Jump to content

Social effects


Recommended Posts

I was part of the Great Social Conflict Debate (second only to the Great COM debate) which I believe may define 5th edition in the way the Great Linked Debate defined 4th. :)

 

Anyway. This morning while lying in bed waiting for my son to wake up and demand attention I was flicking through the disadvantage pages of the rulebook. I always liked the idea of using drains to 'add' disadvantages and, as such, all characters in my campaigns have all disadvantages at 0 points (so they do not disadvantage but they are available to be drained into full blown disadvantages).

 

Now, having given some thought to social conflict etc, I like the idea that there could be short lived changes to character attitudes inflicted over the short term. These would be less acute than power use but possibly more chronic.

 

There are lots of examples in fiction where the protagonists are convinced of some impossible for the reader to countenance belief that leads to actions that would not be rational beforehand being undertaken. How does HERO manage such things?

 

Well. How about using PRE attacks or a more developed option with some social manouevres to impose very limited disadvantages (only within the social type disads such as rivalries and psych limitations).

 

This would make characters believe certain things (The Blood foundation does good works) which might make them more vulnerable to more power related commands later on (Brother Blood is the saviour of the world and the sacrfice of Starfire is a necessary evil).

 

I would imagine the effects being limited to what you might achieve via 1x INT on Mind Control and be an all or nothing style transformation where the belief will be broken by the right evidence or by a friend being more successful in social conflict than the original attacker.

 

I haven't got a detailed mechanism as yet but I am looking to expand the current options to give players and GMs something more to work on when they are looking at situations where characters (PCs and NPCs conflict and neither player or GM want to concede ground).

 

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 384
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Re: Social effects

 

I am not opposed to having some sort of "hard" social resolution available for those who want it. But, based on how you are describing this, I am left with a fundamental question: if the GM can dictate attitudes and beliefs of Player Characters based on his plot needs via a mechanic why do we have players running characters at all? It seems reasonable in terms of genre simulation. In terms of its impact in terms of actual play, and the cardinal rule that characters belong to their players, its a chilling idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

I am not opposed to having some sort of "hard" social resolution available for those who want it. But' date=' based on how you are describing this, I am left with a fundamental question: if the GM can dictate attitudes and beliefs of Player Characters based on his plot needs via a mechanic why do we have players running characters at all? It seems reasonable in terms of genre simulation. In terms of its impact in terms of actual play, and the cardinal rule that characters belong to their players, its a chilling idea.[/quote']

 

Not the slant I'm hoping to take with the thread but they can already do it with a mechanic - Mind Control. If the GM wants something then they can do it, either by physical force or by mental coercion.

 

In other words, if the GM wants to be an idiot then the rules already allow for that. What I am hoping to do is provide another way to play out lower level social conflicts.

 

The player already roleplays the attitudes of his character. If something in game changes those attitudes then it does not mean that they will take a specific action, it means that they will take action based on the character's current beliefs and attitudes.

 

The GM already controls the player's access to the world - the player cannot utilise the firehose unless the GM tells him it is there. The player cannot capture the villain unless the GM tells him that his attacks have been successful and the villain unconscious. What is so bad about telling the player that his character believes the NPC when he says that the Blood Corporation is a socially responsible organisation with the benefits of mankind at their core?

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

I haven't got a detailed mechanism as yet but I am looking to expand the current options to give players and GMs something more to work on when they are looking at situations where characters (PCs and NPCs conflict and neither player or GM want to concede ground).

 

My own feeling was - and remains - that if the GM has set things up so poorly that the NPCs present the PCs with a social conflict that the players simply cannot accept, then providing the GM with tools where he can simply force the players to behave "appropriately" isn't gonna help.

 

If the GM wants the PCs believe certain things (The Blood foundation does good works) then it should not be at all difficult to make the players believe that as well - or at least provide enough doubt, that the players don't have their PCs run shrieking at the name. In that case the second point (Brother Blood is the saviour of the world and the sacrfice of Starfire is a necessary evil) can be extrapolated from there.

 

I've had players sacrifice their characters for "the greater good" or even "the party" before (Mike Surbrook - Susano on these boards - sacrificed his PC so the rest of the party could escape safely with Prince Heihachiro, for example), so that's not beyond the bounds of possibility at all.

