Social Systems: What are they supposed to do?

[hyzmarca]

Well, assuming that these are quantum brigands who are simultaneously assassins and bandits until someone observes them and collapses the waveform, one methods is as good as another. Rules at least make it non-arbitrary.

I think encounter design being done by DM fiat is superior to having a social minigame to determine what the encounter is.

Player: Ha! Critical hit. The Orc must be dead now.

DM: The orc tear off its face mask and reveals that it's actually a beholder. Save vs Disintigration.

[MGuy]

The most important thing a SIR has to determine is whether or not a player can turn a no into a yes and vice versa. No one cares if zombies attack you without listening to your speech, no one cares if enemy soldiers ambush and attack you without waiting for you to try and talk them out of it. Only Frank (and people who want to defend his stupid position) think there needs to be a roll for persuading made before any persuading is actually done.

[Kaelik]

Well, assuming that these are quantum brigands who are simultaneously assassins and bandits until someone observes them and collapses the waveform, one methods is as good as another. Rules at least make it non-arbitrary.

I think encounter design being done by DM fiat is superior to having a social minigame to determine what the encounter is.

Player: Ha! Critical hit. The Orc must be dead now.

DM: The orc tear off its face mask and reveals that it's actually a beholder. Save vs Disintigration.

If you are just going to troll, I'm going to ignore you.

[PhoneLobster]

Only Frank (and people who want to defend his stupid position) think there needs to be a roll for persuading made before any persuading is actually done.

The thing is, the reaction roll to delay combat for non-combat social to occur bullshit exists not for good, or even any, game design reasons, but because Frank can't change his mind after painting himself into the stupid corner in internet arguments.

He over committed too much to "no social actions, in combat, ever, final destination, no exceptions, fuck phonelobster". As a result he had no choice but to, not so much implement as just say is totes easy but for some reason never actually deliver on, a mechanic that created an entirely separate phase for social actions. A phase that is so unnecessary and superfluous that it is arguable nothing but a burden harming good game play outcomes the vast majority of the time.

If you really gave a shit about manipulating "the combat music" you would care about "ending the combat music" as much or more than "stopping it from beginning", but THAT requires acknowledging ANY in combat social actions, and those are verboten due to internet stupidity double downs. And if you had in combat social actions "preventing the combat music from starting" could instead be dealt with by the simple emergent means of characters spending their initial actions on socially stopping it while the opponents were hopefully still either missing with initial attacks or maneuvering into range. But that is forbidden due to fuck backing down to Phonelobster on mini-game/social mechanic integration and therefore a clunky great failed reaction mechanic needs to be implemented to fill the gap created.

The less well discussed aspect of the stupid idea is that it's part of creating another all too common failure of social mechanics where GM/Player control of character actions is inexplicably removed and instead determined by various social mechanics regardless of success or failure a reaction roll dictates the actions of characters on "success" AND "failure" (if those terms are even appropriate), and at no time does the GM or player involved actually JUST get to say "and today ninjas have decided to attack you", not without at least going to needlessly elaborate lengths to stack a bunch of modifiers off the RNG first, and frankly that is just too much shit to go through to be permitted to simply say "and today ninjas have decided to attack you".

I think this is a major point that needs a lot more discussion, when implementing your social mechanics there needs to be SOME state, on successful defense or failed attack, or at least prior to a voluntary attempt at a formal social attack or action, SOME state, ANY state where the actions and attitudes of characters are simply directly under the direct control of the players or GMs that "own" them.

There needs to be a point where a player or GM can just say "MY character wants to attack that guy with a sword" and it be OK and NOT require a reaction check before hand. And, less related to reaction checks but still all too common in poorly considered social mechanics, when you DO pull out a social attack/action to MAKE an opposing character do SOMETHING if it succeeds... then if you FAIL the result MUST NOT BE still forcing the target to do some other thing, even if not especially the opposite thing. Because all you have to do then is take the action to entirely remove human agency from the situation. And because the potential exploits generated are stupid as hell.

