@Lisse24 said in Eliminating social stats:
@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:
I really don't give a shit. All the "Federalist Papers of RPGs" in the world doesn't change what literally thousands of years of literature has deemed to be a narrative. There is merit as a game to the "let the dice lie where they may" stance. But that merit is not a merit for narrative. Good narratives can emerge from that only by accident in the same way that getting a coherent and decent character out of a character generation system that will kill characters off part-way through can: blind luck.
And note, again, I'm not saying you're wrong for liking the "gamist" approach (as much as I fucking hate that clunky neologism). I'm saying you're wrong for thinking that the "gamist" approach made for a good narrative here. You're not doing wrongfun. You're just factually incorrect about the narrative structure.
Several times in this thread, I've heard people equate using dice as the enemy of creating narrative. I want to push back on that. I'm quoting WTFE just because this is one place where I've read that argument, but certainly, he's not the only person whose made that argument.
Here's the core of my argument: MUers are terrible writers. I don't mean that they're incapable of stringing together 3-5 sentences with vivid language in engaging poses. They can absolutely do that, by and large. No, what I mean is that, for the most part, they don't think long term about themes and beats, and what constructs a good narrative. Ex: "I'm going to have my character lose this conflict so that he can wallow for a bit and then have an awesome comeback," or "The story I'm telling with this character is one of alienation and loss and so, I want to sabotage his own attempt to become Priscus though his inability to connect."
Muers don't think that way. In general, I believe that there are two major stumbling blocks to MUers telling compelling narratives. 1) They don't like losing, and any good story has peaks and valleys. MUers avoid valleys at all costs. 2) They don't control everything. Sure, you can be telling a story of alienation, but that doesn't mean all the other chars are going to play along (I've run into this with my char over at F&L, where I had to rejigger my approach to her several times).
In these circumstances, adding random events, and letting a neutral arbiter, such as dice, determine the outcome periodically, even for social interactions, can enhance narrative. They help a player adhere to their character's nature, strengths, and weaknesses, while simultaneously adding challenges and random difficulty for that player to overcome. The knee-jerk, 'well let's just throw away social dice because players don't like losing that way,' will not enhance the narratives told on that game, it will diminish them.
Yes! This is basically what I had in my head as I was reading through the thread and considering my own opinion. I love political/social rp that has teeth, I almost never play combat based characters, it's not my thing. The game I'd love to play is one with people who share that love...which means they love getting their way in intense, high stakes social interactions, and also love not getting their way because of the curveball it throws them. Characters have to have flaws to be interesting, weaknesses they are overcoming, and having humiliated themselves by fleeing in terror when JoeBob intimidated them becomes part of their story, their character development, their motivations for later.
Lets do Game of Thrones examples! Cersei got to go on her walk of shame with bells ringing. It wasn't what she wanted to do, and if she was being played by a person on a MU* it would not be what they wanted to do either most likely. That experience changed her, made her bitchier and more ruthless than she was before, and thus a temple exploded. Her failure in one part of the story fueled the rest of her story, AND the story for other characters around her. Theon Greyjoy. Nobody would want to play a Theon Greyjoy. It sucked to be him. But his horrible experiences and terrible decisions are leading him (probably) on an arc of redemption that I expect to be at least somewhat cool. Ned. Poor Ned. Nobody would want to play out a social failure on the level he did, with the consequences he got. Yet that part of the story sets up the rest of the entire series. You can basically do this with every character on the show, they've all made at least one poor decision based on social interactions, yet they remain super cool and interesting characters that resemble what many of us would like to play in a fantasy game.
I understand the impetus to get rid of social stats because often they go unused especially in player to player scenes. I just think that the flaw here is not that they exist, but that they go unused. My ideal game would definitely have social stats, and also people willing to play them, winning or losing. Sure, some exception might arise, Jorah rolls seduction on you but he's twice your age and you are Not Into It. Bran gets an intimidation success but he's Bran, nobody is impressed. I just think exceptions would be exceptions, not the standard. The games I have had the most fun on were games where my character rose and fell socially and politically and I remained engaged and motivated to either keep my social clout or to get it back.
My Jorah example I added merely because it came to me first. I do think that if one were to create a game like this (please do, and then tell me!) it would probably be wisest to leave sex out of the equation. Even with fade to black, it can be creepy to roleplay the aftermath of that situation, and many of us for varying reasons are averse to playing rape victims, even if coercion is the means.
Aside from that however, I love games where people embrace the social 'combat' system and characters grow and change from losing as much as from winning. I know it's not what many people enjoy, but it is what I enjoy the most.
*Edited for a typo that bothered me.