Hi, everyone

Looking for a bit of inspiration when it comes to non-combat encounters and action use.

How do you know when a non-combat situation calls for a full-on encounter mode with initiative, action uses and all? What happens in my games is that talking to an NPC is resolved by a single roll, I consider the NPC influenced (or not) and on we go.

If you can share creative/memorable examples of non-combat encounters you had (doesn't have to be social, might as well be other skill use) - I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!

I don't really like WFRP's social encounter rules. I think I'm going to start using Burning Wheel's social encounter rules from here on out because they allow the loser to "negotiate" and don't leave you in a situation where someone believes something that it makes NO SENSE for him to believe just because the PCs rolled well. I'm sure there are GMs out there with more finesse than I have that manage that well, but my PCs always ask for the moon and then roll exceedingly well and I end up with some established noble who, after the course of some weird conversation, suddenly believes he's a frog or something.

Still, here are a few of the ways I've used non-combat rolls:

A trial where the PCs had to defend themselves, use knowledge checks to find the legal information to cover their butts, then use persuasion checks to see if their defense worked on the judge. (The knowledge checks resulted in information that was a puzzle, too, so they had to figure out which sets of info would most please believers of which faiths.)

A card game in which the PCs actually sat and played a game of cards, using particularly good social/bluff checks to influence how the NPCs played and using checks against their backgrounds to let them bend the rules of the card game.

A sports betting scenario in which the PCs made social and intimidate checks to convince those around them NOT to bet a particular way.

I've been working on a system for it in our games.

I start with a default 'attitude' toward the player or party. It ranges from -3 to 0 to +3. The attitude affects the modifiers for the social rolls.

Once the players engage, they roll for social initiative and proceed.

They have the option to try and improve (or decrease) the attitude of their opponent (through bribes, charm, or threats) or they may pick a different action:

• They may play a social action card.
• They may attempt to gather information from them.
• They may attempt to barter.
• They may attempt other social actions not covered here.

I'm working on success/fail charts for each action (which I will convert into action cards). We're still testing it, but it's pretty fun so far. I'm trying to develop a default set of social cards like the default combat cards that all players have access to. I'm still idea storming.

In our last game one of the players tried to pump the local gossip for rumors. After a few disastrous rolls, she ended up finding out their mission and some personal details from them! Fun stuff.

Thanks for the input, guys. (Nezzir, props for Blind Guardian quote

Any other examples people might have?

It seems like there is a lot of action cards dealing with non-combat situations, but providing players ample opportunities to use those can be difficult. How do others use non-combat action cards?

A few thoughts

- Allow simple skill checks of Charm, Guile etc. but privilege Social Action cards with inluence results to reward those cards over simple skill use. Don't leave poeple without Social Action cards nerfed and don't leave those with them feeling they wasted choice.

- A general conflict resulotion concept - be clear if the desires of each side in a social encounter really conflict, if they don't just roleplay coming together (you want item more than the cash they want more than the item, no conflict there). If they conflict are they directly conflicting or "orthoganal" - direct conflicts are things like "you seduce the countess or she spurns you" (they are either/or, outcomes that can't both happen) whereas orthoganal are ones where both things can happen "you want to seduce countess [so she is occupied while pals loot her jewelry and you get some fun] and she wants to distract you even if it means the last resort of bedding you in order to get you situationed without armour or weapons and unber Ambush/challenge die to initiative situation when her assassins spring on you". In the 2nd situation, you can both win and you can both fail, you can win and the other fail (a best outcome for you) or you can fail and the other win (a worst outcome for you). Warhammer's system nicely supports the whole "there is more than one axis of resolution/question in play with success/failure and boon/bane/comet/chaos star.

- Decide if you want "negative outcomes, the other side's progress/compromises" to be resolved quickly (e.g., by bane and chaos star results on your check opposed against their stat, simple) or to have more roleplay attention via a progress tracker where you both have counters making way towards your respective goals. I suggest only using trackers for matters of interest to entire table and with more important outcomes (worth the time).

- If relevant (in some situations it's not), have a track with mid-point being "if one side's tracker gets this far, other must compromise even if losing".*

- Be careful of PC pile-ups (3 PC's get to roll for every time one NPC rolls). Give an NPC aids who make helpful comments or sidetrack PC's so they can't engage in main effort, or require # of cumulative successes = PC's to move tracker in their direction.

The earlier edition WFRP Companion (pdf on rpgnow etc.) has social rules for that system where outcomes can inspire compromises/bane outcomes. Success can range from "it would be my pleasure, please allow me to..." down to "well all right" and failure of "hmm, don't think so" (could try again in a bit) down to "you want what, get out and never come back - and I'm telling all my friends what idiots you are too!" (NPC decides to slander or ridicule the PC). It has tables for Charm, Gossip and Intimidate that can be convered to 3rd Edition pretty easily.

* Depending on what's being resolved with social action, some Players are extremely upset by dice rolls telling them what they do (that the dice tell me my head's cut off okay, that the dice tell me I am seduced by the bar maid - not okay). If Players really fall strongly into the "never tell me what I do" camp compromise by (a) getting same narrative effecf (the barmaid still distracted you from guard duty) and or (b) well you the Player can always negate that outcome but with a boat-load of stress such that a Temporary Insanity may be in the offing.

When I get home, I'll share my "negotiation" card here on the thread. At the base of it is something very similar to how the ASOIF RPG handles it (similar to what Nezzir suggested above) where NPCs start with a perception modifier to the PC's rolls, and one of the actions a PC can perform is to improve their standing with the NPC before entering the negotiation.

Great topic and the posts here have been exceptionally helpful and intelligent. Valvorik's post, in particular, had me saying "Amen" the whole time.

Not familiar with the Companion rules for social encounters from previous edition, but maybe these could inspire fan-created material and published to the web for 3e.

Here's an image of the social encounter cheat-sheet card I created for my use.

HedgeWizard said:

That cheat sheet is a work of genius, but to make it nice and quick, build a stance track, mark the relevent points as where the NPC is willing to give a concession. Possibly build another based on the amount of time the PC's have.

Instead of allowing all the PC's to act and only one NPC response, one PC should be elected as "the face" while the others get to give helpful hints. (Rolling to give extra fortune dice)