Not how to use solo tools socially, although that is a good blog topic, but how to emphasise or solely concentrate on social situations and avoid combat, potentially at all.
So let's dive straight in with a few ideas and alternatives. It's possible to mix and match a variety of these but some may be mutually exclusive, or not work for your game, so basically use what you want!
Emphasis
This is the easiest option to take, simply play up the social aspect or whatever your intended genre/style is.
If your first thought in a scene is combat related stop for a moment and think if it can be downgraded. Maybe consider what the opposition might actually want, nobody wants to get hurt! So think how they can achieve their goals without combat.
Once you get in to the mindset it can be quite easy to reduce or eliminate combat.
However, because it is the easiest, it is often the hardest to actually implement.
How do you keep social interaction things interesting though? Well, this is easier with the next option.
Varied results
My favourite ruleset Freeform Universal includes a variety of results, from Yes and... through to No and..., with but... results also included. These results increase the interest in the result of a roll, by avoiding the classic binary pass/fail result.
By including but... and and... results things become more nuanced, which works especially well in a social context. Yes you might succeed your goal, but they demand some of you to allow your request, or aren't quite as helpful as they could have been.
Of course there are multiple systems that have more varied results, and even if you are using a binary system you can introduce these types of results by testing 3 times.
3 passes - Yes and. An additional bonus, maybe more information or assistance
2 passes - Yes but. Overall you get what you want but maybe not completely, a complication, requirement or other slight bump
1 pass - No but. A failure but softened with a concession, or open to a change of approach
0 passes - No and. Not only a failure but a further setback, loss or absolute closure of the conservation
This is obviously helped by my next option.
System
A social game is often helped (unsurprisingly) by a game system that already has social rules. I'm not a fan of the concept of social combat, as in my opinion you can rarely change a person's deeply held opinion, and to call it combat diminishes the collaborative approach to persuasion that actually works in the real world.
Ignoring that though, a good social system will already have considered many of these points and means that you can lean on something without the need to amend or invent it yourself with potential game balance issues and other pitfalls.
For example many OSR games don't have skills, and relegate social interactions to in-character role playing. Using these games for a purely social game wouldn't be conducive to a smooth game.
On the other hand Fate Accelerated, and in particular it's use of Approaches, can be excellent for social games, plus you can determine if an NPC has a secret weakness or opposition to a particular Approach. Actually you can do this with a game with a broad range of social skills too.
Varied characters
All too often NPCs are Orc#2, not Scott Bailey a local young teacher, with a passion for hiking, looking for an affordable home with his fiancée.
Now clearly number 2 is a more rounded and interesting character, but producing those results can be hard work, but this is where I draw from both John Fiore's 9 Questions (in this case his NPC 9Qs) and The Sims (yes, the PC game).
In both of these systems you gain information over time. Discovering more details as you continue to interact with the same NPC over an extended period.
For example you first pick up on surface details, their appearance, overall mood or demeanour, and what their role or status in society is, probably even before their name.
All of these things can be randomly generated relatively easily (and you may already be generating these to round out newly met NPCs), but what else can you learn?
Let's start with The Sims:
Mood - how the NPC is feeling at this particular time. Everyone can have a bad day, or feel fantastic - to have unchanging characters is not only unrealistic but stifles game play. Yes your happy-go-lucky workmate may be feeling down, but why is that? Can you improve their mood? This is fodder to social interaction and your story.
Relationship status - what exactly is your relationship to the NPC? A long time friend will react differently to an invitation to go for a coffee than a newly met acquaintance, and your wife or girlfriend will react differently to your pranks than strangers (well, maybe not always!).
Character traits - what makes up your NPC, their personality and lifestyle, likes and dislikes etc. Sharing these traits will help you understand an NPC, and possibly create a connection.
Interests - are they a fan of sports, RPGs, certain TV themes etc. These are great for finding common ground (or not), are they RPG fans who play solo for instance?
Aspirations - what they actually want from life - kids, relationships, wealth, actually write a finished RPG etc.
The 9 NPC Questions are similar, but broken down in to things first picked in casual conversation - job, clothes etc. Personal traits that emerge after you have established trust or a similar world view, and Intimate traits you learn when they are truly won over.
Too often, even when we create these things, we receive them in an opening info dump. If we have to work for them that becomes part of the game, and better reflects the reality of getting to know a person.
So no combat, now what?
So without combat what does your PC do (if you haven't thought about it before).
With the threat of combat removed many people struggle to conceive what a game may entail. This is compounded by RPGs being very closely aligned to wargames and by extension combat heavy situations. This means that the overwhelming majority of RPGs are written for action/adventure games, and this can be a hard concept to overcome.
Maybe the first step is to consider the variety of books, films and television series that exist beyond the action adventure genre. So here's some broad genres or themes:
Investigation
Investigation and mystery games can be particularly social, with interviews and clue gathering. They are often the default 'non-combat' game because they are often combat light in fiction. If you think about it, apart from the inciting incident, in Clue/Cluedo there is no violence, and this holds true for the vast majority of real police investigations.
Exploration or Travel
A game of exploring the unknown or at least an uncertain journey. Ryuutama and No Man's Sky are potentital inspiration.
Persuading the masses, dealing with judicial matters, and other municipal or business matters. Could be anything from Veep to The Office or maybe finally doing that Pendragon Lordly Domains campaign you've always wanted to...
Romance
Cringeworthy for many players, but to the solo player something we can do more comfortably. Take your pick of the avalanche of films or books.
Sport or Culture
Perhaps your an aspiring racer, quarterback or actor. Again, no lack of available inspirational material, not so easily served in RPG terms, but often boardgames can fill these niches with you filling in the between game gaps.
Drama!
Even with all of the above, what do you actually do?
You need to see the drama and tension without the threat of violence. All of those genres above have different approaches to this. In the romance genre it is whether your character can have a happy ever after, the tension or drama in that genre is in meeting the right person, making a lasting connection and dealing with hiccups along the way.
The course of true love never did run smooth (A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare)
For an exploraiton game it would be finding what you wanted and overcoming the challenges along the way. What would Indiana Jones or a dungeon delve look like without active antagonists? What would an underground dungeon actually be like with a large fortune at the end? Dark obviously, how do you overcome this, how long does your lighting actually last? What over obstacles could there be? Underground rivers, ancient traps, curses and their ramifications, a race against another team. All good fodder for explorations.
Sometimes we need to break free of our RPG expectations, and hopefully some of the above will see how that can be achieved.
As with all of my blog posts in this vein, they are just the start of the conversation. Feel free to let me know, either here or any other place you may have seen me if you want more clarity, expanded explanations or indeed anything else.
