Trying to do Social Encounters in 5th Edition, Attempt #1: Failure

This past weekend I ran the second session of my 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game. Based on the feed back I got from the group, the session left something to be desired. When I was planning it out I wanted to try out some ideas I had for doing social encounters, a much neglected part of role-play games in most rule sets. I also through in a stealth mission and a sport called "Orc Ball." I thought this was going to be one of my better sessions but there were several points that I failed to consider in planning it.


After destroying the hapless kobolds from last time and stealing a piece of an artifact out from under a squad of orcs who picked the same day to raid the kobolds, the party high tailed it. They ran down to the river and tried to hide their tracks before heading back to a farm house they’d stayed at on the way in. The orcs, realizing that someone had looted the kobolds under their noses, followed the tracks down to the river, and since it was kind of obvious which way the party had gone (the other way the river continues down the canyon to a waterfall), the orcs continued up the river until they picked up the trail again. Say what you want about the intelligence of orcs, they are at least competent trackers, they knew the area, and these orcs brought dogs along as well. Anyway, the orcs made it to the farm house, found that the farmer had barred the door, and started demanding that the occupants send out the artifact piece, food, and any women they had.

This was the beginning of a social encounter I'd planned. The players could fight their way out of this one but it would be a tough fight and half the party wasn’t in armor. Also, they would be putting the farmer and his family in danger. On the other hand they could make checks to influence the orc chief. The encounter had three tracks representing to what extent the party had influenced the chief with regard to various lines of thought. These were:

1. That they were too tough for the orcs to beat. (Intimidation)
2. That they didn't have the artifact piece. (Bluff)
3. That the orc chief really didn’t need the artifact piece. He just wants it because his brother, the chief of clan "Skull Smash," has another piece and boasts that it increases the potency of his men, resulting in some defections from clan "Eats Baabies" (an inside joke) to Skull Smash.

There are a couple combinations of various progress levels along the tracks that can result in resolutions of the social encounter.

1. The party can intimidate the orcs into running away. However, chief Brutag would loose standing (there is another orc in his tribe after his job). The orcs return in the night, set fire to the farm house and then try to down the players with range attacks.
2. The party can convince the orcs to do a joint raid on the goblins to steal the goblins’ artifact piece. The players get the treasure and clan Eats Baabies gets the artifact piece. Of course, the players need the artifact piece for their quests so they’ll have to double cross the orcs eventually.
3. Chief Brutag agrees to challenge clan Skull Smash to a game of Orc Ball and to show the party the secret back door to clan Skull Smash's lair. Half the party gets to referee the Orc Ball game, the other half sneaks in the back while the Skull Smash orcs are out at the game.
4. The social encounter doesn't get resolved. Either four rounds goes by and the orcs break down the door or the players start a fight.

Each round the players can make checks to move on the tracks. They can make wisdom checks to get information about the status of the tracks and what resolutions might be possible. Also, each round, the orc chief and his lieutenant get to make checks to move the status of the tracks back toward zero. I used a system where 10 equals a one step move on a track, 15 equals two steps and 20+ equals three steps. As it happens the players talked to the orcs and got result three. However, after the end of the session a couple of the players said that they thought the social encounter was kind of boring. Additionally, since there were only two "good" outcomes, they felt railroaded.

The game of Orc Ball consists of two teams of arbitrary size lining up in an arena. A prisoner is brought in and released in the middle. The orcs then try to chase, push or pick up and throw the prisoner into the opponent’s goal zone. There are usually seven rounds plus tie breakers and dead prisoners can’t score points. Intentionally killing a prisoner is not allowed nor is attacking another orc. The prisoners were as follows:

1. Kobold: runs around randomly in terror.
2. Goblin: Refuses to act, shouts threats, and tries to maintain his dignity.
3. Sarah, 9 year old human girl: Brutag has bribed her with a promise of freedom if she can score a point for clan Eats Baabies. She’s fast and has high dexterity but isn’t very strong and only has 10 HP.
4. Kobold: curls up into a fetal position.
5. Gnoll: Tries to attack the orcs by biting.
6. Halfling farmer: Tries to throw himself at the feet of anyone who looks like they might be sympathetic (the players) and begs to be saved
7. Hobgoblin: Shouts insults and threats at the orcs and tries to climb out of the arena.

