GM wants to run a "political intrigue game" (or whatever the GM thinks "political intrigue" is vaguely like)

>GM wants to run a "political intrigue game" (or whatever the GM thinks "political intrigue" is vaguely like)
>inspired by "muh gritty, realistic, and super-mature Game of Thrones"
>GM is completely loathe to have PCs start in or close to a position of power, like being part of a noble family, a high-ranking inquisitor or infiltrator, a foreign ambassador, etc.
>PCs are instead the goofballs who dick around the intrigues of the actually important people
>GM also has a deeply distorted view of how politics even work, so bad that they would never fly even in a young adult novel
Vale.

Still sounds better than some faggy game where permavirgin retards try to cybersex each other with profiles of generic sameface animu daggerchins.

...What fucking game are you playing?

Weebs on Veeky Forums don't actually play legitimate traditional games or RPGs. They just have gay sex with each other pretending to be anime characters.

ERPing isn't Veeky Forums. It's just /soc/ faggotry.

Who?

Political intrigue isn't a good fit for tabletop gaming. There're so many moving parts and you can never reasonably get the whole story because a group plays only so many characters. It wouldn't just take execution to run one, you'd have to come up with some very clever ways to deliver the story.

What about troupe play?

>GM is completely loathe to have PCs start in or close to a position of power, like being part of a noble family, a high-ranking inquisitor or infiltrator, a foreign ambassador, etc.

This is probably the right approach desu. The game can take place among an air of political intrigue, but the players have their job and their orders and there aren't too many moving parts for the GM to manage and it's ok when plot twists happen that are entirely out of the player's hands, they don;t need to understand how all that shit arose out of their actions because it didn't, the NPCs motivations and actions can be narrated post facto.

What about Vampire the Masquerade? Aren't those games built upon political intrigue?

Troupe play is an even worse fit for political intrigue because all the facts about the setting need to be common knowledge or else the campaign consists of half a dozen concurrent plots that never interact at all.

they're based on vampires with superpowers.

Not that I disagree with you, but why bother bringing it up in this of all threads?

The best fit I think for intrigue gaming is larps.
I played in a vampire larp wit about 50 people and it was plots within plots within plots.

Because mods left this place to die, and so it's your job to expunge the cancerous weebfags pouncing to feast on Veeky Forums's carcass.

The reason why is because LARPers understand that as players they have a sense of agency to propel the story forward. They set things in motion through partially re-actively and partly through their own initiative.

Most RPG players on the other hand usually just do what they think their DM has told them to.

To be successful at LARP, you need to make your own fun but do it collaboratively and in a way that it won't severely detract from anyone else. This is also true of RPGs, but people are too stupid to figure this out.

That's because most games don't properly support the mechanics for a political intrigue game.

It's all done and thought of as 'combat' or 'fights' with opposing die rolls - political intrigue would come down to a combination of detective-work and an understanding of psychology.

It's also very demanding to do correctly for the GM, because he has to keep track of what each individual player is doing, how they bounce off themselves and the key changes the PCs do, and so on.

In point of fact it would probably be better to make *each* PC a major player with different goals, position them across this nation, and then see how they go about them and wrestle with each other.

This is sort of the same thing. In a LARP, each person is only playing one - and ONLY one - person, and there's usually at least 3 GMs, and a number of people playing one-time NPCs that have knowledge the players don't.

Also, because of the setup, you CAN tell individual people things and then comfortably expect them not to meta - because it's not one individual controlling a bunch of NPCs, and the players are limited.

>players nag about introducing "real" politics into the game
>let players acquire a position of power
>"lol what's a duke nvm i kill him xd "

LARPing is arguably much more immersive, but it isn't drastically different than how an RPG is supposed to operate.

>In point of fact it would probably be better to make *each* PC a major player with different goals, position them across this nation, and then see how they go about them and wrestle with each other.
Great idea in theory, but realistically all this would do is destroy any form of group cohesion among the players and bring an endless amount of salt and drama to the table. Unless you have a tight-knit group made of reasonable people able to differentiate make-believe from real life that is.

