Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat)

[ixokai]

To state clearly, what bugs me about social combat is its abstracting the meaningful character development I've got going.

If my character is gay as in no really, gay, there exists nothing short of serious drugs he didn't consent to which counts as rape which is getting him to have sex with any lady, no matter how hot, how seductive.

There's no stat for 'Gay'.

Then again, I don't always play gay characters; my main character on the Reach ended up married to @Sunny's character. But he had as one of his absolute core principle points a fanatical loyalty. Where is this represented on his sheet? High willpower? But his willpower was provably weak in tons of other situations. Barely mention pot and he'd smoke out. He'd kill someone without really caring if he thought it'd save a child from harm.

The social nuances of characters are complicated. Maybe your trigger is about the weak, and you'd never go there. Or, maybe you can be easily talked into robbing the rich because those assholes. Sheets don't express any of this.

"Social" touches the key components of the characters we're making, and they can be deep and interesting, but this desire to handwave away their entire concept because Persuasion.... especially Persuasion which is a bland argument with no substance?

It invalidates my character.

I get the whole 'all stats should have weight' argument. I do. I do get it. I just don't care. I don't want to play that game.

[surreality]

@ixokai said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Social is more nuanced then 'can aim and fire a gun'. Social involves a lot of particulars. I've had more then one woman or utterly incompatible character try to seduce a gay character of mine in the past: I'm not joking, not making euphemisms. I've had a lady roll seduction on my queer ass.

This is always a good example. (Not trying to single you out here.) How differently would you react if, instead of that character trying to get in your pants for info, they sent an NPC (or a PC they convince to do it) to get into your pants for info that's male?

I'm betting hard that there's a much better chance of you being willing to go along with that (which would be the same for most folks, I'd think).

That high social score should inform female seductress 'this isn't going to work due to improper equipment, I need the right tool for this job to get what I want' just like high firearms is going to inform ace sniper that a twig and the word 'bang' isn't going to blow a hole in someone; they also need the right tool for that job.

The problem is rarely purely a matter of agency, it's a matter of how much more agency is removed in the way many people handle social rolls, and have historically handled them.

[TNP]

@surreality That's a good example. And just like choosing what weapon you need to take down the target, you need to choose the right caliber of guy (no, not size). Does he like bears? Twinks? Jocks, frat guys, otters? Sure, you could fire a .22 at a rhino but it's not going to do much. You might make some impact but you also might need to fire a dozen shots where a single one could work instead.

[faraday]

@surreality said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

That high social score should inform female seductress 'this isn't going to work due to improper equipment, I need the right tool for this job to get what I want' just like high firearms is going to inform ace sniper that a twig and the word 'bang' isn't going to blow a hole in someone; they also need the right tool for that job.

I don't agree with that analogy. High firearms people can see the target and pick the appropriate weapon for the job. A squirrel (that you want to eat afterwards), a human wearing kevlar 100m distant and a tank all require different weapons. This is obvious at a glance.

A female seductress can't read @ixokai's character's mind to know that he's gay, or read my character's mind to know that she was traumatized by something in her childhood that makes her particularly receptive or resistant to a particular sort of manipulation.

Also - we accept that a high degree of randomness in physical combat. "Yes, you shot him, but you hit him in the leg and only grazed him." That same degree of randomness is nonsensical in social conflict because people (generally) do not behave in a completely random manner. They behave in ways that are informed by their personality, their experiences and their values - none of which is reflected meaningfully on a character sheet.

So I agree with @ixokai - people are way more complex than physics.

I favor an approach similar to what @Sparks mentioned awhile back: Social skills are a form of performance art. You roll for the performance. How someone reacts to that performance is based on a host of other factors out of your control. Just as two people can react to the same painting in completely different ways, two people can react to the same social roll in completely different ways.

Take the example of the lady getting caught robbing a place and trying to convince the cop to let her go with a sob story about her kids at home. She rolls well. That means her act was convincing.

