Eliminating social stats

Lain

@Seraphim73 said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

Now. Onto your point: social skills aren't harder to fake. Especially if you keep it in somewhat vague terms

Here's the problem with this one... you're obviously someone who can write coherently, and has some idea about how social skills work. The concern being brought up is more for people who don't have any sense of how social skills work, and they're quite prevalent on MU*s, because it's a semi-safe way for introverts to pretend to be extroverted.

The problem many people (myself included at times) have with hard-and-fast do-or-die social combat systems is that you get the character rolling up to another character, insulting them, stating that they're out to get them, and then asking for help. Or something else utterly ridiculous that the socially awkward player (not character, player) thinks is a good idea. And the dice say, "YUP! That's a great idea! You win!" It breaks immersion for many players, especially those who DID spend the points to buff up their social defense skills/attributes/whatever, but just rolled poorly.

Yeah I hear you on that. What you're describing is over-the-top, but I don't think I'm entirely out of line to harp on about how just omitting social stats outright (to allow them to be supplanted by the OOC social skills of the player) is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Players who do crap like what you described should just be banned or otherwise incentivized to not do this. I analogize it to mental stats not because I think they're interchangeable in every way, but because just as some stranger taking a dump on your desk and then asking for a small, interest free loan of a million dollars is ridiculous and should be discarded, so is saying you'll make meth by mixing bleach and ammonia, no matter how high your character's Science/Chemistry score is.

The potential for players to emote stupid shit isn't a very compelling argument, at least not to me, to just start removing mechanics wholesale. Even if it's a recurring problem.

Ominous

@WTFE I disagree. I think that what the professor did was the better story option. Some stories don't have happy or even meaningful endings, which makes them even more poignant. One of the inspiring texts for D&D (It was in Appendix N) was Seven Geases where spoilers the main character survives a whole host of adventures only to die by slipping and falling from a cliff at the end. end spoilers

Then again, I am a strong gamist rather than a narrativist, unless I am playing something like Mystic Empyrean or Microscope.

You can read all about the founding ideas behind old-school D&D in this series where a blogger played with Mike Mornard, one of the early players in Gygax's group: http://blogofholding.com/?series=mornard I think everyone should read the whole series, as D&D set the stage for our entire hobby. It's sort of a Federalist Papers of RPGs.

WTFE

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

@WTFE I disagree.

You have that right.

I think that what the professor did was the better story option.

You are, however, 100% wrong in doing so in this case.

A story consists of one or more plots. A plot is the resolution (one way or another ) of one or more conflicts (or as Polti would put it, "dramatic situations").

There was a plot in play. It resolved around several dramatic situations. (Aside from the obvious military angle there were plots buzzing around politics, public relations, and a shady bit of clandestine research that could have gone really badly pear-shaped had everybody involved in investigating/propagating it been suddenly terminated out of the blue.) ZERO of those dramatic situations got resolved with the sudden TPK. Thankfully before this cycle we'd done a full plot with a suitable ending so the sour taste from this fiasco wasn't as bad as it could have been, but only an idiot would think that a TPK mid-story is good narrative technique.

You are free to disagree, but ... here's a thought: find me three books (that aren't academic wankery that five English majors in the world have read, I mean -- something that was actually read by actual people) that "resolve" a plot by killing all the protagonists suddenly out of the blue while (important bit here!) none of the current conflicts have even begun to get resolved.

Some stories don't have happy or even meaningful endings, which makes them even more poignant.

This "story" didn't have an ending of any kind. It had the kind of "ending" you'd get from a novel that was 3/4 complete when the author suddenly died of a heart attack. It didn't end so much as get truncated. I mean he TRIED to continue it, but without the IC history, connections, motivations, etc. there was no reason for the new characters to keep going into the proven-deadly killing field. If even ONE of the original characters had survived there might have been a way (although more than one would have been much nicer), but we didn't have that. What we had instead would be like if, say, Colin & Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Philip Selway, and Thom Yorke all simultaneously got killed in an air crash but Nigel Godrich decided to just take five other people, call them Radiohead, and kept them making albums.

One of the inspiring texts for D&D (It was in Appendix N) was Seven Geases where spoilers the main character survives a whole host of adventures only to die by slipping and falling from a cliff at the end. end spoilers

And the whole host of adventures were a set of plots with beginnings and ends, right? He wasn't on his way to the site of the first of those adventures and fell off the cliff before he even got to it?

