The problem of social systems

[Username17]

Anyway, lets talk about possible ways to make an actual system and not continue to dump scorn on shitty systems no matter how justified. Fundamentally, your benchmark is MTP. MTP has the advantage of being able to accept any input the social minigame might want to have, which is a big advantage because the social minigame is stuck accepting inputs from a rather high order of infinity worth of potential inputs. It also has the advantage of putting out outputs that at least one person at the table thinks are vaguely reasonable, which as evidenced by most discussions of social minigames, something of a challenge.

The disadvantages of MTP are equally well understood. Unfair results are handed out with a good deal of regularity, and the appeals process for results people don't agree with are less than ideal. And it has little capability to deal with characters who are more charismatic or persuasive than the players. Any system other than MTP should address those points. It should be fairer than MTP, and it should take into account character abilities more than MTP seems capable of. Those are not terribly high bars to meet, and thus the system's real challenge is being able to accept inputs and give outputs that are even remotely as subtle and varied as what MTP is capable of.

Character can't get too good

Disagree. Characters can get arbitrarily good. The issue is simply the "Skill Challenge" issue, which is that anything that the whole party is being asked to spend time on is something that everyone can participate in. It's actually totally possible to have "shake the bard at it" be the solution to diplomatic challenges, but then those challenges have to be as small and minor as the "shake the rogue at it" lockpicking events.

Players don't like losing control

Again, disagreement. Players are pretty much OK with losing control, as long as that control loss is explicable, "fair", and temporary. People don't usually flip the table over because they failed a morale test and had to retreat. It's only when the results are "vague" that the players get angry. It feels like they are being puppeted by something that's totally arbitrary, because that is basically what is happening.

It can't be overly binary

Pretty much. The outputs have to have a range. They don't have to be (and cannot be) as infinitely fine in their potential resolution as MTP. But they have to provide enough of a range of potential outputs that you can pretend that that is what is happening.

No one likes it when the results are morally hidious

You wouldn't think that would be a thing you'd have to say. But apparently it is. People keep coming back to the "social combat" metaphor, and that pretty much goes straight to "rape simulator" with shocking speed. I think "social combat" is just a bad metaphor full stop.

-Username17

[Dr_Noface]

Wait, Hicks' brother is some kind of blowjob hypnotist?

[zugschef]

No one likes it when the results are morally hidious

You wouldn't think that would be a thing you'd have to say. But apparently it is. People keep coming back to the "social combat" metaphor, and that pretty much goes straight to "rape simulator" with shocking speed. I think "social combat" is just a bad metaphor full stop.

Exactly. Calling a system "combat" which per se is exactly the opposite, means you've already failed.

As for the pillars of a workable social system, I think you have to start with a new statline for npcs and monsters; something like attitude. and as with game balancing, you have to start with team monster and not with the PCs: monsters can be attentive, loyal, loners, greedy, corruptible, ambitious, etc., so you start with defining several status (yeah, plural of status is status), very similar to status effects like dazed, stunned, paralyzed, and so forth. The goal is to cover the types of situtions which come up on a regular basis, the ones which don't (there really is a threshold where complexity overshadows the benefits of your additional rules), well you'll have to fall back on MTP, but that's still an improvement overall. Then you start with the the abilities to alter these status. Bluff may let you ignore some of them, sense motive may let you discover them, diplomacy may let you alter some and intimidate may surpress them in a given situation.

The core point is, that the GM has to give each NPC and monster some of these attitude effects, which cuts down MTP. The elf king either starts out as an asshole or as a buddy on paper because the rules demand it and not because of the DM's mood. Then the PCs have a clear idea of how they can influence the elf king's attitude by rolling dice and the whole thing where a talkative player trumps the silent player with the talkative PC is pushed to corner cases.

[OgreBattle]

I think thats what alignment was suppose to be. People qns monsters like being around folks of the same alignment and will agree on actions that approve of their alignment.

[zugschef]

I think thats what alignment was suppose to be. People qns monsters like being around folks of the same alignment and will agree on actions that approve of their alignment.

Well, maybe... In any case, alignment obviously failed in that respect, as it was overly restrictive and too vague at the same time.

