Mechanically Robust Social System

[Tajerio]

I DM a couple of different 3.5 games, and in each of them I'm starting to feel 3.5's lack of a good system for describing and resolving social encounters. My players interact a lot with both a) neutral or friendly people they would like to recruit to their side and b) antagonistic people they would like to negotiate with/convince of the error of their ways. I find myself unconvinced by semi-arbitrarily setting a DC and having them roll [relevant social skill] given how big a part of the game it's become for my groups. The roleplay around it is always great, but I'd like to back it up with some better/deeper mechanics, and I'm more than willing to graft a subsystem from a different game onto my own.

So does the Playground have any recommendations for a game that models social interactions well from which I can shamelessly crib?

[Koo Rehtorb]

Burning Wheel.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Burning Wheel.

Or Torchbearer which is Burning Wheel medium and intended for D&D style adventures. Medium because Mouseguard is Burning Wheel light.

[Kaptin Keen]

Social interactions cannot be simulated - the above replies not withstanding. Edit: Maybe I should clarify: They can certainly be gamified. But I consider them too complex to ever be succesfully represented by .. well, 'mechanics'.

What I feel works best is to let rolls influence - but not decide - social interactions. For me, that's really all it takes. Oh, and, it's never just a DC. Social interactions are opposed tests.

[Cluedrew]

The failures of previous attempts not withstanding I think it depends on what exactly are you looking for. If you want a high degree of granularity that takes into count many aspects of a character but is easy and quick to use. Yeah probably not.

Really I think coming up with a system that handles all social interactions would work about as well as one that handles all physical interactions. Depending on what you want those you could focus in and then you can make some headway. Just don't try to simulate it like an emotional fist fight.

On Systems: Powered by the Apocalypse systems have social rules, not sure one has the type of social interactions you want. Exalted's intimacies might be useful to look at.

[Morty]

I'm fond of Exalted 3E's social system myself. It focuses on using "intimacies" as hooks for social interactions. Intimacies are, essentially, things that someone cares about and you need to leverage them in some fashion to succeed.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm fond of Exalted 3E's social system myself. It focuses on using "intimacies" as hooks for social interactions. Intimacies are, essentially, things that someone cares about and you need to leverage them in some fashion to succeed.

Agreed. It's a really cool system. For a slightly more d&d-ified version, I wrote one up here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...mbat-Mechanics

[Lemmy]

What?! Are you telling me setting an arbitrary DC and letting a single character roll Diplomacy isn't complex enough?

[Tajerio]

Thanks for the suggestions. I liked a decent chunk of what you linked, Grod_the_Giant, so that's something to think about, and I will take a peek at Burning Wheel/Torchbearer and Exalted when I get a chance.

What?! Are you telling me setting an arbitrary DC and letting a single character roll Diplomacy isn't complex enough?

Scarcely to be believed, I know.

[farothel]

Exalted has indeed a very good social 'combat' system. I only know second edition, but it works quite well.

[Max_Killjoy]

I DM a couple of different 3.5 games, and in each of them I'm starting to feel 3.5's lack of a good system for describing and resolving social encounters. My players interact a lot with both a) neutral or friendly people they would like to recruit to their side and b) antagonistic people they would like to negotiate with/convince of the error of their ways. I find myself unconvinced by semi-arbitrarily setting a DC and having them roll [relevant social skill] given how big a part of the game it's become for my groups. The roleplay around it is always great, but I'd like to back it up with some better/deeper mechanics, and I'm more than willing to graft a subsystem from a different game onto my own.

So does the Playground have any recommendations for a game that models social interactions well from which I can shamelessly crib?

If you find one, let me know. Every social system I've come across has been:

• Roleplay it, nerd!
• Set an arbitrary DC / TN and roll!
• Social interaction is just another form of combat, use these reskinned combat rules!

What I'd really like to see is something that takes into account that social interactions are complex, but aren't combat, aren't always adversarial, aren't always zero-sum.

It would have to take RP into account without grossly penalizing the players who don't themselves possess persuasive or commanding personalities.

It would also have to acknowledge that sometimes there's just no way to change a person's mind, that there are things you can't just talk certain people, or any people even, into thinking or doing no matter HOW "charming" you are.

