Social Systems

[Ortallus]

@lotherio said in Social Systems:

@thenomain said in Social Systems:

Imagine how dull a Shadow Run game would be if you weren’t engaging the conceit there in the title of the game!

I can't keep up wholly with the conversation. But what if game wasn't in the title. What if it was just Shadow Run MUSH, and folks only wanted to RP and story tell?

Well, 1) It'd be moderately silly. But... 2) Shadowrun is a fantastic and RP opportunity rich environment. You can take the 'Run' out, but if you take the 'Shadow' out, you've just lost all theme completely.

[surreality]

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

As for metagaming, the definition of it (for me) is playing the MU* as a game-within-the-game. Of course it's a collaborative experience, but I don't view "getting my OOC friends to vote for me in the upcoming IC election" as collaboration, for example.

I don't think anybody thinks that's in the category of 'fair play', or 'is just innocent collaboration'. This is the sort of thing Spider calls fair play and innocent collaboration while we all roll our eyes and groan loudly while we pause to ponder our life choices and why we're wasting our time on a game with a Spider infestation.

Are the lines thin though between that and 'my OOC friends are who I usually play with, so they're my IC allies as well, which means they're more likely to vote for my character' thin? You betcha!

And I think this also means treading with care re: making the accusation. This is another of those areas where everyone seems to go the 'guilty until proven innocent' route, and that's not helpful to anyone; it only breeds more distrust and hostility.

That said, I am actually far more likely to 'play nice IC' with people I don't know from a hole in the wall, because I have no idea how well they handle any sort of conflict -- whether they'll roll with it and we'll both have a blast, or if they're a thin-skinned lunatic who is going to explode in my face and make me miserable for months IC and OOC over it. I'm probably not going to want to go within miles of even mild conflict with that stranger's character until I have some idea of whether they're going to remain chill and we're going to have fun pursuing whatever the story of that conflict ends up being, or whether I'm going to be buried in pages every time I log in for the next six months filled with whining and screaming about what a soulless monster I am from Bachelor A that I picked Bachelor B that now-long-ago Saturday night (or that Bachelor A picked me instead of Bachelorette C from Bachelorette C, etc.).

[Ortallus]

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

@ortallus said in Social Systems:

What he is saying there is that social systems shouldn't be included because they're not used for the majority of situations where mechanical arbitration is needed.

No it is not, my first post in this thread (which you replied to in fact) was replying to someone who said that Social skills should only be used on npcs. And I said that would be stupid because it would make them horribly cost inefficient compared to physical that could be used on both.
I am very much saying that social systems should be used in all appropriate situations rather against PCs or NPCs.

Then I misunderstood your intent when you said put this in:

"My question would be if social can only be used on NPCs but physical can be used on PCs and NPCs and they cost the same , you would be doing yourself a disservice to not buy physical over social.
Especially because in most RP environments a well written pose describing IC awkwardness will win you more friends than a poorly written one describing social awesomeness, so you can follow the mechanical rules pose your low social stats yet get the full benefit of having higher ones except for the occasional use on an NP"

I suppose by the time I said that you claimed social skills were useless, I was being a bit hyperbolic. I also see your point in saying that they should be usable on PC's. I'll even agree, with a caveat:

It should be an opposed check. You roll your influence I roll my resistance, and then we find a score. We find out not a "Yes" or "No" answer, but now you've got a good gauge on how much Player A influences Player B.

It is then up to Player B to translate what that means.

If Player B is a power gamer that refuses to make reasonable choices and RP appropriately, he'll find himself out of people to RP with, and a reputation, pretty darn quick.

If Player B is willing to make compromises that make a great story for everyone involved, then he's likely to get lots of good RP.

But if I'm ever on a place where someone says "My character tells you to drop your weapon" and then rolls intimidate, and there's no force powers or magic or other hoodoo behind it? Then I'm going to look at them and wonder, "Can I beat them to the draw? What's the situation? How intimidated am I really by the smurf with a nerf bat and 20 charisma telling me to drop my weapon? Yeah, no."

And if that's breaking rules, then it's not the place for me. It might be the place for you, and that's okay. But it's not the place for me.

And that's ultimately the big kicker. You'll never please all the people all the time. Find a system that you want to play or run, and play or run it.

[surreality]

Question: do you think it's necessarily relevant whether someone is telling the truth or a lie when it comes to convincing another character about the story they're telling?

Yeah, I'm still working on skill names. And one task is, arguably, the one that would be used to lie -- to sell a story. Of course, sometimes it's just as hard in the context of any given scene to convince someone of the absolute unvarnished truth. (Circumstances in a game can often be fantastical or strange enough that the truth and any lie someone tells about it would be equally hard to believe anyway.)

I'm thinking of just calling this task 'convince' (and then people can get expertise in lying, or being extra earnest, or whatever else can be associated with it). That would, arguably, not tip off the other player as to the truth or falsehood of the story just by seeing the name of the roll as it happens, which could arguably be a plus.

