Political Intrigue?

[Rel]

You can actually use intrigue as means to set up the sort of over the top action that I like to have included in D&D games. I wish I had an example at hand, but it's getting late over here.

Lemme help you out with that by referring folks to my Story Hour (link in sig). Yes, this is a blatant plug, but I am HEAVILY in the midst of the political intrigue right now and it is all leading up to some wild battles against unlikely foes with a big finale. So I figure it's applicable.

 

[painandgreed]

I would disagree with fighters and wizards only being useful in the endgame. A major coponent of political intrigue will be the pople who control the politics, and that will be the fighters, clerics, and wizards, not the theives and bards. Social standing will be an important consideration and the fighters and wizards will normally be at the top of the chain of command. The low born theif cannot accuse the duke of wrong doing, he must go inform the high born fighter so the fighter can do it. Wizards advantages are obvious as with a careful selection of spells, they can do many things in the realm of politcal intrigue such as charm or invisibility.

 

[takyris]

I would disagree with fighters and wizards only being useful in the endgame. A major coponent of political intrigue will be the pople who control the politics, and that will be the fighters, clerics, and wizards, not the theives and bards. Social standing will be an important consideration and the fighters and wizards will normally be at the top of the chain of command.

How do you figure? I can see the wizard as an advisor or the fighter as a general, but unless you're using house or variant rules to get additional class skills or some such, a single-classed fighter or wizard is a lousy choice for political power. No Sense Motive, no Diplomacy, no Bluff. Not a lot of intrigue potential there. The only way a single-class core Fighter stays in power is if he's got a rogue or bard working behind the scenes to keep him there -- in which case, how much power does the fighter really have? He's not in charge. He's on the fast-track to Tragic Hero-land as soon as the bard/rogue decides that it's time for our glorious leader to become a martyr and change the tune.

I mean, if we're going by fantasy fiction, yeah, lots of fighters and wizards in charge. But in fantasy fiction, the fighters and wizards who are in charge are more likely to be multiclassed with a few rogue levels tossed in -- and are then a few levels higher than the PCs in order to be as powerful a wizard as the PC wizard while still being able to manipulate people and work the intrigue angle well enough to stay in power.

The low born theif cannot accuse the duke of wrong doing, he must go inform the high born fighter so the fighter can do it.

Why is the rogue low-born and the fighter high-born? That's one possible way to do it, of course, but by no means the only way. If I'm playing a high-born noble who is used to working the political scene, ain't no way you're gonna get me to play a core Fighter. Variant Fighter who loses heavy armor proficiency and first-level feat for more skill points, while trading Climb and Craft for Diplomacy and Sense Motive -- yes. Core Fighter multiclassed with Rogue or Bard -- yes. Core Rogue that I play as a cunning duelist rather than a hack-and-slash master -- yes. Core fighter all by himself? No.

Wizards advantages are obvious as with a careful selection of spells, they can do many things in the realm of politcal intrigue such as charm or invisibility.

Agree here, definitely. The difference is that the bard can do a lot of the same stuff, and he also gets skills that help more directly. Of course, the wizard can do those things earlier and more often. It's a tradeoff.

But in a core D&D campaign, the big people in power are going to a) not be charmable, either because they ain't human or because they've got protective magic or wards; b) be able to detect enchantments on their minions, likely by having a circlet that continuously detects magic or a wizard advisor who notes that "the steward radiates enchantment -- our enemies have likely compromised him"; c) have access to magic of the same sort, or at the very least have social structures in place that make such magic very limited.

If you run a game that you treat as low magic (ie, your castle is a historically accurate castle with no magical wards, the king's elite guards have no magical items or protections against enchantment, and the best detection you have against glamered or invisible people is trained watchdogs), your high-magic PCs are going to walk all over the kingdom. A political intrigue game run with D&D definitely requires that the bad guys have enough magical mojo to block divinations and put out their own enchantments or illusions as necessary.

I agree that wizards, clerics, and fighters aren't useless. When I said "endgame", I was thinking, generally, of "once the course of action has been decided upon, and it's time to go on a mission". That's not just every once in awhile -- that's pretty regular. They're not useless by any stretch, and I apologize for misspeaking. However, I'd stand by the notion that, unless the DM takes steps to keep them in the game, the core, single-class fighters, wizards, and clerics are likely to be the folks who respond to developments in the game, rather than the folks who uncover the developments or the folks who actually create those developments in the first place.

