Improving Social Encounters

Chris McDowall is the creator of Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland and most recently Mythic Bastionland. These games serve as the basis for many other popular games, including Cairn 1/2e and many others.

While a deep dive into what makes these “Mark of the Odd” games tick is certainly in the cards, what I want to talk about today is the advice that Chris gives to game masters in his books. Especially how this advice can make social encounters more fun.

The Problem as I See It

Social encounters tend to be boring. At least for me. This feeling of boredom comes out on both sides of the screen. As a GM I tend to speed past these types of encounters. I will give the players the information the NPC has. Maybe spend a bit of time giving them a cool description or weird quark, but I mostly want to move on from these ASAP.

This approach works for the games that I tend to play. PF2e and 5e are systems that have combat as the main pillar of play. Characters have plenty of fancy abilities and combat has lots of tactics and moving parts. However, if we want to play or run games where this is not the case, then we cant count on combat to carry our sessions.

Why Do I Get Bored?

I think it comes down to 2 big things.

1. Games dont have robust mechanical support for social encounters.
2. Social encounters tend to be low stakes.

For the first one, most social encounters in a game boil down to a single roll using a social skill or attribute or a series of social rolls. Then the NPC will do something the players want. If the players roll badly, they might not do what they want.

I like rolling dice. I really do. But when you compare that to a good combat system where players are positioning, using tactics and unleashing their crazy abilities… well, I know what I want to be spending the most time on.

Social encounters tend to be low stakes because the purpose of most social encounters is to set up for the next “real” encounter. NPCs are the easiest and most convenient way a GM has for giving players information. This results in most NPCs just being quest givers or maybe providing some foreshadowing if they are lucky.

So with the problems identified, how do we solve them?

Solutions

The problem of low stakes is something that can be solved fairly easy.

In all his games, Chris always emphasizes the importance of giving player choices a clear and hard impact. When creating a social encounter, we need to think about how we can make it impactful.

Some easy examples are negotiating a hostage situation, talking down an important NPC from taking their own life, or convincing the warlord to take his army elsewhere. In all these situations, we put the PC goals, possessions or connections at risk.

With something on the line to draw player attention, we now need to add some fun. Making a complex and fun social encounter system is a bit out of scope for most GMs. It certainly is for me. Thankfully, we dont have to.

Once again, we can look at the advice given by Chris. He gives us 2 tools: the Dilemma and the Action Procedure.

The Dilemma is exactly what it sounds like. We present a choice between 2 good things or 2 bad things. The players can pick one or push for both or none. In all cases, we make it clear what Impact each choice will have. Pushing for both options is possible, however it comes with a great risk, some other cost or it will require a really good plan.

In a social setting, we should be on the look out for ways to present dilemmas to players. This gets players making choices and weighing options. It makes the game fun.

The Action Procedure is intended as a general tool for resolving any action players take. It goes like this:

1. Establish the player’s Intent. We might also clarify what success would actually achieve in the fiction.
2. Leverage, clarify what makes the player’s action possible.
3. Cost, be clear about any resources the player would be expending just to make an attempt.
4. Risk, be clear about what is at risk. What will happen if the player fails?
5. Impact, after the player has paid the cost and made their roll, we show the consequence of their action.

If a player was successful, we might Advance the narrative in a positive direction for the player. We might lessen a threat the players face. Or we might just resolve the threat for good. The specifics would have been established in the first step of the Action Procedure.

On a failure, we might threaten players with a new threat. Escalate a problem and make it worst. Or deliver on a threat. The specifics would have been established in the 4th step of the action procedure when we clarified the Risks.

Pf2 actually has a social subsystem. It has players make rolls against a gradient of DCs dependant on the skills the players use and the NPC they are trying to influence. The problem with this subsystem is that the encounter remains static. It just turns one roll into many. Using the action procedure we can spice it up a bit. What if players success or failure on a roll could make future rolls harder or easier? Or perhaps failures cost players some of the treasure they are after? Add Impact to the rolls and describe the situation changing.

Keeping dilemmas and the action procedure in mind, we can create interesting none combat encounters. However, Chris also gives us some tips on making it easier to come up with these encounters in the first place!

Make Your NPCs Weird

Make your NPCs weird, difficult or both.

Thats it really. This will make your life way easier.

“Surely that can’t be it?!”

Yes. Let me explain.

If the NPC is a creature that players can interact with normally, then its kinda hard to make the interaction more than just a single roll without coming off as contrived. If players are interacting with a reasonable being then it makes sense that they should be able to just make a diplomacy or intimidation or any other CHA based roll and just get what they want.

But what if the NPC is just completely obsessed with Strawberry Jam? Also he wants nothing more than to constantly coat himself in the stuff. Now you have something you and the players can work with. If players where to get a Jar of Jam, the NPC could likely be bartered with without a roll.

Making NPCs weird makes it easier to create dilemmas for them. Gives players an obvious way to get what they want from the NPC and gives a handy excuse for why they cant just make a roll and be done with it.

One last benefit is that weird NPCs are really really fun to play. Some of the most fun I have had at the table in recent times was playing Itch. A fat, selfish, milk obsessed loser who’s only redeeming quality was that he knew the location the players needed to get to for their objective.

Concluding Remarks

Combat is fun, but variety is the spice of life. By adding some complicated social encounters into an adventure we can get a change of pace in our games.

I would also add that its ok to have simple social interactions. As stated earlier, NPCs are the easiest and most convenient way GMs have of giving information to the players. We don’t have to make every interaction into a hard choice or big thing. When we just need to give players info, just have a NPC tell them what they need to know.

With that, I hope you found something useful. Take care!