Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning

[Thenomain]

@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

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

@Seraphim73

If physical situations can end a character, why not social situations? Is it different if the cut comes from a knife or a tongue?

Because in physical situations, losing a character can be chalked up to bad roles. A few more successes on a defense and you could have gotten out of it! In a social situation, because we're unwilling to let the dice stand alone

I'm going to stop here because this is the most solvable issue, and is the most confusing of reasons why people don't like social combat. Several people already have said, "Man, if there was only a better way of doing it with dice," which I feel is the best answer.

Naturally, a system without buy-in is pointless. Almost nobody knows about the popular game with the system that says, "Before you can get involved with combat you must identify your goal; if you deviate from that goal you start taking penalties." Why? Because people don't like it, even though it answers many issues with Mu*-related combat.

If we're unwilling to do something to better the hobby, that's on us. If we're unwilling to even try a solution, then complaining about the problems of Social Combat is pointless.

In fact, I have lost a character in a social/political situation, and when it was over, a staffer sat me down and told me that it was because I RPed wrong, and seemed to hint that if I had just worded one part of one pose differently everything would have gone differently.

Isn't this all the more reason to come up with a Social Combat system? My comment was because someone said that "death by Social Combat should not happen", even in a situation where rolls were happening. I disagree. Social situations can kill; we call this politics, and is doubly prescient for medieval politics. (Pulling that around because of the thread; honest, I do know where I'm posting.)

I'm sorry that the staff sucked. I'm sorry that staff didn't even try to consider you, the player, over their own rigid beliefs about how the game world works.

And yes, I would be glad to talk more in another thread. IMO, fastest way to do this is start a new thread with a quote from the old.

-- Pax.

[Pandora]

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

@Pandora How do you deal with people ignoring social skills, since they no longer do anything, and putting all of their XP into physical skills?

Social skills shouldn't be the equivalent of font-boxing. If you're cunning, you should be able to get people to believe things that aren't true. Make it a system of extra-powerful gossip, rumors that won't die, slandering your opponents to the NPCs effectively in plots. If you're charming, you can accomplish the same thing without lies, sway NPCs to your side in plots. Etc. and so on.

I remember when Arx was billed as a PvE game, not PvP; every character skill shouldn't be a way to ruin/kill someone's story or character. I got grief for simply not being ICly nice to someone that was slandering my character all over the city in a bid for power then crying to staff that I was a bully when I didn't cave to his demands. Now you lot think Arx staff is going to support your turning social skills into more methods of fucking with each other? Get a grip, and by a grip I mean learn to nicely hold hands tightly, because that's all you're really going to be able to do with other PCs if you don't want to pick up a sword. They've worked hard to give you enemies to fight against, why do you have to measure your dick social stats against each other?

[Jaded]

@Pandora

You make a good point Pandora. I liked seeing that. While everyone else debates the merits of a social combat system, I would just like to see social scenes given the same consideration for the one who sets up, hosts, and coodinates the event to get RS claim status like anyone running a combat scene does.

[Sparks]

I did not mean to derail the advertisement (sorry!) with brainstorming, and Social Combat is relevant to more than Arx anyway, so I made a different thread for that.

[Lisse24]

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

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

@Pandora How do you deal with people ignoring social skills, since they no longer do anything, and putting all of their XP into physical skills?

Social skills shouldn't be the equivalent of font-boxing. If you're cunning, you should be able to get people to believe things that aren't true. Make it a system of extra-powerful gossip, rumors that won't die, slandering your opponents to the NPCs effectively in plots. If you're charming, you can accomplish the same thing without lies, sway NPCs to your side in plots. Etc. and so on.

I remember when Arx was billed as a PvE game, not PvP; every character skill shouldn't be a way to ruin/kill someone's story or character. I got grief for simply not being ICly nice to someone that was slandering my character all over the city in a bid for power then crying to staff that I was a bully when I didn't cave to his demands. Now you lot think Arx staff is going to support your turning social skills into more methods of fucking with each other? Get a grip, and by a grip I mean learn to nicely hold hands tightly, because that's all you're really going to be able to do with other PCs if you don't want to pick up a sword. They've worked hard to give you enemies to fight against, why do you have to measure your dick social stats against each other?

I don't think your tone is particularly helpful in getting your point across. However, if your point is that social combat is not something that was included in the original vision of the game, I think you're mistaken. If I recall correctly, Hellfrog has spoken multiple times about getting a social combat system in. There's even been talk of finding ways to weave fashion into it as a way to give bonuses and such. I know the game was advertised as a PvE game and this seems against the spirit of such, but I thought we'd concluded a while ago that it really is PvP.

[Sparks]

@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

However, if your point is that social combat is not something that was included in the original vision of the game, I think you're mistaken. If I recall correctly, Hellfrog has spoken multiple times about getting a social combat system in. There's even been talk of finding ways to weave fashion into it as a way to give bonuses and such. I know the game was advertised as a PvE game and this seems against the spirit of such, but I thought we'd concluded a while ago that it really is PvP.

She has, and rightly so.

PvE games can benefit from physical combat systems too, after all: fighting NPCs, for instance, or practicing your skills with a friendly sparring match.

