The Social Combat Minigame of Tides of Shadow

[Prak]

Social Encounters
”When a person pauses in mid-sentence to choose a word, that's the best time to jump in and change the subject! It's like an interception in football! You grab the other guy's idea and run the opposite way with it! The more sentences you complete, the higher your score! The idea is to block the other guy's thoughts and express your own! That's how you win!”
--Calvin, on Conversation

Many social encounters can be thought of as a contest, or a game like Football. Two opposing interests are either fighting over a single outcome, or trying to advance the outcome out of several which is most favourable to their interests.

While haggling over a price generally ends somewhere in-between each side’s preferred price, the initial offer and request can be seen as goals on either side of a field. Running for election, however, is a much larger social encounter that can be seen as more akin to a verbal game of capture the flag—there is one outcome, a contestant is elected, but there are two or more people trying to grab that goal and carry it home.
The number of possible outcomes doesn’t really matter, because even if there are a dozen sides, each vying for their own outcome, in a very real sense it could be said that there’s really only one “I win.”

Social Encounters in Tides of Shadow center on the acquisition of Resolution Points, and function similarly to combats, mechanically.

Important Terms
Conviction A measure of an individual’s confidence in their own beliefs. Like Initiative, it defaults to the better of two Ability modifiers (in this case, Charisma or Wits), but may have additional bonuses or penalties from feats or other sources.
Crowd Assembled characters not actively participating in the encounter. Characters may join or leave the crowd in the course of an encounter.
Figurehead The participant on a side who is addressing the other sides in an encounter.
Listener The passive Figurehead or Figureheads on a turn.
Participant Every character involved in an encounter. Most are talking amongst themselves on their own side, rather than speaking to the other sides.
Propose Equivalent to an Attack in Combat.
Resist Equivalent to a Defense in Combat.
Speaker The active Figurehead in a turn.
Tactic The “weapons” of Social Encounters. Each applies a modifier to the Proposal it is used on, and the Resist rolls made after its use before another Tactic is chosen. Some apply bonuses to the number of Resolution Points won or lost on a given round.

When a social encounter starts, figure out how many sides there are, usually there will be two, but it’s not unheard-of for there to be three or more sides to a conflict. Each side picks a Figurehead, this person does all the direct contest rolls, and if any side is a single person, they are automatically the Figurehead. Participant refers to everyone involved in the encounter.

Generally each side is vying for their own win. It is possible, however, for two sides to actually be working together against other sides. This makes the encounter longer and harder to complete, because it increases the number of Resolution Points in contest, but it can be advantageous.

Each side in the encounter begins with a number of Resolution Points equal to the Conviction modifier of their Figurehead plus the number of non-Figurehead Participant on that side. There is also a pot of Resolution Points equal to the sum of the levels of each Figurehead in the encounter.

Each Figurehead rolls initiative as for a combat, except that they modify their roll with their Intellect or Charisma modifier, their choice, instead of Agility. The Participants in each side also roll, but they are rolling for initiative within their group, rather than the encounter, and may choose to not use initiative, instead cooperating and doing things in the best order.

Encounters are played out in an order similar to combat, with each Figurehead acting on their initiative count. The active Figurehead is referred to as the Speaker, and the Figurehead they are speaking to is the Listener.

It is possible to interrupt a Figurehead, and act on their turn before they do. To do so, a participant or Figurehead rolls a Charisma or Intelligence check (DC 10+half level+the better of Cha or Int modifier). If the participant succeeds, they may act before the Figurehead whose turn it is.
If a side is using Initiative within their own actions, a participant may Interrupt another participant.

On a Figurehead’s turn, they try to advance their cause by choosing a tactic. They make a Propose Roll, and all non-allied Figureheads make Resist Rolls.

Propose Roll: d20+Tactic Modifier+Social Skill+Key Ability Modifier
Resist Roll: d20+Last used Tactic Modifier+Social Skill+Key Ability Modifier

The Speaker and Listeners compare their rolls. Each Listener who rolled lower than the Speaker gives the Speaker Resolution Points equal to (Propose Roll-Resist Roll)/2. Each Listener who rolled higher than the Speaker tales from the Speaker Resolution Points equal to (their Resist Roll-Propose Roll)/2.

When a side’s Resolution Points are equal to or lower than the number Participants on that side, each Resolution Point represents a participant who has broken away from that side.

• If that side is composed of only Player Characters, players should roll Conviction. The lowest roll is the participant who leaves the side and joins the Crowd.
• If the side is composed of Non-player Characters, a random non-Figurehead participant, or one of Mister Cavern’s choosing, joins the Crowd.
• If the side is composed of Non-Player Characters and Player Characters, Mister Cavern makes a single unmodified d20 roll for the Conviction of the npc participants, the lowest Conviction leaves the side and joins the Crowd.
• A player may always volunteer to be the one who leaves their side in this situation, and it is encouraged that players whose characters would have reason to leave the side do this.

Natural 1s: When a Speaker rolls a natural 1 on their Propose Roll, a Listener may make an Opportunistic Assail. They may either quickly counter the Speaker’s Proposal, making their own Propose Roll, the turn then resolves as if they were the Speaker. This does not take that Figurehead’s action for the turn. If multiple Figureheads attempt this, the best Propose Roll becomes the Propose Roll for the turn. Alternatively, a Figurehead may attempt to the sway the crowd without losing their action. A Figurehead may only make one Opportunistic Assail per round.

If a Listener rolls a Natural 1 on their Resist roll, they lose 50% more Resolution Points that turn.

Zero Resolution Points: When a side is completely out of Resolution Points, the Figurehead rolls Conviction against 10+# Resolution Points possessed by the side with the most. If they fail to meet or exceed this DC, they’re out of the encounter. They’ve been so completely beaten down, they cannot continue to debate. If they meet or exceed the DC, they may remain in the encounter. This roll must be made at the start of every turn in which the side has 0 Resolution Points.
When a Speaker would gain Resolution Points from a Figurehead with none, they take the points from the Pot.

Swaying the Crowd: A Figurehead may address the crowd instead of another Figurehead. They make their Propose Roll against a DC of 20. For every 3 points by which they exceed 20, they gain the support of one member of the crowd who joins their side. Any available PC members of the Crowd make a Conviction roll (DC 10+Speaker’s base Social Skill rank). If they succeed, they may choose whether to join the side or not (if they don’t, a random npc will). If they fail, they automatically join the side.
A Figurehead may address a specific character in the Crowd. They make Propose Roll opposed by the character’s Conviction. If the Figurehead wins, the character joins their side. A character may always elect to join a Figurehead who has directly addressed them, but a Figurehead cannot force a character to join their side other than by beating them in this roll.
Any time a Figurehead gains a participant from the crowd, they also gain 1 Resolution Point.

Winning: A Figurehead wins when all other Figureheads have been defeated, they control all Resolution Points, or their Resolution Points exceed the sum of all other Figureheads’ Convictions.

