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Gnaritas
2010-06-22, 08:37 AM
It seems my party will most likely liberate a dwarven city out of human hands soon. With all the former leaders dead in the war that has long past, they (the dwarves) have to pick a new leader.

The contestants are:

Mander, he was leader of the dwarven-rebels, he was the one who rallied the dwarves to stand up to their oppressors.

Thialf, grandson of the last king. He has the blood, the legacy. But he is young and unexperienced.

Algrim, this old and wise dwarf is the spiritual leader of the dwarves.

As the humans are killed or have fled, the question will arise, who will be our new king. If the party is interested they will follow the process and try to influence the outcome. Most likely they will want Mander to become king, as he will be most eager to help the party in their quest against the humans. Algrim is most likely to give peace a chance.
One of my players is in a secret organisation, that tries to gain power in the world, such that things that happening in the world will go as they want. He will receive a note that Thialf needs to become king, for what exact reasons unknown, but it will come down to the fact that he can be influenced by the organistation.

Now....i want to make this interesting for the players. They can make arguments for and against candidates, they can roll some diplomacy checks. But what else can i have them do.
Some minor thoughts i have:

- There is an assassin(s) that want to kill....Mander? Why? How would they find out about the assassin or would they just happen to be there when the assault happens? Or is it no coincidence, and is the assassin caught to easily with the markings of say Thialf, to set him up, does the party notice this?

- The humans have taken over the city for 5 years. Everything they owned was taken. But now the humans have gone. Shops are to be claimed back, the goods scattered around the city. Riots might be caused by disagreement about who gets what. Though this is not directly linked to the election, maybe you have an idea why it could be.

<edit> sorry for my bad english, sometimes i cannot find the exact words i want.

Escheton
2010-06-22, 08:43 AM
How does one become such a leader?
Democratic vote?
Councel of elders?
Communing to Morradin?
Deathmatch?

It sorta greatly influences how they can influence things.

Gnaritas
2010-06-22, 08:45 AM
Sorry, you are right.

Currently i am doubting between a democratic vote of all dwarves (about 1000) or a vote between family-leaders (about 40).

If you have an argument why it should be one or the other, don't hold back :smallwink:

Escheton
2010-06-22, 09:02 AM
what is the party make-up?
bard-types are likely able to sway large numbers of commoners.

whereas wizards can better handle family politics and intrigue with their high int and grasp on such matters.

Fighters, especially dwarven fighters get reputation relative to their lvl that will make the dwarfs likely to heed their advice.

valadil
2010-06-22, 09:06 AM
Sorry, you are right.

Currently i am doubting between a democratic vote of all dwarves (about 1000) or a vote between family-leaders (about 40).

If you have an argument why it should be one or the other, don't hold back :smallwink:

Family leaders, definitely. You won't have one on one interactions if you're trying to influence 1000 people. The players will just campaign and shout.

If you're doing this between family leaders you can break it down into a smaller group. Say that each candidate already owns 10 votes, so 30 people are taken leaving 10 NPCs undecided. Those should be the people the PCs interact with.

10 is a small enough group that you can define each of them. You can even define the relationship between each of them. If A and B don't get along, the PCs will piss off B by helping out A. Then do they cut B as a loss or try and help him? What if C and D demand mutually exclusive favors? This is what politicking is all about. It will make for a much more interesting campaign than telling your PCs to get up on a soapbox and make speeches.

Gnaritas
2010-06-22, 09:23 AM
what is the party make-up?
bard-types are likely able to sway large numbers of commoners.

whereas wizards can better handle family politics and intrigue with their high int and grasp on such matters.

Fighters, especially dwarven fighters get reputation relative to their lvl that will make the dwarfs likely to heed their advice.

1. Half-Ogre Werebear, never mind this guy.
2. Goliath Warblade
3. Human Sacred Fist
4. Human Rogue
5. Dwarf Barbarian

none of them specifically charismatic skilled.

Gnaritas
2010-06-22, 09:24 AM
Family leaders, definitely. You won't have one on one interactions if you're trying to influence 1000 people. The players will just campaign and shout.

If you're doing this between family leaders you can break it down into a smaller group. Say that each candidate already owns 10 votes, so 30 people are taken leaving 10 NPCs undecided. Those should be the people the PCs interact with.

10 is a small enough group that you can define each of them. You can even define the relationship between each of them. If A and B don't get along, the PCs will piss off B by helping out A. Then do they cut B as a loss or try and help him? What if C and D demand mutually exclusive favors? This is what politicking is all about. It will make for a much more interesting campaign than telling your PCs to get up on a soapbox and make speeches.

