Doing urban intrigue well - GM advice

[Narlena]

I'm prepping for the next few sessions in the game I'm GM-ing, and was hoping for some general advice on doing urban intrigue well. The PCs will be arriving in the capital city soon, and they have a few goals to achieve there (get more information and get to/use the well guarded portal in the center of town). I want to encourage the players to use methods other than fighting their way through the city to achieve their goals.

What kinds of things do you like to use for urban intrigue? Which mechanics have you found to be most helpful? How do you keep it from getting boring or turning into just rolling on a table of rumors to find out what the PCs hear? (And do you have any advice on mystery/clues/finding information in a city?)

[The Raven Black]

You might want to check Ultimate Intrigue ;-)

[Narlena]

Thanks!!

[Hugo Rune]

Also read this article about the 3 clue rule

[Currahee Chris]

Im going to try and answer your question but admittedly, I don't really see the "intrigue" in what you've stated so far- seems pretty straightforward.

Do the PCs know the exact location of the portal? If so, when they reach the location where it is, it isn't there. They had bad information and need to do some research around the City to discover it (you could also really spice things up by having a group of thugs waiting there as the bad information leads to an attempted robbery. You could also spice it up using Paizo's chase cards and when the party arrives presumably first, they realize they got bad information and the portal isn't there).

To me, "intrigue" conjures up thoughts of sabotage, espionage, backstabbing and disloyalty. The party needs to figure out how to separate fact from fiction. They have to accept they will make bad decisions and you as the DM need to be flexible enough to react to their decisions.

Best of luck!!! :)