Participant Actions
While the Figureheads argue, the other participants in an encounter are also doing things. They’re digesting opposed arguments, formulating strategies, and trying to think of things that will help their side win. The following are things participants can do in a social encounter.
Logic and Rhetoric: Logic and Rhetoric can be very valuable in social encounters, so much so that even someone who is poor in social skills can use them to win an argument, shame a rival, or fake his way past guards.
Logic can spot a man’s tell, recognize the flaws in an argument, or reframe the debate. Rhetoric can halt someone’s argument with emotion or baffle them with bullshit.
As a standard action, a Participant may make a special Sabotage check modified by the better of their Intellect or Manipulation. If they succeed, they may apply either a morale bonus to their own Figurehead’s next Propose or Resist, or a morale penalty to an opposed Figurehead’s next Propose or Resist. This modifier is equal to 1/3rd the modifier the Participant applied to the Sabotage roll (minimum 2 and lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Participant’s Intellect or Manipulation.
When used to apply a penalty, the Sabotage check is opposed by a Will save.
When used to apply a bonus, the Sabotage roll is made at a DC of 10+the target’s base rank in the Skill.

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So. This may be a bit complex, and it needs Tactics written up, but as a core system, I like the mechanic, don't think it's too complex to be usable, and is interesting.

Notes:
Tides of Shadow is currently planned to use a modified version of d20's six stats-- Body, Agility, Intellect, Wits, Charisma and Manipulation. Basically a Force and Quickness stat for each of Physical, Mental and Social.

Participants will get more actions they can take, I just had Logic and Rhetoric 95% written up already from Expert.

Tactics will be stuff like Threaten, Non-sequitor, Boast, Offer, Demand, Play Dumb, etc.

So far the intent is that there isn't much of an actual action economy in Social Encounters, you just choose your tactic and make your proposal. Because I can't, at the moment, think of an analogue to Move, Standard, Swift, etc actions, or that there's a huge need for them.

[PhoneLobster]

What does winning DO? What are the goals being fought over? What does the mention of an election mean, does this encounter scale to democratic nation wide electoral contests? What is the mention of haggling for a middle ground result about? What does it have to do with the seemingly one winner contest?

So yeah. The basic goals thing is a rather primary issue here. What the hell are they? How are they set? When does the social "combat" mechanic kick in and when does it not?

There are other fundamental issues. The segregated nature of social combat remains an issue. It's on a separate initiative scheme to physical combat, with wildly differing mechanics. Can a social combat happen at the same time as a physical combat, how do social combats transition to physical ones if they cannot be simultaneous, how to physical combats transition to social ones? How does comparative time pass if characters in one room are having a social combat while characters in another room are simultaneously having a physical combat. Can these combats be separately resolved in the same room at the same time? Is that an administrative nightmare?

But actually fundamental questions about how simultaneous resolution should work, or if it should work, are hard to answer without really knowing what the fight is over.

Similarly there is a lot of complexity here, enough that players will begrudge this additional minigame it's mere existence. But since we don't know the value of victory... again it's hard to say.

It's unclear to me why you are insisting on this figureheads and followers stuff. And it is somewhat very likely you cannot possibly set it up in such a way as to prevent exploits from emerging to do with declaring excess goals/factions/whatever to get additional figure heads, or that in many circumstances where separate goals would be desirable it would be social suicide to not pile up into the biggest camp/faction possible.

This last issue is probably exacerbated by the whole thing where you vampire your resolution points on a hit... and lose extra ones on a miss. Characters with an advantage on their Propose rolls don't need a large camp of supporters and actually benefit from more OPPOSING characters to vampire from AND they benefit from spliting into more camps because they will suck more points from their enemies when their enemies miss them. AND the whole thing where they can declare separate camps/figure heads and still not roll against each other as allies... just makes that worse.

Actually the vampiring of resolution points worries me in general. That combined with a save vs knock out even at 0 points potentially becomes a massive time sink for endless combats exchanging the same points back and forth.

And in the end the figure heads and supporters thing just seems unrewarding for players. Players want their own actions. Players want their own targets. Everyone piling into an amorphous social pyramid and attacking an amorphous social pyramid is less rewarding than players saying "I lie to that guy there", "I distract that one there" and "I scare that one there", etc...

Also if everyone wasn't supposed to be the left leg of social Voltron maybe positioning and targeting could use actual physical positions and range issues between individual characters and their target or targets just like in physical combat.

I'm generally concerned this doesn't look like combat in both flavor or mechanics. And it lacks either versatility in flavor and the more desirable flavors of social action with a marginally bizarre focus on what appears to be highly abstract formalized group debating contests with a bare hint of haggling.

I've run up some pretty extensive criticisms of social systems that suffer from a myopic obsession with haggling as metaphor for everything, I'm not sure it's really worth the time to convert that to possibly stranger myopic focus on "logical arguments". But it's close enough so I'd just suggest you check up the Thread on those failings for some of the basic mistakes to avoid.

[Prak]

What does winning DO? What are the goals being fought over? What does the mention of an election mean, does this encounter scale to democratic nation wide electoral contests? What is the mention of haggling for a middle ground result about? What does it have to do with the seemingly one winner contest?

I was under the impression that those things were fairly self-explanatory. The goals being fought over are the desired outcomes of each side. Winning means you get your way. Granted, there needs to be something about unacceptable outcomes (a merchant will not "sell" an item for free, a Proud Warrior Race will not commit suicide at the behest of a conquering army). I also need to put in something about capitulation and compromise.

So yeah. The basic goals thing is a rather primary issue here. What the hell are they? How are they set? When does the social "combat" mechanic kick in and when does it not?

The basic goals are "I want to pay less than he's asking" or "I want to be the president" or "I want your complete and non-conditional surrender." The social combat rules kick in when someone is trying to convince someone to do something through means other than violence. Yes I need to address social combat mid-combat.

There are other fundamental issues. The segregated nature of social combat remains an issue. It's on a separate initiative scheme to physical combat, with wildly differing mechanics. Can a social combat happen at the same time as a physical combat, how do social combats transition to physical ones if they cannot be simultaneous, how to physical combats transition to social ones? How does comparative time pass if characters in one room are having a social combat while characters in another room are simultaneously having a physical combat. Can these combats be separately resolved in the same room at the same time? Is that an administrative nightmare?

As stated above, yes, I need to address mid-combat negotiations.

But actually fundamental questions about how simultaneous resolution should work, or if it should work, are hard to answer without really knowing what the fight is over.

Except we do know what the fight is over, each side has a desired outcome which is totally acceptable to leave to roleplaying and MTP. Just like D&D's combat doesn't say that all combats are over a handful of codified goals like "win control of the geographic location" or "kill them," a Social Encounter system doesn't need to codify the myriad outcomes someone might use it to achieve.

Similarly there is a lot of complexity here, enough that players will begrudge this additional minigame it's mere existence. But since we don't know the value of victory... again it's hard to say.

This is a possibility. I'm going to try to get my group to playtest the system tonight, and get some feedback from them on the complexity.

