Social Stats in the World of Darkness

Ganymede

@ziggurat said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@Ganymede, I saw your comment about being able to manipulate and outwit other players, on an OOC level, and typically leaning towards manipulative character archetypes for that reason.

If I gave you that impression, I may have mis-typed.

I really don't lean towards manipulative character archetypes. (I tend to lean more towards broken people who have violent tendencies; please see Shrike.) What I know, however, is that I'm fairly good at manipulation, planning, and writing convincingly. Some people say it is part of my charm. As such, I feel compelled to put points into my social stats, so that I'm not cheating if my PC suddenly tries and succeeds in tricking someone else to do what they want. In other words, I make sure that my PCs have some social clout because I know that I sometimes fall in that direction.

I definitely agree with the sentiment that removing rules in a way that makes social manipulation/conflict hinge itself entirely upon the abilities of PLAYERS and not about their characters, is bad for a lot of reasons.

I have concluded that whether there are social stats or not is irrelevant; social manipulation and conflict, without a strict, robust system, is always going to hinge upon a player's ability to communicate in writing. Period. It is neither a good nor a bad thing; it simply is this way. If a player wants to alter their PC's communicative skills, that is literally entirely up to them, if they are a skilled writer.

It means that players can really only play as characters with their level of social aptitude or less, with their talent for writing also applying, essentially, the lesser of their abilities as a socialite or writer determines how socially capable their characters can be.

I don't mean to be blunt or mean, but this is simply the case and I think it has to do with our medium; however, it is less about one's social aptitude and more about one's ability to communicate in the written medium. And it is not a limit on your characters' potential; it is a limit on how your characters will be perceived.

If you are unable to pull together a cogent sentence, constantly misspell words, or use confusing or improper syntax, many players are not going to consider your character persuasive, manipulative, or charming. If you roll to try to make the other players treat your character differently, I think you will find that quite a few people are simply going to avoid your PC. It's not a personal thing, necessarily; it could simply be that the other player wants to spend their online RP time with other players that type as well as they think they do.

I have seen countless times players electing to avoid other players because of their perceived inability to communicate well. No amount of social stats is going to change this. If that's the case, then why bother with social stats at all? People judge as they will judge.

… and those that lack social skills or even struggle with social interaction because of things beyond their control (maybe they struggle with a mental illness, or perhaps are on the autism spectrum, etc) are at a pretty steep disadvantage, and will struggle to have fun.

Anecdotally, I think this is the case already. And, unfortunately, I don't think any amount of system tweaking is going to change this. It's a social issue in our hobby.

Apos

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@auspice said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

All of these still come down to one thing in the end:

Physical stats trump all.

Which is sort of the crux of the issue.

I disagree. This isn't what I'm asking about at all. It is, however, a very large concern.

If we want to delve into "reality," the vast majority of potential violence is sidetracked by concerns about consequences. People generally don't try to shoot me in the courtroom because there are bailiffs with guns around, and because I'm the Mistress of the Tae-Kwon-Leap. In a MUSH, however, the consequences to the player are substantially less, which makes physical violence a more-available option to resolve conflict.

Maybe I have this all wrong.

Maybe the solution isn't fewer social stats, but giving them more power. Maybe a successful intimidation roll would result in a Condition that would bar or reduce the ability to engage in a fight. Maybe a successful seduction roll would result in a Condition that would bar refusal of simple, non-Breaking-point requests.

So, let's flip the question:

Would you make social stats in the World of Darkness more powerful? If so, how?

(Note, I'm not talking about powers that rely on social stats.)

I generally think it is helpful to go to the endpoint first, of making characters with an equivalent degree of investment in them feel roughly equally threatening to other PCs and roughly equally powerful. In other words, earning the ire of an X amount of xp character specialized in physical, mental, or social skills should represent an equal amount of danger.

Ganymede

@apos said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I generally think it is helpful to go to the endpoint first, of making characters with an equivalent degree of investment in them feel roughly equally threatening to other PCs and roughly equally powerful.

I concur.

But, frankly, I'm still trying to figure out how to make this the case.

