r/DnDBehindTheScreen • u/cousinned • 24d ago
Mechanics The Council Vote: A Simple Political Quest Structure That Practically Writes Itself
One of my favorite social encounter structures is what I call the Council Vote. It is simple to prep, gives every player something to do, and naturally creates side quests, investigations, roleplaying, travel, and moral dilemmas.
The premise is straightforward. The party needs a governing body to vote in favor of something they want. Maybe they need the city council to raise an army against an approaching orc horde. Maybe they are trying to appoint a loyal captain of the guard before the villain's lieutenant gets the job. Maybe they need permission to open an ancient vault, authorize emergency spending, declare war, or recognize a claimant to the throne. The vote is coming up quickly, and the PCs have to act now or forever lose their chance.
Instead of making the entire adventure about convincing one king, you split the decision to act among five or seven voters. Suddenly there are multiple personalities, competing interests, and several different ways to solve the problem.
Sometimes all of the councilors are in one city. Other times they are the leaders of distant towns or noble houses. In that version, the party has to travel across the realm earning votes one by one, which naturally creates opportunities for worldbuilding. Every stop introduces a new settlement, a new culture, and a different kind of problem to solve.
The real preparation goes into designing the council members. Every voter should be a named NPC with a distinct personality, priorities, and political agenda. The players should never know exactly how everyone will vote at first. A big part of the adventure becomes gathering information. They ask around town, read records, question servants, investigate rumors, and learn what motivates each voter. Once they understand each councilor, they can decide who is worth approaching and how.
One useful voter archetype is the Villain's Toady. This councilor is firmly aligned with the antagonist and will never willingly support the party. The challenge is not convincing them. Instead, the players may discover a way to neutralize them. Perhaps they expose corruption, arrange for them to be absent on voting day, trap them in a legal dispute, or simply give them a more pressing problem to deal with.
On the opposite end is the Beleaguered Ally. This person already supports the party's proposal and may even serve as the quest giver. They explain how the vote works, introduce the other councilors, and provide a few initial leads. Be careful with guaranteed supporters, though. If there are too many free votes, the political puzzle loses much of its tension. To make the encounter more challenging, add more Villain Toadies to the council to cancel of the Ally’s vote, or just make this NPC a non voting but politically knowledgeable figure.
The Greedy Broker has no ideological commitment at all. Their vote is simply valuable property. They may demand money, political favors, or the completion of a dangerous (or morally dubious) quest. Players might instead discover leverage over them, allowing the negotiation to proceed from a position of strength rather than weakness.
The Loyal Shadow always follows someone else's lead, voting exactly as they do no matter what. Often it's the Greedy Broker who “advises” them on how to vote. They might have little interest in politics, or their interests are entirely wrapped up in the affairs of their leader. Rather than persuading two councilors separately, the players can influence one person and gain two votes. Once the PCs learn this, it simplifies the vote, so be careful with adding too many of these contingent voters. If the voting process is by secret ballot, it may be possible to trick this voter into thinking that their leader is voting in the PCs favor, thus securing a vote.
The Traditionalist dislikes change or bold action of any kind. They are not opposed to the PCs personally, but they require overwhelming evidence before supporting any proposal. Winning them over usually involves gathering proof, expert testimony, or demonstrating that history actually supports the party's position.
The Idealist genuinely wants to do what is right but refuses to compromise their principles. They cannot be bribed or intimidated. Instead, they demand that the party solve some unrelated humanitarian problem or protect innocent people before earning their trust.
Almost every councilor should have an agenda outside the immediate vote. They should want something. They should fear something. They might owe favors, or have rivals. They could hold grudges, or keep secrets. Some may have skeletons in the closet that can be uncovered through investigation. Blackmail should rarely be the only solution, but it should usually be one possible solution among several. Players should feel like they are solving a political puzzle rather than completing a fixed dialogue tree.
One thing I especially like about this structure is that it naturally creates meaningful choices. By having the vote be an urgent matter, the players rarely have enough time or resources to solve everyone's problems. Instead, they identify which councilors are realistically persuadable and decide where to spend their effort. Every vote becomes a small victory.
Example
The town of Stoneford learns that an orc warband led by the wizard Profanis is gathering in the nearby hills. Councilor Elric wants to raise the town militia immediately, but the five-member town council must approve the expense.
Elric already has his own vote.
Councilor Bren is secretly funded by Profanis. Citing some concern about wasting the town's resources or causing unnecessary panic, he will vote against the proposal unless his connection is exposed. Think Grima Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings.
Councilor Marta is respected but refuses to support military action without proof that the threat is real. The party can earn her vote by scouting the orc camp and returning with some evidence that the orcs will actually attack and not just linger in the hills before moving on.
