So let’s talk social / intrigue campaigns. I’m talking Game of Thrones, Mistborn (well... more the 1st book), Dune, Mists of Avalon- where politics and power are front and center. Why talk about it, well we’ve got a book for that coming out.
It’s called “The Alternate Path: Social Characters” and it’s the latest in our Alternate Path line where we focus on one part of the game and give your new mechanics and character classes to support that particular area of interest.
Short Version:
-Civilized vs Primal is back
-Urban deities are thing now
-The social caste system is off the hook
-We made using social stuff like verbal duels in combat SUPER easy, impactful on combat, and rules light with our social combat section.
-The noble base class is a social option monster. Takes social combat to the next level.
-The legionary base class is all about a citizen soldier who gains political advantage from his service. Combat, skills, social stuff- it’s got it all (in measure).
-Showman is a magical trickster / conman and is just absurdly fun to play with when used right.
-7 new spells and a new magic item
-20+ new feat (lots of them social)
-Ever want to know how much it was to arrange a marriage or have someone killed (...or both at the same time?)- we got you covered with our services section.
So, what’s in it. Basically- if you enjoyed Ultimate Intrigue, you’ll enjoy this book. We start off with a discussion of themes, civilized vs primal characters (a concept brought up in Alt. Path Primal) before jumping into a discussion on “Urban Deities”. See, we imagine a lot of deities as being a product of more agrarian, “lizard brain”, “primal” aspects of life. Life in the city brings new fears, new hopes, new goals, and a whole new lifestyle (see agrarian / industrial revolutions and how they influenced human thoughts / religion). We talk about “predatory” deities who are more “Doing this bad thing counts as me ‘worshiping’ them” than actual deities that give you power (stuff like addiction, insecurity, etc) and then jump into some more positive ones. There are 9 in all, but they can kind of serve as a template for others the way we wrote them (Like we have the “God of Dues” rather than “Graynor- the Tax Collector of Souls”). We wrap with a discussion on locations AS deities. In media, cities have personalities. Places like “Gotham City”, “The Shire”, “The Emerald City”, “Atlantis”, and “Camelot” are as easily identifiable by their characteristics as any character in their respective stories. We talk about how to create a locational deity (quickly and easily) so you can fit it into your game (And yes- you can totally be a Cleric of the Big Apple and use a miniature statue of the Empire State Building you bought at a tourist trap place as your holy symbol).
After that we introduce a central concept to this book- social caste (we use “caste” rather than “class” because it would get REALLY confusing). This is an alternate system you can use super easily and ties into character mechanics presented in this book (they still work if you don’t use them- just is an option). We split it up into low, middle, and high but each has an OPTION- it’s not “better” to be of a “high caste”, just different. To that end you basically select a “social path” in your caste that gives you some benefit but also some roleplaying responsibility. Like if you are a landed nobility (which is from the high caste) you get a bunch of money but you are responsible for the upkeep of your lands (and we got easy variable upkeep costs for that and whatnot) or a champion (a famous soldier from the lower caste) gets some of their weapons and armor compared but basically HAS to follow just and legitimate orders from superior officers. This all ties in with a pervasive theme of tying characters, softly, to organizations / social responsibilities in a mechanical sense.
Then we got social combat. Verbal dueling is fun... but super complex. It’s not something you can hand a new player and say “Yeah- just use this” or explain how to do it in a single breath. Social combat works with the verbal dueling stuff but makes it SUPER rules light and allows it to work in a more directly impactful way during combat (a special kind of non-lethal damage that can force people to “yield”... and we go into what that looks like). It really adds a lot of “umph” to roleplaying and can make a good social character a viable option as a battlefield control character (rather than just trying to adjust their relationship towards you). The system doesn’t just use “Diplomacy” and “Intimidate”- it allows for a LOT of fun ways to use skills.
