Social Systems

[Seraphim73]

I think that @faraday's 4 (or so) points were a good rundown of why social systems are so hard to work into games, especially online games (@ZombieGenesis 's story shows that it's not just online games though). I think, however, that it all comes down to one singular point: Trust.

If you trust the other players not to screw with your character with the social combat system, not to push them into something that is totally against their morals, then you have fewer problems letting the dice make the (more minor) decisions for you in social situations.

If you trust the other player, then you're more willing to accept their view on potential modifiers for a social roll: "Oh, your character had a kitten that they loved growing up? Sure, I'll take a -3 on my attempt to get them to drown kittens." Sadly, there isn't a whole lot of trust out there in the MU*osphere (with good reason, read some of the Hog Pit threads if you doubt why), so when someone says, "My character had a kitten that they loved growing up, you could never get them to drown a kitten, EVER!" the initial response is often, "Oh, you're just trying to avoid the consequences of messing with my social-fu character" instead of "Interesting roadblock, could be fun to RP getting around (or not, based on how the RP and dice go)."

I've tried to design a system that allows for that sort of back and forth with modifiers and negotiation... but it still requires that you trust the other player at the end of the day.

As for social stats vs physical stats, even on PvE games, there's usually at least the possibility of another PC punching your PC (even if they aren't trying to kill yours), and usually you use combat stats for that. But if social stats can't be used against other PCs... well, they're less valuable. Granted, this is the same compromise we chose on the last couple of games I Staffed on (social stats only work on NPCs) because it's a nice clean line and still allows a social character to be created.

[Apos]

My first experience was in a PVP environment that had extremely easily exploited and abusive coded social combat stuff, and in retrospect, the surprising thing is how extremely rare people abusing the hell out of it really was. I mean reading these threads that pop up make it feel like everyone was spamming, 'make ur dood commit suicide' or whatever, and those kind of cases stood out to me because they were rare, striking, and against the cultural norms. People used it all the time for flavor and fun, and I saw maybe hundreds of coded 'try to make character do X' that people just rolled with, and only a handful of, 'Try to do something god awful and clearly exploitive' things.

I think for something so open and freeform, I think it's a lot better to just give decent and reasonable roleplayers fun tools they can build stories with, and just remove people that aren't reasonable. I think trying to design a million safeguards around edge cases is probably not worth it for something so broad in scope. Can just approach the most obvious ones and let it go.

[faraday]

@seraphim73 said in Social Systems:

I think, however, that it all comes down to one singular point: Trust.

Yes, but that's kind of core to why we have stats at all. If everyone trusted each other to play reasonably or (for GMs) to judge situations reasonably, we wouldn't need social stats or physical stats.

@seraphim73 said in Social Systems:

As for social stats vs physical stats, even on PvE games, there's usually at least the possibility of another PC punching your PC (even if they aren't trying to kill yours), and usually you use combat stats for that. But if social stats can't be used against other PCs... well, they're less valuable.

Players use skills against each other all the time in a consensual manner on a PvE game. You might use melee for a sparring practice.

But you can use social skills the same way - consensually. I've seen players roll Bluff or Persuasion or even Seduction in the same sort of playful "let's leave this to chance" way that they would for a pick-up Pyramid game.

And even on a relatively antagonistic PvE game like 100, you still didn't have people running around punching each other on a regular basis. "There might be a PvP barfight once in a blue moon" is really not a compelling argument for "physical stats are more valuable than social stats".

That said, I think physical stats are more valuable on 99% of MUSHes, and it has nothing at all to do with PvP. It's because only 1 out of every 5 (and that's being generous) MU plots even has an opportunity to use social skills to resolve the conflict at all. The other 4 have dozens of opportunities to use combat skills in a single scene.

To tie that back to the OP's original question: Games set up which skills are valuable by setting up opportunities for those skills/systems to be useful. If it's just a chore, or a tool to bludgeon other people over the head, nobody's going to use it.

This also has nothing in particular to do with social stats btw. If I wanted Technician to be as valuable as Firearms on BSGU, I'd need to run one Tech plot (with multiple chances to use the skill in the scene) for every combat plot.

[surreality]

@faraday WoD is at least a little better with the 'opportunities to use them' problem -- it's just not universal. They do better in that they create more abilities and such that rely on them that might not necessarily be the 'smack somebody over the head with it', re: effectiveness of some powers and whatnot.

