Icewind Dale: Running the Good Mead Election

I'm a great fan of Justin Alexander and his remixes of WOTC material (even though I've not yet had an opportunity to play any of it). The newest WOTC outing, Rime of the Frostmaiden, looks solid as these things go, and I may just end up running it. Albeit with some changes, and after I'm done with everything else on my plate.

The Alexandrian has already done great work done in that direction, but the parts which most appeal to me in the sandbox approach is the idea of getting to know the Ten-Towns, their inhabitants, and rising to become actual heroes, not just heavily armed hobos. The reputation system promised in Rime would help do that... if it actually existed. That's something to change.

I've just skimmed so far, but one bit I really do find appealing is the conflict in the town of Goodmead. In summary, this town produces lots of honey and mead, exporting it to other towns, but trade has been disrupted by a giant that stole some casks and killed the town leader! In the course of this quest, the party can steal back the mead, with or without killing the giants, gaining the town's respect and restoring trade. But they also have the option of bolstering their ranks with local soldiers to help them!

Even better, if they succeed, they can get involved in local politics. The town needs a new leader, and it's between a popular but corrupt dwarf logger, Shandar, and a well established but reluctant cask maker, Olivessa. But Olivessa doesn't want the position, so if the PCs want in, she'll throw her aid behind them.

That's a great setup. Giant hunt after one attacked your mead hall? Straight Beowulf. Muster the locals to fight the menace. Awesome. Get involved in seedy local politics, demonstrating you've really made an impact on the community. Sweet.

The execution is, disappointingly but not unexpectedly, less well done. After dangling an opportunity for local leadership in front of the characters, the module takes steps to nullify it, and makes only a token concession to player freedom. The dwarf used his Zhentarim contacts to stage a scene to make him look like a hero, also it all happens in a cutscene. Sure, the party might be able to 'expose the deception' but the module really seems to strain against the idea.

Not in the least because I can't find any details of the election in the book. The loggers like Shandar, and Olivessa comes from an old family... and that's it? No mention of how to do an election scene either, despite how flavorful that would be. Does it take place in the meadhall, after every voting town member has abstained from mead for a day to keep their head straight, followed by an orgiastic drinking session? Who votes? Every adult who resides there? Only heads of households? Only those capable of fighting? Only a council of elders? Do the candidates get to cast votes? Is there some kind of anonymity or is everyone supposed to call out their vote before the town? What is the situation like that a small, insular frontier town would consider making their leader an individual who has only just arrived? We need to know dammit!

Good Mead is a town of just 101 100 people. Of those, just over a fifth are willing and able to fight in the militia when the time comes. The same seems to hold true for most other towns. You can't have a population below Dunbar's number and not have flavorful gossiping and politicking! 

And what about mechanics? I'm not asking for a rigorous electoral subsystem, but at least give me something that connects to existing mechanics! Can the candidate's Charisma score turn the tide? Is their reputation score going to impact their likability? 

That's a whole lot of missing speculation about missing stuff. Here's how I would run it.

Asking the Big Questions

First off, who's voting? In my mind small towns like Good Mead would be run as collections of households, and the head of each household votes. This brings the number of electors down to a small enough number that the PCs can meaningfully know who they are, get to know what they think, and put real human (or dwarvish, whatever) faces to the townsfolk.

Aside

By not specifying what the election looks like, the implied default would be a popular vote of adults, which is how I think a lot of people would end up running this. To me, that betrays a lack of imagination. How is a small town like this made up? A bunch of atomized individuals? Don't make laugh. It's family all the way down. And when the community is made up of families, not individuals, it makes a lot more sense for votes to go by head of household.

Of course who counts as the head of a household? Olivessa comes from a lineage that helped found the town, but explicitly has no surviving relatives. I suppose she would count, but that very assertion might be a matter of political dispute in the town.

Likewise, Shandar has only lived in town for a few years. No mention is made of a family, just that he's popular with the other loggers. A bachelor and a recent immigrant is out of the norm. 

Also, where's the previous leader's family in all this? Any children or spouse should be important voices here. 

