Social Combat Fix Idea

[Kyeudo]

I've been trying to puzzle out how to make Social Combat work well. As written, its frankly too easy to just ignore social attacks. So, I tried to come up with an idea that would get Willpower away from being the Social Combat health levels and I think I've got something that might work.


Instead of having social attacks force the target to spend Willpower or be influenced, they instead inflict levels of social damage, each of which is equivalent to a scene spent building or destroying an Intimacy. If you land a social attack that resonates with an existing Intimacy, you create a compulsion in the person that acts much like a Virtue compulsion. Whenever the target would need to act on what you convinced him of, he rolls three dice. If he gets any successes, he must either spend a Willpower point to resist the urge to act or act upon it. Three scenes of resisting thusly or completing the task to which you are compelled removes the compulsion.


I've got some other ideas to make the system work better, but this is the general core of the idea. By delaying the need to spend Willpower to some future time, you can use Social Combos without it being essentially suicidal, you aren't screwed if you get engaged in social combat right after a real fight (when you are probably low on Willpower), and no one can just spend two Willpower to become immune to Social Combat for a scene.


What do you guys think? Is this idea an improvement on what already exists?

 

[cyl]

I have worked myself around those lines.


Here it goes:


Social Combat works much like normal combat except for 2 things:


- people don't die


- you've got to fight for your point


This system will be used for regular non magical debates, and charms not creating specific effect of Servitude / Compulsions etc etc, but simply enhancing the social capabilities of the exalt can be used with this system.


We oppose your social pool vs the target's MDV during the debate, and the goal is to defeat your opponent's Mental Resistance.


The debate is an exchange / interaction fixed around certain parameters determined by the nature and the objective of the exchange.


The MDV of the target is subject to the usual modifiers (but we will add one who's called "disposition" representing the affinity the target has with you... or not, ranging from -3 to +3).


The Mental Levels of a target are determined as follows: Conviction x debate modifiers


- origin of the debate (goal pursued during the debate): emotion (1) illusion (2) influence (3 - lesser compulsion) Compulsion (4) servitude (5)


- persistance of the debate (duration of the nature): action (1) scene (2) week (3) season (4) year (5)


- nature of the debate (consequences for the target): from very advantageous (-3) to very unadvantageous (3)


- personality of the target (when attacking his core elements): intimacies (3) virtue (4) Motivation (5)


When the Mental Resistance is fixed, the debate can begin. Roll initiative, and use the following system


1-Attack rolled vs MDV


2- if the attack is successful, the defender has 3 options:


a/ net successes are taken out of the Mental Resistance


b/ he lowers his MDV for the rest of the debate (limit 0 MDV), loosing no Mental Resistance


c/ he uses 1wp to cancel to cancel the loss of Mental Resistance. The defender can use no more than (Temperance) wp this way, or he will become "stressed" by the debate (the implications of the stress is fully up to the ST).


3- when a target has lost all Mental Resistance the debate is won.


Of course any debate can lead to another, and it is possible to attack several fronts within the same debate (as it is possible to attack multiple opponents).


So if you have followed me, a silver tongue trying to steal a scroll from a Prince Merchant's bedroom going through his pretty daughter could:


- seduce the daughter (Conviction 2, Temperance 2, MDV 3 Intimacy towards Daddy): Mental Resistance: 2 x (Emotion 1 + scene 2, let's say the rest is ok) = 6 MR.


- persuade her to make out in daddy's room: 2 x (influence 3 scene 2 result unadvantageous 1) = 12MR


- force her to keep her mouth shut for some time after she saw the stealing of the scroll: 2 x (compulsion 3 + week 3 + result unadvantageous 2) = 16MR


- make her believe that daddy's a bad man and he must be brought to justice and she must help: 2 x (servitude 5 + season 4 + result unadvantageous 2 + Intimacy to daddy 3) = 28MR.


Does that help you ?!

 

[Virjigorm]

It seems to me that most issues can be resolved with situational bonuses/penalties awarded by the ST as appropriate. I do like the idea of getting virtues involved, however. What if you allow a roll of the most appropriate virtue to resist an attack against an intimacy? Success allows resistance without spending willpower. Maybe the difficulty of this roll should go up by 1 for each consecutive scene in which the particular intimacy is attacked. Just some thoughts.

 

[Kyeudo]

Cyl, I think your system there has some merits, but I think that it gives way too many levels to wear through. My experience with regular combat tells me that anything with alot of health levels takes a while to take down, even for Exalts with artifact weapons and combat Charms. I was thinking of using Intimacies because it's already somewhat integrated into the system and the span from positive Intimacy to negative Intimacy is about the same as the standard number of health levels.

