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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 9050850" data-attributes="member: 7040941">DEBATE: Social Combat in LNOThis one is special, because I feel comfortable sharing an actual procedure. And this may come off sounding strange compared to how I usually carry myself, but thats because I'm on 4 hours sleep and absolutely delirious. So, I'm one of those types that really really hates social mechanics, but even so, I felt compelled by some mechanism in the universe to challenge myself to create a Social mechanic that would suit my delicate, snow-like sensibilities. I needed something that I could run and not have it really get in the way of roleplaying; it needed to be seamless, and work with the flow of a conversation in such a way that the Dice feel natural to be there, guiding the roleplay. To accomplish that, I came up with a system I uncreatively call Debates, a system of social combat specifically designed to resolve social disputes, like Haggling, Bribing, Rousing the Peasants, or other such things, that simply can't be resolved in the course of a 10 second conversation. In a nutshell, it's just Liar's Dice combined with Rock/Paper/Scissors. What I find very interesting about this system is that I can't actually remember what exactly made it occur to me to use Liar's Dice, as originally it was just all RPS, but in obscured hindsight, Liar's Dice is just an inspired choice. Liar's Dice by its nature is already a conversation-as-game that incorporates dice rolling, and once I figured out how to bring the RPS framework into Liar's Dice, I realized how player skills, your Persuasions and Intimidates, can be integrated into the system in a way that, if not exactly intuitive, just makes a heck of a lot of sense. So that's spiel; what does this system look like? First off, I want to note two things. First, in order to support this system, I have come to develop a 4th Energy to go along with Composure, Mana, and Stamina as discussed earlier; this energy is called Acuity. Not only will Acuity be integral to your participation in a Debate, but it will also actually serve as your Passive Awareness (and yes, Perception is still around as a totally separate thing, just trust me bro), and will also be governing a bunch of things, like various Skill actions one can take in Combat using the skills that fall under it, like your Persuasions and Intimidates. Secondly, to be clear, for Debates you will have 4 Primary skills that will be relevant. Those are Persuasion, Intimidation, Deception, and Insight They all, aside from Insight which has a bit more than usual, do more or less what you'd expect them to in normal circumstances. So anyway, thats all the hullabaloo, this is the procedure:DEBATE SystemThe Debate system is a codified social conflict resolution framework that provides the means for players to formalize an intense social conflict, and resolve it in a dynamic, back and forth game of what is effectively a talky Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock combined with Liar's Dice. Procedure:1. Opening a Debate:  A debate is opened when any given participant first makes an Argument, defined as a Persuasive, Deceptive, or Intimidating statement intended to convince another entity towards some course of action 2. Determining Social Initiative:  The iniative order is determined automatically as participants engage in the Debate; whomever speaks first takes 1st spot, 2nd takes the 2nd spot. All other participants will participate, starting from 3rd spot, by order of their current Acuity Score. 3. Opening Arguments: The initial Arguments made as Initiative is determined are simply roleplayed; no skills are rolled as this is the moment when participants must decide if they will commit to engaging in a Debate, and as such no arguments made here are binding. 4. Debating: To begin a round of Debate, each Participant rolls 2d10, keeping the result hidden from themselves and other participants, and may either declare which skill of Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, or Insight they wish to use, or may simply roleplay the argument, with the type of skill used assumed by what is said. Each player makes their Argument in turn, and when all participants have spoken, each participant may view their own dice. 5. Counter-Arguing: Each player in turn decides if they wish to make a Counter-Argument, which follow the same declaration rules as the Argument. If they do, they can choose to counter their opponent(s) arguments with another Skill, betting that whatever value they rolled will beat their opponents. Each player in turn may offer their own Counter-Arguments until at least one player refuses to do so. For each Counter-Argument given, the potential loss of Acuity for the player increases by +1. 6. Resolving the Debate: Upon the end of Counter-Arguments, the dice are revealed. Whomever has the highest total wins the debate, and the amount of Acuity they lose corresponds to their choices during the Debate, and whether or not the skill's used counter the opponent's chosen skill. For example, if a player makes a Persuasion attempt, this can be Counter-Argued with a Deception attempt, or opposing player can decide to use Intimidation or Insight instead, betting that the other player will attempt another skill to counter them in turn. In this example, the second player chooses Intimidation, and the first player declines to Counter Argue, when the dice are revealed, the 1st player rolled 15, and the second 10. As the first player used Persuasion, which beats their opponents final use of Intimidation, the second player will lose 1 Acuity for losing that round of Debate, 1 Acuity for losing the Counter Argument, and 1 Acuity for failing to properly counter their opponents Argument. 7. The procedure repeats until at least one participant has lost all off their Acuity. While all participants, Player and NPC, will retain their own agency in the aftermath of a Debate, meaning the desired outcome is never guaranteed, engaging in a Debate will open doors to different ways of achieving the desired outcome for Players, but these paths will come with consequences. If, for instance, one fails to Barter for a lower price on a Sword, in the aftermath of a Debate the Smith may inadvertently reveal ways to steal the sword or offer to make a fair trade by favor or quest.  What options exist for these will depend on the NPC's personality and their disposition towards you. Special RulesInsight: Insight, in addition to being its own argumentative tool in a Debate, can also be used to invoke one of the Player's non-Charisma skills, using it and any modifiers it has in the Debate. Which skill would be appropriate will depend on the NPC and what their personality is, but an amenable target has a high chance of being convinced by such Arguments, but be wary, as those that aren't, or worse yet those who have no respect for the skills you attempt to flaunt will not take the offense lightly. Using a non-Charisma skill in a Debate will induce double Acuity loss in your opponent if you win the Round of debate you used it in, but you will take double Acuity loss if you lose. This usage of Insight can only be countered by a better roll in the same Skill. For instance, if you use Smithing to convince the Smith to give you a lower price on the sword, they will be amenable, but if their own Smithing roll exceeds yours, you will lose that round of debate. Disposition: Depending on the NPC's personality, some approaches will offend them, and you will take Acuity loss as well, even if you win the Debate. Such NPC's will react accordingly to Arguments they take offense to (which may or may not be dependent on both the content of the argument, and the skill used to make it), and when they do so, you will immediately take the loss of 1 Acuity.===And thats it. By my estimation, its quite an elegant system, and it does precisely what it sets out to do in being seamless with roleplay, assuming players are familiar with the procedure anyway, which isn't something I can really avoid by any mechanism I've ever seen. I also realize I don't go into Dispositions and what all that means and how it'll be determined, but that has more to do with NPC design that I don't really care to get into for this. Generally speaking in the system, if you suspect someone would be amenable to being convinced by a particular skill, it'll either be very obvious or discoverable, if the players choose to do Research on whom they're looking to convince of something.</blockquote>

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