Political Intrigue: Too deep for new players?

[Balmas]

I'm just here to get some advice on my gaming group and a plot twist that I've been thinking about for a while.

Up 'till now, the game has been focused mostly on combat, with an overall idea of bringing a lost dwarven prince back to his people's mountain stronghold.  The PCs are my little brothers, now 11 years old each.

The only problem is that I'm about to introduce political intrigue into the game, with a major troll twist ending.

Let's meet the players. 

(click to show/hide)

Each player is running two characters:  One that they made, and one that I made to fill out the party.

Matt:
Aragorn: Human half-dragon Ranger 5/Barbarian 1.  I gave Matt the template for very little, since this game is going up to high levels, and he'll need all the help he can get.  Aragorn is the party tank, easily killing most items without damage reduction.

Hale Rumnaheim:  Human Cleric 6 heading towards Radiant Servant

Chris:
Ezuri:  Gnome wizard 6.  Focuses on blasting and the occasional battlefield control spell like Glitterdust.

Brandkin:  Halfling Rogue 6.  Gotta love the classics.



Now, the NPCs in this little game I'm about to play with them.  The dwarves in this campaign are much like samurai: honor is above everything, and failure means death.

Lord Ironbeard:  Effectively the king of the land.  Believes in the order of things as they are, saying that order at the cost of the individual is the only sure way to have peace.  If a few people die, then so be it.

Anvaril Ironbeard: The returned dwarf.  He's loyal to his father, and is honorable to a fault, but also sees the faults inherent with the system.  (Should I say that now he sees the violence inherent in the system?)

Kiskal: The secretly evil advisor to Lord Ironbeard, he will be a BBEG for a long portion of the forseeable campaign.  He masquerades as a cleric of Moradin, but secretly worships Eruthnyl.  He plays Lord Ironbeard against Barrim in an attempt to start a war.  All he really wants is political power, and the current political system won't allow him to become king.

Barrim: an idealistic dwarf Crusader, Barrim believes in personal freedom. (He's Chaotic Good to Lord Ironbeard's lawful good.)  He believes Kiskal to be a good man: Kiskal actually sought him out and directed him towards old Crusader texts to teach himself the old ways.

TL:DR: King and son Good and Lawful.  Rebel is Chaotic good freedom fighter.  Advisor is playing both sides against the other in the hopes of causing a Dwarf-Human war so he can seize power.

I plan to send the characters on missions for both sides.  As a condition for raising the gnome (dead of an air elemental), Lord Ironbeard sent the PCs to kill Barrim.  When they found him, he greeted them with such calmness and warmth that they actually listened instead of rolling initiative.  They returned to the king and told him that Barrim was dead.  (Thinking back, the King probably should have asked for proof, but instead just took them at their word and raised the gnome.)

Now, the PCs are in a delicate balancing act:  they are getting jobs from both sides, and must conceal the existence of both from the other.

Now we get to the heart of my question:  will the PCs feel betrayed when all of this blows up in their face?  I mean, if they follow along with the adventures I have planned, they will be instrumental in starting a war.

And, if they do feel betrayed, will it be a bad thing?

[weenog]

Complexity and depth greater than smashing things isn't bad, but railroading might be a problem.  Planning for when all of this goes south instead of if it does, is a bad sign.  Ask yourself honestly, do they have a legitimate chance to see the trouble coming, and do something to prevent or limit it?  If the answer is no, then yes they will probably be pissed off at you, and they'll be right.

[Unbeliever]

Complexity and depth greater than smashing things isn't bad, but railroading might be a problem.  Planning for when all of this goes south instead of if it does, is a bad sign.  Ask yourself honestly, do they have a legitimate chance to see the trouble coming, and do something to prevent or limit it?  If the answer is no, then yes they will probably be pissed off at you, and they'll be right.

I find this is the big challenge when it comes to mystery and intrigue, both of which have some things in common.  I worry that it's too much "what does the DM have in his pocket?"

As a side note, I've been giving intrigue a lot of thought off and on, in part b/c I'd love a Vampire game that actually worked.  My guiding exemplars have been things like "Rome" and "Game of Thrones."  What they have going for them, I think, are (1) that the protagonists (i.e., the PCs) have things they care about that can be threatened, and (2) that there are personal flaws and foibles to exploit. 

The latter may be the harder thing to get, and I think more importantly, translate into a game.  Also, in the spirit of Weenog's post, you may want to consider giving them the opportunity to detect or foil the intrigue.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

You could blame the "when" instead of "if" happening,
on the Big Wizard with Divinations, that they forgot to ask about.

"You didn't think anyone was stronger than you?  Ha!"
"I'll give you another mission just because of that."
"Remember ... I'm watching." 

There's always a bigger fish - can be in any story.

