Lord Kamina
Not an engineer.
I'm not talking about a Virtue roll, I'm talking about this in the context of Social Combat and the penalties imposed by acting against virtues.cyl said:
Social Combat is ruining my campaign
- Thread starter Gylthinel
- Start date
Social Combat has been a pain in our arse too. Personally I wouldn't mind someone explaining it to me, because as written it's a more of a chore than interesting. At least that's my opinion, but that might just be because I don't care for it because I don't understand it that well.
Although, one big argument that my players have had is that most of the Socialize charms for Solars seem to only work if your dealing a great number be of people. The amount of one-on-one charms that will help but things in your favor seems lacking.
Something else I don't get... you can't use socialize to make social attacks, presence only matters if you're using for an intimate social attacks and all the rest of the skills are either used for defense or outside the scope of time for the combat. Socialize can't be used for attack, but there are charms that augment social attacks.
The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me.
Although, one big argument that my players have had is that most of the Socialize charms for Solars seem to only work if your dealing a great number be of people. The amount of one-on-one charms that will help but things in your favor seems lacking.
Something else I don't get... you can't use socialize to make social attacks, presence only matters if you're using for an intimate social attacks and all the rest of the skills are either used for defense or outside the scope of time for the combat. Socialize can't be used for attack, but there are charms that augment social attacks.
The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me.
From what I've seen, having played a socially-ridiculous Eclipse:
Presence: best used against single targets, or small groups at most. Technically, the most 'precise' of the social abilities, as you can focus on discrete targets, without necessarily having the influence spill out onto others. In addition, the Solar charms seem capable of having targets do specifically what you want them to, leaving very little up to their own discretion. Still, rather expensive, especially if you want to try to convince a larger amount of people.
Performance: great against small-to-large groups, assuming they are all capable of hearing you speak. Compared to Presence, it has a much bigger 'blast radius', as Performance tends to affect every valid target (that is, someone who can perceive and understand you): while this is great for affecting crowds, it can cause problems when used with charms, as you may accidentally causing comrades or inappropriate targets to become mind-wiped or enraptured. What's more, the effects are less in the Solar's hands: while you can make a person fall in love, or feel fear, the ways in which a target responds to this is completely unique. One person might run in fear, or worship you as a god, while another might stand against the cause of his fear, or obsess over you in unhealthy ways. As a result, Performance has a bit more fallout than presence, though the area-of-affect makes it worth it.
Socialize: designed to affect large groups and upwards, even potentially affecting whole nations. The big advantage to socialize is that it is indirect: you merely plant a meme in an individual associate with that group, and use him as the delivery method of your charm. Done right, no one will even know you're influencing them, and you can change nations without having to directly make grand speeches or whatever. However, much like Performance, there is fallout: everyone is potentially affected by this, and as such, it can be hard to exclude certain people. What's more, the affects of each charm are even further from the Solar's control, as best seen with Wise-Eyed Courtier Method: this charm simply sets the societal norm for a particular belief, but does not guarantee that everyone will follow that norm. Socialize is an amazingly useful ability for nation-changing, but lacks the straight-up power of Presence or Performance.
Investigation: worth noting, as I neglected this to my detriment. Investigation less useful for influencing the actions of others, but necessary for information-gathering, one of the prime jobs of a social combatant. What's more, Solars who learn Know the Soul's Price can find a potential back-door past a particularly difficult target's defenses, provided they are willing to pay the cost.
In my opinion, the social combat rules, as written, are poor, and social combat should be played far more abstractly, with rolls supplementing in-game conversation (which can act as stunts). I was initially put off by the ease with which people can resist mental influence, and hated that extra successes did nothing to assist me: however, my ST has been quite accommodating, ensuring that people only spend willpower if I'm convincing them to do something against their wishes. What's more, while it's a fairly loose mechanic, extra successes past a target's MDV means that the ST will be far more likely to consider not spending Willpower to resist my influence. All of these changes have made social combat far more palatable, and considerably more fun for me.
