Social Maneuvering in The Chronicles of Darkness (A Simple, Elegant System)

There are almost as many social skill systems as there are RPGs out there. Some games make these skills nearly vestigial, with a simple pass/fail that has a particular difficulty associated with the roll. Other games have intricate flowcharts that are almost as difficult to follow as a high-speed tennis match, making fellow players really feel like they're watching social combat in real-time.

For a solid, middle-of-the-road example, I wanted to touch on the Social Maneuvering rules found in the Chronicles of Darkness. Because this system is simple enough to be easily implemented, but there is enough nuance to make it feel robust!

And for folks who have enjoyed my recent delves into this particular game, check out my previous Crunch topics:

- Vehicular Combat is Always An Option (A Chronicles of Darkness Strategy)

- "Down and Dirty" Combat in The Chronicles of Darkness Doesn't Get Enough Love

So, how do you approach her?

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These Things Take Time

In an RPG there are often social situations that are meant to happen rapidly. You need to persuade the bouncer at the club to let you in, even though you aren't on the guest list, or maybe you are trying to intimidate someone who looks like they're going to start a fight so they decide not to try you and your companions. In these situations a single roll is usually enough to settle things one way or the other.

However, sometimes you have a social situation that's longer-term. Maybe you're trying to persuade an academic to loan you a historical text that you need access to. Perhaps you're trying to persuade the mayor the accept a bid from a particular company, or you're trying to get this season's monarch to agree to a plan your changeling motley wants to enact this season. For those longer-term strategies that you really need more than a single pass/fail check for, we turn to the Social Maneuvering System detailed on page 81.

Trust me, this is going to come up. Potentially a lot.

First things first, the player announces what they're trying to get this person to do. Maybe they want to get an invitation to this person's special hunting club, or they want to get them to dedicate start-up capital to the player's business idea (that may or may not be a cover for a hunter cell). Whatever it is, the goal is the X on the map they're trying to reach. If the Storyteller determines this is a feasible goal (to paraphrase the old fantasy RPG argument, no matter how good your Persuasion roll is, you can't convince the king to randomly vacate the throne and hand you the crown), then you can move on to the next stage.

Once the goal is agreed on, the Storyteller sets a number of Doors that must be crossed in order for the social maneuver to reach its goal. The base number of Doors is equal to the lower of the target's Resolve or Composure, and then more Doors are added dependent on different factors. If it runs counter to the target's goals and aspirations that can add a Door. If it would be a breaking point for that person, it adds two doors. And as the Social Maneuvering goes on, if the nature of the situation changes (such as if this maneuver started off just trying to get money for a business, but it's revealed the business is actually murder-for-hire) that might add more Doors.

Once all the Doors are established, that's how many successful rolls need to be made to reach the goal. Note, this is not how many successes need to be rolled. A regular success opens 1 door, and an exceptional success opens 2 doors.

At this point, the Storyteller determines the First Impression between the character, and the target of their maneuver. If they have no history, then the player can attempt to set up a positive interaction that appeals to the target (with things such as an activity that appeals to their Vice, offering them a bribe or some sort of gift, etc.). An Average First Impression (the baseline) allows one attempt to influence the maneuver per week. Upgrading that to a Good impression (such as through a bribe) allows one roll to be made per day. An Excellent impression gives you one roll per hour, while a Perfect impression allows one roll per turn.

The last step of things is to determine the rolls made to open the Doors, which should be determined by the circumstances of the interaction.

So, what does that all look like when you put it together?

An Example

A hunter cell really needs to get access to a book in a restricted section of a university library. This place requires someone to have a special writ of permission from the curator in order to examine the piece, and that's not something you can just walk in and demand. So a member of the cell decides to target the curator in order to influence him.

The curator is a strong-willed man, so his initial Doors are set at 4. He's also career-minded, and asking for a favor of this level is a risk to him, adding a 5th Door. However, the hunters are determined to make this work, so one of their number gets dolled-up, and meets with the curator at an art gallery showing; events he is notorious for attending, and enjoying, making it a good place to meet him. No gifts are presented, and the hunters don't know the curator's Vice, so the Storyteller decides this is an Average impression to start with.

The first influence attempt goes well. Erica is knowledgeable about the local art scene (Intelligence + Academics with a specialty in Gallery Art), and manages to impress the curator with her culture and understanding as a critic, and though they verbally spar, he's invigorated by the evening. This opens the first door, allowing Erica to proceed to the next attempt.

