Running Social Games

The adventures I run the most, and the ones I most enjoy playing in, are about interacting with people. My ideal session is filled with running around different places and dealing with all kinds of different people and groups with different needs, goals, capabilities, relationships, connections, hierarchies and networks. Someone who’s in the way between you and what you want is the most OSR-style challenge that there can be: a person’s psychology can be as deeply ineffable, variable, and idiosyncratic as you like, and it can be infinitely expanded upon by connecting it with other people or factions within a setting. Putting the prize the players seek in the hands of someone who doesn’t want to give it away is one thing; giving that character henchmen to order around and bosses to obey is another thing (especially when those bosses are just as driven to their own goals), and inserting it into a web of alliances, enemyships, protections, and favours owed and accrued, all ripe for your…

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