Social Combat: An idea

[Judging__Eagle]

No intro, we know what's wrong and Phonelobster talked about an idea a while ago that I liked.

So, it works like this:

Attacking: Bluff or Intimidate

Defending: Sense motive or Concentration

Diplomacy does the following:
-Deciding order of actions
-used to attack or defend, but once used in a round in a particular manner, you can't use it in the other manner. So, if you attack with Diplomacy, you can't defend with it and if you defended with it, you can't attack with it.

Order of actions:

1. Diplomacy check to determine order of 'actions'. On ties look at ranks, if still tied, look at ability modifier, if still tied, have them re-roll for position.

2. Attack, make a Bluff or Intimidate check against a target or group. If they haven't defended with Diplomacy this turn, then they can attack with it instead.

3. The target rolls Sense Motive or Concentration to oppose. If they haven't attacked with Diplomacy this turn, then they can defended with it instead. If there is a group, the group must select a primary defending character and other characters may use the Aid Another action with their own rolls to increase their defenses.

4. If the attacker beats the target, they deal one point of Social Damage to the target. For every five points that they beat the defender by, they deal an additional point of Social damage.

5. If the defender has taken Social Damage equal to their total Hit Dice or the Defending groups total collective hit dice, then they have now been defeated in social combat and do what the attacker that finished them off wanted them to do.

6. Go to the next person in the order, go to step 2 and repeat order of actions.



What do you guys and girls think?

[RandomCasualty]

You need modifiers depending on the task. There's still no difference between convincing a guy to lend you a saddle or getting the king to turn over his entire kingdom.

It's just an aboslute situation where you win and get what you want. That sucks.

[Username17]

I think all social combat maneuvers should be rooted firmly in lolcats.

So you can threaten:


You can non-sequitor:


You can boast:


You can bribe:


You can demand bribes:


You can play dumb:


And you can demonstrate your Powerz:


-Username17

[Bigode]

There had to be a day when Frank Trollman would have an asstastical idea.

More useful notes: I consider it highly advisable to consider what's the social timeframe before anything else; also, Lobster's point of a "social combat" being a larger event than just 1 task has a sizable amount of merit.

And if it's insult time now, I may as well ask: where the fvck did you take that difficult terrain always requires Balance checks from? Not that I consider the PHB II knight a great class ...

[JonSetanta]

That you mention 'difficult terrain' brought something to mind for me: social combat could emulate tactical physical combat to the point where there is verbal, social terrain. o_O

Your interactions would, in mechanics, be like an invisible, ephemereal version of yourself navigating a landscape of jibes, accusations, and mind games.
You could be 'tripped' or 'disarmed' in conversation.
Outflanked, paralysed, all that.
Even 'social maneuvers' like a communicative version of Tome of Battle might work, using information as 'weapons' dealing 'reputation damage'.

It would have to be a bare-bones conflict setup, though; too much slows down gameplay.
Or is this too much like a weird AD&D Psionics variant?

[PhoneLobster]

As a patch to d20 this proposed system has several obvious problems.

1) Its skill based. So all the bad things about d20 skills apply.

2) It requires character resource investments that can be traded off for combat instead.

3) Anyone who does invest is going to wipe the floor with anyone who doesn't.

4) Its sufficiently unlike d20 combat rules to seem confusing and tacked on.

The basic principle of having combat and winning I like, but that's about it.

Its not actually much different from the current problems with the d20 social system in those ways.

You need modifiers depending on the task. There's still no difference between convincing a guy to lend you a saddle or getting the king to turn over his entire kingdom.

It's just an aboslute situation where you win and get what you want. That sucks.

I'm seriously curious RC.

How the heck do you expect to create a reasonable and comprehensive system that includes specific and balanced modifiers, resolution systems and social character archetypes that will cover everything including and ranging between (and beyond) asking for saddles AND kingdoms adequately as stand alone actions?

How many actions? How many modifiers? How much complex junk is that going to involve?

I much prefer the idea of abstracted social combat and defeat because sure once defeated the saddle maker OR king may well give you their stuff.

But hey if you defeat either in combat you can take their stuff and no one complains about that.

So if you DO institute a rich social combat system that incorporates total social defeat then the "modifier" for taking the kingdom is that the Saddle maker is just a Level 1 Liar with mere level 1 liar social powers while the king is a level 10 Threatening Bastard with level 10 threatening bastard social combat powers to defeat.

No one seriously complains if you can lightning bolt the level 10 Barbarian king in the face and take his stuff. (assuming you are an appropriate level 10 lightning wizard or something and fighters aren't arbitrarily screwed) In fact they generally want that ability and want it to work like that.

So what's the big dealio about defeating him with your super wizard social powers instead?

Suffice it to say I am hugely impressed with my whole fighting to social defeat thing and I'd really like to hear what concrete criticism or alternatives you might level against it.

As far as I see it you have only two basic options.

1) Social encounters are worth as much as combat.
So they should resolve with abstract manoeuvres as rich and diverse as combat with character archetypes and roles, just like combat. And winning has to let you get all the diverse and important stuff you do from winning combat.

2) Social encounters are worth significantly less than combat.
So they should resolve very quickly with insultingly simple mechanics and arbitrary situational modifiers. And winning just lets you do useless stuff like influencing the GM into doing or saying something he might have anyway.

(There are other options like social being worth MORE than combat, but lets not bother with the weird ones).

[Username17]

It's D&D. Dispossessing kings of all their stuff is not that hard. Nor should it be.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Yeah, you could just, you know, do a few quests for him. Hell, you could totally make up some bullshit major threat and save the kingdom from it. Or wait for a real threat to come along (every Thursday at 11 AM, by my count).

Or you could stab him in the face and then see how the guards react.