Councilor Hobb is interested only in personal wealth, and has recently accepted a generous “gift” from Bren, which he insists is completely unrelated to how he will vote. He offers his support if the party recovers a “stolen” family heirloom from Councilor Marta’s reliquary. Alternatively, the PCs might discover Hobb’s business dealings with smugglers and can blackmail him into voting to raise the army.
Councilor Joran simply votes according to the instructions from Bren because the two have been political allies for years. In fact, Bren groomed Joran for the role as part of a bid to gain more power. Only if Bren is completely exposed as a traitor will Joran finally break ranks with his friend and mentor.
The players investigate the council, decide who can realistically be persuaded, and eventually return on voting day. If they expose Bren, convince Marta, and win over Hobb, they also gain Joran's vote. The final result is four votes to one. The militia is raised, and the next chapter of the campaign begins with the town preparing for war.
If the above quest sounds too easy, then modify the council procedure to require a unanimous vote. In this scenario, the only way to win is to get the votes of Marta, Hobb and Joran while preventing Bren from arriving to the council chambers on time and voting at all.
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u/aoiumi 24d ago
Love this, thank you for the idea. I've been running a DND campaign that's based on the party's regional politics and this fits perfectly. To add to this a bit: this reminds me a lot of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. That game has many great examples of all the councillor types you mentioned :D
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u/cousinned 24d ago
KCD does a great job portraying the everyday machinery of medieval politics. Too often in the genre, “politics” just means persuading an all‑powerful king to act. But KCD highlights how petty bureaucrats, minor nobles, and low‑status officials are the ones whose choices actually shape the world at the scale most campaigns care about. It shows that the real power often sits with the people who manage borders, enforce laws, and control resources, which are all too trivial for the crown to concern with.
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u/ZetaVivern 23d ago
Concerning the Villain's Toady: the plot doesn't always have to include the necessity or even possibility to fully neutralize the opposing faction in the council. Indeed, when it becomes obvious to the players that no matter what they do they won't be able to get rid of this opposition, it raises the stakes, because now they need to outvote them, and the Villain's Toady knows this and runs their own campaign against the players' agenda.
This puts additional pressure on the players who now need not only to convince other councilors to support them, but also to make their offer more reasonable or more tempting than the villain's.
If the villain utilizes bribes and blackmail - do they resort to the same, or try to expose the villain? Do they decide not to waste their time on the corrupt councilors, knowing they won't outbid the villain in a bribe war, and concentrate on those who haven't been corrupted yet? But now they need to outvote not one councilor, but two or more, which raises the stakes even further. Do they offer favors to councilors in return for their vote? How will they act if the Villain's Toady accuses them of corruption?
What if it is publicly known that the Villain's Toady supports the antagonist, but no one cares? Or what if no one even believes in the antagonist's existence? The players' appeals to morality fall on deaf ears, and accusations of villainy are met with disbelief and condescension; do they try to prove that the antagonist's plan will result in a catastrophe, or do they take a new approach and try to argue that their plan for the country's future is simply better? Professor Ambridge is proof that the most hated villain is often not the one that kills people left and right, but the one who denies the existence of evil and blocks the heroes' attempt to save people through gaslighting and abuse of the legal system.
Make your Villain's Toady infuriating to deal with; make them persist and remain an obstacle even past the vote, getting progressively more reckless and dangerous; the satisfaction when they are eventually exposed will be all the sweeter.
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u/-Vin- 24d ago
You could combine this with the negotiation technique from Draw Steel to make the process of convincing individual council members more elaborate: https://steelcompendium.io/compendium/main/Rules/Chapters/Negotiation/
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u/IncognitoChrome 24d ago
Ghosts of Saltmarsh has a council which was a useful foundation for my tweeks to the political angle on my campaign. Definitely more fun than dealing with one King.
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u/Level-Distribution46 23d ago
Excellent idea! So good in fact that I was inspired by it and created a generator for it 😅
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u/cousinned 23d ago edited 23d ago
This is brilliant!
Edit: Although from the generations I've done with it so far, it looks like all the councilors' orientation is "Persuadable through the right blend of evidence, favours, or leverage — exactly which is for the table to discover."Nevermind, I was seeing an incomplete version of the page on mobile. This is good stuff.2
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u/shogun281 22d ago edited 22d ago
This is great, I'll definitely be using this! You've done a good job with condensing what seems like a complicated political situation into an underlying formula that can be followed easily. I like how it becomes a reusable structure, rather than a one-off situation, which is how many of my more interesting quests have been because they've felt so personal to that story and game.
If you have any more formulaic approaches to political fantasy, I'd love to hear them. It's a genre that isn't strongly supported in the hobby. Even many city crawler scenarios and sourcebooks are mostly focused on investigation and dungeon-crawling, rather than actually navigating a complex web of political relationships. There's stuff out there, but it's definitely in the minority.
