Intra party conflict and friendly npc's helping in a fight

[dplanken]

I ran my first Dresden Files RPG last week and I have a couple of questions I'm struggling with, I am in need of advice.

First of all, my players love intra conflicts, so right of the bat they initiated social conflict with each other, both mainly using intimidation (the only social skill they have). But does this require Social Conflict, or would a simple Contest or Challenge suffice? They want to be a threat towards each other so I don't want it to just appear as roleplaying "fluff". I want it to have consequences and a real life feel to it. How is this best handled?

Secondly, they have used social conflict on a police officer to get them tear gas and pretty much rob the whole inventory blind for their conflict. She (police officer) conceded due to peer pressure to get only the tear gas and thus risking her career for them. That's where the session ended, but I'm positive they will ask her to help in the fight. And story wise, the police officer would want to do that and it would make sense. But how do you handle an npc in battle? Is she an aspect on the scene they can tag, does she actually fight like the other PC's do?
What if a whole police force surrounds the buildings to help fight the bad guys, how do I deal with it.

Also, like said above, they will acquire tear gas. How is this best resolved. As an environmental gas that attacks anyone in the zone, as a block from attacking or moving, or as a manoeuvre. Or as something else I've missed.

Last of all, I have the feeling my players go a little overboard with intimidating every person around them, does anyone have ideas how to encourage talking and normal interaction besides intimidating?

Thank you!

[blackstaff67]

Just because someone uses a Social skill to attack me doesn't mean I'm bound to use a Social skill to counter attack.  Quite often someone may try to Intimidate someone only to provoke a physical attack they might not have been prepared to defend against.  Second, keep in mind that if they do this often enough, they'll get a reputation of being social bullies with everything implied in that.  Finally, the target in question might have situational modifiers or Aspects that, even with a PC victory, might not give them what they want.

Postscript:  See the notes on being intimidated in Your Story: just because you got "took out" with Intimidate doesn't mean you can't get even.  Your cop may give them the tear gas, but may also implicate them in something else altogether or even plot a rather nasty revenge, either by entering them in a crime data registry or getting his/her buddies together to harass or intimidate them back en masse.

[Mr. Death]

An NPC participating in battle is just like any other character participating in battle.

The cops surrounding the building would be an aspect on the scene, because that's way too many characters to juggle in a conflict scene, especially when it's going to be mainly the GM doing stuff.

[blackstaff67]

I want it to have consequences and a real life feel to it. How is this best handled?

Secondly, they have used social conflict on a police officer to get them tear gas and pretty much rob the whole inventory blind for their conflict. She (police officer) conceded due to peer pressure to get only the tear gas and thus risking her career for them. That's where the session ended, but I'm positive they will ask her to help in the fight. And story wise, the police officer would want to do that and it would make sense. But how do you handle an npc in battle? Is she an aspect on the scene they can tag, does she actually fight like the other PC's do?
What if a whole police force surrounds the buildings to help fight the bad guys, how do I deal with it.



Last of all, I have the feeling my players go a little overboard with intimidating every person around them, does anyone have ideas how to encourage talking and normal interaction besides intimidating?

Thank you!

Wait, they used social conflict (Intimidate) on a police officer?  Are they role-playing powerful politicians, lawyers or businessmen?  You want real world consequences, a real-life cop would have got in their face or called back-up and then got in their face.  You NEVER try to face down a cop; cops are taught to never back down from civilian conflict since the police represent authority and you never challenge that.

[JDK002]

I would strongly advise against inter-player conflict in the mechanical sense of the word.  Keep that as role-playing fluff and declairation skill checks, and combine that with compels to represent any conflict between players.  It means your players aren't filling up each others stress and consequence slots, and the losing player possibly getting a fate point can take the sting out of losing.

As for the NPC question: If It's a single NPC helping out, then It's probably best to write them up just like you would a PC, except you as the GM would be controlling them.  As Mr.D already mentioned, anything npc related that couldn't reasonably be written as an NPC would be an aspect.  Which leads in to the tear gas question....

