Social Conflict - Any Good Examples?

[JediDresden]

I know all conflicts work like physical combat, but I am having some player's get confused.  They think it is wierd to socially 'attack' someone and what not.  Do any of you know - or have any good examples from your games that I might use to shed some light on social encounters for my group.  I want to have one in my next adventure and want it to be done well.

They get invited to the Whate court stronghold and get involved in a social encounter with the head White Court Vamp (think a Lra Raith type character - maybe not quite as powerful but close).  It will lead to the clues for the rest of the adventure, so I do not want them taken out nessesarily, but I want it to be challenging.

[Richard_Chilton]

When it comes to social conflict there's the balance between role playing and roll playing.

Example: Tom's PC Bill has no social skills above average - but boy is he great at tossing fire around.  Tom's an amateur actor and when confronting the Warlock, Tom's PC goes deep into character- role playing it out.  Bill has the Warlock examining his true motivation and he eloquently counters every argument the Warlock can come up with.

Dick's PC Ted has Rapport at Great and the rest of the social skills at Good.  Dick is going for pure escapism here because Dick's own social skills are almost non-existence - for him having Great Rapport is as big of a leap as Tom's PC being able to call fire from his hands.  When Dick's PC confronts the Warlock it's "Um, killing is wrong - I mean killing with magic is wrong, blowing someone away with a gun is okay.  Um, well, not okay but not against the law.  Um, I mean the laws of magic.".

In short, because of who they are in real life, Tom's unskilled PC is much better than Dick's skilled one when in comes to role play.

Compare it with Roll Play social conflict:
GM: "Okay, if you want to talk the guy down you'll need Rapport against his Deceit because he's going to be lying to convince you that he's a godling.  To save time we'll just compare attack to attack."
Tom: "+4! A Great result!"
GM: "He got +2, but he has Deceit at Good, so you take two stress."
Tom: "Shit! Someone else try."
Dick: "Okay, I'll try.  <rolls> +2, plus I'll tag my 'Silver tongue' aspect."
GM: "He rolls a 0, making it 7 stress on him, so he needs to take a consequence or be taken out."
----
This way the character with the skills wins regardless of how social his player is.


Um, actually, the example above doesn't fit the RAW.  What should happen is Character rolls his <attacking social skill> while Character B rolls his <defending social skill> then (if B wasn't taken out) B rolls his attack and A rolls his defense.  They go by social initiative order. 

And here are the pros and cons of each approach:
Tom: "We're rolling dice? Um, I come here to role play with an E, not roll dice.  This sucks."
Dick: "Talk him down? Um, I don't know what to say, but my character does. Can't I roll it?"

Then there's the middle way - or ways.  Assign modifiers based on what the players do OR saying "Tom, get into character.  Either act like someone with mediocre social skills or switch things around at the next milestone".  Sometimes you do both.

Richard

[admiralducksauce]

I have a couple examples.  Firstly, although you don't need to, I find it's very helpful to know what you're "fighting" for before you get into social combat.  Usually this is pretty clear - it's why you're rolling dice now instead of just roleplaying it out.  There are stakes involved.

Once each side knows what they're fighting about, you can focus your roleplay and your skills on that goal.

To use your White Court example, I think that for it to be a good social combat the vampire is going to want something from the PCs, something the PCs won't want to give her.  Likewise, the PCs need the vampire to... something.  Help them, or give them information, etc.  And she won't want to just hand that over.

"Can't you see we're on the same side here?  If we don't find those kids it's going to result in more police scrutiny and that's bad for your business too!"  (Rapport attack, trying to convince the vampire with a well-reasoned persuasive argument)

"I don't know where they are, but I could find out," the vampire might reply.  "It could take a while... why don't you make yourselves at home here until my minions return?"  (Rapport attack, or possibly Deceit in case she DOES know the intel.  Social skills can be highly variable.  It could even be a Rapport Maneuver, placing something like "Tempted by teh HAWTNESS" on the PCs for example)

"We don't have time for your succubus bullshit!  Do you really wanna turn this into a fight?  You might take us down, but you and yours are gonna be leaving here missin' ears or not bein' able to fuck anymore, you can believe that!"  (This is a pretty straightforward Intimidation attack, one of my personal favorites.  Consequences from such an attack could be stuff like "Lost Face in Front of My Minions" or "Not So Sure of Herself" or even "Scared Shitless" on a real good result)

"Fine.  The children are at 123 Sesame Street, in the old brownstone.  A hairy green trash elemental is guarding them.  Good luck."  (A Deceit attack!  She knows the kids aren't there, but if this is successful, maybe she can get a gang of hired proxy thugs in place to ambush the PCs for insulting her in her home.  If the Deceit roll doesn't result in taken out or consequences, well, the PCs simply are suspicious enough that the social conflict continues)

And so on.

