I'm finding this whole social encounter thing a bit difficult to get a handle on in the new system. Are social encounters where PCs are using their skills supposed to be pretty much be treated as combats - ie roll for Initiative (using Fellowship), each player gets a turn to use an action card to influence the NPC, etc? Does anyone else find this tricky, and a bit forced, to insert into normal gameplay? Are there only specific times when you go into this social encounter mode?

Advice most welcome ...

I really like the idea behind social encounters, but yea, I find them a bit forced when running them. I let the players argument with NPCs in initiative order and give them fortune or misfortune dice depending og how good I think their play and argumantation is. The rule that banes and chaos stars in their rolls counts as NPC advancements on the tracker, ensures that the PCs don´t win only by being more people. To run social encounters there has to be some kind of conflict of interest between the players and the NPCs, or something the players would want to convince the NPCs to do.

Anyway, my players have not found the social encounters too amusing. The solution could perhaps be to make the social encounter more critical for success in the adventures, and also to have more than two possible outcomes of the encounters (success for NPC or PC). I have played with the idea of social encounters without an obvious conflict, but where the PCs only collect information, or tries to get trust or "popularity" from the NPCs. If social encounters could be more integrated in normal roleplay, in conversation between PCs and NPCs, I think social encounter could be really exciting, not only as an idea.

Greetings from Maximillian, Norway.

I quite like the social encounter. The first one or two I did seemed a bit forced but when I felt more comfortable with them they worked beautifully.

When planning them have a good think about the sorts of things that are going to advance the players on the track and advance the opposition. Have a number of different outcomes (i.e. if the players reach an event marker first, or the opposition). Mix it about as well, have the npc only deal with one of the party members for a particular reason. Other players can then offer advice (or try a bit of subterfuge) whilst a single party member uses their social skills.

It certainly does require some preparation (sigh!) The first time we id one was the von Rothstein encounter in 'A Day Late', and it went OK, though it was very strange for the players and I had to cut it short, as if I'd played the entire length of the track it would have outstayed its welcome.

One of the problems is, that by switching to full-on encounter mode, you're really flagging to the players that this is an important situation, so you're giving away some information right there. It's like the old thing of a party entering a room and you ask them to check for secret doors - kind of gives it away..!

By the way where's the rules that banes and chaos stars advance the opposition's tracker?

While I'm here another problem I have with the rules is the checks and the way some are used in The Gathering Storm. Getting a player to check gives away that there is something to be observed or intuited, and thus alerts the players. It also seems to almost replace what should just be good roleplaying or decision-making on the part of the players. Eg, the magical sight check when they meet Schulmann; the Intuition vs Guile check to see if Marie Holtz is hiding anything, or Otto Holtz is lying; and especially, the average Intuition check that reveals Foaldeath is trustworthy - huh? Perhaps these checks should only be made if the player asks for them?

There are a couple of ways to handle those checks:

1) If your players will continue to play based on CHARACTER knowledge and not PLAYER knowledge, then it's not a problem at all. But I've found that's its very hard for most players to do this (ie, intentionally not act on things that they know). Of course it helps to sometimes throw in 'red herring' checks that dont do much even if they are made (but you still reply with something minor). This way the players can never be sure if what they are checking for is important or not.

2) Make the rolls yourself in secret. This is a little harder in this system because of all of the dice in the pool. It's hard enough for the player's to remember all of their bonuses and whatnot let alone the GM keeping tracking about it all.

I've run the first social encounter in TGS, when the PC meet tristan and fritz screaming each other. I found it totally akward because it lasted way too long and the players was expecting to influence the situation in a more fast and direct way, like saying cleaver things and interposing fisically between the two. Instead seeing their succes only projecting on a cardboard token and have to be waiting until it reach the end of the line was a bit frustrating for them. Also a player was searching to intimidate tristan whit his weapon, but seeing the violence token go back one space, just to advance again at the end of round was a bit cheaty!!

I have to remember to advance the tokens faster, for example on space per succes instead one space per succesfull attempt as written in the encounter's description. To sum it up...i fell that the fewer the social struggle last, the better for the story......

I've thought about rolling checks without giving things away, and what I try to do is to get the players to roll failry frequently. So every new scene for example, when I'm describing where they are, what they see etc, I get them to make observation checks etc.

If they roll really well, I try to give them something a bit special, even if the scene is not that important to the plot. (I get them to roll even when in story mode.) This way, when it matters (ie, there really is something to find) I can have the players spot it. When it doesn't, they can just have a particularly detailed / interesting description of the cake seller they're passing by in the street.

This doesn't need to be limited to observation checks. At a party I could have all of the players roll fellowship checks and have the results dictate how much fun they had, throwing in some interesting anecdotes for good or bad rolls. Only if the players choose to interact with the story in more depth or specify what exactly they'd like to do will I then require additional checks for the specific things they're doing.

If the situation doesn't seem to warrant anything special happening, you can usually think of something that's not too huge. Eg., if someone rolls really well in the party scene, I might describe several different and memorable characters that they met. If they met badly, I might have them spend the rest of the night in the bathroom. Neither result has to have a fundamental impact on the plot, but either result is characterful and interesting.

When rolling observation in a street scene (where I know there's nothing of plot importance to be found), if a player rolls well, I could have them find a particularly good pie shop, of find some very good quality leather at a decent price. Rolling badly might simply have the player shoved into a pool of mud to avoid a passing cart. Again, neither result has to have a dramatic impact on the plot, but either result adds to the fun and the story.

And if there is a secret door to be found... I don't have to tell them straight away. I can let the players react to the scene, and as one of them moves around the pie shop, chatting to the pieman about how they're made, preferably as the player and NPC are roleplaying their chat, I can then tell the PC that the table the piemaker is rolling dough on looks solid (ie. it looks like a chest - it does not have legs), and as if the top of the table might lift off to reveal a storage space beneith. It's then up to the player to decide whether s/he wants to distract the piemaker long enough to try to open the door/chest.

I would never run a 'social encounter' with initiative rolls, charts, turns etc. I don't think there's any need to. As long as your group of players get on with each other well enough, if they want to say something significant, they can say it (and roll, if necessary). If one of them has several arguements to make, I don't see it's a problem if they make several rolls / do several actions. I basically 'wing it' when it comes to seeing how the NPC reacts, based on what I know about their motivations, determination, social skills etc.