Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

[archermoo]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

The "or bad" part of that bothers me' date=' by the way, and meant to say earlier - we don't penalize using an Energy Blast or STR for "bad roleplaying" and I don't believe the rules indicate to do such. It ought be managed consistently (and, yes, I'm fine with the alternative of simply allowing decrementing effect dice in general for bad roleplaying - but it does need to be clarified if it's effect dice or to-hit dice for these things, I'd assume effect dice to balance better between skills and powers).[/quote']

 

True, but they can get penalized for bad tactics or bad usage.

[archermoo]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Noting that it is a house rule' date=' but I'll occasionally give a bonus to a maneuver or power based on good role playing. I can't remember having handed out a penalty based on poor role playing, and I understand your point, but I see no reason why role play shouldn't make a difference in combat.[/quote']

 

It is certainly in the rules to give OCV bonuses for surprising or well done moves.

[rmccarty4]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

One thing that appeals about a more structured way to resolve social interactions is that it more clearly defines the point at which you may want to, uhh, change the game by shifting from a Social conflict to a Physical/Mental conflict.

That is, when to punch the lights out of the speaker that's cleaning your clock in the battle of words. After all, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, but when you're down to your last refuge...

[archermoo]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

After all' date=' violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, but when you're down to your last refuge...[/quote']

 

Never liked that quote. Violence is the FIRST refuge of the incompetent, not the lst.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

... To potentially fix it but still take a more dice based approach to Interaction skills, a GM could come up with a series of die rolls needed to achieve a desired social result.

 

For some really interesting weirdness, give a character

• 
  Mojo (Social Body) = (Ego).
  Cool (Social Stun) = (1/2 COM + 1/2 PRE + Mojo).
  Groovy (Social Rec) = (PRE/5 + COM/5).
  Funky (Social Defense) = (PRE/5).
  Wit (Social CV) = (INT/3).

 

Roll your Wit +11 or less: the number you make it by is the Wit you hit.

 

You do (PRE/5)d6 damage, +1d6 for every 2 points you make any interaction skill roll by (the skill in question determines just what you're trying to do; complimentary skill rolls may be permitted by GM's permission.

 

Subtract (the total rolled on the PRE attack dice - Funky) from the characters Cool, and (the Body rolled on the PRE attack dice - Funky) from the character's Mojo. If your Cool=0, you give in to the other character this once. If your Mojo=0, you are socially dead, and must give in to the other characters demands until you receive therapy or otherwise recover your lost Mojo. Cool is regained at a rate of Groovy per turn. Mojo is regained at a rate of Groovy per month.

 

There, a very Hero solution.

Nicely done.

My take on it is similar, and goes like this:

 

 

Physical Characteristics (for reference, as they are unchanged)

 

Strength (STR) - Physical Power

 

Dexterity (DEX) - Physical Agility

 

Body (BODY) - Physical Structure

 

Physical Combat Value (PCV) unchanged

 

Physical Defense (PD) unchanged

Energy Defense (ED) unchanged

 

 

Mental Characteristics

 

Ego (EGO) - Mental Power

 

Intelligence (INT) - Mental Agility

 

Stun (STUN) - Mental Structure

 

Mental Combat Value (MCV) = INT/3 (based on the mental agility value, just as PCV is based on the physical agility value)

 

Mental Defense (MD) = EGO/5 (based on the mental power value, just as PD is based on the physical power value)

 

 

Social Characteristics

 

Presence (PRE) - Social Power unchanged

 

Manipulation (MAN) - Social Agility

Manipulation represents a character's ability to react to changing social situations, read people/crowds and "fast talk."

 

Composure (COM) - Social Structure

Composure represents how much social damage (embarassment, bad vibes, etc) a character can take before losing control and making an a$$ of yourself (probably allow an EGO roll to avoid saying something stupid).

 

Social Combat Value (SCV) = MAN/3

 

Social Defense (SD) = PRE/5

 

 

 

END and REC is used for all conflicts. Note that Composure is only your own personal grace and cool, not your social standing. That is something outside the character, and is better modeled with one or more Perks and associated social environment skills (High Society, Streetwise, etc.)

 

With this setup, you can run mental and social conflicts exactly the same way as physical ones. Of course, I have not yet come up with mental or social maneuver tables yet, and those are needed to make this work.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

One thing that appeals about a more structured way to resolve social interactions is that it more clearly defines the point at which you may want to, uhh, change the game by shifting from a Social conflict to a Physical/Mental conflict.

That is, when to punch the lights out of the speaker that's cleaning your clock in the battle of words.

In the middle of an on-field argument with opposing player Art Fletcher, baseball Hall-of-Famer (and renowned jackass) Rogers Hornsby suddenly belted Fletcher in the mouth. When asked by a reporter after the game why he had decked Fletcher, Hornsby replied seriously, "Well, I wasn't getting anywhere arguing with him."