It's unclear to me why you are insisting on this figureheads and followers stuff. And it is somewhat very likely you cannot possibly set it up in such a way as to prevent exploits from emerging to do with declaring excess goals/factions/whatever to get additional figure heads, or that in many circumstances where separate goals would be desirable it would be social suicide to not pile up into the biggest camp/faction possible.

Figureheads are kind of an outgrowth to the default way things work in D&D where one player is the Face, and the rest of the party stands around playing tetris while that player and the MC roll dice. I'm trying to avoid the latter half of that, but possibly Figurehead and Participants is not the way to go.

This last issue is probably exacerbated by the whole thing where you vampire your resolution points on a hit... and lose extra ones on a miss. Characters with an advantage on their Propose rolls don't need a large camp of supporters and actually benefit from more OPPOSING characters to vampire from AND they benefit from spliting into more camps because they will suck more points from their enemies when their enemies miss them. AND the whole thing where they can declare separate camps/figure heads and still not roll against each other as allies... just makes that worse.

Actually the vampiring of resolution points worries me in general. That combined with a save vs knock out even at 0 points potentially becomes a massive time sink for endless combats exchanging the same points back and forth.

Hmm... well, to avoid endless combats, I could say that a character is limited to their Conviction in saves against defeat. Or something along those lines, because that could still lead to rather long encounters.

And in the end the figure heads and supporters thing just seems unrewarding for players. Players want their own actions. Players want their own targets. Everyone piling into an amorphous social pyramid and attacking an amorphous social pyramid is less rewarding than players saying "I lie to that guy there", "I distract that one there" and "I scare that one there", etc...

Also if everyone wasn't supposed to be the left leg of social Voltron maybe positioning and targeting could use actual physical positions and range issues between individual characters and their target or targets just like in physical combat.

Good points. I'm definitely going to rethink the Figurehead/Participant thing.

I'm generally concerned this doesn't look like combat in both flavor or mechanics. And it lacks either versatility in flavor and the more desirable flavors of social action with a marginally bizarre focus on what appears to be highly abstract formalized group debating contests with a bare hint of haggling.

I've run up some pretty extensive criticisms of social systems that suffer from a myopic obsession with haggling as metaphor for everything, I'm not sure it's really worth the time to convert that to possibly stranger myopic focus on "logical arguments". But it's close enough so I'd just suggest you check up the Thread on those failings for some of the basic mistakes to avoid.

I think people focus on haggling because it's the most familiar form of "Big stakes negotiation" to most people. It definitely needs to be included, but it's not the end all and be all of social negotiation.

[PhoneLobster]

I was under the impression that those things were fairly self-explanatory. The goals being fought over are the desired outcomes of each side. Winning means you get your way. Granted, there needs to be something about unacceptable outcomes (a merchant will not "sell" an item for free, a Proud Warrior Race will not commit suicide at the behest of a conquering army). I also need to put in something about capitulation and compromise.

That's... not enough information by a long shot.

In fact "That just raises further questions!".

So now there are unacceptable outcomes you can't have as goals. And some of them are remarkably minor (like "give me a present!"). But there are acceptable goals and they include crazy shit like "surrender to me! Unconditionally!"). And they appear not to be of differing difficulty.

People criticize my focus on a high value social outcome. But if you allow multiple outcomes and don't in any way differentiate them, then the system basically IS just about those high value social goals and the rest are actually just pretend goals that only stupid players take.

Meanwhile this passing mention of capitulation and compromise... is there intended to be some mechanic where you shift your goal mid combat to force an involuntary victory for a lesser goal?

That needs definition, as does any mechanic to differentiate the value of the variable goals. And you need to be damn careful because variable goals and bidding systems are a major pitfall of social mechanics, and I have never seen anyone manage to get a system including such a mechanic off the ground as they typically dive head first into those pitfalls and quietly end the project five seconds later.

[Prak]

PL, while I'm definitely paying attention to your suggestions, the post of yours about suitcase bombs is probably the worst thing you could have suggested.

See, here's the thing. Shifting goals, moving the goalposts and deceptive proposals are all things that actually happen in real social interaction. Those are actually things you want to protect in an RPG social interaction.

[Kaelik]

What does winning DO? What are the goals being fought over? What does the mention of an election mean, does this encounter scale to democratic nation wide electoral contests? What is the mention of haggling for a middle ground result about? What does it have to do with the seemingly one winner contest?

I was under the impression that those things were fairly self-explanatory. The goals being fought over are the desired outcomes of each side. Winning means you get your way. Granted, there needs to be something about unacceptable outcomes (a merchant will not "sell" an item for free, a Proud Warrior Race will not commit suicide at the behest of a conquering army). I also need to put in something about capitulation and compromise.

You are wrong. Once again. All social combat minigames need to either accept that the end goal is slavery for everyone ever, or spend like 95% of the content of their rules on defining outcomes and how to determine which ones you can accomplish.

Those are the only two options.

[PhoneLobster]

See, here's the thing. Shifting goals, moving the goalposts and deceptive proposals are all things that actually happen in real social interaction. Those are actually things you want to protect in an RPG social interaction.

So protect it. So far what you have is a declaration you are going to do that with no actual meat. And without the actual meat you don't actually protect your shifting goal posts and everyone is fighting for the "1 winner no difficulty mod" goal of "whatever the biggest allowed goal is". And even that is unclear because "unconditional surrender" is on the list while "can I have a free item?" is off it which makes no fucking sense.

Aside from that the problem is that your declaration is highly suggestive of a failed methodology. And I don't just mean infinite lists of infinite modifiers. You are strongly implying some form of bidding war mechanic for goals. And I''ve seen those and they have always failed and failed rather more spectacularly than most.

If you think you can make that work you need to point out how so I can point out you have created a race to the bottom/race to the top bidding exploit like the vast majority of attempts in that vein have done.

[Prak]

I'm still working on the rewrite. If you want to know what I currently have, then there's this:

Important Terms
Address Akin to “threatening” in combat, a term used to denote that a Participant is trying to convince another Participant of something. A Participant who previously made a Proposal to another and has not since moved to Propose another is considered to be Addressing the participant they previously made a Proposal to.
Ally Any Participant who is arguing for your own proposal.
Conviction A measure of an individual’s confidence in their own beliefs. Like Initiative, it defaults to the better of two Ability modifiers (in this case, Charisma or Wits), but may have additional bonuses or penalties from feats or other sources.
Crowd Assembled characters not actively participating in the encounter. Characters may join or leave the crowd in the course of an encounter.
Listener The passive Figurehead or Figureheads on a turn.
Participant Every character involved in an encounter.
Propose Equivalent to an Attack in Combat.
Resist Equivalent to a Defense in Combat.
Rival Any Participant whose goal is opposed to your own.
Speaker The active Participant in a turn.
Tactic The “weapons” and “armour” of Social Encounters. Each applies a modifier to the Proposal or Resistance it is used on. Some apply bonuses to the number of Resolution Points won or lost on a given round.

Opening Negotiations
In general, a social encounter starts when person A desires something person B is, for whatever reason, not completely in favour of. Possible desires include a night of sex, a surrender, possession of a target—inanimate or alive, or not dying.

