Roleplaying Intrigue

[Prak]

So, perhaps I'm a terrible MC, but I've found that I tend to do mostly combat encounters strung together by a vague narrative, or at least purpose. This is a problem for a number of reasons, but one in particular has me asking for advice.

One of my gaming groups has been seriously disrupted by the fact that the core pair of people have moved to San Diego (or Jose, I can never keep those two cities straight), so that they can more easily make their living of having a booth at conventions and doing appraisal work. Prior to their moving they were almost always on the road anyway, so this isn't really new. A good while ago we stopped trying to rpgs because they only ever came through town once a month at best. So we've been playing Descent every time we get together. Which, eh, it's ok. But I'm more of an rpg player. I want the options that an rpg gives me. A board game is just "Ok, I move up and hit." Or "I hit and move away." With the occasional "well fuck, I'm almost dead, I have to go heal in town for the next five rounds."

The nice thing, however, is that this group is much more open to trying new things. Like After Sundown. Which my more frequently meeting group will probably never fucking do. At least not without arguing for several tweaks.

But one of the players in the group that would be willing to try a new game is an older woman who started playing rpgs only within the last six years, but comes from a big theatre background (seriously, she did Hollywood costume work and such, and knew Clint Eastwood back when he was acting). She, so far as I can tell, much prefers the character acting part of gaming and prefers intrigue plots.

So that's my dilemma. I run combat games, and a potential player is a big intrigue and character acting person.

This of course means that to ensure that the game is a good experience for her I need to do a lot of character-driven plots (though not necessarily just for her character), and so would need to see what kind of character she made. But how do I write for intrigue? I think part of why I'm not a big intrigue person myself is that I have a tendency to get bored by intrigue. I prefer simpler, more direct plots because I just don't typically have the interest to keep up with thirty Xanatos pileups.

[spongeknight]

Like most gaming groups, compromise is the key. Instead of trying to run intrigue-heavy plots that will bore you and possibly other players, focus on the other parts that she'll like while still having fun yourself. Sprinkle in interesting NPCs she can talk to, increase the amount of banter your enemies engage in, make the dudes she likes talking to into recurring NPCs who become important to the plot, ect.

[Dogbert]

You know your gaming table, so the question is... is the rest up to it? Proactivity is great, but only as long as at least the majority of the table is proactive (or at least reactive enough not to care playing second fiddle).

First and foremost, remember roleplaying is a team sport. Don't try to provide everything yourself.

Let her do the work for you. Let her give you goals for her character. Divide the goal into progressively smaller tasks. Do the same with everyone else (if they're game), make sure the collective goals are related with each other (props if you can weave them all into a single meta-goal).

Once you have the time table of things each must do to achieve their goals, just throw a monkey wrench in their plans every step of the way and see what happens.

Most important, be ready to adapt, keep the big picture as sketchy as possible.

[Whipstitch]

For oWoD inspired games in the politicking mode I've found that the big trick is to encourage players to be in the driver's seat of their own scheme(s) instead of centering the entire game around unraveling someone else's mystery. So if the goal is to acquire enough allies to get the party Face on the Student Mehtar Council you don't need to inundate people with mystery elements or have every NPC be lying liars right from the start. You can just seriously have a bunch of NPCs wandering around with conflicting interests and actually have them be fairly open with their feelings and outlook. You then only need to worry about dangling clues and working on counter-plots once the team has played favorites enough to piss some people off. That's really useful because mystery plots can quickly lead to player frustration and by making it a matter of "which of our enemies is fucking with us and how do we prove it?" you make things a lot more specific and personal than in a lot of basic "Whodunnit?" plots. The downside of starting off with player schemes is that you need players who are comfortable being proactive to begin with.

Incidentally, I'm not surprised this sorta thing gives you trouble. I mean, first off: intrigue/mystery plots are fuckin' hard to get rolling in the best of times. Second, you seem to have a yen for the sort of character who doesn't worry too much about what other people think, which is problematic for Vampire and other "intrigue" based games since ultimately they tend to resemble a high school popularity contest being played for big stakes.

[Josh_Kablack]

At least for me, it helps to set such things up as less along the lines of a plot and more of an environment with a set of NPCs and factions with conflicting and contrasting goals and methods.