And on that note, it does specify groups. So you don't Social the king up. The king has his evil royal vizier there (oh come on, you KNOW he's evil), his royal diplomat, and maybe even Barry and Rodders, the two inept guards that nevertheless add +2 each from Aid Other.

The real problem is that it still boils down to one person doing the talking, and everyone else waving their arms and saying "Aid Otheeeeeeer". You would ideally want a very intricate system that is like combat itself. And then you need to find a way to have it not interfere with face-stabbing (provide these abilities on top of the normal stuff).

So suddenly, the orc barbarian uses "Sidle" to attempt to stealthily move behind the "enemy", then uses "Loom" to unnerve the enemy. Meanwhile, the elven rogue is swapping between "Superior Attitude" and "Fast-Talk" while the half-elf bard readies a "Clever/Derisive/Offensive Retort" for any time the enemy tries anything. The human fighter keeps up their "Feign ignorance" to gain a bonus against veiled insults or threats, and can riposte insults back with Witty Reparte...

If such a system were to be made, it'd have to be called "Magical Tea Party d20". Preferably with actual rules for handling tea parties. Maybe "Talking pony", "Unicorn" and "Pink dragon" would be viable races. Suddenly we have the d20 game for girls in primary school.

[JonSetanta]

As I mentioned recently in another thread, the best way to allow characters these social-combat-abilities is an alternate track alongside every character progression.
Certain skills, feats, and powers would enhance the otherwise universal abilities, somewhat like giving out free sex feats to everyone so that focusing in "D&D sex" powers won't hinder normal builds.

[Crissa]

Manuevers in combat are accepted: Charges, attacks, presses, trips, whatever you've chosen.

Social interaction can be the same.

But defenses need to be automatic, so that people can defend against level appropriate social situations.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1200184441[/unixtime]]
How the heck do you expect to create a reasonable and comprehensive system that includes specific and balanced modifiers, resolution systems and social character archetypes that will cover everything including and ranging between (and beyond) asking for saddles AND kingdoms adequately as stand alone actions?

The best way is probably through giving sample modifiers and then examples of that.

So "Please sir can you give an old beggar a copper?" is a significantly smaller modifier than "Give me all your gold, let me rape your wife and then go burn down your house."

And you seriously need that. Otherwise the game world is frankly, stupid. It's pointless to ever ask minor favors or haggle with a merchant. Because instead of haggling, you could just get the fucking item for free.

And that's dumb. And by dumb I mean FATAL dumb, not Ed Stark dumb.

So what's the big dealio about defeating him with your super wizard social powers instead?

Well, because for one from a consistency setting, it sucks. It's one thing to beat a guy with in a tough fight or put him under a magic spell, but when you just literally talk him into killing himself, that just seems pretty dumb to me.

Also, it has the issue of becoming a one man show. Social skills mean there's some face character, and if he can win encounters all by himself, what is everyone else doing? It's like shadowrun 3rd edition decking. You sit around while the one guy plays the social mini-game and wins the adventure. Unlike normal combat, everyone isn't contributing meaningfully. Because one guy has social ability, and the other guys basically don't.

Social abilities in my opinion are mainly useful in that they're not considered attacks. So you can go and talk to some guy and it's not like fireballing him or casting a charm person. The main power of social abilities is that you can use them in situations when combat isn't a good idea, like talking to a great wyrm or something that could normally eat you. The drawback is that they really can't produce huge results. You may get a concession here or a perk there, but it's not like you're going to run around brainwashing people in a single conversation.

Mainly you use words when you're in a situation you really don't want to have to fight your way out of, because the fight looks particularly tough, or killing the guys may have some nasty repercussions. Basically sometimes social abilities may be easier than combat. Though "winning" socially probably doesn't have as big benefits as killing the creature. It may just mean the red dragon spares your life, or agrees to team up with you (for fair compensation of course).

And that's the best way I feel to do social stuff. Keep it simple, keep it fairly weak. Keep the extreme stuff for DM fiat, but lets worry about mundane stuff like talking your way past a mook guardsman or working out a deal where you bribe the mercenaries into betraying their commander for more money, or seducing the barmaid. I'm fine if you can't really talk a king out of his kingdom or get the blackguard to become a paladin, that shit is stupid anyway most of the time. It doesn't really make your character look good, it just makes the king look like a retard.

As for making a good social system, it's hard. Real fucking hard. Social interaction is going to have a lot less routine maneuvers and a lot more "stunts" than an average combat will. And a lot of it is highly situationally dependent. It's to the complexity point that you probably don't want it being a system that's going to have a profound game effect, because really in my experience most social systems in RPG do more harm than good, causing results that are so incoherent and unbelievable that it destroys your ability to tell good stories.

Most of the time, the best game experiences come from pure DM adjudication of NPC actions. Yeah, it's significantly more open for abuse, but no more so than a PC determining his own character's actions. If you trust PCs to roleplay and don't require dice to dictate how they act, you can trust your DM to roleplay his NPCs accordingly. In my gaming experience, that has always worked the best.

[Bigode]

Social activity cannot be detailed if it's not expected that everyone takes part on it - basic playability issue. So, anybody unwilling to find an use for an entire party in a social encounter had better drop the idea right now. Moreover, remember that D&D supposedly has a heavy focus on making sure that everyone fights well, so all classes should be socially-balanced too. So, yeah, the face concept dies.

[PhoneLobster]

The best way is probably through giving sample modifiers and then examples of that.

Or in other words entirely arbitrary DCs set by the GM on the fly.

"Guidelines" of the form you are suggesting WILL be so inadequate that a simple explanation of odds of success of various DCs at various levels and advice to set the DC as you feel appropriate for the desired odds of success would be more helpful.