It seems to me that most issues can be resolved with situational bonuses/penalties awarded by the ST as appropriate. I do like the idea of getting virtues involved, however. What if you allow a roll of the most appropriate virtue to resist an attack against an intimacy? Success allows resistance without spending willpower. Maybe the difficulty of this roll should go up by 1 for each consecutive scene in which the particular intimacy is attacked. Just some thoughts.

Adding an additional defense to social combat would make social combat more unusable. As it is, the Storyteller has to have opponents not spend Willpower to just ignore you to get any use out of the system.

 

[Skycroft]

I feel like playing Devil's Advocate a bit here, so let me defend the current system.

As it is, the Storyteller has to have opponents not spend Willpower to just ignore you to get any use out of the system.

This is true, and intentional. The ST should not have the NPC's spend Willpower unless there is a very good reason. The "spend Willpower to ignore" rule exists to give players an easy out.


Any replacement system needs to give players an easy out, for the same reason, and so will have the same problem. The current system needs to have the ST be smart about spending Willpower, yes, but that is the price for a system that doesn't compromise the PC's free will.


That's not to say the current system doesn't have its problems, and doesn't need to be improved. But the easiness of ignoring social attacks is not one of those problems.

 

[Kyeudo]

So there is never supposed to be a social threat to the PCs? I'm sorry, but that's a philosophy that immediately shatters versimilitude for me. If something is supposed to be a threat to NPCs, it needs to be an equal threat to the PCs.

 

[Skycroft]

Unnatural mental influence is plenty social threat to the PCs. The current system means it is easy to ignore natural mental influence. Keep in mind what high Willpower (which every Exalt is going to have) means. It means your character is stubborn as all hell and rarely strays from his chosen path. It makes sense that they are not going to be convinced with mere words, unless the words themselves are something they are already inclined to believe in (I also feel that this should hold for NPCs. NPC Exalts should spend Willpower like players would (i.e. at every opportunity) unless what they have been convinced to do directly lines up with an Intimacy or Motivation). Most people in Creation, however, are not so stubborn.


Or at least that is the way I rationalize it so that it doesn't break my verisimilitude. In truth this is a case where making sure the players have fun and don't feel their characters are being played for them trumps realism. If you feel that that is undesirable and really desire a better system, that's fine. Go for it. I have some suggestions, even. Just make sure your players know what they are getting into. Most people don't like being told how to play their characters.


Besides; Ideally, the PC's should also spend Willpower only if the action they have been convinced to do goes against their core concept. Admittedly, it rarely works out like this in practice. But even in real life, it is a lot easier to kill your enemy than change his mind.


The aforementioned suggestions:


Why not have the attack deal damage equal to the net successes, where the damage is treated as a Virtue roll? i.e., if I beat your MDV by 4, roll 4 dice and if one of them come up a success you must act on that compulsion or spend a Willpower point (and possibly even gain Limit, if the attack goes with your primary Virtue). One of the things that bugs me about the current system is that there is no difference between beating the MDV by 1 or by 10, unlike in physical combat. This system also makes it easier to use social combat if you play on your opponents primary virtue: its easier to beg a Compassionate character for mercy or to force a Temperate character to abide by an oath, etc. Alternatively, if the attacker instead wishes to create or erode an intimacy, each success counts as a scene for the purposes of doing so.


You may also want to simply remove the rule that spending two Willpower makes you immune to natural mental influence for a scene; but again, be aware of the consequences and make sure your players are okay with it.


As for the fact that its easier to convince someone after they have just had a big fight and are low on Willpower... well, I always saw that as simply a valid tactic (my other favorite use of natural mental influence: talking to your enemy beforehand. It may not be very effective, but it will shake him and cause him to spend Willpower, thus giving you an edge). It is, admittedly, not terribly realistic. But it is in genre. See, for example, Defeat Means Friendship, and also, the Epic of Gilgamesh. And every shonen anime created ever. All of them.

 

[IanPrice]

Exalted Social Combat can work fine even as written, since for those who can't wait for several scenes of RP to convince a high-conviction character, there's charms to shortcut the process. Unnatural influence in Exalted isn't necessarily as brain-burning as its World of Darkness counterparts like Dominate and high level Mind spells. Solar charms in particular often take the "carrot" method rather than the "stick," offering bonuses to targets who follow the positive loyalty intimacies they create to the solar. (ok, well, in addition to the stick... it often carries a huge willpower cost to break free.)


