Hi,

I've been running WFRP 3rd for a while now, with two different groups, and I've noticed that my players tend to skip over the 'Social Cards' a lot, to the point that most won't take even one.

I'm guessing they may share the mindset I had early on, which was as follows:

I felt like many of them have effects that could be achieved just through normal role play and skill checks. Sure Steely Gaze gives the player a certain reaction which they can expect to play out if they succeed, but why not just made a normal intimidation effect? There's also Belching Smoke - Shooting your gun in the air as an intimidation, am I to prevent a player from firing into the air without this card? If a player decides to fire into the air without the card then I should still allow it to have an effect on those around the PC right? Should I be checking this card and use similar or weaker effects? I'd probably just wing it and come up with effects but then that nullifies the point of having the card doesn't it? If you can do basically the same without it.

On studying the cards more I can see their use better, but many still feel a bit flimsy or unnecessary. Particularly those with little more than 'you influence the target'.

Cards with better tangiable usability and bonuses (extra maneuvers etc) escape this a bit, but should a player need to use something like 'Come Face Me' to force an enemy to change target? Couldn't they do this another way for free?

Has anyone else had a similar experience? How have you tried to deal with this?

How have you got your players interested in social actions?

My Players focus mostly on combat actions but generally take some social, usually characters that focus on being the face-man etc. I create social situations fairly often

Try to be clear that using skills only ever gets you a minor progress - force all skill use that is opposed to use Perform a Stunt to be clear about that (skill checks where anything in the world is trying to stop/resist you are actions per rules) and then modify difficulty. When a Player wants to do something there is a card for be sure that "it's harder than if you had that action and you get no gravy with success but you still get every downside you would have had". If the action on card has a misfortune die modifier, and you could do it without card at all, then give it more misfortune dice or extra challenge die, eliminate all multiple success/boon results, keep all the bane and chaos star possibilities.

Belching Shot has a challenge die modifier to start with so make it two challenge dice (which means, by the way of course that some misfire possibilities with a blackpowder weapon may start to apply).

For example, even in combat there is that nice ranged action card Threading the Needle for shooting into melee. Anyone who tries to do that without that card in my game has more penalties and a Chaos Star effect of "you accidentally hit a different target for basic damage", and no "give your buddy a bonus" result, no two success bonus, and can only do this with a basic ranged attack - they can't use some other special ranged attack as you can't "stack special actions together" and this is a "Threading the Needle" situation.

It can be a little tricky to "find the action card" to template an action on and I wouldn't slow down play for it. If a Player "keeps going to a particular well" then it's time to figure it out.

The general though "harsh" way of handling it is a default 2 misfortune dice on social actions that simply use skills.

Honestly. the social cards just plain suck nurgle farts simply b/c the difficulties are so ABSURD. Here's how you get players to take social cards:

1. Remove all of the difficulties and make them opposed difficulties instead.

2. Real consequences for sucking at social attempts should be frequent. LINGERING STRESS must occur to players who a) suck at social stuff, but try it anyways, and B) fortune points should be awarded for doing anything other than stuff in combat. If you're rewarding murder-think, then that's what you get

3. Run some Social adventures already!

jh

Most of my players generally have a few social actions. I won't stop players from flirting without the flirt card, but having the card gives you much better effects. Same goes for steely gaze and all other social actions

Think of social actions without the card as the social equivalent of Melee strike in combat. You can do it, but you won't get fantastic results. You could have the players use Perform a Stunt card when they test social actions, might help them get used to the idea of using cards for social stuff.

I think the real problem with the Social actions is the truncation of the damage scale.

That is to say, because a melee attack does Str+DR damage against their Tou+Soak, very small changes to the damage are feasilble and meaningful. A character might start out with an average damage of 8 to 12, depending on stats and equipment. Because the numbers are fairly large, there's a lot of open design space, and FFG came up with many different ways to build roughly the same "I hit harder" concept. You'll buy an action that typically gets a couple extra points of damage through, and be happy with the XP cost.

Also, the effectiveness of Soak on NPCs means that it's worth some characters investing in hitting for more damage per blow, instead of just hoping the whole party nibbles the monster to death in aggregate. If the monster has Toughness 10, and one PC consistently rolls 18 pre-soak damage while the others roll 9 to 11, that specialist will personally deal far more post-soak damage than the rest of the party combined. That's a huge benefit for 1 XP. And if no one in the party has taken a heavy-hitting attack card, the party just won't do enough damage to kill that Demon Lord before they're all dead. You need the specialist, or you're hosed.

