Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approach!

[SagaciousAscendingHero]

Ok, after getting feedback and running it by my players, I think what I want to do is find the least amount of changes that absolutely have to be made, in order to make Social Combat work, rather than completely reworking the system from scratch as my last thread was attempting to do.


So what about Social Combat do people feel are absolutely necessary to change?


Side question, does anyone else feel that social combat could be reasonably done on the same scale as physical combat? I was discussing this with my players and really didn't think you should need 5 min (give or take) to make a social attack. I mean certainly when we stunt in social combat, it's taking a few seconds, not a few minutes to get it all out. To give social combat a more cinematic feel, can anyone see why this wouldn't work?

 

[Tadanori Oyama]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Can we draw a line down the middle of social combat? Long and normal ticks, like in conventional combat? Exchanges in a debate do take five minutes because each side gets an alloted amount of time. Less formal settings like arguements could use shorter ticks representing single sentences or phrases instead of minutes long discussion. But long ticks would still be needed for most circumstances, like parties, where words take time to circulate unless everyone is literally face to face. For a social party fight you never even have to look the enemy in the face, you control the flow of information by saying things to or cutting off the right people so your opinions spreads whole your enemy's is locked down.


I don't know the current social system well enough to suggest much other them broad ideas (my PCs have never engaged in social combat so I have no first hand experience).

 

[Kyeudo]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


The first thing that needs to change in Social Combat is it needs to be winable by everyone, not just PCs who are especially creative or people with mind control powers. Currently, only a PC can stunt their way through someone's Willpower by performing lots of stunts. PCs can almost never be persueded because NPCs lack stunts.


The second thing is that it needs to stop using Willpower points as Social Health Levels. Social Combos and a fair number of Social Charms are essentially suicidal because of their Willpower cost.


The third thing is that natural mental influence needs some teeth, some way in which it enforces behavior.


As to your side question, I would like to see social combat move in normal ticks. If I can talk anyone into anything, I should be able to talk the attacking bandits into at least letting me go. I shouldn't be stopped just because they drew swords (i.e. rolled Join Battle).

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Your NPCs lack stunts? I have my players vote on awarding them to me so it's fair, but unless they're mortals, mine get stunts just fine.


I think natural influence has some teeth, but no meat to sink those teeth into. That is, there isn't anything defining how much effect you have or how long it lasts. There's no direct link between intimacies, emotions, and actions. Creating some kind of explicit definition for the meaning of the assent which happens when someone doesn't spend willpower against you will make natural mental influence seem both more and less powerful, in good ways. The greedy won't think it can give you the sun, moon, and stars simply because it doesn't have explicit limits, and the less ambitious won't feel it's not an option because it doesn't explicitly enforce anything. This is the one area I think needs fixing.


The idea to make some forms of social combat happen in short ticks is interesting too. I would like to see more development on that, because defining what it means when one character is attacking and another is defending in social combat is interesting to me.

 

[wordman]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

to make Social Combat work

What do you think this means? That is, when it is "working" what will you be able to do that you cannot now?

 

[Kyeudo]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

Your NPCs lack stunts? I have my players vote on awarding them to me so it's fair, but unless they're mortals, mine get stunts just fine.

The Core book makes it clear that it assumes that only important NPCs can get stunt bonuses. The average NPC may do cool stuff, but they don't get anything from it. Essentially, the ability to perform stunts is considered to be the edge enjoyed by plot important characters.

What do you think this means? That is, when it is "working" what will you be able to do that you cannot now?

Convince someone to do something without the Storyteller going "I suppose he doesn't care enough to spend Willpower."

 

[SagaciousAscendingHero]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

What do you think this means? That is, when it is "working" what will you be able to do that you cannot now?

Convince someone to do something without the Storyteller going "I suppose he doesn't care enough to spend Willpower."

Yeah, basically. The primary problem right now seems to be a lack of clear results.

