Games with great social rules

[pemerton]

Yesterday @thefutilist and I played a session of S/Lay W/Me. A lot of what happened was social interaction, between the "hero" and the "lover/monster". It seemed to work pretty well.

The key rules are these:

we embark on an alternating, ongoing sequence of Goes, each consisting of descriptions and one significant forward-moving event. We use a simple turn-token, passed back and forth to indicate who has the Go and therefore must provide forward motion to the events. During a Go, both of us may talk, but the owner of the Go is the primary contributor and the only one who may fulfill that requirement. . . .

My Goes [the "GM"] typically consist of various characters' actions as well as events of the location itself, and I may introduce the Monster. Your Goes [the "player"] typically consist of your actions and words.

As we proceed back and forth, however, we must both maintain flexibility and extend authority to one another's spoken realm. You may describe the Monster's or Lover's responses to things you do and say on your Go, and I may say what happens to you and what you do to some extent on my Go. We always build on what has been previously stated. . . .

Every Go includes a forward-moving event. Whoever currently holds the Go token must provide it.

Forward-moving Goes use kinetic imagery. They include responses, such as whether the Monster grunts with pain or seems to ignore a wound, or how the Lover reacts verbally and emotionally. They include physical consequences, such as whether you easily fend off a blow and press forward, or are slammed into the canyon, tumbling over and over, but eventually rising and struggling on to challenge the foe again. . . .

Playing tight means that you describe things about what you do and say, bringing in aspects of physical locations, objects, and timing only with my permission, and describing other characters' actions and presence only with my permission. It also means that
although I have authority over everything else, I provide a little bit of chat about you at most, subject to your veto.

You and I may play fairly tight, with our respective roles only brushing in the details of one another's contributions, but too tight won't work. Goes will be too limited in content.

Playing it loose means we both have authority over one another's respective domains during our Goes, such that you "borrow" my Monster during your Go, for instance, and I accept your contribution as collaboration with an equal. We can both invent characters and have full authority over physical space and time. Along with brushing in each other's work, we also lay our hands upon it where the other left off, and extend it.

We should go as loose as we want, but no more. . . .

We each use and enrich what the other person says. We do not negate it or render it ineffective, and we do not suddenly redefine the situation or characters into things which had no antecedent in earlier scenes. During your Go, I listen receptively, willing to be entranced. On my Go, I take whatever entranced me during yours and I make sure we see more of it, in action or in depth or both. You are doing the same with me. . . .

Especially when our Goes are well-stated and we play a little bit loose, I describe your hero's response to violent and stressful actions, and you describe my Lover's or Monster's response to your hero's actions.​

In addition to what I've quoted, there is a rule for when dice need to rolled at the end of a Go, and these dice are the method by which the unfolding of events towards a climax is (i) paced, and (ii) resolved. But the rules that I've quoted led to (what I thought was) pretty good social stuff.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

The main problem with every social system I’ve ever seen is that it doesn’t really matter how good, articulate, or empathic your arguments are, just how high your stats are. Of course that’s very difficult to avoid - players are generally less articulate than their characters - but it can feel rather forced sometimes.

When you say doesn't "really matter", wouldn't the GM provide some sort of situational bonus (depending on the system of course)?

Also, there's a whole branch of OSR games typically eschew most "charisma" like concepts; and social portions are just handled as conversations at the table.

 

[Deset Gled]

Does Robert's Rules of Order count?

 

[CommodoreKong]

Smallville is pretty good. The commonest outcome isn’t that one side wins (gets what they want) but the other side becomes too Angry or Insecure to continue and basically storms out. Unless that’s what their opponent was going for, of course. Another lovely bit is that your Stress can be converted by a friend to Growth, so there’s a mechanical reason for pep talks and counselling. And of course the system requires you to define why you’re doing this and what you care about in your dice (Duty d8, Clark is Too Reckless d10).

The main problem with every social system I’ve ever seen is that it doesn’t really matter how good, articulate, or empathic your arguments are, just how high your stats are. Of course that’s very difficult to avoid - players are generally less articulate than their characters - but it can feel rather forced sometimes.

I think the negotiation system in Draw Steel does a decent job of trying to solve for this. While the does matter actually using arguments the NPC cares about and avoiding things that would make them unhappy is extremely important. There are other things that can help as well like speaking their native language and your party having a reputation they’re aware of.
There’s multiple degrees of success and failure based on how your party did.
Of course it’s not a system for every npc or conversation, just really important ones.

 

[Fenris-77]

Just to throw a notion into the mix, there's a reason why extended social interaction is so difficult to handle. An extended physical task, like climbing a tall cliff, can quite easily be narrated in a more granular fashion to match an extended task resolution mechanic (or simply abstracted into the rolls and described generally). With the climbing example is also very easy to identify key moments (almost slipping, jumping for a handhold, whatever).

