In which we revolt!

 May entry into the 11/24 Blog Carnival: Haves and Have Nots.

Revolution as a Game of Power: Running Revolts Through Faction Intrigue

In TTRPGs, revolution often means upheaval, chaos, and the rearrangement of power structures. Yet, there's no need to think of revolutions as purely mass-based uprisings. Drawing inspiration from settings like 700 Lordly Houses, I take a different approach: presenting revolution as a complex dance of factional influences, rivalries, and the tactical moves of a few skilled operators—namely, the players.

Revolution as a Network of Influences

Revolution can be seen as a struggle not only of the “Have Nots” rising against the “Haves” but also of competing factions jockeying for control, influence, and survival. This is a more localized, faction-oriented perspective, where individual agents—be they nobles, spies, or mercenaries—can have a significant impact. By focusing on factions rather than masses, players can engage with revolution on a scale that can be both digestible and intensely personal.

Why Small Groups Matter

In a faction-driven game, the actions of small groups are the levers that push change. This doesn’t mean the players alone can start or end a revolution; rather, they influence pivotal figures and factions whose decisions ripple through the fabric of society. For example, one lord’s choice to back a rebellion might turn the tide or fracture alliances. A revolutionary movement may rely on noble houses, secret guilds, or even criminal syndicates, each with their own interests and methods. As the players work with (or against) these factions, they impact the revolution in a way that feels organic and impactful.

Running a Revolution in Faction Turns

Using faction turns, as outlined by Of Cats and Books, is an ideal way to track the progress and status of various revolutionary factions. In these turns, factions make their moves: recruiting allies, making power plays, spreading influence, or crushing dissent. When players act, they influence a faction's standing or affect another faction’s plans directly, giving them real agency in the revolution.

Faction turns can unfold on a time scale that best fits your table, creating a timeline that charts the revolution’s growth or collapse. The players’ actions determine how their allies fare, who gains or loses influence or resources, and where the tipping points might occur.

Influence over Mass Action: The Key to Revolutions

When thinking of a revolution as a series of factional maneuvers, a single band of heroes isn’t responsible for winning or losing. Instead, they are agents of influence. Consider a few ways players can affect a revolution without leading a mass uprising:

• Targeted Sway: Players can sway key NPCs within factions, negotiating or persuading them to join, remain neutral, or withdraw from the revolutionary movement. Instead of fighting in the trenches, players maneuver behind the scenes, manipulating those with direct control over the masses or at least small clusters of them.

• Strategic Strikes: Just as in Blades in the Dark, where individual actions impact larger factional standings, players can conduct missions against specific targets. This could mean sabotaging supply lines, assassinating a tyrant’s right-hand agent, or liberating a charismatic revolutionary imprisoned by the ruling class.

• Moral Manipulation: Revolutions often pivot on ideology. Players could spread misinformation, inspire loyalty, or discredit rivals to shift public perception and morale. This is where Night’s Black Agents-style investigative and manipulative gameplay shines, as players engage in the war for hearts and minds rather than swords and shields. The Vampyramid is your friend!

• Personal Alliances and Betrayals: In a world like 700 Lordly Houses, allegiances are delicate. If players help a faction rise in the revolution, they’re setting the stage for power grabs and betrayals down the line. The revolution becomes less about one side winning or losing and more about who gains what in the aftermath.

Examples of Faction-Driven Scenarios

1. Betrayal at the Banquet: The players receive intelligence that a noble who sits on the fence between the ruling power and the revolutionaries is attending a private banquet. If they can sway or sabotage this noble’s allegiances, they could pull an entire family or network into the revolutionary cause or away from it. Success or failure here shifts the balance of power within the revolution. I might suggest Festivities if you need ideas.

2. The Assassination of a War Architect: A brutal general is leading oppressive measures that have kept the revolution contained. Removing this figure could change the tide. The players are tasked with planning and executing a subtle assassination, knowing that every faction involved will have its own reaction.

3. The Smuggling Chain: Factions often rely on supply lines and resources to operate. The players are hired by a faction to secure a route for smuggling arms or block a rival’s trade routes. In this scenario, players become the nerve center of factional warfare, making tactical decisions that impact the success of larger movements.

Conclusion: Agency and Balance

By presenting revolution as a series of factional skirmishes, rivalries, and negotiations, the process becomes something dynamic and immersive rather than a grandiose mass movement. This also preserves the tension and challenge for the players, as they never have total control but remain essential to shaping key events. In this approach, players are neither the entire revolution nor just passive witnesses—they are influencers, tacticians, and decision-makers. This style keeps revolutions interactive and allows for a balance of political intrigue, tactical moves, and high-stakes choices, providing a unique and layered game experience.

 EDit 11/20 to add:  Let's Talk Clocks is another helpful tip ... and Red Hand of Doom provides good insight on how to run those massive war campaigns by playing the party.

Note:  Chat-GPT assisted with the compilation of this post.