 

[wordman]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


OK, so what you are after is narrative control of another character. It is hard to do this in a minimalist way in Exalted, because it really doesn't have any concept of the players having narrative control of anything but their own actions. Stunts occasionally offer minimal narrative control over the immediate environment, but not much.


The simplest solution is just this: when A defeats B in social combat, when it comes time for B to act, her action is declared by the player of A, not the Storyteller or B's player. That may sound extreme, and some groups will not be able to handle it, but that is what you are asking for.

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

Your NPCs lack stunts? I have my players vote on awarding them to me so it's fair, but unless they're mortals, mine get stunts just fine.

The Core book makes it clear that it assumes that only important NPCs can get stunt bonuses. The average NPC may do cool stuff, but they don't get anything from it. Essentially, the ability to perform stunts is considered to be the edge enjoyed by plot important characters.

You have Exalts/gods/etc. who aren't plot-important? :?:

 

[SagaciousAscendingHero]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

You have Exalts/gods/etc. who aren't plot-important? :?:

Mortals?

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

... but unless they're mortals, mine get stunts just fine...

I believe I already covered that.

 

[Kyeudo]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

You have Exalts/gods/etc. who aren't plot-important? :?:

Yes. Dragon-Blooded and little gods don't often warrant the same level of dramatic power that the big bad and his minions do.

OK, so what you are after is narrative control of another character. It is hard to do this in a minimalist way in Exalted, because it really doesn't have any concept of the players having narrative control of anything but their own actions. Stunts occasionally offer minimal narrative control over the immediate environment, but not much.
The simplest solution is just this: when A defeats B in social combat, when it comes time for B to act, her action is declared by the player of A, not the Storyteller or B's player. That may sound extreme, and some groups will not be able to handle it, but that is what you are asking for.

That is far more narrative control than I want to give to anyone over any character.


What I'd like to see is that once you have defeated someone in social combat, it becomes both painful to not fufill whatever they were "convinced" to do and beneficial to them to do so, a sort of carrot and stick approach (there's a Charm waiting to be written in that phrase).

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Generally, the idea is that if it's Heroic...i.e. Not an Extra, it can stunt. Even an Extra can stunt if they have the right Alchemical potions, the Valiant Warrior Formula and Wind Fire Potion specifically. That's one of the major differences between Heroic and non-Heroic characters. If you're using Exalts and refusing to give them access to being able to stunt, you're literally making them less Heroic than a Heroic mortal. Which is frankly not understanding what an Exalt is. Dragonblooded are no less Exalted than other Exalts. The idea that ANY form of Exalt is an Extra mook is frankly treating Exaltation as if it were meaningless.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

Dragonblooded are no less Exalted than other Exalts. The idea that ANY form of Exalt is an Extra mook is frankly treating Exaltation as if it were meaningless.

When the point of a Dragon-Blood is to put up a good fight and lose, he doesn't deserve the same consideration as a reoccuring villian.


Still, I run a game where running into other Exalts is relatively rare, so mortals in general are what I spend time thinking about. Most people who your players are going to engage in social combat with will be mortal.

Of which the Heroic or Enlightened ones can and should be able to stunt. Of course...they don't have any real answer to Excellencies used to boost social attacks, with the exception of the occasional Godblood or practitioner of Path of the Arbiter Style.

 

[Kyeudo]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

Dragonblooded are no less Exalted than other Exalts. The idea that ANY form of Exalt is an Extra mook is frankly treating Exaltation as if it were meaningless.

When the point of a Dragon-Blood is to put up a good fight and lose, he doesn't deserve the same consideration as a reoccuring villian.


Still, I run a game where running into other Exalts is relatively rare, so mortals in general are what I spend time thinking about. Most people who your players are going to engage in social combat with will be mortal.

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Successful social attacks can, according to the core book:


"reduce one existing Intimacy by a point and/or increase a new or growing Intimacy by one point." Reading the whole section reveals that the net change in an intimacy can only be one point per scene, so the idea here seems to be that attacks can sway the character back and forth on an intimacy.


