Social Conflicts

[zot]

Hmm...

Why aren't combats simply decided by the GM or by a secret, one-die roll?
Social conflicts are...

The Problem Is...

When your character can't accomplish what you want them to in social setting, it's frustrating. In TFT, your character's success or failure is usually just decided by the GM because it's just pure role playing. If mechanics are wanted or needed, there is only the reaction roll, a one-die roll made by the GM in secret. Combats aren't like this. Maybe social conflicts could be less arbitrary, too.

Social conflict rules don't replace role playing, they come into play only when there is a conflict that the players or the GM care about enough to take it to the dice.

The thing is, the TFT attributes really don't have much to do with social things. There is evidence that educated and well paid women are more likely to suffer abuse. If you think a higher IQ makes you less likely to be conned, be careful: you could be an ideal victim.

Attributes may not have much to do with social things but talents do...


Social Attacks and Enticements

Here is a small (incomplete) list of social / personality attacks and enticements where attributes don't usually have much influence:

• fraud or abuse vs. high agreeableness
• provocation vs. disagreeableness
• threat vs. fearfulness
• challenge vs. confidence
• violating rules vs. conscientiousness
• responsibility vs. low conscientiousness
• friendliness vs. extroversion
• groups and social functions vs. introversion
• opportunities vs. openness
• change vs. low openness

If you look at that list, you can probably imagine using some of the approaches in combat: deception, provocation, intimidation, etc. What about severely distracting or even stunning your opponent as you are fighting, just by talking while you fight?

You can also probably imagine using some of these approaches to "fight" with someone socially, maybe to discredit an adversary, to get past a bureaucrat who is preventing you from your goal, or to persuade a magistrate to hear your case.

Should we use 3/IQ for this?

Are smart people hot tempered or slow to anger? Should smarter people be more devious or less devious, more willing or less willing to push boundaries, more suspicious or less suspicious?

It's not really a matter of IQ.


Richer than reaction rolls

What TFT needs for social conflicts is a way to make rolls based on modifiers from talents and circumstances that are not based on attributes. Like reaction rolls, only much richer. Attributes would help in some cases but they shouldn't dominate over talents and circumstances. Once we have rolls like that, we can use them in contests, tasks, etc. to run social conflicts.

What kind of rolls work? There are a lot of options, but here are two:

Opposed rolls work for this -- I have a couple posts and a (heavily rewritten and rewritten) proposal doc for that.

Single rolls work and are arguably more TFT-ish (as David Pulver says). Here's one that works (Skarg advocates 3 dice vs 10):

3 dice vs 10 + modifiers - opponent's modifiers

[JLV]

Originally Posted by zot

Hmm...

Why aren't combats simply decided by the GM or by a secret, one-die roll?
Social conflicts are...

To me, the most obvious answer to that one is; "Because that's no fun." ;-)

I cannot imagine that a game that consisted of me rolling dice while my friends sat around the table waiting to be told what the outcome of their battle was would still be on my table 40 years later (or even 40 minutes later...).

[zot]

Yes, exactly my point about social conflicts and reaction rolls in the current rules...

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by zot

Yes, exactly my point about social conflicts and reaction rolls in the current rules...

Back in the late 70s in character social interaction in most RPGs came down to "I have a sword and more HP that you, do what I say." TFT really does need a more nuanced social interaction system for PC:NPC interaction. After all, if you have two individuals from competing political parties or religions trying to sway a croud; how do you decide which speaker wins? GM fiat? Flip a coin?

[zot]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

Back in the late 70s in character social interaction in most RPGs came down to "I have a sword and more HP that you, do what I say." TFT really does need a more nuanced social interaction system for PC:NPC interaction. After all, if you have two individuals from competing political parties or religions trying to sway a croud; how do you decide which speaker wins? GM fiat? Flip a coin?

Exactly. I have two examples of playing out social conflicts in my opposed roll doc. The technique I use isn't the only way to run them but it's been fun for us for the past 10 years or so I've been doing social conflicts this way.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
TFT does not have any sort of Charisma attribute, so the way that you handle social maneuvering is by talents. I'm fine with this.

