D&D 5E Swaying a Crowd of NPCs

[iserith]

Honestly, this is more of a math question than anything else. My brain is tired today and I can't seem to come up with a decent answer. So I'm hoping you math-inclined folks can help me with prep for a one-shot scenario.

Imagine a social interaction challenge where two NPCs are trying to claim the throne of a dying king. The succession goes to the one who can sway the majority of a set number of NPCs - or PCs - to their respective sides. The scenario starts with some, but not all, of the NPCs having decided and it's currently an even split between the two vying for the throne. Others remain undecided. At the start of the scenario, the PCs are effectively undecided as well.

However, the PCs may just decide that one of their party members deserves to be the next ruler instead of the two NPCs making the claim. They would have to get a majority of the NPCs (less the other two claimants who won't support a PC without being magically compelled) to come to their side.

The goal here is to have the players interact with NPCs to convince them to side with one claimant or another. It's easier to sway someone who is undecided and harder to convince someone who has already decided. I don't want it the players to be able to just throw the party's weight behind one claimant or the other in order to turn the tide. Some convincing of additional NPCs is desirable otherwise the scene falls a little flat in my view. There are three basic outcomes: one claimant or the other is proclaimed the new ruler or one of the PCs is.

I currently have 16 NPCs in the scene (plus the two claimants) plus 5 PCs. The number of NPCs can change - I settled on that number as being a tough, but manageable fight should hostilities break out. I feel like convincing about three to five NPCs is "right," in terms of the difficulty and real time allotment of the challenge, but I can be moved off that position. The other claimants will seek to oppose and thwart any PC's efforts against them, effectively setting the DC and potentially imparting disadvantage to any checks. So what I need to know is the total number of NPCs and the number of decided and undecided at the start of the scene to achieve the aforementioned design goals.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. If anything wasn't clear, please let me know what I need to clarify. XP will go to everyone who contributes.

 

[Nevvur]

For clarification, do the claimants get to count a vote for themselves? With such a small number of voters, each vote is significant.

 

[iserith]

For clarification, do the claimants get to count a vote for themselves? With such a small number of voters, each vote is significant.

Good question. Can we look at the math behind a scenario where they can and where they can't and then decide which is better?

 

[77IM]

You have 21 total votes (16 NPC + 5 PC) so a simple majority is 11 votes. If you DON'T want all 5 PCs to vote as a block and settle the issue right away, that means at most 5 votes can be decided in either direction, with 6 undecideds. However, that means the PCs would only have to convince one person! if you want them to convince 3-5 NPCs, then at most 0-2 NPCs can begin the game decided, with the remaining 12-16 being undecided. That's a lot of undecideds.

I recommend you shift the focus to investigation: Make it unclear which NPCs are already decided, so that the PCs have to figure that out. For example, on each side there is 1 declared NPC and another 4 NPCs who are pretty much decided but the PCs don't know that. Then there are 6 undecideds. Since the PCs know their side has 1 vote, they need to interact with at least 5 NPCs to secure an 11 vote majority -- each interaction they either convince someone to vote OR discover that the person is already voting their way. It's likely they'll interact with more than 5, since some NPCs will be discovered to already be decided against them.

If the PCs want to nominate a third candidate (one of their own, perhaps) then they have 5 votes already but still need 6 more. There are 6 undecideds they can try to convince, plus they might (with more effort) be able to sway one of the partisans. So having a PC claim the throne is a possibility, but is a little bit harder than going with an established candidate.

 

[77IM]

I'm assuming PCs can vote. If they can't, the math is similar. With 16 votes, you need 9 for a simple majority. If you want the PCs to convince 3-5 NPCs, that means each side should initially have 4-6 decided voters, with 4-8 undecideds.

If it's not known how many are decided ahead of time, you want to have at least 2 undecideds so that the PCs can sway the vote, but likely more. For example, if each side has 1 declared NPC and another 5 who are undeclared (but secretly decided), and then there are 4 undecided in the middle, the PCs only need to convince 3 of the 4 undecideds to vote their way, but may still need to interact with more NPCs than that in order to discover that they have the votes they need.

