Kyeudo
One Thousand Club
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?
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?