[Morty]

Exalted has indeed a very good social 'combat' system. I only know second edition, but it works quite well.

3E's model is pretty much entirely unrelated to 2E's, so those are effectively separate suggestions.

What I'd really like to see is something that takes into account that social interactions are complex, but aren't combat, aren't always adversarial, aren't always zero-sum.

It would have to take RP into account without grossly penalizing the players who don't themselves possess persuasive or commanding personalities.

It would also have to acknowledge that sometimes there's just no way to change a person's mind, that there are things you can't just talk certain people, or any people even, into thinking or doing no matter HOW "charming" you are.

Exalted 3E's intimacies do all of that in my experience.

[Segev]

It would also have to acknowledge that sometimes there's just no way to change a person's mind, that there are things you can't just talk certain people, or any people even, into thinking or doing no matter HOW "charming" you are.

The trouble winds up being that this is incompatible with a game-able system where you CAN change people's minds, unless players are willing to make concessions that verge on the same conceptual territory as, in combat, asking them to just accept that sometimes their characters get hit, even though the rules provide them absolute means of saying "I do not get hit."

Now, maybe, what you mean is, "YOU can't change HIS mind on THIS subject," when it's possible somebody else could, or you could change somebody else's mind, or it could be done on a different subject. This would amount, to borrow the "Intimacies" concept mentioned before, to having certain intimacies be so strong that they identy a non-insignificant portion of your self-identity. They're that important to you, and altering them requires changing, on some level, your view of yourself and your place in the world.

I've actually been toying with something, but it uses a roll-and-keep system heavily inspired by 3e L5R, and is not easily portable. It requires an attendent "stress" system, though, to really work, and the stress system permeates other aspects of the mechanics in order to make it have bite enough to be worth caring about for those who aren't "social characters."

[Max_Killjoy]

The trouble winds up being that this is incompatible with a game-able system where you CAN change people's minds, unless players are willing to make concessions that verge on the same conceptual territory as, in combat, asking them to just accept that sometimes their characters get hit, even though the rules provide them absolute means of saying "I do not get hit."

Now, maybe, what you mean is, "YOU can't change HIS mind on THIS subject," when it's possible somebody else could, or you could change somebody else's mind, or it could be done on a different subject. This would amount, to borrow the "Intimacies" concept mentioned before, to having certain intimacies be so strong that they identy a non-insignificant portion of your self-identity. They're that important to you, and altering them requires changing, on some level, your view of yourself and your place in the world.

No, what I mean is, conversation is not mind control or illusion, no matter how charming someone is. What I mean is, for some people there are certain things that they could never be talked into thinking, believing, or doing, no matter how charming someone is. And what I mean is, conversation is not combat, and a "nope" to a conversational ability vs a "nope" for a combat ability isn't a direct comparison.

It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'd never talk most people into believing that up is down and that they're about to fall off the planet. It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'll never talk a Paladin out of their code and oath. I don't want to post the examples of things that most modern western-society people could never be talked into believing are good and right, no matter how "charming" someone is.

The problem is that every "social interaction mechanics" system I've seen is either pure GM fiat, or treats all social interaction as mind control and/or inherently adversarial to the point of being reskinned combat.

[Segev]

No, what I mean is, conversation is not mind control or illusion, no matter how charming someone is. What I mean is, for some people there are certain things that they could never be talked into thinking, believing, or doing, no matter how charming someone is. And what I mean is, conversation is not combat, and a "nope" to a conversational ability vs a "nope" for a combat ability isn't a direct comparison.

It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'd never talk most people into believing that up is down and that they're about to fall off the planet. It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'll never talk a Paladin out of their code and oath. I don't want to post the examples of things that most modern western-society people could never be talked into believing are good and right, no matter how "charming" someone is.

The problem is that every "social interaction mechanics" system I've seen is either pure GM fiat, or treats all social interaction as mind control and/or inherently adversarial to the point of being reskinned combat.

The reason you see that with every "social interaction mechanics system" is because, the moment you don't allow the "mind control" aspect and changing minds and hearts in ways that you believe are nonsensical, you devolve it down to GM fiat.