Direct arbitrary human control over characters in at least some states must be preserved. And also compulsion to act on success AND failure, even if it switches to the opposite compulsion is a massively exploitable breaking point. People don't seem to consider or discuss this nearly enough in relation to their social mechanics that often break on those exact points.

[MGuy]

Frank and detractors do not care " who" rejects their idea. Frank will just refuse to engage with anyone who successfully shows he's full of shit. The very first time I saw him suggest the idea of the pre-roll (at the time it generated the NPC attitude so that shop owners could be hostile and assassins could suddenly decide to not go after their targets without actually interacting with them) I immediately called it into question and after angrily yelling at me about how having a generally neutral disposition toward fuckers I do not know breaks causality he ignored me.

The second time he put me on ignore because Encounter Distance is a thing. How that relates to my insistence that players DO something to require a roll? I do not know.

Then there's the STUPID idea that there needs to be a roll to decide whether or not a character accepts a consequence free gift or service from a friend.

There was the time DSM decided to do some truly uninspired mental gymnastics to explain why Frank gave an example of his system in action where not only was a target starting off as hostile (the fighting kind) but was not even an available target to turn from being hostile, while in another example all present targets were.

[hyzmarca]

I think encounter design being done by DM fiat is superior to having a social minigame to determine what the encounter is.

Player: Ha! Critical hit. The Orc must be dead now.

DM: The orc tear off its face mask and reveals that it's actually a beholder. Save vs Disintigration.

If you are just going to troll, I'm going to ignore you.

The identities and motive of bandits should be determined by whatever encounter generation method you use and should be fixed by the time the encounter actually starts.

[hogarth]

But as far as a diplomacy/reaction skill goes...what exactly is this supposed to look like, and does anyone have any good examples that's better than just saying fuck it MTP?

As I've noted before, computer RPGs generally have social systems that work well enough. Why?
(a) Because there's generally a cap on the results you can achieve, so even if you're maxed out in Diplomacy (or whatever you want to call it), you're not turning NPCs into puppets.
(b) Because they're almost always written so that it's possible to get through the entire adventure without succeeding at a single Diplomacy check.

The downside is that the GM has to keep coming up with Diplomacy results that are interesting but not unbalanced.

[Ice9]

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

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

[FatR]

If you really gave a shit about manipulating "the combat music" you would care about "ending the combat music" as much or more than "stopping it from beginning", but THAT requires acknowledging ANY in combat social actions, and those are verboten due to internet stupidity double downs.

Or maybe due to real life not working like this.

And if you had in combat social actions "preventing the combat music from starting" could instead be dealt with by the simple emergent means of characters spending their initial actions on socially stopping it while the opponents were hopefully still either missing with initial attacks or maneuvering into range.

Even for fiction where in-combat banter and therapy by asskicking are core parts (like, say, Rurouni Kenshin), I cannot remember a single example of a serious combat being resolved by talking before one side loses decisively off the top of my head. But maybe I'm not trying hard enough - so, can you provide any?

In real life fights to death, well... Even in WWI on Western Front, probably the most by-the-rules war in the whole human history, after combat moved to close quarters it typically ended with one side annihilated to the last man. If you wanted to surrender, you had to indicate the intent before enemies reached your trench or at least to have your hands up by the moment they did. Examples of fights from previous ages where the losing side was caught in close quarters with limited opportunities for running, such as in a failed attempt to defend a fortification, show a similar picture.

[Username17]

You rolled high because of your half elf diplomancer character with all the charisma activated Sweeping Oratory Compounding Convincement! Now the Bandits:

1) Decide to leave you in peace!
2) Decide to be your slaves!
3) Also have a diplomancer who used Counter The Sweeping Current of Direct Convincement and now you are their slaves!
4) Turn out to be assassins not bandits, hired for the express purpose of killing you, and therefore still attack, or perhaps don't for no good reason!
5) Say, "Your money or your life!" resulting in combat even though you won the social minigame to not combat because you are so pretty!
6) Ect.!

