So, in working throught the Zombipocalypse design, one of the things that Linda liked was that the combat system could be applied to social combat. This was an idea I had been playing with. So I wrote it up but I have always been kind of opposed to such things. I find my old dislikes coming to the fore. They seem to be:
1. Social mechanics seem to jazz with RPing. If I do some great speech, convincing argument or describe the seduction of the century, but roll for crap, it doesn't happen. This seems to be a problem with any system that overrides RP with mechanics.

2. I see the opportunity for abuse. The mechanics could be used to"force" the target to do your will. No matter how many times I say "Hey! It is not a spell" you know some player would have to say "But what good is it then". The root here seems to be the usefulness of the subsystem vs its effect. Make it too effective and it draws from the RP aspect of the game. Make it less effective and you make it less useful (helping resolve social combat situations).

Those are my big issues with social mechanics.

So, do you like them? If so what do they do?

Do you dislike them? If so, why?

Thanks,
Bill

I have yet to see one that really works, let alone works in a realistic fashion. I don't think I'd be opposed to a mechanic, assuming it worked. Like all mechanics you take the fun parts, and ignore the rest.

A general problem is using simple rules and dice to handle something that a player is an expert in - it will feel cold and simplistic to them. Humans are hugely social animals and pretty much everyone considers themselves an expert in social interaction.
 
re: #1, a system needs to allow room for creativity and actual talking, skill ranks and dice rolls aren't enough. On the other hand, some mechanics can be handy to distinguish the player from the character. A bit a randomness takes into account that a given action might have different results with a different audience or with a different context or mind state. For a rules light game, I prefer no social rules. For a more complex game, I like some framework that is flexible.
 
re: #2, there is nothing wrong with essentially forcing NPCs to take actions as long as their is some randomness that doesn't allow it to work every time and there is potential backlash. It depends on the larger context of the setting how possible this should be. But it also gives players a different way to go with their characters instead of the 95% of characters that are strongly combat focused.

Quote from: Nicephorus;273631A general problem is using simple rules and dice to handle something that a player is an expert in - it will feel cold and simplistic to them. Humans are hugely social animals and pretty much everyone considers themselves an expert in social interaction.
 
re: #1, a system needs to allow room for creativity and actual talking, skill ranks and dice rolls aren't enough. On the other hand, some mechanics can be handy to distinguish the player from the character. A bit a randomness takes into account that a given action might have different results with a different audience or with a different context or mind state. For a rules light game, I prefer no social rules. For a more complex game, I like some framework that is flexible.

And see, that was what I was shooting for in this system. The ability to play a lawyer who is adept at persuasion when the player is an engineer with no social grace. I am not sure it is attainable though.

Quote from: Nicephorus;273631re: #2, there is nothing wrong with essentially forcing NPCs to take actions as long as their is some randomness that doesn't allow it to work every time and there is potential backlash. It depends on the larger context of the setting how possible this should be. But it also gives players a different way to go with their characters instead of the 95% of characters that are strongly combat focused.

See, again, what I am shooting for precisely. The issue I see is that it all depends on the GM. I tend to trust the GM and think of him as the ultimate AI to the system. He can take discrete results and make them fuzzy. He can say  "Maybe" with conditions. That is difficult to model in a system of dice, points and codified rules.

Thanks,
Bill

That stuff only really is useful to decide things that happen between game sessions or 'offstage' if you do a timeshift forward during a game session.




...at least in my opinion, your kilometerage may vary.


- Ed C.

I think it as usual varies with the quality and implementation of the mechanic. I like the players to be able to play things that do not rely solely on their normal abilities--at the same time I want to see at least some non-token effort to roleplay out the social and communication aspects of their character.

I do like the idea of mechanics that can be applied across the board the same way--as needed to help players represent the characters in play.

My personal opinion is that they are only desirable if they fit the setting concept you are going for, and even then, do not cover all eventualities. For example, a combat game doesn't need them, a game of courtly intrigue might need some extra guidleines that these sorts of rules can give.

I also think it's very important to make provision for modifiers to any social combat rolls for In Character roleplaying of the situation at hand. This means that the system doesn't crowd out the roleplaying totally and might encourage some good roleplaying ideas.

Well, different social mechanics do different things.  Champions' Presence attacks are different from GURPS Reaction Rolls, which are different from Spirit of the Century Empathy rolls, and so forth.  

I find that I dislike confrontational social mechanics where you roll against a known NPC, and if you win they do what you want, and if they win they do what they want.  It doesn't represent social interaction well, in my opinion, and it can be dull to play through.  

However, I do like using rolls to pass off lies or detect them, to deduce secrets from subtle cues of an NPC, get a good reaction, and many others.  I am generally unimpressed with most of the extended social mechanics that I have seen, though, which tend to be confrontational.

Quote from: jhkim;273655I find that I dislike confrontational social mechanics where you roll against a known NPC, and if you win they do what you want, and if they win they do what they want.  It doesn't represent social interaction well, in my opinion, and it can be dull to play through.  

However, I do like using rolls to pass off lies or detect them, to deduce secrets from subtle cues of an NPC, get a good reaction, and many others.  I am generally unimpressed with most of the extended social mechanics that I have seen, though, which tend to be confrontational.

The above.

Turning an in-game social situation into social combat reduces a role-playing opportunity into a group of skill checks which takes away one of the fun cornerstones of what defines a role-playing game. The skill checks should remain, but the outcome of those skill checks should be modified by the role-playing that the players do. Otherwise, why call what you are playing a RPG?

