Social Stats in the World of Darkness

[Ganymede]

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

And, what I MIGHT suggest, if you don't want PCs to be able to affect each other directly with social skills/abilities, is to have robust mechanics for affecting NPCs in meaningful ways. Like, going back to the games up above, on Kingsmouth, social skills made your character better at controlling territory, and allowed indirect conflicts by screwing with NPCs within other territories.

I like your suggestion, and that's why I've already come up with that kind of system for my game, so that, as you put it, social skills and stats aren't useless.

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

That is: if your policy supports the idea that player talent in regards to social maneuvering is what is going to win the day, it will encourage players who want to basically try to do their maneuvering OOC.

Whoa, okay, no, I don't think that's what Pyrephox was getting at, and it certainly wasn't what I was aiming for either. Maneuvering OOC through pages and @mails is very different than a player relying on their own intelligence and communicative abilities to maneuver their PCs politically; the former I oppose because that's totally out-of-character, whereas the latter keeps the action in the IC realm.

... if you create policy that sets up how your game wants social systems to work and spend time working out how it happens on a character to character basis, and take steps to reduce ways in which people can basically use their OOC wits to make up for a lack of IC wits, I think you'll actually be building towards what you are describing, Gany: that when players understand the expectation and the normality of social maneuvering, it can actually reduce the OOC drama surrounding it.

Yes, but I go back to the underlying presumption of my position, which, for right or wrong, is that players, to some extent, will always use their OOC wits when playing their PCs. Understanding the normality of social maneuvering, and the expectations thereof, is a separate issue; that's up to the players to figure out, mostly, and very difficult to create policy for.

[Pyrephox]

@ganymede No, Roz was correct about my intention. I do think that sort of policy directly encourages players who want to manipulate people OOC, which is one reason why I won't play a game that uses it.

[Sunny]

Just to throw this out, because I keep running into it with the topic again and again and again. We know the premise here: take the social stats out of play in character versus character, but like...what are you hoping to accomplish?

What is your GOAL, in doing this? What are you trying to do?

I think you might get more useful feedback if you talk about the desired result and then work from there.

[Thenomain]

Question:

I want to play someone who owns a business that is known for taking over and reselling other businesses for a profit.

A different character owns a business.

I want to take it apart.

This is very clearly a PvP action that relies on mental and/or social skills.

Should it be allowed?

[Ganymede]

@thenomain

Yes.

[Thenomain]

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

@thenomain

Yes.

Then this answers your question: Social and mental stats should be usable against other characters. (Maybe you've already said this amidst your responses; it's been a busy day on the board.) The question is then how to implement it, what to allow, and how to allow it.

WoD is such an "everything goes" kind of system that I don't envy anyone who's going to try.

[Seraphim73]

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

[Good description of cooperative, rolled social combat.]

This is pretty much what I've used for my Furystorm system, but I think that it could become part of any game's culture alongside whatever system of social rolls you were using (WoD, whatever).

Given the collaborative nature of our medium, I think that a Discuss, Modify, Roll, Discuss, Pose system works best. First the "attacker" describes what their character is trying to do and the methods their character is going to do, then the "defender" applies appropriate mods based on how applicable the argument is to their character, rolls are made, the two discuss the results to come up with a plausible argument, and then the poses are written.

This prevents people from writing a "lame" pose (or one that would be offensive to the target character) and winning on dice alone, helps keep some agency for the target (they get to weight the strongly-held beliefs of their character, and to help come up with how the attacker gets past them), while still allowing social stats to weigh into place. It even helps those who come up with good arguments (by providing them with positive modifiers to their roll).

Unfortunately, it also requires reasonable players, because the defender is providing modifiers for the attacker's roll based on how the argument would affect their character, so it's all too easy for a bad actor to say, "That argument would be totally useless against my character, even though they have a soft spot for kittens on their sheet and you're arguing that we should save kittens" (yes, that's hyperbole). The solution to that, in my opinion, is to remove bad actors from the game.

If you're not going to have a collaborative system, I think you need to do as others have suggested (@Ganymede, I think?) and make social skills/stats only work on NPCs, probably discount their XP costs, and make sure they have some serious bite against NPCs.

[Ganymede]

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

Then this answers your question: Social and mental stats should be usable against other characters. (Maybe you've already said this amidst your responses; it's been a busy day on the board.) The question is then how to implement it, what to allow, and how to allow it.

I thought this was clear from the three points I posed in my original post, but yes. I suggested the limits and permissions.

[Tinuviel]

@seraphim73 said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

If you're not going to have a collaborative system, I think you need to do as others have suggested (@Ganymede, I think?) and make social skills/stats only work on NPCs, probably discount their XP costs, and make sure they have some serious bite against NPCs.

With this kind of system one would need to construct an environment that is heavily, heavily influenced by NPCs. Otherwise the idea of manipulating and exploiting the NPC resources is rather pointless.

[Seraphim73]

@tinuviel I agree completely. I also think that NPC influence should be more readily used on most games, both as a way to drive friction (conflict-lite) and as a way to theme-correct.

[bored]

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

social situations make up, what, 90% of MU scenes?

While I have no interest in rehashing most of this discussion, this is a really key point to keep in mind. Whatever level of dice authority you want, whatever rule system you want follow (I agree with @Thenomain and @Ganymede that you ought to do that, whatever you pick), you need to keep in mind that it will be happening with this degree of frequency and players need to be comfortable with that.

Or in other words:

[Ganymede]

@seraphim73 said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I agree completely. I also think that NPC influence should be more readily used on most games, both as a way to drive friction (conflict-lite) and as a way to theme-correct.

