Problems With Social Conflicts

[Michael,HandofGod]

Ran my first game of the DFRPG tonight.  All in all, it went fairly well--the story went nicely, people figured out the fudge dice system decently.  Combat was a bit strange to them, mostly the stress system, but I think the players will get used to it.  The sticking point was Social Conflict.

One of my players found herself without Presence, Report, Intimidation, or Empathy.  Perhaps I should have made it more clear that these skills would have been important during character creation.  Regardless, we got to a social conflict--three guys who suspected their friend had gotten into some dark magic were being questioned by this player and one other (one with a few social skills) and didn't want to tell them.  This player was left with the sense that she literally could not do anything in this conflict.

Now, I realize that the idea of social skills is that they represent the social capabilities of the character, which are different from those of the player.  However, it still seems strange to them (and me, at times) that their character needs a  skill to use simple logic to convince people of things.  Perhaps I was misreading the situation and it did not actually need to become a conflict.

In all, I think the situation reflects a general mistrust of any roleplaying game attempting to apply mechanics to the roleplaying aspect itself.  While it might be considerably easier to remove the rules for social conflicts, I think the game would lose something for it--and perhaps more importantly, doing so would largely invalidate the character that one of my players created, a socially oriented face.  I am considering allowing my players to rearrange some skills, now that they have seen how the game actually works.  Does anyone else have more advice on how to make them warm up towards the social conflict system?

[Baron Hazard]

If I am correct, They can still use the skills, they simply have a +0 rating on them. which still leaves them the chance of getting a -4/+4 on a social roll without tagging or invoking any aspects.

Edit: so far from being unallowed too, they simply would not be good at it, this is fairly realistic.

[KOFFEYKID]

Yeah, that can be an issue, there are some skills that dont really seem all that important until you find out that they really are a pretty big issue. I would just suggest that you make sure each of your players have one social attack skill and one social defense skill they at least have a +2 in, otherwise they will be forced to spend fate points, to have even a small effect in social conflicts.

On the other hand, social conflicts are a great place for people who dont have any combat skills to shine in. If you have a party face, and you also have players that dont have any social skills, they should be trying to improve the effect of the face's rolls by throwing out maneuvers to place aspects on their foes, allowing the face to tag them and be even more effective.

For example:

Billy and Sam are basically combat bruisers, they know how to hit stuff, and they hit real good, and real hard, but they aren't terribly sly.

Alice, on the other hand, is a Social butterfly, she can lie somebody's pants off, she can convince you that your car is worth $10 and then you'll offer to let her take it off your hands for $5.

Alice is in a social conflict, and Billy and Sam are there to keep her safe. Since Billy and Sam aren't very social, they just stand behind Alice to back her up. They each roll presence, if they roll a 3 or higher they will put an aspect on Alice, called "My Back is Covered" and "My Friends are With Me!"

If they succeed Alice can tag both of those on her next big Intimidate "If you don't give us the information, the boys here will rape you with guns," netting 4dF+Skill+4 (That is pretty intimidating, I think).

Another important thing to note is stunts. Stunts can help you out allot here. You can do stuff like

Intimidating Stance: You are an obviously skilled martial artist. By dropping into a stance you let your opponent know that you are perfectly capable of kicking his teeth in. You let them know you mean business. You may use fists to roll intimidate.

[Victim]

Someone started without at least 1 in all of the stress track skills?  Wow.

it still seems strange to them that their character needs a  skill to use simple logic to convince people of things.

Really?  Why would anyone think that it's trivial?  Have you ever tried to argue with anyone on the internet?  

A character could still potentially do some maneuvers with other skills, even if most of the heavy lifting will be done with the social conflict skills.  For example, maybe try to place the maneuver "Watching X like a hawk" on yourself with Alertness, and then Tag it on an Empathy read because the character can pick up on little bits of body language more easily.  Contacts, Resources and Performance aren't exactly major social conflict skills, but they could also be used in some situations to support social actions too.

Aspects can also help.  Try to do stuff, fail a lot, and then when you get favorable results from the dice blow some fate points to expand the difference into a useful result.

