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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Keryth on April 22, 2013, 06:18:26 PM
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One of my players has posed a question thta I am not sure of. They're character is primarily a Social character, with few physical combat abilities. Now, they have been using social maneuvers to place aspect during physical conflicts, but want to do more. What they asked was can they initiate Social Combat on a target, while a physical combat is already in progress? Now, it seems a little odd to me for the Supermodel in the group to suddenly start taunting the Ogre and telling him how uneducated he is to cause him to flee, but, it also seems possible.
Any ideas/suggestions?
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I've done this as a social character before, but the GM has mostly handled it as me using my social skills to create blocks against creatures attacking rather than straight up social combat. My 2 cents is that it depends on the situation - is the Ogre going to listen to the Supermodel? Or is it too busy fighting the other party members to pay much attention to what she's saying? If it's in a blind rage, furiously pummeling everyone before it, it's probably not paying enough attention for her to get through to it. But if she gets its attention, or there's a lull in the combat, it seems like it should be possible to roll social attacks against it.
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I like social maneuvers in combat, especially morale boosts to allies or demoralizing/taunting enemies. Once you get into full-out social combat I think the thing to remember is how long is a "social exchange" vs a "Physical exchange".
I'm not exactly sure you'd have enough time to do lots of witty reparte in a physical combat...exchanges move too fast.
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I'd say just maneuvers would be acceptable. I think it's a given that once things have gotten to the point of physical violence, social conflict itself is pretty much over with.
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Maneuvers and blocks are almost certainly okay. You can maneuver/block with any skill as long as you present a decent justification.
Attacks are a bit iffier.
Anyway, here (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,31363.0.html)'s a link to a relevant thread that contains links to other relevant threads.
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I ran into this too. My 2 cents is yes - but it's not very effective. First, you're doing the wrong kind of damage - social stress doesn't stack with physical stress. Second, you need to consider the consequences of a social conflict are not as desirable in a fight with a physical creature, accept in certain circumstances - e.g. making an ogre start to stutter in the middle of a fight wont really help you hurt it - unless you can convince his friends to turn on him of course...
The end result? It's better to use social skills to place aspects rather than attacks. But on the other hand, if everyone else were to layer on the aspects and the social charactor used them to launch one massive social attack, it'd be effective, if not thematically awesome.
E.g. There's a big old ogre in front of our wily group of adventurers. Our group doesn't think they can take him in a straight on fight, but they figure he's more gullible than weak (he has more social stress than physical) so, when Hero A gets his turn, he places the aspect 'flanked!' on the ogre. Hero B places 'uneven footing' on the ogre, Hero C puts 'outnumbered on the ogre' and Hero D, being the social monster, uses all the aspects to launch a 10 social stress attack on the ogre. This is repeated and the ogre is convinced to surrender in a turn, convinced he can't possibly win and he should probably just give in and help them instead of trying to fight it out. The group sighs a sigh of relief: they've effectively circumvented the monsters toughness powers and formidable strength and finished a massive fight in 2 rounds. The GM grins, this is actually a pretty cool result.
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That might be cool once.
But I expect it'd get old after the third time a supposedly-tough monster got beaten effortlessly with Intimidation.
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I ran into this too. My 2 cents is yes - but it's not very effective. First, you're doing the wrong kind of damage - social stress doesn't stack with physical stress. Second, you need to consider the consequences of a social conflict are not as desirable in a fight with a physical creature, accept in certain circumstances - e.g. making an ogre start to stutter in the middle of a fight wont really help you hurt it - unless you can convince his friends to turn on him of course...
The end result? It's better to use social skills to place aspects rather than attacks. But on the other hand, if everyone else were to layer on the aspects and the social charactor used them to launch one massive social attack, it'd be effective, if not thematically awesome.