 

But forcing the PCs to work with the Blood foundation even though the players know it's a front? Forcing them to sacrifice a PC - or even an NPC -even though the players know it's not a good thing? And - worst of all - insisting the PCs do it "of their own volition"?

 

These are ideas so terrible, any sensible GM would cringe at the concept. If you have player buy-in, these things are possible. But then you don't need to force them. If you don't have player buy-in, forcing them is a really, really, dreadful idea. A roleplaying game is a cooperative venture, not a novel. If the GM wants to control the actions of all parties involved, he should just write a novel.

 

cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

The GM already controls the player's access to the world - the player cannot utilise the firehose unless the GM tells him it is there. The player cannot capture the villain unless the GM tells him that his attacks have been successful and the villain unconscious. What is so bad about telling the player that his character believes the NPC when he says that the Blood Corporation is a socially responsible organisation with the benefits of mankind at their core?

 

Because the first two examples are the GM doing his job - adjudicating the "external" interaction between the PC/player and the rest of the world. The last example is the GM also doing the player's job - adjudicating the PC's "internal" landscape.

 

If the GM is not only describing the world to the player, but also telling him what his reaction is to it, what's the player there for? To roll dice? The GM can use a dice-rolling program for that, while everyone else goes out for pizza.

 

cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

My PC, a minor noble in the Imperium, is in a situation where he has boarded a Navy warcraft. He insists he is bringing a matter of urgency to the Imperium, the Navy insists that it is arresting him for being in a restricted area.

 

When Sir Gabriel gets on board the vessel he takes the attitude of how he should be treated by the crew and for some time the GM is cool with that. Sir Gabriel will not however surrender his weapons to the junior members of the crew. The junior member of the crew will not allow Sir Gabriel to meet the captain until he has surrendered his weapons.

 

Now, meta-game, I am trying to establish Sir Gabriel as someone to be reckoned with socially, not outside the background of the game nor the character. This is an important point in the game. The GM does not want to roll over and let me walk over his NPC without reason, I don't want Sir Gabriel to lose face without reason. Neither of us wants to push it to physical violence (and possible character death).

 

How do we resolve it? (I've kept it system neutral to allow a variety of responses to this if possible). To me this is a prime example of where a social conflict resolution would be useful. It is too important for a single dice roll - the implications of success or defeat will resonate through the rest of this campaign arc.

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

If the GM is not only describing the world to the player' date=' but also telling him what his reaction is to it, what's the player there for? To roll dice? The GM can use a dice-rolling program while everyone else goes out for pizza.[/quote']

 

You mean the character is not part of the world?

 

The player's role is to define the characters actions based on the input that the GM provides. I am saying that this input could usefully be extended to social inputs as well as physical ones.

 

Dice rolling is not what the player is there for, it is to tell the GM what actions the character will take in the circumstances described.

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

 

The GM already controls the player's access to the world - the player cannot utilise the firehose unless the GM tells him it is there. The player cannot capture the villain unless the GM tells him that his attacks have been successful and the villain unconscious. What is so bad about telling the player that his character believes the NPC when he says that the Blood Corporation is a socially responsible organization with the benefits of mankind at their core?

 

Doc

 

Insofar as the player can articulate why their character doesn't believe a particular premise I have a real problem with it. If I wanted to run my games in such a manner that I controlled the player characters beyond access to the information that forms the perception I'd go write a novel and skip player involvement.

 

Obviously, if the player is metagaming, you put it on the table and talk about it. But if they aren't, or they perceive the scenario differently than the GM does (frequent enough), then railroading their attitudes and perceptions is uncalled for and out of bounds. There is a world of difference between telling a (presumably good) player "he genuinely seems not to know anything about it," or 2) "you believe him when he tells you he knows nothing about it."

 

If I were a player the first would lead me to 1) accept the man's outward innocence, or 2) tell the GM why I'm operating under a different assumption. The second would lead me to pack my bags and find someone else to play with. And I'm not a player. I'm a typecast GM.

