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View Full Version : Social Encounter Help (Armidale group stay out)



Serpentine
2008-01-24, 10:14 AM
So Goff's been bugging me to include a social encounter. Trouble is, I'm no good at them - not at speaking NPC parts, or thinking up suitable responses quickly, or anything like that. It doesn't help that most of the group sort of mills about indecidedly unless or until I say "okay, roll initiative". Anyway, does anyone have any ideas, hints or cheats for me?
For background...
The party: Levels 9-11. Snooty drow wizard of noble blood. Tiefling swashbuckler (shipwrecked pirate captain). Elf rogue/thief acrobat (Goff). Gnome cleric/sorcerer/arcane whatsidoovey, I always forget the name, the divine-arcane combo PrC. Elf knight (formerly a dwarf, now with issues, my character). Human druid.
The situation: We're all stranded on a completely new continent based on the Americas, at the moment mostly South, on which humans - and even the usual humanoids - are a minority. Everyone here speaks whole new languages, so none of us can understand anyone except the gnome who speaks Draconic, as do many of the reptilian races here. We are heading towards an "oracle", who will set us on a side-quest to rescue the non-magical girl I mentioned in another thread a while back, before giving us a couple of options on how to get home
("South.
A bird-man
Sits in his cage.
North.
A cat-man
Seeks out a mage."
Suitably cryptic? I know, pseudo-not-railroading :smallsigh: If they really want to set off, say, east to find a way home, though, they can).
There are cities around these continents, defined by animal type - a bug-city centred on an Abeil hive, a bird-city run by Raptorans, etc - as well as villages, wandering tribes, bandits, warbands, merchants and travellers around the place, and of course plenty of mysterious temples and vine-covered ruins.
The long-running goal of the campaign is to deliver these letters to various hard-to-reach persons. These will include a couple of potentially social encounters: convincing the pharaoh to let us see his confined Favourite; seeking information on high-up officials to bribe, blackmail, threaten, flatter, trick, or otherwise convince them to let us see the dragon ruler... I think they're the main ones. However, Goff is itching for one soon. It doesn't help that I was hoping the language barrier in itself would make an interesting challenge to overcome, but he seems entirely uninterested in doing so, and instead laments the resultant limitations :smallsigh:
So. Help?

Lochar
2008-01-24, 10:17 AM
Overcoming the language barrier IS a social encounter. Unless they get mad and draw weapons, but I digress.


It sounds like they want less of a social encounter and more NPC direction to go do things. They don't sound very proactive.

Serpentine
2008-01-24, 10:26 AM
Goff is proactive enough, but he's been the only one who's particularly so and gets pretty annoyed when it's basically him and me, and everyone else watching the show. I haven't seen our newer players in a social situation yet - the swashbuckler, female, and the wizard, male - but she seems pretty... well, proactive (it's earned her a couple of trips down pit traps so far), and he's made his character pretty antagonistic (and him, too) so it could be better than I fear.

Mando Knight
2008-01-24, 10:36 AM
So Goff's been bugging me to include a social encounter. Trouble is, I'm no good at them - not at speaking NPC parts, or thinking up suitable responses quickly, or anything like that. It doesn't help that most of the group sort of mills about indecidedly unless or until I say "okay, roll initiative". Anyway, does anyone have any ideas, hints or cheats for me?

I feel your pain, Serpentine. I have much the same problem.

Maybe allow the characters a run-in with an NPC translator?

Might the whatsidoovey class be Mystic Theurge, preferred class of Tsukiko, by any chance?

Lochar
2008-01-24, 10:49 AM
Set them up with some random NPC encounters then. Make up a high level NPC with a few lower level bodyguards moving from one location to another. Let your guys stumble onto them, right after they've finished a fight. Several/most of the lower leveled NPCs have fallen, and the high level NPC will want to hire the party to replace his fallen body guards.

Have them speak a language your group doesn't know, or Draconic, which only the gnome knows. Having to work through a translator, or figure out another means of speech is always good.


Although, the speech thing should be fairly easily remedied with Comprehend languages, but eh.

Serpentine
2008-01-24, 07:44 PM
Might the whatsidoovey class be Mystic Theurge, preferred class of Tsukiko, by any chance?Ah, that's the one, thanks.

Lochar, that's a pretty good start, thanks. Maybe later, there could be a disagreement between the NPCs and someone wanting a toll or somesuch, and a fight threatens... Either the players step in and intervene, or it turns into a brawl. Or slaughter. A slaughterbrawl.

Noone else has any ideas? :smallfrown:

Serpentine
2008-01-25, 10:10 PM
Just giving my thread a bump, cuz I could really use some help...