Social Systems

[Ghost]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

@faraday I have to second this, because I am more than a little disgusted by the idea that 'I know I like playing with this player and we have fun when we write together so I'm going to play with them when I get the chance to' is an indication that I'm a bad evil cheating metagamer abusing all the good-hearted players everywhere with my cheaty cheaty ways.

ETA: I'm doubly digusted that 'that player was gross and abusive to me in the past OOCly, and I don't want to play with them again' apparently also makes me a horrible cheaty cheater McCheatsALot.

No one said or implied any of these things.
Absolutely nothing that I wrote said or suggested that playing with your friends is metagaming or that people should be subject to abuse from abusive players. I regret that you interpreted it this way.

@faraday I love, love collaboration and please understand that I don't have enough time or space to list out every contingency and corner case, but I think you and I really are similar.

For example, I would love to read a log where someone is planning on poisoning or lying to my character, then reach out to those players and say "I loved that log, how can we collaborate to make this awesome?" That, I think, is really in the best spirit to write out memorable stories on these games.

While I have opinions on the term "metagaming" (using the above example re: poisoning), I could even see planning your own dramatic angles regarding attempted poiaoning to be fun and not meta. I was simply more referring to blurring the lines between a character acting on information their player knows, rather than finding creative ways to add to the story from the character's perspective.

[surreality]

@ghost said in Social Systems:

But it's just a damned shame that I can't RP with every single approved character and expect the same level of metagaming ethic when it comes to that kind of stuff.

PLAYING THE PLAYER is like:

VLAD SAYS SOMETHING

• Who plays Vlad?
• Ask around
• No one knows him? Page him with "hey where else do you play?"
• wikistalk
• check if he is using a PB you hate

If your search turns up to be negative:

• Your character doesnt believe him
• Never RP in a room with them again

If you know him and like his player?

• Page "LOL OMG ARE YOU??? HIIIII"
• Plan RP together

If you don't know who they are

• Proceed with caution, ask OOC if they're lying

Quoting, as it is apparently necessary. Own your words, as they are your own.

ETA: Bold added for emphasis where necessary.

[Ghost]

@surreality Please highlight the part where you feel that I implied or outright stated that you should suffer abuse from abusive players or were not allowed to play with friends.

Please do so understanding that, at the time, my context was referring to the way players often tend to hunt for OOC information to determine how to behave icly, which is by definition metagaming...

...and yet still I do not see where anything in there saying that @surreality is a cheaty mccheatypants who should deal with abuse and is not allowed to play with friends.

Is this really necessary?

That is not what I was saying, nor intending to say, and I hope this response brightens your day with the knowledge that I meant no such thing and that there is no reason for hurt feelings.

[surreality]

@ghost When you go on for pages on end about metagaming, as cheating, in the form of 'playing the player', and then explicitly list:

"If your search turns up something negative, don't ever RP with them again."

"If you know him and like his player, plan RP together."

...I am absolutely going to draw that conclusion.

[ThatGuyThere]

@ortallus said in Social Systems:

If you're spending the majority of your time interacting with PCs as needing mechanical arbitration, you're way too aggressive. Or they are.

I never said the majority of interactions required mechanics in fact I would say less than a third does but I still think that PCs shouldn't be magically exempt from systems, if something works on an NPC it should have the same odds of working on a similarly stated PC.

If you're spending the majority of your time interacting with NPCs as needing mechanical arbitration, you're a gamer. Congratulations.

The majority time I interact with an NPC is due to plot either staff run or player run. So yeas I am likely a gamer but so is everyone else who places an RPG, the G stands for Game

[ThatGuyThere]

@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.

[Ghost]

@surreality When I state that I believe players should weather abuse from other players, and that avoiding abuse is metagaming, then I welcome you to do so. When I state that playing with your friends is metagaming, then I welcome you to do so.