I think I went over it before but if you are trying to create a comprehensive contextual system that handles every social action you might ever want to take its pure arbitrary bullshit.

And though I HATE that, its a valid answer if you want to minimise the importance of social encounters to the point of no one caring about them because having effectively just short of no rules is the solution for a part of the game that has just short of no importance.

But that means that you are seriously promoting hack and slash, and the solution to "take over the kingdom" is never again going to be seduce the King and become the Queen/Mistress/Macho Manly "personal" Trainer who is the real power behind the puppet on the throne, is ALWAYS going to be "Stab the king in the face"

If that's what you want... OK. But you are effectively arguing for something so close to no system at all that it may as well be no system at all.

And you seriously need that. Otherwise the game world is frankly, stupid. It's pointless to ever ask minor favors or haggle with a merchant. Because instead of haggling, you could just get the fucking item for free.

Under my proposed solution haggling is no more a part of the social rules than it is a part of the combat rules. Both can get you the damn thing for free.

And how do you reconcile the stabbing the merchant in the face solution as it already exists?

Haggling is an ECONOMIC or Fluff ability. Either it matters for the game economy/character resources and thus should trade for similar abilities (and not social attacks) or it doesn't matter so it should only trade for other abilities that also don't matter (fluff).

Well, because for one from a consistency setting, it sucks. It's one thing to beat a guy with in a tough fight or put him under a magic spell, but when you just literally talk him into killing himself, that just seems pretty dumb to me...

...So you can go and talk to some guy and it's not like fireballing him or casting a charm person....

See that highlighting. Charm Person IS a social attack. It belongs in social combat rules with counters and alternatives both "magic" flavoured and non magic flavoured.

Right here you are suggesting that influencing characters actions in a way that matters IS OK and cool and a thing the system should handle, for WIZARDS only.

Which is bad for any number of reasons we already know from the whole fighter debacle but also because of...

Also, it has the issue of becoming a one man show. Social skills mean there's some face character, and if he can win encounters all by himself, what is everyone else doing? It's like shadowrun 3rd edition decking. You sit around while the one guy plays the social mini-game and wins the adventure. Unlike normal combat, everyone isn't contributing meaningfully. Because one guy has social ability, and the other guys basically don't.

You are suggesting only the guy with access to charm does this only he gets to be face.

And it doesn't even have to be that way in the slightest. Roles for everyone, abilities not exchangeable for combat ability. That's fundamental and basic to any social encounter system for this kind of game.

Social abilities in my opinion are mainly useful in that they're not considered attacks. So you can go and talk to some guy and it's not like fire balling him or casting a charm person.

Here is the thing, as I've outlined it a number of times recently.

It IS a BIT like fireballing him, it certainly is entirely like charm personing him. It IS an attack, it CAN defeat him and take his stuff, heck maybe lead to his total downfall and death.

And thats great because now it means that when you actually try and use your fricking charm person or "Buddy" attack the opponent CAN respond in some way.

Under your style social actions... what is the proper response? Its not an attack, he just wants to be friends, its not SUPPOSED to be a mind control/death attack.

So whatever you DO give out for your "harmless" social attacks is a free autosuccess, players just keep trying till they succeed, no risk. Even if they don't get retries it cost them NOTHING to do. And they can still resort to the massively more rewarding face stabbing if the free social attack failed.

Meanwhile if you have real harmful social attacks, and so does he, the appropriate response to a social attack is easy, another social attack! Pulling out your best lies is like pulling out your sword, it starts a real encounter with real risk of losing.

And that's the best way I feel to do social stuff. Keep it simple, keep it fairly weak. I'm fine if you can't really talk a king out of his kingdom, that shit is stupid anyway. It doesn't really make your character look good, it just makes the king look like a retard.

But all the stories this stuff is supposed to emulate/create are FULL of that shit man.

How many fricking times does Conan or Bond or whoever use his macho sexy mojo to seduce princesses and KGB super spy mistresses and such? Who then not only provide free sex but also free clues, weapons, spell casting/combat backup, refrain from killing him in his sleep, and even throw their fragile bodies in between him and deadly attacks.

Social manipulation, political intrigue, the Liar, the Seducer, the Beloved Hero, the Feared Scoundrel, the Subtle Manipulator, these are all basic fundamental archetypes easily as much as the "fighter" or "wizard".

And the god damn infamous super seducer "Black Widow" does NOT have her world famous powers of seduction limited to getting a free saddle from the saddle guy (or as you suggest, ONLY A DISCOUNT) she literally DOES take kingdoms from naive fools before breakfast EVERY MORNING.

As for making a good social system, it's hard. Real fucking hard. Social interaction is going to have a lot less routine maneuvers and a lot more "stunts" than an average combat will. And a lot of it is highly situationally dependent. It's to the complexity point that you probably don't want it being a system that's going to have a profound game effect,

The exact same goes for physical combat.

How many infinite factors play into simply how you can swing a real sword, the type of sword you swing, what you swing it at, where you are doing the swinging, who else is swinging near you.

And yet the vast majority of RPG systems offer only a single "sword attack" option that has a finite manageable amount of relatively predictable static modifiers and resolves in something like one to three rolls. And they don't even usually deliver REAL injuries, just weird abstract HP damage or broad status effects.

And we do that by abstraction. And it works. And it can work for anything.

Social systems repeatedly fail because instead of using such abstraction they bog down with "suggested DCs" as you mention for countless variations on ridiculously complex individual actions.

And if you try and create a social system that resolves every possible social encounter when a social encounter is something like "Make that guy give me his second favourite wrist watch" you will fail every time. Just like the same thing would happen if you tried to make a combat system that simulated every subjective permutation of the individual swing of a sword.

