Quote from: jibbajibba;683459Seduction Rules from james bond 007

And despite what pundit says the attribute auction from Amber , as it establishes social relationships between the PCs as a side effect of character generation.

Can you and or pundit elaborate on this a bit?

I am assuming there is a debate there between auction good/auction bad?

Quote from: Bill;683501Can you and or pundit elaborate on this a bit?

I am assuming there is a debate there between auction good/auction bad?

Not quite we all think the auction is awesome although to a degree people run them slightly differently.

We all also agree that Amber produces the most immersive role playign experiences we have been involved in. Players are enthused contact each other away frotme h game table in character to discuss aspects of the game in character and produce masses of additional game material.

Now Pundit thinks that is either because its a great system or because it's a great system and he is an awesome GM. I think that a very important part of the depth of roleplay in amber is due to the auction and the way characters are created.

An overview of the auction in case you weren't familiar.

For each of the amber stats , Warfare, Strength, Psyche and Endurance (though I add Sucession and Political Influence as well as 2 additional stats and some GMs split some of the 4 stats diffeently) the GM runs an auction.
The auction starts with the GM describing what the stat does and what its for, and again some GMs have different takes on some stats, but basically this is a salses pitch for why Endurance (or Psyche, or Warfare or Strength) are hte most important statistic. The players then record an opening bid in secret and then the GM runs an auction. The precise format of the auction may vary but central to it and here is where I think its great for setting up Social interaction the players bid agianst each other.

the auction sets up the rivalries and interaction for the entire game. The PC that doesn't quite secure a top score in warfare becuase they want to save poitns for Strength will alwasy be a PC who compromises their positiona nd looks to borad solutions not narrow ones. The one that Maxes out psyche will be labelled a sorcerer and probably tainted by chaos and not to be trusted.

Its a meta level concept but I feel it influences all social interaction between PCs in the game from that point onwards.

There tend to be a couple of problems with most social combat systems.

First, they're trying to model the extremely complicated nuances of social interaction within highly abstract systems. The same thing is true of physical combat, but we're trained from a relatively young age to process and accept abstract models of physical systems. On a deep, instinctual level, however, we're all wired to recognize "people acting weird" and a lot of social combat systems produce a multitude of uncanny valley effects.

Second, the gameplay in an RPG is literally "making decisions as your character". Social combat mechanics frequently take that decision making capacity away from the player. It puts players in a position where they're no longer playing the game. Physical combat systems can ultimately do the same thing (by knocking the PC out or killing them), but social combat systems tend to also take the next step of making decisions for the PC -- the game starts playing itself. This is problematic for a lot of players, particularly those into deep character immersion. "My character wouldn't do that!" is frustrating for almost every roleplayer and for some it can be destructive to their experience long after any given social combat encounter comes to an end.

With all of that being said, the best social combat system I've encountered is the one in Technoir. Unfortunately, there's really no way to port its model to other games because it's intimately tied to what makes Technoir unique.

In Technoir actions are resolving by pushing adjectives onto other characters: So if you wanted to shoot someone, you wouldn't inflict hit point damage on them. Instead, you'd make an action check to see if you could apply an adjective like "lamed" or "bleeding" or "injured" onto them. The same system applies to every conflict in the game: If you want to hack someone's personal network, you'd push "exploited" onto it. Similarly you can push adjectives like "intimidated", "frightened", "charmed", or "trusting" onto other characters through social interactions.

The system works because these adjectives inform the players about the character's current status, but they never take away agency: A frightened character, for example, can still choose to pull out his gun and take a shot. His hand will be shaking as he does it (that's the mechanical impact of the adjective), but the ultimate decision-making is never taken away from the player.

Quote from: jibbajibba;683510Not quite we all think the auction is awesome although to a degree people run them slightly differently.

We all also agree that Amber produces the most immersive role playign experiences we have been involved in. Players are enthused contact each other away frotme h game table in character to discuss aspects of the game in character and produce masses of additional game material.

Now Pundit thinks that is either because its a great system or because it's a great system and he is an awesome GM. I think that a very important part of the depth of roleplay in amber is due to the auction and the way characters are created.

An overview of the auction in case you weren't familiar.

For each of the amber stats , Warfare, Strength, Psyche and Endurance (though I add Sucession and Political Influence as well as 2 additional stats and some GMs split some of the 4 stats diffeently) the GM runs an auction.
The auction starts with the GM describing what the stat does and what its for, and again some GMs have different takes on some stats, but basically this is a salses pitch for why Endurance (or Psyche, or Warfare or Strength) are hte most important statistic. The players then record an opening bid in secret and then the GM runs an auction. The precise format of the auction may vary but central to it and here is where I think its great for setting up Social interaction the players bid agianst each other.

the auction sets up the rivalries and interaction for the entire game. The PC that doesn't quite secure a top score in warfare becuase they want to save poitns for Strength will alwasy be a PC who compromises their positiona nd looks to borad solutions not narrow ones. The one that Maxes out psyche will be labelled a sorcerer and probably tainted by chaos and not to be trusted.

Its a meta level concept but I feel it influences all social interaction between PCs in the game from that point onwards.

I can see that helping to entwine the characters together. However, can't you do that without an auction?

I am fine with the auction, and diceless roleplay by the way.

