Social Stats in the World of Darkness

[tragedyjones]

Also RAW only Kindred can resist since it bases it on comparative Blood Potency but I imagine most STs in a crossover environment would sub relevant powerstat.

[Pyrephox]

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@tragedyjones said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Also at least in Requiem 2E you can attempt to resist the blood bond. But you will probably fail and/or end up a vitae addict.

That's fine, but in Requiem 2E the blood bond is also represented as a substantial penalty to resist your domitor's whims, and not a fiat to do as he/she says.

Keeping in mind that the penalties to resist are more dice than the average mortal even has to roll, of course.

[Arkandel]

@ziggurat said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Just my experience.

What I think you are missing is that your experience is shaped by the collective sigma of using social rolls on PCs. Of course they won't be used under the various circumstances mentioned all over this thread since the perception can flag someone as a potential creep, powergamer or bad fellow player.

That this is the effect though, not the cause.

[Pacha]

I will just also say with reference to social stats that (at least to me) posing your character as making these sweeping, dramatic, highly persuasive speeches when they are (as an example) presence 1, expression 1, is equivalent to posing your strength 1 character tossing around cars for fun.

If you don't have the social stats to support it then, in my opinion, your character has no business making those compelling speeches as it's simply not within their capabilities. Ignoring social stats means the game is no longer about our characters and role-playing what is on our sheets, but about which of us is the better writer or debater OOC-wise.

[Arkandel]

@pacha said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I will just also say with reference to social stats that (at least to me) posing your character as making these sweeping, dramatic, highly persuasive speeches when they are (as an example) presence 1, expression 1, is equivalent to posing your strength 1 character tossing around cars for fun.

That on its own isn't a big deal.

Arkandel growls and charges at the orc, swinging his sword at his enemy's head!

<rolls 1>

"You missed, Arkandel."

It's not that hard to apply the exact same paradigm with social stats. I give what I try to be an impassionate speech meant to inspire you but I just come off as a sanctimonious self-serving prick, making you wonder what are you doing following my lead.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

This is a subject that has roiled back and forth for years. Years, you say? Yes, because I have no less than three different write-ups on how I'd manage the expectations of "social combat" and "mental combat" on a MUSH

One of the things I've been wrestling with about FATE/Fate Core, is that social and mental combat are nearly the same thing. Outsmart, outwit, outmaneuver, outshine.

--

But the problem is that players usually don't separate IC and OOC knowledge.

Let me restate this for everyone:

There is no such thing as Pure IC.

Sorry about yelling, but this is important. The work to separate the two is fun for some, but is work for others. Without making the social interaction more codified, you're asking for consistency where none should be expected.

And those people who do separate the two? They don't really; they just decide what to let cross from OOC to IC. There is no such thing as an IC/OOC divide. All characters live from our players' desires for them.

Most of the current social/mental conflict systems rely on a consistency that lies within the GM, or within the social contract of the table. Well, bad news, "the table" in a Mu* includes people with different gaming goals than you do.

Anyhow, that's all. I wanted to get that out there. The lack of central agreement social systems is the main problem of using tabletop RPGs on a Mu* setting.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

It's not that hard to apply the exact same paradigm with social stats. I give what I try to be an impassionate speech meant to inspire you but I just come off as a sanctimonious self-serving prick, making you wonder what are you doing following my lead.

I think what Pacha means is that players of PCs with Presence 1 and Expression 1 will make impassioned speeches, but not tell people that it should come off as sanctimonious horseshit. And that's part of the reason I am examining this issue again.

[tragedyjones]

@pacha said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I will just also say with reference to social stats that (at least to me) posing your character as making these sweeping, dramatic, highly persuasive speeches when they are (as an example) presence 1, expression 1, is equivalent to posing your strength 1 character tossing around cars for fun.

If you don't have the social stats to support it then, in my opinion, your character has no business making those compelling speeches as it's simply not within their capabilities. Ignoring social stats means the game is no longer about our characters and role-playing what is on our sheets, but about which of us is the better writer or debater OOC-wise.

THIS ALL DAY FOREVER.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede

This Makes Me Think Of:

There are different types of LARPs. Some of them you rely on the dexterity of the player as the character, in others the combat is done via cards.

Because we MUSHers are essentially writers using a loose system to fill in the rest, then starting with a system where "making an impassioned speech" is rolled and not role-played will be...a challenge. How do you tickle the writer and role-player when you say, "You can do this, but you need to roll your success and write accordingly"?

Your example is why some people want open sheets. "I give the St. Crispin's Day Speech!" / (looks at your sheet, yells out from the crowd) "BO-RING!"

I think there are better ways, but accountability in stats is as old a discussion as the WoD Mu*.

[Pacha]

@ganymede

Yes, this. So they position it in the pose as though it should be highly compelling, basically playing like they have a far more socially gifted character than they do. (this also applies to intelligence 1 astrophysicists as well)

[faraday]

The whole "posing in contradiction with your skills" thing is not unique to social conflict. You get it all the time in any sort of skill-based roleplay, whether it's someone trying to fake playing a doctor or a soldier. It works both ways, too -- someone with RL knowledge letting that bleed over into their character, or someone without any knowledge trying to fumble their way through and making a mess of it. I think it's just more glaring in social situations because a) social situations make up, what, 90% of MU scenes? and b) we are all skilled to some degree in socialization, making our BS-meters more sensitive.

