In my last session the PC's had to argue their case in front of the council of nobles. Although I won't go into details as to what happened during my session, I would like to share some of the mechanics of the council meeting.
First the makeup: the council of nobles consists of representatives from the 5 oldest noble families of Cauldron, in addition to the lord-mayor and captain of the guard. In all, that's 7 seats. In the not-so-rare case that either the lord-mayor or the captain of the guard is also a member of one of the 5 families, that family has two seats on the council.
In my session the council consisted of Vhalantru (as the new Lord-Mayor), Lady Rhiavadi, Alek Tercival, Lord Aslaxin, Lord Taskerhill and Lady Knowlern. There is no captain o the guard. That was one of the issues on the table.
The Lord-Mayor chairs the council. Each member of the council can table issues, on which the council of nobles then makes a decision. The power of the council is fairly broad, and includes laws, taxes, military affairs and anything else deemed important to the wellbeing of Cauldron and its citizens. The council of nobles cannot, however decide on matters that fall directly under the influence of one of the noble families.
The council sessions consists of three phases. In the first phase, council members ask witnesses to plead their case or give testimony. Council members can question or cross-examine witnesses. Although, strictly speaking, magic is allowed to get information from hostile witnesses, it is frowned upon as coarse and heavy-handed.
The second part is a recess. Nobles retreat to their private chambers and confer with each other and with other parties. It's cauldron's worst kept secret that this phase is the most important one. During the recess nobles make deals and barter influence. In my game, Vhalantru and Rhiavadi used these sessions to manipulate and dominate the other nobles.
The final phase is the vote. This part is pretty straightforward. Each member of the council has one vote, and the lord-mayor's breaks any ties.
The mechanics for diplomacy I used came from Rich Burlew's site.. Basically diplomacy is used to convince someone to do what you want him to. The DC for the check is 15 + level of the subject + relationship modifier + risk vs reward modifier.
Both relationship modifier and risk vs reward modifier are on a scale from 10 to -10.
For relationship, 10 is an archnemesis, 0 is someone you just met and -10 is a bosom buddy.
For Risk vs Reward, 10 is a terrible deal, 0 is neutral and -10 is a great deal. Anyway, read the article rich wrote. He's much better at explaining this stuff than I am.
well, that's it. I hope someone finds it usefull.
how about that... no reaction whatsoever... oh well.
how about that... no reaction whatsoever... oh well.
It stinks when you post something like this and don't get any response. Maybe it just got overlooked and fell too far down the list.
Anyway, you obviously put some thought into this, and it seems like it could be a good, workable system for handling the council's decision-making. I'm a long way off from this stage of the AP, but I for one will be copying this and filing it away for future reference. When I finally get to point of thinking about all the implications of this meeting it will give me a nice starting point to work from.
So thanks for sharing this Chef's Slaad, and keep posting those ideas no matter how long it takes some of us to finally notice them...
how about that... no reaction whatsoever... oh well.It stinks when you post something like this and don't get any response. Maybe it just got overlooked and fell too far down the list.
yeah, that was a not-so-subtle bump there :)
Chef,
What point of the Path have/will you use this?
Will the players be invited to attend a council meeting at some stage?
Delvesdeep
personally, I used it as a sort of trial against my PCs. As you may recal, they were involved in the battle of Redgorge, but were unfortunately allied with Redgorge.
Another development, the death of Christoff Jurgenson, has led the party cleric of pelor to assume the mantle of high priest. A rather difficult thing to do if you happen to be persona non grata. So they used allied nobles (Alek in this case) to plead their case and have that whole non grata thing lifted.
worked like a charm, I might add, and it's a perfect lead-in for the party at house Rhiavadi.
Interesting. You could also use it for the Lord Mayor 'elections', Keygan Ghelves trial or if the party was seeking a general change in the city (new law, property purchase).
My only concern with this is revealing Vhalantru's hand too early. I have had him manipulate the party into believing that Lord Taskerhill is the true twisted power behind the government with Teresong closest ally. If the party see the workings of the government first hand I fear the truth may be revealed.
How did you roleplay the various NPCs involved?
Delvesdeep
Interesting. You could also use it for the Lord Mayor 'elections', Keygan Ghelves trial or if the party was seeking a general change in the city (new law, property purchase).
My only concern with this is revealing Vhalantru's hand too early. I have had him manipulate the party into believing that Lord Taskerhill is the true twisted power behind the government with Teresong closest ally. If the party see the workings of the government first hand I fear the truth may be revealed.
How did you roleplay the various NPCs involved?
Delvesdeep
Roleplaying the NPCs was actually pretty cool. The trick is to have each NPC deliver only a line or two at a time, and let the PCs do the rest of the talking. In other words There is interaction between the various members of the council, but the PCs are still in the drivers seat.
Roleplaying the interactions during the breaks was the most rewarding part of the session. The rooms are warded against magical scrying and invisiblity (but curioiusly, not against charm and dominate spells) so the only option my players had was sneaking arround and listning in. Gratuitous use of guard patrols and manservants carrying messages and snacks meant the PCs had to be carefull and couldn't listen in on entire conversations. Basically, I decided beforehand who would be talking to who, and what deals would be made. Then I just roleplayed that interaction, giving each NPC just one or two lines. It worked perfectly. PCs who were invited to talk to nobles obviously got mre screen-time. The PC with the astronomical listen check, and the one with the high diplomacy really got to shine in this session.
Regarding Vhalantru, that is actually pretty easy to fix. See, at the start of the campaign, he isn't actually on the council of nobles. The council, consists of the 5 noblest (i.e. oldest) families in Cauldron, the Lord Mayor and the captain of the guard. The oldest families are: Tercival, Rhiavadi, Taskerhill, Aslaxin, and Knowlern. Vhalantru is right behind Knowlern. This way, the events in the Demonscar Legacy may lead to the demise of one of the council families, and frees a spot on the council for... you got it }:> It also means that if the PCs manage to save Alek, they profit from it later on in the game, gaining a powerfull ally on the council. And one that is reasonably safe from all sorts of charms...
Vhalantru could still be involved as advisor to the Lord Mayor. Just make sure you let the Lord Mayor do the talking and keep Vhalantru in the background.