Measuring Success and Progress
Source GM Core pg. 32
You'll need to decide how to measure the characters' success in social encounters because there's no AC to target or HP to whittle down. Social Skills includes guidance on setting DCs for social skill actions, often using a target's Will DC. If you need a DC for people who don't have stats, such as a crowd or an NPC for whom you haven't already generated statistics, use the guidelines on setting DCs. You can either pick a simple DC or use a level-based DC, estimating a level for the subject or how challenging it should be to sway them.
The attitude conditions—hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, and helpful—provide a useful way to track the progress of a social encounter. Use these to represent the attitude of an authority, a crowd, a jury, or similar. A typical goal for a social encounter is to change the attitude of a person or group to helpful so they assist you or to calm a hostile group or person to defuse a situation. Try to give the players a clear idea of how much they've progressed as the encounter proceeds.
Another option is to track the number of successes or failures the characters accrue, either using a subsystem like Victory Points or Influence, or else something more ad hoc. For instance, the PCs might need to trick four guards into leaving their posts, and you might count each successful attempt to Lie or Create a Diversion toward a total of four necessary successes. You can also combine these two methods; if the PCs need a group of important politicians to vote their way, the goal of the encounter might be to ensure that most of the politicians have a better attitude toward the PCs than they have of a rival—all within a limited time frame.
The attitude conditions—hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, and helpful—provide a useful way to track the progress of a social encounter. Use these to represent the attitude of an authority, a crowd, a jury, or similar. A typical goal for a social encounter is to change the attitude of a person or group to helpful so they assist you or to calm a hostile group or person to defuse a situation. Try to give the players a clear idea of how much they've progressed as the encounter proceeds.
Another option is to track the number of successes or failures the characters accrue, either using a subsystem like Victory Points or Influence, or else something more ad hoc. For instance, the PCs might need to trick four guards into leaving their posts, and you might count each successful attempt to Lie or Create a Diversion toward a total of four necessary successes. You can also combine these two methods; if the PCs need a group of important politicians to vote their way, the goal of the encounter might be to ensure that most of the politicians have a better attitude toward the PCs than they have of a rival—all within a limited time frame.