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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6209433" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's a really important observation, and I think it explains fully my own preferences in a rules set.&nbsp; I tend to like rules that are really crunchy when it comes to combat resolution, but really light when it comes to social resolution.&nbsp; The reason is that the more crunchy you have in your combat resolution, the less abstract your combat tends to be.&nbsp; There gets to be a tighter and tighter coupling between the propositions made by the players, and the mechanics of proposition resolution and what you imagine in your head - what I call the game being 'cinematic' (though perhaps 'choreographic' might be a better phrase, given the many uses 'cinematic' is put to), in that the act of making propositions and resolving tends to encourage the player to make a movie in their head of what is happening.&nbsp;&nbsp; The only real limit here is a practical one - does the system resolve fast enough to maintain the emotional intensity and interest in the combat.&nbsp; A system that is so crunchy that it drags, tends to leave little time for or interest in imagining the scene.&nbsp; It becomes a series of dull still panels, rather that something dynamic and exciting.But the opposite tends to be true of social conflict resolution.&nbsp; The more crunchy your rules, the more abstractly it tends to treat social interaction.&nbsp; This is because the crunchy rules are replacing the very concrete and not abstract process of role playing out the scene theatrically.&nbsp;&nbsp; Naturalistic role-play at the table is the highest degree of concreteness you can possibly have for choreographing dialogue.&nbsp; The movie of the game is being created right there at the table, without the need to substitute imagined dialogue for the abstract mechanics.&nbsp;&nbsp; The only limitation here is a practical one - do the rules help me as a DM adjudicate the NPC's actions in a way that is neutral, without bias, and fair to the players (and their character's abilities).&nbsp; So some social interaction rules are desirable, otherwise I must accept the large burden of refereeing social interaction without any guidance at all, but the sort of rules I want tend to be only minimal 'fork in the scene' sorts of rules that give me a 'yes/no' answer to questions like, &quot;Does the NPC become more helpful or more hostile?&quot;, when the role play reaches a point where I have to choose which way to take the NPC's further interactions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6209433, member: 4937"] That's a really important observation, and I think it explains fully my own preferences in a rules set. I tend to like rules that are really crunchy when it comes to combat resolution, but really light when it comes to social resolution. The reason is that the more crunchy you have in your combat resolution, the less abstract your combat tends to be. There gets to be a tighter and tighter coupling between the propositions made by the players, and the mechanics of proposition resolution and what you imagine in your head - what I call the game being 'cinematic' (though perhaps 'choreographic' might be a better phrase, given the many uses 'cinematic' is put to), in that the act of making propositions and resolving tends to encourage the player to make a movie in their head of what is happening. The only real limit here is a practical one - does the system resolve fast enough to maintain the emotional intensity and interest in the combat. A system that is so crunchy that it drags, tends to leave little time for or interest in imagining the scene. It becomes a series of dull still panels, rather that something dynamic and exciting. But the opposite tends to be true of social conflict resolution. The more crunchy your rules, the more abstractly it tends to treat social interaction. This is because the crunchy rules are replacing the very concrete and not abstract process of role playing out the scene theatrically. Naturalistic role-play at the table is the highest degree of concreteness you can possibly have for choreographing dialogue. The movie of the game is being created right there at the table, without the need to substitute imagined dialogue for the abstract mechanics. The only limitation here is a practical one - do the rules help me as a DM adjudicate the NPC's actions in a way that is neutral, without bias, and fair to the players (and their character's abilities). So some social interaction rules are desirable, otherwise I must accept the large burden of refereeing social interaction without any guidance at all, but the sort of rules I want tend to be only minimal 'fork in the scene' sorts of rules that give me a 'yes/no' answer to questions like, "Does the NPC become more helpful or more hostile?", when the role play reaches a point where I have to choose which way to take the NPC's further interactions. [/QUOTE]

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