Running a satisfying social encounter can be a stressful prospect. You want your NPCs to feel like people rather than props, and to do that they need to have their own perspectives and goals. They can’t go along with everything the party wants, but neither can they be so intractable that the party learns it’s easier to solve their problems with combat. It can feel like you need to know a lot about a character before it’s possible to portray them faithfully in your game, but you don’t. In fact you already know everything you need to run a satisfying social encounter with any NPC. Even the rando you created 4 seconds ago. If what I’m about to say sounds incredibly basic, that’s because social encounters are incredibly basic. These are the touchstones I use to remind myself of how basic they are.

First:

What general group does the NPC belong to, and what is that group’s attitude towards people like the player characters?

Let’s say the NPCs in question are a group of orcs. How do orcs feel about humans? Odds are you can answer this without needing time to consider. You wouldn’t have included orcs in your game if you didn’t have some sense for what role they’d play. That’s the NPC’s basic outlook established already. Anything the players say can be measured against how an orc would feel about it.

This works better the more specific we can be about what relative groups the characters belong to. “How do humans feel about other humans” gives us some kind of answer. “How do town guards feel about heavily armed outsiders” gives us a much more helpful answer.

If you’re on the ball, the first player to speak should make a reaction roll. (2d6, modified by Charisma). If they roll a 7 (give or take), the NPC’s attitude is right in line with the norm for their group. Higher or lower indicates that the NPC’s attitude deviates to a greater or lesser degree. Rolls greater than ~7 indicate a deviation favorable to the PCs, rolls less than ~7 indicate the opposite. Ask yourself: why might this NPC deviate in the way they do? Don’t question your first instinct. Build on it.

Obviously this is reductive. Each person contains universes of individuality, but at the moment we’re just getting an NPC started. Individuality can come later.

Second:

If there’s more than one NPC, what differences of opinion might show themselves?

Some groups won’t show any, even if they do exist. A group of city guards will let the senior officer do the talking while the rest keep quiet and follow orders. Group dynamics still play a part (senior officers don’t like to be embarrassed in front of their men), but the referee only really needs to consider a single NPC’s perspective for this encounter.

Even in less regimented groups, the spectrum of opinions will fall within a limited range. Nobody in an angry mob is happy about the current state of affairs. They’re all angry, but some folks might be satisfied with a redress of grievances while others want to start building a guillotine.

A city council would have an even wider range of opinions, but still limited. Anarchists don’t get on city councils.* You’ve already got a sense of what sort of opinions people on a city council might express. They’ll disagree with everything the party has to say, then disagree with one another about why they disagree. It’s not important for the referee to know what motivates the individual NPC’s views at this point. It’s enough that they have a firm position, and the referee can figure out why they might have taken that position later. Maybe they’re corrupt, or they want to look good for the voters, or they’re acting out a role in some kinda conspiracy. Since it’s a fantasy game, you might even include someone with a social conscience.

Taken together it sounds like a lot of work, but it’s manageable if you introduce each perspective one at a time. What’s the last thing that was said? What sort of person might be inspired to respond to it? Don’t try to keep everyone straight in your head. Jot down one or two descriptive words for each participant who enters the conversation. Simple stuff like “Angry guy,” or “Moral Panicker.

All this is to say we can get a sense of who an NPC is by examining our basic assumptions about them. This makes them as easy to understand as any other part of the game environment. Something we can manage by referring to the core mechanic of the game:

1. Describe the environment.
2. Ask the players to describe how they interact with the environment.
3. Describe how the environment changes.

Like most of what players say in the game, their interactions with a social encounter can usually be rephrased as “Can I…?” questions. When they say “My blood tastes terrible, you don’t want it,” what they mean is “Can I convince the vampire they don’t like my blood?” Such questions can be answered with either Yes, No, or Maybe.

Is what the players want trivial, or in keeping with the wants of the NPC? Say Yes. (“Can I have a cup of water?”)

Is what they want outrageous or completely opposed to what the NPC wants? Say no. (“Can I have the deed to your home?”)

Does it fall somewhere between those two extremes? Have the player roll 2d6. (“Can I stay in your home tonight?”) The reaction roll is the attack roll of a social encounter. It gets rolled a lot.