Good points, let me work something out along that route. Still looking for more advice though :smallamused:

Delta
2010-06-22, 09:28 AM
Half-Ogre Werebear

I know you said to never mind but still... wow, never expected to see a combination like that outside of really weird CO builds :smallbiggrin:

Prime32
2010-06-22, 09:31 AM
I know you said to never mind but still... wow, never expected to see a combination like that outside of really weird CO builds :smallbiggrin:It's not really that optimised (too much LA, and poor HD). Now, half-minotaur shifter...

Seems kind of odd that two PCs are human given the situation.

Gnaritas
2010-06-22, 09:38 AM
It's not really that optimised (too much LA, and poor HD). Now, half-minotaur shifter...

Seems kind of odd that two PCs are human given the situation.

It's the Half-Ogre from Dragon Mag #313.....

Not all humans agree with the occupation of the dwarvenlands.....sounds a lot like real life to me...if you change dwarvenland with Gaza or something.

valadil
2010-06-22, 09:50 AM
Good points, let me work something out along that route. Still looking for more advice though :smallamused:

I'm actually plotting something similar right now. Only difference is that I'm going for a bit more than 10 nobles. My plan is to start with 25. They'll be vague though. The players will have their names and in some cases sources of wealth and areas of influence. Not enough information for politicking.

What I'd like to do is give them more nobles than they can handle. Based on the information listed above, they'll choose nobles who they think are interesting and/or controllable. Then I'll invent/improvise detail on the nobles they focus on. There's no reason to draw up information on all 25 if they're only going to look at 5 of them. Basically I'm trying to avoid the standard RPG convention of telling them that all but 3 votes are decided, go do a quest for those 3 voters and they'll choose your side.

Whomever they choose will have political conflicts applied to them. Somebody is going to be on their side, but under pressure of threats from the opposition. Maybe it's a threat of violence, maybe it's blackmail. Maybe I'll do one of each. Somebody else has been bribed to vote this way. Another person is truly undecided and is waiting to be convinced. Someone else agrees with the movement, but hates the person in charge of it. Other people really don't care and are just voting this way because their friends made them do it. I'll probably even throw in a rival adventuring party (one of my favorite game plot devices) who has also been influencing people.

I'm sure at least one of the nobles will end up giving them a quest in order to gain his approval. But those won't be your standard quests. They'll point the PCs in the direction of other nobles. Instead of sending the group to a dungeon to retrieve a sacred artifact, the noble will send the group to his rival's forge, to find out where he's getting his superior iron supply. If other noble detects spies or if the group finds something they can turn into a scandal (like, the iron is being mined by slaves) that'll continue into the bigger plot.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-06-22, 10:07 AM
Valadil has a good idea. I think that "doing quests" to gain the votes of nobles would be far better in this situation then trying to woo the nobles to your side, especially with your party makeup. You don't have any charismatic types or brainy wizard types, who are somewhat needed when you get involved with politics. By having your players quest for nobles to get their votes, you play on the one of the party's major strengths(combat encounters) instead of playing one of their weaknesses.(Charisma related things.)

BSW
2010-06-22, 10:49 AM
I agree with everyone supporting the family leaders idea, but I do have some suggestions of my own.


To make it more realistic, you have to recognize that the dwarven supporters of each candidate are going to form into what amounts to political parties and campaign on behalf of their candidate of choice. Thus, rather than simply having 40 individual votes, I recommend that you break the 40 leaders down into voting blocks to model the whole political party feel. Within each block, one or two members would be key and swaying that individual would cause the entire block to vote differently than they otherwise would have.

When breaking down the voting blocks, I'd say that each block should actually have a different number of votes within it. So say... There are seven voting blocks. Block A has 5 votes, Block B has 10 votes, Block C has 4 votes, Block D has 7 votes, Block E has 6 votes, Block F has 5 votes, and Block G has 3 votes. Decide in advance which way each block leans without party interference.

The key thing is that you don't actually let the players know how many votes each block has OR which leaders are critical to swaying the votes one way or the other. That way, the party has to work to discover who the most influential leaders are as well as which factions are vitally important to winning the election.

The other thing that you do is set it up so that different blocks have somewhat conflicting interests. That way, in wooing say... Block B, the party can potentially alienate Blocks D and F unless they're very careful.

So, now the party's task essentially becomes one of discovering: 1) what the relative importance of the blocks are; 2) which individuals are critical; and 3) what each block's interests are. If the party misjudges any of these, there efforts can end up being much less effective (say... swaying a non-critical leader's vote only gets you that one vote, not the whole block) or even backfiring (the party's efforts to woo the ornery Block G ended up alienating Blocks B and D).

Finally... there has to be a fixed deadline. Set an in-game date for the election. This way, the party doesn't have a limitless amount of time to effectively campaign every voting block. Instead, they'll be forced to budget their time.