I've seen a lot of the 'let's leave this to the dice, I could go either way' rolls, too, amongst people who generally know each other well enough to know the people they're playing with aren't going to go crazy places with the results. That can genuinely be a lot of fun and I wish people would do it more.

It hits a number of walls, though, and while I think it's entirely possible that (generic) we'll get there at some point, it would take time and a willingness to act on multiple levels. I hammer on the notion of 'moving parts' in mechanics and policies and staff enforcement and all the rest, but I think the long-standing social fu problem is one of the most glaring examples of this.

It goes all the way down to the 'if someone can do this with the dice, is it inherently universally permitted that they be allowed to do so' question.

A lot of folks come down on the side of 'yes': if the mechanics allow it to occur, so must staff/other players/etc., even if it means the game ends tomorrow because someone blew up the grid.

'No' gets a lot more murky in that it has more moving parts (system, policy, staff enforcement, player culture, setting), even if 'no' is pretty clearly the sane answer, and where any given person puts that 'no' line.

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Social Systems:

Sorry for double post but I missed this before... What you describe is the norm on the consent games I've played. You can always TRY to manipulate me, but I have to give my consent to BE manipulated.

I don't understand that. On those games you need to give your consent to be punched, too, but no one is (or seems to be) making the argument physical skills shouldn't exist.

I think the issue here is a combination of a high overhead in making social plots compared to making physical ones, which devalues the former even when it comes to using them on NPCs, and pure stigma; far more cases have been recorded where assholes tried to abuse Manipulate to get others to play out stuff they didn't want than Brawl.

I still think we haven't seen this done right yet. It takes a combination of staff who set the culture right from the start, a system built around having social skills around in the first place instead of them being plugged in as an afterthought, and a culture where they are simply valued. Not tolerated, not forced, but wanted.

[faraday]

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

I don't understand that. On those games you need to give your consent to be punched, too, but no one is (or seems to be) making the argument physical skills shouldn't exist.

If that were the sole reason against social skills I'd agree with you. But I listed a bunch of other reasons that are unique to social skills. I was just pointing out that the RFK system was really consent at its core.

[surreality]

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

I think the issue here is a combination of a high overhead in making social plots compared to making physical ones, which devalues the former even when it comes to using them on NPCs, and pure stigma; far more cases have been recorded where assholes tried to abuse Manipulate to get others to play out stuff they didn't want than Brawl.

That's really just part of it. Way back, I mention the thing about the kinds of things people are trying to accomplish with their roll or skill.

Punch someone is a one stage effect, with the desired outcome of 'that person takes damage from being punched'.

Most social actions aren't handled the same way, and most people rolling them aren't going for the equivalent of 'that person takes damage from being punched' -- they are looking for an outcome that is much more specific, and involves many additional moving parts.

"I roll to seduce your character so they'll willingly have sex with me."
^ This is not an equivalent end-goal as 'your character takes damage from a punch', but it's the kind of goal people tend to go with, ignoring all the moving parts in the middle to get from point A to point Down-N-Dirty-In-Your-Pants.

That's more equivalent to 'My punch landed, so I do damage, knock you unconscious, and it tore your shirt so everybody could see you're wearing that greasy old laundry day tank top underneath, and since you fell on the floor, you're face down, and now you have to roll a save vs. whatever gross stuff is all over the bar floor you're drooling into.'

If people took the same approach to the seduction attempt as they did to the combat -- namely, it's not a 'one shot and I get everything I want the way I want it' -- things would be different. For example, it's going to take a bunch of punches for most people to go down as described above. How about 'I'm going to make a roll to see if I can get your character's attention in a positive way' first? For instance: "Rolling to see if flashing a little leg gets your character's attention." <-- most people would not find this in the least bit objectionable, and it's closer to being on par with landing a single hit in a reasonable combat scenario.

And a lot of systems do approach things from this perspective now, which is good. But the culture has to catch up to that, and it needs to smack the people still trying to turn one landed punch into a TKO for the title belt with every possible flourish and bit of fanfare under their complete control. We would not tolerate that under any circumstances in combat, but for social rolls, plenty of people still operate under the assumption that that's how it's supposed to work.

