Hi all, i could really use some advise on how to run a social / sting mission in BitD.

7 thoughts on “Hi all, i could really use some advise on how to run a social / sting mission in BitD.”

1. What I’d suggest is you just take your lead from the players and the dice.

   So ask the players what they’re doing, and what that starting key detail is.

   Then, depending on what they’re doing, ask for a dice roll. If they succeed at that roll and what they suggested seems good enough, they’ve completed the mission. Good on them, they get the rewards, and you’ve got time to do another score that mission.

   If they failed or got complications, improvise something that’s appropriate for what they’re doing, and let things cascade out of control.

   Our best sessions happened because of a series of lucky or unlucky dice rolls, rather than because I was trying to run something specific.

   You really don’t need any sort of obstacle other than that clock (or even just 1 success!) – use the system itself to guide the outcome.

   Another consideration – at least with our group – is social goals change much more rapidly. In a fight, players will often be trying to ‘win the fight’, whether it’s the start or end of the fight their goal is pretty much the same. With a social situation, if you’re roleplaying things out, you can improvise details or drop clues about other stuff, or introduce NPCs. And the player’s goals might shift rapidly. So they might be planing to negotiate for turf, but while negotiating they discover that the other band is smuggling in drugs and… that might change their plans. They might decide to try to take over the drug trade, or stop the drugs, or cut an alliance so they can also get drugs or… whatnot. Just go with the flow, if the plans change, that’s fine. That just builds the story.

   And it’s always OK to ask the player’s what their overall goal is. And to let them know that they can change their mind.

2. Why isn’t the informant already giving the crew their info? Why are they working with the other faction? Does the other faction want the PC crew to sway the informant? What did they threaten or pay them to earn their loyalty? Can the informant give both factions intel? What happens if the rival faction finds out about this? What does the informant want?

3. Thank for yours answer. Tony Demetriou thank for remind me that a score could be very simple and short. I always try to build a “big” score for my player, but sometime the fiction lead to more simple one, and it’s ok to do it that way.

   I’m still curious for some other idea to build a more complexe social situation, like a masked ball for exemple.

   Find the target, eleminate socialy the parasit around him, lure him in a more quite place then negociate the intel, are those kind of “natural obstacle” who come to my mind in that situation. Much more clock and stuff to do for the player here.

4. Status matters. A lot. There’s the entire “background” mechanic of lifestyle happening that affects things. Any time scoundrels are dealing with any noble there’s probably a massive lifestyle and tier difference. Exactly how are these lifestyle 0 brutish looking thugs with a reputation for murder and weird occult stuff even going to get past the door to talk to Lord Rowan in the first place? Maybe they’re better off trying to catch him somewhere in public but then they’re met with the obstacles that come along with trying to operate clandestine illicit dealings in charterhall square while dozens of people watch and listen. Maybe they want someone to introduce him and they happen to have a contact that can get them in his door but that contact needs a favor done and it’s a linked score with the social aspect being less intense. Or maybe it is a big social score all together and the scruffy scoundrels have to swindle their way into the Majestrate’s annual fund raiser and in the process of talking their way in also have to avoid being identified or associated with other “upstanding” citizens of duskvol that have used their services in the past and may compromise them.

5. This topic came up the other day, Mathieu. Here’s the link to that post and the suggestions I made: plus.google.com – So I would like to poke at the brain of the group for a bit… How do you gu…

6. Complex settings and NPCs are pretty meaningless unless they make the game more fun for the players. That means that, ideally, NPC motivations, quirks, and desires form part of the social gameplay.

   So this is how I ‘fake’ that complexity, by only focusing on stuff that ties into gameplay, which I can then improvise from.

   Each faction (or important NPC) has one or more things that they can provide, and one or more things that they want.

   These are always general and long term, not things that they do once or twice.

   I don’t go into detail. And it doesn’t always have to tie heavily into their concept.