Unless there exist very solid rules for determining what can and cannot be "impossible to persuade somebody about," the social system essentially becomes "nope, there's no way you can persuade them of that" the GM-convincing game. PCs, of course, will just declare anything their players don't want them to believe to be utterly impossible to convince their PCs of.

I don't really blame them, entirely; I've seen too many attempts to seduce the PC whose sexual orientation doesn't go the "right" way for that seduction to have a chance for me to say "nah, you can be convinced of anything." In a lot of ways, certain things that a player wants to be inviolate about their character will wreck the character's enjoyability to play if they are changed, and thus are at least as bad as PC death, so should at a minimum be treated as carefully as things that can kill the character.

However, if there are limits to what you can declare "inviolable," you run into problems where what you WANT inviolable and what IS inviolable don't completely overlap, whether due to hard coding or due to too few resources or....

But if there aren't mechanical limits, nothing prevents the players or the GM from simply declaring that anything they can't be OOC persuaded is "believable" is able to persuade anybody they control...which brings us right back to "just RP it, you nerd." Because you have to convince the GM or the player of the PC that your argument is something their character would buy, or they just fail. And if you've convinced them of that, then...does a roll really even matter? Let alone a whole system?

My approach to this is that, no, there's nothing TRULY inviolable, but actually making progress on wearing down deeply-seated beliefs and the like takes a lot of time. You're not turning the child against his parents in a one hour session, even with the Joker as your child psychologist. But give him a few months or years being raised by the enemy tribe, and he can be persuaded that his birth tribe is evil but that he can be redeemed if he forsakes them and comes to know and trust and obey his new one, accepting adoption and redemption from his foul birth/old culture.

So, you establish things that are important and ingrained at high levels of emotional investment. Getting people to act against such things is nigh impossible with sufficient investment in them, so you have to wear them down.

I also set it up such that the final choice is always the player of the character's; it never compels behavior, it just uses the stresses that resisting urges and things you want or believe in making demands on your behavior to "punish" resistance. If, for example, a seductress comes onto a character, the seductress offers relief of the stress mechanic for indulging, and potentially punitive increases to stress for refraining. But a character with a strong emotional investment in chastity or monogamy or fidelity to another lover would suffer stresses for violating those tenets, which might make the relief of stress offered still cost more net from the additional stress of going against those beliefs/investments. And, when they seek out that lover or other validation of their beliefs, they might be able to relieve the stresses induced by the seductress.

You can replace "seduction" with "offerings of bribes" and appropriate countervailing emotional investments (e.g. loyalty or a belief in one's own integrity as being important).

On the other hand, the social manipulator can attempt to wear down those beliefs, those loyalties, etc., in an effort to make the character have less resisting the manipulator's wiles. But this takes time, and probably many social encounters.

[Quertus]

So, the question you have to ask is, what do you think (nonmagical) social skills should be able to do?

How far along this train should be possible: this isn't your office… I know your name is on the door, and your stuff is in here, but it's a mix-up - you've been moved, and this is now my office… no, this isn't your computer that I'm accessing - I own one that looks just like yours, I guess… you really ought to make it up to me for accusing me of hacking into "your" computer in "your" office - perhaps over dinner tonight?… and let's keep this mix-up between you and me until then.

Personally, I strongly believe in social skills as a puzzle, and in role-playing through that puzzle. I do not believe that you are likely to win a vegetarian over with a steak (figuratively or literally), no matter how juicy and delicious the steak. I believe that most systems that are sufficiently robust to allow complex social manipulation will also allow things I don't believe in, like convincing someone who likes good food (and who doesn't?) that their friend is the most delicious thing ever, and that they should therefore kill and eat their friend, right now.

Honestly, 2e D&D has the best social system I've seen in an RPG. OK, admittedly, I add in a few house rules, like how an NPC being "unfriendly" vs "friendly" means that, when the PCs make a mistake (trying to feed the vegetarian NPC a social steak, literally or figuratively), that attitude helps determines how they react, and is the difference between them being insulted, and them politely correcting the PCs… how many such "wounds" their relationship can take, and how quickly said wounds heal.

[Max_Killjoy]

So, the question you have to ask is, what do you think (nonmagical) social skills should be able to do?