How the fuckity fuck do you figure out which of those occurs?

This is such hyperbolic bullshit that I assume you are just being an asshole and attempting to shit over rational discussion. But while any game with a social minigame that has actual outputs should have no trouble deciding whether the bandits leave you in peace or become your slaves, there is necessarily going to be some MC fiat and MTP to interpret the results.

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

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

Even for fiction where in-combat banter and therapy by asskicking are core parts (like, say, Rurouni Kenshin), I cannot remember a single example of a serious combat being resolved by talking before one side loses decisively off the top of my head. But maybe I'm not trying hard enough - so, can you provide any?

Basically this. The alternatives that PhoneLobster and MGuy talk about for giving the players any agency at all in determining whether the combat music starts are so out of genre for all genres I've ever heard of that I can't take them seriously as options. They've had literally years to come up with an example from any story or movie or anything that worked the way their proposals would make it work and have come up empty. These days I just keep them on ignore and check in about one pot in three to see if they've decided to make sense. Which they have not.

-Username17

[MGuy]

The alternatives that PhoneLobster and MGuy talk about for giving the players any agency at all in determining whether the combat music starts are so out of genre for all genres I've ever heard of that I can't take them seriously as options. They've had literally years to come up with an example from any story or movie or anything that worked the way their proposals would make it work and have come up empty.

Wow. This is the kind of bullshit I'm talking about. So all the alternatives I've ever suggested don't fit the genre? So you're going to claim there aren't any genres that feature people wearing the enemy team's colors? Tricking them into believing that you are not to be fucked with? Intimidating people to quit a fight through a show of force? People fighting defensively while trying to talk their (former)ally out of assaulting them? Convincing opposition that they are being had, that you're not the droids they were looking for, etc? That's certainly a bold claim but, considering Frank gets full of shit whenever this subject comes up I wouldn't put it past him.

So this means that part of Star Wars 1 where Luke and Han dress up as Storm Troopers and show up with Chewie in cuffs to avoid fighting? Doesn't happen.

So those parts in Pirates of the Carribean where Jack routinely convinces people who are determined to kill him multiple times to 'not' do so by spilling a few words? Your imagination

The stories where Hulk is brought out of rampage mode by being talked down? Never.

That moment in Civil War where the clashing heroes stop fighting because someone died? Nope.

Any story where a side gave up hostilities after a show of force, being outnumbered, or otherwise intimidated? Don't exist.

Any plot that features someone stopping other people from fighting, either by authority or diplomancing? Impossible!

And of course, to bring up a mentioned example: A fight in Kenshin that is stopped before it is completed by talking, that part toward the beginning when Kaoru has to convince Kenshin to not kill Jinsei? Erased from memory. And you might immediately jump to that other memorable part where Kenshin and Saito stop fighting the very first time they go at it without anything being 'decisive' at all. Well you better cool your jets mister because fights don't stop in any genre unless someone wins according to FatR.

So yea, if you ignore... I don't know, all the examples of people avoiding fighting through trickery, straight up stealth, intimidation, etc then yea, there are no other ways for players to have ANY way of avoiding combat. And, if you're like FatR and boldly claim that examples of fighting peoples who stop fighting midway through their fight or before it's finished don't exist you just have to ignore every example that exists where exactly that happens. Remember boy's and girls according to these two an incident where someone is being fired upon by an ally cannot be resolved, even by informing the allied party of this, without one side decisively winning. This just has never happened in fiction or real life.

Honestly only on this board do I find people who only care about diplomancing under hostile conditions to be the primary focus of constructing a fucking social system where as most people, in real life and in fiction, spend most of their time diplomancing away from the battlefield which I would believe would be 95% of what you want your socializing system to fucking cover.

