The Gaming Den

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Sounds like 4th edition skill challenges.

You may want a full developed bluff as well even though 3.5 has a bluff skill already so it conforms to the new rules.

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Brainwashing and torture should be involved somehow. There should be class (social/political standing) modifiers, appearance bonuses or something for being of the same race. A number to how much Morale points you have (I'm thinking intelligence or charisma based), rules for special social situations (mobs, debates, etc), and for the scope of the system ignoring spells until later in the process. Those are the things that come off the top of my head. I'd like to toss my hat into the ring to help as the game I want something d20 based for social combat in my game.

Edit: Additionally ways to incorporate different skills of course. Professions, knowledge(s), performances, forging, an excellent shot for some kind of innuendo inclusion (though I don't know how it could possibly be incorporated).

Are you going to go back over spells like charm and whatnot to rework how they tie into this, or are they going to be a second avenue towards winning?

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On the flip side you should have as a consequence if a social combat spell fails to effect the target things go badly. So the price for possible automatic victory might be the risk of automatic failure.

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MGuy wrote:Brainwashing and torture should be involved somehow.

Bushing, otherwise known as water-boarding, would be a good method of torture since you don't have car batteries to connect to peoples nuts.

First of all, you cannot rewrite social combat without dealing to questions of beliefs, ethics and morals. Additionally, things people care seriously about need to be taken into account, as well as the fact that some people will not respond to the same social attack in the same way.

It's also much easier to push someone around when you just need to make them decide to do something they wanted to do anyway, rather than actually convincing them to do something they normally wouldn't.

Lastly, permanent reputations, permanent relationships, etc. should be buildable with any system of social combat you design.

Mister_Sinister wrote:First of all, you cannot rewrite social combat without dealing to questions of beliefs, ethics and morals. Additionally, things people care seriously about need to be taken into account, as well as the fact that some people will not respond to the same social attack in the same way.

I'm going with a probable NO on that. You might be leaning toward a rational interpretation of "account for character traits" but I suspect you aren't.

You want a social combat system you must accept some level of abstraction.

We can give out a permanent abstracted "Super Brave" trait that gives you like a +3 vs Scary attacks or something but we cannot give out a specific situational and negotiable "I've just decided to point out I have a terrible fear of musical theater and therefore cannot be seduced by that chorus girl or should have an instant arbitrary modifier."

So while I'm all for "accounting for personality traits" but no, we cannot have people just arbitrarily responding to a specific social attack in a different way.

So "Brave" yes, thats in "This one time I kicked some other guy's ass and he looked like you" OUT.

It's also much easier to push someone around when you just need to make them decide to do something they wanted to do anyway

And might I suggest that you should never have to roll at all to make someone do what they already wanted to.

I've gone over this before and I can go over it again if you like.

Social combat should be broadly about changing character motivations to wrest control from a player who has decided their character does not wish to co-operate with yours.

It should be an abstracted event that happens in between free form role play (where the characters do whatever the players think "they wanted to do anyway") and more free form role play (where the characters losing social combat now operate under new compulsory motivational changes like "Friendly" or "Terrified").

The moment someone wants someone else to do something they would NOT have "wanted to do anyway" is when rolls, and as such social combat, should kick in.

It's your trigger condition, anything below it should not really be accounted for by the system, and it should largely be ignored.


Anyway, you all should know my extensive body of discussion on this already. But here are a few suggestions.

1) Social combat triggers on Disagreement over motivations

2) Social combat is abstracted, like swording is, there are no (or very minimal) arbitrary situational modifiers, instead you primarily have permanent character qualities just like you do with your swording bonuses/abilities and the like.

3) Defeating someone in social combat adds a significant motivation to their character, like fear, friendship, etc... The impact is then determined by role play with that motivation playing a significant factor.

4) All social attacks deal the same sort of damage, no matter if you are being friendly or nasty. The last social attack that "finishes you off" determines the kind of social defeat you suffer (like friendly or nasty, which is about all d20 accounts for so far anyway...).

5) Social combat should be a simple abstracted attacks and damage routine much like swording.