 

[BNakagawa]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

A long, long time ago, I was working on a pc game based on Champions.

 

When this issue came up regarding the use of negotiations on NPCs we came to the conclusion that simply rolling PRE attacks or social skill rolls was unsatisfactory.

 

One solution we tried was to create a grid stretching between two portraits, one of the PC, the other the NPC. The number of points between the two was indicative of the maximum degree of difficulty to reach a positive accommodation.

 

Given that certain approaches or techniques would be more effective than the worst case, some rows would be partially filled in. If a particular NPC was extremely receptive to soft sell techniques, then the higher rows would be mostly filled in. If a NPC was vulnerable to hard-sell techniques, then the lower rows would be mostly filled in.

 

Then when you chose your approach, the program would roll your seduction roll, your PRE attack or whatever else your PC had that represented that approach and based on the die rolls, the NPCs personality profile and other stuff, boxes would be filled in or taken away. After a number of rounds, the results would be either good bad or indifferent, based on the NPC, the situation and other stuff.

 

I'm not sure how I'd model this in a real-time RPG, but that's the approach we played with as a computer game.

[zornwil]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Some pretty neat ideas, I like the expansion to OddHat's and BNakagawa's in addition to what was said earlier.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

As Lucius mentioned, we have here a role playing game, and you can't really stage combats and such, which is why we have detailed rules for doing that. If we had equally detailed rules for the social situations then I'm not sure we'd be role playing so much as playing a really freeform board game. With an imaginary board.

 

We can already model the irresistable persuader (mind control RSR: Conversation), and role playing coupled with skill rolls works well enough for NPCs.

 

The problem is we can't MAKE other PCs do stuff...

 

Well, I'm not sure I like the idea of social combat because I don't think it is as easily reduced to numbers as physical combat, which really has a tiny number of possible outcomes and a relatively limtied number of strategies and approaches compared to the complesities of social interaction.

 

I think that this can al be fixed, however, using existing mechanics, or something very like them. That and proper preparation.

 

First NPCs.

 

If I am building a VIPER guard, I don;t want to have to give him hight social interactions kills so that the players don't persuade him to nip over the road and buy them some orange sherbert. He's NOT going to leave that post if he's been told not to in most situations, so, first off I need to have an idea of what sort of social interaction he would be susceptible to.

 

He would leave his post if he received new orders. OK, so some sort of bluff might work against him, but he'd have to beleive that the orders were actually coming from someone who could give them; a player dressed in a Viper uniform could march up, tell him he is relieved and order him to report to the Commander. That might work. He could get a message over the radio from 'The Commander' - that might work. Both of those are bluffs that require a bit of set up. If a PC marches up, dressed as Captain Cosmic, and says that he is in fact The Viper Leader in disguise pulling an emergency inspection, the guard is NOT going to be fooled. So, first off this sort of situation requires an appropriate approach. Without that, it is doomed.

 

Second it is a high risk strategy. If the persuade roll (or whatever) doesn't do so well, he may get suspicious. Let us face it this guy has orders to stay there and not let anyone without appropriate ID through, and report all movements through the gate. If yuo are trying to get him to deviate from those orders, he is going to ake his opposed roll at a substantial bonus. If you can somehow work out what the orders were and USE them, he won't. So research can be important.

 

Finally if the GM plain doesn't want you to get in that way, it may eb that the guard checked The Commander out 5 minutes ago, so he knows that the 'orders' are false, and raises the alarm - or tries to.

 

So, with NPCs a GM needs a good idea of what they are 'programmed' to do in game. Anything that works with that may well work, anything working against it...well, is going to have a harder time.

 

The actual success or failure is still based on a skill roll (opposed, probably, by the Guard's PS: Guard skill), and the exact words are assumed to be part of the roll - no silver tongued players running riot - but the approach and set up WILL garner bonuses and penalties that are vital to success.

 

PCs are more difficult, because you CAN require them to act in a certain way as a result of social skills used on them, but they tend to get stroppy if you do. IME the more experienced role players don't have a problem with this, often. usde the skill rolls against them not as compulsions, but to give role playing cues - you believe him - he seems genuine - you think he has an ulterior motive - whatever.

 

One 'trick' here is have the player roll to resist a social skill - if their own roll 'fails' then, IME, they are more willing to go along with it.

 

On a more far reaching level, consider assigning 50 disadvantage points to 'PC personality'. This is a new category, but very much like (and overlapping to an extent) with psychological limitations. The player can define personality flaws; has to. So, for instance, it wouldn't be something like 'stubborn' - that would be a psych lim - but it would be something like 'attracted to red heads', or 'always follows orders without question'.

