We’re taking a week off, and it's perfectly timed because next session, the players are attending a dinner with some key antagonists, and I really want to try out setting up a strong, structured social encounter that tests them and pushes their abilities the way combat does.
(There are going to be Curse of Strahd spoilers here, I assume everyone reading this has embraced that fact.)
To do this, I wanted to homebrew both a more active environment than the ones in the books, and some Adversary stat blocks with interesting stress moves. One of the few tips the book gives for managing social encounters is that you should have enemies take stress instead of HP damage. Once any character’s stress track is maxed out, they are Vulnerable—which, they suggest, you could take in a narrative sense as well as its more mechanical meaning. If you can render a social adversary Vulnerable, maybe they’ll be vulnerable to influence, or vulnerable to being tricked, or whatever else you might want to do instead of fighting them.
This seems like a fun thing to test, so I want to give the Adversaries moves that cost stress that the players can have the goal of trying to trigger in order to force them to take on more stress… or they can just stress them out by whatever means they desire, too.
So here’s the current version of what I made, though I’m still refining. My goals were to focus in on Fear moves as things to change the course of the narrative, while Stress moves were more reactive, things that showed the characters are on a bit of a back foot and trying to push back against the party.
ENVIRONMENT: WACHTERHAUS
Features
Discovery Clock: 4 parts to find cellar or hidden storage room; 5 parts to discover and speak to Stella.
Countdown: 4 parts for Lady Wachter or Ernst to notice any snooping. If the final part is filled on a roll with hope, Ernst (who is bribeable) finds you; with fear, it’s Lady Wachter.
Fear moves
Overheard: Ernst Lanark overhears anything said in the house and reports to Lady Wachter. This may begin the ‘be noticed’ countdown.
Unsettling Sounds: DC 12 Instinct reaction roll to hear wailing and thumping from the floors above. Others insist they heard nothing. (This activates the 5-part ‘discover Stella’ clock.)
The boys are back (in town): Karl and Nicolai crash the party, drunk.
ADVERSARY: FIONA WACHTER
Fear Moves
Blackmail: Spend a Fear for Lady Wachter to reveal her knowledge of something the characters have done recently, thanks to information from her (and Strahd’s) spies.
Stress Moves
Gaslight, girlboss: Spend a stress to convince the characters they’ve misunderstood her. They must succeed on a DC 15 Knowledge reaction—on a failure, they must spend one stress to resist.
ADVERSARY: VASILI VON HOLTZ (as I mentioned last time, I never realised Vasili isn’t actually in the book, but obviously I will keep with the great DM tradition of including him as a character)
Fear Moves
When alone with another character, Vasili can spend a fear to make them forget their entire conversation. The player must make a DC 18 Presence roll, anything but a success with Hope means they forget. On a success with Fear, they are dimly aware something happened.
Stress Moves
Smooth it over: Spend a stress to change the subject of conversation. For a moment, everyone forgets what they were talking about.
Baby it’s cold outside: Spend a stress to tempt the PCs to stay a little longer. They must succeed on a DC 17 instinct reaction—on a failure, they must mark two stress to resist.
This is already more abilities than the Social adversaries in the book have, but I’m waffling on whether I need more… however, I think once the scene begins and I have a clearer picture of the players’ planned tactics, it’ll be easier to improvise new Stress-spending moves in particular.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays, so check back next week to find out! And if you have any thoughts or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.