Mechanics for "Advanced" Social Encounters

[Raymond Caleatry]

I have been writing a system for about 2 years now, and it has gone through many incarnations.  Recently I started to explore mechanics behind advanced social encounters.  Now I am the sort of GM that likes to minimize the mechanics around these sorts of areas, as I think that mechanics within social systems tend to restrict the role-playing experience.  However, although I realized that for most social encounters a simple skill check would suffice, for social situations in high society, such as a nobles banquet, getting information out of people is something that the players are less likely to have experience with, and in my experience, only the most extraverted players tend to play these sorts of roles because of this.  As such I have been exploring the idea of a simple game mechanics that abstract advanced social encounters into a mini game where the reward is the ability to gain answers to questions.

Firstly I should probably note that my system uses a character sheet, and a character deck of cards which is build around the character sheet.  Hence, all mechanics within the game (combat, magic, skills) are resolved with a series of mini-games.  The idea is to produce a mini-game for the social situation described above.

Broadly, the system I was envisaging breaks down any advanced social situation into a series of conversations which are based upon knowledge skills, where both breadth and depth of knowledge is important.  Applying different knowledge skills with allow you to deflect the conversation away from topics, while depth of knowledge will allow you to debunk your opponent and force them to give way to you.  Repeated successes in debunking of an NPC will result in answers being given by the GM.  Over time a player will get to know the specializations of the NPC and be able to exploit this to gain more advantage.

Actual play within my system would probably involve a playing knowledge cards on top of each other, and the player that played the card performing a simple bit of role-play around the topic they just played.  If the opponent plays a differing knowledge card, then they must take up the thread of conversation and deflect it towards their new topic.  If instead they play the same knowledge skill, then they are attempting to debunk their opponent, in which case their respective scores in the relevant knowledge skills are compared one immerges as the victor, and a new thread of discussion is started.  In a way this could be considered a slow game of role-play snap.

Disadvantages

It's a social system that my not be needed and some players may not like it.

Advantages

It should not be too intrusive, as players are expected to role-play after each card played.
Plot elements can be dropped in along with the role-play elements of the cards being played.
Mechanically it gives extra emphasis on players which like a specific style of play, i.e. the know-it-all socialite (bard), cementing their role within the party.
It does not exclude others from attempting this style of play, but mechanically limits characters that are not stated for social encounters.  This aims at increasing the detriment of min-maxing within the system.

What do you guys think of "social combat" systems?  I haven't been impressed with what I have seen thus far!  Do you think that a social system is beneficial to RPGs in general?

Ray

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Hi, Raymond.

IMHO, if the card minigame you use for social encounters is fun enough, it shouldn't hurt anything for it to exist; as long as social conflict is involved in the situations the characters find themselves in.  But if you (or your players) don't want the game to be about social conflict, it's best not to have the more complex mechanics available for resolution. 

So if by "may not be needed and some players might not like it" you mean that your game is not about social conflict, leave it out.  But if you mean the card minigame's just not fun enough to justify taking game time for it, but you still want this game to be about social conflict, maybe the mechanics just need a bit of work to become more fun.

-Jason Timmerman

[Raymond Caleatry]

Thanks for your reply,

I don't think the game will be specifically about social conflict, but i do want there to be some elements within it.  I feel that if the entire game was about social conflict then a simple mini game would not be the way to go anyway because it would get dull all too quickly.  I suppose what i am looking for is a solution to the problem of some players dominating certain types of play and therefore large parts of specific sessions.  By including a mechanic that evolves the entire group, and perhaps one that is amusing and funny at the same time as fulfilling the role, i hope to evolve the non-social characters more.

Ray

[tymotzues]

This is a difficult one because as 'role-players' the idea is to take on the role and represent that role, based on a characters background, knowledge, skills and social awareness - but that isn't always possible.
But, your system doesn't seem to address the benefits of those that have social awareness over those that don't? Or did I miss something? I understand that someone with high social skills may get access to more cards but the system your describing of 'snap' could be over fairly suddenly if a character has 10 social cards and an opposing npc only 1? Does this mean that the npc is at the mercy of the pc's questions and answers? And if it's a matter of one-up-manship you would eventually end up with this sort of situation.
This could be justified I guess, as there are people who's social skills are such that they can dominate a conversation quite heavily but I'm not sure it would be easily played out in a game setting - especially when the odds were stacked against the players.

[Raymond Caleatry]

Actually, the system is fairly biased in that regard for actual combat, but in social situations i didn't want that to happen as your opponent always has the option of "fleeing" socially (they can just excuse themselves and walk out the door) due to the slower time frame of the game, ie each card represents somewhere between 1 and 5 minutes of discussion.

Perhaps i should elaborate on the cards a bit more.  The deck for each player is always the same size and has the same structure.  50 cards split into 5 suits  numbered from 1 to 10.  The difference for each characters deck are the faces of the cards and their corresponding rules text, as a character gains experience they can replace plain vanilla cards with face cards that have additional affects in game, and represent the skills they have on their character sheet.  For instance, a character with knowledge local (London) at rank 3 would be able to put 3 face cards representing this knowledge into their deck.  For this mini-game only the different types of face cards are important of which there are.

Knowldege skills
Professions
Benificies
Combat Maneuvers

For the mini-game, i wished to say that knowledge skills, and professions can be deemed as strong topics, and the rest as weak topics.  The game starts by each player drawing a number of cards equal to a statistic plus their diplomacy profession (that is mostly likely to be zero for non-socialites).

Players initialize conversation by playing a topic and then role-playing their introduction to the topic.  From hereon i have currently decided upon two options, though i am looking for a third.

1) you can deflect the topic by playing a different topic of equal or higher strength.  This involves role-playing the transition of conversation to the new topic.
2) you can attempt debunk the opposition by playing the same topic over their previous one and role playing the argument against them.  The character with the greatest rank in that skill will win (this rank is recorded on the character sheet not on the cards).
3)I want a mechanic that involves use of weak topics.  Though i haven't thought this one through yet.

You gain points for debunking your opponent which you can use to purchase truthful answers from them.  Though the cost is associated with the vagueness of the answer.

Ray

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