• Officer McOrderly might believe her but still say: "Well you should've thought of them before you decided to break the law. I'll make sure CPS goes and takes care of them."
• Officer McBleedingHeart or Officer McRaisedByASingleMom might be swayed into giving her a pass outright.
• Officer McReformedDelinquent might take pity on her and make her a reformation project.

All of these are viable reactions to the situation that still respect the roll and the XP the social character spent on the dice. In fact, the only invalid reaction IMHO would be something like: "Save your fake tears for the judge, lady!"

[Derp]

@misadventure said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

The small mountain of examples up there.
These do not all agree, just examples.

@bobotron said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Conversely, the couple of games where I've been on that had social stats either 1) gave no real backing to those social stats, or 2) suffered from the same issues I have crop up in LARP - I am my character, thus my agency is infringed upon if you use your Lies Stat @ Eleventybillion.

At the end of the day, I don't think that anyone is going to come to a resolution on these things that actually makes everyone happy. My personal opinion is, if you're trying to use an OOC mechanic to justify why your character is not subject to an IC mechanic, e.g. most arguments about agency etc., then you're not playing by the rules of the game. i.e., cheating.

But other people's mileage obviously varies.

I think what needs to happen is that games just need to decide whether they're using social dice or not, and then actually put the effort into making those dice matter. If certain players don't like the idea that there are social dice on this game that could be used to influence their PCs mindsets and behaviors? Cool. Play on one of the games that don't.

I know that if I ever open a game, provided I can find some time in the future (internship is over this week, thank god), it will absolutely have enforced social stats. And I know that not everyone will want that to be a thing, or be comfortable with that. And that is fine. Games don't need to be everything to everyone. They just need to offer an appeal to a group of players that have a like mindset in these matters and make it happen consistently.

[Arkandel]

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

I think what needs to happen is that games just need to decide whether they're using social dice or not, and then actually put the effort into making those dice matter. If certain players don't like the idea that there are social dice on this game that could be used to influence their PCs mindsets and behaviors? Cool. Play on one of the games that don't.

As I've been discussing with Gany lately I've been changing my view on social attributes. I used to think they are meant to be the equivalent of physical dice, meaning that their use in real-time RP should be as good as a punch.

This is probably not going to work because of its complexity either in mechanics or social dynamics, all of which are things we've seen highlighted - correctly - in this thread. There are just too many unquantifiable factors, too many things you'd need to call in staff for, and that's not a recipe that could work out in RP. Nearly all RP is social and you just can't keep interrupting its flow to try and figure out where dice fit in it - not without fucking it up.

It's like the observer effect in physics. The very act of using social dice themselves changes the social scene.

What I am starting to think is social attribute should be balanced in relation to their physical counterparts. Not in the same way, because that's comparing apples to oranges. The more we try to shoehorn a more direct equivalence the more we'll be bashing our heads against the wall.

So for instance have social attributes give you other things and place a tangible value on those things. Make them count for status (but make status mean something). Make it more efficient to mine resources (but ensure those buy you in-game things you really want). Ensure they get you more contacts (yet the information, secrets and access that yields should have a practical impact).

If you do then yes, the problem is solved without ever needing to run into those "u want to sleep with me lol" situations our hobby is so infamous for. But to do that it takes games designed from scratch to utilize those systems and staff willing and able to facilitate them. Feeding me a secret about the Sheriff's ghoul that's utterly useless in practice then calling it a day is futile compared to the buying power I know I'll get for that third Vigor dot.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

What I am starting to think is social attribute should be balanced in relation to their physical counterparts. Not in the same way, because that's comparing apples to oranges. The more we try to shoehorn a more direct equivalence the more we'll be bashing our heads against the wall.

This, this, this is what I'm meaning to get at when I say "there are a million other ways to use social stats than direct confrontation." And, when there is direct confrontation between players, yes, there will be an opt-out provision (for long term things that can have meaningful, character-changing consequences).