I meant in no way to imply such a thing, so I will clarify for you what I meant so that we can be clear and consider this misunderstanding closed.

No one said that you were bad, or a cheater, or should suffer abuse from other players.

What I meant in the greater context of that conversation was, in that example, that players doing OOC research on other players to determine a character-level decision is, in its own way, a form of metagaming. It's using OOC information as an IC process, and however justified it may or may not be, it is playing the player and not keeping it IC.

If you disagree, this is fine. But I did not call you a cheater, nor do I suggest or feel that you should suffer abusive players to avoid metagaming.

There are other processes to handle abusive roleplayers, and I am a very big supporter of them. No one should have to suffer abusive behavior for the sake of finding RP, and in a perfect world, no one should have to care who is RPing who, because people are behaving appropriately.

[surreality]

@ghost I still think, as a player, looking to have fun on a game, this is unrealistic.

The paradigm you're describing doesn't take 'am I enjoying any of this at all?' into account even once.

There are, yes, people who are simply miserable unless they're winning all the time and are never willing to 'give', etc. They're roughly as plentiful as the abusers are.

Can all of these assholes. Just boot the fuckers.

Don't punish the people who are willing to give or willing to lose or willing to play fair unduly by making them suffer through tiresome, tedious bullshit that wastes their time and is no fun for them in the name of 'that's what the game rules say should happen because Joe Insufferably Boring rolled that it be so'. If that's what someone wants, they should probably be playing an RPI.

Similarly, don't punish the people who are more than happy to work with the other player to find an outcome that both can live with when the other player 'loses' by banning all such things outright, or those who will take the time to tailor a reasonable scenario toward achieving the goal they have in mind that does not treat the other characters around them like props in their personal story to be steamrolled at will with zero regard for the enjoyment of the other players on the game.

Both of these attitudes are flawed beyond repair, and neither of them will work.

Finally, don't punish the people who don't feel like wasting their time hoping to stumble into something OOC that they'll find enjoyable when the hobby has consistently been moving in the direction of creating means and methods for players to learn more about the other characters around them OOC, in order to best find fellow players with shared interests, with whom they can maximize their enjoyment of the limited time they all have to play the kind of stories they want to be telling. Especially true as in precisely those same spaces, a player has absolute agency to write: "I am only interested in being approached for things IC and through IC means, and am only interested in communicating with your character IC," if that is how they want to play the game and is the way they will have the most fun doing so.

[Lithium]

@faraday said in Social Systems:

@lithium said in Social Systems:

This is FATE social combat in a nutshell. You can argue/debate (Roll social combat fu), you can leave (Concede to losing the scene, have your character leave before any major consequences), or you can go for help (Maybe use contacts or resources as a social attack by calling friends or paying the bouncer to bump someone out the door).
FATE has everything to do with Player Agency, while also keeping system there to adjudicate.

Having never actually played FATE I might be missing some core component of the system, so please forgive my ignorance here.

I thought you had said that if my PC failed a social roll to rebuff a persuasion attempt, for example, my only options were to either concede to being persuaded or to get mad and leave the scene. I just don't like that. I'm not saying it's the most terrible thing in the world or anything, I just have a philosophical objection to it because once again it's taking away my ability to decide how my character reacts. Maybe they argue, maybe they throw a drink in his face, maybe they just scoff and say "You're an idiot" and go back to their drinks.

Someone can be the absolute most persuasive salesperson in the world (i.e. roll Amazing Success every time) and still not close a deal because the other person isn't interested in what they're selling, not because the other person succeeded in their Willpower check.

I am a few pages back, just got done with work, so dunno if this has been addressed.

In FATE, you have a social health track, just like you have a mental health track, and a physical health track.

Your social skill determines your social health track (There's more to it than this, but I am not going to try and explain the whole system).

