A game management issue about how to handle intrigue between PCs using Game Groups and other techniques to keep everyone's plots secret, and how to handle time issues (and retain players) if one player wants to move forward to the resolution of his intrigue while one or two more have convoluted plots that need to be addressed beforehand.

I’m thinking of running a historical game (my current favourite genre) using  intrigue rules similar to ASOIAF (A Song Of Ice And Fire RPG).


Regarding Intrigue:

In most games, if you want to carry out secret activities, you use a Game Group that nobody else uses. But in ASOIAF, almost all your activities seem to be secret - it’s all about plotting and intrigue. So how do you manage all those secret activities?

Using a Court of Henry VIII example: Thomas Wolsey is plotting his rise to power in Henry’s court. Henry himself is plotting in his court against the Catholic Church. The Pope is plotting in the Vatican to stamp out the religious reformers. Each will have a string of posts relating to their intrigues.

Suppose the Pope sends an emissary to Hampton Court to meet Henry and Wolsey. How does the Pope’s player play the emissary, in the Game Group assigned to Henry’s court, without seeing the backlog of Henry’s or Wolsey’s plots in that same Group?

How and where in the player environment do Wolsey and Henry meet to talk, where neither can see the other’s intrigue history but they can secretly plot together to fool the Pope’s man? Surely you can’t have a Group set up for each individual plot and each individual meeting? There wouldn’t be enough Groups available.


Regarding Time:

In the example above, the Pope’s player develops a plan. To carry out that plan, he sends an emissary to London. but that emissary will take six weeks to travel from the Vatican to London.

If the London players are happy with a time jump, all’s well, but if they’re engrossed in their own plots, which they don’t want to cut short, what does the Pope’s player do for the six game weeks while he is waiting for his emissary to travel? He could be waiting six months or more in Real Time before he can begin his intrigue. How do I entertain this player until I can address his idea?

Well, like you said, you can have Groups, within Groups, within Groups.  That sounds like it should work fine...

In one game I'm in we use PMs for this.  It's fast, easy and completely in the Player's hands as to whom is within which group.  I expect the GM is just riding herd to make sure people aren't excluded from certain actions or plots when their character is right there, in the room (so to speak).

In another the GM literally does ye olde "Go post in this thread" when we Split The Party.

The difference in the two approaches?  With the Groups, once the the thread is archived, well then all the Players can enjoy reading about the Party Split.  With the other... those secrets remain secret.


PMs.  I recommend them.

I don't know if the GM can archive them or not.  I don't...

Nevermind, I just checked, GM can totes DL any thread he's involved in.


That's a big question.  Way above my pay grade mate.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 17:14, Tue 14 Nov 2017.

He has the right idea. Public threads should only be used for things that are done in public such as big meeting rooms, throne rooms, any place where information can trickle out to anyone else in the world. If someone wants a secret back room meeting then it should be taken to pms.
Alternately you could have a few 'meeting room' type threads where people can meet and plot together, these threads can then be archived if they're no longer relevant or you can delete them if you need to make room for fresh threads.

As for the keeping someone occupied part, there's two options.
One is wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff where all players agree that while x discussion continues, y meeting can take place 6 weeks in the future. This requires a willingness on all people's sides to be willing to reconcile plot holes
e.g. Oh well in the discussion x thing I just found out that this event took place and that would have changed my answer during meeting y. Unless that answer in meeting y was only like a post or 2 ago the player will have to accept it and come up with an at least somewhat logical thought process as to why things went the way they did.

Alternately the one overseeing the game needs to come up with something to hold the attention of the one waiting around, even if it's only a tangent/side quest style thing, anything just so the player isn't sitting around for ages doing nothing.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

See, this forum can help quite experienced GMs. I've been a GM for <cough> years, and I've been on Rpol for the best part of a decade, but I've always seen PMs as a means to pass OOC messages between The GM and players, or, less often, from player to player, to arrange backstories, etc.

