Influence/Reputation system?
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@surreality I could see myself enjoying things significantly more if a MU*'s rules specifically treated social combat as equal to physical combat in terms of needing an ST. It's ridiculous that we have disputes like people literally treating social rolls like telepathy, which would be easily solved if ST intervention was accepted as a normal aspect of social combat.
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@HelloProject said:
@surreality I could see myself enjoying things significantly more if a MU*'s rules specifically treated social combat as equal to physical combat in terms of needing an ST. It's ridiculous that we have disputes like people literally treating social rolls like telepathy, which would be easily solved if ST intervention was accepted as a normal aspect of social combat.
I'm still not sure where a lot of this comes from, to be honest. In any situation in which two players are rolling dice at each other, you should be able to call for an ST. That, like, basic gaming common sense. Hell, if someone asked me to come and adjudicate something social, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Combat, too. Or maybe they're writing a dissertation and want to write out that little story and find kinks and flaws or something. Mental stuff is no different.
Dice involved = ST can be called to be present if the players wish.
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Here might be the only thing were Derp and I are in total agreement. Once the dice start flying and you feel like you want or need someone impartial, pause the scene and call an ST, judge or whatever your game call them. I don't care weather the conflict is social or physical that is a good hunk of what they are around for.
granted I am sure I am likely to call for it sooner then he, since at the first sign of real PvP, and not just IC conflict, I call for it every time. -
@Balerion said:
The Influence part of the system of Blood of Dragons works by having each player come out of CharGen with a base Influence score, created through a formula that looks at House, certain Assets and Flaws and official positions. Influence can be spent on the Rumor system (influenced by code from Sanguinis Nobilis) and also gained or lost through targetted positive or negative rumors, but this only affects the current score, not the base score, and over time Influence gradually returns to the base score. Changes in status, such as a marriage or a new position, is the only way to permanently alter the base score. Influence can also help a character in gaining a better than expected marriage or a new position as Staff takes it into consideration when approving such requests.
By having the base score be the equilibrium that Influence strives to return to over time, there's no possibility of players colluding to use rumors to completely destroy someone's position permanently; that would actually take the character suffering a permanent change in status, such as losing their place at court or being disinherited.
Thanks for explaining this to me @Balerion. I played on BoD a long time ago and time drifted me away, and I think the system wasn't quite finished at that time and I wasn't sure how it worked or was meant to work. Playing with the rumors was an awful lot of fun though, and boosting and squishing them and watching them stick around or fade away was neat. I liked it more than any other rumors system I've seen, including the one on the game I work on now.
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I imagine the "PHYSICAL COMBAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR!" is probably some outdated vestige of olden times that tabletop MUs haven't moved beyond yet. Tabletop MUs, in my experience, are a bit like a third world country in terms of how quickly they progress compared to literally every other part of MUing. Christ, even MUDs progress faster than tabletop MU* culture and practices.
I feel like this, especially in the case of WoD, comes from a general dislike for change and risking failure or backlash. Especially true when you consider that WoD was tied up in WORA for so long. Trying something new and failing at it is like trying to feed a two year old vegetables and then getting hot baby food thrown at you (I might have no idea how two year olds work). I can imagine that there was a real fear of getting your game torn apart if you didn't just use the same old standards and practices.
Now, I will say that code-wise, WoD has pretty much stayed top notch, because of all the talented coders around here. But I think people need to be less reluctant to experiment with policies and game making. Like, I understand that it won't get you 1048610482 players, but why not build a solid theme around just one or two spheres?
Not just "Alright here is WoD, here is the city, GO!", but an actual freaking theme around a sphere or two, with a fleshed out city, NPCs who are running said city to bring it to life, and, like, stuff going on. Stuff that's really hard to do with like 8 different spheres in a single game. Doing something like that, and I'm not even saying it hasn't been done before (I have no idea), is a -great- vehicle for introducing new standards and practices for STing. You do something new, people -expect- new.
I feel much the same way about Pathfinder and D&D MU*s, but they have other things that need fixing first, which I won't get into in this thread (It'd be a bit off topic).
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Eh, MU's rolled from RPGs which were expanded war games. In (most) war games the time for negotiation has past.
Be happy your wizard can pew pew pew at all. Now roll a morale check.
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Fate Core has a mental health track which is used in social combat.
Just sayin'.
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Mental Health like actual mental health because that would be hilarious/kind of not fantasy enough.
Also thank you for all the replies everybody. I have many things to consider and also to look up, because I haven't read half of these books. Usually other people have and they just tell me what to do, so this is kind of different. I am sure at some point I will have more specific questions, and I'll know where to turn. In the mean time you all debating among yourselves gives me plenty to mull over.
