Hi Everyone,

I'm planning to run an adventure this weekend, and as it stands now it's very combat-heavy. So I'd like to include a fun social encounter to mix it up a little. At about the planned midpoint there will be a scene where the players need help to complete their job, and the only person able to provide that help is a Crime Lord.

In my current draft of the adventure, he asks the players to "convince" a rival drug smuggler to stop operating in his territory, which will most likely just lead to another series of combat encounters as they set off to kill the smuggler.

So what I need is a fun social encounter (preferably not lasting longer than 30-45min). Something the Crime Lord could ask the players to do in exchange for his help in pulling off their Big **** Job that doesn't involve them unholstering their blasters.

I'm the worst at designing social encounters, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

They're going to see the crime lord then why are the armed at all. Sure a small blasted pistol might be warranted, but he has security, right? If the PCs show up with some rifles and swords, and are not either disarmed at the door, or shot full of holes for approaching looking like a goddamn militia, then I am disappointed.

As for the encounter, setback dice for being unarmed and surrounded by his thugs (fear), challenge and difficulty dice for the crime lord's skill ratings. He has his own agenda, "Why should I, clearly such mobility, bother to associate with the likes of you, let alone lend aid?"

The NPC is your character here, what is his motivation? Obligation? Who or what is he trying to pay off or buy down? How is he going to do that? What leverage does he have over the party besides them being outnumbered? If they have a huge Obligation score, then probably a lot.

How about this...

The crime lord knows one of his rivals is going to be making a deal to get some hefty arms (perhaps for or with a fleet of speeders) that will give is rival an edge.

The crime lord wants the players to interrupt this deal.

He doesn't want to be tied to the interruption (thus he's sending the PCs) instead of his own known people.

He also doesn't want a new enemy (e.g., the "arms dealer") so just killing the arms dealer is not an option.

The deal will be made at an "establishment" with lots of gambling, entertainment, and so forth that's the hottest place in town that regularly facilitates "deals" between different parties. Therefor, there's a LOT of security - factions showing up want to know they are in a secure and neutral location. Brawls do break out and are an accepted part of "business" but they are ended quickly. Deadly force being used is returned in kind and is a big no no.

So, the players will need to disrupt the deal somehow. They can start a brawl if such a distraction or display would be useful. But they can't solve the problem via violence. They can convince the arms dealer to "sell" to them instead.

Make the arms dealer and/or the rival a known gambler to give the players an approach that way (maybe taking the rival for so much money he cannot afford the arms at this point, or the PCs can present themselves as credible buyers as well and propose a game to decide who gets to buy the arms, etc).

Maybe the dealer or the rival is romantically interested in one of the entertainers.

Maybe the players can pose as arms dealers themselves with a better offer.

My point is that the PCs will have enough to play with to come up with something.

In the 3rd mission of my first game I had a neat social encounter.

The Players were bodyguards/henchmen of an Ambassador. They were to protect him during an important meeting. The meeting was disrupted by rioters and it got out of control. Finally the Planetary Governor called in troops and calmed the situation down.

Here is where the social encounter happened.

The Players had to try to act as mediators between the Ambassador, the fellow he was meeting with (That turned out to be a Black Sun Lieutenant), the Governor, and the leader of the rioters.

The goal was each side would speak their piece about the situation, and the Riot Leader would try to interrupt every time. The Players had to keep him in check and make sure it didn't get out of hand.

After the negotiations were over, the Riot Leader was mad nobody interrupted him, and ends up deciding to attack.

This lead to another social encounter... the Players deciding and negotiating with the sides to determine who to support in the fight. Each group had troops on their side and strengths and weaknesses.

All around it was a wonderful event that ended up creating an issue that came back to haunt them 4 months later.

Hopefully this can somehow if not be adapted to your story, at least you can get ideas from it.

I call it "nightclub boggy", very standard trope-

Need to get into the club (social check), need to find the NPC and physically get to him (general hang-around and fun, maybe more social or physical checks), pass the guard (social check), get the job which is to takeover the club from his partner, tonight! (which could be just a round of social checks, or more).

They're going to see the crime lord then why are the armed at all. Sure a small blasted pistol might be warranted, but he has security, right? If the PCs show up with some rifles and swords, and are not either disarmed at the door, or shot full of holes for approaching looking like a goddamn militia, then I am disappointed.

In my attempt to keep it "Just the Facts", I may have not given enough information. To clarify, there is zero fear of them attacking the Crime Lord or his men -- they're more or less already on friendly terms. But the Crime Lord is going to ask them to do a favor for him, and I just want that favor to be something the players achieve through Social checks, not combat.

The crime lord knows one of his rivals is going to be making a deal to get some hefty arms (perhaps for or with a fleet of speeders) that will give is rival an edge.

The crime lord wants the players to interrupt this deal.

I like this -- thank you very much for the suggestion! And more ideas are welcome as well... I can always use a few non-violent encounters in my back pocket.

The Players were bodyguards/henchmen of an Ambassador. They were to protect him during an important meeting. The meeting was disrupted by rioters and it got out of control. Finally the Planetary Governor called in troops and calmed the situation down.