So if you are trying to persuade player A with social combat, you would roll your skill you are using to persuade them. They would roll their social defense skill to try and not be persuaded. If player A did not roll as well as you, you would do some social damage. After your health track is full (For any track) you start taking consequences, a minor one might be being angry at being harassed, or feeling upset at losing the (social) fight.

In /any/ combat in FATE (Social included) you can say you are taken out, you concede the combat, you lose, but, you have /Agency/ over how you lose. The only time you lose direct agency, is if your health track is completely full, and you have zero consequences left.

A character typically has 1 minor consequence, 1 moderate consequence, 1 severe consequence, and 1 critical consequence. (sometimes more or less depending on the setting but again, not getting into that just now)

A minor consequence clears after the next scene. A moderate consequence might take some addressing, and take a few scenes to clear or a week or some such, a severe consequence requires professional help to get past. You need counceling, talk to a good friend who can help you heal, or in the case of a physical consequence might need to see a doctor. A /critical/ consequence is life changing events, where your character might be fundamentally altered.

So the agency is there in that you still choose how your character reacts, even if they lose. The other player might win, and still not get what they want if you choose to have your character storm off and leave the situation, for example.

If your character isn't interested in what they're selling, you can have your character choose to ignore them, taking your character out of the combat but you have left that combat, you are out of it, you can't just but back into social combat if the other guy keeps socialing it up.

It makes sense to me because how many times have people been at a social event (Say a bar, we're all familiar with bar RP at the very least) and someone kept doing something, flirting, hitting on you, being obnoxious towards someone else, and you choose to just distance yourself from that person and remove yourself from the situation. In that case, their social skill at being obnoxious defeated your social skill in dealing with them.

It's not perfect (because no game system is) but it works a lot better than a willpower roll.

[surreality]

@lithium What you're describing is actually pretty close to some of the stuff I'm tinkering with, re: the trio of 'health' tracks. It seems to be just common sense to have something along those lines in place.

I think it works better than the 'humanity/integrity/etc.' approach in WoD, at the very least, which has always struck me as a bit 'off'.

[Ghost]

@surreality We can absolutely agree to disagree, and this is definitely the right place for suggesting what you think would work better. Thanks for your feedback!

[Bobotron]

@surreality
All this is well and good, but...

1. This requires players to understand that they CAN do this and NOT be bothering staff, and a willingness to do so.
2. It requires staffers to actually be present, around and able (or in some cases, WILLING) to adjudicate these situations.

How often do we have whinging about both points on this forum? Staff availability is the biggest culprit, from what I see.

@Ganymede
And yet, the whole 'match of wits and writing,' on a game that has a social stat system, then turns right back around into 'Roleplaying Stats Not On Your Sheet' which I think the majority of us have said we find bad sport. And again, we swing back around to devaluing the purchase and, to be blunt, purpose of those skills and stats.

If Player A's stats posit them as a socially mousy guy with no oratory skills, that should be their default mode; if Player B's stats posit them as a social powerhouse with a silver tongue equivalent to Frank Abagnale, Jr. then you should TRY to RP that, and our stats should be used appropriately to back up your concept.

@Ghost
I agree there re: 'playing the player'. This is also why I try to preach 'good metagaming,' which boils down to OOC player trust and willingness to compromise between players, even to a character's loss.

@Arkandel
Re: 'three types of systems'
Eh, this won't get rid of metagaming; it'll just drive the people who metagame and handling loss other ways, vis a vis murderface.

