I am currently running a Lost Mine of Phandelver / Dragon of Icespire Peak combination campaign and my players are incredibly unimpressed with Phandalin's mayor Harbin Wester, so they have been pushing for a town election. I think that this is something that happens fairly often in those modules, since in one of them he does nothing while a gang takes over the town and in the other he hides in his house while a dragon and orcs threaten the area. As such, I think it might be a good idea to make a thread where we speak about the possibility of running a town election in campaigns that use them, as well as either ideas or anecdotes about how it could be/was done. Heck, we might as well have it prepared beforehand and make it a main part of the campaign: town elections are coming up and instead of getting quests from the notice board they are given by different candidates who are trying to swing the votes.
The way I think I would run it is that every candidate has a dice pool and that every event adds or substracts dice from it, then when election day comes they are rolled and the luckiest character wins. Or we just plan events that gives points and after certain number of them a candidate either wins or are out of the race.
As such, the things that would be needed would be:
a)Candidates: The guys who are actually competing, as it would decide what policies they support and PC liking them is an important factor. In my case they would be:
a.1) Harbin Wester: A banker and the current mayor of Phandalin, his suitability for the job has been called into question due to letting a the Redbrand gang pretty much take over (already driven off by the players). This is compounded by a series of disasters the town has suffered such as the Cragmaw goblin tribe attacking caravans around the area leading to shortages of various items (players already slaughters their way through their castle), orcs disrupting trade with the town of triboar and a dragon attacking the town two days in a row (as a combination campaign I have both Venomfang and Cryovain roaming and I replaced cryovain with a Young Blue Dragon that took over the cult of Talos. The dice had them fight each other twice and then Cryovain attack Phandalin twice while Venomfang attacked locations with orcs, so I had Venomfang recruit people to attack Cryovain while pretending to be from Phandalin to give the town a reason to go after her rival).
a.2) Halia Thornton: Runs the miner exchange and is an agent of the Zhentarim. In the LMoP campaign they usually try to make a deal with the players to help her take over the Redbrand with the excuse of reforming them into a militia for Phandalin but actually just want them for her criminal activities. In my campaign, they pretended to take the deal but slaughtered the redbrands. Then she offered them money to kill the Cragmaw goblins with the condition they made it clear she was the one who hired them so she could boost her campaign (they didn't take her money, used the feat to boost their preferred candidate). Just before that she hired them to recruit Big Al Kalazorn (farmer, former sheriff of the town of Triboar) as trainer for a militia in Phandalin to defend it from several threats. She is not a fan of the players at the moment.
a.3) Daran Edermath: Former adventurer from Baldur's gate and part of the Order of the Gauntlet, who in usual LMoP campaigns gives a mission that if completed makes him try to recruit the players. Probably the one my players will support now, as he helped them recruit several adventurers to fight the Redbrand Ruffians and would have fought alongside them if they hadn't learnt that the Redbrands had sold some townsfolk as slaves. He rode off with a sidekick to save them but ultimately failed and the sidekick died. Unknown to the players, he was actually captured alongside the sidekick and replaced with a doppelganger, who is now running for mayor to regain control of the town now that the redbrands were kicked out.
a.4) Trilena Stonihill: The innkeeper's wife, she doesn't have much else running for her.
Honorable mentions:
Sildar Hallwinter: An agent from the Lord's Alliance who has been sent to Phandalin to investigate weird happenings and promote its growth to bring stability to the region, he wanted to both investigate the disappearance of an agent sent previously and finance the reopening of the Mine of Phandelver. He would have been a fine candidate had he not died when the dragon attacked the town the first time (he was a sidekick the PC could control that originally helped them kick out the Redbrands, he was the closest to the dragon and thus ate dragon breath to the face taking out twice their health pool).