[Hicks]

Wait, Hicks' brother is some kind of blowjob hypnotist?

My (younger and only) brother is a master manipulator of legend made flesh, like Loki with less lolz and more destroying your life if you get near him. He is charming and friendly and will steal your soul. I don't pretend that he is trustworthy, everything is an angle to con or leverage to file away or spin control to him, you don't spend every hour of every day for 20 years learning and practicing how to manipulate people without becoming a master manipulator; I still love him.

The only thing that thwarts is unlimited ambition is his lack of patience. He would get everything he ever sought if he just did not cut corners and knew when to bide his time. His own foolish mistakes ruins his well laid plans and exposes him to retribution on every side; the fallout is wierdly karmic.

[kzt]

Wow, that combination of seeing people as symbols to be manipulated, being effective at manipulating them, inability to really learn from experience and inability to exert self-control just screams sociopath to me.

[Caedrus]

Don't look at the nymph/medusa, don't listen to to diplolancer/siren, and take penalties (blindness/deafness) when so protected.

You don't see as a problem when the half-elf diplomancer is so persuasive that it's comparible to a supernatural compulsion.

In the DC universe they occasionally have bits where they say you're not even supposed to be allowed to talk to ...some number... level intelligences because they are so successfully manipulative that a conversation with them can reduce you to nothing more than their pawn.

In fact (spoilers)

In Red Son, the way Lex Luthor ultimately beat one of the more godlike versions of Superman was by constructing just the right sentence to say to him.

[zugschef]

In the DC universe they occasionally have bits where they say you're not even supposed to be allowed to talk to ...some number... level intelligences because they are so successfully manipulative that a conversation with them can reduce you to nothing more than their pawn.

but being manipulative includes more than just being able to persuade people. it's setting up conditions which enable you to talk someone into shit.

[Foxwarrior]

Zugschef: I imagine the Storyteller Virtues(/Obsessions/whatever they're called) could be used for that fairly well if you had some mechanisms for measuring and triggering them.

Edit: I was responding to your earlier post, not the one immediately above.

[zugschef]

Zugschef: I imagine the Storyteller Virtues(/Obsessions/whatever they're called) could be used for that fairly well if you had some mechanisms for measuring and triggering them.

Edit: I was responding to your earlier post, not the one immediately above.

what kind of triggering mechanisms do you think of?

[Username17]

If you're talking oWoD natures and demeanors, I could see that working as a foundation for a social minigame. nWoD virtues and vices obviously wouldn't because they are too broad and vague while at the same time having no obvious relevance to most social actions.

Natures and Demeanors were never really plugged into the oWoD social minigame, because oWoD had a really terrible social minigame. But I could see it being done. Giving everyone a few "motivations" could make player and non-player characters be affectable in obvious and fair seeming ways by various social gambits.

-Username17

[Caedrus]

In the DC universe they occasionally have bits where they say you're not even supposed to be allowed to talk to ...some number... level intelligences because they are so successfully manipulative that a conversation with them can reduce you to nothing more than their pawn.

but being manipulative includes more than just being able to persuade people. it's setting up conditions which enable you to talk someone into shit.

That's a good point. I suppose the difficulty is coming up with a way to turn something as complex as that into mechanics more reliable than random ad hoc circumstance bonuses.

[Grek]

The list of personality traits you'd need would be pretty long. At a minimum, you need ones for people who want to...

remain "objective" about stuff and only listen to facts
make sure there's money in it for them
avoid spending/wasting their own wealth
obtain political power for themselves
avoid danger because they're a coward
impress someone specific and personal to them
get revenge on someone specific and personal to them
become well known by lots of people
become will liked by people that know them
satisfy their curiosity about some topic
survive something they expect will kill them
complete a quest of some sort
do something exciting and interesting
discover new knowledge
find a purpose in life
improve upon themselves in some specific way
be free from obligations
be free from literal imprisonment
eat people because they're a giant talking spider

[Kaelik]

make sure there's money in it for them
avoid spending/wasting their own wealth
obtain political power for themselves
avoid danger because they're a coward

I'm not going to go through that whole list, but it definitely is not the minimum, since obtaining money and obtaining political power could almost certainly be treated as the same thing for how you address them.