While not all social interactions are about haggling, a lot come down to one of three positions: Offer, Request or Trade, and it’s possible that an encounter may be framed as one thing when it’s really another. Seducing someone is a request—“Will you have sex with me.” It can be framed as an offer (“hey, want mind blowing orgasms?”) or a trade “how about we both go have really incredible orgasms?”). Similarly, surrender and muggings can be framed as any of the three positions as well (“We will stop shooting/You get to live,” ”We want you to stop shooting/Give me all you money,” or “How about we both stop shooting/Give me you gold and I will give you another day of living,” respectively.)
So, as soon as two parties disagree on what course of action one or the other should take, you may start a social encounter. If Party A proposes a course of action (let’s have sex/give me all your money/please surrender), and Party B agrees, there is no need for a social encounter. Party B can just acquiesce. It’s really fine for them to do so without making any rolls.

Playing a Social Encounter
When a social encounter starts, figure out how many people are participating. It could be two, it could be twenty. Some people could be striving for the same goal (cessation of hostilities by Little Menzoberranzan against Little Moria), it could be everyone for themselves (the seat of President on the Five Races War Council).
Each person participating has a number of Resolution Points equal to their Conviction. There is also a Pot of Resolution Points equal to the sum total of participants in the encounter.
Each Participant rolls initiative as for a combat, except that they modify their roll with their Intellect or Charisma modifier, their choice, instead of Agility.
Encounters are played out in an order similar to combat, with each Participant acting on their initiative count. The active Participant is referred to as the Speaker, and the Figurehead they are speaking to is the Listener.

It is possible to interrupt a Participant on their turn, and act before they do. To do so, a Participant rolls a Charisma or Intelligence check (DC 10+half Speaker’s level+the better of Speaker’s Cha or Int modifier). If the interrupting Participant succeeds, they may act before the Speaker whose turn it is.

On a Participant’s turn, they try to advance their cause by choosing a tactic and selecting a target to Address. They make a Propose Roll, and the Listener they are Addressing selects a tactic and makes a defense roll.

Propose Roll: d20+Tactic Modifier+Social Skill+Key Ability Modifier
Resist Roll: d20+ Tactic Modifier+Social Skill+Key Ability Modifier

The Speaker and Listener compare their rolls. If the Speaker’s Propose Roll is higher than the Listener’s Resist Roll, the Speaker wins 1 Resolution Point from the Listener for every two points their roll was in excess of the Listener’s Resist.

Natural 1s: When a Speaker rolls a natural 1 on their Propose Roll, a Participant who is Addressing either the Speaker, or the Speaker’s Addressed Participant may make an Opportunistic Assail. They may choose one of the following responses:
Counter Proposal: The Participant creates their own Proposal, which may be made to the Speaker, or the Participant who was addressed by the Speaker, and is resolved normally.
Refute: The Participant may point out the fallacy which the Speaker made (represented by their “1”). The originally Addressed Participant, or any Participant who is Addressing the Speaker may attempt this. To do so, they roll a Social Sabotage check (Sabotage+Wits or Manipulation), opposed by the Speaker’s resist roll. If the Saboteur beats the Speaker, they win a single Resolution Point from the Speaker.
If a Listener rolls a Natural 1 on their Resist roll, they lose 50% more Resolution Points that turn.

Natural 20s: When a Speaker rolls a natural 20 on their Proposal, they have made a particularly eloquent or effective argument, winning a Resolution Point from each rival Participant.
When a Listener rolls a natural 20 on their Resistance, they have made a crushing or inspiring refusal or refutation against the Speaker’s Proposal, and wins a Resolution Point from the Speaker.

Zero Resolution Points: When a Participant is completely out of Resolution Points, they have been defeated, and acquiesce to the goal of their Rival or Rivals. If they wish to try to salvage the encounter by continuing in the face of defeat, they may roll Conviction (DC 10+Conviction of the Participant who took their last Resolution Point). If they fail to meet or exceed this DC, they’re out of the encounter. They’ve been so completely beaten down, they cannot continue to debate. If they meet or exceed the DC, they may remain in the encounter. This roll must be made at the start of every turn in which the side has 0 Resolution Points, but can only be made a number of times by a given Participant equal to their Charisma modifier.
When a Speaker would gain Resolution Points from a Figurehead with none, they instead take the points from the Pot.

Swaying the Crowd: Sometimes a social encounter is made to sway a populace’s favour (encouraging a revolt, winning a nomination, etc). In this case, the encounter essentially has an audience referred to as the Crowd, and there are an additional five Resolution Points in the Pot.
A Participant may Address the crowd instead of another Participant. They make their Propose Roll against a DC of 20. For every 2 points by which they exceed 20, they gain the support of one member of the crow, and win a Resolution Point from the Pot.
If winning the favour of the Crowd is the entire point of the encounter, such as with an election, then Participants have only a single Resolution Point each, and the Pot is equal to the number of people in the Crowd, or 20, whichever is lower. Participants in this circumstance are usually only addressing the crowd, but may elect to Counter another Participant’s Proposal. In this case, they hold their action, and Resist their rival’s Proposal as if the Speaker had Addressed them instead. Any points which are won this way are taken from the Pot.

Winning: A Figurehead wins when all rival Participants have been defeated, they control all Resolution Points, or their Resolution Points exceed the sum of all rivals’ Convictions.

Participant Actions
In addition to direct argument, Participants may take a number of other actions in a Social Encounter.
Logic and Rhetoric: Logic and Rhetoric can be very valuable in social encounters, so much so that even someone who is poor in social skills can use them to win an argument, shame a rival, or fake his way past guards.
Logic can spot a man’s tell, recognize the flaws in an argument, or reframe the debate. Rhetoric can halt someone’s argument with emotion or baffle them with bullshit.
As a standard action, a Participant may make a special Social Sabotage check. If they succeed, they may apply either a morale bonus to an allied Participant’s next Propose or Resist, or a morale penalty to a rival Participant’s next Propose or Resist. This modifier is equal to 1/3rd the modifier the Participant applied to the Sabotage roll (minimum 2 and lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Participant’s Intellect or Manipulation.
When used to apply a penalty, the Sabotage check is opposed by a Will save.
When used to apply a bonus, the Sabotage roll is made at a DC of 10+the target’s base rank in the Skill.

I still need to address what happens when you win in your surrender negotiations with an opposing enemy army that considers surrender the ultimate form of dishonor. I need to address people wanting to suggest a new negotiation ("Give me all your money!" "Sir, I am a god damned paladin, come with me criminal scum!" "Oh shit, how about I give you my weapons and promise to never steal again and you don't take me in?"). I need to cover negotiations in combat time (it will probably be "use the combat initiative, making a proposal is a [something] action.")

And on the "Slavery for Everyone or Endless Lists of Defined Outcomes" I accept 100% that some people will try to game my system to enslave every npc in their campaign world.

[Ice9]

And on the "Slavery for Everyone or Endless Lists of Defined Outcomes" I accept 100% that some people will try to game my system to enslave every npc in their campaign world.