Unless you embrace the same levels of abstraction that have been VERY fruitful in RPG games for combat then you are absolutely doomed to fail.

[the_taken]

You may find Frank's Game Design Flowsheet useful.

[Crissa]

Look, even if you can intimidate the grocer, that has story implications. It doesn't mean haggling doesn't work.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1200202568[/unixtime]]
But that means that you are seriously promoting hack and slash, and the solution to "take over the kingdom" is never again going to be seduce the King and become the Queen/Mistress/Macho Manly "personal" Trainer who is the real power behind the puppet on the throne, is ALWAYS going to be "Stab the king in the face"

If that's what you want... OK. But you are effectively arguing for something so close to no system at all that it may as well be no system at all.

Well basically. Yeah, I'd rather just do things with DM adjudication so they make sense, instead of a half-assed system that makes the story into shit.

The thing with social stuff is there are so many factors that need to be considered, that it's something that really, only a human can do.

In the end everything is DM arbitrary. If the DM doesn't want you to kill something, he just pumps up the numbers sufficiently so you can't.

And how do you reconcile the stabbing the merchant in the face solution as it already exists?

Because doing that will draw the town guard. Haggling with him won't.

It's the same reason people buy shit from stores in real life instead of shoplifting it or killing the owner of the store and stealing it. Doing that stuff gets you in trouble. Being social doesn't.

See that highlighting. Charm Person IS a social attack.

I suppose I just don't believe in social attacks. The whole point of being social in my mind is that what you do isn't considered an attack.

Charming someone isn't really a social action. It's a combat action that neutralizes an enemy with the extra perks of making him your friend for awhile. But when the charm wears off, he's going to be pissed at you. And if you cast charm on the king in the middle of his throne room, you WILL get attacked, because it's an overtly offensive action.

Diplomacy on the other hand is not overtly offensive.

You are suggesting only the guy with access to charm does this only he gets to be face.

Well I have no problem with giving fighters other influencing attacks, like an intimidate ability where you hold a sword to a guy's neck and he does what you say, or even some ability to brainwash people over time through torture and stuff. But these are clearly attacks and will be treated as such by the people in game. And thus I don't' consider them social abilities.

Under your style social actions... what is the proper response? Its not an attack, he just wants to be friends, its not SUPPOSED to be a mind control/death attack.

So whatever you DO give out for your "harmless" social attacks is a free autosuccess, players just keep trying till they succeed, no risk. Even if they don't get retries it cost them NOTHING to do. And they can still resort to the massively more rewarding face stabbing if the free social attack failed.

Well you only get one try before you've done all you can. As far as people trying it without risk, there may be some risk of pissing the guy off if you say the wrong thing, but generally there is little risk. There's also little gain, because in my system, you won't kill people socially. You may arrange a deal you otherwise wouldn't have been able to, or gain access to the castle by tricking a guard, or what not, but it's not going to suddenly kill a big monster for you.

Meanwhile if you have real harmful social attacks, and so does he, the appropriate response to a social attack is easy, another social attack! Pulling out your best lies is like pulling out your sword, it starts a real encounter with real risk of losing.

But that's fucking stupid. It means that anytime you talk to someone that's an offensive action, or could be perceived as such. How do people know if you're talking and using a social attack or if you're just talking for the sake of talking? I mean seriously, where do you draw the line?

In your world, people would just walk around with earplugs all the damn time, because it makes them immune to social attacks.

But all the stories this stuff is supposed to emulate/create are FULL of that shit man.

How many fricking times does Conan or Bond or whoever use his macho sexy mojo to seduce princesses and KGB super spy mistresses and such? Who then not only provide free sex but also free clues, weapons, spell casting/combat backup, refrain from killing him in his sleep, and even throw their fragile bodies in between him and deadly attacks.

Seduction is fine, that's something that should be handled in a social system. But convincing the king to hand over his kingdom definitely shouldn't.

And the god damn infamous super seducer "Black Widow" does NOT have her world famous powers of seduction limited to getting a free saddle from the saddle guy (or as you suggest, ONLY A DISCOUNT) she literally DOES take kingdoms from naive fools before breakfast EVERY MORNING.

Well, not everyone is going to be so easily seduced. Sure, you may find someone weak willed, but that's totally allowable if you can beat the modifier for taking the kingdom. My system doesn't say you can't take the kingdom necessarily, it just says that it's harder than asking to borrow a gold coin for a meal.

What you're talking about sounds really dumb to me. It basically means that either you have absolute mind control over someone or they attack you. That doesn't sound very much like a seducer to me. It sounds like a telepath. Even if you resist the seduction attempt, you won't consider it an attack.

I mean my god... it's like a girl walks up to you and starts hitting on you and you think she's ugly... do you go and punch her in the face? Because your system says that if that happens that you basically consider it like she just drew a gun on you and tried to kill you. Seriously man... wtf? Does that make any sense to you at all?

How many infinite factors play into simply how you can swing a real sword, the type of sword you swing, what you swing it at, where you are doing the swinging, who else is swinging near you.

And yet the vast majority of RPG systems offer only a single "sword attack" option that has a finite manageable amount of relatively predictable static modifiers and resolves in something like one to three rolls. And they don't even usually deliver REAL injuries, just weird abstract HP damage or broad status effects.

But here's the thing. The goal of a sword swing is generally simple. Kill the other guy. So we can abstract how you kill the other guy. Social systems aren't like that. Your goals vary. Maybe you want to get into the castle, maybe you want to get laid, or maybe you're looking for a good deal on a new car.

In your system, all social attacks have one goal. Making the guy into a mindless slave. Well for one, socially, that's incredibly difficult, and second it doesn't represent the majority of social actions people want to take.

Notice how combat rules have disarm, sunder, trip, etc. When you happen to be trying something other than just killing the target. Well, social rules need that stuff too.

What you're proposing isn't even an abstraction. It's a twisted mockery of social interaction where seduction attempts are considered offensive attacks and diplomats are considered special ops strike forces.

I'd expect such an outrageous system to end up in a game like FATAL.

Social systems repeatedly fail because instead of using such abstraction they bog down with "suggested DCs" as you mention for countless variations on ridiculously complex individual actions.

You mean the abstraction like D&D does? where everyone has a fixed DC and you make them friendly no matter what. Oh yeah, that really worked well. I think I'd rather just have no system at all.

Seriously, social systems with a bunch of abstraction are a whole a big bucket of fail.

[Ice9]

I believe you're arguing for two different systems, and there's no reason they can't coexist.

Social Influence
Effects: Minor
Likely Response: Nothing
Example: You use Diplomacy to have the Orc listen to your offer for his pie (but not automatically accept it).

Social Combat
Effects: Enemy Broken to your Will
Likely Response: Social Combat, or refusing to talk to you in future. Maybe even physical combat if they're an aggressive type.
Example: You convince the Orc his only hope of survival is following your orders exactly. You tell him to give you the pie.

Physical Combat:
Effects: Enemy Dead
Likely Response: Physical Combat, calling the guards on you, and/or running away.
Example: You kill the Orc and take his pie.


So if you want to just haggle with the saddle-maker, that's Social Influence, and the most you'll get is a discount, but nothing bad will happen.

If you want to cow the saddle-maker into giving you all the saddles you want for free, you enter Social Combat. But if you lose you may end up paying the saddle-maker a bag of gold for a single second-hand saddle, or spending the day acting as unpaid labor.

[Ice9]

As far as the role of multiple people in social combat, I think you may want a couple changes so that having a big number of people is not an auto-win or perfect defense.

Ideas:
Each person can be targetted and defeated individually. However, an action you can take in social combat is to defend someone else, adding your HD to theirs for resisting defeat. But only a limited number of people (3?) can defense someone at once.

Same thing for attacking, only a limited number of people can attack someone at once. So the king having a vizier and a diplomat at the negotiation is useful, but just rounding up a hundred or so of the palace guard won't give him godlike negotiation skills.

That said, some types like advisors or knowledge experts could have interjection abilties that were useful without directly attacking/defending someone.

Another Idea:
There could be social AoE effects, like "rouse the mob" and "the king's new clothes" that let you wipe out a bunch of socially weak types at once. So at first the king is surrounded by his many advisors and they refute anything you try to tell him, but then you wipe them all out and you can challenge the king directly.

[Username17]

I think it is game mechanically important to note that Charm Person actually gives you a window of time to convert them permanently to your side in addition to mandating that they be your friend right now. It's a social attack debuff - they can't make any social attacks against you for a while, and all your social attacks hit. Seriously, the DC to get a charmed person to remain friendly with you after your spell wears off is one. The DC to upgrade them to an ally is 20. Charm Person is a frightfully powerful attack, but it does work very much like the social attacks that they are talking about.

---

If you're going to have everyone participating in social encounters (and I think you should), you're going to want to find a use for every attribute you recognize in social combat.

Strength, for example, could make you intimidating and sexually attractive.

For D&D type parties, I think you should ask yourself who has high attributes and what they should be contributing in social encounters:

• Strength is had by the party samurai.
  
• Constitution is had by everyone.
  
• Dexterity is had by the party Rogue.
  
• Intelligence is had by the party Wizard.
  
• Wisdom is had by the party Cleric.
  
• Charisma is had by the party Sorcerer.

-Username17

[the_taken]

Bragging is Level Based: Tooting your horn about the time you took on a pack of foxes in the hen house by yourself to save a chick may impress Mary-Sue at the drunken barn dance, but if somebody tells of the time they wrestled a titan over a jar of aboleth caviar, that's going to have a bigger effect.

Intimidation: Similar to bragging. A higher level warrior can threaten to hit you with bigger sticks that are guaranteed to hurt more.

Higher level characters also have more wealth that they can negotiate with.

Hmm. I guess Social Combat may end up being level based after all. You'll be using quest based leveling right?

[Username17]

Indeed in a system where people have power levels, their social conquests are also level based. Superman can just get more from people than Green Arrow can. Superman says "I need 400 feet of steel cable!" and construction firms are like "OK!" and Green Arrow has to steal it. More powerful people just get what they want by saying that they should get it. Weaker people don't.

Now specifically for new edition, remember that there is a lot of attribute overlap between classes with different combat roles. A Gadgeteer and a Dark Warrior are both good at Strength based social maneuvers, and the Gadgeteer shares Intelligence based social maneuvers with the Assassin. The Bard and the Warlock have Charisma overlap, and the Warlock has Constitution overlap with the Seer.

Now at that point you honestly could have some stats that trigger more important social roles. Constitution, Intelligence, Charisma, and Wisdom for example could be more important in the social mini game, while Dexterity and Strength could be more important in the Breaking and Entering minigame.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Well basically. Yeah, I'd rather just do things with DM adjudication so they make sense, instead of a half-assed system that makes the story into shit.

The thing with social stuff is there are so many factors that need to be considered, that it's something that really, only a human can do.

You could say the same thing about combat.

In the end everything is DM arbitrary. If the DM doesn't want you to kill something, he just pumps up the numbers sufficiently so you can't.

If that argument holds any water then lets just get rid of rules altogether.

Because doing that will draw the town guard. Haggling with him won't.

But under your system haggling is by definition worthless. So why do it?

A social attack won't bring the town guard either. But it might well cost resources and risk in the form of retaliation from the shop keeper, and if he defeats you he does what he wants with you. Which probably means walking out with a lot of over priced crap you didn't really want.

Diplomacy on the other hand is not overtly offensive.

It isn't? When the Devil Seductress bats her eyelids and Barbarian Bob sways and giggles and says "Hey guys, why don't we do what the pretty lady says?" From the perspective of his allies that's pretty damn offensive.

And I'd be just as happy to see them draw swords as see them retaliate with threats and lies.

Social combat should be on that level, and if you want to be nice and not use real meaty offensive, and risky, social attacks you just wing it on crappy fairy tea party and no ones PCs or NPCs ever do anything they don't want to.

like an intimidate ability where you hold a sword to a guy's neck and he does what you say... But these are clearly attacks and will be treated as such by the people in game. And thus I don't' consider them social abilities.

What if the weapon is concealed?

What if he was lying about there being a weapon at all?

What if he isn't even pretending there is a weapon and is just being intimidating?

What if he is so hot dang good he glares at you in silence until you cower in obedient fear?

How is that not obviously an attack?

And how is it hard to envisage being entirely defeated by that fear attack as opposed to agreeing to give him your second favourite wrist watch, and then having to do MORE and different fear attacks for every other conceivable goal under the sun?

You may arrange a deal you otherwise wouldn't have been able to, or gain access to the castle by tricking a guard, or what not, but it's not going to suddenly kill a big monster for you.

In other words you are suggesting a system for delivering rewards that are nothing but meaningless fluff events that probably would happen anyway.

At that point no system IS the correct answer because its a system about nothing.

Meanwhile I DO want a social system that, yes, even could defeat a big monster for you.

How many times does some hero talk to the big cunning dragon/cyclops/whatevermagogiclocks and out cunning it and trick it into defeat?

Social combat with social defeat at the hands of a Lair archetype delivers that.

Your suggestion delivers agonizing tea party with the GM until you say or do whatever meets his momentary fleeting whims. Or more likely doesn't even come close to delivering at all.

But that's fucking stupid. It means that anytime you talk to someone that's an offensive action, or could be perceived as such. How do people know if you're talking and using a social attack or if you're just talking for the sake of talking? I mean seriously, where do you draw the line?

How do people know if you are waving a sword around or just missing really badly with a combat attack?

How do people know the wizard just failed to summon fiery death instead of putting on a harmless fire works show?

How does someone tell the difference between you actually HITTING with a sword and driving it through that guys neck compared to pulling the whole caught it in your armpit comedy routine?

Just chatting with the GM's characters is resolved by, get this, just chatting with the GM. Social Combat and offensive actions are distinct as obvious potent threatening attempts at coercion and deceit.

Meanwhile for meta-game purposes are pulled out by players and GMs whenever "whatever the controlling player feels like" just plain isn't good enough.

In your world, people would just walk around with earplugs all the damn time, because it makes them immune to social attacks.

In my world they had better be in a sensory deprivation tank, as social attacks are sufficiently abstract and diverse as to conceivably attack any awareness.

Much as wearing metal plates doesn't make you immune to combat.

Also inhibiting awareness might reasonably make you WEAKER against some social attacks, and certainly limit your own. AND inhibits engaging in non offensive casual social encounters.

Seduction is fine, that's something that should be handled in a social system. But convincing the king to hand over his kingdom definitely shouldn't.

I believe it usually goes a bit like...
"Please Conan, stay here and marry me, you can have my kingdom and become a King, ruling over my nation and my body!"

"No, I'm so damn cool I'm off to build my OWN kingdom, a bigger better one, with my teeth. Hot mostly naked princesses/queens/empresses/high priestesses offer me small change kingdoms all the time, maybe I'll come back some day and pick it up with the others. Oh yeah, and you're chucked."

And that's just an ACCIDENTAL fluffy by-product at the end of the adventure because at some point earlier on he used his social attacks on her to get her untie him and toss him a sword off the weapons rack just before the big final show down.

My system doesn't say you can't take the kingdom necessarily, it just says that it's harder than asking to borrow a gold coin for a meal.

Notably in combination with your risk free, single roll, at least one attempt, its not an attack, scenario that means the kingdom seriously changes hands something like once every twenty times someone says "hello" to the king. Because it encourages the founding of the tradition that the proper greeting to the king (if you can even recognise his ever changing face) is "Hello, can I be King for the next thirty minutes?"

Because your system says that if that happens that you basically consider it like she just drew a gun on you and tried to kill you. Seriously man... wtf? Does that make any sense to you at all?

Its a game of fiction with conventions that match fiction and not reality.

In reality you do not respond to a guy who waves his fingers at you and screams out "lightning attack" but looks disappointed when it fails to materialize by drawing your guns. But in these games maybe you DO draw guns, heck, maybe you DO THE SAME THING BACK, only maybe your lightning will go off right.

See in story telling about the nasty seductress Black Widow archetype its not about some nice girl you meet in a bar kinda hinting she likes you, but you think she's kind of ugly.

Its about the EVIL black widow leaning in too close to Bob the Barbarian and Bob going all dreamy eyed and Sam the dependable effeminate boy Rogue side kick (who is really the pretty princess Samantha in disguise) screaming out "No Bob, resist, its all lies, remember the princess, Bob, NOOOOOOOOO!"

Possibly with a "*sob* I'm going to kill you Black Widow! AAAAARGH!"

But here's the thing. The goal of a sword swing is generally simple.

No it isn't.

Are you swinging to strike with the flat or pierce with the point?

Are you attacking a vital organ? Which one?

Are you trying to stun or cripple your opponent, or go in for the kill?

Are you swinging to smash bones and dent armour, cut straight through it, or going for the exposed gap of flesh?

There are like A MILLION different goals when you try to hack someone up with a sword.

