Ran my first game of the DFRPG tonight. All in all, it went fairly well--the story went nicely, people figured out the fudge dice system decently. Combat was a bit strange to them, mostly the stress system, but I think the players will get used to it. The sticking point was Social Conflict.
One of my players found herself without Presence, Report, Intimidation, or Empathy. Perhaps I should have made it more clear that these skills would have been important during character creation. Regardless, we got to a social conflict--three guys who suspected their friend had gotten into some dark magic were being questioned by this player and one other (one with a few social skills) and didn't want to tell them. This player was left with the sense that she literally could not do anything in this conflict.
Now, I realize that the idea of social skills is that they represent the social capabilities of the character, which are different from those of the player. However, it still seems strange to them (and me, at times) that their character needs a skill to use simple logic to convince people of things. Perhaps I was misreading the situation and it did not actually need to become a conflict.
In all, I think the situation reflects a general mistrust of any roleplaying game attempting to apply mechanics to the roleplaying aspect itself. While it might be considerably easier to remove the rules for social conflicts, I think the game would lose something for it--and perhaps more importantly, doing so would largely invalidate the character that one of my players created, a socially oriented face. I am considering allowing my players to rearrange some skills, now that they have seen how the game actually works. Does anyone else have more advice on how to make them warm up towards the social conflict system?
This happens a lot when you have new players introduced to a new system. With the Dresden Game also a new system for you as the Game Master to make sure people understand the rules that includes yourself. Remember character creation is new not to just you but the players as well for this game regardless of the experience of the players.
For both of my players, we sat down worked together building characters. I had everyone follow the rules with the Aspects before we put anything on the character sheet. One player has nearly a decade experience in Table Top and the other is a year old in gaming experience. I walked them through made sure they placed their skills and powers correctly for their concepts so they understood what they had. I do this whenever someone builds a character for my game regardless of experience in gaming when new to the system. Things work differently from D20 to Storyteller to the Fudge System to CORE.
As for social conflicts. I spent most of my years Storytelling WoD games mostly Camarilla Table Top Vampire games. You believe that social skills should be roleplayed out and I agree with you, but lets say the said player is not good at playing a social character but is playing one that is suppose to be very good at this? The player cannot pull the social aspect off so that is why you have the rolling for back up.
Another example if players end up in a social conflict with each other. Sometimes letting the dice roll helps because sometimes Player A might not play with Player B seducing him, because Player B is just being difficult.
Another example is if your player tries to outwit a powerful being or hard to deal with character they need to pull off those skills.
One of the Tricks I do is look at Player A's character sheet to see if they have any bonuses to their social skills, aspects and stunts that would help or hurt them them in that situation. Even though it is roleplayed that is something to keep in mind. So yes they should be on the character sheet. Even if you are not rolling them.
Player B might be a stone cold unpersonable character that makes people uneasy, but Player A is the social bunny. Player B would not have the Rapport or Deceit needed to survive a word battle but Player A does because that is their speciality while Player B's specialty is that he is great to have at your back in a fight.
By not having those skills in the game and on someone's sheet it takes out a character nitch in the game and could if you have some players argue why cannot my Player B combat cold monster be able to fight a word battle, I the player can do it! And there are no skills that say I cannot do otherwise.
Honestly FUDGE says don't roll unless you have to but that is up to you as the Game Master. Remember the Character Sheet is not just for the skills but what boundries players can do and nothing shows it more than this system.
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