Another Thread About Social Combat

[Blade]

There are a few other things I think can be useful for some social systems:

- Social protection: just like the mage can often protect the party with counterspelling, or the hacker protect the team's network, the social character should be able to protect the team from persuasion attempts. And this should also apply to NPCs: the basic guard might have a low resistance to persuasion, but he should be able to get some kind of protection from his boss.

- Pressure: Individuals are often pressured by institutional, community and personal values. Bribing a guard will be much easier in a culture where everyone is fine with it, but if you're in a culture where corruption is reviled, it'll be very hard to get someone to accept a bribe, even if there's little to no risk and a lot to gain for the guard.

[PhoneLobster]

the next conversation with myself

Short version of my take aways.

The bit where you open with over two thousand words that commit to and tell us basically nothing
You are at least being slightly careful about outright fundamental errors in your writing. If only someone had given you an extended chance to do that sooner.

But this is still kinda unreadable. Is this an analysis of your old notes? A revision? A replacement? A stream of consciousness traversing those states at random?

You present the broader topic of what you are discussing as a replacement for one off diplomacy rolls, and maybe also a complex lengthy minigame for elaborate social encounters of massive importance.

But then you mostly seem to discuss a mechanic which is basically a single roll fairy tea party negotiation with the GM. Not that you actually say enough about it to even clearly confirm that much. Sometimes its referred to as "a roll" other times as "a minigame".

"Important social encounters", as things a GM arbitrarily declares getting a passing name drop or two. But aside from that arbitrary declaration there is absolutely no discussion of the basic defining structure of WHAT social encounters even are and where this, single roll?, fits in it.

Amazingly you arguably manage to tell use more about mechanics you are explicitly NOT discussing that the one you (maybe?) ARE ostensibly discussing!


The bit where you pretend you haven't just made a post to directly address me in a way I gave you repeated chances to and that you freaked out about
In the end you seem like you've just generated a lot of obfuscating content free ramble to surround what is in the end a polish and clarification of your 4 category list of Charm modifiers.

The only thing you describe in any meaningful detail whatsoever in the entire post. Just a direct response I asked you for ages ago.

For FFS are you really THAT passive aggressive. Are you THAT embarrassed about realizing that, yeah you actually DID need to polish and clarify that turd?

And then where you have actual content, it's basically just enough clarification that we can know your entire list of modifiers is...

A Reputation mechanic (all meaningful details unspecified) but in practical terms it's probably generally just a number the GM has relatively recently just picked from the ether. If you are lucky he picked it from the ether rather a while ago and maybe changed his mind about it slightly at least once since.

A Cost/Benefit Modifier, which is basically just a number the GM picked from the ether.

A Risk modifier. Which turns is just another slightly different flavor of Cost modifier. Which is basically just a number the GM picked from the ether.

An Effort modifier. Which turns out is just another slightly different flavor of Cost modifier. Which is basically just a number the GM picked from the ether.

And now maybe an infinite number of trait modifiers, or modifier modifiers, allowing the GM to pick numbers from the ether. But those, they basically get a level of description equal to the prior unpolished turd so maybe you know, you could write another 1200 word content free preamble and clarify those at least in part too...


Things Notably absent.
Any mention of player character abilities and how they interact with, whatever this is, what soever.

Or player characters as targets.

Or risk and reward.

What these encounters mechanically look like. Not finished rules, just broadly what even vague structure it takes.

What this mechanic mechanically looks like, not a finished rule, just what even is this? A roll an action the sum total of the entire encounter what?

What you even think this looks like in terms of how it plays out interacting with players at the table over it.

And how the hell a guy who hates haggling is so obsessed with seemingly designing his biggest core social mechanic (maybe?), and the only things defined about it, as transactional bargaining based on opposing parties vying for the greater transactional value at the end of a social interaction that could arguably be described as "a deal". That in table top interaction terms WILL be resolved by a negotiation that could be described as haggling.

Maybe, you missed the greater problem with your earlier messier 4 point list.

The damning issues weren't just the glaring unforced errors in language. The elaboration required wasn't JUST "yes the numbers will be big and small based on how big and small the feels are!"

And sure, actually properly clarifying which characters you were talking about is helpful, I would NEVER have imagined that effort was just another type of Cost modifier, I was convinced it would turn out to be just another poorly considered flavor of BENEFIT modifier!

One, just one, of the giant problems I might have hoped would be evident somewhere before this point is that even aside from "context modifiers are king!' being a bad strategy that does bad things.

