Social interaction as a tactical game?

[Ashtagon]

There seem to be a number of approaches to social interaction encounters in D&D...

Basic:

"I roll Diplomacy at the baron." Die roll succeeds.

Advanced:

"I explain to the baron that this treaty would be in his best interests because then the Count of Janthus will owe him a favour, which could be used to leverage the entire kingdom into his hands with the right preparation." Die roll succeeds.

Alternate Advanced:

4e treats social encounters are skill tasks where you need X successes with no more than Y failures.

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Are there any rules sets where social encounters are essentially resolved as some kind of tactical game?

[BWR]

The Dying Earth game has rather complex rules for social interaction, which is basically choosing one of several approaches for 'attack' and one of several for 'defense' (with various modifieres against echother), then using a diminishing dice pool over several rolls to determine victory, counting number and types of successes with each roll. People are all but ordered by the rules to make in-character attacks and rebuttals in the appropriate style of discourse.
Ars Magica has something similar, but involves less dice rolling.
The Song of Ice and Fire RPG has a social combat mechanic, but I'm not familiar with it.

I don't know of any system that is so complex and detailed in social interaction mechanics that it approaches D&D combat.
I tried my hand at making a quick set of SC mechanics for d20 that worked kind of like skill-based combat but you couldn't exactly call it tactical. It was more like a support for roleplaying.

[Der_DWSage]

I'd heartily recommend you take a look at Exalted's Social Combat system-it seems to be exactly what you're looking for, here.

[NichG]

If you set the context and scope ahead of time, it probably gets easier to design the game. E.g. you don't want to use the same mechanic for a quick 30 second negotiation to bribe a guard and an evening-long dinner party.

For a dinner party for example, the tactics of the game could be something like control over the group topic of discussion. Each character comes in with particular goals that require there to be a certain topic being discussed in order to move forward with them. Immediately just blurting out your goals without regards to what other people are discussing is boorish, so instead you have to maneuver the conversation through a series of tangents that are somehow related to what is already being talked about in order to actually be able to discuss your goal. Also, if you discuss business at the wrong time of the evening then that's also boorish (don't discuss business over the meal, etc), and in addition you may not have given people a sufficiently positive opinion of you by then to get them to go along.

So the game would be something like, the conversation has a certain topic at any point. The participants each get to say things, and those things have a chance of changing the topic. However, the efficacy of those things depends on how appropriate they are to the current topic - blurting out 'thats dull, lets talk about my thing instead' will just fail. When you say your thing, you can aim at various sub-goals: improving people's impression of you (which increases the efficacy of future things you say in that encounter), changing the topic, slandering someone else, getting information from someone else, creating a pre-disposition in other people to favor or disfavor certain topics (e.g. tell a grisly story relating to the current topic, so that for the rest of the night it's somewhat impolite to return to that topic). Active agents in the encounter are trying to control the topic too, so it may benefit you to discredit them before you make your own move, so that you can approach your desired topic unopposed.

[Vaz]

I don't see why combat and social should be treated any different.

I 5ft step, full attack, power attack for full, how much hits, how much damage.

Or I shift my weight onto my right leg, and proceed to unleash a hurricane of full force blows, rage and anger guiding my every strike. Some missed, either deflected by his armour, or my wild abandon causing such strikes to swing wide, but those that do leave a hillock of dimembered orcs.

Depending on the DM's approach to combat, that may count as doing enough, or simply flavour text for the dice rolls.

Which is how I treat social occasions. If a character is dead flowery and obsequious with their speech, then they still need to succeed with the check. While the effect of someone praising the baron with all the compliments in the world, if they have the skill at social as a rolling pin, then they are going to appear as a buttkiss and brownnosing. Depending on the targets preference this is eother a malus or bonus, but still unlikely to succeed.

Meanwhile, one who is buttkissing, but good at bluff/diplomacy might eay the same words, recieve the same penalty, but succeed because they are able to make their words more sincere/pass it off as a joke.

[Ashtagon]

I don't see why combat and social should be treated any different.

I 5ft step, full attack, power attack for full, how much hits, how much damage.

Or I shift my weight onto my right leg, and proceed to unleash a hurricane of full force blows, rage and anger guiding my every strike. Some missed, either deflected by his armour, or my wild abandon causing such strikes to swing wide, but those that do leave a hillock of dimembered orcs.

Depending on the DM's approach to combat, that may count as doing enough, or simply flavour text for the dice rolls.

Which is how I treat social occasions. If a character is dead flowery and obsequious with their speech, then they still need to succeed with the check. While the effect of someone praising the baron with all the compliments in the world, if they have the skill at social as a rolling pin, then they are going to appear as a buttkiss and brownnosing. Depending on the targets preference this is eother a malus or bonus, but still unlikely to succeed.

Meanwhile, one who is buttkissing, but good at bluff/diplomacy might eay the same words, recieve the same penalty, but succeed because they are able to make their words more sincere/pass it off as a joke.

My issue is that conventioncal social interaction encounters are essentiallydecided with a single die roll, or in some rules multiple die rolls; but in mostcases once the dice start rolling, no further tactical planningaboutthe event takes place.

This is quite a seaprate issue from the total lack of any role-playing at all that happens in some groups and social encounters. No one seriusly considers it okay to resolve combat encounters by a single "Fightiness" roll, butthat is standard for social encounters.

[Vaz]

And why should that be the case?

If you go to the extremes, then social breaks down by dc150 diplomacy checks which can be obtained by 1st level, or even 6th level for less abuse.

Combat can be challenging or simple. From 'shapechange into a zodar' or simply needing to roll high enough to hit and having high enough strength to kill without needing to even roll weapon damage it is easy.

If you want to make social interaction more challenging, then improve NPC's counter socials, have other NPC's act as other petitioners for the same resources.

Enemy orcs attacking the southern borders in numbers that you can't deal with as a party? Go to capital and petition for the army to come help. There you face the merchant princes wanting to expand their trade empires, the caravans want to defend against bandits and the generals want to rest their men following a lengthy campaign season.

You can diplomance the King, who is at best indifferent to you, and at worst unfriendly for having yet more bad news, the general for his troops, if only the unwounded, tell the merchants that there is no point in getting new money coming in if they can't defend it, and let the caravans know that you can help protect if the army defends the orcs. Unless you can get them to become fanatical, they will be at least friendly to you, but not more accomodating than they arlready are.

So, you need to sway the other advisors - either by paying off, promising favours/calling them in, diplomancing or just killing them off if that is how your characters roll.

[Ashtagon]

Thank you Vaz. I look forward to hearing constructive comments in this thread.