The Campaign Builder's Guild

I dunno if I'd call the AW system "metagamey", especially in any kind of pejorative sense, but then again I don't really like that term in any context. Every system draws the window, through which players can interact with the events of the game, in a slightly different spot. Which is fine. (If using game mechanics to make choices about where plot elements go next is "metagamey", then it's hard to get more metagamey than straight-up FATE.) And anyway, it's very easy to frame the above (hastily constructant, somewhat flippant) example as an in-character choice, where a expert negotiator character chooses some outcomes over others by what he or she chooses to say and to not say. (In fact, this is one of those examples where characters can be experts without requiring players to be experts; a player can still make a complex, nuanced, deliberate change to a situation without necessarily having to know a bunch of in-world diplomatic minutae personally, which can be very nice and very powerful. But none of this is really the point; if you like the general idea of branching outcomes in that system but disliked letting players select from the buffet, you could always use much less complicated moves than that example, or just let the GM make the selections.)

Anyway, different strokes, blah blah, I really have no intention of derailing this thread just because I have a bit of a gamecrush at the moment, etc.

One interesting thing about FATE and maneuvers and consequences and all that is how resistant most players seem to be to the idea of "taking the reins", even in a small way. In games I have run and have played in, I think a lot of the most interesting aspects of that system (har har, no pun intended) get underutilized because players are either scared to go there, or don't realize that they can. FATE can accommodate a million different situations and outcomes; players can do almost anything with it, but in my practical experience it seems like they often do not do so.

I am still diagnosing the problem, but I think that it boils down to FATE's system being, at times, a.) a little too general, and b.) a little too granular.

To the latter, I think social conflicts in FATE often have a lot of the same problems as combat, because they're played like combats, with all the blow-by-blow and complex tactics that you get in FATE combat, just like combat in most systems. Discussions and negotiations and intimidations and interrogations can take a hellaciously long time and leave PCs surprisingly weakened, drained, and exhausted of their resources. Maybe more interesting is that social conflicts "feel like combats", even when they're not supposed to.

You can use that system in FATE to describe, say, sincerely trying to win over a person, gain their trust, turn them into a friend or ally. To do this as a social conflict, you use social "attacks", maneuvers, and all the things that would be analogous to HP, injuries, and victory if this were a physical combat, only you use social versions of those things.

So sometimes you get this weird result where the person who has just been "won over" actually just feels like they've been demolished in social combat (because, in a game-mechanics sense, that's what has actually just happened.) So there's often a big disconnect between what the character is supposed to feel and what a player might actually feel, and this causes tension in the game events-- maybe the character is supposed to feel befriended and act loyally, but the player feels defeated and seeks payback.

This whole topic is pretty freaking complicated, really.

:offtopic:
Right, it was the "picking from the buffet" sort of thing that bothered me. It felt like it was disconnected from the stream of RP and in-character talking, and would result in a lot of discussion between players and GM about what would happen that was entirely abstracted, and outside of the narrative that was developing. You could pick that you managed to do these things, but you wouldn't have the faintest idea how your character did it. That's what I meant by "metagamey," I guess, though I'm sure there are better and less vague ways of putting it.

Anyway.
:ontopic:
I agree with you about FATE and its ilk. I think a lot of players are used to the Gygaxian paradigm, where the GM is entirely the "owner" of the game world and its events, and players are essentially just along for the ride. Personally, I prefer the "shared story" approach much more, as both a player-- because I feel more "empowered" and have more choices and chances for creativity-- but also as a GM-- because it allows those things, leading to more engaged players with more of a personal investment in the plot and game world as a whole. One thing that I really enjoy about FATE is that it allows the sort of hijinks that are all over fiction but often underrepresented in games, because it does things like incentivize playing character flaws and let players take a degree of narrative control to make sure their wacky plan comes to fruition.