You also need to present any description of mechanic at all other than "there are modifiers".

Yes you promised more information, I hope it actually commits to telling us things at a better content to junk rate. But in this post? You write like a text generating AI designed not to be pinned down on a specific game mechanic. Other than REALLY liking Cost modifiers and being conflicted about haggling.

[MGuy]

Most of this is a failure on your part to read what I'm doing and understand it. I'm going to wait until I see someone else who's as confused about what I'm presenting as you because your continued confusion about what it is I'm doing is looking like a personal thing.

[merxa]

exploring my meta narrative currency idea more

Meta-narrative currency Essence and Complication.
Essence
Anyone with a point of essence can spend it to create or alter minor narrative elements: examples might be naming a shopkeeper and having a prior acquaintance (former neighbors, alumni, association members etc), another example could be knowing the location of a nearby inn, the specific examples and scope of essence spending is ultimately determined by individual groups.

Essence can also be spent to alter NPC behavior, and there are even special powers that use essence to create greater changes.

Example Power

Parle
Essence can be spent by anyone to have an NPC or group become non hostile to the PCs and willing to engage with them. The NPCs remains non hostile for as long as a reasonable conversation can take place. Any violent acts or inability to communicate may negate this effect. Momentous events can make reasoned conversation impossible or very short, making the attempt ineffective but not costing any essence.

Complication
Similar to essence, it is usually spent by GMs to add additional changes, as well as given to important NPCs.
~~

In the example of PCs attempting to convince the King, that encounter could involve PCs spending essence to achieve certain results or using powers that generate or modify essence, while the King and his Hand have a pool of complication, which they spend in ways that make something simple complicated, create unlikely coincidences, or even have trigger conditions that can come into effect.

Of course the key here is writing the abilities that use essence at the right scope and restraint, but also that don't necessarily skip important scenes or discourages roleplaying.

[MGuy]

exploring my meta narrative currency idea more

Meta-narrative currency Essence and Complication.
Essence
Anyone with a point of essence can spend it to create or alter minor narrative elements: examples might be naming a shopkeeper and having a prior acquaintance (former neighbors, alumni, association members etc), another example could be knowing the location of a nearby inn, the specific examples and scope of essence spending is ultimately determined by individual groups.

Essence can also be spent to alter NPC behavior, and there are even special powers that use essence to create greater changes.

Example Power

Parle
Essence can be spent by anyone to have an NPC or group become non hostile to the PCs and willing to engage with them. The NPCs remains non hostile for as long as a reasonable conversation can take place. Any violent acts or inability to communicate may negate this effect. Momentous events can make reasoned conversation impossible or very short, making the attempt ineffective but not costing any essence.

Complication
Similar to essence, it is usually spent by GMs to add additional changes, as well as given to important NPCs.
~~

In the example of PCs attempting to convince the King, that encounter could involve PCs spending essence to achieve certain results or using powers that generate or modify essence, while the King and his Hand have a pool of complication, which they spend in ways that make something simple complicated, create unlikely coincidences, or even have trigger conditions that can come into effect.

Of course the key here is writing the abilities that use essence at the right scope and restraint, but also that don't necessarily skip important scenes or discourages roleplaying.

I'm going to be doing something similar myself. I think meta currency can be used to relieve the tension of players not having control of their destiny. What would be the method through which players and the GM generate this currency?

[Harshax]

If you look at Blades in the Dark for example, every Faction has a certain amount of Status. When you successfully run a score against a Faction, it may lose some Status while your Faction gains some.

If social combat covers politics, then this should be the meta-currency. Players can spend Status for specific assets that help them flashback or otherwise alter their abilities to engage an encounter.

Sometimes social combat is about giving one Faction an asset to help you take an asset from another Faction. If you do this for me...

Adventuring can help you can gain assets through stabbing and stealing.

Players can spend Status on assets, but then fail to achieve their goal over time diminishing their Influence in the political game.

An asset can be a physical object, something valuable or an injurious secret. An asset can be metaphysical, like calling in a favor from another Faction. If the Player's and MC agree, the favor might belong to an un-named Faction and spending Status this way brings a new Faction on to the scene.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

So most of the reason I had TAA put a hold on what he was going to say is that haven't really posted 'a system' at this point. What I'm doing is thinking my way through the design process.

Sometimes I feel like that's what half of the posts in these threads are for: people to talk to themselves and occasionally get someone else's input.

