Hey Everyone!

Social Encounters.

I would say this is a big weakness of mine.

Combat is "easy" to do and, at least for me, exciting. It's also very time consuming as a group that has yet to fully absorb the rules.

As such it is easy to fill entire sessions with combat.

But I noticed that one of my PCs doesn't seem to like the combat in this game very much, evident by the fact that he was constantly fideling with his smart phone in the last session.

Of course I'd like to rectify that and fill my sessions up with stuff that may or may not appeal to him more. Also for the sake of diversity, because only fighting does get boring.

Now to the question.

How do I create tense social encounters that you can't just shoot your way out of? Or at least, if you do, it just makes things worse, like, much worse.

Another PC would like to eventually build his own crime syndicate, so there's an avenue for plenty intrigue and "political warfare".

What are some good things to pressure and coerce your PCs into certain action?

What are good examples of leverage to hold over a PC to motivate submission in front of the holding party?

Would love to hear the different approaches you guys have.

Thank you very much!

Firstly this would be dependent on your party, we don't know their obligations, motivations or any details they've revealed in game pertaining to their goals or what background history they have provided.

In regards to the character who wants to build their own syndicate, are they currently members of one?

It would be easier for them to see how they work before building their own, unless you fancy letting them suddenly become head of their syndicate as a result of whatever you have planned for your campaign?

The best way for getting them to play ball is to make it worth their while to actually cooperate, maybe your foe knows something you don't such as where their ship is currently or whatever they're looking for.

Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish their goals is to work with their rival until they can make their move?

Social wise we really need to know more about your group before anyone can even begin providing the kind of advice you're asking for.

Unless you want to explain what kind of game you have planned and want to see if we can poke holes in it that you haven't considered?

One useful trick that might appeal to both social players and players who prefer combat is the skill challenge (an idea that drifts around all over the place).

Skill Challenges

In a skill challenge, both parties are assigned a total number of successes that they need to win the skill challenge. Then characters on both sides take turns making skill checks that are appropriate to the narrative, adding any net successes to their side's total successes. Net failure on a roll doesn't remove total successes, mind you. Advantage, threat, triumph, and despair can be spent as usual.

For an example:

Luke is trying to turn his father back from the Dark Side, while Vader wants his son to join him. The GM gives them each a target number of successes (maybe based on strain threshold, or 10 + 2xWillpower, whatever seems fair), but Vader gets to start things off on Cloud City since only he knows. He rolls Coercion during the Cloud City duel, trying to get Luke to give in to his anger, as a lust for power will make him more susceptible to the coming offer. Luke is opposing the roll with Discipline, but still, Vader claims a couple successes. During the big revelation, Vader tries Charm (or is it Deception?) to appeal to Luke, showing Obi-Wan to be a liar, hoping to undermine his trust in his masters, and the revelation of their relationship nets Vader some good bonus dice. Again, Vader gets some successes...

As Return of the Jedi gets underway, Yoda helps strengthen Luke's resolve by encouraging him to confront Vader, but nets no success (contributing a boost or two to his coming rolls). Armed with these boosts, Luke talks to Vader on Endor, trying to appeal to his good side (Charm). A pretty good roll gives Luke a fair number of successes, but Vader decides to get the Emperor's help on this. Two characters rolling against Luke will make him crumble quickly...

This leads to the duel in the Emperor's throne room, where Luke is largely trying to Charm Vader, and the Emperor is trying to use Deception to get Luke's emotions riled up and volatile. Note that the combat is part of the narrative, not part of the mechanics here: it's an emotional showdown, not a physical one... Luke eventually wins, hitting the required number of successes, and Vader is redeemed, and destroys the Emperor. However, the large tally of successes against Luke, means the GM decides that Vader is fatally wounded in the process.

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This shows a skill challenge playing out across multiple adventures, and would be pretty easy for the GM to track with pencil and paper. Your PC who wants to create a crime syndicate might get involved in political intrigue via lengthy challenges like this. He and his underlings might be in a skill challenge against another syndicate, making Charm rolls to bribe members over to their side, Combat rolls to simulate whole strike missions to cripple operations (yup, one roll for a whole operation), Negotiation to win over their customers, Coercion to rough people up, etc. Again, this can take multiple adventures. Maybe each session allows both syndicates a single roll, with bonuses based on what they did - we blackmailed the other syndicate's leader's major domo, so at the end, someone rolled Coercion with a lot of boosts or an upgrade, and only that last roll was part of the skill challenge.

You can also have a whole skill challenge play out in a single session, such as a wilderness journey or a political summit. Really, the players just pick skills that can be explained as useful to the goal, you set a difficulty, and away things go.

Once I created a jury trial encounter in which the social PCs were the defense of an alleged rebel leader (of course he was guilty in this charge ), while the other PCs kept an eye on the jury members and gave boost dices if they had certain knowledge. The DA team on the other side did the same...

The secret* wound points of the five jury members (Minions) represented the opinion of the every member (0-1 not guilty, 2 undecided, 3-4 guilty, *starting value was random). Every success of the PCs "healed wound points" while successes of the DA "inflicted" them.