You don't have to be an RL great swordfighter to play a really good combatant; it should be at least possible to potentially do diplomatic or manipulative work with dice too. Even without debates and such, you could let players try to sway an NPC with arguments rather than fighting with them. If you let the systems share 'rounds' of action, you could even have, while one player is fighting the NPC, another arguing passionately that the NPC should stop, please, we don't want to kill you.

I think a social combat system on Arx could really benefit a lot of PRP GMs, and even staff GM'ing too, and make those manipulation dice just as potentially useful as medium wpn is.

[Lisse24]

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

I think a social combat system on Arx could really benefit a lot of PRP GMs, and even staff GM'ing too, and make those manipulation dice just as potentially useful as medium wpn is.

Yeah, right now, Arx seems really gunshy about letting talkers do their thing. Last night, I sat in a meeting and laid out a potential diplomatic path to begin to work on a problem. It was ignored in favor of sending out more scouts and just keeping eyes open. I don't know all the solutions to this, but I am pretty sure that having a defined system will help with getting characters to view that option as just as legitimate.

[Pandora]

@Lisse24 I'm all for fashion combat and who-wore-it-first or whatever Arx wants to do, social stats used to affect the world around the characters is what I mentioned in my post.

There's a difference between 'The NPCs say my scandalous vomit-green dress is hotter than yours' and 'I rolled the dice now tell me about your ties to the demonic horde while we prep the executioner's blade, traitor'.

[Herja]

That's why social combat shouldn't be a 'one hit and done' sort of deal. Not even physical combat usually works that way unless the combatants are way mismatched. Social combat can be subtle and done by degrees. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. One good roll shouldn't let my socially proficient princess know all your secrets just like one good roll shouldn't result in my knight being able to instantly behead your character. It's a story that we use dice to help tell. Winning (or losing) easily is usually a boring story. A good social combat system would keep that in mind.

[Lisse24]

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

There's a difference between 'The NPCs say my scandalous vomit-green dress is hotter than yours' and 'I rolled the dice now tell me about your ties to the demonic horde while we prep the executioner's blade, traitor'.

No one has argued for either of those things. The first is boring, the second robs a player of their autonomy. However, as @Sparks pointed out, there's a more indepth conversation about social combat in another thread.

[Apos]

There's multiple kinds of social systems, and social combat. My principle interest is designing systems that will effect how characters deal with NPCs, and the value of their standing with them, and frankly nearly everything that's handwaved in the game deals with NPCs- social/economic/military resources are an abstraction of being able to utilize pull with npcs, for example. Ultimately, every interaction with faceless npcs from the income of domains to military actions to gaining or spending resources will be influenced by social mechanics.

About social combat, there's a philosophical difference in MUD style arbitration and others, in just how system reliant something is. For example, some dude that rolls a combat beast standing outside the place new players connect and spam killing them. In a MUD, that's arbitrated by mechanics that shut that down. In MUSHes, that's arbitrated by knowing that's unacceptable socially and having GMs or players that prevent it, with likely some softer mechanics that make the most egregious violations improbable to avoid annoying retcons. Same will hold true for any kind of social combat, where, 'tell me ur sekrits so u die' is pretty much the social equivalent of some dude standing outside of the newbie gardens spam killing people in a MUD.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

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

There's a difference between 'The NPCs say my scandalous vomit-green dress is hotter than yours' and 'I rolled the dice now tell me about your ties to the demonic horde while we prep the executioner's blade, traitor'.

No one has argued for either of those things. The first is boring, the second robs a player of their autonomy. However, as @Sparks pointed out, there's a more indepth conversation about social combat in another thread.

I actually don't find the first very boring, we've discussed ways to make fashion tied in to social prestige, and tossed around ideas for a 'who wore it better' or 'best dressed' blind vote function

[saosmash]

@Kanye-Qwest I'm really sad Myrinda died and isn't around to be like Arx GoFugYourself or WhatNottoWear.

[GentlemanJack]

Fashion combat? Dance combat?

[Ominous]

Coming soon to Arx!

http://archives.erfworld.com/Book_1/140

[Kanye Qwest]

@saosmash Go Fug Yourself is basically my favorite blog. I like to pretend to be fashionable.

[Thenomain]

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

Dance combat?

I was going to make a one-off joke about this (I was disappointed this never happened in GotG2), but apparently it's already a thing. Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

[Ganymede]

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

Fashion combat?

[Cupcake]

Well, I was going to give away my character's original Myrinda Grayhope designer gown for charity or something but now I'm going to clutch it to my person mightily...Let it be my armor in the FASHION WARS!!

[ThatGuyThere]

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

Fashion combat?

Fashion making a difference is not really beyond the pale for RPGs though. Cyberpunk 2020 has a skill for it, Shadowrun has outfits that give bonuses to skills like Etiquette and Negotiation. NWoD has items of clothing and perfume listed as possible equipment modifiers to skills in the base book in the chapter about skills.
I am not into fashion myself as anyone who has seen my wardrobe will quickly attest to, but I don't see it as much different than any other aspect of a game world.