The problem of social systems

[Username17]

Just putting it out there: characters in Crusader Kings 2 have an "ambition", and get a personal bonus when they fulfill that ambition. Also NPCs are more likely to accept offers that fill their ambition and like people who help them fulfill their ambition. This offers a carrot to the player to try to fulfill their own ambition and to figure out how to make offers that help fulfill other peoples' ambitions as well.

-Username17

[zugschef]

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.

i agree with kaelik. you don't have to define an effect for every possible attitude. cover the most common ones like "attentive", "loyal", "corrupt", etc. and tell the gm to homebrew the effects of a certain attitude not covered by the rules ( such as, "has a total crush on black-headed marsians with three tits and will do anything for sex with them") if it comes up, in order to ensure consistency; i.e. next time the same situation comes up, you deal with it exactly as you did last time and players know that if it comes up again that that's how you'll deal with it.

Just putting it out there: characters in Crusader Kings 2 have an "ambition", and get a personal bonus when they fulfill that ambition. Also NPCs are more likely to accept offers that fill their ambition and like people who help them fulfill their ambition. This offers a carrot to the player to try to fulfill their own ambition and to figure out how to make offers that help fulfill other peoples' ambitions as well.

sounds like a system worth to look into.

[PhoneLobster]

sounds like a system worth to look into.

It sounds like a bonus or modifier (not even a system) not worth our time of day.

MTP pulling numbers out our ass for arbitrary rolls DOES the "give a modifier for 'stuff' you think the target might 'like more'" thing already.

A partial formalization, and this really is only a partial formalization, is not particularly interesting. Throwing in another list of 5 entries as another mother may I modifier for MTP is sometimes nice, but standing alone it's still basically pretty much pure MTP.

Grek's idea was horrendously terribly badly written and he managed to go through the steps from "This endless list of endless modifiers thing, I can do it!" to "waaaaah! fuck you" and running into the wilderness screaming with no pants on faster than most "Screw you and your years on the topic Phonelobster I totally have this in the next five minutes!" posters.

But at least he had a system. Frank is proposing lifting just a single modifier from a computer game. A modifier we pretty close to emulate with MTPed situational bullshit already. And then presumably tacking it onto... MTPed situational bullshit ANYWAY.

Lets not even mention that "motivations" or "ambitions" or whatever you want to call them took all of nearly no posts at all before it generated people arguing over what should fall into what categories.

[Saxony]

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.

I don't really see the flow of logic here.

How about I put forth an idea here. All social interaction in an RPG should be entirely magical tea party, because no one really understands sociology and certainly the players of RPGs do not. Is there merit to that claim, or a watered down version of it?

[Grek]

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

I guess that's fair. As long as there's never an argument with the MC over what things NPCs actually want to have, I'm satisfied.

[Kaelik]

All social interaction in an RPG should be entirely magical tea party, because no one really understands sociology and certainly the players of RPGs do not. Is there merit to that claim, or a watered down version of it?

Without commenting on your conclusion, your reason is shitty.

It doesn't fucking matter if we or anyone else understands sociology. That has less than nothing to do with anything, just like our complete lack of knowledge about how ice lazers interact with fire lazers doesn't matter either.

We are making a game, so for our social system, the only appropriate things we need to know are:

1) What kinds of social challenges should the game expect, include, and/or suggest.

2) What sort of social solutions should the game expect, accommodate, and/or incentivize?

3) What kind of mechanics can make our game do 1 and 2?

Stockholm syndrome exists, but we might very well decide that we don't want to allow that as a possible solution to social problems. Similarly, we definitely want to let a bunch of shit that is totally impossible happen, like have some illusionist be so good at his shit that he can copy every aspect of someone, right down to the point where the king never realizes that they kidnapped his beloved daughter the princess and replaced her with the illusionist.

Human sociology is less than shit.

[Kaelik]

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

I guess that's fair. As long as there's never an argument with the MC over what things NPCs actually want to have, I'm satisfied.

I assume this is a really stupid passive aggressive troll, so:

1) Who the fuck cares, the MC already decides what the NPCs want to have under every system. Under your system, the MC decides whether the mayoral candidate wants money or political influence, and then gives them the quality (greedy) or (panderer). In my system, the MC decides whether they want money or political influence, and then gives them the (ambitious) tag, and then just writes in the notes "wants [money or political influence]." So if the PCs disagree about what an NPC wants they can go eat a dick.

2) In either case, when the PCs use divination, or break into his campaign office, or sweet talk his trusted secretary, or whatever, they find out he wants money or influence, and then they find a way to offer him money or influence to drop out of the race.

