Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Don Durito" data-source="post: 8159497" data-attributes="member: 6687260">One of the sticking points is what happens when the players lose?  For example in the example I gave the system is symmetrical, like in combat.  So if the PC is trying to convince the NPC that the Orc Army is a threat that must be stopped, and the NPC is arguing that it's really just some localised raids and nothing to get worked up about, then is the PC is now convinced the NPC is right.?  A lot of players would balk at that.You could possibly not play it that way and say that a loss for the PC side just means there's no further progress to be made.  But that highlights one of the other issues with complex systems for resolving social situations - they often model the particular type of social interaction the author had in mind at the time of writing.For example consider the following forms of social interaction:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Trying to convince the king to take some action in an audience chamber.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">As above but with some of this advisors arguing against you.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Carrying out a formal political debate to sway a crowd or just to make your opponent look foolish.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An interrogation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two people engaged in a political negotiation both trying to get concessions from the other side.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A seduction.</li> </ul>Basically you have to deal with situations which are symetrical in power vs those that highly aysmetrical, plus you have to deal with situations where the target of your actions is the person you are interacting with vs when in fact it is a third party, and you also have to decide whether you want, and how to implement, any symetry in outcomes for PCs and NPCs.  And part of the issue of course is that any system that can handle all of the above easily, doesn't necessarily handle any of them with a satisfying level of detail.It's not that it's impossible - it's just that it's a lot harder then making a combat system.  My experience too is that these systems need a lot of stress testing.  A lot of them look really good on paper because you can see exactly the sort of thing there trying to model and they work for that - it's just when you take them out in the wild and actually use them you tend to find you basically have to do a lot of individual reworking to fit particular situations that arise in game.</blockquote>

Verification