[OgreBattle]

I cannot remember a single example of a serious combat being resolved by talking before one side loses decisively off the top of my head.

Naruto talked it out with Pain to conclude their conflict even though both of them hadn't exhausted their fighting ability. Nagato even helps reverse some of the damage he's done.

The ninjas revived by edo tensei are usually beaten by talking their sense back into them, then the power over them is broken and their spirits leave.

The Mewtwo Movie has Team Rocket's meowth fighting his clone, but in the middle of facing off TR's Meowth goes: "Even though you're a little stronger, our claws will hurt the same", and they decide it's not worth fighting and look at the moon.

Ash's Pikachu also decides to stop fighting, eventually the clone Pikachu's will to fight is broken as he sees his opponent doesn't want to fight back. Something similar also happens in FFIV with Cecil vs his inner darkness.



Gundam Wing: Heero points a gun to Relena's head, she talks him down and they go dancing. I think this happens to every girl Heero interacts with.

Tomino's Gundam novelization: Amuro Ray convinces everyone to stop fighting, then their friend who didn't hear the speech shows up and kills Amuro because Tomino wrote the novel.

In Dragon Ball, Mr. Satan manages to talk Majin Buu out of destroying everything... but then some guys come by and shoot his dog and fuck it up.

In Dragon Ball Super, Goku loses to Beerus, but his fighting spirit and Earth's delicious pudding delays Beerus enough for Beerus to take a nap and forget about destroying earth. So in that case the social (and 'gifting') minigame is a way to avoid a game over condition.

Fallout lets you talk the last boss into killing himself

Various Shin Megami Tensei games let you talk your way out of a fight, like the demon gets scared off or just wants some money, likes your sense of humor, finds out you hate YHWH too, or various other reasons for you to not end the fight with violence.

[Omegonthesane]

So this means that part of Star Wars 1 where Luke and Han dress up as Storm Troopers and show up with Chewie in cuffs to avoid fighting? Doesn't happen.

I dunno, that seems to fall under anticipating what the encounter is and applying modifiers to make combat music not start.

So those parts in Pirates of the Carribean where Jack routinely convinces people who are determined to kill him multiple times to 'not' do so by spilling a few words? Your imagination

May need a specific example here, it's been a while since I saw those films.

The stories where Hulk is brought out of rampage mode by being talked down? Never.

That seems more in-genre but again, specific examples.

Any story where a side gave up hostilities after a show of force, being outnumbered, or otherwise intimidated? Don't exist.

Yeah, you need to really stretch the definition of "decisively won" to account for reinforcements showing up after combat begins. To give a specific example, the duel between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow at the start of the original Pirates of the Caribbean ends when a bunch of British soldiers show up to capture Jack and the latter decides to surrender.

And of course, to bring up a mentioned example: A fight in Kenshin that is stopped before it is completed by talking, that part toward the beginning when Kaoru has to convince Kenshin to not kill Jinsei? Erased from memory. And you might immediately jump to that other memorable part where Kenshin and Saito stop fighting the very first time they go at it without anything being 'decisive' at all. Well you better cool your jets mister because fights don't stop in any genre unless someone wins according to FatR.

Yeah that's a specific example.

See also OgreBattle's post above.

[MGuy]

So this means that part of Star Wars 1 where Luke and Han dress up as Storm Troopers and show up with Chewie in cuffs to avoid fighting? Doesn't happen.

I dunno, that seems to fall under anticipating what the encounter is and applying modifiers to make combat music not start.

Why yes. Sounds like what you'd use disguise and bluff for right? I'll note for those who don't know, one of the things I insisted from the beginning when Frank brought this shit up is that players have to DO something to earn the right to skip combat. Under that 'do something' clause I suggested they use other skills in order to create a situation where they don't have to fight.

