Anyone have suggestions on how to mechanically run political scenarios in a mixed game including EotE, AotE, and F&D characters? This would include several social encounters that culminate in an overall election.

My politico ran for local public office on the campaign's home planet. Since the GM was not a debater or politician (and neither was I) we boiled down to a narrative like "Well, my campaign is going to focus on being tough on crime" or "I'll make lots of attack ads!". It came down to one roll for the final debates (which would strongly influence the election results) - an opposed charm roll against the most likely opposing candidate - and then a leadership roll based on how well the debates went.

Pretty much playing out the election would have been boring for the rest of the table, and we really didn't want to turn it into a game of Yahtzee with constant rolling all night long. So yeah, figure out if it's a persuasive campaign (charm), an aggressive campaign (Coercion), if your a wheeler-dealer (Negotiation), or if you're a Nixon (cool) and then one final roll.

Are the players running for office, coordinating a candidate's campaign, or trying to fix/steal the election?

It really depends on what kind of election. What Desslok wrote is a good fit for when the holder of a single office is selected.

For elections that select a larger number of seats, you could be one of many candidates on one list out of many, and your election would depend on how many votes your list gets. Depending on your rank on that list, your election could be a certain thing, or a genuine surprise. In preparation of the list, there would be byzantine power struggles for rank; also your people would want to get popular names on the list so the list as a whole benefits. And maybe you have to put people on the list who are unpopular and/or personal rivals, but can support the list with money or media influence.

The deal with the devil kind of thing that we have every day. I find it quite fascinating.

Why not make it a huge group event with Shaodwrun-eqsue things happening in the background? We had a racing event where all of the participants, twenty in all (including our team of two with support) were involved in attempting to win a race. Each team had different strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Some of the team goals weren't even to win the race, some were to simply knock a specific opposing team out of the race. The whole event was marred with different parts of our team dealing with different parts of their team. For a political situation, you may have the following:

- Opponents with drastically different agendas that spark intense conflict.

- A PC, or PCs, actively campaigning for a political spot. They are involved in social interactions and media releases.

- The tough guy of the group may be that character's bodyguard, watching for assassins or any dangers.

- Tech guys could be looking for interference, scanning the area for problems, checking media outlets for what is being said about the candidate, etc.

- Additional PCs may be tasked with finding information out about another candidate that may tip the scales in their favor (i.e. Rumor is the opponent's mistress went missing last night...).

- Problems should be happening in the background, candidates headquarters being broken into, blatantly false information being spread, media members being threatened or kidnapped, etc.

It would be very dynamic with a lot of moving parts. But if done right, it could be one of your most memorable sessions ever. The race for our group certainly was...

Anyone have suggestions on how to mechanically run political scenarios in a mixed game including EotE, AotE, and F&D characters? This would include several social encounters that culminate in an overall election.

I would have the PC tell their part in short stories in between sessions. You could have a gentleman's agreement that you make the rolls and send them the results, and then you take the results of the roll and do a sort of short story reply back to them prior to the next session.

If the PC is adamant about doing rolls, have them write their story, and next session have them make the applicable number of rolls just for the results, and then before the next session you craft a response.

That's if the social encounters are going to be too dry for the rest of the table, or just narrow and specific to the political campaign. The social encounter could be some big high society mixer with everyone able to make rolls for the main story, and side rolls like gambling, and pick pocketing, and such if you like.

The trick to getting elected is to play Blackjack with Obligation. You have to take on a bunch of it without going over the line and busting. Unfortunately, unlike in Blackjack, you don't get to know where that line is set until you cross it.

This reminds me of the old Boot Hill adventure Ballots and Bullets, or was it Bullets and Ballots?

Different factions were using underhanded or overhanded tactics to get their guy elected mayor of the town. The PCs were on hand to either join a faction or create their own faction or try to put a curb to the hijinks if they wanted to. In the end, there's an election. Well... first there's the gang what rides through town, lassos the ballot box, and rides off....

