Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?

[Ominous]

@Seraphim73 I like Game of Throne's system for tabletop play. I think what you suggest would work very well on the right server with a more collaborative, story-telling focused environment. Unfortunately, most Mu*s I have been on, players are too antagonistic and zero-sum with one another for it to function. Maybe I'm wrong and it would work great in most circumstances. If that's true, I wish you luck and hope to see it spread everywhere.

[Ganymede]

@bored said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

The super powers vs non is an important point. I think people often get so wrapped up in 'dice should matter' that they lose some idea of the scope of this stuff they're asking for. There are things 'good social skills' can do, but outright controlling others, changing their beliefs, etc, is hard.

Right. That's why I brought that up.

If you allow standard social rolls in CoD to accomplish what should be monumental tasks, like changing an anti-choice advocate into a pro-choice soldier, then you obviate supernatural powers. And the powers are supernatural because they accomplish things without explanation.

@Seraphim73? @Sparks? Looks like we have a good, old-fashioned competition here! Yee-haw!

[Arkandel]

@Ganymede You guys should roll to see who wins.

[Seraphim73]

@Ominous I agree that it has a danger of abuse in the hands of an "over-competitive" player or group of players. That's part of why I don't think it will ever be used in a game (plus I don't think anyone is rushing to make a Codex of Alera game... the fanbase is too small). It's really just a game design challenge for myself.

[Ganymede]

@Arkandel said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

You guys should roll to see who wins.

I'm rolling to see if I'm getting drunk.

[Thenomain]

@Ganymede said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

@Arkandel said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

You guys should roll to see who wins.

I'm rolling to see if I'm getting drunk.

Are there any girls there?

[Warma Sheen]

IMHO, one big problem with the concept of a social gaming system is that it often is interpreted by people who aren't very good socially.

No one ever socially forces anyone to do anything they don't want to do. Social interaction just doesn't work like that. And they are far more complex than any physical confrontation. Even Intimidation is just a way to imply physical force that is possible. Socially, people make the decision to risk that physical violence or not.

But just as an actual fight is nowhere near as simple as combat mechanics are, social mechanics are not a simulacrum of real life. Dice just help give twists and turns and determine outcomes that would be otherwise arbitrary. So don't look at social systems so seriously and you find ones that work just fine.

At our tabletop, we use WoD social system that is just like the combat system. Attack = Attr (Presence or Manipulation) + Skill - Defense (just like a physical attack). Defense is equal to lower of Presence or Manipulation + Socialize (just like physical defense). "Health levels" are equal to Willpower points (not dots) + Resistance traits. Done. By the time a pose is typed up, rolling the Att + skill that goes along with adds only a few seconds to the posing time. And not everything is a mental deathmatch. Unlike the mindless mooks we all fight in our games who have no self-preservation and continue every encounter to the death, when someone feels uncomfortable around another person socially, that person usually removes themselves from the situation. And then that situation is resolved. Simple enough. Or they can just not engage with them. If you ignore someone, they can't do much influencing. Trying sometimes just makes things worse.

And I agree that players are the problem, not the systems. Some players just don't understand the limits of the social boundaries. Or more accurately, don't want those boundaries to limit them from doing as they please.

If only we could all remember that it is just a game, everyone could have so much more fun.

[Bobotron]

@Warma-Sheen

Perhaps one thing that needs to be said, in regards to social combat, is... guidelines? Like, if you're going to do social combat on a MUSH that involves CvC, you need to outline the guidelines so that everyone is on the same page, and if someone's being an asshat about it, you can reference them. Like, I'm developing something that's a simplified version of the ASoIaF social combat. I'm planning on some guidelines, like examples. Like...

Here are things that Social Combat can be used for:

• Improve their Disposition towards you
• Wheedling information, including secrets, out of someone
• Manipulating their information by supplying believable falsehood
• A favor or other service

Things that Social Combat can not do:

• Make anybody sexually into anybody that isn't of their chosen compatibility
• Other things i haven't come up with because I'm worn out

Additionally, having something that marks down exactly WHAT the outcome of the combat is, like damage is recorded, might be useful. Like, upon losing, the loser uses a +command that does the thing, and that sets a note on them (IE: +concede james=I will back his play for being named patrician.) I dunno, I'm just spitballing here.

[surreality]

@Bobotron I have a list of 'consent subjects' I can send you, if it helps. I have a few things on there that might be helpful if you're looking for some of the 'potentially squick-based exceptions' that generate enough angst and drama that I feel it's easier to just require consent for them. Rape stuff, pregnancy stuff, also on that list. Also 'total personality change' (if somebody wanted to make a character with that totally different personality, they would have) and 'template change' (which is relevant if you're on a game that restricts alts by template, since it means the player could be forced to choose between two of their PCs that would otherwise be allowed to continue to exist -- this is typically a MU* only issue because alts and alt policy are a thing).

@Warma-Sheen said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

No one ever socially forces anyone to do anything they don't want to do.

I think this actually nails it.

Social combat isn't about directly achieving a specific end. It's about creating the underlying conditions (wanting to) to get to that end.

Even physical combat works this way: you don't typically one-roll-kill someone. You add to damage, in stages, to bring about their death.

