Okay, so we tried a social system, here’s how it went!

Last Saturday, I ran a playtest session where we also tried out a social system I had written up. The session was an event in Sigil where the adventurers needed to find out who could provide them with information and equipment to traverse the Shadowfell. There were three players, and I had made nine NPCs who could potentially help or hinder their efforts. Let’s talk about what happened.

Number of rounds

Though we took up the whole time, the session was 4 rounds in-game. This was less than I anticipated. But, at the same time, combat rarely takes more than 4-5 rounds to resolve. With nine NPCs and three PCs, they could split up and approach different people in a round.

And that’s what they did—each PC talked to different NPCs. They didn’t talk to all of them, but they found what they needed regardless.

The small number of rounds meant that we only rolled once on the Complications table. This worked out for the best, since we almost ran out of time anyways. When I run something like this again, I’ll probably have them roll at the end of every round if I want a random table to play a part. Or, I could have scripted out events that would happen at the end of certain rounds. If I did that, I would make sure that those events were short and sooner versus later.

Switching initiative results

One part of the system was the ability for the PCs to switch around their initiative scores at the beginning of each round. The intent here was to give them some flexibility that they could make use of in their strategy. When we rolled, everyone got fairly high scores. No one switched around their initiative. Everyone seemed happy with the results.

I think that’s due in part to the NPCs’ behavior. Most of them were fairly passive, seeming to stay in the same part of the event that they were in the beginning. The more active antagonist didn’t move on a clear initiative count. If NPCs were obviously part of the initiative order, then there might have been more incentive for the players to move around their initiatives.

Overall, I think I could have made the NPCs act more quickly, especially since the PCs did.

NPC Profiles

To keep everything straight, I wrote up nine NPC profiles in my notebook. Here’s one for the arcanaloth NPC:

It’s a quick profile. I’ve got their alignment, what (if any) information they have, what they want in exchange for that information. I jotted down something of a flavor quote to remind me of how they talk, and lastly a few details about their physical appearance. This tool was really effective—it was quick to make, and it helped me keep everything clear in my head. I’ll probably continue to use this, especially when players will be running into more than a few NPCs in a session.

Overall performance

So, in brief, the social system:

  • Kept each conversation and player action organized
  • Needs more active NPCs with places in initiative order to make switching initiative a valuable option for the players
  • Needs a fast pace—events should happen sooner vs. later
  • Benefits from NPCs that are easy for the DM to remember how to roleplay
  • Might encourage players to split up and talk to different NPCs

I’ll keep working on it, and we’ll see where it goes from here.

How do you handle social events in your D&D game? Do you use something similar, or do you handle it differently?