The social equivalent, a conversation for example, can be really hard to do the same for. Drawing someone into a confession through conversation isn't easy to even describe in detail generally, never mind replicate at the table in media res. I'm sure there are GM-player pairs who could manage it, but I suspect it's very small subset of RPG hobbyists. So the abstraction is doing a different job with a very different target. I think it's also the case that it's much more difficult to even identify naturally important moments of tension (as compared to the climbing example above).

This presents a challenge at the table because a whole portion of the hobby wants to say that social mechanics are completely unnecessary and can simply be done via roleplay. That notion has attained the status of received wisdom in a lot of corners. However, I think it ignores the obvious. Unless you are trained in interrogation and psychology, and unless you have full working knowledge of the topics at hand (both GM and player) then this idea seems foolish when applied to the extended interactions we are talking about. For example, I don't know a goddamn thing about hawking, or a lot of other noble medieval pursuits (despite a degree in Medieval Studies, I'll add), nor about advanced interrogation techniques. I do have great communication skills but I still I don't think I could carry my end of that interaction at the table.

So, what we have is a bunch of ideas that will never please everyone. I mean we all knew that, but I think it's important to keep in mind. The actual need of given game for nuanced social encounter rules is very much a function of genre and expectations. Many games are likely better off without them. But the games that can use them have a real need (for some people who play those games anyway).

Imma get down off my soapbox now.

 

[zarionofarabel]

The main problem with every social system I’ve ever seen is that it doesn’t really matter how good, articulate, or empathic your arguments are, just how high your stats are. Of course that’s very difficult to avoid - players are generally less articulate than their characters - but it can feel rather forced sometimes.

Should how well a player describes a weapon attack, or any other physical activity, affect the probability of the outcome of skill tests involving physical activities?

Also, there's a whole branch of OSR games typically eschew most "charisma" like concepts; and social portions are just handled as conversations at the table.

Which means the whole process is Player vs GM rather than PC vs NPC.

 

[Fenris-77]

Should how well a player describes a weapon attack, or any other physical activity, affect the probability of the outcome of skill tests involving physical activities?

Which means the whole process is Player vs GM rather than PC vs NPC.

I think this depends on how you view social encounters. Is it more like combat, or is it perhaps more like really complex puzzle solving? Some games do indeed elide player cleverness from the equation, but to my taste that's a mistake. Despite my post above most people are far more skilled in actual talking than they are at swordplay.

 

[thefutilist]

There’s a load I like but the three greats are:

One person has their character say something and the other person thinks about that and then has their character say or do something in response: One of the core role-play mechanics for a reason and the base the next two work from.

Conflict resolution in sorcerer: As above but when there is a conflict you must roll the dice. So we have to identify that a conflict is occurring, drawing our focus. Next you have to choose which stat you’re rolling. This signals a kind of thematic flavour. If you roll with Will that says something different than if you roll with humanity. Finally. A failed roll doesn’t have to change your behaviour but if it doesn’t, you lose the amount of dice you failed by on your next roll.

Catch someone’s eye from Apocalypse World burnt over: On a success you say what the target is feeling (chosen from a list) and what you wish they would do. They still get to decide if they do it or not. On a fail you have a few options but my current favourite is to reverse the move. The person whose eye you’re catching says what they wish you would do, then you get to decide if you do it.

 

[dbm]

Should how well a player describes a weapon attack, or any other physical activity, affect the probability of the outcome of skill tests involving physical activities?

Many kind of do do that, either directly or indirectly. There is a wuxia system whose name escapes me that gives you a bonus when you describe your attacks in more detail.

More commonly, systems which have a degree of granularity to their combat resolution allow a character to pick from options like feinting, all-out attacks, called shots and so on. And in such systems these things have mechanical weight which mean picking the right option for you character’s skills and the foe they are facing will make a difference to the outcome.

 

[dbm]

The social equivalent, a conversation for example, can be really hard to do the same for. Drawing someone into a confession through conversation isn't easy to even describe in detail generally, never mind replicate at the table in media res.

My primary work function is technical pre-sales, which means I talk to customers, work out what it is they need, and then work out how our company’s services can help. I’ve had a fair chunk of sales training over the years and there are structures that can be applied to these kinds of interactions*.

I think there is a movement towards these kind of subsystems in games, with The One Ring, Draw Steel and even GURPS Social Engineering putting a process on key interactions to make them more game-able in a satisfying way.

* at a very simple level: establish rapport, opening questions on the context, establish credibility, deeper questions, initial offer, revise offer, finalise the deal. There is more to it than that, of course.