[Apos]

Defining social combat from the perspective of the aggressor is not difficult really, but defining it from the perspective of the defender is really difficult. In physical combat, not many people argue about coded Dodge or defense, except in systemless games where some jackass refused to ever be hit. But in social combat, defining how vulnerable someone should be too an attack implies a degree of customization of approach that only the most anal systems bother with in physical combat. I think there has to be one of two approaches or a combination of the two. Either you have it be free form with the attacker having to demonstrate a solid understanding of the defender and what would reasonably work on them, or you have to codedly define on the defender's side what would not work on them in advance with a system that illustrates their strengths and weaknesses in a fair way that shows their points of immunity and vulnerability. So people cannot define new ones on the fly because they really hate an outcome, not an approach.

[Lotherio]

Another consideration. I think another way to look at it is that while combat seems complex or more mechanical intensive, it is this way to simplify combat. Aside from dealing with NPCs in a TT/campaign like environment, I think a mechanical social system is over simplifying the complexity of socialization and communication in general. With combat, we're not intimately familiar with it on all its levels and abstraction by system works for most of us; no matter how many foam noddles we swing at each other, taking sharp pieces of metal (or high caliber projectiles) to try and kill each other with is something we don't do every day.

@surreality Just put up the skill thread of pondering. That lead me to this. She put up medicine, but damn how we oversimplify medicine. One roll, or one roll a day. I know all the folks who come in and make a medical character feel cheated in the end when its really just one roll that determine so much stuff all at once. The idea of just triage itself and how that is basically a social skill interaction, who decides what is most important and where to start in a trauma situation.

For me, honestly, I'd rather have medical and social both be RP intensive and, if used at all, stat-lite. I'd rather have dice be consent when players are good with it going either way, it comes down to the trust thing mentioned above. If we trust the people we're playing with we give them lots of liberty and even if we fail the first instances of social or medical, we both know we'll work towards some other resolution. Failing leads to better story, when that trust is there, I'd rather fail a roll knowing it can build more RP, not just be a quick win/loss situation because the winner just wants one thing from the loser.

[Arkandel]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

If people took the same approach to the seduction attempt as they did to the combat -- namely, it's not a 'one shot and I get everything I want the way I want it' -- things would be different. For example, it's going to take a bunch of punches for most people to go down as described above. How about 'I'm going to make a roll to see if I can get your character's attention in a positive way' first?

Right, so since we are discussing social systems (rather than whether to have any) let's see what we could come up with that can address this issue.

The way I see it a primary problem here is quantifying social 'damage' (maybe let's call it influence?). Obviously no one thinks changing someone's beliefs in one roll, even for a single encounter, is appropriate.

Also a secondary issue here is actually tracking this down; there are immediate short-term effects - maybe your character made mine chuckle - and long-term ones.

So a scenario: You are on an IC campaign to make my character vote in your House's favor. We meet for the first time ever, so both of our influences' 'scores' are neutral.

My take on this: When a player starts working on a goal communication is systematized; there's no sneaking things in on the OOC level. It's all clear, right on the table. So you'd start by typing something like "+influence arkandel=Vote in surreality's House's favor" which I see immediately as a message and in my sheet. At this point I can assign it a difficulty factor - which you don't get to see, so you might end up overcompensating for a project that's easy... but that's part of the fun.

So at this point there are two 'scores'; our PCs' personal relationship, and the goal your character is working on. The better your score on the former, the more you can move the needle on the latter.

Then by limiting the frequency such rolls can take place (it could be one a day, or one per scene) there's a timeline... further compounded by the fact you might need additional social attributes (Empathy versus Subterfuge?) to see how far along you are or how well it's going so far.

I really like this because not only does it not open doors for creeps, it actually closes them; they can't spring "panther penis" on anyone out of the blue - it needs to be a goal, OOC stated right from the start. Nor can anyone insist they changed a character's views overnight since, by definition, long-term goals take a longer time and their player gets to pick the difficulty of the task.

Thoughts?

[Ghost]

Song of Ice and Fire RPG has a great social combat system. Star Wars FFG has a simple system too that I like.

Let's be really fair though: From D&D to WoD this hobby has seen many systems used for social challenge moderation available, but they are not only not used, but avoided.