[Rubycon]

I had my difficulties with social conflict, too. I now think that sociial conflict makes sense when one of the combatants really want to take the opponent out. Embarass him, ridicule him etc. The exampe above from admiralducksauce is more about diplomacy. I would play such things out - no rolls.

[noclue]

They get invited to the Whate court stronghold and get involved in a social encounter with the head White Court Vamp (think a Lra Raith type character - maybe not quite as powerful but close).  It will lead to the clues for the rest of the adventure, so I do not want them taken out nessesarily, but I want it to be challenging.

First, if getting the clues is important for the story to continue, do not make that hinge upon a contest where the players could fail and hit a road block. So, don't make Taken Out mean you don't get the clues.

Second, why is this a social encounter? What does the WCV want? What do the characters want? Are their respective wants in opposition to each other? You really can't have any kind of conflict until you know what everyone's trying to do.

Third, set up the conflict so that everyone at the table is willing to live with the results. Make sure that win or lose, the story remains interesting for everyone. Failure should lead to complications, not frustration.

Lastly, once all that's in place. Pick what skills you are using. Have the characters say things and do things and roll to see if any of them have any effect. If they do, roleplay the outcomes to show how those effects change the behavior of the character feeling them. Invoke and Compel Aspects if they seem relevant and intersting. Assign Consequences, if any, as appropriate from the roleplay.

Oh, and be prepared to concede if it seems appropriate too, rather than fight to the bitter end.

[polkaneverdies]

^ this. Very well said noclue.

[Sanctaphrax]

http://dresden-sanfran.wikidot.com/sample-social-conflict

Other (simplified) examples:

-A WCV is trying to bribe someone to reveal the location of another WCV. That someone is making noises about ethics that he doesn't actually have.

-A military man is trying to convince a couple of Fey representatives to help defend his city against a demon army while not fighting each other within said city.

-A diplomatic procession is trying to convince a group of Fey to let them pass through their land.

-A fire giant is trying to scare away a frost giant scion.

-A fire giant is trying to provoke a Space Marine to suicidal violence.

All above examples are from a PbP game. I can link to the actual events if you want.

[JediDresden]

Thanks links would be great, if it is not too much trouble.  Great situations and comment, this all helps.

[admiralducksauce]

I've got a social conflict between 2 PCs right now in a non-Dresden-canon PbP game (it uses DFRPG but is more like GI Joe than urban fantasy).  I've run into an issue of adjudication.

The situation:  2 PCs are arguing over whether they harvest a defeated NPC's brain.  PC A (Flicker) uses Deceit to sow dischord among the audience (other PCs), insinuating that perhaps  PC B (Dr. Wu) could be just as treasonous as Flicker might be.  That's pretty much 100% Deceit, I get that.  Flicker's player wishes to deal social stress rather than do a Maneuver.

My question is:  What skill should Dr. Wu defend with against the following speech:

"But if anyone needs their loyalties checked here, it's you, Wu! How very convenient that the SHARKcollars you built worked so well for everyone but you. Maybe Anatoli has permanently compromised you with his mentalism."

She smiles.

"Or maybe you were faking it all along. I'm sure the Chairman will be interested in that, too. It might help him make sense of your behavior in this mission."

My gut says Empathy, but Wu's Discipline, Deceit, and Scholarship are higher.  He has no FP and no stunts that would allow him to explicitly swap one trapping for another here.  I want to allow Wu's player to roll the most advantageous skill as long as I can justify it.  I don't want to say "roll your best skill no matter what" because it devalues stunts.

So guys, what would you have Dr. Wu roll?  Empathy straight up, no contest?  Or another skill?  And if so, what would Wu have to do to justify that skill?

[sinker]

Seems like Flicker's trying to attack him through influencing others, so I'd say the best way for him to defend himself, is to persuade the audience himself. Deceit, Performance, Rapport, those would work I would think.

[Pbartender]

Since I just recently starting reading the first book, Storm Front, right off the top of my head I can think of four example social conflicts, which, from a purely narrative standpoint, would be worth rereading, if you have the book...

