Influence/Reputation system?
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@Pyrephox I don't disagree. But its still, in the end, a people problem. Don't want to play by the rules? People problem. Don't want to enforce the rules? Still a people problem. Whether the rules in place are awesome or suck (I think everyone knows where I stand on the most recent set of rules), until people will enforce them and abide by them... its not a problem with the system.
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@Pyrephox said:
Much the same way we would if people started throwing shit fits about not wanting to take damage in combat.
It's a lot easier for most people to go along with.
"Your characters arm just got cut off by the ogres blow, what do you do next?"
then
"Your character has been convinced that they're inlove with the prince, what do you do next?"
The former is an event that happens to your character that you're allowed to react to. In the latter case the reaction is dictated to you, your agency as a player is removed and most players have a fundamental objection to that. I don't think PC vs PC social combat will ever be well received.
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@Groth said:
@Pyrephox said:
Much the same way we would if people started throwing shit fits about not wanting to take damage in combat.
It's a lot easier for most people to go along with.
"Your characters arm just got cut off by the ogres blow, what do you do next?"
then
"Your character has been convinced that they're inlove with the prince, what do you do next?"
The former is an event that happens to your character that you're allowed to react to. In the latter case the reaction is dictated to you, your agency as a player is removed and most players have a fundamental objection to that. I don't think PC vs PC social combat will ever be well received.
By definition, any situation in which you give a single environmental stimuli and ask the player what their character does next is not a removal of player agency. For that matter, we have no trouble as a culture asking players to deal with this when it's a supernatural power that's enforcing some sort of emotion on the fictional characters we're playing. Furthermore, that's not even how the social system in GMC /works/. You do not "convince someone that they are in love with you" in GMC Doors. You say, "I need this person to agree to do X thing," and seduction might be one of the tactics you use (but it's just as likely to be bribery, or petsitting, or fixing their car), depending on whether the target thinks that's a valid choice of tactic. If you then succeed, the person either does X for you (and may immediately regret it and wonder, "Oh god, how did I get sucked into that?") or they might choose to say, "I don't think my character would ever agree to do that specific thing, but I would be willing to take this Impressed/Swooning/Leveraged Condition instead, and his guilt about not being able to help you out with this will make him more inclined to go along with you in other circumstances."
It's one of the MOST agency-preserving social systems you can possibly have while still having mechanics for social actions. Which, if you're making people spend XP on social skills and merits for their characters, you NEED to have some sort of social mechanical system. If, on the other hand, you're house ruling that players don't have to spend any points on social skills, merits, or abilities, then sure, people can play social cops and robbers "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" all day, and at least no one's screwed out of a character build.
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@Pyrephox said:
It's one of the MOST agency-preserving social systems you can possibly have while still having mechanics for social actions. Which, if you're making people spend XP on social skills and merits for their characters, you NEED to have some sort of social mechanical system. If, on the other hand, you're house ruling that players don't have to spend any points on social skills, merits, or abilities, then sure, people can play social cops and robbers "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" all day, and at least no one's screwed out of a character build.
In practise, social combat systems are almost never used because anyone that uses them will be OOCly shunned. It doesn't matter how powerful you are socially if noone wants to enter the same scene as you.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@Groth said:
@Pyrephox said:
It's one of the MOST agency-preserving social systems you can possibly have while still having mechanics for social actions. Which, if you're making people spend XP on social skills and merits for their characters, you NEED to have some sort of social mechanical system. If, on the other hand, you're house ruling that players don't have to spend any points on social skills, merits, or abilities, then sure, people can play social cops and robbers "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" all day, and at least no one's screwed out of a character build.
In practise, social combat systems are almost never used because anyone that uses them will be OOCly shunned. It doesn't matter how powerful you are socially if noone wants to enter the same scene as you.
People on your own game used them pretty regularly, actually. A couple of them were really good at it. A few were a bit annoying, but most people were pretty reasonable in play.