And it's not just because of creeper roleplayers who will try to turn it into something rapey.

See, the only way to have a character effectively lie to another character on most MUs is to lie to the player. This is because a lot of players aren't okay with having to RP something that they know is a losing play. Little bits of meaning happens all the time to avoid it, and many of them get pissed when they find out they were lied to oocly (TotallyNotMetaGaming).

It's that sort of vice grip on controlling the experience of their character, up to and including the character not having the winning combination (and the OOC angst that comes along with it) that has kept many forms of social roll systems covered in dice and cobwebs on these games player narrated character showcases for years.

For those of you that love social combat, when your character loses, and that can be mature enjoy to enjoy social risk without making it all about penises? I love you. I love you dearly.

[surreality]

@lotherio said in Social Systems:

@surreality Just put up the skill thread of pondering. That lead me to this. She put up medicine, but damn how we oversimplify medicine. One roll, or one roll a day. I know all the folks who come in and make a medical character feel cheated in the end when its really just one roll that determine so much stuff all at once.

I can pretty much assure you that's not remotely how it's designed to work at all, but I'm not really gonna go into that here, either. Kind of a digression, though.

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

The way I see it a primary problem here is quantifying social 'damage' (maybe let's call it influence?). Obviously no one thinks changing someone's beliefs in one roll, even for a single encounter, is appropriate.

Part of the problem is that plenty of people do think the one-roll approach is appropriate. That's a problem that needs a cultural shift on the part of the community, to put it bluntly. Again, lots of moving parts, that being one of them. Another being 'staff should be willing to step in and say no or offer to arbitrate/observe on request' when these instances come up, rather than 'it's not a big deal, just fucking deal with it, we have other things to do!' or 'I don't even want to get in the middle of this shit' the situation. These things are as critical as any game mechanic, policy, etc. anybody could ever come up with.

No mechanic is going to universally resolve this in the same way no policy will, no setting will, and no community attitude shift will without the support of settings and mechanics and policies that work together to achieve a viable outcome.

Also a secondary issue here is actually tracking this down; there are immediate short-term effects - maybe your character made mine chuckle - and long-term ones.

Not necessarily, or at least no more so than a punch is likely to leave someone permanently maimed. These things happen, but they are outliers to experience, not the norm.

[Lisse24]

I'm going to say again, that I really like nWoD conditions and I think that a system that builds on that idea is more likely to get buy-in.

So, again, keeping it simple and understandable, I imagine a system where a player could declare their immediate goal, and perform a simple, agreed upon contested roll. Keep it uncoded, so that players can quickly adapt to the circumstances.
If the player wins, they can impose a level-1 condition. Level-1 conditions would have impacts that last only a few minutes. The condition would have two options for how players respond, a 'going along' option and a not going along option. Both give a penalty of some sort. The going along option also gives XP.
If the opposite player already has that level-1 condition from that player, it gets bumped up to level-2 which lasts longer, maybe has steeper penalties. Level-2 gets bumped up to Level-3, etc.
However, if the player loses, either the opposite player gets to shed a condition level or there's a condition that gives the opposite player the advantage, but the originating player gets the XP.

This system has the advantage of being simple, predictable, maintaining player autonomy and offering players multiple opportunities to suss out and avoid the situation if they prefer, while keeping "loss" to something that is low-risk.

@ghost said in Social Systems:

See, the only way to have a character effectively lie to another character on most MUs is to lie to the player. This is because a lot of players aren't okay with having to RP something that they know is a losing play. Little bits of meaning happens all the time to avoid it, and many of them get pissed when they find out they were lied to oocly (TotallyNotMetaGaming).

For the record, I fundamentally disagree with this assertion. In my experience, while some players are out only to win, most are out to tell stories and are OK with periodic losses. They are not OK with feeling like they got screwed over. Social skills are often used spuriously and leave people feeling like they got screwed. So lets make a system that negates that feeling and encourages collaboration.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

Thoughts?

Sorry, man, I can't say that I favor what you're suggesting.

I wrote the following up for my Mass Effect RPG regarding "social actions." Note that "checks" are rolls, and "Drama Points" are earned and can be used to get re-rolls in combat and other stressful situations:

2.4.3 Players Determine their Characters’ Actions – Always

The thorny issue: can a player undergo a task to convince another player’s character to sleep with his?

