Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning

Arkandel

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Well. I mean - yes, I think what we're saying here is that we're putting in considerable effort to keep this from happening, because it's weird to have Combat Joe Who Has No Social Skills And Does Not Afraid Of Anything in charge of diplomatic efforts.

I think it's a great thing to focus on.

How do you deal with the (obviously exaggerated) example I gave above though? The House Voice who's a combat-character, and thus has the authority (but not the coded skill) to be part of or even lead diplomatic missions because of their rank?

Darinelle

@arkandel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

How do you deal with the (obviously exaggerated) example I gave above though? The House Voice who's a combat-character, and thus has the authority (but not the coded skill) to be part of or even lead diplomatic missions because of their rank?

I mean we have a High Lord who has shit social skills, so it's not exactly an obviously exaggerated example, it has happened in Arx. When he's on diplomatic/social plots, he drags his diplomats to the forefront and says: "I'm shit at talking and negotiating. Here are my diplomats." (I have seen this happen repeatedly in plots I've run)

Part of it is the culture of the game. If we make it clear that diplomats are important, then players realize that too. I don't run a whole lot of "no diplomats only ZUL" plots these days - there's almost always a chance to talk or negotiate.

Part of it is rolls. If someone has no diplomatic skills, they're probably going to flub their rolls and that could mean death or failure for their characters, and players like to live AND win.

Part of it is creating a class of diplomats (Whispers, in Arx) who can be hired to BE diplomats, and social adjusts and public pressure to be more diplomatic.

And part of it will hopefully come from this new social system we're working on.

Kanye Qwest

@arkandel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Well. I mean - yes, I think what we're saying here is that we're putting in considerable effort to keep this from happening, because it's weird to have Combat Joe Who Has No Social Skills And Does Not Afraid Of Anything in charge of diplomatic efforts.

I think it's a great thing to focus on.

How do you deal with the (obviously exaggerated) example I gave above though? The House Voice who's a combat-character, and thus has the authority (but not the coded skill) to be part of or even lead diplomatic missions because of their rank?

The short answer is, we are trying to design a system where ignoring the social status of yourself (your rep) and your house will begin to impact what Combat Joe the Voice wants to do. If you ignore prestige and never do anything diplomatic or work social angles, when you go to call your banners for war....well...

When you go to manage your domain and see the productiveness of your NPCs is shit and it's affecting your bottom line, you might start to think about delegating to and involving the social characters in your house.

Roz

Yeah, I'm a little confused by "there is too much focus on combat characters" but also "I don't like the idea of social systems based on my assumptions of what they are."

Auspice

@roz said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Yeah, I'm a little confused by "there is too much focus on combat characters" but also "I don't like the idea of social systems based on my assumptions of what they are."

I've actually read it closer to:
"I feel there's a huge focus on combat that has needlessly complicated things and now I feel these new systems might needlessly complicate the social side and put up a wall that will make it even harder for newer people to achieve things while already established PCs will continue to dominate."

Ganymede

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Well. I mean - yes, I think what we're saying here is that we're putting in considerable effort to keep this from happening, because it's weird to have Combat Joe Who Has No Social Skills And Does Not Afraid Of Anything in charge of diplomatic efforts.

Yes, but hilarity can ensue when this is the case.

I mean, that's why Fifth Kingdom was so much fun for me for so long: my high lord PC was socially awkward, but enjoyed getting drunk and wrassling. He was once dragged through the market trying to wrassle a boar down that had escaped from a pen.

Good tiiiiiimes. (I miss Mr. Turtle.)

Arkandel

@ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I mean, that's why Fifth Kingdom was so much fun for me for so long: my high lord PC was socially awkward, but enjoyed getting drunk and wrassling. He was once dragged through the market trying to wrassle a boar down that had escaped from a pen.

Yes. But.