E.g. There's a big old ogre in front of our wily group of adventurers. Our group doesn't think they can take him in a straight on fight, but they figure he's more gullible than weak (he has more social stress than physical) so, when Hero A gets his turn, he places the aspect 'flanked!' on the ogre. Hero B places 'uneven footing' on the ogre, Hero C puts 'outnumbered on the ogre' and Hero D, being the social monster, uses all the aspects to launch a 10 social stress attack on the ogre. This is repeated and the ogre is convinced to surrender in a turn, convinced he can't possibly win and he should probably just give in and help them instead of trying to fight it out. The group sighs a sigh of relief: they've effectively circumvented the monsters toughness powers and formidable strength and finished a massive fight in 2 rounds. The GM grins, this is actually a pretty cool result.
I highlighted the point I'm about to bring up. What do you mean it doesn't stack? There is only 1 stress track. If you fill up your minor with a social, when the physical combat starts, you only have a moderate, severe and Extreme left. Your minor is already used up.
As for your example about the ogre: I think that's a definitely cool example. But it's all in the context that a physical contest hasn't yet begun. Once people start shooting/punching/stabbing, it's going to be hard get the ogre to surrender by just chatting.
But yeah...it seems like it should be possible to say, "hey ogre! you've been stabbed, tripped and have lost an eye, maybe you should surrender!" but that sounds more like a concession or take-out to me.
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I highlighted the point I'm about to bring up. What do you mean it doesn't stack? There is only 1 stress track. If you fill up your minor with a social, when the physical combat starts, you only have a moderate, severe and Extreme left. Your minor is already used up.
As for your example about the ogre: I think that's a definitely cool example. But it's all in the context that a physical contest hasn't yet begun. Once people start shooting/punching/stabbing, it's going to be hard get the ogre to surrender by just chatting.
But yeah...it seems like it should be possible to say, "hey ogre! you've been stabbed, tripped and have lost an eye, maybe you should surrender!" but that sounds more like a concession or take-out to me.
My understanding is that you technically have 3 parallel stress tracks. I don't see how physical stress would ever stack with mental or social stress - although I could see tagging a social consequence in a physical fight - IF it makes sense. Same with the consequences - minor social consequence =/= minor physical consequence. Just because you're emberassed doesn't mean you can't take as many punches. Please correct me if I'm wrong with rules though: I'd want to know if I got this wrong.
That said, there's one more thing I'd like to mention. That IF it makes sense line - it's true. I would never let my players use a free tag of any aspect (or heck, a non free tag) if they can't justify it narratively. I'd help come up with ways to justify it if necassary, but if we can't come up with a narritive reason that -8 consequence makes the other guy punch harder? You're out of luck.
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That might be cool once.
But I expect it'd get old after the third time a supposedly-tough monster got beaten effortlessly with Intimidation.
Yeah, that's among the bigger problems I have with the idea of social conflict--most any monster can be beaten easily in social conflict, but to me it just doesn't make sense that, for example, you'd ever get into a social conflict with, say, a Shellycobb or a tentacled horror.
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My understanding is that you technically have 3 parallel stress tracks. I don't see how physical stress would ever stack with mental or social stress - although I could see tagging a social consequence in a physical fight - IF it makes sense. Same with the consequences - minor social consequence =/= minor physical consequence. Just because you're emberassed doesn't mean you can't take as many punches. Please correct me if I'm wrong with rules though: I'd want to know if I got this wrong.
Nope, you only have one stress track. IT makes a certain amount of sense to me. If you've been publicly embarrased or something, you might be less confident in a fight....
But I agree with you that any tags/attacks need to make sense.
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Nope, you only have one stress track. IT makes a certain amount of sense to me. If you've been publicly embarrased or something, you might be less confident in a fight....
No, you have three. Physical, Mental, Social. You only get one of each level of consequence, but you have three separate tracks.
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No, you have three. Physical, Mental, Social. You only get one of each level of consequence, but you have three separate tracks.
Yeah, what he said. That was what I meant.
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I would usually confine a conflict to one type and then use skills that fall into other categories to create aspects and maybe blocks.
However, if I was playing a social character and I was alone in a physical conflict, I'd just selfcompel to lose anyway, self myself some trouble. And once I'm captured, I'll talk my way out again.
