Last year, I wrote that I'd like to see a system for how to run an intrigue as a party. I think the core of that idea is in this paragraph:
I'd like to see a system for how to run an intrigue as a party
What if B/X D&D went levels 1–3 is for dungeons, 4–6 is for the wilderness and 7–9 is for politics. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? What sort of rules would you find in that third book? You would not get to name level by being a colonizer and clearing the land but by taking over an existing position of power – through intrigue. Oust the abbot, kick out the bishop, marry into the baron’s family, take over the guild. With the help of your friends. Without resorting to combat, but with dice rolling.
Brad J. Murray saw this and started writing a document, riffing on the idea. He invited me to collaborate, I wrote some more, but then it didn't go anywhere. I'm not sure what to do next. It's already much better than that vague idea I had, but it's not ready to be turned into a 20 page pamphlet. I feel that it's getting closer, though.
Since we weren't doing anything with the document, I figured I might as well post what we have. Perhaps you want to run with it? Make a copy, make some changes, let us know?
Here goes.
Traditional dungeon and/or dragon games progress character in levels: discrete units of capability. Each is a steady increase in power, almost entirely in terms of how big a thing you can kill (or how easily you can kill a smaller thing). This creates a certain kind of play arc that can become tedious as you realise that narratively the same thing is happening, it’s just that the fights take longer. At least when it’s executed weakly, and it is very easy to execute it weakly.
Instead of a power scale, levels can be grouped into a thematic progression where you gain more power but the context in which you execute the power changes. In order to progress into the next tier, you must accomplish something that leads naturally into that tier.
The tiers are: from levels 1 through 3 you are in dungeons. Small(ish) set piece events in a structure full of enemies and loot. You acquire things, you kill things, and maybe you make some alliances within the dungeon context. The launching point of your dungeon excursions – a hamlet, a city, or what-have-you may reward you but certainly appreciates you and also keeps you informed of dungeons that need your attention.
From levels 4 through 6 you are in the wilderness. The enemies are a little more random and of more widely ranging power. Sometimes you need to fight but often you need to hide or run. You are trying to get from safe place to safe place navigating distinctly unsafe places between. You are acquiring knowledge of multiple communities, places, enemies and friends.
From levels 7 through 9 you are a leader. Your interests are political. You have gone from wandering between communities and serving them to attempting to create one or lead an existing one. Your interest is the well-being and even growth of a community in the context of a world with many desperate communities surrounded by dangerous wilderness. You will likely need to hire some dungeoneers and couriers. Pest control and deadly mail carriage.
At level 10 you turn into a patron or nemesis for the players of your next campaign.
Within a tier you become more powerful but in your tier context. In the wilderness you might become a little better at fighting but mostly you get better at navigating and hiding and planning. You become a rider of exotic mounts and become known for your successes. And maybe your failures. And in your political years you likely don’t get better at fighting at all but at organizing and communicating and planning and execution. You learn how to determine who you can trust and who you can’t.
You will fight things for treasure and, eventually, to serve the needs of someone else.
You will learn fighty things – how to defeat enemies and locate traps.
You will develop a relationship with a home community.
You will learn new tactics, new spells, new powers.
A handful of non-player characters, representative of surface factions. They need things from the dungeon. This results in retrieval missions, rewards, and rumours regarding the mission. Players see the community leaders they are helping (by selling them their loot) grow in power and manoeuvre, but likely they don’t care.
The dungeons contain things that are useful to the patrons in the home community. The dungeon also has factions and faction leaders, like the home community, but these factions are there to be exploited by the players. Ally with these humanoids against these other humanoids or against the common enemies further down, those nightmare caricatures of our fellow humans – more cruel, more greedy, more hungry than we are. The dungeon is the terrible mirror of our fears.
(Needs more advice.)
At some point, the need arises to get help from a neighbouring community. A higher level magic-user is required to break a curse, cure a disease, reverse a petrification, or raise a dead comrade. This requires a trip overland and automatically ends the dependence on dungeon adventures.
You will travel in the service of communities and eventually be sought for service and advice.
You will learn desperate things — how to avoid danger, how to ambush, and how to survive the environment.