However, I agree that there should be ways (without charms) to get the job done a little better than 2wp per scene/1 intimacy level per scene at a time. My personal solution: if the social attack plays on a virtue at 3+, an intimacy, or the target's motivation, add +1 maximum willpower per scene to resist it for each of those things. So if the person you're convincing has an intimacy of love for you, you're playing on their compassion 4 to get their help, and it also is a matter of justice for the poor which is an ideal they have an intimacy for, it'd cost +3 willpower to ignore natural mental influence for the scene. So it'd take 5 willpower (over the course of resisting 5 successful social attacks) to force the persuader to either stunt a new approach or use unnatural influence to make progress. (This was inspired by the idea of intimate sway in WoD: Mirrors; characters are more easily persuaded in the same vein as things that matter to them, and by people they care about)


Willpower acts like health levels in social combat. It's slightly easier to regain than health levels as well. Admittedly, PCs are more in tune with how much willpower they are willing to spend on something than GMs generally are with their NPCs, so each NPC should probably (as someone else already mentioned) have notes about certain intimacies and subjects saying "willpower: X" for how important the subject is to them. A good guideline is, 0wp if they don't care, 1wp if they need some convincing, 2wp if it really matters, or as much as they've got if it's life-or-death.


Stealing another idea from WoD: Mirrors, to accelerate the degradation/development of intimacies, allow players to make continued attempts to convince their target to commit to the idea they want fully. The following rules would apply:


- Must be a stunt which brings a new approach or some new information into the discussion.


- +2 MDV applies for the target because they've already had to change their views to accept the previous argument.


- Both of these penalties stack. That is, to fully erode an intimacy from someone with Conviction 3, the first erosion would require beating their base MDV with some relevant argument. The second would require a new argument and beating MDV +2, and the third would require another different relevant argument, at MDV +4.


- If the current MDV is exceeded by itself again (successes = 2 x mdv), treat the influence as two successful attacks. This necessitates spending 2wp at once to resist, and for each wp not spent, builds or erodes the targeted intimacy by a step.


- For each additional multiple of the MDV, treat as an additional successful attack towards building or eroding an intimacy.


- If the objective of the influence was only to prompt a certain action or emotion, then instead of building or eroding intimacies, the additional wp spent do not count towards the limit needed to ignore natural mental influence from this character for the scene.


---


If PCs spend willpower to resist social influence, they won't have it later to fuel charms/gain automatic successes. Sure, they can regain it through stunts, but they can't just stunt for nothing. They've got to have a good reason to do something cool, the GM has to really like it, and they have to succeed at it. If PCs try to start random fights or perform acrobatic feats in private to stunt for willpower, or other silly things like that, my approach would be to set the difficulty insanely high, and only even allow it if the stunt description is for an acceptably difficult action. That is, if a PC wants to risk life and limb running up a sheer rock face without spider-foot style or graceful crane stance, just to prove to themselves that they're still the best, then ok, I can go with that. But I'm not going to just allow random, meaningless dice-rolling.


---


Actually, convincing someone who is tired and spent is quite a lot easier than convincing someone who is at their best. Playing on someone's nerves before a fight to mess up their stride, likewise. If you can actually get them feeling an emotion, like say fear of you, you get a juicy -3 internal penalty to anything that opposes that emotion they try to do.


---


Why does the "spend willpower to be unconvinced" rule exist? Simply because you can't just walk up to someone, even someone you know, and expect to make them do whatever you want just because you asked nicely. If you have a good logical, emotional, or ethical argument, then you'll get someone's attention - but as long as they've got emotional energy, they can be stubborn if they want to. Beating someone's MDV means they believe you in that moment; their spending willpower means they don't want to, and will rationalize it later. You don't have to spend more than 2wp to ignore someone's words entirely for a scene, because that's somewhere from 1/5 to 1/3 of your total budget, depending on how stubborn you are - and once a person is set on ignoring you they're not going to stop doing just that. A good stunt can break through that passive stubbornness, though, requiring another emotional energy output to keep calm in the face of a convincing statement.


Mature players shouldn't view social combat, natural or otherwise, as telling them how to play their character. They should use it as a tool to provide a roleplaying challenge. It sets parameters: "OK, the dawn has been seduced by the supernatural wiles of the fae woman, putting him in a state of Lust. Does he act on that, or does he fight it off despite the -3 penalty due to wandering thoughts and too-tight codpiece?" Similarly, mature GMs should use the roleplay before the rolls to set up the modifiers, and use the results of the rolls as inspiration for what to do next.