Everything from the PCs perspective is pretty much identical, except that instead of remembering that (greedy) and (panderer) are solved by offering money and influence respectively, they now just remember that ambition is solved by redirecting it to another path to the thing the ambitious person is willing to strive for.

[Grek]

Err, no. I am not trolling. I am legitimately OK with just writing in Ambitious with no qualifications as long as it's made clear somewhere in the rules that the DM has to have some sort of actual ambitions in mind when he writes an NPC with the Ambitious quality. And, if you write the rules such that PCs get qualities like that, they have to have something in mind too.

Maybe my own DM is just shit, but he's done stuff like that before. When we went to the Goblin King to ask for aid against the monsters attacking the city, he just shrugged at all of the offers we made. When we asked the King point blank what he wanted in exchange for his aid, the DM just looked at us blankly for a minute before admitting he hadn't thought ahead that far. Before that, there was a kobold who appeared "terrified" and who was cowering in fear, but could not actually tell anyone what she was afraid of. You get a similar issue with PCs sometimes. They'll say that they want to "protect the innocent" or "get stronger to defeat their enemies" without ever actually specifying who it is that they're defending people from or have as their enemies.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that while Ambitious is a good mechanical grouping, if you're going to have a talking heavy game, there still needs to be some specific hopes and dreams written down in the character notes somewhere, right next to the character's relationships, fears, ethics and other important characterizations. And it needs to be integrated into the mechanics in a way that a main character is obviously unfinished if you don't fill these details in.

[zugschef]

as for haggling... diplomacy is not the only aspect. actually the first skill you should check is appraise. haggling is a way to determine a particular product's worth. since western society has several ways to measure qualities of products of any kind, there is little to no room left for haggling. when you're in marrakesh at a souk, though, that's entirely different.

thus, knowing a products particular worth (via passing your appraise check) will help you tremendously in not paying too much and knowing how low you can go without insulting the seller.

note that an item's worth can differ from person to person. as such you should probably first make a sense motive check and then an appraise check in order to know what your trade partner thinks this shit is worth.

holy fuck... that's getting complicated. lulz.

[PhoneLobster]

holy fuck... that's getting complicated. lulz.

That's not even the half of it.

To get your average haggling mechanic up to be anything useful enough to be considered even a partially functional social system it has to handle knowledge far in excess of just an appraisal of market value.

Like identifying that an object has been stolen (lowering it's worth), or identifying that a buyer has black market ties and can move it at near full value anyway (raising it's worth), identifying that the item has been stolen, but the seller doesn't KNOW it's been stolen, because someone gave it to him and the seller's own sense motive or whatever is terrible, etc...

I think I called it the "what's in the sack" problem back when I was struggling with a barter/value based system, and my version of the problem started at an even more basic building block of a trade/haggling based mechanic with "Someone tries to give someone else a gift wrapped parcel for free. How difficult should it be to get them to accept the gift?". And it was in dealing with issues of knowledge, deception, unknowing deception or other relevant ignorance... well. Lets just say you get into Dick Cheney levels of "Known Knowns and Known Unknowns" pretty damn fast.

[zugschef]

well it's again a matter of abstraction and simplifying things. it's like the decision to use armor as damage reduction or not.

[PhoneLobster]

well it's again a matter of abstraction and simplifying things. it's like the decision to use armor as damage reduction or not.

You would think.

But try it and see how it plays with the infinite list of infinite modifiers crowd.

Frank himself has on various occasions put his foot down and stomped it like a petulant toddler demanding that your system must be designed around having a modifier for "being on the winning side of a long war" big than the whole social game and level system, that there needs to also be a "wife" modifier bigger than the whole social game and level system, AND there needs to be a "hot barmaid you'd like to have sex with" modifier bigger than the whole social game and level system.

Thats like... 3 things bigger than the entire social/level system/RNG/everything. Including bigger than each of the other 2 things respectively combined. WTF even happens if the 1st level diplomat on the winning side of a war happens to be a hot barmaid you would like to have sex with while their oppositions 1st level wives are all against the diplomatic proposal I have no fucking idea.

But basically those 3 things are just examples to show that, well, the crazy brigade on this one WILL pick out some really crazy shit to cling to and demand be gigantic factors in the game.