Most, if not all, of the most popular RPG systems emphasize the use of physical force in order to reach an objective. Be it through magic or stealth, the idea is meeting the objective.

There isn't much thought put into defending against that, or providing effective, active mechanisms to do so.

Derp

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I don't mean to be blunt or mean, but this is simply the case and I think it has to do with our medium; however, it is less about one's social aptitude and more about one's ability to communicate in the written medium.

Here is where I disagree, and I think that this is the crux of the problem.

Up to this point, we've been talking about various ends and ways to achieve them, and what would be reasonable given certain dice rolls, etc.

That's not what this system does, though. At the end of the day, the exact step-by-step process doesn't matter, any more than the exact step-by-step process matters for determining damage in physical combat. We don't make people come up with exacting technical detail about how their characters duck under a person's punch and apply a certain pre-determined amount of force to a specific joint or nerve nexus in order to determine the level of damage, and we don't allow people to make arguments like 'Well my character is double jointed and extremely flexible so clearly that isn't going to have an effect on me'. The outcome is determined by a level of abstraction governed by dice.

Which is exactly how social combat should work as well. In the end, the exact nuances don't matter, because the END RESULTS are determined at some level of abstraction, governed by dice, and the 'how' is frankly a) not really all that important and b) no more relevant than it would be for a physical contest.

Example: If I roll for intimidation against Jane and win, the dice say Jane is intimidated. Full stop. Whether Jane goes into an apoplectic fit of fear and cowers in a corner or does some quick mental math and decides that the odds just aren't in her favor that day, she is still intimidated because the dice determined that she is. How each of us writes that up into a pose has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the mechanical outcome.

But we've been talking about this system as if the onus of explaining 'how you get there' is up to the person doing the intimidating, and not the person being intimidated. It's not. We got there, because the dice, as an abstract system that determines final outcomes, said so. It's up to you to figure out the 'how', if the how is important enough, and we should be holding people accountable to that.

We only allow deviation from these things because that's how they've traditionally played out, so no, that isn't "simply the case," as if it were some universal law that has to be followed.

Ultimately, this comes down to something pretty basic: do we feel that the dice, as a level of abstraction that determines final outcomes, are valid across the board? And if not, where do we draw the line on that?

Ganymede

@derp said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

That's not what this system does, though. At the end of the day, the exact step-by-step process doesn't matter, any more than the exact step-by-step process matters for determining damage in physical combat. We don't make people come up with exacting technical detail about how their characters duck under a person's punch and apply a certain pre-determined amount of force to a specific joint or nerve nexus in order to determine the level of damage, and we don't allow people to make arguments like 'Well my character is double jointed and extremely flexible so clearly that isn't going to have an effect on me'. The outcome is determined by a level of abstraction governed by dice.

I don't disagree with most of your conclusions, or your ultimate question. I do disagree that the exact step-by-step process is irrelevant, however, because the way that physical combat is laid out plainly makes how you get from the showdown to the outcome detail-oriented. What maneuvers you choose in combat will put you at an advantage or disadvantage as to the probability of the outcome.

You don't just roll Strength + Weaponry to put down your target; you are given a plethora of options and moves to determine how to best do that. Those options are, for the most part, ignored or unavailable for social or mental combat, even the more robust system offered by the Danse Macabre.

Plus, the system as presented makes available modifiers and penalties for good or poor planning, role-playing, and so forth (not that I necessarily agree with this).

So, there's another set of questions to consider: is a potential solution to the "problem" the creation of a more robust social and/or mental combat process? And is there value to that solution?

Tinuviel

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

even the more robust system offered by the Danse Macabre.

The main problem I have with the Danse Macabre system is how it has been, in our more influential multi-sphere games, so poorly implemented. It is exclusively used by the Vampire sphere, rather than being a requirement for all. Which is obviously untenable.

Ganymede

@tinuviel said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

The main problem I have with the Danse Macabre system is how it has been, in our more influential multi-sphere games, so poorly implemented. It is exclusively used by the Vampire sphere, rather than being a requirement for all.

To be fair, it is a Vampire supplement that was written with Vampire in mind, to the point where only Vampire powers have any supernatural effect on the results.