But yeah, it really is a good idea to have skills for both types of conflicts (mental conflicts are generally much more limited, and often occur inside of or because of other conflicts).  Does the more socially skilled character have no Endurance, and no attack or defense abilities to use in a fight?  I definitely recommend allowing some rebuilding now that your players have a better idea of how things work in the game.  

The social conflict system in Dresden is pretty soft - if you're getting hammered, you can just concede and take a somewhat related consequence (the book example is something like "doubting my purity" on a chaste character getting hammered by a seducer) AND get a fate point.  It's hard to really make someone do something against their character concept.

[Viatos]

Intimidating Stance: You are an obviously skilled martial artist. By dropping into a stance you let your opponent know that you are perfectly capable of kicking his teeth in. You let them know you mean business. You may use fists to roll intimidate.

Might want to make that Fists (or Weapons, or Guns, depending on what you use) to Threaten, which is a single trapping of Intimidate.

[GoldenH]

If you are not trying to inflict Consequences on someone, it should not be a conflict, imo. Merely trying to convince someone of the facts that you have should hardly require a roll, if they will choose to do the action once acquiring the information. Though if you want to FORCE them into taking a certain action then yes, you should probably put a Consequence on them. Consequences that create long-term action

You could also try doing a maneuver on them like "Convinced by the facts" and then invoke it for effect. This can be tricky if they resist but you can boost your chances with self-induced maneuvers like "Prepared for a Debate" and "A good first impression goes a long way" before hitting them with the maneuver. You have plenty of time outside a conflict.

[Wordmaker]

For the purposes of speed, I like to save the full Social Conflict rules for important social interactions and showdowns, where even one wrong word can spell disaster.

Social mechanics are definitely of value, since human beings are almost never logical and consistent with their reactions. Your social skills represent a myriad of things that can influence a situation; confidence, eloquence, knowledge, ability to think on the fly, and just sheer force of personality.

Most of how a person responds to you in a social situation has nothing to do with the words being said, so facts alone are rarely enough to win an argument. Just watch a good courtroom drama to see that in action.

In the OP's case, I'd consider allowing the player to re-arrange her skills a little. If she wasn't quite aware of how important these skills could be, and especially if the group is new to the system, she deserves a chance to fix her character so it better reflects how she envisioned it.

[TheMouse]

Note: I'm using upper and lower case letters here very purposefully.

Not every conflict that is social in nature is worth using the Social Conflict rules.

Social Conflict is for those times when you're trying to do something big. You're trying to change someone's life view, or get them to commit treason, or otherwise trying to get them to do something they really don't want to do (or to not do something they really want to do).

Sometimes, your conflict is simple, and not worth a Conflict. Sometimes it's not worth rolling. Sometimes it is worth rolling, but not a bunch of times. It's okay to just chat things out, and it's okay to settle minor things with a single roll. You ask a guy a question. He lies to you. Roll to see if he lies better than you can perceive, and be done. You're not forcing anyone to believe anything; you're seeing if someone can lie without giving it away.

Then, once you enter full on Conflict mode, it doesn't replace role playing. You're not dropping into a grid based tactical system, here. You role play to entertain everyone at the table, then you roll the dice so that everyone gets to be surprised about which direction things go in. Role playing and rolling dice should buttress each other and help everyone to have a good time.

If you feel that someone did a particularly good job presenting their argument through good role play, it's okay to reward them. It's okay to say, "Dude, that was awesome. Take a +1 on that roll." Or, "Dude, you're the man. Take a free fate point after this exchange."

And remember to offer Concessions. When a dude is in a Conflict and is being backed into a corner, it's cool to try to come out less behind than otherwise. Offer most of what the other guy wants, but leave yourself wiggle room. This keeps things from dragging on.

[ahunting]

This is why that skill switch out option exists

One of my favorite games is Exalted, and one of the most hilarious parts of social combat is letter writing. Letters could mess you up socially. We got to the point where no character would read anything on the off chance it might be a letter attack.
Now that probably could translate into DFRPG using craft, but it just slays me to think about a initiative in a scene with a letter.
("I choose to concede to the letter" LOL)

[CableRouter]

Note: I'm using upper and lower case letters here very purposefully.