 

Then if approached by an attractive redhead he is more likely to be fooled, and if given orders he's more likely to follow them - because he has points for them as disadvantages.

 

This personality suite can and should be a dynamic thing, changing with the character over time (not just when it suits), and should be susceptible to appropriate research by others.

 

Moreover, unlike psych lims, you can't get round it with an Ego roll - it IS your Ego in many ways. If you want to overcome your personality the GM might allow you to on a 8-, with appropriate situational modifiers.

 

Of course all this is just a way of selling the idea of comlpiance with NPC social skills to the players, but then that is what social skill use is all about

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Finally if the GM plain doesn't want you to get in that way' date=' it may eb that the guard checked The Commander out 5 minutes ago, so he knows that the 'orders' are false, and raises the alarm - or tries to.[/quote']

 

Sod the GM! I'd rather not do it the way the GM wants, often times it makes things easier! Of course there are the times when it makes it very much more difficult! You gotta know your GM too...

 

 

One 'trick' here is have the player roll to resist a social skill - if their own roll 'fails' then' date=' IME, they are more willing to go along with it.[/quote']

 

This is inspired though.

 

I will make sure that all rolls possible in future are rolled by the players rather than NPCs. I think that I might even look at seeing whether PCs can avoid damage rather than NPCs hitting them.

 

The default position will be that an enemy hits unless the PC avoids the damage - the roll will be the reverse of an NPCs to hit one but it puts all of the dice in the player's hand, so to speak...

 

 

Doc

[zornwil]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

As Lucius mentioned' date=' we have here a role playing game, and you can't really stage combats and such, which is why we have detailed rules for doing that. If we had equally detailed rules for the social situations then I'm not sure we'd be role playing so much as playing a really freeform board game. With an imaginary board.[/quote']

 

I don't really get that. Are you saying that introducing social conflict into HERO would cause such enforcement of certain reactions that players wouldn't be able to roleplay? I can assure you that's not the experience I've had whatsoever in games that allow for social conflict.

 

We can already model the irresistable persuader (mind control RSR: Conversation), and role playing coupled with skill rolls works well enough for NPCs.

 

The problem is we can't MAKE other PCs do stuff...

 

Well, I'm not sure I like the idea of social combat because I don't think it is as easily reduced to numbers as physical combat, which really has a tiny number of possible outcomes and a relatively limtied number of strategies and approaches compared to the complesities of social interaction.

 

I think that this can al be fixed, however, using existing mechanics, or something very like them. That and proper preparation.

 

First NPCs.

 

If I am building a VIPER guard, I don;t want to have to give him hight social interactions kills so that the players don't persuade him to nip over the road and buy them some orange sherbert. He's NOT going to leave that post if he's been told not to in most situations, so, first off I need to have an idea of what sort of social interaction he would be susceptible to.

 

He would leave his post if he received new orders. OK, so some sort of bluff might work against him, but he'd have to beleive that the orders were actually coming from someone who could give them; a player dressed in a Viper uniform could march up, tell him he is relieved and order him to report to the Commander. That might work. He could get a message over the radio from 'The Commander' - that might work. Both of those are bluffs that require a bit of set up. If a PC marches up, dressed as Captain Cosmic, and says that he is in fact The Viper Leader in disguise pulling an emergency inspection, the guard is NOT going to be fooled. So, first off this sort of situation requires an appropriate approach. Without that, it is doomed.

 

Second it is a high risk strategy. If the persuade roll (or whatever) doesn't do so well, he may get suspicious. Let us face it this guy has orders to stay there and not let anyone without appropriate ID through, and report all movements through the gate. If yuo are trying to get him to deviate from those orders, he is going to ake his opposed roll at a substantial bonus. If you can somehow work out what the orders were and USE them, he won't. So research can be important.

 

Finally if the GM plain doesn't want you to get in that way, it may eb that the guard checked The Commander out 5 minutes ago, so he knows that the 'orders' are false, and raises the alarm - or tries to.

 

So, with NPCs a GM needs a good idea of what they are 'programmed' to do in game. Anything that works with that may well work, anything working against it...well, is going to have a harder time.

 

The actual success or failure is still based on a skill roll (opposed, probably, by the Guard's PS: Guard skill), and the exact words are assumed to be part of the roll - no silver tongued players running riot - but the approach and set up WILL garner bonuses and penalties that are vital to success.

 

PCs are more difficult, because you CAN require them to act in a certain way as a result of social skills used on them, but they tend to get stroppy if you do. IME the more experienced role players don't have a problem with this, often. usde the skill rolls against them not as compulsions, but to give role playing cues - you believe him - he seems genuine - you think he has an ulterior motive - whatever.

 

One 'trick' here is have the player roll to resist a social skill - if their own roll 'fails' then, IME, they are more willing to go along with it.

