Confusion over social conflict

[Ihadris]

Hey guys,

I've run three or four sessions of the RPG now and I've been struggling with social conflicts. A large part of I feel is coming from confusion over what skills to use. Also, several of the players really geared their characters for physical combat- it's not that they dont enjoy social combat; it's not that they dont want social combat just their characters are not very good at social combat.

So between struggling with how to balance encounters and with what the skills do in the first place it's fair to say that my social conflicts have been less then thrilling. Any advice or examples from your own experiances would be much appreciated.

Ihadris

[Archmage_Cowl]

One rule of thumb i have found very helpful for social conflicts is to stay true to the "intent precedes mechanics" rule. Since there are so many different skills to use in a social conflict i generally ask the player what they wanna say, or the idea they wanna get across. If they say "I Dont want him to ever come near me again!" that's an intimidation attack. Or if they say "I want her to think i'm sexy." thats a manuever with rapport to place the aspect Hot For Me on the opponent.

Defenses are a little more complicated but follow similar ideas. If someone attacks with intimidation saying "you better leave before things get ugly." Then if the player says they dont want to be rattled, that is a discipline defense. Or if the player says they want to laugh in their face that's a rapport defense to laugh it off. Or if the player says they want to act scared but actually shrug it off that's deceit defense to put your false face forward.

The main thing about social combat is to keep it fluid. If you find your players falling back on the same skill over and over (like intimidation) then they probably arent doing it right, and they should change it up some. The other result of social combat being so fluid is that it's difficult to make a character who is extremely good at it as it can literally change how it's worked in the blink of an eye. Another bit of advice, dont forget to use aspects. Even if your character is all about physical combat there is still a good chance that some of their aspects could be used in a social scene.

That was kinda long but i hope it help (if it doesnt just say so)

[luminos]

which skills should get used for what can often depend on the exact type of social conflict going on.  A useful strategy for this is at the beginning of every conflict, ask each participant (and have the GM determine for NPC's) what winning this conflict would look like for them.  Then use that as a guideline for how things should proceed.

Empathy:  Kind of like Alertness, but also used for discovering peoples aspects (assessment) and detecting lies (defensive). 
Intimidation:  Brute force attacks, not meant to help win arguments, but useful for starting a fight and scare people into leaving you alone.  Almost always an attack skill, but useless if the goal is convince people that you are right about something.
Discipline:  Mostly a mental skill, but useful for controlling emotions, which makes it a good tool when you need to defend against intimidation.  Some edge cases may allow this to be used as a defense against non-intimidation when the goal of the user is to just keep a poker face, but these circumstances should be kept rare.  Most social interaction is going to be about more than just staying emotionless, after all.
Rapport: Kind of like Athletics, in that it can be used to defend in almost any situation.  It can also be useful in attacking and maneuvering when you are trying to use polite conversation to convince someone to give up useful information, or when you are trying to seduce someone. 
Presence:  Kind of like Endurance, and is mostly passive.  Can be used to defend when your reputation is on the line, and might even be allowed active use for maneuvers and attacks if you are making a speech to a crowd.
Deceit:  The skill to use when you are trying to convince a person of a lie.  The downside to this is that failing a deceit roll often results in the opponent learning some of the truth you were attempting to conceal.  Can be used to attack, maneuver, and defend, all depending on the circumstance.

[Ihadris]

Both those posts were a lot of help, thanks a lot. There are still a few wee points of concern that I have-

Firstly concerning the skill levels of the NPCs. Some of my player characters don't have many social skills listed other then Intimidation on their sheet. On the one hand I feel that NPCs shouldnt have low social skills just beacause the player characters do, especially when the concept is that they are good at it. On the other hand I don't want to set impossible challanges for PCs. Any advice?
 
Secondly, concerning skills like deceit. How do you handle players being lied to in terms of what you actually tell them? Because if I ask them for a role and they fail it they know the information they are getting is likely false right? I have a similar uneasiness when NPCs tag their own aspects- the players haven't discovered the aspect yet but it seems unfair to tag it and not explain how it is relvent etc.

[Archmage_Cowl]

Firstly concerning the skill levels of the NPCs. Some of my player characters don't have many social skills listed other then Intimidation on their sheet. On the one hand I feel that NPCs shouldnt have low social skills just beacause the player characters do, especially when the concept is that they are good at it. On the other hand I don't want to set impossible challanges for PCs. Any advice?