Our game will be using Status. A lot. When we said "we wants politics plz," we meant it. I spent the better part of yesterday writing up how Status works on the game, what will cause your Status to go up and down, and so on. Now I'm on the part I called "Political Actions," which includes things like censuring people, allocating a Faction's resources, and so forth. What pools are going to be used? That's right, social pools.

Managing resources? Actual strategic warfare? You can bet that'll use mental pools. Because combat isn't always brought down to the individual level in the Dark Ages, and even William Wallace lost a battle to a foe with a superior mind.

A bully finds few friends in their time of need. Go around smashing things, and everyone'll come down on you hard until they will get political gain for sending you into torpor.

[surreality]

@faraday That's actually taking it a step further along the same principle, really.

The point I'm making on the whole isn't a 'this is how you fix it', but a 'this is the most broken aspect of this people have to confront'. Namely, people don't even get to the different kinds of guns point. When it comes to social, they want 'point a stick and say "bang"' to accomplish the job for them, when that's something we'd consider completely absurd (even if we thought any gun would work for any shot, we know we at least need a gun).

[Misadventure]

Just skipping over the last few days of posts as I remembered something that was important to me at least about this overall topic.

I like details, details the players can latch onto to include in their plans, mention in their approaches to problems, use to better understand the world setting. Details that constrain their options so they have to get creative, as well as change up their approach or use methods or resources they might not normally. I want details that give them examples and ideas beyond what they may have on their own.

For combat, this sort of detail has in some games come in the form of hit locations, and variable weapon performance against types of armor. Different moves based on weapon type and reach, different defenses based on mobility, and of course differences based on fighting styles and or feats and advantages.

I want that sort of thing so my players, doing what they do the most, which is interact with entities and mysteries, so they can have details and nuances to what they do, what they have prompts for.

However, I run games with a lot of ST attention, and the NPCs are with interacting with. I am fairly sure that this is not the case on MU*s, at least not to any degree of detail.

[kitteh]

@faraday said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Also - we accept that a high degree of randomness in physical combat. "Yes, you shot him, but you hit him in the leg and only grazed him." That same degree of randomness is nonsensical in social conflict because people (generally) do not behave in a completely random manner. They behave in ways that are informed by their personality, their experiences and their values - none of which is reflected meaningfully on a character sheet.

This is really it for me and it's not the first time it's been brought up here.

Compared to many players, I'm very far on the non-consent, OK with random shit happening to my PCs. I don't even see much horror in 'welp, I rolled 20 so now we bone,' because even if its kind of stupid I don't see the result there being so much worse than 'oh, I rolled a 20, you ded.' Generally, it's better! My char is still alive! I have an event in their life to RP around. If the person doing the roll is a jerk/creeper, that's a totally unrelated issue (and would probably make a combat scene suck too), handled by the unrelated solution of not RPing with them (edit: or better, hopefully having staff kick them off the game).

But like everyone I do have visions for my characters and their personalities and that might at some point preclude some particular social outcome. And...

I REALLY WISH THIS COULD BE ON MY SHEET.

Because I don't want to be the person no-selling your dice without good cause. I don't want the stigma of 'she's just dodging consequences.' No, I'm not, it's just that THIS particular time, you picked the thing that's not gonna work for pre-established reasons. But I have no way of establishing those things.

So if people want games with social rolls, game designers need to go back to the drawing board and 2.0 their whole concept of these game systems. Nearly everything we play is a WoD-clone, with the same stat-skill conventions and minimal focus on social stuff beyond 'maybe you can put one virtue and vice.' These arguments will always go back and forth fruitlessly under these conditions.

[MarsGrad]

Yeah, I mean it's been said in one way or another already, but I don't have an issue with social combat as a theory or a concept. My problem is when it's handled /exactly/ like physical combat, where Johnny B. Goode comes up and poses how he shoots at Space Cowboy and then rolls dice and we get the results. That's fine because the agency is entirely on Johnny in that situation. Whatever Space Cowboy's backstory and personality, a bullet is a bullet. It doesn't override Space Cowboy's character or development to be shot.