 

On a more far reaching level, consider assigning 50 disadvantage points to 'PC personality'. This is a new category, but very much like (and overlapping to an extent) with psychological limitations. The player can define personality flaws; has to. So, for instance, it wouldn't be something like 'stubborn' - that would be a psych lim - but it would be something like 'attracted to red heads', or 'always follows orders without question'.

 

Then if approached by an attractive redhead he is more likely to be fooled, and if given orders he's more likely to follow them - because he has points for them as disadvantages.

 

This personality suite can and should be a dynamic thing, changing with the character over time (not just when it suits), and should be susceptible to appropriate research by others.

 

Moreover, unlike psych lims, you can't get round it with an Ego roll - it IS your Ego in many ways. If you want to overcome your personality the GM might allow you to on a 8-, with appropriate situational modifiers.

 

Of course all this is just a way of selling the idea of comlpiance with NPC social skills to the players, but then that is what social skill use is all about

 

That's a very interesting "Personality Suite" concept, really neat. I've been giving some thought to a redux of HERO to bring in some later-generation concepts as well as, sort of ironically, going back in simplicity to version 1. This could play into that. Of course, this is one of those projects that will probably get done in, oh, say, 2160, assuming of course modern medicine extends my life as promised. (In other words, this is all stuff in my head and I have other priorities I should be concentrating on, so unlikely to happen in the near future, just lately I've been thinking a lot more about it hence my couple posts to this thread)

[zornwil]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Sod the GM! I'd rather not do it the way the GM wants, often times it makes things easier! Of course there are the times when it makes it very much more difficult! You gotta know your GM too...

 

 

 

 

This is inspired though.

 

I will make sure that all rolls possible in future are rolled by the players rather than NPCs. I think that I might even look at seeing whether PCs can avoid damage rather than NPCs hitting them.

 

The default position will be that an enemy hits unless the PC avoids the damage - the roll will be the reverse of an NPCs to hit one but it puts all of the dice in the player's hand, so to speak...

 

 

Doc

Very interesting extension. So is the roll by the PC totally normal other than the bonuses and penalties are reversed (i.e., the attacking NPC's bonus is the penalty, the defending PC takes what would have been a penatly to the NPC as his own bonus)? Or are you thinking of other changes in that?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Sod the GM! I'd rather not do it the way the GM wants' date=' often times it makes things easier! Of course there are the times when it makes it very much more difficult! You gotta know your GM too...[/quote']

 

Oh, I am not saying you should, I'm just saying that a decent GM can engineer whatever you do to fit the plot - and should eb able to do it more or less invisibly, on the spot, and be able to fully justify why it happened that way. if you had used an approach in a social situation that was doomed to failure (either because the GM didn't want it happening that way, or, better, had already decided for plot reasons that it COULDN'T happen that way, the attempt had to fail. The GM shouldn't foil your efforts without good reason, I'm just saying that the GM is in a position to do so, and you will never know - so even the most socially adept character, whatever system you use, is not always going to succeed.

 

 

 

 

This is inspired though.

 

I will make sure that all rolls possible in future are rolled by the players rather than NPCs. I think that I might even look at seeing whether PCs can avoid damage rather than NPCs hitting them.

 

The default position will be that an enemy hits unless the PC avoids the damage - the roll will be the reverse of an NPCs to hit one but it puts all of the dice in the player's hand, so to speak...

 

 

Doc

 

Simple psychology: people are usually more willing to accept their misfortune if they feel they had some control over it...better to have tried and failed and all that

 

The other advantage of 'dodge/defence rolls is that (to pick up on another of zornwil's threads) even low SPD characters become involved in the action when they are attacked.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Very interesting extension. So is the roll by the PC totally normal other than the bonuses and penalties are reversed (i.e.' date=' the attacking NPC's bonus is the penalty, the defending PC takes what would have been a penatly to the NPC as his own bonus)? Or are you thinking of other changes in that?[/quote']

 

You could do it two ways:

 

1. Just get the player to make the roll, but, obviously, they would rather get a high roll (so they would be missed), or

 

2. Treat it as an avoidance roll: If you are DCV 7 and the attacker is OCV 8, normally you would be hit if they rolled (8-7)+11=12 or less. That is a 74.1% chance of hitting. It is not quite as simple (unless you are happy for the odds to change) as turning it round to (7-8)+11=10 or less: that would be a 50% chance of avoiding the hit. In fact you need to do this: (20-3d6 chance of hitting) or less, so if you would hit on 12-, it becomes (20-12)=8 or less, which is 24.9% chance of avoiding the hit. Alternatively, go with ((DCV-OCV)+9) or less. This is because we hit on 11- not 10-, which is the actual midpoint of chance on a 3d6 roll.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

I don't really get that. Are you saying that introducing social conflict into HERO would cause such enforcement of certain reactions that players wouldn't be able to roleplay? I can assure you that's not the experience I've had whatsoever in games that allow for social conflict.

