A House Rule For Social Combat

[Tedronai]

I think that if the social conflict in question is that important that it can change your core concepts and beliefs...this should NOT be down to a few dice rolls, it should be roleplayed.

It should be role-played AND rolled, just like the physical conflict actions that have the potential to change fundamental truths about a given character (how many arms did you say you had?  and you say you never had that severe, personality-altering brain damage before this fight?).

[Sanctaphrax]

Taking consequences is to represent the amount of effort you're willing to put into it. You've begun to doubt your own abilties or starting to feel like you can't contribute to the team as much. You lose your cool etc. The use of Aspects can be used to represent the reasonable social advantage you're suggesting. The bonus to intimidate due to having a hostage - used either as a tag or a compel of He has my daughter! Aspect. Your opponent is also Big and Scary!? hey that can be tagged or have fate points spent on too. No need for weapon ratings for social conflicts when there are already rules in place to reflect this.

Aspects are useful once. And all of them are equal. Using Aspects to represent the difference between a reasonable social attack and an unreasonable one is only minimally effective*.

But even if it worked perfectly, I'd still be proposing this. If you look at my first post you'll notice that my motivation here was not to make reasonableness matter, that was just a happy side effect.

*This is often the case with Aspects, in my experience. They can do everything, but they can't do everything well.

[UmbraLux]

...this should NOT be down to a few dice rolls, it should be roleplayed.

It's not a binary choice.  At least not unless you make it one. 

One of the things I like about FATE is the ability to incorporate role play directly into the game mechanics. 

[Silverblaze]

How do people unblur the lines between mental and social consequences?

That is to say; I find many consequences I think of for social could be mental (most people tell me they are mental).  Embarassed is a mental state.  Intimidated is a mental state.  Convinced...another mental state.  Hell, people say migraines are a mental consequence and it seems physical to me.

Also, take out results: everyone says huge character altering things should be extreme consequences.  If I take you out in physical combat, you either flee or I can do some seriously bad stuff to you.  (Maim, kill, torture, imprison etc.)
there is no reason social combat can't have a take out result like: "convinced there is no higher power." (that is pretty close to maimed or tortured)

[Silverblaze]

It's not a binary choice.  At least not unless you make it one. 

One of the things I like about FATE is the ability to incorporate role play directly into the game mechanics.

i've never played social encounters as binary in any system.  FATE just has some of the best ways to accomplish this merging.

[sinker]

More recently, I was working on a Telepathy power that would allow its user to give mental commands. When I was trying to work out the limits of that effect, I realized that social attacks had no clearly-defined limit to what they could make people do. Convincing someone to lend you $500 and convincing someone to give you their house are pretty much the same so far as the system is concerned.

This also bugged me somewhat.

This is what I was responding to Sancta. The two are significantly different in that I'm going to put up more of a fight in the latter. You were also talking about lower weapon ratings in arguments that have less impact on my character. Lower weapon ratings generally mean (slightly) longer conflicts.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, but that's just a side effect.

Anyway, relying on consequences to keep unreasonable things from happening is not very safe. Consequences are not always available, and having to take them is a sign that the argument you're up against is working. Which is often unreasonable.

[sinker]

...having to take them is a sign that the argument you're up against is working.

Isn't that ideal?

[Jimmy]

How do people unblur the lines between mental and social consequences?

You should really only get mental consequences when you pit your will against anothers, rather than your wit (a fine line I know) and its still negotiable what you get and how you handle getting taken out.  There is still that element of overlap with social and mental consequences but all they really are is flavour, the mechanical aspect (no pun intended) is just where to place them on your sheet (either in the mental spot or social spot) and unless you can take aditional mental or social consequences it really doesn't matter where you got them.

As for Aspects only working once, that is true, it can also represent the fact that you can only be affected by the factor a limited amount of times. For example, Mr Big and Scary might be able to use his aspect on you, but sooner or later you're going to get used to it. You can use the hostage situation the same - "I know you got my kids, you told me already and I've taken the requisite stresses/consequences to go on regardless". All it would take to continue having those things apply their benefit is for the bad guy to spend a FP.

[Silverblaze]

You should really only get mental consequences when you pit your will against anothers, rather than your wit (a fine line I know) and its still negotiable what you get and how you handle getting taken out.  There is still that element of overlap with social and mental consequences but all they really are is flavour, the mechanical aspect (no pun intended) is just where to place them on your sheet (either in the mental spot or social spot) and unless you can take aditional mental or social consequences it really doesn't matter where you got them.