How far along this train should be possible: this isn't your office… I know your name is on the door, and your stuff is in here, but it's a mix-up - you've been moved, and this is now my office… no, this isn't your computer that I'm accessing - I own one that looks just like yours, I guess… you really ought to make it up to me for accusing me of hacking into "your" computer in "your" office - perhaps over dinner tonight?… and let's keep this mix-up between you and me until then.

Personally, I strongly believe in social skills as a puzzle, and in role-playing through that puzzle. I do not believe that you are likely to win a vegetarian over with a steak (figuratively or literally), no matter how juicy and delicious the steak. I believe that most systems that are sufficiently robust to allow complex social manipulation will also allow things I don't believe in, like convincing someone who likes good food (and who doesn't?) that their friend is the most delicious thing ever, and that they should therefore kill and eat their friend, right now.

That's exactly what I mean -- I've seen system where if you just "roll well enough" there's no limit on what one character can convince another character of... there's no "smell test" on what the character is attempting to make someone else believe or feel or think.

[Segev]

That's exactly what I mean -- I've seen system where if you just "roll well enough" there's no limit on what one character can convince another character of... there's no "smell test" on what the character is attempting to make someone else believe or feel or think.

I apologize for harping on this, because I agree with you in principle, but I am not sure if we're really on the same page.

Can you tell me how "the smell test" to see if something shouldn't be possible no matter how well a socialite rolls might be implemented in such a way that it doesn't break down into "convince the GM" => "just RP it, you nerd?"

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you don't want to have to change systems or shoehorn something into 3.5, PF actually has a system for this sort of thing. I haven't actually used it in play but I have given it a once over and couldn't see any immediately obvious flaws.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemasteri...ial-conflicts/

[kyoryu]

Fate, generally speaking, has two types of social rules:

1) Conflicts, which are basically combat (except usually without zones). However, in Fate it's probably more accurate to say that combat works like non-combat than non-combat stuff just uses combat rules. You'd use a Conflict in Fate when you're basically trying to bully someone or force them down/to surrender etc.

2) Contests, which would in the physical realm be things like chases. In this case it's about who is gaining more ground. This is best used in cases like debates or negotiations. A lot of times I"ll use degree of success to determine how much ground the victor gives up, similar to Burning Wheel.

For negotiations/etc., it has to be a believable offer to even start the mechanics. Usually, this means offering the opposition something that they want, even if it's not so overwhelmingly of a good idea that the other side will automatically take the offer.

[Max_Killjoy]

I apologize for harping on this, because I agree with you in principle, but I am not sure if we're really on the same page.

Can you tell me how "the smell test" to see if something shouldn't be possible no matter how well a socialite rolls might be implemented in such a way that it doesn't break down into "convince the GM" => "just RP it, you nerd?"

First, I'm far more concerned about use of these abilities against PCs, by NPCs or in PVP, attempts to hijack characters and violate their core principles -- which is what I see in a lot of these systems.

Second, some sort of layout of core principles that the player sets for their PC, and that they're also expect to not violate casually in their own RP, would be the first line of "smell test".

[Koo Rehtorb]

It's really not very hard. First you ask "Can your character be persuaded of this?" If yes, then roll to see if he is persuaded. If no, then no roll happens and you do something else.

All it requires is good players who don't get overinvested in their character being an untouchable island socially.

[NichG]

I feel like I say this every time this kind of thread comes up, but: don't make systems which treat social interaction as if it were the same as combat.

That is to say, there's much more to human social interaction than deciding 'did I persuade this person successfully?'. A good negotiation is one where both parties leave feeling as though the negotiation was advantageous to them. Bystanders will likely run away from a fight since being involved means they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. "Bystanders" will still engage with each-other socially because they have everything to gain and little to lose.

A lot of the reason why the systems that are 'roll to persuade' need a smell test is that often players attempt to use the social mechanics as if they were a club for beating down opposition, so that actually the best option for NPCs who are behaving rationally under the mechanics would be e.g. to shoot the character before they have a chance to open their mouth, the same as you would want to drop the wizard before they get a spell off in a fight.

