Eliminating social stats

[ShelBeast]

@Lain

Man... don't even get me started... Have you ever read a combat log between two combaty characters? It's so stupid, most of the time. Not to talk about how badass I am IRL (I'm not. I'm fat, old, slow and creaky), but I did spend a really good chunk of my life being like... obsessed with martial arts, weaponry and fighting... From a technical standpoint, I read logs and they're just so completely dumb. Moves that don't make sense. Moves that would leave someone so off balance or open to pre-emptive attack... it's like reading a story about two mall ninjas trying to outclass one another at their Movie-Try-Do art (they see it in a movie and try to do it).

Anyway, that being said... I accept it. I even participate in it. Because why the hell not? Also, because I'm playing a character who is better than me at something.

People should be allowed to play characters that are smarter/better looking/more charismatic than they are. We don't always have the capacity to reflect this. We don't have the right social know-how to say the clever things our characters would say. We don't have the technical know-how to say that our characters aren't doing a full spin to backhand someone in the face. Same thing, man.

Let people make a stupid pose. Forgive them. As long as they're trying, let's let them have their fucking fun, man. They deserve it as much as you do.

[Thenomain]

@ShelBeast said in Eliminating social stats:

As long as they're trying, let's let them have their fucking fun, man.

Are you suggesting that we accept other people's notions of fun as long as they aren't harming ours?

Skol!

[Lain]

@ShelBeast Exactly.

Just imagine if it was acceptable in this hobby to say "your emote about shooting my character was retarded and also betrays your lack of firearms knowledge; what you just did would make the gun jam. Therefore it does just that and you deal my character 0 damage in spite of your eight successes."

Or

" If you reject my emote where I shoot your character in the head and therefore likely kill them just because I failed to get even a single success then you're not acknowledging my creativity as a writer and are just being a butthurt rollplayer."

Just imagine if this psychology about social rolls got applied to anything else.

[ShelBeast]

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

Just imagine if it was acceptable in this hobby to say "your emote about shooting my character was retarded and also betrays your lack of firearms knowledge; what you just did would make the gun jam. Therefore it does just that and you deal my character 0 damage in spite of your eight successes."
Or
" If you reject my emote where I shoot your character in the head and therefore likely kill them just because I failed to get even a single success then you're not acknowledging my creativity as a writer and are just being a butthurt rollplayer."
Just imagine if this psychology about social rolls got applied to anything else.

I wish I could upvote this more. So. Much. More. I'd upvote this with the fury of a thousand exploding suns.

Playing social based characters (and doing a damned fine job of it, if people talking to my face should be believed. They shouldn't.) I have encountered these arguments SO damned much. And... and now... Mind you... In all this time that I've been playing social based characters? I've literally rolled social dice... get this... a grand whopping total of ONE. SINGLE. TIME.

[Lain]

@ShelBeast I don't use social dice against player characters very often with the exception of Subterfuge and Intimidate. Especially Subterfuge. The reason for this is so that the dice say that they got fooled; "no, your character doesn't 'just have a hunch.'"

They don't know. They got bamboozled. They think that something that isn't true, is. Period.

And if said character behaves in a way that's inconsistent with them being BSed -- like suddenly and conveniently taking every precaution to preclude Thing That Didn't Happen from hurting them, as an example -- then I can call them on metagaming and basically have it all retconned. Full stop. There should probably also be some disciplinary action taken, like a loss of experience points or something.

Failing that, my character can have a convenient hunch of his own about their character undermining him, and PK them over it using highly pedantic readings of the combat rules to guarantee my victory.

You should bear in mind that I only did this when the tone of the game was already a bit sour. I don't play on games that have a sour taste anymore, so I wouldn't use social dice on player characters. But if you insist on playing in a game where some of the players are OOC out of line and are bringing that into their IC behavior, social dice are a fantastic RP enforcement tool that should not be ignored.

[ShelBeast]

@Lain But even you said it... you don't use social dice against players in games where the attitude isn't crap. Is this because you just don't want to, or is it because of the stigma that seems to be placed on their use?

[Gingerlily]

@Lisse24 said in Eliminating social stats:

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

I really don't give a shit. All the "Federalist Papers of RPGs" in the world doesn't change what literally thousands of years of literature has deemed to be a narrative. There is merit as a game to the "let the dice lie where they may" stance. But that merit is not a merit for narrative. Good narratives can emerge from that only by accident in the same way that getting a coherent and decent character out of a character generation system that will kill characters off part-way through can: blind luck.