In a group, I'll just help the physical guys to be awesome, since it is their 15 minutes. It'll work the other way around in a social conflict.
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I'm in favour of allowing social conflicts to kick off in the middle of physical combat. It adds an extra narrative level to the game and means that non-combat characters can still get involved.
Of course, I wouldn't let the stakes or results of being Taken Out match those of the physical attacks. Intimidate a thug into leaving you alone, sure. But taunting them won't make them run away due to hurt feelings. I think it's very important to set out what you're trying to achieve by initiating any social conflict, so that different actions can be properly applied, and the end result (whether when Taken Out or Conceding) can be determined in advance. Otherwise you could end up with that ogre conceding the social conflict and proceeding to punch the hell out of you!
The other thing to take into account is that characters in conflicts are broken up into teams. So if you have a big fight scene, you can make each PC their own "team" and assign a particular NPC (or set of NPCs) who they have to take on*, so you don't have to worry so much about the social master stealing the martial arts master's thunder by intimidating his low-social stress opponent into fleeing in the first round.
*If all the teams resolve their conflicts and there are still opposing sides present, you could always start a new conflict scene with the remaining characters
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I can't see a social master intimidating the heck out of a beast to be honest. Not without a lot of maneuvers to tag anyways. The fact is that social attacks in a physical conflict are always going to be less desirable to physical attacks - except maybe in very rare circumstances. Gotta remember, the attacks need to have a plausible explanation to them. You can't just say 'I attack him socially!' - you need to come up with a way to do so. Intimidation, posturing, etc. For instance, social attacks on Sue the Dinosaur would be neigh impossible as ... well? Sue isn't capable of understanding most social attacks. I might deal with this as an auto concession in these cases: They take a minor consequence of 'oblivious' (or distracted) and concede from the social combat without conceding from the physical combat.
Also, I consider social attacks to require acquaintances around to be effective. After all, the bully doesn't have much ability to embarrass you in the school yard if no ones around to watch, right? Losing a social conflict typically means losing the respect of those around you.
I'd also say the consequences of a mental defeat or a social defeat would be much different from a physical defeat.
Also, I wasn't aware that there's only one set of consequences... I'm not sure I like this. I may house rule this though... I understand that a social consequence could be used against you in a physical fight, but in my mind you should be able to take minor social and physical consequences in the same scene... or even major ones. Again, this is because losing a social conflict has different (and often less damaging) consequences than a physical conflict.
By the way, just for reference, I'm going at this to try and make my combats as realistic as possible. I like to ask my players what they want to do and then figure out how to do that within the fate rules (effectively if possible), as opposed to asking my players what fate rules they'd like to exploit. In my mind everyone should have something they can do in every conflict - whether it's the bruiser helping in social conflicts by being intimidating, the talker helping in physical conflicts be being distracting, or whatever equivalent mental conflict version. Sure, everyone will have their preferred roles, but I like the way fate works in that there should never be a time when someone sits in the corner while another player 'shines.' Fate works best when people work intelligently together to solve a problem.
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I couldn't agree more. My favourite thing about FATE is how it encourages, and even requires, teamwork to reach its full potential as a system.
Definitely any form of social interaction must be restricted by the circumstances, just like physical attacks. It's up to each group to agree whether the scrawny med-tech winds up spluttering and stammering like Waldo Butters, or can pull off a level of surprising intellectual menace to rival The Doctor. ;)
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I don't really see why you can't have mutliple forms of combat going on simultaneously.
You frame the combat, declare which kind of conflict it will be and who the teams are.
Let's say you have 2 groups facing off.
The wizard says, I'm engaging their wizard in mental combat...but since It doesn't make me immune to physical attacks, I'm also in the physical combat.
The "bard" says, I'm going to convince their leader it's a hopeless fight.
So everyone is in physical combat and rolls initiative.
The wizards roll their mental initiative as well as physical
The Bard and the leader roll their social and physical initiative.
The mental entire conflict(consisting of multiple exchanges) might get resolved within one or two exchanges of physical combat.