6)Both sides should have offensive options. Social combat should NEVER occur in a scenario where one side is sitting on their hands NOT making social attacks in return because the opponents "seem harmless". Social combats should fight to the social defeat, a switch to real weapons, or flight.

7) Social attacks should deal damage to your HP. (and/or deplete/run off other standard combat resources)

Wait you say, number 7?????

Well. See I would rather not encourage people to jump from a failing social encounter to combat or visa versa too much. If they run off the same damage scales then doing so is still an option but has different tactical implications.

It also means you can take a combat encounter where you have beaten the crap out of the enemy and then step in on the last round and force a social surrender or something.

Which (in my opinion) is better than reverse where you try and prolong the encounter and negate normal combat progress by switching to begging for your lives.

It also means that if you invest in 4 rounds of lies, threats and seduction and some jerk in the party gets bored (or panics) and pulls out a sword you still profit from any progress you have made.

And for D&D at least tying your social system as closely as possible to combat would be in Genre. Much like a kung fu movie where defeating your enemies, making the mooks run, forming a bond with a new ally or seducing a woman are all in fact at least in part physical combat encounters.

Indeed you could build off that model and try and roll your social combat mechanics in until they fit as seemlessly as possible within existing combat mechanics and encounters.

And for D&D at least that might be a really good idea.

Oh yeah better respond to the OP...

ubernoob wrote:C) Ability to bolster other players with checks of some sort.

You need to decide is social combat is something you do in groups or not.

In normal combat having more guys and outnumbering the opposition is a generally good thing. Especially if everyone involved is the same level/CR.

But you might not really want it that way in social combat. You MIGHT want social combat to be a situation in which numbers are less advantageous.

Think about it because you might want to build it so social combat is mildly rewarding for a single face character versus a large mob of similarly leveled characters. So your face can like, deliver speeches, have a motivation for using social combat to bypass heavy combat encounters etc...

Actually since you are talking D&D you also have to determine if you are going the "I specialize as the party face" or the "Everyone is a party face" paths.

Victory: Reducing "morale" "hate" or "distrust" to zero is a social victory.
Failure: If you fail 3 social attacks in a row the target is immune to all of your social attacks for an arbitrary period of time and doesn't like you.

Thoughts? Suggestions? This is pretty much all off the top of my head brainstorming.

I dislike ranks and CR simply for being messed up already in various ways, but lets give them a pass on a gentleman's agreement or something. (this is for d20 after all).

I dislike the separate damage tracks for not being a combat resource(as already mentioned). And I would like more language describing how these actions fit into or (or else explicitly don't fit into) regular combat encounters.

I also dislike the separate damage tracks for encouraging the entire party to specialize in Charm/Seduce and punishing the entire group if bob the barbarian tries for "Demoralize/Intimidate" instead.

PL, what you said is what I pretty much meant. While incredible situationality is both undesirable and impossible, having certain 'traits' to determine difference of responses to certain social attacks is pretty necessary in my opinion. The level of specificity you brought up by example was not something I want nor something I would advocate. Well, in a sane state, anyway.

By my second statement, what I meant to say is that if someone is vaccillating on doing something, rather than actually opposed to doing it, convincing them should be easier than someone who is actually opposed to doing what you want. I can understand why you felt that to be a rather vague statement, and I agree with you absolutely, but it's not exactly what I meant.

Otherwise, your suggestions are very good, and I agree with them.

Mister_Sinister wrote:PL, what you said is what I pretty much meant.

Well good.

I guess I'm too used to this topic coming up and RC or someone stepping in and saying "I demand hand DM waving on modifiers for every specific context and scenario every!".

So here is a list of some example things you can (and probably should) account for in a really kick ass social combat system.

Brave - It's a permanent quality with a specific permanent impact (like +3 vs Scary tagged attacks).

In love with "Insert Character Name Here" - Again an at least semi permanent thing, you could even buy it with social character advancement resources. And it can have a specific permanent impact (like a flat bonus or social AoOs on characters threatening "Insert Character Name Here")

I'm Wearing A Really Pretty Dress - In D&D your really care about what you wear in real combat, so why the hell you shouldn't get bonuses in an at least reasonably similar way in social encounters I do not know.