And when it came to decisions like "how does high level barbarians picking up hot level 1 barmaids happen?" when an abstraction/simplification of "well the barbarian probably seduces them easily due to his higher level seduction capabilities" was floated there was screaming and crying and wringing of hands and demands that no, level 1 barmaids needed giant circumstantial booby bonuses that were so vast they permitted THEM to seduce the high level barbarians even against resistance to the action... because... er... well that was never all too clear...

[Blade]

Dying Earth RPG has a fully functional social mechanism. It relies on a core concept that the players have to accept:
- A character who loses the social contest is persuaded, even if he's a PC.

But Dying Earth RPG is nearly just about persuasion. Characters are expected to try to get the shopkeeper to give them everything for free. Just like the shopkeeper will be trying to get all their money for useless trinkets.

It works pretty well, when everyone around the table accept the social contract of the game.

[hogarth]

Here are the problems as I see it.

Character can't get too good-

Players don't like losing control-

It can't be overly binary-

No one likes it when the results are morally hideous-

I would collapse those down into one problem:

In a storytelling game, people don't like rules that incentivize telling stupid stories.

That subsumes "characters can't get too good" (because trotting Joe the Bard out every single time is a stupid story) and "players don't like losing control" (because that might make your PC do something stupid), etc.

[Username17]

How about I put forth an idea here. All social interaction in an RPG should be entirely magical tea party, because no one really understands sociology and certainly the players of RPGs do not. Is there merit to that claim, or a watered down version of it?

No. There is no merit at all in that argument. You don't need to have any idea about what the underlying mechanism of any action in the game is in order to model the inputs and outputs of that action in the game. Legs move because cholinergic receptors act of cells to affect second messenger releases that have cascades that end in actin-myosin bridges shifting, but you don't have to know or understand any of that to make the observation that people can move a certain distance in a certain time. The fundamental ways in which things function can remain a black box because the game is abstracting them regardless.

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.

I don't really see the flow of logic here.

You're going to have to back up and tell me your failure point. Because it really seems pretty obvious. Nevertheless, I guess I can break that down a bit for you:

• MTP, despite its many advantages, nonetheless gives outputs that people find unsatisfactory fairly often.
• When MTP gives an output that someone finds unsatisfactory, the result is that someone feels that they have been dicked over arbitrarily, because they have.
• MTP does not perform well at the task of accepting inputs related to character ability and translating them into results.
• Therefore, in order for a system to be "good" at the things that MTP is "bad" at, it really only needs to do two things:
  • Be based mostly on the character's abilities.
  • Give outputs that are sufficiently impartial feeling to avoid butthurt.
• This is not terribly difficult! That is, in fact, a really fucking low bar that almost every action resolution system in every game ever written can say with confidence that it has passed. 4th edition D&D has character driven success tests and objective sounding success and failure results. Fucking World of Darkness has character driven success tests and objective sounding success and failure results. A system doesn't have to be "good" to be good in ways that MTP happens to be bad.
• Therefore, the true measure of a system being "good" for social actions is not whether it can succeed in places where MTP fails. Because fucking every system that isn't complete horse shit can do that. The true measure of a system being good for social actions is whether it can succeed in places where MTP fails while still succeeding in at least some places that MTP also succeeds.

That is, of course, where PhoneLobster's system becomes such a pathetic parody of a terrible system. He has the MTP system, and then he has the rolled system that is based 100% on character abilities and gives 100% objective answers. That completely covers the weaknesses of MTP, right? Wrong. The rolled system still has to do at least something that the MTP system does well, because merely being "fair" isn't remotely good enough if the results it gives are still "fucktarded". It still has to produce results that feel reasonable and are graduated based on the provided inputs.

-Username17

[talozin]

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.

The only thing I don't understand is why you use "Hicks" as a screen name, when "Bleys" would be equally awesome.

[MGuy]

Well here's my crack at it:

Character can't get too good- Diplomancers give most people bad feels so you can't let being really good at the social mini game be soming like a (Ex) Dominate. When you party face can make every non mindless enemey instantly freindly with a few words it ends with stupid things like the orc rushing into battle with earplugs so the don't get instantly trunned by the half-elfs siren song.

I disagree with this because one of the fun things about gaining levels is that you can be straight up better than people who are much lower level than you. Higher level demons/gods are so good at diplomizing people they can enlist OTHER high level people to not only do it for them but give there souls over to them after they die. What I don't want is for that kind of stuff to be happening to people before the appropriate time because of RNG destroying shenanigans. I largely got rid of this problem in my own in development game by eliminating any ability or item that would boost skill bonuses. So spells like Charm Person straight up don't exist and classic spells like Dominate are much more limited in overall application and flexibility. More specifically getting a permanent Thrall isn't something you can do in a round of combat and takes about as much time as getting a spouse (though the costs and end results differ a bit).