The whole encounter had 8 rounds.

1. attorney's speech
2. hearing of the accused by the DA
3. hearing of the accused by the defense
4. reasoning of evidences by the DA
5. reasoning of evidences by the defense
6. questioning of witnesses by the DA
7. questioning of witnesses by the defense
8. attorney's speech

In round 1 and 8 every side rolls a check with the leading character (of course the rest of group could try to help with assist checks). In the rounds between 2 and 7 there was a active and passive side. The passive side rolls a check to undermine the active side (setback dices and upgrade of the difficulty) and then the active side rolls against the jury (3 purple dice).

The Far Horizons sourcebook has a really good treatment of social encounters, and Desperate Allies has more, including diving into how some of the social talents (e.g.: Scathing Tirade) can be used. Both are essential reading IMHO.

In my experience, players will actively take part in social encounters more when they feel there's a reason they should get involved.

I have a few players in a group that's going to meet towards the end of the month and they have been feeling like they are somewhat left out of things (they aren't speaking up with what they want to do, they aren't interacting with NPC's, they mainly just follow the rest of the group).

My plan is to include some side stuff this next session that goes along with their character motivations to get them involved in the game more. Have an NPC engage that PC in conversation specifically, include little hints of places or things that might pertain to their interests, etc... Hopefully they take the bait on that... either way I can't force them to do anything so if they don't speak up then things will stay the same.

As far as your question, some places have a no weapons policy. Players feel pretty vulnerable without their weapons.

If you don't want to take that direct approach, create a tense political situation they need to resolve by being an arbiter.

Create a mystery adventure that involves little action and a lot of clues/investigation. Create a victim, suspects, witnesses, evidence, etc and have them go through that. Add in twists to make them have to reevaluate their theories.

This shows a skill challenge playing out across multiple adventures, and would be pretty easy for the GM to track with pencil and paper. Your PC who wants to create a crime syndicate might get involved in political intrigue via lengthy challenges like this. He and his underlings might be in a skill challenge against another syndicate, making Charm rolls to bribe members over to their side, Combat rolls to simulate whole strike missions to cripple operations (yup, one roll for a whole operation), Negotiation to win over their customers, Coercion to rough people up, etc. Again, this can take multiple adventures. Maybe each session allows both syndicates a single roll, with bonuses based on what they did - we blackmailed the other syndicate's leader's major domo, so at the end, someone rolled Coercion with a lot of boosts or an upgrade, and only that last roll was part of the skill challenge.

Great pointers! Thank you.

Once I created a jury trial encounter in which the social PCs were the defense of an alleged rebel leader.

I really like this one, great concept!

either way I can't force them to do anything so if they don't speak up then things will stay the same.

Yeah, this is kinda my problem as well.

The PC in question is an Outlaw Tech, ex-Black Sun (a traitor), so he goes out of his way to avoid literally all remotely questionable characters in fear that they might be Black Sun and recognize him.

Wich can be a problem since they scurry the Outer Rim, primarily Nar Shaddaa at this point in time.

He really only follows along with what the Bounty Hunter PC wants to do. He really wants to build his own droid though, wich I haven't come around to focus on in about ~3 sessions (players leaving and joining, so the focus had to be elsewhere for the time being).

Some more general information on the party.

• Hutt Marauder: He's the one that wants to build a crime syndicate. He's also the leader of a very minor Hutt family, as such he has a few contacts and focuses on funelling money to his family for the time being, basically the bottom of the chain in Hutt-Society.
• Bothan Assassin: He really is the embodiment of a spacer/fringer in the group, out for the money, no matter the task. Bound by the codex of his Hunter Clan, once a job is taken, it has to be done, no matter the cost/circumstances.
• Human Outlaw Tech: The parties handy man, traitor to the Black Sun. Not much of a figher, really his only motivation is to stay save and have a shitton of droids.
• Human Marshall / Emergent: The private investigator type. ex-ISB, want's to do as much good as possibly but is no pacifist by a long shot. Readily willing to help those in need no matter the compensation. Tries to avoid to "hunt" innocent people.

I recently put them on a missing person case. Several parties are looking for him, since he has dangerous information that could expose the dealing between two factions wich would really piss of some third parties.

The Bounty Hunter is also trying to fence a LOT of stolen drugs without stepping on the foot of the local drug baron.

In both cases I really had trouble involving the Outlaw Tech. He has some specialised knowledge about one of the factions, but they failed to put some dots togehter, so it didn't become relevant yet.

Otherwise this whole szenario isn't really in his field of expertise, so I'm at a loss as to what to do with him, and I feel really bad about that since it feels like I've been neglecting him for several sessions now.

The whole szenario came to be because I had to put the players together. The Hutt and the Human Marshall only just joined that sessions, so I was trying to entwine two red strings.

The previous sessions the Human Pilot left the other two PCs and the playing table so I focused on him more to give closure to his character and his time with us.