In which we un-randomize random encounters

 at least during "travel."

Here's how we've BEEN playing it:  drawing from Uncharted Journeys and a few other sources all cobbled together I have the players roll a d20 and a d6.  The d20 determines the encounter and the d6 determines when it happens.  

There are roughly a dozen TYPES of RE during travel.  Rest related.  Food related.  Bumps in the road.  Caravans.  Travelers in trouble.  Bandits.  Monsters.  A few others.  And what I've BEEN doing is ...winging it.  But you can only have so many muddy sink holes, last adventurers and greedy bandits.  

UJ uses a very mechanic heavy approach.  Party members assume "rolls" on the trip.  Depending on the type of encounter a given roll makes a skill check that then determines how the party rolls to respond to the encounter.  Party rolls.  Results applied.  Move on down the road.  Game-able n stuff but not terribly "satisfying" during the session.   I've tried prepping a 4e style skill challenge but those are difficult to spin out spur of the moment.  So I need to come up with something "different."  After 50 years of a game there just ISN'T much different.

One of my players suggested "give us two minutes to come up with a solution and THEN adjudicate it."  Which is nice for player buy-in and participation.  So here's what I'm going to do this week.  As part of my prep I'm going to design THREE RE's for each general type (thus putting a dagger in the heart of the "random" part.)  I'll incorporate the UJ method and layer in some 4e skill challenge stuff.  It'll be more detailed and granular than it needs to be BUT - it's what my table has asked for and once the initial chart is designed I'll only need to replace those that are used.  Some weeks there will be NONE!  

More lonely fun.

In which we return and ask a big question.

 No show.  At least for me anyway.  Auditions left us half a dozen actors short.  Board beat the bushes and found me a few more but not enough.  I'm not willing to just take whatever wanders in and try to make it work.  So I resigned.  So be it.  Moving on.

When I have game time off I use what WAS prep time to update me trade tables and explore new mechanics.  I I find something I bounce it off the table and then we either adopt it immediately, reject it immediately or play test it for a month.  It was doing some of this exploration that the question popped into my head: at what point does D&D stop being D&D? I've tinkered with home brew and added mechanics for things the game rules (RAW) seem to hand-wave away. Am I still playing D&D?

I reached out to my DM Brain Trust and they offered “when you can no longer drop a character sheet/monster stat block/item from the system without a great deal of rework.” Which isn't bad.  But I'm not sure that's the line.  So I asked ChatGPT.  The crux of its response was "As long as the core elements of storytelling, role-playing, and the collaborative nature of the game are present, you can consider it a form of Dungeons & Dragons." Definitely don't agree with that, but perhaps it could be combined with the brain trust answer to move us closer.  I've floated this question to at least one other prominent DM and await their input.

I've done away with spell slots and components to "clean up" magic use while still imposing costs and decisions.  Use a modified initiative system which the table really likes.  And I'm giving serious consideration to tinkering with the action economy as suggested by The Dungeon Coach and others.   But with every step I wonder if I've take a bridge to far (from the RAW?)

If you're one of the few, the proud, the ones who actually wander by here and read this stuff I'd appreciate your input!

In Which We Cobble Together a Frankenventure

 Here then, with links to almost all the tools used, I how I assembled the parties current little decampment.  A few months back they observed that there wasn't enough going on during overland travel.  "Aside from the two caravans a day you met and allowed to roll placidly on by?  How many plot hooks you think each of 'em was carryin'?"

But they did have a bit of a point.  My random encounter tables weren't enough to support the massive undertaking.  So let's go the hexcrawl route.  Fill those random hexes with temples and caves and mysteries.  So I turned to the good folks at Infinium Game Studio and their Hexcrawl Toolkit.  Allowed me to quickly populate the area surrounding the journey.  Done with step 1.

So I ended up with, among other things, a small settlement thorp north of the next settlement.  The BASE of the current campaign is 700 Lordly Houses from Worldspinner.   Every populated area is under the control of SOME lordly house and I'd already plopped House Willow into the thorp.  It has a couple built in story lines but nothing I wanted to activate just yet. The larger area is run by House Ferrante who control most of the iron production in the region.  Seems like they'd be in conflict.  So much for Step 2.

Next we dial up ChatGPT. A handful of prompts later and we had a mystical hill topped by a temple over which the two families fight.  These then are the ChatGPT results I capitalized on:  "Atop the hill, a shrine dedicated to a deity associated with craftsmanship and cosmic balance stands as a testament to the hill's significance. Both families lay claim to the shrine, each interpreting its significance differently. The Ironhearts see the deity as a protector of their craft, while the Stellarglades believe the deity's presence embodies the cosmic harmony they venerate.  Artifacts of Unity: The shrine holds a set of artifacts that, when reunited, have the power to mend the rift between the families and restore the hill's harmony.  My imagination then created the Anvil of Unity, the Heart of Iron (exactly what it sounds like) and the Willow Nexus (a marble representation of a willow tree.)  Step 3 completed.