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@Groth said:
@Bobotron said:
@Gingerlily
The Status system in MET: Vampire the Masquerade is built around social play and rewarding you for making good on what you do, and punishing you for fucking up.You get lauded by positive Status, which gives you a variety of social (and sometimes mechanical) benefits, like allowing you to talk to your superiors without permission, to offset an offense when you fuck up, and a number of things.
You bet punished by Negative Status when you fuck up and can't offset it. Most Negative Status imposes some type of social punishment, though you can go so far as to get ejected from your sect for fucking up too much. There's also some interesting political play with some Negative Status, where people whoa re backstabbing vampire bitches to people with those specific Negative Status getting a special Positive Status for insulting and belittling the fuckup.
Overall it works really well for play in my experience, and I've been using in in live-play with a 30 or so player game for over 2 years. You'd need to tweak it to allow every joe to give positive/negative status a little though, since ia lot of it relies on people in positions of power giving out the status (harpies, prince, seneschal, elders, etc.)). You can look at it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1t3t1c455rcnlcw/METVtM Status.pdf?dl=0
RfK tried to use the MET status system as written and it worked 'ok' while the game still had a relatively small population but as the game grew it became increasingly impossible for the Prince/Harpies to actually keep track of what was going on and properly award/deduct status.
Yeah; Requiem MET system uses the same setup as tabletop, as dots-rated. MET:VtM uses adjective descriptors as things that you are recognized as, like Loyal or Courteous, which works well into RP AND is really easy to handle; you have a status cap, and in general, unless you use your status/pull your weight with it, and expend the trait (temporarily or permanently, depending), it's there as recognition for you. There are some punishments that might drop your status (like removing all your Fleeting Status without expenditure), but it doesn't require the overhead Requiem status does.
Here's a couple of examples of how Status in METVtM works and how it works itself into play. Positive status in italics, negative status in bold.
Sanderson the Nosferatu is known to be Courteous by Primogen Huxley of the Nosferatu, Loyal by the Seneschal Yamada and Favored by his sire, Prince Abraxus.
Sanderson makes a move at court, and surrounding by his supporters, openly insulting the Established Elder Toreador Mikaela. "That ungrateful bitch. She's gone behind the Prince's back one too many times, and I'll teach her a fucking lesson if she does it again."
Mikaela, overhearing from her table nearby, simply looks at the Nosferatu and smiles, "Such harsh words against an Established member of our sect, Sanderson. I'm going to give you a Warning about your behavior, before I see to it the Sheriff finds out about your side projects."
Sanderson does not back down. "As a Loyal member of the court, my words carry weight and your Warning won't stick under careful investigation, Mikaela."This uses the effect of:
- Established to grant Warned (a negative status representing punishment) to someone who openly insults, threatens or attacks you
- The effect of Warned which would disallow Sanderson from talking to sect officers without being addressed first, among other things.
- And the effect of Loyal, which is removed in place of Sanderson being Warned.
Next up, the court has survived an assault by a Sabbat pack, and Girard the Ventrue and Tien the Assamite Vizier have aquitted themselves in taking out the ductus, a powerful Tzimisce and found a traitor. The Prince is holding court after the Sabbat have been driven out and eliminated.
Prince Abraxus stands, stepping forward. "These past nights have been trying for our court. However, two individuals have done above and beyond what was requested of them in the face of this adversity. Rise, Tien and Girard." After they rise, "By the Authority of the Praxis of this domain, I hereby declare Tien of the Assamites and Girard of the Ventrue Defenders of the court; their actions against the Sabbat invaders have proven their mettle and wit. They have also revealed a traitor in our midst..."
A chorus of murmurs comes from the court, as the Prince continues. "Sheriff Fallon, please bring forth the prisoner."
The Sheriff comes forward with a chained figure, a local Gangrel named Puck. The Prince steps forward, scowling. "Puck. This domain has offered you hospitality. This domain has offered you support in your bid to help the Gangrel regain status. However, the evidence is overwhelming. Sabbat ritual documents and... forbidden lore... were found in your haven, and your communications with the Malkavian Primogen implicate you in her destruction."
