social encounter mechanics

[Streicher]

Hi all,

my group and I have played through 4 adventures so far and met people like Gloin, Beorn and Radagst already. During the corresponding social encounters, we tried to implement the social encounter rules (of the revised rules). The Beoring character with his noble armour and Wisdom 3 brings in 6 points of Tolerance. Not one situation occured where the group came even close to exceeding the tolerance of any of the above encounters. I have even refrained from asking for a lot of social tests from the group, as ...

... I prefer to have the group interact verbally rather than roll dice.
... the Beorning "spokesman" wins the confidence of most conversation partners by his pure apperance (why should Beorn talk to anyone else?).
... a standard encounter/conversation usually does not contain so many chances for everybody to show off their skills (why would Radagast be interested in a wandering circus show as introduction? ).

I know this tackles some of the basic issues of the social encounter rules, but I would really like to implement them in our game, I just don't see the practical use of some mechanics yet.

How would you handle the above challenges?

Cheers,


Streicher

[aramis]

you have, in essence, nerfed the social system by ignoring the dice rolls. Would you ignore dice rolls in favor of narration in combat? In magic? If not, then you should not do so for social, either.

Set the difficulty based upon the narration, but still require the roll. Otherwise, player skill makes up for character skill completely, and those social virtues are essentially wasted.

The social system is there to
(1) level the playing field
(2) enforce the social structures of Middle Earth mechanically
(3) eat hope.

Take the debate Gandalf recounts in the council (Fellowship, around p 908 in the ebook I'm referencing) It's a series of opposed rolls between master debaters, but it's in Saruman's tower, and Gandalf seeks to change Saruman's mind. Gandalf struggles agains the hate driven Saruman, with a dozen hate or more. and the 6 to 10 tolerance runs out about the time Saruman puts him up on Orthanc. Not the easiest example to stat, but lesser debates work just as well.

Require a line of suitable narrative to get to roll, but it only gets the desired effect if the tolerance isn't run out before the needed success are accrued.

You may also be setting social difficulties too low... if the action isn't in line with their goals, it may be worth using an opposed roll... and then narrating that roll's text.

[Finrod Felagund]

Hi all,

my group and I have played through 4 adventures so far and met people like Gloin, Beorn and Radagst already. During the corresponding social encounters, we tried to implement the social encounter rules (of the revised rules). The Beoring character with his noble armour and Wisdom 3 brings in 6 points of Tolerance. Not one situation occured where the group came even close to exceeding the tolerance of any of the above encounters. I have even refrained from asking for a lot of social tests from the group, as ...

... I prefer to have the group interact verbally rather than roll dice.
... the Beorning "spokesman" wins the confidence of most conversation partners by his pure apperance (why should Beorn talk to anyone else?).
... a standard encounter/conversation usually does not contain so many chances for everybody to show off their skills (why would Radagast be interested in a wandering circus show as introduction? ).

I know this tackles some of the basic issues of the social encounter rules, but I would really like to implement them in our game, I just don't see the practical use of some mechanics yet.

How would you handle the above challenges?

Cheers,


Streicher

To be honest, I don't think the rules are compatible with your approach or with what you want. I know they are there for good reasons, but if they don't fit with your group I'd dump them quite frankly. Maybe just roll for insight at the beginning of each encounter to determine how much you tell the PCs and then get them to act away.

There are of course weaknesses with that approach (Aramis has described some, but players also have to be happy with your judgement as to their success) but if that's what you prefer then go for it.

[zedturtle]

One thing to consider is using James' suggestion (in another thread) to use Tolerance as how many rolls (interactions) you get, instead of how many failures you can accrue.

In my PbP games, I allow players to post their character's speech first but then use the roll afterwards to determine the LMC's reaction to the speech.

It does sound like you've got a very strong Social character in the Beorning, which means that you'll need to challenge him in other ways.

Another thing to think about are Traits, which are a way to get the free-form role-playing that you're looking for but it within the rules framework at the same time.

[Streicher]

I can fully understand your points, thank you.

The advice to work out a narrative with an actual goal at the end is quite helpful, Aramis. I can see me doing that for real competitve conversations with mainly opposing/sceptical parties.

But imagine the situation we had yesterday: The group visits Radagast for the first time, they carry Radagast's wounded/poisoned servant Beran with them and news from Dol Guldur, plus the Woodmen's axe relic "Wolfbiter" (from "Don't leave the Path"). By habit, I had people roll for Insight and an introductionary skill, but that was it. I decided Radagast would only ignore the Wisdom-2-Barding, but that didn't affect the overall successful conversation afterwards. I assume even if the party had consisted of only wisdom-1-characters, Radagast would have invited them into his house and would have listened to them. In other words: I find it especially difficult to apply the encounter rules when the heroes come in peace (their usual apperance) and bring news/items/people the guy on the other side is very interested in. Our earlier encounter with Gloin (in "Marsh-Bell") where the group wanted to convince him to give them the order searching for lost Balin was a totally different and more difficult thing (with more/tougher involved). But in the easy Radagast situation I chose "light" version of the encounter rules - which left me thinking though "are we doing this "right"?" It's still the big Radagast ...

What woud have been your approach?

[Earendil]

Remember that players only get Advancement points for dice rolls, so by not having them roll in social encounters you're removing a lot of their opportunity to get those points. And as aramis said, making them roll encourages them to use up Hope points and makes it worth actually taking social skills and special abilities.

I've had problems with this system too, because I'm used to more narrative-based systems and my inclination is to not have the players make too many rolls, but I don't think that works in this system. Asking players to roleplay and then roll has its issues; if the player played it brilliantly but the dice rolled all 1s, it can be hard to explain why the character was so much less convincing than the player!