Point taken, though: a social and mental combat system would have to apply to everyone.

Derp

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I do disagree that the exact step-by-step process is irrelevant, however, because the way that physical combat is laid out plainly makes how you get from the showdown to the outcome detail-oriented. What maneuvers you choose in combat will put you at an advantage or disadvantage as to the probability of the outcome.
You don't just roll Strength + Weaponry to put down your target; you are given a plethora of options and moves to determine how to best do that.

Yes and no? At the baseline you're rolling Strength + Weaponry to put down a target, and all of the other options are, well... optional, or at best circumstantial, and really just give you modifiers to the strength + weaponry roll that is doing the brunt of the work, plus or minus a few cool maneuvers you can do if you invest in some fighting styles.

So while I don't disagree that the social systems could stand to be more robust, there is nothing in the baseline system that says they have to be, and even physical combat isn't all that complicated at its core. It's just a roll. And while one of the big arguments against some of the social stuff is there's no clearly delineated way to defend against it, the physical combat system doesn't always let you defend either. In social stuff, there is almost always a counter-roll that could be made, while for your average mortal there ain't shit you can do against a gun but try and run the hell away and get somewhere the bullet can't find you, or hope you can out-shoot them first (i.e., defense does not apply to firearms rolls, so they're literally just rolling Dex + Firearms at you / each other).

So the creation of a more robust social system isn't necessary. It's optional, and probably a good idea, but it's not a 'fix' to the 'problem' because the 'problem' isn't that the two systems have no parity. It's that we don't view parity in the two systems despite the fact that they operate on almost the exact same level, minus optional things.

faraday

@derp said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

even physical combat isn't all that complicated at its core. It's just a roll.

That's just not true though. Different weapons have different effects. Damage has degrees, it's not just "oh you succeeded in one roll; I'm dead". Tactical choices like called shot, stances, positioning, reach, etc. matter a lot in most systems (sorry it's been awhile since I did a WoD-based combat so maybe their system isn't that nuanced). And there's a shared understanding that no matter how well you roll, you can't kill a dragon with a butter knife.

There is a ginormous difference between rolling intimidation for "Hey give me your lunch money" and "I've got a gun to your daughter's head, now go in there and rob that bank for me or she's dead". Yet the systems we use are woefully lacking in accommodating those subtleties. We've got a weapons chart with dozens of weapons and effects for physical combat. For social combat it's like... "eh, take 3 extra dice". That is just a pitiful way of trying to abstract the range of human behavior.

So to @Ganymede - yes, I think a better system will help. It won't satisfy everyone, but it can go a long way.

Derp

@faraday said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

There is a ginormous difference between rolling intimidation for "Hey give me your lunch money" and "I've got a gun to your daughter's head, now go in there and rob that bank for me or she's dead".

There is likewise a ginormous difference between 'a five foot ten ninety pound girl tries to wrestle an alligator' and 'a 6'4 250 lb marine tries to wrestle an alligator', but the system uses the same roll to calculate the results of that.

Stop trying to model every real-life scenario in the abstract dice system. It's abstract for a reason. Using that logic, we can come up with flaws in any number of skills -- a boxer with brawl 5 shouldn't be able to do Kung-Fu maneuvers but he can, no can a cardiothorasic surgeon be trusted to remove a tumor from a brain, but that Medicine 5 lets them do that all the same.

This is where people (rightfully) complain that people who refuse to adhere to the levels of abstraction in the dice aren't playing by the rules. Your complaint is that the rules don't adequately model real life. Fine, use a different system altogether, one with much more complexity and nuance than the one given to you in WoD. But if you're using WoD, you should be prepared to have things not perfectly match up every logical gauntlet you can run it through, because it wasn't designed to take into account every real world detail and put in a modifier for it. It's an abstraction for a reason.

Similarly, 'all those weapons and things' are ultimately still just giving you dice modifiers. The different damage types can just be thought of as shortcuts -- enough bashing will fill those the same as agg, agg just does it faster. Shortcuts exist in the Doors system too, if you invest in the right merits. And social dice have equipment just like combat does -- good clothes, nice perfume. There's a whole list. Ultimately, just mods.