And note, again, I'm not saying you're wrong for liking the "gamist" approach (as much as I fucking hate that clunky neologism). I'm saying you're wrong for thinking that the "gamist" approach made for a good narrative here. You're not doing wrongfun. You're just factually incorrect about the narrative structure.

Several times in this thread, I've heard people equate using dice as the enemy of creating narrative. I want to push back on that. I'm quoting WTFE just because this is one place where I've read that argument, but certainly, he's not the only person whose made that argument.

Here's the core of my argument: MUers are terrible writers. I don't mean that they're incapable of stringing together 3-5 sentences with vivid language in engaging poses. They can absolutely do that, by and large. No, what I mean is that, for the most part, they don't think long term about themes and beats, and what constructs a good narrative. Ex: "I'm going to have my character lose this conflict so that he can wallow for a bit and then have an awesome comeback," or "The story I'm telling with this character is one of alienation and loss and so, I want to sabotage his own attempt to become Priscus though his inability to connect."

Muers don't think that way. In general, I believe that there are two major stumbling blocks to MUers telling compelling narratives. 1) They don't like losing, and any good story has peaks and valleys. MUers avoid valleys at all costs. 2) They don't control everything. Sure, you can be telling a story of alienation, but that doesn't mean all the other chars are going to play along (I've run into this with my char over at F&L, where I had to rejigger my approach to her several times).

In these circumstances, adding random events, and letting a neutral arbiter, such as dice, determine the outcome periodically, even for social interactions, can enhance narrative. They help a player adhere to their character's nature, strengths, and weaknesses, while simultaneously adding challenges and random difficulty for that player to overcome. The knee-jerk, 'well let's just throw away social dice because players don't like losing that way,' will not enhance the narratives told on that game, it will diminish them.

Yes! This is basically what I had in my head as I was reading through the thread and considering my own opinion. I love political/social rp that has teeth, I almost never play combat based characters, it's not my thing. The game I'd love to play is one with people who share that love...which means they love getting their way in intense, high stakes social interactions, and also love not getting their way because of the curveball it throws them. Characters have to have flaws to be interesting, weaknesses they are overcoming, and having humiliated themselves by fleeing in terror when JoeBob intimidated them becomes part of their story, their character development, their motivations for later.

Lets do Game of Thrones examples! Cersei got to go on her walk of shame with bells ringing. It wasn't what she wanted to do, and if she was being played by a person on a MU* it would not be what they wanted to do either most likely. That experience changed her, made her bitchier and more ruthless than she was before, and thus a temple exploded. Her failure in one part of the story fueled the rest of her story, AND the story for other characters around her. Theon Greyjoy. Nobody would want to play a Theon Greyjoy. It sucked to be him. But his horrible experiences and terrible decisions are leading him (probably) on an arc of redemption that I expect to be at least somewhat cool. Ned. Poor Ned. Nobody would want to play out a social failure on the level he did, with the consequences he got. Yet that part of the story sets up the rest of the entire series. You can basically do this with every character on the show, they've all made at least one poor decision based on social interactions, yet they remain super cool and interesting characters that resemble what many of us would like to play in a fantasy game.

I understand the impetus to get rid of social stats because often they go unused especially in player to player scenes. I just think that the flaw here is not that they exist, but that they go unused. My ideal game would definitely have social stats, and also people willing to play them, winning or losing. Sure, some exception might arise, Jorah rolls seduction on you but he's twice your age and you are Not Into It. Bran gets an intimidation success but he's Bran, nobody is impressed. I just think exceptions would be exceptions, not the standard. The games I have had the most fun on were games where my character rose and fell socially and politically and I remained engaged and motivated to either keep my social clout or to get it back.

My Jorah example I added merely because it came to me first. I do think that if one were to create a game like this (please do, and then tell me!) it would probably be wisest to leave sex out of the equation. Even with fade to black, it can be creepy to roleplay the aftermath of that situation, and many of us for varying reasons are averse to playing rape victims, even if coercion is the means.

Aside from that however, I love games where people embrace the social 'combat' system and characters grow and change from losing as much as from winning. I know it's not what many people enjoy, but it is what I enjoy the most.