But for social actions, your damage is just 1. Do you successfully Influence them, or not? While there are a couple cards (literally two cards, IIRC) that include the line "influence the target a second time" (which is essentially double damage for social), the majority of Social cards still just deal one "social damage" to one target. There's not much design space reserved for making exceptional rolls do something truly special.

There's no such thing as Social Soak. Unlike combat you can't buy an action that increases your personal social damage output to be more than the rest of the party. The numbers involved are too small. That, combined with the nebulous nature of "Influence the Target" makes the social cards look less impressive. And they are. Using the rules as written, you'll never have a situation where it makes mechanical sense for someone to really focus in social actions, because their "damage output" will be no more than what the other three members of the party can do "add up to" via untrained Fellowship checks.

What the game could really use is higher amounts of social damage and some sort of social soak. You could break out some long Progress Trackers and replace "Influence the Target" with "inflict Fel+5 Influence Points"... and then apply Int+WP as "Influence Soak", and that'd be a good starting point... but you'd still have to build all new Action cards around it that made use of the new numbers and had lines like "2 Boons: +2 Influence Damage" etc... then maybe it'd be worth spending XP on a Social Action or two.

Of course, even with that change, social scenes still have some core dynamics that keep them from requiring XP min-maxing like combat. If I attack the King, all 6 of his bodyguards will immediately join the fight. If I try to Charm or Guile the King, his bodyguards will probably keep silent through the whole encounter. Unless the King is a tyrannical despot, there's unlikely to be any "return fire" for my first several Charm actions. I have everything to gain by Charming him, but he doesn't want anything from some random adventurer and thus has no motivation to start rolling Flirt, Steely Gaze or Inspiring Words against the PCs in round one of the scene.

I think some of the actions are inherently tied up with a characters personality and if you're lucky enough to have players who really roleplay their characters rather than thinking about min/maxing a system and the GM not only encourages that but actually plans for social actions by writing possible situations for their use into the story, then I think social actions can and will still play a major role.

In the game I GM there's a Minstrel whose 'winning smile' is his go to signature move. If I wanted to hamstring that character i'd take that card off him. His brilliant white toothy grin has been the key to unlocking many situations and as GM i'm lucky that having seen the powerful effects the other party are quick to point out the guys usefulness to the party despite him being last onto the battlefield and the first to run at the sight of blood. Take last session for example when I arranged a hunt, in which many of the hunting party unskilled as they are in such a situation, performed comically badly. But the whole session had already been setup up by the Minstrel's Winning Smile to influence the lord and then Teller of Tales which because of a triple success got the hunting party the Inspired condition for the remainder of the act. Never mind that he ended the act drunk and falling off his horse. He'd already done enough with his early social actions to make a positive impression.

On the king and his 6 bodyguards issue, a point I have found is that if the social situation is "1 NPC and 4 Players", then PC's "pile on" - very much as they would in combat.

I moved to not allowing that (arguing over each other doesn't work etc.).

You can see my houserules for "arguments" etc. here that try to address that and a few other things (hey, I'm a priest and this argument is about doctrine, don't I get an advantage) etc., and "concessions" borrowed (stolen) from Burning Wheel's "duel of wits".

https://the-awkward-companions.obsidianportal.com/wiki_pages/social-combat-duel-of-wits

Valvorik is correct: You get ONE person to make the check(s). Don't make it the Trollslayer with his Fel of 2

Without having to create a big, thick book of house rules, I would simply ask for more Charm, Guile, Intimidation, and Leadership checks and draw from the list of specializations for ideas. Make the difficulties average so that players feel that it is necessary. When you prep for the game, mark down a couple of those checks to throw at the players, just as you would do the same for combat/encounters.

Reiklanders, being inherently "gossipy" should be an AVERAGE check, whereas someone else, would be an Average + 1 Black die. You shouldn't withhold vital clues to the progress of your adventure, but if the PCs are in town and asking for "rumors." Have them make checks. Chaos stars indicate clammed up lips and required bribes. ..again, don't withhold vital clues, but if they SUCK at social skill checks, then call for them more often.