They research the curator, and find out his favorite restaurant, as well as his favorite dish. So when Erica asks him to meet for dinner, he's quite pleased to do so. As the setting has changed, though, she has to pivot to a different skill set. To impress him with her manners and understanding of etiquette, Erica makes a Presence + Socialize roll. She gets an exceptional success, opening 2 Doors, as the curator is utterly blown away by her poise and social aura.

In the third week, Erica decides it's time to stop beating around the bush. She's established her credentials as a woman of the arts, and of culture, so she decides to try to persuade the curator to agree to let her see this particular tome. She spins a story about how she's working on an academic paper regarding Mesopotamian mythologies, and this particular book would really allow her to have first-hand knowledge of a relic that would add a lot to her research. A Manipulation + Subterfuge roll is made, and she gets bonus dice for the lie being particularly appealing to his vanity and career aspirations, as having an ally with a publishing history is always good. Erica crushes the roll, and with another exceptional success, the curator agrees to get the necessary permissions, and to arrange for her to examine the book... with him and another historian present, of course!

Some doors are scarier than others...

These long-term social maneuvers add a basic skeleton to this part of the game, while at the same time providing you with a flexible way of trying to get characters to do what you want them to. It takes a little practice, and it should always feel varied and unique no matter how often you've put this particular system into play.

And while there IS another side to social maneuvering (we'll call it dark maneuvering for the moment), I'll likely talk about that in my next Crunch update... so stay tuned!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

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Fighting Systems is Harder (And More Satisfying) Than Fighting Individuals

Most of the time when you're in a campaign you typically have a Big Bad that your efforts are bent toward destroying. Whether it's the lich king at the head of their armies, the mad mage at the center of the dungeon, or the dragon that has declared themselves the tyrant of the region, it feels like there's always a singular threat that needs to be dealt with. If you depose the leader, slay the head of the cult, etc., then all will be well again, mission accomplished.

And sure, there's a certain amount of fun and escapism in that framework. However, it does start to feel contrived after a while. Which is why I wanted to take this week to talk about something several GMs of mine have done, and which I'd highly recommend others consider in their games.

Instead of fighting individuals, have your party oppose a system. Because fighting a system is a lot harder to do.

Ahem.

For those who are curious, yes, my group did recently start playing Hell's Rebels, and that's at least partially why this particular topic is on my mind.

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It Is Astonishingly Hard to Kill an Idea

When it comes to battles in our campaigns, the physical ones are always the easiest ones to win. If there is a local bandit gang preying on the highways, or a cult stealing people in the night, what's the solution? You send in a group of adventurers, and they will break up the problem. Once heads have been knocked, and potential prisoners taken, the threat is over...

Or is it?

Who can say for certain?

While an individual bandit gang might be disrupted or broken up, if those bandits existed because there weren't enough legitimate ways for individuals to earn a living to care for their families, there will be fresh bandits sooner rather than later. If the cult is slain, then they might become martyrs to other believers who didn't put on the robes and lead rites, but who might now feel they must follow in the footsteps of those who went before them.

The root causes that led to the situation in the first place were not fixed. It was not created by any singular individual, and so it cannot be solved by dealing with that singular individual. Which gives our protagonists a very different kind of challenge to face.

And it has been refreshing as hell every time it's come up.

This Isn't System Specific, Either

For those who've read my group's journey through the Mummy's Mask adventure path (and if you haven't, start at the beginning), my GM embraced this idea whole heartedly. Because the Cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh was centered around an individual, that's true, but it was not the Forgotten Pharaoh themselves that gave it power. It was what the cult could do, what it could offer, how it wormed itself into the society of Osirion, and how it got into the minds of the populace through fear, nationalism, greed, and more.

While the party was instrumental in fighting against the cult's ground forces, and while it did remove several of its major players from the board, they did not slay this idea all on their own. They had to recruit allies, reform enemies who realized they'd been duped by the cult, and they had to fight a war of propaganda over the hearts and minds of the public in order to instill bravery and tell the truth about many of the cult's lies.

It was one of the more engaging experiences my table got, especially when one considers how linear adventure paths can often be.

Don't worry, I have negative examples, too.

On the other end of things, though, there are a lot of games that are designed with systems and ideas as the enemy, but where the individuals running the game focus too much on the "Great Man" that's responsible for everything. A majority of my experience with World/Chonicles of Darkness games suffer from this tunnel vision. The corrupt CEO who's responsible for all the pollution in a region in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, for instance, or a vampire who acts as the nexus of all evil in a given territory that can simply be slain to purify everything, and so on, and so forth. When it's far more likely that taking out one vampire means another will take their place, or removing one company means another two will compete for the market (possible even a few entries from Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries for those looking for inspiration).