Now these are all good things to have because they can be applied in predictable ways with rules defined well in advance and minimal arbitrary rulings.

They are also good because you can use them to tie practical bonuses and abilities to fluffy sounding stuff so everyone can have a good time reminding the GM and everyone else that their character is having a romantic affair with another character, and getting a rewarding social AoO (or something) each time they do that.

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ubernoob wrote:What we need:
Social defense values (an analogue to AC/saves)
Social attack values (analogue to BAB/spell DCs)

We already have those so why use analogues?

You want it to mesh with the existing mechanics without seeming tacked on?

Use existing saves/AC and HP. They are all abstract anyway and many ALREADY apply against EXISTING in combat social attacks (hello AC vs Touch of Idiocy, hello Will vs Charm, hello some imaginable social effect vs Fortitude or even Reflex).

Condition track (not sure how to do this)

Condition tracks are something that DON'T already exist in d20.

So don't tack one on. You have HP as an existing purely abstracted damage track. And you have an array of on/off states you can be in.

That's how d20 works that's what you should stick to.

Save the condition track for your home brew.

Theoretical example: If you are below half of [Social combat condition track] and the last social combat attack to hit you was Charm/Seduce, then you are under an extraordinary confusion for as long as physical combat lasts if your side initiates it.

I don't like it.

1) You go nowhere to contributing to physical combat before hitting the conditional statement.

2) We have to check this annoying new conditional statement.

3) It does nothing for physical combat contributing to social combat, so you still beg for your life to negate all progress the enemy has made towards actually taking it.

4) Once it does apply it strongly motivates (too much so) for you to switch from social to real combat, because hell, thats a powerful physical combat effect. So we all sit around until the rogue half seduces the big bad, then someone yells "Hit me!" at a mook and you win.

5) "for as long as physical combat lasts if your side initiates it" Is not a standard d20 style duration. Is rather arbitrary in duration. "if your side initiates" Is a really annoying, arbitrary and most notably hard to define condition anyway.

PhoneLobster wrote:I guess I'm too used to this topic coming up and RC or someone stepping in and saying "I demand hand DM waving on modifiers for every specific context and scenario every!".

Hear hear. If anything, I want there to be as little handwaiving (or work) done here by the DM as humanly possible. If your system constantly requires DM intervention to function, you have a very poor system.

Uber: You don't want one condition track, you want several. Off the top of my head:

Fear
Anger
Joy/Pleasure
Comfort/Security

And everything runs on these. About 4 steps in each direction from 'neutral', with associated conditions, seems like a good bet. What happens at each one is based on the condition - for example, -4 on anger means 'you lash out', -4 on fear is 'shit yourself while shaking', etc.

Problems with tying social combat to HP:
1) Unless you change the HP recovery rate to "per scene", someone who has to deal with a bunch of people is going to wear out really fast. And then die, I guess.
2) It screws up the scene where you convince the Baron's guards that he's become corrupted by demons, and then they help you storm his tower.
3) It provides a temptation for someone who is losing a close social combat to just stab their opponent and probably kill them in one hit. Or better yet, have a minion do it.
4) HP is abstract, but not that abstract; it's tied in to physical injury in a number of places.

I'd need a better reason to tie in Social combat with HP. There are too many holes in the consistency of that set up. I do support most of what you said PL but I think there should be separate tracks. I don't think you should be able to beat up somebody to within an inch of their HP then charm them into bed. Similarly I don't think you should be able to threaten someone down to their last iota then charm them into being a trusted friend. I think there should be separate tracks that do different things but are all connected just as there are things like that in combat.

Using direct HP has issues with working against a group of people at once that 'damage tracks' don't, and so would be less suited to a group on group setup. But it stacks contributions really really well, and would probably be the better way to go in a one on one setup.

If you're doing group on group (and I think that's where this is headed), you may as well just assign the groups a pile of social points (scp) based on the initial mood, number of members in group, and other significant conditions. Which is sorta like a condition track I guess. A setup like that makes it harder to sway or get things out of larger groups; while it might be easy to get a representative of a kingdom to like you more (small pile of scp) such that he uses his position in little ways for you, he should have a huge fucking pile of points in negotiations on behalf of his country which draws that shit out. So you can't charm the country from the king in a few rounds.