I do think that use of a single die is wrong, I moved to a 3d6 system for reaction rolls long before GURPS came out, and I think the new TFT system should do this as well.

I do not decide how the social conflict will go based on that roll, it is a starting point. This NPC is well disposed to the player after a minute of social chit chat. That makes the negotiations easier. If a poor reaction is made, the PC can still attempt to talk the NPC into something, but it will be harder.

I've played the Firefly RPG, where every character has a SOCIAL attribute. If you are in a Social conflict and they win the dice roll, then you have to go along with them.

I found that Firefly just felt more gamey than TFT. It was less like the roleplaying we liked, and much more "how can I manipulate the situation so I get lots of bonus dice, and poker chips (plot points), for this upcoming contest?"

I'm not saying that zot's system will play this way. But I don't let reaction rolls 'decide' things. (Exception, the PC's are negotiating with an NPC, and the NPC is totally on the fence, and does not care one way or another. Then I might use a reaction roll to break the tie.)

I had one player who took every talent possible for improving reactions. He wanted to know why all these guys were fighting him. I said, "You are talking away their business and power. They admit you are as charming as all get out. This just makes you a more dangerous enemy, as far as they are concerned. You can't take away their business, and expect them not to fight you."

Warm regards, Rick.

[Wayne]

I don't think this sort of thing should be left to a dice roll.

I like the idea of talents (sex appeal etc) modifying an initial impression but after that I would rely on the player's roleplaying ability.

So if a character has all the advantages in the world but the player is behaving arrogantly in negotiations with the GM as the NPC, then that should be reflected in the NPC's reaction.

[David Bofinger]

TFT bundles strength and endurance into ST; dexterity and agility into DX; and intelligence, education, willpower, cunning, charisma and perception into IQ. The last is by far the most problematic, and not just for social reasons.

Increasing the number of attributes is an obvious path that most are wisely hesitant to tread. The more useful attributes like strength and agility would have to be more expensive than the less useful ones like willpower.

Another philosophy is a TFT where there are no attributes, only talents with levels and prerequisites. I think that could work.

[zot]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

TFT bundles strength and endurance into ST; dexterity and agility into DX; and intelligence, education, willpower, cunning, charisma and perception into IQ. The last is by far the most problematic, and not just for social reasons.

Increasing the number of attributes is an obvious path that most are wisely hesitant to tread. The more useful attributes like strength and agility would have to be more expensive than the less useful ones like willpower.

Another philosophy is a TFT where there are no attributes, only talents with levels and prerequisites. I think that could work.

I agree that talents with prereqs are more significant than talents without. I give them a +3 instead of a base +2 in my proposed social conflict document. I haven't talked about that document in this thread yet because I wanted to be a little agnostic about it, at least at the start, but here I am linking to it anyway.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Wayne

I don't think this sort of thing should be left to a dice roll.

I like the idea of talents (sex appeal etc) modifying an initial impression but after that I would rely on the player's roleplaying ability.

So if a character has all the advantages in the world but the player is behaving arrogantly in negotiations with the GM as the NPC, then that should be reflected in the NPC's reaction.

That's totally fine, even if my proposed social conflict system gets adopted -- GMs have complete discretion about when to role play and when to go to the dice. A GM would never be forced to use social conflicts at all.

I don't think it's fair, however, to characterize this idea as leaving this sort of thing to a dice roll. It's a way to allow the players to attempt to "initiate social combat", but only when appropriate, not at all as a substitute for role playing. I've been running social conflicts like this for maybe 10 years and I'd say we probably do one social conflict every other session -- it's far from turning RPGs into board games.

One function of social conflict mechanics is that players get to go to the dice as a recourse when they feel that their characters' in-story social actions aren't lining up with how they've been able to express them or when they feel a disconnect between their intentions and how the GM is running a scene.

Another is that the GM can initiate a social conflict when they feel such a disconnect, like if they can tell a player is getting frustrated.

Something unexpected came out of doing social conflicts when we started doing them the way I describe in the proposal... they turned out to be a lot of fun and filled with good role playing!