Basically, each prisoner does what’s described above when they are released in the arena, to make things interesting. Additionally, each round of the game, something random happens and the players have to make social checks to keep the game going. These include an orc shitting on the field, an orc streaker running through the game and chief Wargrock sending some orcs back in to his room (where the stealth team is) to get the two barrels of his "special beer." The idea here is that there are a lot of things that can happen. The players can incite a braw, they can try to rescue the human girl and the Halfling, they can play the game through to the end to buy the stealth team as much time as possible, or they could fail and have clan Skull Smash go back inside, or any other combinations of things. Essentially I was expecting the players to create their own fun with this. However, the orc ball basically just turn into me putting on a puppet show with the players occasionally making an obnoxious orc go sit in the corner. Moreover, I wasn’t looking at the time and it ended up going on for a lot longer than I intended. The players, after the session, declared orc ball "amusing" but long and not interactive enough. I had to agree with them.

Switching back an forth every so often with the Orc Ball game, was the stealth mission. Two things went wrong here. One, I didn’t plan enough stuff to put in they’re way. Two, the players rolled way too well and the orcs rolled way too poorly. The stealth team was basically in and out. All that happened of interest is that one of the chief’s mates was sleeping with the artifact in her arms. This led to a lot of jokes about which "chest" it was that the rogue was picking.

By the way, giving elves automatic advantage on perception rolls is ridiculously good. I mean, it's going to be very unlikely for them to fail a spot check or fail to find a trap. As the system is written, I can’t see why anyone would run a scout/trap finder rogue as anything other than an elf.

After securing the artifact piece, the rogue carved into clan Skull Smash's chief’s table the symbol of clan Eats Baabies, then left. Meanwhile, chief Wargrock finally got around to ordering his special beer.  There was a break in the Orc Ball game during which I was expecting the PCs to run like hell. Instead the refereeing group stayed put. Shortly there after the orcs sent in to get the beer came back out stating what they found. Clan Skull Smash then pointed at clan Eats Baabies and shouted "you betrayed us!" Clan Eats Baabies then pointed at the PCs and shouted "you betrayed us!"

From there things devolved into a three way braw. However the PCs managed to remove themselves from the arena and close the door trapping the orcs inside. Also, most of the orcs only had there orc ball sticks with them instead of there weapons. The players were able to wipe out the relatively few orcs outside the arena. Chief Wargrock got a stick through the eye and chief Brutag started trying to rally all the orcs against the common enemy, the PCs. However, to spite a substantial bonus to Brutag’s rolls, he rolled poorly and the party cleric was able to use some charisma checks to keep the two clans fighting until only a few were left. Most of the orcs stayed alive, they were just rendered unconscious.

The stealth team, while this was happening, asked if they could hear the fight starting. They rolled really well (elves) so the answer was yes. They then asked how long it would take them to get back. They had been fleeing the area at top speed up until then, so I felt 6 rounds away was about as close as I could let them be. That proved to be a big mistake because 6 rounds of combat is a long time out of game during which they were stuck cooling their heels. To be fair though, I kind of thought that the rest of the party might run toward their reinforcements. This, again, was not the case.

One member of the stealth team was the bow fighter I came up with and talked about in another post. Basically, if the fighter given in the provided materials is legal, so is this guy. His long range was 600 feet, more than the distance from where we started the stealth group from the main fight. Granted, he gets disadvantage on his rolls, but given the bonuses he gets to attacks and the orcs low AC, he still hit every round and even if he had missed, he would still have dealt damage equal to the ability modifier used to make the attack (4 in this case).

In other words, the ranges on bows in this game are ridiculous from a game balance perspective, even if they are realistic.

Also, I think we should bring back "all-out runs" where you can move four times your speed in a round by giving up your defenses.

Finally, rogues are supposed to do huge amounts of damage when they catch someone off guard. At first level, as written, the rogue deals as much damage with sneak attack as the fighter does all the time. That should be fixed as well.

Anyway, the rest of the party finished securing the orcs' surrender as the wizard and the rogue ran up. The rogue got one attack in this whole thing and the wizard got none. Guess I can’t blame them for getting frustrated with me.

Game Mastering Lessons Learned:

• Avoid splitting the party. Sometimes it can be interesting but it always involves half the party sitting on their hands while the other half gets to do fun stuff.
• Avoid putting on "puppet shows."
• It’s great when the players make their own fun, but as game master, you can't assume that this will happen.
• Also, while I’m not giving up on figuring out some rules or guide lines for building interesting social encounters, what I have needs work.

By the way, I wouldn’t mind getting more comments on this blog if you’re interested in sharing your opinion. If you’re lazy, that’s what the check boxes above the comment link are there for.