It ends up having an effect on the game in general, because it can lead to many positions being occupied by characters who don't belong there but without any real consequences depending on how they are played. Sure, my skirt-chasing swordsman is funny when I pose him, but the House is doing A-okay (or not noticeably worse than your House led by someone with high finances and social skills). Path of least resistance, right?
It still overshadows characters built for this, but the other way around doesn't happen or, even better, does have real tangible consequences when it does. If I bring my likable class clown to a real fight someone's going to physically cave his head in with a hammer, not just draw a few chuckles yet overall get the job done.
This sort of thing absolutely relies on reasonable players realizing their own characters' limitations and playing them accordingly. The real fun begins when that doesn't happen, which is very often the case. Obviously great roleplayers choosing an angle will result to positive results, but that's not the rule - it's the exception.

Ganymede

@arkandel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

It ends up having an effect on the game in general, because it can lead to many positions being occupied by characters who don't belong there but without any real consequences depending on how they are played. Sure, my skirt-chasing swordsman is funny when I pose him, but the House is doing A-okay (or not noticeably worse than your House led by someone with high finances and social skills). Path of least resistance, right?

Do you have any idea how many people in history rose to positions that they didn't deserve? Of course you do. So, this is only really problematic if people want a smooth, gentle political system of gossip and soft, mewling glances. While I realize that Arx is essentially a fantasy game, I hope people realize that what they're looking for is a fantasy.

It still overshadows characters built for this, but the other way around doesn't happen or, even better, does have real tangible consequences when it does. If I bring my likable class clown to a real fight someone's going to physically cave his head in with a hammer, not just draw a few chuckles yet overall get the job done.

Then your clown gets his head caved in. This is a problem because ... ?

Do I need to point out at least one real life example where an experienced, veteran, savvy, popular politician has lost power due to some knuckle-dragging dump of a meatbag?

This sort of thing absolutely relies on reasonable players realizing their own characters' limitations and playing them accordingly. The real fun begins when that doesn't happen, which is very often the case. Obviously great roleplayers choosing an angle will result to positive results, but that's not the rule - it's the exception.

I get it. You don't enjoy vampire or real-life politics without having an appreciation for how the system is supposed to work ideally.

But, if I'm reading you correctly, you're essentially arguing that it's a bad thing to have socially-inept combat monsters in court because the average player isn't going to realize their own characters' limitations and play them accordingly. That seems a little patrician to me.

Arkandel

@ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Do you have any idea how many people in history rose to positions that they didn't deserve?

That's neither here nor there. We're talking about a game which needs to have interesting choices for players to make. If those choices don't exist everyone is poorer for it.

Or to get back to the original cause for this tangent in the thread, social characters need to have a strong niche, the same way as physical characters do. Else there will be way more of the former than the latter.

It still overshadows characters built for this, but the other way around doesn't happen or, even better, does have real tangible consequences when it does. If I bring my likable class clown to a real fight someone's going to physically cave his head in with a hammer, not just draw a few chuckles yet overall get the job done.

Then your clown gets his head caved in. This is a problem because ... ?

Because unless a system is explicitly designed to prevent it, that doesn't happen in social scenarios. I can bring my grunt to a meeting and play him in a way that won't embarrass himself or bring any disadvantages to his cause because he has no training in economics, politics or anything that doesn't involve swinging a sword at people.

But, if I'm reading you correctly, you're essentially arguing that it's a bad thing to have socially-inept combat monsters in court because the average player isn't going to realize their own characters' limitations and play them accordingly. That seems a little patrician to me.

I'm arguing the system itself should be built to prevent socially inept characters either from rising to power or to wielding that power without causing tangible consequences to whatever they are trying to do. In other words the end result should be equivalent to what would happen if an unskilled character took leadership of an army, or rode with that army into open battle.

As it is, in most systems - I am definitely not saying this is specific to Arx, and in fact I realize they are trying to fix this - you can have the pie and eat it. I think that has a negative impact on gameplay.

