Political scheming for the good guys?

[Jon_Dahl]

Can you help me out with this dilemma?
In my game there is Neutral Good religion (Pelor) which is suffering from a religious schism. The Lawful Good revisionist sect says that all temples should follow The One True Leader which is the "Pope". The Neutral Good conservative sect says that all temples should remain independent, forming a nationwide coalition.

Now the Pope is visiting one particularly stubborn Neutral Good temple. The problem is that I'm having problems trying to find a way how to play this NPC, "the Pope". I don't want to be too rough, since they are all good guys but if I'm too soft, I feel that I fail to represent a smart and charismatic NPC who obviously has a plan how to persuade the temple to follow him.

If you have any good ideas what would be the right approach, I'd like to hear them. I have to prepare a dialogue-heavy session in few days and I'm really, really busy, so any help would be appreciate. Thanks!

 

[Asmo]

In what way are the players invested in this?

Asmo

 

[Jon_Dahl]

In what way are the players invested in this?

Asmo

First I need to establish the negotiation tactics for the Pope. After this I can decide the reaction of the temple. Then the situation is presented to the players and they can choose sides, work against both parties, do as they please or simply forget about it, in a sort of sandbox-ish way.

 

[Dioltach]

Think of a way in which the Pope will try to convince the authorities at the temple to support him: despite the rational public debate, this will generally involve bribery and blackmail, or a combination of both ("This is my offer: I recommend that you accept it, otherwise people might find out about ...").

Next, consider what the temple will be giving up, or what values will be compromised. The bigger the bribe or the more serious the blackmail, the more the temple will be compromised.

See how the PCs feel about the outcome. Then offer them possibilities for some political manouevering of their own: They might uncover proof of the bribery and have the temple leaders deposed and replaced by stricter or less corruptible leaders. They might find something else to blackmail the leaders with, to force them to reject the Pope's offer. And so on.

I've been rewatching the HBO series Rome recently, and it has some nice examples of how bribery works.

Caesar to Chief Augur: "I'm afraid I missed your charming wife's last birthday. Perhaps I could send her a gift to make up. How about 100,000 sestertii?
Chief Augur: "Well, that would certainly be a start ..."
Caeser: "Then 150,000 sestertii."
Chief Augur: "My wife has expensive tastes."
Marc Antony: "Your wife should be careful that she does not become greedy."
Chief Augur: "Ah."

 

[Gilladian]

I should think that the "Pope" would try to find out things about the individuals he's dealing with, their psychological weaknesses, etc... and their own internal loyalties.

Imagine that this specific temple has a high priest and a next-in-line priest. The HP has been in power forever. He's OLD, but in very good health and very mentally alert. He's got more than half of the underpriests in his basket. He's FIRMLY against "The Pope". Why? He's got his bread and butter. He gains nothing by joining the new order. But the underpriest, who has been waiting in the wings for 20 years to have a chance to be the REAL leader, is tired, fed up, and feels undervalued. He has some changes he would like to make, that he truly believes will benefit many in the church, and he has a goodly number of followers. But he, too, is not in favor of "The Pope", as things stand.

But the clever and resourceful "Pope" can exploit the jealousy he finds, turning the underpriest to his side, if he strikes the right note; "Join me- we can make the changes you want, together! And in the end, how much control do you lose? You become high priest, we pension the old guy off, claim he's going senile, and you run the church. I'll be many many miles from here; you will be the one in REAL power, here!"

 

[Nagol]

Perhaps the pope controls resources necessary for the temple to continue that could theoretically be used better elsewhere. An argument the "pope" is more likely to consider unless there are extenuating cirsumstances for the temple -- like helping extinguish the schism by becoming a shining example of conversion?

Perhaps the leaders of the temple could be offer more value to the population by working in the leper colony the pope is thinking of establishing.

Perhaps the temple is no longer situated in the best spot to serve to population and the "pope" is planning to construct a new one with new staff a few miles away? He can be convinced to stop/use the current staff if he felt there was a demonstration of loyalty and appropriate adherence to values?

Perhaps the "pope" is personally investigating the shocking SHOCKING allegations of abuse brought to his attention. He deplores the action, but he is attempting to determine if any evidence exists that would sadly require a public airing of the charges. He is certain the allegations will prove false, but the integrity of the process demands a full public spectacle -- unless there is some other way to quell his doubt?

 

[Hand of Evil]

First - define what Pelor sees as "lawful good" in your game world, what are the gods goals.

Second - define the powers and the agenda of the NPC, just 3 to 5 bullet items, such as...

