Social Conflict Resolution

[jburneko]

I've been wanting to discuss this for a while but haven't been able to construct a working example that demonstrated my question yet.  Then, about a week ago, I was provided with an example.

So, here are the rules for this thread.

1) I am specifically talking about Conflict Resolution as opposed to Task or Scene Resolution.

2) I'm specifically talking about a Narrativist context.

Here's the example, taken from the TV Show Angel.  The conflict is extremely complex requiring A LOT of backstory to understand in its totality, so I'll present it in its simplest form and add layers to it if necessary.

We have three characters, Conner, Cordelia and Darla.  Darla is Conner's mother who died giving birth to him.  Cordelia is pregnant with Conner's child.  The unborn baby is in danger because everyone believes it to be an evil demon.  Cordelia want's to perform a ritual to give birth to the baby early and the ritual requires sacrificing a virgin woman, she needs Conner's help with this.  Darla claims that she has been sent back to warn Conner and try to stop him.

So the basic conflict is that Darla and Cordelia both want something out of Conner and Conner is intemately related to both of them.  Ultimately, the choice is Conner's.

My question is where is the line (or potential lines) between what is left up to the System to decide and what is left up to the Player(s) to decide?

I'm very interested in how the different PC/NPC assignments affect this as well.  For example, I could see this being interpreted as a Cordelia vs Darla conflict with Conner's decision being decided by the dice.  That actually works great if Cordelia and Darla are two PCs or one is a PC or one is an NPC.  But what if Conner is PC and either/or both the two women are NPCs?

I'm primarily interested in how to apply Fortune resolution to social conflicts when a PC is the "defender" in the social conflict.  How do we not "rob" the Player of his ability to make thematic choices for his character without abandoning the System.

By the way, it's okay to use specific examples with specific systems if it helps.  In fact it might be interesting to see potential solutions across different systems and how they compare.

Looking forward to your responses.

Jesse

[Matt Wilson]

Jesse:

I think if you look at a game like Sorcerer, the system stays in the game quite nicely, and still gives the player free will.

I think in that situation, there might be some fortune involved in setting up the character's opinions about the morality of the situation, but ultimately Connor knows that at some level the death of that young woman is "wrong." Therefore if he goes along with the murder, the GM would call for humanity loss rolls.

The fortune involved plays a part not so much in the internal conflict as it does in determining the consequences of that conflict.

Not sure if that answered your question or not, but I thought that was a great scene, so I wanted to give it a shot.

[jburneko]

Matt, that's a really good point.  There are still consequence mechanics to consider.  In Sorcerer choices may result in Humanity Check/Gain rolls.  In the Riddle of Steels, SA's may get redestributed.  But that's AFTER the conflict is resolved.  Unless, perhaps, I'm missing something about definition of "resolution."

So you're right.  It's not like if Conner is a PC and Conner makes a choice NOTHING but Drama kicks in.  In some games there would certainly be fortune driven consequence mechanic that would make things interesting, thus impacting the decision making process itself.

But that wasn't really what I was talking about.  I was talking about deciding what Conner does, what choice does he make and what role System plays in the choice if Conner is or isn't a PC.

Hmmm... As a bit of a side note your answer may have just illuminated one of the subtler points about the Sorcerer system.  If Conner is a PC, and the two women are NPCs, then no system is employed for the actual outcome.  That decision is up to the player.  BUT System is employed as a consequence of that decision.  If, however, Conner is an NPC and either or both of the two women are PCs then System is employed to resolve Conner's decision but no system is used in the consequence stage.  What this means is that in Sorcerer, Fortune is employed in almost every conflict either as the resolver itself or as a measure of outcome significance, perhaps both.  Interesting.

Jesse

[M. J. Young]

Perhaps I don't see the conflict quite the same way. In my mind, it isn't whether Conner is going to be forced to abandon his principles; it's whether he's going to be able to hold to his principles and maintain his relationships with Cordelia and Darla--and if not, what will he permit to slip?

From Cordelia's perspective, it's whether she can get Conner to help her versus whether she has to find another way to do this; Conner's efforts to dissuade her open another option, but I gather she's in a difficult spot (or even the rather whifty Cordelia wouldn't be considering such a crazy plan) and so is caught between whatever consequences she fears from not performing the ritual versus whatever damage she will do to her relationship with Conner, whether or not she persuades him.

Darla similarly is trying to influence Conner's choice without destroying their relationship--although as that goes, she probably has less to lose there, being dead and all. At the same time, the consequences of her failure fall mainly on Conner, impacting her primarily through him (as far as the story suggests).

Obviously, if any of these characters are NPC's, there are a lot of ways you can build resolution systems that determine how they react.

As far as PC to PC or even NPC to PC influence goes, about the best I've come up with is to roll to determine whether the one character is persuasive, and inform the player that the argument presented is extremely persuasive even if it doesn't sound like that in the role playing. After that, you pretty much have to let the player decide whether or not his character is persuaded by a very persuasive argument. I might go so far as to suggest that the character has has serious doubts as to whether the outcome he fears is so certain, or the gains he hopes to receive so clear--in a sense, undermining the opposing side so the player who is fixed on a certain course of action might see reason for the character to hesitate.

