Social Conflicts Like Pulling Teeth

[sinker]

Another thought: it is said that the players' Aspect choice determines the type of game and situations they want to see. Should their choice of Skills be factored into it as well?

If an entire group has put minimal effort into Social skills, should Social situations be emphasized less often? Or should they come up whenever reasonable, and simply provide consistently entertaining ways for the players to stumble, fail, concede and get Fate Points?

This is one of those things that you should establish at city creation really. Otherwise you can get groups like the one I had last, where everyone is physically focused except for me...

[devonapple]

This is one of those things that you should establish at city creation really. Otherwise you can get groups like the one I had last, where everyone is physically focused except for me...

These players are all Wardens-in-training running amok in San Francisco.

[sinker]

Talk to them then. Social conflict can be really fun but if your entire group is used to something else (and/or wants something else) then there's no reason to force it on them.

[devonapple]

One thing I failed to do was to establish Social Initiative - I was letting players just throw out options. That may have made it feel like they were throwing balls at a wall, rather than participating in something strategic.

[noclue]

I'm not sure how Social Initiative would have helped you? Can you talk more about that?

[devonapple]

I'm not sure how Social Initiative would have helped you? Can you talk more about that?

There is a psychological difference between everyone taking actual, regulated turns each exchange, and people just throwing out random rolls hoping for an effect. Having an Initiative would have set some sort of structure over the exchanges, which can help lend more weight to each person's choice. Without Initiative, players were sort of sitting on the sidelines letting one member do most of the talking, rather than participating.

It felt less like a Conflict and more like a horribly misguided Extended Challenge where the opponent occasionally tried to deal Social stress.

And maybe it should have been an Extended Challenge, pitting skill rolls and racking successes and failures, rather than having the interviewee "fighting back" with social attacks. But that's what I was trying to practice.

[devonapple]

crusher_bob has an example of Social Conflict which is a good object study.

[Sanctaphrax]

You're probably right about the value of initiative, but it seems to me that you would still have had a problem with it. This is because your group sounds very bad at social combat. Wizardly Discipline and Conviction ought to give them solid defenses, but they need to be able to attack if they want to win. So what you have here is a conflict where neither side can inflict any damage. That'll go badly no matter how well-run the conflict is.

If one of your players has refresh to spare, then maybe you can convince them to take a stunt that lets them attack with Conviction. It's thematically justifiable and would help rather a lot in this situation. Also, a Warden should have a decent Intimidation skill. Perhaps you could have one of their superiors chew them out for not being scary enough.

What I'm trying to say is that your players need to be able to make social attacks if you want to involve them in social combat.

PS: That's quite a good example. I've seen a few of those examples of play around these boards already, and I'm starting to think that a Resource thread with links to all of them would be good idea. Still need a few more examples for a decent thread, though.

[devonapple]

If one of your players has refresh to spare, then maybe you can convince them to take a stunt that lets them attack with Conviction. It's thematically justifiable and would help rather a lot in this situation. Also, a Warden should have a decent Intimidation skill. Perhaps you could have one of their superiors chew them out for not being scary enough.

These are 7-Refresh characters jealously hoarding their points to upgrade to full Wizardly power when they reach 8 Refresh, so I'm probably not coaxing a Stunt out of their precious allotment. Your point about the Wardens needing certain skills to be effective Wardens is a wonderful point though. Perhaps 'Warden' could be a written as a specific variant of the Wizard Template, with a few Musts added in, like minimums in Discipline, Lore and Conviction, as well as a minimum in one or more Social skills such as Intimidation, Rapport and Empathy.

[Sanctaphrax]

I like the minimum skills for a warden bit, although I wouldn't enforce them strictly. If a player wanted to play a Warden who was somehow incompetent, I'd probably let them.

I'd say that you need at least Good Conviction, Discipline, and Lore to be a full member of the council. Wardens would probably also at least need Good Weapons, Fair Endurance, and either Rapport or Intimidation at Fair.

[sinker]

I'd say that you need at least Good Conviction, Discipline, and Lore to be a full member of the council. Wardens would probably also at least need Good Weapons, Fair Endurance, and either Rapport or Intimidation at Fair.

Don't forget investigation!

Of note any wizard always has options in any conflict. Social conflicts? Fire/earth evocations to intimidate. Air/spirit evocations to ridicule/humiliate. Spirit evocations to charm. Of course if you're not careful you can break some laws and some of that can get grey really quick. It's all just a matter of coming up with how you're doing it but in the end it's just an attack spell that does social stress instead of physical stress, or a social maneuver instead of physical, etc.

[noclue]

regarding initiative, we're they really in a situation where move order was important? Was the Mother trying to get off a social attack before them? Were the PCs in competition for who would go first?

That's why I'm not sure the situation warranted iniative rolls.

[devonapple]

regarding initiative, we're they really in a situation where move order was important? Was the Mother trying to get off a social attack before them? Were the PCs in competition for who would go first?
That's why I'm not sure the situation warranted iniative rolls.

Neither am I. But I suspect that if everyone was asked to act *in turn* then everyone would have *acted in some way* rather than having one person make a few exchanges, get frustrated, then have someone else make a roll, and so on and so on. Nobody dominates the spotlight.  It is an organizational construct to focus and motivate everyone to contribute, however small, rather than fold their arms and wait until an idea comes to mind. So it may not matter turn by turn when each person acts, simply *that* each person acts. Does that make any sense?

[luminos]

Yes, use their choice of skills to inform you of the type of game you want.  No, this does not mean you avoid social conflict.  In this case, I'd interpret the skill choice not to mean that they want only one type of conflict, but that they want to approach conflicts so that when everything is on the line, a physical conflict is given weight.  Failure at social conflict will create barriers for their paths, forcing them to take more direct measures to get what they want.  This is good, because it reinforces what they see their characters as being about, seeing as how they choose a bunch of non-social skills. 

If I was playing a high-physical/low-social character, I would actually jump at the chance to get into social conflicts that I'd probably lose.  I'd get Fate points for conceding, the cost of losing isn't nearly as bad as the cost of losing a physical fight, and losing would be guaranteed to push the story into a more interesting direction.  Then, when that interesting direction pushes things towards a huge climactic final battle where everything is on the line, I use my banked Fate points to pull out the awesome.

Of course, there could be other reasons why people go low on social skills.  A lot of gamers don't expect a characters social ability to come into play, preferring to let the players ability to talk playing the dominant role in resolution.  If this is whats going on, then there is probably some mismatch with expectations.  It might be better to alter the way the game handles social conflict to accomodate this, if thats what the players all want.

[devonapple]

We had a much smoother Social Conflict at last night's session - thank you all for your help and recommendations.

I have a more basic question now, and it's probably common sense, but what about Social Conflicts between groups, or between uneven numbers of opponents?

For example, a group of players against one NPC, or a single player against a group of NPCs.

• Would one member of the group (presumably the most socially apt) serve as the voice, making all of the rolls to deal Social Stress, executing Social maneuvers, etc., with other group members restricting their participation to making rolls to assist the voice?
• Or is it a free-for-all, with the lone participant having to divide energy between all of the members of the opposing group?

It would make sense that ganging up on someone would have benefits to browbeating them, but I don't want to oversimplify the Conflict.

And in the case of two groups, more or less evenly matched in number, what decides the outcome?

• Does every participant of a given side need to be "taken out" or Concede in order for a decisive conclusion?
• Or does taking out/forcing a Concession out of one participant (presumably the leader) mean the whole side is taken out/concedes?
• What if there isn't really a de facto leader?