That's not to say that socialization should always be strictly cooperative, collaborative, non-hostile, etc, but the nature of social hostility isn't 'I'm going to brainwash you with my words', its more distributed. An example would be, you have three people X, Y, and Z. Z wants Y to do something, X wants to hurt Z, so X forms a mutually beneficial arrangement with Y that prevents Z from getting Y to do what they want. It's negotiation of control over consensus or appearances, making moves which change the atmosphere in such a way that the goals of those you wish to disadvantage are harder to achieve.

I think the pillars of a mechanical social system should be:

- Information gathering. Much of the blunt-force-socialization comes from trying to get something for nothing, because the NPC is only on screen for a brief period of time and the player has to make wild assumptions about what the NPC wants. Giving mechanical ways to know 'this character wants X' or 'if I make this proposal, the character will react in this way' or 'this is the relationship between those two characters' provides cues that can be used to increase the sophistication of the player's approach to a scenario without immediately reducing the situation to conflict resolution via dice rolling.

- Collective influence. Once place where I do think 'roll to see how well you do' can be effectively implemented in a social context is if the character is attempting to influence crowds, courtrooms, etc - something where there are multiple NPCs being impacted, each who thinks differently and wants differently, so individual social nuances are blended out. This can include things like spreading rumors, controlling the flow of a debate, having a chance to seize and hold the floor when there are many voices trying to grab attention, etc. At the individual level, this might be buying the chance to say something to an enemy before they stab you. Basically, success here empowers the character to make their pitch or to prevent another character from making theirs, but it doesn't determine if that pitch will subsequently pan out.

- Application of consequence. Rather than 'I rolled well / you are persuaded', I would tend to favor mechanics which apply consequences to others for violating agreements or acting against the socializing character. This kind of mechanic model things like, characters who inspire loyalty cause those who betray them to be wracked by guilt. Because of the principle 'all characters should generally feel like engaging in social interaction is to their benefit', this kind of consequence has to either have a positive side (as long as you go along with me, you gain a buff) or has to be voluntary as a way to secure trust (I will submit to this entanglement in lieu of having some other way of proving my sincerity, so you are willing to risk things on what we agreed).

[Quertus]

"I'll give you $1,000 to just hear me out."

Would you believe that offer?

For me, the answer - heck, even the question - would be far more complicated than that, and would depend on so many variables.

What if they tried to write you a personal or company check? What if they tried to hand you the cash? What if the speaker was (appeared to be / presented themselves as) a bum begging on the streets? Or arriving in a limo? Or flanked by security? What if you knew the person?

What about where they want to have this conversation? Right there, in public? Somewhere else public? In the limo? Somewhere more private?

But wouldn't it also depends on, well, you, as to whether you believe that you're in a position for someone to make you such an offer? Would they want to pay to hire you away from your company? Make use of your skills (in a way that would be worth that much money just to hear them out)? Maybe (not) talk about something that they think you've seen (even if it didn't seem important to you at the time)? Something sexual? A prank? Or maybe they just want to take your kidneys (and take their money back)?

And what about the location where this conversation took place? At your work, at your house, on the street, at lunch, they woke you up to make this offer - wouldn't that change your perspective on the conversation?

Add to that what you read from the speaker, their tone, their attitude, what their attention is on. How do they carry themselves (and how does that match what you know about them)?

Now, try and flip that - how would you create a scenario where the target would believe that statement?

Well, first off, you wouldn't. No, seriously - your goal wouldn't be to make them believe that particular statement. Your goal would be to make them do whatever it is you were about to ask them to do… or to modify their behavior in a way that you believe the request (or even the invitation) will cause - possibly simply relocating them is the goal. Or maybe you want their kidneys.

So, fine, you've taken what you know about the target, and your own personal "resources" , and have decided that offering to pay them $1,000 just to listen to you is the best way to achieve your goals. But how do you present yourself to maximize the odds that they will acquiesce to your request? Not just your request to be heard, but your final request, as well? Or, rather, to do whatever it is you want them to do (which may be to leave with you, or even to say 'no' to your offer)?

Maybe your goal is for them to say 'no', and then talk to their SO / business partner / whatever about the encounter, because your actual goals are with them, and involve changing their perspective (perhaps of the target, or perhaps in general). Maybe you're just trying to convince their connection to suggest stronger legislation about illegal organ trafficking, or to consider your human cloning proposal (one of the benefits of which would be to reduce the need for black market kidneys).

