Skills Issues

[Balabanto]

Ventriloquism and Mimicry have caused more chaos in my games than just about anything else. Yeah. It's good stuff.

[Vondy]

Yep, that would be fine too - if it were a simple, random encounter in a bar, I might even pitch it so baldly. But of course that opens the "opt out" door The player says "I stay with the rest of the group".

cheers, Mark

Or, as she turns to pick up her purse, he looks at his friends makes a "I'm the man face," while pointing at her, and scoots her out with a hand on the small of her back while his friends become suspicious and say... "hey, wait a minute..." and the comedy of errors as they assume something is up ensues.

[Vondy]

Now some of the people posting seem to have there really great groups that are all on the same page about role playing and social interaction so these situations never or rarely come up. That's great and I don't have a problem with that or want anyone to be forced to adapt something that they found cumbersome or unnecessary. What I'd like it a system for those of us that want to bring some consistent, mechanical definition to determining the affect of Interaction skills on characters, PC or otherwise.

I'm all for this except for one thing: unless it has a massive OPTIONAL RULE tag on it people will assume its obligatory to use it and those of us who want nothing to do with it will get an incessant "you're doing it wrong" whine on the boards, as well as from a certain breed of player who must have mechanics rule everything even when they 1) become cumbersome for speed of play, or 2) make no sense in the absence of the "applied effects test," or 3) don't fit the groups play-style and dynamic. And, IME, even in great groups, you've usually got one of these. They seem generally unavoidable. So, mechanize social interaction away if it blows your skirt up around your ears, but please don't have it be a part of the default rules and label it...

OPTIONAL RULE

[Doc Democracy]

I'm all for this except for one thing: unless it has a massive OPTIONAL RULE tag on it people will assume its obligatory to use it and those of us who want nothing to do with it will get an incessant "you're doing it wrong" whine on the boards, as well as from a certain breed of player who must have mechanics rule everything even when they 1) become cumbersome for speed of play, or 2) make no sense in the absence of the "applied effects test," or 3) don't fit the groups play-style and dynamic. And, IME, even in great groups, you've usually got one of these. They seem generally unavoidable. So, mechanize social interaction away if it blows your skirt up around your ears, but please don't have it be a part of the default rules and label it...

OPTIONAL RULE

You know, most of that rationalisation also works for physical combat as well...

[ajackson]

As far as social skills vs PCs go, I would like to see a rule on interaction of social skills with psych lims -- probably something like:

Social Skills vs Psych Lims: it is possible to use a social skill to cause someone to automatically succeed or fail at resisting a psych lim. Roll skill vs ego; success controls the outcome. Modifiers: if trying to force failure, +5 for irrational, +10 for total. If trying to force success, -5/-10.

Note that forcing someone to succeed at resisting a psych lim does not compel any behavior, it just suspends the effects of that psych lim.

[Hugh Neilson]

I'm all for this except for one thing: unless it has a massive OPTIONAL RULE tag on it people will assume its obligatory to use it and those of us who want nothing to do with it will get an incessant "you're doing it wrong" whine on the boards, as well as from a certain breed of player who must have mechanics rule everything even when they 1) become cumbersome for speed of play, or 2) make no sense in the absence of the "applied effects test," or 3) don't fit the groups play-style and dynamic. And, IME, even in great groups, you've usually got one of these. They seem generally unavoidable. So, mechanize social interaction away if it blows your skirt up around your ears, but please don't have it be a part of the default rules and label it...

OPTIONAL RULE

I don't see this as any different from every core rule. I am sure you modify these extensively, and are perfectly capable of dealing with any player's attempts to browbeat you into a mechanical application where not appropriate for any of the above reasons.

With that in mind, however, perhaps the book should start with the traditional introduction, then contain a section on "Mandatory Rules". It would read more or less as follows:

PART I
MANDATORY RULES

These are the rules that must be followed to play a game under the Hero system. If you aren't following them, you're doing it wrong!

1. The purpose of the game is to have fun. If a rule interferes with that fun, the rule should not be followed in your game.

2. There are no other mandatory rules.

Ideally, this will be on a left hand page. The facing right hand page should have a nice graphic and the words

PART II
OPTIONAL RULES

[Vulcan]

Most players of any game use the core rules entodo and add optional rules to suit their taste. A new rule that is likely to be ignored by a large portion of the existing players should probably be an optional rule.

I have no problem with you having your social combat system. I just don't want it to be the default rule for the HERO System - at least, not until I've gotten a good look at it and seen how easily it can be used aganist the players (as opposed to against the characters, which is a different issue entirely).

Incidentally, I'm still waiting to see a proposal for a social combat system. Thus far proponents have merely been saying 'Oh, we totally need a social combat system', but no one has put forth even the basics of one for us to look at. Until I can see one peruse it and see how it would fit into my games (both as a GM and as a player), and see how (or even if) it is superior to the current systems in place, I have to base my opinions on the ones I have seen in other games - which, in my opinion, do not work for me.

[Doc Democracy]

Incidentally, I'm still waiting to see a proposal for a social combat system. Thus far proponents have merely been saying 'Oh, we totally need a social combat system', but no one has put forth even the basics of one for us to look at. Until I can see one peruse it and see how it would fit into my games (both as a GM and as a player), and see how (or even if) it is superior to the current systems in place, I have to base my opinions on the ones I have seen in other games - which, in my opinion, do not work for me.