The problem comes when Johnny walks up to Space Cowboy and poses a big threatening speech trying to intimidate Space Cowboy into backing down by implying he's going to harm and kill Space Cowboy. Then he rolls dice, gets an awesome result and Space Cowboy is expected to be cowed by this, even though it's been established that Space Cowboy is a masochist and doesn't fear death. It overrides his admittedly cliche character and ignores his personality.

I'd love it if Johnny came up to Space Cowboy and said, 'Okay Space Cowboy, I'm going to try and intimidate you into backing down.' Then he rolls his dice, gets his awesome result, and then works with him to decide how he might do that, ie. Space Cowboy maybe worries about his friends and Johnny managed to convince him that 'Oh, you might be able to stop me, but not before I kill your whole crew' or something.

Very rarely is this done. Most people just want to play out social combat like physical combat and ignore the differences because they both involve dice, but there's an entirely different rhythm and approach to it.

[Распутин]

@faraday said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

So I agree with @ixokai - people are way more complex than physics.

But human behavior is ultimately governed by physics. I think you got that backwards.

[faraday]

@marsgrad said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Then he rolls dice, gets an awesome result and Space Cowboy is expected to be cowed by this, even though it's been established that Space Cowboy is a masochist and doesn't fear death. It overrides his admittedly cliche character and ignores his personality.

I think this is in large part due to the inadequacies of social conflict resolution systems. There's no nuance to them. It's just dice vs dice. Like @kitteh said - there's no way to reflect situational Willpower on a character sheet. Space Cowboy might have a death wish and be utterly unafraid if someone puts a gun to his head, but be soft-hearted enough to be completely cowed by someone putting a gun to the head of an innocent bystander. Both are forms of intimidation, but the execution is very different.

I have a problem with some of the pitches that say: "Well he rolled well, so you need to work with him to figure out what would've worked on your character." That's like having someone roll Salesmanship, get a good result and say: "OK clearly I've done a good job selling you a car - you tell me what kind of car that might be." It doesn't work that way. Maybe my character doesn't need a car. Maybe they can't afford one. Your salesmanship roll doesn't give magical insight into my character's thought patterns - it just means that you made a good sales pitch.

[MarsGrad]

@faraday said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

@marsgrad said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Then he rolls dice, gets an awesome result and Space Cowboy is expected to be cowed by this, even though it's been established that Space Cowboy is a masochist and doesn't fear death. It overrides his admittedly cliche character and ignores his personality.

That's like having someone roll Salesmanship, get a good result and say: "OK clearly I've done a good job selling you a car - you tell me what kind of car that might be." It doesn't work that way.

I enjoyed this example.

But yeah, I agree. The problem is most games are designed to be played in a tabletop setting, and even homebrew systems borrow heavily from established RPG patterns. They're supposed to be targetted at NPCs who are played by a GM that understands how to keep things a little fluid and flexible to account for creative player approaches. They're not by any means intended to be used to resolve a social interaction between two PCs that are probably pretty rigidly designed and thought-out.

That said, I actually do like the social performance idea, but that still relies a lot on trusting your fellow players.

[Derp]

Okay, so to crib @MarsGrad's example above and give the 'on the other hand' version of that:

Space Cowboy might be a masochist according to your story, and he might have a deathwish. But in this scenario? His 'Masochistic Deathwish' stat just got beaten by Johnny B. Goode's 'intimidating jerkface' stat.

If you want the kind of character that never blinks in the face of such things, then -invest in the stats that make sure you rarely lose those rolls-, and then when you do lose one, figure out why this time is different.

Super major peeve -- your character doesn't get extra stats/immunity based on backstory. That also isn't the way this works, and we need to be realistic about that. People have crafted the most convoluted backstories ever to explain why they're immune / resistant / not afraid of X thing, but then rock like 4 dice in resistances on their sheet.

Those resistance stats are what should be determining how much of a badass this person is in their backstory. Not the other way around.