Anyway, point is, it's complicated.

Now, let's totally turn this conversation on its head.

Suppose you want to have fun playing an RPG. IME, the optimal way is to run a series of one-shots, where the players display their range, the GM displays their range, everyone gets to actual see what people mean by words like "political sandbox" or "verbose academia mage" (or not use those words at all until describing shared experiences). And then the group gets to make an informed decision regarding what cast of characters on what type of adventure they think would be the most fun. That is, IME, the optimal way to set up an RPG.

So, from the GM's PoV, that's "know your group", "know yourself", "get buy-in", and "get the group to do the work".

Or, more generally, for "social combat" (ugh), "know your target", "know your assets", "get buy-in", "have the target's own biases full in the gaps".

So, information, self-assessment, presentation, psychology? Maybe? Thoughts?

[Max_Killjoy]

"I'll give you $1,000 to just hear me out."

Would you believe that offer?

I'd walk away immediately if someone said that.

[MoiMagnus]

No, what I mean is, conversation is not mind control or illusion, no matter how charming someone is. What I mean is, for some people there are certain things that they could never be talked into thinking, believing, or doing, no matter how charming someone is. And what I mean is, conversation is not combat, and a "nope" to a conversational ability vs a "nope" for a combat ability isn't a direct comparison.

It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'd never talk most people into believing that up is down and that they're about to fall off the planet. It doesn't matter how "charming" someone is, they'll never talk a Paladin out of their code and oath. I don't want to post the examples of things that most modern western-society people could never be talked into believing are good and right, no matter how "charming" someone is.

The problem is that every "social interaction mechanics" system I've seen is either pure GM fiat, or treats all social interaction as mind control and/or inherently adversarial to the point of being reskinned combat.

Social interaction mechanics are often designed to allow GM to decide "after the fact" what was the mentality of the NPCs. If you failed, the maybe it meant that the person cannot be convinced at all (hence you cannot just try again with another test). If you succeed, it might means that the NPC was already considering changing his mind before you started talking to him.

Similarly to failing a climbing roll being sometimes interpreted as "the climbing was harder than it looked" and not "you messed up and failed", in a way alike of "result of the d20 retroactively change reality so that its result is the reasonable outcome".

A d20 has too much variance to only mean "how well you performed a task", I find it more rational to consider the result of the d20 also quantify "how (un)favorable is the context of the task, outside of known factors already included in the DC". Though I agree it does raise problems when you have a NPC that cannot be overwritten by the result of a dice without breaking the coherence of the universe, or when the PCs start having bonuses to tests too high for this vision to still make sense.

[Max_Killjoy]

Social interaction mechanics are often designed to allow GM to decide "after the fact" what was the mentality of the NPCs. If you failed, the maybe it meant that the person cannot be convinced at all (hence you cannot just try again with another test). If you succeed, it might means that the NPC was already considering changing his mind before you started talking to him.

Similarly to failing a climbing roll being sometimes interpreted as "the climbing was harder than it looked" and not "you messed up and failed", in a way alike of "result of the d20 retroactively change reality so that its result is the reasonable outcome".

A d20 has too much variance to only mean "how well you performed a task", I find it more rational to consider the result of the d20 also quantify "how (un)favorable is the context of the task, outside of known factors already included in the DC". Though I agree it does raise problems when you have a NPC that cannot be overwritten by the result of a dice without breaking the coherence of the universe, or when the PCs start having bonuses to tests too high for this vision to still make sense.

I generally reject any game mechanic that retroactively changes the context (ie, reality) to justify the outcome.

If you're rolling to determine what's true, that's one thing -- if the roll retroactively changes what was true, that's a different thing entirely and unfair to everyone at the table.

[KineticDiplomat]

You may also want to look at “Burning Empires” which is a Burning Wheel offshoot. It has very specific social “fight” rules - basically you preplan three “moves” like Obfuscate, Ad Hominem, Make a Point, and so forth in a sequence -, as well as degrees of success where unless you trounce the guy completely, the winner will still get his result modified by the loser to some degree.