This gets further complicated by the inciting incident of the election, the verbeeg hunt. If the PCs go ahead and do the quest themselves, without mustering a militia, they have more leeway to do it their way, but they haven't demonstrated their leadership ability to the townsfolk. Also, the townsfolk would be uneasy if they didn't kill the giants.

'Three kobolds in a trench coat' is 100% a character idea I came up with years ago

By bringing a militia with them, even a small one, the party not only displays leadership, but has witnesses. Witnesses who can tell their friends and family how cool the party was under pressure, or how fearless, or how adaptable. Or, witnesses who can tell everyone how the party chickened out and negotiated with the giants instead. No good.

And if the town is really made up of households, how many of the heads of households are coming along on the giant raid? More to the point, how would it look for a prospective town leader to not go along with the party? Olivessa and Shandar are both statted as commoners. Meanwhile a fifth of the town population has the stats of a tribal warrior. Why are these people the frontrunners again?

The Hunt

Before the election even starts, before the party even gets to Goodmead, Olivessa and Shandar should be having a visible effect on the town. Introduce them and the leadership vacuum up front, not after the giant hunt. Their leader is lying dead in the town shrine, trade is disrupted, everyone is living in fear of giants in the woods.

Olivessa, seeing as she's probably not making casks right about now, is leading a civic ceremony, a memorial to the old town speaker. Shandar is boasting back at the mead hall. Both are yet unaware of the deaths of the five militia members who went out to hunt the verbeeg. 

If the PCs accept the quest to go hunt it themselves, Shandar should insert himself into the situation. Some of the loggers are bound to be among the militia members, and coming along for the ride will let him share some of the glory, even if it's undeserved. 

This is also a good place to introduce the militia, and the opportunity to raise it. Since many of the townsfolk are with Olivessa at the memorial, this will be a good moment to introduce her as well.

In the course of recruiting the militia, note that the two veterans are heads of household in Good Mead (we can give them some names later). If they like what they see during the hunt, their votes will most likely go to the party. If they don't like what they see, they will most likely oppose the PCs. And if they happen to die, well, their places are taken by their children, who probably don't like the party too much.

Leadup to the Election

After the hunt, assuming it went well and the party wants to run for speaker, the next section can run mostly as written. Maybe some of the veterans take Olivessa's place in encouraging them to run. Olivessa needs to know the party actually cares about the people before throwing her support behind them. The role of a speaker is really just to negotiate with other towns and resolve conflicts, without special authority in the town itself.

Shandar protests, and the party will hear, probably from a younger person, that Shandar just left the town, the PCs ran him out! This should pique their curiosity. Tailing Shandar to his meeting with the Targos speaker should be an option.

The plan is to make Shandar look like a hero by staging an invasion by some thugs, which Shandar is in the right place to prevent. Instead of turning this into a cutscene best to make the PCs inability to act a bit more diegetic. In particular, have a distraction get them away from town briefly, such as another verbeeg sighting (very easy if the second verbeeg was left alive. In this case, there may be an alliance between it and Shandar). Once the party returns to town, looking like chumps, Shandar was in place to prevent a real threat.

This should clue the party in to some foul play. Thugs don't appear out of thin air, so they must have come from somewhere, and they're probably still close by. 

Running the Election

When the day of the election comes, flavor it as you like. Personally, I like the idea of the entire town crowding together into the mead hall, with the electors abstaining from alcohol for the last day, casting their votes in front of everybody, representing their families. When the winner is declared, they get to give a little speech, and inaugurate a feast. This is a good opportunity to suck wealth from the party's pockets to pay for the food and entertainment.

How many electors there are is up in the air, but I'd put the number around 20. This isn't a rigorous method, but if you want something besides 'win if the dwarf is exposed, lose otherwise', then maybe introducing a random element might help. 3d6+Cha bonus could work, maybe adding Reputation on top? That's how many electors vote for you. Get the majority, you win. If Shandar is still in the running, add a modifier to his benefit due to his 'heroism.'

And if the PCs want to go ahead and become speakers for other towns, a system like this might be generalized. Oust the sitting speaker somehow, then convince the people that the party is the right way forward. Put their cronies in place in towns where the PCs can't become leaders themselves. Rime of the Frostmaiden is now a political intrigue campaign.

You're welcome.

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