>can't differentiate real life from a game

MAKE NEW FRIENDS

Nah.

i dunno, I was in 3 year long vampire game where all we did was try to ruin each other. shit was a blast. the GM loved it after we had all secured major positions because he basically just ran our NPC subordinates while we all butted heads with each other.

Sounds like you have a solid group, good for you then.

Yeah, vampires with superpowers who also have political intrigue.
Not our fault you had (were?) a shit GM.

So do you force the PCs to lift the fridge before they're allowed to lift something heavy in the game?

A resource mechanic would be important.

Let's see, maybe arrange it into Economic, Nationalism (Loyalty to the state, and perhaps also the desire to spread THE FAITH), Military, and Science resources? Then you can start figuring out how to compete and best explore or use them.

But if they're making it similar to GoT, it's bound to have lots of cybersex, isn't it?

No but I do allow them to strategies and sole problems to the best of their ability. The is a game element to ttrpgs and that element often relies on the player's ability at making good decisions.
We need need roles for physical and perceptive tasks because those kinds of spacial arrangements are really hard to accurately eye-ball with a group. They need to be abstracted and interpreted through rules.
However rules and mechanics are not very good at replicating the important and satisfying aspects social interaction. Right now the only things capable of that are people.
I'm not saying to disregard social mechanics altogether but to put them in a place where they don't obstruct game flow.
It gives player's freedom in how they interact, probably more freedom than they would get in most combat systems and certainly more speed.

Besides if I'm playing a game that's reliant on human interaction I might as well take that opportunity and use it to it's fullest. If I want to interact with mechanics all day I'd play videogames.

Well, being good at politics typically requires a lot of planning and strategic thinking, which most people are not any good at. It also often requires a lot of charisma, or at least a skill at manipulating others, which, again, most people aren't good at.

And to do it well, you need to have a lot of knowledge about the issues they are dealing with, the people involved, the history and grudges and favors of all the relevant parties, the political rules and atmosphere. That's a level of knowledge that is very difficult to emulate or achieve in a made up fantasy world.

And of course, to really be good at anything, you sort of have to want to be good at it. Politics is not interesting to a lot of people, even a lot of people who watch Game of Thrones or Babylon 5 or something, and think, "that would be a fun game", and try to run it or agree to play in it, don't really have the interest and motivation for that kind of game playing.

Political games are pretty hard to pull off. I've run or been in a few, and they were all varying degrees of failure.

They're supposed to be, kind of. The ones that actually try to be "political" usually resemble high school social drama way more than any kind of actual politics or power brokering.

>I think it's because the vast majority of players just want to unwind and have a good time
This is why it doesn't work. Insincere faggots like this guy just want to roll big numbers in D&D, and they make up the majority of people playing RPGs.

>Unless you have a tight-knit group made of reasonable people able to differentiate make-believe from real life that is.
Haha, good luck.

This is patently false: D&D's original endgame pretty much assumed the PCs would become lords to a kingdom. This has been true since 1st Edition.

Well, admittedly, that aspect of the game probably wasn't playtested as much as most campaigns tended to end with "and they lived happily ever after".

next time your GM wants to run a political intrigue game, convince him to play diplomacy instead

then break his knees when he betrays you

I know right, fuck Japan, fuck everything anime related, we must purge it like the Emperor purges xenos

So you fuck over people for not being as glib in real life as their character would be.

Eat a fucking dick, faggot. You are a large chunk of what's wrong with RPGs.

>It's not a videgame hurdur

No, because they're actually better at letting people play the charismatic PC then you are, dipshit.

>D&D
>tables, the tabling
>having to keep track of even more units and NPCs, not only time consuming for the GM but annoying as fuck
>game-breaking spells and largely about combat mechanics
>doesn't properly abstract resources, requiring you to concentrate on tracking everything
>""""FALSE""""
try again

>Players have power over a city
>Completely fuck it up
>Screw over the common folk and nobles "Because we can"
>Are surprised when a revolution starts to usurp them

It's like you don't even enjoy running spreadsheets!

What's wrong with rolling dice and having a good time user?