Thoughts?

[Apos]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

Question: do you think it's necessarily relevant whether someone is telling the truth or a lie when it comes to convincing another character about the story they're telling?

No. Only how sincere they seem. Someone that's telling the truth but looks nervous probably seems insincere and are thought to be lying. The actual truth doesn't matter imo. I'd just make a check on how sincere they seem in regards to how convincing the pitch is.

[Bobotron]

@surreality

Influence? It has a slightly different connotation than Lies or Persuasion.

For my own thing I'm building, I'm playing around with a system where your social capabilities give you points of Leverage which is then bid as both offense and defense, and it becomes a bit of a bid-raise-call situation. Each character describes what they hope to accomplish, establishing a context for the bets and for the eventual win/lose/draw outcome. As the scene advances and you maneuver socially, it becomes a bidding war. You bid initial Leverage to start the process; the target can Call (counters/defends, paying the same as your bet), and then a Raise/Call process begins. At any point, anyone can Fold (gives in to the outcome declared at the start of the intrigue) or Cash Out (offer something else in response for a lesser outcome; ie: you might offer a Favor, or grant Prestige, or something of that nature).

Right now I'm trying to figure out a fair way to handle refreshing the Leverage pool.

[surreality]

@apos That was pretty much how I was looking at it, yeah. I had to pause to wonder on this one when it came up earlier in terms of the dice roll itself giving it away -- and then thought how freaked out I get if somebody accuses me of doing something I didn't (and how freaking out makes it look true), how people fail lie detector tests all the time due to anxiety, etc.

[Ortallus]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

Question: do you think it's necessarily relevant whether someone is telling the truth or a lie when it comes to convincing another character about the story they're telling?

Yeah, I'm still working on skill names. And one task is, arguably, the one that would be used to lie -- to sell a story. Of course, sometimes it's just as hard in the context of any given scene to convince someone of the absolute unvarnished truth. (Circumstances in a game can often be fantastical or strange enough that the truth and any lie someone tells about it would be equally hard to believe anyway.)

I'm thinking of just calling this task 'convince' (and then people can get expertise in lying, or being extra earnest, or whatever else can be associated with it). That would, arguably, not tip off the other player as to the truth or falsehood of the story just by seeing the name of the roll as it happens, which could arguably be a plus.

Thoughts?

If you're going to have specializations, a 'fast talk' should definitely be among them, as well as maybe the 'long con'. Also, from the sounds of things in this thread, definitely definitely give examples of how far you can impose upon someone else's RP.

[ThatGuyThere]

@ortallus
I would tend to prefer a beefier system than just a one role decides thing, after all most combats are not decided with one attack, at least between folks of roughly the same ability. (High XP WoD being a notable exception but the draw of WoD has never been the system for me.)

In the case of the intimidate I would prefer some sort of emotional health track just like most games have physical ones, the first blow might not cause someone to crack but enough time and they will, that is after all how interrogation works in RL, not many people confess right away, after ten hours most will (often even if nothing is there to confess to.) much like one punch doesn't end most boxing matches (early Tyson being the exception) but over the course of a few rounds a lot of them do.

[Ortallus]

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

@ortallus
I would tend to prefer a beefier system than just a one role decides thing, after all most combats are not decided with one attack, at least between folks of roughly the same ability. (High XP WoD being a notable exception but the draw of WoD has never been the system for me.)
@surreality
In the case of the intimidate I would prefer some sort of emotional health track just like most games have physical ones, the first blow might not cause someone to crack but enough time and they will, that is after all how interrogation works in RL, not many people confess right away, after ten hours most will (often even if nothing is there to confess to.) much like one punch doesn't end most boxing matches (early Tyson being the exception) but over the course of a few rounds a lot of them do.

Woah woah. I think you're on to something here. Like instead of hit points/health whatever, you're using some sort of.. I donno, conversation points? Influence? Social points? Whatever the case, you could have a bit of back and forth, with actual RP poses each round that included conversation and various other things. The person who loses their points first gains the upper hand socially.

It would perhaps require a great deal of careful planning out, but that could be brilliant.

"Damage" bonuses or penalties could include the difficulty of what they're trying to convince you to do and situational modifiers. You try telling someone who loves their mother to shoot them, that's going to be like -10 damage. But if you can wear down their emotional health enough, they might just do it just to get you to shut up.

[Bobotron]

@ortallus
This is essentially how ASoIaF does, including social defenses, social 'armor' and such. Marvel Heroic uses Cortex, and it's neat in that when you do social damage to someone, you can bid that damage against them as a die to use against them.