*Edited for a typo that bothered me.

[Gingerlily]

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

@bored said in Eliminating social stats:

Shockingly a new poster is arguing about this as if we haven't read literally everything they just typed dozens of times before!

It's irrelevant whether they are a new poster or not. He (or she) who's never beaten a dead horse before can cast the first stone.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

This is comparable to what you're suggesting by demanding that players make "believable" lies before the die roll is made. Expecting players using a specific social skill to know how to use that social skill in real life is like expecting every player with a high-Science character to personally have high-Science in real life.

That is kind of a main point against social skills though. See, unlike making meth (or hacking into the FBI database, repairing a car, etc) we actually play out the socialization parts. No one walks into a scene and goes "OOC: Hey, my character says hi and hangs out with y'all. +roll presence+socialize". No one, ever, and that's a good thing since that's basically ... well, the roleplay. People pose what they say, articulate what they want, tell others how it is said in as much detail and conviction as they care to go into.

So this is a real issue with these skills - politics, lying, manipulating, etc - when the roleplay points in one direction and the skills in a different one. If a guy comes to my PC, makes a fucking dumb proposal while insulting my woman in the process and he's caught at a lie but has high social stats then apparently I'm supposed to ignore the roleplay and just go with the results of a roll? Yes. That's... basically what MU* systems say. If I don't then I'm not playing right.

Well, I think that's a bad way of doing things. It just doesn't make sense. This social stuff is not the same as everything else, it cannot be safely and easily abstracted like everything else. Poses cannot be abstracted, they are explicit so we can't just separate their content from the mechanics.

I understand where you are coming from here, but I think it is the sort of viewpoint that requires reflection. Yes, there are players who write far better than others, who can make convincing arguments and recruit allies regardless of what is on their sheet. There are also players who are newer to the hobby, who are translating in their heads from a language other than English, etc. If we decide that they don't get to rp a beautiful, charming woman who can flirt her way out of a problem, that's kind of elitist. And it doesn't fit when we consider that any one of us can rp stabbing or shooting someone without having that skill in real life. On a language based medium we can decide that we only want to be affected by great writing, and that those without the same command of the language can't play with us. Whether or not that sits well with a game designer or a game's players is up to them, but own it.

[deadculture]

@Gingerlily Having stats does not automatically make you good at using them. The way I see it, stats are a potential. You can either waste your potential or use it well.

Of course, people playing socially able characters with sheets that don't represent it at all kind of annoy folks.

[Arkandel]

@Gingerlily said in Eliminating social stats:

I understand where you are coming from here, but I think it is the sort of viewpoint that requires reflection.

Let's reflect then!

Yes, there are players who write far better than others, who can make convincing arguments and recruit allies regardless of what is on their sheet. There are also players who are newer to the hobby, who are translating in their heads from a language other than English, etc. If we decide that they don't get to rp a beautiful, charming woman who can flirt her way out of a problem, that's kind of elitist.

Elitism is part of the hobby though. It is a hobby, and it does require some skill to play; there is an unfairness in that some are just better gifted than others, I agree, but that comes with the territory. You can have a room full of aspiring writers, all of whom are working just as hard, but some are just more talented than the rest; or a team of basketball players who are busting their asses, but some are just more athletic, can jump higher or are just taller (and it's an old coaching adage - you can't teach height).

I can't tell you what makes a great roleplayer great. It's not just writing skill and it's definitely not language alone. There's no rote to follow - I've seen people who throw a thesaurus' worth of synonyms in every pose and the poses are still not that great. But I do know one when I see them.

Such a player will be more popular than another who isn't as skilled and that's just just how it is; it doesn't make a difference if their character has low social stats or that they are played properly, because even if they roleplay a Nosferatu whose nose has fallen off and can't open their mouths without making a blunder they are still more fun to hang around than someone else with Socialize 5 and Striking Looks. At least I know who I'd want my character to be buddies or hook up with or whatever.

On a language based medium we can decide that we only want to be affected by great writing, and that those without the same command of the language can't play with us. Whether or not that sits well with a game designer or a game's players is up to them, but own it.

I think I just did, but of course others' mileage may vary. I'd be interested in hearing from them. Notice however I never said I wouldn't play with people who can't roleplay as well - generally I'd play with anyone. But I don't shy away from admitting roleplaying skill matters socially way more than stats do, and that (for me) expecting it to be otherwise because of the system is a failure on behalf of the system.

