I'm going to be running a 4.0 campaign in Eberron in the next couple of months and have been thinking about the themes I want to employ and have come across an obstacle. I've ran a campaign before in 3.5 that had a lot to do with travel and investigation and I want to use those themes again but I'd also like to add a significant amount of intrigue.
The time frame I'm using is about twenty years after the official start of the campaign world in the books and it takes place in Cyre a few years after the Mourning is undone. Every major power is trying to get some stake in the newly reformed nation and some would want to see if destroyed.
It's a situation rife with possibility for intrigue and political drama but I'm having trouble figuring out how to do that. The only idea I have so far is once I've figured out the backgrounds and personalities for all the major players ideas should come naturally but I was wondering if anyone here has any ideas or anecdotal experience. I'm just trying to get a better frame of reference for how best to tackle this problem.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Greetings,
I'm going to be running a 4.0 campaign in Eberron in the next couple of months and have been thinking about the themes I want to employ and have come across an obstacle. I've ran a campaign before in 3.5 that had a lot to do with travel and investigation and I want to use those themes again but I'd also like to add a significant amount of intrigue.
The time frame I'm using is about twenty years after the official start of the campaign world in the books and it takes place in Cyre a few years after the Mourning is undone. Every major power is trying to get some stake in the newly reformed nation and some would want to see if destroyed.
It's a situation rife with possibility for intrigue and political drama but I'm having trouble figuring out how to do that. The only idea I have so far is once I've figured out the backgrounds and personalities for all the major players ideas should come naturally but I was wondering if anyone here has any ideas or anecdotal experience. I'm just trying to get a better frame of reference for how best to tackle this problem.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Create the story you want to tell first. Then create the backgrounds for the personalities involved.
I've found this works best for me. Stories are an artificial construct. There should be no shame, and there is often greater success in simply adding the elements you want and excluding the ones you don't and using smoke and mirrors to cover the seems and holes as opposed to trying to make everything evolve naturally.
Also, don't be afraid to shamelessly take influence, or even rip entire plots, from reality or works of popular fiction. Swap a couple of names, locales, and set pieces, and you can create what seems like a great idea.
One of my most memorable Eberron campaigns was basically Pocahontas set in the Eldeen Reaches with the titular character replaced by a more militant Ashbound Druid Shifter.
I intend for my next one to draw heavily on the latest Ghost in the Shell series for inspiration.
Chris: That might be more intrigue then I'm going for but certainly a good idea.
As opposed to Chris, I don't want the factions to automatically be opposed to the PCs(once again, other than the Lords of Dust). All three factions will honestly desire to work with the PCs(granted that they'll try and manipulate things in their favor....it's human....or dragon....or lich....or whatever nature, but they won't be trying to harm or betray the PCs, just get a better deal) but none will be able to work together as their goals will be mutually incompatible meaning that the PCs will have three enemies(four if they decide to say screw you to all four factions) once they make their choices. Have them go on missions for each group, have each group run interference at various points, have each group have a chance to try and sway the PCs to their view, let the PCs see first hand a major positive and major negative effect of the groups in question, and throw a whole bunch of lies, half truths, and whole truths in the mix and let them figure it out.
Just make sure that your party enjoys this type of stuff. Some people just want a straight forward "Lets get in their and kill them all!" approach after all. I just happen to enjoy multiple layers of intrigue backed by black and gray morality.
And on the opposite end I have this idea for a straight forward campaign without any intrigue that will have Xoriat coming back into alignment, lots of horrible abominations, and me making use of one of the Elder Evils as the final boss for the players to kill.
Have a session without combat.
Most players, even players who love to roleplay and make mechanical choices for roleplay, are completely floored when they run into a session (or even two or three!) when they are forced to work out their differences, take actions in the "long game", and face opportunities where their power's wont be an option.
Sometimes, if you really want to mess with them, you can imply that combat might occur- but then have it never materialize. This isn't to say that combat should never become a part of the the game, only that it should be a rare and exciting moment.
An example:
The party is hired to protect a noble hated in one nation; but beloved in another. Perhaps he's an acquitted war criminal. The PC's are hired to protect him and serve as his personal retinue on a diplomatic mission to the nation in which he will be in grave danger.
Now the party will probably be expecting multiple assassination attempts, bandits on the road, a monster attack; but what they might not expect is for their lives to become incredibly difficult in every other way. Make the Inn's on their journey refuse to offer them service; the town guard ignores them if they are pickpocketed (or more likely tell's them that they will "Look into it"); they are denied access to a border and told that they need to enter through a more dangerous crossing. Frustrate them; but don't throw anything to kill in their way. While they are sleeping in the woods ask for passive perceptions: only to have them notice forest animals- get them worked up but with nothing to vent their frustration out on.
Then throw a skill challenge at them to find the crossing.
Then another to make their charge go with them.
