@Arkandel said in Social Conflict via Stats:
These are all possibilities even now, right? I mean I could go to one of @Ganymede's scenes and "@emit Ganymede eats a bag of dicks" couldn't I? It's the perfect crime, no one can find out it was me! Mwahahah!
I'm pretty sure that this is the most terrifying image you could have ever described.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
It's mostly the latter that bugs me the most, as it kills any narrative immersion and also makes it take like twenty minutes for people to pose.
People need to learn how to pose-queue. It's fucking simple and easy. That people don't do this bugs the shit out of me.
@ixokai said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
And yet, people constantly ask, 'is it my turn'? or 'who are we waiting on?'
People need to learn how to employ scroll-back, or how to pay better attention to whatever the fuck it is they are doing. Don't give me this multi-tasking bullshit.
@Auspice said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
I've also seen people pitch fits when someone poses 'out of order' because the proper order was someone who went AFK for a long period of time without warning.
People need to learn how to stop being such babies. Adapt or die, fucks.
Seriously, every time this conversation comes up, my eyes roll so hard that sparks fly out of my ears.
@Thenomain said in Policies:
You've repeatedly said in the past that if someone breaks a game rule, it should be publicly known. Is this not player information? "Thenomain was banned from this sphere for shit-talking to staff." Or are you referring to "RL information" such as connection IP, times, location, email, name, and so forth?
The latter. Mostly, don't require people to register a name and e-mail address to get a character bit.
Just curious, as I'm pondering yet another theme on the side (I go back and forth), what sort of policies do most people expect when seeing a new place, what sort of policies would turn someone away or off a new place because they felt it necessary to define, or what sort of non-policy would be a turn off?
Don't have a policy that requires the disclosure of any player information, even an e-mail address.
@Arkandel said in City of Angels MUX (CofD/nWoD 2E):
@Cobaltasaurus said in City of Angels MUX (CofD/nWoD 2E):
Find me someone to run it before you
I thought @Autumn just volunteered.
I thought so too.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Social Conflict via Stats:
But this isn't an all or nothing distinction. No one is reasonable all the time, and otherwise reasonable, pleasant (OOC) people will sometimes lose their shit and get very emotional and bent out of shape during any type of conflict - social OR physical.
Speak for yourself, sir.
It looks like most of my personal property is safe, but thanks for the advice -- I'm not entirely sure that my parents have not already started doing things to the property (I'm still in trial this morning) but I'll see what I can do to stop the bus.
Yeah. That spoliation clause is a bitch.
@Arkandel said in Social Conflict via Stats:
But if we can't trust our fellow players then none of this really works. I don't want my IC social attempts to succeed if the other person hates it but is forced to go along, what's the point of that? How much fun is the scene going to be?
... too fucking bad?
I wasn't exactly pleased when Tommy and Adorabella repeatedly butt-raped Oz with their Beasts, but that's how the dice went. My bad.
I definitely try not to get my folks killed in XCOM2, but I don't restart every turn in order to get the perfect outcome.
I have Allstate??
Not bad.
Remember: you have to give the insurance company the chance to review the damage and approve of the work to be done before it's done; you otherwise jeopardize coverage. Also, the insurance company may have two different adjusters -- one to handle the real property, the other to handle the personal property -- so be sure that both come before you make changes or dispose of anything.
@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:
That's the honor system, and let me know when you've had a game of more than 10 people where the honor system actually worked. There's no checks and balances in your example, no way to ensure that people are actually posing according to the results of the roll.
Precisely.
@Arkandel, I have no problem with this. That's fine, if that's the system. But I don't think that's where people are having conflict here.
I have problems because either people don't think I'm posing accordingly or I don't think other people are posing accordingly. With physical combat, you have an easy way of recording the result: usually, "+hurt <damage>', or whatever. But when I successfully intimidate someone with Presence + Intimidation, and they flat-out ignore the result, that's the functional equivalent of dealing 3L damage to another player's PC, and them refusing to use the +hurt command.