Looking forward to someday actually playing Olympus, Amber, or Nobilus.

As a big fan of greek mythology, Olympus has the advantage

Quote from: Bill;683523I can see that helping to entwine the characters together. However, can't you do that without an auction?

I am fine with the auction, and diceless roleplay by the way.

Looking forward to someday actually playing Olympus, Amber, or Nobilus.

As a big fan of greek mythology, Olympus has the advantage

Yes I think you can do it without an auction but makign character generation a social process that impacts both the Players and their PCs has interesting effects both in terms on identification between player and their PC and in inter PC interaction.

I built a social process for a board game using a trait called Guile.

There were 9 Guile cards Each identifeid in reasonable elaborate ways (eg 1:  Om, the Staff, Consciousness. 2: Deva, the Sereph, Action, etc  ) the defender selected 1 the attacker then got to make a number of guesses based on the difference in Guile so 1 less guile got 1 guess, equal got 2 then + 1 guess for each additional (Guile ranked 1-5) to select the one chosen.
The nature of the cards and the selction process made it a pretty fun mechanic.

Thinking about auctions I could see an RPG that gave PCs a pool of points to use in each scene and you could use those points to do a variety of things from social interaction to combat to skill checks. The limit on the pool would mean you needed to decide how to spend points each time pursuade the guard? all out attack? spilthe pool, take a 3rd or a 4th action?
I personally woudl only entertain it where the in game reality mirrored the system, ie as in Amber where Amberites can change reality in an almost 'sotrygame way' but only because the actual PCs possess that ability.

Maybe a gamewhere PCs control remote avatars, or are emeshes in some sort of controlled virtual space etc.

Quote from: Bill;683501Can you and or pundit elaborate on this a bit?

I am assuming there is a debate there between auction good/auction bad?

I don't think there's a debate there.  I think the Auction is awesome, and there's no question that it creates background-relationships between the participants.  How that means its a "social combat system" is beyond me, though. That would be like saying that Traveller's lifepath character-creation system is a social combat system.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;683864I don't think there's a debate there.  I think the Auction is awesome, and there's no question that it creates background-relationships between the participants.  How that means its a "social combat system" is beyond me, though.

I agree that it's not a social combat system.

I do think it's an example of taking an activity that might normally be done with informal discussion or collaboration ("Hey, who wants to be the strongest child of Oberon?") and resolves it using a potentially competitive procedure.  (By comparison, Dungeon World suggests that there be only one of each class in each party, which is a similar sort of restriction, it just leaves the group to figure this out using unstructured discussion and expression of preferences.)

So it's a little like a social combat system for players, rather than their characters.  This is obviously not a crisp category of thing, since if you squint just a little bit more, pretty much any 'mechanic' falls into this category.

Quote from: jibbajibba;683459Seduction Rules from james bond 007

That's the perfect example right there.  A James Bond adaptation without seduction rules is like a fantasy game without rules for hitting people with swords.

QuoteAnd despite what pundit says the attribute auction from Amber , as it establishes social relationships between the PCs as a side effect of character generation.

Great point there.

JG

Quote from: fuseboy;683886I agree that it's not a social combat system.

I do think it's an example of taking an activity that might normally be done with informal discussion or collaboration ("Hey, who wants to be the strongest child of Oberon?") and resolves it using a potentially competitive procedure.  (By comparison, Dungeon World suggests that there be only one of each class in each party, which is a similar sort of restriction, it just leaves the group to figure this out using unstructured discussion and expression of preferences.)

So it's a little like a social combat system for players, rather than their characters.  This is obviously not a crisp category of thing, since if you squint just a little bit more, pretty much any 'mechanic' falls into this category.

OK, well to be more precise, any bidding contest is more of a social game for the participants.  It's not necessarily anything that hinges on how their characters' social skills affect NPCs or each other.

JG

Quote from: RPGPundit;683864I don't think there's a debate there.  I think the Auction is awesome, and there's no question that it creates background-relationships between the participants.  How that means its a "social combat system" is beyond me, though. That would be like saying that Traveller's lifepath character-creation system is a social combat system.

RPGPundit

Both of which are awesome as character generation systems.  The only flaw with the auction is what to do with new players.  But as a way of forcing people to make trade-offs it is absolutely cool.

Many players handle 'competative' well, others....uh oh! reverting to childhood!!!!


"Omg! something bad happened to my character!!!!"




That being said, I do get irritated when other pc's pickpocket or steal from me

The importance of social mechanics to me is not so much adjudicating against the players but figuring out how to fairly adjudicate social interactions a lá Game of Thrones.  Generally, a simple Charisma check will suffice, but one of my players is such a good roleplayer that I feel like I give him his way too often.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;684266The importance of social mechanics to me is not so much adjudicating against the players but figuring out how to fairly adjudicate social interactions a lá Game of Thrones.  Generally, a simple Charisma check will suffice, but one of my players is such a good roleplayer that I feel like I give him his way too often.

Tell him to roleplay his charisma and social skills if they exist in the version you are using.

After all, if a character is a 3 charisma, 3 Intelligence lowborn brute, he should not be roleplaying as a handsome nobleman with a silver tongue.

Drastic example, but arn't you supposed to roleplay the actual character?

Quote from: Settembrini;683495T5 ended my quest for such rules. Most impressive.

Will look.