Social Stats in the World of Darkness

[Seraphim73]

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

There are some other RPGs where the stakes and rules for social combat are clear. If you want to use social stats with characters as a valid target, use one of them.

Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire, for instance. Different tactics with different effects, the ability to specialize in each of those effects, social hit points, social armor... all of that. It still doesn't handle issues of agency very well, so it will never be for some people. For people who aren't as concerned about player agency, it might work very well.

Even then, however, there are limits on what social skills can force upon the target. As @Sunny mentioned on another thread, I believe, it's about influencing the target's position on a subject, not about changing their mind directly.

But yes, I'm sure we've all experienced something like the situation @Ziggurat is referencing, and it's frustrating as hell. However, I bet we've also all had a situation where someone makes a big huge speech that they think is awesome, but they were making a huge play to your character's honor... which they don't have (or something like that).

[faraday]

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

One is still only going to go as far as makes sense for their character's IC limits/knowledge base.

This right here is the core of the issue. The two 'sides' of this seemingly-endless debate can be summarized (IMHO) as:

• Defender should set those limits because they understand their character and their knowledge/boundaries/personality/history/predilections/etc.
• Defenders can't be trusted to set those limits because they have an incentive to come up with even the thinnest excuse to avoid the consequences of a roll.

There's also the issue of the way social conflict is resolved. Human behavior is complex, and trying to boil it down to "roll Persuasion vs Wits with some vague modifier and if I win then you're persuaded" is as utterly nonsensical as trying to model physical combat with "roll Firearms vs Dex with some vague modifier and if I win then you're dead."

No sane gamer would accept the latter, but many argue that people who refuse to accept the former are just cheaters who can't bear to lose, deserving of mockery. It's absurd and insulting.

[Sockmonkey]

@faraday

I wouldn't say '...if I win, then you are persuaded'. I'm more of the flavor of '..if I win, then what I am saying/doing probably appeals to you, maybe more than it usually would' and then let you take it from there. You get to dictate your response because it is your character. However, if your response, every time, is just along the lines of 'my character is impervious to all things in all situations at all times because REASONS', then ..well .. that's really boring on the other side of the collaborative space (mine) and I probably just won't seek you out for RP again (you being the royal you, not you specially).

Some people really enjoy rolling up characters who are perfect at everything and cannot be manipulated/persuaded/intimidated/etc. And that's fine. If that's their version of fun, then .. you do you. My personal jam is characters with flaws and weaknesses -- those are the characters/players that I tend to seek out for scenes on the regular. The best scenes I have ever had have involved spectacular failures on my part or others'. A+, would recommend.

[Wretched]

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

@faraday

Some people really enjoy rolling up characters who are perfect at everything and cannot be manipulated/persuaded/intimidated/etc. And that's fine. If that's their version of fun, then..

I would also say to that, there are stats that cover that. Resolve, Composure, Rigid mask, Indomitable... So if you wanna be totally blase, i would expect people to have the stats that represent that.

[faraday]

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

I wouldn't say '...if I win, then you are persuaded'. I'm more of the flavor of '..if I win, then what I am saying/doing probably appeals to you, maybe more than it usually would' and then let you take it from there.

I agree with you. In fact, the BSGU rule on social rolls is almost exactly what you just described. Yet "if I win, then you are persuaded" is exactly what many folks (on this thread and every other time this topic comes up) seem to want.

The presumption is that if you don't allow your character to be conned, then you're a Cheating McCheater, even if you have good reason. And that folks who prefer to control their character's thoughts (i.e. the agency argument) are only interested in "rolling up characters who are perfect at everything". That's just flat-out, demonstrably wrong.

There are bad actors on both sides - the "I'm going to force-roll seduction against you" skeeves and the "nah nah you can't intimidate me no matter what you roll or what the circumstances" nitwits. But painting everyone who favors a certain playstyle with the "bad actor" brush is wrong. (and just to be clear - I'm not saying you did that; I'm just clarifying my original point.)

[Misadventure]

Well, now I am certain that social skills should not affect PCs.

I think @Ganymede may want to write up what can and can't be done because social skills are now a whim call.

For instance, no you can't be sure someone is or isn't lying anymore. Likewise discussing it in any way that defines what is "true" on an OOC level would be something to think carefully about allowing.

People can be as inconsistent as they want, but they can be held accountable for that ICly.

Interestingly, it does make OOC manipulation very viable, as its ALL just what the players think, right? INTERESTING.

Seduction, negotiations, bribery, persuasion all will be pretty much unchanged.

Meetings will still last for hours, parties and weddings will be more attended than anything else. It will be marvelous.

[Killer Klown]

The biggest argument I tend to see is that there's no real restriction on using physical stats against other pcs - like you could beat someone into submission if you were stronger, but couldn't use Charisma/Presence/whatever to convince them to submit.

It might be tired, but I do think it's valid. Social stats and skills don't cost any less than physical ones, so they should at least have a comparable effect. I suppose there's a difference between 'hard' and 'soft' social stats - hard ones, like intimidate or subterfuge (in terms of lying), could actually change the flow of rp because you're effectively beating someone with a stat stick just as if you were doing so with a real stick. 'Soft' ones like persuasion or socialize are fuzzier; you're not so much forcing an issue as adjusting the flow of the scene. I'd equate it to the way Diplomacy worked in D&D 3; making the roll would not take an enemy and make them into your minion, but it would improve their general reaction towards you (They might go from outright hostile to at least willing to listen to what you have to say - even if they're under no obligation to take action).
The problem is, that's extremely hard to represent in a MU setting - especially if the person with the social stats misrepresents it or misunderstands how they work himself. The other problem as I see it is ,if you reduce the application of social stats (Even on a passive level) it likewise reduces the attraction to play social based characters when the points could be better or more efficiently spent elsewhere - and I'm not talking just about the attributes and abilities, but also all the merits that are built around those statistics.

