This post is part of my series on supporting player skills, which also includes Let’s Talk About Player Skill and Equipment, Let’s Talk about Player Skill and Notes, and Let’s Talk About Player Skill and Planning.

As many people have said, roleplaying games are a conversation. Social situations are one of the fundamental building blocks of adventures. Yet, you may have the situation where the characters attend a ball or a negotiation or other social situation, and the players just freeze. You may even be such a player. Without the help of a turn procedure or a combat procedure, when the situation turns most to free-form RPG, some players struggle. After all, not all of us are comfortable with social situations in real life either or have experience in convincing people or engaging in high-powered negotiations for the fate of the world. But, just like combat, social situations in RPGs are something that players can learn to play better, and there are ways to support that.

At this point I feel I should make the perhaps obvious observation that going to an RPG party is not like going to a real party. You don’t go to an RPG party to get wasted and pull¹, is what I mean. As a player in an RPG, a party is a strategic situation, in which you typically have game objectives, such as:

• gain information
• change someone’s attitude to you 
• deepen your character’s backstory
• don’t get into trouble

And there are game methods to do most of these objectives. 

The social game loop:

You can think of a party, or any social RP situation, as having a game loop like combat. Here’s the loop in its most simplified form:

1. Gather information (leverage)
2. State your goal plainly 
3. Use your leverage to help you with your goal

Leverage

Generally speaking, in any conversation where you have a goal, you want to have leverage. To get leverage, you need to know something about the NPCs you are talking to. You want to figure out:

• what the NPC wants (their long-term and/or short term goal. This can be big “Overthrow the Gods” or small “Make sure my pipe-leaf collection wins at the village fair”);
• who the NPC is allied to (their allies and enemies, D&D 5e calls this their bonds);
• why they want what they want and how they prefer to work (their motivation, in 5e this is called their ideals);
• and, what weaknesses they have (their flaws).

When you know some of these things, you can use them to gain advantage (either mechanically or in a roleplay sense) based on this leverage. For example, if you share their goals or bonds, or are fighting for the same reason, it becomes much easier to make common cause. If you know their flaw, you can exploit it. 

Using Leverage

But how exactly do you use leverage? I will take an example from D&D 5th edition.

In Shadow of the Dragon Queen we are introduced to the young squire Darrett Highwater. The text says:

Ideal. “My honor is my life.
Bond. “As Becklin’s student, I’m trying to learn everything I can from such a hero.”
Flaw. “Though I understand military strategy, I’m inexperienced at comand and have a hard time delegating.”

Let’s say we want to convince Darrett to lead a (probably doomed) charge to attack a bunch of Draconians because we want him out of the picture.

You can do this primarily through first-person roleplaying as follows:

(You, to DM: I want Darrett out of the picture.)
“Darrett, my friend,” you say, “Becklin isn’t here to guide us right now, but she used to say ‘Sometimes, all it takes to be a hero is to put yourself in the right place at the right time’” (a ridiculous argument but it plays on his bond).
“We have two choices: flee dishonorably or take a team of admittedly inexperienced soldiers to the draconian stronghold. But we’ll need a strong leader for that.” (appeal to his ideal and play on his weakness).

Hopefully at this point poor, naïve Darrett volunteers.

Or, you could play it in a less RP way: 

You: I want to convince Darrett to take this group of villagers and fight the draconians. (Here you state your intention plainly, which is really important.)
DM: You know that’s a suicide mission, right?
You: Sure, but I’m going to remind him that Becklin talked about how heroes need to be in the right place. I’ll make the case that our only other choice is to flee, which would be dishonorable. And I know he hates to delegate so I’ll subtly reinforce that he’s the only one who can do it.
DM: You are indeed evil. Yep, he’s convinced. Bye bye Darrett.

Two parts of using leverage

Note here two elements:

1. You tell the GM what you are trying to achieve, above table.
2. You either roleplay or describe your leverage.

You can also roleplay first, then tell the GM. 

Because you are trying to convince Darrett, in D&D the DM might have you roll a Persuasion or equivalent check (probably at advantage). Or, they might decide your leverage is enough. You might have to accept a a risk, as well. For example, Darrett might see through your ploy and realise you want him eliminated. Uh oh. Stacking the deck with leverage is the best way to prevent this unwanted consequence.

There’s also a rule of thumb: the bigger the secret, the more leverage you need. It’s easy to find out what someone’s favorite beer is, much harder to find out who the head of the secret cult is.

Getting Leverage

You might be wondering how you find out the bonds, ideals, flaws and goals in the first place. You can of course make an educated guess, but you could be wrong. However, the play to find out information is more or less exactly the same: state your intention and roleplay or describe your leverage. Say you want to know more about Darrett.

You to DM: I want to figure out what makes Darrett tick. (stating your goal explicitly.) I know he always hangs around Becklin, so I’m going to fish for information. (In this case, Becklin is your leverage. It’s not much, but you’re not asking for that much.)
“So Darrett, I guess you admire Becklin?”
“Wow you’ve always wanted to be a knight?”
“What’s the hardest thing about training to be a knight?”

Or from a 3rd person perspective
You to DM: I want to figure out what makes Darrett tick. He’s always hanging around Becklin, so that’s where I’ll start. Can I ask him about his relationship to Becklin?
DM: He thinks she’s really smart and can teach him a lot.
You: OK, but what’s he doing? Does he want to be a knight or something else?
DM: Knight all the way. He’s really into honor.
You: Hm, why isn’t he a knight yet? Does he have some key skill to learn?
DM: Becklin has told him he needs to be better at delegating.

Note that in D&D a DM might ask you to roll an Insight check as you’re gathering information, but often, you will be able to find it out just by asking.

Building a Little Black Book

As a social or charisma-heavy character, you should see each person you meet as a source of leverage. In real life this would be extremely off-putting and borderline pathological, but this is a game. Your goal in the game is a network of contacts you can use to help your party with resources and information. Need to find the cult’s hideout? You should know someone, and, more importantly, what’s important to them. This is where your little black book comes in.

Every time you meet an NPC, write their name in your book, and near it, write any leverage you get about them.

Don’t write:
Darrett. Young, hot, funny voice.

Do write:
Darrett. Wannabe knight. Loves Becklin. Respects authority too much??? Knows the territory up north. (Vogler, Session 2)

I usually also add the session number and their currently location so I can refer to it in the full chronicle of notes. 

If you begin to find factions, you can profile them the same way (with their goals, and keep an index of factions in your notes as well.

Helping your players

As a DM, you can help your players (and yourself) by asking them their intentions in social situations, and asking them what they are using as leverage.

You can also give them a little black book (or as I call it, little book of leverage)! Here’s one I made. You can print it as an a5 booklet (half an ordinary sheet of paper) but I really like printing it a6 (half the size of a5) and sticking it in the back of my a5 player notes. It’s got reminders of the loop, NPC and faction pages. And hey, if you like it, why not drop me a tip on ko-fi.

1. Pull is British slang for “find an attractive partner and remove them from the party for amorous activities” ↩︎