Thus for After Sundown:

Let's start with the Stellar Oracle Sample Adventure Seed:

Sample Adventure: Somewhere in the city an Asura has come through from the Dark Reflection and is repeatedly draining energy out of mortals in order to bring Mirror Goblins across like some grim parody of a work visa program. The Oracle is sent to assemble their band, track down the Asura and kick Limbo ass before the army of Mirror Goblins gets too large to defend the city against while maintaining secrecy.

So you have an Asura, we'll name him Adam. Then we have a Stellar Oracle rep slot- that's either a quest-giver NPC or the PC who gathers the others together.


And then we add complications.

• The Mirror Goblin horde has made enough noise to attract the attention of the Marduk Society. They have a supernatural onsite posing as Agent Mikah, from a federal security agency of your choice and directing local law enforcement to go guns blazing into the hideouts of all supernaturals.
• Except, the Storm Lords have penetrated Agent Mikah's cover - and want to eliminate him without tipping their hands about their own counter-infiltration of government agencies so that they can identify future Marduk Operatives. So they send the PCs tip-offs about Marduk/Law-Enforcement moves. Because I'm being alliterative here and it makes a joke, the never-seen benefactor signs such notes :Susan Storm".
• Except that such messages are delivered by a Mi-Go from the Laughter Factory. Let's call him Louie. To maintain his usefulness as a courier, Louie needs to present the appearance of complete impartiality. But he wants to expose the Storm Lord infiltration of the feds to the PCs in a way that will not implicate him.
• Oh and back to Adam. He's supposedly siphoning mortals into Mirror Goblins to mount an assault on a Rolnicy "greenhouse" to steal their magic solar crystal, the key component for a mirror that will allow one of the King's Three Shadows to cross into the mortal world. But he's tired of being middle management so he's actually planning a double-cross. He's now partnered with the Rolnicy. Let's call their representative Rhea. And the two of them are working an experimental ritual to turn the mcguffin crystal from a doorway into a trap for the Shadow. Of course he knows that this will royally piss off the King with Three Shadows, and he's not ready to deal with that yet, so he's really planning a triple cross, where once the Shadow is trapped in the crystal he and his army of mirror goblins will lay waste to the Rolnicy greenhouse, Rhea and any underlings who know how the ritual was done. This conveniently leaves the Shadow trapped, giving Adam one less superior but allows Adam to place the blame for the trapping on Rhea.
• Except the Rhea is also planning to double-cross Adam as soon as the Shadow is imprisoned. But she knows that she'll need to whittle down his army of Mirror Goblins and call in outside help to even the odds if it comes down to a fight. But while she's happy to have the PCs and/or Mikah's gun-happy officers aid her in a fight, she can't let know that what she really wants to do with the trapped Shadow is to __________

and then just continue to flesh out motivations, secrets and countermotivations, making sure to tie things back together somewhere around about half a dozen named NPCs and factions.

[ishy]

At least for me, it helps to set such things up as less along the lines of a plot and more of an environment with a set of NPCs and factions with conflicting and contrasting goals and methods.

This, have a couple of factions and the intrigue writes itself.

Best thing you could do though, is talk to her about it. Ask for some tips. Manage her expectations. And don't try to go all-in with something you don't enjoy as much.

[hogarth]

But how do I write for intrigue? I think part of why I'm not a big intrigue person myself is that I have a tendency to get bored by intrigue. I prefer simpler, more direct plots because I just don't typically have the interest to keep up with thirty Xanatos pileups.

That's why I like adventure paths. Even if the writing isn't stellar, it's still time-consuming than doing it myself.

[tussock]

Personally, I build a little intrigue with random encounters.

So you're walking to do $Quest for the !, and there's harpies. Everyone's like, WTF, why? So I gotta make up that the harpies are from somewhere and that's something I'm gonig to have to figure out how it's related to $Quest and drop some clues for that somewhere, maybe here if I'm quick enough. Or just go with confirming whatever the players guess at.

Either way, players take an interest in something for a moment, so I note it down and try to keep it alive a bit. If the players want to guess up some massive conspiracy, let them have one. If they don't care for the whys and wherefores, don't bother inventing any.



Anyway, method aside, real intrigue is bullshit in an RPG. You fight who you fight and they have whatever links to each other are in their kit (or their speak-with-dead output). So you kill one group, and then a second group, and what do know but the second group was connected to the first all along! By that random thing you noted earlier that the players took some interest in after they killed the first group.