[Ganymede]

@killer-klown said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

The biggest argument I tend to see is that there's no real restriction on using physical stats against other pcs - like you could beat someone into submission if you were stronger, but couldn't use Charisma/Presence/whatever to convince them to submit.

On that note, no one really talks about Mental Combat. There is Mental Combat in the World of Darkness, and it comes in the form of Investigations in CoD. But there's more to it, and it's a long-game process.

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, for different systems (one for FS3, one for the Mass Effect game I was working on, one for another WoD game). And it does not seem as if there will be any middle ground.

That's the thing about politics, I guess.

One thing I wanted to clarify:

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

Will this 'PC's are Immune to social rolls Include...

Empathy rolls to get better insight, Subterfuge rolls to shield emotions or pick up on lies, or Expression to be a dramatic bitch.

Going to the first point of my original post, the social roll cannot influence or change the feelings or thoughts of another PC. Using Empathy to get better insight does not influence or change the thoughts of the target. Using Subterfuge to shield emotions or detect lies does not influence or change the thoughts of the target. And using Expression to be a dramatic sex-starved bitch named Count does not influence or change the thoughts of the target, as the goal is focused on the acting PC.

I realize that this may not be workable without substantial changes to the rules to balance things out. That's why I'm enjoying reading everyone's (I mean, everyone's) thoughts on the matter. We've talked in previous threads and topics about adapting systems to the MUSH environment in order to make those games more viable for the same, and that's why I wanted to embark again on this journey. It seems worthwhile to do, and now we have a dedicated topic for it.

I'm still open to suggestions and ideas, and criticism.

[faraday]

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

And it does not seem as if there will be any middle ground.

That's not true though. Several middle-ground alternatives have been proposed by various people (@Thenomain , @Seraphim73 , myself and others) if you go back and look at those other threads. But the middle ground gets lost in the yelling of the people on the extremes, the insults, and the hyperbole.

Yeah, I guess it is a lot like politics.

[Ganymede]

@faraday

Seem.

(Yes, I know, lawyer, boo me.)

I saw the suggestions. I'm looking for more.

[Killer Klown]

Yeah, there's mental/social combat rules - and nWoD 2 does a pretty good representation of it <That was what I was trying to imply in the 'merits that are built around those statistics' line>; however, putting in a more robust system doesn't really resolve the initial issue - that being what and how the endgame will be. Vis a vis: Roll Manipulation+Subterfuge=You will sleep with me! vs figure out guile, nerve, dominance modifier; roll off for initiative, roll against subtracting guile, damage targets nerve, keep going until=You will sleep with me!

[Pyrephox]

@killer-klown I found it often did, honestly. Most of your sex-creepers aren't looking for /work/, or for people who actually know the social rules - usually just saying, "Sure, if you want to seduce my character, it looks like the rules on pg. XX of the core rulebook would apply," would be enough to scare them away. And if it didn't, pretty much no one ever persisted after I said, "Oh, and it'll be fade to black."

[tragedyjones]

Has any game actually used the Investigation system?

[Killer Klown]

I wouldn't doubt it; but by the same token I've seen enough to know that people will go to extreme lengths for no other reason than to be terrible human beings to one another (especially online), so I'm pretty sure there's going to be a subset of the population that would twink themselves towards these rules as well; and thereby elevate (deprecate?) their behavior to epic levels - and that's not counting the people who learn the system specifically to use it against other people who might not know it that well themselves (Take what you said but flip it - I'm going to seduce your character, so as per the rules on page xx I do this, modified by the rules on page xx in book y, coupled with the activation from splat z...)

[Pyrephox]

@killer-klown Yeah, but at that point they're probably using the many, many supernatural powers that exist solely for the purpose of dicking with characters' thoughts and emotions. Of which there are MANY.

I mean, I do wonder why we never have this discussion about vampire blood bonds, where three drops of blood snuck into a character's food over a couple of weeks can make them obsessively devoted to their assailant without any chance to IC resist or even recognize that the feelings aren't their own for the most part. Or hell, Spring Court Changelings in the first edition of Lost could directly fuck around with your desires, including making a character desire something /for the rest of their life/ with a single roll.

[Ganymede]

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

Has any game actually used the Investigation system?

Yes.

And the Chase system.

And the Doors system.

It's called 'reading and playing the nWoD 2E / CoD system as written'.

And it should be on any game that claims to follow that rule set.

[mietze]

@ganymede I agree. I understand the compulsion many folks have to resist learning anything new for systems they're familiar with but...2.0 has so many upgrades that reward people for collaborative play, who make things a little more interesting than input/output dice, it's a shame that people knee jerk hate it.

I love the investigations/doors/chase/quick combat stuff. It's really useful and fun once you get to know it. I know the quick combat stuff has allowed me to run scenes that are super exciting and where the PCs actually get to be the supernatural badasses they are against normies without tying everyone down to hours of regular combat where everyone is exhausted before we get to the good stuff.

[Ganymede]

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

I love the investigations/doors/chase/quick combat stuff. It's really useful and fun once you get to know it.

I built my last mage, Shrike, based on all of these systems. And she was very good with them.

I mean, a terrible mage, but someone you don't want looking for or chasing you, ever.

[tragedyjones]

Actually I remember I did use the Investigation system on BITN quite a few times. It is sad that it (and Chases) are not in the gameline books.

I love the CofD system and wish people used it so written more.

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.

[Ganymede]

@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.