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Pretty much yes and if you get too much mental stress you can take consequences to represent temporary if sometimes very long term mental issue resulting from taking the mental stress.
That is one of the things I like about Fate is that it encourages parity between the two. -
The consequences can also be social. 'Socially shunned' is just as potent as 'not feeling it today'.
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@Thenomain
That is true I should have noted that. Also worth noting there are setting specific varieties that use social stress tracks as well. And my personal favorite game economy system ever, diaspora uses a financial stress track to handle money things. -
Damn yes, diaspora and its Firefly Financial System.
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I never understood why people don't just use d20 systems for everything. It's easily adaptable to any situation and any possible thing you could want to do with it.
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Because I would stab anyone who forces me to use the d20 system for everything repeatedly in the face, unless it's d20 Modern.
Er, sorry, constructive. Uh, because I find level-based systems inappropriate for a wide variety of games, and I mostly don't care for them. I'm fine if that's the thing for the table, but don't want it to be the only thing.
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I find D20 far too reductive, which means that the players fill in the details, which is terrible for an online game where you may have different mixes of players, and therefor different DMs, judging how to play through a scene with the D20 system present. One will be like make a single roll, I don't care what you pose, another will want rounds of poses matched to rolls or creating modifiers, some will be all for making it fit their vision of the genre, others will be all about the game system defines what happens.
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D20 is fine for fantasy, but it is not my preferred system even for that. For non fantasy I really do not like it.
Granted I really do like 5th ed D+D but it is very fantasy-centric and would not work for a lot of other things.
Note I consider 5th ed and D20 to be separate systems similar yes but not the same. -
@Alzie said:
@Ganymede Social combat is just as valid as physical combat.
I totally agree. But I also believe that the rolls presented for the system are valid, if the players accept the system. In fact, I think any method of resolution is acceptable, if the players accept it.
The key word is: acceptance. The problem is: most players don't accept what happens to them.
That, and the Doors system seems unnecessarily complicated given that there's a perfectly-viable, single-roll system available.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede said:
The key word is: acceptance. The problem is: most players don't accept what happens to them.
That, and the Doors system seems unnecessarily complicated given that there's a perfectly-viable, single-roll system available.
The single roll isn't great, but it's much better than social maneuvering. Single roll has resists, and takes the target's stats they spent on -- like iron will/etc. -- into account. SM doesn't. It completely ignores the stats of the target save for in setting the base number of doors. I can kinda see why players don't accept outcomes from a system that only takes the aggressor's stats into account.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said:
@Ganymede said:
The key word is: acceptance. The problem is: most players don't accept what happens to them.
That, and the Doors system seems unnecessarily complicated given that there's a perfectly-viable, single-roll system available.
The single roll isn't great, but it's much better than social maneuvering. Single roll has resists, and takes the target's stats they spent on -- like iron will/etc. -- into account. SM doesn't. It completely ignores the stats of the target save for in setting the base number of doors. I can kinda see why players don't accept outcomes from a system that only takes the aggressor's stats into account.
Edit: ignores modifiers, too, and that's just bad.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality said:
@surreality said:
@Ganymede said:
The key word is: acceptance. The problem is: most players don't accept what happens to them.
That, and the Doors system seems unnecessarily complicated given that there's a perfectly-viable, single-roll system available.
The single roll isn't great, but it's much better than social maneuvering. Single roll has resists, and takes the target's stats they spent on -- like iron will/etc. -- into account. SM doesn't. It completely ignores the stats of the target save for in setting the base number of doors. I can kinda see why players don't accept outcomes from a system that only takes the aggressor's stats into account.
Edit: ignores modifiers, too, and that's just bad.
What? No it doesn't.
Social Maneuvering rolls can be Resisted and Contested, depending on the type of roll and what you're trying to do. In fact, if you have Iron Will, for example, and someone is trying to do something that you would resist or contest with Resolve, it would absolutely count.
There is nowhere in the books that says 'Social Maneuvering does away with resisting or contesting rolls'.
This is literally in the second paragraph of GMC p. 193 "Opening Doors":
As Storyteller, be creative in selecting dice pools. Change them up with each step to keep the interactions dynamic. Similarly, consider contested and resisted rolls. Most resisted actions or contested rolls use either Resolve or Composure or a combination of the two. But don’t let that stand as a limit. Contested rolls don’t require a resistance trait. For example, Wits might be used to notice a lie, Strength to help a character stand up to threats, or Presence to protect and maintain one’s reputation at a soiree.
Single roll isn't better, because single roll accomplishes things and it feels like "magic". One roll and done. With Social maneuvering you actually have to put your Skills and other stats to use, figure out how to properly engage your target from one Door to the next, etc.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