 

[cyl]

Cyl, I think your system there has some merits, but I think that it gives way too many levels to wear through. My experience with regular combat tells me that anything with alot of health levels takes a while to take down, even for Exalts with artifact weapons and combat Charms. I was thinking of using Intimacies because it's already somewhat integrated into the system and the span from positive Intimacy to negative Intimacy is about the same as the standard number of health levels.

Yup but this solution came to me when I tried to graduate the effects of social interactions... should something relatively easy (seducing a drunken partner) have the same threshold (= health levels to defeat) as something impossible (persuading a Deathlord to be an agent of Good) ?!


I thought "no".


The point with my alternative was to offer the pcs something more subtle, less agressive, and easier to use. One roll vs a passive value, 3 alternatives for the defender, and nada mas ! no soak, no hardness, no damage roll... when you have rolled the defender determines what happens, and then you roll again.


I looked back on how things ran back in 1e, we had extended rolls with various difficulties with some interactions... so it was the less chaotic approach I had on the matter. The advantage is I used the notions used by Mental Influence and applied it to normal social combat... so you can actually do pretty much anything without charms, but it takes time, and charms cut through all the chit chat to get the blunt raw effect.


Besides, it doesn't matter how many MR you have to take down... if you are good at what you do, you'll get there, and at least non social characters have a go at doing something... for everything else... use charms !

 

[Skycroft]

Uh... yeah. What IanPrice said.

 

[IanPrice]

should something relatively easy (seducing a drunken partner) have the same threshold (= health levels to defeat) as something impossible (persuading a Deathlord to be an agent of Good) ?!
I thought "no".

2e does have a system for this (complex though it is):


- Each intimacy has "health levels," ie scenes it takes to erode it through natural influence, equal to Conviction.


- A group of related intimacies will often form around important subjects.


- Willpower acts as overall "mental health."


-- For one, no influence that absolutely must be ignored, but isn't "unacceptable orders," will get through while willpower remains.


-- Motivations can't be changed by natural influence, but to get someone to act directly against their motivation knowingly, they have to be empty of willpower.


-- People who are empty of willpower can be led to self-destructive acts, if you manipulate a self-destructive intimacy into existence.


All this can be found in the core book.

 

[cyl]

Yup I know, but the system works only around those objectives (as stated in the book):


- compelling behavior (which is exactly the core of my logic, whatever the behavior, there's always the same level of challenge and only a few modifiers)


- targetting intimacies (which has a valid system)


- breaking motivation temporarily


It's raw, blunt, unsophisticated and, IMHO, rather limited.


Strangely the UMIs have more depth in their effects that the NMIs... which is something I thought should be corrected, among other things.


My counter proposal makes it almost a necessity to spend some time with a target to make her feel/do/commit to something for deeper interactions and greater "natural" challenge.

 

[IanPrice]

Not all orders have the same level of challenge, in terms of compelling behavior:


- Long-term behavior is an intimacy. You might convince the warlord to spare the prisoners once, but unless you raise his compassion and form an idea of the benefits of mercy in his head, he'll execute the next batch once you leave (or even this batch, if you don't take them with you, and he decides different after the scene is over - the backstabbing bastard).


- Behavior which violates multiple intimacies may be unacceptable orders, equivalent to violating motivation directly. My motivation may be to conquer the East, but that doesn't mean I'll let you sleep with my wife; I care about her, and about marriage, and my honor - you'd have to budge a couple of those things first. (This one isn't specifically stated, but rather falls under the description of Unacceptable Orders where it says, "other things may be ... at the storyteller's discretion." My discretion is, instead of stacking modifiers from more than one ingrained feeling against the argument, simply make the orders unacceptable unless the negatives are removed or canceled out by positives such that one or fewer intimacies or virtues oppose the idea.)

 

[cyl]

Not all orders have the same level of challenge, in terms of compelling behavior.

That's exactly what I meant when I said : with a few modifiers.

- Long-term behavior is an intimacy. You might convince the warlord to spare the prisoners once, but unless you raise his compassion and form an idea of the benefits of mercy in his head, he'll execute the next batch once you leave (or even this batch, if you don't take them with you, and he decides different after the scene is over - the backstabbing bastard).

Ooooh I strongly disagree with this one... and armed with the faith that verve (and a ton of motes spent on excellencies :twisted: ), philosophy and logic may surpass all minor challenges and minds can change over a simple yet enlightening discussion should the target consent (as in "does not resist & spend wp to go in "stress mode") to the exchange of ideas and views... I'll gladly sent the initial system to burn in hell with a smile.

