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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7082281" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is an odd comment, because I don't know what my combat AC is either, or what I need to roll to physically hit or damage my buddy. These are just mechanical constructs. (And in the case of damage in D&D, don't even correlate to anything distinctive in the fiction - eg if an ogre with 20 hp takes 3 hp damage, we don't know anything in particular that has happened in the fiction except that somehow the ogre's chances of prevailing have been slightly set back.)That said, the episode of play I described - being a 4e skill challenge - doesn't use "social AC" or "social damage". It is more fiction-focused than that, and is resolved by the players accruing the requisite number of successes prior to suffering 3 failures.This seems to be about framing, and what is a permissible action declaration. (And  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] made the same point upthread.)Once the check has been framed and resolved, however, I don't see any reason why it is not binding on the GM just as much as on the players. Combat as a domain of fictional endeavour does not generate any distinctive demand of finality in resolution. (Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. The idea that social/emotional responses cannot be governed by binding mechanics unless, in the fiction, those mechanics correlate to the use of magic, is a more recent prejudice.)The only RPG I'm aware of which might have social mechanics that resemble this is 3E.I agree with the first bit. Of the systems I'm GMing at present, the one with the most abstract social resolution mechanics is Cortex/MHRP, but I have found that in play it produces quite strong ficitonal positioning, with a lot of colour in both action and outcome. I'm thinking of things like the trickster PC trying to buy off a giant chieftain with the ox stolen from the giant's own barn; or Bobby Drake swooping up one of the B.A.D. girls on his ice slide, and carrying her off into the moonlight; or Wolverine causing Nightcrawler to break down in tears by executing a captured NPC right in front of him. There's no ambiguity as to what is taking place in the fiction.Also with the second, though would add: I don't really see 3E-style Diplomacy as an action resolution mechanic at all (eg because it doesn't really require an action declaration). I see it as a species of scene-reframing: the player doesn't like the scene the GM has framed, with a hostile NPC/creature - and so, by rolling the dice, s/he reframes it into one where the NPC/creature is not hostile.I wouldn't say it's common at my table, but the example I posted upthread - where a player called me on my followup from a skill challenge because he thought my framing wasn't respecting the established fiction of the players'/PCs' success - might count as an example.My personal preference is to avoid stuff that a player finds boring or dull. (That's not to say that I always succeed. But this relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post quoted just above - if I realise the game is boring or dull for someone, I will act on that.)</blockquote>

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