Finally get them into their destination; shower them with NPC's who imply things. Make it perfectly clear that everyone knows things about them and have worked that into their plans. Let them talk, let them make plans and solve crisis through roleplaying and skill challenges.
Make them work their way up to the top of the social ladder: make them paranoid about where the inevitable attack will come from: make some allies: get to the end of the event.
And have them go home. No combat. None at all. When they are a day out from home their charge starts acting weird before he dies mysteriously. Its a Changeling; but they don't know when the switch happened, or if there was a switch at all! All those people they met- who of them were a distraction, who was secretly their enemy, and all those little jibes that were tossed their way in conversation: now all those start to make sense.
And then as they race back towards Aundair/Breland/Karnath/wherever: throw a bandit ambush at them.
Poor bandits.
My biggest recommendation for a "Political Intrigue" heavy game is to be bold and unafraid to do one thing that DnD players never expect:
Have a session without combat.
Most players, even players who love to roleplay and make mechanical choices for roleplay, are completely floored when they run into a session (or even two or three!) when they are forced to work out their differences, take actions in the "long game", and face opportunities where their power's wont be an option.
Sometimes, if you really want to mess with them, you can imply that combat might occur- but then have it never materialize. This isn't to say that combat should never become a part of the the game, only that it should be a rare and exciting moment.
An example:
The party is hired to protect a noble hated in one nation; but beloved in another. Perhaps he's an acquitted war criminal. The PC's are hired to protect him and serve as his personal retinue on a diplomatic mission to the nation in which he will be in grave danger.
Now the party will probably be expecting multiple assassination attempts, bandits on the road, a monster attack; but what they might not expect is for their lives to become incredibly difficult in every other way. Make the Inn's on their journey refuse to offer them service; the town guard ignores them if they are pickpocketed (or more likely tell's them that they will "Look into it"); they are denied access to a border and told that they need to enter through a more dangerous crossing. Frustrate them; but don't throw anything to kill in their way. While they are sleeping in the woods ask for passive perceptions: only to have them notice forest animals- get them worked up but with nothing to vent their frustration out on.
Then throw a skill challenge at them to find the crossing.
Then another to make their charge go with them.
Finally get them into their destination; shower them with NPC's who imply things. Make it perfectly clear that everyone knows things about them and have worked that into their plans. Let them talk, let them make plans and solve crisis through roleplaying and skill challenges.
Make them work their way up to the top of the social ladder: make them paranoid about where the inevitable attack will come from: make some allies: get to the end of the event.
And have them go home. No combat. None at all. When they are a day out from home their charge starts acting weird before he dies mysteriously. Its a Changeling; but they don't know when the switch happened, or if there was a switch at all! All those people they met- who of them were a distraction, who was secretly their enemy, and all those little jibes that were tossed their way in conversation: now all those start to make sense.
And then as they race back towards Aundair/Breland/Karnath/wherever: throw a bandit ambush at them.
Poor bandits.
That can be quite effective. *Has seen that before in a D&D game* But be sure that before you do this that you have a party that likes this style of game. Otherwise it can go horribly wrong when they decide that the best solution to the whole problem is to kill things and take their stuff. What a lot of people don't realize about those abandoned villages that adventurers have to find out what happened? They were intrigue campaigns that went horribly horribly wrong and the PCs went postal. Someone then went and blamed it on the Lords of Dust or Zhentarim or Sorcerer Kings or whatever evil of the local world is. But the truth is....it's PCs.
That can be quite effective. *Has seen that before in a D&D game* But be sure that before you do this that you have a party that likes this style of game. Otherwise it can go horribly wrong when they decide that the best solution to the whole problem is to kill things and take their stuff. What a lot of people don't realize about those abandoned villages that adventurers have to find out what happened? They were intrigue campaigns that went horribly horribly wrong and the PCs went postal. Someone then went and blamed it on the Lords of Dust or Zhentarim or Sorcerer Kings or whatever evil of the local world is. But the truth is....it's PCs.
Good point but I think my players are ready for it. We've been playing World of Darkness for a while (which has a lot less combat implied in the system) and I've warned them that this time around will be more investigation and intrigue than combat. Hopefully it'll work out well and my plans won't get the Alexander the Great treatment.
:P
It's a situation rife with possibility for intrigue and political drama but I'm having trouble figuring out how to do that. The only idea I have so far is once I've figured out the backgrounds and personalities for all the major players ideas should come naturally but I was wondering if anyone here has any ideas or anecdotal experience. I'm just trying to get a better frame of reference for how best to tackle this problem.
Agendas.
It's all about agendas. Goals. Objectives. How much and how far the different factions/actors/players will go to obtain them.
If you're wanting to really push the intrigue, spend a fair amount of time figuring out exactly why your factions and personalities are doing the things they are doing, and how they plan on getting there.