Well have the first major social combat come up over something fairly unimportant like whether or not the characters have to pay a fine for a parking ticket (really flimsy example but yeah). After the social combat goes down, probably with some consequence the pc's way, give them a chance to modify some of their stuff it they want. Tell them that there is a chance that some stuff like that can happen again. Also remember other skills can be used in social combat too. Like in an intimidation fight someone might use fists to take a "Threatening Posture". Maybe use guns to start "Reaching For A Weapon" stuff like that. Resourcefull players will be able to do fairly effectively in a social scene if they play smart, regardless of skill's (most of the time).

Secondly, concerning skills like deceit. How do you handle players being lied to in terms of what you actually tell them? Because if I ask them for a role and they fail it they know the information they are getting is likely false right? I have a similar uneasiness when NPCs tag their own aspects- the players haven't discovered the aspect yet but it seems unfair to tag it and not explain how it is relvent etc.

I usually describe it in the manner of what it looks like. One of the major abilities of deceit (under falsehoods and deception) is to make it appear to your opponent that they are actually winning while you are the one who is actually in control. On the invoking of NPC's aspect I totally allow that but i make it fairly obvious to the players that the NPC's are using one of their aspects and almost always give a strong hint to what the aspect may be. So if a guy wants to throw something at the PC's and one of his aspects is Major League Player. I would say something like "he throw's it like he Plays In The Majors." A pretty strong hint and again attentive Players will catch those kinda things. It also has the added affect that it keeps the players focused on the game

So hope that helps. If it didnt (very possible as i am about to fall asleep on my feet) just say something and i'll try again when i'm more well rested

[Ihadris]

It really is a huge help Cowl, so thanks very much. (Also, whilst you are still making sense, dont keep yourself up on my account!  )

I have been letting them use other skills in social, such as weapons when they have been trying to threaten someone as a social attack, but it just ended up that they used all of the skills they would normally use in physical combat over their social equivalents. Which whilst cool, seems to belittle the character of the player who paid for those skills on his sheet. 

Still a wee bit confused on deceit. Is it alright if we work through an example?

Let's go with something basic: the person they are talking to is claiming they dont know anything when really they do.

1.) The pc roll empathy and the Npc rolls deceit in defence, modified by rapport.
-Failure!: The PC sees through the deception and understand that the NPC knows something
-Success!: The PC has no idea that they are being lied to [but the player does, since the NPC rolled deceit and beat them]

2.) The NPC rolls deceit as an attack to utterly fool the PC into thinking they are innocent and know nothing. The PC rolls empathy in defence. (Could rapport work here?)
-Failure!: In trying to push the falsehood too far the NPC reveals themsevles. (any aspects or consequences appropraite here?)
-Success!: The NPC places the consequence "Is sure of my innocence" on the PC. (Perhaps compells it to make them stop asking him questions?)

Also, could you just use Deceit to perform a manuever to place and then compell an aspect in a similar manner to example 2's success?

[luminos]

I have been letting them use other skills in social, such as weapons when they have been trying to threaten someone as a social attack, but it just ended up that they used all of the skills they would normally use in physical combat over their social equivalents. Which whilst cool, seems to belittle the character of the player who paid for those skills on his sheet. 

This is a good point.  Archmage Cowls suggestion to allow creativity with skill use in social combat isn't entirely wrong, especially for newer players, but after you've gotten the point across of what the idea is, stop letting skills get used outside of there trapping.  Using weapons to threaten someone, for instance, could be a one time deal because it sounds so cool, but unless that character takes a stunt to allow that use of weapons in the future, you should restrict threats to the intimidation skill.  I am very much against the idea of letting all skills be used in all circumstances;  not only does that cheapen the power of some of the more niche skills, but it drains the flavor out of the game.

Also, its very much okay if the players lose a lot of social conflicts (at least in the beginning).  Usually, the stakes for these conflicts aren't too high and everyone on the losing side can often concede or even be taken out without suffering huge penalties.  Then, when they notice how they always lose, some of them might start to focus on social combat, to fill in that niche for the group, and you'll have more interesting games.  Or, they'll decide that its not worth the skills points, and you'll have more interesting games in another way, as they try to see if they can beat up the bad guys drastically enough to overshadow whatever difficulty there social embarrassments create (Just like Harry!)

[Ihadris]

Also, its very much okay if the players lose a lot of social conflicts

Yeah I forget that bit a lot, I tend to err on the side of making things a little easier but they way things have been going perhaps the chance of them loosing a few conflicts might not be so bad.

Using weapons to threaten someone, for instance, could be a one time deal because it sounds so cool, but unless that character takes a stunt to allow that use of weapons in the future, you should restrict threats to the intimidation skill.