In all that time, I've never seen PMs used for IC posts. Maybe I've never played the right games.

This answer was staring me in the face, but it just never occurred to me!

Might be a nightmare to archive, though, as evileeyore says. Perhaps the GM would need to copy/paste into a synopsis/journal/narrative in a GM only thread on an ongoing basis, and then reveal sections of this as things come to light?

I'll chew on all this food for thought. :)


Keeping players busy during other people's intrigues seems to be the bigger problem, though.

And it will be made worse, because I'm planning to run this game on two levels - a Personal Level where all the court intrigue and backstabbing takes place, and a Strategic Level of empire building where territory is gained, lost and controlled.

The idea is that Strategic actions will provide reasons for Personal intrigue, and Personal intrigue will affect Strategic actions.

However, I can see a situation where a player makes a critical move in a 'monthly turn' at the Strategic Level, and then has to wait while that month's Personal Level intrigues are carried out, day by excruciating day, before his eagerly anticipated next Strategic monthly turn takes place.

And that may take several months of gaming.

Sometimes I wonder if a game like this can work at all, but that's the point of discussing it here. Maybe somebody else can see something I'm missing, and help to figure out how to make it work.

Any more ideas on engaging players during long-term plans?

Thanks. :)

Sooo it's something of a more indepth version of Diplomacy?
One suggestion I would make is that you set a time limit then. Discuss it with your players and agree on a time period. For example the rule might be: Have all your 'actions' in by the last day of the month. If people want to continue conversations off their own backs 'outside of continuity' then they can do so via pm, and then keep the game threads as more public areas which will stick to the timeline.

Well, Diplomacy is a bit simpler than what I had in mind. I'm thinking more like Houses of the Blooded or An Echo Resounding, but yes, a sort of map-movement level to provide a <i>raison d'etre>/i> for the intrigue.

Yes, putting a limit on the time allowed for the Personal Level actions might be a way to go. I had thought about making it more turn-based than my usual freeformish method, simply to make the huge scope more manageable, so that would tie in with a 'Turn X actions must be in by Day Y' approach.

I don't think it will solve the problem entirely, but perhaps if each player is given several characters, they can immerse themselves in the affairs of a second or third character while the first is waiting for his master plan to come to fruition. It might reduce the frustration.

I'm concerned, though, that I might be asking too much of the players, in that case. Managing a single Noble House might be more than enough for some players, without asking them to run two or three.

Maybe this bird is just too fat to fly?

It seems it Ike.  I love the ambition of it.  I'd also be mindful of if you already have players in mind.  Perhaps a way to test it would be to create a small subset of the game (one House, one Nation) and run it for a bit, rolling out in scope as you manage it and are confident the players can manage it?

I have about 3 or 4 players in mind, who are really capable and reliable, but a game on this scale will need double that, at least. So yeah, that's an ongoing issue, too.

A pilot game could be an option, once I have the rules sorted and the basic management worries licked, and yes, I have every intention of starting local before I go global. Starting out with international intrigue and diplomacy would blow my mind, let alone the players'. :)

   Diplomacy - what a great way to kill friendships ...  :P

   Seriously, I think the whole 'Have your moves in by Day X' is a solid idea. That way you can establish and keep a flow going to things and keep the momentum going, something that is essential in a PbP game like this. (I've run a Space Simulation game on a Strategic scale before - Starfire - and having everyone's moves in by a certain time made it easier to move things along. On occasion things would need to be compensated for; someone going on holiday or having a baby, but they all agreed that their ongoing plans would continue, just nothing would begin until they returned)

  I like the idea of trying it out on a local level - seems that if there are any troubles, smoothing them out in a smaller game might prevent any larger snaggles in the larger, more complex game. It sounds like an interesting premise - I've always liked putting a bit of intrigue into my own games - but it's never been as upfront as what I'm reading about this game proposal. Sounds like it could be a blast.

