Mike Mearls on Social Encounters

[Warbringer]

One of the reasons I don't play a lot of horror games. If the game is only "scary" because the designers have to bludgeon the players over the head with enforced metagame fear or sanity checks, then its not scary.

Why? Sanity or whatever, is just a resource like hit points. Your actions as a player determine whether approaching -10 (current death threshold) is scary for the survivability of the character, likewise as you reach 0 sanity your actions determione whether it is scary.

But your reaction is irrelevant; in both situations the mechanic indicates the character is approaching a threshold. The rest is up to your roleplaying skills, or lack thereof.

I had a party moving through an underground area in Sharn where they knew there was a DQ hiding in the dark. I set the atmosphere, the rippling sewer water, the scurrying of rats, the almost magical darkness the sewers possessed. 6 players went completely paranoid, arguing with each other in whispered tones. On player however just goes down the corridor, he fails a 'fear' test with no immediate consequence, just goes "OK" and keeps on walking. The oneous in these situations is on the players to participate in the story. With out a mechanic that says do this or your dead some players emm incapable of playing their characters as anything other than a piece in a board game....

 

[Will]

I like roleplaying my character. But there are things out of my character's choice or control; am I weakened due to poison? That feeds my roleplay and limits my actions in mechanical ways.

Am I terrified? Ditto.

I mean, how often in life have we faced situations where unreasoning fears or instincts bubble up?

Now, I generally favor systems that don't say 'you can't do X' in most cases but instead say 'you are affected in Y way.' Like D&D fear mechanics; at most levels, your actions are circumscribed, but until you panick and run mindlessly your actions are still your own.

I like that, and would like to see it extend to other things.

Or another example, the busty lady, ah, busts out. This is a Distraction for several members of the party! But it doesn't demand specific actions, just maybe a -4 to notice the guy sneaking up behind us...

To sum up, I can understand the uneasiness about having character choice 'taken away,' but there is a fluid middle-ground where such things can influence characters and not take the character from us.

 

[Dragonblade]

Warbringer and FadedC, you both make excellent points and I can't really disagree with you. Its just not a play style that I personally find fun.

I could enjoy it for a one shot, but not for an extended campaign.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

And if the players don't want to agree to an NPCs demands? Well, they shouldn't be playing out a negotiation in the first place. They should be drawing steel or walking away.

Not necessarily. Perhaps by negotiating, they will get what they want. And if they fail to do so, they're not bound to abide by the agreement. It's roguish, but who says that the PCs can't be liars? If the NPC is true to his word, he's at a disadvantage compared to those who negotiate in bad faith, which is a pretty good simulation of real life.

 

[buzz]

And if they fail to do so, they're not bound to abide by the agreement.

Well, if you allow that it kind of makes the whole social resolution kind of pointless. I.e., you're basically reneging on the stakes you agreed to with the DM. At the very least, the fact that you're reneging needs to be worked into the consequences.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah as other people have said, the point of horror games isn't really to scare to players. That's almost impossible to do, the most you can hope for is a feeling of suspence. The point is to mirror the fear that the characters feel. A player won't be scared at all if his character finds the flayed body of his best friend friend in his closet, but you can be pretty sure his character would be put seriously on edge by this. A system that enforces that helps ensure that the player at least feels some apprehension and suspense when he decides if he should open the closet.

Never played with a good horror GM, then?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, if you allow that it kind of makes the whole social resolution kind of pointless. I.e., you're basically reneging on the stakes you agreed to with the DM. At the very least, the fact that you're reneging needs to be worked into the consequences.

Stakes agreed to with the GM =/= stakes agreed to with the NPC. That's a different ball of wax. You agree with the GM that your character will suffer some penalty, as a stake against successfully convincing the NPC to accede to your demands. If your roll fails, you might be required to do some task for the NPC in payment for partially agreeing to do what you want, or the NPC's organization may decide it doesn't like you, or some other actual penalty.