 

 

Not quite; what I'm suggesting is that this could go two ways - either the player has input into the actual social interaction itself (as opposed to the setup) and social interaction mechanics then better define the bonus/penalty that involves OR the player doesn't have input into the attempt (other than in the setup) and simply relies on the skills of the character. If you go the latter route, then, yes, I think that many opportunities for roleplaying might be avoided.

 

Mind you I'm also concerned about mechanising the process too much (which could be the result of the first approach), or you'll wind up, as I've seen with PRE attacks, with players going down the list, working out which bonuses they can either claim or engineer into the situation.

 

Either way, when it comes down to it, there is still a roll, and it decides what happens.

 

I do believe that an informed but freeform approach allows for the greatest degree of expression, without sacrificing consistency and detail, but maybe I've been lucky with my GMs and players. There are many situations where either the social interaction doesn't really matter (and is there for colour, interest and, often, humour), and other situations where it does matter, but a certain approach is bound to succeed: if you have a map that Baron Hardhat believes is a treasure map, and you offer it to him in exchange for a hostage, he's GOING to accept, it is just a matter of how he can best turn it to his advantage.

 

For consistency, what I tend to do is randomly roll dice during the conversation between PC and NPC, and glance at them. Sometimes the result matters, and sometimes it doesn't, but the overall shape of th esocial interaction is determined by the actions of th eplayer: it is only the things that could genuinely go either way that I need the dice for...and they have no idea which bits COULD go either way.

 

Interesting point on freewill, isn't it: is it more important to have freewill, or believe you do?

[Kdansky]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

I have to say that I did not read the whole thread, but I oppose you greatly!

 

I dislike the idea of even having an INT stat totally (and social skills even more so!). My character will never be more intelligent than myself (since I think for him), even though he could be more stupid. So for me, being dumb would a physical limitation ("dumb, moderately impairing, very common"), and there is no INT stat. I don't oppose a DEX, STR, COM or PRE stat, since these are not related to my. My speed does not influence my character, but my intelligence does.

 

So instead of putting social skills with rolls into the game, I would prefer things like GURPS uses: "Goodlooking, 5 cp, +1 on reaction". They have a Reaction roll table (3d6 +/- whatever your modifiers are) which tells the GM: "likes the character, hostile, love, ..." depending on the modified roll. Table + roll is not necessarily the way to go, but a generic +x for social interations is much better than "roll 17- to succeed". And then, the Roleplaying takes place, with the GM taking the modifiers into account. You got +25'000? Well, as a GM, I'm giving in to any stupid argument, even if it does not make sense. You got zero? You'd better have some pretty good story, or the NPC will not do your bidding. This also solves the GM story dilemma neatly. If you could talk my NPCs into not lying to you, we'd have a solved murder case after 5 minutes. I just cannot allow you to roll a 15- to solve the quest which I took two weeks to prepare for. In my system, you might have a +10 on reaction (in gurps, that's huge, since +1 costs 5cp and the average char only has 150 cp total, so you spent 1/3 of all your points on social stuff, so you could have bought telepathy + mind control too for that amount of points), but I'm not going to give in with my BBEG who's lying to you. He might like you so much that he does not send you into the trap in his garden which he prepared, but instead just lets you leave his mansion without any problems, but he's NOT going to confess the murder.

 

Intellect and Wisdom are player stats, not character stats. I once tried to play a smart ass. I failed so much I had to rewrite my character concept after two sessions, because I'm just not fast enough to come up with smart comments all the time.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

I agree to an extent, but I can (and do) play characters smarter than me, at least smarter in certain areas: if Neutrino has SS: Nuclear Physics, then he has more knowledge than me, and is probably more intelligent, measured for IQ. Mind you that sort of intelligence does not necessarily translate to social skills, and on a 'practical' level, I might be more intelligent than Neutrino.

 

I think INT is a huge catchall, and I'd also like to see the back of it, if for slightly different reasons. I also think it probably has very little to do with MOST social interaction.

[Kdansky]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Well, you can certainly play characters more knowledgeable, but smarter? How is your character going to come up with an ingenious plan to save the universe? "I roll an INT roll to see if I find a way out of the sticky situation"? Probably not.

 

By the way: Every RPG system I know has an INT score (or something equivalent).

[OddHat]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

"I roll an INT roll to see if I find a way out of the sticky situation"? Probably not.

 

That's pretty much what the Deduction and Tactics skills are for; a successful roll allows the GM to pass knowledge to the Player which the Character can then use, allowing the Player to play a Character smarter than himself.

