Traps of the Social Kind

Too many players (and referees) forget that the "RPG" part of "TTRPG" stands for "role-playing game." While the players have no problem getting into specific roles and do their best to act in those roles, the scenarios they tend to find themselves in are pretty much some variation of a fight, be it in a dungeon, bar, or forest; there are few scenarios of the non-combat type. It may be useful to think about different types of social challenges just to shake things up and to give people a chance to try something else.

Shoring Up Support

Most social challenges are all about the players getting support for one cause or another. There's usually some combination of social challenge and adventure; the NPC will support the PCs' goal if they steal, kill, or otherwise grab something for the NPC. In some cases, however, it may be better to run the situation as a purely social situation, where the PCs need to garner support through purely diplomatic means. This means that the PCs will need to use their charm, intimidation, and even seduction skills to effect rather than just beating people down.

Two variations on this are where the Pcs need to get into a contest through social skills or where their combat skills help their social status. The latter is pretty straightforward: The characters need to prove their combat worthiness before they will be taken seriously; leading a raid or winning a duel before the social games can begin; this is a nice inversion of the usual order of social games leading to a combat. The former is a three-part mess where the players need to bribe, intimidate, or bargain with someone to get into a contest, win the contest, and then that's their ticket into the real game. This latter gives everyone a chance to shine, albeit in turn rather than as a single unit.

Time to Collect 

In most campaigns, the players must work against the tax collector; the collector is usually some corrupt individual over-charging the local peasants to line his own pockets while the peasants are forced even further into the dirt. In this case, however, the players are the ones collecting: Their debtors owe them a lot and aren't paying up. This means that they need to intimidate the debtors, con them out of the money, or otherwise separate them from the money rightfully owed to the players but do so in a way that the debtors can't strike back at them. This can be a fun diversion, especially if the players haven't quite figured out how the whole fealty thing works.

The County Fair

Sometimes the players want to shine through their non-combat skills; this is how country fairs get started. This has a number of different permutations, but they come down to there being a number of different contests available and the PCs need to compete in as many of them as possible. They can be athletic events, trivia/riddle contests, or even baking and cooking contests, but while one or more of the PCs are competing in them, the others have various social challenges to deal with, such as raising funds by betting on the contests, obtaining information, getting two lovers together, or even solving a diplomatic crisis, which depends on the first team of characters winning their challenges.

This can convoluted, so make sure you have something to keep track of everything, like a whiteboard.

Do We Really Need to Insult Each Other?

In movies and shows it can be fun to watch two rivals go after each other through an ever-escalating battle of wits. In a game, however, these moments tend to fall a little flat. This is because the movie rivals have the advantage of having their lines written ahead of time; the gaming rivals don't. This is also one of those times when rolling dice just feels wrong; the players want the banter battle. Now, if your players can actually pull this off, let them go for it; this can be a pretty awesome moment when it works. But usually this something that should be avoided, unless you're playing it for laughs and it falling flat is exactly what they are looking for.

When You Should Talk Your Way Out of Trouble

When it comes down to it, there are plenty of ways for adventurers to find challenges outside of the dungeon. Every character has different skills that they are proud of but don't really have the chance to stretch. While it's not advised for every session to concentrate on social skills, some players would nonetheless welcome the chance to try something different every so often. What can be even more interesting is if you throw these situations at the players least capable of dealing with them, such as the stereotypical barbarian having to deal with a diplomatic mission; this is one time when slamming heads together would feel great but may not be so effective.

These can be fun, but don't press them. Use them as a break from the action, possible humor when you've been too serious, or even a way for more social players to shine. Used in the right measure, these can be the stuff of their own legend, especially if everything goes according to plan.