 

I would add, while mind control is apropos for modelling explicit effects native to some genres, it is not appropos to all genres, and its presence as a means of modelling those genre specific effects does not in of itself mean that some broad meta-rule allowing an explicit management of a characters attitudes and beliefs is apropos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

I would add' date=' while mind control is apropos for modelling explicit effects native to some genres, it is not appropos to all genres, and its presence as a means of modelling those genre specific effects does not in of itself mean that some broad meta-rule allowing an explicit management of a characters attitudes and beliefs is apropos.[/quote']

 

So how does the GM achieve that fictional staple of someone convincing a protagonist of something that is patently false to the viewers? If even limited mind control is out of the question (and that is the mechanic in the game) then what is used? The GM could (as Markdoc suggested) simply set things up so that the players believe (and then stab them in the back so that they never believe anything you say again) or convince the players (which only really works if the GM is as silver tongued as the NPC (not a common occurence among the GMs I have played with)

 

There is a stock level of NPC distrust among players and they will hedge bets as long as possible. As a GM it can often waste the game (and it only takes one player to do it to ruin it for everyone).

 

I would like to be able to tell the player that his character believes something to be true and ask the player to act appropriately. I have no intention of dictating the character's actions.

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

 

The player's role is to define the characters actions based on the input that the GM provides. I am saying that this input could usefully be extended to social inputs as well as physical ones.

 

There is a world of difference between controlling the flow of information that forms the player's perceptions of what his character is experiencing and telling the player what those perceptions are. Additionally, I don't by into a direct mechanical corollary between physical perceptions and mental conclusions. Physical perceptions are the direct result of quantitative information collected by the five senses. Mental conclusions are what the mind does with that information and is heavily influenced by a morass of qualia unique to the individual that form the basis of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Education, Unique Life Experience, Mental Acuity, Personality, and Worldview are only a handful of those qualia. Having hard-resolution mechanics for quantitative physical reality makes perfect sense. Having them for managing an individual's conclusions about that reality, however, impacts the play experience negatively as it violates one of the cardinal rules. Gamemaster's should be managing perceptions via the flow of information and eloquent prose, not via ramrod.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

So how does the GM achieve that fictional staple of someone convincing a protagonist of something that is patently false to the viewers? If even limited mind control is out of the question (and that is the mechanic in the game) then what is used? The GM could (as Markdoc suggested) simply set things up so that the players believe (and then stab them in the back so that they never believe anything you say again) or convince the players (which only really works if the GM is as silver tongued as the NPC (not a common occurence among the GMs I have played with)

 

There is a stock level of NPC distrust among players and they will hedge bets as long as possible. As a GM it can often waste the game (and it only takes one player to do it to ruin it for everyone).

 

I would like to be able to tell the player that his character believes something to be true and ask the player to act appropriately. I have no intention of dictating the character's actions.

 

Doc

 

The answer is that roleplaying is something else than books, movies and TV series. You just have to work with the medium you have. There's not many players out there who appreciate being railroaded by the GM, even if it's through the presentation of the world.

 

And if your players have trust issues, then maybe you just have to talk to them about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

The answer is that roleplaying is something else than books' date=' movies and TV series. You just have to work with the medium you have. There's not many players out there who appreciate being railroaded by the GM.[/quote']

 

And a social contest resolution system just provides a different way that a GM might railroad players, it does not suddenly introduce the possibility.

 

As a player, I have trust issues....it isn't to do with the GM, though I trust some more than others. It is, IME, common among players to distrust the motives of NPCs, especially ones recently introduced by the GM, regardless of the provenance of those NPCs.

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

So how does the GM achieve that fictional staple of someone convincing a protagonist of something that is patently false to the viewers? If even limited mind control is out of the question (and that is the mechanic in the game) then what is used? The GM could (as Markdoc suggested) simply set things up so that the players believe (and then stab them in the back so that they never believe anything you say again) or convince the players (which only really works if the GM is as silver tongued as the NPC (not a common occurence among the GMs I have played with)

 

Role playing games are not works of fiction. A direct simulation is not possible or desirable. The game-master does not control the player characters the way a writer control's a protagonist. Nor should they. It isn't their character. Writing is a solitary event run by the author's regnant pen. Gaming is a social event run on mutual consensus.

 

As a result you have two choices: 1) know your limitations and run games that don't require more silver than your tongue has, or 2) find players who are into that kind of story and want to play along to start with. A good player will try to husband the story along insofar as he finds the way the game-master framed a character or situation plausible and left him with some wiggle room to actually play his character.

 

Not all players, or game-masters, are created equal. Its better to accept personal limitations than go looking for a hammer (IMO).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Now, meta-game, I am trying to establish Sir Gabriel as someone to be reckoned with socially, not outside the background of the game nor the character. This is an important point in the game. The GM does not want to roll over and let me walk over his NPC without reason, I don't want Sir Gabriel to lose face without reason. Neither of us wants to push it to physical violence (and possible character death).

