Facilitating Politics and Intrigue

[Jonathan Moyer]

I know the degree to which a LARP focuses on politics and intrigue depends a lot on the players, but what are some things a GM can do to make this happen? I'm thinking about Vampire, Werewolf, or Mage larps in particular.

Before I can begin, I'm going to rule out the "big bad NPC." Big Bad NPCs tend to make PCs come together to put them down, something I want to avoid - indeed, I try to avoid NPCs as much as possible. I want PCs to assume many of the roles NPCs do in tabletop games.

A couple of things I've tried are Influence rumors. Basically, these are little slips of paper with rumors on them in a certain area, like police, university, or occult. Often times these rumors are based on downtime actions of other PCs, so if a PC gets a rumor and tracks it down, it might give him evidence pointing to the PC mastermind behind the scenes.

Are there other things people do to promote politics and intrigue in their games? If so, please share them.

[Jackob]

I mainly do one-shot LARPs and I find it helps to say that no character can kill another character. Forces the players to do something else.

Of course, in my one-shots, I do pre-generated characters who're all motivated for intrigue and politics.

[Deacon Blues]

Raise the stakes of violence so high that it becomes an unattractive option. And make sure everyone knows it, too.

If a PC knows that his odds of surviving a combat are little better than a coin toss, I promise you he'll look for a diplomatic solution.

[Wiseblood]

In WoD games I've always played up the importance of influence by making sure that even the wimpiest character in the game can become a player through smart use of influence. Also, introduce the occasional misinformation into the game. Afterall, those little influence rumors don't always have to be 100% correct.

[Lig]

You need to give the players the real power at their ingame location - if, like with Vampire, there is an NPC hierarchy above the players, it's influence should be weakened by it's distance from the players, so that an NPC can't come and undermine the PCs within one session (but might turn up the next one).

This way, the players are the "movers and shakers" in the game, and will act accordingly.

The other thing is to use a consistent and regulated system of ingame resources - this makes character actions have tangible, physical results, so that it's easier to imagine the rewards for your political actions.

I'm not involved with running MET or other theatre-style larps, and I rarely ever play them. I co-run a "live combat" event called N-E-X-U-S, in the UK, which is based around a frontier settlement in the near future. We have a lot of politics. A lot. The social structure disintergrated last event, which was amusing to watch. I imagine that a lot of the techniques we use are applicable to all larps.

[Uberxael]

Give the PCs something to compete over. Vampire is built for this-there are only so many centres of power in a city, and the Lance, the Crones and the Ordo Dracul all want them. Open war's not an option-the combat system's risky, particularly if you remove damage caps and play suceesses every 3 points instead of every 5, plus the Prince will get pissed off at you-so influence-peddling becomes the order of the day.

[Peter Svensson]

Offer "Successful Schemer" XP awards to people who manage to get things done through intrigue.

[Lord Minx]

Interestingly, I've thought about Intrigue in LARPs a lot when I read "The Game of Powers", the Nobilis LARP supplement.

The most important part of any intrigue is conflict. There have to be at least two sides with opposing views and enough determination to do something about it. So strong characters with opposing goals and interesting stakes are integral parts of any Intrigue. Make sure that the PCs have those and you'll get more intrigue.

Another important part is that violence shouldn't be an option. (Or at least not the best.) Maybe it's frowned upon or terribly dangerous (I once mused on a Dune-esque boffer game where Knifes were the weapons of choice and where PCs only had three or less hitpoints. In a game like that, a fight would always be the last option, at least without surprise or superior numbers.), whatever works best.

Another thing I've mused upon: A large part of an Intrigue are the abstract ressources of influence, favors, money, retainers, and so on. Many of which can't really be easily used in a LARP. So I thought that taking the Nobilis route and quantifying these in an abstract "Ressource Pool", which could be traded (probably represented as chips of some sort ingame) or stolen, and spent to influence NPCs or make changes to the to the game world, would be another good way to fasciliate intrigue. This way, players could collect favors and thus build up their ressource pool, before striking at their enemy.

Of course, I think a whole LARP system based around Ressource Pools representing different stuff could be very interesting. I've always mused on a system where especially social stuff could be resolved in a way that made the players themselves give in to get those tasty chips. (At the same time, the other player would have to decide how hard he wants to win and if victory now is worth possible defeat later.)

M

[Merten]

Are there other things people do to promote politics and intrigue in their games? If so, please share them.

In game's I've been and written, it's mostly been done with character backgrounds and setting information. The characters are written in a way which sheds light to the political/intrigue climate, gives character reasons for why he wants what he wants, perhaps even goals, and something to bargain with, be it influence or whatever.