[ThatGuyThere]

@ortallus
Yeah and just like in combat if poses warranted it it bonus or penalties could be used, in your example the smurf with a nerf bat would suffer a healthy minus against a human sized person, though Papa Smurf with what could be a magic potion might not.
It would give designers and coders another system to implement which would be the biggest downside. Mechanically, I would handle it pretty close to combat so players just have to learn one set of mechanics for example if punching someone was dex + unarmed against difficuty, then convincing someone to vote your way the next council meeting would be cha + politics vs difficulty with the result swaying but not necessarily winning with one shot.
I think the big issue is as has been pointed out most games spend pages and pages on combat but very little on social conflicts. Even NWoD which has plenty of social situations by design spends a quarter of pages on it then it does on combat in the core book.

[Bobotron]

@thatguythere

This is essentially also how the NWoD Requiem social combat rules work, though your health is involvedi n your Willpower. It's done with calculations that are familiar to people. It's detailed out in Danse Macabre and Invite Only.

[ThatGuyThere]

Kind of off topic but I think i realized one of the big issues with social systems and that is the time scale, if PC X and PC Y are in a physical competition be it basketball or fighting or a 100 meter dash that is done in one scene. It takes less time to happen IC usually than it does to pose out with out without mechanics involved.
A lot of real social conflicts are not that way, they might never be fully resolved, if i am playing a Social Darwinist industrialist and someone else is playing and idealist city council person we might never have those PCs agree with each other but over the course of time I might convince them to vote for a rezoning that benefits my bottom line and I might be convinced to give to charity and preserve a historic building over making money but turning that land into a strip mall but it is unlikely that even those wins happen over the course of time and likely multiple interactions.

@Bobotron
I have not read Danse Macabre sicne I think it was a Vamp book and not a big vamp person, I do like the Doors system from 2nd ed. NWoD in theory but think it is a bit heavily tilted toward offence over defense but then most of NWoD is.

[Ganymede]

@bobotron said in Social Systems:

This is essentially also how the NWoD Requiem social combat rules work, though your health is involvedi n your Willpower. It's done with calculations that are familiar to people. It's detailed out in Danse Macabre and Invite Only.

More accurately: your Nerve, which is your Composure + Highest Social Skill.

---

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

I have not read Danse Macabre sicne I think it was a Vamp book and not a big vamp person, I do like the Doors system from 2nd ed. NWoD in theory but think it is a bit heavily tilted toward offence over defense but then most of NWoD is.

I am not as big a fan, because the Doors system is for long-term outcomes. Short-term outcomes were very difficult to get ... but really shouldn't be.

[Bobotron]

@ganymede
Admittedly, I didn't read the one in Danse Macabre since I was told that it was a reprint of the one in Invite Only and I could've sworn that you lost WP as you got hit. Now that I've went back and re-read invite only, I totally misremembered. I did like the fact that they included a list of stuff you cannot do with the social combat rules (at least in Invite Only).

[Seraphim73]

@ortallus said in Social Systems:

How intimidated am I really by the smurf with a nerf bat and 20 charisma telling me to drop my weapon? Yeah, no."

Now, if the smurf says, "Drop your weapon or my buddy the sniper will put one through your throat..."

@surreality: I would say that some people can't lie to save their lives, but can be plenty convincing with the truth, while some people can spin a lie out of fairy gossamer and spider silk that looks like the Arc de Triumph, but can't do so well with the truth. But in the end, I think that it depends on your skill list in general. If you have, for instance, just "Melee" and "Ranged" skills, I think that "Convince" or even "Social" is totally fine. But if you have "Blades," "Bludgeons," "Spears," and "Unarmed," or "Pistols," "Rifles," and "Throwing," then you should probably have "Persuade" and "Deceive" or "Convince" and "Schmooze" or some other words that give you 2-3 social skills.

[surreality]

@seraphim73 It's tragically more complicated than that. I'm still fussing with it through the weekend, but will toss you a link to the WIP some time this week if you want a peek. (Seeing it would explain it better than I can in summary here.)

[Seraphim73]

@surreality (it's always more complicated than that). I'd be happy to take a peek at whatever you've got -- I like seeing the systems other people come up with -- although it'll probably be a while before I get a chance to. RL is busy.

[ThatGuyThere]

@seraphim73 said in Social Systems:

If you have, for instance, just "Melee" and "Ranged" skills, I think that "Convince" or even "Social" is totally fine. But if you have "Blades," "Bludgeons," "Spears," and "Unarmed," or "Pistols," "Rifles," and "Throwing," then you should probably have "Persuade" and "Deceive" or "Convince" and "Schmooze" or some other words that give you 2-3 social skills.

I think Theno is the one that used to say game design is mind control, in some cases I definitely agree and this is a good example.
If you have a lot more combat than social skills you are conditioning the players to view combat the bulk of the focus, where if you have a Fight skill and seven varieties of social interaction skills you are conditioning your players to view the social side as an intricate dance while the fighty side as a side aspect.