Then again, I am a strong gamist rather than a narrativist, unless I am playing something like Mystic Empyrean or Microscope.

And from the gamist perspective he was right. It's just that as a narrative it fucking sucked. So right here you're contradicting what you opened with. You're saying "from a gamist perspective it was a good narrative". There's a reason why "gamist" and "narrativist" are on opposing ends of a spectrum: they're not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

You can read all about the founding ideas behind old-school D&D in this series where a blogger played with Mike Mornard, one of the early players in Gygax's group: http://blogofholding.com/?series=mornard I think everyone should read the whole series, as D&D set the stage for our entire hobby. It's sort of a Federalist Papers of RPGs.

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.

faraday

@WTFE Yes, exactly. It would be like: "And Luke Skywalker teamed up with Obi-Wan Kenobi to go rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire, and on the way they died because Han Solo failed his piloting check and crashed the Millenium Falcon in the debris field that was once Alderaan. The end."

Now to be fair ... most "game versus story" conflicts aren't quite that extreme. Sometimes fickle dice can take you in an unexpected yet narratively satisfactory direction, and that's why a lot of people like them. But sometimes they're just fickle and dumb.

WTFE

@faraday said in Eliminating social stats:

Now to be fair ... most "game versus story" conflicts aren't quite that extreme. Sometimes fickle dice can take you in an unexpected yet narratively satisfactory direction, and that's why a lot of people like them. But sometimes they're just fickle and dumb.

Well, yeah. I already said that I enjoy the weird twists and turns (and quick thinking) that dice often bring to games. It's just sometimes they bring REALLY BAD THINGS to the gaming experience too and a smart GM will curtail those.

(And I trot out that example specifically as an extreme to show that yes, indeed, dice can OBLITERATE stories where only an ignoramus would think that the dice's version is the superior story.)

...edited to add...

It would be like: "And Luke Skywalker teamed up with Obi-Wan Kenobi to go rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire, and on the way they died because Han Solo failed his piloting check and crashed the Millenium Falcon in the debris field that was once Alderaan. The end."

No, it would be worse.

"And Luke Skywalker teamed up with Obi-Wan Kenobi to go rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire, and on the way they died because Han Solo failed his piloting check and crashed the Millenium Falcon in the debris field that was once Alderaan. So Faruq Waterstrider and Wanna-Orb Barbobi, having never seen R2's message, never having had an aunt and an uncle die, never having had any kind of history with Darth Vader, took up the cause anyway and teamed up with Unity Corea to rescue the princess and ..."

Ominous

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

And from the gamist perspective he was right. It's just that as a narrative it fucking sucked. So right here you're contradicting what you opened with. You're saying "from a gamist perspective it was a good narrative". There's a reason why "gamist" and "narrativist" are on opposing ends of a spectrum: they're not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

I disagree again. Both can lead to very interesting though very different stories. I mean you just told us the story a few posts ago. It was a story. It's not going to win any awards, but, you have a story to tell. It's like the time I got my hand slammed in a car door while ridiculously drunk. Awful experience at the time, but it makes for a funny story.

WTFE

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

And from the gamist perspective he was right. It's just that as a narrative it fucking sucked. So right here you're contradicting what you opened with. You're saying "from a gamist perspective it was a good narrative". There's a reason why "gamist" and "narrativist" are on opposing ends of a spectrum: they're not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

I disagree again.

And you would be wrong again.

Both can lead to very interesting though very different stories. I mean you just told us the story a few posts ago.

You are conflating several very different definitions of "story" here.

Ominous

@WTFE I'll go with definition number 1.

story

a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.

We had a true tale of a fictitious tale in prose designed to instruct. Also, I found it amusing in a dark humor sort of way.

Narrativist game mechanics produce stories that fit the novel, movie, television series, etc. mold. Gamist game mechanics produce stories of the "you won't believe the crazy thing I saw driving to work today" variety. I like them both, but clearly you have a preference for one over the over.

I will add that narrativist styles produce stories inside the game. Gamist styles produce stories about the playing of the game itself. "Did I tell you about the time I slayed a giant by myself at level 1?"

WTFE

So you pick and choose the single definition that literally encompasses anything that can come from someone's mouth ... which is not the kind of story that a "narrativist" (another steaming hunk of shit of a neologism) would be talking about.