- Behavior which violates multiple intimacies may be unacceptable orders, equivalent to violating motivation directly. My motivation may be to conquer the East, but that doesn't mean I'll let you sleep with my wife; I care about her, and about marriage, and my honor - you'd have to budge a couple of those things first. (This one isn't specifically stated, but rather falls under the description of Unacceptable Orders where it says, "other things may be ... at the storyteller's discretion." My discretion is, instead of stacking modifiers from more than one ingrained feeling against the argument, simply make the orders unacceptable unless the negatives are removed or canceled out by positives such that one or fewer intimacies or virtues oppose the idea.)

Oh but that's exactly what I am aiming for... the conflict of interests feelings and reasonning, and depending on how you present it it will have different levels of challenge:


- let me sleep with your wife: (mdv modified by your intimacy towards your wife AND the fact that I just told you I want to screw her) MR: your conviction x (compulsion 4 + scene 2 + very unadvantageous 3 + intimacy 3... TOTAL = x12... good luck with that)


- let me sleep with your wife and I'll give you the East to rule: (mdv modified by your intimacy towards your wife AND the fact that I just told you I want to screw her BUT ALSO your Motivation), MR: your conviction x (compulsion 4 + scene 2 - advantageous 1 (let's face it, a one night stand for an Empire, pretty damn good deal unless you're crazy about your woman in which case it would still be +3) + intimacy 3 - Motivation 5 TOTAL = x3 / or x5).


That's how I'd rule it.


If you definitely don't want me to sleep with your wife, you can resist by using wp to negate my attempts at persuading you... but no more than Temperance times unless I want you to go "stress mode" and face the consequences of my audacity and your vengeful wrath !


If you have Temperance 1, obviously I'm screwed, hence the necessity of doing some probing beforehand.


However, I could also try to persuade you that your wife is not worthy of your love and dedication, temporarily bypassing your intimacy towards her making "me sleeping with her" more acceptable (let me prove to you that she's not worthy of you my lord, I bet you that I can seduce her and get her to sleep with me !)... or simply do the above to drain a bit your wp and finish you off using a charm :twisted:


But I really prefer cunning over brute force.


Note to self: work on a solar charm soothing the stress for a target / social group for 1 scene.

 

[IanPrice]

I would be rather unhappy playing a game where spending a temporary resource which will come back quickly allowed changing someone's mind about deeply held beliefs in a single scene. Social combat should be about the ebb and flow of care/feelings and information across multiple interactions. It should be like Curse of the Golden Flower, with the royal family's shifting alliances, but none of them able to budge the emperor's motivation. It should be like Hero, where an entire adventure of fight scenes exists to support a single social attack to alter the King of Qin's motivation. It should be like Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, where people's opinions only really change over the course of time and getting used to new ideas, even when those ideas are readily apparent.


In other words, unless you're going to magically force the issue with Unnatural influence, changing someone's mind is (and should be) slow. Jedi mind tricks, geas voices, charm spells, dominating gazes, complete hypnotism - these are our inspirations for UMI. Magical influence can pluck someone's heart's desire from their mind so they can be bound to service with it, create a loyal underling of a bitter enemy with a single speech, or create the illusion of a sunny day when it's raining acid. Natural influence would take much longer, particularly in the case of driving someone so insane they see Rain of Doom as a nice sunny day.


Now, there is another option for natural influence, a tactic to speed things up: dogpiling, aka "good cop, bad cop." If someone has already ignored you in a conversation, have an ally approach them with the idea - they'll have to consider its validity anew simply because it's coming from someone else. If you've got yourself plus five adept social allies, you can back anybody into a corner whose MDV you and your allies can beat. A bigger posse can let you gang up at once, because coordinated attacks from multiple groups are even more effective.


To summarize:


- Neither real people nor the fictional inspiration I draw from for Exalted ever give up or form anew any beliefs or patterns of action which last longer than the a single task or the interaction at hand, simply from one conversation, especially with someone they just met.


-- Witness your and my dedication to your house rules and the core rules respectively. I have seen the logic in some of your points, but it didn't completely change my views.


- The rules change when magic forces them to. This is why you use magic such as charms to create UMI: to save time.


- Another unfair tactic which can expedite convincing someone is peer pressure. That is, coming at them with a bunch of friends.


- All of this defense of the core rules is because using them is simpler.


-- The more house rules, the more play gets bogged down while players figure out what rules are being used.


-- Since rolling the dice slows down play to begin with, simpler is always better, to the point of the simplest system that actually works.

 

[cyl]

If I may...

I would be rather unhappy playing a game where spending a temporary resource which will come back quickly allowed changing someone's mind about deeply held beliefs in a single scene. Social combat should be about the ebb and flow of care/feelings and information across multiple interactions.