It occurs to me that you might also manage something with reality tampering. In the scenario described (as I understand it) Cordelia doesn't know whether or not the baby is a demon, or evil; or whether the ritual would make a difference; or whether perhaps someone is manipulating her into thinking she needs to perform the ritual in order to save the baby. At the point at which your social mechanic suggests that Conner has persuaded Cordelia, you could introduce information that suggests that this ritual will actually have the reverse effect of what she hopes, but that whoever recommended it (or whoever told them about it) will gain something from this. Similarly, at the moment Cordelia persuades Conner to help, it could be that perhaps the victim need not be a virgin human, a detail no one had recognized before now (I'm not a big Kill Puppies fan, but it's better than sacrificing maidens). Thus you could change the situation in ways that change the factors in the balance, and so influence the players to let their characters go with the dice.

I don't know how well that works for you, but I thought it worth considering.

--M. J. Young

[quozl]

My question is where is the line (or potential lines) between what is left up to the System to decide and what is left up to the Player(s) to decide?

Jesse

I ultimately see this as a social contract issue.  The players will determine when the system gets used and when the players decide and each group will draw that line differently.

[Harlequin]

This is mildly adapted, but is an example of the sort of thing you were looking for, out of Pendragon (mine is 1E, so I don't know how it stacks up against later versions).

In Pendragon, the personality traits all come in pairs, summed to 20.  So you might have Chaste 15 / Lustful 5, or Forgiving 11 / Vengeful 9, and so forth.  Insofar as it has social mechanics, they pretty much always come down to contested Personality trait rolls.  One of Morgause's maidens tries to seduce a PC knight - she does so by rolling her Lustful vs. his Chaste.  Each one tries to roll under that trait on d20, higher successful roll wins.  If she wins, PC is seduced and - if this actually leads to RP other than fade-to-black - should RP accordingly.

On the face of it, that's simple - too simple for most of us.  Based on something out of the unopposed system, though, there's a more intriguing extrapolation.  Let's say our knight is rolling his Chaste to resist.  If his Chaste roll is successful (and higher than her roll), he can (and should) roleplay resistance to her charms.  If he fails, or his roll is beaten, however, then we don't switch instantly to his surrender.  Instead, one might call for a Lustful roll to follow it up.  If he both fails Chaste and succeeds Lustful, then his course of action gets dictated; if he fails both, then the rules do not dictate his behaviour, and we let them play it out.

Again that's simpler than most games want, though with Pendragon's themes and pacing (nominally one session is one year of life, in my edition), it ends up working really well; you want simple for most such things, the focus is elsewhere.  There may in fact not be any roleplayed result - we note that she seduced him, maybe use the child against him later, or awaken him in the dungeon, or what have you.  He may never actually interact with her verbally after that.  Maidens get pretty short shrift in Pendragon - the rulebook separates them into three categories, the first of which never gets a character sheet and is invariably named Elaine.  (I'm not kidding.)  But back on topic, the thought of having the mechanic able to either dictate or merely suggest, depending on the severity of the mechanic's result, is a useful thought.  Players may tend to submit more willingly to a rolled emotional state when that emotional state would have been nonbinding, if only the roll weren't so high - it feels less like a trap at that point.

In fact, it seems to me that there was something in (IIRC) Ron's review of Fvlminata, about the Intrigue mechanic, which would lend itself well to this sort of thing.  It had to do with the player defining three possible outcomes, Neutrality, Concession, and Full Agreement, and then rolling to see which options are open to the affected character.  Try turning that one around... anytime a PC is targeted by a persuasion-type effect, ask the player to define three versions of his behaviour assuming that effect succeeds, per these three criteria.  Then, based on the die roll, the NPC may be able to rule out one or two of these reactions, leaving the PC choosing from what's left.  If you put in some real RP leading up to the die roll, then the choice may even be a nontrivial one, informed not only by eliminating choices but also from that (brief) dialogue.

The key here would be letting the player define their reactions, and then choose; this puts as much as possible of their reactions into their hands, while yet allowing the mechanic to function.  It's also got shades of Illusionism hidden in there, incidentally - the breed of Illusionism you use to make two-year-olds do what you want.  We've long since noticed such techniques work on adults, too. :)  The basic idea here being that you always offer the two-year-old a choice: would you like to eat your vegetables off a plate, or out of a bowl?  The clear choices they are left with content them, and they're much less inclined to break out of the box.  When used in a context like the Fvlminata system, this is manipulative, in a good way... you're overcoming peoples' intrinsic "yuck!" reactions to a social mechanic, so that they can play the game they agreed to play.  Just make sure they understand that this is the way the rules work ahead of time, and you've got buy-in and a suppressed gag reflex - sounds mean, but really it's functional play.

