Creating social encounters...I feel clueless

[Vectros]

We've completed a story arc in a campaign I'm running, and we're ready to hit the second one. One of the comments I received at the end was the players wanted more social interactions. I'm not entirely certain on how to design them to be completely honest in any given situation.

The story arc is going to involve a group of Necromancers working together to take over the continent. I wanted to give the players choice-Necromancers in different parts of the map, so they can choose what order to tackle it. I'd also like to create social interactions along the way that could give an impact to the war, but my list of ideas for this is small...any input would be appreciated.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Part of this is creative writing 101 but you have to ask yourself:
1. Who is the NPC? What are their personality traits and background?
2. What is their motivation? What are they trying to get from the PC's?

From that comes dialogue. If you are creative enough at improvising, you don't even need to write any dialogue as long as you know points 1 and 2.

[pwykersotz]

I would start by figuring out what the individual Necomancers are doing to cause trouble. Then I would dial it down to its fringes. So if there's an horde of undead, have mice skeletons be spoiling food supplies and maybe killing small pets. If there's a plague, have an underground water source be contaminated only mildly and give the townsfolk a wicked flu or cough.

Once you have mundane challenges that can lead into the main plot, then you work the social stuff. The local butcher put out an add because his animal foodstuffs are spoiling quickly. During this quest giving time, he drops lines about how his son is getting married soon, and there are already problems with the bride's family, notably that they left town to get away from the weirdness. If they don't return, the son can't get married. What's more, even if the problem is solved, the butcher knows that a letter won't convince them and offers a bit of his savings if the party will go to convince them properly that the issue is solved.

Scenarios like this lead into the main plot and generate the ability for the social encounters. What sort of proof do the bride's family need? Did they actually back out because the bride has cold feet? Or maybe in a horrifying twist, she died to the plague and they've been trying to deceive the butcher because they fear how other will react. Is there a spectral bride situation? How will the town react to that news? Did anyone else suffer? Maybe the mayor knows something, but he won't talk because the town council is bullying him to silence for a variety of reasons.

That's a bit of a ramble of course, but that's the idea that I use. Take the fallout of the main quest and turn it into strife that other folks have to deal with, and let it compound. People keeping secrets for any reason makes for solid social encounters, and finding that out can involve convincing in ways other than swords.

I hope that this at least generates a few ideas for you. :smallsmile:

[gfishfunk]

My recommendation:

When you create an NPC that is somehow major, give it a basic principle that it will not break away from. The paladin is given to good and law, and will not succumb to a negotiation check to betray all principles.

Next, give it motivations. The difficulty of checks change based on how closely something aligns with its motivation. Request that they go to war against a neighboring continent might coincide with the desire to be a major political power in the area. It might go against it, though.

Finally, give it a method, the way it tends to operate. Approaching the problem in a way that it normally does gives you common ground. If the political leader wants to be a major political power but prefers spy-work and intrigue, asking them to go to war will be tougher.

Developing these things also naturally gives you a more robust world, and is useful for other things too.

[Specter]

This Angry GM article might help.
http://theangrygm.com/help-my-players-are-talking-to-things/

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

So you have map that you are going to give the players with the locations of the different lairs of necromancers? This presents several role playing opportunities already. Here I what I would do


Scatter the Info
Break the map into 3-4 parts. Nobody should know all the locations of the necromancy lairs except for the necromancers themselves, but it is safe to assume that somebody know the location of 1 or 2 and somebody else knows the location of 2 different lairs and so on.
Lore Masters
Who knows where the lairs are? For each map you created, you should make an npc who knows the location of the lairs on their part of the map. Perhaps one is Oracle who has been studying their movements for awhile. Another could be a Paladin who was unsuccessful in defeating the darkness and is know striking with a magical illness that prevents him from trying again. You could even use a Flumph as an informant.
Path to the Lore Masters
Who knows the people who know where the lairs are? It is unlikely that the players know every person who would know where the lairs are hidden. What you should do is have them ask npcs about the lairs, and the npcs will turn them in the direction of the Lore master they are the most familiar with. Examples "Jerry went north with his crusaders, he knows a thing or two about fighting necromancy" " The Oracle of the west knows of all in her domain, I always consult with her before I do business" "I know a being from another plane, an great eldritch horror, who stalks the underdark, If you like I could arrange a meeting, for a price"
Back Up Plan
Killing the quest giver is a time honored tradition in D&D (whether on accident or not). In a less dramatic way, your players may offend the Lore Master, misunderstand the lore given, or some other third thing that nobody expects. I would make sure to have redundancy built into getting the party to the lore master, as well as having some information stored in the lairs themselves. Whether it be letters sent between bases with vague and cryptic dialog that the players will have to try and decode, or a partial map showing a few supply routes linking neighboring basses ( as again you want the players to find this information organically)


Does any of this help?

[Vectros]

I think all of these help in one way or another on how to actually make it, thanks for the advice guys. Now I just need to hash out some details-but this definitely is getting me in the right direction!