If you want PC claimants to be a possibility, they'll need to build up to 9 votes, which is MUCH harder if there are fewer undecideds. If you go with the example in the previous paragraph, the PCs need to convince all 4 undecideds, PLUS sway 5 of the partisans! But instead, say each side has 1 declared NPC and 2 undeclared (but decided) leaving 12 undecided NPCs; that's enough undecideds for the PCs to secure 9 votes for their claimant. However it means getting an NPC claimant up to 9 is going to take much longer (6 persuasions).

 

[77IM]

One way to make it easier for a PC to press a claim is to have some of the decided voters be reluctant -- they are not really voting "for" their candidate as much as they are voting against the other one! Once a PC enters the scene, they effectively become "undecided."

For example, suppose there are 6 decided voters on each side, plus 4 undecided. The PCs can support an existing claimant by merely convincing 3 of the undecideds. BUT suppose half the decided voters are reluctant; once a PC announces their claim, suddenly there are only 3 voters on each side, and 10 undecideds -- enough for the PCs to secure the 9-vote majority. Even better, you could have some of the undecided NPCs automatically switch to the PC. Let's say all 4 switch and support the PC, then you only need another 5 votes to put a PC on the throne.

So electing a PC would still be a bit harder than an NPC, but doable.

 

[iserith]

I recommend you shift the focus to investigation: Make it unclear which NPCs are already decided, so that the PCs have to figure that out. For example, on each side there is 1 declared NPC and another 4 NPCs who are pretty much decided but the PCs don't know that. Then there are 6 undecideds. Since the PCs know their side has 1 vote, they need to interact with at least 5 NPCs to secure an 11 vote majority -- each interaction they either convince someone to vote OR discover that the person is already voting their way. It's likely they'll interact with more than 5, since some NPCs will be discovered to already be decided against them.

I like this idea in general, but I'm concerned with real time. I feel like this could take up more time than I can allot to this one scene due to this being a one-shot. I'm going to bank it for a future challenge though for sure.

If the PCs want to nominate a third candidate (one of their own, perhaps) then they have 5 votes already but still need 6 more. There are 6 undecideds they can try to convince, plus they might (with more effort) be able to sway one of the partisans. So having a PC claim the throne is a possibility, but is a little bit harder than going with an established candidate.

In my head I settled on PCs nominating one of their own as the hardest path to success compared to just supporting one or the other existing candidates. So we're on the same page here.

 

[Satyrn]

In my head I settled on PCs nominating one of their own as the hardest path to success compared to just supporting one or the other existing candidates. So we're on the same page here.

One non-Math way to make it harder for a PC candidate to win leadership is to accuse him of sexual miscondu- wait, that's what's happening in my province.

What I mean to say is, if there's a 3rd candidate you can immediately make the path to victory harder by breaking it into 2 rounds. Like, say, unless a candidate in the 3-way race wins with a unanimous decision, the top two candidates move on to a second round of voting. And in this second, if the PC candidate makes it through, you could have the voters lin the lean heavily toward the established NDP NPC over the PC. So now their work swaying the crowd will be even tougher.

Sure, this will add real time, but since it's about the players' personal victory it'll probably be worth it, I think, and it will only make it more involved if the players choose that path.


(Ontario political jokes probably won't go over well here)

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I would try and keep things mechanically simple and dramatically strong:

Summary

1) Claimants get a chance to prepare.
2) Claimants get to try and capture the crowd's support.
3) Claimants get a chance to react.


- increase the number of NPCs in the crowd, purely for flavour reasons. 30-40, a nice crowd. Out of that number, only 15 or so can be ready to capable of fighting/willing to risk their lives. The rest can flee.

- Don't worry about determining how many of the the crowd support/resist/are undecided. Keep it abstract. There's a bunch of folks for, against and everyone grumbles into their beers when things are said. And unless the PCs fancy polling the crowd, the exact numbers are not going to be known anyway..

- reveal the two NPC claimants to Kingship.

- have the PCs declare which claimant they will back. If they decided to support one of their own party members, good stuff, claimant 3 has entered the game.

