do as I say, not as you think..., leadership and PCs Options

[eidolon]

[tisoz]

I still fail to see how it gives the GM control of your character or makes you an NPC.

Also, I still fail to see how using Negotiations 6 on a fellow PC is worse than using Pistols 6 on them.

And ignoring your PCs stats so you can use your player attributes to influence your fellow PCs, bravo.

[toturi]

I have absolutely no problems with a PC or NPC using Intimidation or Interrogation on a PC. The problem I have lies with using Leadership or Negotiation on a PC, as it stands per SR3 rules (I do not have SR4 yet), it is easier to get a PC to do something than an NPC because all the modifiers on the Social Situations table refer to NPCs. Yes, it can be house-ruled, but it can also be interpreted as the writers never intended for Leadership and Negotiation to be used on PCs.

[Glyph]

[eidolon]

At this point, both sides have fairly well exhausted their position. If there's anyone left that doesn't at least understand where the other side is coming from (regardless of whether they agree), they're either being difficult for the sheer sake of it or are, as I like to say, "fucking retarded". I'd like to think that the majority of DS isn't the latter.

That, or they're not actually reading the other people's posts, but just replying blindly for the sake of argument. That would be different. :please:

[hyzmarca]

OKay, I'll give an example that is somewhat less extreme. Say one PC is actually a Good Merge but none of the other PCs know it. One say, a PC notices the Good Merge doing something insect-like and gets suspicious. The Good Merge tries to fast-talk his way out of it and gets decent rolls. It was a small incident, it was easily explainable and the PCs haven't met any Bugs yet.

Would it be valid for the dice to say that the PC believes the lie or would it be valid for the PC to just kill the Good Merge right then and there no matter what the dice say?

To make it more extreme, consider that this is several months before UB and the only people who know about the Bugs are immortals who were around for them the last time and double-digit initiates who do a lot of metaplanar travel.

Or, instead, consider that the runners had just gone against a major hive and the Good Merge was captured and out of sight for some time. In this situation, fast-talk success seems less likely.


In the most extreme situation, where the PC doesn't even know what a Bug is killing another PC because he may be a Bug is a little extreme, I'm sure we'd all agree. I'm not sure that a roll would even be necessary. But nothing says that the character can't put two-and-two together later after a long string of the GM's lovers are found decapitated or a Brundle-fly disolves someone's face.

In the latter situation it seems that the PCs should be suspicious but the level of suspecion is hard to guage. Would a PC murder a comrade on suspecion of being an insect? Possibly, it very much depends on the character. Could the Good Merge explain its way out of the situation, that is also very possible.

Between these two extremes there are many other possibilities so that it is impossible to calculate all of them. Pure roleplaying leads to one major problem. When the two players can't agree there is no way to settle the dispute. Should the Good Merge face meet certain doom because of a player's OOC knowledge or should a player ignore his own instincts just because the other character has a higher skill? The only thing to resolve the dispute is player altuism. Altuism can win here. Communism can work. Far too often, the gap between can and does in insurmountable.

Utilizing the dice provies an absolute and final solution to this conflict. Like most final solutions it is brutal and leaves a mass of stinking corpses for someone to clean up. But it does provide a defenitive answer to the conflict when and if it occurs.

It is the GM's ultimate responsibility to be the fair and impartial arbiter of this solution. It is the GM's duty to apply it with both ruthlessness and compassion.
For ruthlessness and impartiality, no backsies and no mulligans. Anything less would be poor sportsmanship. For compassion and fairness, the problem is much more complex. It is true that the player knows the PC much better than the GM, thus it makes sense that the player should have some input in the TN modifiers, within reason. It doesn't take much for a GM to ask the player what the PC is thinking and how difficult the player believes the social test against the character should be.
If the players are reasonable then everyone can agree on a TN and let the dice roll.
If a player is an asshole then we'll have him demanding +1,000,000 modifiers and the GM will be beating the player sensless with the rulebook as per his or her duty as arbiter of the dice.