So those parts in Pirates of the Carribean where Jack routinely convinces people who are determined to kill him multiple times to 'not' do so by spilling a few words? Your imagination

May need a specific example here, it's been a while since I saw those films.

That's practically his schtick. Take any PotC movie. He gets captured in all of them, hell I think once by the same people multiple times in the same movie.

The stories where Hulk is brought out of rampage mode by being talked down? Never.

That seems more in-genre but again, specific examples.

You need an example of this? It's one of the Hulk's 'things'. They did it in the very last Avenger movie and people got all weird about Blackwidow and Bruce being in a relationship such that she could pull it off.

Any story where a side gave up hostilities after a show of force, being outnumbered, or otherwise intimidated? Don't exist.

Yeah, you need to really stretch the definition of "decisively won" to account for reinforcements showing up after combat begins. To give a specific example, the duel between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow at the start of the original Pirates of the Caribbean ends when a bunch of British soldiers show up to capture Jack and the latter decides to surrender.

I don't really because we're talking about people who don't believe there is a way to end combat without having won the fight. If people can just lose out on morale to end a fight (by a greater force showing up or whatever) that serves to be a counter example.

[FatR]

Let me respond to only the examples I've watched personally

I cannot remember a single example of a serious combat being resolved by talking before one side loses decisively off the top of my head.

Naruto talked it out with Pain to conclude their conflict even though both of them hadn't exhausted their fighting ability. Nagato even helps reverse some of the damage he's done.

As this was the moment that fucking convinced me to stop reading Naruto, I'd rather not reproduce it in my games. I won't even go to reread and check whether Pain was out of combat juice by the time Naruto broke through to his true body and whether he tried to fight at that moment at all.

Gundam Wing: Heero points a gun to Relena's head, she talks him down and they go dancing. I think this happens to every girl Heero interacts with.

That is exactly the situation of using a social system Frank considers normal and Kaelik is mad about, if I understand their arguments correctly. One character strongly considers violence against another character, and pretty much can easily gank her, but is socialized out of it.

In Dragon Ball, Mr. Satan manages to talk Majin Buu out of destroying everything... but then some guys come by and shoot his dog and fuck it up.

They weren't fighting. Mr.Satan managed to pacify normal Buu specifically because he had no serious fighting ability and socializing was his only resort.

In Dragon Ball Super, Goku loses to Beerus, but his fighting spirit and Earth's delicious pudding delays Beerus enough for Beerus to take a nap and forget about destroying earth. So in that case the social (and 'gifting') minigame is a way to avoid a game over condition.

Here the battle (at least in the movie version, have yet to watch Super) is instrumental for the final outcome, by giving Beers a good enough workout to put him in a peaceful mood, but it still fought to the conclusion, until Goku is clearly defeated and incapable to continue.

Fallout lets you talk the last boss into killing himself

That and fighing him are an either/or proposition.

And of course, to bring up a mentioned example: A fight in Kenshin that is stopped before it is completed by talking, that part toward the beginning when Kaoru has to convince Kenshin to not kill Jinsei? Erased from memory.

Hard to erase from memory what did not happen.

Let me refresh that episdode for you:

-Jin'e hypnotises Kaoru with his weeaboo fightan' magic to make her stop breathing, specifically to draw out Kenshin's killer side.

-Kenshin reverts to Battousai mode and wrecks Jin'e. The fight is over by any conceivabe measure. Jin'e is mauled so badly that seconds later he'll kill himself rather than live as a cripple unable to fight. However, Kenshin still faces the necessity of actually killing him to save Kaoru.

-Seeing her boyfriend's terrifying split personality, Kaoru at this point breaks the hypnosis by sheer willpower, so that he won't need to kill a disabled opponent in cold blood.

And you might immediately jump to that other memorable part where Kenshin and Saito stop fighting the very first time they go at it without anything being 'decisive' at all.