Galandro Luna: Another sidekick and the PC's candidate to the position, they helped them in most of their adventures. A popular candidate due to helping kick out the Redbrands from the town, saving a family who were sold as slaves and breaking the goblin embargo on trade, as well as being a popular bard who had the song of his deeds doing the rounds around town. He died last session in the fight against the Black Spider (failed two of his saving throws and automatically failed the other because the wizard left his flaming sphere right next to them).
b)Support base: Who in the town supports each candidate. The way I see it, we can run it two ways: that there are several groups whose support they could court and that there are important members of the community that can help swing the election.
b.1) Miners: Phandalin's main source of income, they support Halia as a default as the one who runs the Miner Exchange. Could be swayed with the Mountain Toe Gold Mine quest.
b.2) Those in debt: Harbin is a banker and a lot of people around the town were able to move in because he loaned them money to start their new lives when they moved in.
b.3) Traders: Represented by Linene (from Lionshield Coster, doesn't like Halia) and Elmar Barthen (from the general store)
b.4) Bar patrons: Usually they woul support Harbin because due to the innkeeper's backstory it would make sense that Harbin loaned them money but his wife is also running, so...
b.5) Religious community: Led by Sister Garaele, the priest from the Shrine of Tymora
b.6) Criminal element: Very small with the recent purge, would have supported Halia as an agent of Zhentarim
c) Talking points/proposals:In order to decide who to support, they ought to know what each candidate would do with the position. This is a part I am currently having most issues with, since ideally every candidate would have good ideas for this but can't use that of all of them due to the town's budget.
c.1) Security: The main reason the election is being called, each candidate would need to offer a solution.
Halia: She originally wanted to reform the Redbrands into a militia to fight off the goblins, orcs and dragon. Since that is no longer possible, she is helping finance one trained by Al Kalazorn (who in my campaign is secretly crooked but usually isn't) that she would later use similarly to what she planned with the Redbrands.
Harbin Wester: He wants to redeem himself by solving the issue of orcs raiding the route to Triboar. Since the party are freelancers and helped solve the previous issues, he will look to hire them and then point that the notice board and rewards to adventurers are a cheaper alternative to a standing force and one that has proved to work. Quests that would help with this are the Axeholm quest (clearing an old keep as a place to evacuate if the dragon attacks grow worse) and killing the orcs in the east (Wyvern Thor quest in LMoP)
Daran Edermath: The original Daran would have proposed to fund a chapter of the Order of the Gauntlet in the town to deal with the issues then contact the main chapters for funding/help/trainingas a knightly/volunteer force. The doppelganger might pretend to do the same while using them to push for their agenda or try to take over the efforts of other candidates. Both would capitalise in their good standing with all those who fought the Redbrands as the one who helped organize it.
Trilena Stonehill: She proposes contacting Neverwinter for help. This was not done before because of the goblin killing the messengers. It would give greater power to the Lord of Neverwinter, who would like a return to the investment and would likely take a greater share of the town's income as a result.
Sildar: Won't come up because he died but as a member of the Lord's Alliance he would have had the money to help with this. It is uncertain whether he would have tried to install a noble that would try to build Phandalin into another city or try to bring it closer to Neverwinter or Waterdeep. In my campaign there are increasing tensions between Waterdeep and Neverwinter and suspiscions that Waterdeep is trying to poach vassals from Neverwinter after the were weakened by their royal family dying as a result of a volcano eruption and Sildar is originally from Waterdeep, so...
c.2) Economy: What they would do to bring prosperity to the region.
Harbin: Offer lower interest rates in loans and discounts to traders to promote more people moving in and more caravans and make an aggressive advertising campaing about the benefits of trade once the routes are cleared.
Halia: Use her contacts with the Zhentarim (who officially are a trading company) to promote trade in the region and finance the clearing/opening or more mines to create jobs.
Trilena: To promote tourism. The In Volo's wake module proposes a series of side quests caused by people who read Volo's guides and are interested in visiting the area to follow his adventures. I was going to draw from them for one of my character's sidequest related to their backstories and now that the goblins are not making travel between cities harder then they can take advantage of the interest.
Daran: The area is dangerous and filled with monsters and monster parts can be valuable. He would propose financing hunting for monster parts as a temporary measure and training tool for their chapter of the Order, then expand the operation as mercenary force to help other towns in the region.