Meanwhile, for each exchange of the social conflict, 3 rounds of physical combat are taking place.
It's more complicated, but it definitely has a depth - and to me - makes sense.
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That sounds untenably more complicated. Running more than one different type of conflict at a time, with different initiatives, I just don't see working at all.
And honestly? Once punches are being thrown, people aren't talking any more. A fight just doesn't work that way.
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Yeah, I never tried it myself but it would make for a neat experiment to have a layered combat like that...
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Given that Spirit of the Century doesn't differentiate between different kinds of stress (everyone just has a single 5-box stress track), I don't see any problem with using social attacks in physical combat. I'm not sure I'd personally layer it with different rolls for initiative, but I can see the appeal to the idea.
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That sounds untenably more complicated. Running more than one different type of conflict at a time, with different initiatives, I just don't see working at all.
And honestly? Once punches are being thrown, people aren't talking any more. A fight just doesn't work that way.
In reality? No... in comic books and most fiction is another story. Remember, the system is designed to tell a story, not emulate reality perfectly. Sometimes reality gets in the way of the plotline, and you need to bend physics a little to make life more interesting...
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I just don't see it working. The overall turn order would get confusing fast--especially if certain conflicts are taking place at a different pace than others at the same time.
For the given example, it's much easier to just make the mental conflict a consequential contest. That way, the rest of the table isn't sitting there as one player goes back and forth with a baddie for who knows how many turns.
In reality? No... in comic books and most fiction is another story. Remember, the system is designed to tell a story, not emulate reality perfectly. Sometimes reality gets in the way of the plotline, and you need to bend physics a little to make life more interesting...
Let me turn that around on you.
If the purpose is story, and the real aim of the players is social conflict, don't run a physical conflict at all.
Yes, the characters are grappling and throwing punches--but if the real purpose of the scene is for them to come to an understanding, then the punches and grapples are just flavor. Just run it as a straight social conflict. That's kind of how I see, for example, a fight between two superheroes--it's more about the conversation they're having, the flips punches and eyebeams are just window dressing.
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You know, he's not wrong. That's a really nice idea.
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For the given example, it's much easier to just make the mental conflict a consequential contest. That way, the rest of the table isn't sitting there as one player goes back and forth with a baddie for who knows how many turns.
Let me turn that around on you.
If the purpose is story, and the real aim of the players is social conflict, don't run a physical conflict at all.
Yes, the characters are grappling and throwing punches--but if the real purpose of the scene is for them to come to an understanding, then the punches and grapples are just flavor. Just run it as a straight social conflict. That's kind of how I see, for example, a fight between two superheroes--it's more about the conversation they're having, the flips punches and eyebeams are just window dressing.
OK, let me qualify my comments a little then. It's a storytelling game. I don't think most players would enjoy a game without use of the combat rules. :p
Again, in this case I think it's just about letting the players do whatever's most enjoyably while still being balanced. I don't think there's anything unbalanced, or - in the context of the story - unrealistic, about allowing social attacks instead of physical attacks in a physical combat. I'll qualify that by saying the player would have to justify it within the fight - obviously explaining complex political intrigue would not be possible, but certainly intimidation and direct attempts to convince the enemy to back off are not out of the realm of possibility. In real life, people don't turn into brainless zombies as soon as they start fighting after all.
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OK, let me qualify my comments a little then. It's a storytelling game. I don't think most players would enjoy a game without use of the combat rules. :p
Again, in this case I think it's just about letting the players do whatever's most enjoyably while still being balanced. I don't think there's anything unbalanced, or - in the context of the story - unrealistic, about allowing social attacks instead of physical attacks in a physical combat. I'll qualify that by saying the player would have to justify it within the fight - obviously explaining complex political intrigue would not be possible, but certainly intimidation and direct attempts to convince the enemy to back off are not out of the realm of possibility. In real life, people don't turn into brainless zombies as soon as they start fighting after all.
Actually, you'd be surprised what adrenaline does to people. A fight can make people lose all rationality--they may not turn into zombies, but someone who's pissed off enough to start swinging at you probably isn't going to care much about what you're saying right at that moment.
