Social Kombat Mk II

[Vebyast]

A legendary Bard making some random bystanders give him all their stuff for nothing, that's fine. But the legendary Bard doing that to equally legendary but not particularly social people - not good. And even if you do manage to keep it entirely on the RNG, that kind of ability should be rare enough that "nobody gets to talk to the king - all messages have to be filtered through a series of translators that will eliminate any persuasive phrasing" is not a standard precaution.

Thought of a better way to present it. In melee combat, a legendary fighter takes about thirty second to kill a legendary diplomat and take all his stuff. In order to for social combat to maintain parity with melee combat, a legendary diplomat should to be able to convince a legendary fighter to donate all his stuff to the diplomat and then throw himself off a cliff, and the diplomat should be able to do it in about thirty seconds.

As for your second point (filter royal interactions throuh babelfish), again compare to legendary fighters and wizards. A nation maintains an entire military and rooms full of hideous monsters to keep legendary fighters out of the king's palace. It builds its palace a hundred feet underground to keep out legendary wizards. Is there any reason it wouldn't maintain a cadre of particularly bad translators to keep out legendary diplomats?



Another idea: would it be possible to turn use this system in combat, with combat modifiers as goals?

[violence in the media]

Well no. See here's the thing. You can apparently suggest prices and conditions without entering into social combat. So the guard can literally say "Show me proof of your identity" and then refuse social combat, demanding to see proof and cutting through the double talk, which is exactly what you figure most people would want to train their guards to do.

And yet, somehow, people who aren't supposed to be places really do talk their way into places they're not supposed to be. I imagine that the Secret Service is trained to act as you propose, and yet there were party crashers at the White House. That's part of the whole point I was making about the "openers". You trained your guards to be all stoic and uncompromising, but that still doesn't eliminate the possibility that I can find something that throws them off and causes them to drop their guard.

You're thinking of this scenario in an explicit sense:
Guard: "Show me your papers."
PC: "I don't need to show you my papers."
Guard: "I refuse to social kombat you."
And that's simply to rigid and useless to function.

I'm proposing something like this:
Guard: "Show me your papers."
PC: "Actually, I'm not seeking entry, I was wondering if you strapping young men could help me get my cart unstuck." *rollrollroll*
Guard: "Wait, what? Did the Captain say anything about helping passersby?"
PC: "Hmm, I think we might need a good sized piece of timber. Do you have one handy? This should only take a minute or two." *rollrollroll*
Guard: "Uhh, yeah, it's in the yard here."
PC: "Oh, ok, well...let's go grab it and get this taken care of. I'll give you a hand because I know you both can't go cause you'll leave the post unguarded." *rollrollroll*
Guard: "Yeah, good thinking. Tom, watch the gate for a bit, I'll be a few minutes."

What's happening here is that the PC is using an opener to get the guard to talk to him at all, and then switching the "terms" of the social combat so that guard isn't engaging in the [show me the papers/let me in without them] social kombat, he's engaging in the [help a brother out/no, I can't] combat that he may not have been trained to respond to. Maybe he loses his job later when Tom tells the captain that Bob probably let some dude in when he went to go help this travelling merchant, but that's beyond the scope of the immediate situation and the concern of the PC.

The PC can fail these rolls and not get through the gate, but that wouldn't be any different from them failing to climb over the wall or throw-a-rock-distract-the-guards-stealth-sneak through. Do you just arbitrarily decide that the PC can't attempt to climb this wall? No? Why do you think you can decide that the PC can't attempt to fast-talk this guard?

[Ice9]

Thought of a better way to present it. In melee combat, a legendary fighter takes about thirty second to kill a legendary diplomat and take all his stuff. In order to for social combat to maintain parity with melee combat, a legendary diplomat should to be able to convince a legendary fighter to donate all his stuff to the diplomat and then throw himself off a cliff, and the diplomat should be able to do it in about thirty seconds.

Except there isn't actually a "diplomat" class in D&D that's bad at combat. There aren't any classes that are excessively bad at combat, except by mistakes in design. If social kombat can be equally devastating, I would expect there to be no classes that are bad at it, either.

As for your second point (filter royal interactions throuh babelfish), again compare to legendary fighters and wizards. A nation maintains an entire military and rooms full of hideous monsters to keep legendary fighters out of the king's palace. It builds its palace a hundred feet underground to keep out legendary wizards. Is there any reason it wouldn't maintain a cadre of particularly bad translators to keep out legendary diplomats?

The problem is that not being allowed to draw weapons / cast spells around the king doesn't stop you from having an interesting meeting with him. Having to communicate by indirect messages does. Whether it's logical or not, it isn't fun.