Perhaps the best example I can think of is a Changeling: The Lost game where the storyteller's entire focus was treating a single True Fae (the demigod alien creatures that steal people away to Arcadia) as the BBEG of a particular conflict. Not just in the sense that their attention and malice had fallen on the freehold, but that they were actively involved in an arms race, and they were going to march on the gathered changelings to fight them... for reasons?

While I am all for deadly punch ups with magical wooge and fae nonsense, this entire plot arc was a classic case of making the plot all about an individual rather than a system, an idea, or something more difficult to combat. Because this True Fae didn't have any sort of persuasive rhetoric on their side that turned people against the freehold. They weren't riding some populist wave of anti-changeling sentiment among the hobgoblin community, and the army they had seemed to be made up mostly of nameless, faceless NPCs who had no personality, no driving goals, and no real purpose other than to act as cannon fodder. They couldn't be reasoned with, persuaded to change sides, or even spoken to aside from shouting across a battlefield.

This plot spiraled out of control, eventually getting so messy and frustrating that it culminated in a single, massive, completely unsatisfying battle. A battle that, once it was resolved, left no mark on the game's landscape, achieved nothing, satisfied no one, and was more or less forgotten about within a month. In fact, even trying to recall the details of it right now is a difficult exercise as it just faded into so many other fantastic battles that were waged more because the person running the game felt there should be a Protagonist V. Antagonist throw down rather than because it was a genuine, organic development of the plot and its themes, or that it would achieve anything tense or meaningful.

Also, speaking of Lost, if you haven't checked out my supplements for that game yet, give them a look!

- 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments to Find in The Hedge

- 100 Mourning Cant Dialects, Phrases, and Meanings

Win Hearts and Minds to Forge Your Legend

Memorable villains and satisfying victories are tough things to achieve. But this is a topic I've been thinking about long and hard even since I got to work on Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E) for my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting. Because in a setting where there is no alignment, and everyone is left to decide right and wrong for themselves, you won't find evil waiting in black robes and wielding blood-dripping daggers making sacrifices to demon lords. You find it in the indifference of the common people to oppression. You find it in the greed of the powerful. You find it in unfariness, and brutality, and myths that treating other people with violence makes you tough, or strong, or righteous.

And fighting ideas like that takes more than steel and spells.

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? Or do you have your own story you'd like to share with folks?

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archives, as well as the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I help out from time to time. Or, to check out books like my hard-boiled cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my recent short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.

Organized Play, Universal Rules, and Frustrations of a Traveling Gamer

Regular readers know that, before the pandemic at least, I was a fairly regular LARPer. In fact, a majority of the World/Chronicles of Darkness games I've been a part of have been LARPs, rather than sitting around a table rolling pools of d10s. And while one or two of those games have been independent, most of them were (or at least claimed to be) part of an organization.

Not all organizations are created equal, though. Which is why I'd like to talk about something that seems to crop up time and time again, and it's a massive frustration that I'd highly recommend folks do away with entirely in the future. Because if you're going to claim you're all playing the same game, you need to actually be playing under the same rules and canon.

This isn't "A Tale of Two Cities" RPG edition.

Before we get into the meat of it, make sure you sign up for my weekly newsletter if you don't want to miss any of my new releases and upcoming content! Also, if you're a fan of the World of Darkness in general, consider checking out my 100 Kinfolk supplement bundle for Werewolf: The Apocalypse (with 100 Stargazer Kinfolk as an extra), as well as my fresh-off-the-presses supplement New World Nights: 100 Ghouls For The American Camarilla.

And now, on with this week's tale!

How Organized Play is Supposed To Work

For those who've never come across organized play for a LARP before, the concept is actually pretty neat. The way it's supposed to work is that all the games being run by the organization are part of the same overarching chronicle, and the events that happen in one location can affect events happening across the board. Not only that, but players can take their characters on the road, showing up at sister games and bringing their characters to meet new folks, engage in away plots, etc.

It has the result of making a chronicle actually feel big, rather than just being told it's big even if the plot ends at the boundaries of your venue.

No condensed world for me, thank you!

For games to work on this scale, though, it's important to have a universal standard when it comes to the rules that are in place, and to make sure that communication is happening to prevent glitches in stories.

And, for all of the things I didn't like about it, Mind's Eye Society (formerly known as the Camarilla, I believe) managed this aspect pretty well.

