How Combat Rules can change Social Encounters

How Combat Rules can change Social Encounters

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dnd
dungeons_and_dragons
osr
roleplaying_game
rpg
tabletop_rpg
By Barakiel il 14 Jan. 2020

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Often i have witnessed something very strange in tabletop rpg games: while some rulesets handles social encounters well enough, others, more focused on physical combat tends to relegate them as a single skill check, with a single dice roll to decide whether one faction will be convinced of the words of the other or not.

This is a very boring way to handle something that could be funny to play and role play.

While it is true that Social Encounter should depend on what the characters say it's also true that it's not easy to play a charismatic character if the player is not a charismatic person. And what charismatic truly means? Without getting too much philosophical let's see an easy and quick way to transform your boring charisma skill check in... a verbal duel!

CITAZIONE
Remember: the pen is mighter than the sword. And words can kill.

Let's use what we know about physical combat:
- 2 stats for attacking (Strenght and Dexterity)
- 1 stat for defending that is added to the armor class (Dexterity)
- 1 stat for calculating how much damage we can take before losing (Constitution)

We can do the same for mental stats in a Social Encounter:
- 2 stats for attacking (Intelligence for reasoning, knowledge and Charisma for diplomacy, deceive...)
- 1 stat for defending that is added to the armor class (Charisma)
- 1 stat for calculating how much damage we can take before losing (Wisdom, how much you can handle the social pressure before mentally or socially collapsing)

That being said, how do we calcolate Armor Class?
As basic "Social Armor" we'll have 10 + Charisma modifier.
We have also to add any modifier based on Social status, Reputation and so on.
For example
- Total stranger : +0
- Enemy : -2
- Friendly:+1
- Trusthworty:+2

For the health points we'll have to do some adjustments.
We should use different base health dice based on the class main stat.
- Cha based class : d12
- Sag based class : d10
- Int based class: d8
- Physical based class: d6
- Mixed class: better of the two

And then calculate health as (Health Dice + Wisdom)*Level

What about damage?
Well the damage a word can do is measured by how many people that word reach. In a private conversation something that is being said can hurt, but the same word spoken in the ball room of a castle will have a much greater weight.

A "Spoken attack" will have from 1d4 damage in a private conversation to 1d20 damage in a conversation that involve a great deal of people, and both side will use the same damage die + their attack stat of choice.

So the Social Encounter will go on as a normal Combat Encounter: every character or NPC with the right to speak will make an Initiative Check using whatever system you like (or simply with a Charisma check) and then in order will be able to verbally attack some element of the opposite faction with an Attack Roll (1d20+their attack stat of choice). If the Attack roll is higher than the Armor Class, it's a Hit!

Social encounters will then become battlegrounds, where every word count and people will get hurt a lot.
From there you can add whatever complexity you'll see fit for the situation.

Let the Social Battle begin!

Special thanks to @Moldvay82 (https://t.me/rulingthegame) that helped me a lot with the article

Edited by Barakiel - 19/2/2020, 15:54

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How Combat Rules can change Social Encounters