Because why the hell not? Real intrigue is just a fuck-tonne more work for the same result only the players will almost always miss it. See also the three clue rule, for linking shit in ways that makes it harder to miss, if you do find yourself with a cunning plan for the NPCs.

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/111 ... -clue-rule

[Orca]

If you're keeping track of a bunch of NPCs and you want to encourage the other players to do so also, it helps to have reminders. A whiteboard with names and pictures goes a long way to making a large cast distinct in the players' eyes as well as your own. If they start adding notes on the whiteboard so much the better.

[ETortoise]

In my ACKS game I drew all the major political players on index cards and have been giving them to the PCs when they meet. I like drawing and they were just mugshots so it was prep that was easy and enjoyable.

I also echo the advice of having some NPCs be up front with their positions. It sounds like your new player would be pretty satisfied if they got to talk with people who have goals and interests (and would be willing to negotiate, compromise, or be bought off), mysteries wrapped in enigmas may not be necessary.

[fectin]

When I first played Exalted, the MC asked for journal entries/microfiction on a wiki. That worked out fantastic, and let the players contribute to world building.
One key part of that was occasionally skipping forward for a few months or years, so that you could actually have intrigues happen.

[Josh_Kablack]

So to be more generic in how to set things up, for the game style which I'm advocating:

First write up or steal a set of 3 to 7 factions who are all ideologically, methodologically or just politically distinct from each other. A lot of games come with lengthy lists of factions where you can just pick a subset, and even games without explicit factions often have assumptions that the MC will pencil in somesuch mad-libsstyle , such as filling in The Church of Pelor, the Duke's Guard, the Thieves' Guild and a Wizard's college in a D&D game.

Once you have your factions and a brief idea what they are about, then you write up 1 to 3 NPCs as face for each of these factions - these are the individuals the PCs interact with. Give each of these NPCs:

• A goal or two they have in common with their faction.
• A goal they have which is opposed to their faction.
• Something they want the PCs to do to advance their cause.
• Something they want to be sure that the PCs do not do.
• Information they are eager to give the PCs. (not necessarily true information, just information)
• Information they are reluctant to give the PCs.
• Information they desperately want to keep away from the PCs.

Make sure that the goals and secrets tie together between your set of NPCs and you have a decent skeleton for setting up an sandboxy intrigue setting where PCs have a bunch of social options. (threats to take or not take desired actions as part of negotiations, uncovering secrets and using them for blackmail, getting anrgy about lies or withheld information, etc)

[TheFlatline]

Since it's so f*cking long here's my article on how to run an investigation/conspiracy adventure. At the moment it hits 2nd or 3rd on a google for the above phrase, so apparently it's moderately useful.

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So I'm about a year into a heavy investigation chronicle that I'm writing myself, and after two or three excellent experiences in running Investigations I thought I might pen a short column on how a GM might go about this.

Dark Heresy especially is geared towards investigation. Blindly rushing in guns blazing gets you killed quick, and even if you survive, you're left with a smoldering corpse instead of the next lead in the link of conspiracy.

However, open ended investigation adventures seem to be the most difficult to write and run for even experienced GMs. I think I've stumbled onto a good way to write and run the investigation however, and I thought I'd put it up for commentary. This is a setting-neutral column, and can work for anything from Call of Cthulhu onward.


Writing the Conspiracy

1. Start with the hook- Every conspiracy or investigation needs a beginning. Something needs to go wrong or needs to not add up. A building can explode, a ship disappears, someone is assassinated, a cult freaks out and starts taking hostages very publicly, whatever… It needs to be something that demands the player group or their organization to look into it. The bigger the hook, the more pressing and important the investigation is. In my game for example, the hook was an assassination attempt on a planetary governor that the players were pulled into to help stop. Midway through this mission the Inquisitor herself is outright killed and her protégé demands vengeance and uses the PCs as the implement of that vengeance. This sets up immediacy, pressure, and a reason to keep pushing even as the leads run thin. This hook also needs to have a starting piece of evidence that is given to the PC party and represents the goal of the first of three acts. In my game, the explosives and assassins used in the attack were traced back to a planetary system where the adventure was to take place. At all times in this first act, the players had a set goal: Follow the explosives back along the conspiracy chain and you’d find the conspirators.