Asura has a pretty detailed social combat system, inspired largely by FATE's, as well as Exalted and other systems with a detailed system for social combat essentially based on the one used for physical combat. For tense negotations, interrogations, and other strongly adversarial social situations, the level of fatigue that characters (and players!) experience is probably reasonable and desired. Treating these sorts of conflicts as "combat" isn't going to bother anymore. When the situation is not so adversarial, it becomes more difficult. The best answer I have been able to come up with is "Don't treat it like a combat if it's not really a combat," which is kind of vague and useless. The use of compels or the like could help a little, because this way the players are getting a mechanical reward they like rather than being ground down in nasty combat. Asura encourages the GM to skew descriptions of the world to what the PCs are experiencing, rather than being fully "objective"-- so if the bad guy is winning them over, he'll start to seem a whole lot nicer and better. Combined with a bribe of a SP (Stunt Point, bascially Asura's version of a Fate Point) the player will probably come away from it feeling as happy as the character. Of course, eventually, they'll find that they were being deceived-- but that's part of the point, anyway, and for the time being they don't feel like they were ground down in social combat.

Quote from: sparkletwistI think a lot of players are used to the Gygaxian paradigm, where the GM is entirely the "owner" of the game world and its events, and players are essentially just along for the ride. Personally, I prefer the "shared story" approach much more, as both a player-- because I feel more "empowered" and have more choices and chances for creativity-- but also as a GM-- because it allows those things, leading to more engaged players with more of a personal investment in the plot and game world as a whole.

Wholehearted agreement here.

Quote from: sparkletwistOne thing that I really enjoy about FATE is that it allows the sort of hijinks that are all over fiction but often underrepresented in games, because it does things like incentivize playing character flaws and let players take a degree of narrative control to make sure their wacky plan comes to fruition.

Preach. I actually think a system-neutral "how can you give more narrative control to players?" tips-and-tricks kind of thread would be pret. ty. boss.
[ooc]edit: once again, looks like I'm getting away from the thread's topic of social failure. oopsie! at least the rest of this post is about social mechanics in general; I'm going to leave it in but try to keep a tighter rein on my future replies here I guess![/ooc]

One thing that we found out the hard way in FATE is that, in a lot of situations, when you think you might want to use a social conflict you can just use an aspect compel instead.

Buddy of mine was running a Dresden Files RPG game and early on in the game he introduces a powerful Unseelie fae royal as a scary NPC, and this NPC wants the PCs to do something for her, and has some information they need as leverage. So my friend starts running this as a social conflict, with this NPC's goal being to get us to capitulate and agree to do her this favor, and everybody busts out the social attacks and defenses.

And it was the group's first social conflict, and the first conflict period, and the first conflict run by this GM in this system. So it was a pretty tedious slog! So at some point we stop and take stock and say, what are we doing here, Steve's got this aspect called "Deal with the Devil" or something, all about how that character believes it's sometimes necessary to let the ends justify the means and get into bed, so to speak, with some real creepers. So we're like, GM, how about you just compel this aspect on Steve and we get on with things? So we used compels for the initial hook (some other PCs were simultaneously compelled as well, if they had applicable aspects) and saved social conflict for situations with more appropriate stakes.

It's odd. I can't really think of other situations in other systems where "what rules do I use to portray this action?" is such a pressing question. You really need to set up an appropriate ratio between "how much time do we spend hashing out X?" and "how much do we, as players, actually care about X?" And I think that if there's one takeaway message I'd choose to generalize across all social rules for all systems, that would be it.

(The other takeaway message, the one I'd generalize across all FATE games you might ever run, is that no one should ever try to run FATE without a sheet of paper in front of them with all your players' personal Aspects written on it. :yumm: )

After thinking about it a bit, it seems like that a "pick from the buffet" list like that could be just the thing to make 4e's skill challenges not completely stupid.
As it stands, they're a complete failure because the basic idea is and has been that everyone contributes "success" or "failure," so it makes no sense for anyone but the party member who is the best at whatever it is to participate.

