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So we know that at least a few of the River Kings and rulers have spies in each other’s cities, and most PC Kingdoms are going to have a Spymaster. Has anyone got any rules or thoughts on how to go about letting the players plant spies in foreign cities, what advantage having such spies might give them, and how to judge whether spies discover any useful information, whether they get caught etc.? Conversely, how can the players go about trying to root out any foreign spies that might infiltrate their own kingdom?
Should this sort of stuff be handwaved, or handled very abstractly as GM fiat? Should there be some sort of random table or dice roll to determine success of spies? Should the PCs be paying gold or BPs to maintain spies in foreign kingdoms, or should any costs be simply part of Kingdom upkeep (assuming you have a spymaster)?
Been thinking of this, as it is relevant to my group. Our spymaster's ambitions are greater than his ability, that is for dang sure. He took leadership at lv7, and proceeded to send level 1-2 experts across borders to do in-depth espionage into noble houses, sword schools and even remote Quadira, to find out more about the cleric... without a single clue to go on.
The easiest way to handle it, I guess, would be a loyalty check to find spies in your kingdom, adjusted by the (lack of) skill on the part of the spy, and some manner of proxy diplomacy check to gather information across the borders, where failing by 5 means they are caught, and failing by 10 means the enemy learned who sent them, or something to that extent.
My initial thought was to use the additional rules for hiring adventurers, as a single spy can't do much without back-up (No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die), and force them to pay BP, scaled to the level of their investigation.
"I want to find out how the general population of Brevoy feels about us being a proxy for Rostland's expansion into the stolen lands." should be cheap, 5 BP tops.
"I wish to learn the names of the movers and shakers in Brevoy's brewing civil war, if Pitax is involved, and how this might implicate the PC from House Orlovsky, so we can make preparations." on the other hand requires insight into highlevel NPCs secrets, precise information, a high chance of being detected, and expedience in execution. A task like this should require a group of exceptional NPCs, and cost at [u]least[/u] 20 BP, and upwards of 40+ if they have no pre-existing insiders that can help them.
If a player takes a feat, it should accomplish something significant. Whatever system you set up, make SURE that you communicate that the Leadership feat provides bonuses or allows you to accomplish harder tasks. I'd also rule that "spending" the cohort on these missions greatly increases the chances of success.
Try to reward your PCs for their creativity. When my PC's rolled an influx of indigenous citizens for their city encounter roll, the new citizens ended up being Pervilash, Tig Titter Twit, and a contingent of small fey.
My PCs immediately started recruiting them for their spy network. Tiny, invisible fey can get anywhere and see anything. The Grig's even use their silent image spell to make holomaps or three dimensional images of suspicious targets for recon briefings.
In terms of spies, my PC's spy teams are broken up into three separate categories:
Casters- a division of magic users that combine their abilities to cast scryings, counter divinations, and other divination magics.
Covert Spies- These are spies like Pervilash who depend on not being seen, stealing documents through stealth, learning privileged information by getting in and getting out.
Overt Spies- These are the humanoid spies that insert themselves innocuously into another country pretending to be either an ordinary citizen or using subterfuge to get close to their target.
actually... spies rarely if ever do anythjing more complicated than buy newspapers, take clippings and talk to people. At best make themselves friends with some important people... and expect them to drop a line or two..
james bond and such is pure fiction :p ..or hes not a spy atleast..
so the equivalent would be a travelling merchant liberally buying drinks in tavers for others.. and chatting people up... and thus learning about wheter there are food shortages or vast overpriduction, how citybuilding is coming along, the size of armies and how the people feels about the rulers...
Anyways.. id have it a basic building of some kind. Like guild and shop. A gyuild can make 2 missions happen, a shop can make 1 mission happen. Then determine.. somehow... how to resolve the successes. Id say most information is knowable, eventually. Question is however mow much risk one is willing to take damaged relations to speed it up.
ie do we send in people in breaking into homes, assassinations and kidnappings + torture, or do we send in the travelling merchant kind? ;)
Id suppose a Know kingdom/ruler/military etc kind of check, and spyorganisations gathering knowledge ever so slowly with the number of missions, quality of spy master and daring and successful missions undertaken.
Enough such failed (identiied, or worse captured) kidnapping-tortures and you have war at your hands.