Frankly, the next time this happens, I will log the scene, along with any OOC discussion, then terminate it immediately. I will then send a complaint to staff, provide the log, and never interact with the other player again until the matter is addressed and resolved. I see this as the only way to make sure that people do what they are fucking supposed to do.
For nearly 20 years we have been making excuses for people who otherwise ignored social rolls. That's because we didn't want to lose control either, right? Prisoner's dilemma and all.
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
If the local combat monster opts to lose a combat to someone that barely knows which end of the stick is pointy, that'll make people confused.
First, why would the local combat monster opt to lose the combat? Second, why would anyone be confused? Third, why would anyone presume that the winner is telling the truth if this were reported?
I'd be more convinced of your argument if you presented a sensible example.
If I send my minions to capture you and my minions choose to lose, that affects me.
And your minions know this, and should suffer the consequences. Even if you were to use the resolution system (dice), there is always a chance for abject failure. As nothing is ever guaranteed, there is no reason to rely on the system to reach any desired result.
If you try to seduce my faction leader and my faction leader opts in, that affects me.
This happens all the fucking time, rolls or not. If you're suggesting that we all need to roll to see if a PC gets a boner looking at another PCs tits, then we've reached the point of absurdity.
That's where the Shared part of the MUSH acronym comes in, the characters are supposed to all be within the same shared and consistent universe.
In our RL "shared and consistent" universe, laws and rules are bent and broken all the damn time during settlements, yet the vast majority of us think that things like settlement agreements and plea bargains are a good way to streamline what our society considers "just."
I wouldn't feel the need to continue this, but any policy that would deny the players the right to adjudicate their own conflicts without staff intervention is a horrid policy. There is no cognizable reason why one player has any right to object to how two other players resolve their differences. Such a policy would result in needless staff intervention time and time again for rudimentary, trivial things.
That's just silly.
@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:
I think you're absolutely bonkers for thinking its a decent way to solve PvP social conflicts, because as I've said before it so utterly favors the aggressor that it just doesn't work in any antagonistic scenario. In the hands of someone who doesn't want to play nice and cooperative its made to be abused.
I am bonkers, but I don't think so here. I don't recall anything in the Doors system that doesn't permit me to beat the fuck out of you or deny seeing you in the future. There is an implicit willingness to engage which, in a way, ought to favor the aggressor. It's just another form of combat, I suppose, but I will concede that it could use a few tweaks.
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
Generally speaking we expect players to follow the rules of the game they're playing. In trivial cases or cases where the outcome is predictable it makes sense to handwave the rules, however players determining an outcome by themselves that go against the rules are cheating.
Litigants determine the outcome of their cases all the time prior to trial by settlement, regardless of whether their claims and liabilities are consistent with the law.
If the core of every conflict is resolution, I see no reason why the affected parties cannot resolve their conflict as they see fit, provided that outcome does not affect others.
@surreality said in Social Conflict via Stats:
If the other actor in the scene demands to be the director, micromanaging every nuance of a pose -- and I have seen buckets of this -- you have a problem, and it's not unreasonable to have some objections there.
If you want to micro-manage as a vampire, pick a Ventrue. Dominate allows you to dictate what the target does, and Majesty does not. Majesty forces a target to generally like you and do some things to you, but it can be resisted in a way that Dominate does not. This is why I'm confused as to why someone would be okay with Dominate, but not Majesty; it's like they didn't read the damn book.
Not only that, but if you stay under the Conditions inflicted by Majesty, you can get beats. Lots of them. Look at Charmed: you get a fucking beat just for doing a requested favor. I'm not one to suggest juicing your PC by being a servile bitch, but ... yeah.
@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:
The difference between vampire disciplines and social fu is that disciplines you can (or at least I can) easily explain why you're doing these crazy things.
I'll say it here: if more people read and tried to use the Doors system effectively, they would find that it's a pretty decent way to solve PvP social conflicts. It just takes time and patience, and, GODDAMN is that shit apparently in short supply.
