We have had lots of focus on Journeys and Combat, but not much on Encounters.

As it stands the system seems very loose. I think this is a good thing in that hard social interaction rules tend to fall flat for me. I prefer guidelines. However, I am not sure I fully understand how they are intended to operate and I get a feeling that a little bit more could have made this a much more useful tool.

What we have in the rules is:

1. Tolerance rating: Essentially a way to determine "damage" being a number of failures that can be accumulated before the social encounter comes to an end.

2. Introduction: The first phase with most likely an Awe test for a Spokesman or Courtesy tests for the a Group.

3. Interaction: The second and main phase with a number of examples listed.

Thoughts I have:

- given Tolerance is a fixed number, this would seem to make the Awe approach almost always beneficial. I was thinking that the group Courtesy rolls should be treated like a prolonged action with everyone contributing a roll (and the TN reducing accordingly) and at least a majority of successess needed or it is treated as a single failure.

- Tolerance seems like a good device to give a guide for a scene and also add tension. However, without a similar sense of success needed, it lacks context. The obvious solution is to set X successes to succeed an Encounter, but I am not a big fan of that. It feels articial.

Instead, I think I will create a list of 5 or so things that a PC can gain from the social encounter, probably tiered so the most valuable things are the highest. With each success, the PCs should generally gain something from this list. This would give the Tolerance rating a context.

This would all be dressed up in narration of course and subject to change, but it would give a useful tool to help a LM get their head around an Encounter quickly and be especially useful for new LMs.

To give some examples, lets look at the Beorn encounter in the Hobbit:

In this case, Gandalf got away with a clean sweep

In this case, Thorin probably only succeed in getting one Gift. However, the others Dwarves were a little more polite and managed to get two more before the King became Intolerant.

This did mean Bilbo could help them escape, though at some cost to Endurance and Fatigue

This is a great shorhand idea! It's ripe for riffing too; changes in seasons or ongoing events could modify these 'stock' options. Hmmmm ...

Yeah. I wouldn't expect the list to be static too. They should change based on what the PCs are after, though having a default list would be useful to give a sense of what the Encounter is about from a LM level.

You could also make the Gifts cost more than 1 success. For example, in Halls of Mirkwood, the first three would be 1 success, but the last two may be 2 or even 3 successes given the significant change of heart.

Some revisions:

1. Courtesy used for group introductions is treated like a prolonged action. If there are 3 PCs, the TN is reduced by 2. If there are 4 to 5 PCs, the TN is reduced by 4. If there are 6+ PCs the TN is reduced by 6. If 50% or more of the PCs succeed, it counts as 1 success. Each failure counts toward Tolerance and may restrict the PC from further involvement in the encounter.

This maintains the advantages and disadvantages of a Spokesman using Awe and Groups using Courtesy but ensures that high PC numbers don't tip Tolerance early. The logic is that larger groups can often cover each other and be more impressive, but still can also make more of an social gaff early on.

2. To each encounter add around 5 Boons. These are a default guideline of things that the PCs can gain from successful rolls in the encounter. Boons tend to get more valuable the higher they are. Some Boons may require 2 or 3 successes. The Boons can change depending on what the PCs pursue and any Skill can be used as appropriate.

Let's give another example. This time the Gloun encounter from Marsh Bell:

Cool ideas! No idea how this will play out w/o playing it, but I'd like to try.

The thing is that it should be relatively invisible. The advantages is that you can summarise an encounter in a concise stat block, at least to the point you can get an idea of what it's about Nd use it as reference during play, and it helps maintain the idea that if every failed roll counts, then every successful one should too.

One other cool thing is that you may find it quicker to prep an encounter by simply determining Tolerance, Introduction TNs and Boons and then just winging the rest in play.

I really like this idea!

And (since I'm a little crazy,) would like to add one thing:

A Social Equivalent to "Combat Advantage". Depending on the preparations made by the players and the flow of the events/dialogue during the Encounter, I would allow the Players to make Awareness or Lore checks to see if they can use something to their advantage in the Encounter.

Maybe they can invoke the Persons sense of duty to his Family, referencing the Great Hall they are in and it's history or honourable masters before him etc. (Lore)

Depending on where the Encounter takes place, under what circumstances, and the Players knowledge of the person they are talking to and the place they are in etc one could allow for Lore Rolls.

Awareness could be used to spy the Persons reactions, and the reactions of the other people around him (his tribe, his court, etc) and use the audience's reaction against him.

Regardless of how you play this the end effect would be treated like Combat Advantage. A number of Bonus Dice that can be used once During the Following (actual) Encounter.



/wolf

Nice idea. Maybe coopt the Introduction Phase idea for this. So rather than getting any successes toward Boons, successes from Awe or Courtesy could provide bonus dice just like Battle.

On saying that, I am not sure I would use this though as I would be concerned that this may be a little too much dice rolling in what is a roleplaying focussed scene.. I quite like the looseness of the existing system with my couple of mods that deal with my concerns. As it stands I can parse an Encounter very quickly and still roll with the punches thrown by the PCs

Definitely keen to hear how it plays though.

Yeah it would be more "trimmed" to use the Introduction. But I was looking to include other skills as being important in Encounters. Simply relying on one or two seems little thin to me.