However, this sort of metagame negotiation is tangential to an in-game negotiation. If you negotiate that you'll kill the ogres if the mayor will first provide you with some healing potions, then pocket the potions and leave town, there will be consequences. But those consequences were not part of the negotiation. The die-rolling in that negotiation was probably two-fold:
1. Convincing the mayor that you're not lying if you are at the time of the negotiation. (a bluff check)
2. Convincing the mayor that getting rid of the ogres is worth the potions. (a diplomacy check)

The resolution of these outcomes is a completely different sort of mechanic than it would be if you were making a stake against the GM. In that case you'd wager "the mayor gives us potions" against "the mayor figures out we're lying to him about the ogres and smears us around town so no one will give us the time of day" (some kind of persuasion check). If you really wanted to be narrativist about it, you could wager against "the mayor figures out we're lying to him, and we feel ashamed of ourselves and suffer a penalty on further persuasion checks until we do something that makes up for our duplicity and repairs our collective sense of self-worth."

There are, then, two levels of social resolution: in-game, in which the question is, "how convincing are you?", and meta-game, in which the question is, "how much are you willing to risk against getting what you want?" I read D&D as falling into the former category.

edit: You do point out something important, however. D&D doesn't exactly support the former category very well, due to the design of Diplomacy as attitude-shifting. If Diplomacy was built to model "salesmanship" instead, it would work a lot better in the role it's been placed. Rich Burlew's Diplomacy rewrite is actually a good system for that.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Player 1: "I cut his head off!" (rolls a 1)
Player 1: "I cut his head off even better!" (rolls a 1)
Player 1: "Jumping into the air, I cut his head off" (rolls a 1)
Player 2: "I stab him" (rolls a 20)
DM: "He dies."
Player 1: "No fair! I mean, I SAID I cut his head off!"

Dice can be a pain eh? My suggestion is to join a writers group if you dont want a game. People can act irrationally. Your rolls of a 1 indicated you failed at your attempt, the same as someone trying to stab someone, jump a chasm, or pick a lock.

Good counter-example, but I think what he was saying was that some things (such as the irrefutable proof/bullerproof argument) are essentially a coup de gras in verbal combat. You achieve a big success, without the need to roll.

To go with your counter-example:

Player 1: I plant my legs carefully, precisely place the tip of my sword on the sleeping guard's throat, and then push down with all my might. Oops, I roll a 1.
DM: Don't worry about it; he's helpless. You can't miss. Roll cdg damage.

 

[apoptosis]

There are, then, two levels of social resolution: in-game, in which the question is, "how convincing are you?", and meta-game, in which the question is, "how much are you willing to risk against getting what you want?" I read D&D as falling into the former category.

edit: You do point out something important, however. D&D doesn't exactly support the former category very well, due to the design of Diplomacy as attitude-shifting. If Diplomacy was built to model "salesmanship" instead, it would work a lot better in the role it's been placed. Rich Burlew's Diplomacy rewrite is actually a good system for that.

This is true there are two levels. But for a social challenge system the second one is the important one.

If you wanted to not follow-through that should have been part of the stakes that you set (i am going to tell him what he wants to hear, but do somethign different)

The issue comes up in that stake setting is intention based and conflict resolution, while basically all of D&D is intent-uncaring and task resolution.

Unfortunately task-resolution social systems have IMO never worked well. Either you run into the issue where the challenge is all one-sided (i can bluff the guard, he cant bluff me) or runs into DM social mind control of the character which many people hate.

Stake setting allows both a 2-sided conflict AND player control (as they get to decide the stakes (loss of PC-control) they are willling to risk)

 

[FadedC]

Warbringer and FadedC, you both make excellent points and I can't really disagree with you. Its just not a play style that I personally find fun.

I could enjoy it for a one shot, but not for an extended campaign.

Well it's been a very long time since I've played Call of Cthulhu, but I seem to remember it was never quite intended for extended campaigns. The high lethality rate and tendency for characters who did survive to slowly go insane tended to discourage it. But it was fun for a few adventures.

Never played with a good horror GM, then?

I've had some decent ones, maybe never a true master. I'd be surprised if any horror DM could consistently scare his players, given that most gamers I know aren't scared by horror movies or novels (even if they might still enjoy the plot/suspence in them).