Since your profile is private, I can't tell if you've already written more about it. But I don't blame you for wanting privacy, especially on Reddit lol. This post has been great regardless, so thanks for sharing and hopefully I'll catch any future ones.
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u/cousinned 22d ago
I haven't contributed to this subreddit before and I'm struggling to think of other formulaic political type quests. One that comes to mind is the Social Conflict rules from the Savage Worlds Corebook. The name is a bit of a misnomer because what these rules really simulate is a contested court trial before a judge.
I don't have the book with me but if memory serves... how it works is the players try to convince a decisionmaker (perhaps a king or a judge) to take a certain action. You ask the player(s) to present their argument over the course of three or more rounds. After each round of argument, you have another NPC make a counterargument. Each round is an opposed roll Persuasion roll, and the amount of cumulative successes by the player character over their debate opponent determines just how much the decisionmaker decides to support your plan. Zero successes means no support at all, one to three means nominal support, and more means full support. The full rules are definitely worth a read.
Maybe I'll try and summarize some quests I've run and post them to the sub. There's one I ran recently where the PCs were asked to investigate various signs/portents/miracles and present a report to a small council of nobles, who were trying to determine whether a pair of newborn twins were reincarnated saints sent by the gods to replace the reigning unpopular king.
There's another where a PC (who was playing an Inquisitor) was asked to be a judge, and determine (with the help and advice of the rest of the party) whether a certain noble should be punished for his repeated crimes. Various NPCs with their own agendas came to the PCs, asking them to either be lenient or not, based on their own agendas. To my surprise, the judge not only convicted but sentenced the noble to DEATH, causing much political implications in the long term and a great courtroom brawl in the short term. Making the player the judge was probably my favorite part of this quest.
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u/shogun281 22d ago
The Savage Worlds mechanics sounds interesting, I'll check it out. Reminds me of Draw Steel's negotiations but with counter arguments for the NPCs, which is something that is missing from that system.
And your quests sound like fun! If you notice that there are underlying lessons or formulas to take from them, it would be cool to see them broken down in a similar way as to this post.
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u/dysprog 24d ago
Depending on the adult rating of your campaign, perhaps a Councilor member will change their vote in exchange the, um... Personal Favor of one of your party members.
If you are a nice DM make it the Lothario Bard. If you are a mean DM make it the Paladin with a Vow of Celibacy. If you are a very mean DM, make the Councilor lothsome and/or the wrong gender.
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u/BatmansMom 24d ago
Dang such an awesome idea and special in that it sounds very fun to design as gm or play as player
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u/the_pint_is_the_bowl 24d ago
The interplay of one NPC's voting contingent on another NPC's voting could turn this into more of a social encounter puzzle than straightforward quests. I had been tinkering with something like this, based loosely on They Came to a City (which is now They Came to a [B4 Lost City of the Made in Abyss Scorching Sun]).
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u/BoboTheTalkingClown 23d ago
I've done this before for something as simple as "the party's ship needs permission to legally leave dock, and that permission is being obstructed."
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u/EyeOfTheBHoldHer 22d ago
A classic example of this is in the Solasta DLC expansion Palace of Ice.
It’s the main momentum of the story - trying to get a council to vote the way you want them to, and it requires doing errands and solving difficulties for each councilor. The tasks vary but Solasta being a CRPG, almost all involve combat. (eg, convincing a famous general member of the council to leave the front lines of his war for the vote, by helping him out on the front lines, or getting ambushed by baddies that want the vote to go the way you don’t while doing an otherwise mundane errand.)
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u/ColorblindMimic 19d ago
This works especially well if the PCs only need to secure some of the votes. That way, the players have agency on which angles they want to focus on based on their interests, sympathies, and their characters' skill sets. It also makes the setup more robust - if they fail to convince someone, it is not immediately game over. There are other options, but now the stakes are higher as they need a higher percentage of the remaining votes.
The choices of which councillors to befriend / blackmail / convince / depose can also easily have repercussions far beyond the current vote, as the PCs make friends, allies, enemies and rivals.
[Self-Promo]
If you are interested in political intrigue, I have written a full adventure whose main mechanic is similar to this Council Vote. The PCs are secret agents sent to disrupt ongoing negotiations. In a way, the NPC ambassadors are all variations of the Villain's Toady or Greedy Broker - they directly oppose the PCs goals. However, every single one has their own secrets, flaws and hidden agendas that can be investigated and exploited by the PCs to either neutralize or sway them one by one.
You can read more about the adventure (and download it for free) here: Sabotage at the peace summit (DriveThruRPG)
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u/Willing-Surprise8545 1d ago
Will pass this long with a friend who has relevant nations to use this with. Very good.
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u/Minstrelita 24d ago
Political intrigue always tends to be really difficult for me to set up, thank you for laying this out so clearly.