One additional thought on this: What's the difference between a "Seduce Action Card" and a "Seduce Skill Check Without An Action Card?" You, the GM, should have more roleplaying opportunities for the player who took that action card, as it is obviously important to their character's personality; it SHOULD be their SIGNATURE MOVE.

While restricting the group to just one Social roll per Party (instead of per Character) per round definitely solves the "dog-pile" problem, it does so at the cost of leaving most of the players doing nothing. That's fine if the GM is planning just a single Fellowship check to resolve the scene. If instead you're using a Progress Tracker or a full-on Shame battle, and thus the PCs need to make a number of successful rolls equal to some NPCs Willpower (or more), it's just not feasible to make everyone twiddle their thumbs while one player and one NPC exchange die rolls back and forth for 5 rounds. If you want your players to invest in Social actions, you need the scenes to last longer than one round.

The same would be true (in the opposite direction) if Combats only ever lasted one turn and/or only allowed one PC to attack each turn: the fighters would all just buy Reckless Cleave and be done, while the non-fighters wouldn't want to waste their limited Action advances on an attack that could probably just be Basic Melee Strike anyway.

I wrapped up a 50-session campaign late last year, and the party's faceman never felt the need to get anything more than Inspiring Words (which is probably the Rapid Shot / Double Strike of Social Actions) and a skill rank or two (in social skills). In the entire course of The Enemy Within, there was never really a situation that required more than 2 social checks in the same scene, so she could usually just spend some Fortune to recharge the one action, or rely on Perform a Stunt / basic Charm checks if there was need to follow up after the Inspiring Words. There was one other character that occassionally rolled Guile, but she didn't invest in Social Actions either. Trying to address this, I created some more Social Actions last year for my campaign, including ones that did things you specifically couldn't get with a basic Skill check. http://transitivegaming.blogspot.com/2015/02/social-actions-warhammer-cards-i-forgot.html But alas, I balanced them against cards like "Flirt", not against "Inspiring Words", so they went unused.

That's why I proposed in this thread the idea of changing "Influence the target" to a more granular system with "Influence Points" and "Social Soak". Then you could let the PCs gang up all they want, and the NPCs would just take "Minimum (Social) Damage" from those with no Social actions and a low Fellowship. Players would be motivated to spend XP on Social actions, and then everyone would have reason to pay attention and contribute during a social encounter. It would, however, take a lot of work creating new cards and redrafting the rules, so it's probably a pipe dream. (I tried a derivative system in another game that doesn't have anything as crunchy as Action Cards but does have a Soak equivalent, and it worked relatively well.)

I will definitely check those out.

The more granular system is nice. Noble Rank as Soak instead of adding to Shame is an idea, perhaps in my houserules having trait applicable is a point of Social Soak not more Shame (this is about religion dammit, I'm a priest, takes more than that to get to me).

I try the with the "no more than one influence/shame without social action" approach but the issue is not enough social actions have multiple influence lines to make that matter. I started thinking about "critical social hits", again only with a social action (and training obviously for it's a comet effect) initially too grand (a whole new deck) but then thinking perhaps just "draw a critical wound and score its value in Shame" though that's perhaps "too good"- the Social Soak might balance it, or using Insanities (still some high values but no 5's).

In "avoiding pile up" I don't make only one PC act for the whole party - only one PC can "volley in the exchange" at subject before subject volleys back but another PC can then do next volley. Also PC's can do supportive actions (Trivial Knowledge for example) to assist the main actor. I also may have a "productive sideline" available of another sort (do you spot xyz). Those who have seen my rewrite of the Menagerie scene in Enemy Within can see the examples. I try to avoid "social duels" with single PC's as a turning points, make it convincing the Baron & his advisors, wife, spiritual counsel etc. not just convincing the Baron.

The main NPC 'supporters' who can engage and sidetrack etc. much as henchmen can "block and screen for the big bad" (no you can't get a clear shot at that wargor charging towards you because of the 4 gors charging in front of him). At a party with the Emmanuelle v. Leibwitz (who I use the Wissenland fan-book "faux party girl, secret political genius" approach for as suggested in a fan supplement - though I keep her incredibly self-involved) she was the social equivalent of a dragon (Epic level in social skills, Winning Smile, Twist the Knife etc etc) - Shame-suicide for a PC to take on (the issue was actually would a PC commit social suicide to save NPC Clothilde von Alptraum from social shame), and she has a hanger on (think the cool girls in high school) who does her dirty-reputation-ruining gossiping for her.