You know. I'd be interested in what a real professional game designer like Steve would come up with more than any of our own amateur ramblings - especially when he is tinkering with the whole system.

As it happens my own group is exploring social contests and found at least two places in our last game where a social contest system would have made it easier for me and the GM to agree on the way forward.

I wanted to establish something in-game and the GM wasn't for shifting his NPCs attitude. Either I climbed down or he did and nothing in-game helped us to resolve it. After the game we had a good talk about the situation and are looking to put mechanics in place that would help this - it currently looks something like, when we come to a thorny place where neither the player or GM is willing to go with the flow - then we step out of game. The player indicates his intent with his current actions, the GM indicates the barriers to that with the NPC. We then decide on appropriate skill choices and carry out the contest - both of us bound to the results of the contest.

As yet we haven't decided on the mechanics of the contest as the system is not particularly detailed on this front (Traveller) but we are looking for something to bolt on.

In the five or six hours we played we could have had one contest - and it would have lasting consequences in game depending on how it turned out as it will make the characters more or less influencial in a particular social group.

If we were playing HERO then we'd be trying to resolve it for that system. I dont have time to do it for two systems at once.


Doc

[nexus]

Incidentally, I'm still waiting to see a proposal for a social combat system. Thus far proponents have merely been saying 'Oh, we totally need a social combat system', but no one has put forth even the basics of one for us to look at

.

Proponents have been suggesting more developed mechanics for social resolution not necessarily a "social combat system". That has been at least a large part something brought up by those antagonistic to the idea of expanded mechanics for Interaction skills and social situations*. I can definitely say that I am not advocating "social combat" or modeling any expanded social interaction rules on the physical combat model and I don't think anyone else is insisting on that (I won't discard it as possibility though). What you've said is therefore a sweeping generalization and not a very accurate one.

I, personally, have made suggestions for how the expanded rules might work or directions that could grow in but not a full system because I am not a professional game designer, I'm not being paid to do so and anything I whipped up on a moment's notice to post in the comment thread likely wouldn't be very good. This is a thread for suggested improvements for Hero System 6th Edition not to write it. That will be up to Steve Long and anyone he brings in. Any suggestions seen in a thread like this would be sketchy, Not play tested and bare bones at best and probably wouldn't even show up. Not something to base an opinion on.

Most are not arguing for any expanded mechanics to be "mandatory" (at least no more than anything else is), some (myself included) have concede that such rules could be included in a expansion published at a later date.

*There are already "mechanics" for social interaction what most of those advocates for expansion are saying is that feel they are too vague and fiat driven to be useful for making Interaction skills as interesting and developed as physical combat.

[AnotherSkip]

I'm all for this except for one thing: unless it has a massive OPTIONAL RULE tag on it people will assume its obligatory to use it and those of us who want nothing to do with it will get an incessant "you're doing it wrong" whine on the boards, as well as from a certain breed of player who must have mechanics rule everything even when they 1) become cumbersome for speed of play, or 2) make no sense in the absence of the "applied effects test," or 3) don't fit the groups play-style and dynamic. And, IME, even in great groups, you've usually got one of these. They seem generally unavoidable. So, mechanize social interaction away if it blows your skirt up around your ears, but please don't have it be a part of the default rules and label it...

OPTIONAL RULE

Personally i think it works for the whole book. (IIRC Steve does too)

[Markdoc]

I don't see this as any different from every core rule. I am sure you modify these extensively, and are perfectly capable of dealing with any player's attempts to browbeat you into a mechanical application where not appropriate for any of the above reasons.

You are - either deliberately or not - completely missing the point. Yes, every GM modifies the core rules slightly. That's a completely different situation from optional rules like impairing or bleeding or LTE, which many GM's never use, and most players don't even know exist.

It would be a totally different situation if those rules were not clearly labelled optional.

Saying "All rules are optional, so just dump in any old thing in the book - GM's can choose what they use" essentially means you are providing a "build your own game system" toolkit, not Hero system. The latter sells. The former, not so much.

cheers, Mark

[Doc Democracy]

It would be a totally different situation if those rules were not clearly labelled optional.

At the very least, I think 6th edition should beef up the current options for social interaction and when (and how) the GM should resort to dice rolling.

I think there would be a place for advanced options that were indeed optional as you look at it. However, rules for social interaction using current skills, PRE and COM in a more codified form should IMO be core to 6th edition...


Doc

[The Main Man]

At the very least, I think 6th edition should beef up the current options for social interaction and when (and how) the GM should resort to dice rolling.

I think there would be a place for advanced options that were indeed optional as you look at it. However, rules for social interaction using current skills, PRE and COM in a more codified form should IMO be core to 6th edition...

Doc

To me, it's rather in the spirit of steamlining.

[Vondy]

You know, most of that rationalisation also works for physical combat as well...

Well, there are a lot of OPTIONAL rules in the (physical) combat system already - and they are clearly marked as such. That was the point. This sort of addenda should follow the same pattern.

[The Main Man]

I think that that's fair enough a request.