You will make connections with communities.
You will learn to act strategically, where to fight and where to yield, where to go and when to go.
Distribute the following on the map:
The following create three separate, overlapping and contradicting networks of loyalties, providing for endless conflict and shifting alliances between powerful people.
Note that monsters show up in multiple guises, here.
There are the very dangerous foes living in the ruins mentioned above. These continue to be based on our nightmares: dragons spreading terror and devastation, undead sucking the life of the land, or giants making travel unsafe. The neighbouring communities need the players’ help, resulting in more wilderness travel. These are opponents that can be fought by the players, directly.
The remaining monsters have societies living in the settlements mentioned above, just like humans. A few of them live in dystopian societies that players would like to end: Slavers, brutalisers, dictatorships. It is important that there are many more neutral settlements, however. If all the orcs are brutal tribal savages and all the underground elves are matriarchal slavers, it’s too easy to draw up conflict along racial lines. It’s better to have one society of brutal savages looking for plunder and one society of slavers looking for victims and have the rest be fearful onlookers and “neutral” parties. Organising them, solving their problems and forging alliances is what this tier is about.
New factions emerge: secret societies, cults, political parties (clans, families). There are power struggles between them, observable from a distance (like the political careers of the village non-player characters). For their struggles, these factions need the help of players. Invasions have to be fought back, spying missions need to be carried out, treasure needs to be found (dungeon adventures don’t necessarily disappear, but the dungeons are far away and dangerous, necessitating travel through the wilderness.
Wilderness encounters do not happen in tiers like encounters in dungeon levels where deeper means tougher. The wilderness has no centre and no distance – unless there is a colonialist vision of a borderland and the non-human world is there for the taking. Like slavery, colonialism can be a topic to explore, but it’s better to be struggling against it than to glorify it. If there are slaves, players can free them and fight the slavers. If there are colonisers, players can stop the land grab and the massacres.
The monsters and lairs no longer reflect the nightmares of our childhood (monsters that eat us, monsters that take what’s ours, monsters that live in the darkness). Monsters now reflect the nightmares of our adult lives. Enemies have strongholds from where they sally out and attack our communities, disrupting our trade, plundering our villages, capturing our ships. Pirates and bandits, and monstrous equivalents. Conquering armies, occupational armies.
As the game progresses, things come to a head and the players cannot fight against hundreds of enemies on their own. Allies have to be found and it all culminates in a big battle or a series of battles. Mass combat rules are used. And when it’s over, when there’s a power vacuum, players are ready to move on and fill it.
You will lead a community to wealth or ruin or maybe a little of both.
You will learn how to navigate the pitfalls of leadership.
You will command armies and governments.
You will anchor yourself to something.
You will fade away and make room for those that come after you.
Based on the lower tiers of the game, players have hopefully made alliances with powerful people and their families. Some ways to make them part of the community:
Considering the means to build up a community and the threads the community faces as well as the people you love, consider the following checklists to generate political adventures.
(Insert acts.)
(Insert acts.)
A successful, peaceful transfer of power to the next in line is the crowning achievement. The monarchist way to win is to found a family, have children and pass power to them. The republican way to win is to found an organisation that can sustain itself. The religious way to win is to steer the institution and its community through these troubled times and then to live out those last years in peace. Players win when peace and stability reigns, at least for a few years.
The rules for war ensure that losses can be recovered from by betting more of what you have. Increase the stakes. At first, you send a second-in-command and some soldiers to take back those villages. Then you send reinforcements. You build roads to improve the supply lines. Perhaps there’s a betrayal and you must send your child to take back control – or you must go yourself. And if you lose then, your life’s work collapses. Players lose when civil war and ruin follows a long period of upheavals.
1-3: sneak attack, deal with traps, run, make a contact
4-6: find a path, know where the money is, hide
7-9: undermine leadership, make a deal, cheat
1-3: smite, defend, endure
4-6: camp, destroy (1 big one or many small), blaze
7-9: lead armies, intimidate opposition, inspire devotion
1-3: hurt things, heal things, protect things
4-6: know things, hide things, move things
7-9: draw on the Cabal, create true things, organize people
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