As for Aspects only working once, that is true, it can also represent the fact that you can only be affected by the factor a limited amount of times. For example, Mr Big and Scary might be able to use his aspect on you, but sooner or later you're going to get used to it. You can use the hostage situation the same - "I know you got my kids, you told me already and I've taken the requisite stresses/consequences to go on regardless". All it would take to continue having those things apply their benefit is for the bad guy to spend a FP.

Allow me to rephrase.

I have made many examples of names for consequences or take out results.  People tell me they are more mental than social.

I understand when to get mental consequences, but if after an arguement (said arguement's goal is to convince me to change my mind ) I'm told that would be mental.  however, the goal of the social combat as to get me to change my mind.... so it would be social yes?

[Mr. Death]

It's the degree of changing your mind. A Social Conflict might change your mind about, say, where to go to dinner, or whether to ask someone out somewhere. It's not going to change your fundamental mindset. It's surface stuff.

A Social taken-out might convince a character to do something, but it's not going to change who the character is. It's surface, fleeting stuff--it'll convince a vegetarian to try beef just this once, but won't make him instantly into a caveman carnivore. Think of the last time you went out with your mates, and ended up going someplace that you didn't want to go, and were quietly miserable the whole time. That was you being taken out, Socially--you did something you otherwise wouldn't have, but you were still you, and it didn't change your thinking about it.

The way I look at it, being taken out socially amounts to, "Fine, but I'm not gonna like it. >:|"

Or put another way, Social Conflict might convince a horse to go to water, but you'd need a Mental Conflict to make it thirsty.

[Jimmy]

I understand when to get mental consequences, but if after an arguement (said arguement's goal is to convince me to change my mind ) I'm told that would be mental.  however, the goal of the social combat as to get me to change my mind.... so it would be social yes?

As stated YS217 mental conflicts are the rarest and most profound conflicts a character can get. They go beyond just changing your mind or making you angry, they attack the core of who you are, send you crazy or shatter your psych. The kind of abuse necessary to inflict this kind of damage require a great deal of time and energy, the result of established relationships going horribly awry.

So instead of adding weapon ratings to your social attacks, have it bumped up into the mental stress track instead of social stress. Most mortals have very little defence against this sort of attack. Think the difference between the police trying to convince a felon that violence is wrong, as opposed to Clockwork Orange treatment. Your family is being threatened? Thats cause to bump the conflict up into the realm of mental conflict in my books.

Being taken out socially usually only results in a lost argument or egg on your face, whereas a lost mental conflict you can go into psychosis or worse.

[Ophidimancer]

The idea of this house rule is to create a mechanical difference between reasonable and unreasonable social attacks. To make intimidation easier when you use it against people you could splatter and harder when you use it against people you might not be able to take.

Yes, I understand what you're saying.  The thing is, mechanizing something should usually make something easier to play, otherwise why not just handle it through player negotiation?  That's something the FATE system encourages anyway.

Minor characters, probably NPC's, that should be splattered should basically just Concede while boss NPC's can use GM Fate Points to invoke for effect if necessary or even Concede as well after taking some appropriate Consequences.

Things a character holds dear should be somewhere in their Aspects, which can be Compelled to make their social defenses crumble if the GM deems it reasonable.

Bottom line, I personally don't like your original houserule and wouldn't use it because I think the arbitrariness of assigning Weapon ratings to different arguments seems too much of a game staller to me.

Plus, I don't see how it actually solves the problem you said it solves, because it doesn't actually suggest any sort of limit to what a social attack can accomplish, it just makes such an attack easier or harder to land.  Sure, it's much harder for me to change your character's sexual orientation than it would be to make him change favorite ice cream flavors, but that did nothing to rule out any sort of ridiculous outcome, it just made it a higher threshold.

[Ophidimancer]

It's the degree of changing your mind. A Social Conflict might change your mind about, say, where to go to dinner, or whether to ask someone out somewhere. It's not going to change your fundamental mindset. It's surface stuff.

Yeah, personally I don't like this, I think it is messy and vague.  I don't know which FATE module it's from, but I really prefer Mental conflicts to be about changing one's mindset and Social conflicts to be about changing one's social standing or public image.

[Jimmy]

I'll take a Mild Social consequence and gain myself the aspect of Loudmouthed Newcomer and then just agree with you...