Abraxus sighs, rubbing his temples. "You, sir, are a glorious fuckup and it is with GREAT pleasure that I declare you Forsaken and that you shall be anathema. Sheriff Fallon, you know what to do."In this instance, the Prince has used his Authority to:
- Grant the positive status Defender to two of his court, which he can use as a passive benefit of being in a position of Authority (Defender allows people to carry weapons in restricted areas as a passive bonus, and it has an active bonus of reducing gained Beast Traits by one, representing your resolve to do this thing that's giving you beast traits in service to the court)
- The Prince also hits the Gangrel with Forsaken, which expels him from the sect and removes all the protections he enjoyed as a member of the Camarilla. This is more of him 'pulling his weight' (temporarily expending the Status Trait) to get the bigger effect.
What I'd like to experiment with is a system where every character on the game is allowed to make one positive vote and one negative vote each time interval, these would be public and optional. In theory this could create an effective crowd-sourced harpy that would help make everyone in the game aware of what's been happening.
Isn't this what LAMUSH was doing, with votes for reputation?
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@Groth said:
@Pyrephox said:
It's one of the MOST agency-preserving social systems you can possibly have while still having mechanics for social actions. Which, if you're making people spend XP on social skills and merits for their characters, you NEED to have some sort of social mechanical system. If, on the other hand, you're house ruling that players don't have to spend any points on social skills, merits, or abilities, then sure, people can play social cops and robbers "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" all day, and at least no one's screwed out of a character build.
In practise, social combat systems are almost never used because anyone that uses them will be OOCly shunned. It doesn't matter how powerful you are socially if noone wants to enter the same scene as you.
I don't think so. I use them regularly, and I have never felt particularly shunned. It ends up being a question of how you use your social influence, rather than whether you use it at all.
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@Pyrephox said:
By definition, any situation in which you give a single environmental stimuli and ask the player what their character does next is not a removal of player agency.
^ That is truth.
The problem are the people who do not ask what the other character does next, but tells them what they're going to do next, and that actually is a removal of player agency.
And they are, sadly, plentiful enough to be a genuine problem.
They also are dead-set convinced they are not a problem, which is a considerably larger problem.
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@Pyrephox said:
Much the same way we would if people started throwing shit fits about not wanting to take damage in combat.
Really now? I am not so sure about it. I agree with your idea and what you want to have happen but if you challenge a combat result from what I have seen across many games over many years you have about a 50/50 shot at getting the call reversed or simply getting the whole thing retconned. This has gotten better in recent years, I mean you no longer have week long time stops that get never actually get resolved anymore, but it hardly a non-issue.
Note I think this sucks but lets not pretend that people don't get out of physical combat results almost as easily as social ones. -
I was involved on both ends of social combat stuff on RfK, and it was relatively stress free. It was a hell of a lot better to get to use mechanics and rolls to work things out vs. the usual "Nuh-uh!" "Uh-huh!" <cue ooc manipulation of others/ignoring poses/people posing or reacting in ways that they did not have the stats to back up, ect.>
Granted, most of the time I didn't do it with asshats I guess. Even the few times where it got tense, there was less asshattery. I think perhaps because there was a system and it was encouraged rather than looked down upon.
I think though that having a game structure where social skills were actually mechanically valuable beyond shits and giggles helped with that culture though. It raised the bar of respect and why people would want to purchase them other than being an ooc wannabe rapist.
I did like that there was an attempt to my status/influence valuable in many aspects mechanically, that there was a cost associated (and at high levels a pretty significant one) to maintain it--you did not just get to play XP with it once and be done. They also limited the slots period, so regardless of whether it was held by player-held NPCs like a retainer or PC themselves, there was only 1 status 5, 2 4s, ect in the mortal influences. You could research them and it was encouraged to attack mortal status as a leg up. (and it seemed to happen on a fairly regular basis, with no major ooc catastrophies)
So I agree if you want influence/rep to have weight, it's good to look at benefits carefully. I like the idea of there being some +s to not having a high one too. I think that maintenance cost and limited spots are probably important too /if/ you want the getting and keeping of influence to be something that people play about beyond just flashing about that they have 5s in everything. I don't know that maintenance would be easy to do without an off screen system though. And I think a lot of WoD people in particular would freak the fuck out about having to pay more than once for something they already bought.