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Actually, you'd be surprised what adrenaline does to people. A fight can make people lose all rationality--they may not turn into zombies, but someone who's pissed off enough to start swinging at you probably isn't going to care much about what you're saying right at that moment.
There's usually more to it than just adrenalin though: perhaps the reason for the fight? Regardless, from a narrative perspective, it's no fun if the characters turn into brainless zombies every time they get into a scrap - whether we're talking about pen and paper games or writing a book.
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Actually, you'd be surprised what adrenaline does to people. A fight can make people lose all rationality--they may not turn into zombies, but someone who's pissed off enough to start swinging at you probably isn't going to care much about what you're saying right at that moment.
I agree with this. My personal interpretation, though, is that there's more to social attacks than just what you're saying - it's also about your body language and personal presence. An Intimidation roll could easily be about looming over someone, making a sudden, threatening motion, or otherwise acting in a way that makes your opponent react as though you're a credible threat. An opponent hopped up on adrenaline will still respond to those kinds of signals - it's communication on a more basic level.
In the end, it really comes down to GM discretion and what makes sense in the situation.
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I don't really see why you can't have mutliple forms of combat going on simultaneously.
You frame the combat, declare which kind of conflict it will be and who the teams are.
Let's say you have 2 groups facing off.
The wizard says, I'm engaging their wizard in mental combat...but since It doesn't make me immune to physical attacks, I'm also in the physical combat.
The "bard" says, I'm going to convince their leader it's a hopeless fight.
So everyone is in physical combat and rolls initiative.
The wizards roll their mental initiative as well as physical
The Bard and the leader roll their social and physical initiative.
The mental entire conflict(consisting of multiple exchanges) might get resolved within one or two exchanges of physical combat.
Meanwhile, for each exchange of the social conflict, 3 rounds of physical combat are taking place.
It's more complicated, but it definitely has a depth - and to me - makes sense.
Initiative isn't rolled. Not by default.
Would acting in the physical conflict prevent you from acting in the mental/social conflicts?
Given that Spirit of the Century doesn't differentiate between different kinds of stress (everyone just has a single 5-box stress track), I don't see any problem with using social attacks in physical combat.
The problem is that social attacks disregard physical defences entirely.
So a social attack in a physical fight can be like an infallibly-accurate instant-death beam.
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Would acting in the physical conflict prevent you from acting in the mental/social conflicts?
Well, I figure you'd have to be in both. People aren't going to not try to attack you just because you're shooting your mouth off at someone. There'd probably be good justification for declarations like "distracted" and what-not.
The mental combat might preclude you from other combats, making you an easy target...but that's just how I imagine it, not really how it would have to be.
The problem is that social attacks disregard physical defences entirely.
So a social attack in a physical fight can be like an infallibly-accurate instant-death beam.
I guess mental attacks do as well.
The thing about a social conflict, though, is I see exchanges taking way longer. So each attack would only occure every so many rounds.
Social attacks don't have weapon values which kind of balance it as well.
Like I said, I've never tried it. I'm curious how it would work, though. It might be like Mr. Death said: be too much bookeeping.
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The problem is that social attacks disregard physical defences entirely.
So a social attack in a physical fight can be like an infallibly-accurate instant-death beam.
And vice versa. Physical attacks also disregard social defenses. Or for the matter, mental attacks disregards social and physical defenses.
I'd say that Lynn Min-Mei's performance of "Do you remember love" is one good example of social attacks being insta-death beams. If, as a culture, you've got no social defenses, you suck diseased moose wang.
"Protoculture...!"
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Social attacks do ignore physical defence, but as Taran and toturi said, each form of attack ignores the defences of the others. It's up to each group to decide when a social attack would be possible, and what the consequences of being taken out would be. Social conflict isn't as cut and dry as physical.
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Social attacks do ignore physical defence, but as Taran and toturi said, each form of attack ignores the defences of the others. It's up to each group to decide when a social attack would be possible, and what the consequences of being taken out would be. Social conflict isn't as cut and dry as physical.