Like in combat, players should be encouraged to think of creative solutions. Did they make a particularly convincing argument? Did they play to the NPC’s perspective? Did they show how their ideas would benefit the NPC? That’s like attacking when you’ve got the high ground. Give them a bonus to their roll.

Generally speaking, 9 is a good target for success. It’s just above average, so players will need to think on their feet to ensure they’re getting the bonuses they need for consistent success. I wrote a formalized system for handling this called “Simple Socializing,” but these days I tend to just pick target numbers that feel right using 9 as a baseline.

Once the encounter is going, and the players are speechifying, you’ve got room to think about what might make this NPC more interesting. Give them a quirk, or a skewed motivation. Look for wrinkles in the PC’s arguments that can serve as sticking points for the NPC. These are the twists that prevent everything from going according to plan, and result in a meatier, more interesting encounter.

If you need a name, pick an object in your environment and fuck with the pronunciation a bit. One or two syllables is best. A glass of water becomes a fella named “Ater,” table becomes “Tipple,” shelf becomes “Shuul.” It keeps things simple, pronounceable, memorable, and nobody actually cares what the NPC’s name is anyway.

I hope this makes sense, and has been helpful to somebody. The other day when someone asked me what my process for running social encounters was, it seemed like such an easy thing to write down, but I’ve reached that stage where I’ve been staring at this forever and I have no idea if it even makes sense anymore. x’D

*An anarchist on the city council sounds like a fun evening of D&D tho.

If you haven’t yet, please read these much better accounts written by more relevant figures. Nothing I can say will be as valuable as what they’ve said.

Mandy

Vivka

Stacy

Patrick

Scrap Princess

Scrap Princess 2

Mable

Fiona

Kiel

Kirin

I don’t have a unique perspective. I don’t have any new information. I have very little of use to say, aside from offering my miniscule boost to this essential signal. I will be brief:

Zak S. is dangerous.

Zak S. should not be tolerated in our communities.

I have removed the episodes of Blogs on Tape which highlighted his work, because their existence might lend him an iota of support. I will not link to him, I will not talk to him. I will not work or associate with anyone who works or associates with him–excepting work that must be completed to fulfill contracts or obligations which were made prior to Mandy coming forward. If Mandy’s abuser is part of your community, then you are not part of mine. I sincerely hope the people this cuts me off from are able to break free of his orbit soon.

I failed. It is not the first time I failed. I hope it is the last time I fail.

I believe women. I believe Mandy, Hannah, Jennifer, and Vivka. Their abuser cannot debate, intimidate, or manipulate me into silence. There is no place for abusers among us. #AbuseIsNotAGame

Aside: If you like ‘zines, you might consider backing “Silver Swords” on Kickstarter. They’ve hired me on to write an article for the first issue, and I think you’ll like what I’ve got brewing.

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In 2012 I had a head full of dreams and a blog full of dumb filler posts that nobody should ever subject themselves to. That said, the seven people who did read my blog back then might remember the couple months I spent bloviating about a game called LOZAS. It was going to be my attempt to combine the first four Legend of Zelda games with OSR rules. It got as far as a 14 page rough draft before my Fear of Finishing™ kicked in, and I abandoned the project forever.

Anyway, I spent the last couple days redesigning the whole game from the ground up. You can download it as a pdf if you want, but I’ve also printed the entire text of the rules below.

I want to be clear that this is a completely theoretical game at this point. The closest I got to playtesting was asking my friends what they thought of it, then ignoring everything they said and typing it up in a way that felt right to me. I’m not presenting it as a finished product, but as a basic engine that I think could be interesting. I wanna play it and talk about it and make it better. Maybe if we ever get it up to version 1.0 I could write a second document with monsters and items.

Or maybe nobody will care, and maybe I don’t care as much as it feels like I do. Maybe I just needed to exorcise the ghost of all that pointless hand wringing I did back in 2012. Maybe I’m only saying this because I’m afraid someone will call me stupid, and I want to give myself an emotional escape route.

People are complicated, amirite?