Now, one of the common arguements I've seen against this idea is that the rules exist to limit the arbitrary power of the GM. I think that is crap. However, in order to answer the arguement, instead of using extensive rules for social situations - place some common sense guidelines about how a GM should role-play and adjudicate social situations during play (that way each game group can find their own happy medium).

Like others, I don't think social mechanics work well and they're dull. Where I like them best is swaying a crowd of NPCs or some minor NPCs.

Seanchai

Specifically social mechanics always make me pause.  Generic mechanics that can extend to social stuff, I don't mind at all.  Generic is handy.

Political / large group mechanics, now, I actively like.

You've outlined the problems well, Bill.

I can't say I've had enormous success, or for that matter problems, with social mechanics. It partly has to do with orienting your interpretation of what's going on when you make the roll, I think. In my opinion it's also advisable to just throw out all the crap about "GM Fiat". If the GM doesn't have a say in how persuasive your argument is, then competitive players, or players who are strongly invested in their character's success, will end up making token gestures at roleplaying while insisting the mechanics allow them to try to persuade everyone regardless of the situation. Or at least they'll be conflicted over whether to try to use the mechanic or be faithful to the fiction.

In short I think you ought to have a heavy dose of GM discretion in assigning modifiers, and possibly even a certain amount of "grading for effort" to balance different levels of player skill. And as far as the "mind control" issue goes, just consider that an extreme result may reflect something more than the PC's persuasion ability--it could reveal something about the target that the GM hadn't anticipated--something that gives him a predisposition to cooperate. But also, to keep the mechanic from being abused, I'd also consider penalties for trying and failing, especially if you fail spectacularly. That way you don't have the aspect of players wearing down opponents even after the argument's gotten silly. Eventually, the conversation ought to be done.

But alll this is focused on using social mechanics to get NPCs to do stuff. Using them on PCs is another matter and depends much more strongly on how the players approach the game--in a nutshell, whether they're looking at their character from the outside in, in a third-person collaborative storytelling mode, or in a first-person immersive mode. The former seem to be more accepting of having their character swayed. For the latter, it's probably better to have, at most, penalties that carry over for doing things that go against what the winning side wants.

You might look at Steffan O'Sullivan's piece on adapting social combat from Lace and Steel into other games. http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/articles/repartee.html

Sorry to be kind of sketchy--I'm in a bit of a rush.

double post--ignore

Gamers tend to be rather anarchist in their worldviews... at least when it comes to themselves. "I know my rights, damnit!" So while they accept (say) their character being unable to walk because someone broke their leg, they won't accept being unable to walk because they're scared of something, or entranced by it, etc.

Coming from that is the fact that in an rpg, while we can't act out climbing or fighting or building a machine, we can act out talking. Indeed talking is half the "role" part of the roleplaying, the other half being figuring out stuff to do. If that's knocked over by dice rolls, players get annoyed.

I mean, players making choices and talking about what to do and talking to NPCs, that's what they roleplay for. Take that away and it's not an rpg.

The solution I've tried for a long time is this:

• there are game mechanics for social interactions
• they don't get used for trivial things, only important things (I treat combat mechanics the same way)
• if you just say, "I intimidate him" and roll the dice, it goes off PC ability. If you give an interesting/reasonable description of what you do, you get a bonus on your roll. You never get a malus on your roll from what you said.
• these social mechanics determine NPC actions - NPCs can be seduced, intimidated, etc with a successful roll.
  
• social mechanics influence but do not determine PC actions. Successful rolls give a bonus/malus to certain courses of action.
  

A player can always have the PC do whatever they want, but the success/failure in that social mechanic thing will give a bonus or malus to certain courses of action. If the NPC intimidates a PC with, "put down your weapon!" then NPC intent is that the PC can't fight them. "You failed your roll by 4, so you're pretty distracted by fear, and will be at -4 if you hold onto your weapon and attack him. But you can still run away at no malus, try to bribe him or whatever. It's just if you want to stab him you get -4."

So when the NPC loses the roll, that determines their actions, when the PC loses the roll, that just gives them a malus to actions other than those the NPC wants.

I find that players happily accept a bonus/malus to their character's actions due to social mechanics, and they tend to go with the results. In terms of what the PC ends up actually doing, it's just as if the social mechanics determined their actions - nine times out of ten, anyway. But in terms of how the player feels about it, it's as though they chose it. Because really they do have a choice, for that one time in ten.

Quote from: HinterWelt;2736271. Social mechanics seem to jazz with RPing. If I do some great speech, convincing argument or describe the seduction of the century, but roll for crap, it doesn't happen. This seems to be a problem with any system that overrides RP with mechanics.

2. I see the opportunity for abuse. The mechanics could be used to"force" the target to do your will. No matter how many times I say "Hey! It is not a spell" you know some player would have to say "But what good is it then". The root here seems to be the usefulness of the subsystem vs its effect. Make it too effective and it draws from the RP aspect of the game. Make it less effective and you make it less useful (helping resolve social combat situations).

Those are my big issues with social mechanics.

So, do you like them? If so what do they do?

Do you dislike them? If so, why?

3.x's little +2 bonus for good roleplaying (etc) was fine, although most of the time it was not a significant bonus.  I like more of a percentage based system so the bonuses are more transparant.

As for #2, the thing I've heard (but never played) is where losing a social contest will still allow you to ignore the consequences, but at a penalty.  It gives a lot of discretion (and work) to the GM, but it's the kind of thing that adds a lot to the game.  I think it's worth it.