"Characters who do not or cannot resist a successful social attack can be convinced against their better judgment to spend the rest of the scene doing any one task, provided that doing so does not violate their Motivation." Note that, "the rest of the scene." This is why, in another thread, I noted that the base rules do not allow imposing long-term behavior in a single scene - they explicitly limit the duration of behavior which can be naturally compelled. For long-term patterns of behavior, see above about intimacies.


"If a character is reduced to zero temporary Willpower through social attacks opposing her Motivation and she goes (permanent Willpower + Essence) days without ever recovering back to her full Willpower, her will is broken. In this state (which lasts until the character has full Willpower), successful social attacks may compel her to take actions betraying her Motivation. This condition does not change her Motivation, but merely forces her to betray that Motivation temporarily." Mentioned for completeness. This is the worst kind of natural brainwashing you can do to someone, and requires constantly hounding them and keeping them in thrall.


Thought it might be helpful to inject a reminder of the actual base rules we're attempting to modify here. Personally, I don't think this system is broken at all. I do think it's a little light, if the game is going to focus on social but still use rules to let players who aren't great actors enjoy the social action. Thus, the expansion of Intimacies I created in another thread, which I believe adds depth to long-term persuasion by acting as a crunch-supported, more detailed personality profile.

 

[cyl]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Problem is, intimacies are not binding.


There is no system in place to represent the effects of a new intimacies, it is all supposed to be handled with roleplaying by the ST.

 

[cyl]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Also the main problem I have with social combat is that it doesn't have one system but actually several.


As Ian stated, you have one system for intimacies, another for compulsions, and you can also drain willpower and if you push it to the edge to break Motivation temporarily.


Also, while combat charms almost exclusively rely on the actual standard combat rules, for social combat you have one systeme for NMIs and almost one little system for every other UMIs derived from charms.


Social Charms are not only enhancing what you can do in social combat, they're often taking you to the next level of mind raping.


My take on this is that you should enlarge the possibilities offered by NMIs (which is what I suggested in another thread, using criterias like "objective" and "duration" of the social attack / debate), so the UMIs charm won't be as extraordinary as they are now, but still very useful.


One other thing it clearly lacks for me is a Debate system (opposed roll + victory / defeat counter).

 

[wordman]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Just more useless perspective for you: Exalted uses a task resolution system. That is, it breaks down events into small chunks, with rolls at each stage, with the rolls set up to gauge only if the action succeeds or fails (not what that success or failure actually means). That is, in a scene where the hero is trying to rescue the damsel from the thugs in the escaping carriage, there will be multiple tasks to see if he succeeds. Does execute the long slide down the banner to get to the courtyard? Roll. Does he spook the horses enough to slow the carriage? Roll. Does he do damage with this particular combat strike? Roll. And so on.


In a conflict resolution system, the mechanics are often (but not always) set up to adjudicate the conflict on a less granular level, but with an emphasis more on the desire behind an action than the action itself. That is, does the hero rescue the damsel? Roll.


For a high action, cinematic game, it makes a certain degree of sense for Exalted to be a task resolution system. Social interaction, however, is not particularly suited to task resolution. Does my greeting properly offend anyone? Roll. When I make this particular argument, is it compelling? Roll. Instead, social interaction is usually more usefully modeled with conflict resolution. Do I convince the king to support us? Roll. Do I seduce the Empress? Roll (and good luck with that).


Exalted's existing social system essentially tries to shove a task resolution system into a place that doesn't need one. Consequently, I think the idea of a "minimalist" revision is somewhat doomed.


(More on conflict resolution vs. task resolution from Vincent Baker.)

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


My simple fix for intimacies is to tie them to virtues, thus making them binding. You've got a valor-related ideal, you have to fail a valor check or suppress valor to act against it, etc.