Apos

@arkandel I more lean in the camp of clear, intuitive negative consequences for someone that has no ability or training in attempting to do something difficult. I just think there needs to be a very clear pathway to getting the help of characters that have that ability or training, and try to nudge that forward, since it fosters RP and interdependence. I don't think I need to necessarily restrict people coming into power that lack the ability, so much as having the consequences be consistent and automated if they try to act without help.

Pyrephox

I would say the system doesn't need to prevent absolutely people 'falling in' to situations outside their comfort zone and managing to succeed - but that should be an outside odds proposition. And, unfortunately, there is a significant disconnect between 'high-stakes' combat situations and 'high-stakes' social situations that badly penalizes social characters entering the first over combat characters entering the latter: character loss.

There are very, /very/ few social situations that are played out IC which have character loss as a potential outcome for performing badly. However, there are a lot of combat situations which have that outcome - and more, there are coded objects which benefit people who focus on combat (weapons and armor), so the difficulty levels in those situations tend to get pushed ever higher, making it even less likely for non-combat characters to be able to achieve anything meaningful in exchange for the risk. If there were a failure mode for high-stakes social situations that was equivalent, you'd find people self-selecting pretty quickly.

And there is, in a court-based society. Temporary exile was pretty commonly used to indicate someone who had just offended the ruler of a court completely, or made themselves socially unmentionable. But the howls of outrage for implementing such a thing would be heard from orbit, despite it still being more gentle than losing one's character forever.

Sunny

Even without the systems, I will say I have not had too much of a difficulty imposing internal social consequences (exile, other creative punishments, and we did have one execution as a result from failed political plotting stuff) with the system as it stands now -- adding coded consequences and the like will absolutely make it easier, rather than imposing further difficulties.

Pyrephox

@sunny And staff at Arx is quite good at enforcing those penalties when a PC does level them. When I've had to set down penalties that include no, you can't go to this place and the guards have swords, staff was quick to represent that in a real way by locking the PC out of the target place. Which I commend them for.

Sunny

@pyrephox Yeah, absolutely. I'm just saying, as someone who plays there, plays a leadership PC, plays a social powerhouse, the problems folks who don't play there are saying the situation has...are not accurate.

I do not feel irrelevant as a social PC. I have done some awesome things, based on being a social PC. I have an IC ambassador, I hire diplomats, and these folks currently have measurable things to do, participate in, have fun with. There are plots for social PCs. Putting the social system in will definitely make it easier, give us options and fun things to do, but this whole 'you can only participate if you're a combat PC' thing is demonstrably false. Yes, games often have this problem. ARX (which this is an Arx advertising thread) does not.

ETA: There is a complete +crisis right now where having combat stats means NOTHING AT ALL and social stats are king.

ETA2: If anyone is having problems/issues with this, is floundering, whatever, I play Belladonna. I'm happy to assist / talk folks through things OOC if they're having problems figuring out how to engage on this level.

Pyrephox

@sunny I think that accuracy can vary across experiences. PCs like yours or mine are some of the most socially powerful ones in the game in a way that other characters can't easily match, in many cases. One of the most powerful Duchies in the game can have a very different experience as a social character, I think, than a random Iron Guardsman or a Baron in the hinterlands. At least in part because staff IS very good at letting us use the organizations that we're heads of, and use the non-combat resources we have to affect change.

I can totally understand that if you're playing a non-leader diplomat of some type, it might seem like no one really needs you, because Brawny McSwordlord will do just as well AND he can go on the demon-fighting plots too, without being squashed in the face.

Note: I am part of the problem in some regards - I could and probably should be using PC diplomats more. But then I don't get to roll /my/ social skills, and I enjoy that play and would like to do more of it, not less. So I keep kinda hoping that meaningful diplomatic systems go in that I can participate in, maybe once we find another nation that doesn't want to murder us.

kitteh

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

First, as always I think you guys are well-intentioned!

Reasons for combat characters to think - you know, maybe I could slaughter this person but in a social setting maybe I shouldn't be a douchebag because I have a sword and could do anything, because that person will get me laughed out of this party. Or shame my family. Or have some kind of meaningful impact.