That's a fine game role -- the party bard or rogue finds out about the conspiracy and says, "Here's the sitch," the party cleric does some moral thinking and comes up with a good solution, and the party wizard and fighter use tactical thinking to come up with the best way to get the result that the cleric wants, based on the information the rogue obtained. (I put the cleric in front because he's got the direct line to the gods; if you want moral justification in a political intrigue game, the cleric is as good a justifier as anything.)

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Games with lots of intrigue are some of the most fun to actually play. However, if you are a newbie at it, be very careful. Do not create a plot so complicated that it weights down the entire campaigh and confuses everyone. Also, since there is little fighting between the 'intriguists' (otherwise they would not be where they are) make sure you have a group that finds this kind of thing fun.

 

[barsoomcore]

To those seeking reading material/background/ideas on political intrigue:

Read the newspaper. Or, rather, read The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly and other in-depth newsmagazines. Read history -- John Keegan's The First World War, or Thucydide's The Pelopennesian War.

Our world has more political intrigue going on in it than any fantasy series can ever supply you with.

And of course your players will ignore it if they can -- they'll ignore EVERYTHING if they can. You job is to make the politics of your world AFFECT your players. If it has no consequences for them, they are correct to ignore it. If it does have consequence, best believe they'll start paying attention.

Oh, and Tacky, that was an excellent post, but I just wanted to say that in a TRULY political intriguey campaign, there's no moral justification available -- because the gods themselves are simply trying to advance their own interests. They're no more moral than anyone else.

 

[takyris]

Point taken. Point taken excellently.

It occured to me after I posted that that, in my big long campaign from a few years ago, the PCs eventually realized that the demonic horrors were made from the shattered form of one proto-God, and the gods were made from the shattered form of another proto-God. They were fighting because one of the proto-Gods had slain a third, and the other two had fought, resulting in both being shattered.

The PCs learned just prior to the last big fight that the proto-God that had become their own gods was the murderer, not the defender. The horrific abominations, while terrible and strange and malevolent, were descended from a creature that was trying to avenge its brother's murder.

(heh, heh, heh. yeah, they loved that bit)

 

[barsoomcore]

Yeah, Barsoom's very similar.

Very very few people ever set out to be bad guys and do bad stuff. Most people try really really hard to do GOOD stuff -- but not everyone agrees on the definition of GOOD. So the big bads of Barsoom are mostly people who were honestly trying their hardest to save the world from some perceived threat, and were willing to go so far that they did terrible things to people in the name of their greater good. And MAYBE they were right to do so.

As DM, I don't try to judge who the bad guys are. I just try to determine what these various individuals, given their world-views, are likely to do next in order to achieve their goals. Which is often something like, "Try to sacrifice every individual in the nation of Caedmon in order to generate enough power to prevent the Outer Gods from penetrating our world." But from the player's point of view, it looks like "Crazy bad guy is killing innocents! Let's stop him!" And in fact, crazy bad guy IS killing innocents, so that much is true. It's that from crazy bad guy's point of view, sacrificing these innocents is necessary to save the world.

My players hate me. But they keep coming back.

 

[painandgreed]

How do you figure?
<SNIP>
Why is the rogue low-born and the fighter high-born?

Well, everything depends on your campaign setting of course, but beyond PC "I would play this because of that", the nobles in a medieval world are most likely going to be fighters. That's where the prestige is and when it does come down to the endgame and armies march, it's going to be the nobles leading them. Nobels are going to raise their kids to be fighter types generally. In a fuedal/medieval society where the land is owned by the fighter types because he can take/defend it by force of arms and economy and wealth are mostly based upon land based agriculture, its that type that is going to rule and have the prestige. While such skills as a thief or bard has are good at coming up with information, I think social standing, breeding, reputation, and the social circles one travels in will be just as helpful if not more so in gaining information. If you're playing something in the more Early Modern flavor (which most D&D games seem to have elements in) or some strange setting (which also includes most D&D settings simply due to existence of magic), then all bets are off as to what nobles would or wouldn't be.

Of course, he's going to have theives (sorry, I mean rogues) and the type working for him, especially in a fantasy world. Of course, there's all sorts of tales of suchy advisers taking control of the country because they had the information. Of course, there's also all sorts of tales of such advisers getting their heads lopped off because they did so or tried to.