I would make the tear gas a scene aspect that doesn't go away for that entire scene.  The players would get a free tag on it, then would have to spend fate points to take advantage of it after that.  It would basically be a catch all aspect they would almost always have justification to tag for attacks, maneuvers, and defense.  I would also remind you that scene aspects are double-edged and can also be used against the PC's.  If all the PC's are wearing gas masks for example, and an npc manages to rip the mask off a player via a maneuver.  Now the PC has almost no way to invoke the scene aspect, and is now prime compel material to throw a wrench into the entire groups plans.

As for overuse of intimidation, you could bait your players into intimidating the wrong person.  Off the top of my head someone who has armed lackeys.  Give him high Intimidation and an aspect or two like "A Mind like Cold Steel" and "Scariest Businessman on the East Side".  Give him a few stunts, one that allows him to defend against social attacks with intimidation, and one that gives him say a +1 bonus to Intimidate rolls when he's in a position of power against his target.  Calling in his goons as a maneuver/declairation not only gives him a free aspect tag of "Armed Entourage" (potentially giving him a whopping +6 social attack with aspect invokes), but also makes the chance of a physical conflict breaking out if the players aren't careful.

Forcing physical conflicts the players didn't expect or want to get into is the easiest way to discourage abusing Intimidation.

[dplanken]

Thank you for all the help. It seems I didn't roleplay that particular encounter very well. I don't think that police officer wants to help them out in the fight after all. She might just send a police squad to "help" fight the bad guys and then try to arrest the other "bad" guys.

The tear gas as a scene aspect makes sense. Would I then be required to compel the opposition who is in the zone with the tear gas, to leave that zone? Because who in their right minds willingly stands in tear gas.

Finally, the target in question might have situational modifiers or Aspects that, even with a PC victory, might not give them what they want.

Would the target in question need to use a Fate Point to use their aspect to not give the PC's what they want? Or just good ol' role play sense?

[blackstaff67]

Target in question, if they really dislike teh PC's more than they would truly fear them, might distort/twist things to screw over the PC's.  They may introduce an Aspect/Maneuver that they can get a free 'tag' on.  And yes, good role-playing sense as well.

Just remind them that in real life, unpleasant people are shunned or ostracized with few real friends; their real friends are either a) fellow like-minded sociopaths (like the Mafia or the Evil Empire in the Order of the Stick series) or b) are ignorant of their true nature ("Who the &$%^& did I marry?").

[Wordmaker]

It's also worth highlighting that, even if a character is Taken Out in a social conflict, they have some say in how they respond.

So a PC might intimidate a cop into backing off, but you can decide that the cop backs off because he doesn't want any innocent bystanders to get hurt, rather than being afraid of the PC in question.

If this cop Conceded, rather than got Taken Out, you do know you get to decide how she loses the conflict, right? Though I'm not sure a full Social Conflict is appropriate just to try and get some tear gas. That's more likely a single Challenge roll.

Is she bound to help them in the fight? If they're intimidating her (which I'm assuming since you said their only social skill is Intimidation)* I can't imagine she's helping them because she likes and trusts them. Can you tell us more about her situation?

In terms of having a single (or a small number) NPC with the group, it's really up to you how to handle it. If you want, you can roll dice for her like a player would for their character, or you can just rule that she does what you need her to without dice rolls.

One of the nice things about the conflict mechanics is that characters in a conflict are divided into teams. If you have three PCs and three vampires, each pairing of one PC and one vampire is a single team, and for the duration of the conflict, you can only take on the opposing character in your team. Once those teams have fought it out, you can have the "survivors" start a new conflict if you wish, but it makes it very easy to keep allied NPCs from adding too many dice rolls or taking the spotlight away from the players by putting them in a team of their own, separate from the PCs.

*As an aside, they must have pretty rubbish Social Stress and defence if they don't have Empathy and Presence, correct? Getting into a lot of Social Conflicts could go very badly for them...

[Mr. Death]

One of the nice things about the conflict mechanics is that characters in a conflict are divided into teams. If you have three PCs and three vampires, each pairing of one PC and one vampire is a single team, and for the duration of the conflict, you can only take on the opposing character in your team. Once those teams have fought it out, you can have the "survivors" start a new conflict if you wish, but it makes it very easy to keep allied NPCs from adding too many dice rolls or taking the spotlight away from the players by putting them in a team of their own, separate from the PCs.