To tie back to what @Thenomain said, this is where the lack of a central authority or social contract bites games. You don't see it as much in ST-ed scenes because the ST has the authority to be all: "Yeah, no, there's no way that argument is going to convince the guard.." And you don't see it on consent games as much because the social contract says "If you want to convince my character of something, you need to get me, the player, on board with why that's a cool story."

[mietze]

That is one of the reasons why I've enjoyed the open sheet games I've been on, actually. It's like a little challenge to me as a RPer all on its own. Especially when the person has great stats for social stuff or motivational stuff or whatever, but their RP isn't to my personal taste. It's been fun trying to tease out at least one thing in their pose/scene that I-player can have my PC seize on for a more positive reaction.

You know the funny thing is though, that when I do that, it's fun to see how excited the other player gets about it. I guess this shit is easier when you really like to make other players feel good about the interaction, whatever it might be. I've also seen people improve greatly over time once they get more comfortable with me as a player too, knowing that I won't mock or make fun of them oocly and will respond to them as if they had posed their action (which they are entitled to/it's appropriate) in a way that spoke to my PC organically. A lot of people pick up on that also, and I find I'll get back over time what I complement in my poses, so it becomes enjoyable for me too, if I'm willing to give that player a chance.

[Ganymede]

@thenomain said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

The lack of central agreement social systems is the main problem of using tabletop RPGs on a Mu* setting.

Hence, why I brought this up.

And you're right. We're joking or lying if we claim a complete divide between what we do IC and what we think OOC. I don't think that's possible at all times.

But let's suppose that to be true. All the more reason to abolish social and mental combat, and simply rely on our wits and writing, as players, to convince others to do what we want.

[Pyrephox]

@thenomain said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@ganymede

This Makes Me Think Of:

There are different types of LARPs. Some of them you rely on the dexterity of the player as the character, in others the combat is done via cards.

Because we MUSHers are essentially writers using a loose system to fill in the rest, then starting with a system where "making an impassioned speech" is rolled and not role-played will be...a challenge. How do you tickle the writer and role-player when you say, "You can do this, but you need to roll your success and write accordingly"?

A decent writer or roleplayer should be thrilled about that. That's standard procedure in using social skills among most people I know. Declare what you're using, what you're hoping to achieve (or however the system works), THEN roll, then pose out the result of your roll.

Do not pose first and roll afterwards. It is a recipe for inadvertant hilarity (which can and has kicked me in the butt a few times where I thought, "I've got like a three percent chance to fail this roll," and so busted out this great dramatic pose, roll just to confirm and...crit fail. Then you have to do a hasty, "Or that's what she MEANT to say, but instead she stands up, looks around, opens her mouth, and all that comes out is a frog-like croak. Her face turns desperately red, and with all those wonderful words running through her head, she flaps her hands a few times in desperation and then sinks back into her seat and covers her face in her hands." to save it.

Roll! Then pose. The fun roleplaying part is finding a way to make the roll make sense!

[Thenomain]

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

But let's suppose that to be true. All the more reason to abolish social and mental combat, and simply rely on our wits and writing, as players, to convince others to do what we want.

Then why not physical combat?

This is not a trick question: If we can rely on playing the character sheets with each other, why allow one player character to be physically antagonistic to another?

[tragedyjones]

If I were to ever run a game again I would attempt to weave the preferred use of social skills into the fabric of the game at conception. It sets a precedent and stops people from having massively divergent (not wrong) ideas from wasting their time.

[tragedyjones]

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

And you're right. We're joking or lying
But let's suppose that to be true. All the more reason to abolish social and mental combat, and simply rely on our wits and writing, as players, to convince others to do what we want.

Some of us are neither witty nor skilled writers. I mean obviously not me, but some of us!

[Thenomain]

@tragedyjones said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

And you're right. We're joking or lying
But let's suppose that to be true. All the more reason to abolish social and mental combat, and simply rely on our wits and writing, as players, to convince others to do what we want.

Some of us are neither witty nor skilled writers. I mean obviously not me, but some of us!

[Ganymede]

@thenomain said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

This is not a trick question: If we can rely on playing the character sheets with each other, why allow one player character to be physically antagonistic to another?

Because, as a player behind a screen, I can out-think you and persuade you to do what I wish through my writing, scheming, and planning. I usually build my PCs to be able to do that, so that I'm not cheating. But, no matter my sheet, I cannot jump through the screen and punch you in the face, so I have to rely on my PC to do that.

[Pyrephox]

@ganymede See, I don't think of the purpose of social maneuvering in games to be one player trying to out-think the other, and I hate that it defaults to that, instead of one character out-thinking the other. The relative abilities of the players themselves, or other metafactors such as who can guess GM thoughts best, should be irrelevant to a social contest between characters. I feel like the idea that it isn't contributes to a toxic OOC environment, and the phenomenon of 'if I lose, it makes me look bad as a player because I wasn't smart/clever/charismatic enough to pull off a win'.

EDIT: And what I mean in the above is that when you make an IC contest into a referendum on the relative abilities and skills of the PLAYERS involved, then it then becomes difficult to say someone should just 'roll with a loss', because the reason their character lost is BECAUSE they were less competent/less well-liked/less charismatic on an OOC level. It's hard to argue for a healthy separation between IC and OOC, when a contest /literally is/ about who is the more competent (or, often, more popular) player.