- Phase 1: Setup: Before any public gestures/antics, give the players the chance to meddle. They might make promises, bribe other claimants, buff theirs with spells. Usual D&D shenanigans.

- Phase 2: Delivery: Have each claimant address the crowd of NPCs by making a Performance check. This is classic political delivery - Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation are great for one-on-one social actions. Here, we want folks to work the crowd, to entertain, delight, enthrall, command and so on. Highest roll wins, with the claimant becoming the 'Winner'. In the case of a comically, ''Nobody rolling above a 5...'', go with it. Sometimes we choose the best of the worst... Narrate the crowd's reaction as appropriate and depending on the style of monarchy this might be the point where they all shout, "Claimant X for King! Whoop!'. Or not.

- Phase 3: Fallout: Ask each claimant (ideally, secretly) if they wish to do anything to challenge the Winner. (Perhaps they'll attack them. Perhaps not.) They might even try to Persuade/Deceive/Intimidate the other claimants. Perhaps they can bait a fellow claimant into a fight or cow them into submission. The important thing to communicate to the players is that the crowd has been swayed (the majority, at least) and any action by a claimant will be under intense scrutiny, with the crowd naturally favoring the Winner of Phase 2 (Advantage/Disadvantage as appropriate). Wrap up the crowd's reaction - most likely more grumbling into beers, jeering and furious nodding/head shaking.

Done. Assuming a fight has not broken out (though to be honest, with so much at stake, it probably should..) the Winner is scheduled to be crowned King. Personally I'd have the coronation scheduled to happen in a few days, so there's plenty of time for them to suffer a nasty fatal accident while alone hunting. Likewise, if you want to spin things out, have the time between Phase 1 and 2 (or even 3) be a couple of days/weeks. This should give the party a lot of time to make a complete mess of things. Such is D&D...

 

[Nevvur]

Some thoughts before getting into the maths:

1) Are the NPCs allowed to abstain from the vote? If so, you can use this to tweak the results to your liking and create the appearance of a closer call for the purpose of drama after the dice have already been rolled. On a related note, how is the vote actually performed? Anonymously or openly? Names dropped in a hat? Raising of hands?
2) If the difficulty in managing a large fight is a concern, NPCs can flee, cower, feint, stand back, or otherwise not participate in the brawl. This is assuming we're not dealing with a warrior culture and everyone has a battle axe on the table.
3) If you allow NPCs to vote in absentia (e.g. they send a sealed letter stating their vote), you can increase the number of NPC votes to whatever number makes the maths ideal for your purposes. Obviously all such votes would belong to the "decided" category. This could be useful if you end up needing or wanting more voters while keeping the number of potential combatants manageable.
4) Even if the NPCs can't or won't abstain, can the PCs? I don't know exactly how they won the right to vote in this situation or whether that's even relevant, but I'm curious to know, if you don't mind sharing?
5) I assume the PCs will all vote for the same claimant, whether its one of their own or an NPC. If that's uncertain, it becomes increasingly difficult to set an appropriate number of decided and undecided NPCs.
6) The undecided NPCs can't all be truly, 100% undecided can they? If the PCs didn't intervene, wouldn't they have at least a slight preference? If this is the case, the PCs don't even need to convince the undecided voters who would've sided with them anyway.

The more I think about it, the more I think a hard math approach to the problem isn't the right way to handle it. Your tired brain isn't nearly as good an excuse as the fact it's a rather difficult problem! It would greatly reduce the complexity to know whether a PC intends to become a claimant. Maybe that's something you can ask your players between sessions and let us know? (edit: just re-read this is for a one-shot, so I'm guessing the players don't know this vote is coming?)

I'm still running some numbers, but I think 77IM has given a decent run down using a minimal number of NPCs to fulfill your stated goals. However, I don't think he's accounting for point 6 above. I'll drop in again later to see what numbers other people are submitting, but if my initial investigation suggests anything, you're looking at closer to 30 or 40 total NPCs to prevent the PC voting bloc from trivializing the encounter, assuming they don't make a claim themselves. If they do, I think you can safely reduce the numbers since it dramatically changes the perspective of undecided voters.