This is what I want to tinker with.  I have exactly zero ideas right now, other than what I want to simulate, which is the following:

You, character, have hangers-on and the like, and are engaged at some social milleu - a fancy ball, a royal court, shit like that.

You want to achieve status, dominance, and screw with the reputations of others.  And this is not a campaign of intrigue; this is the conflict of the moment, a night of many-personed confusion.  Planting rumors, picking fights between others, all done from your own little empire of hangers-on and followers.

How can this be accomplished?  What would you want to track, roll, all that?  Followers?  Rumors?  Tensions?

You mean like this?

Quote from: Halfjack;309447You mean like this?

...That sure does look to be in the vicinity, though I only can see the example, rather than the rules.

Kind of depends on the system you are playing in.  Many systems are built around the social interchanges, and have skills like 'lie', 'ettiquite, 'charm', 'historical knowledge', 'basic and advanced dance', etc.  If the game you are playing has these, it's a chance to really let the PC's spread their wings, etc, and the NPC hanger's on will have to be carefully detailed.

It will also help if the system you are working with has a detailed social rank system.

If you are using a combat heavy game, it will be a totally different answer.  We need to know the system first.

LordVreeg:

This isn't for an existing system.  This is the start point on something.

So are you creating a system, a setting, or both?

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen;309451...That sure does look to be in the vicinity, though I only can see the example, rather than the rules.

The rules will be published this summer, but that mini-game is basically just FATE combat with the zone system abstracted to a social space. The available actions to each actor are:

• move - pick a skill and narrate how it gets you in the direction you want to go; roll it and move
• move another - pick a skill and narrate how it gets your target in the direction you want her to go. She rolls to defend with appropriate narration justifying her skill choice. Difference is the amount she is forced to move.
• obstruct - pick a zone and a skill. Narrate to justify the skill choice. Roll and use successes (shifts) to add pass values (movement penalty) to borders on the target zone.
• attack - pick a target and attempt to explicitly remove them from the scene. Pick a skill and justify it and roll. Target picks a defending skill, justifies it, and rolls. Difference is a hit to the Composure track of the defender. Personal damage rules govern this.

...and the victory conditions are set when the map is drawn (usually positional or temporal or both). All rolls are modifiable by applying Aspects as per FATE. All actions can be compelled to abort (offer a fate point, read an Aspect, justify the issue that halts the declared action; target can pay a fate point to deny or take the fate point and forfeit his turn) by opponents.

Quote from: LordVreeg;309499So are you creating a system, a setting, or both?

A little from column A....  And a little from column B...

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen;309525A little from column A....  And a little from column B...

ok.  That helps.  

I like the description you gave.  It was very useful and made perfect sense to me.

Quote from: VREEGKind of depends on the system you are playing in. Many systems are built around the social interchanges, and have skills like 'lie', 'ettiquite, 'charm', 'historical knowledge', 'basic and advanced dance', etc. If the game you are playing has these, it's a chance to really let the PC's spread their wings, etc, and the NPC hanger's on will have to be carefully detailed.

It will also help if the system you are working with has a detailed social rank system.

So do the skills I described above sound like they are in the right realm?  IS this the type of game you are talking about? One where people try to use their skills and counterskills?  Or are you talking about a social encounter resolution system?

And what level of magic use do you have in mind?

Burning Wheel, if memory serves, has components for this.  The circle mechanics allow you to do things like this.



In my game, Convergence Point, this is a task, mostly.  Each social event has a numer of turns.  Each turn you can do something (using analogs to the combat actions)
You can go after someone's rep
You can build up your own or another's
You can build up or attack a given "rating" towards a given faction (indivdually or for a given crowd).
You can plant rumors (a feint of sorts)
You can opt to have fun (giving you pluses to other actions, and allowing you to recover any social "damage").  Having fun can also be a total defense action (as it pulls you away from the action).

The task is based off an appropriate roll  CHA+Communication or CHA+Social or what ever.  You get result points from how well you make every roll.   Five or so result points shifts that social track  up or down one level.

Levi,
  Well, I would trust your instincts, you have a real head for design, I really think whatever you have in mind will be great.
  If I were to do it with the parameters you have in mind, I would do it in two phases:
1) Determine strengths and weaknesses. Use a mechanic to setup how your influence works on the group in question. Like Maybe you have a ton of influence of LackeyA, but he will fold like a sweater if he meets any opposition. This stuff would be resolved using regular interpersonal rules.
2) Put your plan in motion. Here I would use a Dogs-Like mechanic to play various followers like dice or cards and do a sort of move/coutner move thing-y until a resolution is made.
  There is a lot of short hand in there, does that make sense, does that sound interesting?