Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
I'm not fond of the framing of "you should do what someone wants unless there is a block". It may just be presentation, but for negotiaions/agreements, it feels a bit coercive.

I prefer to see them as exchanges - "I'll give you x in exchange for y". Sometimes those are vague and fuzzy things, and ssometimes they're negative things "in exchange for 100gp, I won't punch you." Practically they might end up being the same (and certainly the idea of blocks is better than a lot of systems), but for some reason the framing just feels wrong to me.

I'm not saying it's absolutely wrong objectively, of course, and as I said, it is better than a lot of systems, but it rubs me wrong in ways I can't properly articulate.
I'm curious why you feel it's coercive. The intent is to have to allow things to flow smoothly without any need for the system until something specific comes up. You want to make friends at the bar? Cool, you succeed, nothing special needed. You don't need to offer anything, you want to be friends, the guy your talking to isn't against it, and so you get along and become friends.

Now if you are playing a draw and your in a racist tavern and youre trying to make friends things will be differant. The GM can immediately see that it shouldn't work, and that the block is that those in the bar are racist. If you want to still try to make friends as a drow, you'll have to find a way to overcome their racism.

It's at this point that trading and bargaining can happen. I use favours as just a way of handling intangibles because wealth and money mean differant things to dofferant people. A beggar will value 100gp more than a king will, for example.