[Ganymede]

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

If you want the kind of character that never blinks in the face of such things, then -invest in the stats that make sure you rarely lose those rolls-, and then when you do lose one, figure out why this time is different.

Super major peeve -- your character doesn't get extra stats/immunity based on backstory.

[MarsGrad]

@derp Fair enough, but the other other side of that is that someone with those resistances is now immune to literally every angle of attack on their character. They no long fear death or the death of loved ones. They're immune to the charms of the most seductive wo/man. They're completely indomitable, incorruptible, and also they're really self-righteous. They have no weak spots because we've taken backstory and personality out of the equation. A dude with a ton of armor and the best physical resistances on the game will still get steamrolled by enough firepower, but this guy can't ever be convinced of anything.

Social stats are far too vague to work effectively on their own.

[faraday]

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Those resistance stats are what should be determining how much of a badass this person is in their backstory. Not the other way around.

That's where we inherently and fundamentally disagree.

And that's okay.

I feel that a simple stat like "Willpower" is a woefully inefficient way of modeling something like: "Space Cowboy has a death wish, but is super afraid of losing people close to him, has a soft spot for puppies, and a weakness for gambling and redheads." Even merits/flaws don't come close to reflecting that sort of nuance.

Everyone keeps talking about Consent/Non-Consent like it's a boolean, but in reality it's a spectrum.

There are plenty of games that are "Consent, but... staff can overrule you if you do something insane." or "Non-Consent, but... you won't die without consent unless you do something insane."

All that some of us are talking about here is "Non-Consent, but... players have agency in their character's feelings and decisions." That doesn't mean they have unlimited agency. If a building falls on them or they get shot on the battlefield, that's something outside of the character's control. But whether they buy a car - that's a decision the character is making.

These are just different play-styles. Neither is right or wrong - they're just different.

The arguments (not you personally Derp - I mean in general) that people who like to play a different way are inferior, wrong or cheating are ridiculous, insulting, and frankly really annoying.

[peasoupling]

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Super major peeve -- your character doesn't get extra stats/immunity based on backstory. That also isn't the way this works, and we need to be realistic about that. People have crafted the most convoluted backstories ever to explain why they're immune / resistant / not afraid of X thing, but then rock like 4 dice in resistances on their sheet.

Those resistance stats are what should be determining how much of a badass this person is in their backstory. Not the other way around.

If the character does not get extra stats/immunity based on backstory, give me a sheet that is 20 pages long with enough detail for it to make sense. The backstory is the -5 modifier to your roll because you decided to shoot my character while blindfolded and swinging upside down from the chandelier. The majority of a character's personality and beliefs are not on their sheet because there is no place on the sheet to put them.

Where on my sheet does "this character was a complete asshole to mine and I hate them" go?

[surreality]

@kitteh said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

So if people want games with social rolls, game designers need to go back to the drawing board and 2.0 their whole concept of these game systems. Nearly everything we play is a WoD-clone, with the same stat-skill conventions and minimal focus on social stuff beyond 'maybe you can put one virtue and vice.' These arguments will always go back and forth fruitlessly under these conditions.

I won't go into any real details of it now, but 'having that on the sheet' is something I'm tinkering with in the notWoD OT/OS project.

It was one of the very first considerations, actually.

It does work both ways, though, in some respects: while there's some stat things that give you what are 'core ideals/drives/haven't decided quite what to call them yet', they can work 'against' someone, too. If someone took something like "I will not allow my children to come to harm," they get a big bonus to resist anything that'd make them do harm to their children.

A person who tries to make them do something else that might be objectionable -- say, 'go kill that creepy molester in the van who has been eyeing your kids' -- may get a bonus on their attempt to convince that character to do it, for the same reason. It will be more compelling to them in a way that someone without the same core personal ideal has, even if they both have the same innate reaction to the idea of killing someone generally.

I think it helps people generate story that is a lot more in tune with the character's identity as the player envisions it, even if some of the story is horror, or involves Doing Bad Things, etc.