The downside is that, at least in Vampire, this tends to lead to long and dull meetings, as players (who are from modern, at least somewhat democratic, western society) have hard time adapting to being hundred years old, ruthless bloodsuckers. I guess the solution to this is writing better characters, which clearly communicates the personality of the character and some examples of how he likes to handle political negotiations and intrigue.

[Eggwhite]

I've used influence rumours extensively in my oWoD LARPS, and they're a godsend - especially if you combine them with tailored personal rumours. Flavour the way that they're written based on how the individual is getting the information.

By doing this you can subtly remind the player that "this is bad for me" or "this is good for me" - when you play once a month, sometimes it helps to have a reminder. Similarly, influence is indirect - you're not actually getting the information by seeing something happen... you're getting it by hearing from somebody else who saw it happen, or who heard it from somebody else again. These people all add their own bias. If you're hearing something from some drugged out street thugs, it'll have a different spin on it to if you're hearing it from a straight-edge club bouncer. These biases can be handy for adding a bit of extra conflict to what might otherwise be a fairly simple situation.

Then, when a PC messes with that, report that on to other folks before the next game, but with an appropriate spin on it for how they get their information.

Another trick I've used is to put out a particularly vague bit of public information - ideally something that's the end result of some chinese whispers style mangling - and then "clarify" it with influence rumours, communications from allies or contacts, or just events that a PC in the area would have noticed. If all of these are also chinese whispered, they can easily lead to misinformation and distrust, which lead to politics and social wrangling.

My favourite trick was to drop in a benevolent mortal group, but make it look like there's a small chance they might not be benevolent - then just wait for the players to cause a bunch of chaos by messing with it. I can almost guarantee that as long as they're there and being helpful to people who are not the PCs, somebody will come along and try to infiltrate, hinder or help them. When one PC does it, others will usually follow suit.

In my case it was a church group called "The New Urban Mission" that was out to bring the word of god to street kids to fight the tide of drugs and youth crime. Nothing fancy, but they were effective. Soon enough, a PC decided they'd be a useful tool and started to mess with them. They pushed back a bit (they had a bit of influence of their own) and a bit of influence conflict ensued, catching more attention because other PCs noticed a church group messing with a PC and started to push back too. Before long there were eight or nine people causing chaos based around one simple group that had never been a threat.

[Jonathan Moyer]

Okay, based on answers to my initial post, here's a list of a couple of things GMs can do to facilitate politics and intrigue:

1) Reveal incomplete/wrong public information that can be clarified by influences/contacts/allies
2) Requre strong character backgrounds that set up conflict
3) Place PCs in "mover and shaker" positions
4) Have a system for handling abstract resources such retainers, contacts, etc.
5) Hand out metagame rewards for behaving in a certain way (bonus xp, bonus willpower, etc.)
6) Make combat a poor option for resolving disputes (either by banning it outright or making it very dangerous).

Most of these I have a good handle on and could implement right away. The only one that is difficult for me to implement in a larp would be 5 - it's very difficult to track and reward PC behavior accordingly. If anyone has any ideas, share them!

oWoD MET had an interesting, abstract system for handling Influences. Of particular interest were the various influence actions a PC could take (attack, defend, trace, etc). It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, no similar system has emerged for nWoD MET - I'd like to have players mess around with each others' influences without resorting to GM handwaving.

[Jonathan Moyer]

Oh, another thing I'd like to simulate - raiding a character's base during downtime. Things like a vampire using his influence with the police to attack a rival's haven. One way of doing this is rather straightforward - basically, the attack character makes a roll which determines the amount of cops going in, and a regular combat is played out normally. Alternatively, and more abstractly, the attack is run with the attacking character's social traits (say, Presence + Allies (Police)) versus the the defender's regular combat. Basically, it would run like a normal fight between two characters, but the attacking character's "attacks" are described as a bunch of cops.

[Simon Marks]

Oh, another thing I'd like to simulate - raiding a character's base during downtime.

I'd like to think that if my enemies know where I sleep and raid it during the day, I have more or less lost already.

Bluntly, if some raid you base, you've died. The trick and skill is to prevent them from doing so.

[DariusSolluman]

I'd like to think that if my enemies know where I sleep and raid it during the day, I have more or less lost already.

Bluntly, if some raid you base, you've died. The trick and skill is to prevent them from doing so.

This is, of course, assuming your enemies are both so ruthless and so short sighted that they'll start using daylight raids in anything other than a kill or be killed scenerio.

