Tikor
One Thousand Club
The idea is that there are three mutually exclusive sets of modifiers to a defenders MDV (and this is always from the view of the defender, not the attacker). The first, largest and least inclusive is the motivation modifier. It is easy to convicne someone to go along with their motivation - even when perhaps that's not a good idea at the time. It is hard to get someone to betray their motivation. The second set of modifiers are the Virtues. It is hard to convince a compassionate person to be uncompassionate or blind to the plight of others. It is easy to convince a compassionate person to show compassion, or be merciful. The last of these are the character's intimacies. It is relatively difficult to convince people to betray what they care about. It is relatively easy to convince someone to do something for someone they care about (do it for the children!)
Social attacks need not hit any of these modifiers. However, I like Virtues, so I typically classify social attacks as some virtue. This is not a 100% thing, and usually I do it as the storyteller (though if you think a particular attack is resonant with a particular virtue I will value your opinion and likely follow it, as I did here). When I attack you with NPCs, I let you know how I'm going to classify the social attack in Step 1 of the attack so that you have full system knowledge of what your modified MDV will be before you declare your Step 2 (In fact, I should probably tell you their effective Appearance now that I say that). Also, there are some rare Step 2 Charms that can interact with penalties specifically (The Sidereal First Excellency comes to mind) and/or bonuses specifically (The Lunar Appearance Charm that breaks the +3/-3 cap, for instance).
Social attacks need not hit any of these modifiers. However, I like Virtues, so I typically classify social attacks as some virtue. This is not a 100% thing, and usually I do it as the storyteller (though if you think a particular attack is resonant with a particular virtue I will value your opinion and likely follow it, as I did here). When I attack you with NPCs, I let you know how I'm going to classify the social attack in Step 1 of the attack so that you have full system knowledge of what your modified MDV will be before you declare your Step 2 (In fact, I should probably tell you their effective Appearance now that I say that). Also, there are some rare Step 2 Charms that can interact with penalties specifically (The Sidereal First Excellency comes to mind) and/or bonuses specifically (The Lunar Appearance Charm that breaks the +3/-3 cap, for instance).