This ties into the above point as well. While people are pretty much fine with a world where drawing your weapons / casting a spell unannounced is likely to start a fight, I don't think most people want a world where you shouldn't talk to anyone until you've been introduced by a trusted third party.

[Vebyast]

Except there isn't actually a "diplomat" class in D&D that's bad at combat. There aren't any classes that are excessively bad at combat, except by mistakes in design. If social kombat can be equally devastating, I would expect there to be no classes that are bad at it, either.

There aren't, really. There are classes that are less good at it than others, but only in the same way that rogues are better at dealing damage than bards. By the time those characters get the "legendary" designation, those imbalances have been amplified to the levels I describe. A level-15 rogue that manages to stealth up to a level-15 bard without the bard noticing will almost certainly win, even though the two are both rogue-level classes and are balanced overall. Similarly, if that bard managed to get the rogue into extended social kombat, the bard should almost certainly win.

The problem is that not being allowed to draw weapons / cast spells around the king doesn't stop you from having an interesting meeting with him. Having to communicate by indirect messages does. Whether it's logical or not, it isn't fun.

A few major varieties of ruler, and their interaction with adventurers:

• Authority Equals Asskicking: adventurers Do Not Want to mess with the king. He's good enough at social kombat to have stayed on the throne despite his evil vizier's best-laid plans. If you try to social kombat him he will fuck you up just as badly as if you'd pulled a sword on him.
• Curb stomp kings: these guys are only here for you to steal gold from. You could single-handedly flatten them and their entire army in whatever mode of combat you desire, military or social. In this case, the babel army is a challenge in the same way that his army would be.
• Quest Giver: Either of the above, except that he'll prevent social kombat by refusing to talk to you until you've completed his quest.
• Deliberative Assembly (parliament, senate, democracy): the social equivalent of a puzzle monster or unwinnable boss battle.

This ties into the above point as well. While people are pretty much fine with a world where drawing your weapons / casting a spell unannounced is likely to start a fight, I don't think most people want a world where you shouldn't talk to anyone until you've been introduced by a trusted third party.

Let's check a few other common interactions.

• Commoner-commoner: exactly like normal. Commoners are, by definition, equal to each other, and they're so pathetic and dealing with such tiny issues that nothing interesting happens. As soon as a commoner starts getting ideas he turns into an NPC.
• Adventurer-adventurer: exactly like normal.
• Adventurer-commoner: exactly like normal. The adventurer decides what he wants. The commoner complies with barely-restrained terror and hopes the adventurer is to apathetic to spend six seconds to render him into a greasy smear on the rug.

Also, letting someone know that want to take their stuff actually is as much of a threat as pulling a sword. "Wanting something suicidal or completely unreasonable or impossible of another: they begin with 2 Anger tokens against you and will automatically slide a step back in their favour every second turn." In other words, if you want them to give you all their stuff, they start a hair's breadth away from pulling a sword on you, and convincing them to do anything is insanely hard. If you're high enough level to pull something like that off, you could also steal their clothes off their back after taking ten on your roll.

[Ice9]

Adventurer-adventurer: exactly like normal.

O RLY?

Similarly, if that bard managed to get the rogue into extended social kombat, the bard should almost certainly win.

This is the problem right here. You're at a tavern, kicking back, and then some guy at another table (who you know to be in the same league as you) looks in your direction and starts casting a spell. That's generally considered aggressive, and can result in you stabbing him, teleporting away, or otherwise spoiling the mood. Now let's say he started talking to you instead. With social kombat, it would be the same thing. You attack him, retreat, or otherwise go into paranoia mode.

To me, that doesn't seem a desirable outcome. Now sure, you mentioned "extended", but in the current system, I'm not seeing any way of "fleeing" a social kombat in progress, as long as your opponent doesn't do anything to give you anger tokens. So if you let the kombat begin at all, you're screwed.

[RandomCasualty2]

The PC can fail these rolls and not get through the gate, but that wouldn't be any different from them failing to climb over the wall or throw-a-rock-distract-the-guards-stealth-sneak through. Do you just arbitrarily decide that the PC can't attempt to climb this wall? No? Why do you think you can decide that the PC can't attempt to fast-talk this guard?

Well because the moment social combat starts or is even suggested, you figure the guy is up to no good.

Without ever engaging in social combat, you're able to handle any legitimate request. If the guy needs help or whatever, you can totally still help him. The only thing social combat does is get you to do stuff you otherwise normally wouldn't do. And the thing is that you're totally aware when social combat is happening because you have to agree to it. And only bad things happen if you agree to social combat, so why ever agree?

See voluntary things only happen if you've got incentive on both sides to do it. In poker, people call bets because they think they may win the pot. However with this system you run into lots of situations where you are literally playing for nothing. At best you keep what you had, and if you lose, you end up worse off than you were. There's no reason to ever enter that voluntarily.

