Apologies for a bad title,   I couldn't think of a more succinct way to describe what I am proposing.

The characters in my game are about to be summoned to a "council" and basically defend/encourage themselves. 

Instead of me, as the DM, playing all of the council members, I am considering the following:

1) players choose a party spokesperson.

2) I will hand out a note card with RP information for council members to the other players, so each player has their own character and a council person.

3) As the DM I will still run one or two members of the council.  one that is the arbiter and another that is a npc the party has met before.

4) the players that aren't the spokesperson can then basically engage in a very different RP form with their own characters/party.

Gross example:  (assuming a party of 4 chars)

a council of 5 dwarves, trying to determine whether to give the party access to information on a lost mine.

one party spokesperson, doesn't get to play a dwarf,  3 other party members each play a dwarf, and I play two.

I hope that description makes sense.

This gives A LOT of potential story direction to the players, but it seems like it would be fun. Have other GMs done something similar, and if so,  how did it work, or what issues did you encounter?

Thanks!

Cool idea :)

Haven't done this myself - but I can see there being some issues of impartiality if the Players are determining whether or not to give their own Characters access, information, or resources ( I think the party will win their case! :p )

A couple of ideas to keep things on the straight-and-narrow.

• Detail the NPCs on the council, including their position on the issue pertaining to the party - and why they feel this way. This gives the Player a concrete direction to argue. In a manner similar to how a defense lawyer can actually believe their client is guilty, but still are morally bound to try and defend their client, the Player may want to find in favor of the Party, but their current council character does not. If you can write the scenario well enough to have a lot of built-in tension and conflict between the council members, then just maybe the Players can find a way to exploit that to the party's benefit ;)

• Make the situation win-win for the Party. If a Player's council member doesn't get his way in the argument, then the Party gets something. If a Player's councilor wins his ( or her ) point, then the Player gets something. This means that the Player is free to fully engage with their council member character, without having to penalize their own party. In a perfect setup, the party would benefit either way, in-game ( Dhokgrorlim Lightforge opposes giving the party access to the Khurgalir Caverns, on their current mission, as he believes that the lost battleaxe Hengraes Bane lies lost in those caverns, and is afraid that his fellow council member Nerbin Flintbane will attempt to use the Party to retrieve the weapon for his own clan, when historically it clearly belongs to the House of Lightforge - so he will attempt to block the Party's access now, and covertly attempt to hire them for his own retrieval mission later. Likewise, if her loses his argument, he may attempt to hire mercenaries to sabotage the Party ).

I think that if you can set it up that way - make it so the Players have to choose between benefits to Party and/or Player, but they never actually lose - and also give out rewards to the Players for really playing their positions well and believably, then this could be a lot of fun, without the Players engaging in a lot of self-serving meta-gaming.

Thanks for the feedback!  It looks like this weekend I'll actually be able to see how if this idea was a good one, or a failure :)

I've added more motivations to each card as well as a different "quest" from each NPC so that they will all have a different agenda in mind.  They (the npcs played by the party) then can shape what direction they want the party to go, and this also should give background/context/exposition for the actual players.  It also exposes them to a much.

Hopefully that adds enough direction for the players so that they have a good idea on how to RP the NPCs.  I love not knowing exactly what choices they will end up making,  they may opt for something completely different.

Hope you don´t mind if I steal that idea. I really love it!

Followup:   Or.. how I tried

I attempted  this in our campaign on Sunday with mixed results.  Here's a writeup which I have tried to keep generic so as not to get the campaign details/story mixed up with this higher level concept.  Hopefully, this will aid anyone interested in incorporating an event like this into their campaign.

Background:

• The party consists of 4 players, their characters are level 6.
• The setting is that the characters were in front of a "council". The council would then help shape/decide what the next tasks for the party will be.
• Each player rolled a d20, and one player was the designated party spokesperson. The other 3 players were assigned an NPC council-member to run.
• The council had 5 members (NPCs). As a GM I ran the most powerful/senior one, who was really more of a quiet judge, and another council member that basically precipitated the encounter. The other council member initiated the discussion and basically provided a quick initial summary to the rest of the council. Then she asked the party spokesperson to speak.

What was the goal:

• The purpose was to provide the players and their characters with more backstory and exposition in an interesting way.  As a GM I wanted them to play a part in broadening their view of the gameworld/campaign setting
• It was also a chance to let them see and introduce them to far more powerful beings in the world
• This let them know that they, as a party, had begun attracting attention of larger things, and  by consequence were ultimately going to get involved.
• This gave them a way to "choose their fate" as it were, and really attempt to buy in to the campaign arc.
  • To me it's the difference between, "well, I guess we now go fight the dragon" vs "well, we know this dragon is going to cause a lot of problems, we're the ones equipped to stop it, we know why others won't stop it,  so let's go win one for the town!"

How I did it:

• I handed each player, aside from the spokesperson, a sheet of paper.
• This had the name and brief physical description of their NPC.
• The paper also had a section for personality with 3-4 traits, as well as "what they know" which contained 4 pieces of information.
• Most importantly, it had a primary goal for what the NPC wanted to achieve from the "council".
• One of the NPCs set the "rules of order" for how the council meeting would be run.
  • ie. go in order, no one speaks out of turn, no interruptions.
• Each NPC had slightly different motivations/goals, as well as different pieces of information that could be connected together to form a narrative.

What went well:

• The players had to stop, think and readjust their worldview.
• It gave the players a greater insight into the world/story without me as a GM providing exposition
• I think it lead to "buy in" to what the next arc of the campaign is.
• Each of the NPCs had a slightly different take on "greater good" vs "personal good" as well as order vs chaos.  They also differed in how involved they should be with the affairs of others. That lead to some interesting interactions, particularly when the party spokesperson asked, "You all are incredibly powerful, why do you need us to do this?  Why don't you just fix everything yourselves?"

What went poorly:

• Surprisingly, several players had difficulty really getting that they had both their character as well as an NPC.  (I guess gms are really just used to this).
• Not all of the players understood the "what you know" aspect for their NPCs, and instead just  rattled off items instead of trying to naturally weave those things into a conversation.
• The order of when people spoke was a bit too rigid. while it made sense to me as GM  from a background perspective, I think it ended up stifling potentially interesting discussions.
  • One player liked the order as it made sure no one person dominated the discussion.
• The goals need to be very clear for each NPC.

Advice:

• You may want to provide a bit more direction early on. Once the players got used to the concept it began to flow well, but it took a few rounds of conversation.  A sample turn or two to show what's supposed to happen may be helpful.   I didn't want to do this as I wanted to not micromanage and to just let things flow organically and see what the players would choose to do.
• It was an interesting event, though I'm not sure how many times one would want to incorporate something like this into a campaign.

 [edits,  cleaned up formatting and grammar]

I did this exact thing in "Rise of Tiamat": I had the players Roleplay as the dragons during the dragon council (and provided them cards with all the applicable RP notes). It was a blast.