Yeah, the part where Saito was always on the same side and only supposed to test how far Kenshin's skills have degraded, and forgot about all that almost as soon as actual fighting began, so if not for the arrival of a figure of authority recognized by both of them, the fight would have ended in death?

Well you better cool your jets mister because fights don't stop in any genre unless someone wins according to FatR.

You're certainly not doing a good job proving otherwise. You wouldn't have to bring examples of fights from PotC which end with a decisive victory by one side - what else you can call capturing your opponent? - but leave the loser alive, so that later he can bullshit his way out of his predicament otherwise.

Remember boy's and girls according to these two an incident where someone is being fired upon by an ally cannot be resolved, even by informing the allied party of this, without one side decisively winning. This just has never happened in fiction or real life.

And you would need to erect ridiculous strawmen either, if your position was tenable.

Of course such an accident can be resolved.

It can easily be resolved in any form of vanilla 3.X. Situations where just presenting a crucial piece of information ("we're on the same side!") leads to the outcome you want do not need to involve any social minigame. At all. We need a social minigame in situations where just explaining your case reasonably is insufficient and the outcome depends on such factors as rhetoric ability and personal charisma, particularly because characters might have them in abundance when players do not. Possibly for situations where you can go out and gather information necessary to construct a better case.

[RadiantPhoenix]

So this means that part of Star Wars 1 where Luke and Han dress up as Storm Troopers and show up with Chewie in cuffs to avoid fighting? Doesn't happen.

I dunno, that seems to fall under anticipating what the encounter is and applying modifiers to make combat music not start.

Why yes. Sounds like what you'd use disguise and bluff for right? I'll note for those who don't know, one of the things I insisted from the beginning when Frank brought this shit up is that players have to DO something to earn the right to skip combat.

Question: when you stop at a rest stop in some town you've never been in before, what do you do to "earn the right" to not get attacked by the other people stopping at that rest stop?

[PhoneLobster]

Wow. This is the kind of bullshit I'm talking about. So all the alternatives I've ever suggested don't fit the genre? ... That's certainly a bold claim but, considering Frank gets full of shit whenever this subject comes up I wouldn't put it past him.

Amazingly, yes the bold claim from Frank and friends DOES seem to continue to be "No one can ever talk their way out of any combat under any circumstance in any way and never have in any fiction or reality ever, and never will if we have our why by god! KILL THEM ALL, EVERY TIME, FINAL DESTINATION, NO MERCY, A BOOT STOMPING A HUMAN FACE FOREVER!".

Now if you might imagine that hey, there is no possible example that could satisfy someone insane enough to make that sort of claim in the first place why gosh, I think you would be right. If you imagined that anyone who would simply deny that combat can end in anything other than one sided physical annihilation would just you know, go blue in the face denying every specific or general example you could possibly come up with, you would be right.

But if you were to charitably give some benefit of the doubt to the guys who actually claim to think "Please! Lower your swords!" is actually impossible and has never happened. Which is indeed very charitable, then you might ask "So this 'realistic' and 'easy' social mechanics design that is founded on this and other equally awesome assumptions, it's like, totes complete and functional right?".

And I think it's worth reminding everyone again it isn't it's never ever been more than assurances that it is both the only way and an easy way, just trust us, and shut up.

And I suggest that the fact it hasn't appeared, the fact that these threads never contain a "Well I said it was easy so actually here it fucking is behold it actually looking or functioning even remotely as I claimed it would" isn't just evidence that it's a stupid fucking claim and founding a social mechanic on it is stupid and doomed to failure.

I suggest that if the true believers in "Please! Lay down your swords!" being apparently impossible were honest in their claims then fuck it, doomed failure or not, the system would by now exist, hell sure, they'd probably declare the most laughable failure in the universe a success, but it would be a thing at least.

The fact that they in fact haven't even bothered to do that suggests to me that actually, there is no real faith in the position, no honest argument being made, it's just endless deliberate thread shitting.

