Stretching my combat system to other conflicts

[M Jason Parent]

About a month ago I wrote a quick and dirty 24 hour RPG called AssassinX.

You can see it here: http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/AssassinX.php

It is generally simple, 80's style game design, with no redeeming value to gaming. That said, I feel that there is an essential disconnect in the fact that the combat system is bigger than the rest of the game systems.

Now, the game is obviously heavily based in violence, and thus in combat. But I'm wanting to take that combat system and stretch it out a bit further into the game, to make that resolution system stretch out into other conflicts, such as social and mental. I figure I could add a new derived stat for a social or mental toughness (since Beef won't be important for such damage), and build a 'social combat system' to work with it, as a variant of the existing combat system.

But I don't know if anyone really cares for social conflict resolution rules. Are they a waste of effort for something best handled by narrative, role-playing and maybe a skill test or two? Or can it help propel the game down different avenues?

I guess this thread is more me brainstorming and finally putting this on paper / electrons somewhere, but I am curious if you feel that the extension of a combat syste to handle non-physical combat is worth the effort.

[Larry L.]

Hi Jason.

Mike's Standard Rants really need to be linked to in big flashing bold letters at the top of this forum, because they're really good. In particular, you want to read #3.

Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat systems

I don't know why there's this stigma in the hobby around mechanics getting into social situations. "I want role-playing, not roll-playing!" or whatever strawman argument. Lots of games in the last five years or so have been doing really nice social conflict systems.

[Adam Dray]

I love social mechanics. I love social combat mechanics. I love mechanics that make player characters do things because they were intimidated or convinced by an NPC. I've implemented such things in my homebrew games. But who cares what I like. Do what you like. Maybe people don't like these things because it's rarely done right. Do it right.

To help avoid this being a poll, lemme offer some advice about how to implement a social conflict system.

First, conflict resolution systems do this all the time. Any system that looks at the overall stakes of the conflict rather than the "how it gets resolved" (guns, diplomacy, wits) and resolves it with a single roll neatly ties up the resolution without a special system for combat of any kind (physical, social, or otherwise).

Imagine Gunther, a beefy physical type, and Mercedes, a charismatic type. Both are special agents. Both are trying to get past a security guard. What's at stake? "I get past the security guard." The GM sets a difficulty to do such a thing (without knowing how the player intends to solve the problem!). Gunther's player pulls in one of his physical abilities or skills or traits and rolls dice. In the same situation elsewhere, Mercedes' player pulls in one of her social abilities or skills or traits and rolls dice. Both succeed at their rolls. Same system, different traits. Same stakes, different outcomes (Gunther kicks some ass and leaves behind a broken guard; Mercedes pulls out all her disguise-fu and slips past the guard unnoticed).

Second, combat systems in "traditional games" tend to get their own chapter to bring an additional level of detail to the game. It's the "zoom in" button on the rules. Seducing a guard can happen in loosely organized time but combat is regimented to 2-second turns. The results of a seduction attempt are boolean (succeed or fail) but combat has myriad resolutions (stunned, incapacitated, dead, broken bones, N damage).

So, if you want to use the same system for both social combat and physical combat, you need to match up the level of detail. Look at your subsystems (time tracking, initiative, damage and healing, tools/weapons/props, and so on). Either eliminate that subsystem or map it to each new system you want to cover. Do you really need a rigid time tracking system for combat? If so, how does it apply to social combat? How about damage? Different kinds of social damage could be cool. Are there "tools" or "weapons" for social combat (Gucci bag +3; You are so ugly that when you were born, the doctor slapped your Mom +5)?

You can abstract a lot of things to make it "fit" more than just physical combat. For example, imagine that any conflict (even social or mental) between people has attacks, defenses, feints, ripostes, and so on. In Dogs in the Vineyard, you can Take the Blow or take Fallout in any conflict, even if it isn't actually violent. Abstraction pushes more decision-making power to the play-group, which is neither good nor bad; it's just a matter of what fits your game best.

Hope this helps.

[Alex Johnson]

I don't want to derail this thread so this will be my only mention of it.

Larry, can you collect all the Mike's Standard Rants in a single posting and make it sticky (or ask the Mod to sticky it if we don't have that power)?  This was the first time I've heard of it and having read one, I must now read them all.  If the rest are as good as #3, then everyone should be reading them.

[Larry L.]

Golly. I had initially put in the whole list, then decided, Naah, let's just stick to the point.

Rather than rape-and-paste it again, I'll just point you at the post I use as an index:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15485.msg165450#msg165450

[iain]

Hi there,
I am working on a poker based system for my own home brew called 'Mob Justice', that I am writing for CGS.  Their is only one conflict system revolving around playing poker, i.e. betting chips and drawing and discarding cards, and the outcome of any conflict is the colour of poker chips in the final pool.  So if the majority of the chips were white say, the major outcome of the situation would be white. If blue it would be environmental, red physical.  Players get a number of chips depending on their releveant skills and the colour of chips given to them depends on the intent.  So for instance Joe Malone is trying to intimidate a guy and says he picks up the nearby wrench and starts throwing it around as he is shouting at his victim.  His intention is partly scare and possible violence.  Joe has an intimidation of 7 and so the GM gives him 4 white chips and 3 reds for Joe to bet with as he will when the poker begins.  If he invest mainly red chips the outocome will be bloody and violent whoever wins. If white the outcome will be social in context. 

