnifex]

I have to say Political games, more commonly referred to as Court Intrigue games, are really hard to run well and require very specific types of players who understand the sub-genre and build their characters accordingly. Murder Hobo's in King Arthur's Court never works. Personally, I find this type of game boring both to run and to play in, but I have known groups who pulled it off and everyone involved had fun. I think if I were going to do something like this, I would build a campaign around two organized crime families at war, sort of a Thieves Guild vs Assassins Guild, and maybe add the Beggars Guild who are caught in the middle. A game like this would have a lot of possibilities and the story line can start in the streets of the poor section of town and stretch all the way into the Kings own bedroom. The only problem is, a game like this would not leave much room for good aligned characters. If your group insisted upon being good aligned then change it to the Thieves Guild vs the City Watch.

 

[haakon1]

As for "caster supremacy" here, it is nonsense.
...
f) Backgrounds: Another invaluable resource in a political campaign. Military types will be more prone to help a soldier or a knight, whereas a noble character will have many doors open. Even criminal or urchin backgrounds allow you to contact the streets, etc.

All in all, there is a lot of ground you could cover with these rules. My advice is that you integrate the rules with the campaign, and you include sessions with many elements of intrigue, but don't forget exploration and a small amount of combat to have all players involved. Track things also, so as the players have the sensation of expending resources. Money, position and influence will have a lot more importance here than in your typical dungeon crawl.

This is a great post. I agree 100% with the parts I quoted.

Where I differ is on the use of rules for Reputation, Influence, etc. I do that strictly through role playing.

The PC’s influence in my campaign is based on a combination of:

1) What they have done on adventures, that the NPCin question knows about.

Think of Biblo’s influence in Rivendell.

An example in my campaigns is a PC who challenged an ancient undead hero who was renowned in a saga to a 1:1 duel that he won, but spared the undead. This got appended to the saga, making the PC famous where recognized, which has good and bad impacts in role playing. Since he is a hostile country, he is now traveling under a pseudonym, like Mr. Underhill.

2) Social class and who they know.

Think of Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Faramir, Boromir. Or any Game of Thrones character. Your social class and family connections can matter more than character class in political interactions.

Examples in my campaigns include a PC who is the daughter of a bishop, a PC who is the son of a noble, and a PC whose father was the Captain of the Guard but who was expelled from the Guard for assaulting an officer. All this is just backstory the players chose, but it integrates their characters and party’s to the campaign world.

3) Role playing interactions with NPC’s.

Doing this is a lot of work for the DM and players, and requires a well-played cast of NPC’s, but it’s highly rewarding.

 

[haakon1]

.
- For every action there is a reaction, often many different ones.
...
- Color everything in a shade of gray.
...
... there should be other influences behind the scenes.
- Consider how the resources of the area are controlled by the factions or how the factions are influenced by changes in their resources.
- Have strong motives and defined methods for the major NPCs in you setting, and have them proactively pursue their agendas, rather than just react to what the PCs do..

Excellent advice for DMing in general, whether political or not (shortened to just not quote it all).

 

[haakon1]

I have to say Political games, more commonly referred to as Court Intrigue games

Maybe I am missing the point, but I think political D&D doesn’t equal Court Intrigue, which I agree is boring.

Politics in the real world isn’t just pointless intrigue - it’s matters of state, including wars, assassinations, conflicts of all sorts that D&D could emulate.

Watching BBC World News right now, here are political stories that could work in D&D:

1) Russia investigation. You COULD play this as yawn fest Court Intrigue, or have missions like infiltrating the enemy embassy to get dirt on the evil King you think is a traitor, or breaking out the loyal general who is framed by the evil Inquistor who is working for the WitchQueen who the new King defeated (depending on your POV of the real world). Politics doesn’t have to be all sitting around talking, it can get kinetic.

2) Pope in Bangladesh meeting Rohinga refugees. This could spawn adventure ideas like a mission to help refugees escape from an evil land, or to assassinate the ruler of an evil ethnic cleansing dictator, or to protect a religious leader from assassins. All very political, but nothing about a check to see if you remembered which fork to use with endives at dinner.

3) Brexit negotiations. EU says Ireland gets to decide on the border issue of Northern Ireland & Ireland. The history of war and Troubles in Ireland has MANY potential missions for PC’s. I’ve used elements of Irish political history in two campaigns. There can be Court Intrigue, with the Game of Thrones tag line: When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.

4) Missing Argentine submarine. Multiple countries had been searching, now giving up. I’ve sent PC’s on rescue missions many times. A race against parties from other countries could add intrigue, along a race against time.

5) Prince Harry & his fiancé are in Nottingham for their first public appearance together. If a princess-bride-to-be visiting Nottingham with her dashing veteran Prince doesn’t give you adventure ideas, what does?

 

[Erechel]

This is a great post. I agree 100% with the parts I quoted.

Where I differ is on the use of rules for Reputation, Influence, etc. I do that strictly through role playing.