 

Some GMs dislike "buy a clue" skills for pretty much that reason, and therefore discourage their use, but they are part of the system.

[Kdansky]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

You sum up my point nicely. Because these skills do more bad than good (spoil the plot, make the problems too easy, give out information which the GM hides on purpose) I really do not like them. If you use "tactics" in my game, I (as a GM) will never explain to you what you should be doing. Assume Space Warfare scenario: You can have exact numbers about your ships, you can ask me "if we pit this ship vs that ship, will ours win?" and get a decent answer (assuming I know it) or you can get circumstance boni on ocv/dcv and similar things. Also, it will help for not being surprised.

We simulate combat with dice because we really cannot do well otherwise. But that is not true for mind games, which work nicely in our heads. Rolling dice is a crutch when nothing else works well, it's not how things "should" be!

[Markdoc]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

I GM games that lean heavily to social situations (with a healthy leavening of violence!) and have never had any problem with "social aspects". The requirements are that the GM has a good idea of the motivations of the NPCs involved and that the players have a suite of social interaction skills.

 

Because I run games like this, I tend to have players who buy those social interaction skills: in turn, having bought them, the players want to use them.

 

The "trick" - if trick it be - is not to view social interactions as a single "all or nothing" interaction to be solved with a single PRE attack or persuasion skill. I wouldn't do this for combat "OK, you've rolled a hit: all the pirates are dead or incapacitated" Instead, social interactions tend to be a series of steps, generally requiring a suite of skills.

 

Players have picked up on this too - in the current game one player has bought a talent "Detect emotion" which allows him to try and discern his target's mental state after some observation: he then uses this information to try and target his social skills - interrogation against a target who is afraid or hostile, conversation against a target who is relaxed, etc.

 

To take one example, in the current FH game we have had three sessions where the players are trying to find some evil cultists: that's all social interaction. They have a prime suspect, but they don't actually know if he's involved. To try and find out involved interrogating various NPCs. This can (and has) ranged from "Tell us what you know or my overly-muscled friend there will grind your bones to make his meal" (fairly simple: persuasion by one player with interrogation as a complementary roll by the other player - and a PRE attack to try and get a bonus: otherwise known as "Good cop, Bad Cop") to trying to get information out of a senior priest at the temple. This involved a series of conversation and persuasion rolls going up the tree. First convince a junior to let them see the priest in a timely fashion (Persuasion, High Society ("I am a noble, you pleb!") and Bribery: an outright bribe would have been refused and had negative consequences for further interactions - a little something for the temple and a coin for your trouble, however...). Then the priest himself. This involves a series of challenges. First convince him you are worth taking significant time over (Conversation, High Society, Persuasion, Bribery, Reputation are all relevant). Second, convince him you are not raving paranoids (Basically the same skills, minus Bribery). Third, convince him he should stick his neck out to help a bunch of foreigners.

 

Generally, social skill rolls are skill vs skill, or versus EGO or INT (though usually raw rolls are at penalty) In all cases, I give situational bonuses/minuses and roleplay bonuses/minuses to the skill rolls: but if you want to play a suave rogue, you really need to have those skills. Thus, player who roleplays well can get bonuses, but a player who wants to play a suave rogue - but isn't mentally nimble enough to gain a lot of bonuses can still do so by buying up his skills.

 

Note: I tend not to give extra XP for roleplaying, though I might for particularly brilliant play, since it skews the game over time. I do, however frequently give in-game bonuses for it.

 

Situational bonuses arise in-game. To take the example above, the players got a big bonus (+3) in the first interaction with the senior priest (worth taking time over) and a lesser bonus in the second interaction because they had a writ allowing them to trade in his town (obtained - with unusual foresight - months ago) with the seal of the Lord's brother. That establishes that they are solid citizens who know the local nobility, not some band of rag-tag adventurers.

 

They got (unknown to the players) a small minus to the third interaction roll because the questions they were asking made the priest suspect that they are members of the Church Militant, which is not very welcome in his town. Had they thought about it, they could have allayed that suspicion - and had the priest known about their previous associates who were members of the Church Militant, that small minus (-1) would have become a big minus (-3).

 

Had they failed any of the rolls that would not necessarily meant getting tossed out on their ear, but it would have inflicted minuses on subsequent interactions (how large, depending on the degree of faux pas). I use a scale of comparative success/failure of +5 to -5. A success of +1 or +2 means an NPC will be motivated to do something they would be inclined to do anyway. +3 to +4 means they will do something they are not strongly opposed to. A score of +5 or better is required to get them to do something they would be opposed to. You can't use social interaction skills to get people to do things they are violently opposed to: that's the realm of mind control. -1 to -2 generally just means the target is unconvinced: but that minus goes onto further attempts to persuade/coerce. A -3 or -4 means a refusal - and also a similar minus on later attempts. A -5 means a solid refusal and possibly other negative actions (in the case above, tossing the player out and refusing to see them again - possibly warning the captain of the city guard that there were potential murderers at loose in the town: the Church Militant has a reputation for summary execution of those they deem heretics - hence the negative reaction to them.