I think maintenance costs make intuitive sense ICly. I think implementing them may be trickier, depending (and probably mortal/mundane influence/statuses might need to work different than supernatural groups, so there is that complication too).
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@Pyrephox said:
People on your own game used them pretty regularly, actually. A couple of them were really good at it. A few were a bit annoying, but most people were pretty reasonable in play.
RfK used a social combat system that I believe Shavalyoth originally found on the OPP forum. The idea behind it was to try to make social combat as painless as possibly by instead having characters be directly convinced, their player would be offered a bribe "If you let your character be convinced, you get all these positive conditions and possibly even a beat!'. One of the best things about nWoD 2.0/GMC is the general philosophy of giving characters beats whenever bad things happen to them, it really does help soften the psychological blow.
Even so it was only ever extensively used by one player even though we would have liked to see it used more, because at the end of the day actually rolling the dice is the only way other players can tell if your character is actually convincing or you're just a good writer.
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Don't Rest Your Head offers a model for how to handle player characters being affected in a big way: the player selected the ways the character could react, (flee or fight) and the player chooses which reaction to use when called for. When they are out of one reaction they have to use the others.
For modern MU play, I would say that the player could be offered several common scenarios of being influenced socially, be called upon to note what approaches might worst best and worst, and what sort of swayed responses they might give. As a reward, choosing the possibility of more severe responses can be rewarded at creation/commitment, or when they are actually used.
The successful manipulator would be able to recognize the given reaction and intensity depending on their own skills and played through events.
Common attraction based seduction responses might include: treating the person better, granting exceptions to the person, being twitterpated in their presence or when they are flirting, having a man/woman-crush (hero worship), deference, seeking attention, getting stalkery, be unaware of or in denial of attraction while still acting on it, full on aggressive lust, full on submissive lust, gain insight into the objects better nature both delusional and real, self sacrifice, gifting, patronage, trigger a vice, become friends etc
That way it's an expression of the target character, found in particular by the influencers specific actions, and exploitable based on the influencers awareness and skills. And it's been thought about, and uses of telepathy, virtue and vice reading, observation etc could get info that could be defined on a +sheet.
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@Groth said:
@Pyrephox said:
People on your own game used them pretty regularly, actually. A couple of them were really good at it. A few were a bit annoying, but most people were pretty reasonable in play.
RfK used a social combat system that I believe Shavalyoth originally found on the OPP forum. The idea behind it was to try to make social combat as painless as possibly by instead having characters be directly convinced, their player would be offered a bribe "If you let your character be convinced, you get all these positive conditions and possibly even a beat!'. One of the best things about nWoD 2.0/GMC is the general philosophy of giving characters beats whenever bad things happen to them, it really does help soften the psychological blow.
Even so it was only ever extensively used by one player even though we would have liked to see it used more, because at the end of the day actually rolling the dice is the only way other players can tell if your character is actually convincing or you're just a good writer.
RfK's system was, sadly, inferior to the actual Doors system, but yeah, it wasn't terrible. It allowed too much to rest on one roll, though, rather than an extended interaction. Which, ironically, made it closer to that "one roll and you love me" thing that people tend to complain about. However, I suspect it was used more often than you realize - I was in several scenes where different people used it for different things, and one of the things I thought DID work really well was extending it out to apply to creative works. Letting crafting/art rolls give people beat-giving conditions if they accepted them was great, and a house rule I fully intend to steal for any games I run in the future.
Moving back to an Influence/Rep system - if we're not talking about WoD, I think that a "Faction Status Seesaw" would be useful in some ways. Have the factions in the game each have an opposing faction, and if you earn/buy status in one faction, the status in the opposing faction automatically goes down. (In GMC terms, you might create a persistent Condition called Opposed, that gives a -1 to social interactions to people from the opposing faction for each level of status that you have in the rival faction, that gives you a Beat whenever a member of that faction blocks you from achieving an Aspiration or takes direct action against you.) And then open up events and character opportunities that can only happen if you've got negative Status. If, say, you have negative Status (local government), then you can join the local violent anarchist mystery cult and take advantage of their bennies, or when a plot comes along that involves screwing with the local government, you're first on the NPCs' lists to be recruited.