@Thenomain
Well, I had read some interviews and saw some youtube videos of LARPers who went to the Nordic-style LARPs that were based on WoD (Convention of Thorns, and End of the Line) and I spoke briefly with a friend who does a variety of Nordic-style parlor LARPs a long time ago about the ones she plays in. Here are some things that are commonplace between all of them:

• The biggest concept of the game style is collaboration. People coming into these Nordic LARPs come in to build and collaborate on interesting stories, and come in on the same mindset to do so. It's a mindset that drives how people act, even when they are opposed in game.
• There is a great attempt to manage Bleed and metagaming. For EotL, one of the things that was reportedly done was a pre-game 'I am <player> and I will be <character>' in order to sort of center yourself as 'the Character,' and the reverse was done at the end of the game with 'I was <character> and now I am <player>'. Great attempts were made to keep IC as IC.
• The core mechanic of the entire game could really be boiled down to: If everyone involved agrees that something goes down a certain way, that’s the way it goes down. Again, we swing back to collaboration.
• Mechanics were mainly used to: Emulate some facet of the world that is entirely un-actable or ensure the comfort and safety of all participants. In mechanical comparisons in EotL, it was 'highest stat wins' and collaboration on the outcomes. In CoT, it was very similar, along with how you verbally presented. To Dominate someone, you would tell the person 'I really want you to X' and you changed your verbiage to show your capability with the power.

Too Long... here's the article in question from a LARPer who attended: https://aeriondyseti.com/2016/09/08/end-of-the-line-part-one-introduction-liminality-and-mechanics/

The biggest takeaway? Collaboration and cooperative methodology is the key point of all of these things. Even the weird stuff like the Dr. Who LARP, or the 1940's housewife LARP, or the Not-Harry Potter LARP functions on this. It's why I don't forsee it being a good buy for a MUSH, because for every two people that are awesome about the collaboration, you have one person who is In It To Win It.

[surreality]

@bobotron said in Social Systems:

@surreality
All this is well and good, but...

1. This requires players to understand that they CAN do this and NOT be bothering staff, and a willingness to do so.
2. It requires staffers to actually be present, around and able (or in some cases, WILLING) to adjudicate these situations.

How often do we have whinging about both points on this forum? Staff availability is the biggest culprit, from what I see.

That's part of what someone has to account for in designing their game on the whole.

1. Policy has to make it clear this is allowed and encouraged. (That alone will take out some of your worst offenders; they will be less likely to try to 'nothing scares me!' or 'you will follow my creeper script!' if they're aware this can occur at any time.)

2. Staff has to actually respond to this. As in, 'this is a required staff duty'.

3. Timestops are a thing. We have them for other rules, and they are in themselves a source of cringe -- but if you have to hold for a rules call on using a power, or a physical combat action, there's no reason you social interactions should be any different. (Again, amazing how fast some folks start to see reason when they realize they might be hung up waiting for 12 hours while waiting on an arbiter to show up; the urge to heel-dig in an unreasonable manner starts to fade rapidly when people realize it's going to cause them hassle in addition to the person they're trying to be unreasonable towards.)

[Seraphim73]

@ghost said in Social Systems:

I agree though, a preexisting proclivity is reasonable. My examples weren't iron clad, but this is why Google, surveys, etc exist. It's to find those preexisting proclivities, because ad firms pay HUGE sums of money to find those proclivities to avoid trying to sell ice to polar bears.

To be fair, many polar bears could probably use some more ice these days.

On topic, I think that any social system that doesn't include modifiers, a simple yes/no, or something to take target preferences into account is a failed one. For all the reasons that you and @faraday mentioned.

As for the question about John McClane, I would say that he has a really high Willpower (he went walking around with glass-cut feet for 1/3 of a movie, after all), but that doesn't mean that he didn't also get a free (no-roll) pass from the theoretical GM to decide to "do something" about the terrorists crashing the party.

@Ghost

I'd love to be able to effectively lie ICly to any given player and not have it be treated like an OOC betrayal or cheating.
But even with dice, they'd know deception was rolled so...

Yeah, this is another issue of trust. When we trust other players, we can trust that when their character screws our character over, they aren't screwing us over. And yes, I'd like it too. But, being fair, I have gotten myself worked up about my character being lied too previously. Looking back, I have no idea why. But it's happened.

@faraday

You can't collaborate if you don't metagame to some extent.