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

My politico ran for local public office on the campaign's home planet. Since the GM was not a debater or politician (and neither was I) we boiled down to a narrative like "Well, my campaign is going to focus on being tough on crime" or "I'll make lots of attack ads!". It came down to one roll for the final debates (which would strongly influence the election results) - an opposed charm roll against the most likely opposing candidate - and then a leadership roll based on how well the debates went.

Pretty much playing out the election would have been boring for the rest of the table, and we really didn't want to turn it into a game of Yahtzee with constant rolling all night long. So yeah, figure out if it's a persuasive campaign (charm), an aggressive campaign (Coercion), if your a wheeler-dealer (Negotiation), or if you're a Nixon (cool) and then one final roll.

That is funny that you mention the GM was not a debater or politician, b/c I am a former debater with a a Political Science degree. My table is composed of a lot of political science grads also. I was thinking a roll for debates and a roll for general elections. Additionally, the social interactions would be from various political interest that were trying to influence the position of the PC candidate or the electorate in general.

Are the players running for office, coordinating a candidate's campaign, or trying to fix/steal the election?

Possibly both. This is a new mod with a new group at the table, so I have no idea what choices they will make.

The trick to getting elected is to play Blackjack with Obligation. You have to take on a bunch of it without going over the line and busting. Unfortunately, unlike in Blackjack, you don't get to know where that line is set until you cross it.

This is tricky and devious, I like it a lot.

Are the players running for office, coordinating a candidate's campaign, or trying to fix/steal the election?

Possibly both. This is a new mod with a new group at the table, so I have no idea what choices they will make.

If you have access to Jewel of Yavin, I'd take a look at how the auction plays for some inspiration. Each of the NPC bidders for the Jewel have a set point at which they'll drop out of the bidding (and PCs can influence that) and their own triggers and agendas that savvy PCs can exploit. That could be useful to establish not just for the candidates, but for their key staff members as well (if it were me, I wouldn't make any overt moves against the opposing candidate, but I'd work like heck to undermine his or her staffers to force gaffes and create opportunities to spin the candidate's missteps).

Once that groundwork is laid, let the players figure out their strategy. From there, take their plan and break it down into discrete tasks (think about in terms of spots in the plan where catastrophic failure can occur). For instance, to switch the ballot box, they need to manufacture a forgery, figure out how to bypass security at the polls, distract or disable the guards, make the switch and dispose of the original ballots safely.

If they run the election honestly, then figure out beforehand who would win without the PCs interference - maybe Candidate A would get 65% of the vote and Candidate B would get 35%. You can have the players' social rolls to influence the outcome shift the numbers by X% per success, for instance, with Despairs creating the opposite effect.

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

Amazon has a copy for the very reasonable price of $6,209.66 - plus shipping, of course.

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

Amazon has a copy for the very reasonable price of $6,209.66 - plus shipping, of course.

That is funny that you mention the GM was not a debater or politician, b/c I am a former debater with a a Political Science degree. My table is composed of a lot of political science grads also. I was thinking a roll for debates and a roll for general elections. Additionally, the social interactions would be from various political interest that were trying to influence the position of the PC candidate or the electorate in general.

In that case it sounds like your table might benefit from a whole session dedicated to playing out the election then. Just don't hold it against your GM when you destroy him.

Of course on the other hand, it might be a perfect time for just two rolls. "Man, I do this stuff the other 6 days a week. Why the hell would I want to roleplay out a debate. Lets shoot stormtroopers!"

I am the GM, so nothing to hold against me. Oh, there will be some shooting and action taking place, possible crime syndicate muscling to get their candidate ahead. More like the political boss era of the late 19th and early 20th century in the U.S.

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

Amazon has a copy for the very reasonable price of $6,209.66 - plus shipping, of course.

I thought you were joking until I followed the link.

Create a list of important people in the area. Wealthy donors, well known actors, local unions, large employers etc... who would have influence on the public or could provide resources to canidate.Then the party can approach each of these NPCs and try to convince them to support their canidate.