And one single "sword attack" that fails to differentiate between them is often considered more than appropriate coverage.

In your system, all social attacks have one goal. Making the guy into a mindless slave. Well for one, socially, that's incredibly difficult, and second it doesn't represent the majority of social actions people want to take.

Your goal is always the goal of getting your target to do something they wouldn't.

Why try and envisage an impossible to deliver system which differentiates between all the countless different things they might not want to do and just having a simple DOABLE system which says, hey, you use your social skills to put them in a state where you can make them do what they wouldn't IN GENERAL.

Seriously, why should your liar attacks be a great mess of different situational bullshit out of the GMs ass arbitrary fairy party junk when instead they can be abstract attacks that have the goal of making the target believe ALL your lies.

Your goal is always to weave a fabric of lies that makes them do whatever you want to, so why the hell would you instead try to simulate that with all billion different individual specific lies?

Notice how combat rules have disarm, sunder, trip, etc. When you happen to be trying something other than just killing the target. Well, social rules need that stuff too.

So... social combat should have generic abstracted debuff actions?

That can easily work in a social combat system with the ultimate goal of defeat EXACTLY like it works in regular combat with the ultimate goal of defeat.

Meanwhile its just more arbitrary junk in a system were EVERY social action is a unique subjective contextual action.

diplomats are considered special ops strike forces.

Wait.

Diplomats ARE considered an alternative to armed conflict.

So er. Yeah?

You mean the abstraction like D&D does? where everyone has a fixed DC and you make them friendly no matter what. Oh yeah, that really worked well. I think I'd rather just have no system at all.

Abstraction like D&D COMBAT, not its asstastic inconsistent skill system which is a total hodge podge of things that explicitly don't matter and things which are just plain messed up.

People have different abstracted defences based on level archetype and actions, just like combat. It works for physical combat and its the exact same rubric.

Seriously, social systems with a bunch of abstraction are a whole a big bucket of fail.

No, social systems which try to pin down modifiers for every conceivable individual social action AND goal are fail buckets.

I mean where the hell do you even start?

If every single context is uniquely different then how the hell can my character even have a social archetype or role?

Alternately if its "mostly" fairy tea party then... which bit isn't? How does it mesh? Where do you even start with that?

[Username17]

You two are looking at it from opposite perspectives. RC is looking at social interaction from the standpoint of the posturing before a battle, or haggling over the price of some owl kebab. The potential rewards are low, but it's not dangerous and people won't call the cops on you for having done it especially.

PhoneLobster is looking at it from the perspective of convincing the High Priestess to send her elite drow warriors to fight the ilithid incursion instead of the dwarves. Thousands of lives are on the line and the effects of a single word are more than a hundred cuts of a sword.

The fact is that social tests are both of these things. Actual combat fits somewhere in the middle of boasting in bars and arguing over the fates of nations. So social combat rules have to acknowledge that both are possible. And yes, it is possible to get scores so high you jump from one to the other on accident. That's what Puss in Boots is all about.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

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A social attack won't bring the town guard either. But it might well cost resources and risk in the form of retaliation from the shop keeper, and if he defeats you he does what he wants with you. Which probably means walking out with a lot of over priced crap you didn't really want.

Under your system, yeah it will. Because a social attack is actually considered an attack. It's just as effective (if not more so) than drawing your sword and trying to cut someone's head off. It's like casting a dominate person on someone, you're basically trying to rob them of their free will, and yeah that's going to draw the town guard.

It isn't? When the Devil Seductress bats her eyelids and Barbarian Bob sways and giggles and says "Hey guys, why don't we do what the pretty lady says?" From the perspective of his allies that's pretty damn offensive.

No, this is an example that has nothing to do wtih social attacks. The party attacks here because it's a devil doing it. if it was just some chick at the tavern or an angel, the party wouldn't even consider hacking her to pieces.

In other words you are suggesting a system for delivering rewards that are nothing but meaningless fluff events that probably would happen anyway.

Avoiding a combat by gaining access to the castle is not a fluff event, that's advancing the adventure. Negotiating with the king to get paid more for the quest isn't a fluff event, it puts real money in your pocket. Convincing the clerics to resurrect your friend isn't a fluff event, it actually brings your companion back to life.

I'm not sure why you want social systems to move mountains.

Meanwhile I DO want a social system that, yes, even could defeat a big monster for you.

Wtf? Why do you want to use social skills to defeat big monsters?

This is D&D, the game where you kill big monsters with swords. You want to turn your game into a weird match of point/counterpoint where instead of killing a dragon you keep berating it with illogical arguments until it just gives up and sticks its claw through its eye just to hear you stop talking.

I'm seriously not sure what kind of flavor you're reaching for here. I mean it sounds like you want a system where one guy is giving a speech while the dragon is breathing fire on him.

How many times does some hero talk to the big cunning dragon/cyclops/whatevermagogiclocks and out cunning it and trick it into defeat?

Well, how often does a hero completely bend the big dragon to his will? I mean we're not talking about tricking something, we're talking about outright getting it to become your slave. And I'm pretty sure that almost never happens.

Under your system it's impossible to trick anyone. You don't trick things, you just keep nagging it till it does whatever you want. And in that case, it's been robbed of free will, so what it thinks isn't even important. To Trick implies that you cause it to make a wrong choice, but if it has no free will, it can't make choices at all.

Just chatting with the GM's characters is resolved by, get this, just chatting with the GM. Social Combat and offensive actions are distinct as obvious potent threatening attempts at coercion and deceit.

But how can you have an "obvious threatening attempt" at seduction?

Seriously it makes no fucking sense. Seduction is never considered an attack. Ever.

I believe it usually goes a bit like...
"Please Conan, stay here and marry me, you can have my kingdom and become a King, ruling over my nation and my body!"