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@Pyrephox said:
RfK's system was, sadly, inferior to the actual Doors system, but yeah, it wasn't terrible. It allowed too much to rest on one roll, though, rather than an extended interaction. Which, ironically, made it closer to that "one roll and you love me" thing that people tend to complain about.
In the doors system as written the highest number of possible doors is 9 (Resolve 5, Composure 5, against virtue/vice and aspiration). Any character can at that point choose to make a roll with a -9 penalty and open all the doors in a single roll as long as they score a single success, this isn't too hard to achieve without accounting for powers or merits. At that point your target has to do what you want them to do with no ability to say no.
@Pyrephox said:
If you then succeed, the person either does X for you (and may immediately regret it and wonder, "Oh god, how did I get sucked into that?") or they might choose to say, "I don't think my character would ever agree to do that specific thing, but I would be willing to take this Impressed/Swooning/Leveraged Condition instead, and his guilt about not being able to help you out with this will make him more inclined to go along with you in other circumstances."
That's not part of the GMC/Requiem 2.0 doors system. In 'Offer an Alternative' the victim has to do something for the attacker /and/ get a condition imposed (chosen by the attacker). The doors system as written isn't even a little bit tuned to handle player on player interactions however it could probably be modified to be. However do you really want to keep track of which impression level you have with everyone you interact with?
@Derp said:
Lots of people think this, and I'm really not sure where it comes from. Rolls can be contested, and you still have a limited number of rolls, etc, and modifiers for things can still be assigned.
While the social maneuver rolls can be resisted and contested, by default they're neither. Anyone wanting to use doors between players on MU* would have to come up with their own system of handling it, my proposal would be that the victim gets to make all the decisions the ST would normally make. That is each roll interval the victim gets to present the attacker with at least 3 options for how to open the next door with appropriate die pools.
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@Groth said:
In the doors system as written the highest number of possible doors is 9 (Resolve 5, Composure 5, against virtue/vice and aspiration). Any character can at that point choose to make a roll with a -9 penalty and open all the doors in a single roll as long as they score a single success, this isn't too hard to achieve without accounting for powers or merits. At that point your target has to do what you want them to do with no ability to say no.
I'm not entirely sure where you're getting that? Under the normal Doors system, each successful roll removes ONE door, no matter how many successes you score (although Merits and exceptional successes do alter this). Now, if you're FORCING Doors, which I assume is where you're getting the dice penalty from, that's another thing - but in that case, you're also using Hard Leverage, which involves risking an Integrity break, and if you /don't/ make that roll, then that character is immune to all further attempts at social maneuvering from you from then on.
Furthermore, if Forcing the Doors succeeds, it does not make your PC target "have to do what you want them to do with no ability to say no". Per the rules, (GMC, 194) you proceed to "resolution as normal". Resolution as normal always offers PCs two choices: Go With The Flow (do what the other PC asks, and gain a Beat), or Offer an Alternative, which is what I was alluding to previously. And yes, either way, the targeted PC will be doing something beneficial for the targeter, because it's a game mechanic, and it was resolved in the initiator's favor. That's what game mechanics MEAN. It's one of the things that distinguishes a roleplaying game from collaborative storytelling - sometimes, the dice mean that things don't always go your way, or as planned. There is pretty much no way to develop a dice-based social resolution system that doesn't...well, allow one character to influence the other. I mean, that's the point of these systems, and if your bar for a system that works is "no PC ever has to accept any kind of influence from any other PC under any circumstances", then that's a pretty impossible standard for any system to meet.
However, the point about the -9 is well taken, largely because the Storyteller system in general breaks down once people have Enough Dice to throw at any problem. Honestly, my preference is for a blanket +5/-5 modifier limit to any roll, supernatural or otherwise, so that no one has any more than 15 dice to throw at a single given roll. For me, any pretense of risk or of being a "horror game" goes out of the window when you can throw thirty dice at any given problem.