So while a PC engaged with Emmanuelle, do you spot her lady-in-waiting off spreading malicious slander and does someone go to deal with that.... (as it turned out I didn't use that just because of flow of session, everyone was just enjoying seeing the socially inept junior nobleman made a fool of too much).

One reason I love parties as where business gets done and favours must be asked etc., because there is naturally so much more going on to get people involved in and give different PC's different ways to shine/advance plot. That was something about the Menagerie scene I liked, part of the fun of Rough Night at Three Feathers (yes I mention it lots, my favourite adventure). Done right, each PC actually has more they can do than in a combat scene.

These are all interesting ideas, and its good to see a variety of opinions and solutions on this. It's good to know I'm not just overlooking something obvious.

We're quite early in the campaign I'm currently running so as a bit of experimentation I allowed (as a one off) players to take two social-style cards for just one advance, a bit blunt force perhaps but I just wanted to get a few of the **** things into my players hands to see if they would start using them more organically, and perhaps actually bother to look at the support deck when spending advances in the future.

I'll trial out some of the social-combat house rules suggested here when I get the chance, will be a few weeks before I can get the gang back together though. Thanks for your insight

Herr rb bergrstom, checked out those cards. Quite like some of them.

The "Evil Eye" chuckle, I would add a prerequisite that you must be believed to have magical power (so a wizard etc can automatically, an elf among superstitious rural folk could too etc.).

Hidden Mean Streak looks more like Guile check to me more than a Charm one.

Holier than Thou - sweet.

This Could Get Ugly - nice for the melee type but overlaps a bit with Fear Me!/Mine's Bigger

I do think some core cards could be changed, for example Berate (reverse of Belittle) should have an Influence option, perhaps as alternative effect. The ability to "socially intimidate" based on Fel not Str is important. Honeyed Words reads like basic success influences and it should say so. Many of the social action support cards can logically give other "in scene" benefits (e.g., Style and Grace if successful would pretty clearly help others make stealth checks etc and go unnoticed)

Adding, tried pming but system says r_b_ can't get emails:

I found your analysis of my houserule for opposed checks on your site (the stat -2).

Interesting.

I don't take difficulty below 1, and the system was indeed created mostly for social/stealth situations to stop outsmarting genius NPC's from being so easy etc., and yes do have PC's mostly roll (e.g., it's the PC's intuition not the NPC's guile that determines seeing through the lies etc.) and like mysteries etc., and was well into a campaign that saw 60+ advances for PC's.

However, always would like improving and if you have thoughts would love hearing them.

I typically require influence anywhere between 1 and the WP (+noble rank) of the person they want to influence.

We had a heavy social character for TEW as well, which made for a combat-light campaign. This is probably part of the reason why we didn't bother with the final chapter of chasing around the multiverse.

jh

I think this would be helped a bit by having formal social encounters in the game using encounter mode rules. Roll fellowship for imitative. You must be engaged with someone to take a social action against them. The biggest issue is that the RAW don't orovide a set end state for when the encounter ends and what that looks like. Combat has a way to knock someone out of the encounter by giving them enough wounds or fatigue/stress. For a social encounter, you're going to need to use the tracker. Players need X number of "influence target" results on the tracker to win an encounter or take out a target. Maybe have it be equal to their willpower. What happens if players all try ganging up on a single NPC? Well, the same result if your players get into combat against a single person: a boring encounter. You'll need to get creative with social encounters the same way you would with combat encounters. Add extra NPCs. Add environmental/contextual obstacles. Consider what things people would do in a normal argument to try winning/getting out of it. Have NPCs attempt to leave, have them call for help, have them put obstacles between them and the players. Basically, you need to do some encounter design. Also consider the fact that when players enter an encounter they will usually have the ability to force through a win. Players usually win combat encounters, and lost encounters result in serious consequences. So consider what happens if the players lose. Ask them what their character has at stake. Think up for yourself what is at stake. Maybe it's access to the NPC, maybe it's reputation, maybe it's getting a bad deal. Have players be able to be knocked out of the encounter the same way NPCs are; if the players number on th tracker exceeds his willpower, he's out. At that point, either enact a consequence, such as that player being forced to leave, the NPC adding a non-negotiable part of the deal, or that player gaining a bad reputation. Regardless, once a player is taken out, assume that they are still in the scene, but don't allow them to take actions anymore. Also, keep in mind that you're looking at 2-6 successful actions required to take someone out. All of the social actions only say you can influence someone once. Consider allowing sigmars comets to be used to gain an additional influence on someone. You may also note that the social skills don't actually mention that they "influence a target". Limit their effects to those listed on perform a stunt and have them add a max of 1 influence on a target. Any action cards that say you can influence a target you can houserule to add 2 influence upon success, making them much more effective at social encounters than basic skills. This should encourage your players to get some social actions, and using the encounter rules will make the recharge values come into effect. Also, given that the game distinguishes social and combat encounters as two distinct things, I would recommend just having cards that influence a target work instantly during combat encounters rather than using a tracker.