I had thought of allowing them to use other skills to modify their social skills, so in this case using weapons to compliment their intimidation. What do you think?

[Deadmanwalking]

I had thought of allowing them to use other skills to modify their social skills, so in this case using weapons to compliment their intimidation. What do you think?

Personally, I'd handle this kind of thing as a Navel-Gazing Maneuver with Weapons to put an "Obviously Armed" Aspect on themselves, followed the next turn by them tagging it to add +2 to their Intimidation. Simple, easy, and effective. I might even allow it as a Supplemental action (since that's what drawing a weapon is normally).

[luminos]

Still a wee bit confused on deceit. Is it alright if we work through an example?

Let's go with something basic: the person they are talking to is claiming they dont know anything when really they do.

1.) The pc roll empathy and the Npc rolls deceit in defence, modified by rapport.
-Failure!: The PC sees through the deception and understand that the NPC knows something
-Success!: The PC has no idea that they are being lied to [but the player does, since the NPC rolled deceit and beat them]

2.) The NPC rolls deceit as an attack to utterly fool the PC into thinking they are innocent and know nothing. The PC rolls empathy in defence. (Could rapport work here?)
-Failure!: In trying to push the falsehood too far the NPC reveals themsevles. (any aspects or consequences appropraite here?)
-Success!: The NPC places the consequence "Is sure of my innocence" on the PC. (Perhaps compells it to make them stop asking him questions?)

Also, could you just use Deceit to perform a manuever to place and then compell an aspect in a similar manner to example 2's success?

One of the ways I handle failure on deceit rolls, is to let the person looking for information get a little bit of it.  Probably not the information that he is looking for, but at least a tid bit that he can use to represent his character knowing the other guy is lying.

Let me expand your scenario to give a broader picture of the Deceit exchange:  PC (P1) and NPC (P2) are at a police station.  P1 wants to get information about a crime out of P2, and P2 wants to conceal the fact that he was involved from P1.  Notice that they have already performed the crucial task of deciding what winning would look like to them.  To P1, winning looks like P2 giving important information up, and to P2, winning looks like concealing his guilt.  There is even enough overlap between goals that interesting concessions are possible.

Exchange 1:
P1 tries rapport to get P2 to talk.  P2 beats it with rapport, so he talks, but not about anything important or helpful.
P2 tries to convince P1 he knows nothing with a Deceit attack.  P1 gets hit, but not enough to take consequences, so the deceit seems honest, but not enough to get P1 to give up the questioning.

Exchange 2:
P1 uses a rapport assessment to see if P2 is really as ignorant as he is claiming (GM rules this use to be acceptable).  P2 resists using Deceit, and fails.  So the GM lets P1 know that P2 is lying about what he knows, but not what, and inserts an inconsistency into P2's dialogue, along with revealing P2's Slippery Scum aspect to P1.
P2, not wanting to get further entangled in his disavowal's, decides to try a new tactic.  This time, he says that he knows for certain Big Tom was involved with the crime, but he was too scared of reprisal to admit it earlier.  P2 has the true lies stunt, and uses it to boost his attack (because Big Tom, apparently, was involved).  P1 get hit hard, and takes a consequence of "Uncertain".  

Exchange 3:  
P1 doesn't want to take any more consequences in this fight, so he offers a concession.  He'll let P2 go, but will still suspect him if the Big Tom lead doesn't pay out.  P2 agrees, and thats that.

[luminos]

Re: Weapons with intimidation

Navel gazing and allowing it to modify are both nice solutions, but they both miss an elegant bit of solution already provided by the rules.  Intimidation relies on "The context of Power" meaning that without weapons drawn, or some other obvious way to back up your threats, intimidation is less useful.  Use context of power modifiers (-1 to intimidation if you have no obvious physical advantage over other side, -2 if it looks like the other side has physical advantage over you) to make brandishing of weapons effective.

[Ophidimancer]

Well one of the things I would probably recommend is to have them lose a social conflict.  Bring in someone who's very persuasive or charming, perhaps a bad guy that you eventually want to do a Heel Face Turn, and have them initiate social combat and completely dominate.  When one of your characters is Taken Out, it's a good way to demonstrate how taking Consequences and being Taken out is a choice that the players make.  Remember that the winner of the conflict gets to choose what happens to the loser, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a bad thing.  It This bad guy could be asking for something the character would do anyway, but have mysterious ulterior motives for it.  You see this happening a lot in Harry's interactions with Gentleman Johnnie Marcone.

Just remember that it's the player's choice whether they want to take Consequences, Concede, or be Taken Out.  Losing a conflict is also a good way to replenish Fate Points.