Last week I posted a first version of a flow chart for social interaction. Here is a refined version:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45448342/Social%20...hart%202.0.docx

*Edit* PDF version for people that have trouble with Word.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45448342/Social%20Flow%20Chart.pdf


Not every action is entirely defined in the flow chart yet and I think I will need a very developed list of social modifiers. I will be updating this chart as I have time in the next week. I would like to have a defined set of rules for how to handle a social encounter, the same way that you would handle a combat or infiltration encounter. This is an attempt at that. I would appreciate feedback (preferably useful, but if you just want to say it sucks and it's a terrible idea, that's your business. I won't push the issue). I am not trying to cut out roleplaying from the social aspect of the game, just lead players who have more social characters than themselves and limit players playing characters less social than themselves. Roleplaying in this format would be the choice between whether to flatter or belittle an opponent, even if it's not the statistically most advantageous thing to do. Thanks for the advice.

P.S. I realize there are rules for social skills, but I feel like they are limited and vague. If there is something on social interaction in a book outside of SR4A, I probably have not read it, since I don't have all the extra books.

My gosh the only thing missing is Power Point.

That makes my head hurt just looking at it.

Perhaps a wee bit complicated for use in-game, but neat.

It is definitely neet. May take a closer, more in-depth, look at it later. I like it.

I suggest you put it in PDF or some other format ? LibreOffice does not seem to open it properly.

It looks complicated, but try making a flow chart of combat options sometime. It's probably just as messy. I think in use you make about 8 rolls and develop a pretty detailed description of how the talk/deal went. Any suggestions for making it less complicated?

try making a flow chart of combat... Are you a project manager or industrial/systems engineer?

To be honest, I don't like it. I'm a huge advocate for having players make as few rolls as possible, and I like success to mean something, not just push them along to another test. When I want to get something from someone, I should roll a check that sees if I succeed, the intermediate steps are covered by that roll.

Anyways, just my .02nuyen.

Thanks for the input. I can see what you mean about having as few rolls as possible, but I disagree. I don't think there are very many things in the game that are just one roll and you succeed. You don't let a player say, "I want to infiltrate the Ares facility." and then roll one infiltration check and they succeed. (at least in any game I've played in) You don't just roll one check to see if you succeeded in combat or you died (unless you're surprised by a mound of explosives). You don't let players say, "I hack." And then if they roll well, all of the intervening steps in the hacking process are covered by a single roll. Heck, even a lot of uses of skills that are one task require extended tasks. (Actually, to be fair, you could probably run a game like that and have it be fun, but I don't think it's called shadowrun. That feels a lot more like FATE or FUDGE to me.) So I don't feel like it's appropriate to pigeon hole social skills as, "roleplay some and then roll once to see if you succeeded." I have always been uncomfortable with just saying that social interaction can be wrapped up in one roll. And it almost never is in a game anyway. It usually just ends up being an ad hoc series of rolls. "I use etiquette to blend in." "Ah, I screwed that one one, I guess I use Con to explain away my mistake or is that another etiquette check?" "There's the target by the punch bowl. I will use Con to convince him that we met at a party months ago." "I use Con to convince him that we should go outside and have a smoke." "I use intimidate to scare away that other girl that's hitting on the target so we're alone." etc. That's not just one, "I use Con to get the target outside."

Now obviously, I'm not suggesting you need to have a social encounter with every hobo you meet on the street or to play through every task, but I want some guidelines for the big social encounters. Talking the target out of the party, getting the big Job, talking the guard into letting you go, etc. I want the Face to have just as much time to play when his expertise comes up as the street sam does in a fight.

Daylen-
Close. I'm a mechanical engineer. Charts are just more intuitive than blocks of text.

I agree that some things are more complex than a single check.

I figured you were some sort of engineer. I've never made flow charts for an rpg, but I have used LabVIEW to do Monte Carlo simulations of of a few dice systems and scenarios...