Bond isn't a spy..he's an Assassin pure and simple
Agreed. Experts are perfectly capable of gathering useful info on the ground. If your cohort happens to be a bard or a diviner, that's gravy.
Wouldn't large parts of this stuff just sort of roll into the Spymaster's general mechanics within the kingdom building rules? That's what I'd assume the Spymaster is doing to net the benefits to the kingdom that he is, really.
I mean, sure - you can jazz it up if the PCs are really interested in it, naturally. But I think it more or less boils down to the standard contribution the job role is providing.
My players use the spy ministry as an agency of 'internal security'.
The Spy Master is actually Mikmek, a little kobold rescued in the mite's lair. I played him as an ironic and astute leader. He's in fact the cohort of Laurea, one of the players, a female elven explorer, who is the Royal Assasin. He has been with the party since they rescued him (and secretly loves Laurea O_o').
The Sootscale kobolds have developed a lot since the incorporation of his clan into the kingdom... and now, their ears work for the kings.
... However, The Queen (a fey-touched druid) doesn't trust the kobolds completely, and so she has a contingent of followers "watching the watchers": a dozen of awekened mice (smaller and with better hearing abilities than the kobolds).
As you see, my players are very paranoic, more involved in preventing the enemy within than spying in foreign courts...
My players use the spy ministry as an agency of 'internal security'.
The Spy Master is actually Mikmek, a little kobold rescued in the mite's lair. I played him as an ironic and astute leader. He's in fact the cohort of Laurea, one of the players, a female elven explorer, who is the Royal Assasin. He has been with the party since they rescued him (and secretly loves Laurea O_o').
The Sootscale kobolds have developed a lot since the incorporation of his clan into the kingdom... and now, their ears work for the kings.
... However, The Queen (a fey-touched druid) doesn't trust the kobolds completely, and so she has a contingent of followers "watching the watchers": a dozen of awekened mice (smaller and with better hearing abilities than the kobolds).
As you see, my players are very paranoic, more involved in preventing the enemy within than spying in foreign courts...
jeebus, and I thought our group was falling apart. Our GM is itching to have our Councilor, his own NPC Cleric of Iomeade lay the smack down on the more unruly components of our party, like the rogue and the wizard who want to slay anyone and everything in sight that inconveniences them. All under Sarenrae's banner, no less...
My players use the spy ministry as an agency of 'internal security'.
The Spy Master is actually Mikmek, a little kobold rescued in the mite's lair. I played him as an ironic and astute leader. He's in fact the cohort of Laurea, one of the players, a female elven explorer, who is the Royal Assasin. He has been with the party since they rescued him (and secretly loves Laurea O_o').
The Sootscale kobolds have developed a lot since the incorporation of his clan into the kingdom... and now, their ears work for the kings.
... However, The Queen (a fey-touched druid) doesn't trust the kobolds completely, and so she has a contingent of followers "watching the watchers": a dozen of awekened mice (smaller and with better hearing abilities than the kobolds).
As you see, my players are very paranoic, more involved in preventing the enemy within than spying in foreign courts...
Oh man! Your game seems something I'd LOVE to play!
Great roleplaying situations and great use of NPC makes the players feel like they are REALLY inside a vibrating full lived world.
I wish you enjoy the game!
My players use the spy ministry as an agency of 'internal security'.
The Spy Master is actually Mikmek, a little kobold rescued in the mite's lair. I played him as an ironic and astute leader. He's in fact the cohort of Laurea, one of the players, a female elven explorer, who is the Royal Assasin. He has been with the party since they rescued him (and secretly loves Laurea O_o').
The Sootscale kobolds have developed a lot since the incorporation of his clan into the kingdom... and now, their ears work for the kings.
... However, The Queen (a fey-touched druid) doesn't trust the kobolds completely, and so she has a contingent of followers "watching the watchers": a dozen of awekened mice (smaller and with better hearing abilities than the kobolds).
As you see, my players are very paranoic, more involved in preventing the enemy within than spying in foreign courts...
Oh man! Your game seems something I'd LOVE to play!
Great roleplaying situations and great use of NPC makes the players feel like they are REALLY inside a vibrating full lived world.
I wish you enjoy the game!
