Important social combat question!

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Okay, this is a quick question but critical for my demo game on Sunday.

When social combat occurs, what is the sequence of events?

Here is my specific example:

The characters face the nobleman, Herr Steinreik. When they enter the noblemans study I begin with a short description of the scene and then he gives his greeting (maybe the characters return the favor). He asks what he can do for them. Presumably they tell him they're here to get information regarding the missing book mentioned in Leopold Fiegler's background story (mentioned in another thread), or some variation of that. Now I tell the players how his eyes narrow shrewdly and have them roll for social initiative and I set up the initiative tracker based upon the results. I also set up a tracker for the encounter. It will be a tug-of-war tracker. The players want to move their counter to the end of the green track and the noble wants to move it to the end of the red track. This represents the progress of their arguments.

Assuming the above is correct, what happens next? Specifically, does it go down like this?

Character 1 uses some kind of social skill (Guile or Charm) or a social action card and we resolve the results.

Character 2 goes next and does the same.

Herr Steinreik goes and uses his action or skill.

Character 3 goes.

Assuming this is everyone, the round ends and we start over.

Is this correct? I ask because it seems like everyone piles on the one opponent of the social encounter. I really don't want to bring in hangers on and henchmen for a social conflict. It would feel ridiculous. Furthermore, I think it would be absurd if I had to do so. One person should not be socially outnumbered in the same way as in a physical conflict. The way this lays out, the players get three chances to influence the result versus the nobleman's one chance.

So how should this be handled? Am I planning this correctly or no?

[Josiah Leis]

Hey Steve,

Yes, mechanically everything you have mentioned is correct, players roll initiative, then act in sequence just like in combat.  Here are my suggestions for this particular encounter:

Rather than having a "tug of war" track, have 1 long one.  Put two tokens at the "start" space, 1 to represent the strength of the PCs arguments, the other to represent the nobleman's "patience".  Each time the PCs "influence" their target (the nobleman) move their token up a space (maybe an additional space if it was a great success or they got a Sigmar's Comet).  If the PCs get this token to the end of the track, they've "won" the encounter and the baron spills what he knows (or something similar). 

At the end of each round have the baron's patience move up 1 space, possibly also move it up if the PCs get Chaos Stars or fail with lots of Banes.  Sigmar's Comets might also make the token move backward or "pause" for a round.  When patience marker reaches a certain number of spaces down the track (say 5 or 6), he finally loses his patience with the PCs and demands they leave ("My butler will see you out, NOW." sort of thing), thus ending the encounter in "failure".

On the baron's turn, he could instead of trying to influence either tracker, begin attacking the PCs personally (making them rack up Shame).  If a PC goes over their Shame Threshold, they're out of this encounter (either they leave the room in a huff or the baron no longer cares one whit about anything they have to say).  The baron could also try to derail the PCs arguments with counter points that could move their progress tracker backwards.  He could also begin to try and "escort them out" or cow them into leaving quicker, moving his patience tracker upward more quickly.

This way it isn't 3 vs. 1 in a tug of war.  Instead the PCs basically have a limited amount of time (represented by the baron's patience) to influence him enough to get what they want.  He still has an impact on the encounter, social PCs get to shine, and it can be a tight race to the finish to see if the PCs can convince him to give them the info before he throws them out.  If "throwing them out" isn't practical, simply refusing to talk to them anymore could also work.

How far to make each event space down the track depends on how successful you think your PCs will be at influencing him and how hard you want the encounter to be.  Figuring that each PC will move the success token once per round is probably a good start (so 3 times a round).  Some might fail to move it naturally, but spectacular successes or Sigmar's Comets might move it more than once to.  I would also have the first event space (the one that if the baron's patience token reaches the encounter ends in "failure") do something for the PCs success token when they cross it.  Maybe they are wearing the baron down and get white dice to all social actions for the rest of the encounter, maybe their arguments seem to be working and his patience goes backward a space, etc.

You could also have two separate trackers instead, one for each token.  Then just make the PCs 3 times as long as the barons, thus they have to be 3 times as successful to "win" the encounter.

[Josiah Leis]

Oh, I also wouldn't discount the use of henchmen for some social encounters.

In one I recently had setup for my game I had two dock worker gangs arguing with each other.  I assumed the PCs were going to step in to try and calm the situation down and was going to have 4 separate NPC standups, 1 for each gang leader and another token for each "gang" of 4 dock worker henchmen.  The encounter was going to make full use of range increments, maneuvers  etc.  Of course, my PCs just tried to incite the dock workers further so it ended in a fistfight instead of a social encounter   

[Josiah Leis]

One final fun thing I like to do in Social encounters sometimes is make a character turn an Insanity card (which are used to track Shame) face up at random if they get "socially knocked out" and then tell them "You have to put up with this for the rest of the day as you are still really bothered about what was said to you." sort of thing. If the traits don't really match or make sense then I just make them take stress equal to the severity of the Insanity instead. I'll also sometimes do this if they get socially "hit" with Shame and with a lot of Boons or a Comet. Kind of like a "social crit".

[Philippe Boujon]

I am personally very rusty with the shame/duel of wits rules, but as far as a normal social encounter, I was going to respond and my post was going to be very similar to Josiah original post. I would have set-it up exactly the same way (minus the direct attacks on a PC since I am unfamiliar yet with those rules).

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[Steve of the Red Fez]

It's funny, patience was exactly what I thought I'd use! However, I was going to use a "T" tracker originally (the tug of war as stated above, and a countdown of patience). I realize the tug of war is probably a bad idea, so I think I'll go with your suggestion of just using straight progress versus patience.

The setup will go as follows...

Originally, the nobleman was going to try to get the party to do a task for him in exchange for the information they want (the exact task doesn't matter). This was why I was originally going to do a tug of war, but that can be easily altered.

The tracker will be an "L" shape. The bottom will be 6 spaces long. This will represent the progress the characters are making. At spaces 2 and 4 the players will uncover very useful information that will help them along the way to the next goal (information about a man who used to work with the thief who stole the book and subsequently ended up dead). Space 2 will tell them that he hangs around in the filthy side alleys of the Neustadt, where all the common folk and merchants go shopping (this is in Nuln). This gives a rough location. At space 4 they find out that he spends his time trying to sell stolen goods on the street (so they now know he is a fence; combined with the name of the dead thief, the party could conceivably track the man down with the information they've gotten thus far).  At space 6 the nobleman will accidentally slip and tell them the name of the thief so they'll no longer need to play his game and do as he wishes.

The vertical arm of the tracker will represent his patience. It will also be 6 spaces long. It starts at the top and each round it goes down by one space (he is losing his patience). Each chaos star will cause it to drop by 2 spaces. If it drops to zero, he will lose his patience and force them to take his deal (to do a task for him) or leave.

I've included a quick mock-up of the tracker. Sorry if the size is too big. it was made for printing. I do all of my trackers like this, including my characters. For a demo, it saves time and complication.

[Steve of the Red Fez]

Note: I just realized the patience tracker needs to be shortened by one space. Oops. I'll fix it later. You still get the general idea.

Oh, and I am considering adding an encounter space on the patience tracker right near the end (space 4 when it's fixed). This will be a point when he will use one of his heavy hitting social actions against the characters. Not sure which one yet. Something related to getting angry I think.

I've also decided not to use shame as this is just a demo game. I think it'd be too much to throw at a totally new player. Instead, it'll just be about influencing the target.