I think I could tweak this to fit my storyline. Thanks for the idea!

I call it "nightclub boggy", very standard trope-

Sounds like a good hook for a "Modular Encounter" to be designed around. Thanks!

Keep 'em coming!

Don't let them meet the crime lord in person. They can't fight what they can't touch.

Holocommunicators are a great method of ensuring that a social encounter stays that way.

There was a great book I read years ago called TAMBU about a crime lord that nobody ever saw. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Tambu-True-Story-Intersteller-Genghis/dp/0441797415/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-2&qid=1436904605

If you are looking at ideas along that line I suggest you check it out.

The crime lord wants to commission a ring (engagement typer) from a galaxy renowned jeweler who is passing through the system. The healer won't work for him though because of his nefarious reputation. He needs someone outside his organization and relatively clean to arrange the deal.

Do a drinking contest with their “target”. The difficulty gets higher with each round.

The only way the players get their target to help them is if they win the drinking contest.

Yes, I stole that idea.

Do a drinking contest with their “target”. The difficulty gets higher with each round.

The only way the players get their target to help them is if they win the drinking contest.

Yes, I stole that idea.

That would be competitive Resilience check, not very social, but the situation is.

Don't have them meet the crime lord directly. After all, he's a busy guy and these are just some schlubs from off-world asking him for a favor. Make it very clear that they're the ones at a disadvantage here. When the crime lord isn't in his heavily fortified compound, he's surrounded by a huge retinue of thugs on his way to an exclusive VIP floor at a local club. Think O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill. These guys clearly don't have much leverage, so the thought that they'd get a one-on-one with him is borderline insulting. Instead he sends a surrogate to deal with them. He might not even be a made man. Instead he's a messenger boy, some low level kid who's a friend of the family. Maybe he's a local celebrity, a la Sinatra. Dude's in a VIP room on the club's bottom floor, and even he doesn't seem terribly interested in the negotiation. He's surrounded by a retinue of friends and girls coming and going. He's ordering bottle service, chatting with others as the party is trying to make the deal. If they consider threatening him, he's positively amused. "That's cute fellas. Really it is. Now put your pop guns away before you hurt yourselves." When they finally do come to an agreement he'll casually stroll upstairs to pass the terms on to his boss for approval. So they make the case to the surrogate and he comes back with a very strict, no-nonsense counter-offer. "Do this job for me. You're lucky, because you're conveniently just what I need at this particular point in time. But if you don't wanna do it, no hard feelings but no deal. There's plenty more off-world killers who could work it just as well.'

Honestly, I think the guy with no bodyguards, who won't be suitable leverage if they decide to take him hostage, who's clearly disinterested in their little bit of business is more intimidating a social situation than meeting the crime boss directly with guns pointed at their faces.

Edit: I just realized you're asking for a social encounter AFTER they deal with the crime boss. Sorry. Misunderstood.

I had my group walk into the throne room of a hutt with all their weapons on them. I think I intimidated them by filling the room with statted tokens and made them perform an incredibly difficult fear check. It looked like a combat scenario for high level players but it was actually an entirely social encounter where they got both berated and congratulated.

Dance off.

Dance off.

Bring it Han?

Step Hutt?

If the crime lord is of a non-Human species, I would suggest some sort of variant on how a Westerner would view a Japanese tea ceremony - a social affair with a lot of rules and hidden meaning and the potential for causing offense. If the PCs successfully negotiate it, the crime lord is more likely to look favorably upon them.

As an example, at the beginning of my current campaign, my players' PCs met with Lady Valarian, the Whiphid crime lord who resides in Mos Eisley. Since the Whiphids come from a primitive and tribal hunter culture, I decided that Valarian would view it rude to discuss business before drinking, a meal and casual conversation. I measured the players' responses to Valarian's attempts to deflect all conversation to anything other than small talk and gave them "brownie points" based on how well they adapted to the situation.

Try negotiating with the Shelliac, and their mandatory greeting that you must not flub.

Try negotiating with the Shelliac, and their mandatory greeting that you must not flub.

Remember to bring a team of 500 lawyers with you.

Try negotiating with the Shelliac, and their mandatory greeting that you must not flub.

Remember to bring a team of 500 lawyers with you.

How would you fit that in your carry-on though?

That's a lot of Encumbrance

I once had my players compete on the runway as one of three trials to impress a trio of Hutts. They had 5 minutes to grab images online and email them to me.Then they had to make Cool checks to avoid being intimidated by the performances of the two rival teams, while using Charm, Cool, or Coercion to win the Hutts over .

Work the Runway

I can only assume it went something like this:

Hah, not quite as silly, but still a lighthearted change-of-pace. My group has gotten REALLY deadly in combat, so I'm always looking for fun ways to challenge them. For this encounter, getting dressed in something other than armor was the best way to win. Of course, I had them go immediately into combat afterwards .

The best armor is called high Brawn + Toughness.

The GM can’t make you take either of them off.

In my campaign's most recent mission, we had some social pvp before the two teams split off. Here's a look at the first round: