Social Systems: What are they supposed to do?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Regarding using social skills to stop combat: Clerics do it better.

[FatR]

But to avoid any shifting of goalposts, would you, FatR, consider having social actions taken to end combat once it has started be an acceptable goal if a genre-specific example can be shown to you where combat started, one side explained that the fight was unnecessary, and combat ended before everyone was killed?

No, of course, given how ubiquitous non-lethal defeats are in fictional deadly fights if not in DnD or the real life. I would consider an example if all of the following conditions are true:

(1)The combat ended at the stage where the winner was not abundantly clear. Primarily to disqualify the countless fights where the hero still had to kick the villain's ass to trigger any change in character. Because the hero still had to kick the villain's ass. And much less common examples where the villain had a change of heart during a fight but decided he still wants to fight to the conclusion too.

You can name the fights where the winner is clear and the winner is one to back down before landing the final blow, though.

EDIT: As my poor wording seems to be resulting in confusion - I mean here the situation where one of the combatants is defeated physically, but makes his opponent give up the fight/the opponent's objective by socializing.

(2)No obvious complulsion on a character's mind and removing thereof was involved. Because you don't really need a social system beyond the DnD's staple "you get another Will saving throw when you are forced to do something horrendous" here.

You can name cases where non-supernatural manipulation or conversion is involved, though.

(3)No third party arriving on the scene with information that completely reframed the situation was involved.

After mulling over various work of fiction I can perhaps name a couple of examples that fit all the criteria myself. But I don't know, maybe somewhere out there we have a wealth of them, justifying a major shift in combat system paradigm.

[Kaelik]

You can name the fights where the winner is clear and the winner is one to back down before landing the final blow, though.

WTF does this even mean? Of course it is the winner choosing to back down before landing the final blow, that is literally the only way a fight can not end in death, if one side is the clear winner. Certainly the loser can't choose to back down before the winner kills him, because the winner can still just kill him.

[RobbyPants]

Regarding using social skills to stop combat: Clerics do it better.

That doesn't stop combat. That debuffs opponents who attempt to attack the cleric. If you wanted to bring up spells that stop combat, there are better - options - for - that (all off of the bard and sor/wiz lists).

[erik]

You can name the fights where the winner is clear and the winner is one to back down before landing the final blow, though.

WTF does this even mean? Of course it is the winner choosing to back down before landing the final blow, that is literally the only way a fight can not end in death, if one side is the clear winner. Certainly the loser can't choose to back down before the winner kills him, because the winner can still just kill him.

He means first blood. Or even KO/ points a la modern sport fights.

[MGuy]

Not like it matters if you follow his rules or not. In the manga Kenshin is set to kill Jinsei and only stops when girl gives an impassioned speech about not being a monster. That seems like diplomacy in action but it isn't counted because bullshit... Thing is he is going to continue to hold his ground even if someone finds the " perfect" counter example because someone did (Ogre) and he dismissed it as being something he didn't like. You cannot get more bad faith than that. Convincing someone to stop fighting through diplomacy (begging for your or someone else's life), intimidation (poointing guns and yelling at someone to stand down), or misdirection (lying to someone to get them to stop attacking you) are not even uncommon. To set up terms where reducing enemy numbers enough to make them lose morale then ordering surrender cannot be used as an example is fucking stupid if what you want is a system that can end a fight before everyone is dead.

[Username17]

PhoneLobster accusing, well, anyone else, of not arguing in good faith must be one of the funniest things I've read on Internet this month.

Yeeah. It's gems like that which sometimes make me want to read all the PhoneLobster posts, because I'm missing all the unintentional hilarity. Then I remember how much of PhoneLobster posts are just him screaming into his personal echo chamber and I go back to just skimming a few of them.

For fucks sake, in the past Frank was happy with a reaction roll, which would be just one passive roll, to decide if people fight on contact, but apparently now he is committed to an actual social minigame before every fight in which if you win you just get more minions.

Wow. You know, I really don't mind people disagreeing with me. I don't even mind people being total assholes about it. It's the internet, haters gonna hate. But... seriously? Seriously? Why you gotta lie about shit that's on the actual thread you're lying in? That's just being a lazy douche canoe.

Look, the Helpful Stone Giant example was:

So you encounter a Stone Giant, and the combat music either starts or does not start, and if it doesn't start and you try to make nice-nice with the Giant and succeed, you're going to get a game output that is something like "Giant is Helpful." Now hopefully the keyword "Helpful" is going to have some fucking explanation and examples (unlike 3e D&D, where no one knows what the fuck it's supposed to mean), but it's still going to represent a range of potential options and ultimately the MC is going to have to pick one based on how they think it fits the narrative so far.

A Helpful Giant might be expected to share some information with you or tear up an obstacle for you with their giant strength or something along those lines. Being Helpful and not Enraged or Obsequious they obviously will not immediately attack you or surrender all their belongings or whatever instead. But no game is going to be able to split social outcomes finely enough to determine exactly what kind of help a Giant will provide by die rolls alone.

Key points:

• The example is predicated on the idea of getting the combat music to not start, which right away means that the Giant is not made helpful "before combat." There is no combat in the example, and social actions are used instead.
• I didn't say shit about gaining minions one way or the other. The Giant in the example is very explicitly not one of your minions.

So literally everything you said to characterize my position is wrong. It's a massive straw man whose only purpose is well poisoning.

Kaelik: Fuck off. Stop being such a lying asshole and go masturbate until you're more pleasant to be around.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Key points:

• The example is predicated on the idea of getting the combat music to not start, which right away means that the Giant is not made helpful "before combat." There is no combat in the example, and social actions are used instead.
• I didn't say shit about gaining minions one way or the other. The Giant in the example is very explicitly not one of your minions.

"But guys, the Giant only helps you invade and murder his family and tribe a little bit! So he's not your minion!" For fucks sake Frank, I don't care if he's a limited minion who only helps you find and reach his giant wife, but doesn't actually stab her in the face for you.

You began this by saying:

In 3e D&D, most things revolve around stabbing things in the face. So the number one desired use of the social minigame would be to cause combat music to not start.

So yes, you began this by saying that people have to be able to face every single fucking person they goddam see and do a social minigame dance to prevent combat, which is now, for some inexplicable reason, more complex than the reaction roll you used to favor.

Then you went on to say that if they win the social minigame, the enemy they social minigame danced to not fighting them will be "helpful." And while that is great that you have managed to make the problem diplomacy not being used to get increasingly large piles of permanent slaves by only having the dark lord help you thwart his plan a little bit and then leave, that isn't even the problem.

I don't care if you give people limited minions, or permanent slaves, or no minions at all. I don't care if winning the social minigame dance off only ever results in the Giant saying "good luck murdering my wife and kids, I'm loping off into the sunset." That is zero minions gained, but it is also zero fights ever undertaken.

The point that makes the game shit is where every time you run into an enemy who is definitely an actual enemy, because those do in fact exist in D&D games, you do a social minigame, (according to you) to see if you just don't fight that enemy. And apparently success on the social minigame is going to make them not fight you, even though you, the winner of the social minigame, are going to keep doing the thing that they were going to try to kill you for doing before they found out you are pretty.

[Username17]

"But guys, the Giant only helps you invade and murder his family and tribe a little bit! So he's not your minion!" For fucks sake Frank, I don't care if he's a limited minion who only helps you find and reach his giant wife, but doesn't actually stab her in the face for you.

Wow. That's so dishonest and lazy and shitty of an argument I can't even engage with it. Congratulations Kaelik, you've managed to successfully shit on this conversation as thoroughly as PhoneLobster. Go fuck yourself.

For the people in the cheap seats: I offered an offhand example of an output that a social minigame might give, where a Giant would become "helpful" and perhaps give you information or use his size or strength on your behalf to help you get past an obstacle. Kaelik somehow thinks this means that the Giant in this example is a minion who is going to help you murderstab his own family. All that can be said is: What? Is the librarian who tells you where a book is your "minion"? Is the crossing guard who helps you across the street an accomplice to the murder of his children? What the actual fuck?

I just... I don't even know where this is coming from. I say words, and then Kaelik completely ignores them and goes off on offensive rants. But I'm seriously done even trying to engage him on this issue. He's a dishonest asshole who isn't even trying to have a discussion. Fuck that guy.

-Username17

[virgil]

Congratulations Kaelik, you've managed to successfully shit on this conversation as thoroughly as PhoneLobster.

To be honest, I never expected this thread to be anything but poo-flinging.

[MGuy]

Oh shit! There is certainly no way to just give players the option of immediately surrendering to the giant such that they can buy time to actually try to diplomance it. If you don't have that very necessary subsystem to completely determine whether or not the giant starts off fighting or not how can the social system even exist?! You know, outside of every noncombat scenario ever but I digress.

[Kaelik]

I just... I don't even know where this is coming from. I say words, and then Kaelik completely ignores them and goes off on offensive rants.

That "offensive rant" is me addressing the actual relevant parts of the conversation. The parts that everyone was talking about including you before you decided to go on a fucking rant about the definition of what counts as a minion that was never even remotely relevant to the issue at hand.

[Lokey]

I think if the thread can carry another 10 pages of hyperbolic bullshit we should consider it not desirable to have a social system that can stop combat once it's started.

From last page, definitely not a good idea to take the amount of options the average RP video game presents as any sort of indication of what's possible/desirable. The things that are talked about here about games are a laughably small amount of the dev time it takes to make a game (and often are done by devs in their free time because they'd prefer the game weren't just pretty graphics).

[Kaelik]

I think if the thread can carry another 10 pages of hyperbolic bullshit we should consider it not desirable to have a social system that can stop combat once it's started.

Spoiler alert: It has already carried at least 50 pages of hyperbolic bullshit, because that is all that any diplomacy conversation turn into.

[hyzmarca]

I think if the thread can carry another 10 pages of hyperbolic bullshit we should consider it not desirable to have a social system that can stop combat once it's started.

From last page, definitely not a good idea to take the amount of options the average RP video game presents as any sort of indication of what's possible/desirable. The things that are talked about here about games are a laughably small amount of the dev time it takes to make a game (and often are done by devs in their free time because they'd prefer the game weren't just pretty graphics).

We're not trying to kill each other, so I think the social system has succeeded on that front.

[Wiseman]

Thank you for convincing me to keep Kaelik on ignore.

[K]

In-combat social actions that halt or delay combat are fine if you build combat with the assumption that social actions are part of combat.

It doesn't make a lot of sense with DnD because DnD has never had a social system that was supposed to do that and the entire combat design can't accommodate adding it, but there is no first-principles reason that some other game system can't do it.

[Ice9]

I'm pretty sure this thread is going nowhere fast, but what the hell, I'm bored of this argument over "combat music", so I'll give people a new thing to spit vitriol at.

So, a thought experiment - let's say social combat is just as significant and dangerous as physical combat. So you can be socially killed (turned into someone's minion) and socially maimed (convinced to make a choice that lastingly changes the character significantly for the worse), and that can happen in a single interaction. Which I've heard more than one person claim as a necessity for the social system to not be crap. Now what results?

1) Social shit needs to stay on the RNG. "Silver-tongued Bard and uncouth gullible Barbarian" is as bad a problem as "Druid and Expert (the NPC class)". A high-level anything can't be uncouth unless they're actually "uncouth ... like a fox!" and not actually disadvantaged by it.

2) If going into social combat mode is apparent IC, then doing so is probably considered a hostile action under many circumstances. If not, then people have to be more cautious about interaction in general.

3) Town are not safe places to rest in. Well, even less safe, anyway. The only truly safe place to recuperate is in isolation with only your trusted friends (or people too crappy to sway you) around. Related, the party probably won't want to split up in town, any more than they'd split up in a dungeon.

4) Important people have social bodyguards, like they have normal bodyguards.

5) People who are better at physical combat than social combat will be incentivized to switch to that if possible. See Exalted 2e. Or just covering their ears and running, if that's allowed.

6) Because of iterative probability, PCs will end up socially maimed/dead sooner or later. So either:
a) There's a social cleric, who can 'undo' those situations with relatively little fuss.
b) The PCs have luck/edge points that let them escape from a social defeat.
c) Lots of PC turn-over.

Possible, but is it desirable?

[PhoneLobster]

So, a thought experiment

Your premise and point 6 seem to suggest to me you've got a rather odd idea of very permanent deeply irreversible (without specific special healing experts) social defeat states. My old "to the social death stuff" was never really about social-perma-death, it was basically just about acknowledging that either a complex minigame or something that is supposed to be a viable combat strategy needs to offer rewards on the scale of defeating opponents.

And also to acknowledge that relatively small amounts of social leverage, like say, just a little trust, can readily be creatively interpreted to cause physical outcomes up to and including potential physical death.

Nothing about it requires that the victims be socially "maimed" for the rest of their lives. You can do that, or not, if you want to, but it's really outside of the scope of the demands of a functional social minigame/combat option.

Also your point 1 and point 4 seem to be at least marginally in conflict. Not entirely exclusive, but 1 does seem render 4 somewhat redundant. In theory if you are keeping social abilities in line with level progression like that your physical body guards pretty much ARE your social ones, you would either need some ability to socially specialize and/or contextual external pressures like a society frowning on bringing your physical body guards to social events, but fine with you bringing your social specialist side kicks instead.

Point 2 is not a big deal and there actually SHOULD be contexts where you throw a social attack/action and the opponents respond by fleeing or yelling "how dare you, kill them all!", as long as those are not the ONLY outcomes. The reality is you DO want social to physical combat transitions to be a thing as much as you want the reverse to be possible.

Managing point 3 is about getting societal pressures and point 2 into a good balance. As long as you can socially interact at a less dangerous level simply dealing with minor social interactions should not trigger your social "big gun" attacks, and IF someone does bring them out the balancing factor should be that the opponents have social big guns too and that if there isn't sufficient local law an order the opponents ALSO have physical big guns.

Which brings in the other big thing that a large part of the base reasoning for social defeat states as effective as combat defeat states, and a lot of the places you go to from that are about appropriate risk and reward and the risks and the rewards should be balanced by the potential social, and in lawless scenarios potential physical, opposition.

As long as lower stakes interactions can exist, then with an appropriate clear transition between "dangerous" social actions and trivial everyday ones town does not need to be a Darwinian social death trap of endless high stakes social actions only. Most interactions are made with regular low stakes options under the assumption that no party wants to risk social or physical consequences or retaliation if they think they can get what they want without pulling out their "high stakes" social actions.

If you think otherwise you essentially should apply the same reasoning to high stakes physical actions and ask why towns aren't just a cesspit of endless physical violence because why would you ever interact with the shopkeepers with anything other than stabbing them and taking their stuff once it is an option? And yet in practice even if you throw together a "lawless" town without any policing authorities, it isn't going to become a 100% murder the shop keeper town now is it?

[hogarth]

Computer games restrict choice a lot, and we put up with it because there are valid reasons for them to do so (lack of unlimited artists, unlimited writers, and unlimited disk space, for one thing).

So when you talk to somebody, you just get 3-5 choices, some of which require rolls to persuade/lie/whatever, all of which are calibrated to produce reasonable results, and that's that. In a TTRPG, the players can throw out a 6th choice that changes things drastically, and "no, you can only do the choices I prepared for" is not an acceptable answer.

Yes, it's always possible to ask for something the rules don't cover, which is why a human GM is useful for tabletop gaming. But if you look at FatR's list of things he needs (which I think is pretty typical), you'll see that most of them fall under the categories of...
(a) avoiding a combat encounter, or
(b) getting a benefit in terms of extra resources (e.g. saving money or getting a bonus)
...just like I mentioned in the post I linked.

One thing I don't particularly like from FatR's list is a system to "gather information". Why don't I like that? Because it's not particularly fun to fail at gathering information, so why bother with that possibility?

[K]

I'm pretty sure this thread is going nowhere fast, but what the hell, I'm bored of this argument over "combat music", so I'll give people a new thing to spit vitriol at.

So, a thought experiment - let's say social combat is just as significant and dangerous as physical combat. So you can be socially killed (turned into someone's minion) and socially maimed (convinced to make a choice that lastingly changes the character significantly for the worse), and that can happen in a single interaction. Which I've heard more than one person claim as a necessity for the social system to not be crap. Now what results?

"Being turned into a minion" is a bad result to want as an outcome.

I'd suggest that there be other, better outcomes that are as significant as combat outcomes. You could easily have people be Cowed and no longer able to attack the characters, or Scared and forced to leave not just the combat but the adventure.

I mean, any social system that has "turn the king into your slave" as a possible result in a single encounter is broken on first principles.

To address a later point, everyone needs decent social skills when social systems are as powerful as a combat in the same way that everyone should be able to contribute to combat in a combat-heavy game.

[hyzmarca]

Gathering minions is a good result for some situations, I think. If you're attacked by bandits and offer to pay them 50 gold pieces a day to work for you as mercenaries, then they should seriously consider that offer because they were only planning to kill you for a few silver pieces and it's just a better deal.

But there's a substantial difference between "offer a better deal" and "turn a character into a slave."

Likewise, it should be possible to stand up in the town square and talk about how all of the kingdom's problems are caused by the Elves and Communists who stabbed you in the back during the last Great War and that your movement will restore the nation's glory and honor and get some converts.


The problem is, of course, that systems tend to work in binaries, and don't do subtly well.

Becoming Rasputin is a viable goal. And the outputs that produces generally involve the Tsar doing exactly what you say. But that isn't the same as enslaving the Tsar.

Part of the social system is knowing where a character's limit's are. And part of the social skill should be identifying those limits and working within them.

[PhoneLobster]

Part of the social system is knowing where a character's limit's are. And part of the social skill should be identifying those limits and working within them.

I've seen demands a lot like that before on these threads.

As far as I see it is actually very well covered by the setup I have going with broad deal breakers attached to broad social defeat states (if you want to prolong your friendship state, don't get caught out exploiting their trust to rob or kill them), and the motivation to try and negotiate without resorting to the formal system if the players/GMs involved can all come to an agreement that they all think their characters would want without need for extensive mechanically enforced persuasion.

But unfortunately the thing people who say that sort of thing generally actually want when they say things about wanting to control people sometimes in some contexts within some usually very individually specific limits is not a tangible and clearly defined setup with full player/GM agency prior to it being overridden with broad clearly defined states with specific broad break points.

What they usually actually want is infinite lists of infinite modifiers, of the really worst kind to boot. Generally they desire the option for the GM to sit down and say "Yeah, you can make the guy do the thing I want you to make the guy do because I decided he hates those other guys too and gave you a favorable ass pulled modifier possibly large enough to negate ANY number of other ass pulled modifiers against it, but I also decided you cannot possibly make the guy ever do the thing I personally don't want you to make him do because he is deeply morally outraged/insane/has childhood trauma/etc... and this generated an unfavorable ass pulled modifier possibly large enough to negate ANY number of other ass pulled modifiers working in your favor INCLUDING the already infinitely sized "he hates those other guys too" modifier!"

It's not really a workable goal or methodology. Ultimately it can only be applied to an essentially informal rule or layer of the rules. Typically the (very far) out of combat ones covering actions that don't especially matter and which are not a matter of player dispute in need of fair arbitration.

IF your social mechanics are even going to significantly matter, certainly if they are meant to be combat equivalent (integrated or segregated), and certainly if it ever comes down to a contest to fairly arbitrate between players or players and the GM over the control of a character's actions, then they just can't work like that.

[K]

The problem is, of course, that systems tend to work in binaries, and don't do subtly well.

I'd probably argue that the issue is not binaries, but that social systems are not developed. If you want the social game to be exactly 1-3 rolls and then you get a result, then you'd set yourself up for absurdities like "meet the king, get the kingdom."

You would have to set up an interesting enough system that you can do the "party at the evil noble's manor" adventure for an entire session without MTPing any of the important bits or plot points. That means several encounters with real consequences, discovery and exploration, loot of various kinds, and finally a win or lose end condition.

If you did that, then becoming King or Rasputin is naturally the result of a campaign full of successful adventures.

[PhoneLobster]

You would have to set up an interesting enough system that you can do the "party at the evil noble's manor" adventure for an entire session without MTPing any of the important bits or plot points. That means several encounters with real consequences, discovery and exploration, loot of various kinds, and finally a win or lose end condition.

That... isn't going to do what you want it to do.

Essentially you've just described a system with combat equivalent social encounters and an adventure/dungeon where all the encounters are social. It works, to a point, and certainly say... my methodology, could generate something a lot like that.

But it has a significant break point, and it is the SAME significant break point that the "Kill the King with Regular Combat" adventure/campaign has. If the party is strong enough to defeat the final encounter and can manage to somehow stumble their way directly to it, then it is in fact still just one encounter.

There isn't really a sane or acceptable way to get around that. You can have an isolated king behind lots of defenses and other encounters social or otherwise. You can have a king powerful enough that you need to first go on other adventures and level up to become strong enough to defeat him.

But in the end, combat or social. One character is potentially just one encounter or a portion of it. You cannot really overcome that, but IF you did you would be venturing into something that was simultaneously insanely more elaborate and time consuming than regular combat, but ALSO less useful and rewarding. In which case you might as well just throw those rules out before you write them because no one will opt for "like combat only harder longer and less rewarding" when they can just go stab things instead.

Though, it would help if you didn't have a reductive scenario on the "How do power structures work?" where simply defeating (by whatever means) the king, even by becoming his suddenly very influential friend, gives you total direct control of the kingdom without further obstacles or rivals. But all the same, every additional rival could still be as little as one or less encounters (social or otherwise) each.