A King’s Banquet
When the party is invited to a fine banquet with a king, they’ll need to make a good impression with the royal court.
A Social Encounter to Drop Into Your Game
Monarchs can provide a lot of utility for a party. Loot, information, armies, land—there’s almost no goal that can’t be assisted by a little help from the king or queen. If your party needs to have an audience with someone powerful, this encounter is a good opportunity for them to try and win over a few assets.
Creating These Encounters
There’s a few reasons your players might need to attend a dinner like this one. Think about what the players are pursuing and the forces that might stand in their way, then choose an encounter from the list below that matches one or both.
Rules
I usually prefer to run my social encounters in one of two ways depending on the preferences of my players. The first is a roleplay-heavy approach, relying on what I know about the PCs and NPCs involved with the occasional skill check. Let the players steer and see where it goes.
The other option is to use a more skill-check heavy system. You could use a skill challenge style system, like in All Who Wander, or just use checks when the need arises. For this encounter, I would say the party has to win over 4 or 5 nobles to get the influence they need and achieve their goal. I can adjust how difficult the encounter will be by limiting the number of nobles at the party. If there are only 7, there’s very little room for failure, but if there are 10, then the party can change tactics a few times when needed.
Noble Personalities
With so many nobles, you’ll need some minor ways to distinguish them. Here’s a list of names and traits you can elaborate on as you see fit. Pad out the system with NPCs your characters are familiar with and people they need favors from.
- Lord Cedric Evermoore: Arrogant and condescending
- Lady Seraphina Blackthorn: Mysterious and enigmatic
- Baron Reginald Ironfist: Stern and disciplined
- Duchess Isabella Silverwood: Graceful and refined
- Count Lucius Bloodbane: Cunning and manipulative
- Lady Amelia Stormrider: Adventurous and free-spirited
- Duke Alaric Stoneheart: Stoic and honorable
- Viscountess Elara Nightshade: Witty and charismatic
- Baroness Astrid Ravenshadow: Cold and calculating
- Marquis Julian Thornfield: Charming and charismatic
Goals
Player Goals
- Acquire a valuable asset: Run Encounter A
- Acquire important information: Run Encounter B
- Assassinate a normally hard-to-reach enemy: Run Encounter C
Faction Goals
- Recruit gullible adventurers for a scam some nobles are running: Run Encounter A
- Hire mercenaries for a near-impossible mission: Run Encounter B
- Have enemies of the state quietly disposed of: Run Encounter C
Encounter A
In this encounter, the party must win over the court to acquire a useful item, a loan, or another valuable asset.
How to Set Up This DnD Social Encounter
This encounter involves winning over a group of nobles to get an asset from the court.
What are your players after? Do they need a powerful magic item, a pile of gold, an army? More importantly, why do they need it? If the purpose they would use it for is a good one (or whatever they say they’re going to use it for) that can be a way to convince the nobles to help out.
Additionally, define your noble faction. Are they cruel and conniving, trying to conquer neighboring nations and exploit their own people? Are they warmongers, classic politicians, holy leaders, or a wizardly council? What they value determines what the players can use to win them over.
Action!
The players need to speak with and win over at least 4 or 5 nobles to get enough support to acquire what they want. You can use the guidelines above to run the encounter itself.
Remember, some nobles have agendas! You might want to group multiple nobles under a single ringleader, one that schemes and plots against other important figures.
How I Resolved This DnD Social Encounter
When this encounter finishes, if your players won over enough nobles, they acquire the assets they were after. If they were close to failing, there are probably some serious strings attached in how they need to be used—the nobles will want a lot out of the deal.
On a failure, the nobles aren’t willing to lend out the assets…yet. The best way to keep the story moving is to have the faction demand the PCs accomplish a difficult task if they want to get what they want. They might demand the party prove their worth by killing a powerful political ally, undermining a political operation, or destroying an entire castle.
Worst case scenario, they offend the nobles and make some powerful enemies.
Encounter B
In this encounter, the party tries to extract information out of a noble court.
How I Set Up This DnD Social Encounter
This encounter involves getting information out of a court of nobles. You’ll need to think about what they’re trying to learn and then break it up into tidbits they can tease out of nobles via courtly gossip.
For example, my party was trying to learn the true identity of the king’s advisor, who they suspected of conspiring with dragons. That’s a classic scenaria, so I came up with the following list:
- The advisor was originally from a noble family from the other side of the nation.
- His fief was known to associate with powerful dragons.
- He executed enemies of the crown on possibly false charges.
- Some say he’s been embezzling funds from the court.
- He sneaks out late at night…why?
- He dropped a ceremonial cup last winter during one of the most bitter colds. So strange, in the summer heat he’s usually active and has great reflexes…
And so on and so forth. Once you have these and your nobles, you’re ready!
Action!
The players need to speak with and win over at least 4 or 5 nobles to learn what they need…or the nobles get suspicious and won’t reveal any more. You can use the guidelines above to run the encounter itself.
Remember, some nobles have agendas! You might want to group multiple nobles under a single ringleader, one that schemes and plots against other important figures.
How I Resolved This DnD Social Encounter
My players got all the information they needed and decided the advisor was a polymorphed dragon. They were right! What your players do with any information is up to them—they still have to take what clues they know, put them together, and choose a course of action from there.
This encounter is nice for failing forward because there isn’t really any “failure” in the typical sense, the players just have fewer clues to draw a conclusion from. Failure probably means they’ll make an incorrect assumption and blunder into a dangerous situation, which is just more fun!
Encounter C
In this encounter, the party is only here to get close to an individual they’re trying to assassinate.
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