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<blockquote data-quote="WaterRabbit" data-source="post: 7540805" data-attributes="member: 2445">To me it is just the opposite.&nbsp; Building interesting social encounters is far more work than combat encounters.&nbsp; Most of my time building a combat encounter is just drawing the map and adding interesting details so player can make use of the environment. Running them can be time consuming though.However, building interesting social encounters where the DM isn't just talking to himself?&nbsp; That requires developing all of the hooks into society for each NPC and keeping track of what each NPC knows and what information they have previously imparted.&nbsp; It requires juggling all of this information across multiple sessions and keeping the players reminded of it.&nbsp; It also requires keeping NPCs memorable so the players don't forget who they are.&nbsp; To me the social layer is far more complex to manage which is why so little is presented in published D&amp;D material compare to other RPGs.&nbsp; It is also the part of the game where you can spend a lot of time making something only to have it easily derailed.&nbsp; An example of this is in a Curse of Strahd game I am running I have tried three times to introduce Rictavio to my players and every time they have just walked right past or ignored him.CoS is also unusually detailed compared to most D&amp;D modules on the relationships between the NPCs.&nbsp; The Mad Mage's Dungeon is more like how a typical D&amp;D module is set up.On the other hand, CoS is sparse on NPC details compared to a typical Vampire the Masquerade adventure.&nbsp; VtM adventures are usually light on combat encounter details instead.&nbsp; Shadowrun is usually in between with most of the focus on the environment.Oops, my bad hard to keep track of who wants to change what. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="WaterRabbit, post: 7540805, member: 2445"] To me it is just the opposite. Building interesting social encounters is far more work than combat encounters. Most of my time building a combat encounter is just drawing the map and adding interesting details so player can make use of the environment. Running them can be time consuming though. However, building interesting social encounters where the DM isn't just talking to himself? That requires developing all of the hooks into society for each NPC and keeping track of what each NPC knows and what information they have previously imparted. It requires juggling all of this information across multiple sessions and keeping the players reminded of it. It also requires keeping NPCs memorable so the players don't forget who they are. To me the social layer is far more complex to manage which is why so little is presented in published D&D material compare to other RPGs. It is also the part of the game where you can spend a lot of time making something only to have it easily derailed. An example of this is in a Curse of Strahd game I am running I have tried three times to introduce Rictavio to my players and every time they have just walked right past or ignored him. CoS is also unusually detailed compared to most D&D modules on the relationships between the NPCs. The Mad Mage's Dungeon is more like how a typical D&D module is set up. On the other hand, CoS is sparse on NPC details compared to a typical Vampire the Masquerade adventure. VtM adventures are usually light on combat encounter details instead. Shadowrun is usually in between with most of the focus on the environment. Oops, my bad hard to keep track of who wants to change what. :) [/QUOTE]

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