This allows for both combat and social coflicts to be dealt with in the same way, and is something I am going to emulate in all the RPG's I work on from her on in, I'm planning a new one called 'Best served cold...' about revenge and justice etc.  I think the resolution, conflict whatever you want to call it, system should not differ from combat to social, after all the less the players need to learn, the less daunting your game will seem.
Cheers
Iain

[Kesher]

Are they a waste of effort for something best handled by narrative, role-playing and maybe a skill test or two? Or can it help propel the game down different avenues?

This has already been touched on above, but whether or not they're a waste of effort depends on how you've integrated them as a whole into the context of the game.  Take a look at The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game; there are vicious "social combat" mechanics in that game that will make the pc someone else's suckdog.  Moreover, the player will gleefully allow it to happen because that sort of result is hardwired into the Setting.  It's a social mechanic that propels roleplaying through roll-playing...

Aaron

Aaron

[Darcy Burgess]

Jake --

What you're talking about is a unified mechanic for everything.  I think that this is an important distinction from "social combat".  Now calling it "social combat" within the context of AssassinX may serve to emphasize the colour of the game.  Semantics aside, hop to it, man!

I can't think of a better example of a game that does this quite well (and will probably appeal to you on its own merit) than Nixon's The Shadow of Yesterday.

I'm glad to see you're revisiting that little nugget of anger...

[Shreyas Sampat]

To answer your original question (is an extension of a combat system to other types of conflict worth the effort?), I'd say no.

Why?

Well, if you've done your work well, then you have a combat system, a system that works with the players to produce entertaining fights. It'll be rooted, in one way or another, in the way that you want to depict combat in your game and the way you unconsciously understand it.

Extending this system to cover something else will at best be weird; you'll be imposing, at one level or another, the idiosyncrasies of physical combat to whatever thing you're applying it to. This isn't something that I'd want to do accidentally; combat is a strong metaphor and it will colour your game's conflicts very distinctly. (It's certainly okay to do it deliberately; I'm pointing out ramifications, not saying it's a bad idea.) I don't find it clear in your post whether you deliberately want this effect.

There's a related task, though, that's well worth looking into: Can you derive the overarching conflict system that your combat system is a specific, customized instance of, stripping away all the combat-specific alterations? This system, once you have it in your hands, will allow you to not only provide your game with a robust generalised conflict structure, but give you an explicit basis upon which you can add customised focus areas. Exalted Unified Conflict System, at my blog (I think it's one of those weird buttons in the profile box) is a quick-and-dirty stab at de-customizing White Wolf's house system in this manner, to provide a conflict template.

[M Jason Parent]

Extending this system to cover something else will at best be weird; you'll be imposing, at one level or another, the idiosyncrasies of physical combat to whatever thing you're applying it to. This isn't something that I'd want to do accidentally; combat is a strong metaphor and it will colour your game's conflicts very distinctly. (It's certainly okay to do it deliberately; I'm pointing out ramifications, not saying it's a bad idea.) I don't find it clear in your post whether you deliberately want this effect.

While I understand where you are coming from, I do think that this would be the perfect effect for this game. AssassinX is a game of violence and anger, it was written in a fit of pique after I was fired from a job, and is a bloody and messy little chunk of nastiness. In that way, I think that this isn't really a unified mechanic I'm looking for, but really a -combat- system that applies to more than physical combat. You have definitely provided the impetus I need to expand the combat system outside of physical combat - to try to make all conflict resolution in the game seem brutal and unpleasant, like physical combat.

However, now that I've said this, I don't think I'll be giving my rebuild of AssassinX the time it needs in the near future. My intention was to do a 24-hour supplement for AssassinX, expand the system to handle social interaction as other than a succeed/fail skill mechanic, and then work the supplement and core book into one product to release in time for next year's convention season. But in the past week, I've started down a whole other path that feels more rewarding to me because it isn't so bloody and nasty as AssassinX.

But the goal remains to get AssassinX polished and ready for release before next summer. But I think that the game deserves me at my angriest, so for the next while (until another burst of hate errupts from me), I'll be focusing on Junk Dreams while I allow AssassinX to percolate in the back of my mind.

[Shreyas Sampat]

...I do think that this would be the perfect effect for this game. AssassinX is a game of violence and anger, it was written in a fit of pique after I was fired from a job, and is a bloody and messy little chunk of nastiness. In that way, I think that this isn't really a unified mechanic I'm looking for, but really a -combat- system that applies to more than physical combat.

Excellent. I look forward to your next fit of pique and the supplement that'll come with it!

[MatrixGamer]

Jason

Here is my expereince with "social combat" systems.