But then, I'm one of the crazy people who would also want a blanket XP cap, set at about 20 XP (GMC), because I've yet to do see a MU* that really distinguishes the qualitative difference between street-level and high-level play. Most MU*s just...scale up street-level type threats/plots by adding more dice and more minions, which, to me, isn't the best way to handle it. I suspect most STs would do much better jobs if they knew they didn't have to accommodate Random PC With 30+ Dice Pools in their plots.
I do like the idea you mentioned of making it explicit that the target gets to present the targetter with three options for each roll. Anything that increases communication between players about how to make things fun is a good thing, and helping players feel empowered even when their character is stymied or influenced is ALSO a good thing.
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In a low XP setting you're just as likely to succeed. In that case you're generally looking at 2-4 dice penalty. If you have a dicepool of 6-8, tat's 75 percent chance of success. And who determines the alternative?
In my experience where people go wrong is when they attempt to enforce what the other side considers implausible resolutions. Rather than roll to bribe X person to do Y thing, they want to get their victim to do whatever they want, for free. Or in the case of @Derp they want to make the straight guy suck their dick regardless of said person's sexuality. Instead of settling for using social dice to bend the other person a little bit rather than all the fucking way. Okay, so persuading you to give up your lover for my friends to kill her isn't going to happen, but if I instead settle for persuading you to tell me where she usually frequents, or even just persuade you to try to persuade her to make good on whatever bullshit caused our beef, then that's a lot easier for people to swallow. If you want to straight up force to go counter to their character, sincerely, stick to mind control style powers.
I've gotten a ton of mileage out of social dicepools, but when I use them I try to play with the other person and their character. If I want to just railroad them, well, I'll use Dominate or its like.
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@lordbelh said:
Or in the case of @Derp they want to make the straight guy suck their dick regardless of said person's sexuality.
Once again, seduction was used as the previous example because it's the most contentious, and even then I included the fact that you can offer alternatives, much like what people above have already suggested. Come on. Is this homophobia or willful ignorance?
Instead of settling for using social dice to bend the other person a little bit rather than all the fucking way. Okay, so persuading you to give up your lover for my friends to kill her isn't going to happen, but if I instead settle for persuading you to tell me where she usually frequents, or even just persuade you to try to persuade her to make good on whatever bullshit caused our beef, then that's a lot easier for people to swallow. If you want to straight up force to go counter to their character, sincerely, stick to mind control style powers.
Also called offer an alternative. Which people have pointed out. Numerous times. It's already built into the system.
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You could make success mean being told what would it take to get your character to willingly (if not happily) do this thing?
Then its up to you to provide that circumstance.
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@Derp said:
@lordbelh said:
Or in the case of @Derp they want to make the straight guy suck their dick regardless of said person's sexuality.
Once again, seduction was used as the previous example because it's the most contentious, and even then I included the fact that you can offer alternatives, much like what people above have already suggested. Come on. Is this homophobia or willful ignorance?
My guess is neither, no offense meant but you come across like an ass on this topic so people like taking shots at you.
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@Derp said:
I've gotten a ton of mileage out of social dicepools, but when I use them I try to play with the other person and their character. If I want to just railroad them, well, I'll use Dominate or its like.
This is the intent behind how the doors system is written. By design it's very easy to successfully open every door a person might have because the point of the design isn't to make it hard to convince people with social skills, the point is to allow the player and the ST to weave a satisfying story about how the target got convinced.
You try to convince your acquaintance to take care of your cat for a week while you're out of town murdering Mages, the ST tells you that as your acquaintance doesn't like cats much that'll require 3 doors to be opened. So you propose having your character first help them with their groceries (Stamina+Streetwise) then take them to the bar (Presence+Socialize) and finally straight up persuade them (Manipulation+Persuasion). Assuming all the rolls are successful, the acquaintance is convinced to take care of the cat and you've hopefully enjoyed telling a small story about it.
