My table's PCs need to convince the Shelynite congregation that they should support the revolution and risk it all. After all, the word of its chief cleric is only so persuasive to its congregation. Perhaps the best way is to convince a congregation of a goddess of beauty, art, and music is through art, such as a play or opera. They'll need to make it entertaining/spectacular, inspiring/persuasive, well-attended.
What kinds of challenges to setting up the play would you have? What complications during the play would be interesting?
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Here's a draft of what I'm considering:
The high priest of Shelyn, Zachrin Vhast, shares his concerns about his congregation with Banker Andronicus, the paladin VP of the Abadar religion, or the PCs if they've reached out. (It's book three at my table and they haven't yet. They do have a standing relationship with Abadar, however, and it makes sense in my campaign for these two officially recognized religions to have some open communication.)
Vhast's congregation is split three ways: those adhering to official orthodoxy (too soon for both the Glorious Reclamation and the Silver Ravens), those who desire to join the Silver Ravens, and those who wish to become part of the Glorious Reclamation right here in Kintargo.
The PCs need to convince the congregation that they should support the revolution and risk it all, assure them that the new regime will have a place for love and beauty and not be like Galt. The best way to do that is to convince them through art, such as a play, musical, or opera. I'll be using skill challenges in three areas to measure the success of the PCs in persuading the congregation. The basic idea here is art as a means of social persuasion, with this particular audience possibly thinking that if you can't put on a play, you can't win a civil war or run a new government.
The PCs's success will be measured based on three main areas: entertainment/spectacle of its presentation, inspirational and persuasive content, and attendance. I used the scaling skill CRs from the Skill Challenge handbook to select DCs for my PCs at the start of book 3. This is a CR 8 skill challenge. Each stage will allow the party to accumulate points based on the DC they achieve: DC 20 (easy success, 1 point), DC 25 (regular success, 2 points), DC 27 (challenging success, 3 points), DC 30+ (epic success, 4 points). Feel free to adjust the DCs based on your table and what level the PCs are when they take this encounter on.
Remember the Shelyn credo: "The art or music need not be particularly well done, just so long as the creator puts in effort. A naturally-talented person who does not try yet still makes beautiful art is appreciated, but not as much as an ungifted artist who struggles for days to create something mediocre." This is something to keep in mind as you describe the results of skill checks and the responses of the audience and the actors. Your players may be more self-critical than the audience!
Challenges
Inspiring/Persuasive content: Playwright
Writing the play. This play, musical, or opera needs to connect Shelyn ideology to the Silver Ravens through its plot, themes, and dialogue. In addition, the playwright(s) need to select a genre and whether to be traditional in its approach or to go for innovative newness. Remember: this audience will be best able to appreciate theoretical experimentation about what a "play" can or must be. Revolutionary style may be just the thing to highlight the need for revolution!
Who's writing? Any character with craft: writing or a relevant profession skill would work here; I could even see a character with a perform acting or oratory skill being the playwright, talking out the play with an assistant scrambling to write it down. You may want to consider bonuses to those who took theatrical campaign traits. Don't forget spells that boost skills and aid another!
If the PCs lack these skills, Marquel strikes me as an excellent NPC candidate or they could hire someone of your own design from the active theater scene in Kintargo. If there's an NPC doing the writing, have them present these options to the party and let them choose which direction to take the play.
Possible revolutionary styles:
- Brechtian distancing devices of epic theater: pointing to moments rather than enacting them and baring the device rather than using theatrical techniques of illusion and stagecraft are meant to foster an intellectual and and critical experience of the ideas of society revealed through the play's action.
- Artuadian Theater of Cruelty aims to assault the senses through explosions of color, light, and movement to unleash the instinctual and animalistic within the audience to get them to commit to act, rather than just think.
- Didactic speechifying: nothing says revolutionary theater like exchanges of speeches debating the issues of the play to maximize comprehension of the revolutionary critique of society.
- Theater of the Oppressed seeks to get the audience involved. A typical play dramatizes an oppression and forces the audience to come up with solutions to be performed by the actors. Then, the actors play out the suggestions of the audience. Then they repeat the process with another oppression and its solution. What a way to get the audience to see how feasible the Silver Ravens' revolution is!
Possible traditional styles: These styles will be most familiar to the actors and audience, which has strengths and challenges.
- Melodrama: Who doesn't like a love story where House Thrune keeps two lovers apart and romance must live for Kintargo to thrive? This genre appeals to the emotions through extremely stylized performances, music, and plot lines to get audiences to commit to their ideals, not their fears.
- Realism: The fiction version of a documentary, this style documents the injustices Kintargo's citizens face and relates directly the Silver Raven's actions to resolve them. A very direct format that appeals to the intellect
- Comedy/vaudeville: This approach mocks the powerful while entertaining, presenting the common Chelaxian as having the wit and agency to bring the powerful down to size.
