Advice When Running an Intrigue RPG

If you've ever considered running an RPG based on intrigue rather than combat, here are some points to keep in mind.

What is an intrigue game? "Intrigue" refers to any genre of game you plan to run where the dangers, challenges and plots are all socially-based rather than action-based. Certainly, there will still be some fighting or at least backstabbing in the dark of night. But intrigue RPGs are all about politics and the lure of power mixed with the danger of murder and the scent of a good old-fashioned mystery.

To run a good intrigue game, I suggest these five pieces of advice:

1. Chart Your Tangled Web: As the one running the game, you know all the plot twists and dirty secrets. For myself, I find that having an actual map that details the relationships between PCs and NPCs helps me to keep the whole political landscape clear and consistant from session to session.

2. Focus on Character Desires: Goals may shift from session to session the way strategies in a chess game shift. But what each character - player or non-player - wants should ideally remain the same. As long as you stay clear and focused on what NPCs want overall, you can generally do a good job of adapting their goals to changing situations.

3. Use Memorable Characters: Intrigue games are character-focused morso than action games. Distinctive NPCs with distinctive names will help players remember and tell them apart, and will help you do the same.

4. Give Clues Socially: Most clues to any given mystery, situation, or NPC's true motives should be given through social game play, with a scattering of investigative work. But intrigue games are really about that fatal slip of the tongue that tips off an enemy moreso than about hunting down fingerprints. Weave hints and clues into NPC-to-PC conversations or into overheard NPC-to-NPC conversations that you've scripted out. If you do it right, you give your PCs that proverbial trail of breadcrumbs they can follow deeper into the game's plot.

5. No Red Herrings: Intrigue games are hard enough to keep track of without PCs constantly worrying about their clues checking out. I don't mean you can't have your NPCs lie. Far from it. But giving the PCs what seem to be important information only to have them find out they really didn't need to know it can get very frustrating. So be nice, and have any major clues you slip in be the truth of the matter.

6. Pay Attention During Player-to-Player Discussions: Chances are, they'll come up with some sort of theory about what's really going on, and it's not uncommon for some plot twist or hypothesis they come up with being better than what you'd planned. So why not run with their suggestions? They'll never know they're actually the ones creating the plot of their own game.

If you want more detailed advice on running this type of game, I recommend the World of Darkness - Vampire: The Requiem supplement Damnation City. Specifically, pgs. 208-225. Their advice is largely plot-based, not systems based, so you can modify it to fit any game system you're using.