Sildar: He would have funded the Rockseeker brothers to restart Mine of Phandelver and restarted magic weapons production as an unique good created in the region, which would have drawn marchants to it. For this he would have contacter the gnomes of Gnomengarde as crafters and hired to townsfolk as miners.
c.3) Religion? It occurs to me that religion might be a good issue, since DoIP has trouble with the cult of Talos being behind the orcs and its expansion modules heavily feature the cult of Talos and the cult of Myrkul (and in my campaign, the Black Spider was working with the cult of Myrkul and they are related to one of my PC's backstories so the doppelganger would support them) but I have to think a way to make it relevant and the opinions of the different candidates. Like, should it be something about whether to fund new churchs or not, build a new shrine for Tymora, choose an official deity for the town, contact other cities so that they can bring their cults to see to the town's religious needs? I am not sure what angle to take on this one.
c.4) I've got nothing. As I said, this is the part I am currently struggling with, so any ideas would be appreciated.
d) Events: Stuff that could happen that could swing the election or which quests each candidate would support.
d.1) Mountain Toe Gold Mine. Halia would probably be the one to bring this to the player's attention, both because she is in charge of the Miner Exchange and because the wererats are usually a criminal syndicate, which would threaten Zhentarim Interests.
d.2) Wyvern Thor: Harbin Wester hires them for this one.
d.3) Phandalin Militia: Covered before, they are either the Redbrands subverted or a new one formed by any candidate.
d.4) Any main quest event can be swung in favor of any candidate if the PC gives them credit.
d.5) Frame for a crime: As one of my candidates is a doppelganger, it would be easy for them to frame another of a crime. I am currently leaning of having them pretend to be Al Kalazorn to kill Halia, so that they get rid of their main opposition to the post and the guy leading the guard so that they can use their fame as adventurer to take over the project.
d.6) Festival: Harbin Wester currently has access to the town coffers and can make a festival to celebrate the heroes o the town and boost his campaing. It helps in my case that he no longers hides in his house from fearing the dragon because one of my player's Dragonborn Barbarian rolled a Nat 20 on a performance check with his banjo to distract the redbrands who had taken Harbin hostage and a Nat 1 in intimidation while talking to him afterwards so Harbin is fanboying over him as if he were a rockstar.
d.7.1) Divine Favor. The shrine in the town is for Tymora, the goddess of good Luck. Supporting it might lead to a bonus to the dice rolls during the election and higher opinion by the religious folk, specially if the god gives a boon that helps the town.
d.7.2) Faking divine favor. Similarly, using magic to pretend that the gods favor you might help impress to voters.
d.8) Uncovering criminal connections and illegal plots would reduce support for any candidate
d.9) Hiring bards to sing them praise is self explanatory
d.10) Hiring an adventurer party. Usually the PC but if a candidate disliked by the PC is likely to hire adventurers then a rival party can appear. Halia, Harbin and Daran are likely to support different groups depending on the PC's alignment. If they are ******** then Daran is unlikely to deal with the PC, if they are too noble then the same can be said for Halia and the PC might be unwilling to deal with Harbin since their discontent lead to the election. This could be used to either take out of play quests that the party is too high leveled to be challenged by, to have them both try for the same quest at the same time and support different aproaches or compete or if the other party are bad guys have them fight each other. It is also a good way to reintroduce previous rivals and antagonists.
d.11) Local events at your tavern or discounts in shops owned to gather support
d.12) Harbin putting pressure in those who owe him money to vote for him. In my campaign it might be used to have Trilena drop out of the race and pledge support to him
Any other ideas for any of the previous points? I would like to have a compilation of things like this, even after the event runs its course in my camping in the following few weeks.
Just some random thoughts from my experience here recently. Take from it what you will.
We are doing the LMoP/DoIP -> SLW -> SDW -> DC path. The party just finished SLW.
I had Harbin turn out to be a doppelganger, explaining his "recent" bumbling. After finding the bloated body of the real Harbin, elections for the Town Council began. There is some (thin) material on a Phandalin Town Council from "In Volo's Wake", I thought I might use some of that more if they stuck around Phandalin -- but they didn't.
Although I mentioned the election and candidates every time the players returned to Phandalin, they didn't seem too interested. I hinted that Halia was likely to get on the council (the party doesn't like her, and she was putting out a lot of "Make Phandalin Great Again" type of energy), and that Sildar would too -- but he wasn't really interested (as he is retired and here mainly to court Linene Graywind while helping his buddy Gundren out).
