Rewards of Social Encounters: A TS&R GMG Excerpt

 I finally finished my chapter of the TS&R Game Master Guidebook dealing with social exploration (whether in towns/cities, or in dungeons). This is the final bit, on giving rewards for this sort of play. I used to think (maybe I still do?) that the in-game rewards were adequate for this, but since XP drives the type of play that players engage in, it helps to have some guidelines for awarding XP for talking through the monster encounters. 

I say 'maybe' above because I do award full monster XP for creatures encountered that the players engage with but pacify, scare off, or talk their way out of an encounter with where no combat dice get rolled. In the past, I only gave XP for creatures defeated in combat. I'm still not giving the goal-oriented awards to my group, but I may give it a try. Anyway, here's the excerpt. If anyone has feedback or suggestions for improvement, I'm all ears! 

Rewards of Social Exploration: Traditionally, the rewards of social exploration are in-character rewards such as new information about the setting, alliances with NPCs or monsters, or avoiding hazards (such as combat). Experience points were not considered necessary, as the rewards listed above are intangible but significant, at least in long term campaign play. However, the GM can easily award XP for social encounters in which the PCs achieve their goals if they wish to encourage more of this sort of play.

For encounters with monsters or NPCs that could easily have become combat encounters, the GM may award the monsters’ XP value for successfully talking, bargaining, or deceiving their way out of the encounter. In order to avoid abuse, it is suggested that the reward only be applied once per adventure for each group of opponents “defeated” in this way. Continuing to deceive, intimidate, or negotiate with the same monsters or NPCs over and over again in short order does not provide much experience.

For encounters where the PCs gained useful information, made new friends, fulfilled duties, got a feel for a new city, or similar types of social exploration, the GM may wish to provide individual bonuses of 100xp multiplied by the level of each PC for that game play. This bonus XP should be rewarded for the entire session’s play, not for each individual encounter. If the PCs somehow made a profit or managed to gain some treasure from their social exploration, they should earn 1 XP per 1gp of value, as with loot from dungeons.

Social Combat

 This afternoon I ran my Star Wars game. 

In this session, the party escorted Marjon, a Hutt princess, to Coruscant to attend the Grand Ball with a bunch of other rich young sentients. The party's mission was to protect the wealthy princess, make sure she had a good time, and help her improve her social cred. 

The players came up with a lot of clever ideas to accomplish the second and third goals, although there was a bit of confusion between the meaning of "have a good time" at first. Since my sons play in the game, we need to keep things PG rated but one player seemed intent on trying to get the Hutt princess laid...NOT the goal! It was one of those high society events where being seen is important. Luckily, the players thought to contact some local holonet influencers and have them talk up Marjon the Hutt. And in the party, when social barbs were flying, they were quick to try and defuse them through their own social interaction skills and occasionally a Jedi Mind Trick. 

Star Wars d6 made social "combat" really easy. Instead of hit points, you get Stunned, Wounded, Wounded Twice, Incapacitated, and Killed in regular combat. So for social combat, I just used the same mechanics and modified the damage track to Insulted, Hurt, Hurt Twice, Humiliated, and Reputation Ruined. 

Just like in normal combat, roll a skill to attack (Culture, Persuasion, Con, etc.) and another character can try to dodge with their own social skills. If the "attack" hits, roll Willpower to resist the "damage." I decided that the attack roll and damage roll would be the same, just to make things easier. 

And it worked really well. 

Luckily for the party, they managed to keep Marjon's spirits up. There was a Wookiee debutante that they also latched onto, and they helped keep her reputation up as well. The Twilek socialite, Chadra Fan celebrity, and Kel Dor Heiress were kept at bay. They even got the Togruta playboy to dance with Marjon, shortly before Zygerrian slavers broke in to try and kidnap a high value target for ransom. 

Of course, the PCs fought off the Zygerrians. And they did it without any grenades!

It was a pretty fun adventure, and in retrospect, it probably didn't need the Zygerrian interruption. The social interactions were fun and challenging all on their own. Hat tip to Jason Alexander for ideas on running a social event as an adventure. I didn't use all of his method, but it sure helped me sort things out and run the game.