I mean Virgil is an astoundingly stupid poster, and as such fell for the reaction roll bullshit hook line and sinker and actually believed it was anything other than internet buffoons in a state of apoplectic denial. But at least the poor naive chump went with it and tried. At least instead of resorting purely to incredible degrees of denial about the existence of "Please! Lower your swords!" he actually thought it was real and tried to make it work. Up to a point before it all just sorta crumbled around him, but still. Full marks for trying. A bit.

[deaddmwalking]

I think there are times when an enemy will decide not to attack based on the situation. I think Morale represents this well. The bandits are lurking in ambush. They intend to attack the next target that approaches. When it turns out they're outnumbered 4-1, they opt to keep hiding.

I don't see a problem with the GM deciding an initial attitude and having a roll to modify that attitude based on actions or initial stance of the party. If the party is 'looking for a fight' the bandits may be less likely to attack than if the PCs are trying to look peaceful. On the other hand, if you're entering the elf forest with weapons drawn and have the stance 'looking for a fight' you're going to be more likely to be attacked by the otherwise friendly elves rather than being taken to their Queen for a rap session.

Once combat starts, there should be the option to take social actions to end combat. I know that people can come up with dozens of good examples, but here is one:

In Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Brian is infiltrating the palace. Another group is also infiltrating the palace. When they encounter each other, neither side is sure of who it is. There is a moment where interaction occurs. When they realize they have conflicting goals, the fight music starts. After the fight music starts, Brian spends actions trying to end the fighting. When he calls on them to unite against a common enemy they all consider doing so. If he had chosen the 'People's Front of Judea' instead of the Romans, he might have succeeded.

The source material absolutely examples of people trying to end the fight through non-murderous means. Any social system should preserve that option. It is usually harder to convince someone that they should stop trying to kill you after you just killed their parents, but a social system should be able to handle some modifiers that represent how much they have cause to hate you. If the fight music starts and you're able to convince them that you aren't the person they think you are, the fight should end without anyone being stabbed into unconsciousness.

[MGuy]

I dunno, that seems to fall under anticipating what the encounter is and applying modifiers to make combat music not start.

Why yes. Sounds like what you'd use disguise and bluff for right? I'll note for those who don't know, one of the things I insisted from the beginning when Frank brought this shit up is that players have to DO something to earn the right to skip combat.

Question: when you stop at a rest stop in some town you've never been in before, what do you do to "earn the right" to not get attacked by the other people stopping at that rest stop?

Well considering I've never been attacked when traveling whatever the fuck I'm doing must be right. Luckily I put all those ranks into Diplomacy and spilled so many points into Charisma.

On a more serious note, consider what you just asked me and compare them to the example I used for how characters can keep from being attacked. In the case of your example I'd do research and avoid the places in mentioned town where I'd likely be attacked, effectively reducing the chances I'd be robbed at random.

[FatR]

PhoneLobster accusing, well, anyone else, of not arguing in good faith must be one of the funniest things I've read on Internet this month. Up there the claim that the Imperium of Man sure is powerful because it only is disadvantaged in industry and FTL.

[MGuy]

Well I mean you are obviously. Kenshin fully intends to kill Jin and ONLY stops thanks to Kaoru saying something but that doesn't count despite the whole thing you and Frank are arguing is that fights cannot end with words or anything else. So every example given was a fight that ended without someone's specifically losing. I don't care that you point out the means by which they ended or that you don't even like 'how' the point is you made a claim, counter examples were presented, you were shown to be wrong but you talk like you weren't.

The thing is, this is going to end the same way it always does. With a bunch of chest pumping by Frank and those who decide to agree with him this time then a bunch of nothing afterward.

[FatR]

Well I mean you are obviously. Kenshin fully intends to kill Jin and ONLY stops thanks to Kaoru saying something but that doesn't count despite the whole thing you and Frank are arguing is that fights cannot end with words or anything else.