Didn't wanna make this TOO hard.  The Lady of House Willow entreated the party to locate and return the two missing artifacts.  A visit to the temple revealed clues.  The phrase "as below, so above" was linked to the Heart of Iron, and the willow was linked to The Eternal Garden", about whom the party had heard rumors (quite simply as filler conversation at a tavern.)  Elven Tower had recently released Corvinus Family Crypt.  Change the name, shove that puppy under the temple, give the Heart of Iron to the BBG.  Voila.  Half done!  And this is as far as has been played.  I DID use the Underclock to decent effect.  The Shadowing Event hit a VERY good time for the narrative but the actual encounter turned out to be a tad ... anticlimactic.  Not every one can be a home run.

The party spent the rest of the day at the temple in a driving rain.  A short rest for a reasonable recovery.  The PLAN is to go back to Weshesony, do a little research (which will likely consist of asking some randome passer-by what the know about the Eternal Garden) followed by the trip TO the EG.  

The aforementioned Hexcrawl Toolkit suggests using their random dungeon generator to assemble the garden pathways.  Didn't appeal to me.  So I thought I'd turn to a tool that has stood me in good stead on several occasions and lends itself to the concept of this shifting malevolent garden:  Carapace from The Goblin's Henchman.

So I'll put together a RE table, escalating as the party gets closer to the goal.  Modify the rules just a tad, use the Underclock, rolling at each hex ... incorporating ALL of the stuff.  The Willow is at the "center" of the complex, so it's a "get in and get out" as quickly as possible.  The party can find clues to ease their task either in town or within the Garden.  

Once BOTH items are returned to their rightful place in the temple the families negotiate an accord which improves both.  The party is rewarded  with some interesting stuff via The DM Lair which presents a slew of interesting alternatives to the old "gold and magic items" tropes. In this case they've been wanting a way to ease/speed travel.  A pony, 2-wheeled cart and harness are bestowed.  This stuff is worth about 3-400 gp here.  The Ranger can handle the cart and pony.   Six resources?  Seven?  All knit together to make a VERY nice three session adventure.

In which the DM smiles

     Our last session was roughly the 10th in the new campaign.  Party had decided to hit the road.  After exploring a mysterious keep, with the aid of a mysterious stranger, they headed for "the crossroads," a caravanserai.  There they were hired as night watchmen to try to catch/kill an unidentified "monster in the woods."  I thought this was a one-night adventure but it turned into three.  PART of that is because 80% of us play in the same FFL and it's a busy time of year so a LOT of off-topic convos.  But still!  

    The OTHER reason it took so long was because of player agency.  On several occasions throughout the story they reached decision points and took .... creative paths.  They DID uncover the monster, reveal the twist, bring the true miscreants "to justice."  And then left town.  Had they been able to tie the wrong-doers to their higher-up the caravanserai would've rewarded them with a pony and a wagon - something they can definitely use and have been asking about (and can only just barely afford.)  <edit to add> I would note that there was some questionable writing in the otherwise good product I pulled the adventure from.  Too much RR and not enough SB.  Thankfully The Alexandrian has taught me well about the three clue rule, so I was able to "add" undiscovered clues in a couple more areas to smooth the road.  Better writing could have eliminated this necessity.   

    So why the smile?  At the session conclusion there was MUCH discussion over their new-found freedom and agency.  There was SOME last campaign but this time around I've listened, forced myself not to over-plot, and let them go.  They THINK they're being naughty murder hobos.  They DID kill two people on the way into the first village and the rest of the Night Watch given the opportunity.  In reality, ALL of the death sentences were meted out to the local equivalent of the Thieves Guild, unbeknownst to our heroes.  So THEY think they've been given a crap-ton of agency (which they have) and I've been able to to run fronts, short form adventures and random encounters that meet their needs.   There's a blighted forest spreading.  There's a green dragon keeping an eye on them.  They're learning of the Noble Houses which run the realm (and learning that perhaps there ARE no good guys.)  

    Also on the up-side I'm incorporating some of the journey techniques from Adventures in Middle Earth and using the hex crawl techniques from the good folks at Infinium to improve long travel and exploration.  "Lonely fun" as we used to call it.  And we're gonna try to bring back Skill Challenges from 4e!  ChatGPT is your FRIEND!  I'm currently using it to generate NPC's (using the GreatGameMaster's OGAS technique,) fix formula problems in my extensive spreadsheets, design the aforementioned Skill Challenges, select actions and grim portents for Fronts, write short adventures(!), and management of climate and weather. 

    On the DOWN side my hand has been forced on upgrading to NTME23.  I moved all three base files into the same folder and instantly fouled up/destroyed all of the links.  Think I have enough into to run Tuesday's session but there will be some intensive work to get it all reconnected.  ONE document.  Some new raw materials.  Storefront calculator incorporated.  Manufacturing pages cleaned up to be made a bit more uniform.  And an attempt at an "easily" updatable shopping list.