[Bobotron]

@surreality
Honestly, rape is already on the 'do not do it, do not use it for story purposes' list. I had already planned on having 'make you fuck me' on the 'cannot accomplish by social combat' list. If they want to typefuck you, they can do it, and if you want to build a social conflict around that to get something else other than your rocks off, by all means do so; or if they're up for the idea of being seduced into typefucking, go for it. If they don't want to typefuck you due to any reason (married, wrong orientation, no junk to use), then don't push the fucking issue, that cannot be done via mundane means. To me, 'complete personality change' is not within the realm of social combat anyway, since it's influencing mundanely, so I personally wouldn't list that. One thing I'm doing is having the 'start' of social conflict be declaration of intent. IE: I want you to back me to be uplifted to Patrician. is James' intent against Gladys. Gladys' isn't sold on it; she has history with James being a badmouther, and so she needs convincing, and they go to Social Combat.

ETA: Talking about damage in stages, that's what the Social HP is for; and there's always the Compromise option, where you give up a partial of what the 'attacker' wants to be able to disengage from the intrigue (IE: James hasn't completely convinced Gladys about him being a fit to be a patrician. Gladys' rolls aren't going super well, and she knows she's not going to get a giant favor out of it, if any favor at all if her dice don't give her some love. In this instance, with very few Social HP left, Gladys chooses to Compromise, backing it in exchange for a Trifling Favor and a Lesser Favor, though she'd been hoping to get a Greater Favor out of the deal. James agrees, with the stipulation that he'll make it two Lesser Favors if Gladys doesn't talk about their discourse here. She'll take that deal, she's a smart lady).

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

@Warma-Sheen said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

No one ever socially forces anyone to do anything they don't want to do.

I think this actually nails it.

Social combat isn't about directly achieving a specific end. It's about creating the underlying conditions (wanting to) to get to that end.

This is a little naïve to me. Part of my job is to use my social abilities to directly achieve a specific end. But I think I know what you're getting at, and would otherwise agree.

[surreality]

@Ganymede For clarification:

In physical combat, we don't declare an intent of: kill the guy. We do something like I'm going to swing my axe at Joe's head!, even if kill the guy is the ultimate end goal.

So for social, you would have something like get Joe to vote and advocate for me for mayor; instead of the I'm going to swing my axe at Joe's head, you have something like I'm going to appeal to Joe's ego so he'll like me more or I'm going to threaten Joe's family to intimidate him so he'll be more likely to comply with what I want as your stages.

Both have end goals, they're just typically achieved in steps, rather than as a single sweeping and all-encompassing roll.

[Lithium]

Truly charismatic people are scary as hell RL.

Why shouldn't they be in games?

I think it comes down to not liking to lose. Honestly. People just don't like to lose and so they try to mitigate their weakpoints by just flat out refusing to use the systems in which they are weak in.

I do like the idea of using social combat to try and manipulate someone's viewpoint, or someone's emotions, but I've never seen the emotional tilts used anywhere in nWoD for example.

So how do you make social stats and combat worth as much as the rest? I kind of like the idea of mood health tracks, at one end is happyness, the other is sadness, one is calm the other enraged, you could have stubborn on one end and amenable on the other, you could have more but really... That's already adding a hefty layer of complication.

So when someone gets 'hit' with social combat (And I am fully for social defense stats as well) it's effect changes the characters position on the track and influences them accordingly.

Not everyone has the same ability to roleplay and roleplay styles will determine a lot of whether someone likes or accepts something but our ability to RP is not the character. I'll never be as suave as some of my characters, so I shouldn't be able to play social characters at all? I don't like that one bit.

I suppose you could put in modifiers like in Exalted where well written/described stuff gave you bonus dice but in the end?

[SparklesTheClown]

Shockingly, Fear and Loathing uses social combat as it's generally supposed to be used, without any apparent drama over it. This is so far the best WoD game I've played by a wide margin.

[Lithium]

Fear and Loathing though has a weird scale for characters that really turned me away from it though. Also the transfer character thing. Oh well.

[Coin]

@surreality said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

@Ganymede For clarification:

In physical combat, we don't declare an intent of: kill the guy. We do something like I'm going to swing my axe at Joe's head!, even if kill the guy is the ultimate end goal.

Well, actually, in CofD, you're supposed to have your endgame kind of in-mind in physical combat. You're talking about turn-by-turn, but technically, you are supposed to declare your full intent at the beginning of combat.

[surreality]

@Coin Which is true, but the core point is: you don't declare a one-shot-kill in a roll. You declare the steps taken to get there. Similarly, you don't declare 'I get my endgame in this single roll', you declare a step taken to get there in social. Part of the issue people have with the way socials have often traditionally been handled is the assumption of one roll doing the equivalent of a one-shot kill as their intended usage.

[Coin]

@surreality Well, yes. But it's also true that people rail just as hard at the idea of their character being convinced of something that the player doesn't agree with, even if it would take a long time IC and require several rolls.

I mean, it's a problem, but not the problem.

[surreality]

@Coin I dunno. I have no real objection to multiple rolls doing things with proper modifiers. (I may not want to play the character again after whatever it is, but that's a different issue.) Treating anything social as the equivalent of a one-shot-kill with superpower strength effects, though, is not horribly uncommon, and once somebody's been on the receiving end of this, I empathize strongly with the aversion developing.

[Arkandel]

@Coin That's why I always advocate rewarding confrontations. If the only outcome of social 'combat' is that you either 'win' or 'lose', and winning essentially means you retain the status quo then from that perspective being challenged at all is never a good thing. The best case scenario for you is that nothing happens - at least from a systemic point of view.