So you deny the possibility of a life changing encounter in exalted (be it good or bad)... there are many people who lose or find faith in a religion or a sect almost within days, converted by total strangers / distracted by an incident only because, by some sort of coincidence, the event / speech appeals to them.
And that's RL... Creation has much more passion than that.

It should be like Curse of the Golden Flower, with the royal family's shifting alliances, but none of them able to budge the emperor's motivation.It should be like Hero, where an entire adventure of fight scenes exists to support a single social attack to alter the King of Qin's motivation.

Well sorry, but these two examples go against your logic... :|


In the first movie each character has an initial agenda, and a plan.... and throughout the movie they interact with each other, changing their behaviors endlessly to match their new agendas and schemes, to finally realize that in the end the Emperor has played them all... BUT even played, his elder son still commits suicide because he can't bear the conflict and shame (he refuses to follow the behavior suggested).


In the second one, the Emperor doesn't change his mind, it's the knights that do change their mind. One of them understands the true intentions of the King (wage war and conquer... to unite), and changes his behavior (while his Motivation was intially to kill the King), his lady friend don't follow the same path (and kills him) and No Name (Jet Li) finally changes his mind too after hearing what the Knight (Sky IIRC) has realized about the King of Qin and gives up his Motivation and ultimately his life as consequences of this alteration...


You may have different interpretations... but... it seems to me that they lean more in the favor of my alternate system than the canon.


As IMO, the social combat has deeper consequences than physical combat, I prefer & need something more detailed and flexible, offering more possibilites.


You are content with the canon system because of its simplicity, and the use you have of it.


(I'd argue that mine is also very simple to use and all the work of the ST is resumed to determining the RM after a player starts attacking & choosing the defense of the target, but it's length may indeed be viewed as a problem... but I want epic social combat)


Though we will have more or less the same use of two different systems (roll vs MDV) we agree to disagree on our needs and objectives, so... that's cool

 

[IanPrice]

So you deny the possibility of a life changing encounter in exalted (be it good or bad)... there are many people who lose or find faith in a religion or a sect almost within days, converted by total strangers / distracted by an incident only because, by some sort of coincidence, the event / speech appeals to them.
And that's RL... Creation has much more passion than that.

To leave aside differing interpretations of who convinced whom in film and literature, yes. I deny the baseline possibility of that. I deny that it should be put in the hands of any player who wants to roll the dice. I assert that it should require a unique circumstance (such as a stunt which goes right along with the target's motivation and intimacies and the situation at hand), or unnatural mental influence, to bring about such changes. Because we are not talking about once in a lifetime events, we are talking about the rules. The rules should represent the way things work 99% of the time. The storyteller should be cognizant enough to rule on the exceptions.

 

[cyl]

I deny that it should be put in the hands of any player who wants to roll the dice.

Hmm are you implying that it should not put in the hands of the players who only wants to roll the dice ?!
If yes, then the problem lies with the player who's uneducated in the arts of roleplaying, and the ST who allowed such a player to play a social character. You have to know your players a bit beforehand especially with such important characters.


Though not being good at speeches may not prevent a smart player to use his brains and formulates an argument not in an actual roleplayed manner and still be a valid description of the social action of his character.


If not... what do you mean ?!

The rules should represent the way things work 99% of the time. The storyteller should be cognizant enough to rule on the exceptions.

As there are different degrees of feelings, logic etc etc in the human mind I felt that "I try to make (insert target) do the following: (insert behavior)" was a bit short sighted and too simple, though the system for intimacies was quite interesting (and was the base mechanic for my counter proposal).


If you consider that "convincing a famished person not to steal food" is and should be as difficult as "seducing a young innocent woman"... I don't.

 

[IanPrice]

If not... what do you mean ?!

I mean that no player, stunt or not, should be the one dictating that result by the roll of the dice. The storyteller should be the only one in control of that sort of epiphany-factor.

As there are different degrees of feelings, logic etc etc in the human mind I felt that "I try to make (insert target) do the following: (insert behavior)" was a bit short sighted and too simple, though the system for intimacies was quite interesting (and was the base mechanic for my counter proposal).
If you consider that "convincing a famished person not to steal food" is and should be as difficult as "seducing a young innocent woman"... I don't.

How innocent is she? Intimacy against premarital sex and temperance 3+? Then unless she's also got an intimacy to the PC seducing her, I'd rule it impossible, and the attacks would only go to degrading the intimacy, and she'd spend willpower because she's got two reasons to not want to go along with it. She wouldn't necessarily spend willpower against creating an intimacy to the PC, though, so it would be easier to seduce her by courting her for (her Conviction) scenes, then convincing her to do it for love. The base system covers it.