Anyway, I find your Cost/Benefit Analysis section interesting. Seems similar to the Favorable - Repugnant crap I wrote up, but with more degrees. I shall be monitoring this in the future. Unfortunately I have little else to comment on here, as it all sounds pretty decent so far, but there's not much for me to sink my teeth into.

I'm with PL on a bit of this, though. How does this work when an NPC tries to use it on a player? Or if a player tries to use it on a player? I also didn't see much in the way of the party helping one another out. Right now what you posted really does just look like a list of modifiers. Which is fine enough, I just need more. Don't hold out on us, man. Maybe I am also personally failing to understand other people here.

- Social protection: just like the mage can often protect the party with counterspelling, or the hacker protect the team's network, the social character should be able to protect the team from persuasion attempts. And this should also apply to NPCs: the basic guard might have a low resistance to persuasion, but he should be able to get some kind of protection from his boss.

- Pressure: Individuals are often pressured by institutional, community and personal values. Bribing a guard will be much easier in a culture where everyone is fine with it, but if you're in a culture where corruption is reviled, it'll be very hard to get someone to accept a bribe, even if there's little to no risk and a lot to gain for the guard.

When you successfully run a score against a Faction, it may lose some Status while your Faction gains some.

If social combat covers politics, then this should be the meta-currency. Players can spend Status for specific assets that help them flashback or otherwise alter their abilities to engage an encounter.

Sometimes social combat is about giving one Faction an asset to help you take an asset from another Faction. If you do this for me...

Adventuring can help you can gain assets through stabbing and stealing.

Players can spend Status on assets, but then fail to achieve their goal over time diminishing their Influence in the political game.

These also seem rather important as well. I can't imagine playing something that pretends to be a real social system without accounting for influence and status in some shape or form. Honestly, you might be able to combine all of this together into some kind of Status system that allows high-Status people to influence and protect low-Status people, or get low-Status people assistance from high-Status people.
Hrmmm. This could even work for some sentient monsters. (AKA Pokemon)

[MGuy]

I'm with PL on a bit of this, though. How does this work when an NPC tries to use it on a player? Or if a player tries to use it on a player?

I don't currently see myself doing diplomacy 'at' players. I listed this before

5: Interparty I might have something that involves players being able to interact with one another within some kind of framework but I'm less sure that this is a good idea. I do think that if I have a clear way for players to lose more serious social encounters as outlined in 3 then it wouldn't be a big leap to allow players to do important social encounters among themselves. This would work well with Grek's Hopes and Fears idea where part of getting over one's fears and developing new hopes can require other party members. I can think of interesting way to have players having to act out the worst sides of their character while others try to help them overcome it in an interparty interaction. There could even be a chance to fail at it and consequences that introduce risk to even trying.

and I say it in passing when addressing something else

Since my philosophy up to this point is that I don't do diplomacy at players, players can decide whether or not NPCs are attractive and if they care.

So far I've leaned away from doing diplomacy at players. I might do something for the longer version of the longer social encounters to give players more defeat states for players but even that isn't definite. I'll decide on that when I ruminate on what the lengthier social encounters will actually be like as that is going to be tough to figure out.

I also didn't see much in the way of the party helping one another out.

I might do something of an 'aid' action but I'm leaning toward not. These single rolls are mostly for combat, one off events that are occurring in the heat of a moment, and are things usually triggered by single players or single NPCs. So if a player is disguised and an NPC questions that player that player makes a bluff and/or disguise check against them. Now maybe another player wants to attempt to distract the NPC but that would be a separate thing that is a completely different roll. The reason I'm worried about not leaving anyone out in longer social encounters is that I don't want people sitting on their hands during what's essentially like a form of combat while having no input. However if a player is passing a forgery, distracting a guard, or some other single roll thing I don't need to worry because that doesn't eat up a lot of screen time and is akin to just that player taking a 'turn'.

Right now what you posted really does just look like a list of modifiers. Which is fine enough, I just need more. Don't hold out on us, man. Maybe I am also personally failing to understand other people here.

Those are. That was the point of them. So you read that right. Just missed why I brought them up maybe. I posted them because they were clearly not an infinite list of infinite modifiers.

I'm not holding out though. This is a process. This is how I've chosen to go about thinking my way through what I want, what I can do to get myself there, and the best way to achieve it. I'll be thinking more closely about Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and what skills can counteract them in time.

[PhoneLobster]

I just see more general obfuscation of what this specific mechanic even is.

Your response to how does it effect player characters?

