The Gaming Den

Ok, this makes me feel dumb, but I am terrible at intrigue. It's like a featureless black cube that I have no clue how to interact with.

Which is normally fine, but the game I'm playing in right now is run by my femmefriend and she wants to run intrigue.

So... how the fuck do I play intrigue? System will be 5e, but it seems like she wants to do it more by roleplay and less by dice play, so I'm really not sure how much system honestly matter for this.

I could probably help more if I knew more about the situation, but here are some general tips:

• Figure out what your goals are, but don't tell anyone what they are. Pretend to have different goals, and be loud about those.
• Find the people who oppose your real goals and get friendly with them, this will let you fuck up their opposition when the time comes.
• Practice speaking non-specifically. For example, mention 'that greedy asshole,' and let the other person fill in the name. You can get a lot of free info this way.

An intrigue game is basically a just game with lots of spies and rich people. So you want to play someone who would make a good a spy, or someone who is rich, or someone who is extremely useful to one of other the two.

The big idea behind being a spy is the ability to pretend to be one thing when you actually are another thing. Not necessarily pretending to be loyal to something you're not (although that can work) so much as being visibly capable of one skillset when you're actually skilled at something else entirely.

Example: I'm currently in a intrigue plot in a pathfinder game. My character is goes around wearing embroidered robes, frequently casts wizard cantrips and generally looks like some sort a novice spellcaster. In truth, she can turn into a twelve foot tall weremole and rip people's faces off as a free action. She's unobtrusive, seemingly unimportant, but actually a giant trap card for the enemy to trigger if they try violence.

Being rich in 5e (and most D&D games, where the expectation is that everyone splits the party wealth evenly) is mostly a matter of connections rather than possessions. Get a good grasp on who's who before the campaign starts and then write yourself into that who's who with your backstory. Are you in a kingdom? Ask to take the Noble background and work with the DM to pick out a noble family from that kingdom. Is there going to be a trade fiasco? Be a merchant and write yourself into one of the guilds involved. This is particularly true in 5e, where having a small army is much more militarily significant than being personally amazing.

Example: Our party Cleric in the pathfinder game is a cleric is a member of a noble house in one country and a cleric of the chief goddess of another country entirely. This is entirely intentional - the player is purposefully hedging her bets and having her character be conflicted about her affiliation, such that she could just as easily have the character team up with his family as his faith. That's a good place to be if you're not sure which side is going to be with you and which side is going to be against you.

The last thing to keep in mind is that subtle is good in an intrigue game. If you're not sure what you should be doing, do something that doesn't make it obvious to others what you just did. That way, if it turns out you fucked up, you have plausible deniability.

My main problem with intrigue games is that I'm extremely bad at subtlety. I have guile in so far as arranging circumstances to improve my odds in combat, but no guile or tact for social situations. When I play D&D, I commonly play very direct characters.

So my first step for an intrigue game is "make a character for whom direct physical confrontation is a bad idea." So I'm leaning towards a transmuter or diviner, who really just wants to pursue their hobbies and experiments and such. So that at the very least I can't pull a repeat of "Arkendrea 'Recent Events'," my paladin who was very, very direct, and impulsive. And is a large reason why we're changing characters and games.

A diviner is a perfectly reasonable character for an intrigue game. You divine things and inform the party's plotting via your divinations. Solid contribution.

All I know so far is that we're playing somewhere in Faerun, maybe on or around the Swordcoast.

I'm leaning towards diviner, with the idea for the character's agenda being that they've foreseen some great calamity for the city, but whoever's in charge doesn't believe them and has basically forbidden them from doing anything, so my character has to covertly prepare for this as-yet ambiguous calamity.

Prak wrote:Ok, this makes me feel dumb, but I am terrible at intrigue. It's like a featureless black cube that I have no clue how to interact with.

Which is normally fine, but the game I'm playing in right now is run by my femmefriend and she wants to run intrigue.