The Legend of Zelda
Adventure System

This game depends on an experienced referee. One who is comfortable arbitrating the details of rules and worlds at the table. Rulings should be grounded in the logic of Saturday morning cartoons, so that a skillfully swung butterfly net can deflect a ball of magical energy, and places can have names like “Death Mountain.”

Basic Play

The referee describes a situation, the players make decisions about how they interact with that situation, and the referee determines the effects of their actions. Actions which are obviously simple or impossible should be resolved by fiat. If the result of an action is not obvious, the referee should ask the player to roll whichever ability check seems most appropriate. A healthy environment of back-and-forth questioning and negotiation will help everyone maintain a clear picture of the shared imaginary space of the game world without feeling cheated.

Ability Scores

Each character has their own Power, Courage, and Wisdom score represented by a number of six sided dice. By default each character is balanced between the three attributes, with 2d6 in each. If they wish, players may choose a “Strong” attribute with 3d6, and a “Weak” attribute with only 1d6. During play the referee will often ask players to test one of their three attributes. To do this, roll the associated number of dice. If any of dice show a 5, the action is a partial success. If they show a 6, the action is a complete success. If they show two 6s, they are a critical success. If they show three 6s, they are a mega critical success. It is left to the referee to interpret what these degrees of success mean in any given situation.

Classes & Leveling Up

Adventurers start with 3hp, and are able to add an extra d6 to any roll once per hour of play.

Sages start with 3hp, and are able to cast a magic spell once per hour of play. (See “Magic”)

Soldiers start with 6hp, and deal double weapon damage on a successful attack.

Whenever a Great Monster is slain, those responsible are illuminated by a benevolent gold light which increases their hp by 1.

Items

Each character may carry 6 adventuring items. Trivial things like rupees, keys, ropes, torches, and rations may be hand-waved.

Weapons available to low level characters deal 1 damage on a successful hit. Fortunate adventurers may discover weapons which deal 2 damage eventually. Weapons which deal 3 damage are legendary.

Armor reduces the damage a character takes in a single round by 1. Note the limit is “per round,” not “per attack.” Rare magical armors may reduce damage by 2.

Shields offer no passive benefit for merely holding them, but may be used to actively deflect attacks.

Other make up all manner of weird and wacky stuff for your players to find. Curious items should be the primary reward for any adventure that doesn’t end in slaying a Great Monster. They are the primary method by which characters gain versatility as they progress.

Adventure

The overworld is all grassy fields and beleaguered villages and spooky forests. Here the players can explore in any direction, and travel is generally safe enough that the referee can skip ahead to the next interesting thing they encounter. Scattered throughout the overworld are entrances to the underworld. Ancient temples and crypts where exploration is more limited, and environments are dangerous enough to require the player’s constant attention.

Monsters

Every creature that challenges the players should have some trick for defeating it. Most can be defeated without it, but discovering the trick makes the process easier. One creature might electrify itself to harm anyone who attacks it. Another could be heavily armored, but take double damage from its own reflected projectiles. Any creature without a trick should be able to talk so that parley can be its trick. An average monster has 2d6 in each attribute, 2hp, and attacks for 1 damage.

Great Monsters have many tricks, and much more hp than normal monsters have. They are sources of great evil which poisons the world around them, and live at the bottom of underworld dungeons.

Combat

Attacks are usually made with a Power check, though it’s not inconceivable that players attempting something risky might make a Courage check, or that players attempting something tricky might roll Wisdom. A referee’s obligation to be flexible in their responses to the players does not end when combat begins.

Death occurs at 0hp.

Magic

Sage magic is supportive and helpful. To use magic in a selfish or harmful way is corrupting, and frequently drives the magicians who cast it to villainy. There are four forms of magic:

• Knowledge: Enables communication, or the discovery of new information.
• Creation: Conjures simple objects. Nothing with complex shapes or moving parts.
• Movement: Grant movement to thing which normally has none, or enable a creature to move in ways not normally possible.
• Deception: Project illusions into the minds of others.