Now I'm aware that fast-talking can work in real life, I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be voluntary. If there's no way to start a social combat with an unwilling participant, then social combat is going to be very weak. Because as a defender, the moment I know someone wants to start a social combat, I know they're up to no good, and if I want nothing from them, there's no need for me to agree to the combat. That's going to end up a flawed system, because you can't use such a system for all social interactions.

At some point, a lot of uses like fast-talk, seduction, etc. have to unknowingly include someone in social combat.

[Vebyast]

This is the problem right here. You're at a tavern, kicking back, and then some guy at another table (who you know to be in the same league as you) looks in your direction and starts casting a spell. That's generally considered aggressive, and can result in you stabbing him, teleporting away, or otherwise spoiling the mood. Now let's say he started talking to you instead. With social kombat, it would be the same thing. You attack him, retreat, or otherwise go into paranoia mode.

First, if you're still at the taverns stage of things, you're relatively low level, and you don't have the power to do crazy stuff like make him give you all of his money. You have the power to, say, convince him to buy you a drink, or to convince him to go away and stop bothering you. Asking for anything more would risk starting a fight.

Second, social kombat only kicks in when there is a conflict and negotiation: "It is a form of combat - as such, there needs to be some form of opposition going on, and a way to determine winners and losers.". You can't just walk up to someone and start social kombat. You have to walk up and demand that they hand over all of their mortal possessions, at which point they start with 2 anger tokens and you have to be a legendary diplomat to end sk by anything other than anger tokens.

Third, adventurers are already in paranoia mode 24/7, thanks to rogues and scry-and-die. They even have to be careful in conversation because that's how Hypnotism and Charm Person work.

To me, that doesn't seem a desirable outcome. Now sure, you mentioned "extended", but in the current system, I'm not seeing any way of "fleeing" a social kombat in progress, as long as your opponent doesn't do anything to give you anger tokens. So if you let the kombat begin at all, you're screwed.

Everyone has the following abilities:
...
Renege: move one square back towards your own side, but grant your opponent two Anger tokens against you.

Do this every round. Since it automatically succeeds, you can end social kombat in, at most, two or three rounds. The only things that can even stalemate this approach are Calm Words and KNEEL BEFORE ME (both used on yourself), and stalemate is the absolute best you can do. Ending SK is trivial.

[Ice9]

Do this every round. Since it automatically succeeds, you can end social kombat in, at most, two or three rounds.

Ah ok, maybe I was reading that wrong. I was under the impression that having three anger tokens just allowed you to declare the kombat null, not forced you to. Doesn't that mean that you can't really use social kombat against someone unless they think they're winning though?

First, if you're still at the taverns stage of things, you're relatively low level,

Planar meeting spot made of floating prismatic force walls over an elemental vortex, where drinks made of distilled souls and celestial essence are served. Happy now?

Second, social kombat only kicks in when there is a conflict and negotiation: "It is a form of combat - as such, there needs to be some form of opposition going on, and a way to determine winners and losers.". You can't just walk up to someone and start social kombat.

In response, this:

Now I'm aware that fast-talking can work in real life, I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be voluntary. If there's no way to start a social combat with an unwilling participant, then social combat is going to be very weak. Because as a defender, the moment I know someone wants to start a social combat, I know they're up to no good, and if I want nothing from them, there's no need for me to agree to the combat.

If entering social kombat is an obvious choice, people won't generally do it. If it's something you can be tricked into, then any form of conversation is a dangerous activity only engaged in with people you trust.

[Vebyast]

Doesn't that mean that you can't really use social kombat against someone unless they think they're winning though?

I believe so. The tradeoff is that doing this makes the other guy really, really angry at you. It's basically ending a discussion by telling the other guy to suck a barrel of cocks. You'd have a hard time doing it to end some haggling, for example; instead, you'd just lose SK and decide not to buy because the price you haggled out was too high.

Planar meeting spot made of floating prismatic force walls over an elemental vortex, where drinks made of distilled souls and celestial essence are served. Happy now?

Lols, happy.

Now I'm aware that fast-talking can work in real life, I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be voluntary. If there's no way to start a social combat with an unwilling participant, then social combat is going to be very weak. Because as a defender, the moment I know someone wants to start a social combat, I know they're up to no good, and if I want nothing from them, there's no need for me to agree to the combat.

If entering social kombat is an obvious choice, people won't generally do it. If it's something you can be tricked into, then any form of conversation is a dangerous activity only engaged in with people you trust.