The answer: not unless the other character’s player agrees to it.

Players should be able to create characters that are socially or mentally powerful, and have that mean something. Many times, this is not the case, and, where players can compete against other players, it becomes a bit of a problem. Finding the balance between player-control and skill-efficacy is often a struggle, but here are some general guidelines and systems.

A. Players can use checks to manipulate and convince NPCs. As above, GMs are there to tell a story and provide challenges. NPCs, or non-player characters, are story elements. The GM controls them. Whereas a player may have personal investment in their character, a GM’s NPCs are simply tools.

B. Players can use checks to manipulate and convince other PCs regarding their character. A PC can seem genuine. A PC can seem convincing. When it comes to talking about themselves, players can use checks to convince other PCs that they are telling the truth or being sincere. Concealing or shading a fact may require a contested check, but the results of these checks must be respected. If the game’s events give rise to a situation where the other PC may doubt the lying PC’s story, then another check may be necessary if the liar is confronted.

C. Players cannot enforce checks to cause other PCs to act one way or another. This is where it gets tricky, so consider the following example: a player wants another player’s character to sleep with theirs. Suppose that the defender’s player does not want to sleep with the aggressor. The aggressor’s player can make a check for success, but, if successful, the defender can elect not to abide by the results. If this occurs, then the aggressor cannot attempt to seduce the defender for a reasonable period of time, like the rest of the scene, a day, a week, or whatever’s reasonable to the GM or the players involved; however, the aggressor gains a Drama Point. On the other hand, if the defender’s player decides to abide by the results, then the defender gains a Drama Point for accepting the result of a check that he had the right to refuse.

Ultimately, players should respect one another. GMs should keep an eye out for abusers of this system, and remind them that this game is about everyone having fun, not forcing one’s will on others.

[faraday]

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

Obviously no one thinks changing someone's beliefs in one roll, even for a single encounter, is appropriate.

Unfortunately I think a lot of players do think that's appropriate. That said, I do like the incremental approach. Not only does it encourage RP by requiring multiple scenes, but it acknowledges that changing someone's opinion on something doesn't happen overnight.

I still think there needs to be some sort of boundaries though. Princess Leia is never going to willingly betray the resistance no matter how much time and effort you put into influencing her and moving that needle.

It also doesn't address the rolls that really are cold one-shots. Talking your way past the guard. Schmoozing the receptionist into giving out a room number she shouldn't. Lying to the cop asking you where you were that night. Convincing someone to put their gun down in a standoff. With NPCs it's really easy (and appropriate) to boil that down to a single roll. But as @Ghost and others have mentioned, many players get really, really, really bent out of shape if they lose a roll like that -- FAR more than if they lose a dodge roll and get decked.

[Lotherio]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

I can pretty much assure you that's not remotely how it's designed to work at all, but I'm not really gonna go into that here, either. Kind of a digression, though.

Sorry, wasn't trying to imply anything about the other thread, other than that any system could be made to be very complex and that you included medical examples got my brain spinning over here. Like if the focus was medicine, we could really make complex rules (I helped with a database and visio representation of an automated microbiology lab sequence that had 124 steps not included the points of the biologist looking for themselves to make determinations along the sequence). A few dice rolls is over simplified in my mind when most people making a medical character are probably envisioning medical drama version of how medicine works.

[surreality]

@lotherio You could arguably do that with this framework fairly easily, you'd just be reassigning the levels of what was a skill, what was a task, and what was an expertise, based on the intended focus of the game in question (which is designed to be easy for someone using the framework to do with the way the forms and templates are set up). The same is true of art or science or tech or anything else; I could come up with a dozen skills for various artistic and clothing-related fields, too, but if the game isn't about that in the slightest, that's not helpful to anyone. If it is, those things are going to be major determinants in some respect or another, so they better be there.

We're not really talking about games with a specific focus that's so narrow, though, so far as I can tell, just that combat has a much more defined focus and set of cause and effect chains than almost anything else (especially social things) in most systems, many of which are not designed to be focused so narrowly on combat. Ideally, I would think that for a general focus game, the amount of 'what goes into the outcome' would be roughly similar, be it combat outcomes, crafting outcomes, medical treatment, social fu, etc.