This could be done through socal checks, perfoming a mission for that NPC, taking on additional obligation, bribery, blackmail, or whatever the players want. Then add a boost or setback die to the final roll for each of these NPC that support/ oppose your canidate. You could tayler these smaller missions around the other members of the group so that they have a part in the election process but can still use their PCs.

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

Amazon has a copy for the very reasonable price of $6,209.66 - plus shipping, of course.

I thought you were joking until I followed the link.

Shhh.... I'm trying to sell my copy!

If you can find a copy of this adventure, maybe in pdf, it might be worth a read for you.

Amazon has a copy for the very reasonable price of $6,209.66 - plus shipping, of course.

I thought you were joking until I followed the link.

Shhh.... I'm trying to sell my copy!

I'll give you five thousand and not a penny more!

Wait - better thread for this. Never mind - nothing o see here.

So this is a cool idea. It really depends on how central a part of the campaign you want it to be. If one of the characters is running, and its the A plot, or if the characters are helping an NPC run as an A plot, or maybe its more of a background plot. Election campaigns include debates, fundraisers, interviews, advertisements, various appearances (where the candidates might do some odd things like hunting, shooting, musicianship, wakeboarding, etc that are all going to use all kinds of various skill checks. Then there's the actual election itself.

The way I'd structure this is to take the character running and their opponent and structure it similar to mass combat in terms of how you build the dice pool for the actual election.

So each campaign event is going to somehow contribute to this dice pool for election night. So during the course of the campaign, as GM, you'll want to note the various successful checks or side quests accomplished during the course of the election campaign, to help with building the dice pool.

We all know money is a major determining factor, so the difference in credits spent between the two candidates is going to determine the greens and the purples. If you have twice as much cash as your opponent, you'll probably have wtice as many greens as they have purples. If the cash is even, I'd put them at 3-4 greens and purples each.

Every major event (debates, various traditions that both candidates have to go through, etc) should have a winner and loser throughout the campaign. There should be 3-4 of these events. Each win allows that side to upgrade a green or purple to a yellow or red.

More minor events just allow that side to add their blues or blacks.

I'd set up a series of encounters that are basically stump speeches. Give the players a chance to talk to the voters, and give the voters a set of things they care about. Then the politician trying to get elected make an opposed roll against their opponent to see how well they did on swinging voters to their side. Give them boost dice for addressing the issues that matter to that population (finding out could be an adventure unto itself) or setback dice to the other guy for sabotaging the opposition. Let players take on obligation or spend cash for additional blue dice.

Keep track of total success/failure at each stop. When you've had enough campaigning see if they came out ahead or not. If they did, they won the election!

Getting money to fund an election sounds like an awesome idea for a debt obligation. Or having a Hutt rig the election would be great for blackmail. If I run a politico this would be a great use of obligation.

So this is a cool idea. It really depends on how central a part of the campaign you want it to be. If one of the characters is running, and its the A plot, or if the characters are helping an NPC run as an A plot, or maybe its more of a background plot. Election campaigns include debates, fundraisers, interviews, advertisements, various appearances (where the candidates might do some odd things like hunting, shooting, musicianship, wakeboarding, etc that are all going to use all kinds of various skill checks. Then there's the actual election itself.

The way I'd structure this is to take the character running and their opponent and structure it similar to mass combat in terms of how you build the dice pool for the actual election.

So each campaign event is going to somehow contribute to this dice pool for election night. So during the course of the campaign, as GM, you'll want to note the various successful checks or side quests accomplished during the course of the election campaign, to help with building the dice pool.

We all know money is a major determining factor, so the difference in credits spent between the two candidates is going to determine the greens and the purples. If you have twice as much cash as your opponent, you'll probably have wtice as many greens as they have purples. If the cash is even, I'd put them at 3-4 greens and purples each.