Spells are cast by picking one of the four forms, and describing a desired effect that follows from it. Magic is not an omnipotent force. The more simple and direct and local and limited a spell is, the better it will work. It’s the referee’s job to assess the spells Sages describe. They may determine the spell is not possible, and ask the player to describe a simpler spell. The referee might also choose to assess costs or risks for casting too-powerful spells. Perhaps they will drain the sage’s hp, or have a chance to backfire, or a chance to disrupt the ability to cast future spells during this session. Player and referee should make every effort to be clear about what they’re attempting, and negotiate spell effects with one another in good faith.

Fighters are good at fighting. Their core mechanic is the same attack and damage roll used by every other class and creature. To do the thing they are good at they roll a d20, add some bonuses, and compare the result to a target number. This bare-bones framework has been used by players and referees to negotiate everything from kicking sand in someone’s eyes, to chopping off a tentacle, to winning at beer pong. Different people at different tables taking a shared notion of what a fighter ought to be good at, and making it work with a single codified mechanic.

Viewed from this perspective Magic Users are the first example of unnecessary complexity creeping into the game’s rules. It makes sense to a degree: strong humans exist ergo it’s easy to have a shared notion of what they can do. Fighters and Magic Users represent the extreme ends of a scale between the grounded and the fantastical; a scale which correlates linearly to class complexity. The less “real” a thing is, the more rules we need to understand it. But that gap between the least and the most complex class should be much narrower than Gygax intended.

I want to give Magic Users at my table set of simple tools. Tools both referee and player can hold the entirety of within their heads. Tools that can be twisted into different shapes to suit a million different situations. I want to harness the power of negotiation to give players a creative role in determining how their magic works, but I want that creativity confined strictly to the table.

Magic in the Moment

Magic users may know one Magic Word for each odd numbered level they’ve reached. They begin play with a single word randomly determined from the list below. New words (gained at levels 3, 5, 7, etc.) may either be rolled from the list, or discovered through play by some means acceptable to the referee.*

1. Fire	11. Bubble
2. Cold	12. Phantasm
3. Stone	13. Wall
4. Dark	14. Hold
5. Charm	15. Water
6. Slow	16. Gravity
7. Detect	17. Anchor
8. Animate	18. Separate
9. Nature	19. Create
10. Bone	20. Time

Magic Users may attempt to cast spells at any time by describing an effect which is supported by the words they know. For example, a Magic User who knows the word “Fire” might say: “I want to cast a spell…

• “to light all the candles in the room.”
• “to attack the goblin with deadly heat.”
• “to melt the manacles I’m wearing.”
• “to allow me to swim through that lava safely.”
• “to shape our campfire into an image.”
• “to neutralize the flaming oil they’re throwing at us.”

So on, and so forth.

After the Magic User describes their spell, the referee assigns a target number (discussed below), and the magic user rolls 2d6.** If they roll equal to or greater than the target number the spell goes off as it was described. If they roll less than the target number the spell fails. Failed spells may simply fizzle, or they may backfire more spectacularly depending on how badly the attempt was failed, and how the referee likes to run their game.

The base target number for any spell is 5 + the number of spells successfully cast. This resets each time the Magic User has a full night’s rest.

The base target number is intended as a starting point. It’s meant to be modified according to how closely the described spell matches the referee’s idea of what a Magic User is capable of. The referee should make every attempt to be consistent and communicative about their standards, and must be willing to negotiate. They have to be able to tell the player why the target number is what it is. If the player then wants to change the spell to get a more favorable number before they roll, the referee ought to allow that.

Some things simply cannot be done no matter how high the dice roll. If a first level character wants to use the word “Fire” to deal d6 damage to everyone in the world, the referee can just say ‘no.’ Ideally the standards will be consistent enough that players will learn how to reasonably predict what they can and can’t get away with. It’s the same as how some referees ground their rulings for fighters in real world history, while others ground their rulings in Conan stories.

I cannot dictate what level of magic power seems appropriate in your game. As an example, however, the difficulty of a spell might increase if:

• The caster is using more than one word.
• The spell’s connection to the word is tenuous.
• The target isn’t close enough to touch.
• The casting process is hindered in some way, such as the caster’s hands being tied, or attempting to cast without being noticed.
• The spell is in conflict with the environment, such as casting a fire spell in pouring rain.
• The spell has more than one target.
• The spell deals more than d6 damage.

