Rewarding in-character socialising

[MikeSands]

Background: I'm writing a game of naval adventure stories, inspired by Hornblower, Aubrey & Maturin, Honor Harrington etc.

After the first playtest session, the biggest hole in the game so far is that I want a lot of play to focus on player characters talking to each other and to the non-player characters (like the other crew they work with). In some cases this will have players whose PCs aren't present taking the roles of other characters, troupe-style.

However, I'm not sure how best to make this work.


In our playtest this part of play did work, but I think that's basically because it's my regular group and we're used to each other and this sort of play. I'd like to encourage this part of play mechanically, and hopefully in a way that will help make those conversations more interesting.

My current ideas are:
- If you interact with another character you gain a relationship with them if you don't already have one, or add a tick next to the relationship you already have.
- A tick next to a relationship can either be used to change the relationship (e.g. "I hate Bob" might become "Bob isn't so bad"). It is then erased.
- A tick next to a relationship can be used to gain advantage in a crisis (that's my jargon, essentially we're talking a moderate bonus to the roll). The tick is then erased.

Mechanics note: Relationships are (currently) a description. They don't have any associated weighting - you just have a relationship with another character or you don't.

I like this in that it takes any GM or peer judgement out of the process, although I feel like you need a specified 'minimum interaction' level to qualify.

Perhaps give and take in the conversation - so that "Jones, a point to starboard" "Aye aye, sir" wouldn't count but if you talked to Jones about the weather and course, it would.

Do people think this sounds like it will do the job?

Has anyone got any other ideas about how to encourage this sort of conversation or banter in the game?

[TonyLB]

I don't think you're going to get the best results by rewarding this directly.  What I would do is to make personal conversations an arena in which the players can be doing important things with their own resources... not so much gaining them (necessarily) as rearranging them.

This gives the twin benefits that (a) they know when they need to call for such a scene (resources out of balance) and (b) they know when they need to stop, and get on to violent confrontation (resources are as good as they're going to get, until bloodshed throws them all out of whack again).

[MikeSands]

Yes, that's a good point.

Perhaps I can tie it into the character improvement mechanics - require that a scene be played to show the improvement occuring, rather than just spend the points and change the character...

[Bailywolf]

One aspect of such stories is the significance of well trained crew and good morale.  

Perhaps such social interactions- among the players, and between players and NPC's- can contribute to a mechanically-significant pool of morale or whatnot.

Essentially, the more social the players are, the more their ship will kick ass in combat or in a crisis situation.  Points from such a pool can improve ship-scale actions, responses to danger, resistance to fear, and the speed and effectiveness of gunnery, sail handling, and repairs...

-B

[Doehring]

In other games were character interaction is not the main goal of the game I mearly reward character interaction with experience, this allows them to better develop there characters skills as well as interact and develop there characters socially.

[MikeSands]

Bailywolf: That's a good point - it's part of what I was getting at in there already, but I think it's going to be worth emphasizing it.

Doehring: I specifically don't want to have the GM reward the desired behaviour in an ad-hoc way. I want the reward to be an organic part of the system, rather than simply recognition that you've impressed the GM.

[Bailywolf]

Bailywolf: That's a good point - it's part of what I was getting at in there already, but I think it's going to be worth emphasizing it.

Doehring: I specifically don't want to have the GM reward the desired behaviour in an ad-hoc way. I want the reward to be an organic part of the system, rather than simply recognition that you've impressed the GM.

Do you have a formalized scene declaration structure in which players can declare scenes with specific foci?

For example, you could apply the mechanical reward (whatever it may be) whenever such a scene is declared and played through without becoming a different type of scene.  

For example, declaring the social scene, then playing it to conclusion as a social scene, and not changing the nature of the conflict to violence or action or whatnot.  

Otherwise, make the roleplaying in the scene itself a modifier to a die check to see if points are gained from the scene.  This does still require some judgement on the GM's part, but less so.  If there is enough role playing, then add a single bonus to the roll, along with the characters' interaction skills/abilities/scores and roll it against a fixed diff for such a gain.  They interact, then roll to see if they can get something out of it.

This may be too hinky though.

What does the rest of the system look like?  Something may suggest itself from your existing mechanics.

-B

[Valamir]

I'll give an example of how I handle a similar consideration in my game Robots & Rapiers and then provide a suggestion that might work better for your game.

In R&R there is a score called Favor that a character can earn with another character.  This can be awarded as the result of completing a "quest" but is typically earned by interacting with the character in question (either roleplayed out, or abstractly out of play).  You can roll Persuasion Skills such as Flirt, or Cajole, or Intimidate and use the successes from the roll to purchase Favor (flavored by the nature of the skill used to get it).  You can use successes from a masterful performance to earn favor etc.  You can then call upon this Favor in the game to have someone from your network do things for you (either specific tasks roleplayed out in play, or abstracted out into Influence that can be used out of play).  This is done by makeing a d10 roll under the current Favor score with Favor dropping by 1 each time you make the roll (so players have to work to keep their Favor up).  