IE, the arguments to make to an ambitious merchant and an ambitious senator are similar in structure, even if you replace money with popularity or whatever.

And the same for cautious aristocrat and cowardly X, they could totally be treated similarly.

So of your first five, I could reduce it to 3, I assume if I read it further, I could reduce more. Now, maybe you wouldn't want to reduce them that much, but you could without losing much conceptually.

[Grek]

Well, yeah. You could reduce it all the way down to "All characters want stuff. List three things the character wants." and have it be a single line. But you really do want the motives of Huckleberry Finn (get a chest full of pirate gold; do not get killed by Injun Joe) and Scrooge McDuck (be miserly and never spend any money; be honest and don't cheat people) to be distinct, since they're very distinct characters.

[Kaelik]

Well, yeah. You could reduce it all the way down to "All characters want stuff. List three things the character wants." and have it be a single line. But you really do want the motives of Huckleberry Finn (get a chest full of pirate gold; do not get killed by Injun Joe) and Scrooge McDuck (be miserly and never spend any money; be honest and don't cheat people) to be distinct, since they're very distinct characters.

So? Nothing about the reductions I suggested makes those different at all.

Finn has "ambitious" and "avoid some guy" and Scrooge has "cautious" and "some ethical shit"

But that has nothing to do with the fact that ambitiousness can probably be the same whether it is money or political power, and cautiousness can probably be treated the same whether it is keeping yourself out of physical danger or keeping your money out of risky investments.

[hyzmarca]

Haggling minigame:
Seller sets hidden value Least You Will Take.
Buyer sets hidden value Most You Will Pay.

The GM will be aware of both of these values by necessity. Players will only be aware of their own.

If the MYWP is less than the LYWT, then the haggle fails automatically and the purchase is not made.

If the Most is greater than the Least, both sides roll Diplomacy. Compare the two scores, subtract the loser's score from the winner's score.

Starting at the mid-point between the Most and the Least, modify the cost by 5% of the difference between Most and Least (rounded down) for every point that the winner won by. If the Seller won, modify the cost up. If the buyer won, modify the cost down. This step cannot modify the cost higher than the Most You Will Pay or lower than the Least you Will Take.

If the diplomacy score is tied, then the exact middle ground is paid.

I probably could have written that more succinctly, but I think it works.

[Grek]

No. It can't.

We want to be able to do the scene from Innocents Abroad where the guy is in a burning building but goes to get his gold despite the danger and gets burned (literally) for it. Or the opposite one where he's willing to sacrifice the money to be not burned to death and then looses the money.

We also want to be have a thing where three people running for Mayor of the town, and one wants to be Mayor so he can embezzle money, one so he can boss people around and one because he wants to do what's fair and the PCs convince Money Guy to drop out of the race for a sack of cash and Bossy Guy to drop out in exchange for being appointed Sheriff instead. And not the other way around where you try to give Money Guy the Sheriff job and Bossy Guy a sack of cash.

E:

I probably could have written that more succinctly, but I think it works.

This does not work. Two immediately obvious failure modes are
A] where neither side has something easily divisible into 20ths. Like the classic jewel for sword trade. There's one jewel and one sword and you can't split them up or timeshare them or something. You can only either agree to trade them or not.
B] It encourages PCs to lie to the GM about how much they're willing to pay for something if they have a good diplomacy score.

[PhoneLobster]

Haggling mini game is... of questionable value.

Something simple and fast dealing with exchange of variable cash (or variable "market value" of cash like goods) for fixed goods or services. That could work.

It however breaks down very rapidly in more complex scenarios. The jewel for a sword is not altogether that bad, but the problem is sometimes people are going to offer "this item that is totally worth that much trust me", "Blow Job" and "I Won't Kill You" and other somewhat more... non-traditional and hard to value or subjectively valued goods or services.

Frank has proposed a "social system as barter" mechanic before... and utterly failed before getting to the basics on it. It's just too damn problematic to get a reliable valuation of anything beyond the most simplistic of goods. And also actually misses out on dealing with (and is sabotaged entirely) by the whole knowledge and deception side of potential social mechanics, which is were stuff REALLY gets problematic.

I am also concerned about this "motivations" list idea. Possibly more so. Because... what's it for?