Likewise, the difficulty of the spell might decrease if:

• The magic user is willing to spend extra time on the casting.
• Something appropriate is sacrificed, such as hit points, or a valuable item.
• Another magic user is helping with the spell casting.
• The spell is in concert with the environment, such as casting a fire spell in a volcano.

After successfully casting a spell, Magic Users may record the spell for later use. Each recorded spell may be used once per day without a casting roll. These still count as successful spells for the purposes of determining the base target number. Magic Users may know a maximum of one recorded spell per level. At any time they may forget a recorded spell if they wish to replace it with a new one.

Footnotes:

*Discovering a word in my game would require finding another magic user’s spell book, or performing some lengthy and expensive experimentation. Other referees might be satisfied to let a Magic User discover a word which they’d merely seen another Magic User use. Foolishly lenient referees might even let their players pick whatever words they like (scandalous behavior if you ask me.) In any event the important thing is that the player only have a number of words equal to half their level rounded up.

**If your game has ability scores, this roll would be a good thing for Intelligence to modify.

Thanks are due to Chris H. and John Bell for contributing to the development of this idea.

Post Script:

I don’t imagine the schedule of Papers & Pencils updates matters much to anyone but me. However, if you do care, be advised that I’m changing things up. For the past few years I’ve set myself a rigid 1-post-per-week goal. It was a good system for maintaining my work/life balance, but my priorities have shifted, and I don’t think a rigid schedule is a good fit for the way I do things now.

Going forward I’m only going to post something when I’m satisfied that I’ve completed something worth reading. That means fewer posts, but hopefully that lack will be compensated for by an increase in post quality. It should also mean that I spend less time writing filler posts when I ought to be getting the Duchy of the Damned Dancing Duke ready for layout.

I am fully aware that when I’ve attempted this approach in the past it has usually resulted in months of dead air. Sneeze sneeze, 2014, sneeze. I’ve got a different approach these days which I’m confident will be more successful. If it isn’t, I’ll just go back to a more rigid approach, easy peasy.

Thanks for reading!

(By the way: Magic Words doesn’t actually suck. I was just making a reference).

Way back in September I set out to write a big ol’ series about my old Dungeon Moon setting. I got as far as writing an introduction, and a bit about settlements before the site intrusion happened and I had to shut everything down. Now that we’re back, I’d like to pick up where I left off.

Characters earning experience points for the wealth they recover is hands down one of my favorite mechanics, but it’s a poor fit for Dungeon Moon. What you and I would consider “wealth” is commonplace there. Every human wears golden jewelry, every town is replete with marble statues. Without commodities to trade, no one values coins for anything other than their base metals, or maybe the art imprinted on them.

The real treasures to be recovered are simple things: food, clothing, books, pillows, wood, anything and everything that will make life a little better. So the question becomes: how does this translate into experience gain?

The most obvious solution would be some attempt to abstract it back into the comfortable XP for GP model. Each pillow is worth 100gp, and thereby is worth 100xp. While perhaps technically functional this approach wouldn’t create the impression I want. I don’t want players to nickle-and-dime their way to higher levels by selling things to their communities. I want to challenge players to really improve those communities. I want them to think about how to get enough pillows for everyone in town.

Throughout 2017 I playtested a ruleset designed by my friend John called “Into the Depths.”  Rather than characters incrementally gaining experience points to level, John wrote up a list of 20 generalized “great deeds,” which would grant characters half a level when they were accomplished. Ten of the deeds are repeatable (slay a famous monster, recover a priceless treasure, etc.), while the other ten only work a single time during the character’s career (obtain a noble title, swear allegiance to a powerful patron, etc).

I think something very similar could work for Dungeon Moon. It will take some tinkering and testing to get it exactly right, but this could work as a first draft. Obviously it draws heavily on John’s work.

On Dungeon Moon, Characters gain 1/2 of a level each time they…

1. Bring a new resource back to their community in sufficient quantities for every family to benefit.
2. Establish a safe path between their community and a trading partner or other worthy location.
   
