Eliminating social stats

[Sunny]

Anyone who doesn't see a difference between 'if you play this way you are wrong' and 'I would like to try and play like this' has a problem.

[Seraphim73]

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

Here's why that doesn't make sense: it would be like expecting someone who wants to play Walter White to actually know how to make methamphetamine.

Totally agree with you that it's one of the unfair things about RPing. You're not expected to know how to throw a punch in real life in order to be able to knock someone out in the game, you're not expected to know how to cook meth to have a chemistry skill in the game, but you're expected to know how to fast-talk someone to do it in the game. That's one of the reasons that in my Tabletop games, I often ask players what approach they want to take, rather than ask them to come up with the exact words.

But, as others have said... this is one of those unstoppable force/unmovable object arguments in MU*ing.

Here's a better solution: you have an impartial judge help come up with the specifics of the outcome after the die roll. So when a player who already won the bluff check writes a stupid pose, the GM can go, "Come on, that's oh so silly, try this line of thought instead maybe."

Totally agree, but having an impartial judge there all the time... probably doesn't work on a MU*. For Furystorm, I came up with something similar: http://furystorm.wikidot.com/combat#toc14

Basically, each player briefly describes the arguments their character is making, the other player assigns a modifier for how that argument would work with their own character's background/feelings (all the important things @faraday mentioned about what makes social combat hard), the dice are rolled, and then the losing player helps the winning player fine-tune their argument to make it as effective as the dice say it should be.

It doesn't fix bad posing, but it does fix nonsensical arguments married to huge dice pools. And, of course, its baked into the rules that you still can't force someone into TS--even with Earthcrafting (magic).

the babysitter comes, and you're found to be in the wrong, then you lose XP or something. You get punished for wasting their time.

This, on the other hand, I would run away from as fast as I could. I'm pretty convinced it would just make calling a GM even more acrimonious, since not only do you have an argument to lose, but now you have XP at stake too.

@Pyrephox said in Eliminating social stats:

Sometimes it means reaching out OOC and just saying, "Hey, I see you're trying to get my character to do X, and you rolled really well, but that strategy isn't going to work. With Empathy 5, you'd probably know that my character would be far more susceptable to bribery than bluster. Would you like to rewind and try a different pose?"

This, this, this. Remembering that you're trying to tell a cohesive story together, and that matters more than which of you "wins" or "loses" this scene is incredibly important (in my opinion).

[faraday]

@Pyrephox said in Eliminating social stats:

Putting it as a continuum suggests that you can't have or want both.

I didn't say it was either/or; I said it was a spectrum. There are games where there are literally no mechanics -- that's the far right of the spectrum. There are games where there are no poses - that's the far left. The vast majority of games fall somewhere in between, but they fall at different points on the spectrum. And the degree to which someone values story over rolls colors what they're willing to handwave versus what they expect to play out.

Also, you're allowed to like different things at different times. I can be perfectly happy playing tabletop where it's "I bluff my way past the guard clatter of dice." But that's not what I personally am looking for on a MUSH.

[Ominous]

So far I am hearing a few solutions:

Use a social combat system.

• Pros: Pre-existing code makes it easy to set-up and people know generally how it works and how to use it.
• Cons: Threads like this come into existence. "Save or die (socially)" sucks as a resolution system.

Get rid of social stats entirely.

• Pros: The easiest solution - less to code and no arguments over whether Bob seduced Alice or not.
• Cons: Combat monsters become even more common with few other areas for xp expenditures. Those without RL social skills will never get to pretend fun-time having social skills.

Use a resource system giving higher social stat characters access to more resources.

• Pros: Removes "save or die" rolls that result in characters doing something the player doesn't want to do. Allows players without social skills to still feel like they can pretend to have them by letting them negotiate/buy the result they want.
• Cons: Needs a whole new system no MU has done before to be designed, coded, and tested. If the system isn't fine-tuned well, the resources may have little worth, resulting in those with said resources being unable to spend them to get what they want.

Remove dialogue entirely from RP and keep using social combat. Just like people post "Bob swings his sword at Alice," social interactions will consist of "Bob greets Alice and tries to sell her beachfront property in Montana."

• Pros: Keeps standard social combat systems while potentially removing issues such as "Your character's dialogue isn't believable. I don't care how well you rolled."
• Cons: Removes dialogue, which is probably a critical component of why people RP to begin with.

Utilize a storygame system rather than the standard Tabletop RP paradigm we have been using. Example: troupe style system where all characters go on the roster when their current player logs off, so a character can be played by many people over the course of a week and attachments to individual characters are minimized, increasing ooc-ic separation.