I'm not sure this hits on any real issue, though? The whole 'maybe not slaughter this guy' 'there could be consequences' etc... I mean how much does that even apply to Arx? There's very little PvP, and the antagonists are all clearly evil supernatural doom armies. Who is actually swording people with impunity that this is problem social needs to address? I dunno, maybe this is just me not being in on the fun stuff where this is happening.

I'm not saying all combat characters do this (#notallcombatbeasts) or that everyone is a dick to social characters, but we want our social characters to have shiny things to play with and reasons to feel badass with what they do, and not just "hey, we're just biding our time until the combat beasts take care of business." That's seriously uncool and it's not very inclusive.

I think this is the real issue more, and it reflects your overall story structures. What use are negotiators when our enemies are demon generals or demon pirate kings or demon-elves or... you get the picture. Oh, also all the foreign nations are run by evil sorcerer kings/dragons. Staff does run some 'social' stuff (I've been on a couple), but it just doesn't seem to have the weight that 'I killed the demon of the week' does. The occasional elf treaties are the only dimplomacy that even really touches the metaplot tier of importance, but those seem very quickly handled by comparison to the months we spend tracking down ways to kill demons and searching weapons to kill demons and building armies to kill demons and then eventually actually killing demons.

Beyond that, I agree with @Arkandel's points a lot. I recognize social stuff is much harder to do. But it's still largely the case that the combat people generally can still get a lion's share of the social fun but not the other way around. Several highlords are top badasses. They get all the sitting in councils debating decisions and leading the armies and fighting the stuff. Victus being gruff and uncooth and supposedly hated (according to the system) rarely seems to do him any practical disservice (I'm not picking on his player or anything, he's just a glaring example, where staff made the effort to make him and his faction 'disliked' and... then doesn't do much with it?).

It's also a problem with the orgs, because everything (money, military AND social power) is concentrated in the top tier houses (and maybe in the faith) and so specialized lower tier ones often seem overlooked. I once had a staffer ask me 'why my (purely social) org even needed money' and basically imply I was being twinkish for thinking about it, which again feels like that subconscious bias at work.

saosmash

I don't want to contradict anyone's lived experience. I have plenty of plot on both of my characters, only one of whom has any combat utility (and she's not really a combat beast even still, since archery doesn't really apply to the whole sparring culture particularly). But I've also been around awhile, am vehemently active and storyrequest / @action a lot, and have learned a lot of the lore, which makes it relatively easy for me to smash my way in to story.

I have spoken to others who found getting hooked into plot on the game discouraging for a variety of reasons and I think many people are in that boat. It's easy to blame systems or how easy it is to fall into 'what do i do with this?' 'stab it!' as a plotrunner or as a player. Sometimes you get hooks you don't know what to do with. Sometimes you simply feel cut off or directionless, or the crowd you're hanging out with isn't getting story you're interested in, or you really just don't know how to hook. And sometimes a character or a storyline is just a bad fit for whatever reason.

Ultimately I do think it is on every player to work towards building their own story, and while I'm happy to help people or come up with ideas or share information to help develop things for people, the best advice I can come up with for any character -- social, combat or whatever -- is to be proactive, and if you feel lost or discouraged, don't be afraid to ask for help. If staff scares you, we've got guides now. Maybe we can help.

Sunny

@pyrephox That's a good point. I can see the opportunities and make that space for the PCs that I work with, but those folks who aren't being utilized would definitely be out in the cold.

I still posit that it's not due to an imbalance plotwise between combat and social utility in number of plots, nor is it due to these plots/options not being available.

Crawfish

@saosmash said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@sincerely Everyone is still gonna want your gorgeous art always man.

I'm not going to lie, I get a little giddy walking around the grid and seeing people sport and gush over the pretty things I make. It might be one of my favorite parts of playing Joscelin.

saosmash

@sincerely CAUSE YOUR ART IS GREAT.