That doesn't count because the fight was over before Kaoru regained her ability to speak at all.

Also, a nice strawman.

So every example given was a fight that ended without someone's specifically losing.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of so-called "bald-faced lies". In addition to goalpost shifting, I might add. I have to admit it must take certain chutzpah to claim that "every example given was a fight that ended without someone's specifically losing" on the very page I gave a detailed breakdown of your example where the fight ended with someone specifically losing.

Well, PhoneLobster's brand of insanity seems to be contagious.

I don't care that you point out the means by which they ended or that you don't even like 'how' the point is you made a claim, counter examples were presented, you were shown to be wrong but you talk like you weren't.

Well, that person who told you that you might just pull random incidents that in no way confirm the position you've enlisted to defend... By the way, let it be reminded to all the observers out there, that this position is: "If you really gave a shit about manipulating "the combat music" you would care about "ending the combat music" as much or more than "stopping it from beginning", but THAT requires acknowledging ANY in combat social actions, and those are verboten due to internet stupidity double downs. " (c) PhoneLobster. So, that person - he was probably deceiving you for the lulz.

To actually defend your side's position you have to provide examples of "characters spending their initial actions on socially stopping it while the opponents were hopefully still either missing with initial attacks or maneuvering into range." (c) PhoneLobster. Moreover, of that stuff actually fucking working.

Instead, you've decided to focus on my statement "I cannot remember a single example of a serious combat being resolved by talking before one side loses decisively off the top of my head. But maybe I'm not trying hard enough - so, can you provide any?" (c) me, while taking it out of context of the above-mentioned position stating that participants of combat must have the ability to stop it socially. Note, that a few of OgreBattle's examples might involve just that, though I'm not familiar enough with them. Your own examples, though, are replete with incidents of combat being avoided by talking, or talking happening after a combat, rather than, you know, characters "socially stopping it" with "in combat social actions"(c) PhoneLobster.

[Kaelik]

Honestly only on this board do I find people who only care about diplomancing under hostile conditions to be the primary focus of constructing a fucking social system where as most people, in real life and in fiction, spend most of their time diplomancing away from the battlefield which I would believe would be 95% of what you want your socializing system to fucking cover.

You would think so, but for some reason people are super committed to playing a complex social minigame with activated abilities so that they can never engage in combat at all.

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

[FatR]

And speaking about the initial question of this thread...


What I want from a social system:

1. A way to have influence characters' behavior in the short term with sheer force of personality or effective rethoric. So you can scare people into spilling the beans, bullshit guards about whether you really have the right to be here, haggle successfully, haggle successfuly with a merchant who is currently weighting the risk-to-gain ratio of seizing you to sell into slavery, or make bandits leave you both your money and your life.

2. A way to gather information.

3. A way to monitor and ensure loyalty of your less important underlings after you obtain them through players' decisions.

4. A way to delay initiating combat sufficiently for both sides to check whether they really have good reasons to risk their lives.

5. What I do not want is a way to permanently change the way the target feels about you with the power of your social skills alone. Sure that is not realistically impossible even without superuman smoothness, but the can of worms is simply too big for a game that is not centered on intrigue and building a web of allies.

[deaddmwalking]

To actually defend your side's position you have to provide examples of "characters spending their initial actions on socially stopping it while the opponents were hopefully still either missing with initial attacks or maneuvering into range." (c) PhoneLobster. Moreover, of that stuff actually fucking working.

I don't know what sides you think there are, but I disagree with this statement. To show social action working in combat, it is not necessary to show that it worked - only that the characters involved had a reasonable belief that it could work. Using a social action wouldn't make sense if it has no chance of succeeding, just like making an attack action wouldn't make sense if it had no chance of succeeding. Saying shooting at someone proves that you shouldn't be allowed to make combat actions because you missed would be stupid. Saying you shouldn't be allowed to take social actions in combat because sometimes you fail is equally ludicrous.

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