Most of the complaints about the use of social skills against PCs is the lack of player input. This solves that problem. It is the fairest solution that I can think of. It may not be for everyone. If you live in a Communist roleplaying paradise then good for you, to each his own. If you live in a harsh world where the dice rule as blind and deaf idiot-gods without player input then that is okay too just don't expect me to visit.



"Who is going to pay the bar tab?"

Dwarf Sammie: 6, 2, 9
Troll Adept: 4,3,4,7
Elf Conjurer(defaulting):3,1,9,3,4,5,6,8,2,1,4,7,12,1,1,5,19,2

"So we crawl out the men's room window like last time, then?"

[TheHappyAnarchis...]

I personally have known two women that were saving themselves for marriage that thought they had found the one and ended up regretting it.

I have known a tough talking ganger that got dressed down by a suit in front of his friends and backed down.

It has happened. Whether or not it happens to you is a result of the dice rolls.

I can understand the ideas that the other side is saying. I just think that in the pursuit of being fair, it really isn't fair.

I think that their side just works better as an unspoken rule. It's impolite to use Mind Control spells on other players, or for the GM to do so. It is also impolite to use social skills in an excessive or demeaning fashion.

However, I roll social skills because players need to know that their characters are not any more infallible than any person or they may be.
If your players are good enough that they will remember to "fail the roll" when it is fitting, then great. I don't see why to use dice for anything else either, because they can just independantly arbitrate everything else to. They will be fair in how often they hit and such.

I understand where social skills are different, but you aren't making them an NPC. You are making them a victim, just like someone shot, or someone magically controlled. If you don't like PCs to be victims then you can run it that way. I have been in some very excellent games of Exalted where the PCs are demigods that tend to get their way. It can be a fun way to play. That's not how I like Shadowrun. I like gritty and painful, and I like conmen.

[spotlite]

Wow. Lots of good points, both sides there.

We've gone with this -

where small unit tactics is involved, you don't take orders, you don't get the benefits.

There is a line between what you can reasonably convince someone to do with Negotiation, Etiquette, or Leadership without pharmacological, external stimuli or magical involvement. That line is fuzzy, and can probably not be quantified.

There is probably little you can NOT convince someone to do with intimidation, because that's the point of intimidation.

We are introducing an opposed roll for social skills tests which have the 'harmful to target' or worse modifier. We may even allow the target to have modifiers applied in their favour to their own tests but this has yet to be playtested, and I hope it will be a while before a player tries it on another player anyway.

Finally - using your social skills to adversley affect other players is to be discouraged, in the same way as PvP combat generally is in our game. But ultimately, if one player decides to use skills they've paid for on another player because they've run out of roleplay skill (or as in the case of combat ensuing, they might've irrevocably roleplayed their way INTO it) then fine, go for it. And both parties must live with the consequences - which may not happen immediately. Someone intimidated into following an order is likely to be looking for revenge later if they survive. If a PC orders another PC to do something like kill themselves, then that is not the sort of player I want in my game, unless there's a DAMN good hypothetical.

[SNIP - that sounded like I was being REALLY snidey. I didn't mean it to sound like that at all, and I've taken it out because neither sentence was necessary in the first place anyway. Sorry if anyone saw it and got offended - I didn't, didn't, didn't mean the insult it ended up being!]

Its been very valuable to me, anyway, so thanks!

Oh - and its all subject to change after playtesting.

[Glyph]

TheHappyAnarchist, I get what you're saying. It irks you that players all too often will ignore anything that an NPC says, and you think it's only fair to use the dice to get them to react like normal human beings when threatened, schmoozed, and so on.

But I still prefer to let the player decide how to react. That's not to say that the dice rolls won't heavily affect the presentation, but the final say should go to the PCs for anything that isn't objectively quantifiable (like negotiating pay with the Johnson, or noticing that someone's Tir accent is fake).

The reason for this is that the PCs are the ones who best know their own character. Rolling for social skills can move the game along when it has reached an impasse, but it can be a tool for railroading if misused.

