[Gaming] Social Interaction Mechanics

[pyrephox]

It's hard to find good social interaction mechanics. Many systems have incredibly detailed and realistic (or dramatic) physical interaction mechanics, but most reduce social interaction to an afterthought. Part of this, of course, is that players are worried that social interaction mechanics will take away their free will to have their characters react as they want: many gamers are more afraid of a character being persuaded to do something against their preferences than they are of the character taking physical damage. And the blunt edge of many social interactive mechanics (Often, Player A rolls social skill, Player B rolls resistance, and if they fail, Player B must go along with the social skill) makes the situation perhaps more of a percieved violation than it needs to be. Unfortunately, other systems go too far: They declare that social skills only apply to NPCs, and that they don't affect PCs at all. This is silly. The player who has given their character high levels of authoritative presence, persuasion, and charisma should not be restricted from exhibiting those qualities to other characters, any more than the character who has high strength and fighting skills might not try to intimidate others. It's a legitimate dynamic. And leaving it all to roleplaying isn't the answer. Let's face it...many gamers have /no/ idea how to play a charming and perceptive political manipulator. At least not with a straight face.

So, here's what I'm contemplating:

Skills can be used in two ways: Perceptive or Active. You don't have to buy those seperately: it's an inherent function of the skill. Perceptive uses of skills are all Skill + Intelligence. You roll a Perceptive use of a skill when you have an opportunity to gather information related to that skill. For example, if confronted with a firearm, you'd roll Guns + Int to be able to identify the gun, what kind of shape it's in, what ammo it uses, etc. In social situations, you would make Perceptive skill rolls when you have an opportunity to converse with a target and are /not/ attempting any overt persuasion, seduction, intimidation, etc. A successful roll would, based on the degree of success, let the GM (for NPCs) or player (for PCs) give you information about what would or would not affect their character in the desired fashion. This gives a player a chance to think about what would persuade their character, and committing to it out loud makes it more likely that they'll follow through with the effect. In a subsequent conversation, then, /if/ the aggressive player uses that knowledge in roleplay, then they get a bonus to their Active social roll. If they don't (they don't have time, it's a tactic they find distasteful, whatever) then they make an Active roll without penality. Instead of 'resisting' a social roll, a character makes a Intelligence check of their own to realize that someone is deliberately attempting to manipulate them, or lie to them. This is not a 'resistance'...the other character is still likely using a technique that is effective, and may in fact be entirely true, but the character understands that this tactic is being used deliberately, and the persuader may have an ulterior motive. The defending character can then feign acceptance, accept for real, bargain, fight, or refuse depending on how the character would react.

A play example:

Gerald has a mission to accomplish which involves getting into a secret lab. Since he's a socially oriented character, he wishes to persuade one of the lab techs to allow him inside. He strikes up a 'friendship' with an NPC that he knows has access, a young male intern. After having a couple of shallow conversations, he decides to probe deeper, and begins to subtly try and determine the target's weaknesses. He rolls Persuasion + Int, at a TN of 7. He rolls a five. This is a fairly minor success, so the GM lets Gerald's player know that David, the intern, likes to feel important and seems to be sensitive to challenges to his status or abilities. So, next time they meet, Gerald buys several drinks, and roleplays scoffing at David's job as a lowly intern, and insinuates that David doesn't even /have/ access to any of the labs at his job. He gets a bonus to his Active roll for both the use of Perceptive information, and the fact that his target is intoxicated. His target becomes 10, and he rolls a 6. This is a much better success than before, and David fails his intelligence roll to pick up the manipulation. Gerald pushes the tipsy intern into taking him to the lab and unlocking the door...



Side note: When the heck did I go to pyrephox.livejournal.com? Is this an update? I didn't pay for an account...

Comments

[radlilim.livejournal.com]

They moved all accounts to that system. Some security thing. It just happened this week.

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

news sez LJ decided that they should put everyone on subdomains, to fix some kind of exploit in "a popular browser". (Other places have suggested that it was something about cookies, IIRC.) So now all users are [name].livejournal.com and all communities are community.livejournal.com/name/, regardless of paid or not-paid status -- the old URLs redirect. (GJ seems to have made the same switchover.)

The new mechanics look cool! I like the tactical modifiers, and the perceptive-vs-active split. [grins]

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Thank you both. :D See, I should read the whole LJ news thing more often. I didn't even realize that they'd upped our number of icons until I noticed someone else talking about it in their LJ.

[sariel-di.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! And yeah, this is why I have news, lj_maintenance, and feedback friended -- they're not very spammy, and it means I don't have to wait till other people start talking about something to find it. [grins]

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The first homebrew I made had combat mechanics that explicitly applied to social or physical confrontations (and mental, if you wanted to go all psychic-warfare on someone), meaning a social confrontation was much like a physical one, only with body language and innuendo and insults instead of weapon finesse and dodging and taking advantage of cover. (Including some parallels between available cover and having social backing during the confrontation.)

This turned out to be more elegant and plausible in theory than in practice, but I'm always interested in seeing how other people apply these sorts of ideas.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Oooh. That does sound intriguing! And my perceptive/active split does have physical combat applications: I figure that if you have an opportunity to observe someone in combat, you can roll the appropriate combat skill in a Perceptive check to get an idea of their weaknesses. Then, if you use those weaknesses in battle, you could make an Active combat check with a bonus. It also lets you actually have characters who make good teachers...a mechanic to see where a fighter could improve. (Possibly link this somehow with training and advancement, if you have a teacher who is able to show you your weaknesses.)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I liked the theoretical gaming of my system very much! Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that it was much, much harder to translate the social mechanics into engaging prose than physical combat mechanics. I could look at a few rolls and natter about how someone ducked a blow and dove in a for a stab and then rolled back and so forth, but for social bits? It always ended up coming out as "...he implies something about your mother, but you remain unaffected" or the like. For strictly mechanical purposes, it worked fine, but it didn't feel appropriate. I'd like to see how your version works in play.