Not every game is designed to be 2deep4you garbage that makes every decision into the worst one possible, sometimes people just want to hang out with their friends and have fun doing whatever.

If I wanted to play a game where the majority of NPCs are backstabbing cunts and the PCs are expected to rise up in the ranks, I'd just play in a vampire game from nWoD.

>What's wrong with rolling dice and having a good time user?
Keep your "beer and pretzels" casual shit to yourself, swine. I'm not going to stop you from having small-minded "fun" but I certainly won't tolerate that kind of lax-brained, insincere behavior in my games.

I'd rather play a game where a good roleplayer can move the plot forward through glib and subterfuge than a game that plays out like a shitty video game where RNG is the sole element that determines whether or not you succeed or fail.

If you know that you can't roleplay a charismatic person then it raises the question of why you'd even play the face to begin with?

I say this as someone who has seen someone try to play a face and ended up dropping the character because his lack of charisma fucked up our negotiations and nearly gotten us killed.

>muh board culture

Literally the biggest cancer on this site and the main reason why places like /a/ and /co/ are shit.

I'd rather go to a shitty board that knows that it's shit than go to a shitty board that's frequented by retards who think that it's their responsibility to police every single thread and shit themselves when something they perceive as badwrongfun gets put on.

You're standing there, frothing at the mouth and pissing your pants and I'm the one whose insecure?

RPGs are about hanging out with your mates and having fun, a majority of players will agree with me because at its core, it's a game that's meant to be enjoyed.

Especially D&D, which is the original beer and pretzels game.

>want to run sandbox intrigue campaign
>players get frustrated they don't have an obviously evil bad guy to slay

I hate my players

>RPGs are about hanging out with your mates and having fun
No, that's just how you and your dim-witted brethren abuse them. RPGs are about roleplaying, they're not about fun. People who enjoy roleplaying will enjoy RPGs, but RPGs are not meant to be enjoyed by people who don't enjoy roleplaying, same as Monopoly isn't meant to be enjoyed by people who don't enjoy board games.
>Especially D&D, which is the original beer and pretzels game.
Leave it to the D&Dfags to demonstrate their inherent wickedness and idiocy yet again.

Again, I can't and won't stop you from getting your twisted thrills, but you and your kind are never welcome in a real game.

>having fun is a twisted thrill

Would you feel better if I played the game like MtG and crashed the campaign, with no survivors?

Because if I'm not there to have fun then I'm obviously there to win, and political games are just a convoluted web of intrigue that, when plucked too hard, falls apart under its own weight.

> RPGs are about roleplaying, they're not about fun.
Well, you had a good run user, but you just outed yourself. Here's your consolatory (You) for the effort.

This guy just wants to hear his old trip mentioned, doesn't he?

>Because if I'm not there to have fun then I'm obviously there to win
This is the brain of a D&Dfag, completely rotten to the core. They cannot conceive of an alternative to generic game-y notions of "fun" and "winning".

You people are everything wrong with this hobby.

Then why am I there, to sit around the table and listen to you stroking your own ego at how "in-depth" and "fleshed out" your political intrigue is?

Because honestly, I'd rather just crash the campaign and take over as GM rather than sit through months of campaign just to find out that nothing I did fucking mattered in the end because you already decided that we'd fail long before we reached this point in the game.

At least we'd actually be able to enjoy ourselves.

If you can't lift up the fridge, why would you want to roleplay a strong person?

You stupid, stupid shit.

>Then why am I there, to sit around the table and listen to you stroking your own ego at how "in-depth" and "fleshed out" your political intrigue is?
This antagonism is completely unwarranted, I've made absolutely no comments to suggest that.

My issue was with this () dreadful comment:

>What's wrong with rolling dice and having a good time user?

Only a braindead D&D junkie would even consider such a question valid, and it's you sorry apes that are responsible for sentiments like this one becoming so widespread.

Rolling dice is a means to resolve the outcome of something within the gameworld. People like you are interested only in increasing the number that comes after they roll their dice, they have no interest in anything outside of the incredibly narrow range of activity that occurs in combat encounters. That is not acceptable behavior, it doesn't matter how much "fun" you claim to be having, I will never permit someone like you to sit at my table and participate in a real roleplaying game.