Ever.

And then say that this story:

"And Luke Skywalker teamed up with Obi-Wan Kenobi to go rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire, and on the way they died because Han Solo failed his piloting check and crashed the Millenium Falcon in the debris field that was once Alderaan. So Faruq Waterstrider and Wanna-Orb Barbobi, having never seen R2's message, never having had an aunt and an uncle die, never having had any kind of history with Darth Vader, took up the cause anyway and teamed up with Unity Corea to rescue the princess and ..."

...is the superior narrative to:

"And Luke Skywalker teamed up with Obi-Wan Kenobi to go rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the Empire, and on the way they died because Han Solo failed his piloting check and crashed the Millenium Falcon in the debris field that was once Alderaan.

Screenwriter: Oh, wait a second, that's kind of jarring. Let's rework this a bit.

And on the way, because Alderaan was now a debris field instead of a planet, the Millenium Falcon crashed, smashing C3PO into a small metal cube, killing Han and Luke, grievously wounding Obi-Wan and leaving Chewbacca unconscious. The surviving heroes are taken into custody, but through feats of derring-do with their fellow prisoners, Faruq Waterstrider and Unity Corea, and the help of plucky R2, proceed to escape, to rescue the princess and ..."

Because that's how it would have played out had one or two of the original team survived: massive change to the storyline, but there'd still be, you know, a coherent thread of a story instead of Radiohead as formed by Joe Bloggins, Stan Hardy, Paul Starr, and Stella Nightengale.

Ominous

@WTFE Also, by not reading some of the blog articles you missed one of the more important quotes which I will paraphrase as 'The story of tabletop games is the story of the world not your characters.' What you should have done is exactly the thing the professor suggested, roll some new characters. Maybe even roll up the characters that shot down your original characters.

Surprise! It turned out that the first chapter of this book was told from the perspective of someone who dies at the very beginning. I can't think of any famous authors who started a doorstopper series that is now a major HBO show in the same manner.

Ganymede

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

... here's a thought: find me three books (that aren't academic wankery that five English majors in the world have read, I mean -- something that was actually read by actual people) that "resolve" a plot by killing all the protagonists suddenly out of the blue while (important bit here!) none of the current conflicts have even begun to get resolved.

William Shakespeare's Hamlet: The only two protagonists -- Ophelia and Polonius -- are dead before Hamlet can even get close enough to Claudius to kill him. And, no, Hamlet is not the protagonist.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: At the onset of the story, the protagonist -- Dr. Frankenstein -- is dead. I'll admit to cheating a little on this one, as the story is mostly a re-telling from the Monster's perspective.

This is a good question, on which I wracked my brain for about half an hour. Good call. I'll probably get a third one. I was going to use Mary Shelley's The Last Man, but that would be cheating.

WTFE

@Ganymede said in Eliminating social stats:

William Shakespeare's Hamlet: The only two protagonists -- Ophelia and Polonius -- are dead before Hamlet can even get close enough to Claudius to kill him. And, no, Hamlet is not the protagonist.

I'm not sure how Ophelia and Polonius can be seen as protagonists unless you're going by some definition of protagonist that means "only good guys". (And even there Polonius is a stretch.)

A quick glance at the Wikipedia article for Hamlet says:

The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark...

This coincides with the definition of protagonist I've always seen used: "the main character of a work of fiction". So which definition are you operating under so we can sync expectations?

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: At the onset of the story, the protagonist -- Dr. Frankenstein -- is dead. I'll admit to cheating a little on this one, as the story is mostly a re-telling from the Monster's perspective.

Victor von Frankenstein isn't dead at the beginning, first. Indeed isn't he telling the captain his story as a warning? Like, in person? And the monster's narrative is pushed stack-like into the middle of that?

So Victor's narrative has a clear path, beginning to end, that resolves a conflict. (Not in a good way for him, mind.) The monster's own inserted narrative has its own conflict that is resolved. (Not in a good way for him, either.)

(I may be off here. It's been decades since I read the book.)

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

[...a bunch of horseshit elided...]

Dude, I get it. You've chosen an indefensible hill to die on and can't let go. Bravo! You will be remembered forever for your defence of the superiority of the story with Faruq Waterstrider, Wanna-Orb Barbobi, and Unity Corea coming out of the blue to rescue Leia and take up the good fight against the Empire! Or even better, they come out of the blue and fight for the Empire, obliterating the Rebellion completely!