However, what if a skill challenge instead worked something like this:
- The players and/or GM draw up a list like the example LC posted, listing the objectives that the characters are hoping to accomplish as part of the skill challenge. Each objective would have a skill associated with it.
- Each player gets to make one roll, against an objective of his/her choice. If they beat the DC, that objective is accomplished. If they beat the DC by +5 (or some other number, testing will determine this), they get a "bonus success," which is banked.
- After the rolling is all over, anyone who earned a bonus success can choose another objective that they accomplished along the way to accomplishing their main one, provided they can tell an amusing narrative about how they went about doing that.

It seems like this way the party skill monkeys will still be contributing a lot, but this way the guy who would have been doing nothing before now has incentive to at least try, also. It also allows some rational link between "what skills are being rolled" and "what the party is actually doing."

I strongly prefer mechanics that roughly map the decisions a player has available with the decisions the character has available, so for me the buffet option seems odd. I prefer more discrete tasks to be handled by a skill system, with the difficulty taking into account both the thing being said and the circumstances. For me, 3.5's bluff is the best I've seen this done. The task is easy to understand (the NPC believes the lie or doesn't) and the difficulty depends on the plausibility of the specific lie.

I think one of the failings of social mechanics is that they get designed to handle an action or encounter scale activity with little thought to how that integrates at the adventure or campaign scale. If there were concrete benefits to rallying support (or concrete penalties for being a dick) at the adventure scale, it would be easier to write for specific goals for encounters. Or if there were campaign-scale rules for acquiring and using social power, it would be easier to get those social type adventure goals written. Part of what makes combat work so well is how well it nests into so many adventure types, and part of what works about D&D's dungeon formula is how well it maps into the campaign theme of power acquisition.

For myself, I think writing the rules for social encounters on the assumption of mystery adventures tends to help. The concrete benefit of social checks (when you're making them) tend to be either subterfuge or interrogation. Mysteries, like combat, are one of those things that can be plopped down into a lot of contexts and people will tend to know what to do with them.

The other failures stem from the ambiguity of skills: When and whether to roll, failure that means nothing, the use of rolling to quickly determine success/failure with no real mechanical choice given, etc. The standard solutions (not rolling for basic tasks, penalties for failure or hp-style partial success options, and providing meaningful choices) all apply.

Quote from: sparkletwist
After thinking about it a bit, it seems like that a "pick from the buffet" list like that could be just the thing to make 4e's skill challenges not completely stupid.
As it stands, they're a complete failure because the basic idea is and has been that everyone contributes "success" or "failure," so it makes no sense for anyone but the party member who is the best at whatever it is to participate.

However, what if a skill challenge instead worked something like this:
- The players and/or GM draw up a list like the example LC posted, listing the objectives that the characters are hoping to accomplish as part of the skill challenge. Each objective would have a skill associated with it.
- Each player gets to make one roll, against an objective of his/her choice. If they beat the DC, that objective is accomplished. If they beat the DC by +5 (or some other number, testing will determine this), they get a "bonus success," which is banked.
- After the rolling is all over, anyone who earned a bonus success can choose another objective that they accomplished along the way to accomplishing their main one, provided they can tell an amusing narrative about how they went about doing that.

It seems like this way the party skill monkeys will still be contributing a lot, but this way the guy who would have been doing nothing before now has incentive to at least try, also. It also allows some rational link between "what skills are being rolled" and "what the party is actually doing."

This seems like it would solve not only your issue with AW giving "results out of nowhere" but also your (apparent) issue with 4E skill challenges being based on tallying up successes and failures that don't have a specific meaning.

Quote from: Luminous Crayonyour (apparent) issue with 4E skill challenges being based on tallying up successes and failures that don't have a specific meaning.