I did have some potential election mechanics, largely from "Elections in Phandalin" (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/243322/Elections-in-Phandalin) and some other blog/reddit posts, but the players just didn't care too much at our table, especially once they got out to Leilon. I saw that, and just informed them of the election results and the new town council.
I initially thought they would be into it, especially as they like Sildar, hate Harbin (and his brother-in-law, who in retrospect I should have made even more of an ass, and had him accuse the players of murdering Harbin and lying about him being a doppelganger in order to seize power in Phandalin), and seriously distrust Halia -- but they just didn't get into the details.
I ended up with SIldar, Halia, and Trilena Stonehill on the council, the idea being Halia largely controls the council -- but I think the moment has largely passed in our campaign for this to be interesting (certainly not more interesting than the main plot line).
They are restoring Tresendar Manor as a HQ, and do have periodic returns to Phandalin, so I do have all that in my back pocket if Halia gets organized (or hired) to bother them in the future.
First off, I think you have done a lot of good work creating a small town election and mapping out who some of the candidates would be and what they would bring. You seem to have covered everything the LMOP module brings that could be incorporated into the result of this election. If you really like writing scenes I would totally steal the kingsmoot from game of thrones. It was easily one of my fav parts of the book and it allows for a twist similar to the one found in the book for you to introduce a character that may have been hinted at but not met before. I find politics tend to not fall into the "hero fantasy" most players go after so it is harder to get them to be interested in it and I end up needing to have some sort of small battle either during a town hall/election results or have an assassination attempt on the favored npc leading up. Something to keep them engaged you know?
For my version of LMOP i created the Phandelver pact between humans, gnomes, and dwarves. It was supposed to also include drow so that the BBEG could have some more involvement in the story. The "talon" longsword found in the manor was the representation of the human part of it. I created an opportunity for the human in the party to take it up and essentially become the Lord of Phandalin. I then created an over involved spreadsheet showing all of the powers he now possessed over the town, who his cabinet would be made of and I gave him a new mechanic he could use once a day named "call to arms". The biggest problem with this is the person who got the sword hardly says anything during a session and i am fairly confident this entire section of the campaign will get left behind after the initial lore dump. Don't be shocked if something similar happens to you.
You did very good DM work
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I am currently running a Lost Mine of Phandelver / Dragon of Icespire Peak combination campaign and my players are incredibly unimpressed with Phandalin's mayor Harbin Wester, so they have been pushing for a town election. I think that this is something that happens fairly often in those modules, since in one of them he does nothing while a gang takes over the town and in the other he hides in his house while a dragon and orcs threaten the area. As such, I think it might be a good idea to make a thread where we speak about the possibility of running a town election in campaigns that use them, as well as either ideas or anecdotes about how it could be/was done. Heck, we might as well have it prepared beforehand and make it a main part of the campaign: town elections are coming up and instead of getting quests from the notice board they are given by different candidates who are trying to swing the votes.
The way I think I would run it is that every candidate has a dice pool and that every event adds or substracts dice from it, then when election day comes they are rolled and the luckiest character wins. Or we just plan events that gives points and after certain number of them a candidate either wins or are out of the race.
As such, the things that would be needed would be:
a) Candidates: The guys who are actually competing, as it would decide what policies they support and PC liking them is an important factor. In my case they would be:
a.1) Harbin Wester: A banker and the current mayor of Phandalin, his suitability for the job has been called into question due to letting a the Redbrand gang pretty much take over (already driven off by the players). This is compounded by a series of disasters the town has suffered such as the Cragmaw goblin tribe attacking caravans around the area leading to shortages of various items (players already slaughters their way through their castle), orcs disrupting trade with the town of triboar and a dragon attacking the town two days in a row (as a combination campaign I have both Venomfang and Cryovain roaming and I replaced cryovain with a Young Blue Dragon that took over the cult of Talos. The dice had them fight each other twice and then Cryovain attack Phandalin twice while Venomfang attacked locations with orcs, so I had Venomfang recruit people to attack Cryovain while pretending to be from Phandalin to give the town a reason to go after her rival).