"Here is a quote about my opinion of a an unrelated system that I'm not using yet"
"And an almost relevant but highly noncommittal quote I've repurposed about my opinion on reaction rolls"
"Then I'll say I have leaned away."
"But I might do it"
"But haven't decided"
"Longer combat like encounters might effect players or have co-operative actions because you need that in long complex encounters like combat. But not this, which is now a rule for encounters so like combat they actually ARE combat encounters. Those aren't sufficiently like combat."

This isn't clarity.

You can have a work in process and make actual meaningful decisions during that process.

And your work can't actually progress unless you do.

[MGuy]

My response to 'how does it effect players' is "I don't currently see myself doing diplomacy 'at' players."

[PhoneLobster]

FFS even that isn't a solid answer anyone could safely pin you down on is it?

Is it that hard to say "Player Characters are immune to this mechanic/action/entire social rules set."?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

He means he does diplomacy with players, not at them. Maybe.
I'm just feeling cheeky right now.

[Foxwarrior]

Diplomacy with players, and diplomacy at Player Characters

[deaddmwalking]

Not subjecting players to persuasion is a reasonable position. For most players, choosing how the character would react is the game. If the quest-giver successfully coerces the players into committing to his quest using every tool at their disposal, you're violating the social contract and going well beyond railroading.

In combat, it's generally important that a PC getting stabbed by a sword works basically the same as an NPC getting stabbed by a sword. That said, there are plenty of systems that distinguish between mooks and 'real opposition', though that hasn't really been a hallmark of D&D outside of 4th edition minion rules.

It's important to define what the rule should accomplish. Should it be possible to convince a king to relinquish the throne in favor of you? If the rules permit it, those kinds of things will happen. It's entirely reasonable to take a position that the DM doesn't have a fully developed personality for every NPC and knows whether they're easily persuaded or not. Letting the dice decide whether the PCs can succeed at seducing a barmaid can be helpful - players want to believe that their actions are meaningful and having the DM decide arbitrarily can be disempowering. Even using those abilities to make the princess fall in love with you can potentially make the story more interesting and many DMs will appreciate offloading the probabilities that it works to impartial dice.

To ensure that the system is EASY TO USE and PRODUCES USEFUL OUTPUTS, it isn't necessary to program every possible interaction (this character is -4 to resist checks against 'batting your eyelashes' but is at +4 against 'flexes muscles), but there's still room for some amount of robustness. Such a system needs to start by defining types of behaviors associated with different attitudes. It's fine that someone who is 'indifferent' will help in inconsequential ways that involve no personal risk (like providing directions) while someone who is 'helpful' will provide significant aid that doesn't have a personal cost or danger (ie, leading you to your destination within town). It's also fine to say that someone who is helpful won't provide the same help if it costs them directly (ie, small help at great risk) - if instead of town it's through enemy lines providing directions is just fine. Having guidelines isn't going to satisfy everyone, but it helps avoid the 'bonkers' errors that result with meticulously calculating every way people respond. On first principles, there is no such thing as a person who is so persuasive that they can get everything they want - while it might work on ONE person it never works on EVERYONE. It's not like a greatsword where if your weapon skill is superior, you can kill ANYBODY - even highly skilled orators are playing probabilities, not certainties. The physics of human interaction are significantly more complex than the physics of swinging a weapon.

[Whatever]

If a bunch of 5th level adventurers with swords show up to Joe's farm and "persuade" him to lead them where they need to go, that's hardly an impossible scenario. Maybe they convince him that they're the only chance to stop his farm from being burned by the invaders. That could even be true.

I think PL is right that the only sensible cap on rewards is that they be level-appropriate. Low level players can get "everything" from Joe farmer (if they care to), but they can only get low level rewards from the king. High level characters can get high level rewards, which certainly includes kingdoms.

Scaling rewards based on circumstances is like AD&D treasure tables. Better than the 4e approach, but not worth settling for.

[PhoneLobster]

He means he does diplomacy with players, not at them. Maybe.

What he wants to communicate is a weaselly politicians version of a no. A "No, kind of for now but hey, maybe some other day perhaps Yes? So you can't pin me down on it and complain."

What he meant to say was "Player Characters are immune to this rule, but might not be immune to other rules later and I might change my mind but probably not." Which is, bad enough.