Attacks that exceed the defense value damage that pool of points. Social attack values can just be relevant skill mods, since they're already on track with attack mods (aside from a +3 rank bonus) before you get into bullshit item bonuses, feat bonuses, and whatnot (which will be their own problem). Appraise for convincing with logic, diplomacy for friendliness, intimidate for fear, perform to impress (friendliness), bluff for convincing with lies, etc.

Social AC is a harder one. Pulling from a skill alone would be a bad idea, but Sense Motive (or other relevant skill) or Will save (use bigger) might work. It should be an AC for the social attacker to hit though, no need for opposed checks with a pile of points that do the hit absorbing.

Ice9 wrote:Problems with tying social combat to HP:
1) Unless you change the HP recovery rate to "per scene", someone who has to deal with a bunch of people is going to wear out really fast. And then die, I guess.

Subdual damage.

Which might need some fixing, since subdual damage may have some minor flaws.

You could even apply a new social damage type. As long as it runs of HP. The precedent exists.

2) It screws up the scene where you convince the Baron's guards that he's become corrupted by demons, and then they help you storm his tower.

Again. Subdual/fake damage. With a quick rest time to restore it its fine. And in the mean time if the baron walks in the second you turn his guards they are confused and listless. Which is fine.

3) It provides a temptation for someone who is losing a close social combat to just stab their opponent and probably kill them in one hit. Or better yet, have a minion do it.

Ignoring the pointless minion mention.

Either its close or you are losing. If the damage is largely temporary non fatal damage it won't actually KILL the victim. And if you made enough progress to get them that close to it using your social charms that you CAN pull a dagger on them the good for you.

The social combat system DOES need to have some sort of accounting for when a social encounter turns sour. And this gives you one.

Ideally I'd run everything off combat time phases so you can have the desperate baron's daughter go for her dagger, miss you, even hit you for not enough damage to take you down and you spend the next combat turn socially finishing her and she breaks down in your arms.

That's a really GREAT scenario there. I think it should be encouraged.

4) HP is abstract, but not that abstract; it's tied in to physical injury in a number of places.

And getting tired. And energy drained. And being hit with whiffle bats for subdual damage. And having more or less constitution mojo (sort of).

And if it isn't abstract enough kick it in the nuts until it is, because otherwise we are out there dealing god damn attribute damage to make this work and that isn't really a great scenario.

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MGuy wrote:I don't think you should be able to beat up somebody to within an inch of their HP then charm them into bed.

But that actually happens in the source material.

They use prettier fluff, so its all showing off your combat maneuvres, showing restraint, or Zorroing her blouse off. But basically there is plenty of source fiction out there where you beat up your opponent then risk your over all deadliness a bit to throw a few blown kisses into the fight maybe even not until right near the end in order to walk away with a new girlfriend.

You don't have to build your social system with that in mind, but you can, and if you did, it would be pretty cool.

Similarly I don't think you should be able to threaten someone down to their last iota then charm them into being a trusted friend.

Keeping THOSE on similar tracks isn't for realism reasons. It's for balance, grouped contributions and lack of needless complexity.

We could easily argue that different sorts of physical attacks should run off different physical damage tracks, like Blood Loss HP, Bone Damage HP, Concussion HP, and Internal Organ Trauma HP.

But we don't because it makes life complex and encourages everyone to build entire Bone Trauma HP damaging parties losing diversity.

I think there should be separate tracks that do different things but are all connected just as there are things like that in combat.

D20 doesn't work altogether like that though.

And having Seduction drop some progressive series of status effects that somehow helps the Intimidation attacker out is in many senses just a much more complex way of having them both run off the same HP (or similar) track.

Call it all "social vitality" and call it a day I say.

A few things . Strength should have a hand in demoralize/intimidate as well as an option for those who lack charisma and are brutes who will depend on this attack type (just as martial characters lean on physical damage) Bluff/Deception could be tied to Intelligence. Knowing more than your opponent should allow you to trick them. Wisdom should help with Charm/Seduce. Being able to figure out what someone likes/wants should aid you in getting laid. Suggestions just to make sure people with different stat spreads can help.

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