Where the intrigue and action starts, is where the different agendas intersect.
New Cyre wants to race into Old Cyre and recover the Royal Regalia so Oargev can be installed as King of Cyre. Easy, right? Lots of (former?) Cyrans will share that goal to some degree or another.
What about those who may be rather more distant royal blood-relatives who think they may do a better job?
What about those ultrapatriots that don't care how wide a bloody swath they carve and how many innocents die so they can obtain the Regalia and bring them back?
What about those who DON'T want Oargev (or anyone else) getting the Regalia, so it's that much easier to install some kind of puppet regent instead? I'm sure there's tons of people/orgs that really don't want a New, Strong Cyre. People who'd rather carve it up and annex it into one of the other Five Nations.
...or the Lord of Blades. He may not be too happy giving up his territory.
Ok. So there's a half dozen factions, and from those couple of sentences, you've got some ideas on how they'd behave.
If you wanted, you could draw all of this up into a rough spider-web-shaped network, connecting each of the factions to the Royal Regalia and to each other (who will ally with whom, who opposes whom, and who's a subset of a larger group, etc). That's what I like to call a Relationship Map.
So everything I described above is the Status Quo (the way things are) at the start. The PC's get dropped into the middle of that Spider Web, and to keep the players feeling nicely Larger than Life, the status quo won't "meaningfully" change until the PCs start mucking about. Helping Faction 1 weakens Faction 2, and builds an alliance with Faction 3. Etc.
Obviously, once you start getting multiple objectives involved, it can get really complicated. But that's kind of the point - you WANT the whole "wheels within wheels" feeling. And the Relationship Map helps you keep track of the results...
Agendas.
It's all about agendas. Goals. Objectives. How much and how far the different factions/actors/players will go to obtain them.
If you're wanting to really push the intrigue, spend a fair amount of time figuring out exactly why your factions and personalities are doing the things they are doing, and how they plan on getting there.
Where the intrigue and action starts, is where the different agendas intersect.
New Cyre wants to race into Old Cyre and recover the Royal Regalia so Oargev can be installed as King of Cyre. Easy, right? Lots of (former?) Cyrans will share that goal to some degree or another.
What about those who may be rather more distant royal blood-relatives who think they may do a better job?
What about those ultrapatriots that don't care how wide a bloody swath they carve and how many innocents die so they can obtain the Regalia and bring them back?
What about those who DON'T want Oargev (or anyone else) getting the Regalia, so it's that much easier to install some kind of puppet regent instead? I'm sure there's tons of people/orgs that really don't want a New, Strong Cyre. People who'd rather carve it up and annex it into one of the other Five Nations.
...or the Lord of Blades. He may not be too happy giving up his territory.
Ok. So there's a half dozen factions, and from those couple of sentences, you've got some ideas on how they'd behave.
If you wanted, you could draw all of this up into a rough spider-web-shaped network, connecting each of the factions to the Royal Regalia and to each other (who will ally with whom, who opposes whom, and who's a subset of a larger group, etc). That's what I like to call a Relationship Map.
So everything I described above is the Status Quo (the way things are) at the start. The PC's get dropped into the middle of that Spider Web, and to keep the players feeling nicely Larger than Life, the status quo won't "meaningfully" change until the PCs start mucking about. Helping Faction 1 weakens Faction 2, and builds an alliance with Faction 3. Etc.
Obviously, once you start getting multiple objectives involved, it can get really complicated. But that's kind of the point - you WANT the whole "wheels within wheels" feeling. And the Relationship Map helps you keep track of the results...
Hmm...I'd never thought much about using the relationship map because I felt like it would be too much work but when you put it like that it seems almost necessary. The setting I'm using already has Restored Cyre doing well enough for the last five years with Oargev in power and the Lord of Blades defeated so your example may not help specifically but the methodology of it will certainly assist with figuring this whole web out. Thanks! :D
Hmm...I'd never thought much about using the relationship map because I felt like it would be too much work but when you put it like that it seems almost necessary. The setting I'm using already has Restored Cyre doing well enough for the last five years with Oargev in power and the Lord of Blades defeated so your example may not help specifically but the methodology of it will certainly assist with figuring this whole web out. Thanks! :D
No problem - I've been using Relationship Maps in one form or another for years (certainly since some of my first Eberron games back in what, '04?). Sometimes I draw the full-up map, but at the very least, I try to "get into the heads" of the various NPCs and organizations to figure out why they're doing the things they are doing.
The example was definitely an example - one that I was making up as I went along. But I'm glad you were able to extract what I was really trying to do with it - show how the "intrigue" game is based on various actors (individuals or organizations), their objectives, and how they interact. The Relationship Map is basically an organizational tool to keep track of it all.
My players definitely seem to have enjoyed the depth of the different intrigues that are going on, so I can definitely say it's been a very effective tool for me.
I wish you the best of luck!