My issue with D&D 4e's skill challenges isn't so much that the successes and failures don't have a specific meaning (though that is a problem) but that the system's mathematics work out that so that it discourages what it was trying to encourage. The point of skill challenges, if I understand them correctly, was to have a way to model big challenges that the entire party would have to work together to solve, and to do so in a way that all of the players would feel involved and helping. Unfortunately, the way they actually worked out, the mathematically optimal way to pass a skill challenge is that the guy who is best at whatever skill is needed just rolls a bunch of times, while everyone else sits around and pulls out their smartphones, iPads and DS's. I think at some point they revised that so the guy who is best at it can't do it all, but then, you just make sure that the only people who can roll are the ones whose chances of success vs chances of failure are greater than the number of successes needed vs number of failures needed. It's still not interesting.

However, skill challenges are abstracted enough the "pick from the buffet" approach doesn't bother me much, so I believe doing something like this would allow for a much more compelling thing in actual play. The party would actually have to work together, decide who was going to tackle what task, and make some tough choices if they couldn't meet all of the objectives.

I also like mechanics that have an amount of real time energy (pcs have to think somewhat quickly) and when success or failure can lead to a different position needing different skills.
Especially, I like it when pcs can be clever with failure and rescue a situation, and can maximize success the same way.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: Luminous Crayonyour (apparent) issue with 4E skill challenges being based on tallying up successes and failures that don't have a specific meaning.

My issue with D&D 4e's skill challenges isn't so much that the successes and failures don't have a specific meaning (though that is a problem) but that the system's mathematics work out that so that it discourages what it was trying to encourage. The point of skill challenges, if I understand them correctly, was to have a way to model big challenges that the entire party would have to work together to solve, and to do so in a way that all of the players would feel involved and helping.

As I understood them, the point of skill challenges was just to serve as a model for setting up a social "encounter" where the entire outcome was not decided by a single roll.  A framework for salvaging situations by changing tactics, or pressing your advantage by keeping them off balance.  That instead of just saying, "I used my skills at diplomacy to talk my way out of trouble," saying that "When I tried to talk the guards into letting me through (Diplomacy), they were hesitant, so I told them I was their new superior officer (Bluff), and threatened to put them in the stockade if they did not submit (Intimidate)."  Of course, this also gives you an opportunity to slip up where you had been doing well.

Steerpike handled social failures really well during the short time I was able to play Fimbulvinter - even though I kept failing on the dice while trying to intimidate a Warg, if I came up with a new idea or way to approach the situation, he'd let me get another roll with some kind of modifier, such as boasting about killing a She-Troll with her ears as proof, bluffing/yelling about killing lots of Wargs, or outright getting really angry and trying to make them run out of fear. I thought it worked well, and was fun, as I got to mix the in game mechanics with out-of-character quick thinking and creativity - which seems to be what Vreeg and SH are mentioning.

Quote from: Señor Leetz
Steerpike handled social failures really well during the short time I was able to play Fimbulvinter - even though I kept failing on the dice while trying to intimidate a Warg, if I came up with a new idea or way to approach the situation, he'd let me get another roll with some kind of modifier, such as boasting about killing a She-Troll with her ears as proof, bluffing/yelling about killing lots of Wargs, or outright getting really angry and trying to make them run out of fear. I thought it worked well, and was fun, as I got to mix the in game mechanics with out-of-character quick thinking and creativity - which seems to be what Vreeg and SH are mentioning.

Oh, exactly.
You get it.
from the GS rulebook...
"Also, success and failure are not absolute situations.  When a PC fails at a skill, it might just mean that they are now at more of a disadvatageous situation, but they can still roleplay and use other skills to try to change that position.  Similarly, as the GM, play a success as an improved situation, so that the PCs are encouraged to roleplay and use more skills to increase their position.
...

The last piece of advice is to err in favor of roleplaying.  If a PC is using the CC roll to avoid roleplaying, especially in a social situation, penalize them.  Tell them that it wasn't believable if it wasn't.  But on the other side, maker sure that superalative roleplay is rewarded.  Skills are supposed to encourage roleplay, not used to avoid it."

