My group really love the idea of focusing on socializing as Hawkers. They were very happy to have several actions for socializing and so was I, but the problem is that is what they want to focus on. They want whole games around politics and convincing people, and even had the brilliant ideas that they Hawk forbidden books, fantasies, romance, hidden knowledge, accurate history books. They don’t mind the occasional sneaking or fighting, but mostly they just want to have social plans.
My problem is as a GM I don’t know many ways the story can be remain tense with the majority focus on socializing. How do you guys start games where the players want majority Social plans?
Good question 🙂 Lurking around to see what others have to say.
Spitballing, but I’d be pretty liberal with clocks: specifically, a lot of these “social scores” could be races to fill one clock (“convince Magistrate Chesterfield to fund your expedition”) before another clock fills (“the Ball of the Roses concludes”). You could even do multiple of each type of clock in a score if you don’t mind the juggling (several VIPs at a social gathering that has a set time limit and suspicious attendees/guards).
I’d also be free with using mid- and long-term consequences for failed scores or similar missteps. A lot of these social scores might not end up with the crew in mortal danger or in the hands of the Bluecoats, but they could be making enemies everywhere and earning a lot of minuses on their faction sheet. I’d also do my best to flavor any of the crew’s entanglement rolls based on their success/failure in a previous score. Couldn’t win over the Magistrate? That poor comrade that just got sent to Ironhook was almost certainly his retribution.
Finally, I’d try to take advantage of the fact that the crew would almost certainly be at light load in order to participate in the social score. A physical conflict or something that requires specialized tools suddenly becomes an opportunity for the crew to really think on their feet if they’re suddenly out of equipment load!
I have suggestions.
* Redo the “turf” blocks to represent charity functions, social events, noble cliques, and gatekeeping authority for fashion and coolness.
* Scribble the hell out of all their NPCs and put in people from the top of society to the bottom who are relevant to the social scene (or assume everyone there is and play it to the hilt. “Oh, you’re a beggar, but you used to be the last scion of a destroyed house and you’ve got a photographic memory of genealogies…”
* Give them a family, business, or institution to destroy. Petty and vicious.
* There is no way they’ll get peerage. Right? Right!?
Objectives can include:
* Shame a foe.
* Ruin a foe’s ‘coming out’ party for their achievement.
* Help a friend get a salon with favorable reviews even though a rival is dead-set on ruining it with tenured hecklers.
* Your designer friend is dying and only has one show left; her designs will be overshadowed by a rival unless she gets help.
AND SO ON!
If you wanted a little help with making the aristocratic circles compelling, might I offer this?
fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com – fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/peerage-ams-7-22-16.pdf
Steal liberally from Dumas. The Three Musketeers are basically good-hearted scoundrels doing stuff.
Play up the class divide, especially if you have a Slide who likes to dress above their station.
Daniel Krashin Dumas is one of my favorite writers! That said, over the entire D’Artagnan romances I think they do very little convincing. They fight, sneak, kidnap, and bully, but they don’t do elaborate politics unless staged as an adventure and even then they are rarely good at it. AKA Aramis getting Porthos killed.
I think my players want a good 70% of all plans to be deception and social plans with combat being a rare occurrence that only appears as a consequence if they seriously mess up.
Although, now I want to make the Musketeers as Bravos. You are right, they make the perfect set of Scoundrels! They even come with their in built vices.
Check out Bookhounds of London, for Gumshoe, it has exactly what you want
Oh man, I love your players!
Re: Dumas, the Count of Monte Cristo would have been my reference for this.
I have to go let a a charming old lady rummage around my mouth with needles and power tools, but I will get back to you.
Good point about Dumas, I was thinking about how the Musketeers do stuff the aristo’s can’t, like stealing incriminating necklaces.
Giving them a friendly aristocratic ally and an antagonistic one is a quick easy way to build a whole world of alliances, and also another way to express consequences. If the characters get seen stealing the Maguffin, it could reflect poorly on the nice Lady Strangford who’s been encouraging them.
Ways to creat tension in a Social type score: threaten to turn it into a non-social score.
I dig Jack Shirai’s points, especially about “minuses on their faction sheet”, I can imagine a socialite crew may see a lot more movement there than other crews.
And I adore all of Andrew Shields’s ideas, especially of repainting Turf to represent social patronage, access and influence!
I also think the examples of giving them (the players and/or the NPCs) “a family, business or institution to destroy” is a great idea.
The stakes get much more complicated if a noble is buying up your company’s debts, or ruining the reputation of your protégée.
I would personally be cautious about threatening non-social action as a fail-state because it might push the players to jump straight to the non-social solution.
(You see this a lot in Dishonored and Thief : Players sneak around until they get caught, then turn into serial killers)
Instead, I would try to put them in decisive situations :
The lords vote on new Inquisitor assignments tonight.
If you convince enough of them that Lord Strangford’s son would be the ideal choice, he will have no choice but to relinquish his claim to your protégée’s hand.
If you fail, she will have no choice but to accept his proposal.
Ideally, I think the stakes should be something that isn’t easily achievable through non-social means (Andrew’s examples do this really well, I think).
In Cruel Intentions (Les Liaisons Dangereuses) you could argue that the score is the corruption and social ruin of a beloved debutante, and the “crew” goes about it in quite a structured way.
In line with Andrew’s comment about repainting Turf, it might be interesting to take a look at Plans, Details and Engagement