 

How do we resolve it? (I've kept it system neutral to allow a variety of responses to this if possible). To me this is a prime example of where a social conflict resolution would be useful. It is too important for a single dice roll - the implications of success or defeat will resonate through the rest of this campaign arc.

 

Doc

 

Actually, I have had a similar situation in my current game, with Lamoniak - a noble. I used social skill rolls (and PRE attacks) to feed information to the player - for example "You realise now that he is cowed, but he is not going to back down. Now he's really uncomfortable - maybe it'd be a good idea to find some way for him to save face". The PC then has a variety of options - he can try bullying the man into submission (possibly making a long-term enemy). He can leave in high dudgeon (possibly still making an enemy and at any rate, abandoning what he was trying to do). He can try to take it up the chain of command - using social skills on a different approach than "Let me retain my weapon". He can try to maneuver things to a face saving solution. Which of those things he does, and what options he has depends on his PRE, his social skill set and the player's intentions.

 

The worst outcome, from my point of view, would be making a dice roll (or even 6 dice rolls) and telling the player "Lamoniak decides to back down and hands over his weapon".

 

 

For the record, what he did after Persuasion, Acting + High Society and a PRE attack had all failed, was persuade the guard to summon a superior and then surrender his weapon to that man, a social better to the guard, if not exactly a peer. That established him as a noble, flaunted his status - and saved face. It also - equally important to me as GM - made Lamoniak's player realise that he couldn't always bully his way to what he wants (though he often does, and that's fine), and, in addition, got across to the players that the boss in this particular case was a harsh disciplinarian. A simple dice off would not have gotten these two points across because it would have introduced the element of random chance, together with the idea that he could have gotten his way if he had just rolled better.

 

 

cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Actually' date=' I have had a similar situation in my current game, with Lamoniak - a noble. I used social skill rolls (and PRE attacks) to feed information to the player - for example "[i']You realise now that he is cowed, but he is not going to back down. Now he's really uncomfortable - maybe it'd be a good idea to find some way for him to save face[/i]".

 

So you rolled a few dice and told the player that he would not be successful - if the dice had fallen the other way then the NPC would have accepted the situation?

 

You have finessed the current mechanics to do something along the lines that I am proposing (though we haven't discussed mechanics, just the idea that there should be any social conflict resolution).

 

The PC then has a variety of options - he can try bullying the man into submission (possibly making a long-term enemy). He can leave in high dudgeon (possibly still making an enemy and at any rate' date=' abandoning what he was trying to do). [/quote']

 

How do you try to bully the man? And would such bullying be open to the NPC as well?

 

He can try to take it up the chain of command - using social skills on a different approach than "Let me retain my weapon". He can try to maneuver things to a face saving solution. Which of those things he does' date=' and what options he has depends on his PRE, his social skill set and the player's intentions.[/quote']

 

So there are dice rolling mechanisms open to the player but nothing binding on his character, just on the NPCs?

 

The worst outcome' date=' from my point of view, would be making a dice roll (or even 6 dice rolls) and telling the player "[i']Lamoniak decides to back down and hands over his weapon[/i]".

 

The end result that I would suggest is being able to say to the player that there is no way the NPC will back down despite his very best efforts - and have that not feel as if it is simply by GM fiat regardless of the character's abilities.

 

It would be for the player to decide that he has exhausted all possible avenues except for handing over the weapon.

 

 

For the record' date=' what he did after Persuasion, Acting + High Society and a PRE attack had all failed, was persuade the guard to summon a superior and then surrender his weapon to [b']that[/b] man, a social better to the guard, if not exactly a peer.

 

But how did he persuade the guard? Could the guard have persuaded him instead?

 

That established him as a noble' date=' flaunted his status - and saved face. It also - equally important to me as GM - made Lamoniak's player realise that he couldn't always bully his way to what he wants (though he often does, and that's fine), and, in addition, got across to the players that the boss in this particular case was a harsh disciplinarian. A simple dice off would not have gotten these two points across because it would have introduced the element of random chance, together with the idea that he [b']could[/b] have gotten his way if he had just rolled better.

 

A set of rolls that were roleplayed, or a resolution system that encouraged the information flow would have achieved that and I would like to reitirate, I am not suggesting a couple of simple rolls.