Hm.
This is phrased as if it was a rebuttal of some sort, but...so far as I can tell it's just a bunch of obvious statements.
I realize this isn't the most polite thing to ask, but I'm honestly kind of puzzled; what's your point?
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That you can't outright discount social attacks in physical conflict just because they circumvent physical defence, any more than you can say that it's not fair to punch someone in the middle of a social conflict.
You have to take each scene on its own merits to judge whether an Intimidate attack or Rapport would make sense. In some cases, intimidating an opponent into standing down in the middle of a fight will make sense. In others, it won't.
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Oh, okay.
I'm not saying it's always a bad idea to allow a social attack in a physical fight.
But it's not something you should do casually. There are problems with social attacks in physical fights that need to be taken seriously.
Physical attacks in social conflicts don't really have the same issues, since you can't win an argument by killing the guy you're arguing with. But you can win a fight by scaring the guy you're fighting into submission.
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I dunno, if I killed a guy who was arguing with me, I'd call that a win :P
Of course, that leads into one of the ways I like to adjudicate a taken out or concession result in social combat, which is that sometimes you're not trying to change your opponent's mind or convince them of anything, but rather, it's the people watching that you're trying to sway.
So if you have a super-powerful villain fighting the PCs, and you don't want that character to be cowed by a physically weak social character with a good Intimidate or Rapport skill, just concede and say that the villain's lesser minions quit the field. The villain has still lost the social conflict, but the fight itself still has to be fought.
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So, two things -
First, lets forget about physical fights for a moment. How about combining social and mental - seems oddly appropriate in some circumstances to have a social conflict during a mental conflict - say, arguing over a chess game? A mental conflict is not the same as a social conflict, but social manoeuvres seem oddly appropriate for a mental conflict.
Also, I don't think the rules explicitly state how long a round is. I always considered it arbitrary to the conflict. If you're having a footrace, a round might be a different chunk of time than a boxing match. I always considered the length of time a round took to be up to the narrator to decide what's appropriate. You do have to keep it the same for any given conflict - can't say one round is 6 seconds and the next is 10 minutes, but you can say a round in a wrestling match is different from a knife fight. The point is I wouldn't discount social attacks based exclusively on the length of time a physical fight takes as it's all relative. That said, do use reason when a player suggests an attack that would take much longer than an exchange to pull off.
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Absolutely. I love that DFRPG keeps round length fluid and adaptable. A social combat round could be as long as 5 minutes for a debate, or as short as few seconds for an intimidating glare.
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Thing is, though, mental conflict needs more justification than social conflict does--unless you're using some kind of mind powers, you can only do mental stress if you have something seriously personal on the target.
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Thing is, though, mental conflict needs more justification than social conflict does--unless you're using some kind of mind powers, you can only do mental stress if you have something seriously personal on the target.
Yes, and no. There are plenty of ways to have a battle of the minds - a chess game, a hacking competition, etc. They're rare, and theoretically someone would concede a game of checkers before taking any consequences, but mental conflicts exist. Not every mental conflict needs to be a psychic showdown between psionics :)
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A battle of wits is not the same thing as mental conflict. A mental conflict is something that's going to affect the characters mentally--something that has a risk of damaging or otherwise affecting their psyche. It's not just any conflict in which you use your brain.
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The worst case scenario in a physical conflict is death (or being uncouncious) - that doesn't mean an arm wrestling match isn't a physical conflict.
The worst case scenario in a social conflict is typically social alienation - that doesn't mean a mild debate isn't a social conflict.
The worst case scenario in a mental conflict is madness - that doesn't mean a game of wits isn't a mental conflict.
Think outside the box a little bit. All conflicts fall into one of these three categories - it's generally just a matter of who concedes first.
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The worst case scenario in a mental conflict is madness - that doesn't mean a game of wits isn't a mental conflict.
A game of wits isn't a mental conflict if there's no real chance of it causing madness or any mental consequence. There's no way that a game of checkers would ever cause someone madness--not unless the players had something seriously personal at stake.