That being said, I prefer not to use social mechanics on PCs, it's just not our local style at all, even when called for by the rules.

- Eric

Edit: Example was incoherent; has been fixed.  The Elaine thing remembered and added at the same time.

[Mike Holmes]

Jesse, in what way is Fortune used to determine what an NPC will do in Sorcerer? AFAIK, the GM decisdes what NPCs do. In fact Sorcerer avoids entirely, AFAIK, any rules that force any character, PC or NPC, to do anything. I think this is both intentional, and explicit.

Mike

[jburneko]

Jesse, in what way is Fortune used to determine what an NPC will do in Sorcerer? AFAIK, the GM decisdes what NPCs do. In fact Sorcerer avoids entirely, AFAIK, any rules that force any character, PC or NPC, to do anything. I think this is both intentional, and explicit.

I know that's true for PCs.  Are you sure that's true for NPCs?  If that's 100% true then what purpose does a Will vs. Will roll serve?

Also, I'm thinking about shared narrative system's like The Pool.  How would the above example be resolved using that system?

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

If that's 100% true then what purpose does a Will vs. Will roll serve?

Ah, I see. Yes, I think you can do a Will roll on an NPC. But then the player is saying what the NPC does.

In no case is it like Pendragon (as shown above), where the system determines what a character does. The system only in this case determines who says what the character does.

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Seems like the question is : what do you want the dice to decide for you, and to what degree?

They could decide a few different things:

1. What your character does

2. What the consequences are of whatever choice the char makes - like in Sorcerer.

3. Who gets to narrate - and you could then break this down a bunch, like how much do you get to narrate, and so on. And there are probably more.

The thing is, does a narrativist resolution system need to do #1 at all in order for it to be enjoyable/useful/whatever?

Note: It's interesting to compare the above with physical conflict resolution. 1 is like "do I hit," 2 assumes you hit if you want, and then figure out if it's effective, and 3 is kind of the same.

This leads me to ask, what about a FitM social mechanic? Roll the dice and then interpret them to decide what your character does. I kind of have that in Primetime Adventure, but it goes into task-level a bit.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

What's especially interesting in Sorcerer is the demon.

You see, in Sorcerer play, I see tons of (for lack of a better word) influence rolls. People use Will or Cover all the time simply to tell NPCs what to do, or to instil emotional reactions into NPCs in a more general sense.

"I want to intimidate this guy," or, more in-character, "You'll do as you're told, and like it, punk." Roll Will vs. Will. The GM now has a running dice-bonus associated with this NPC relative to the person who affected them.

But now take it to the demons. Demons are NPCs in Sorcerer, so the above principle certainly applies to them, especially with the astounding implication that any sorcerer can tell any demon what to do. But they also have relationships, identities-as-characters, and for lack of a better term, thematic weight in the game -- possibly emanating out of their role as the player-character's personal bank of powers.

It's an interesting character concept, neither PC nor NPC really, further complicated by their utterly-alien, or as Jesse puts it, NaN metaphysical role in the game-world.

I'm not sure if this contributed much to the issue at hand in this thread, but it might be interesting in that's issue's context.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Morgan]

I absolutely love that scene. When Connor finally made his decision, it was heartbreaking.

Here's something to consider when approaching a conflict of this sort: stance. If Connor is a PC: use author stance to determine his choice. As a player, do you want to see a (potential) humanity loss or a humanity gain at this stage in the story? Each side of the decision has consequences, which are you more interested in exploring?

If Connor's an NPC and either Cordy or Darla or both are PCs, I see his decision as either a negotiation OOC between the players and the GM, maybe with some sort of exercise in director stance (possibly some sort of currency bidding thingy), or simply GM fiat with attention paid to what the players themselves (as the audience) are interested in seeing happening.

Personally, I think this scene works best if Connor's a PC, and the other two are NPCs, because the decision is ultimately his, and it's great to put that sort of dramatic power in the hands of the player. Besides, the audience already knows that Cordy's not quite herself, and is either A. not Cordy at all, but Something Evil masquerading as Cordy, or B. Something Evil (possibly the baby) that's controlling Cordy. Darla's appearance is limited to this scene, so in my mind it doesn't make much sense to have her as a PC. Of course, there's also the idea of making them temporary PCs, allowing other players (whose PCs are not present) to give these characters' motivations a little extra weight, rather than have the GM act out both sides pleading with Connor at the same time. A particularly nasty thing to do would be to temporarily give Cordy to an unsuspecting player, allowing them to make their case as honestly as possible, all the while not realizing until afterward that Cordy is in fact (for all intents and purposes) Something Evil. After all, the best villains don't see themselves as evil, their actions are entirely justified in their own minds.

In any case, I'd personally steer clear of handling something with this much potential with a fortune mechanic.

(Aside to MJ: Aside from Cordy definitely knowing the entirety of the situation, even more than the audience, the virgin blonde in question was already right there in front of Connor, so the choice was pretty clear.)

-- Ben