What I do now is ask them to roll, then roleplay the result (which is actually what the rulebook suggests). If they succeeded brilliantly, the players do their best to be convincing. If they did OK, the players will make good points but keep it fairly short, or maybe be a bit rambling. If they fail, the players deliberately do badly. It seems to work better, and failure is now often more fun than success!

[jamesrbrown]

Evaluating the Outcome of an Encounter is an Optional Rule, to be used when there are varied responses based on how well the companions fair in their social skills. If the player-heroes are encountering a rather friendly Loremaster character with a singular goal in mind, and the Tolerance rating is high as a result, they should have very little chance of messing it up and you might not want to use the Optional Rule. In this case, you could set up your encounter narration, requiring only one roll for Introductions and one successful roll (along with a plausible narration) for Interaction. As long as they don't exceed the Tolerance in failures, they should succeed easily.

For example, the companions meet Radagast to offer their services in routing out a small spider colony that has recently appeared too close to Rhosgobel. Their goal is to convince him of their commitment and to gain specific wisdom for the mission.

The Tolerance is set at 4, considering the highest Wisdom of 2 and adding a +2 bonus for having Woodmen among the company. They meet Radagast and begin by introducing themselves to the kindly wizard. Each player should offer a greeting and say something of his history, making a roll of Courtesy to see how well his words were spoken. If the Loremaster was looking for something specific to be said in the Introduction that would lead to a positive reception by Radagast, and it was accompanied by a successful roll, he might rule that the entire encounter succeeds immediately and the adventurers meet their goal. The same could be said during the Interaction phase. This is because if you are not using the Optional Rule for evaluation, the only rule for encounters is setting Tolerance (no need to count successes, just failures). Success and degree of success is completely determined by the Loremaster based on narrative considerations. The Option Rule just provides the suggested guidelines for degrees of success.

With this in mind, if you place a heavier weight on roleplaying during social encounters, you might consider writing in specific social goals to determine degrees of success. If the player-heroes successfully mention the right information or ask the right question, or successfully use Insight at the right time during the Interaction, etc., these are the true successes that lead to a positive outcome. These successes "unlock" the best information, the greatest rewards, or the best benefits possible. You would still consider the Tolerance rating, because if they exceed it before reaching their goals, they would be kept from gaining any further benefit during the encounter.

Failing a roll while asking the right question or mentioning the right information could mean that the Loremaster character responds with, "Can you rephrase that?" or "I'm not sure I quite understand your meaning?" or "What is your motivation?" This would allow the player-hero to reply better, forcing him to re-word his thoughts and make another roll so that he gets a success.

Succeeding on a roll while asking an irrelevant question or mentioning irrelevant information wouldn't really count as a true success or "unlock" any pertinent response. Instead, the Loremaster character would say, "That's not relevant to the task at hand" or "Do you have anything more to add?" or he might even ask a leading question himself to get the companion on track, such as, "That's quite interesting master Dwarf, but what do you think about..."

All of this should be planned when the Loremaster writes out the encounter, thinking about possible transitional responses and questions that the Loremaster character might use.

Okay, that's all for now. This is getting to be quite a long response.

[aramis]

One other thing to remember: Tolerance for an encounter may not be just dealing with one person. If yu go to talk to, say, Beorn... you get what you need from him and have 3 tolerance left, and then go to buy an axe in the village... you need not (as LM) reset the tolerance. If you've been seen being rude to Beorn, not one of his neighbors is going to deal with you, either...

Generally, I set tolerance for a town visit, and only set a new tolerance for a major non-local NPC...

[Majestic]

It's important to remember, too, that not every social interaction in the game needs to use the Encounter mechanics. You can think of it like Combat. The first time two superheroes run into each other, they might throw down (fight); it's a standard comic book trope. But after that, every time Iron Man interacts with Thor, they don't need to use the Encounter rules. So the first time two friendly persons run into each other, realize that they're still sizing each other up, figuring out if they can truly trust the other person, seeing if they're legit, etc. Just because we as players know that "Radagast is a good guy", the PC might come into it with no knowledge of what a crazy old wizard is all about. And vice versa. Radagast likely has no clue if this Elf is one that has a straightforward agenda and is truly honourable. This then provides a great chance for the PC to invoke Traits like True-Hearted or Steadfast or what-have-you, to get automatic successes and succeed.

But for situations like what you described, like where Radagast or Beorn is met for the first time, the Encounter rules most certainly should be used. A failure could be like how Pippin was when he first met Denethor (at least in the films; Gandalf reminding him that it's probably best he not do any of the talking). If there's a prominent Beorning in the party, don't hesitate to give a big bonus to the Tolerance (+2, or +3) when he meets with Beorn.

Realize, though, that future Encounters might have a very low Tolerance (there's a big bad in one of the Adventures where the Tolerance is something like 1 or 2, regardless of the Wisdom or Valour of anyone in the party).

[Strange side note: why does the spell check on this site indicate words like "honour" and "valour" are misspelled; is it because the software writers use American English?]

And like james said, there are often Encounters where the PCs are pretty much almost guaranteed to succeed. Nothing wrong with that. Every Encounter (just like every Combat or every Journey) has its own personality, nuances, situations, and differences. As LM you can make Encounter as easy or as hard as you feel is appropriate. When the PCs encounter Thranduil in "Words of the Wise" (not that different from the Dwarves interacting with him during The Hobbit), things are much more tense and it's easy for the party to fail. But when the party goes to Radagast with news important to Rhosgobel, it's difficult for them to fail.