So... how the fuck do I play intrigue? System will be 5e, but it seems like she wants to do it more by roleplay and less by dice play, so I'm really not sure how much system honestly matter for this.

PvP intrigue or PvE intrigue? Because these are completely different things are are played completely different ways.

They're so fundamentally different that advice I give for one would be counterproductive for the other.

Prak wrote:My main problem with intrigue games is that I'm extremely bad at subtlety.

That's okay in PvE, just let the other players do all the talking. You arrange yourself as being just there. Don't engage the problem directly. You might want to build someone who can snoop, with cover as a servant of another PC. Because servants get to hear some shit. They're ubiquitous to the point of being invisible without having to bother spending a 4th level spell slot on it. It's common for people to just ignore them and pretend they're not there.

PvE, most likely, knowing this group. I think we have a snoop coming from another player.

There is part of me that's wondering whether having the power to smash face when everyone else is expecting subtlety isn't a bad talent. Sure, you can plot all you want in the shadows, but you can also put all the scheming nobles to the sword and nail proscriptions to the forum when your private army marches into the capital.

The hard part is assembling said army to march into the capital, but 5e necromancers are a thing.

No, the bad part of that plan is where I piss everyone else in the group off, including my femmefriend who is running it.

Prak wrote:No, the bad part of that plan is where I piss everyone else in the group off, including my femmefriend who is running it.

It's an endgame.

Having a brute who smashes shit is not a bad thing in an intrigue game. But it's an endgame. They set them up, you'd knock them down, as it were.
A lot of it depends on the group's actual goals, but there comes a point where action is necessary in order to achieve them. The ability to act, rather than just scheme, is thus necessary.


Likewise, buttbuttination, in all of its euphemistic forms, is a vital part of the intrigue toolkit. Such a character might be termed a problem-solver (some people are problems, he selves them), or a obstacle remover (some people are obstacles, he removes them). Generally speaking, perfect accidents are better at this role than random werebeast attacks are, but both are viable.

Having a troll is a problem, in part, because it is obvious what a troll does. In an intrigue game, hiding your capabilities is a big part of what you're doing. This is some Sun Tzu shit. Appear strong where you are weak and weak where you are strong.

Gathering information is the most important weapon in an intrigue game. Everybody will lie to you - if you can determine what the 'truth' is, you'll be one step ahead of everyone else. Invest in contacts. Have ways to verify that your network has not been compromised.

It shouldn't be a big deal either way if you're a full caster. Clerics and druids in particular get their full list so there's nothing to stop you from switching gears from Zone of Truth or Speak With Plants to something that can beat face. Don't underestimate Druids for games like this, either, btw. Talking to the local flora and fauna can be valuable and at least shows you're making an effort plus wildshape into a spider gives you darkvision and the ability to stow away in the rogue's pocket when they spy on people in case they get into a situation that requires a pocket bear.

If it's a PvE game and you're not good at subtle then the easiest and most cooperative thing to do is to make yourself the useful one. That is, your character has less goals, and more loyalties. Namely to the party member(s) good at the sneaky stuff.

Basically before the game starts ask two players who you deem to be good at intrigue in general (assuming these are people you've played with before outside of the GM) and ask "What would make my character easy for yours to use."

For example maybe they tell you "I need a distraction, I need someone who can get roaringly drunk at a party and keep the hosts occupied while I rifle through their drawers." Or maybe they tell you "I need a spy, someone who can go unnoticed and report back to me what they've seen." Or maybe they say "I need someone who is good at getting information out of people, if I kidnap them can you get them to talk?"

Intrigue games have party roles the same as non-intrigue games so figure out who's specializing in what and then figure out what compliments that skillset or helps make that job easier. This way you personally don't have to be the one coming up with the brilliant runaround plans, but you're still contributing to the goals of the party planners.

Also ask "What does my character want out of this" and then while you're working with the group look for opportunities to advance that goal. Always have a side hustle to keep you occupied when your fellow players don't need their brute squad for the moment.