a.2) Halia Thornton: Runs the miner exchange and is an agent of the Zhentarim. In the LMoP campaign they usually try to make a deal with the players to help her take over the Redbrand with the excuse of reforming them into a militia for Phandalin but actually just want them for her criminal activities. In my campaign, they pretended to take the deal but slaughtered the redbrands. Then she offered them money to kill the Cragmaw goblins with the condition they made it clear she was the one who hired them so she could boost her campaign (they didn't take her money, used the feat to boost their preferred candidate). Just before that she hired them to recruit Big Al Kalazorn (farmer, former sheriff of the town of Triboar) as trainer for a militia in Phandalin to defend it from several threats. She is not a fan of the players at the moment.
a.3) Daran Edermath: Former adventurer from Baldur's gate and part of the Order of the Gauntlet, who in usual LMoP campaigns gives a mission that if completed makes him try to recruit the players. Probably the one my players will support now, as he helped them recruit several adventurers to fight the Redbrand Ruffians and would have fought alongside them if they hadn't learnt that the Redbrands had sold some townsfolk as slaves. He rode off with a sidekick to save them but ultimately failed and the sidekick died. Unknown to the players, he was actually captured alongside the sidekick and replaced with a doppelganger, who is now running for mayor to regain control of the town now that the redbrands were kicked out.
a.4) Trilena Stonihill: The innkeeper's wife, she doesn't have much else running for her.
Honorable mentions:
Sildar Hallwinter: An agent from the Lord's Alliance who has been sent to Phandalin to investigate weird happenings and promote its growth to bring stability to the region, he wanted to both investigate the disappearance of an agent sent previously and finance the reopening of the Mine of Phandelver. He would have been a fine candidate had he not died when the dragon attacked the town the first time (he was a sidekick the PC could control that originally helped them kick out the Redbrands, he was the closest to the dragon and thus ate dragon breath to the face taking out twice their health pool).
Galandro Luna: Another sidekick and the PC's candidate to the position, they helped them in most of their adventures. A popular candidate due to helping kick out the Redbrands from the town, saving a family who were sold as slaves and breaking the goblin embargo on trade, as well as being a popular bard who had the song of his deeds doing the rounds around town. He died last session in the fight against the Black Spider (failed two of his saving throws and automatically failed the other because the wizard left his flaming sphere right next to them).
b) Support base: Who in the town supports each candidate. The way I see it, we can run it two ways: that there are several groups whose support they could court and that there are important members of the community that can help swing the election.
b.1) Miners: Phandalin's main source of income, they support Halia as a default as the one who runs the Miner Exchange. Could be swayed with the Mountain Toe Gold Mine quest.
b.2) Those in debt: Harbin is a banker and a lot of people around the town were able to move in because he loaned them money to start their new lives when they moved in.
b.3) Traders: Represented by Linene (from Lionshield Coster, doesn't like Halia) and Elmar Barthen (from the general store)
b.4) Bar patrons: Usually they woul support Harbin because due to the innkeeper's backstory it would make sense that Harbin loaned them money but his wife is also running, so...
b.5) Religious community: Led by Sister Garaele, the priest from the Shrine of Tymora
b.6) Criminal element: Very small with the recent purge, would have supported Halia as an agent of Zhentarim
c) Talking points/proposals: In order to decide who to support, they ought to know what each candidate would do with the position. This is a part I am currently having most issues with, since ideally every candidate would have good ideas for this but can't use that of all of them due to the town's budget.
c.1) Security: The main reason the election is being called, each candidate would need to offer a solution.
Halia: She originally wanted to reform the Redbrands into a militia to fight off the goblins, orcs and dragon. Since that is no longer possible, she is helping finance one trained by Al Kalazorn (who in my campaign is secretly crooked but usually isn't) that she would later use similarly to what she planned with the Redbrands.
Harbin Wester: He wants to redeem himself by solving the issue of orcs raiding the route to Triboar. Since the party are freelancers and helped solve the previous issues, he will look to hire them and then point that the notice board and rewards to adventurers are a cheaper alternative to a standing force and one that has proved to work. Quests that would help with this are the Axeholm quest (clearing an old keep as a place to evacuate if the dragon attacks grow worse) and killing the orcs in the east (Wyvern Thor quest in LMoP)
Daran Edermath: The original Daran would have proposed to fund a chapter of the Order of the Gauntlet in the town to deal with the issues then contact the main chapters for funding/help/trainingas a knightly/volunteer force. The doppelganger might pretend to do the same while using them to push for their agenda or try to take over the efforts of other candidates. Both would capitalise in their good standing with all those who fought the Redbrands as the one who helped organize it.