Whether you have a complete list or not, you at least need to have some kind of guidelines for what is easier / harder / impossible.

I mean, you have "unconditional surrender" on the "totally ok" list. What? I would call that significantly stronger than "give me that for free", because you're giving them all your items plus yourself for free.

Now maybe what you meant is "unconditional surrender because you're losing the fight and I can be trusted to treat you humanely" Which is a very important distinction that you need to actually mention.


The main issue I have with any social system that produces extreme outcomes is that it makes not talking to anyone the logical choice. Or doing weird BS like making everyone talk to your assistant instead of you, and then having the assistant tell you a summary without any persuasive phrasing. Or kill potentially hostile forces on sight instead of entering parlay, because they might convince you to give up and be their slave.

[Laertes]

The main issue I have with any social system that produces extreme outcomes is that it makes not talking to anyone the logical choice. Or doing weird BS like making everyone talk to your assistant instead of you, and then having the assistant tell you a summary without any persuasive phrasing. Or kill potentially hostile forces on sight instead of entering parlay, because they might convince you to give up and be their slave.

Yeah, this. I mean, it's cool when it's Saruman and people say "don't let him speak or he'll beguile us", but when people take that view of every person more persuasive than them, it really strains at my suspension of disbelief.

[Prak]

Yeah, I still need to create a reputation system too, and the intent is that if you are known as someone who will treat hostages well, people will be more willing to surrender to you, if you're known as someone who kills hostages, then people will be substantially less likely. It will also allow you to Boast ("do you know who I am?" add rep to your Propose roll), and tangentially, Play Dumb (since it gives you something to play dumb against).

[PhoneLobster]

Opening Negotiations
In general, a social encounter starts when person A desires something person B is, for whatever reason, not completely in favour of.

The more you describe your place holder/implicit thing the less I like it.

I don't like the thing where some goals are arbitrarily off the doable list (free items from shop keepers) some much better goals are still on the doable list (unconditional surrender) and some are now apparently inexplicably still on the list but despite them having an argument to be off it inexplicably does weird (but currently undefined) things on outcomes (unconditional surrender of anti-surrender honor freaks). That's a set of examples and implied directions that's taking everything bad about infinite lists of infinite modifiers, throwing in a lot of ass pulled "DM says no", and somehow being worse than that would usually result in.

But even more than that this quoted sentence sums up a deep underlying piece of WTFery. We can sit down with our super PCs our charismatic specialists, and we can in an elaborate and costly mini-game that takes a great deal of time and invested character resources... convince them to do things they were "not completely in favour of" or to put it another way "not completely against doing".

It's an underwhelming goal to set out for. It's an underwhelming result for that sort of player and game time investment.

Players are going to look at a declaration like "you can convince them to do things they wouldn't be against potentially doing!" and they will make an angry face. If you offered them "you can convince them to do things they don't want to!" they might actually be interested.

Maybe it also needs mentioning again some of the reasons why I prefer different goals/social mechanic trigger. That are much more rewarding and have a much easier place to draw a line on when social mechanics start and what they actually achieve.

Your current direction requires you, and permits players, to make THREE arbitrarily distinct groups of goals prior to any social mechanic kicking in.

1) Any GM or player can define a goal as "sure fine, my character totally just wants to do that"... or at least I damn well HOPE this option is in your system. If not there will be issues.

2) Any GM or player can define a goal as anathema to a character "My greedy merchant NEVER gives things away for free!", "My honor knights would NEVER surrender!", "My excessively contrary halfling would NEVER do anything anyone tells them to!". And no social mechanic happens because they are completely "not in favor" of doing it. And anyone can just say this with anything.

2a) "My honor knights would NEVER Surrender, but I will let you have a contest and the result will be somehow funky!". Whatever that's going to mean. And whatever implications that might have for say... every social mechanic result ever that someone decides to apply it to.

3) Any GM or player can respond to a goal with "Meh, whatever"... at which point there can actually be a social contest to determine the outcome.

Now do you see why that's a harder place to draw a line than a simple choice between "I will do that voluntarily"/"Try and make me!"?

Do you see how the negotiations, arguments and disagreements BEFORE the social mechanic can even kick in are a problem under your system? Do you see how ANYTHING could be called "off the list", or "On the list" for almost no real reason? And this is before we see any implementation of an additional negotiated variable difficulty modifier of some kind for differently difficult/valued goals within the "meh, whatever" category. Which at this point I'm assuming is a thing, otherwise a number of your declared intentions don't make much sense.

Possible desires include a night of sex

There is a lot of sex in your examples/explanations.

When I set my own system up despite having a seduction themed social type, I went out of my way to ensure that sex was not a required aspect of those social attacks or their outcomes. For a variety of tasteful reasons. Which wasn't all that hard considering the goals of the system are fairly uniformly "convert to ally with social flavor X" rather than specific outcomes.

Having an odd focus on making characters have sex with your character is a bit... yeah. And considering you are going for specific outcomes as goals you could be talking about anything in your sample text. So maybe just... don't talk about sex. Or talk about it just a bit less.

When a social encounter starts, figure out how many people are participating.

If you weren't creating these various blobs of extra hit points in pots you could skip this step and just have relatively standard attack targeting. You are a participant because you made an attack/social action, or were targeted by one.

It's probably also less problematic just in case extra participants suddenly turn up mid encounter.

And it's not like more participants doesn't equal more hit points when they are all bringing their own individual hit points with them.

It is possible to interrupt a Participant on their turn, and act before they do.

Why?

You just rolled a test based on various attributes to determine if people get a word in first or not. Now everyone can just declare do-overs on everyone? Every action?

Here is how that works out. Every time everyone's action comes up everyone rolls interrupt to try and get an extra action/earlier action. Every time. You even try and interrupt your allies for an extra chance to jump ahead of enemies in initiative, or considering the way it is written, maybe even for raw extra actions.

Natural 1s:

I'm not sure why your reverse attacks of opportunity mechanic is built around a critical fumble mechanic.

Zero Resolution Points: ... If they wish to try to salvage the encounter by continuing in the face of defeat, they may roll Conviction ...
When a Speaker would gain Resolution Points from a Figurehead with none, they instead take the points from the Pot.

If you didn't have the hit point vampirism you wouldn't need that pot. If you didn't have this ability to continue as a social zombie on 0 HP, which is questionable in itself you wouldn't need the pot. Even as it is, I'm not entirely certain you need the pot when the hit points could just come from nowhere instead.

Swaying the Crowd:

I feel like it would be better if you just had AoE social attacks, maybe at least one default one, for this.

Winning: A Figurehead wins when all rival Participants have been defeated

Group 1 "We over here want you over there to surrender!"
Group 2 "Well we over HERE want you over THERE to surrender!"
One Guy "Well I want a pony!"
Everyone "No one cares about your fucking pony!"
One Guy "I WIN THIS ENCOUNTER!"

As a standard action, a Participant may make a special Social Sabotage check. If they succeed...

I remain concerned that when it comes to actual special abilities/action options you keep writing highly conditional and elaborate aid another mutations.