[Ghost]

@Arkandel I think this is a very realistic way of looking at it. It does happen. People who arent so skilled in what is considered to be good roleplay aren't sought out as much, and in turn suffer from a lack thereof.

To take it a step further, what is considered to be good RP is subjective, which is why I may be (EXAMPLE) passed up for rp by those who want to write graphic TS, but not by those who enjoy dialogue (which, I feel, is my strength).

I've said it many times, but this is a TEXT-BASED hobby. Writing skill is of baseline importance.

[Ominous]

More and more this thread makes me want to see a server where everyone plays all of the characters. The mention of people wanting to avoid valleys and maximize peaks may get subverted in way. If the playerbase as a whole works for Bob the Underdog to succeed, then it is more likely to pan out that way with fewer complaints and drama, and, since everyone has a chance to play Bob and leave their mark on his story, everyone gets to feel like they succeeded too. This is just theory and spitballing ideas. Practice is where the rubber meets the road and we see if it actually pans out that way.

[Gingerlily]

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

Elitism is part of the hobby though. It is a hobby, and it does require some skill to play; there is an unfairness in that some are just better gifted than others, I agree, but that comes with the territory. You can have a room full of aspiring writers, all of whom are working just as hard, but some are just more talented than the rest; or a team of basketball players who are busting their asses, but some are just more athletic, can jump higher or are just taller (and it's an old coaching adage - you can't teach height).

Sure, elitism is part of the hobby, but whether or not to be elitist is still a choice that every gamer makes. No one has to do something just because it exists, and I know you know that. I'm snooty too sometimes, I like to seek out players who write in a similar style to my own and engage my interests. I also step out of my box sometimes. Playing with @Coin is a great example. I'm super verbose, and he is as succinct as possible (likely to do with his intense Hemingway fetish but I don't judge). So he's probably not among the people that I'd seek out often if I did not know him and know how creative he is. Since I do know both of those things, I play with @Coin whenever I can. I get to practice a little brevity, he gets to practice paragraph form, and we both get better at writing and playing because of it.

That is a question of preferences though rather than talent/skill at writing that engages people. I can be elitist and eye roll when someone who I think is a bad writer or is a boring gamer is around, and I even blow these people off sometimes because I want to do something more fun. I also remain aware of how when I first switched from MUDs to MUSH that I was pretty clueless and likely shitty at meeting the cultural shift and thus being dubbed a 'good' writer or player. People kept giving me opportunities though and I figured out what to change, and now I can hang out and rp without being horrible at either. Usually.

I can't tell you what makes a great roleplayer great. It's not just writing skill and it's definitely not language alone. There's no rote to follow - I've seen people who throw a thesaurus' worth of synonyms in every pose and the poses are still not that great. But I do know one when I see them.

Such a player will be more popular than another who isn't as skilled and that's just just how it is; it doesn't make a difference if their character has low social stats or that they are played properly, because even if they roleplay a Nosferatu whose nose has fallen off and can't open their mouths without making a blunder they are still more fun to hang around than someone else with Socialize 5 and Striking Looks. At least I know who I'd want my character to be buddies or hook up with or whatever.

Sure, of course they will. It doesn't change the fact that I think overall, when considering the philosophy of all this and the opening question about eliminating social stats, it changes dynamics to reward that popularity contest without giving other players tools to participate. On a political game, that popularity isn't always IC talent either. With no stats to regulate social conflict, people win through uncoded social support. So any group of people applying in together, or any player who charms people into joining his or her group gets a pretty significant edge on anyone else. I think social stats help in eliminating OOC politics and demanding that they be IC. Which in my opinion is a good thing, and also a crucial one.

On a language based medium we can decide that we only want to be affected by great writing, and that those without the same command of the language can't play with us. Whether or not that sits well with a game designer or a game's players is up to them, but own it.

I think I just did, but of course others' mileage may vary. I'd be interested in hearing from them. Notice however I never said I wouldn't play with people who can't roleplay as well - generally I'd play with anyone. But I don't shy away from admitting roleplaying skill matters socially way more than stats do, and that (for me) expecting it to be otherwise because of the system is a failure on behalf of the system.