Players don't like losing control- in order to have meaningful social combat it needs to be possible for PCs to "lose" how ever if that means that the players character gets hijacked that won't go over to well

I disagree with this to some degree. While I admit no one 'wants' to get their character hijacked I think that people are willing to accept their motivations being fucked with or their character getting temporarily hijacked when they lose. The important thing here is to not have the numbers go to crazy town such that a player can't reasonably prevent loss, and to make aborting a conversation an option. Then you probably want to make whatever their getting manipulated to do seem reasonable. Forcing a character to do something wholly unreasonable for their character even once in a while is a real dick move and so you probably want to avoid that, which is why quitting a conversation should be an option whenever the terms are ridiculous. To quote from the ruleset I've been building:

Coerce (Disposition, Fear, Intimidating Conditions, Language, Skill Task) – A Character may pressure a Target into complying to their demands through Intimidation. To perform this task a Character must spend at least a minute to lay out a general and acceptable Action or Task for the Target to perform. The task may take longer if the request or delivery method is more complex. To be an acceptable action the Target must be physically able to perform the Action and the Apparent Incentive for following the directions must be greater than the Apparent Risk for not doing so. After this is done the Target gets to take a minute to make a more reasonable counter proposal. If the counter proposal isn't allowed the Character suffers a -10 Penalty to the check. After this the Character makes an Opposed Intimidation Check opposed by the Target’s Intimidation or Will Bonus. If it Succeeds the Target performs the task or accepts the terms albeit reluctantly. If a Critical is scored the Target performs the task without any compromises. If the Check Fails the target will pretend to comply with the request but do their best to not perform the action or turn the tables at the next chance they get. If an Error is scored another attempt may not be made against the Target unless the situation changes significantly. When dealing with a Group of Targets or Targets that are under direct orders from another this check opposes the Target with the highest Intimidation or Will Bonus or 10 + the Intimidation or Manipulation Bonus of the absentee leader.
After the Task is done the Target’s Disposition towards the Character drops by one Grade or multiple Grades depending on the consequences the Target suffers for following the order. Alternatively a Character may benefit from following the order and not have relations soured between themselves and the Character. It should be noted though that not only does the Target have to benefit from the event but they have to perceive that their benefits were directly related to the Character. If a Critical is scored on the Check the drop in Disposition is reduced by one. If an Error is scored the Target’s Disposition drops by an additional Grade.

Persuade (Conditions, Disposition, Language, Mind Affect, Skill Task) – A Character may convince a Target to comply with their requests through Persuasion. To perform this task a Character must spend at least a minute to lay out a general and acceptable Action or Task for the Target to perform. The task may take longer if the request or delivery method is more complex. To be an acceptable action the Target must be physically able to perform the Action and the Apparent Incentive for following the directions must be greater than the Apparent Risk for not doing so. After this is done the Target makes a counter offer with some compromises. If the Character does not accept the new terms a new set of terms must be laid out. If the compromises are wholly ignored the Character receives a -10 penalty to the check. After the negotiations the Character makes an Opposed Manipulation Check opposed by the Target’s Manipulation or Will Bonus. If it Succeeds the Target performs the task or accepts the terms willfully. If a Critical is scored the task is done with less (if any) compromises. If the Check Fails the Target declines to do the task for now and another attempt may not be made against the Target unless the situation changes significantly or more compromises are given (at which point the roll is redone). If an Error is scored the the Target declines to perform the task at all and this check may not be performed again without the situation changing drastically. When dealing with a Group of Targets or Targets that are under direct orders from another this Check opposes the Target with the highest Manipulation or Will Bonus or 10 + the Intimidation or Manipulation Bonus of the absentee leader.
After the Task is done the Target will attempt to perform the actions requested upon them. The Target’s Disposition toward the Character may change depending on the consequences of performing the action. If the consequences become too high before the action is done then the Target might stop before it is done. If the Target is benefits from the actions taken their Disposition toward the Character increases one Grade. If the Target suffers from the actions taken their Disposition toward the Character decreases one Grade. Both of these changes might increase depending on the severity of the consequences or boons.

It can't be overly binary- as Frank has said if when you haggle with the shop keeper the only two possible results are "you give the shopkeeper all of your stuff and then walk out wearing only a barrel" or "the shopkeeper gives you everything you ask for free and then goes down on you" that's both unrealistic and unsatisfying.

