I’m running a “frontier” game of D&D for my buddies right now. The PCs are explorers who are literally at the edge of the map, and it’s their job to fill the map in and promote the growth of the small frontier town that they’re calling home. As part of their ongoing efforts, they hosted a party for several nobles who were considering a move to the frontier.
Social encounters can be a little tricky in D&D – the Diplomacy skill has its own mechanical issues (i.e. it seems, at times, to override good roleplaying) and it’s very easy for PCs without good Charisma or ranks in the appropriate skills to get left out. Since I have a fairly diverse group of PCs (Bard, Barbarian, and Cleric), I tried to create a structure that would allow all of the PCs to contribute to the group’s success in impressing the nobles.
I stole the basic framework from Final Fantasy 6; there’s a “dinner party” scene where the characters answer a series of conversational questions posed by Emperor Gestahl; each answer gave the player a different number of points. I adapted this slightly; I created a series of different questions for each course of the meal, but instead of there being “right” and “wrong” answers, each answer would give bonuses or penalties to the PCs’ interactions with the different nobles.
For example, at one point, the topic arises of what the mark of a “true noble” is. The stuffed-shirt nobles believed that taste and refinement make one noble, whereas the warriors thought that military skill was the key component. Others felt that it was a generosity of spirit. If the PCs agreed with the refined nobles, they would gain a bonus to their diplomacy checks made to impress those nobles at the end of the party. I also interspersed breaks for “small talk” so the PCs could use the information they had already gathered about the nobles to impress them with their own creative ideas. I had made general notes about the nobles’ likes and dislikes, and any time the PCs made a strong point that touched on one of those preferences, I added a bonus or penalty as appropriate. At the end of the “encounter,” the PCs rolled Diplomacy checks for each noble, applying the bonuses and penalties they had accrued.
This worked very well overall. The PCs planned everything about the party except for the dinner itself- hiring musicians, composing songs and stories, and sending out invitations. Also, the degree of interaction gave the NPCs a lot more depth, and the PCs became very invested in their interactions with them, forming some strong alliances (and feuds, in one case).
What I took away from this whole experience is the fun that you can have from doing a little creative mechanics-designing. I think any kind of non-traditional encounter can function very well with a similar structure: Give the PCs a chance to, through their actions and roleplaying (not checks) add bonuses to a larger, group check at the end of the encounter. This way, the whole party (not just the PCs with the relevant skills) feel useful, involved, and have fun.
I’d love to hear some other thoughts on running social encounters- let’s hear in the comments section!
Posted by srmencken 