Then we get to the noble. There are 3 classes in this book and it’s probably the most straightforward, or at least the most expected. We’ve written noble classes in the past but this incarnation is top notch. D8, medium BAB, and 8 + Int skill points. It kind of plays like a social-heavy rogue if you squinted really hard and just looked at the math. It’s got talk down, which is basically super-social combat. They can forgo damage to control enemies a bit and even give some allies temporary HP. They are tied to an organization and it influences how they can use some resources. I’m skipping over a lot (because I know I’m rambling) but they get “social graces” every other level, which is basically akin to a fighter getting their combat feats every other level except these are utility/social ones. These characters make devastating utility/option-based social characters (like a... social wizard kind of) or can be a straight battle-noble. Lots of fun (we’ve play-tested the hell out of it), very versatile, and a great addition to any table.
Next is Legionary. One of my designers described it thusly: “if the noble is the social wizard, the legionary is the social magus”. It draws from the idea of the citizen soldier- the politically motivated warrior who advances as he goes. The terminology is taken from Roman soldiers from the 2nd punic war but it fits with anything if you file the serial numbers off it. They are a straight up martial character: d10, full bab, good will. They kind of play like a flexible fighter (they retrain a small number of “tactics” each day”) with a lot of equipment based abilities (“If you are mounted I get a bonus”, “If you and I have the same weapon, I get a bonus”, etc). They also get a small compliment of social abilities (some skill bonuses, something like social graces from the noble, etc).
Finally, we got the showman. Think of it like the “magical social character”. They are more magical conman / mystic trickster than mundane noble or rogue. As a caster they have a lot of mind affecting and illusion stuff. They are kind of circus / theatrical themed and have a cool weapon that you have to “roll to disbelieve”. I won’t go into it a lot but their class features, if used right, are just absurdly fun to trick people with (the person who figures out why “Liar Liar” is such a clever talent gets a cookie). It’s also got a “ringleader” archetype which is almost a hybrid class with our multiman from gonzo 2 (it gets the clone class feature).
Evening it out we have 7 new spells and a new magic item (“very important papers”) before we get to feat. We got class support feats, some generally socially focused feats, and some social combat support. Then we hit “social styles” which is kind of like a “martial arts style” but is more... well social. It’s how you debate, how you hold yourself, how you were groomed, etc. We got a straight classy style, a quippy one for your Spider-Man / Deadpool fans out there, and a blustery bravado one if Kamina is more your speed.
Finally we get to political services. Want to know how much it costs to hire the Skippy Boys gang from the west side to go brawl with the Mason’s Guild and interrupt their meeting? Yeah- we got you covered. How about calling for a hit on a king and making it look like your political rival did it? Yep. We got that too. Now, we go over how the prices for these things are more “comparative” than “literal” (“tit for tat” is a more common currency for these things than actually GP). We go over how to buy them and how likely certain people are to spill their guts or flap their lips about what they were hired to do. It’s rules light, a lot of fun, and can get the party into all sorts of trouble.
We got Rui on art again and so you know it’ll be awesome. I’m (Scott) on layout and Ian did the editing for this one. All us goblins (Ian, Christos, and I) wrote stuff for this and it’s been about... 6 months in the work.
So yeah- that’s what we got and we are pretty proud of it. Hope you guys will give it a look on Sunday when it hits DriveThru (will probably be up on Paizo shortly after).
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Well gonna have to check it out. I gotta support any effort to bring the game out of the "Hit it and kill it" mentality, and broaden it's horizons to encompass the stories of the world outside of dungeons and violence.
Now I hope to see some third party stuff embrace even higher concept stuff like rulership as a viable character class/concept.
So noble will definitely bring you closer to that. However, what you are really looking for is the social caste system in this book. It does exactly that.
And, yeah, we are very much of the mindset that just because you CAN smack around the goblins doesn't mean it is the best idea to do so.
This book, along with Alternate Path: Ascetic Characters, really focused more on that abstract, narrative-driven, aspect of the game.
Edit: Now Live On Paizo.com!