Convincing a famished person not to steal food - one attack covers "stop doing that," if it beats MDV. Depending on the level of starvation, willpower may be spent. The simplest way to convince them, of course, would be to offer them food they wouldn't have to steal. Then by bringing them into a safe, fed context, and providing some kind of discipline to keep them away from their old street acquaintances who might convince them to slip, lead them into a better life. If it's a one time thing, it may count as a step against the ingrained intimacies that form that character's "street" attitude, but the not stealing is going to last about as long as it takes for that particular starving person to get hungry. Once again, the base system covers it.


So how would those play out in your system?

 

[Virjigorm]

I think the root of this debate lies outside the rules framework of Exalted and more within the realm of play style. I would argue that most roleplaying games leave much of the social interaction to the players and do not represent social conflict as thoroughly as physical conflict. This makes for good roleplaying in my opinion, all else being equal. Exalted, however, tries to give equal weight to most Abilities and offers detailed rules and powers for each Ability. That logic requires that the social interaction mechanics be more detailed than most games, but perhaps the designers kept it simpler than physical combat to encourage the good roleplaying that looser systems foster.


I feel that it is the responsibility of the ST to play NPCs as three dimensional characters who can be convinced the same way anyone in real life could. If the NPCs never develop as characters and they stay "on a rail" in service to some unwavering storyline being driven solely by the ST, the game falls flat and feels forced (because it is).


If, however, the PCs can steamroll the thinking of anyone they meet with just a few cheap charms, it becomes unreasonably difficult to steer a story along an interesting arc and present challenges to the PCs. I think the rules changes offered by Cyl are not unreasonable, but that they do take more control away from the ST and offer an easy way for players to take advantage of other characters without bothering to get creative or pose a convincing argument.


All in all, I like the balance offered by the canon rules, which allow any character to wear down his opponent with increasingly convincing arguments/evidence/threats/promises, or what have you. It also allows the target of such efforts to hold his or her ground until their will is spent and they can see no reason not to cooperate. In the end, even situations not explicitly covered by canon rules can be reduced to their component parts so that actions can be resolved within the system. Whether you dislike the act of reduction or not, the net result is still a fair resolution of the situation and everyone moving on with the game.

 

[cyl]

The point of these rules were to enable the ST to emulate the complexity of the human mind in natural combat.


It is the ST who determines what are the MDV modifiers and the Debate modifiers (taking into account the approach of the player)... so smart players will have an easier time getting the results they're aiming for.


I put it out to be clear: the whole point of the operation was to make social combat a system using a "combat approach" which means complex interactions won't likely be dealt with with a single roll, but several, while simple effects will be most likely need up to 3 rolls.


I didn't want to reproduce the exact same system for normal combat (using DV, Soak, and Health Levels), since the point was to emulate complexity whenever it had to be emulated and static unmodifiable values like soak and HLs didn't cut it.


So I used MDV & Debate Modifiers determining the Mental Resistance (= Mental Health Levels).


So the ST is still in charge here since it is he who determines how the npc reacts to the arguments presented by the player, and determines the Mental Resistance of the target.


Furthermore the 3 options the defender has allows the ST to emulate the emotional / intellectual reaction of the target:


- if the argument hit, The ST will choose to loose Mental Resistance


- if the argument made some sense but didn't appeal that much to the target: the ST will choose to loose 1 point of MDV making the process of convincing the target a bit more easy but delaying the victory of the player


- if the debate is going the wrong way, the ST will choose to use willpower to signify to the player that he's going in the wrong direction and might want to adopt another strategy / approach, and the "stress mode" is here to act as a limit the player has to respect if he wants to get something out of his target.


So you see the point is exactly to force the players to be creative and to let the ST reward creativity or make things harder for those who don't bother putting some attention to their interactions while wanting something out of someone.


It may indeed be more complex than "compelling behavior" with the normal rules... but that's whole point: having epic discussions !


I'll get back on the example of the Innocent girl / famished person about to steal food in a few moments (a mountain of dishes need to be cleaned :lol: ).

 

[cyl]

So back to the girl and future thief.


As I said it's up to the ST to determine the MR for a target depending on the angle of approach of the player.


Let's lay out the state of mind and stakes for both and objectives of the player.