- Action: Well, if your campaign's focused on dramatic and physical fights against The Man, then this is the genre for you. This genre's very populist, but the action genre deals with the agency panic at the core of the Shelynite fears that they can do nothing to save Cheliax or Kintargo. In addition, this genre, like comedy, can be mixed with other genres. And, of course, it gives the party martial a lot to do as the fight choreographer.
Entertaining/spectacular presentation: Director/stage manager/designers
Here is where a wide variety of skills can come into play. My recommendation is to present challenges to your party for them to resolve through skills and spells. Don't be afraid to give a +2 circumstance bonus for good role playing.
- Casting Find the talent in Kintargo! Maybe it's sense motive to see which divas are talented vs. which ones are talented but self-destructive. Maybe it's knowledge local to cast by audience reputation. Maybe it's sparring to figure out who knows which end of a stage combat sword to hold. Maybe it's perception or perform: singing to identify the great musicians. Maybe it's a gather information check to find bards down on their luck. Significant challenge: Archbaroness Eldonna Aulamaxa wants to be cast and fancies herself a celebrated performer. She's actually okay at stage combat, but has a horrible singing voice that she thinks is magnificent. She's prominent in the Shelyn faithful.
- Rehearsals: Here's where you help the NPCs learn their lines and blocking, navigate the inevitable cast romantic triangles, resolve melodramas, and deal with unexpected problems like the hunk being a klutz and the beloved old professional being a drunk. Skills to anticipate: Sense motive, intimidate, perform, profession, combat maneuver checks for the fight choreography, bluff that things are going fine.
- Tech Week: Here's where you're building sets, making or purchasing costumes and props, designing makeup, and designing the illusions, lighting and stagecraft F/X. Knowledge engineering, craft, spellcraft, disguise and knowledge nobility for taste in costuming, profession, and good old purchasing power to get craftspeople to build stuff on time.
How to Adjudicate Success: I'm thinking either holistically judge how the PCs did or just keep a running tally as they make them, then do an average for this stage.
Gathering the Congregation to Hear the Message: Producer
Here's what this stage will entail: Someone needs to be away from the backstage dramas to find a theater (keeping in mind comfort, size, acoustics, availability, and secrecy). Someone needs to schmooze the important people in the congregation to make sure that they feel flattered and in a good mood before, during, and after the show. Someone needs to hire concessions. Someone needs to make sure that as many people in the congregation don't just promise to attend, but actually do. And someone needs to counter any Asmodean sabotage or a whispering campaign by a noble family opposed to the Aulamaxas. And whether it's guerrilla marketing for a revolutionary play or good old fashioned hype for a traditional style one, you'll need that too.
If no one wants to play the producer, some of these checks could be organization checks. Stopping sabotage could be a Security check. Spreading hype could be a Loyalty check or a spread (dis)information action. Recruiting actions could be done to quantify turnout, or simply an Earn Gold action, or both.
Results:
- No successes in any of the three stages: The play just isn't credible as a call to action. If you can't put on a play, can you really be trusted to win a civil war or run a government? Out of sympathy for your good intentions, you get half price healing by Vhast for the party going forward, but that's as much of a risk as he can take right now.
- Three points over the three stages: The overall impression is that maybe this will work, but it's best to just wait and see for now. Vhast gives the PCs half-priced healing and a free wand of cure serious wounds.
- Six points over the three stages: The debate goes on, but several influential congregation members decide to contribute to your cause actively. The PCs get all of the above, plus a free upgrade of a team to either Cognoscenti or Spellcasters.
- Nine points over the three stages: It's a smash! The congregation decides to go all in to support the Silver Ravens and rejects forming a Glorious Reclamation insurgency or sitting on the sidelines. The PCs get all of the above, and a +7 recruiting bonus as Zachrin Vhast recruits in his congregation and Shelynite bards go forth to sing the rebellion's praises for each successful action.
- 11-12 points over the three stages: The audience is ready to march on Castle Kintargo. The PCs get all of the above plus the services of a planar ally Lillend who gifts the party with a page of the Song of Silver (to get the started looking for that, a key goal of Vhast for the rebellion).
NPC types to keep in mind for roleplaying: impresario, the air head hunk, the aging battle axe, the bore, the lech, avuncular drunk, disgruntled stage hand, plucky understudy.
Remember: let your players take advantage of the city of Kintargo. There's a lot of experts out of work as Thrune occupies the opera house. Anything they need to do, but can't, they can pay for. Filling in gaps in skills might simply be a special organization action, as the revolutionaries come one day to build your sets and you end up with packages of dresses and props from supporters.
Relevant penalties to skills due to the city atmosphere at the start of book 3:
• -4 Profession, Craft, Perform checks to make money
• -4 gather info, checks to access city resources, disguise, diplomacy to adjust attitudes