That's something I think players don't always 'get'- a daylight raid should be viewed in the same light (heh) as a nuclear attack. It's something elders /threaten/ one another with, but no one actually starts- both because of the potential danger to the Masquerade and the really negative precedent it sets. Someone who exercises the Daylight option should be treated as- at best -a pariah. And any enemies they have remaining should begin looking to do the same thing, out of fear that the crazy person would turn on them next.

That's not to say there's no place for this sort of thing- just that it's dangerous.

[Levi]

Okay, I'll step up to this one.

I've run games in which each and every player had a "kit" of stuff - a whole bunch of stuff, including a few items, clues to mysteries, and so on.

And then there were a few goals, one attached to each kind of thing - become wealthy, solve the mystery, and so on.

We had buckets of interaction, and politics. Less intrigue, but that could be solved easily enough by giving a few people something to lose that opposes the things out there to gain.

...Not sure if I'm explaining this well.

[DariusSolluman]

Okay, I'll step up to this one.

I've run games in which each and every player had a "kit" of stuff - a whole bunch of stuff, including a few items, clues to mysteries, and so on.

And then there were a few goals, one attached to each kind of thing - become wealthy, solve the mystery, and so on.

We had buckets of interaction, and politics. Less intrigue, but that could be solved easily enough by giving a few people something to lose that opposes the things out there to gain.

...Not sure if I'm explaining this well.

Mm. Sounds good for a twentyish person one shot. How do you handle a bi-monthly fourthyish people game?

[Levi]

Mm. Sounds good for a twentyish person one shot. How do you handle a bi-monthly fourthyish people game?

More goals.

[DariusSolluman]

More goals.

I dunno that more goals alone is sufficent- I think it's more accurate to say 'more goals in conflict'.

But I was actually refering to the kit you had built- which sounds AWESOME -but also like too much work when it comes to larger and evolving games, to be constantly rebuilding it.

[Levi]

I dunno that more goals alone is sufficent- I think it's more accurate to say 'more goals in conflict'.

But I was actually refering to the kit you had built- which sounds AWESOME -but also like too much work when it comes to larger and evolving games, to be constantly rebuilding it.

Okay, here's an example.

A basic mystery is "Bob did X, and here are a bunch of clues, things you saw or know, that lead to Bob" - usually, clues work by eliminating other suspects, so that some real detective work is required.

You get intrigue when Bob is a player, and has an ally or two, and they're invested in covering up or otherwise getting away with it.

Ramp it up. "Bob" becomes three people, they have a bigger ally group in the game, and there's a group that has something to gain by detectoring the crime. And everyone has a clue.

Now, throw together about five different situations like that, all running at the same time, and you've got yourself a hell of a lot of action. Some of it might resolve quickly, but some of it won't. Don't try to make any of these things resolve in any particular way, just try to keep the tension high - ramp up the rewards and penalties in play if people are going slack.

[Requiem_17_23]

The best example of this I've ever seen is the UK fantasy boffer LARP called Maelstrom (http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk).

There are basically no NPCs - everyone from the heads of the colonies to the grunts guarding the gates to the angels who descend and bring messages to their faithful is a PC. The bank that holds most of the traders' money is PC organised. The events are all sponsored by one or other PC faction, for whom the organisers provide a single squad of grunt-level NPCs as police (assuming, that is, the PC faction has enough of an army to provide police).

There are many factions - more than Vampire - and a single PC is much weaker than a lone Cam vampire. The setting is a 'Discovery of the New World' thing, and the natives all hate one another and half the Old Worlders have an old cultural grudge with somebody or other. Add in all these young, naive but very personally powerful magical beings, and the fact that the PCs are at the forefront of research in all fields of magic and science. Oh - and there is a war in heaven, which is being played out in the New World for some reason unfathomable to most of the mortals.

The result is constant politics and intrigue. Combat is fairly deadly unless you're one of the aforementioned angels, and as there are no NPCs to kick it off it's moderately rare. Power blocs tend to form, merge and disperse quickly. I'd recommend it to any UK LARPer whose tastes run to politics rather than 500-a-side battles.

[James Holloway]

Basically, you need to have:

- multiple groups of PCs with clear and achievable goals:
- which are mutually incompatible with the goals for other PCs
- and which actually matter
- and require the aid of other PCs to accomplish
- usually other than through magic or violence.