So basically a whole lot of logistic bs prevented me to really dive into the Outlaw Techs character.

Thanks for all the responses so far!

Any further advice would be greatly appreciated!

If you want to tie some stuff together, the PCs could encounter a scrap heap of a droid somehow. However, this is no ordinary droid: it's the hulk of an old Jedi training droid, with a junked lightsaber (with training emitter) instead of a left hand. By junked I mean the crystal is cracked, and it will blaze to life for only a moment (making it's nature pretty obvious) before the crystal shatters. And by old, I mean a couple hundred years at least.

Now you've got an Outlaw Tech who wants to restore this droid, and a budding Force sensitive who might love to know what still lingers in its memory banks. Plus the Outlaw Tech might note that the lightsaber will need several additional parts besides just the crystal to get it in working order... Not enough focus on the Outlaw Tech? Well the droid was actually bound for a Black Sun Vigo who has a thing about restoring "vintage" droids for his collection, and a relic of the Jedi Order really intrigued him. Intrigued him enough to kill to get it back.

I'm totally just spitballing here, but I guess I'll keep going. The Vigo's collection might have some really rare droid models, and if he's going to keep coming after the PCs about this, they may just have to see if they can kill him, and those parts / whole droids look pretty lucrative, giving the Outlaw Tech a chance to face his fears. To say nothing of the Hutt liberating some assets (blackmail, contacts in the underworld, etc) to help kickstart his crime syndicate; granted, he may have to win over or coerce some people into working with him. Plus you can have the Emergent looking to acquire a kyber crystal, and the droid itself, though the memory is nearly shot, might have some incomplete records that lead to a stash of Jedi-related stuff (maybe a holocron).

EDIT: Want the Assassin on board with the whole thing? Said Vigo rubbed the Zann Consortium the wrong way, and they want him rubbed out. Of course, they might just try to kill the PCs to wrap up any loose ends and avoid a territory war with Black Sun, regardless of job success.

For social encounters, there are lots of good examples in the published adventures and modular encounters. Look at Long Arm of the Hutt with the encounters on Geonosis, Lords of Nal Hutta with the Granee Noopa, and Under a Black Sun with the encounters at the casino and the bar.

Make having the Outlaw Tech fix something or slice something vital to the success of a social encounter. Maybe the group is trying to talk their way out of a fight with a huge gang of Wookiee swoop bikers that don't speak Basic. So the Tech has to repair this busted up protocol droid that's nearby and get it to negotiate with the Wookiees to let their group go. Or they are trapped in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa running from a horde of wild feral beasts, but the turbolift is busted and the ancient droid turbolift operator is being uncooperative. In that case you have 2 PCs fighting off the beasts, 1 PC trying to plead with the droid to help them escape, and the Tech is trying furiously to fix the turbolift.

I just finished a session recently where a group of 6 privateers were in a swoop bike race against a rival pirate group and a bunch of other racers. In the pre-race encounters, they had to use social skills to place bets, find out who the pirate racers were, find out who the best racers were, and try to talk some of the racers into dropping out of the race. The Tech had to go around figuring out ways to boost the 2 PCs that were in the race and sabotage as many NPC swoop bikes as he could without getting caught. During the race everyone was trying to do something to help out the racers, who had their hands full. One guy was slicing into the race track computer system, one was hiding on the track to shoot at other racers, and the Tech was in the pits still working on sabotaging the other teams.

No matter what the situation is though, combat, social, or technical, I always try to provide options for everyone in the group to contribute. I ask after each session too if everyone felt like they got involved in the encounters and usually everyone says yes. If someone doesn't, then I try to focus on utilizing that characters abilities in the next session. Typically, you want to have multi-dimensional encounters. Don't focus on a single task during an encounter, have multiple things going on that get the whole group involved, otherwise you really are just focusing on 1 or 2 characters for a whole session. Obligation is a great tool to shift focus too. You can pick who's gets triggered at the start of the session, not just rely on a random 1d100 to determine that.

Also, to get your tech more involved, I highly recommend looking at Special Modifications that just came out. Lots of great material in there for technical encounters that involve fixing things, crafting, and slicing.

The most important rule for social encounters is to remember that your NPCs aren't plot devices for your adventure; they're autonomous citizens of the world you're creating and they don't owe your PCs anything unless your PCs coerce/ seduce/ entreat/ entice them to.

I encourage social actions and reactions through outside influence as well, in my GMing. Right now I am running the group through the Jewel of Yavin. The timing of it is that they have arrived during Ep 5, just after Vader is there, but before Han and Leia show up. They likely will not run into any of them, but they have seen Vader's ship moving to a hidden position on the far side of Bespin. One of the players is playing a force sensitive that uses his Sense abilities to great effect during conversations with NPCs. Now, he use of the force lets him sense a darker, evil power. He is a bright player, and may catch on that if he can sense Vader, Vader can sense him. So now who and how he talks to people on Cloud City creates a real emotional conflict of should he or should he not do something. In short, I use props within and beyond the scene to create more intereaction and involvement.