Vert, just go kill yourself.

I can lift up a fridge though, thanks to a magical device called the modern "hand truck."

Doesn't fucking count. If you want to play a strong character, you, yourself, has to heft that shit.

Because you are apparently your character, you stupid motherfucker.

Oh, and before you can cast magic in the game, let's see that fireball in real life. Come on, hop to.

Social stats are just another part of the CHARACTER, and the CHARACTER can be good at it while you are not.

>This antagonism is completely unwarranted, I've made absolutely no comments to suggest that.

Except by acting like an obnoxious faggot who thinks that their fun is more "rightfun" than others.

>everyone I don't like is Virt
I'm not that fucking faggot, stop being such a paranoid reject.

Either address my points or don't, I don't care, but what you're doing now is seriously pathetic.

And besides, wasn't he viciously gamist autist anyways?

I'm a new person stepping in to call you a stupid nigger, Virt. Go kill yourself.

But that's wrong you huge price of shit.

My fun /is/ objectively superior to yours, though. Pigs satisfied can rationalize not reaching for the grapes all they like, but they are in fact lesser creatures for doing so.

Similarly, if you enjoy having some wacky fun rolling BIG NUMBERS with all your best buds every weekend, that's your prerogative, but you are not playing in and do not belong in a roleplaying game.

Come on, Virt, hurry up. Load the chamber, shove that shit in your mouth, and pull the trigger.

It's not like the hand-truck makes the fridge any lighter, it just helps in transporting it across long distances. I still have to pull that weight the entire way, especially over small gaps and mild obstructions.

Also, I could make a fireball easily, all it'd require is some powdered coffee creamer and a lit match.

youtube.com/watch?v=LcOkdAJ-ENQ

I mean, when you look at the material components of most spells, it all comes down to basic chemistry, that's wizard spells are INT based.

>If you know that you can't roleplay a charismatic person then it raises the question of why you'd even play the face to begin with?
if you can't breathe underwater why play a merfolk

Nope, all you get is a pinch of batshit.

Cast the fireball, faggot. Use fucking magic, not chemistry. USE. FUCKING. MAGIC. FAGGOT.

People tend to remember those "wacky fun BIG NUMBERS" than the shitty political shit that GoTfags like shoving into tabletop.

Well, that's a lie, most people remember how shitty it was because most of the NPCs were backstabbing cunts and it usually ends with the PCs resorting to murder anyways.

The thing is that you can handwave and abstract what "being strong" or "being a fishperson" is like in play, but with conversation it is especially important to know specifically what is said.

Nope, I'm lifting a heavy object using a device to bolster my strength.

No different than someone using a belt of giant's strength really.

You see, that's why fist wizards are the most historical accurate wizard.

Nope, nope, nope.

You want to do any of that, you don't get to fucking handwave it.

YOU started this idiocy, faggot, you don't get to back out halfway just because it's not convenient to you.

Either the character isn't you, and can do shit you can't, or the character IS you, so get to breathing underwater, fuckface.

Sorry, nope.

Lift it barehanded. Cast that fly spell. Heal that person with a touch.

Can't do it? Can't do it in the game.

you can still abstract what's being said, to a certain extent. 'my character uses an appeal to emotion', or 'my character attempts to impugn the opponent's reputation', or 'my character tries to suggest an idea, while making them think they came up with it themselves'

and then if they want to go into greater detail and form a truly compelling argument, just have the DM give them a bonus on the roll

Bat Guano and Sulfer reacts together in a way that produces a giant explosion when ignited or enough friction is applied.

It's also why lightning bolt's material components was wool and a piece of metal that you rubbed together.

>People tend to remember those "wacky fun BIG NUMBERS"
When you say people, what you actually mean is your friends and the others who game in your psych ward. Neither normal people nor actual roleplayers care about getting big numbers. What they remember is the consequence of success and failure, defined not by BIG NUMBERS but by the gameworld that has been built through cooperative storytelling between the GM and players.
>than the shitty political shit that GoTfags like shoving into tabletop.
Again, I've never advocated doing edgy politics, that's just your knee-jerk reaction to the discomfort caused by you being wrong.