For example, they put forth a list of official organization modifications and house rules for players in all venues to follow, and storytellers had to adhere to these rules. This prevented different venues from running drastically different versions of merits or supernatural powers, or having one venue that completely barred certain abilities that were allowed in a neighboring game. If a particular power or ability was considered rare or unusual then a player could file a request for it, and if the request was granted it would be attached to the character sheet and honored at every venue. Even if the ST of a particular game didn't like that your character had access to a rare Discipline, or they possessed a merit that was usually restricted, if you put in the effort to get it approved, then you could use it in play. And if STs were abusing their authority there was someone over their heads a player could reach out to in order to file a complaint. While there's plenty of folks who've pointed out this option wasn't always effective, the fact that it existed is still something I considered a positive aspect.

Additionally, the use of canon resources was tracked to make sure that the games had a unified feel to them. As an example, if a storyteller wanted to bring an important, named NPC to their venue for a particular game, they had to notify the organization and get it approved. Not because the character was so special it could only be allowed out of the toolbox once an ST proved they were responsible; rather, it was to make sure you didn't have the same character in half a dozen games at the same time, screwing up the canon. Similar notifications would need to be submitted for effects that could affect other venues, as well as national or global plots. It kept everyone on the same page, and ensured the world fit together properly.

In short, your game was not allowed to be an island. If you were part of an organization then (at least in theory) you were agreeing to be part of a greater whole. You could still run your own plots, create your own NPCs, and do things your own way, but there were limits imposed on the amount of discretion you had if it went outside of certain bounds.

What I found out as I sought out other games is that there are a lot of storytellers who use the phrase "organized play" to describe their games, but who don't seem to realize it doesn't mean what they think it means.

You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too

When I stopped attending Mind's Eye Society games (drive was too long, wasn't feeling the current chronicle, attendance was down, etc.) I started seeking out other games to fill the void. I tried Werewolf, I tried Vampire, and I even managed to find a Changeling game or two. Nearly every game I attended lured me in with the promise that, though they were part of a smaller organization of games, they were definitely an organization. So my vampire, my werewolf, my changeling would always have at least two or three sister games they could go to, giving me access to a variety of weekend games whenever I had the time and desire to attend.

It was exciting... until I realized that my definition of organized play was wildly different from the one a lot of these storytellers were operating under.

What? No, that's not how that works here. I don't care what Geoff does in his game.

What many of these smaller gaming groups meant when they said they supported organized play was, "We have a loose canon with the other games, and we agree to allow players to travel and bring their characters so we can all play together." The aspect they didn't mention, though, was there was no universal, agreed-upon set of rules we were all using. And worse, every ST ran their game their own way.

It was exhausting to keep track of. In one venue certain vampire Disciplines worked one way, but in a sister venue they worked a different way. In a third venue only one or two powers from an entire Discipline were allowed, even if you had dots for the others. One venue had expanded social penalties for werewolves who used firearms, despite it not being canon to the game. Another venue ignored that entirely. One venue approved a custom made magic item for a changeling, and another one refused to allow it at all.

It was enough to make your head spin.

For some of my fellow players, this wasn't really an issue. Their characters were using the most common paths of progression, and they weren't really affected by too much by these changing paradigms. Other folks were frustrated by it, but they enjoyed the social aspects of the game enough to put up with the unique idiosyncrasies of the different venue storytellers and their staffs.

However, once it became clear that every storyteller basically wanted to have their own game run their own way, I was out. And nine times out of ten I felt like a canary in the coal mine, because the games almost always folded not long after I walked out the door.

Storytellers, This Isn't "Your" Game

If I had to address one lesson I learned throughout this journey, one central problem that I felt was foundational to all the other issues, it would be to remind storytellers out there that this isn't "their" game.

What I mean by that is every storyteller needs to remember that it is their job to create something for players to enjoy. However, too many times storytellers get their egos caught up in the process, or they insist their way is right, or better, or simply that no one else is going to tell them how to do things in their own game. Sometimes they just slap players' hands because the players want to solve plot in a way the storyteller doesn't like, or didn't expect. That's bad enough when it really is an independent venue, but if you're even putting out the pretense that you're part of an organized setup it can be downright toxic to player enjoyment and confidence.

If you tell your players their characters are part of an organization that allows them to play in multiple venues, then those venues need to all be running on the same rules and baseline assumptions. Otherwise it's like you're trying to watch different episodes of the same show, but the art style is completely different, the setting details change from one episode to the next, and none of the abilities they have in one season seem to apply in the other.

In short, what's meant to be a major selling point turns into a slurry of nonsense that can undermine trust. Because if you don't deliver on the promises you make to your players, that's going to make them trust you less and less as the game goes on. And if your players don't trust you, pretty soon you won't have any players at all.

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? Or do you have your own story you'd like to share with folks?

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archives, as well as the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I help out from time to time. Or, to check out books like my hard-boiled cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my recent short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.