When it comes to physical conflicts, scaling them upward is a no-brainer. We have tests of speed and strength, then followed by a duel between two combatants. Scale that upwards and we have mass combat, and move it up by another notch, we have mass battles and wars. Less said in RPGs are how social conflicts can be scaled upwards. When we think of social conflicts, we think of haggling, persuasion and seduction. However, those belongs to the scale of one-shot physical tests, handled akin to some form of social arm-wrestling. Perhaps to add more nuances to social conflicts, we have to scale it upwards. So here are some suggestions.
Not all Social Conflicts Should be Scaled
That said, sometimes a one-roll social roll should be used when suitable. Just as it could get tedious to have 10 rolls to climb up a 10m wall, having to roll so many times just to get a discount, or to persuade a guard to look the other way is overkill. This disclaimer being made, let’s move on to…
How to get a stubborn ox to move
Weapons of the Gods introduces a system of relationships into social conflicts. A character has relationships with other characters and factions, and each type of relationship has ways of improving and degrading. For example, in Chinese culture honouring one’s parents is important, so if a character’s parents is drawn into a social conflict, it becomes more complicated. The character may stands his ground to ignore what his elderly grey mother wants, but their relationship will suffer, which may have other consequences. A simple example would be if an inn-keeper’s grandmother is around, and you need to stay at the inn despite it being full, you can try to appeal to his grandmother’s sympathy so that the grandmother would convince the innkeeper to go beyond the call of duty (and the lure of gold). This can be easily slapped into existing games as a modifier, stunt or an Aspect.
Weapons of the Gods’ social mechanics introduce many type of relationships. Father and son, siblings, friends, lieges and vassals and so on. Such a system could be adapted to other games. Dwarves, for example, could place emphasis on their clan (take a Babylon 5 example – how Delenn managed to convince her clan that she is allowed to marry a non-Minbari); if you get his clan to pressure a Dwarven smith to produce the weapons for your armies, he is more likely to comply.
There may be a scholar who refused to translate a tome. Money don’t move him; he doesn’t need anything. However, he may have a rivalry with another scholar in the same town, and by dropping hints that you would go over to him may move things to your favour. Or he may have a mentor – you can go to the mentor, invoke an old favour (assuming he does owe you one) and add pressure on the scholar. However, relationships doesn’t work for you all the time. The scholar’s religious affiliation may prohibit him to touch a forbidden tome (perhaps you need to convince his religious leaders that reading a pagan tome is ‘for the greater good’). He may have promised his romantic love a trip and does not want to spend the time. Including all these factors would make social conflict more than just a single roll.
Upping the Stakes
Tapping into a NPC’s relationships with his friends, families and enemies to get him to act the way you want can be overkilled if all you want is to have a sword at 25% discount (or even just to get him to give it away for free). The suggestion is to only involve those factors for plot significant arcs, and for something to be significant, it must be something worth fighting for. In the above example, it is assumed that the tome contains a powerful ritual to bind a demon. One can easily up the stake more. Examples include: persuading an entire village to flee before a band of goblin invaders come (in real life many won’t leave their homes despite impending disasters), getting an alliance of small city states to send armies against a threat, or even asking another nation into an alliance.
By extending the scale of the conflict, you get to involve more players. One player could be on a diplomatic mission to secure an army, while the other will try to get an informant to part with information about the foe. Each of them influence each other. Succeed at securing an army, and the informant may be cowed into giving the information. Get the information first, and the allies may be more willing to send out their warriors. Other acts would sway things in your favour. Sneaking into the enemy’s camp, and returning with one of their leaders’ head could become a forceful factor in a negotiation! This allows combat characters to lend aid in a social conflict, be it his impressive battle records, history of being fair to others, his religious affiliation, providing some piece of obscure lore or even defeating the other party’s champion in a duel. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang debated with the scholars and sages of the Kingdom of Wu prior to the Battle of Chibi. He then incited Zhou Yu by saying that Cao Cao desired his wife (which didn’t happen in history).
An Example of a Large Scale Social Conflict
The political arena is often the best stage for a large scale social conflict, though a war with shifting allegiances is one too. This example contains massive spoiler from the Chinese manhua The Ravages of Time (mentioned earlier and elsewhere in my blog). Though the storyline is that of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the comic changes the details significantly. The situation is thus: Cao Cao has met defeat at the hand of Zhang Xiu and is surrounded. Meanwhile, to exploit his weakness, numerous foes begin to march on Cao Cao’s base, Xuchang and those includes Liu Biao, Lu Bu and Yuan Shu, plus Liu Yong, a scion of the Han Imperial Family (no, not Liu Bei; he was recently defeated by Lu Bu, got his ass kicked to the small city elsewhere in Xuzhou).
With Cao Cao isolated at Danyang, defeated by Zhang Xiu, and four armies approaching, what is he to do? Troops have been stationed south to fight off Liu Biao, and an assassin finished off Liu Yong, but there’s still Lu Bu (who is smarter than how the original novel protrayed him) and Yuan Shu. One of Cao Cao’s best advisors, Xun Yun, managed to get them to fight each other. But how?
Sometimes ago, when Lu Bu was defeated by Li Si and other (shortly after killing Dong Zhou), he fled to Chenliu, and tried to take Puyang from Cao Cao, and failed. He then sought refuge from Liu Bei. Liu Bei kindly gave him a small city to dwell in, Xiaopei. However, when Liu Bei was away once fighting Yuan Shu (by the Emperor’s decreed, which was of course manipulated by Cao Cao), a group of bandits and displaced soliders invaded Xuzhou. Now, it was Zhang Fei who secretly liased with them (he’s not stupid in the comics too), as to lure Lu Bu to attack and be ambushed. However, Lu Bu knew of it and his advisor Chen Gong, paid another large sum of money to buy those brigands over, and in the end it was Lu Bu who succeeded in kicking Zhang Fei out from the city (but it’s more complex than that). Finally, Lu Bu absorbed those brigands as part of his army.
Okay, let’s return to how Xun Yun managed to get Lu Bu and Yuan Shu to fight each other. Xun Yun arrived on a diplmatic mission to Xuzhou and confered on him the General of the Left. He hinted that the people of Xuzhou loved Liu Bei, and Lu Bu’s rule may not be welcomed (working on Lu Bu’s relationship with his citizens), then confer a title which make his occupation of Xuzhou official (hence improving relationship with Cao Cao). At the same time, Xun Yun’s nephew, Xun You, went to meet Yuan Shu and said Lu Bu was coming to attack him. The latter, of course, did not believe – after all, weren’t they going after Cao Cao?
So here’s the final move in this social conflict. Xun Yun was the one who ultimately arranged the brigands to invade Xu Zhou, and joined Lu Bu. On his orders, the brigands took up Lu Bu’s banners and impersonated as his soldiers, attacked Yuan Shu. With this, Yuan Shu believed Xun You, and fought with Lu Bu, leaving Cao Cao safe. Liu Biao, seeing that he was alone in the whole affair, called off the attack. If you could, try to imagine the whole situation as a map with each character/faction as a circle, with lines linked to each other. That could be akin to a tactical map for physical combat.
Hopefully this will give more ideas for social conflicts; next time, I will try to come up with some Fate 3.0 mechanics and rules to formalize this.
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