2. Create the agenda- This usually happens sometime around the first point, but I like to flesh it out better after I have the hook. Should the hook have successfully been completed without interference, what would have happened afterwards? This involves creating a mastermind or minds and an agenda. I don’t flesh out the masterminds at this point. There’s a reason for this we’ll get to later. However, having a basic idea of who is doing what for why will let your players piece together clues and have their own “ah-ha!” moments. Don’t spend too much time on detailing out what would have happened had the hook not occurred, unless you have a specific idea you’re pushing towards.

3. Create the conspiracy chain one link at a time- I work backwards from the hook now that I have an agenda. Each link should be relatively straightforward depending on how professional the people involved in each link are. Using mundane civilians is great for avoiding attention to begin with and covers your tracks, preventing patterns from emerging, but these people talk, or have second thoughts, or motives of their own. Each link is essentially a scene or mini-adventure in its own right, leading further back into the conspiracy. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you link directly back to the conspirator. The conspirator(s) need to be several links away from the hook- maybe 5-7 major links will make a good investigation. Too short and the players will never feel like they’re unraveling a mystery. Too long and the inertia of the investigation stagnates and you get players who lose their focus and the game risks falling apart. Branching links are nice for this too. Every now and again create a “detour” in your chain, where you can follow sequential leads in one of two directions. Following them both takes up valuable time and we’ll discuss that later, however it may fill in gaps in the story you’re telling. By the time you’re finished, you should have a timeline that describes your conspiracy and the players, big and small, in the chain.

3a. Obvious links are obvious... And good- Each lead should be obvious once it's found. Definitely not in it's implications in the grand scheme of things, but when given a clue or a lead, the players should know exactly what they're following up on. Vague clues will sometimes fly over the players' heads, to no fault of their own. Keep the leads obvious- the evidence that they uncover can be nebulous and vague.

3b. Parallel Chains are nightmare conspiracies- Running two (or more!) chains of evidence and leaping back and forth between the two can sometimes work, but really is risking a whole metric ton of confusion. Save the fancy multiple conspiracies for a later date when you've got this under control.

4. Create a “police force” for your conspiracy- Conspirators are often risking everything on rolling the dice and trying to come out ahead. Therefore, successful conspirators will look to eliminate those chains of evidence that link them back to the hook, thus increasing their chances of success and survival. How will they do this? Through a number of means- Violence through thugs, gang members, private security, or “dark powers”, political pressure on the PCs, social pressures, etc etc… They don’t need to kill the investigators flat out: in fact this often is a delaying tactic as nothing raises a red flag like the investigators being killed. What it can do is buy hours/days/weeks while a new investigative crew gets back up to speed that the conspirator can focus on eliminating those links of evidence. However, because violence is a means to an end and not an end in itself, when the conspirators resort to violence, more clues need to be left behind for the survivors (potentially resulting in a branch in the chain of evidence).

5. Figure out how much time pressure you’ll put on the PCs- Now that you have the cleanup crew/policing force for your conspiracy, you have a ticking clock. The longer they wait, the slower they go, and the more exhaustive they are in examining every single lead possible, the more likely they’ll have a harder time finding subsequent leads and chain links. Unless the PCs completely screw things up you should never break the chain completely, but put a little thought into ways you can complicate the PCs’ jobs. Don’t write anything specific for this stage, but be ready with some brainstormed ideas.

6. Create out-of-order leads- This is where things *really* start feeling open ended (but is secretly under your tight control). Your chain is a list of evidence that leads straight back to the conspirator. We don't want the players to follow this path. Instead, look at each of the links, and start creating leads between disparate links in the chain. Link A should have a lead that reveals link D (two people who go to the same social club and often play cards together), which might have leads that link to A and C (A is D's coworker, and C is D's jealous former fling), but the players only have time for one of those leads before the other is policed up. It's like working on a puzzle where you're given the pieces randomly. Some fit together and you work on those for a while, the pieces that don't fit anywhere are set aside until something *does* fit, and slowly you build the picture up by guessing what's in between the pieces you *have* finished. Don't be a slave to this initial map however, because your players will often start forming connections and leads of their own in the course of gameplay. Run with this. Consider these initial leads to be fall backs and ready when needed.