Even worse, it can ruin the character for the player. If you envision someone tough as nails, who hates the corpers who killed his brother, then the GM tells you that you grovel to the effeminate suit, what happens to your vision of the character? And don't tell me that the player should "roleplay" it. It's not roleplaying when your entire character concept gets trashed. Yes, characters can and should grow and change. But if it is imposed from outside, it will only be resented. Far from encouraging roleplaying, it will only encourage bitterness and apathy.


GM: "So, um, the rest of the group wants your decker to "take one for the team" from an overweight troll biker so they can get invited to the rally, and you're okay with that?"

Player: "Why not? She's just a ****ing slut now, so who cares?"

GM: "The group is under heavy fire now. Isn't your ganger going to fire his Panther Cannon at anyone?"

Player: "Nah. He's a wuss, remember? He can't even stand up to an unarmed guy in a suit without flinching, so no way he wants any part of this. He'll just hide behind that car for the rest of the round, then try to sneak away."

GM: "Hey, looks like the face finally failed his roll. Guess he's buying his own dinner tonight."

Player: "He... failed his roll? I SHOOT HIM! RIGHT NOW!!"

[eidolon]

[tj333]

In RPGs the way the rules can be interrpreted on things like this are incedibly varied.
The following is how I think it should go and as long as you are having fun feel free to do it your way. At least until we are in the same game then we need to work things out at the table.

Myself I think that social skills can be used against any character in the game. But social skills are rather fuzzy in their use. You can say how long and how many successes it takes to repair a car. But how long does it take to change someones mind? Its a tough call for the GM to make and it shouldn't be done without the player's input.
Once you have the players input on the situation they shouldn't feel that their character was being controlled against their will anymore then getting shot does. I believe that dice and skills should be used. Social skills aren't mind control but a player that is not heavely influenced by the die rolls is not really playing the same game as the others players.
Now somethings are just impossible (social skills or otherwise), or at least they are under many situations. Determining if it is such a situation is something that should be done by all of the players (GM included).
For those wondering I do let players roll relavent skills to work on the plan or to realize something is just plain stupid.


I forget who mentioned but they said that D&D has better rules for this then SR. Could you please give me a quick pointer to what those rules are?

[ShadowDragon8685]

D&D's stance on social skills is that they just don't work on players. Exception is Intimidation, and only in the strictly-controlled sense of "You fail to beat his intimidate check, you take -2 to AC and attack rolls and damage on the next round."

[mmu1]

[TheHappyAnarchis...]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Dice should never substitute roleplaying, and they should never take control out of the character's hands. Even at a TN of +12, a good Face (Especially one with various sorts of bio,) could do that. Convincing the decker to 'take one for the team' from the troll biker? No way. I don't care what the face says, and if he persists in trying to persuade me to do it, he can find himself another fucking decker. The ganger and the suit trying to intimidate one another? The BEST the suit can hope for is to provoke a violent reaction, not win a stare-down with someone like that.

[The Stainless St...]

...and if we all just keep saying the same things over and over again enough, then something worthwhile is bound to happen - isn't it?

Seriously people, can we just let this thing die? If you haven't been convinced by one side or the other at this point I think it's safe to say you're not going to be.

[Critias]

[TheHappyAnarchis...]

[The Stainless St...]

[TheHappyAnarchis...]

Well, okay. But it is an exercise in developing different ways of attempting to explain things, as well as providing evidence and assertive arguments in a debate setting.

Even if one side is really saying the same thing over and over again.

Either way, I am enjoying it. If you are not, why are you still reading it?
Reminds me of an RPG.netter's sig line. Something along these lines.

What the hell is wrong with gamers. Even my dog knows not to stick his nose in something he doesn't like. ;)

[ShadowDragon8685]

If someone is trying to get me to do something I don't want to do, I don't care how smooth they can talk. It ain't happening. So why should my character, who can be just as obstinate as me, do something she dosen't want to do?

Short of mind control, the answer is "she shoulden't."

[eidolon]

[hyzmarca]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Which becomes mind control, because short of large amount of nuyen changing hands (specifically, from someone else's hand into my hand,) there's no incentive. And I'm the decision-maker of what's acceptable, not the dice.

[Critias]