@lithium said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):
Also, no, I am not asking for social rolls to be like bullets, and I am /tired/ of that bullshit that the 'player agency' people are putting forth.
I just want social characters to be able to influence people socially, because, that's the point.
I just want everyone to play by the same fucking rules and quit trying to cheat.
(ETA) Now if a game wanted to give social stats a price break, both in chargen and in xp, and say they only functioned as guidelines against PC's but functioned fully against NPC's I'd be fine with that. Because that's playing by the rules of that game. I'm a coder, I like rules being followed. Without rules we have Anarchy.
The fact remains that a lot of people are asking for a single social roll to have the same impact on the opposition's intentions as a bullet would on their health. They've even suggested a separate health track for socials, just to make sure we all knew that's what they were talking about without any room for confusion or debate. That's what most of the pro-social stats folks want: A manipulation-machine-gun that never breaks or needs repair and maintenance or runs out of bullets, and ultimately a bullet hits your player's active decision-making ability and innate intentions as opposed to their desire to follow a course of action they've already decided on.
That, in my book, is cheating for a lot of reasons I've already laid out. It ignores the target's background, it ignores any rational expectation of backstory which we can assume amounts to someone else's extended social successes to convince them to do what they're doing right now in the first place. So now everyone's supposed to stat out the attack/defense/health points assigned to every single facet of their personality modified by exactly how every event in their background influenced their present state of mind? I've been playing RPGs since I was 12, I've been GMing since I was 16, I've been doing both on IRC and MUSHes since within the same timespan, and I'm a coder too. I wouldn't want to have to play in this ridiculous-ass system, I wouldn't want to have to GM it, and I sure as shit wouldn't want to have to design and maintain code systems to support it. That's a completely second chargen and sheet for your character's mind and mentality. The whole idea is insane.
Players know what's IC and what isn't for their character. You're not going to seduce a gay guy to sex with a woman unless his own backstory has him as bi-curious. That doesn't mean the same woman can't seduce the same gay guy to betray his government for a fat cash payout, if he needs money to live - especially not if he has any particular leaning toward greed - being sexually disinterested in women does not by any stretch of the imagination make the gay guy immune to seduction attempts by women.
I realize that most people on WORA don't really bother to read a whole post - someone above just quoted 1 paragraph of my prior post and his response had nothing to do with anything I said, unless that 1 paragraph had been all I said. Those people might accuse me of going back and forth between pro-social and anti-social skill usage at this point. Those people would be retarded. I'm all for the appropriate uses of social skills in the appropriate contexts.
Giving people a price break on social stats is bullshit. Just make people figure out wtf social skills really are and what they represent, or advise them that they really aren't prepared to engage in any type of RPG except the MMO that gave them the idea that you should be able to socially derail the psychological equivalent of a speeding train with a single dice test and without supernatural powers.