Trilena Stonehill: She proposes contacting Neverwinter for help. This was not done before because of the goblin killing the messengers. It would give greater power to the Lord of Neverwinter, who would like a return to the investment and would likely take a greater share of the town's income as a result.
Sildar: Won't come up because he died but as a member of the Lord's Alliance he would have had the money to help with this. It is uncertain whether he would have tried to install a noble that would try to build Phandalin into another city or try to bring it closer to Neverwinter or Waterdeep. In my campaign there are increasing tensions between Waterdeep and Neverwinter and suspiscions that Waterdeep is trying to poach vassals from Neverwinter after the were weakened by their royal family dying as a result of a volcano eruption and Sildar is originally from Waterdeep, so...
c.2) Economy: What they would do to bring prosperity to the region.
Harbin: Offer lower interest rates in loans and discounts to traders to promote more people moving in and more caravans and make an aggressive advertising campaing about the benefits of trade once the routes are cleared.
Halia: Use her contacts with the Zhentarim (who officially are a trading company) to promote trade in the region and finance the clearing/opening or more mines to create jobs.
Trilena: To promote tourism. The In Volo's wake module proposes a series of side quests caused by people who read Volo's guides and are interested in visiting the area to follow his adventures. I was going to draw from them for one of my character's sidequest related to their backstories and now that the goblins are not making travel between cities harder then they can take advantage of the interest.
Daran: The area is dangerous and filled with monsters and monster parts can be valuable. He would propose financing hunting for monster parts as a temporary measure and training tool for their chapter of the Order, then expand the operation as mercenary force to help other towns in the region.
Sildar: He would have funded the Rockseeker brothers to restart Mine of Phandelver and restarted magic weapons production as an unique good created in the region, which would have drawn marchants to it. For this he would have contacter the gnomes of Gnomengarde as crafters and hired to townsfolk as miners.
c.3) Religion? It occurs to me that religion might be a good issue, since DoIP has trouble with the cult of Talos being behind the orcs and its expansion modules heavily feature the cult of Talos and the cult of Myrkul (and in my campaign, the Black Spider was working with the cult of Myrkul and they are related to one of my PC's backstories so the doppelganger would support them) but I have to think a way to make it relevant and the opinions of the different candidates. Like, should it be something about whether to fund new churchs or not, build a new shrine for Tymora, choose an official deity for the town, contact other cities so that they can bring their cults to see to the town's religious needs? I am not sure what angle to take on this one.
c.4) I've got nothing. As I said, this is the part I am currently struggling with, so any ideas would be appreciated.
d) Events: Stuff that could happen that could swing the election or which quests each candidate would support.
d.1) Mountain Toe Gold Mine. Halia would probably be the one to bring this to the player's attention, both because she is in charge of the Miner Exchange and because the wererats are usually a criminal syndicate, which would threaten Zhentarim Interests.
d.2) Wyvern Thor: Harbin Wester hires them for this one.
d.3) Phandalin Militia: Covered before, they are either the Redbrands subverted or a new one formed by any candidate.
d.4) Any main quest event can be swung in favor of any candidate if the PC gives them credit.
d.5) Frame for a crime: As one of my candidates is a doppelganger, it would be easy for them to frame another of a crime. I am currently leaning of having them pretend to be Al Kalazorn to kill Halia, so that they get rid of their main opposition to the post and the guy leading the guard so that they can use their fame as adventurer to take over the project.
d.6) Festival: Harbin Wester currently has access to the town coffers and can make a festival to celebrate the heroes o the town and boost his campaing. It helps in my case that he no longers hides in his house from fearing the dragon because one of my player's Dragonborn Barbarian rolled a Nat 20 on a performance check with his banjo to distract the redbrands who had taken Harbin hostage and a Nat 1 in intimidation while talking to him afterwards so Harbin is fanboying over him as if he were a rockstar.
d.7.1) Divine Favor. The shrine in the town is for Tymora, the goddess of good Luck. Supporting it might lead to a bonus to the dice rolls during the election and higher opinion by the religious folk, specially if the god gives a boon that helps the town.