Skills, especially social skills, should be used by the GM to encourage roleplay and in-character play, not to use a rule to avoid the roleplay. Or at least, that is how I view this.
By the way, LC, congrats on the nuptials, and BTW, I always enjoy it when you have a gamecrush.  You write a lot about it and it's always a good read.

Part of the problem with 4E skill challenges is that so much of their quality is in the writing. There are definitely good and interesting ones, but it's very easy to write a dumb, boring, bad one as well, and the gulf between the two extremes is vast and wide. The good ones tend to have more elements and tend to be more involved to write.

So on the one hand, you have cool stuff where one character has to climb the guarded cliff to attach a rope for the others, and those on the ground assist by spotting handholds and holding the enemy goblins (who are waiting at the top, throwing rocks down to disrupt the climber) at bay, etc. Or you have scenes where the group has to figure out how to use the storm giant's weather-controlling pipe organ to ward off the encroaching thunderclouds and/or elementals, and this involves someone playing the keyboard and others pumping the massive bellows, figuring out the knobs on the console, and stomping on the correct oversized footpedals.

Versus, of course, the ultra-lame "somebody has to rack up 4 Diplomacy successes to convince the duke of whatever, blah blah who cares", which one player will just sit there making all the checks in a row until it's over. Which is quick and simple to write, but dull and forgettable.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonPart of the problem with 4E skill challenges is that so much of their quality is in the writing.

To be honest, I'm not sure the writing really matters that much in light of the severe mathematical problems with the whole thing. No matter what kind of fluff you put around it, the game mechanic is "Get X successes before you get Y failures" so that's going to be how the players are going to play it. The only player who should even pick up the dice is the one who has the highest rank in a needed skill, because, no matter what happens, you are either adding to column X or column Y-- so you want to make sure that the odds are in your favor to add to column X.

It's essentially going around and figuring out who is best at something and making that person roll. Everyone else just sits there, or does Aid Anothers if those are allowed. The only creative use of skills that comes about out of something like this is trying to talk the DM into letting you use whatever skill you're best at to do absolutely everything, because that's the only thing that makes any mathematical sense.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: Luminous CrayonPart of the problem with 4E skill challenges is that so much of their quality is in the writing.

To be honest, I'm not sure the writing really matters that much in light of the severe mathematical problems with the whole thing. No matter what kind of fluff you put around it, the game mechanic is "Get X successes before you get Y failures" so that's going to be how the players are going to play it. The only player who should even pick up the dice is the one who has the highest rank in a needed skill, because, no matter what happens, you are either adding to column X or column Y-- so you want to make sure that the odds are in your favor to add to column X.

It's essentially going around and figuring out who is best at something and making that person roll. Everyone else just sits there, or does Aid Anothers if those are allowed. The only creative use of skills that comes about out of something like this is trying to talk the DM into letting you use whatever skill you're best at to do absolutely everything, because that's the only thing that makes any mathematical sense.

The best fix I've seen for this is to remove penalties for failure and set a fixed round limit. Then there are no penalties for trying, but there's still a threshold at which failure occurs. You'd probably have to rejigger the difficulties math along with this, and it couldn't hurt to have checks able to mean multiple things (difficult or especially relevant checks extending the deadline, or some checks to interfere with opponents in an opposed-style challenge).

Quote from: beejazzThe best fix I've seen for this is to remove penalties for failure and set a fixed round limit.

Yes, I think something like that is good. I had a thought a few posts back to merge the skill challenge system with something like this list that LC posted and have, like you mentioned, a fixed round limit. Essentially, the players and DM would figure out what the goals of the encounter were, and then start the skill challenge with that "shopping list" in mind. Everyone would take a shot at doing something, and every success would buy you one thing off the list. Maybe some way to get bonus items off the list if you beat the DC by a lot, too, but I'm not sure. Then, not only does everyone get involved, but the skill challenge can result in vastly different outcomes (with varying degrees of "success" or "failure") depending on what objectives players pursued and succeeded or failed at.