Social skill expansion?

[Dorchadas]

Hello! I found Novus a few days ago, and it hits basically all the buttons for what I want in a fantasy RPG. I did a series of blog posts about how I'd edit D&D to my liking and then gave up my attempt when I realized it had basically all been done. Thanks in advance!

[imported_Rasyr]

Give me some ideas by what you mean regarding "social interaction", and I'll see what I can come up with.... most of the time, I prefer to play things out, and/or perhaps toss in a saving throw when appropriate

One of the cool things about Novus is that it is very easy to add things or make changes without too much worry about it breaking horribly (yes, you can break it horribly, it just takes a determined effort to do so...)

[imported_Rasyr]

oh! and welcome to the forums!!

[Dorchadas]

Thanks!

Give me some ideas by what you mean regarding "social interaction", and I'll see what I can come up with.... most of the time, I prefer to play things out, and/or perhaps toss in a saving throw when appropriate

Well, in terms of what I was personally planning to cook up, I was thinking a system a bit more like Weapons of the Gods, where bonuses and penalties are applied to people's actions as a carrot or stick in response to social rolls more complicated than simple yes/no questions. Like, just a straight Influence roll is fine for convincing a guard to let you through a door, but if you're trying to convince him to side with you, maybe a successful roll provides a -2 penalty to his rolls if he attempts to act against you when you attempt to overthrow the duke due to doubt about the rightness of his cause, or a +2 bonus to his rolls to distract other guards so you can sneak into the throne room.  It seems to fit in perfectly with the Boon/Snag system for configuring the magnitude of the bonus, too; or with applying nWoD-style Conditions with higher levels of Boons. As background, I tend to prefer social systems where the same rules can be used for PCs and NPCs.

[imported_Rasyr]

Do you have Libram Novus #6? In it, are several methods of alternative resolution, that may actually apply to what you are discussing here. Take a look at it, and let me know if that is useful to you.

[imported_Witchking20k]

That is exactly what I was going to recommend.  The core rules were written for a classic style action resolution- all or nothing.  The set in LN6 offers 3 more resolution methods which can be used to simulate many more skill based situations.

[Dorchadas]

Hmm. I do, and the "bonus" alternative resolution might work to determine the exact penalty/bonus leveled on alternate parties when social skills come up. I'd just have to diversify the skill set so it's not just all Influence and run a few tests. Or maybe adapt the chart for the different between opposed rolls--especially if NPCs are going to be rolling social skills against PCs, they're going to want to roll to oppose it somehow.

I'll tinker with it a bit and come back.

[imported_Rasyr]

With influence skills, you could use standard saving throws (based up will or intelligence or wisdom, depending upon how the "attacker" is making the "social attack").

So, basically, you have them roll on the bonus column, and the modifier is applied to a base of 15, to determine the TN of the Save against the attempt to influence...


Just remember that if you more than maybe 3 skills, you will want to increase Character Points as well (2 CP for every 3 skills added, I think or +1 CP for every 2 skills added, since the 15 CP per level is based upon a median of 30 skills).

[Dorchadas]

Alright, here's what I've come up with:

Influence is removed in favor of the following skills:
Command (Cha): Giving orders and having them be followed effectively.
Deceive (Cha): Influencing other people's opinion by being less than truthful.
Empathy (Wis): Figuring out what other people are feeling, telling if they're lying, or trying to discover ulterior motives.
Intimidate (Str): Scaring people into doing what you want.
Negotiate (Cha): In addition to buying low, and selling high, it also covers trade deal and so on. Has some aspects of persuasion, but not exactly the same.
Persuade (Cha): Trying to convince people to switch to your point of view.

Mechanics
Roll your skill vs. the appropriate counterskill or save (Deceive vs. Empathy, Intimidate vs. Deceive, Negotiate vs. Negotiate, etc.), and if you win, then the target gets a bonus or penalty to a certain kind of actions. Probably just ±2 at a time, with boons and snags increasing the possible change from a single roll.

Also, I'm thinking of borrowing Passions from Reign and Runequest 6 and dividing them them into Influences, which arise from social rolls, and Passions that are chosen by the player based on some mechanic. Passions would be things like "Loyalty to the Duke +6" or "Hatred of Elves +2" or "Maintains Code of Honor +4," and then would function as a bonus on social rolls to advance the object of a Passion or a bonus on rolls to resist any attempt to create an Influence that's opposed to a Passion. So the guard with "Loyalty to the Duke +6" is going to be really hard to convince to look the other way while the players sneak into the Duke's private chambers.

Passions also act as buffers against negative Influences, so even if an Influence is successfully created, the target can ignore the mechanical penalties as long as they're equal to or less than the opposing Passion. I'll cap Influences and Passions at ±10, which prevents them from getting out of hand and lets someone set a Passion at +10 and have an unshakable conviction about something.

As for durations for Influences, I'm not sure. That's the kind of thing that will really need playtesting, I expect, which I currently haven't done any of.

[imported_Rasyr]

Sounds definitely interesting.....

I look forward to hearing how it comes across in playtesting...

[Fidoric]

A bunch of very good ideas there.
You may want to have a look at FATE aspects rules. I  have just read them last week and found them to be both efficient and elegant.

[Dorchadas]

A bunch of very good ideas there.
You may want to have a look at FATE aspects rules. I  have just read them last week and found them to be both efficient and elegant.

I'm not really a fan of FATE as a whole, but I agree the Aspect rules are great. I tend to use them, or something like Reign's Passions, in basically every game I run.