• Marcone and his thugs corner Dresden on the street. Marcone's goal is to try to get Dresden to back off the investigation.
• Dresden meets with Monica Sells, but she's being tight-lipped with information about her missing husband.  Harry needs more cooperation and information out of her.
• Morgan shows up after Harry summons Toot-Toot, and accuses him of violating the Fourth Law of Magic.  Harry needs to convince him otherwise to avoid summary execution.  (This one actually comes to non-combat blows, even.)
• Harry needs to get some information out of Madame Bianca.  Like the encounter with Morgan, an all-out fight is only narrowly averted.

Granted these situations weren't written with the game in mind, but you can read through them as see where one side or the other is making an "attack", and when they they actually scores "hits" that would effectively cause consequences and inflict temporary tagged aspects that can be taken advantage of.

[polkaneverdies]

Alright Admiral a couple of points.
First I can't believe you have the audacity to throw out a line like "they were trying to decide whether or not to harvest an npc's brain" and then leave me hanging with no more details. I have just spent the last fifteen minutes pondering the scenarios in your GI joe like universe. :p
 Second I am curious why you think empathy is the most appropriate skill. It would seem like a pretty straightforward attack against her that she would know is false. Iirc discipline and empathy are described as the main skills for social defense. Empathy would strike me as understanding the motivations for her opponents lie. Discipline on the other hand would be appropriate if she was controlling her reaction to the lie. Basically she is shrugging it off as pure BS. I don't think its a stretch and unless I am entirely mistaken RAW wouldn't either.
Edited for spelling

[Arcteryx]

First I can't believe you have the audacity to throw out a line like "they were trying to decide whether or not to harvest an npc's brain" and then leave me hanging with no more details. I have just spent the last fifteen minutes pondering the scenarios in your GI joe like universe. :p

LOL I was thinking the same. Brain harvesting! What the... I want in on this!

[admiralducksauce]

Alright Admiral a couple of points.
First I can't believe you have the audacity to throw out a line like "they were trying to decide whether or not to harvest an npc's brain" and then leave me hanging with no more details. I have just spent the last fifteen minutes pondering the scenarios in your GI joe like universe. :p

Sorry.   OK, real quick so as not to derail anything: The PCs work for a villainous organization, like COBRA.  They needed a mentalist's brain to power their Masked Leader's superweapon.  Problem was, this mentalist guy was Flicker's personal nemesis and she doesn't want his brain in a jar.  She wants to know that he is d-e-a-d DEAD.  Dr. Wu is putting the mission before any psychological hangups from his teammates and wants the brain 1) out of his mad scientist curiosity and 2) to appease his Masked Leader.

Second I am curious why you think empathy is the most appropriate skill. It would seem like a pretty straightforward attack against her that she would no is false. Iirc discipline and empathy are described as the main skills for social defense. Empathy would strike me as understanding the motivations for her opponents lie. Discipline on the other hand would be appropriate if she was controlling her reaction to the lie. Basically she is shrugging it off as pure BS. I don't think its a stretch and unless I am entirely mistaken RAW wouldn't either.

And this is why it's foggy for me.  See, Wu knows Flicker is spouting BS.  He knows he's not treasonous, but his teammates don't.  Flicker's attack is built around eroding Dr. Wu's social status by making Wu's teammates doubt his veracity.

For his defense options, I see Empathy as a skill he could use to, as you say, understand Flicker's motivations for lying - and then espouse those as a reasoned argument to his teammates.  Rapport is practically the same thing here; Wu'd persuade his friends that he's trustworthy.  If he could stomach lying to Flicker or his friends, maybe by accusing Flicker in turn about something made-up but plausible, he could use Deceit.  Performance would work to artfully shrug off the attack.  I don't see Discipline working, however.  Discipline would work if Flicker was trying to get a rise out of Dr. Wu or tempt him somehow.  She's not; she's targeting Wu's friends in a way, and Discipline is something you roll against that's targeting you.  That's how I see it, after reading the thread again and going over the trappings in the RAW.

But it's a neat example of how fluid social combat can be, although it's also an example of how muddied it can get too.

[polkaneverdies]

I was thinking of it more in the sense of Wu not caving to the social pressure and insisting they follow orders regardless of what nonsense flicker is spewing. I failed to really consider the option of her team actually stopping her if they drank flicker's koolaid. I see your dilemma and your point.

On a side note your game sounds truly awesome.