I think there's a difference between collaborating and the metagaming being described by Ghost and @Arkandel. Collaborating is (obviously) working together, and the metagaming they're describing (and the sort that I abhor as well) is using OOC knowledge not to make the collaborative scene better, but to gain some advantage. Yes, in order to be a good RP partner, you have to remember that you're participating in an experience with other people, and sometimes can't "perfectly" play the character, because doing so would suck for those around you.

I don't think you're in the minority, I just think that Ghost and Arkandel and I have narrower definitions of metagaming than you do.

[Apos]

@seraphim73 I think metagaming's a slippery term since we all know clearly positive ooc communications (people creating fun collaborative experiences), and clearly problematic and abusive ones, and then some really wide range in between that people are going to lean in the more IC or more ooc camp.

I lean a lot more heavily to IC myself, since I think some ooc communications are problematic that other people don't- for example, I think powers to detect lying are a bad idea on a MU, other people think they are fine/good for games, and that could be a core part of many social systems. I don't think it's too big a deal, most people know abuse cases when they see them.

[Ganymede]

@bobotron said in Social Systems:

And yet, the whole 'match of wits and writing,' on a game that has a social stat system, then turns right back around into 'Roleplaying Stats Not On Your Sheet' which I think the majority of us have said we find bad sport. And again, we swing back around to devaluing the purchase and, to be blunt, purpose of those skills and stats.

I agree that not roleplaying stats properly is being a bad sport. Consequently, I do put points into things like Politics, Socialize, Persuasion, and Subterfuge when I play a World of Darkness vampire. Because I know it's going to come up, and I know my proclivities, and, fuck it, me likey vampire politics.

But that doesn't mean I've ever rolled those stats. Ever. Players' PCs just go along with things, most of the time, because what my PC proposes is often of an obvious benefit to them. And if someone asked me to roll, I'd be more than happy to because I take stats appropriate for my character.

If people cheat, they are cheaters. Doesn't mean I do, or that my proposal is immodest.

[Bobotron]

@surreality

Right, but you can design into the ground, if your players don't choose to engage with your policies and the things you design, what can you do? I agree with all of your points, as a note. I'm just saying, it requires a culture shift.

@Ganymede
I agree. I'm just pointing out the obvious for outside people looking in, and ways that people game the system. I can count on the number of times I've tested Leadership or Politics in tabletop or LARP, for example.

[Ganymede]

@bobotron

I get that, but, to be frank, it doesn't bother me that much because, well, I know how to influence fairly well.

So, cheat all you want, cheaters; I will still "win."

[surreality]

@bobotron Pretty much, yeah. You have to encourage the culture shift, though. I mean, without one, we have what we have now -- and what we have more or less doesn't work.

It requires staff who are willing to put in that work.

I'd also say that tagged player volunteers could often serve just as well in this role in regard to the 'what people will and won't try to get away with in front of observers' front. With some vetting, you can get further into that re: player volunteer oversight GMs being considered reasonably impartial.

In either case, a reporting system of some kind is something I'd recommend, most likely a log submitted by the GM and signed off on as accurate or not by the players involved, so staff is aware of what's going on. It would be useful in all cases, really, to have a standing record of incidents like this that might provide useful information re: patterns of attempted abuse/reliability or impartiality of a GM/etc. (Some kind of autologger would be handy for this.)

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Social Systems:

The kind of metagaming you hate? I love. I view MUSHes not as games first, but as a collaborative storytelling community with some mechanics to keep things moving smoothly.

You might be misreading my preferences though. I can't remember the last time I rolled in a non-PrP - and I mean anything at all, not just social stuff - unless someone asked me to. I prefer consent based systems to anything else.

But this thread is about a social system! So I'm trying to come up with stuff I might like - which means, typically, which enrich my experience. I don't just want something that works, I need to have something that makes it better, which lets us do more stuff than what's available now.

It definitely doesn't mean I'd still like it. But it's fun to debate what could work.

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.

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!