The system doesn't care about all the subtleties that you keep bringing up, as if they should have a real effect on the system. THere's subtleties and nuance in physical combat too, but if people try and use those same mazes of logic in physical combat we say they're acting in bad faith because the system is an abstraction and they just want to ignore the dice results.

Same deal here.

It's all an abstraction. The abstraction says 'all of those subtleties are taken into account under varioius skill ratings which we use under this mathematical system which determines the final result'. IF there's a big one, that might be a circumstance modifier, but again, the system ultimately doesn't care about whatever level of nuance you want to give a thing, because the system determines results, not the circumstances which give rise to them. That's up to you to roleplay.

Tinuviel

@derp The mechanics might not give complexity and nuance, but rules certainly can. There is a difference.

I don't at all disagree that at present the way we implement the mechanics is... lacklustre at best, but with guidance and adequate rulings we can certainly make some changes to add the nuance we want even in a system as basic as WoD.

faraday

@tinuviel said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@derp The mechanics might not give complexity and nuance, but rules certainly can. There is a difference.

And GMs can weigh in even more. I wouldn't let an IC dermatologist try brain surgery in my game even if they did have Medicine 5. Common sense should trump mechanics.

This "just play by the rules or play a different game" argument is getting tiresome. The entire point of this thread was Gany pitching different rules and asking for people's input.

There are reasons why the "just make a roll" social mechanics in WoD and other games get so much resistance and a lot of it is because they suck. Sure, you can suck it up and suffer through them or you could, y'know, improve them. That's what good GM-ing and/or house rules are for, and that's what this thread is about.

Tinuviel

@faraday said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

And GMs can weigh in even more

Well, yes. That is from whence the rules/rulings come. We also need more universality in such things. What one GM/DM/ST allows isn't necessarily going to be allowed by another, and that is where much confusion can come from.

ETA: I am speaking, of course, in relation to a single game. Various games can have different rules of course, but on a single game there should be a single level of expectation of what to expect from storytellers.

Derp

@faraday said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

This "just play by the rules or play a different game" argument is getting tiresome.

So is the 'the rules don't adequately account for every trivial exception I can think up to avoid adhering to the outcome of a contested skills roll, so we need to scrap and/or change the whole thing' arguments on the other side.

Look, do you really think that you're going to be able to find a set of rules that is:

Simple enough for people to easily understand and implement

and

Complex enough to match every little quibble that comes up in the system?

Because I think that's a pipe dream. Everyone can invent some reason why the stupid rules didn't take into account this SUPER IMPORTANT thing of theirs that would have made all the difference in the roll if just the rules would see how brilliant their argument is.

But on the other side of that, I would ask: If this super-important thing to the character is so SUPER IMPORTANT, shouldn't it already be reflected in their attribute/skill levels and or merits? And if the sheet doesn't reflect a high enough rating in that, do they even really have it, or are you just wishing that they did?

@Ganymede asked for a discussion about social stats in the World of Darkness, and while I'm sure many people would love a more robust system, I keep coming back to the same idea, which I don't think has gotten enough merit so far -- maybe the system isn't broken, and maybe it's just the way we've been allowed to play it so far that's the problem.

Either way, she'll do what she needs to do for her game. I'm just saying that, maybe, at some point, someone needs to say 'Wait, woah, hold up. We aren't going to completely overhaul the rules just because you think your character should be more resistant to this, but don't have the stats to back it up.'

faraday

@derp said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

If this super-important thing to the character is so SUPER IMPORTANT, shouldn't it already be reflected in their attribute/skill levels and or merits?

This is the crux of what I'm saying. There are, IMHO, SUPER IMPORTANT things that affect human behavior that are not in any way reflected in WoD stats or the social conflict system used to resolve them. If you disagree with that and think the social rules are fine? Great, use the rules as-written on your game and insist people abide by them. (and/or recommend that Gany do so)

But it's not cool to demean people with arguments like "just because you think your character should be more resistant to this, but don't have the stats to back it up" when we're saying the stats themselves and the rules behind them are an unsatisfactory abstraction. Also, it works both ways. Sometimes those same factors should give the attacker an advantage.