I still need to address what happens when you win in your surrender negotiations with an opposing enemy army that considers surrender the ultimate form of dishonor.

Yes, the strange middle ground inbetween the goal catagories of "meh ok, you can try it on" and "screw you I say not ever!" probably does need addressing. But addressing it by means of modifying the outcome rather than the process/difficulty seems... alarming?

I need to address people wanting to suggest a new negotiation

I'm unclear whether you mean that thing you implied earlier where mid combat someone can declare a new lesser/compromise goal and just win. Which does need addressing.

Or whether you mean the thing where immediately after a social encounter another social encounter can be started as new matters arise which both needs to be able to happen and definitely needs not to be able to happen. That also needs addressing.

I need to cover negotiations in combat time (it will probably be "use the combat initiative, making a proposal is a [something] action.")

At that point one wonders why you don't just do that for social encounters as is.

Also doing it both ways means that you get this thing where if people roll low on social initiative they will roll physical initiative to stab dudes, or start to stab dudes just so they can yell at them sooner with a favorable alternative initiative set.

And on the "Slavery for Everyone or Endless Lists of Defined Outcomes" I accept 100% that some people will try to game my system to enslave every npc in their campaign world.

I'm unclear on how this expresses itself mechanically.

I still need to create a reputation system too, and the intent is that if you are known as someone who will treat hostages well

So... how many other Rep types broken into how many reputation regions/groups and how many identities do you track on your reputation sheet? I mean other than "main identity, folks around here, Stockholme syndrome rating".

[Prak]

Opening Negotiations
In general, a social encounter starts when person A desires something person B is, for whatever reason, not completely in favour of.

The more you describe your place holder/implicit thing the less I like it.

I don't like the thing where some goals are arbitrarily off the doable list (free items from shop keepers) some much better goals are still on the doable list (unconditional surrender) and some are now apparently inexplicably still on the list but despite them having an argument to be off it inexplicably does weird (but currently undefined) things on outcomes (unconditional surrender of anti-surrender honor freaks). That's a set of examples and implied directions that's taking everything bad about infinite lists of infinite modifiers, throwing in a lot of ass pulled "DM says no", and somehow being worse than that would usually result in.

But even more than that this quoted sentence sums up a deep underlying piece of WTFery. We can sit down with our super PCs our charismatic specialists, and we can in an elaborate and costly mini-game that takes a great deal of time and invested character resources... convince them to do things they were "not completely in favour of" or to put it another way "not completely against doing".

It's an underwhelming goal to set out for. It's an underwhelming result for that sort of player and game time investment.

Players are going to look at a declaration like "you can convince them to do things they wouldn't be against potentially doing!" and they will make an angry face. If you offered them "you can convince them to do things they don't want to!" they might actually be interested.

Sorry, that's a misunderstanding created by writing style. The intent is that you can convince people to do things they are opposed to.

Maybe it also needs mentioning again some of the reasons why I prefer different goals/social mechanic trigger. That are much more rewarding and have a much easier place to draw a line on when social mechanics start and what they actually achieve.

Your current direction requires you, and permits players, to make THREE arbitrarily distinct groups of goals prior to any social mechanic kicking in.

1) Any GM or player can define a goal as "sure fine, my character totally just wants to do that"... or at least I damn well HOPE this option is in your system. If not there will be issues.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I said that--yeah, here:

If Party A proposes a course of action (let’s have sex/give me all your money/please surrender), and Party B agrees, there is no need for a social encounter. Party B can just acquiesce. It’s really fine for them to do so without making any rolls.

2) Any GM or player can define a goal as anathema to a character "My greedy merchant NEVER gives things away for free!", "My honor knights would NEVER surrender!", "My excessively contrary halfling would NEVER do anything anyone tells them to!". And no social mechanic happens because they are completely "not in favor" of doing it. And anyone can just say this with anything.

2a) "My honor knights would NEVER Surrender, but I will let you have a contest and the result will be somehow funky!". Whatever that's going to mean. And whatever implications that might have for say... every social mechanic result ever that someone decides to apply it to.

As previously said, the intent is that characters can convince another party to do something they are actively opposed too. However, if you request the the Honor Knights surrender, the fact that their culture says surrender is dishonorable should mean something. Now, obviously, yes, it's really dumb to say that they can just reject the social encounter (except that needs to be something someone can do...), or that a successful convince is actually unsuccessful. But the fact remains that "We would never surrender!" needs to be a meaningful character trait. I'm considering putting in a trait system with things like "Will not surrender," maybe as a sort of social armour. Either that or Social Damage Reduction.

3) Any GM or player can respond to a goal with "Meh, whatever"... at which point there can actually be a social contest to determine the outcome.

Now do you see why that's a harder place to draw a line than a simple choice between "I will do that voluntarily"/"Try and make me!"?

Do you see how the negotiations, arguments and disagreements BEFORE the social mechanic can even kick in are a problem under your system? Do you see how ANYTHING could be called "off the list", or "On the list" for almost no real reason? And this is before we see any implementation of an additional negotiated variable difficulty modifier of some kind for differently difficult/valued goals within the "meh, whatever" category. Which at this point I'm assuming is a thing, otherwise a number of your declared intentions don't make much sense.

Ok, but in a negotiation, it's totally possible for people to just say "no." and walk out. It's possible for people asked to surrender to respond with "No, I'd rather die." Now the other way to handle this is to make things more nuanced. You start an encounter by saying "Surrender!" or "I want to buy your store!" Usually the other party will say "Fuck off." In a real negotiation, you can respond by 1- offering an exchange (Surrender, and I'll talk to the DA/Sell me your store, and I'll keep you on the staff so you still get some of the profit). They can still respond with "Fuck off." Other than my Social Attack and Damage Rolls/Social Defense and Soak Rolls to Win Conviction Points thing, what is a better way to handle that sort of thing that's still an actual system?

Possible desires include a night of sex

There is a lot of sex in your examples/explanations.

When I set my own system up despite having a seduction themed social type, I went out of my way to ensure that sex was not a required aspect of those social attacks or their outcomes. For a variety of tasteful reasons. Which wasn't all that hard considering the goals of the system are fairly uniformly "convert to ally with social flavor X" rather than specific outcomes.

Having an odd focus on making characters have sex with your character is a bit... yeah. And considering you are going for specific outcomes as goals you could be talking about anything in your sample text. So maybe just... don't talk about sex. Or talk about it just a bit less.

another style thing.

When a social encounter starts, figure out how many people are participating.

If you weren't creating these various blobs of extra hit points in pots you could skip this step and just have relatively standard attack targeting. You are a participant because you made an attack/social action, or were targeted by one.

It's probably also less problematic just in case extra participants suddenly turn up mid encounter.

And it's not like more participants doesn't equal more hit points when they are all bringing their own individual hit points with them.

It is possible to interrupt a Participant on their turn, and act before they do.

Why?

You just rolled a test based on various attributes to determine if people get a word in first or not. Now everyone can just declare do-overs on everyone? Every action?