Every major event (debates, various traditions that both candidates have to go through, etc) should have a winner and loser throughout the campaign. There should be 3-4 of these events. Each win allows that side to upgrade a green or purple to a yellow or red.

More minor events just allow that side to add their blues or blacks.

I like the idea, especially if the campaign is a long running part of your game. However, this will be a smaller event inside one session at a small convention where we will only have a chance to play two to three sessions, so I don't think I will get that in depth in this mod. That being said, this suggestion does spark a story event for a later date with my home game.

I'd set up a series of encounters that are basically stump speeches. Give the players a chance to talk to the voters, and give the voters a set of things they care about. Then the politician trying to get elected make an opposed roll against their opponent to see how well they did on swinging voters to their side. Give them boost dice for addressing the issues that matter to that population (finding out could be an adventure unto itself) or setback dice to the other guy for sabotaging the opposition. Let players take on obligation or spend cash for additional blue dice.

Keep track of total success/failure at each stop. When you've had enough campaigning see if they came out ahead or not. If they did, they won the election!

I love this idea, but I'd make it more like "House of Cards" or something involving political intrigue.

There might be 3 to 5 special interests who have various needs to be satisfied. They can't ALL be satisfied because some of their needs conflict with each other, but your goal is to appeal to as many as possible.

The general public might be one such special interest, but the establishment politicians might be another, organized crime might be another, and labor/industry might be another.

* General public: They want lower taxes, feelings of security and prosperity

* Establishment politicians: They want to keep lining their pockets with graft and corruption

* Organized crime: They want to keep their connections in place to move shipments of illegal and/or untaxed goods

* Labor/Industry: They want fewer regulations and lower taxes.

* The Press: Investigative reporters might be digging up dirt on everybody, including you!

Some combination of the above. Each one might be represented by a single figure--a community leader, a powerful politician, the local crimelord, and a powerful business owner.

You've got to go seek an audience with each and find out what they want and then decide how to appeal to as many as you can.

Each one might have something in their past which you can use to coerce them, or you could charm them, or negotiate.

In some cases the conflict might even be violent. But in the end, if you can successfully appeal to 3 out of 5, this should be enough to win the election.

Again, watch "House of Cards" for examples of this stuff

I'd set up a series of encounters that are basically stump speeches. Give the players a chance to talk to the voters, and give the voters a set of things they care about. Then the politician trying to get elected make an opposed roll against their opponent to see how well they did on swinging voters to their side. Give them boost dice for addressing the issues that matter to that population (finding out could be an adventure unto itself) or setback dice to the other guy for sabotaging the opposition. Let players take on obligation or spend cash for additional blue dice.

Keep track of total success/failure at each stop. When you've had enough campaigning see if they came out ahead or not. If they did, they won the election!

I love this idea, but I'd make it more like "House of Cards" or something involving political intrigue.

There might be 3 to 5 special interests who have various needs to be satisfied. They can't ALL be satisfied because some of their needs conflict with each other, but your goal is to appeal to as many as possible.

The general public might be one such special interest, but the establishment politicians might be another, organized crime might be another, and labor/industry might be another.

* General public: They want lower taxes, feelings of security and prosperity

* Establishment politicians: They want to keep lining their pockets with graft and corruption

* Organized crime: They want to keep their connections in place to move shipments of illegal and/or untaxed goods

* Labor/Industry: They want fewer regulations and lower taxes.

* The Press: Investigative reporters might be digging up dirt on everybody, including you!

Some combination of the above. Each one might be represented by a single figure--a community leader, a powerful politician, the local crimelord, and a powerful business owner.

You've got to go seek an audience with each and find out what they want and then decide how to appeal to as many as you can.

Each one might have something in their past which you can use to coerce them, or you could charm them, or negotiate.

In some cases the conflict might even be violent. But in the end, if you can successfully appeal to 3 out of 5, this should be enough to win the election.

Again, watch "House of Cards" for examples of this stuff

Where would Law Enforcement fit under that?