ETA: And yes, I do think it's possible to come up with a system that will be reasonably simple and effective and satisfactory to most people. @Seraphim73 has done a lot of good work to that end with his Furystorm system.

Ziggurat

@faraday Didn't I already explain earlier how, even in 1E, lots of social challenges should be contested, EXTENDED rolls (representing the length of a conversation rather than a single quip), with target numbers that are variable based on circumstances, but many players and STs default to making them instant actions with a single roll? Is it really accurate to portray the Doors system from GMC and 2E as one which relies upon players 'just making a roll'?

I think it's intellectually dishonest to put the full weight of the blame for the issues you're describing upon the mechanics themselves, "just make a roll" social mechanics as orthodoxy are a product of the WoD MU community moreso than the World of Darkness rules as written, I think.

Didn't I also suggest that it might be more expedient for us to approach these disputes, frustrations, and misunderstandings at the interpersonal level, using player to player conversations that are facilitated by staff through a framework of easy/simple prompts, or questions, an atmosphere which encourages collaboration, a willingness to remove players that cannot maturely navigate these discussions, and more than just oversight, a plainly drawn expectation (with explanation) that players make the effort to cooperate in the resolution of these things as much as they would in any other conflict...?

No one has really responded to those ideas, so... is that just naive?

I mean, if my character has a rivalry with another character, and I just attack them in the street without warning, even right there, most players will hit the pause button and ask what's going on, OOC, ask about talking things out player-to-player, or involve a staffer. If they consent to PVP of that nature, then for it to resolve, we need to communicate each round - we need to tell each other our defense pools, we need to make each other aware of resistances, we need to make each other aware of weapon bonuses, and the abilities of different powers. But that's still not a pleasant experience for most folks. But when you start talking about your goals, turn to turn, your ideas for ways to get a leg up, explain your rationale prior to the conflict or possibly even ask about the other player's comfort level, or when you allow physical conflicts to de-escalate in order to brew more RP or instigate another fight later - at that point you're collaborating, you're working together to make story, not pwn each other, even if you do pwn each other in the story. Why the hell can't 'social combat' or social encounters be expected to have a similar etiquette??? Seriously? Why not?

Tinuviel

@ziggurat said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Didn't I also suggest that it might be more expedient for us to approach these disputes, frustrations, and misunderstandings at the interpersonal level,

I've always felt, in the deep dead crevices of my cold heart, that dice rolls are extra especially needed for times when players don't agree with how a thing happens. So, realistically, that is an eventuality that must be accounted for.

Thenomain

In Changeling the Lost (1e), Hedgespun Rainments give you a social benefit in courtly situations.

There are many kiths and powers based on social interaction.

Yet I almost never saw anyone use them.

I don't know if this is because there's a tacit "no social rolls against PCs", there's a more obvious "if I do this people will drag this into a headache that I can avoid", or what.

But they're there.

Details are there.

Social tools are there.

It just doesn't click, so people don't use them.

surreality

@ziggurat I honestly think the change away from target numbers was not a great call across the board. It's just especially glaring in social aspects of the game.

Ziggurat

@surreality I don't know that much about Doors, tbh, only read through it once, a while ago. It seemed interesting, but I don't like the way 2E streamlined a lot of things, while simultaneously being kind of impressed by it. If that makes sense? Like, the way beats and conditions work, interesting, checks out with my math-brain, but I just find it less appealing than 1E's alternatives, which I recognize plainly as often being more clunky and inconsistent. Don't know why that is, I guess my brain is broke. Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up kind of wonky.

The social combat of 1E, which is pitched in Danse Macabre (a vampire sourcebook from whence a LOT of ideas were taken to create GMC, and eventually 2E), is something I definitely recoiled from more than Doors. It's similarly interesting, but much more easily broken, and actually designed to allow LESS negotiation between players. By systemizing and gamifying social conflicts, it necessarily establishes a set of results whereby the winner is able to strongarm the loser in various ways. In vampire, this is especially troubling when you consider that Nosferatu lose 10-again and subtract 1's from their successes on any roll requiring Manipulation or Persuasion.