So lets say we give out these motivations to everyone. Three each apparently. So someone comes in and tries to bribe you with... something... Now we need to have a big mother may I argument over which categories the bribe does or does not fall into, and even if it falls into a category presumably follow with the more traditional argument over how much value it has relative to other things in that category PLUS a possible argument against the value of things in other categories.

I mean we still havent got to dealing with knowledge and deception. We still haven't got any idea of the mechanics that broad motivational traits are going to give you. But your broad motivational traits thing is basically just an invitation to have repeated MTP arguments about what it means to truly be ambitious.

And it's basically the fucking Alignment argument again. You might as well use Chaotic Evil as one of your motivations/wants, because THAT is where you are going with this.

[Grek]

The way I see it working is that characters get some motivations (not necessarily three) and then we follow the following flow chart:

1. Side A makes an offer. Typically, this is of the form, "If you do X, I will do Y". Side B decides if they are willing to take that offer. If Side B says yes, social challenge does not start and the deal goes through as offered. If not, go to 2.
2. Side B makes a counter offer, but with different specifics. If Side A says yes, social challenge does not start and the deal goes through as offered. If not the social challenge begins. Go to 3.
3. Side A either offers more stuff or makes skill checks to convince Side B their stuff is worth more. Bluff to lie about how good the things they're offering are, sense motive to figure out what the other guy actually wants, Knowledge to make reasonable arguments, Diplomacy to kiss up, etc. Once attempt per person. Go to 4.
4. Figure out how many of Side B's motivations are appealed to by Side A's offer. A motivation is appealed to iff they get more of whatever that motivation asks for for going along with the offer than by doing whatever they were planning to do before the offer. Everyone on side B makes a charisma check with a DC based on how many of their motivations are met and the success/failure of the skill checks made by Side A. If someone on side B passes, go to 5. If they all fail, go to 7.
5. Side B makes offers and skill checks to convince Side A of stuff. See 3 for details. Once they're done, go to 6.
6. Side A makes a charisma check using the same system outlined in 4. If someone on side B passes, go to 3. If they all fail, go to 7.
7. One side is done talking. They can either take the offer as it currently stands or refuse to make a deal at all.

The actual meat of the system is the motivations list (which needs to cover a lot of ground) and the specifics effects of the skill checks. Ideally you want to be able to guilt people into stuff, terrify people, enrage them, entice them into wanting things that aren't actual motivations for them, etc. You also want there to be various morale effects where a merchant shows off this awesome lamp, but you don't buy it and now you find yourself daydreaming about how cool it would be to have it until you either can't buy the lamp anymore or get something else equally nice.

I don't think the whole "mother may I" problem described by PhoneLobster will be an issue if the motivations list is well written. Likewise, getting people to agree that "Two diamonds and a ruby" is worth more than "Two diamonds, no ruby" is very easy, even if you can't get them to agree on an exchange ratio between diamonds and rubies or the relative value of gems vs. blowjobs.

[PhoneLobster]

then we follow the following flow chart:

Holy mother of crap that is some complexity there. A seven step list each step of which is a multi sentence sequence of potentially more steps.

This is all for some crazy important outcomes right like...

where a merchant shows off this awesome lamp, but you don't buy it

...oh... oh dear...

Look here is a requirement of a social mechanic mini game, indeed ALL mini games/mechanics.

Complexity must be worth it
I don't want to run through your god damn social 7 step flow chart with branching subsets of additional steps mechanic to handle the non-sale of a fucking oil lamp.

I don't want to go through it to handle the SALE of the lamp. I don't want to go through it to get a discount on the lamp. I, and your players, just do not care that fucking much about the fucking lamp.

That is some elaborate shit there. It better pull off some impressive results or it had better be out of the game.

Powerful broad end states like charm person were something I picked because fuck it, an actual elaborate mechanic must provide an appropriate reward. Players running through my system face a potentially complex and elaborate series of mechanics (at least by my standards, which I think is rather less elaborate than that rather terribly conceived flow chart), and at the end they get a potentially valuable reward.

Not buying a lamp is a sucky reward. Hell, at that complexity charm person begins to rack in as questionable.

