Anyone have any neat tricks for making social conflict more interesting in DW?
While physical conflict offers a variety of moves and a pacing mechanism (HP) for the thing, social conflict only has Parley as whole conflict resolution. I’d like to spice this up a hair, to allow more options for interrogations and negotiations
Defy Danger, based on mental stats. What danger is being defied? Depends on the situation. Ostracism, public humiliation, making an enemy of a friend, going too far in the interrogation…
Maybe you could have hp for social standing or temper and have players fight to not lose their temper and bring peace to disputes and win hard debates with creativity and word moves that resemble fight moves.
The initial idea to come to mind is to make Hack and Slash/Volley analogs for Cha and Int, then use their current HP level to dish out temporary scene-level damage. When it reaches 0, something occurs, but I don’t really know what.
But all that feels fairly complex, so I’m not happy with it…
I would do that by being more demanding on the leverage needed to trigger the move, forcing Defy Danger to take a chance or Discern Realities to fish for informations regarding possible leverage.
Discern Realities absolutely. That’s the “Sherlock someone” move. Defy Danger with Charisma leads negotiations into interesting, tricky places. Don’t be afraid to use soft moves and hard moves in response to the players’ actions, as well!
Parley is the payoff move. The finisher.
Huh, can you give me an example of what Defy Danger+Cha looks like in a social conflict? I’ve never considered that
You could try role-playing.
Moving social interactions to the results of die rolls makes them less interesting and doesn’t serve the DW principals of “Address the characters/give monsters life/name every person”, IMHO.
Aaron Griffin
“I would rather die than give you the informations you are looking for ?
– How can you be still loyal to the Evil Boss when he is plotting to have you destroyed the minute he gets his way ?
– Wait, what ? You have no proof of that !
– No, I don’t. But don’t you wonder why you ALWAYS get the most dangerous missions ? He is trying to get rid of you.”
Roll +CHA. The Danger is him catching you’re bluffing.
Off the top of my head Aaron,
You have been locked up for seranding the local barons wife. You know that if you could just talk to the guard you could make him an offer he can’t refuse.
“Hey guard” he looks at you grunts and looks away.
Defy danger charisma. The danger being that he will be uninterested in even listening.
10+ success.
You begin to sob uncontrollably and the guard begins to look uncomfortable. He walks over. What’s wrong now charlatan?
After a sob story you offer him the necklace the barons wife gave you to accidentally leave the cell unlocked tonight.
Roll parley.
Aaron Griffin: Sure! Basically, take any charged social action in a tense situation, and that’s defying some kind of danger.
Let’s take a negotiation between Altrecht, head of the local wizards’ guild, and Maeris, upstart rogue. Maeris wants Altrecht to give the group important information about the dragon’s lair that they’re about to raid.
Altrecht explains that this is privileged information, and he can’t give it out to just anyone. Maeris spins a story about her uncle, who was registered with a related guild, and how now she has a right to that information.
That’s where Defy Danger kicks in: she’s using Charisma to defy the danger of being caught in her lie. Just like traversing a trap-filled room, it’s using one of your abilities to avoid a really bad outcome.
Other examples of actions that work are intimdation (danger being either provoking a fight you can’t handle, or maybe rousing unwanted attention) or misdirection (danger being that they pay more attention to what you don’t want them to).
Aaron Griffin In any given social interaction with a NPC the GM would have to define a possible danger: When the PC is trying to get information, somebody could overhear the discussion, the PC accidentally let a secret slip, the informant passes the information on to some else etc. Or the PC tries to charm or seduce someone: the PC does it clumsily and gets ridiculed, the NPC is offended or falls in love and follows the PC, drawing unwanted attention etc.
Aaron Griffin – give yourself the tools you need to make an interaction interesting – Principles, agenda, and moves.
Name the NPCs, and start fleshing them out as the players interact with them. Have the players roll an instinct and a knack, and incorporate those results into the fiction (one of my favorite challenges as a GM is to incorporate the first roll for each, however zany and improbable they feel at first!).
Once you have some idea of who the NPC is, come up with Monster Moves (NPCs are monsters!) to indicate how they are dangerous, even if it’s dangerous with words:
“Dazzle them with Bullshit”
“Tell a Convincing Lie”
“Redirect Attention Elsewhere”
“Give a Half-Truth and a Whole Lie”
“Always Be Closing!”