 

I would like to work toward a system that could be presented to new GMs to aid them in using the system.

 

 

 

 

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Yes. Accepting ones limitations is better than alienating one's players.

 

False dichotomy (IMO obviously)

 

I think that with the proper tools it should be possible for a system to facilitate a GM to run this kind of thing rather than rely on their own social skills to do the job that the NPCs should be doing on the characters....

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

And some GMs skills in these areas are pretty dire. How do they manage it? Just decide to restrict the kind of plots they run?

 

The others have already answered this more eloquently than I can, but yes. A GM who cannot build up and sustain suspense is going to run a crap game where suspense is supposed to play an important part. Telling the players "Your PCs are tense and nervous" just doesn't cut it.

 

Likewise, if the player wants to run a game of social intrigue and witty barbed repartee, he or she needs to be able to carry at least some of that. Rolling dice and saying "She makes a witty retort and you are dejected: roll under your angst or acquire a neurosis" is going to lose its novelty after the first 20 minutes or so.

 

It cuts both ways: I've played with GMs who are terrible at running combat: they get easily flustered, the PCs trash their NPCs with ease, they lose track of who's where ... those GM's should not try to run combat heavy games, IMO. I kept playing in one such game, because the GM in question was really good at background: the game was entertaining because of interplay between the players, the PCs and NPCs. In short, the payoff was the plot and the buildup to combat, not the actual fights themselves - which made up 10% or less of actual gaming time and tended to be short and brutal (particularly for the NPCs).

 

Personally, I would have welcomed a bit more threat, and challenge, but providing that GM with rules to allow him to control PC actions in combat, so that we didn't slaughter his NPCs, would not have been helpful to anyone.

 

cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Role playing games are not works of fiction.

 

Nor are they fantasy fulfillment.

 

Players currently can ignore the character's pain, embarrassment or anything else as long as they get the action the player wants.

 

This plays along with the pain ray thread. The character feels pain, the player decides the character is big and strong enough to brave the pain and keep charging the barricade. The character feels more pain than any mortal should be able to ignore. Big deal - victory is just around the corner - the player decides the character will ignore that pain and keep going.

 

Currently the player has a big veto that does not go along with the 'role' playing idea - they can decide on a whim to ignore the role and play the game rather than the role whenever they want.

 

If skills such as persuasion and seduction do not persuade or seduce then why spend points on them?

 

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Likewise' date=' if the player wants to run a game of social intrigue and witty barbed repartee, he or she needs to be able to carry at least some of that. Rolling dice and saying "[i']She makes a witty retort and you are dejected: roll under your angst or acquire a neurosis[/i]" is going to lose its novelty after the first 20 minutes or so.

 

In such a game both the GM and players have to carry all of it, without any way to measure success or failure...

 

It cuts both ways: I've played with GMs who are terrible at running combat: they get easily flustered' date=' the PCs trash their NPCs with ease, they lose track of who's where ... those GM's should not try to run combat heavy games, IMO. [/quote']

 

And yet you dont suggest that they simply scrap combat mechanisms because of this - surely with a good GM and good players there would be no need to detail this kind of thing - the GM would be able to adjudicate the results through good player description of their actions and the GM could describe what happened because of this???

 

Doc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

Nor are they fantasy fulfillment.

 

Players currently can ignore the character's pain, embarrassment or anything else as long as they get the action the player wants.

 

This plays along with the pain ray thread. The character feels pain, the player decides the character is big and strong enough to brave the pain and keep charging the barricade. The character feels more pain than any mortal should be able to ignore. Big deal - victory is just around the corner - the player decides the character will ignore that pain and keep going.

 

Currently the player has a big veto that does not go along with the 'role' playing idea - they can decide on a whim to ignore the role and play the game rather than the role whenever they want.

 

If skills such as persuasion and seduction do not persuade or seduce then why spend points on them?

 

 

Doc

 

Bad role playing does not excuse bad game-mastering.

 

Both remain just that: Bad.

 

If you have bad players maybe you should look for better ones.

 

The same way I've gone looking for better game-masters on occasion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

The answer is that roleplaying is something else than books, movies and TV series. You just have to work with the medium you have. There's not many players out there who appreciate being railroaded by the GM, even if it's through the presentation of the world.

 

And if your players have trust issues, then maybe you just have to talk to them about it.

