How do I run a political intrigue campaign?

Non-OP curiosity bump.

>>50062397
Start small so you are ready to cut your losses. They may SAY they want political intrigue, urban investigation, etc, but in fact they often just mean "we want to fight rats in the sewer next."

>>50062397
Draw a relationship map. Have different characters that want different things and have preexisting relationships, who works for who, who is loyal who plots betrayal. Make some dotpoints about info they know and how they will react to being approached by the PCs.

You can do it for organisations as well, not just individuals. Then when you need to come up with some more depth to a throwaway NPC that the PCs are suddenly interested in have them be a member of an organisation and hey presto, they have an agenda.

Keep it flexible, the PCs don't have to interrogate the right people in the right order to get more info, just use this framework to have the NPCs act naturally. YOU sort of know what's going on, neither the NPCs nor PCs do.

Update it as you go, put "The party" in as an element of the map.

It's still going to be very improv, but this gives you a solid base to do it off.

Matt Colville's latest video is on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpiT6RTlLYc

>>50063316
>spends 30 minutes to say "have a central tension"
Good advice, but damn.

Don't have high level characters exist at all in the setting since they are immune to assassinations and don't need supporters for a lot of things.

Knee cap magic users, especially anything mind controlling or the plot will leave any real of sanity fast.

Find a better system for bluff and diplomacy, since magic existing makes high bluff insanely powerful ("The sky is red and your memories are a result of a Mind Rape spell" is not an impossible statement and thus a valid use of bluff RAW) .

So, once you have gutted 3.pf and figured out your replacements, just make characters with competing wants who can reward the players for helping them and will try to hinder or attack the players for opposing them.

The noble involved probably planned to have his levies made immune or exempt from the plague and thus he would be in a crazy powerful position after everyone else got fucked.

He wants power and control, he has a decent enough military of his own, can offer occult items for attacking his peer's levies.

Do that kind of outline about 15 times and your players will think it is the most amazingly rich and lively city of about a dozen actual people.

>>50062397
>pathfinder for an intrigue game
>combat sidequests in an intrigue game
>generic cultist bad guys...in an intrigue game
>le improv best DM maymay
You're fucked.

It's not that pathfinder is shit. It's that you're trying to cut wood with a fucking hammer. I can't give you any advice because you've already begun.

But actually >>50062955 has a point: if they've liked it so far, they never wanted an intrigue game. They wanted a hack-'n-slash. Maybe they wanted to feel like political animals while hack-'n-slashing, but they never wanted to actually do politics.

>>50063162
Do this OP
have like 3 major factions that want similar things but hinder each other because the means they use to achieve it are in conflict
or they want different things but the way to get it is the same

boom, instant tention. From there just flesh out the factions with key NPCs and resources they have at their disposal.
Let the Party encounter and interact with all factions involved in some way before putting them infront of a decision of whom to help.
From there throw in twists as needed - your faction was the evil one all along!