What he actually said was poorly enough worded it COULD also mean "Player characters are NOT immune to this rule, I just choose, for now, not to use it on them." Which is worse on it's own, and worse again when it's noncommittal enough it could be either.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

So I decided to sit down and write a couple example scenarios using the various skill powers I've got, in some weird attempt to see if any of it is actually usable in practice. Is it supposed to feel this messy or am I just a shitter? I feel like I'm doing that thing where I make game assumptions without realizing it.
I think I've kind of gotten the action flow hammered out a bit more? Like with Push Agreement - it lasts an Extended Action (Short), but you don't make the check until the very end of the action. In the meantime, other people can jump in and use pretty much any action they want, so long as it doesn't last longer than Push Agreement.
So while one person initiates Push Agreement, another person uses Flirt as an Extended Action (Short) as well to try and mess with the target's head before they make the final decision. Because Flirt is being used as an Extended Action and not a Standard Action, it lasts for a couple hours instead of a couple rounds. Assuming it works, the group gets a bonus to [Social] rolls against the target for the duration of the Flirt, which helps the Pusher... push.

For some reason, I had a lot of trouble writing this out. Perhaps I should note that Extended Actions can't be... gamed? Not sure on the phrasing here, but my intent is that while one person does an Extended Action (S), another person can't do 30 Extended Actions (S). Currently, it works so that when someone uses an Extended Action (Long), that is enough time to fit in 2 Extended Actions (Short) within the same timeframe. For some reason I can't help but imagine all of this looking like a fucking block schedule or something.
Is my brain just leaking out of my goddamn ears today?

[Foxwarrior]

Perhaps I should note that Extended Actions can't be... gamed? Not sure on the phrasing here, but my intent is that while one person does an Extended Action (S), another person can't do 30 Extended Actions (S).

Imagine if D&D said a full-round action took 1-15 seconds to complete. Just accept that when you split things into actions they need to take arbitrary, consistent, fixed lengths of time.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

D&D doesn't really give a shit about time units outside of hitting people with a sword, so I find your example lacking. But at the same time... I can't really disagree with your point. It just feels really weird and sort of wrong. There has to be some kind of step in between "10 second chunk" and "30 minute chunk", because that's one hell of a difference.
EDIT: Here, let's go with a specific example. I can't say it takes someone 30 minutes to bind somebody with rope, that's just crazy. But saying it takes "6 rounds" seems just as crazy!

[PhoneLobster]

The alternative is to never mention specific time units at all. Keep it purely abstract. So maybe you have a very "quick" time unit, you have a very "long" time unit, never give any seconds/minutes/hours number for either.

If/Once you mention time real time units, you should probably pick a single specific real time increment for your abstract time unit and stick to it. So it's a bit of an all or nothing thing, compromises lead to "issues". Maybe not insurmountable, but certainly unnecessary ones.

[jt]

6 rounds sounds fine to me, no weirder than it taking 1 minute or 60 seconds. It's just a time unit.

You only need to chop the flow of time up into round-sized chunks when there's so many of them going on that tracking them as partially overlapping blocks would be impractical. It's perfectly okay for two people to take actions that take a round where one starts halfway through the other, it's just uncommon to care about the exact amount of time something takes outside of a combat (which is one of those places where so much is going on that you need to impose a time grid).

If you're dealing in 30 minute chunks, I think you'd find that it's fine to just let things partially overlap and fudge it a bit, and that if all the players are performing sequences of 30-minute actions, you'll naturally slip into treating it as a grid.

[MGuy]

Not subjecting players to persuasion is a reasonable position. For most players, choosing how the character would react is the game. If the quest-giver successfully coerces the players into committing to his quest using every tool at their disposal, you're violating the social contract and going well beyond railroading.

This is an accurate understanding of why I wouldn't want to have an option for the GM to influence the player to do things through these rolls. In my experience I get a fuck ton of pushback, more than anything else I've ever done with social mechanics, when players feel like their character has been 'hijacked'. While in most conversations I've seen people have about social mechanics tends to worry about what if the players swindle everything out of the king with what essentially comes down to 'the wrong argument', I think there's the understanding in these same conversations that doing so to players is completely off the table. Telling someone their character now loves a person or considers them a close friend because their numbers beat their own seems to cause a significant amount of friction to occur. While I can imagine some fun things I could do with a system where this is on the table as far as I can tell my players wouldn't like it. So I'm not considering it for these single rolls.