Ok, sorry I took so long to getting around to post on this one.  I also agree that giving specific turn-in dates is a great idea.  It should help keep the pace constant.  It looks like you're putting a lot of attention to detail into this project, so you're already off to a good start.  I usually like to try to come up with novel mechanics for my game as well, so my advice would be not to rush your set up.  The last thing you want to do is let a cool idea fall flat because you didn't set it up properly.

Because your idea lends itself to players possibly joining factions, I'd suggest coming up with some way to allow your players to pick their own teammates, I would usually initiate this before the game started.  I would also try to leave room within the concept to allow players to go solo if they like.

As for your timing concern, here are two ideas that I think could help.
1) If the player who is waiting is gonna sit around for awhile, drum up a little side mission for that player.
2) It's up to the GM when and how missions pop up.  You can always hold off on offering a mission until the timing is better for the players potentially involved.
3) Maybe have some static activities players can participate in that don't have a set time schedule.  Maybe stuff like casinos or something, stuff like that can add an interesting flavor to the game.

If you're looking to get more players, I'd suggest asking them if they know anyone who might like to join.  Maybe they even know someone from a TT game that might be talked into trying rPol even, or a player who doesn't know the system but is willing to learn.  New players are great and necessary anyways.

KHB - There are some players who find it difficult to detach themselves from the role they are playing. It's definitely not a good idea to play Diplomacy, or any similar game, with that type. Fortunately, there are some who accept in-game betrayal as mere role-play and simply enjoy the game as a fun challenge.

Hoppa - Heh, I'm certainly not rushing this. The idea has been sitting in a side-tunnel of The Pipeline for several years already. Every now and then, I come back and gnaw on these problems, and others, while I write/derive a rule-set to handle it (I know of no commercial rules that can do what I want).
I brought it up now because:
1. We have a suitable forum.
2. The forum had a lull that I thought I might fill.
3. I happened to think about it again.

I think PCs may change factions more than once, as in Diplomacy, or keep to themselves.

Side missions seem to be the way to go, rather than taking on another character, but that might mean I need even more competent players.

Unfortunately, in a sandbox system like this, it may not be up to the GM when a mission pops up. A player can decide to create his own mission at any time - declare war on a neighbour, etc.

But if Player A makes a Strategic move to declare war on Player B, he's going to want to progress with that war via monthly map turns, whereas if Player B is engaged with daily intrigue with Player C, he's going to want to play out each day, not cut his machinations short for Player A's benefit.

It's just difficult to think of a 'side mission' that would distract a player from the desire to wage strategic war. And to come up with something every time such a situation arises. I doubt if rattling dice in a casino would cut it. :)

Well sure, a casino might not cut it, I just threw a random example out there to illustrate that sometimes its fun to give players options to do things not so directly related to missions.  Either way, I think you're doing better at planning things than I think you're giving yourself credit for.

Thanks, yeah I know a casino was just an example. :)
Of course, Player B above could send spies into Player A’s court that will require Intrigue to deal with, and would give Player A something to think about on a personal level, but whether that would satisfy Player A, I have no idea. Nor do I know how often I could come up with stuff like that.

Rekindling the conversation!

It looks like Game Groups and Time were well covered previously, but it seems like Intrigue got glossed over. I wanted to circle back and get other GMs opinions on handling intrigue in games. It's something I really love the idea of, but which I haven't seen utilized much in RPGS.

Couple main questions:

1) How do you keep this from getting personal? Do you allow indirect PvP, only allow intrigue against NPCs? Would be curious to hear from someone who ran an Intrigue game if there were hurt feelings or did everyone handle backstabbing just fine?

2) What form did intrigue take?  Someone mentioned a Game of Thrones RPG that's almost entirely centered on intrigue. How did this play out? (Both in a tabletop format and play-by-post)

I'm putting together pieces for a new game I may run in a few months and I wanted intrigue to be one element. I've just never had it in previous games.