[Lotherio]

@surreality said in Social Systems:

We're not really talking about games with a specific focus that's so narrow, though, so far as I can tell, just that combat has a much more defined focus and set of cause and effect chains than almost anything else (especially social things) in most systems, many of which are not designed to be focused so narrowly on combat. Ideally, I would think that for a general focus game, the amount of 'what goes into the outcome' would be roughly similar, be it combat outcomes, crafting outcomes, medical treatment, social fu, etc.

That's my take too, I'm wondering if combat, as complex as it can seem in some systems, is more do to even those systems being abstract enough that we can accept it. Where as social systems can easily have way more complexities due to the variety and complexity of real world socialization. Combat is straight forward where we abstractly can more easily accept what a win and loss is, where as socialization is way more complex I believe. Getting the guard to let you pass vs flirting with the information clerk to get the information are two different things, easily as complex and varied as the circumstance where as swinging a sword or kung-fu'ing someone is pretty straight forward. Part of the players don't like to lose is due more to how much more complex we are socially in real life then combative?

[surreality]

@lotherio Well, even for the combat junkie, they're going to think that a few rolls is simplistic.

I have a few ideas about this, but they aren't really something that can just get tacked on somewhere. For instance, one of the attributes in the system I'm kicking around gives people X 'core motivations' that go along with their rating. (It isn't super complicated but it's complex enough I'd rather not go into more detail than that, since I'm still poking it here and there.) Getting someone to act contrary to things on that list (and people choose for themselves what is on it, and how important it is compared to the other things) makes social pressures harder. Getting someone to behave in line with one of those core motivations, though, is easier.

For instance (and this doesn't use the actual system but is just an example), say someone had:

#1: I will always protect my family.
#2: I would never harm a child.
#3: I would never drink alcohol.

Someone trying to get them to act counter to one of those things would have a penalty of anywhere from -1 to -3 (going backwards, essentially, with #1 being -3). However, appealing to that person with, "That man over there is a threat, he's coming after your kids, you should do something about it," is going to allow for a bonus to the attempt to convince that person to do that thing they might not otherwise do by appealing to something genuinely distinct to them (and chosen themselves) that is inherently more true to their character and their vision of it and what's plausible for their character to do than just, "That guy over there is a threat, you should do something about it."

[Ghost]

My suggestion:

Any system with any sort of deception vs perception skill check works just fine, but as @Ganymede pointed out, policies surrounding the social rolls are needed.

1. No social roll should ever be used to determine TS, ever.
2. No social roll should ever drastically alter the allegiances of a character beyond reasonable doubt. (You can convince Princess Leia that someone is spying on the Alliance long before she would ever spy on the Alliance herself)
3. Social combat rolls must be within the realm of reasonable doubt (The Pope will not suddenly believe you when you say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is Peter, the Apostle, without accompanying evidence)

...and here is what I feel is UTTERLY IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE

4. Social rolls often have winners and losers. If the loser of a social roll has been successfully deceived and chooses to act in stark contrast to what the winner of said roll has successfully deceived them into believing, staff intervention may take place. (Or some othet better wording)

In short, SOMETHING needs to be codified into policy to protect the losers of social rolls from metagaming.

We've all seen this happen:

• Characters are talking about secret business in a tunnel
• A new player arrives, rolls Obfuscate, successfully disappears and begins to eavesdrop
• SUDDENLY, the characters stop talking about super secret business and start talking about who is going to the NHL playoffs.
• ...they also randomly decide to throw their unused coffee cups at the corner where the guy is obfuscated, because oops...one might hit the invisible guy.

Another example:

• Character A and B are role playing.
• B rolls a deception based skill against A's perception and wins.
• A believes B...but...for some reason (merrrteeergermin)decides to go to every other character on grid before acting on said deception to check 4500 times whether or not they've been lied to, because although they believe it, their character is very very very thorough with this information

Or

• After character A has been lied to, suddenly character C ( a friend of A's, with many perception feats) shows up wanting to hear this deception, as well, and then C wins and informs A that it's a lie.

WE HAVE ALL seen these little white metagaming incidents take place and plenty of OOC gymnastics to engineer plausible metagaming like this.

That shit needs to be hit with a hammer, and as a community, need to get better about policing that lack of fairness.