7. Figure out a good climax- This is probably the hardest part. Get a conceptual framework of a good, exciting climax. It doesn’t have to involve combat- often times the conspirators are not combat savvy and the PCs will outclass them entirely. You shouldn’t write specifics up yet though, because things are going to change a lot once you start running the game. When you're finishing up Act Two, your players should have given you an idea of what is satisfying for them. Maybe it's shooting the dude in the face, maybe it's arresting him in a big sting or turning his allies on him. The mood of the party at the end of Act Two and the beginning of Act Three will really help you write a good climax.

So now you have a conspiracy chain, a hook for your players, and an agenda that is getting interrupted. You basically have a skeleton adventure. How to you run it? That’s surprisingly pretty simple.


Running the Conspiracy

1. Start in media res- You don’t always have to do this, but starting out with a big, action-filled BANG engages players, especially new players. The satisfaction of starting out on a crescendo or doing something highly unusual will often keep players feeling warm and fuzzy about their participation while you lay the groundwork for the investigation. Hopefully by the time that starts to fade they’ve had their first “ah-ha!” moment and they’ll be hooked.

2. Throw clues at the players out of order- If you can manage it, those connections should introduce leads, clues, and links in a non-linear fashion. Too many links being discovered sequentially creates a trend, a direction the conspiracy is headed in. You’ll want that sometimes, but generally speaking players are bright and will figure the plot out well in advance if you keep moving that way.

3. Ambiguity is your friend- Give definite leads that go somewhere to the players to discover. Just make those leads seem to go in all different directions until most/all the dots are connected. When your players discuss “what do we do next? What’s going to pay off for us best?” and they have the conversation without frustration you know you’ve hit gold. Remember, you’re seeing links in a chain that you’re dishing out of order to the players. It looks overly simplistic to you because you have your timeline. To your players, it’s a real mystery because they can’t go from A to B to C and onward. They start at point G, go to B, stumble over F, trace that back to E, track down A, and so on.

4. Combat is a seasoning, not an entrée- Your PCs will probably start focusing on social abilities in an investigative game, but don’t be afraid to spice your sessions up with a tussle. Every group will have a different rate at which they burn out on the investigation and will want to knock heads. My group ended up wanting an action session every 2 sessions or so. It changes things up and is a quick/cheap shot of adrenalin to the story.

5. When the players run out of leads, attack them- Not necessarily with physical combat, but put a direct, adversarial challenge in their way that they have to focus on. In other words, give them a short term goal that can be achieved in a session or maybe two. Investigations are trying and can burn out players, so it’s important to give them a good bang to keep them engaged. These challenges should, naturally, have clues in them to rekindle the investigation. By hiding handouts in a direct challenge, players won't feel like you're spoon feeding them. Besides, it makes sense this is going to happen- they're mucking about and upsetting powerful people, interrupting agendas, and diverting precious resources towards covering up something that should not be an issue. They're going to get *someone* angry, and that someone will probably make a rash decision and try to stop the players.

6. Say "yes, but..." whenever you can- You’ve written an intentionally vague skeleton of an adventure for a reason. Your players are going to come up with solutions to problems and directions that you could never anticipate. Instead of doing the heavy lifting and railroading your players, listen to their discussions of what to do next and how, and let them do the heavy creative lifting. Say no most of the time to boring, straight-forward, unimaginative “solutions” however (I say most of the time because the times when you *do* say yes to those, everyone appreciates them more). The more outlandish the idea, the more you should try to run with it. Inject your own complications into their plans. You already know what they need to find out, you’ll be amazed at how often a player party will come up with the idea of how they’re going to find that information out. There’s no shame or problem with calling for a 15 minute break to generate up something that specifically came from a player’s ideas- in fact it’s rewarding for your players to know that their choices matter in the story.

7. Avoid total exposition- If the players uncover every link in the chain, no matter how minor, more power to them. However, they will probably skip links and forge ahead, with some parts of the conspiracy simply being a mystery to them while they chase after the conspirator. This is fine. In fact, this is excellent. Use your police force to keep them moving along the conspiracy and not focus on the minor details too heavily. This is another reason why you don't script the adventure out in advance: Adventures go off the rails all the time if they're scripted out with any real detail. I never write more than one session in advance, and even then I might only use 60% of what I write. Too much writing wasted is disappointing for the GM: It's double the work for half the payoff. Avoid it in the first place and only write what you need to find your way along the adventure.