Presence: best used against single targets, or small groups at most. Technically, the most 'precise' of the social abilities, as you can focus on discrete targets, without necessarily having the influence spill out onto others. In addition, the Solar charms seem capable of having targets do specifically what you want them to, leaving very little up to their own discretion. Still, rather expensive, especially if you want to try to convince a larger amount of people.
Performance: great against small-to-large groups, assuming they are all capable of hearing you speak. Compared to Presence, it has a much bigger 'blast radius', as Performance tends to affect every valid target (that is, someone who can perceive and understand you): while this is great for affecting crowds, it can cause problems when used with charms, as you may accidentally causing comrades or inappropriate targets to become mind-wiped or enraptured. What's more, the effects are less in the Solar's hands: while you can make a person fall in love, or feel fear, the ways in which a target responds to this is completely unique. One person might run in fear, or worship you as a god, while another might stand against the cause of his fear, or obsess over you in unhealthy ways. As a result, Performance has a bit more fallout than presence, though the area-of-affect makes it worth it.
Socialize: designed to affect large groups and upwards, even potentially affecting whole nations. The big advantage to socialize is that it is indirect: you merely plant a meme in an individual associate with that group, and use him as the delivery method of your charm. Done right, no one will even know you're influencing them, and you can change nations without having to directly make grand speeches or whatever. However, much like Performance, there is fallout: everyone is potentially affected by this, and as such, it can be hard to exclude certain people. What's more, the affects of each charm are even further from the Solar's control, as best seen with Wise-Eyed Courtier Method: this charm simply sets the societal norm for a particular belief, but does not guarantee that everyone will follow that norm. Socialize is an amazingly useful ability for nation-changing, but lacks the straight-up power of Presence or Performance.
Investigation: worth noting, as I neglected this to my detriment. Investigation less useful for influencing the actions of others, but necessary for information-gathering, one of the prime jobs of a social combatant. What's more, Solars who learn Know the Soul's Price can find a potential back-door past a particularly difficult target's defenses, provided they are willing to pay the cost.
In my opinion, the social combat rules, as written, are poor, and social combat should be played far more abstractly, with rolls supplementing in-game conversation (which can act as stunts). I was initially put off by the ease with which people can resist mental influence, and hated that extra successes did nothing to assist me: however, my ST has been quite accommodating, ensuring that people only spend willpower if I'm convincing them to do something against their wishes. What's more, while it's a fairly loose mechanic, extra successes past a target's MDV means that the ST will be far more likely to consider not spending Willpower to resist my influence. All of these changes have made social combat far more palatable, and considerably more fun for me.
Arthur
One Thousand Club
A rather simple but very interesting idea just came to my mind. If you want to add more relevance to the player during Social Combat, and also make it more effective, why not set the "damage", i.e., the amount of Willpower that must be spent to resist a social attack, to the stunt rate of that action? That way, a remarkably good argument would cost much more to resist than a poor one, encouraging the players to interpret social combat, with the extra effect of making it more effective.
What do you think?
What do you think?
I think you might be referring to a non-RAW ruleset that I am not familiar with. Not sure where you're getting these figures from.Cyl said:
Well, we use a modified version of the RAW, where appearance isn't all-powerful. But, regardless, social combat is not meant to be used on grunts/extras. And only a grunt would have a willpower of 4. But this thread isn't really about my beef with the massive costs of social combat character builds.... I can certainly start a thread for that if you want to hear me rant!Nemal said:
As can be interpreted from the menagerie of responses, the scenario I fielded leaves a lot of room for interpretation. That's where the whole concept of "don't spend WP unless you SHOULD" falls apart. After all, some of you agree that the bruiser should kill his foe, some of you disagree and think he shouldn't have. So, it comes down to the player's choices. And it's particularly unfair to call a character "stubborn" because he's playing in-character, especially when it may be ok in his perspective to spend the WP. So, ultimately, subjectivity destroys that plan utterly.
