Social mechanics clarification

[Slimcreeper]

Bu .. kok? Bu-kok! buu-KOK! I do feel pretty! I do!

[Mataxes]

I think the intent is for Attitude to affect Interaction Tests. The rules just don't actually use them.

It's on the Favor Success Table, p. 149 of the GM Guide.

(It could be called out better in the text, but it's there.)

[Tattered Rags]

I think the intent is for Attitude to affect Interaction Tests. The rules just don't actually use them.

It's on the Favor Success Table, p. 149 of the GM Guide.

(It could be called out better in the text, but it's there.)

Ah, I stand corrected. I did see that (I think it's called out just fine), but it never clicked. I was looking for something more generally applied to most interaction tests and not strictly to the favors section. The text states that the number of successes needed is usually dependent on Attitude. I didn't consider something that worked on Favors but not Making and Impression, Deceit, Insight, or Intimidation to count as "usually".
Not that it should affect Intimidation or Making an Impression.

(It's almost like game design is hard, and the world nitpicks the tiniest word choice.)

[Mataxes]

(It's almost like game design is hard, and the world nitpicks the tiniest word choice.)

What? Nonsense! We certainly don't see any of that around here.

(I kid because I love.)

[BRW]

Let me first express my sincere gratitude for the continued support of ED developers on this forum. It's great!

I also was mostly confused by the fact that the only place where the influence of Attitude was mentioned was Favors chart. I assumed that this implies that Attitudes do not affect other Interactions.

Ok, so as far as I can see the picture we get is as follows:

1. Favors should be understood very broadly: whenever I want you to do something it's a favor.
2. Payback for favors should be understood rather abstractly. If a judge make the right decision, it can be treated as a reward for a favor.
3. Attitudes do not necessarily represent how much they like me, but rather, how prone they are to my influence: they can just trust me or respect me, or find me an expert, or a reliable witness, etc.
4. You basically roll CHA + Attitude modifiers + situational modifiers. Skills mostly influence Attitude.

Did I get it right?

The follow-up question is: why does social conflict work like this? I do not want to house-rule anything without good understanding of the motivation behind the design.

My main worry is: current mechanics seems to make it really hard to be good at social skills. Whereas fighting characters are almost super-heroes in this system and and can easily face average non-adept warriors even when outnumbered and sorcerous characters are extremely potent and capable of doing all sorts of high-fantasy stuff, it seems that social characters (say, Troubadours) are better than others in talking, but not that much better, mostly because of the fact that their talents affect interaction only via Attitude, which mechanically does not give as much bonus as adding your Talent rank to tests.

Having said that, I am very new to this system. I haven't yet actually played ED, so maybe my impression is false, and social Disciplines do better than the rules seem to imply.

[Slimcreeper]

Social characters are not better in battle, and I don't think they should be. But - there aren't very many ways to really defend against a social monster out of combat. And lots of normal people with normal Social Defenses are in positions of great influence. They might have a few skills, but no real defense against a troubadour who wants to bamboozle them. Then your troubadour is suddenly in tight with the captain of the guard, and has convinced the smuggling ring to give her huge sums of money in exchange for keeping the captain of her back.

The hard things are providing opportunities for the social character to shine without making the others feel useless, and to remember use the social contest system even if there isn't a social monster in the group so that players become interested in beefing up that side of their character.

[Dougansf]

My main worry is: current mechanics seems to make it really hard to be good at social skills. Whereas fighting characters are almost super-heroes in this system and and can easily face average non-adept warriors even when outnumbered and sorcerous characters are extremely potent and capable of doing all sorts of high-fantasy stuff, it seems that social characters (say, Troubadours) are better than others in talking, but not that much better, mostly because of the fact that their talents affect interaction only via Attitude, which mechanically does not give as much bonus as adding your Talent rank to tests.

This is precisely why I take a broad view of the application of the social Talents. Because Adepts who invest in them should be able to dominate the social arena.

I suppose the big question is: Does the Favor Chart required successes have to happen in a single roll, or can it be over several attempts?
If it has to be in one roll, then adjusting Attitude is extremely important to reduce the effective SD of the target.

[Telarus]

(On my phone, short post.)

The system has many more options to improve Physical and Mystic Defense than it does Social Defense. It also has reactive talents to counter physical/spell attacks. Less so on the social side. This means that social characters don't require such high steps to be effective. I will have to think about the additions successes outside of the Favors rules. Also, Attitude also determines how the npc reacts to you Not returning the favor.

[Dougansf]

The system has many more options to improve Physical and Mystic Defense than it does Social Defense. It also has reactive talents to counter physical/spell attacks. Less so on the social side. This means that social characters don't require such high steps to be effective. I will have to think about the additions successes outside of the Favors rules. Also, Attitude also determines how the npc reacts to you Not returning the favor.

But Resist Taunt is available as a Default Skill, and now works against any kind of attack against his Social Defense.

Which means that without any training, you could roll default skills (Bribery, Conversation, Etiquette, Flirting, Haggle, Seduction) against default Resist Taunt. Straight up CHA vs WIL.

As far as I can tell, Steel Thought is the rarest reactive of the big three, because it's a pretty rare Talent-only ability.

[Telarus]

That is very true! I think Social Defense is the rarest Discipline bonus tho. Players and game masters should decide what counts as a social "attack", for example, Seduction totally counts, but some groups might not consider Etiquette an attack as it dors not target any characters' Social Defenses.

Great point about rolling raw Attribute Steps for default skills. So many groups forget that every character/creature/spirit has access to these "reaction" abilities.