 

I'd also like to point out how many times viewers watch a character uncritically accept something that they--the viewers--know, or have good reason to suspect, is obviously untrue. And the character does so because otherwise the plot wouldn't work. The technical term for this is an "idiot plot" because it only works when the character is an idiot.

 

Explicit mind control by an NPC is one thing--the character gets to try to resist, then succumbs to overt influence. He knows he's being manipulated even if (in the moment) his character doesn't. A game mechanic for compelling a character to behave in a fashion other than the player would freely choose in the absence of such an in-game effect isn't going to sit well with most players in most games.

 

There are exceptions. The indy game "Dogs In The Vineyard" is explicitly designed to have lasting effects (including changes of attitudes, behaviors and values) on characters. But of course the players know that going in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Social effects

 

So you rolled a few dice and told the player that he would not be successful - if the dice had fallen the other way then the NPC would have accepted the situation?

 

No. The NPC in this case had very firm, very clear orders and a good idea of the consequences if he disobeyed. Short of directly threatening his life, he was not going to give way. In that situation, good social skills don't translate into mind control, but they give the player feedback, on how things are going. In short Søren (Lamoniak's player) was left in no doubt that "This guy is really squirming, he's really miserable, but he's refusing anyway". A character with poorer social skills might have been fed a simple "He refuses. No, you don't know why. Maybe he's just a total douche".

 

An analogy might be skills like tactics or deduction. When a player makes a deduction roll, I don't say "OK, here's the plot". I give him hints and help, I point out things the PC could know or should know and the player might have forgotten. Social skills the same. Good (and appropriate) social skills should give player more options - and IMO - more information, so those options are better directed. The players know this, so they have learned to trust the outcomes.

 

You have finessed the current mechanics to do something along the lines that I am proposing (though we haven't discussed mechanics' date=' just the idea that there should be any social conflict resolution).[/quote']

 

Again, my golden rule is that depending on the rolls, both NPCs and PCs will get information, or not, and depending on the rolls, I give myself (as GM) a licence to present honest information (or not). The one thing I do not give myself licence to do is dictate.

 

How do you try to bully the man? And would such bullying be open to the NPC as well?

 

Depends how it's done. Conversation and Persuasion are for the most part, "soft" social skills, IMO. Interrogation and PRE attacks are for the most part "hard" social skills. Using a PRE attack (depending on context) will usually - but not always - be seen as bullying: but in some contexts, it can be seen as inspiring, instead. Interrogation for example, could be used in a soft fashion, if the PC in question was playing "good cop". Persuasion could be seen as bullying, if the PC kept pushing the same points over and over. Just like in real life, what constitutes bullying is highly context dependant.

 

And yes, such bullying could be open to an NPC as well.

 

So there are dice rolling mechanisms open to the player but nothing binding on his character' date=' just on the NPCs?[/quote']

 

Nope, as I have said over and over in precursor threads, I believe strongly that the rules should apply more or less the same to PCs and NPCs. The difference is, that I make the decision for NPCs, the players make them for PCs.

 

The end result that I would suggest is being able to say to the player that there is no way the NPC will back down despite his very best efforts - and have that not feel as if it is simply by GM fiat regardless of the character's abilities.

 

It would be for the player to decide that he has exhausted all possible avenues except for handing over the weapon.

 

That *is* pretty much how I approached it - although in social conflict, there is almost always another option.

 

 

 

 

But how did he persuade the guard? Could the guard have persuaded him instead?

 

Possibly: the Guard could not have forced him to disarm, but if he had been a real smoothie,or had rolled really well, I would have started feeding the player lines like "Now everyone's looking at you like you're total jerk" or "This is no big deal - if you were in his place, you would expect the same, wouldn't you?" "Maybe you're simply being unreasonable?" etc. In other words, place the player on the defensive - make him feel that he should disarm.

 

But do so reasonably. Lamoniak tried to steamroller the guard - because he's done similar things successfully in the past. The fact that he couldn't, in this case, sends a specific message.

 

A set of rolls that were roleplayed, or a resolution system that encouraged the information flow would have achieved that and I would like to reitirate, I am not suggesting a couple of simple rolls.

 

I would like to work toward a system that could be presented to new GMs to aid them in using the system

.

 

Totally agree. More options, more information - all these are good things, in my view. Extended contests are another favoured option.

 

Requiring specific actions or enforcing "beliefs" - all bad, IMO.

 

 

 

cheers, Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...