dungeon crawls and relationship maps

[Bill_White]

I can speak to the social networks issue.

The basic principle of social network analysis is that social entities (individuals, groups, organizations, e.g.) can be treated as "nodes" connected by "links" or "ties" (communication, kinship, co-location, e.g.) representing  (a) flows between pairs of nodes, e.g., who gets advice from whom, (b) social or other relations between pairs of nodes, e.g.,  who outranks whom, or (c) joint membership or participation in the same "event," e.g., who belongs to the same organization.

Representing nodes and ties as a graph allows the structure of the social network to be visualized; sociologists try to use these graphs to understand how the social network influences different social outcomes; e.g., in what kind of social networks are job seekers who are most successful at finding employment located?

Translating the logic of social networks to an rpg is not difficult conceptually.  I once ran a pair of PCs through a D&D session where they attended a party and talked to people -- each NPC belonged to a different aristocratic family, and the outcome of each of the PC's "actions" (flirting, carousing, etc.) was affected by the relations among the houses.  The PCs rather enjoyed it.  I could have done more to take the network concept more seriously, though.

But the point I really wanted to make was that it would be possible to treat the social network as the "dungeon":  you'd just have to define what the important connections were, and indicate how the PC's actions could change the strength of ties between the nodes -- and remember that the PCs would themselves be nodes in the social network, not "agents" traversing the network in the same way as adventurers exploring the dungeon!

Bill

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I agree with Bill. This is, in my view, the most common presentation of social-conflict role-playing. You can find it in several Over the Edge scenario supplements (e.g. With a Long Spoon), in GURPS Goblins, verbalized but not graphically depicted in the Tribe 8 core book, and implied by most of the games which provide "what each group thinks of the other" matrices, especially with a strong NPC list (e.g. L5R).

It is extremely similar to dungeon-construction, both in prep and play terms.

Best,
Ron

[Emily Care]

Bill explained the concept of social networks and it's application to rpg ably.
Here is a link to an introductory paper on the topic for further perusal.  

--Emily Care

[Thierry Michel]

I hope it's not bad form to resurrect a dormant topic, but this paper is just out:

Why social networks are different from other types of networks
http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0305612