Here is how that works out. Every time everyone's action comes up everyone rolls interrupt to try and get an extra action/earlier action. Every time. You even try and interrupt your allies for an extra chance to jump ahead of enemies in initiative, or considering the way it is written, maybe even for raw extra actions.

...because people will yell over and interrupt each other... It's harder to do this in combat, but in a negotiation, people will definitely try to shout over each other (unless they're in a formal debate or the like). But I can also see just using the initiative roll to represent who does get a word when. It's tempting to then make participants roll for initiative each round, but that style sucks, so whatever.

Natural 1s:

I'm not sure why your reverse attacks of opportunity mechanic is built around a critical fumble mechanic.

I can work in other AoO triggers.

Zero Resolution Points: ... If they wish to try to salvage the encounter by continuing in the face of defeat, they may roll Conviction ...
When a Speaker would gain Resolution Points from a Figurehead with none, they instead take the points from the Pot.

If you didn't have the hit point vampirism you wouldn't need that pot. If you didn't have this ability to continue as a social zombie on 0 HP, which is questionable in itself you wouldn't need the pot. Even as it is, I'm not entirely certain you need the pot when the hit points could just come from nowhere instead.

I feel that for a social encounter it should be (and again, is in the real thing I'm trying to model) possible for someone to continue arguing even when they've been proven wrong. Maybe you're right that there doesn't need to be a pot. Maybe this is another thing to make a Trait, except more like Social healing or Fast Healing.

Swaying the Crowd:

I feel like it would be better if you just had AoE social attacks, maybe at least one default one, for this.

not a bad thought.

Winning: A Figurehead wins when all rival Participants have been defeated

Group 1 "We over here want you over there to surrender!"
Group 2 "Well we over HERE want you over THERE to surrender!"
One Guy "Well I want a pony!"
Everyone "No one cares about your fucking pony!"
One Guy "I WIN THIS ENCOUNTER!"

I'm... not concerned that people can win highly ridiculous demands when others are focused on other things (also "no one cares about your fucking pony" is a refusal to negotiate for that, not an acquiescence.)

As a standard action, a Participant may make a special Social Sabotage check. If they succeed...

I remain concerned that when it comes to actual special abilities/action options you keep writing highly conditional and elaborate aid another mutations.

...would you prefer the quiet hired gun Muscle and the nebish socially inept Brain just stand around rolling normal aid another? Also... while having more people can help you kill a dragon, it generally doesn't help you convince someone of something (unless you're using peer pressure or intimidation)

I still need to address what happens when you win in your surrender negotiations with an opposing enemy army that considers surrender the ultimate form of dishonor.

Yes, the strange middle ground inbetween the goal catagories of "meh ok, you can try it on" and "screw you I say not ever!" probably does need addressing. But addressing it by means of modifying the outcome rather than the process/difficulty seems... alarming?

I genuinely don't recall saying I'd handle it by modifying the outcome. I may have, I just don't recall.

I need to address people wanting to suggest a new negotiation

I'm unclear whether you mean that thing you implied earlier where mid combat someone can declare a new lesser/compromise goal and just win. Which does need addressing.

You mean the pony? Again, they wouldn't win if no one cared, "we don't care" is "I refuse to discuss that"

Or whether you mean the thing where immediately after a social encounter another social encounter can be started as new matters arise which both needs to be able to happen and definitely needs not to be able to happen. That also needs addressing.

Yeah, there's a lot to address still.

I need to cover negotiations in combat time (it will probably be "use the combat initiative, making a proposal is a [something] action.")

At that point one wonders why you don't just do that for social encounters as is.

...because physical quickness of action has nothing to do with speaking? Because Social Encounters don't really need an action economy?

Also doing it both ways means that you get this thing where if people roll low on social initiative they will roll physical initiative to stab dudes, or start to stab dudes just so they can yell at them sooner with a favorable alternative initiative set.

Once again, people will do this anyway, and do.

And on the "Slavery for Everyone or Endless Lists of Defined Outcomes" I accept 100% that some people will try to game my system to enslave every npc in their campaign world.

I'm unclear on how this expresses itself mechanically.

So am I. I was responding to Kaelik saying this is somehow the likely consequence of my system if I don't outline specific goals.

I still need to create a reputation system too, and the intent is that if you are known as someone who will treat hostages well

So... how many other Rep types broken into how many reputation regions/groups and how many identities do you track on your reputation sheet? I mean other than "main identity, folks around here, Stockholme syndrome rating".

Dunno. It's something that needs inclusion, because the alternative is a very high level of abstraction.

[PhoneLobster]

orry, that's a misunderstanding created by writing style. The intent is that you can convince people to do things they are opposed to.

That's good, it's something you probably want. You probably need to make that more clear.

Ok, but in a negotiation, it's totally possible for people to just say "no." and walk out. It's possible for people asked to surrender to respond with "No, I'd rather die." Now the other way to handle this is to make things more nuanced. You start an encounter by saying "Surrender!" or "I want to buy your store!" Usually the other party will say "Fuck off." In a real negotiation, you can respond by 1- offering an exchange (Surrender, and I'll talk to the DA/Sell me your store, and I'll keep you on the staff so you still get some of the profit). They can still respond with "Fuck off." Other than my Social Attack and Damage Rolls/Social Defense and Soak Rolls to Win Conviction Points thing, what is a better way to handle that sort of thing that's still an actual system?

Well, for your specific examples. "No and walk out" would be easy as heck if you had positioning and range mean even anything at all, since people could literally just survive the first social attack... and walk out. "No, I'd Rather Die!" is just a victory against a surrender demand against overwhelming forces combined with the decision to not voluntarily surrender despite it perhaps being the smarter idea in the circumstances.

But this does bring up the point that with better range and positioning limits and better social/physical combat transitions viable responses to social attacks could and should include "retreat" and "attack".

Some critics will decry such options as inexplicably bad, or claim that players will "always respond with physical force". But the basic fact is that's only going to be a problem on that level if the social minigame is bad enough that they really don't want to play it. You need those potential transitions and your minigame needs to be good enough to survive in the same rule set as those transitions.

another style thing.

"Style things" are still a valid criticism. And I found the sex focus just a touch excessive. It is also jarring with the earlier, apparently mistaken, language about there being things characters would just "never do" when "unwanted sex" somehow ended up explicitly on the "can make do" list, repeatedly.

And it is worth pointing out that the style might be alienating, and that there are critics out there who call my system, with it's actual exclusion of forced sex as an outcome, as a "rape simulator", so actually explicitly including a mechanic/goal of making a character have sex they didn't want to have is opening you up to that line of attack.

...because people will yell over and interrupt each other...

At the very least if you keep the mechanic it needs tuning up. If failing the attempt lost you your action and succeeding only explicitly moved your action forward rather than potentially creating an extra action it might be less of an endless interruption festival.

I feel that for a social encounter it should be (and again, is in the real thing I'm trying to model) possible for someone to continue arguing even when they've been proven wrong.