[CaptRory]

I think you should be talking to them about this, not us. "Do you guys mind if I start adding some new elements to the game so it's not just killing stuff and taking it's lunch money?" Get a feel for what they would enjoy and talk it up a bit. It's okay if they feel betrayed by the NPCs. It is not okay if they feel betrayed by the DM and/or their older brother.

[Balmas]

Thank you all for your advice.  You're probably right in that I need to be less controlling as a DM.

[weenog]

Remember that the PCs don't necessarily need to win every time.*  They just need to lose through their own failures, rather than auto-losing.  Losing because they chose not to follow up on a hook like a court adviser seeming not to know the princess' first name is their own damn fault and that's fine.  Losing because they never had any opportunity to figure out that there was an imposter at court and do something about it, that's shitty DMing.


*: Note

• PCs can lose.
• Losing can be lethal.
• Return-to-life spells are restricted, nerfed or otherwise hard to come by.

You can have your choice of two of these, but don't try to have all three or your game will crash.

[veekie]

Now we get to the heart of my question:  will the PCs feel betrayed when all of this blows up in their face?  I mean, if they follow along with the adventures I have planned, they will be instrumental in starting a war.

And, if they do feel betrayed, will it be a bad thing?

Actually, given the setup they probably should have seen the explosion coming. Playing both sides off against each other is at least interesting.

[wotmaniac]

In my experience, newbs generally need to be eased in to using their abilities.  "Political intrigue" generally allows for more MTP than other types of campaign design, which seems to be friendlier for easing in the actual game mechanics (as opposed to the "kick down the dungeon door" type of campaigns).

Of course, there is also merit to the steep learning curve of the "trial by fire" method of teaching ..... it all depends on how in to learning the system these particular newbs are.

[absolon]

When it comes to political plots in roleplaying games, you may be better off trying to get the players to cook up some machinations that the NPCs have to respond to. Instead of playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out who is screwing them and who's their friend, try to encourage them to come up with their own plans that force the NPCs to recalibrate their aims. The way things are now, the PCs are just taking prompts and have come up with nothing save that, "We like this guy, but we also want our gnome back. We lie and get what we want!" I guess what I'm trying to say is that in political settings, having some proactive elements to gameplay is better than always being reactive.

[Balmas]

When it comes to political plots in roleplaying games, you may be better off trying to get the players to cook up some machinations that the NPCs have to respond to. Instead of playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out who is screwing them and who's their friend, try to encourage them to come up with their own plans that force the NPCs to recalibrate their aims.

How do you suggest I start this up?  Perhaps a small fight that will get them to realize that there are things going on, and then ask them what they do?

[weenog]

When it comes to political plots in roleplaying games, you may be better off trying to get the players to cook up some machinations that the NPCs have to respond to. Instead of playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out who is screwing them and who's their friend, try to encourage them to come up with their own plans that force the NPCs to recalibrate their aims.

How do you suggest I start this up?  Perhaps a small fight that will get them to realize that there are things going on, and then ask them what they do?

That's still NPCs act, PCs react.

You need to start by figuring out what they want.  Once you understand that, provide them with opportunities to do or get that.  You can't force PCs to take the initiative, but if you'll probably find that they do it on their own, if you make cool things available (their idea of cool, not necessarily yours) available and stay out of the way.  They'll need to be real opportunities -- don't play bait and switch with them, or they'll catch on and assume you're full of it even when you're not.

[veekie]

Basically yeah, you need to put things the PCs want, behind the intrigue. Thats one way to get them started. If they are still in the reacting stage, you can have one reaction REQUIRE something they need to pursue intrigue for.

[weenog]

You can also just run with it when the players do something unexpected (even something minor), and people seem to react well to it.  Some of the best PC-initiated, long-term drama and motivation I've ever seen started with one PC becoming attached to a random expendable NPC, retrieving her corpse after her purpose was served and she was thrown away, and bullying the party divine caster to bring her back to life.  DM balked at first (divine caster was a NPC), but eventually decided to quit resisting and start incorporating.  He fleshed out the throwaway NPC, developed a more complete backstory and attitude for it, and found it a place in the world... that NPC wound up being good for three or four years of stories, plot twists and mind screws, serving duties as party member, surprise traitor, love interest, incitement for rivalry and riot*, quest macguffin, and supervillain.  Not bad for what started off as a joke by one player, and then him getting sulky and stubborn when his toy was broken.

*: BTW, if you need some terrain rearranged without heavy duty spells like move earth, provide an opportunity for a lycanthrope frenzied berserker and a roughly young adult true dragon to fight over a woman.  You might wind up with a crater where a town used to be.

[Rejakor]

I find working politics and intrigue INTO killing things is always a best way to introduce it to a table.  You're killing a dragon, but it has some paper in it's lair - it's actually the son/daughter of a really important powerful extraplanar dragon.  They don't talk much, but it is going to fucking MURDER you when it finds out.  Oh, and this dragon was supposed to be at a draconic summit in three days.  How do you deal with this?  etc etc.