I might consider in the future, as I'm still weighing my options, particularly for longer social encounters. I believe most people understand "this is a process" and what it means. The reason I might consider it more as a defeat state for longer social encounters is that combat encounters that go badly tend to 'force' players into either being dead (the ultimate penalty) or into a situation where they are at even more of a disadvantage. These extreme defeat states seem to be more accepted among my players, and I think people in general. The difference here, I think, is that there's a greater feeling of defeat that comes from lengthier encounters being lost than there is from single rolls spelling complete defeat. It might work then as a kind of defeat state for a longer social encounter as the hefty cost of losing it and in that case might seem more acceptable to players as a consequence. I don't know if I 'will' do it because I still don't know what kind of game that's going to be yet.

If a bunch of 5th level adventurers with swords show up to Joe's farm and "persuade" him to lead them where they need to go, that's hardly an impossible scenario. Maybe they convince him that they're the only chance to stop his farm from being burned by the invaders. That could even be true.

I think PL is right that the only sensible cap on rewards is that they be level-appropriate. Low level players can get "everything" from Joe farmer (if they care to), but they can only get low level rewards from the king. High level characters can get high level rewards, which certainly includes kingdoms.

Scaling rewards based on circumstances is like AD&D treasure tables. Better than the 4e approach, but not worth settling for.

Wouldn't that be assumed to be the case as far as quest rewards go? If the farmer is low level then he's only going to be able to offer players low level stuff. If the players are dealing with the king then they are going to be offered whatever the king has already decided they are going to get for services rendered, and unless their numbers can significantly exceed the king's then it's unlikely they would be in a position to demand any more than that. At the level they'd be able to demand a kingdom they should be at the level to take one themselves.

He means he does diplomacy with players, not at them. Maybe.
I'm just feeling cheeky right now.

Diplomacy 'at' sounds more punchy and fitting (given the reason why I want to avoid it) since it makes it sound like an attack.

my intent is that while one person does an Extended Action (S), another person can't do 30 Extended Actions (S).

You can have a rule where any player is limited to only one aid action (which I assume the flirt would be for this part of your game) in any of these processes. It would put a hard stop to people attempting to spam in the interim. You could alternatively say that since the extended action time is variable to begin with then it's a matter of scale and therefore any help someone puts in also scales to meet it. So if a negotiation lasts a handful of hours then the attempt of another player to flirt with the target lasts that full time. It would make sense in context and also help you against spam.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

You could alternatively say that since the extended action time is variable to begin with then it's a matter of scale and therefore any help someone puts in also scales to meet it. So if a negotiation lasts a handful of hours then the attempt of another player to flirt with the target lasts that full time. It would make sense in context and also help you against spam.

It's like you saw what was in my brain but I was incapable of articulating... and articulated it. Thank you so much.

[Stubbazubba]

I think social "defeat" can take different forms, and making them palatable to players is probably doable so long as you don't touch their beliefs or actions. You can change incentives and let them role-play within that, though.

The easiest way is to simply not tell them that something is a lie. They were deceived. They may heavily suspect something is a lie, but precisely what is and what the truth is will often be harder to pin down. That's a kind of social defeat, where they get information but don't know if they can trust it. Even if they know they were deceived, it'll often be difficult to determine what was deception and what wasn't. And if it's easy every now and then, that's fine, "losing" an encounter doesn't have to mean maximal pain.

Next is alienation. Based on The One Ring, I rewrote 5e's Inspiration to be a shared pool of advantage that anyone could use. But if an NPC successfully persuades you that your teammates are keeping something from you, or if your teammates do something anathema to your values or otherwise hurtful to you and you know about it, you might become Alienated, where you cannot use the Inspiration pool (and it is one smaller when it replenishes at the end of a long rest). You end the condition when you confront the other party members and work it out or when you do something to recommit to your values (e.g. perform an all-night vigil, let a prisoner go, etc. for Good types).

Something like that, where social consequences appear as conditions that you can choose to end by taking certain actions is probably more palatable than forcing any decision on the players.

[MGuy]

Next is alienation. Based on The One Ring, I rewrote 5e's Inspiration to be a shared pool of advantage that anyone could use. But if an NPC successfully persuades you that your teammates are keeping something from you, or if your teammates do something anathema to your values or otherwise hurtful to you and you know about it, you might become Alienated, where you cannot use the Inspiration pool (and it is one smaller when it replenishes at the end of a long rest). You end the condition when you confront the other party members and work it out or when you do something to recommit to your values (e.g. perform an all-night vigil, let a prisoner go, etc. for Good types).

This sounds very useful. This is the kind of thing Grek's Hopes and Fears got me thinking about.