 

I likewise have no problem with players who have characters who are smarter (or stupider) than they are: I view INT in the Hero system as including a fair amount of perception/ability to "connect the dots". Thus, I tend to give players more or less information about given situations based on their INT, working from the idea that players with more (or better) information will make better choices - as necessary, I use (GM-rolled) PER rolls when there is relevant extra information in play. That way, in general, smarter PCs will understand a situation better, but it's not guaranteed - occasionally even the incredible Bulk will see through things his smarter colleagues miss.

 

cheers, Mark

[OddHat]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

You sum up my point nicely.

 

No, I acknowledge your point of view, while noting that it's one of several ways of looking at the issue.

 

Because these skills do more bad than good (spoil the plot, make the problems too easy, give out information which the GM hides on purpose) I really do not like them. If you use "tactics" in my game, I (as a GM) will never explain to you what you should be doing. Assume Space Warfare scenario: You can have exact numbers about your ships, you can ask me "if we pit this ship vs that ship, will ours win?" and get a decent answer (assuming I know it) or you can get circumstance boni on ocv/dcv and similar things. Also, it will help for not being surprised.

 

Again, there's something to be said for the above. As GM you have a responsibility to make sure that use of KS and Deduction / Tactics / etc enhances the fun of an adventure, rather than reducing it. On the other hand, they are valid skill choices for the Player who wants a Character who's smarter than he is. If a Player wanted his Character to be a skilled surgeon, scientist or military officer, I wouldn't require him to have the knowledge to perform those jobs, and from your earlier responses I don't think you would either. If that Player wanted his Character to be a suave ladies man or a brilliant detective, I wouldn't have any problem letting him buy and use the stats and skills needed to play someone more charming or smarter than himself. If I wasn't willing to let him play that character, I would tell him up front that those skills meant nothing in this campaign, rather than let him piss away points on them.

 

We simulate combat with dice because we really cannot do well otherwise. But that is not true for mind games, which work nicely in our heads. Rolling dice is a crutch when nothing else works well, it's not how things "should" be!

We could larp to simulate combat, with sparring, paintball guns and padded swords. We generally don't, in part because simulating a character stronger, faster and more skilled than ourselves doesn't work that well in a sparring match. (Also, grown men shouting "Magic Missile" and throwing things at eachother look ridiculous. ) So we use skills and stats to represent the characters, roleplay our choices based on those skills and stats, and use dice to resolve the conflict. You don't have to do the same thing with social or intellectual conflicts faced by your players, but the system does allow for it.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

Well, you can certainly play characters more knowledgeable, but smarter? How is your character going to come up with an ingenious plan to save the universe? "I roll an INT roll to see if I find a way out of the sticky situation"? Probably not.

 

By the way: Every RPG system I know has an INT score (or something equivalent).

 

 

Its all an abstraction. Under your logic, Neither the GM could ever have a Sun Koh or Lex Luthor type character nor could a player ever play Doc Savage or Brainiac 5 etc. I like playing super intelligent characters. It makes me work harder to be clever. if I have a lower IN character I play differently. I'm not not as smart as these guys are supposed to be but then the Super intelligent character my player is playing has the same problem. things even out. Part of the fun is playing someone more charming or cleverer than yourself. We have tons of social interaction sometimes whole sessions of nothing but. Our last session was pretty much a grand ball the players put on or an NPC's birthday and playing out the ball with only a small adventure hook at the end and everyone had a "ball" ( sorry pun just wouldn't not be there.) The skills and IN and PRE give everyone a handle on what their character is capable of. The dice rolls help make everything not just arbitrary.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

I dislike the idea of even having an INT stat totally (and social skills even more so!). My character will never be more intelligent than myself (since I think for him)' date=' even though he could be more stupid. So for me, being dumb would a physical limitation ("dumb, moderately impairing, very common"), and there is no INT stat. I don't oppose a DEX, STR, COM or [b']PRE stat[/b], since these are not related to my. My speed does not influence my character, but my intelligence does.

 

Emphasis mine. We all have a PRE stat. In my experience, it is too common that the articulate, well spoken player whose character has spent no points on social skills gets better results in social situations due to the player's PRE and social skills than the less articulate player whose character has bought up his PRE and invested points in social skills.