Hey, that's cool by me. I don't think 'Elitism is part of the hobby' is a justifiable reason to look at game design through that lens. There are lots of shitty things about this hobby that are part of the hobby but that doesn't mean that they should be encouraged to remain. How we engage new players or players who haven't yet figured out how to be 'cool' is part of the hobby too, and in my opinion it is a more important one to focus on. I'm not by any means implying I'm great at this, I'm really not. I still want to be better at it overall, even if on a given night I roll my eyes at someone who is boring me and try to get out of it and into something cooler.

I think giving players tools like social stats help them engage in things on more levels than determining that the social aspect of power will be determined only by what is written and which characters have the most fans. Just like we get to pretend that we are having an amazing laser gun fight or using our bulging muscles to wrestle our foes to the ground, players of varying writing skill levels should be able to pretend that their character is popular, savvy, and cool. Even with social stats, some players will always be the ones everyone wants to play with because they are fun and interesting, and that's fine. I just think it's better overall to at least let all players have the opportunity to play at social influence and politics.

So my mileage varied! And you heard from me!

[Ganymede]

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

More and more this thread makes me want to see a server where everyone plays all of the characters.

I would not play on this game because my investment into my PCs is personal. It would be very difficult for me to see someone pick up my PC and play him or her.

[Ominous]

@Ganymede That is a valid and understandable position. What if everyone got one character that was solely their own, but the rest were available to be played by anyone?

[Misadventure]

I'd be surprised if the average MU* population could utilize shared NPCs (or really playable NPCs, or whatever you wanna call them).

My experiences with shared entities show that even the strongest guidelines or walls will do nothing to deter players with agendas.

[Ganymede]

@Ominous said in Eliminating social stats:

That is a valid and understandable position. What if everyone got one character that was solely their own, but the rest were available to be played by anyone?

I see what you're getting at, but I guess it just doesn't register to me as an incentive. I go with what's sensible IC, no matter who it benefits or does not benefit. Given that I tend to play only one alt on a given game, the incentive here is nil.

[Ominous]

@Ganymede @Misadventure My thoughts on this also tie into some of the discussion on the metaplot thread too. It has come up that good metaplot requires a lot of work and leads to ST burnout. With everyone playing the characters and working out the story themselves, a metaplot controlled only by STs is no longer needed, as it's a group effort as to where the story goes.

However, I do recognize that I am looking at it with rose-tinted glasses.

[Misadventure]

@Ominous I have often wondered if you had a tool (either coded, or run by a staffer) that basically laid out in secret a rough framework of details, complications and reactions players could expand upon what they are given to write their own enjoyable game.

Some folks just like writing and characterizing. It doesn't really matter if they know they will succeed or not, because it's all about the writing.

Then there are folks who need to not know what is going on, and to know that their characters efforts are measured against a set mark to succeed or fail, where mystery and risk are necessary.

Can they play together?

[ShelBeast]

@Gingerlily said in Eliminating social stats:

Sure, of course they will. It doesn't change the fact that I think overall, when considering the philosophy of all this and the opening question about eliminating social stats, it changes dynamics to reward that popularity contest without giving other players tools to participate. On a political game, that popularity isn't always IC talent either. With no stats to regulate social conflict, people win through uncoded social support. So any group of people applying in together, or any player who charms people into joining his or her group gets a pretty significant edge on anyone else. I think social stats help in eliminating OOC politics and demanding that they be IC. Which in my opinion is a good thing, and also a crucial one.

Just this. A thousand times, this. I don't care if elitism is part of the hobby. That really just comes across to me like an elitist trying to validate their elitism. The end result is that the argument against social stats is an argument about OOC politics affecting the IC, and that is, plain and simply, metagaming. It should be discouraged. It should be looked at with derision. The Nosferatu with his nose falling off and unable to open his mouth without a slew of slurred profanities spewing forth from it might be amusing as hell to play with... I'd want to be their best friend... but that person shouldn't be trying to play that character pursuing social endeavors and expecting to win, either. Another aspect of metagaming.

The argument that "social stats are different, because we play them out" holds no... absolutely NO weight when you look at combat. Period. If we say that your character can only be as socially able as you are because you're playing it out, then I straight up demand every single player with a firearms, weaponry, fighting style merit, parkour, etc. etc. etc. to provide verified video evidence to their own capability in doing such acts, because... you know... we play that stuff out.