Where are you getting all this from?

[Wordmaker]

YS, pg. 198:

Step 2: Establish Groups

It’s important to have a clear idea about who is
going to attempt to take on whom in a conflict,
even if it’s every man for himself. Normally, the
standard division of groups is the PCs vs. an
opposing group of NPCs run by the GM, but
this isn’t always the case. Maybe two PCs have
vastly different goals in the conflict or even
opposing ones, and maybe some of the NPCs
are allied with the PCs.

Make sure everyone agrees on the general
goals of each “side,” who’s on which side, and
where everyone is situated in the scene (like
who’s occupying which zone) when it begins.
Once you’ve done that, you need to break down
how those groups are going to “divvy up” to face
one another—is one character going to get
mobbed by the bad guy’s henchmen, or is the
opposition going to spread itself around equally
among the PCs?

Usually this is pretty self-explanatory, but
it can be an important step in more complex
scenes, such as those involving three or more
groups with opposing goals.

Example: The GM knows that the PCs are
coming to stop a smuggling ring that’s been
transporting mystical stolen goods—arcane
texts and rare ritual items—out of the city.
She decides that there’ll be a shipment in progress
when they bust in. Four bad guys are on
the scene—a Mafia lieutenant she introduced
earlier in the session, the lieutenant’s bodyguard,
and two armed thugs who are handling
the main labor.

There are three PCs, so the GM decides
that the bad guys will split into three groups.
The lieutenant and the bodyguard will take on
one PC, while each thug takes on one of the
remaining PCs.

[dplanken]

The police officer conceded, but I couldn't think of anything other than; Okay I'll get the tear gas, but you won't get anything else.
And they did use intimidation, but they used it in such a way as too depict a horrible image of the victims if she wouldn't get them fancy equipment (tear gas, flash bangs, guns) in time. So she took a moderate consequence Guilty Conscience and then conceded to get them the tear gas.

And I think I should indeed have made it a simple challenge instead of a social conflict, but it's a big deal to the police officer since it requires her to break the law to get the tear gas. She's the police boss of that area and she's the only one of the police force who's in the know. The players are helping her out with a case (that they want solved for their own reasons anyways) that has supernatural players that her policemen aren't equipped to deal with.

I hadn't statted her up yet (didn't expect to need it!), and I copied the main skills of the OW;68 of a police detective. And that one didn't have any social skills, so she did pretty terrible. But other NPC's will definitely have social skills to deal with them.

[Wordmaker]

The handy thing about Fate is that it's relatively easy to come up with stats on the fly. Need a character to be a challenge to the players? Give them an appropriate skill a level higher than the PCs.

for how to handle the cop during the coming conflicts, you may as well try to keep her actions separate from the players. Give her a couple of thugs or a weak supernatural to fight in the background. Don't bother rolling, just say that her fight ends around when the PCs are finished doing their thing.

[Taran]

Be careful you don't get Intimidate mixed up with Rapport...

Intimidating is bullying, Interrogating and taunting or otherwise forcing someone to do something they don't want to do, while rapport is convincing someone to see things your way, which might get them to do something they don't want to do, but it's by their own choice.  They haven't been strong-armed.

Your PC's should be limited in what they are able to accomplish with Intimidate alone.

Make sure that when your PC's tell you what they're going to say or try to accomplish that you look at the trappings of each skill and decide which skill is most appropriate for what they're doing.

You're not gonna convince someone of a lie with intimidate - that's deceit
You're not going to convince someone someone of another point of vew - that's rapport
You're not going to be able to read someone's intentions - that's empathy.

You'll be able to force someone to do something and, afterwards, they'll probably try to find a way to get back at you...unless you can inflict some kind of lasting consequence - like a severe or extreme..in which case they might be afraid of you for a while.

[Wordmaker]

Yes! All of this!

If your players intimidated this cop into helping them, she should be looking for ways to make them pay for it. Finding outside people to teach her to fight the supernatural without their help. Passing that training on to other cops.

[dplanken]

If anyone is interested how it all worked out, my player wrote a recap in the form of a novella and I posted it here: http://dplanken.blogspot.nl/p/blog-page.html