Fucking stop with this political intrigue shitposting, it's been years upon years with this horrid whining. You all suck dick, and its time to let go of the keyboard and accept it

You can easily breathe underwater nowadays using a snorkel.

You can buy them at most dollar stores and there's also scuba equipment if you have the money to do so.

Virt. Load pistol, pull trigger. Do it.

No, nigger. You don't GET THAT.

You march your happyass down to the lake, and just start breathing the water, if you want to play a merfolk. No equipment. No nothing.

Can't do it? Can't play it.

First, I'm not the person you think you're responding to, I only made the comment you're replying to.

Second, it's easy to handwave all of that because the specific motions and breathing patterns or whatever goes into it are not important. The end results, that you lift the big fucking rock, or that you successfully swim into the underground cave, are what matters.

With conversations, oftentimes the same might be said, that the specifics don't matter. I think the majority of GMs do effectively allow players to handwave their way through these sorts of situations with a skill check.

But there are also many occasions where a skill check and the end result don't give us enough information to proceed. You might go into a meeting with the monarch and do well on your negotiation skill roll and have the end result be favorable, that the monarch agrees to your plans. But the why is actually important. And not just the vague picture of why, the very specific word-by-word details of why.

YOU are the one defending this faggoirty.

So no, faggot. You don't get to back out.

Like anything else, it comes down to CHARACTER SKILL, not PLAYER SKILL.

So yes, all that is important. Either you can do it, and thus get to do it in the game, the retarded option you defend, or your character isn't actually you, and thus, can do shit you can't do.

>When you say people, what you actually mean is your friends and the others who game in your psych ward

No, I mean people.

People who've likely never played tabletops, people whose fondest memories were running modules, or people who only know about tabletops through video games like baldur's gate or Vampire: the Masquerade.

Relatively few people are great roleplayers, in fact, most people need to goaded into it before they actually really get into their characters. It's not an issue because at the end of the day, they're there to enjoy themselves and once they're pulled out of their shells, they usually find themselves enjoying themselves and getting more into character.

>Again, I've never advocated doing edgy politics, that's just your knee-jerk reaction to the discomfort caused by you being wrong.

You are being a tremendous faggot who is arguing about the right way to enjoy an RPG.

I'm not inherently dumber just because I play a RPG like a game and don't take it so seriously that I get an aneurism when I hear people actually enjoying themselves.

>Like anything else, it comes down to CHARACTER SKILL, not PLAYER SKILL.
How about you actually read what I wrote instead of just angrily shitpost?

Character skill alone doesn't tell us all the information we need, and the social skills are where that crops up most frequently because choosing specific words in conversation actually matters.

>Lift it barehanded

Okay, I'll call up a buddy.

>Cast that fly spell

Okay, I'll buy a plane ticket

>Heal that person with a touch

I'd need medical training, a first-aid kit, and something to knock them out but I could do it.

Sorry, no.

Either the character is not you, or the character is you.

You don't get to half and half it, faggot. Yes, there needs to be RP in there, but in the end? It comes down to the dice, same as every other skill in the fucking book.

>Relatively few people are great roleplayers, in fact, most people need to goaded into it before they actually really get into their characters.
And your way of play encourages them to never do that, to only worry about what their next "level up" will get them, how many monsters they need to kill to get there, and ponder what the "build" for the next murderhobo they make will be.

You and your ilk have ruined a whole generation, and even now continue to spread your poison with glee. If you had any sense or heart, you'd stop it, you'd realize that you're ruining something precious, but instead you just embrace that animalistic impulse to achieve /satisfaction/ at the expense of others.

It's really sickening.

Nope, nope, nope.

None of those count, faggot. Guess you can't play a mage.

Lift it. Unaided. Fly. Right fucking now, no plane. Heal with a LITERAL TOUCH.

Okay, all I'd need is some heavy fabric to produce an air bubble and I'd have a degree of air.

Or I could do this.

youtube.com/watch?v=eBxDDsWoTPg

Come on, Virt. End it all, you'll be more happy for it.