Read the description of mental conflicts in the rulebook--it outright says that it's going to be rare and harder to justify because of the potential seriousness of the consequences. A simple game of skill is not going to be anywhere near appropriate justification for mental consequences.
Despite the name of the track, "mental" conflict does not mean "anything where you're using your brain."
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To be fair, the book does strongly suggest, if not outright state, that mental conflicts are one-sided, with the attacker applying some form of supernatural coercion on the victim's mind, and the defender can only try to resist.
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I'd say mental conflicts are rarer - even if you include things like playing chess. Not that I'd ever bother using the rules unless there was something major at stake. But I'm sure you could give yourself a headache or seriously shake your confidence in a particularly intense game of chess - both of which I'd consider mild mental consequences.
Saying it's not a mental conflict unless you stand a serious chance of scrambling your brian is like saying it's not a physical contest unless there's a good chance of being impaled on a spike - most people would stop short of any major consequence, but that doesn't mean it's not still a conflict.
Edit: to reply to Wordmaker: The book is getting into common major conflicts in Dresden files - I don't disagree with the statement that MOST mental conflicts are one sided - usually this is about supernatural creatures using their powers in a way regular humans can't.
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I honestly wouldn't call for a full conflict unless there were major stakes at play, regardless of the format.
Friendly wrestling match? Opposed Might check. Same with arm-wrestling. Unless there were real story goals on the line, I'd keep things down to a simple opposed skill check.
I can't think of a situation where the stakes would warrant Mental conflict for a chess game.
There isn't even a skill for Mental Attacks.
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Saying it's not a mental conflict unless you stand a serious chance of scrambling your brian is like saying it's not a physical contest unless there's a good chance of being impaled on a spike - most people would stop short of any major consequence, but that doesn't mean it's not still a conflict.
Well, no. You're trying to compare something vague (scrambling your brain can mean anything) with something very specific. A better comparison would be it's not a physical contest unless there's a reasonable chance of being injured. Mental conflict is about psychological trauma, not headaches or game of wits.
If it's a mental conflict, that means that someone could be reasonably expected to use up all their consequences before being taken out or conceding. That means that a mental conflict is something that one or both parties may need professional psychological help to recover from.
And the only way that's going to happen is if there is something seriously on the line between the two characters, that one has gotten under the other's skin to the point that he stands a chance of damaging his or her psyche.
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I suppose you could argue that torture might result in the amount of psychological trauma that might be expected from mental conflict, but that's probably better reflected through taking a Severe Consequence in a social conflict.
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That's a fair interpretation of the rules (I'd likely do the same), but not reading them as designed. I'm talking about what these situations are technically. Technically, a footrace is a physical conflict, a debate is a social conflict and a game of wits in any form is a mental conflict. For practicality sakes we may not run it that way, but that's what they are.
As a note: you can also take a broader definition to what consequences could be. A headache? Mentally exhausted? Can't concentrate? I'm sure if you tried you could come up with even extreme mental consequences that still don't amount to a form of insanity.
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Okay, true, but within the rules, how would you initiate a Mental Conflict, except with magic? There is no skill with the trapping "Mental Attack."
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I think it's specifically stated that Intimidation can be used to inflict mental stress. Usually through torture/interrogation.
Must...find...a page number...
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Well, in this case I'd probably say lore or academics would work as attack stats easily.
OK, a bit more realistic reason these rules might be used: Our theoretical players enter a warehouse where Bob the gun toting nut waits to shoot them. There's a standoff and the players realize very early that Bob is quite unhinged but in a straight out shootout there's no way that everyone leaves without some major damage. So they try something a little different...
Since Bob is obsessed with guns, and not particularly mentally stable, they try using their knowledge of weapons to see if they can't push him over the edge. They start up a conversation and try to convince him that his memory is wrong: he's got the safety on his gun on... did he use the right ammo? Did he assemble the gun right the last time he cleaned it? You know, maybe you should put that gun down, it'll explode and kill you if you screwed up.