I don't see anything in your system to prevent that happening anyway without this mechanic. "I want you all to bow down to the clear divine goditude of myself, Warren the dirty peasant!", or better "be convinced about my claims that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it!" is potentially a goal a character can outline from the start. If you are moving away from the earlier implications that there would be "ruled out" goals or goal based difficulty modifiers then there is literally nothing to stop people presenting goals that are clearly "wrong".

If you want people to keep going after presenting "wrong" failed arguments... well the problem with that is that your arguments are abstracted, and your keep going mechanic is abstracted. Enough so that it somewhat falls down on being a clear representation of the less than abstract concept. So yeah, I think I would suggest a specific named ability with direct "I'm proven wrong, but screw you I'm still going" fluff. Because otherwise it's just not clear enough to me that this is here for "Zombie Argument attack!".

I'm... not concerned that people can win highly ridiculous demands when others are focused on other things (also "no one cares about your fucking pony" is a refusal to negotiate for that, not an acquiescence.)

The problem is the earlier language claiming social encounters can have multiple goals and only one winner.

And having to define your position as against the pony rather than neutral or in favor is bad, because it doesn't have to be a comedic pony, it could be literally anything that everyone might actually want "I propose we all keep breathing!".

It is also bad because aligning yourself against it means additional opponents. If someone pulls out the pony methodology they should get their pointless success, and be removed from the social encounter. As it is currently written up they "win" it and are the only winner presumably ending the entire encounter, it's clearly an oversight, but it's there and needs fixing.

...would you prefer the quiet hired gun Muscle and the nebish socially inept Brain just stand around rolling normal aid another?

Just let them have their own actions. Let the muscle make silent muscle glaring attacks, let the Brain make elaborate trivia attacks, whatever. Just let them make their own actions against their own targets. Let those actions be actions of some value in and of themselves.

Also... while having more people can help you kill a dragon, it generally doesn't help you convince someone of something (unless you're using peer pressure or intimidation)

There is no reason whatsoever to insist that more people cannot more convincing.

I genuinely don't recall saying I'd handle it by modifying the outcome. I may have, I just don't recall.

Your statement about the honor knights surrender focused on needing to define what special thing would happen if you won against them on a dispute over making them surrender.

It seemed pretty clear you were discussing an outcome based change rather than some sort of difficulty modifier to the process.

You mean the pony? Again, they wouldn't win if no one cared, "we don't care" is "I refuse to discuss that"

Some time ago you seemed to imply it should be possible for characters to somehow compromise their goals mid contest. The implication seemed to be that in the middle of the social combat someone would say "I'll agree to your demands, almost!" and the social combat would end and the winner would get their demands, only involuntarily less so.

...because physical quickness of action has nothing to do with speaking? Because Social Encounters don't really need an action economy?

I would suggest that physical quickness certainly could have a lot to do with speed of speaking and that elaborate formalized social combat systems probably DO need an action economy of some form.

Also doing it both ways means that you get this thing where if people roll low on social initiative they will roll physical initiative to stab dudes, or start to stab dudes just so they can yell at them sooner with a favorable alternative initiative set.

Once again, people will do this anyway, and do.

While you want the transition from social to physical combat to be possible, maybe even sometimes motivated.

You want it to be motivated by the right reasons. "To call do-overs on a bad initiative roll" is not a good enough reason for me.

So am I. I was responding to Kaelik saying this is somehow the likely consequence of my system if I don't outline specific goals.

The thing is it, to some hyperbolic extent, IS the outcome if your goal list continues to be "anything, no difficulty mod". So the question does remain what mechanics are you adding that are going to try and mitigate that?

I kind of expect that when you acknowledge a seemingly negative potential outcome in the process of designing rules that you would be attempting to put in place mechanics to prevent or mitigate that outcome in some way.

And slavery aside the simple fact is if you don't introduce some form of difficulty/cost modification you don't actually have a variable goal system, you have a system where players only ever fight over the biggest possible goals.

My own "acceptance" of that issue was in the form of mechanics that simply DO revolve around fighting for goals of a largely uniform clear value that Kaelik would (and does) call slavery. Some might disagree with the strategy, and do, but it's a clear link between acceptance of the situation and the actual mechanics to deal with it.

Acknowledging that there is a huge pressure once your minigame starts to declare the largest goals possible, but that you aren't actually going to do anything to make the smaller specific goals your system is supposedly mechanically dealing with actually viable seems like a significant conceptual flaw.

[Prak]

Ok, so let's assume I was going to institute a list of diplomatic goals one could pursue.
Off the top of my head, that should include:

• Surrender
• Give me [that thing, thing raises difficulty based on value, and there could be a Moslow thing here, too]
  --For less than you want for it
  --For free
• Join me
  --For a drink
  --For a walk
  --For the night
  --For life
  --For a job
  --For an adventure
  --As a political ally
  --Against your former allies

What else should be on that list?

Then of course there should be something involving traits so that difficulties can be modified by characters in addition to goals. The most elegant way for me to accomplish this is to tie it into an idea I'm rolling around in my head to replace alignment with a set of adjectives players select for their character, like Loyal (inc. diff. to turn against allies), Pledged to [spec. god]/Honorbound--[specific belief] (inc. diff. to make act against belief, such as belief that surrender is dishonorable), etc.

[PhoneLobster]

[*]Give me [that thing, thing raises difficulty based on value, and there could be a Moslow thing here, too]
--For less than you want for it
--For free

Including item value is problematic because then you have a lot of questions to answer about how subjective or objective value is determined and a bunch of potentially bad implications to those answers.

Rating difficulty instead on "less than you want for it" and "free" is better, but open to abuse as anything short of free always falls into the easier category so you would be a fool not to offer to pay token amounts and no one ever asks for anything 100% free.

What else should be on that list?

Everything. Thats kinda the task you take upon yourself when heading down the infinite lists of infinite modifiers road.

Then of course there should be something involving traits so that difficulties can be modified by characters in addition to goals. The most elegant way for me to accomplish this is to tie it into an idea I'm rolling around in my head to replace alignment with a set of adjectives players select for their character, like Loyal (inc. diff. to turn against allies), Pledged to [spec. god]/Honorbound--[specific belief] (inc. diff. to make act against belief, such as belief that surrender is dishonorable), etc.

There are issues with that. It's a possibly good direction. But...

For instance Honor Bound as a penalty to "dishonorable" labelled attack actions might be fine. If there were say a special an attack action or ability labelled "Surrender!" it might be ok for Honour Bound to apply a penalty. That's all fine.

The problem is that if your traits interact not with available attacks and actions but instead with goals. Because your goals are malleable and negotiable. If surrender as a goal is penalized against the current opponent then BEFORE combat you just negotiate a new goal that is of equal or greater value but is not penalized, so instead of "Surrender goal" you pick "Friendship goal" and it's pretty similar and equally rewarding and essentially means that your Honour resistance may as well never exist.

And it's different to the way say, fire resistance, works in physical combat. Because fire resistance takes various actual actions and character investments off the table (or at least penalizes them). And unless your defensive resistance traits interact with actual actions and character investment instead of on the fly optional goal fluff it's not going to work out the same.