d.7.2) Faking divine favor. Similarly, using magic to pretend that the gods favor you might help impress to voters.
d.8) Uncovering criminal connections and illegal plots would reduce support for any candidate
d.9) Hiring bards to sing them praise is self explanatory
d.10) Hiring an adventurer party. Usually the PC but if a candidate disliked by the PC is likely to hire adventurers then a rival party can appear. Halia, Harbin and Daran are likely to support different groups depending on the PC's alignment. If they are ******** then Daran is unlikely to deal with the PC, if they are too noble then the same can be said for Halia and the PC might be unwilling to deal with Harbin since their discontent lead to the election. This could be used to either take out of play quests that the party is too high leveled to be challenged by, to have them both try for the same quest at the same time and support different aproaches or compete or if the other party are bad guys have them fight each other. It is also a good way to reintroduce previous rivals and antagonists.
d.11) Local events at your tavern or discounts in shops owned to gather support
d.12) Harbin putting pressure in those who owe him money to vote for him. In my campaign it might be used to have Trilena drop out of the race and pledge support to him
Any other ideas for any of the previous points? I would like to have a compilation of things like this, even after the event runs its course in my camping in the following few weeks.
Just some random thoughts from my experience here recently. Take from it what you will.
We are doing the LMoP/DoIP -> SLW -> SDW -> DC path. The party just finished SLW.
I had Harbin turn out to be a doppelganger, explaining his "recent" bumbling. After finding the bloated body of the real Harbin, elections for the Town Council began. There is some (thin) material on a Phandalin Town Council from "In Volo's Wake", I thought I might use some of that more if they stuck around Phandalin -- but they didn't.
Although I mentioned the election and candidates every time the players returned to Phandalin, they didn't seem too interested. I hinted that Halia was likely to get on the council (the party doesn't like her, and she was putting out a lot of "Make Phandalin Great Again" type of energy), and that Sildar would too -- but he wasn't really interested (as he is retired and here mainly to court Linene Graywind while helping his buddy Gundren out).
I did have some potential election mechanics, largely from "Elections in Phandalin" (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/243322/Elections-in-Phandalin) and some other blog/reddit posts, but the players just didn't care too much at our table, especially once they got out to Leilon. I saw that, and just informed them of the election results and the new town council.
I initially thought they would be into it, especially as they like Sildar, hate Harbin (and his brother-in-law, who in retrospect I should have made even more of an ass, and had him accuse the players of murdering Harbin and lying about him being a doppelganger in order to seize power in Phandalin), and seriously distrust Halia -- but they just didn't get into the details.
I ended up with SIldar, Halia, and Trilena Stonehill on the council, the idea being Halia largely controls the council -- but I think the moment has largely passed in our campaign for this to be interesting (certainly not more interesting than the main plot line).
They are restoring Tresendar Manor as a HQ, and do have periodic returns to Phandalin, so I do have all that in my back pocket if Halia gets organized (or hired) to bother them in the future.
First off, I think you have done a lot of good work creating a small town election and mapping out who some of the candidates would be and what they would bring. You seem to have covered everything the LMOP module brings that could be incorporated into the result of this election. If you really like writing scenes I would totally steal the kingsmoot from game of thrones. It was easily one of my fav parts of the book and it allows for a twist similar to the one found in the book for you to introduce a character that may have been hinted at but not met before. I find politics tend to not fall into the "hero fantasy" most players go after so it is harder to get them to be interested in it and I end up needing to have some sort of small battle either during a town hall/election results or have an assassination attempt on the favored npc leading up. Something to keep them engaged you know?
For my version of LMOP i created the Phandelver pact between humans, gnomes, and dwarves. It was supposed to also include drow so that the BBEG could have some more involvement in the story. The "talon" longsword found in the manor was the representation of the human part of it. I created an opportunity for the human in the party to take it up and essentially become the Lord of Phandalin. I then created an over involved spreadsheet showing all of the powers he now possessed over the town, who his cabinet would be made of and I gave him a new mechanic he could use once a day named "call to arms". The biggest problem with this is the person who got the sword hardly says anything during a session and i am fairly confident this entire section of the campaign will get left behind after the initial lore dump. Don't be shocked if something similar happens to you.
You did very good DM work