• Unify the Temples under one leader
• Establish a centralized governing council of temples
• Adjust dogma to support 1) no marriage of priest 2) lesser role of women 3) Land entitlements from priest (gain land if priest is of noble birth and becomes the only son)
• Elimination of opposition - number of ways this can be done and remain good. Simplest, holy war against the foes of the god Pelor. Death means, replacements and re-assignments. Not with us, you must be against us. Or, I need you to run the Temple on the border lands and Brother Brown-Nose will be taking over here.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'd suggest giving the PCs a "good" enemy who is perhaps a step or two below the Pope, to serve as a stepping stone to the higher level machinations. For example, maybe the Pope's designated leader of the militant arm is a paladin of great renown, but that paladin is also absolute, inflexible, and dictatorial (play up the worst "Lawful Stupid" crusader-type you can think of). The head paladin might be more extreme than the Pope, perhaps arresting "heretics" without evidence but his "detect evil" power, holding summary judgments, etc., and the Pope is failing to rein him in. Part of what the PCs could be doing is identifying and arguing against these more extreme activities.

The Pope's side can be arguing that to keep purity of thought a single, united message must stem from a single source; the other side can be arguing that there are more interpretations than the central one. And so on.

 

[ComradeGnull]

Given that the splinter faction is LG, they will be very receptive and interested in allegations of rule-breaking, or indications that there is an existing tradition or history that should resolve the issue. The Church of Pelor must have enemies- and those enemies might find a way to present radical elements within the LG faction with evidence that there is some sort of Pelor-ordained order that is being violated- a forged copy of an ancient book or proclamation establishing that Pelor's representatives in the Prime Material had previously ordained that the church should be more organized and centralized. As a LG faction, the LG Pelorites would be unlikely to try to initiate a new, radical re-org, but could easily be convinced that they were 'bringing back' an early form of the church that had fallen into decay.

(This is the way that real reform movements in religious groups almost always work- they claim they are 're-discovering' something or 'returning to their roots')

This gives the Pope a clear rationale for why he would want to bring everything under his control, while still remaining a good guy. As the protector of the divine law of Pelor, he has no choice but to attempt to uphold the divine commandments that he has been given. His faction is 100% convinced that what they think they are trying to do is restore an earlier order that collapsed during a degenerate era- they are being conservative and orderly, not radical and rebellious.

As a LG guy, the Pope can focus his maneuvering on the tenets of the church and accord with history- maybe he is an expert on earlier history, and so truly believes that the church used to be more centralized and Lawful. He's going to bring up any incidents of the NG church helping non-Lawful beings (healing bandits, renegades, and criminals and other compassionate acts that don't end with the offender facing justice) and point out that they are potentially harming innocents by taking a soft stand with the outside world. If there is some legitimate threat that some NG temples have fallen out of favor with Pelor or have become corrupt, that bolsters his argument.

Meanwhile, the players can focus on trying to prove/disprove the historical evidence for the 'commandments' the LG guys are so excited about- tracking down who gave what to who, who it came from, trying to trace it back to its origin. Maybe the person who forged it sends the players on a wild goose chase to some ancient temple (now conveniently infested with baddies) that he claims was the source of the documents he gave to the LG faction- but instead they find something that says just the opposite, or evidence that the forgery is a fake.

 

[Rune]

Can you help me out with this dilemma?
In my game there is Neutral Good religion (Pelor) which is suffering from a religious schism. The Lawful Good revisionist sect says that all temples should follow The One True Leader which is the "Pope". The Neutral Good conservative sect says that all temples should remain independent, forming a nationwide coalition.

First of all, I like the setup, but isn't conservation an inherently lawful tendency and revision an inherently chaotic one?

Now the Pope is visiting one particularly stubborn Neutral Good temple. The problem is that I'm having problems trying to find a way how to play this NPC, "the Pope". I don't want to be too rough, since they are all good guys but if I'm too soft, I feel that I fail to represent a smart and charismatic NPC who obviously has a plan how to persuade the temple to follow him.

If you have any good ideas what would be the right approach, I'd like to hear them. I have to prepare a dialogue-heavy session in few days and I'm really, really busy, so any help would be appreciate. Thanks!

Is the Pope elected from a field of Cardinals by his peers? If so, how do the Cardinals fit into this schism? Is it like the historical chism within the Catholic Church, when there were actually two Popes? are the Cardinals divided between the two sides?

Or is the entire structure new, and the Neutral Good side is resisting it?

In the case of a division among Cardinals, the Pope should really be consolidating his power among them, not converting churches at the bottom of the hierarchy. If, on the other hand, such a hierarchy is not universal, visiting individual churches to convert them to his cause makes a lot more sense.

In either case, you want to look to politicians for your inspiration. When consolidating power among other political figures, he'll want to cut deals, posture, and undermine his fellows to whatever extent a politician of his alignment would be inclined to do so.

If consolidating power among the churches, he is more likely to want to strike a populist stance and grandstand.

Being Lawful Good, he will no doubt fully intend to keep any promise he makes, if at all possible, but don't discount even a lawful good character's ability to rationalize when faced with difficult decisions.