It's a good point about said skills and varient rules. If you're running such a campaign to begin with, coming up with such rules will probably be necisary since the D&D rules do a pretty piss poor job at most things besides combat (IMHO). The rules aren't set up for a political intrigue game, or any sort fo game besides combat really. You could use the rules and assign CR levels to various intrigues, but the experience rules pretty much dwell only on combat (again IMHO). I happen to be working on some such rules right now for my campaign and I'd like to thank you for offering me the solution to something I was thinking of. I have some feats for various social standings (under a rules thread called Social Standing) that seemed a little weak. Now I think such feats will make some of the mentioned skills class skills, reguardless of class.

But in a core D&D campaign, the big people in power are going to a) not be charmable, either because they ain't human or because they've got protective magic or wards; b) be able to detect enchantments on their minions, likely by having a circlet that continuously detects magic or a wizard advisor who notes that "the steward radiates enchantment -- our enemies have likely compromised him"; c) have access to magic of the same sort, or at the very least have social structures in place that make such magic very limited.

I'm sure that a thread on how to use various spells and magic items in a campaign of politcal intrigue would quickly dwarf this one. Suffice to say that both sides are going to require spell casters and the ones without them are going to be a big disadvantage.

Back to "what is political intrigue?" I'm surprised nobody has offered any movies as examples. Most of the priod things I can think of would be romance type things such as Dangerous Laisons. I'm sure there must be a Shakespear play or two that fit.

 

[takyris]

Well, everything depends on your campaign setting of course, but beyond PC "I would play this because of that", the nobles in a medieval world are most likely going to be fighters. That's where the prestige is and when it does come down to the endgame and armies march, it's going to be the nobles leading them.

If you build a campaign like that, sure. No offense -- a campaign where Fighters get all the prestige is fine. But the way you're saying it, it sounds like you consider this a basic assumption, and I don't share that.

I might agree with you that the nobles in a real medieval world are going to be fighters, but in a world where D&D monsters roam the landscape and D&D spells are available for use and D&D gods are as clear and present as they are, I don't buy Mister "I get lots of combat feats and several iterative attacks" as the most prestigious of classes by a long shot. A cleric, wizard, or druid can "take or defend by force" a land just as well as a fighter, if not more so. If the economy is based on agriculture, the druid and cleric can wipe the fighter up and down the economic landscape, given that a druid or cleric leader can quite literally make his people's fields healthier and richer.

While such skills as a thief or bard has are good at coming up with information, I think social standing, breeding, reputation, and the social circles one travels in will be just as helpful if not more so in gaining information.

How so, if you don't mind me asking? Is it because the young nobles are just inherently better at getting information (ie, they've taken some feat like "Noble Birth", from Babylon 5's d20 game, which gives advantages like this), or is it because they've had a lot of training in how to seize alliances, discover dissent before it spreads, keep friends and discomfort enemies, and generally practice in all those skills that come in handy in courtroom politics?

I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that the rogue has lousy flavor text, and I don't buy trap-searching for them... but I could easily see a swap-out rogue, a rogue who doesn't use those skills, or a bard. The bard even more so, because the bard has training in the noble's weapons but not the soldier's weapons, has a lot of the noble's skills (plus a few others), can inspire his troops to greatness in the heat of battle, and knows "Court Magic", the magic that messes with minds and does subtle tricks instead of blowing up random bits of scenery.

Not single-class, necessarily, but then, I'm a multiclassing snob. I can see a bard/fighter making a great warrior prince, or a rogue/paladin making a holy and good man who is also really really good at being diplomatic, sensing the tricks of others, and so forth.

You could use the rules and assign CR levels to various intrigues, but the experience rules pretty much dwell only on combat (again IMHO). I happen to be working on some such rules right now for my campaign and I'd like to thank you for offering me the solution to something I was thinking of. I have some feats for various social standings (under a rules thread called Social Standing) that seemed a little weak. Now I think such feats will make some of the mentioned skills class skills, reguardless of class.

Cool. Bouncing ideas off each other is always good for making new ideas.

And d20 Modern (the book, not the SRD) has some good stuff about calculating XP rewards for encounters that don't include combat. As does the d20 CoC book, if I recall correctly. It's not about how you solve the problem, it's about solving the problem.

 

[Mystery Man]

Do be careful with the layers of intrigue; too many, and the players may just say, "$#(*& it! Kill them all, and take all their stuff!"

Or maybe that's just my group.

No it's not just your group.