Social Combat

[ironpoet]

In that particular situation, I rolled a +7 empathy roll.  The GM said, "you know what, you fail that role - here's a fate point -   I'm compelling your corrupt cop aspect.  You get that he's telling the truth, but he's insulted you're insinuating he's corrupt.  You just made an enemy on the force"

I think that's a really cool Compel, but it's independent from the Empathy roll.  Since there wasn't an interesting way to "succeed", I would have just skipped the roll and gone right to the Compel.

As for full-out social combat, I'd only start that if both sides wanted something from the other person.  In this case, if the cop thought it was really important that you believed him, then a social combat would be useful.  But if he didn't really care, then it's just an opposed roll.  And in either case, I'd skip the rolls entirely unless both potential outcomes were interesting.

Technically, since I failed, he still could be guilty, but is using deceit.  So we could have broke it all down into a combat, but it didn't really matter in the end.  Could that same result have happened in a full-out combat?  At what point does the DM say, "here's a fate point - you lose" 

I think that compels can be done at any time, so a GM could end a combat with a Compel.  The only question would be why the GM started the combat in the first place if they knew they wanted a specific outcome?  But maybe (a) they didn't think of the cool Compel until half-way through the combat, or (b) something happened during the fight that inspired the Compel.

[Morfedel]

I had some success "lightening up" the social combat and not worrying about running is quite so "exchange by exchange" as someone suggested. Had a sit-down between the party and a hag whom they suspected of kidnapping a boy for sacrificial purposes. Most of it was role-play, but with a heavy use of Empathy rolls to get a sense of her motives and if she was telling the truth. Some outstanding rolls for her for Deceit led to them leaving thinking she was on the level and with an utterly misleading Aspect. Ended up losing them most of a day stopping her. I think I may have a handle on it now, though the use of Social Stress and Consequences is still a bit shaky to me. I'll have to ease into them.

Wait, so they took mental stress.until they are taken out, and you defined.it as believing her... or you just ignored mental stress and consequences for that conflict?

That sounds like a good reason to not use social combat, and just use hidden rolls...  otherwise, its broadcasting their success and failure, unless.your group is really good about not using such metagame knowledge.

[noclue]

In that particular situation, I rolled a +7 empathy roll.  The GM said, "you know what, you fail that role - here's a fate point -   I'm compelling your corrupt cop aspect.  You get that he's telling the truth, but he's insulted you're insinuating he's corrupt.  You just made an enemy on the force"

He could have just as easily played that compel without having you fail. “You win, and here’s a Fate point for making an enemy on the force while your at it!” Compelling success with consequences is often a better alternative than compelling failure. Less likely that they’ll try to buy it off.

That sounds like a good reason to not use social combat, and just use hidden rolls...  otherwise, its broadcasting their success and failure, unless.your group is really good about not using such metagame knowledge.

We use metagame knowledge like that all the time. We make sure it hurts. Otherwise, it’s a meaningless deception. In our “Two wizards on the run in Los Angeles” game we had a few things baked into City Generation. The players knew that our trusted mentor was betraying us to the Red Court and we knew that the local warden was going to be out to get us. The theme of the game is “Out in the Cold” after all, so no where is safe. So, we knew we were in the shit, but our characters had no clue. Imagine their sense of betrayal when they went over to their mentor's for a family dinner and she turns them over to the Red Court. Imagine their continued feeling of alienation when they sought refuge with the Wardens, only to be hooded, interrogated, accused of murder and mind controlled. That was a tough night. They had no idea it was coming.

[luminos]

That sounds like a good reason to not use social combat, and just use hidden rolls...  otherwise, its broadcasting their success and failure, unless.your group is really good about not using such metagame knowledge.

But why wouldn't you want to use metagame knowledge?  If I can see clearly that my character failed to notice the bad guys deception, I'll be able to play it up, whereas otherwise, failing on a roll means that I have to do this double-think action where I try to discover where the deception was so that I abide by the consequences of failure, while also trying to ignore the deception so I'm not seen as "metagaming".  Just outright acknowledging the failure result as a player makes it a whole lot easier to play up the fact the character was deceived.  Its also a lot more fun, in my mind.

[Morfedel]

Noclue, luminous; you misunderstand. If they use metagame knowledge to improve the story & their roleplaying, that's one thing. If they use it to benefit themselves and artificially escape the consequences of failed rolls, that's another thing entirely. I've known players on both sides of the coin, but in this case, I was referring to the less desirable kind.

[noclue]

Yeah, I try my best not to play with those folks.

[luminos]

Noclue, luminous; you misunderstand. If they use metagame knowledge to improve the story & their roleplaying, that's one thing. If they use it to benefit themselves and artificially escape the consequences of failed rolls, that's another thing entirely. I've known players on both sides of the coin, but in this case, I was referring to the less desirable kind.

It helps to be upfront with what the consequences of failed rolls are.  Then, trying to escape those consequences isn't bad metagaming, its just cheating. 

[Taran]

Just to go into nitty gritty, I want to use the above example where they question the hag:

Let's say we use Rapport to "chit, chat" and try to get information out of the Hag without her knowing exactly what we're asking.

Round 1: Rapport vs Deceit? or would it be Empathy to suss out what the PC's are trying to do?
    Do you need an empathy role to realize you're being questioned before you can use deceit to give false information?

    Assuming the hag knows, she uses deceit to throw the PC's off the trail

Round 2:  Use Empathy as an assessment to discover an aspect.  This is done as a maneuver, right?
               The Hag counters with her deceit.  
At what point does the hag set up the false aspect?  during her defense or when she uses deceit on her turn?

Also, how big a role does initiative play? Is there an advantage to  going first?

[WillH]

At what point does the hag set up the false aspect?  during her defense or when she uses deceit on her turn?

The false face forward trapping is a defense, so you give the false aspect when you when succesfully defend against an empathy assessment in this way.

I don't think this particular trapping of deceit is very functional, but that's another matter.

[Taran]

The false face forward trapping is a defense, so you give the false aspect when you when succesfully defend against an empathy assessment in this way.

I don't think this particular trapping of deceit is very functional, but that's another matter.

Isn't it basic function of deceit? Lying.

So this leads to another question which I completely skipped over: damage.

So while you're using Rapport to gain info, are you also doing "damage"?  The consequences inflicted are just things you can tag while trying to get the info? "blinks when lying"

In the hag situation, since the Hag won, they were forced to concede and go looking elsewhere.  If they'd won, do you as GM, just pony up the information?

Hmmm...It seems I have a bazillion questions.  I'll wait before I ask more  

[noclue]

if you're trying to talk her into revealing info, that's empathy. if you are tricking her, that's deceit. if she's lying to you, that's deceit, either a maneuver or attack.

if you are attacking, you can do stress. consequences should fit the fiction.

[eberg]

Wait, so they took mental stress.until they are taken out, and you defined.it as believing her... or you just ignored mental stress and consequences for that conflict?

I ignored the stress and consequences and just concentrated on what information people were getting. Empathy rolls to determine if she was telling the truth and suss out her aspects resulted in false positives and a false aspect when she defended well with Deceit.