This is true and this one is probably the hardest for me to resolve. There was no way I could approach this without throwing MTP at it. The idea is that if you ask 'too much' people will walk away from the deal (hence the character has to establish a request that is reasonable enough to hit the table otherwise the NPC is liable to walk away from the deal entirely) and make it seem as though going along with it is in their better interest (which is why at the very least the apparent boons have to outweigh the apparent risk right from the start).
I also have a quote from my own rules for this:

It should be noted that this Check is only necessary when what the Target wants to do differs from what the Character wants them to do. There shouldn’t be a situation where a Character needs to make a Intimidation/Manipulation Check against a Target that is already doing, or going to do, what the Character wants them to do. It also should be remembered that Apparent Incentive and Risk are highly dependent upon what the Target perceives. If the Character asks absolutely too much of the Target then the Target is liable to leave before the Roll is considered so it is important for a Character to either couch this attempt inside of a friendly meeting or honeyed words, or to present an offer that already comes with compromises.

Again, admittedly, a lot of it has to be MTP because IMO there is no way to easily frame the out comes of a lot of negotiations.

No one likes it when the results are morally hidious- as hilarious as it is to play as Nanoha and make friends via evocations spells we don't want violent methods to produce such overly positive results. If the best to make the princess love you is too beat her half to death that's both stupid and creepy. We really don't want to write domestic violance simulators.

Anything I miss?

This is not so much of a problem in my system though some 'creepiness' can still be applied. HP damage is straight up not something that helps you Manipulation wise though the threat of physical violence helps you fear wise (which makes sense to me). Other than that I'd imagine only Pain and Fatigue affects are the only things in my game that would make a target more vulnerable to either. Pain only helps you Intimidation (fear) wise and extreme fatigue makes you more vulnerable to both which makes sense to me.

Things are still way in the testing stage but so far the outcomes do well with the inputs. Of course a great deal of it relies on MTP but as far as I can tell the testers I have (limited to people that I can get in contact to irregularly) have not had a problem with the set up so far, though I'm the only one who does/can run this unfinished game so that's probably not saying much.

Edit: There are some tables with modifiers but I don't feel like fucking around with code to put them up. I'll summarize them though, they aren't that long. There's:
[Apparent Incentive] how much the target stands to gain from complying
[Apparent Risk] how much the target stands to lose by complying
[Disposition] how much the target already likes/doesn't like you (not a factor for intimidation)
And that's pretty much it. Everything else kind of takes care of itself from there.

[ishy]

I believe Lago also mentioned this once, but should social systems have multiple stages to go through for certain results?

Say for example, the knight wants to woo my princess character. If that happens quickly in one roll that I have to abide too, then there is a good chance I won't accept that. Though if it takes a longer time, like say, buys me flowers / dinner, it'll feel far more acceptable to me.

Not sure if you can / want to model it, or if I'm even making sense, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

[Username17]

I believe Lago also mentioned this once, but should social systems have multiple stages to go through for certain results?

Say for example, the knight wants to woo my princess character. If that happens quickly in one roll that I have to abide too, then there is a good chance I won't accept that. Though if it takes a longer time, like say, buys me flowers / dinner, it'll feel far more acceptable to me.

Not sure if you can / want to model it, or if I'm even making sense, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Having multiple distinct steps has little effect on the final outcomes. However, as with combat, splitting the action up to a series of choices and die rolls accomplishes the following:

• Obfuscates probabilities to make things seem less inevitable.
• Makes the action seem more important by forcing people to talk about it.
• Makes people feel more "in control" and like their choices mattered when they win.

This of course at the cost of legitimately taking more table time and potentially becoming "grindy". But yes, social actions are quite often the kinds of things that could probably benefit from being split into multiple actions and die rolls. For the same reasons as combat does, though I haven't seen a single good thing come out of actually attempting to make "social combat" per se.

-Username17

[Ice9]

I would like to point out that I am totally fine with stuffing your ears with wax to resist the siren's song; that is totally how Odyssius got past actual sirens in the Odyssey

Wikipedia[/url]] They skirted the land of the Sirens, who sang an enchanting song that normally caused passing sailors to steer toward the rocks, only to hit them and sink. All of the sailors except for Odysseus, who was tied to the mast as he wanted to hear the song, had their ears plugged up with beeswax.

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

The problem with that is nobody invites the Sirens to their court. In fact, if the Sirens were to show up at the door unexpectedly, it would probably be treated as a hostile action, with the king immediately putting in earplugs and summoning (also ear-plugged) guards.

