Social Combat During Physical Combat

[Keryth]

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?

[OwleIsohos]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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.

[Sanctaphrax]

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's a link to a relevant thread that contains links to other relevant threads.

[cold_breaker]

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.

[Sanctaphrax]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[cold_breaker]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[Mr. Death]

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.

[Taran]

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.

[Haru]

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.

[Wordmaker]

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