Recently I've been toying with the idea of doing a session that can be handled almost exclusively through RP and non-combat dice rolls. The players are going to be going to a semi-primitive kingdom. Think the barbaric northerners more or less. Not living in tents, they have cities and a government, but strength matters, all that. Borderline neutral evil though. They are supposed to find a way to get the king to side with them in a coming war. I would like for them to be able to do this entirely without combat, but I don't want to just say "Hey guys, convince the dude. Aaaand go." How can I make this work? Right now I'm coming up dry.
If you want to keep players from attacking somebody, there is no REALLY safe way, since players will be players.
Things that might work:
- Have the NSC offer to talk
- Have the players find out that he has some kind of intel that they need
- Make the NSC extremely threatening (give him lots of bodyguards or sth, so they think they'll probably lose, if they attack. This should be quite eays if he is a king, since those tend to have armies and stuff...)
- If they know that they're going to need his help in the war, how would they NOT try to convince him?