The problem with uber-effective diplomacy is not that bards can't have nice things, it's that giving them those things makes them (correctly) feared by anyone in the know. It means that they never actually get to use their diplomacy on anybody who matters, because those people adamantly refuse any face to face meeting - you can talk to their representative, whose opinion will be taken with a grain of salt because it's assumed you've mind-pwned him.

"But what about mages? They can cast mind control spells." Yes, and people who are able to do take precautions against that. Try casting a spell while talking to a king without having cleared it before-hand - you're ending up stabbed, if his bodyguards are any good. Also, there are ways to block and detect mind-control, which I would expect to see used by those who can afford them.

This is an entirely separate issue from the fact that social systems that make no distinction between "minor favor" and "slave for life" are delivering a fundamentally useless product, no matter how elegant the packaging.

[PhoneLobster]

The true measure of a system being good for social actions is whether it can succeed in places where MTP fails while still succeeding in at least some places that MTP also succeeds.

Behold. Batshit insanity presented as an incredibly pretzel twisted attempt to justify criticisms of a system that actually fucking works and cover for his own defense of, well, not having systems which actually fucking work.

I mean really "Your mechanic cannot merely be an improvement on only having MTP, it ALSO has to be an improvement on only having MTP!"?

No really. That's just fucking stupid. Why aren't people laughing this clown out of town here?

[Ice9]

I'm not sure why that's confusing you. For most people, it isn't enough that a system work internally in a purely abstract context - it also has to produce results that make sense in the setting/world.

If you make a perfectly balanced combat system, that's perfectly consistent internally, but it produces a result where the most common tactic is hopping on one foot with your eyes closed while throwing longbows at your enemies, then it's not actually a good system.

So if a social system regularly produces results that the players think are bullshit, and MTP would screen out those results, then the system has failed to be an improvement on MTP.

[hyzmarca]

The true measure of a system being good for social actions is whether it can succeed in places where MTP fails while still succeeding in at least some places that MTP also succeeds.

Behold. Batshit insanity presented as an incredibly pretzel twisted attempt to justify criticisms of a system that actually fucking works and cover for his own defense of, well, not having systems which actually fucking work.

I mean really "Your mechanic cannot merely be an improvement on only having MTP, it ALSO has to be an improvement on only having MTP!"?

No really. That's just fucking stupid. Why aren't people laughing this clown out of town here?

No, Frank's right. Magical Tea Party is really good at providing a wide variety of potential outputs. The potential outputs of MTP are, in fact, literally infinite.

Combat systems tend to only have two potential outputs, victory or defeat. Draw might be a third. Retreat a fourth, if you consider it different from draw. That's still a really terribly tiny number of outputs compared to what MTP can generate.

The important thing that this means for social systems is that MTP can generate reasonable outputs. So long as the GM's interpretation of the situation isn't completely off (which it shouldn't be), NPCs were respond in a manner that makes sense. So long as the Payers interpretation of their characters isn't completely off (which it shouldn't be) the PCs will respond in a manner that makes sense.

A binary social system can reliable produce fair results almost by definition, but it will not produce reasonable results in the vast majority of cases.

[Ice9]

Thinking about this, I don't think "eliminate fiat entirely" is necessarily a possible or useful thing. It's been pointed out that if we let MC set initial attitudes and personality traits, then they can basically fudge the outcome to whatever they want. That's true. It's also true about the existing combat system - MC can decide that the bag of 50 silver is guarded by a half-dozen Solars, and he can decide what tactics, backup plans, preparations, and items they have.

So we don't need a system that prevents MC from being a dick - we just need a system where it's usually visible when MC is being a dick. For example, in the above example, you can say that's probably bullshit unless there's a really good justification. Enough bullshit, and the players will walk. That's all we need for a social system.

Define what the "normal" range of attitudes are, so it's apparent when everything is being made unusually hostile. Make it discoverable that your offer is failing because of inherent personality traits so that you can tell when those are suspiciously common. At that point, it's no more "MC fiat" than anything else in the game.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I mean really "Your mechanic cannot merely be an improvement on only having MTP, it ALSO has to be an improvement on only having MTP!"?

No really. That's just fucking stupid. Why aren't people laughing this clown out of town here?

This is my understanding of what is being said there:

1. There are ways in which MTP is a great social resolution system
2. There are ways that MTP is a terrible social resolution system
3. As a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for your system to be considered good, it has to be better than MTP on point #2
4. As a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for your system to be considered good, it has to be at least, "almost as good as," MTP on point #1