Honestly, I don't really see Conan as a seducer. I feel like people like him just for his deeds because he's handsome and a good warrior. He's just a famous hero of legend and that shit happens to you.

Now James Bond is a seducer. But even he really couldn't get the evil woman villain in that one bond movie to turn good, even though he seduced her. There are limits.

Notably in combination with your risk free, single roll, at least one attempt, its not an attack, scenario that means the kingdom seriously changes hands something like once every twenty times someone says "hello" to the king. Because it encourages the founding of the tradition that the proper greeting to the king (if you can even recognise his ever changing face) is "Hello, can I be King for the next thirty minutes?"

Well no, because most people are going to auto-fail that roll. You need to build up a big bucket of modifiers to even have a chance that that's going to succeed. A natural 20 isn't an auto-success.

Its about the EVIL black widow leaning in too close to Bob the Barbarian and Bob going all dreamy eyed and Sam the dependable effeminate boy Rogue side kick (who is really the pretty princess Samantha in disguise) screaming out "No Bob, resist, its all lies, remember the princess, Bob, NOOOOOOOOO!"

You're not talking about a seduction attempt here, you're more talking about the girl who blasts the guy with pheromone spray or something and makes him her slave for awhile. And I wouldn't really have a problem with a rogue or alchemist or whatever being able to create pheromone spray, but it'd be considered an attack to hit someone with it.

Are you swinging to strike with the flat or pierce with the point?

Are you attacking a vital organ? Which one?

Are you trying to stun or cripple your opponent, or go in for the kill?

All this stuff is mechanics, and we can abstract mechanics. We can't abstract the goal however. A thief can say "I try to disable the trap" and then we ignore the stuff about how he does it, because we know what he's trying to do.

In a social situation, you want to effectively ignore the part where you state what you want to do, and instead everytime you're just trying to turn the guy into a mindless automaton who does anything you want.

There are like A MILLION different goals when you try to hack someone up with a sword.

Really? I only see one. Kill your opponent.

Why try and envisage an impossible to deliver system which differentiates between all the countless different things they might not want to do and just having a simple DOABLE system which says, hey, you use your social skills to put them in a state where you can make them do what they wouldn't IN GENERAL.

Because doing what you wouldn't is generally in degrees. I mean think of basically any social system in real-life. A used car salesman may fuck you over totally on price and get you to buy a car for way more than you were originally willing to spend, but he's certainly not going to get you to sell your kids into slavery.

A hot girl may walk up to you and convince you to buy her a drink, or give you a ride somewhere, but you're not just going to hand over your life savings to her because she asked you for it and you just met her.

Your system doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

No, social systems which try to pin down modifiers for every conceivable individual social action AND goal are fail buckets.

I mean where the hell do you even start?

Probably with a list of modifiers for: Intrinsic value to the subject, Risk involved with doing the action, moral opposition, level of trust for the target, and so forth.

Obviously the DM has to adjudicate those and decide whether the king's 2nd favorite pocketwatch is a trivial trinket or a mildly valuable item.

Basically it's just a bunch of tables, where you modify the DC based on a variety of factors.

PhoneLobster is looking at it from the perspective of convincing the High Priestess to send her elite drow warriors to fight the ilithid incursion instead of the dwarves. Thousands of lives are on the line and the effects of a single word are more than a hundred cuts of a sword.

Not even. PL is looking at it from the perspective that you totally brainwash your target into doing whatever you want. You're not really convincing them of anything, you're just turning them into a mindless brainwashed slave.

I could maybe go on board with his system if it entailed actually convincing people of shit, but unfortunately it's not about that. It's just hitting people with a mind control mojo where they do literally whatever you say.

[Judging__Eagle]

The thing with social stuff is there are so many factors that need to be considered, that it's something that really, only a human can do.

Past level 5, we're doing inhuman things. So, that's a non-argument.

I'm fine with someone lying to an attendant and telling them that they already paid, they don't need to pay for "X" gold economy item.

Diplomacy on the other hand is not overtly offensive.

With this system, it is now.

When you try to socially attack a person, they either don't figure it out and you beat the ever-living snot out of them socially (seriously, I've seen it happen and done it to people and have had it done to me) or you then go and engage in social combat.

The King and his advisors can pull some legal loophole or honour loophole or w/e and make you realize "Oh shit, he's got us/our family/our chicken sandwich/our allies/our lives in his hands; we'll do his next job for him."

Much like D&D abstracts combat, we have to equally abstract diplomacy.

There are literally thousands of ways to fight and millions of people that have used them in what is probably billions of combinations both effective and ineffective.

We abstract all of that to one of maybe.... 20 types of dice rolls in the combat segment of the game.

I mean my god... it's like a girl walks up to you and starts hitting on you and you think she's ugly... do you go and punch her in the face? Because your system says that if that happens that you basically consider it like she just drew a gun on you and tried to kill you. Seriously man... wtf? Does that make any sense to you at all?

You engage her in social attacks, mostly by using your concentration or sense motive to soak, and then maybe using your bluff or diplomacy to have her leave.

You use intimidate if you're a fucking dick. It works, but that's the flavour that you chose.

Brutes social attack with being mean and/or defend by seeing lies.

Wonks social attack by lying and/or being mean and usually are better at defending since they've mastered how to ignore distractions.

Silvertoungues rely on knowing how to talk to people to both deflect attacks and turn an enemies attack back. They tend to also use being mean or lying to help in attacks and use their knowledge of lies and ignoring their enemies to help them help in attacks.

In any case, just b/c a PC can social combat, doesn`t mean that he can`t be told to run the fuck out of the dungeon by a monster that is more intimidating or better at lying than him.