So, just to make you happy: You win. You're 100% right. I'm 100% wrong. I lose. You can now go back to eating cheetos and crowing to your WoW clan or LOL team about how you smacked me down righteously.

In the meantime I'll talk with the adults in the crowd. Run along now.

Ominous

@WTFE Or you could pull your head out of your ass and realize that your characters weren't the main characters of the story, and instead of being a bunch of petulant children, your group should have rolled with it and kept the story going from another angle. Unless someone of your staggering intellect lacked the creative genius to take the loose threads and shift them in another direction.

Oh hey! I can use patronizing wordplay to demean the other person in a sardonic manner that appeals to teenagers everywhere too!

WTFE

No, dude, really, you win. You bested me. Aye iz duh loozer. U is winnar!

bored

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

Just to make a quick note here, although that's my stance on the matter and I believe it's what makes the most sense, it'd be silly of me to make a thread asking people what they thought then not listen to them.

You are entitled to your patient tolerance and open mindedness. I laud and commend for it.

I do not share it.

Lotherio

@Bobotron said in Eliminating social stats:

I think one of the big things we're missing here (especially with the sheer amount of AUGH MY AUTONOMY!) is how to incentivize losing, or giving up that piece of information. Ignore 'using social stats to make someone want to typefuck you,' but focusing on 'I am going to flatter and wheedle you and if successful, you'll tell me that Baron McHugelarge is really passing information to the King Flooflemeier.' How do we INCENTIVIZE players being willing to take these kinds of failures? Since there seems to be a constant 'well, my character wouldn't say <X>'.

To incentivize, I've been pondering Pace, a 24 game (written in 24 hours). Pips are gained and used to supplement skills (descriptors). To gain pips for use later, a primary way is by accepting a loss. Their example has a dashing character takes a fail at flirting, the loss ends with them wearing a red mark on the cheek for a 2 pip loss in that situation. They can now use those two points for a success later.

WTFE

@Lotherio said in Eliminating social stats:

To incentivize, I've been pondering Pace, a 24 game (written in 24 hours). Pips are gained and used to supplement skills (descriptors). To gain pips for use later, a primary way is by accepting a loss. Their example has a dashing character takes a fail at flirting, the loss ends with them wearing a red mark on the cheek for a 2 pip loss in that situation. They can now use those two points for a success later.

Fate and Spark both use mechanisms similar to this. Probably loads more, too. This is thinking that dates back to Champions' first edition with their ham-fisted "get points for weaknesses" attempts.

Arkandel

@bored said in Eliminating social stats:

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

Just to make a quick note here, although that's my stance on the matter and I believe it's what makes the most sense, it'd be silly of me to make a thread asking people what they thought then not listen to them.

You are entitled to your patient tolerance and open mindedness. I laud and commend for it.

I do not share it.

I don't think that's what it is.

In my head lots of things make sense because I only cherry-pick what I would like to do and the kind of game I'd like to play, but it's good to be reminded those things are not universal. In the past I've caught myself thinking I just need to explain this better or maybe if I just rephrase this again the other person will finally understand and agree, because obviously there's no other way - if they just got it then how could they not think the same way?

But even more so, if we simply assume this is the right call then why make the thread at all? We got all these pretty experienced people around with different experiences and views so let's put them to some use. Some of those fuckers might actually have a point, you know?

Lotherio

@WTFE Let me be more specific. Pace is diceless. The totality of success and failure is optional losing to gain pips for wins later. Most folks who've played diceless comic mu*s over the years are familiar with the concept. Take turns in the spotlight.

I'm just thinking any mu* system is better served by something like this. You want to win a fight, you need to take punches too and give someone else a win.

WTFE

@Lotherio said in Eliminating social stats:

@WTFE Let me be more specific. Pace is diceless. The totality of success and failure is optional losing to gain pips for wins later. Most folks who've played diceless comic mu*s over the years are familiar with the concept. Take turns in the spotlight.

I'm just thinking any mu* system is better served by something like this. You want to win a fight, you need to take punches too and give someone else a win.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. This wasn't me saying "*yawn* been there, done that." This was me saying "this idea has a long pedigree and is worth exploring."