Don't misunderstand me. I appreciate what you are saying, but I differ from a thing you are saying: Role playing and using rules aren't at odds. Rules give consistency to roleplay, and don't replace it. Using the rules actually encourage smart thinking, as rules give an opportunity both to succeed and to fail. I you know that you only can ask anything to a king if you have a certain threshold of Renown, the players could be very creative to attain it. Renown is gained via adventure, wealth or rumours, and from any other source that could position the character in the political ground. Influence could be gained via making favors or presents to powerful figures. All of them could be gathered as resources for a goal. But these resources don't automatically reset after a night of sleep. Using number and thresholds gives you a mainframe, a measure of the achievements of the characters.

But also, you can't allow people rolling dice randomly or pick a skill and say "I use Intimidation to gather information; I rolled a 20". Believe it or not, it goes against the rules of 5e: the character say what they are doing and how, and the DM assigns the check and DC accordingly.

In a campaign recently finished where I was the DM, we include a lot of political intrigue. The most prominent characters were the rogue (an assassin and proficient con man with the Outlander background) and the half orc paladin, who got a lot of mileage using his soldier background. The Noble elven wizard faded to the backyard, even with fairly high Charisma (18, the highest in the party) because no one trusted a charming wizard. She still was the one invited to the parties and clearance to the court. We tracked resources (several maneuverings, minor adventures as a royal hunt and information gathering, favors, etc) to be actually heard at the King's council, who was to declare official an anti-magic religion.

They gathered renown, influence and information as I've said, and they actually felt like winning when the king said that they are a free religious state,even when the church was a staple on the King's new power. Of course, the church tried to overthrow and assassinate the king afterwards,to place a puppet government. All of this was a combination of crunch and roleplay, and was a dynamic and fun campaign.

Enviado desde mi XT1063 mediante Tapatalk

 

[Ilbranteloth]

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. 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.

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.

My campaigns are a mix of political, criminal, and good old dungeon crawls. Really I throw a bit of everything out there and let the players decide where things go. My campaigns tend to be low-leveled as well, but that always works out fine. Having less healing means they address combat and such a bit more cautiously, but that's fine.

For all campaigns, my first recommendation is that you need to ground the characters in the world. They should have families, friends, businesses or jobs. They have bills and they have to pay them somehow. In a more feudal approach, they have work that must be done, etc. Regardless, the more they are tied into the world around them, the more motivations they'll have.

For the political stuff, it's all about setting up layers, and not having an end-game predetermined. So you have several groups, each with a group goal, a leader, and a few important people further down the line. They will have their own personal goals, which may not always align with all of the goals of the organization. That's an important fact, because the PCs will need to find things they can leverage within the organization.

Nothing in my campaign is set in stone until it occurs in the campaign. So Organization #1 might have a goal to establish an illegal smuggling route into the city. Then you just need to determine where they are now. Several merchants are working the local taverns to find guards they can get on their payroll to look the other way when they are entering or leaving the city. You can determine a time period where that will happen, determine it randomly, or leave it open-ended.

Organization #2 is a thieves' guild that wants to have a better sense as to where the good marks are. They are in the process of placing a few of their people within the guard themselves. That way they can report back who they should target.

Organization #3 is the guard themselves. They, of course, are attempting to prevent illegal stuff from going on. However, one of the captains is corrupt. Instead of reporting illegal activities he and his men find, he's extorting them. If they discover contraband, they are actively soliciting payments to keep quiet. Furthermore, he doesn't want anybody else encroaching on his racket.

That's some of what's going on in the background. These three groups have a high likelihood of intersecting amongst themselves. So then it's a question of when, how, and what the interactions and meddling from the PCs do to those trajectories. If they do something to oust the corrupt captain, it probably opens up opportunities for the other two groups. Playing the groups against each other is very effective, as is finding somebody on the inside who isn't happy with their lot.

As time goes on, you decide when it's time to advance the background activity. The actions the PCs have been taking should have an impact here. You determine the impact, or you can do it randomly with modifiers, whatever. The actions of the PCs should be able to foil plots, and sometimes set back entire organizations significantly. But there should always be something bigger that they discover, like peeling layers of an onion. Each discovery leads to something more.

I also prefer to have some very large and powerful organizations that are too big to drop entirely. Like the Zhentarim in the Realms, the Nazis in Indiana Jones, S.P.E.C.T.R.E in Bond. The point is, they'll be defeating individual plots and villains, but some (not all) of the future plots will relate back to earlier ones.

Try to provide at least 3 clues for any mystery, and I find that for important things a written handout (letter, journal entry, etc.) is extremely helpful. It also gives you the opportunity to be more subtle since they can keep going back to it. Also, it's not so much about figuring out exactly what you were thinking. One of the reasons why things aren't pre-planned in my campaign is I have no idea what the players are going to do. So you need to be able to handle some improv (I have lots of little snippets of ideas and information), and be prepared to use their input in the direction of the campaign.

 

[haakon1]

Don't misunderstand me. I appreciate what you are saying, but I differ from a thing you are saying: Role playing and using rules aren't at odds. Rules give consistency to roleplay, and don't replace it. Using the rules actually encourage smart thinking, as rules give an opportunity both to succeed and to fail.

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.