Mechanically, I'd handle this as a series of social manoeuvres followed by one major mental attack. I'd probably let Bob defend with either academics or guns, and he'd probably start attacking on his turn anyways. In this case, the mental attack is delivered socially, but none the less it's an attempt to break him mentally, so I'd make the attack mental.
As a note: this is entirely situational. It's probably only worth it against someone who's mentally unstable (read: already has a few mental consequences in the first place, possibly from a different encounter?) Still, I'd love if my players came up with this kind of strategy in a campaign and figured out a way to exploit an enemies weakness rather than simply fighting him on his terms. As another note: I houserule that you have a different set of consequences for social, physical and mental tracks, so this might have to be handled slightly differently if you play by the normal rules (aspects instead of consequences on a person with this kind of weakness?)
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Or they invoke his "wacky Gun nut" aspect and he accepts the compel and goes crazy ;)
I think there's a bit of overlap with social and mental, but mental really is about psyche.
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YS pg. 217 "MENTAL CONFLICTS"
I was going to take out some snippets, but really, everything there explains it.
Also:
Intimidation YS:132 The last paragraph is the most telling (bolded mine)
Provocation
When you don’t control the situation well
enough to make your target afraid, you can still
use Intimidation—just not for the usual “be
scary” purpose. Instead, psychological or social
attacks may be made to provoke the target—
usually by enraging them or otherwise getting
them to lose their cool.
and
Threats
Ultimately, this is about power—defined here
as your demonstrable ability to control the situation,
rather than the victim’s control over it.
Without this context, the victim may be at an
advantage (+2) when defending, or may simply
be untouchable by this method of psychological
attack.
Under certain conditions, Intimidation is one
of the few skills able to deal direct mental stress
(see “Mental Conflicts,” page 217) to a target as an
attack, and you can use it both in physical and
social conflict situations.
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Or they invoke his "wacky Gun nut" aspect and he accepts the compel and goes crazy ;)
I think there's a bit of overlap with social and mental, but mental really is about psyche.
Touche, but I think that'd be a little too easy. lol. I don't disagree about the psyche, I'm just saying that it doesn't require magic powers to effect someone's psyche. I think an example of this might be the haunted house one shot they released - scary stuff tended to be mental attacks, even though the ghosts weren't using their powers to actually attack yet. In my mind brain twisters and riddles could be forms of weak mental attacks. Out riddling a sphinx might be another example of a mental combat without any specific mental attacks.
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Yes I agree...so here's that specific excerpt from YS which supports what you are saying:
Being able to attack the mental stress track
is no small feat. The kind of abuse necessary to
inflict this kind of damage on another person
usually takes a great deal of time and energy, the
result of established relationships going horribly
awry. Shortcuts exist—certain triggers in the
character’s history might allow access to deeper
recesses of the mind
...stuff about magic...
Between mortals, some sort of prior connection
or justification must exist to inflict mental
stress and consequences. An aspect that defines
a relationship rife with abandonment, emotional
degradation, violence, rape, or other potential
triggers would qualify for this, as it’s assumed
that the relationship has been going on long
enough to justify being vulnerable to this kind
of severe effect. When this is the case, many
actions that qualify as social attacks can affect
the mental stress track.
So with that said, if you have proper knowledge of a persons past - mechanically, this might be invoking an aspect related to this - your social attacks can affect the mental stress track.
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Hadn't realised that about Intimidation.
I'd count the case of the crazy nutjob there as a social conflict, completely. I figure social stress is mundane psychological trauma and emotion. Mental stress is when your mind is being broken down and literally scarred. You don't get that from many things.
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In my mind brain twisters and riddles could be forms of weak mental attacks. Out riddling a sphinx might be another example of a mental combat without any specific mental attacks.
Personally, I don't see this as mental attacks. I see a conflict against a Sphinx as a Cat and Mouse conflict where you use Lore and Scholarship as your rolls.
If, at the end of x number of rolls, you have more shifts, then you've successfully answered all the questions, if the Sphinx wins...well, it means you answered incorrectly and have now been eaten by a sphinx :P