 

So instead of putting social skills with rolls into the game' date=' I would prefer things like GURPS uses: "Goodlooking, 5 cp, +1 on reaction". They have a Reaction roll table (3d6 +/- whatever your modifiers are) which tells the GM: "likes the character, hostile, love, ..." depending on the modified roll. Table + roll is not necessarily the way to go, but a generic +x for social interations is much better than "roll 17- to succeed". And then, the Roleplaying takes place, with the GM taking the modifiers into account.[/quote']

 

Too often, "the roleplaying" becomes "the player who is articulate and well spoken" rather than "the character who has invested points to be articulate and well spoken". I'm not agile or strong, but the game gives me the ability to play a character who is agile and strong. Why shouldn't it give a player who is not suave, smooth, sophisticated, articulate and persuasive the ability to play a character who is? Why can't a player who isn't that perceptive play a character who is? And if a player who's not the sharpest knife in the drawer wants to play a character who thinks on his feet and is brilliant, why not?

 

To me, at least, a lot of the fun in role playing lies in playing someone you are not. The more those choices are constrained, the less fun the game creates. Taken to its extreme, we shouldn't be playing characters who go out and do great things - we just sit around and roll dice!

 

If you could talk my NPCs into not lying to you' date=' we'd have a solved murder case after 5 minutes. I just cannot allow you to roll a 15- to solve the quest which I took two weeks to prepare for. In my system, you might have a +10 on reaction (in gurps, that's huge, since +1 costs 5cp and the average char only has 150 cp total, so you spent 1/3 of all your points on social stuff, so you could have bought telepathy + mind control too for that amount of points), but I'm not going to give in with my BBEG who's lying to you. He might like you so much that he does not send you into the trap in his garden which he prepared, but instead just lets you leave his mansion without any problems, but he's NOT going to confess the murder.[/quote']

 

How does that work in GURPS but not in Hero? I think there's a pretty big negative modifier in asking a murderer to confess regardless of the system. By the way, Telepathy will solve the murder pretty quickly, and Mind Control will quickly extract a confession. Should these also be rendered useless because the abilities they grant will hurt my plot? I suggest rather that, as a GM, I wrote a pretty lousy scenario if I did not incorporate the abilities of the heroes into it.

 

Frankly, if I invested 1/3 of my character points into ANYTHING, I think it's very reasonable to expect it to have a significant impact on the game. If you, the GM, were not willing to allow for such an impact, the onus was on you to tell the player not to waste his points there, since you will not allow those skills to be useful. In other words, to state that, as a GM, you do not think you are capable of running a game challenging to a character with those capabilities. If I am planning a game which will focus on mysteries, the onus is on me not to allow characters with abilities that will make such a campaign lack any challenge. That means no telepathy. It also means writing opportunities into the scenarios for players to use the skills they invested character points in. That means that the character with Criminology might locate a key clue by analyzing the crime scene, a character with Deduction might extrapolate the meaning of that clue and a character with Luck might trip over the clue. If I'm married to the specific manner I envision the crime being solved, I should write a novel, not play a game.

[Kdansky]

Re: Social versus Physical/Mental Conflicts

 

With the 1/3rd guy I meant: You can coerce/bride/sweettalk nearly anyone, but you *will* fail with the BBEG. Same goes for MC, the BBEG will very definitely have countermeasures. But while there actually are countermeasures against MC (the magic amulet of mental damage shield/defenses, pretty simple), it is very hard to come up with a good anti-skill thing. 10 negative skill levels? Please, why would he have that?

It's just that you cannot sweettalk anyone into anything. Period. It does not matter how much money you offer me and how great of a talker you are, I will not kill my family. Never. The skill system does not reflect that at all, it actually does the opposite! Assume you roll a lucky 3 on your sweet talk roll with your 23- epic skill. What am I going to do as a GM here? Destroy the plot due to one lucky roll?

In this regard, a more finegrained system as proposed before would actually help, since then my NPC could have very good stats there.

 

And yeah, I figured someone might quote my PRE example. But do you really think how you word your PRE attack has more influence than 1-2 dice tops? When you go with 20 PRE and blaze away, that's not *that* huge anymore. Buying a 18- skill for a lousy 10 points is.

 

That means that the character with Criminology might locate a key clue by analyzing the crime scene, a character with Deduction might extrapolate the meaning of that clue and a character with Luck might trip over the clue.

That's the next problem. I cannot rely on characters to A: have the skill, and B: make their roll. That means my clever clues might not be found, which results in a failed quest without anyone even noticing. True, that is a pessimistic view

 

But in the end, conversation boils down to this: If you have the right argument, the NPC will give in, and your skills/rolls/player charisma does not matter much. If you have the wrong arguments, the NPC will not budge. It's really rather boolean. Sure, you can haggle a bit, but if he wants his daughter freed from the dragon first, he wants his daughter freed from the dragon first. "But we found this great prostitute on the street!" won't work. Never.