3. Help an endangered community migrate to a new and safer home.
4. Solve a problem which posed a significant threat to a community.
5. Unlock one of the secrets of Dungeon Moon which will make the lives of everyone who knows it easier or safer.
6. Truthfully take a new community under their protection.
7. Significantly alter a community’s existing social or political structure without destroying or constantly policing that community.
   
8. Behold an incredible sight never to be seen again. (e.g. the birth of a demigod).
   
9. Slay a famous monster (e.g. dragon or demigod)
   
10. Make something lasting (e.g. write a book, build a castle, found a new community, establish a civil service, create a magical artifact.)
    

While it lacks the simple elegance of 1 xp for 1 gp, I do think this will push the gameplay in more interesting directions.

A new beginning!

After more than two months offline, I’m ready to get back to work making cool game shit. I’m sure a lot of folks have forgotten all about me by now, so I’d appreciate anything you all can do to get the word out that Papers & Pencils is up and running again. Add me to your blog roll, share a favorite post on social media, write a blog entry about how I’m your greatest inspiration. Before we go full-bore back into game stuff, though, let’s recap the last two months.

To start at the beginning: I fell for a phishing scam. This is a humiliating thing to admit, but it’s what happened. In my defense it was more sophisticated than any other phishing email I’ve ever received. Even once I started to suspect that the emails may have been the source of the hack, it took an IT professional friend of mine a good long while to confirm that the emails weren’t legitimate. 

To my knowledge, no visitor to Papers & Pencils was exposed to anything malicious. The intruders seem mostly to have been interested in using hidden pages on my site to do some skeevy SEO for various Chinese companies. I wrote a whole thing about the experience, so you can check that out if you’re interested.

In a way, needing to take the site down was a mixed blessing. The only reason I switched to that Black/White/Green layout in the first place was because of a technical problem with the site’s original layout that I couldn’t figure out how to fix. I was never very fond of that look. Being forced to rebuild the site from the ground up gave me an opportunity to do some stuff that I’ve been wanting to do for ages. How do you like the new color scheme? It is my favorite thing. 

I also used this opportunity to add some new sections to the site. Free Downloads and Index were both something I ought to have added ages ago. I’m going to make a real effort to keep both of them updated and growing in the future. What I’m most excited about is the Community Resources page. All of this is pretty basic here to start with. I didn’t want to keep the site down for longer than necessary, but I’m eager to improve all of them over time. If anyone has any suggestions for something that ought to be there, but isn’t, I’m all ears!

Restoring the site has not been without its troubles. My primary backup software failed me (another experience I wrote about while the site was down), so I’ve been needing to restore everything by hand. The work is tedious and time consuming. It’s the biggest reason the site has been down for as long as it has. Thankfully, as I write this, everything back through 2015 should be fully restored, which covers everything worth reading. (Take a look at how ugly the posts from 2012 currently are if you want to see how bad it was before!) In the coming months I’ll keep at it, restoring a few posts at a time until the full archive is corrected.

These past few months for me have been one of those periods where everything in life seems to be conspiring to go wrong simultaneously. Not only was my site hacked, not only did I get screwed by scammy backup software, but I had to deal with this during the most exhausting season of work my day job has. And one of my most cherished and long-lasting friendships devolved into a bitter enmity that I don’t expect will ever be overcome. And I discovered I have acid reflux disease, requiring that I alter my diet to avoid debilitating nausea. And I bought a brand new shirt that I really loved which got ruined on the very first day because a pen leaked and spilled ink all over it.

I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not. All things considered, I’m happy with my life and where it’s headed. I just mean to say that the last couple months have really divided my attention more than I was able to keep up with.

Oh yeah, and FUCKIN’ GOOGLE+ IS SHUTTING DOWN! Is it wrong that this was the most personally traumatic of everything that has happened in the last two months? It’s going to be devastating for the community we’ve built there. This is another thing I wrote about while the site was down. (That’s the last thing, though. You’re all caught up.)

It’s been a heck of a few months, lemme tell ya. But we’ve got a new site, with a new look, ready to face a new world. I’m gonna get back into writing those Dungeon Moon posts I left off with in September, and then I’ve got a few ideas about what I’d like to do next!

I am a wizard. 

And I’m gonna do it.