Advice on Social Encounters in PBP


Online Campaigns General Discussion


I've had a long absence from running PBP games (and wasn't particularly experienced back then anyhow) and am struggling with social encounters. I'd really appreciate any pointers from the more experienced (or anyone really!) as to how to make them work better.

The issue I have is basically knowing how hard to push the encounter along and how much to leave to the players. Combat scenes are relatively easy to keep things rolling - once we're in initiative, it's clear whose turn is next and any posts-out-of-order are relatively easily dealt with.

I'm struggling now with how long to wait between posts. The party has just met a group of NPCs - some of the PCs have introduced themselves and others not. Do you think it's best to wait til everyone has a chance to say 'hello'? Or is it better to push on with a conversation with the first responders and just assume the others took a backseat early on?

How do you generally run social encounters going forward? Do you exchange one or two posts with the party and then post a 'summary of the conversation' going forward (essentially getting the PCs to set the tone but mandating how it's all going to play out) or do you let the action slow for a week or so whilst a full scene plays out?

I'm really interested in hearing any opinions about what's worked in games you've run, what you like as a player, what you don't like, etcetera. It's proving quite unsettling as a DM. :/


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Unless it's important that one of the PCs chime in, just push on. One thing that can be helpful is to provide subtle pushes and hooks to involve the other PCs. "Well met, Andrietta, but who are your entourage? The one with the big teeth looks... unfriendly. Is he quite tame?"

(This will quite often poke a silent but not absent player into speaking up with a retort, or have the other players introduce the others, and then you move on.)

Pace is important in PbPs. If it lags too much, you can lose everyone. Do you have an expected posting pace in your game of once or more a day? If you don't yet, open up a talk in discussion and set up a botting policy. Get the players to buy in.

Remember that not everyone will participate in every social encounter. Some characters will be shy. I love it when players of shy characters post anyway with something like:

___

Raul stays silent, watching Andrietta talk. How can that bird just keep talking like that? It was a marvel, just watching her beak move. Then he turns his gaze on the others and silently studies them for threats.

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28

They would get nothing past him!

___

Unfortunately, not every player gives you those out of character clues. So just move on with the conversation and include hooks for the quiet players to hopefully reel them in.

Does this make sense?

Hmm

PS There is also great advice on this in another recent thread on pacing.

PPS Wei Ji, if you're reading this, I love Andrietta! She just makes a great example because she just loves to talk!


I'll second what Hmm said.

Also, ideally, you can ask the quieter players via another channel (just a post in discussion can work) if they're being quiet in-character, if they're quiet because they're busy and haven't been able to keep up, etc. If they have some temporary issues that are keeping them from posting frequently, and they make it clear they'd like to be more involved in the conversation, you can consider slowing things down for them. Otherwise, keep forging ahead.

Within reason. Don't let someone dominate just because you and he/she both happen to be online at the same time and you post back and forth twenty times in an hour. But do press forward if only one person has said anything and it's been over a day, assuming that's your usual posting rate.

Monty Haul wrote:
How do you generally run social encounters going forward? Do you exchange one or two posts with the party and then post a 'summary of the conversation' going forward (essentially getting the PCs to set the tone but mandating how it's all going to play out) or do you let the action slow for a week or so whilst a full scene plays out?

For this part... I usually play conversations out, but deliberately keep them short. I've let them run long a couple times and you always start losing some people, but it's a bit heavy-handed to hand out a summary. You can almost always find an in-character way to wrap up a conversation quickly. (What's the old advice? If things get slow, have someone come into the room with a gun in their hand?)


Thanks. I really appreciate the tips. So far I haven't lost any players, so I guess that's a good metric. :p

The timezone issue is significant. I'm in Australia, so often the players all post while I'm asleep, but there are a few who obviously post the same time as me, so I could easily go back and forth with them - it was that consideration that prompted this thread I think. I would wait until a night had passed before replying, but then felt like maybe I was dragging things along too slowly...

Cheers


It is a good to agree on the speed of posting. If three people in a group want to post 10 times a day, and three others only twice a week, you are sure getting problems.


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Late to this, but as Milly woke it up...

1. I generally give my players 24 hours to post, then move on. (But this works for the pace of my game and you have to figure out what works for yours). This is true of any scene, social or otherwise.

2. I try to urge my players to post in the discussion forum "I am watching but have nothing to say" if they are watching but have nothing to say. Some folks are totally cool sitting back and reading while others talk, but I don't know that unless they say so. The practice of their actually posting when they're watching but not talking is less successful than I'd like it to be, but it helps.

3. If there is an intensive back and forth between one player and another, or an NPC, I try to throw in other scenes for other players if they DO want to move on.

4. I allow and encourage back tagging as needed (post in a spoiler the thing you said yesterday while the game moves forward). However, this works less well for "encounters" -- if it's a thing where you need to resolve something with an NPC, you want it to stay present in the thread. But it can work very well for PC conversations--two people can talk amongst themselves without holding the others back from moving on.

I've not had an issue in these boards, that I can recall, with one person seriously dominating a conversation (unless I was the one doing it.... *guilty look*), but if someone WAS, I'd simply post in ooc text, "Bob, before I respond to your post, I'm going to give XYZ a chance to reply in case they have anything to add to the conversation that's already occurred." (I've played in minimally moderated freeform games where people who are online at the same time end up dominating conversations and ignoring everyone else who also aren't online at the same time to respond, and that gets infuriating... but I've seldom seen it in PBP I think precisely because the GM is there to help with the pacing and people behave themselves better. [But why did you play in those games then, DQ? Well because they were fandom games and I like playing fandom characters sometimes, and noone runs fandom based games here.])

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