The Social Crawl, Part II

Don't let this happen to you!

There you are, players sitting across the table from you, like baby birds waiting to gobble your regurgitated brain worms. You spent an hour last night making a Social Crawl map, and you stare at it intently, waiting for inspiration to strike like so much upchucked half-digested meat and silence the player’s incessant cawing. You stare harder. A blood vessel bursts in your brain, rendering you insensate and nearly dead. Your players eat your still warm corpse to absorb the knowledge. They all gain a level.

Rules for the GM

At its core, a Social Crawl is just a map, but it's a hidden map. People are generally pretty good at mapping out social structures in their head, and part of the challenge of a Social Crawl is figuring out who knows who. And for those people who aren't naturally inclined, knowing there is a consistent map means they can structure the connections and treat it as a puzzle.

Locations matter

 Each NPC on the Social map lives and works in some spot on your location map. Sometimes multiple characters can live in a location, but that's how your players meet your NPCs.

NPCs have needs

 Each NPC has something they need that the PCs might be able to provide. Sometimes those needs are obvious from the connections, sometimes they are not. You don't need to know every single NPCs need, just the ones that the PCs encounter at that time. In fact, it's good for needs to change every couple of encounters.

Influence flows like water

 Typically, characters higher on the Social map can influence characters lower on the social map. The nature and degree of this influence depends on the type of connection, and some types of connection preclude any influence. When a character has influence over another they can change their needs, force them to change their opinion of the PCs, or use their resources for the influencer's benefit.

The Social Map is reactive

 When the characters take action, it ripples through the connections. Within a day or two immediate connections will have heard of what the players did, for good or ill, and adjust their reactions accordingly.

NPCs have opinions

 When the NPCs first meet a PC, make a reaction role per the rules of your favorite system.

• Positive Result - The NPC will pave the way for any connections the PCs think to ask about and might disarm a trap if the PCs can meet their need.

• Neutral Reaction- The NPC will reveal connections if asked about them, but only if there is some benefit and no risk to themselves involved. 

• Negative Reaction- The NPC will lie about vulnerable connections and might point PCs at trapped connections.

Rules for the players

If the social crawl is a map, then talking to NPCs is how you move through the map.

Scouting

It's not a good idea to head into a situation not knowing the players involved. In a social crawl you scout by hitting up the local gathering places and spending some time and money on learning who knows who. You have to have some general idea of what you're looking for, even 'whoever runs drugs here'.

• OSR- Spend 3d6 silver and 1d3 days of carousing to learn who the NPC you're looking for is. Multiply the cost and time for each connection you want to know, and double it for every step above the bottom rung the information sits at. Traps can be revealed with an extra 4d10 silver. Every day of carousing, there is a 1-in-6 chance the target is aware they are being scouted.

• 5e- Spend 2 days carousing to learn the name of the contact with a DC 12 Insight check. For each connection you wish to learn, make another DC 15 Persuasion check. If you have the background, you can scout a higher status contact. Otherwise, increase the DC by 3 for each step up the bottom rung. Traps can be revealed with an extra DC 15 check. The target becomes aware they are being scouted on two failed checks. 

Interaction

Knowing who the NPC is is the first step. Once you know who they are and how to approach them, you have to charm, cajole, bribe or placate the NPC into giving you the information you need. This usually involves learning what the NPC needs and providing it for them-- or convincing them that you can. 

NPCs typically know one or two connections of any NPC connected to them, but they are unlikely to know the nature of the connection or how to access these people.

NPCs might lie about the nature or even existence of connections. If in doubt, you can always follow up on your hunches with more scouting.

Following Connections

Moving through a connection means that the NPC has given you more than just the name of their contact, they've told you how to get in contact with them. You have the right code words, invitations, letters of import, or word sent ahead to pave the way for you. However, you might be walking into a trap-- a social hazard that can have disastrous consequences.

Dealing with Traps

In a social crawl traps are those moment where you've violated some social rule you were only dimly aware of existing, or stepped into a pre-existing tension and directed the ire towards you. You can deal with traps a few different ways.

• Avoid the trigger: each trap has some condition that will trigger the trap, which might be hinted at during your interaction. An Insight check (or Wisdom roll) might reveal the existence of a trigger, and let you simply not do what would trigger the trap.

• Deal with the fallout: you can just trigger the trap and deal with it. Sometimes that means a fight, other times it means an expensive apology. 

• Charm them: An NPC with a positive opinion of you might smooth things over with a contact's trap if you can prove it will be worth the trouble.

Afterword

So there you are- once you see the procedures for the social crawl, you can start to see how you can use if for different adventures. 

If you're running an intrigue game, you know that higher status characters can influence lower status characters, and might even be the reason certain traps are in place. If you're running a murder mystery, create a big map and begin knocking out NPCs along connections, letting the players figure out who is connected to whom.

If you're using this system, the GM doesn't need to hold a huge amount of information in their head, just the current NPC and their connections, and the players know their their interactions have some structure to them.