When it comes to dice-rolling vs. role-playing I have lots of opinions but it all boils down to this: If your group can handle it and still not loose focus on the more theatrical elements in the game.... go with it! But if you find that people are sitting with their noses in the rulebooks or character sheets relying on the dice tell everyone what happens... then it might be time to swap tactics.

Me personally I love rules that tell me what to role-play/describe. I find it hard to first make a speech that say plead to the audience for sympathy and mercy in this dark hour... making elaborate, convoluted and sharp remarks to undermine the credibility of my opponent in the debate... and THEN roll the dice to see how well it goes... I'd much rather roll the dice first to get an idea of what my speech will really achieve. I mean... if the "eye" comes up... I know I can make a fool of myself in some hilarious way for instance... It sort of gives me the "script" to the events that I should describe.

Some people think Role-Playing is equivalent to being free-from rules and dice. I can see where they are coming from and I understand that dice DO get in the way sometimes. But dice also HELP me describing what happens. For some reason this seems perfectly natural to people when you talk about combat or jumping distance or physical stuff that you can measure with certainty. But they buck if you talk about social contexts, eloquence and human interaction. Why they do that is beyond me.

To me it's the same thing. Your character has skills that you don't. And vice versa, you probably have skills that your character don't. So in all fairness... you should rely on the rules and those skills to determine how well your character fares in any given situation.

Using your own Oratory Skill to convince the LM, is not the same thing as letting your Character persuade an NPC. But for some reason a lot of players seem to think that is the way it should be done... because that is what Role-Playing is all about. I disagree.

man... did I open up a can of worms here or what?

/wolf

No. Not really. FWIW I am not so concerned about the dice rolling and rules as the increased sense of tactical play in social encounters. This heads towards Burning Wheel and its ilk and though I appreciate what they do, I am uncomfortable with too high a tactical component in social interactions.

Rules are fine in social interaction though for me, as I demonstrate here Rules can help drive roleplaying but I just dont want them to dominate the decision making.

I like your rules about achieving some benefits from a social encounter, I just don't think it should be a set formula of 5 benefits everytime.

Sometimes there's only one outcome we're interested in a social interaction, and no other result will suffice.

And your rule really reminds me of Trail of Cthulhu (Gumshoe), have you read it?

You have a scene you want to investigate, if you spend 1 pt of your pool you discover only the basics, and if you spend an extra point or two, you get some additional hints (developed previously by the gamemaster).

Definitely. These are only guidelines.

On saying that, 5 is a good default number as it matches Tolerance and you would expect to get 50% successes. Obviousy having multiple success Boons can alter this too.

It is also useful as a GM to consider the potential layers to a scene and alternative outcomes rather than having all you eggs on one basket. Looking at the Gloin scene, the first Boon seems to cover the purpose of the meeting but the next 4 Boons help me as GM add dimension to the scene. Sure his forebodings are not directly related but they add future possibility with that NPC. They also cover a wider range of PC effort. Some will be focused on the mission (boats), some money (Treasure), some befriending Gloin (foreboding) and some will be random (Elven prejudice)

If there is only one Boon from a scene, its worth asking if a normal Test or Prolonged Action would be better used than a multiple PC encounter scene.

I have read Gumshoe

See? I knew you were in a GUMSHOE vibe!

There's a bit of D&D4e Skill Challenges, Gumshoe, Mouseguard and Prince Valiant in this idea

I've initiated my career playing the old Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition than later skipped to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, D&D 3.5 and finally had an awful experience with D&D 4th...

My players didn't like it at ALL. One of the few things I really enjoyed were Skill Challenges. There's a similar mechanic in Dragon Age RPG that has given us a lot of good laughs in table, 3 months ago 2 players of mine trying to cross a river while keeping an old wizard alive - it was pretty hilarious!

I've played and narrated almost all oWOD, nWOD, Exalted, Gurps 4th, CODA...damn it's a sweet hobby afterall, uh?

Now I consider myself a junkie and started consuming some indies, like Trail of Cthulhu.

Just to restat the three sample Encounters for ease of reference:

The Gloin encounter from Marsh Bell:

The Beorn encounter in the Hobbit:

The Wood Elf encounter in the Hobbit

So, any other Encounters people want to tackle using this notation?

I want to say something but I'll just sidetrack you from the topic again so I'll shut up.

btw: Gumshoe is great.

/wolf

Hi! I always forgot to say that I like this 'Boons' variant a lot. I also forgot about trying it out, but will soon do! A couple of things:

I think there's no real need to add rules to make multiple Courtesy rolls preferable or at least as desirable as a single Awe roll by a spokesman, as I usually do not let heroes roll during interaction if they didn't present themselves individually during Introduction (as suggested in the rules).

It seems to me too rewarding to give players 1 boon for every successful roll (others pointed that out), so I would probably choose the option to consider the 5-scale as a 5 tiered guideline, with possibly 3 successes equating to 1 tier. Or something like this.

Thanks a lot!

Francesco

Cheers.

I agree that its best for Boons to be assigned multiple successes where appropriate. There are a few examples of this above.

I guess the balance really lies on the likelihood of failure/success. For starting PCs, I think there is actually more chance of failure than success so one success per boon works out about right as a baseline, but for a harder encounter or a more competent group then multiple successes will be needed.

In terms of Courtesy, I see your point. I must say that I am not a big fan of excluding players from an Encounter this way though, so I am not sure that would work for me, but that is just me