However, the Exalted 2e core book does already make it clear: "Mostly, these Intimacies aren't especially meaningful from a mechanical sense, though they are obviously very important to the character." In other words, the Exalted devs decided that the solution to a player not roleplaying an intimacy of his character - whether it came about through social combat persuasion or not - is the domain of GM/player OOC communication to resolve it, not the rules. You don't make a roll in the base version, the ST just calls the player out on not roleplaying the character. Obviously, I do use a house rule for this, because players and storytellers alike sometimes need to be reminded what's going on.


Cyl: the systems for intimacies and compulsions don't seem as disassociated to me as you portray them. When a character wants to build or erode an intimacy by a level independently, they take a scene to do things related to it and build it (ie, you want to care about this girl, you spend a scene getting to know her, or painting pictures of her, or something). Natural compulsion can get a scene of effort out of someone. Thus natural compulsion = one scene = one intimacy level. I similarly see social charms which add/remove intimacies instantly and add magical effects to them as equivalent to damage enhancing and crippling charms, and thus not as divorced from the usual flow. Normal punch does (Strength)B, but when I activate Essence Venom Strike, it does (Strength + Essence)A. Changes a slight bruise to a truly deadly wound which will not heal quickly. This is similar to activating Worshipful Lackey Acquisition, which does more "mental damage," and more lasting, than a normal social attack.


Wordman: I dislike conflict resolution systems for individual scale scenes. It would be a great style to resolve dominion actions, but I don't think it's the answer to social combat. I like the idea of "does my greeting offend anyone? roll." That's how social conflict in Exalted ought to be - ups and downs and passions at play. It would damage the feeling, in my opinion, to either wait until a whole scene was roleplayed and make one roll with stunt bonuses, or to make one roll ahead of it and roleplay out those results. That's not Exalted's style. If the scene is going to be played out on screen, it's Exalted's style to make the granular actions epic. I admit, for some less important social scenes in Exalted games I've played, I've used something more conflict-resolution oriented. The same has been done for less important physical combats as well. Indeed, any off-screen drama tends to boil entire scenes down to one roll, or just a handfull of opposed rolls, in my experience.


Perhaps it's just my experience with that style of play, but I think there's inherent differences in immersion between granular task resolution and pulled-back conflict resolution. For similar reasons, I like the D&D 3/4 6-second combat round better than the AD&D 2 30-second or the OD&D/AD&D 1-minute ones, and why I like Exalted 2e's ticks even better than that.

 

[cyl]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


My point with social charms was the following : You don't have combat charms with effects similar to "pay a wp cost or suffer the consequences !".


You can't frighten a 3 years old little girl with boogeymen stories for the rest of her life in a single scene... while it most likely should be in your power to do so (especially if you're a deathknight with 0 appearance), even without using charms.


As we saw it with various propositions in this section of the forum, the essential part of moding the social combat is to define your objectives and the limits... which is often hard, and the rest is pure fluff.


I personnally recently became in favor of adapting the physical combat scale to the social combat. Wether you fight or you try to convince / seduce, it still should feel like an elegant choregraphied dance.

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


Azure Abacus Meditation: pay a willpower to be able to defend against this attack.


I don't think it should be within my power to do what you describe with the little girl. The deathknight with 0 appearance would only scar her for life by, say, killing her parents - and then the girl's going to do a lot of the work learning to hate her parents killer herself. One scary story from a scary looking person, assuming the kid would even stick around to hear it? For an experience that lasts half an hour tops (one scene), it's got to have physical ramifications or other reasons which convince the person to play along of their own will to shape behavior for the rest of their life. Especially with a kid, kids are resilient most of the time.