Knock back your haggle mechanic to a singular roll. If it's just a haggle mechanic, and it basically is little better than that, it needs to be smaller than that flow chart. A lot smaller.

I don't think the whole "mother may I" problem... will be an issue if the motivations list is well written.

Then the list better be short, definitive, exclusive and all encompassing. Good luck with that.

[violence in the media]

Honest question here: if we're designing a social system for 3.x D&D, does it have to follow the d20+diplomacy/bluff/etc. vs. DC model? Could we make a system that worked entirely differently?

What if we came up with a strategic card-based approach? Players get some number of cards to use each game session, the MC gets some number per session, and people use them where they see fit. You could have cards like Obstinate, Quid Pro Quo, Honorable, or Wishful Thinking and the players and MC throw them down to "force-direct" social interactions. Sure, you could throw down your Gullible card to bilk the merchant, but then you won't have it to use on the scullery maid to get into the castle.

No cards would be thrown down for ordinary interactions. You buy stuff from the merchants at regular prices, people engage in regular conversation about recent events (none of this DC whatever bullshit to get people to tell you a dragon has been eating people in the area lately), and you can go anywhere the public would be expected.

If the MC wants to create an obstacle somewhere, they need to throw down a Racist Asshole or Haughty Bureaucrat card. Similarly, PCs will need an Inspiring Speech or Unbelievably Believable Lie card to compel extra benefits from someone in a normal circumstance or to grant access to something where the default answer is "no."

Now, this whole idea is basically just structured MTP, but it might have some useful qualities.

• It limits the number of DC 47 Diplomacy checks people can throw at a problem. This forces people to focus only on conflicts that matter rather than using Diplomacy on everything because it's there and they can.
• It speeds up the resolution of conflicts in a way that (hopefully) constrains MCs and players from weaseling towards the result they really want. (Dude, I played the No Backstabbing or Flaking Out card, you have to follow through on what we agreed upon!)
• It involves all the players, as the cards are distributed to the players rather than the characters. Maybe you'd want to do something where social-focused characters could get a few extra cards or a redraw, but by and large everyone gets/is required to get involved.

Obviously the idea needs a lot more work. The biggest downside I can see right now is that the whole thing could be really game-y. If you spend all your cards randomly swindling merchants and intimidating enemies, you might not have any left when it comes to convince the Duchess to send troops to the hill country. Bluffing the Trolls now might come at the direct expense of wooing the Princess later. That may or may not be acceptable.

[Grek]

I wrote up a post describing how Phone Lobster is retarded for flipping his shit over the stylistic choice of how finely to divide the steps your flow chart instead of considering shit that matters like word count or table time required to resolve a single social encounter, but I decided it wasn't worth it. Likewise with his retarded flipping out over off the cuff examples and his unreasonable demand that the the complete list of possible character motivations be a short one. Instead I'm going to say this:

[Kaelik]

We want to be able to do the scene from Innocents Abroad where the guy is in a burning building but goes to get his gold despite the danger and gets burned (literally) for it. Or the opposite one where he's willing to sacrifice the money to be not burned to death and then looses the money.

1) Okay, First guy has modifier ambitious, second guy has modifier cautious, so you totally don't need to fucking divide those.

2) Even if you do want to bitch about how first guy should have modifier cautious when dealing with other people (he shouldn't) you can give both of them the cautious modifier because going into a burning building is not a social mechanic, so what PCs do to convince cautious people to help them can work on both people, and they can act differently when a building is burning.

We also want to be have a thing where three people running for Mayor of the town, and one wants to be Mayor so he can embezzle money, one so he can boss people around and one because he wants to do what's fair and the PCs convince Money Guy to drop out of the race for a sack of cash and Bossy Guy to drop out in exchange for being appointed Sheriff instead. And not the other way around where you try to give Money Guy the Sheriff job and Bossy Guy a sack of cash.

Yes, and you can totally have that. Because both of them have the modifier "ambitious" and the way you convince ambitious people is to direct them towards the thing they want in some other way. But since people can literally want infinity things, you don't want to have a different quality for people who want money, political influence, real ultimate power, immortality, a kitten, a woman, a catwoman, ect.

They just get the ambitious tag, and you direct them towards the target of their ambition.