This mechanic is designed to allow characters to build a network of contacts who are, for a variety of reasons, beholden to the character and willing (or forced) to do help them.  This model is not particularly well suited to your situation where interactions are almost entirely defined by the structure of command: the difference between officers and men, the differences in rank and seniority among officers.  Relationships that break the boundaries of command are notable precisely because they break those boundaries.  Sometimes breaking the boundaries is shown to be of benefit, as with Hornblower greater than typical familiarity with Brown or Aubrey and Maturin.  Other times breaking the boundaries is shown to be dangerous, as when morale suffers because the officers are fraternizing too closely with the men...when the men stop considering the captain to be one step below god efficiency suffers.

I think whatever system you come up with should focus on the unique nature of social relationship within the confines of the naval command structure.  The Hornblower series demonstrates that much of the appeal of the balls and dinners and affairs of state that captains attend with full pomp and ceremony is in order to have the opportunity to interact with peers in a manner that they are not permitted to do typically with subordinates and superiors.  There is a decided notion of Jealousy between a captain who, on a ship, has no peers and thus limited ability for social contact and the Lieutenants who are better able to socialize within their cadre.  This to the extent that some captains will intentionally foster rivalry between their Lieutenants to alienate them from each other on the basis of the pecking order of seniority.

I think the absolute key to a successful system for a game in this setting is to emphasize the question of how to obtain social contact in a situation where permitted social contacts are highly regulated by rank within the navy and social status without.  Appearances of not being overly familiar with those beneath you or above you, the need to appear aloof and in command and how that conflicts with the very real human need for companionship.  Aubrey found companionship with Maturin in a way that allowed him to remain human.  Without Maturin as his foil, Aubrey is nothing more than a robotic officer going through the motions of being the perfect naval officer.  This relationship was possible because of Maturins unique position on the ship as being somewhat outside of the rank and command structure within the navy and, as a professional, somewhat outside the social structure without.

If officers are too close to each other are they more prone to sympathize with a friend who might be mutinous.  If they are too close to the men are they prone to allow inefficiencies to slip by unpunished.  What happens when an officer who found friendly companionship with one of the men has to administer punishment.  Finding an outlet for that need for companionship that doesn't then jeopardize the efficiency (and thus survival) of the ship, seems to be the keystone of any social interaction system within this setting.

[MikeSands]

What does the rest of the system look like?  Something may suggest itself from your existing mechanics.

The main mechanic is used to resolve crises - meaning anything threatening the characters, crew, mission or ship. This involves establishing what's being risked and potential gains or penalties based on whether the roll succeeds.

I may be able to build a social version of this mechanic in which the risks are to do with breaking the social code, as Ralph discussed (by the way, thanks for reminding me of that obvious facet of these stories). This would give you a basic structure for these scenes. You can gain advantages relating to relationships with other characters and/or crew morale through these scenes but you risk blowing it if you break the social code.

This will probably require setting out these social rules in a fair amount of detail - like the Comics Code in Capes. Then we have a standard for determining "was this socialising okay or not".

So I'd have a scene played through, usually with an objective for the player who initiated it (perhaps not only a social objective). As the scene goes on, perhaps more resources could be up for win or loss. If the social code is broken or when the climax is reached, a roll is made to determine how much of the staked resources are won/lost.

I think that could be what I'm after, once it's filtered in my brain for a while.

Thanks to all who have commented so far, you've all been very helpful.

[Shreyas Sampat]

You can gain advantages relating to relationships with other characters and/or crew morale through these scenes but you risk blowing it if you break the social code.

I am wondering whether you consider the emphasised bit above particularly important. If I'm reading Tony's suggestion about redistributing resources correctly, he's suggesting some abstract process that is simply enabled by interaction. I'm in agreement with my interpretation of that; social interaction does not necessarily need to lead to social advantages if that doesn't serve your target genre.

[MikeSands]

Shreyas: Yes, that's a good point.

Both of these elements are, in fact, able to contribute more widely than in the social arena - relationships with a crew member give you a bonus when they're involved in helping you deal with a crisis, for instance. But there's no reason to limit social scenes to only providing social benefits.

[TonyLB]

What I'm saying is that your social scenes don't have to have anything to do, mechanically, with relationships.

For example, some time ago someone proposed a LARP system where if you took a point of penalty from being bested in a conflict, you could only heal it by either drinking heavily or telling someone your tale of woe.  Two points of penalty, naturally, you could heal by doing both at the same time.

That's a very simple, very effective method of driving people toward certain nicely formulaic social scenes as a pure response to other game-mechanics.

Do you see how that differs, structurally, from a game that lets you accumulate Alcoholism Points by drinking heavily?