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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 5117334" data-attributes="member: 4936">Well, in simple terms, combat is easy...relationships are hard. Ruleswise, that is.Combat, whether the second-by-second series of complex equations that is GURPS, or the "roll-and-shout" that is D&D, has an objective that's easy to write rules for. Does my sword hit? What happens if so? You're modeling physical activities that are pretty binary...there are few shades of grey involved. Success or failure is easy to determine, and have immediate and lasting results. The system needs to be "realistic" enough to handle a few basic reality checks (can a halfling pin a dragon by grappling its claw? does a frying pan do more damage than a greatsword?) but beyond that broad requirement it can be quite divorced from reality. None of us are actually mighty barbarians, or voluptuous sorceresses, so none of us can point and shout, "That's not how it would really happen!" More importantly, few of us really CARE how it would REALLY happen. We want it to be fun and memorable and awesome, like in the movies. Not dirty and bloody and awful, like reality. Thus, we have automatic buy-in.Relationships are harder to write rules for. We don't enter into them, generally, with specific outcomes in mind. There aren't any objective measures of success or failures...and one can turn into the other without warning, or even apparent cause. Moreover, we've all had -some- kind of relationships, no matter how antisocial we may be, and so there's always a notion in our heads of how these things work that a system of rules has to pay attention to. It's easier to accept Throk the Avenger diving off a cliff and slashing off a dragon's head as he plummets past, improbable as it may be in reality, than it is to accept that Throk the Avenger needs but tap a wench on the shoulder to earn her undying adoration. Paraphrased loosely, "No good...we've known too many wenches." Rules for relationships also get into a thorny area of abuse, where players who make extremely socially adept characters can break campaigns more thoroughly than any number of overpowered magic swords. What do you do when you have a PC who gets a critical success in "seducing the Queen." Ulp! Depending on the rules, he may now have access to funds, armies, political power...and even if not, he's controlling the flow of the game far more than anyone else now.  And then there's the question of how the social rules apply to player characters? I've seen games DIE over one PC trying to take advantage of another using social rules. It's worse than having someone fight you, because you can wear armor or use spells to block someone's sword...but what can defend you against the subtle manipulator?Most game systems I've seen get around this spiky hedge bush by throwing up a simple mechanic for use on NPC's, and then say "roleplay it." This is D&D and its associated d20 systems' solution. White Wolf provides more detailed social interaction mechanics, with various social skills either opposing one another, or being opposed by social statistics and/or willpower... If you want a system that tries harder than d20 to model social engagements, White Wolf is a popular alternative that might be worth a look at.I guess to summarize, I'll say this: Combat's easy to model with rules because in real life, combat is based on rules. The laws of physics. Thus, RPG needs only distill reality down...reducing complexity by making it less realistic. Relationships in real life aren't governed by rules or laws of any kind. There are guidelines...fuzzy things that are effective often enough to be useful, but can't be depended on. As a result, a game designer has to build the rules from scratch...and is always confronted with the knowledge that having rules to describe relationships feels inherently unrealistic...because it IS unrealistic. That's a steep slope for a game designer to climb.</blockquote>

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