Developing a Social Interaction Mechanic - Part I

Introduction

As of now, whenever social interaction comes up in my D&D games, it's a clusterfuck. There's a bit of actual acting roleplay, which is a bit clunky (mostly for me since all my off-the-cuff characters are essentially the same), and a bit of narration (I explain as DM what the NPCs say or do or want), which is hard to make interesting. The whole situation is disorganized and stressful: it's totally up to me how much information I do or don't share with the players, and usually I don't even know myself (since I generally just write down a few characters and their motives before starting an adventure).

I don't want to do that anymore when there is an alternative: come up with a social interaction mechanic.

Many DMs have tried different ways of doing this. When I started playing D&D with 4e, we used skill challenges from time to time, which were really railroady. Other times, a simple one-off skill check (roll Diplomacy, roll Bluff, roll Intimidate...) was all that we did.

Other worthy efforts I have seen have been a card system and a modified diplomacy check. I'm sure there's a lot more out there, but I also have a good feeling it will come across the biggest problem with representing social interaction in a RPG:

Social interaction is made up of a vast and complex matrix of relationships, emotions, beliefs and physical actions which are obvious to anyone who is capable of social interaction.

Most D&D players are not very familiar with creating fireballs out of pure energy or headbutting a hobgoblin off a bridge, but if they're in your D&D group they are capable of social interaction (the skill at which varies between people of course). So most of us are aware of patterns of social interaction - things to expect or do. We know that, for instance, a hungry person might be more irritable, or a grieving person may not be in the mood for levity, or that a superior may expect a certain degree of etiquette from a subordinate, and we modify the way in which we interact with these people appropriately.

And most of the time in D&D, these expectations are met: the baron is upset by the rudeness of the players; the lost child is grateful to be found; the pirates are excited by the prospect of riches. But occasionally there are situations where it is difficult to know how best to proceed.

Say the players are investigating a close NPC friend's murder in a small frontier village. The villagers can be assumed to be generally suspicious of the players: in a dangerous region like this, outsiders could mean trouble. Authorities are less accommodating and will harass foreigners. However, certain qualities are valued highly among the villagers: strength, resourcefulness and honour are all of importance. The social structure is one of clans, divided along family rather than professional lines. Keeping the peace among villagers is more important than fair justice, as each clan cares for its own and is indifferent to the plights of the others.

These are all beliefs held by the members of the village about how their world works. It means they will not be coerced or threatened into disclosing information, and any outsider must prove their worth if they want to be treated warmly. If the players march into town, traipse into the bar and say, "Barkeep, what can you tell us about the murder of William the Wanderer?" the barkeep will politely say "never heard of him" and ignore these arrogant strangers. Anyone else questioned will likely say the same thing, and if the players continue nosing around they will be escorted out of town.

If, however, a single player comes up to the bar and, noticing a prominent hunting trophy on the inn wall, asks the barkeep to tell the story of how the stag was killed, the player can use the barkeep's beliefs and emotions to gain an "in" to the village's culture. The player may respond appropriately to the barkeep's story, speaking at the right moments and encouraging the barkeep to continue, in order to lead the barkeep to believe that the player is not a threat.

In the first situation, a group of strangers barge in looking to enforce justice in a way they see fit. In the second, a single instigator persuades an insider to trust them. Both situations are based on a fundamental exchange of information: in the first, the players want to know what happened to William the Wanderer. In the second, the player wants to the barkeep to know I am your friend. The first situation is an interrogation; the second, a manipulation. These are both tactics used to draw information out of the barkeep, but they work in very different ways and their effects are very different depending on the receiver. If, rather than the village barkeep, the players tried to interrogate a defenseless craven, they would presumably have more success.

Thus, the fundamental goal of a social interaction mechanic must be the exchange of information or meaning. Since conversations are almost always for the purpose of exchanging information (knowing how someone is doing, what the weather is like, how to reach a destination...) we can devise a D&D model based on a system where one party tries to encourage another to give information in exchange for other information, essentially bartering what they know - or claim to know - with each other.

For the next few posts, I am going to try to develop this topic with what I call EMs, short for Exchanges of Meaning. Admittedly, there is a whole bunch of research in the topic of human communication which I have yet to embark fully upon, but I intend to move through it as I go and develop the mechanic with it.