Not true. You always get to define your goal when SK starts, and there's always something you can get from someone. In DND, door-to-door salesmen and lawyers are in the same kind of danger that muggers and serial killers are: if they run into someone that can take them, the intended victim totally fucks them up. (BTW, if that's not how the rules work, that's totally how they should).

Also, recall that SK has the same kind of social connotations as various levels of physical combat. Inappropriately high-intensity SK (mindraping random people on the street and making them your slaves) is treated in the same way that inappropriately high-intensity physical combat (shanking random people on the street and looting their bodies) is. If you use Your Reality is a Lie on every merchant you ever talk to, people will refuse to deal with you in exactly the way they would if your main method of obtaining equipment was to kill shopkeepers and take their stuff. If you punch people in the face at random intervals, people won't talk to you; similarly, if people find themselves giving you their pocket change after every conversation, people just won't talk to you. The places that don't have these social rules in place (courthouses, nobilities with lots of intrigue, legislative assemblies) are regarded with the same level of caution as places that don't have social rules in place against lethal combat (gladiatorial arenas, lawless bandit camps, battlefields).

[Koumei]

Okay, a few fixes I am considering:

1) No side may outnumber the other by more than 2:1 (so if one side has four people, the other side can't have any more than eight), Any in excess simply don't get a say, what with everyone arguing over each other.

This allows for some variation and strength in numbers, but means the party doesn't gain anything from splitting the merchants up and ganging up on them 4:1 in alleyways to talk at them for their belongings. Funny as this is.

2) If you get enough anger tokens you can choose to end the social combat as detailed above. Or you can rough it out and press forward even though you really want to just twat them one.

3) You argue with the DM to determine a reasonable goal/stance to take (your starting point) and an unreasonable "I am just that damn good" stance a few spaces further. Effectively, short of using the god-tier powers, you're not reaching it any time soon but it's theoretically possible. Mostly, the best you can expect is to get them on your reasonable spot.

Basically, this means the difference between a full win where you both meet on your starting point (the reasonable stance) and the supreme win with the lot is the same as the difference between damaging the bandits so they all run away and leave you alone forever, and slaughtering them and taking all their belongings before animating their corpses to serve you.

Thoughts?

Also, what do people think of the general mechanics within the combat, ignoring the problems with defining what constitutes a reasonable goal and so on?

[Blasted]

Okay, a few fixes I am considering:

1) No side may outnumber the other by more than 2:1 (so if one side has four people, the other side can't have any more than eight), Any in excess simply don't get a say, what with everyone arguing over each other.

This allows for some variation and strength in numbers, but means the party doesn't gain anything from splitting the merchants up and ganging up on them 4:1 in alleyways to talk at them for their belongings. Funny as this is.

Not sure this works, as I see SK as being a way of 'calming a mob' or convincing a bunch of soldiers to come die for you or something.

3) You argue with the DM to determine a reasonable goal/stance to take (your starting point) and an unreasonable "I am just that damn good" stance a few spaces further. Effectively, short of using the god-tier powers, you're not reaching it any time soon but it's theoretically possible. Mostly, the best you can expect is to get them on your reasonable spot.

The whole premise of having to rely on the DM for constant fiat can diaf. Not that I have a solution, but the problem sucks.

Also, what do people think of the general mechanics within the combat, ignoring the problems with defining what constitutes a reasonable goal and so on?

I'm thinking, but it's a slow process. I'll get back to you.

[Ice9]

Not sure this works, as I see SK as being a way of 'calming a mob' or convincing a bunch of soldiers to come die for you or something.

Actually, that would still work - it's just that only two of the mob would get to act against you in kombat.

Probably, there should be some kind of increased difficulty from convincing 100 people instead of 2. But it should scale logarithmically, so that you actually do have a chance to convince an entire army at the high end.

[RobbyPants]

See voluntary things only happen if you've got incentive on both sides to do it. In poker, people call bets because they think they may win the pot. However with this system you run into lots of situations where you are literally playing for nothing. At best you keep what you had, and if you lose, you end up worse off than you were. There's no reason to ever enter that voluntarily.

That's the whole trick of why it works. If the interaction were as simple as "I don't want to comply, let me try to smooth talk you", then you'd be right. The guy's looking a breaking even or losing. The trick is to change the stakes, or at least convince the guard that the stakes have changed. That's how cons work in real life.

So you don't just tell the guy "No, you can't see my papers" and then try to argue why. You instead try to make him worry that he's pissing off a powerful diplomat, or make him think that he's missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by turning you down, of that there are some other dire consequences of not letting you through. You have to Bluff him into believing that there's some sort of win-lose interaction.

That's why social engineering works so well IRL. The best way to obtain someone's password is through social engineering. Never underestimate a person's greed, desire to conform, and desire to please (perceived) authority. That shit works.