• Pros: Paradigm shift may completely remove the issues allowing for social combat to be used with little trouble or an entirely different resolution system is used that changes even how physical combat works.
• Cons: Someone has to code it. People have to learn it. Unfamiliarity to players may delay or even prohibit adoption.

[Arkandel]

@bored said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain I am participating in the thread to support @Arkandel's general notion that the best solution to this whole thing is probably to throw it in a flaming hobo garbage can fire.

Just to make a quick note here, although that's my stance on the matter and I believe it's what makes the most sense, it'd be silly of me to make a thread asking people what they thought then not listen to them.

I'd love to see an argument that proves me wrong. It's easier to have social stats in a game than not to, since people are used to them as they are part of just about every table-top RPG, and departing from the existing paradigm is never easy or without consequences.

For example for all I know if a game is launched some players will come, notice just that, and bail without giving it a chance. No one has left a game because Manipulation is a stat in CGen though.

[Ominous]

@Arkandel Most of the servers that I have played on did not have a social resolution mechanic and did not have social skills. I think that is the more common option actually. The general "solution" to making that choice is expanding the number of physical and mental skills to keep combat monster bloat down.

[Arkandel]

@Ominous What do you mean by servers? I'm curious, are you referring to non-MU* games or something else?

[Ominous]

@Arkandel MUs.

[faraday]

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

@Arkandel Most of the servers that I have played on did not have a social resolution mechanic and did not have social skills. I think that is the more common option actually. The general "solution" to making that choice is expanding the number of physical and mental skills to keep combat monster bloat down.

Same here. Actually in 20 years I don't think I've ever played (more than briefly) on a MU that had a PvP social mechanic. Most didn't have social stats at all, or if they did they were just a background thing alongside hobbies, sports, dancing, etc.

[Ominous]

Addendum: I do not want to imply that I found those servers to have chosen the best option. Most times the issues of everyone having 10 out of 10 in every "I kill it" skill was very prevalent OR the system lacked a skill system at all and it was a full consent server.

[Ganymede]

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

So if you can suspend disbelief for factual inaccuracy, why not for low interpersonal skill?

The example of knowing how to cook methamphetamine is an issue of knowledge, and fudging it. It is not analogous to whether a person can conceive of and execute a savvy pick-up line, which is a matter of expression.

On a text-based game, whether you can express an idea takes primacy over actual knowledge over and over. Whether William Shakespeare's recollection of the Battle of Agincourt is accurate is not as important to many scholars as the way he manages to express his ideas on the conflict between loyalty and duty.

As I think I said before, I don't mind or care if someone can't write or spell worth a damn, yet rolls to persuade mine of his or her intelligence. I really don't. But you can probably bet that, given the choice, I would rather spend my time with someone else that can write and spell so I don't have to scratch my eyes out or worry if the other player has either suffered a seizure or reverted to speaking in Gaelic.

[Lain]

@Sunny said in Eliminating social stats:

Anyone who doesn't see a difference between 'if you play this way you are wrong' and 'I would like to try and play like this' has a problem.

Sure, but nobody is arguing that certain playstyles are wrong except those who write off social stats mattering as "rollplaying."

[Lain]

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain

You may be running into an interesting community conceit: That we RP for immersion. Tabletops, as we know, RP for many reasons but mostly for sitting around playing a game.

I'd like to hear how your friends would do in a LARP or other situation where personal actions are more to the fore, and not 'I lie <clatter of dice> and win!'

Except "I lie <clatter of dice>" is about as immersive as "I cook the meth <clatter of dice>" or "I fortify the Sanctum <clatter of dice>" or "I cast magic missile against the goblin <clatter of dice>."

The conceit isn't just that people play RPGs for the sake of immersion, but specifically that social dice don't count for anything. You'll notice that on WoD games, there's way less objection to people using supernatural abilities to override their autonomy. My character can use Dominate on someone to make them do my bidding because magic. He can shoot that character and make them die without me knowing how to do so. He can cook meth without me knowing how to do so, either.

So in conclusion, it's not about autonomy, it's not about believability, it's not about immersion, and it's not about suspension of disbelief, it's about "my character is above the bullshit, just like me!"

[Thenomain]

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain

You may be running into an interesting community conceit: That we RP for immersion. Tabletops, as we know, RP for many reasons but mostly for sitting around playing a game.

