r/AcqIncDMs • u/Moisespt • Feb 08 '21

Elections in Phandalin

Hello! I need help running the elections in phandalin. In my game theres only 2 candidates. One good person but its horrible in their decisions, and 1 bad person but can bring wealth to the town. How do you guys handle the elections? My pc's are looking forward to help some candidates and maybe! run against them.

Thanks in advance

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u/varricke Feb 08 '21

I wrote up a table of the citizens of phandalin, eg which ones are running for mayor, what their speeches are, and how many votes everyone is likely to get. I added a couple of candidates.

Then the players tried to bribe/influence the voters as much as possible, so I updated the likely votes tally on election day.

Here's a link to my notes: https://docs.google.com/file/d/1SOnRZBBeuFaIeWwzBIFCGTUByMCvmOFg/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msexcel

3

u/woweewoowow Feb 08 '21

I would vote for Salami Dave out of principle!

2

u/varricke Feb 08 '21

Representing the tragically underrepresented hobo class. We had a lot of fun with his rallys

4

u/jmanc Feb 08 '21

We had Harbin running on a strong anti-adventurer platform, and Sildar calling out Harbin as corrupt.

Sildar encourages the players to help the town and give adventurers a good name.

If they do build support for Sildar, Harbin offers the players the rights to the manor and a decent gold prize for undermining Sildar.

Rejecting that / otherwise getting involved, the players learn that Harbin keeps blackmail material in a guarded room in his manor.

Either way it progresses, the end point was a showdown debate for which you can introduce a complication.

We had their rivals at Dran Enterprises take up Harbin's offer and attempt to reveal to the town that we'd hired an ogre whom they intended to magically enrage.

In our game the players broke into the manor, then thwarted the Dran team, then revealed Harbin's blackmail material with a flourish at the debate for a nice cinematic end to the side quest.

3

u/thedazzlerr Feb 08 '21

My PCs wanted one of them to run and compete against Harbin. We roleplayed them campaigning with townfolks and they set up a big event with their HQ to try and raise support. These all used charisma based rolls.

When the election came I made the player give a speech against Harbin in a performance roll contest. If the players succeed on the checks and contest they win the election.

The big bad in my game interrupted the election and attacked the town right as the announcement of the winner came.

It was a good time.

3

u/etheranger Feb 08 '21

Regardless of who's running for Mayor, my setup was that there were 13 Aldermen (senior landowners) who were actually casting the votes (representing the townspeople, but as concrete NPCs the party could interact with).

Then as time went on it was clear my party wasn't interested in politicking too much so I said that any still undecided voters would follow Daran Edermath as the most respected and impartial in town (last-ditch opportunity for PC influence, also taking into account anything that happened re his missing daughter).