That's not accurate. I will not steal anything. Just won't. No amount of talking, tricking or manipulating can get me to do it. There are things that will fail across the board.
Will you ever help someone recover stolen property?
That's not accurate. I will not steal anything. Just won't. No amount of talking, tricking or manipulating can get me to do it. There are things that will fail across the board.
The hang-up seems to be no one wants to suffer the consequences of defeat,
I’m really not a fan of this either, but a system where being “socially defeated” allows you to choose to take a penalty or do the thing is massively preferable to one where you are just forced to do the thing.What might be an interesting compromise mechanic is if you had "social hit points" of some sort that if completely defeated left you exhausted or some other status effect, but it doesn't cause you to do the thing. However, you can avoid "social hp" damage by conceding points or moving your position a little -- kind of like choosing to take consequences instead of harm in FitD games. This way, your noble, resolute paladin can stick to his moral guns no matter the pain, and your more... "ethically maneuverable" sorcerer can win the argument through guile.
For me, the disconnect here is really that it's feasible to masterfully deceive someone without any "social combat" at all. Combat as-is exists as a stand-in to simulate actually stabbing and battering another being, whereas I can run a succubus that plays PCs against each other unassisted, maybe with a Deception roll now and again if her behavior ever comes under any serious scrutiny.Isn't that also the case in combat? "Thanks for that 1 HP; now I can jump back to my feet with no impact on performance."
Social interaction may be a lot less fleshed out that real combat...and a lot less fun, from a game design perspective...but I find it approximately as realistic. They're both hovering at about 3.7% realistic.
But, usually, you can't play a succubus that uses seduction to cause a PC to betray their king but this is a real thing that happens all the time in both fiction and reality.For me, the disconnect here is really that it's feasible to masterfully deceive someone without any "social combat" at all. Combat as-is exists as a stand-in to simulate actually stabbing and battering another being, whereas I can run a succubus that plays PCs against each other unassisted, maybe with a Deception roll now and again if her behavior ever comes under any serious scrutiny.
I can't remember the last time a succubus turned me against the highest representative of a sovereign state, but I guess I'll take your word for it.But, usually, you can't play a succubus that uses seduction to cause a PC to betray their king but this is a real thing that happens all the time in both fiction and reality.