That's why Kingmaker is my favorite AP. It has changed my concept of dungeon mastering and roleplaying. I was bored knowing always which was the 'next step in the road' with conventional adventures. Now, i enjoy every game sesion, never knowing what's going to happen. You only have to design a lot of NPCs and a few events. The rest is pure roleplaying. Wonderful !!!
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That's why Kingmaker is my favorite AP. It has changed my concept of dungeon mastering and roleplaying. I was bored knowing always which was the 'next step in the road' with conventional adventures. Now, i enjoy every game sesion, never knowing what's going to happen. You only have to design a lot of NPCs and a few events. The rest is pure roleplaying. Wonderful !!!
First I will second this notion.
Second, to the OPs original concerns and questions: I would say that in order to represent the cost of the spies etc, that the "Spymaster" role informs the ruler that a "Thieves Guild" must be built first - in order to have a network to draw upon.
Once this is done, if the requested notions by the PCs are things to be done "off stage" by NPC spies, then come up with a viable arbitrary roll that the Spymaster PC uses his/her stats/skills/abilities to influence.
Alternatively, you can roll a Loyalty Check for the kingdom - and adjust the DC of the check based on the difficulty of the task being requested.
Also one thing I've learned from playing the game Paranoia, is have an idea as to provide the players based on the "level of success" or failure. In other words - if he barely passes, then he gets the most basic info or desired results. Beating DC by 5 creates even better results and by 10 significant fantastic results. Contrastly failure indicates another turn must pass before you can try again, Failure by 5 or more means the spy was captured and you'll have to spend next turn looking for replacements, and failure by 10 means not only did spy fail - but his cover was blown and his allegience to the PCs kingdom was discovered.
We have not yet gotten to this stage in the campaign yet that I'm running - but I have quite the clever group of players who are undoubtedly going to come up with trying out cool shennanigans such as this; so I'm getting myself ready.
Anyone who read about my players dealings with the kobolds and how they used that relationship in another thread no of what I'm talking about. I don't put anything past them, I'm sure that I'll be dealing with all sorts of ingenuity as the campaign progresses (we just now started book 2 - PC's kingdom of Pendraig has just completed it's first year.)
There are definitely some good ideas in this thread and on this board; I am thankful to have this resource for when I need similar advice. It sounds like many of us have a good campaign going with some good creative players.
Robert
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I have had to deal with players wanting to send spies in other campaigns. Simplest way is to ask what information the 'spymaster' was seeking, the amount of time and money they wish to devote, who they would send (each had chosen a known NPC so skills were easy). I divided the money spent into the time given before a report was due as a bonus to the NPC's dice roll. If the information desired was basic the roll was easy, specific it was harder, detailed it was extremely costly in time and gold to get a shot at it. The spy was discovered on a fumble and got special information on a critical. Only one player devoted enough thought to answer the question of what information he wanted, spent enough money to get good current information and kept track of the answers he received. Most could not be bothered. The player would give me the 'questions' one session and I would 'answer' in a later session when the spy reported. He called one group of spies Rovers, the traveling merchants, bards, thieves etc and another group the tailors; those that moved into an area or were recruited and reported only when it changed or made a good enough roll to find out something special. The player built up maps of rover routs supporting tailors and was able to create good maps and information of the land being spied on. It was great for fleshing out an area before they went there or getting them to go to an area. When he wanted more he had to come up with a way to get it and then pay for it in game time and money. He even figured out how to get the spies to pay for themselves by selling some information.
In short get the player to do the work, you just give consistent answers based on his notes. Keep the rolls simple and make the player pay for it.
Maknak +1 to your player and for your DM'ing.
The nice thing about the Sandbox feel of KM is that I think players and DM's tend to be willing to be more collaborative, which they should have been doing anyway. Regardless, to the OP:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePa th/kingmaker/homebrewIntelligenceNetworkRulesFeedbackRequested
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePa th/kingmaker/treatySystem
If you choose to use Maknak's elegant system, may I suggest a small twist. BP = Bonuses to the roll. The more specific/secretive the information, the higher the DC. Applying BP to a question has is the equivalent of setting up networks and creates bonuses to the roll. Roll for each country. Okay, maybe that was two suggestions.