I think that staffers these days are hesitant to use their NPCs and power to make the PCs' lives difficult. I can understand this reluctance; we talk so much about staffers using their influence and power in a bad way to make playing unpleasant. But in the World of Darkness, there is to be expected, I think, a bit of NPC antagonism. Friendly antagonism with purpose, of course, but antagonism nonetheless.

That's why, to this day, I still think it is better to have an NPC Prince and Court. If the Court abuses its power, then the players can take steps to work against it. It puts the players and their PCs in an environment where collaboration is the best way to ensure that "what is right" remains right, and that the Prince is left twisting his moustache and brooding about how he longs for an autumnal mead.

[Tinuviel]

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

a bit of NPC antagonism

Agreed, but at times it can border on turning NPC to PC if they appear to be involved too often. That's another attitude that might need adjusting in the grand scheme.

[mietze]

@seraphim73

I don't understand why there tends to be so much resistance (I've seen this a lot) to the idea of "discuss" when it comes to social skills. Granted, this works a lot better one on one rather than in one vs. many (like a speech to a crowded room).

I really enjoy using the doors/other systems where dice can be used "against" me when someone is using their social skills, but I get to be involved in tailoring it for my PC (which is what those skills often represent, finding an opening/weakness/some kind of indicator they can move in on and get on with the con or whatever). It creates much more enjoyable RP for me the victim than for some person (no matter how well they pose) making a guess bout what would move my PC or what opening they could make and then be so off it's hard to play along with the roll.

It lets me really think about my PC and possibly go in a different direction than what I had envisioned, because the other player is making me think as we work towards a resolution to achieve the goal and their dice roll. I feel like someone gets to know MY character a little more. (Usually because this is fun, I also then have the opportunities to be intrigued/ask questions ICly so I get to know that PC a little more too, which means that player gets to feel like someone else not their OOC friend gives a shit about their character.

It can be really really fun to resolve conflict that way. And it definitely CAN be done. But you have to set the expectation from the start, staff may need to handhold or set good examples or whatever. But I find using dice to open the conversation about resolving conflicting goals has been really satisifying when it's done well, and I think people who totally close themselves off to any possibility whatsoever that their PC can be influenced by another in any way that cedes even a minor degree of control over the outcome are missing out.

[Coin]

The problem with discussing rolls and stuff beforehand (and it's not a problem I have, but that I have run into a lot) is that people will telly ou they don't like to "script" scenes. They prefer to "see where it goes".

I mean, I get it, but eh.

[faraday]

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

I don't understand why there tends to be so much resistance (I've seen this a lot) to the idea of "discuss" when it comes to social skills.

I think a lot of it is just because that's not how RPGs traditionally work.

When's the last time you saw any of this on a TTRPG?

• "GM, I want to slay the dragon. Let's discuss what the optimum way to do that is and then I'll roll to see how well I do."
• "GM, I want to get through the Maze of Despair. Let's talk."
• "GM, I want to bluff my way past the guard. What argument will work best on him?"

It's just not how the games are structured. There's a puzzle aspect to RPGs that challenges the players almost as much as the characters.

Now there's a contrasting type of game that's more cooperative (ala consent games), but even there it's not "I rolled well and beat you; let's talk about how to make that make sense" it's "Let's talk about what makes the best story here, dice be damned."

So what you and @Seraphim73 are suggesting is a hybrid of the two approaches. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a big departure from what folks are used to. And I think there's resistance from both sides because it lacks the core elements that appeal to each (puzzle / consent).

[Arkandel]

An aspect of this debate that's commonly overlooked, I think, is that characters can succeed or fail regardless of their overall stats - that's why randomness is introduced in the system, after all.

Who here hasn't had a combat character with plenty of dice who hilariously (or catastrophically) failed a roll chances were heavy they should have succeeded in? Or who hasn't faced "ST dice" where the ST rolls 4 and gets 5 successes or whatever?

The same thing can apply to social situations... but only if the dice are rolled. Maybe your social ignosaurus just happens to get the tone right this time, and their bubbling speech moves people, or your village idiot has a stroke of brilliance and actually comes up with a bright if improbably solution to that one problem.

None of this works if there is no roll. We can't simply assume a masterful politician always says the right things any more than we should take it for granted a suberb archer hits their mark a hundred percent of the time. If that was the case we'd only have attributes, not elements of randomness.

[mietze]

@faraday the last time I saw this on a TTRPG was Chronicles of Darkness. It's WoD.

I understand you dont like this? But there are systems that already exist that do just that. Its not a hybrid. It's just a system you dont care for.

It seems strange to me that people kick and scream using /rules and suggestions that are right there in the sourcebook of the place they're playing at/, and I suspect a lot of it comes from the attitude of "what? That's just not done! No RPG is like that!" But there are RPG systems like that.

[faraday]

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

@faraday the last time I saw this on a TTRPG was Chronicles of Darkness. It's WoD.

Okay? I'm not doubting you, though personally I've never seen it. (ETA: I've played TT WoD but not the latest version. I think many people are probably in the same boat.) I'm just saying that if it that were the norm then we wouldn't be having this issue. Everyone would just be used to that. My point is that they aren't.

[mietze]

And in fact, if you read previous versions of CoD the discussion pre roll/roll has existed in that game for a long long time. You just did it with the GM.

As has been said over and over again about many subjects, though a MUSH is not TT so I'm not sure why we are getting hung up on that. Given the nature of mushes, the interactions you have between PCs are very much as if you are sharing the responsibility of GMing/working it out amongst yourselves so why would it seem or be weird to engage each other in that discussion piece?

It's just a part of the game. Maybe we should stop treating other players like they're NPCs in our tabletop game, where we can be very passive in what is done to/with us?

The rolls and discussion can increase the fun immensely, as well as provide a lot of character development, assuming normal players (no bad actors) and willingness to hear people out.