I'm in favor of a quicker scale of social combat, using short combat ticks, to be used as well as the usual scale. The main purpose I see for this quick combat is repartee which is compatible with regular combat. I would eliminate the possibility of affecting intimacies/long term behavior, and limit the effects of any successful social attack in this scale to the target's next action. Instead of spending a willpower to resist, the victim may choose to roll Join Debate to enter true social combat to resist an attack which beat her MDV. Anyone participating in the physical combat may spend a willpower to prevent this shift of the tone of the scene, but in doing so it is their rude interruption which nullifies the effect of the successful social attack (effectively, the rude person who wishes to fight spends the willpower for the victim of the attack). If, once debate is joined, someone takes a physically hostile action on their turn, Join Battle is rolled again and the pace of the scene shifts once more. Social keyword charms may not be used in the fast scale of time, but a new class of charms could be created with a Repartee keyword, which would work in either form of combat. Some existing charms might be appropriate to house-rule into the Repartee category, such as Terrifying Apparition of Glory, or Charismatic Lunar Trick.

 

[cyl]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

Azure Abacus Meditation: pay a willpower to be able to defend against this attack.

You will note that the wp cost is only for the emotion part of the charm...

I don't think it should be within my power to do what you describe with the little girl.

Well you can kill her with one hand so why should you not break her mind with a simple phrase ?
We are not talking about a heroic kid here, just an extra... which is the lowest and strangely the most common at the same time base line for a social system.


Exalted is not always about proportions and realism. You can reasonably take on 20 of those little guys and win the fight even without charms... try doing the same in our plane of existence. :lol:


I like your ideas of switching combat phases though, it is very anime inspired.

 

[IanPrice]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa


You are taking my statement about the girl example out of context, it was intended to refer to natural mental influence. Natural mental influence doesn't do that.


Regardless, I'm glad we've come to an agreed good idea with the different speed ticks.

 

[wordman]

Re: Yet another social combat thread - The Minimalist Approa

I dislike conflict resolution systems for individual scale scenes. It would be a great style to resolve dominion actions, but I don't think it's the answer to social combat. I like the idea of "does my greeting offend anyone? roll." That's how social conflict in Exalted ought to be - ups and downs and passions at play. It would damage the feeling, in my opinion, to either wait until a whole scene was roleplayed and make one roll with stunt bonuses, or to make one roll ahead of it and roleplay out those results. That's not Exalted's style.

My comments about conflict resolution make a bit more sense if you read Vincent's essay on it more carefully. The main difference in task vs. conflict resolution isn't scale. It is purpose. As Vincent says it, task resolution is about success vs. failure, while conflict resolution is about winning and losing.


His example to illustrate the difference takes a situation where a player wants to dig up dirt on someone, and is in a position to raid the target's safe to get it. In a task based system, the player says "I'm going to pick the lock on the target's safe" and a roll is done to see if he succeeds at doing so. The problem is, the dirt he wants isn't actually in the safe. So even if he succeeds, he doesn't win. In a conflict resolution system, the intent is what matters, so the echange is more like "I'm going to pick the lock on the target's safe." "Why?" "Because I want to dig up dirt on him." In this system, the roll is not about picking the lock on the safe, but digging up dirt. If the roll goes in the player's favor, he wins, regardless of if he opened the safe or not: "as you go to open the safe, you notice something in the trash..."


My point above is that in social combat, the "why" is what matters, not the actions. For example, consider a seduction attempt. An action might be something like "I tell her she is beautiful". Now, what's the actual task here? To see if you can successfully complete a sentence? Maybe it's to see how artfully you phrase the compliment? But, who cares. What actually matters is the conflict, the why: "does this complement advance my attempt to get her into bed?". To work, social combat needs to focus on the stakes, not on the tasks. Now, that isn't to say the tasks don't matter at all. At least from a stunting point of view, they may matter a lot. But to make social combat work, the tasks aren't enough. The outcome of the rolls needs to mechanically do more than just see if the tasks succeed or fail. They need to track the meaning of the tasks' success or failure. They need to track progress against the intent.


You ever played the video game Pirates!? This game allows a type of seduction, using a totally task based system. You enter into a dancing sub-game, where the point is to follow the steps of the target of your seduction. If you succeed at this pattern matching, you impress the girl and some kind of reward is generated. But there is no real motivation to it, just "I want some unspecified reward if I'm a good dancing monkey". And this is a big reason why the game is a bit bland and weak.