1- Girl (conviction 2): no particular dislikes, a fondness for chivalry (intimacy), good manners and handsome men (intimacy) and long term relationships... she doesn't have much at stakes.}


Objective: seduce her for more than a day


2- future thief (conviction 2): starving, is desperate but hasn't lost his pride, is ready to break the law to avoid dying


Objective: preventing him from becoming a thief


So from there the player has various choices:


1- Girl:


MDV modifiers: if the player has Appearance 3+ then the girl already has a MDV modifier of -1MDV because of the intimacy. If he's showing chivalrous behavior, she'll get another -1. If he's ugly (app 1) or showing the opposite of a chivalrous behavior she'll get +1 to +2 MDV.


Base Debate Modifiers: Illusion (seduced by the player) x2 , Duration 1 week x2


So base MR is : 2x4 = 8. (so 8 suxx past MDV)


Then you observe the approach of the player and modify the MR according to what you think the npc would think / feel.


- right / wrong presentation = bonus / penalty to the girl's MDV for disposition towards the player (from +3 to -3)


- nature of the debate interesting / not interesting for the NPC= x3 to x-3


It takes the ST mere seconds to determine this. And then the player starts attacking.


2- future thief:


MDV modifiers: none


Base Debate Modifiers: Compulsion x4, duration 1 action x1, result unadvantageous for the target x-2 (being alive as a criminal is still better than being a law abiding dead)


Base MR: 2x 7 = 14


Then you observe the approach of the player and modify the MR according to what you think the npc would think / feel.


- right / wrong presentation = bonus / penalty to the person's MDV for disposition towards the player (from +3 to -3)


- nature of the debate interesting / not interesting for the NPC= the debate result is already at -2 but if the player insists that he should not be stealing to survive at all it could raise to x3, and if the players offer a decent alternative he can reduce the base modifier of -2 to 0, and if he's being generous he could instead play in his favor;


I'll give you food = +1


I'll give you money = +2


Follow me and I promise you'll never feel hunger ever again = +3


Those are two bad examples for "epic debates" because there's nothing epic about seducing a girl or stopping someone from becoming a thief, but the point was to show how the system runs with two different situation.

 

[IanPrice]

You used a significantly different girl from my example. How would it go if the girl was more like the one I was describing, and cared not only about long-term relationships but about her chastity? And let's say her conviction and temperance are both 3+? IE, show me how the hard sell works. I'm curious to see an example of that, because it seems to me that even the extreme cases don't provide much recurring challenge.

 

[cyl]

So an epic challenge then like, getting a nun / priestess in your bed.


MDV: Temperance (+2)


Base Debate Modifiers: Compulsion (get her in your bed) x4, scene x 2


So Base MR: Conviction 3 x 6 = 18


Now the variables:


Appearance modifier: +/- MDV


Disposition modifier (nun -> player): +/- MDV


Consequences of having a sexual intercourse for the girl: +/- MR


Imagine that the girl has no other way to make a living than being a priestess, and that should someone discover she has had sex she'd be expelled from her jedi order you could raise the MR up to 27, but if the player assured her that they could keep it a secret it could lower it.


Depending on how the player approaches the priestess he will need to gather 18 suxx past her MDV, and the priestess can lower her MDV to 0 to cancel his attacks, and/or ultimately spend up to 3wp and go into stress mode.

 

[Kyeudo]

Perhaps we should look at the possible scenarios for social combat. It really boils down to two:


Person A needs Person B to perform some action. Person B needs Person A to perform some action. Niether wishes to help the other.


Person A needs Person B to perform some action. Person B does not need anything from Person A. Person B does not wish to help Person A.


If either side wished to help the other, no social combat would be necessary. If they didn't need something from the other, no social combat would be used.


So, in each case, how does each person end the social combat "victoriously"? In the first case, each obviously wins when they convince the other to do what they want. The same goes for Person A in the second scenario.


But what about Person B? How does he win? His best case is to not be convinced, but that means he needs some way to terminate social combat without having an opinion changed. That includes those combats against people with Unnatural Mental Influence. Looking at it now, I think this is the place that bugs me the most.


If you are a PC (meaning most of your opponents cannot stunt), then you are perfectly immune to natural mental influence for a scene for the small cost of two Willpower. If you are not a PC, and thus being attacked by a PC in social combat (otherwise why are you doing social combat?) then you need to have two more Willpower than they can come up with stunts to successfully stall out their attempts to convince you.


So, determined PCs always win, determined NPCs need magic to win. How is this system exciting and usable? If combat against anyone without perfect attacks could only inflict a maximum of two levels of lethal damage to the PCs, would that be acceptable?


Looking at it now, any good revision has to have a way to get out of social combat without resorting to actual combat, but I have no good ideas on the matter.