I'd like to hear how your friends would do in a LARP or other situation where personal actions are more to the fore, and not 'I lie <clatter of dice> and win!'

Except "I lie <clatter of dice>" is about as immersive as "I cook the meth <clatter of dice>" or "I fortify the Sanctum <clatter of dice>" or "I cast magic missile against the goblin <clatter of dice>."

That, er, is exactly the point, yes.

it's not about immersion

For you. I wasn't talking about immersion for RPGs, but for quite of a lot of the particular group who is talking all around you right now, and many who aren't.

The number of people for who it's about loss of autonomy are not small, either, and they will be just as upset at being the target of Domination as being the target of a social roll.

[Bobotron]

I think one of the big things we're missing here (especially with the sheer amount of AUGH MY AUTONOMY!) is how to incentivize losing, or giving up that piece of information. Ignore 'using social stats to make someone want to typefuck you,' but focusing on 'I am going to flatter and wheedle you and if successful, you'll tell me that Baron McHugelarge is really passing information to the King Flooflemeier.' How do we INCENTIVIZE players being willing to take these kinds of failures? Since there seems to be a constant 'well, my character wouldn't say <X>'.

[Lain]

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain

You may be running into an interesting community conceit: That we RP for immersion. Tabletops, as we know, RP for many reasons but mostly for sitting around playing a game.

I'd like to hear how your friends would do in a LARP or other situation where personal actions are more to the fore, and not 'I lie <clatter of dice> and win!'

Except "I lie <clatter of dice>" is about as immersive as "I cook the meth <clatter of dice>" or "I fortify the Sanctum <clatter of dice>" or "I cast magic missile against the goblin <clatter of dice>."

That, er, is exactly the point, yes.

I'm not sure what your point is. It hardly seems in contradiction to my own about the analogy between deleting social stats vs physical or mental stats

[Sunny]

How can you say

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

Sure, but nobody is arguing that certain playstyles are wrong except those who write off social stats mattering as "rollplaying."

And then immediately turn around and say this:

So in conclusion, it's not about autonomy, it's not about believability, it's not about immersion, and it's not about suspension of disbelief, it's about "my character is above the bullshit, just like me!"

It is this mentality, specifically, that I am addressing. That just because you don't understand why someone might have a different preference than you, they MUST have this particular motivation.

[Lain]

@Sunny said in Eliminating social stats:

It is this mentality, specifically, that I am addressing. That just because you don't understand why someone might have a different preference than you, they MUST have this particular motivation.

I'm interested in hearing some other potential motivation, but so far, all other motivations presented (immersion, autonomy, etc) can be used as bases for getting rid of mental/physical stats as well. And so far everybody, yourself included, has insisted that it's totally different because reasons. So forgive me for being a bit flippant when I'm condescended to about reasons that just aren't there.

[Sunny]

@Lain

No, what I have insisted is different is 'if you aren't playing my way you're wrong' and 'I'd like to try doing it this way'. Because they are. You rolled in from the start talking about people being terrible for the thought of taking social skills out of a system and attributing all sorts of motivations to them. It's what I objected to in the very first place. Just because you don't think someone's reasons are GOOD ENOUGH it does not actually mean they are doing it for reasons beyond the ones they're giving. You don't have to agree, but to refuse to acknowledge it's personal preference and not The One True Way IS most certainly screaming WRONGFUN! WRONGFUN!

ETA: And just so we're perfectly clear, I don't actually think I'd ever play a game that took all social skills out in the first place. It doesn't sound fun to me to not have them. But I'm capable of acknowledging that it's my preference and not some universal truth.

[Thenomain]

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Thenomain said in Eliminating social stats:

@Lain

You may be running into an interesting community conceit: That we RP for immersion. Tabletops, as we know, RP for many reasons but mostly for sitting around playing a game.

I'd like to hear how your friends would do in a LARP or other situation where personal actions are more to the fore, and not 'I lie <clatter of dice> and win!'

Except "I lie <clatter of dice>" is about as immersive as "I cook the meth <clatter of dice>" or "I fortify the Sanctum <clatter of dice>" or "I cast magic missile against the goblin <clatter of dice>."

That, er, is exactly the point, yes.

I'm not sure what your point is. It hardly seems in contradiction to my own about the analogy between deleting social stats vs physical or mental stats

It's about story vs. gameplay. All of your examples are about the gameplay aspect, and you seemed not to include the storycraft/writing aspect, and seem to be forgoing the goal of play as a part of your argument.

Nothing wrong with this, but it does become a one-sided premise.