Genre Police: Rules Of Conduct

Last article, I looked at when an RPG has game rules that dictate roleplaying actions, how they differ from rules that direct the mood of a game and how they can sometimes feel oppressive and controlling. 

So now we’ve been critical of rules for social interactions we need to look at why we might want more complex social rules and what they do when they take different forms. To begin with, let’s look at some reasons to have a ruleset for this at all.

Why Not Just Act It All?

Ok, so there’s that famous ‘we didn’t role a dice at all and just talked things out!’ delivery of a fun session. And on some level, that makes sense. There’s great fun to just be had acting in character and letting personalities bounce off each other, having deep or important conversations with NPCs. But for a minute, let’s consider that some characters are probably more or less charming than the players that play them. 

Imagine someone has a fantasy of being the person everyone likes but are themselves quite shy or have trouble reading social cues. Or they have a chronic condition that saps their energy at the table and so sometimes they aren’t up to the effort staying in character as a whole session requires. Should we allow those real world things to mess with the character build they have? Should they be socially outperformed by the person playing the charisma 5 barbarian who has a player who is a smooth operator? 

I think it’s fair to say this is the reason we have social skill dice. We aren’t expecting a warrior player to demonstrate a martial strike, or a computer hacker to understand how to actually hack. We shouldn’t be expecting a social character’s player to be able to make us cry every time they open their mouth.

So social situations are a difficult beast. In a game like D&D the resolution is quite simple. Make your point and make it clear how you are doing so. I’ll pick the relevant stat to roll and tell you a DC based on if your point makes logical sense, how suspicious the idea is and general NPC friendliness. This is often in character but doesn’t have to be – the game takes care of everything in one roll and we can move the narrative forward. In a way, it is elegant in it’s simplicity. And it helps everyone, regardless of ability, shyness or other factor. But it’s not too deep.

In a more complex game like the Old World Of Darkness games, the discussion could be more than one roll. The player makes an opening lie based on the force of personality. They make one roll (Charisma+Subterfuge); if this succeeds, then they go on to try to use that lie to make the Prince of the city act a certain way and roll (Manipulation+Subterfuge); if that succeeds, they then make (Perception+Politics) roll to see if anyone in the room noticed what they have done. Or maybe they fail the second roll. The Prince overreacts and passes draconian rulings they hadn’t bargained on, and they have to persuade them to show leniency (Charisma+Empathy). 

You see how this set-up works on a deeper level, but the approach still supports a freeform flow of conversation. Arguably, the best social ruling here is one where it’s a quick roll, and we move on. We don’t want a social interaction where you don’t roll any dice, but instead one where when you look back at the interaction, you sort of forget dice rolling happening because it’s moving and flowing. Both systems are mechanised largely because we need to fairly and accurately represent a character’s chances of success in that situation. Mechanising social stuff is fair and helpful.

So When Is It Too Much?

This is a good question. I think if we are attempting to play a certain genre of game, it might be important to have the players understand the sort of social interactions that happen in that genre. How deep they are, and what is to be expected. 

There’s a temptation in games to mechanise social interactions to support what the game is interested in exploring. And I get it. The Legend Of The Five Rings early editions were made better because players had to consider how certain actions and ways of addressing people affected their honour score. How they spoke to their equals, lesser and greaters really was worth thinking about, and they were mechanically rewarded. But the game was also explicit about this. A player who struggled with social skills could, in theory, follow the behaviour expectations laid out in a game and gain honour. It’s very clear to see how this functions in game. Lots of games follow this ‘social currency’ model because it works so well, with Eclipse Phase going the whole hog into the idea that your social media profile basically is your currency.

When it becomes more difficult is when players are almost forced to act a certain way, often with the game not explaining the roadmap. Games that have a mechanic where players suffer social damage and must complete certain behaviours to get rid of them have an issue in that the game is only really interested in telling one narrative, and that narrative can get repetitive over a longer time. The fifth time you’ve destroyed something of worth to feel better makes it unsurprising that other people don’t like your character – they refuse to learn and grow, repeating the same cycles. So, if you’re playing a game with complex social mechanics, it’s important to look into them and see if they still work for you every few months.

Putting in the facility for growth as a person is important; taking time to sit and talk with players about where the characters are at and how the game rules are/aren’t serving them is going to save you headaches in games. Gameplay loops that exist on repeated behaviours should exist to serve the narrative and play, not become a noose that makes play hard to continue.

In the end, it becomes about having faith in players and not forcing social interactions to take a certain shape. For example, in my previous articles, I’ve talked about Vampire & Cthulhu, which have mechanics that represent a downward spiral and loss of agency. And this is true but the game needs to be wider, have things outside of this narrative sometimes. They need to be games also filled with friendship, or triumph, or character study. When games with social rules start to enforce behaviour patterns that straightjacket all our choices to one narrative, the organic nature of finding out who you are starts to disappear. So be careful of that slope no matter what game you play.

Thank you for indulging me in this exploration of social limits. I’m going to change focus and move on to a new topic, possibly involving chickens.