Basically each side wagers the outcome they want, and if they win they get it - but the closer the win, the more “buts” the loser gets to put in.

So if someone wins “you should go on a date with me” by a whisker, the date target (Player or NPC) might get to say, “but it’s only coffee, in the morning.”

[kyoryu]

Actually, so do I.

What I'm a little more okay with is rolls determining things that were previously unknown. But once something is set in place, it's set in place.

Also, for general, with rolls I find it useful to understand the consequences, as that will help explain what "failure" means. "Can I climb the cliff?" is a different question than "can I climb the cliff before Bob gets away?" And if the task is really something that should be done, and we're only talking the time to do it, then don't roll.

Context is a thing. If you are a beggar and go before the King and demand his daughter's hand in marriage, the only interesting question is whether you're just laughed out of the room, or whether you're thrown in jail.

If you're a nobleman from some hostile country, and ask for her hand as a means of securing an alliance, there's a number of factors going on with the King - how much does he want the alliance, how much is he willing to give up his daughter, does he trust you to take care of her, etc. That's an interesting question worthy of a roll, as accepting and rejecting the offer are both plausible outcomes.

[Willie the Duck]

If you find one, let me know. Every social system I've come across has been:

• Roleplay it, nerd!
• Set an arbitrary DC / TN and roll!
• Social interaction is just another form of combat, use these reskinned combat rules!

What I'd really like to see is something that takes into account that social interactions are complex, but aren't combat, aren't always adversarial, aren't always zero-sum.

It would have to take RP into account without grossly penalizing the players who don't themselves possess persuasive or commanding personalities.

It would also have to acknowledge that sometimes there's just no way to change a person's mind, that there are things you can't just talk certain people, or any people even, into thinking or doing no matter HOW "charming" you are.

The problem is that every "social interaction mechanics" system I've seen is either pure GM fiat, or treats all social interaction as mind control and/or inherently adversarial to the point of being reskinned combat.

This exact question is a singular obsession for my primary GM. He is vaguely incensed past reason that this isn't a solved problem by now. One of the things we regularly build into our attempts are various roadblocks that preclude using pure charm offensives-- as in, 'sure, you are so charming that the guard will do something they have no personal interest in, and maybe even put some real effort in, but you've done nothing to address that they have no reason to trust you and would lose their job/possibly face criminal charges if they helped you, so you can't even start to move forward on the persuasion attempt until you resolve those things.' Unfortunately, often the solution for those roadblocks come down to 'Roleplay it, nerd!' or 'think of the solution the GM has in mind and you can pass'/mother-may-I.

And that leads to a grander point I've discovered about TTRPGs -- I don't really like most resolution mechanics... excepting various games combat resolution mechanics, which generally work for those purposes (and thus I at least get why people tend to try to use reskinned combat mechanisms). Admittedly, social interactions are a really good example, since there are confrontational and non-confrontational interactions, zero sum and not, winner take all or partial success, negotiations with 'you convince them to do so, but only if you...' situations. However, a resolution mechanic for a PC doing something like... making a map of a valley, build a house, heck, performing surgery... they also usually are disappointing.

Even games like GURPS which are elaborate skill-based systems usually only give a rigorous way of determining a chance of success, with some hard and fast modifiers to the success chance. Some systems will take level-of-success as a separate check, but many roll that in as well with a 'succeed by 5 is better than succeed by 0' metric or the like. The few exceptions I know of tend to be storygames where it is more narrative resolution than task resolution, or hyper-specific examples like 007's (and later remakes) chase system which is decently complex and the like, but only for one specific task.

I'm going to have to hunt down Exalted and Burning Wheel to see if they have anything of interest. I too would love to find one that is satisfying. My point is merely that it isn't exclusively social systems that I find lacking.

Social interactions cannot be simulated - the above replies not withstanding. Edit: Maybe I should clarify: They can certainly be gamified. But I consider them too complex to ever be succesfully represented by .. well, 'mechanics'.

That's almost a little too pessimistic. Combat is also too complex to be truly simulated, yet we find low-res representations that are relatively satisfying. However, social interaction is definitely the most complex thing we put these game systems to the task of representing, so I find it unsurprising that it is the thing people tend to find least satisfying.