A lot of the time, GMs will attempt to set up intrigue by positioning players in rivalries which are meaningless and bear no relation to in-game events. Players typically discard these immediately, in a phenomenon known as "peace breaking out." You'll also want to lay off the major threats, which is very difficult in a game like Werewolf. Remember that one annoying Philodox who always says "we need to put our differences aside and fight the Wyrm?" Well, he's right, and obviously right.

Mind you, I just realized I have no idea what the new one is like, so that might change things.

[invisible_al]

Oh yeah nothing kills politics and intrigue faster than a big bad :). It's kind of ingrained in roleplayers to team up against teh evil and save the world so you really need to work on building up an atmosphere where player schemes are encouraged.

One idea is to make the fruits of politics 'real', make positions mean something, say the sherrif gets the ability to search people's houses in the pursuit of criminals, or the keeper of the keys to the kingdom gets a bonus to their mystick abilities when they're defending something.

For example in Maelstrom the leader of a colony is whoever has the most 'status', bought with starting points and you need a certain ammount of people supporting you for each level of it. The leader gets to rule plus gets the govenors troops, a port and a whole bunch of land along with money. But this is always up for grabs by people who earn status and get more people to sign up to their banner :).

It also helps is NPC's show respect to anyone with a position as that helps set a tone for the game that's not 'who shouts loud enough wins'. And you really need to set the tone of a game at the start, you can ease off once players starting running with the game.

[Devarash]

One thing I've been thinking about with the WW chat I'm in regarding this is a lack of a feel of limited resources. If someone can justify something, and has the exp, then they get it. Think long-term, I guess. If everyone in a particular social group can buy up their status, then eventually everyone is status(5) or what have you. But if there's only 20 dots of status to go around...then when that cap is met, people will have to scheme to bring other people down to raise there own.

I guess what I'm trying to say is intrigue has to be predicated on conflict of interests or for resources of some sort or another. And, espeically in the example above, just killing them is really out of the question. Why would other people respect you /more/ for killing a political rival? Now, if you set it up so that /your rival/ challenges /you/... But that's even more intrigue to set up.

[Allison Wonderland]

You need to give the players the real power at their ingame location - if, like with Vampire, there is an NPC hierarchy above the players, it's influence should be weakened by it's distance from the players, so that an NPC can't come and undermine the PCs within one session (but might turn up the next one).
I absolutely agree with this. The most political game I was ever in had a Princeship open up and only PCs to fill it. The guy that got the position was the guy who curried the most favours, and that the least number of people objected to. But he had to work his tail off to do it. There were three or four different contenders that went around making promises and campaigning. It was a hell of a thing to watch.
Offer "Successful Schemer" XP awards to people who manage to get things done through intrigue.
Ooh, that's a cool idea!
The most important part of any intrigue is conflict. There have to be at least two sides with opposing views and enough determination to do something about it. So strong characters with opposing goals and interesting stakes are integral parts of any Intrigue. Make sure that the PCs have those and you'll get more intrigue.

Another important part is that violence shouldn't be an option. (Or at least not the best.) Maybe it's frowned upon or terribly dangerous (I once mused on a Dune-esque boffer game where Knifes were the weapons of choice and where PCs only had three or less hitpoints. In a game like that, a fight would always be the last option, at least without surprise or superior numbers.), whatever works best.
I want to add that peace shouldn't be an option, either. I've been in a number of games where peace has broken out, crippling the intrigue. Make sure there are reasons they're scheming can't be solved by getting along, or make sure they have a reason not to get along.
Basically, you need to have:

- multiple groups of PCs with clear and achievable goals:
- which are mutually incompatible with the goals for other PCs
- and which actually matter
- and require the aid of other PCs to accomplish
- usually other than through magic or violence.

A lot of the time, GMs will attempt to set up intrigue by positioning players in rivalries which are meaningless and bear no relation to in-game events. Players typically discard these immediately, in a phenomenon known as "peace breaking out." You'll also want to lay off the major threats, which is very difficult in a game like Werewolf. Remember that one annoying Philodox who always says "we need to put our differences aside and fight the Wyrm?" Well, he's right, and obviously right.

Mind you, I just realized I have no idea what the new one is like, so that might change things.
I knew you'd say it better than me. :p
If someone can justify something, and has the exp, then they get it. Think long-term, I guess. If everyone in a particular social group can buy up their status, then eventually everyone is status(5) or what have you. But if there's only 20 dots of status to go around...then when that cap is met, people will have to scheme to bring other people down to raise there own.
In the game I run, Status - or at least local status, which is what most people in my game care about - is entirely in game, and largely decided by the Harpy. The players seem to like this; after all, the status is 'free', and if they're the type of person who wants higher status they're going to be willing to work to get it.