05-20-2019, 06:44 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: Amboise, France
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Social interaction more combat like ?
Hi,
Are there rules somewhere to make social interactions more interesting than a simple contest roll, a bit like a fight, with several phases between the protagonists (eg introduction, negotiation, conclusion)? Thanks in advance for you advices, experiences and comments. |
05-20-2019, 07:02 AM | #2 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
Social Engineering generally adds a lot of interesting detail to the topic of social interaction, but it is deliberately not made to be samey with combat:
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05-20-2019, 08:06 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2019
Location: Amboise, France
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
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05-20-2019, 08:54 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
You can make social combat from scratch:
Social HP (Will perhaps? Or better between Will (stubborness in your beliefs) or IQ (argument rationalization and etc.)), Social Damage (thr damage based off IQ?), duplicate standart combat maneuvers into new social maneuvers. Handle use of proofed arguments, blackmail, leverages or offered favors as one time sw damage (or as roll to get that much of ablative Social DR till end of scene?) Social Dodge is (IQ/2) 3 (round down). Social Parry is (used social skill/2) 3. At less than 1/3 of Social HP — you halves your Social Dodge Social Parry. At 0 Social HP or less — you close to concede opponent point, and need to make a Will roll to act normally. At -1*SHP — you immediately concede opponent point. You recovering 1 Social HP per day. |
05-20-2019, 09:15 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
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In the first place, GURPS already has rules for social interaction that work quite differently. In the second place, the logical outcome of combat moves is that the other person is dead, unconscious, or running away in fear. But the logical outcome of social interaction is often that you and the other person are seeing things the same way, or cooperating in doing something. It's been said, for example, that an ideal end for a mercantile transaction is that each party goes away thinking, "Wow, I got a really great deal out of them!" In the third place, and most importantly, a narrative of a "hit points" analogy would be that you try to persuade the other person to do what you want, and you don't succeed. So you try again, and again, and eventually you wear down their resistance. The person you desire agrees to sleep with you; the customer agrees to buy; the citizen agrees to vote for you. But, in reality, that sort of repeated "persuasion" is quite as likely to get the other person's back up and harden their resistance. It's been said that for many interactions, the decision to say yes or no is made in the first few seconds, and trying to change a No to a Yes may just make the person doing so look like a jerk; it can be better to accept the No and move on. So I don't think a set of rules that assumes laying siege to the other person is all that good a model. That's not to say you can't do it. But my own feeling is that the existing GURPS rules provided at least the start for a more generally applicable model.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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05-20-2019, 12:23 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
For establishing social dominance we usually use a single roll because most social interaction is longer than a step in a combat but pretty decisive. Once you show a merchant you have market savvy he's not going to waste his time haggling copper pieces out of you. When you pull back your longcoat to show off the submachinegun strapped to your side and lower your voice an octave as you say "I've got my security pass right here" the security guard isn't going to debate you about how intimidated he is. The Bar Wench knows if she's going to sleep with you before you reach the end of your clever flirting.
The exception I make for dramatic purposes is when you're in a contested social roll to affect a third party, like in a courtroom. In that case I set a margin number usually based on the number of persons that have to be convinced and the gravity of the debate and have both parties roll contested skills, winning by a margins that accumulate towards reaching that margin number. |
05-20-2019, 12:53 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
There is one game which has social interaction that was like combat and that's Maid RPG. But Maid's dial goes from harem action comedy to telenovela with horror elements. Victory in a social duel consisted of of making your opponent collapse in a facefault, faint or a helpless crying mess. Actually persuading anyone of anything or getting them to like you had very different mechanics.
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05-21-2019, 06:11 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
I'm in agreement with Social Engineering's overall philosophy. That said, I think something interesting and useful could be devised using Martial Arts: Technical Grappling as a starting point, but translating physical stats like ST and HP into mental traits like Will and Stress (from Horror).
Such a system would be suitable for the more antagonistic forms of social interaction, like intimidation, torture, brainwashing, or provocation; it might also be applicable to fast-talking. But it would be a bad for for more amiable interactions like debate or diplomacy. |
05-21-2019, 07:39 AM | #9 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
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One has to be careful over-mechanizing things. Yet because of the highly stylized and formal nature of a flyting competition, it seemed to me to be the same nature as combat. Just as you don't expect someone to stand up, grab a winged spear from the corner, and actually fight to see if their character can out-do the latest monstrous challenge, expecting every *player* to be able to insult or mock their opponent with the proper use of kennings, rhyme and meter, and with all the cultural knowledge assumed was a bridge too far: it invited an abstract mechanical solution.
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05-21-2019, 08:18 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social interaction more combat like ?
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