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I’ve long been wanting to implement more of Ultimate Intrigue’s subsystems into my games but then-current adventures hadn’t presented a lot of natural opportunities and I wasn’t looking to do it just for the sake of doing it. After all, if they weren’t well-received, I’d burned valuable session time.
I like to run games heavy on world-building and verisimilitude and I learned long ago that unexpected turns and outcomes often produce the richest plot hooks/seeds/campaign fodder. So, when the heroes of one of my campaigns found themselves gaining local hero status in a town suddenly beset by troubles, I knew that I wanted them to participate in the baroness’ council meeting. I didn’t want them to be bystanders watching me role-play 5-6 different nobles and town leaders. That would be difficult for me to pull off and boring for them to watch. I also didn’t want to arbitrarily skip to the end and just summarize an outcome as I knew the players wouldn’t remember any of the NPCs and wouldn’t really care beyond “Quest giver will pay X”.
I was able to run an “out of session” session. The two heroes would be joined by two brand-new players for our game session on Saturday. I ran a session on Friday night for my 2 returning heroes and enlisted my older son (who plays with his own group or just with his younger brother) for the council meeting.
What follows is the prep that I did to help me learn the Verbal Duel rules as well as present them to the players in what I hoped would be an interesting way. I’m sure that there are many ways to introduce verbal duels into PF play, plenty of which would be better than what I came up with, but I thought I’d share in case it could be of use to other GMs.
1. I typed up a 1-page Verbal Duel rules summary that outlined the “combat sequence” of Verbal Duels & exchanges.
2. I typed up a 2-page Verbal Duel tactics summary that explained the available tactics for verbal dueling and the PF2 skills associated with them.
3. Each player was given a tent card. The table-facing side had 2 pictures with title & name labels – one for each of the NPCs they would be representing. The player-facing side had the same 2 pictures & name labels but also listed the NPCs motivations and relevant skills and skill bonuses. The tent cards didn’t assign personalities so that the players could bring the NPCs to life however they liked. They also didn’t list alignment. I knew what the NPCs’ alignments were but I left it to the players to interpret the NPCs motivations as they saw fit and play accordingly.
4. The goal of the council was to persuade the baroness, her steward, and the captain of the guard on a course of action for the barony. Side A were the “attackers” – lords and ladies advocating for mustering forces and attacking the threats head-on. Side B were the “defenders” – lords and ladies whose manors hadn’t been directly impacted and/or who were resistant to committing their resources to defending the barony at large for fear of weakening their own lands/position. To keep things even, I had to play 2 NPCs just like the players.
I’m sure I made a ton of mistakes with the rules and I was much more concerned with the spirit of the rules than the letter of RAW, but it worked out better than I expected.
From a GM perspective, by having the players take on the roles of various NPCs, personalities were defined, insults were hurled, and rivalries were created in the moment rather just through my GM prep. NPCs that I had envisioned as potential allies are now bitter rivals, schemes and stratagems have been hinted at, and a lord’s honor was insulted inadvertently by a PC and a grudge is definitely being held!
From a player perspective, the verbal duel rules were well received. The players found it interesting and as with any subsystem, they recognized that repeated use would lead to quicker play. One player said he wouldn’t want it to be part of every session but thought it would be cool when strategically used. This player struggled the most with choosing a tactic and then role-playing the exchange. Ultimately, for his turns we let him role-play what he wanted to say and then chose which tactic that equated to. The other players found it much easier to select the desired tactic & skill and then formulate/role-play the exchange.
Bottom line, we found the verbal dueling rules to be effective. They took what would have been boring exposition and turned it into a memorable campaign event full of role-play. All of the players said it was much better than the standard Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate check approach of PF1.
As a GM, it effectively turned what would have been typical prep into a meaningful encounter that also created numerous plot seeds for future adventures. My players will now remember who Lord So-and-So is and that Lady-What-and-What doesn’t like him because of this council meeting. Yes, I had to put in some extra/unusual prep for this initial use of the rules but the next time the heroes need to persuade a ruler, a mob, or take part in a trial, they will be at least passingly familiar with these rules. I also found them easy to adapt to PF2’s skills and I think the mechanics of PF2’s critical success and failure system further enhances the verbal dueling gameplay.
In any case, if you found any of this helpful and if you haven’t already done so, I hope you give the Verbal Duel rules and other Ultimate Intrigue subsystems a try. There ARE other battlefields to fight upon and they can’t all be won with a weapon or a spell! Happy gaming!
That's a neat use for the system.
Sounds very cool. I always liked the *look* of that system, but it felt unlikely that my players would understand it enough to use it. I came to the same conclusion: without effective props, it would never work.
I never got beyond a partial first draft of said props, so I'd be really keen to see yours, especially as they are now adapted to PF2.
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I've had it used in War for the Crown a few times (even experimented with in-combat verbal exchanges, sounds really cool in theory and it's a great trope but doesn't work as smoothly as one would hope). It's all about setup, and works very well with the 2e skill system :)