Looks like we're playing in Balder's Gate, somewhere between 1488 and 1492 DR. The artificer class has been approved, but only the Alchemist archetype. I'm sort of considering that, either instead of or in addition to Diviner.

About the marching troops into the city - that's the endgame, where you scheme to assemble overwhelming force to accomplish goal X. If you want to do this I can lay out some ideas for plans, but you pretty much said that this endgame would piss everyone off so I'll let it slide.

What you could ALSO do is use that lack of subtlety and make it work for you, by just being a big public agitator and going over the top so that no one takes you seriously. Preach in the streets, rabblerouse, convince the peasants - but don't keep yourself clean, and provide a distraction so the other characters can do their work. Be crazy and charismatic enough to gather the disenfranchised, but repulsive enough that the nobles won't take you seriously, then either lead a popular revolt or set up the world's greatest distraction.

You don't need super complicated plans, sometimes an end goal, a few simple steps, and secrecy are enough.

Capn, you are missing a key constraint in this problem: Playing a character who Prak's table would want to play with. If somebody says they want to do an intrigue-heavy campaign, what they're saying is that they want to play a campaign where people do things the subtle way. Being loud and unsubtle is pissing on the social contract there.

The entire point is to be loud and unsubtle so people don't expect it when you're actually subtle.

If you establish a reputation for bluntness you provide a damn good distraction for others, much like honesty can just be a plan to build up to the biggest lie of them all.

And my entire point is that if any part of your plan involves "be loud and unsubtle" you've failed. Not because it wouldn't work, but because everyone else at the table is going to be annoyed with you for having done that.

Grek wrote:And my entire point is that if any part of your plan involves "be loud and unsubtle" you've failed. Not because it wouldn't work, but because everyone else at the table is going to be annoyed with you for having done that.

Well, if Prak can't into subtlety, and may not be not subtle, then what should he do?
Say "Well, I'd like to play in this game with you, but I'm bad at being subtle.", which will lead him to either make things go pear-shaped due to lack of subtlety, make the other players unhappy due to it being too easy and/or make Prak not enjoy the game?
Say "I'm not good at subtlety so I'm not going to play"?

I can't speak about what Prak's friend would do, but I personally would allow a non-subtle character, as long as it's controlled lack of subtlety.
Sometimes the smoke is there to distract you from the real fire. Sometimes an overacting retard is working with the guys pickpocketing you while you are distracted. And don't forget that most peoples' eyes are closed while they are laughing.

Grek wrote:And my entire point is that if any part of your plan involves "be loud and unsubtle" you've failed.

Not if you're a distraction.

But alas, playing a cunning mofo that wears a Boisterous Bruiser facade so no one pays attention to the shit he's actually pulling behind the curtains requires a pretty high expertise in cloak&dagger gaming the OP has already stated to lack.

Dogbert wrote:to the shit he's actually pulling behind the curtains

This made me realize something:
Prak, are you working together or against each other?
What I mean by this:
Are you a group working together to achieve a common objective?
Are you a group out of necessity, working together due to a glaring need to, but more focused on using the others for their own gain?
Are you a group in name only, where you occasionally collude on topics, but otherwise see each others as rivals?

Knowing the group, I believe we'll be working with each other. Our previous game was ended due to my paladin's impetuousness. Just being a paladin who goes and strikes out against evil without much concern for what future complications that will cause (we'll burn that bridge when we get to it) was enough to cause issues, so we're most likely going to be working together.

Trill wrote:Well, if Prak can't into subtlety, and may not be not subtle, then what should he do?

Play a Diviner, a Bard, a Safe Cracker, a Forger, a Circus Acrobat or anyone else who might show up on an Ocean's Integer film.

Again: It's not that you personally have to be a con artist IRL to play in an intrigue game. But you do have to recognize that it's a specific genre and play a genre appropriate character. It's the same idea as a high seas game - you don't have to be a pirate, but you absolutely do have to be a person who's willing to board a ship and get involved in sword fights.

Would plagiarism work? Copy one of the other players that seems to know what they are doing until you can strike out on your own?