Now that i’m thinking about it, it might be worth compiling a list of these moves for a GM reference, so i can pick and choose one or two for new NPCs on the spot….
Regardless, as you are in the role of an NPC interacting with the players’ characters, think about what they want, and how they can make their moves work in their favor.
If Chutney the Baker is trying to cover up a secret plot against the king, use “redirect attention elsewhere” as a soft move. Don’t name the move, mind you, but answer direct questions with evasive answers to the characters, and let the players know it is clear Chutney is being intentionally obstinate (Don’t require the players to guess that is what Chutney is doing, and don’t require them to guess some magic solution to get Chutney to talk!). Ask what the characters do, and use their answers, watching for moves that might be triggered:
If they search for truth or lies in Chutney’s answers, that might be Discern Realities.
If they try to corroborate or disprove some claim that might be Spout Lore.
If they want to spin a lie of their own, they are in danger of being spotted as a liar, and must Defy Danger: CHA.
If they have leverage against Chutney and specify a demand, they can Parley.
Don’t let conversations with your NPCs become boring or mundane, and be free with information (or mis-information) – that is what will get your characters into further mis-adventure! Regardless of where you end up, keep in mind: the GM’s job is not to protect the NPC’s agenda, or secrets. Your job is to play to find out what happens.
Eric Lochstampfor – i disagree that die rolls make social interaction less interesting.
It’s too easy to get stuck in conversations that lead nowhere. Explicit moves help us keep the story going somewhere, and dice-based moves keep us “playing to find out what happens” instead of narrating our own tale.
Furthermore, there is no distinction between types of scenes, whether combat, social interaction, or otherwise. From your wording, it sounds almost like social interactions should be different in form or function from non-social (?) interactions.
Instead, i go into a scene challenged to find something interesting. My goal is to look back at the close of the scene knowing that it would NOT get left on the editing room floor, and that something established in the scene can bear fruit later in the fiction.
Honestly, I find that the dice rolls often make it more interesting in Dungeon World!
Andrew Fish I’d love to see your list of potential NPC moves for social interaction.
Andy Hauge Same, but only because the players do. If you’re just roleplaying, while it can be fun, it’s a different kind of fun than when you’re rolling dice and using moves. Plus, banking solely on a player’s social skills and quick-thinking can leave out some players
Aaron Griffin – compiling a list of moves has just jumped to the top of my project pile. i like the idea of a resource of all sorts of cool moves for Monsters to pull from.
As for Andy Hauge ‘s comment, i agree that the dice make things more interesting, by giving us something unpredictable to react to. Having to respond to their results keeps us playing to find out what happens.
I’m intrigued by the idea of diceless gaming, but i haven’t actually delved into any diceless systems yet.
I have a list of physical conflict stakes (lose a limb, ally is injured, something breaks, etc) that I keep around for 6- rolls or for making up monster moves (lose a limb => Rip off an arm, something breaks => Screech and shatter glass, etc). I’d love to have a similar thing for social interactions, but I think my imagination might be weak there. I wonder if the Drama System SRD has any help…
That list of outcomes sounds like a good resource. I may just steal the idea, and add that as another project.
I have gotten comfortable with practice at doling out improvised consequences for 6- and 7-9 results as needed.
My first bit of advice – be quick about it. Not every choice you make as GM will be super-epic-badass-memorable, but lingering over each decision and disrupting momentum WILL be noticed!
Second bit: Players know what interests them, and where they want you to “hit” their characters. The players that are attracted to Dungeon World can usually be counted on to punish their characters well. I really enjoy turning bad rolls over to the players:
“Ooooh.. this did NOT turn out well… How did it go wrong?”
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So the party is in a caged carriage on their way to the gallows. A crowd follows to see the executions, throwing rotten fruit and stuff at them.
The bard decides to give a political speech to the crowd. The player actually recites the 5 minute speech his bard gives. Then he aces defy danger charisma. The crowd turns into a mob and frees the condemned prisoners.
That was probably the best social combat we had in our games.
If you want to have a progressive social combat where it’s not one roll, winner take all, you could use a countdown clock, also. Set three or four boxes, or whatever, and figure that the NPC group gets one step friendlier for each success, and maybe one step more hostile for each failure. Describe narratively the changing mood, of course.