8. Avoid dead ends- One or two increases the sense of pressure- it’s lost time. More than that and it gets totally frustrating. Use them sparingly.

9. Avoid Deus Ex Machina… Usually- Every now and then you can throw a left-turn into your conspiracy. Unexpected allies or enemies, divine providence drops needed evidence into the PCs’ laps, whatever. Try to make it fit within the frame of your adventure though, and try to foreshadow it if you can.

10. Chekov’s Gun- If there’s a gun on the wall in Chapter 1, it needs to be fired at some point in the story. You’ve got a lot on your plate. Foreshadow is fine, but keep your investigation fairly streamlined and don't introduce too much extraneous detail into your game. Your players are going to be muddled as all hell as is if you’re doing your job right. Extraneous details that need to be paid attention to are functionally equivalent in-session to dead ends. Thus this sort of ties into dead ends and DEM above.

11. Set Pieces- Once per investigation you should try to do something novel or even gimmicky. I’ve had the players design strike missions based off of an orbital map, or played a round of high-stakes cards, or any number of other things that tie into the story. It’s a big break from the investigation and gives players something novel to remember about the story. If you can’t think of anything, don’t worry about it too much. It’s cool to do but not vital.

12. Three Acts- Generally, plan for your investigation to consist of three acts. The first act is resolving the goal presented in the initial hook. At the end of this act you should have an idea that there is an agenda and a conspirator out there. Act two consists of tracking down and learning of this conspirator. You can use another evidence chain to great effect here, especially if you turn up the non-linear clues at this point. Let them form an idea of the mastermind by creating a silhouette of clues. By the end of act two they should have an idea of who they are up against. Act three is thusly the confrontation of the conspirator and can be again another investigation to find out where the enemy is or just a big blow out combat orgy. Your players will probably be ready for it.

13. The next step- Is that it? Is there another conspiracy that this links into? Every now and again I like to foreshadow/introduce cross-conspiracies into my storyline. The players make a note of it and say “when we’re done here we need to look into this” and that moves organically to the next linked story. Otherwise, consider a good epilogue. The conspiracy crumbled, the bad guys served out justice, the players praised for their diligence and quick wit. Either way, aim for an air of accomplishment and resolution at the end of your third act. The occasional disappointment in act three is fine as a twist, but should never be relied upon too heavily as it’s incredibly discouraging to the party.

Other things that probably don't warrant points of their own is to take copious notes. Write down names uses, make notes of major conversations among the PCs, and when you brainstorm, write all your ideas down in a journal of sorts. Later when you're running the session you can pick these ideas up and bring them into the story where appropriate.

Also, use time where the players are talking in character as a chance to catch up or prep for the next section. If you've split the party up and run separate leads down, the players will need to update each other on what's happened and that's precious in-game time they're having fun that you can be prepping the next scene.

And really that’s it. The trick is to write a timeline/evidence chain and then present it out of order to your players. Engaged, motivated players will do most of the heavy lifting for you. You just have to provide the scaffold for them to climb.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm now reminded of this game.

[Prak]

Thanks guys, this is a lot of good information. The week's been busy and shit-filled (other than the bright spot of my D&D game going decently well). I'll take a more solid read of all this in time, but I wanted to thank you guys before I forgot.

[shadzar]

So, perhaps I'm a terrible MC, but I've found that I tend to do mostly combat encounters strung together by a vague narrative, or at least purpose.

this is brought on by the attempt set forth by game designers that "traipsing through faerie rings and talking to the little people isnt fun, just skip talking to the city guards and get on with the fun part, because; the game is about killing people and taking their stuff!"

you see it on these subscription gaming services with "achievements" unlocked and all this other stuff. the only purpose is to play to get to the next level. so maybe you suck and only do offer those things, or that is what the players think they want do to being mindless sheep that have been brainwashed by the companies that make games currently.

i call it "arcade mode syndrome". remember pacman and galaga and the like where you went for the high-score and that was the point to get to more levels for more points? that is happening all over again but in places where it doesnt belong. the MCP has taken over and Kevin Flynn is not around to save us, so games and gamers are trapped on The Grid.