   So the Sparkwrites might provide mechanical expertise, and (limited) occult knowledge (only really about electricity & ghosts. So ghost barriers etc.) – I’d just note that as “mechanical, occult”, no need for detailed notes.

   And they might want… say, social status. So I’d just record “social status”, but I’d give it a little thought too. Maybe they don’t like being seen as blue-collar, and want to be seen as some sort of upper class pseudo-nobility, like how knights were seen as the protectors of the realm, as better than normal people because they provide a service nobody else can do.

   So that’s just one faction, and it took me about 30 seconds to figure that out. So if it never comes up in the game, I haven’t wasted much energy.

   But now I’ve got something to improvise from. If the players are listening in on a conversation, I’ve got something that the sparkwrite NPC can be talking about, or some clues the players can discover. To the player, they might find a letter trying to convince Lord Scurlock to support their upcoming request to be recognized as a noble order, and they’ll feel like it’s a clue in a mystery. But to me while running the game, I’m not specifically trying to drop clues, I just “know what they want” and I’m letting the players know that when appropriate situations come up.

   It then gives them ‘tools’ that they can use in social situations. Want to convince those people? Well, if they’re a sparkwrite, you already know something they want, and maybe you can find a way to help them towards that goal. Anything that improves the status of the sparkwrites should do. Now there’s something to negotiate over.

   And there’s something the PCs might want from them, so they can negotiate FOR that, to get something for themselves. Or the GM can use that as a way to give them rewards after the successful score. Or it just gives flavour for downtime actions. “I’m trying to make a ghost grenade. So I spend my downtime with the sparkwrites learning how to make an electric grenade that’ll disrupt ghosts.”

   Or… whatever. It’s just my shorthand way of planning very little, but making the bits I plan broadly useful.

   Now, that’s just one group. Do that for the groups that the PCs are interacting with – say, maybe just three groups at the start of the game, so it’s not too much to remember. Then you’ll see new interactions between those groups that can happen automagically.

   Say, the bluecoats can provide manpower, and turn a blind eye. And they want money and civil order.

   So the bluecoats kind of have competing needs/wants. Some will take bribes and turn a blind eye to criminal activity – but that doesn’t help them with their civil order want. But maybe if there’s a mafia-like group who’ll give them bribes, AND keep the local criminals orderly and out of sight, that’ll be something the bluecoats really want.

   But those sparkwrites? Imagine if they could bring down that mafia-like group and expose massive corruption within the bluecoats?

   Maybe the PCs are that crew trying to become the mafia-group who runs crime with the willing blind eye of the bluecoats? And the Sparkwrites have a strong motivation to get involved and try to become the new lawkeeping group, replacing the bluecoats?

   Or maybe the mafia group is already established, and the PCs can be the ones that set the sparkwrites and bluecoats against each other? That suggest to the Sparkwrites that they’ve got something to gain by starting this investigation and proving this corruption?

   Or maybe the mafia group already exists, and the PCs get involved trying to keep crime quiet and not cause trouble, so the win-win situation between the mafia & bluecoats can continue, and nobody wants the sparkwrites to get involved in the situation at all.

   Either way, it inspires a lot of social ideas for me – we’ve now got three groups the players can interact with, all of which will react differently to what the PCs do. And best of all, I’ve got an easy way to judge how they’ll react, rather than having to figure it out every time on the spot.

   Don’t keep their motivations too secret. It’s not like they advertise what they offer or want, the PCs should be able to find out with minimal conversation or investigation – but you can require that little bit of conversation or investigation. That helps kick off the social RP and gives players the ‘reward’ of more social information.

   And then I just continue to do this for new factions as they come into play. By the time new factions make an appearance, usually I’ve got a fair idea of how the existing factions behave, so it’s not too hard for me to add that extra information for the new faction to what I’m already tracking. Remember, it’s only a few words of notes, the rest is improvised from what’s already happened in the game.

7. thanks Dave Turner it’s exactly what i’m looking for.

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