I've played wargames for going on 30 years, so I've done my share of combat games. Personally they now tend to bore me so over time I've moved on to games about social conflict (murder mysteries, horror, spy intrigue (John LeCarrie not Bond) and similar things.) This led to the rules I use on conflict resolution now.

I do Engle Matrix Games so each turn player make "arguments" about what they want to have happen next in the game. Each argument is a gambit to get something (control over the story). Some gambits are too important to settle by a single die roll so I have the referee "Call for a Conflict round."

The player starts the conflict but the conflict round resolves it. At first this was all about combat. The stronger side gets first crack at describing how the combat ends - by making an argument. If they fail then the next strongest player gets a go. If everyone in the conflict fails then the original argument is what happens.

This works for combat - but then I applied it to political competitions. Take an election for instance. The referee looks at the John Kerry Campaign and turns to President Bush and says - you get first option. W says "I win." He rolls the right number and bingo! He wins.

So the system works for politics.

Then I thought about social conflicts. My favorit example is Bob asks Miss Super Model out on a date. Who has the advantage? Miss Model of course! Her argument? "My body guards grind his face into the pavement." Say she misses her roll. Bob gets a chance to argue. "She accepts my date." The referee looks at this, looks at Bob (joe average) and rates it really really really weak. Bob has to roll six sixes in a row. He fails so nothing happens.

The system works again.

Now look at a more reasonable social situation. Bob knows Mary (who is no super model but is cute). He asks her out. She again has the advantage in the conflict - but she may well argue to accept the date rather than grind Bob's face into the pavement.

The system works again.

So I don't agree that combat and social conflict are catagorically different but how the game is played is important as to which system would be fun.

Say your combat system said "Players roll to hit targets and roll for damage." (D+D) If this was applied to asking someone out on a date then it would play like kids in elementary school. Bobby hits Mary to show her she likes him. The method doesn't mimic the pattern of social interaction.

So look at how you want the game to be played and look to see if the pattern of game activites is at all like the pattern of what you are simulation (in the wargame sense of the term - not simulationist). If the patterns fit then use it. If they don't maybe reconsider adding it in.

Anyway, there's my two cents worth.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Resonantg]

Well, this is kind of what I'm trying to do with my Memetic Combat system I'm working on for Orion's Arm, but I'm going about it a bit different than what the examples others have provided here today.  I don't see why you couldn't create a social combat system, the question is what is the desired outcome of victory?  For instance, with my game, the victory is basically controlling your target through beliefs and ideas.  You try to insert your character's memes and overpower their arguments and competing thoughts. 

This comes down to an issue of granularity.  To use the example given of the last presidential campaign, it isn't a case of "I win" roll dice to see if he succeeds.  This is very broad granularity.  It glosses over the 18 months of campaigning, the states that have to be visited, rallys to hold, speeches to give and all sorts of public appearances.  It's being assumed that in that one roll, W wins, when in reality that whole task is a series of thousands of individual contests that W won the most of.  Of course, you don't want to have to play out all those thousands of rolls either, so you have to find the granularity level that you want to deal with.  Do you want to just deal with month based issue politics?  Do you want to get into state campaigns? Grassroot movements?  Shall we talk about campaign budget handling and fund raising as well?  Or just stick to major rallys.  All these aspects can be levels of granularity you need to ask yourself about when creating a system.

Now why would you want a social combat system?  The best answer I can think of is when the character is skilled in ways that the player is most certainly not.  I've come under the impression that a player can play dumber than they really are, but never smarter.  This is when dice rolls need to simulate these issues and abilities that the player doesn't have but the character sure does.  The player for instance may be terrified of public speaking and have a stutter, but the character has a silver tounge, the gift of gab and a magnetic personaity and a higher "Q" rating than Johnny Carson  in his prime.  the dice then have to take precident when these gaps lack.  The player can add only so much to the setting but to be fair to the game, you need the dice to fill in the gap. 

The next aspect I've seen that can use a social combat system is the ever fun "player under the influence".  The player may not want to do what he's been influenced to do, and without rules, they can fudge the rules and cut corners.  But with a good rule structure, you can help prevent this some.  Of course it's a little more weight for the GM when dealing with a surley player because they lost, or have to play friends with someone they want dead... but that's part of the situation.  It's better of course if the GM can explain why this has happened and help the player rationalize it, but sometimes, it just doesn't work that way.  Most times, the Social combat system is used on NPCs and the background characters of the game.  It allows you to quickly learn your influence and gauge the effects.

The problem I forsee with a Social combat system is overuse.  The GM would have to watch very carefully to not let it get in the way of good roleplaying and find ways to let it flow and "wing it" as need be.  I'd be upset if a GM would only allow social contact inside the forms of the combat system.  It's too cumbersome and will end up tripping everyone up.  Sort of like saying the personal is political, meaning anything you do has political ramafications when all you were doing is brushing your teeth.  So balance is something of a concern to be aware of.

Anyway, I don't know if your combat system can be stretched to cover social interactions since their goals are similar but go about it totally different, a system for social conflict could be engineered I have no doubt.

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