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
Further to actually be meaningfully robust, this would have to be used for all non-trivial social scenes the way the combat engine has to be brought out for all non-trivial combats in order to be reasonably consistent. So instead of simply posing out a social scene in the local coffee house, you'd now declare each characters purpose and then use their social stats to determine if they develop friendship or let slip an accidental insult or what have you.
I suppose, in your experience, you've never run into players who decide a combat by consent, or declined using the "robust" proffered system to come to a resolution.
Players can work out how they want things to go. There's no restriction on that. But if one player decides that they want to use the system that has been provided, they should be allowed to do so. If you have no interest in having your PC's feelings or motivations dictated to you, you ought not play on a game where those things are easily and supernaturally manipulated.
The rest of us will wonder why you're around on the game.
Homeowners insurance. I guess we will see.
You probably don't need any advice, but I've handled a couple of these cases recently. I pray you don't have USAA.
@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:
But I am notorious in still living in the 90s, when WoD would unapologetically fuck your shit up in every arena, then taunt you for not having brought a backup character sheet ready to go. God I miss the days when people would whine less about losing a character.... or even the autonomy of their character.
Here's a participation trophy for you!
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
I've had a number of people express intense dislike of the discipline Majesty for that reason. Arguing that with Dominate they atleast get to keep control of how their character feels, while Majesty is a profound violation and that kind of OOC backlash was why it was never popular to use.
I'll bet they also don't like Nightmare because it may make them run like a damn fool, which counters some deep-set need to always be cool, calm, and in control. I'll bet they also don't know that you can counter Majesty and Nightmare by Lashing Out, whereas Dominate is a one-shot-crush.
All three aggressively force a PC to do something they wouldn't, and remove control from the player. I don't see a dividing line. You can use Dominate to get someone to drink your blood -- and then, bang, bonded. You can use Dominate to get someone to fellate your PC. Saying that it is somehow more acceptable than Majesty or Dominate is absurd, as all three disciplines remove control from the player.
You don't like Majesty or Nightmare? Or Dominate? Then don't fucking play with vampires -- simple. There's a reason why vampires usually run solo.
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
The game decides what motivates the character, what their emotional state is, what their reaction is supposed to be. We the players would then merely be the actors playing out the actions given to us by the game system which might be fun but it would be a very different kind of game.
And yet, this is what WoD 2E does through Conditions. It's built into the game. If a vampire uses Majesty to inflict the Charmed Condition on your PC, guess what? You're charmed, or you're breaking the rules.
But what does "charmed" mean? We have a system that tells us, mechanically, what our advantages and disadvantages are, but nothing -- NOTHING -- requires the player to perform in a certain way. An actor in a play can portray and express the lines of a scene in many ways, and demonstrate the same general emotion -- but how they do it is, for the most part, between them and the director.
Charmed? A cool, predatory vampire might be a little more cordial. An effusive vampire might gush. A cerebral vampire might be confused and bewildered. But you're still charmed, and still subject to the Condition's system effects.
@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:
Social combat then shouldn't offer the same absolute success, the same visceral 'I win for completely' reward, because it doesn't come with the same 'I could totally lose completely' risk.
You could always have a buy-out situation, where you can terminate the results through an expenditure of WP or something. That might be a shut-down of a situation, thus ending the "social combat" right there.
@Coin said in Social Conflict via Stats:
It's also a bad example within context because we're talking about social (and in a way, mental) stats. So either the PLAYER needs to have a compelling argument, or you can have the dice decide who has the better argument, otherwise, why both rolling? And if you're not gonna roll, why bother with the stat?
I generally don't dice-roll unless I'm trying to achieve a particular result. I think that's a good stick. If you're arguing for the sake of enjoying social RP, you don't really need to roll anything. If you're arguing to persuade someone to do something, then you should probably roll something.
I find this discussion very pointless, as, in my experience, I have had no trouble convincing people with or without rolls to do precisely what my PC wants them to do. Socially, that is.