The idea in my brain of a social "damage" would be to have social combat function a bit more like physical combat, wherein you widdle away at an opponent until they "die" (which in this case would mean they do what you want). Of course, this is assuming that you're facing an opponent of consequence, not an extra, and it is my position that social combat is wholly inappropriate against extras. As was mentioned above, social combat currently is an all or nothing thing, which is very different from physical combat's slowly widdling away until victory. I think this is at least partially why it utterly fails.
Tikor
One Thousand Club
See what you think of this? viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5737Gylthinel said:
The zombie cat
Member
One of the incorrect assumption people make in social combat is that when the PCs try to talk somebody into something they don't already have a significant desire to do so.
To use the scenario used before, when the big bruiser offered the hancho a chance to surrender why did he not take it. By the time his body guard was defeated he should be looking for a way out with his hide intact (I know there are reasons not to but he did try to surrender latter showing a lack of conviction in his willingness to die). I would have had the bruiser roll just to see if its a botch (on a botch the honcho believes his surrender will not keep him alive)
The second social check in that scenario should not have been roled at all. Spend willpower isnt the only perfect social defence available to everybody. The other is roling join battle. With the exception of certain charms you cant use social combat during combat, the hancho may have had time to plead for his life, maybe even triggering a compassion roll if the bruiser actually had any, but he doesn't have the few minuets it takes to make a convincing argument (social attack) before having to make a key decision on weather to accept leath.
In more general cases
The intimacy guideline should only for NPCs, and only a guideline, willpower should be spent only things that matter strongly to the character, it is up to the player (GM for NPCs) to decide what matters to the characters they are running, using motivation, intimacy, virtues, personality and what the character knows (or thinks he knows) as a guideline.
A observation that helped me understand the socialise skill is this. Socialise is war, you don't attack with it but you need it to deal with very large groups of people effectively.
Edward
To use the scenario used before, when the big bruiser offered the hancho a chance to surrender why did he not take it. By the time his body guard was defeated he should be looking for a way out with his hide intact (I know there are reasons not to but he did try to surrender latter showing a lack of conviction in his willingness to die). I would have had the bruiser roll just to see if its a botch (on a botch the honcho believes his surrender will not keep him alive)
The second social check in that scenario should not have been roled at all. Spend willpower isnt the only perfect social defence available to everybody. The other is roling join battle. With the exception of certain charms you cant use social combat during combat, the hancho may have had time to plead for his life, maybe even triggering a compassion roll if the bruiser actually had any, but he doesn't have the few minuets it takes to make a convincing argument (social attack) before having to make a key decision on weather to accept leath.
In more general cases
The intimacy guideline should only for NPCs, and only a guideline, willpower should be spent only things that matter strongly to the character, it is up to the player (GM for NPCs) to decide what matters to the characters they are running, using motivation, intimacy, virtues, personality and what the character knows (or thinks he knows) as a guideline.
A observation that helped me understand the socialise skill is this. Socialise is war, you don't attack with it but you need it to deal with very large groups of people effectively.
Edward
Heaven's Thunder Hammer
Member
I like this thread, it's been very helpful.
The fact of spending WP to always get an auto-resist has bothered me, and same with difficulty of influencing other PCs, or NPCs to influence PCs. A PC/NPC creates this mega combo, only to have the other person spend a WP and resist, at heavy mote cost to the influencer.
Proposed solutions are to:
1.) Use Virtues as Health Levels
2.) Restricting what willpower can be used on
3.) Doing something to make an attack of 12 succeses vs mental DDV of 7 harder to resist than a 8 success attack.
Hmm. Anyone else have ideas/solutions?
The fact of spending WP to always get an auto-resist has bothered me, and same with difficulty of influencing other PCs, or NPCs to influence PCs. A PC/NPC creates this mega combo, only to have the other person spend a WP and resist, at heavy mote cost to the influencer.
Proposed solutions are to:
1.) Use Virtues as Health Levels
2.) Restricting what willpower can be used on
3.) Doing something to make an attack of 12 succeses vs mental DDV of 7 harder to resist than a 8 success attack.
Hmm. Anyone else have ideas/solutions?