Not every conflict that is social in nature is worth using the Social Conflict rules.

I'd make that a general rule, "Not every conflict is worth using the Conflict rules."  Social conflicts should be no different than the other two types in this regard.  This goes back to the GM suggestion that every die roll actually count for something.  If it's really minor, you can probably tell just by looking at the skill levels involved if it would just be easier to make a simple ruling and get on with it.  I do this kind of thing with my group often enough, with the understanding that they can turn this into a full Conflict if they choose to do so.  Occasionally it happens, usually because they think that they can get more out of a situation that I'm willing to concede without a full conflict or if players have more story investment than I counted on and they want to see the entire scene played out.

If you feel that someone did a particularly good job presenting their argument through good role play, it's okay to reward them. It's okay to say, "Dude, that was awesome. Take a +1 on that roll." Or, "Dude, you're the man. Take a free fate point after this exchange."

I tend to keep this to a minimum, you use physical skills to resolve physical conflict and social skills to resolve social conflict; there shouldn't be much of a free lunch here.  If I have Lawrence Oliver sitting in my game and he's got Mediocre social skills, he might give the equivalent of the St. Crispin's Day speech in person but his character in the game gets about as far as "Fight hard and try not to die!"  What you can do and what your character can do should be separate.  I shoot IDPA but I don't expect to get +1 on any of my character's shooting rolls because of it.

That said, there is nothing wrong with rewarding really cool or entertaining stuff in game, just do it fairly and hand out the rewards just as often for inspired combat descriptions as for roleplay.

[Michael,HandofGod]

Having finished the scenario in question after another day of roleplaying, I think my group has come to accept the ideas of the system more.  Part of it was just how different the stress system is from others they have played before.

I have given them all the opportunity to redo their characters' skills with far more freedom than the milestones they've achieved would typically allow.  I figure that this is fair, since few of them knew much about the system during character creation, and they might not have grasped the importance of balance.  I still run into the issue of them all apparently being under the impression that skills under +3 are "not useful."  Maybe I'm setting the difficulty for things too high, I don't know.  The difficulty curve will solidify more as we play.

We also discussed social conflicts, and the biggest problem we have with them now is what happens when someone loses one.  We figure if someone is 'taken out,' they essentially crack and do whatever is asked of them.  They give in almost totally to the winner's demands, though still getting to remain in character.  We ran into the problem of social conflicts degenerating into physical ones--after all, if someone is trumped socially and gets made and decides to fight, doesn't that essentially rob the social victor of their victory?  We're still trying to figure that out.  I know that social conflicts have concessions quite often, so I figure most NPC's who are losing a social conflict will concede at some point, giving the players some or most of what they want while still retaining some dignity.  Any thoughts on how to handle losses in social conflicts?

[luminos]

If they get taken out in a social conflict, then the circumstances of that conflict determine if they can make it a physical conflict as well.  If they get beaten by intimidation, then hell no they can't turn it into a fight.  Generally, they can make it into a physical conflict after being taken out IF doing so doesn't run counter to the objectives of their opponents during the social conflict.

[toturi]

If they get taken out in a social conflict, then the circumstances of that conflict determine if they can make it a physical conflict as well.  If they get beaten by intimidation, then hell no they can't turn it into a fight.  Generally, they can make it into a physical conflict after being taken out IF doing so doesn't run counter to the objectives of their opponents during the social conflict.

So the best way for someone without really good social skills is to avoid social conflicts? Because their opponents can always Take them Out and have no physical conflict as one of their objectives?

[luminos]

So the best way for someone without really good social skills is to avoid social conflicts? Because their opponents can always Take them Out and have no physical conflict as one of their objectives?

If can't handle social conflict, then yes, don't get into a situation where that is important.  If you can't avoid the conflict, make a concession before getting taken out. 

[toturi]

If can't handle social conflict, then yes, don't get into a situation where that is important.  If you can't avoid the conflict, make a concession before getting taken out. 

How then would one know when a situation is a Social Conflict? Or are the 2 guys going to meet at high noon, eyeball to eyeball and see if the Social guy can open his mouth first or the Physical guy can clock the Social first?