So what would a decent social encounter look like? Let's assume 3 players.

Convincing a Noble to allow passage on his grounds:

NPCs: The Noble, the nobles guards (horde group), the nobles advisor, the nobles courtiers (horde group)

Player Goal/s: convince the noble to allow passage to his grounds.

NPC goals: the noble wants to ask favors, the guards want to drag the players out and need to be distracted, the advisor is a cultist who wants the players locked up or kicked out, and the courtiers just try to distract the players in whatever manner possible (possibly by flirting, by mocking their clothing, etc)

What happens when an NPC is taken out: All NPCs must be taken care of before the players reach their goals. However, a tracker may be used similar to morale that if players take out enough NPCs that others will fall in line. Taking out an NPC may also cause them to decide to help you.

What happens when a player is taken out: the NPC who did this gets what they want from the player in some fashion. The noble asks a non-negotiable favor. The advisor has that player restrained by a guard or creates an obstacle to them being able to explore the grounds, the guards restrain someone or drag a player out. The courtiers might flirt with someone and charm them to a bedroom, might shame someone into silence with a sick burn, or may overwhelm him and cause him to storm out in frustration.

Negotiating with a merchant;

NPCs: the merchant, the tax collector visiting the merchant, the tax collectors guards, the customers ahead of the players in line, the loan shark

Player goals: find out from the merchant what he knows about artifact smuggling

NPC goals: the merchant wants everyone out of the store so he can skip town, the tax collector wants money the merchant doesn't have, the customers want to purchase items from the merchant before their caravan leaves, the loan shark wants to kill the merchant, the guards want to get things over with and get some food

NPCs taken out: the players can get information from both the merchant AND the loan shark, and can get the other people to leave, the loan shark won't leave, but may let slip what he is involved in

Players taken out: the customers will force someone to the back of the line, the guards can restrain players, the tax collector can fine the players, the loan shark can poison the player and cause him to become very drowsy, and the merchant can force a player to buy something or leave the store

So I hope that gives you some ideas on encounter design. Again, here are my suggestions.

Force players to do social encounters with initiative and everything.

Give every NPC and player an amount of social wounds equal to willpower

Each time a person is influenced, they lose 1 wound. Cards that specifically mention influencing someone cause an additional wound. When someone runs out of wounds, they may no longer act in the encounter. If players are taken out, this allows the acting NPCS to achieve a goal of some sort.

Make it clear to players that they will normally not be able to take out an NPC without taking care of those around him or her.

Add extra NPCs, environmental, and contextual obstacles to make the encounter more exciting

Make sure the players have a goal for the encounter

Just wanted to throw in with my two cents.

Regarding the original question: I have a house-rule that any skill check to influence someone that’s made without a social action card (effectively using Perform a Stunt) requires a number of successes depending on circumstances and disposition of the target, and that only very friendly NPC’s can be influenced with a single success.

Even if most social actions have an increased difficulty, they usually only need a single success to influence, and they often come with additional benefits if the player rolls well.

In addition, each social action can only influence an NPC once in a single encounter (which can cause two, or more, points of “influence”, if the card has that effect).

That rule is simply there to encourage players to buy several different social actions. Doesn’t matter if they already have the most efficient one (Steely Gaze anyone?) – If they need to influence an NPC eight times, they have to break out the second-stringers.