Political Intrigue and Such

[DMFTodd]

My current campaign has the following going on:

* The PCs are Lords of a small town. They have lumber they can sell and have arranged for other economic things to happen. How do you determine income/losses?

* A large city the PCs adventure in is controlled by a council of 5 people. The PCs are helping one of these councilmembers and his "power" is growing: He's acquired wealth, military might, etc. How you do determine how "powerful" this councilmember is to the others? How do you determine when he takes over the council for himself?

* A couple PCs are clerics and are actively trying to promote their church in the town. How do you gauge the "power" of their church to the others? How do you decide to increase/decrease the power of the church.

How do you handle what happens with these different entities? I suppose one answer to this is "make it up". I'm kind of an anal rules-lawyer/game mechanic nut though so I'm looking for some rules I could use, some dice that could be rolled to play these things out. I'm thinking all 3 of these situations would be handled by the same rules. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Hand of Evil]

I use levels for NPCs, call them nobles/lords or something else based around a prestige class. The higher the level the more powerful the NPC. Benefits: reconiztion, command, get out of jail free, type of stuff.

 

[DanMcS]

How do you handle what happens with these different entities? I suppose one answer to this is "make it up". I'm kind of an anal rules-lawyer/game mechanic nut though so I'm looking for some rules I could use, some dice that could be rolled to play these things out.

Kind of?

You could look at the draft 3e rules for Birthright. Check http://www.birthright.net/ Even if you don't like the bloodline stuff from original BR, they did a reasonably good job of writing the domain rules so they're independant of that.

 

[LostSoul]

My current campaign has the following going on:

* The PCs are Lords of a small town. They have lumber they can sell and have arranged for other economic things to happen. How do you determine income/losses?

* A large city the PCs adventure in is controlled by a council of 5 people. The PCs are helping one of these councilmembers and his "power" is growing: He's acquired wealth, military might, etc. How you do determine how "powerful" this councilmember is to the others? How do you determine when he takes over the council for himself?

* A couple PCs are clerics and are actively trying to promote their church in the town. How do you gauge the "power" of their church to the others? How do you decide to increase/decrease the power of the church.

How do you handle what happens with these different entities? I suppose one answer to this is "make it up". I'm kind of an anal rules-lawyer/game mechanic nut though so I'm looking for some rules I could use, some dice that could be rolled to play these things out. I'm thinking all 3 of these situations would be handled by the same rules. Anybody have any suggestions?

It could be as simple as a skill check vs. a DC.

For your first example you might use a Profession check. If the PCs want to delegate the responsibility, let them make a Diplomacy check and then roll the NPC's Profession check.

For the second, you could give the NPC a number of Diplomacy and Bluff checks to make, and throw in some Sense Motive checks to see if he notices what the other councilmembers are doing. To decide when the NPC takes over the council, you can either set up a "gauntlet" of checks (first he has to hit DC 15, then 20, then 25, etc.), or just say that he needs to make a high DC check, and all the other failed ones (if they're high enough) give him a bonus.

For the third, I'd use Diplomacy again. If you're having the churches jockey for position, have them make checks against each other. Maybe do something like a "playoff" situation, where two churches face each other, then the winner faces another winner, etc. Or you could just let the Diplomacy rolls sit and evaluate the position after the month based on that roll and where each started.