The West That Wasnt - Social Combat (original version)

Social Combat

Most characters in TWTW will wind up having some kind of skill with a weapon in order to defend themselves and bring physical harm to others when the need arises. In TWTW, this is simply labeled “physical combat.” Most game systems have fairly detailed systems to simulate how this works, with all sorts of emphasis on maneuver, hit locations, weapon effects, and the like.

There are times, however, when you want to win a fight without drawing blood, without engaging in physical combat. After all, they say “violence doesn’t solve anything,” even though most of us can probably agree that adage is completely untrue; it may solve one particular problem while creating a whole host of other problems. Perhaps a middle ground might be “violence shouldn’t solve everything.” In this vein, we introduce the concept of Social Combat. At its core, Social Combat (or SC) involves a character using their words to sway the thoughts of another by one of several methods. In order to streamline the skill system, these broad approaches are narrowed down to four general methods and their attendant skills. Also listed are the associated traits for each attack type.

Attack Types

• Intimidation: The threat of consequence—be it the threat of physical violence, blackmail or financial ruin—used to bully others into compliance. (Uses Strength/Presence)
• Argument: The use of logic, facts and debate to prove you are right, someone is wrong or make a solid case that your way is the best way. (Uses Knowledge/Acuity)
• Persuasion: The use of charm and empathy to win the heart and mind of an adversary, and convince them to see things your way or coax them into doing something they might not otherwise do. (Uses Presence/Essence)
• Fast talk: The use of trickery, misdirection, deception and blathering to confound a person. (Uses Presence/Acuity)

In physical combat, certain things are fairly straightforward and relatively easy to model; you are attempting to hit a target and cause damage. Enough physical damage (of any type) will generally convince a target to disengage from combat or will knock them out or kill them. Social combat attacks cause their own kind of wounds, which is tracked by the Stress attribute. Stress wounds degrade a character’s abilities just as physical wounds do. Stress wounds represent a character being rattled, unnerved, having their faith shaken, and generally messes up their focus and concentration. As the size attribute determines how much weapon effect causes a physical wound, the Willpower attribute determines stress wounds from social combat. When a social combat attack causes effect, divide by the target’s Willpower, and discard the remainder. The result is the number of stress wounds delivered to the target.

Social combat is a bit trickier in that the methods listed above are like the weapons in one’s SC armory, and some weapons are better suited to achieving certain ends, or in a particular milieu. Some targets may also be more susceptible to certain SC “attacks” or may be resistant to others. A Jesuit priest or a lawyer may be more resistant to Argument, while a conniving salesman might be resistant to fast talk. Likewise, a crowd gathered lined up before a snake oil salesman might be more susceptible to persuasion. Winning someone over using argument may work just fine in a courtroom, but may have little use in less-formal settings such as a saloon right before a brawl breaks out. Trying to get past a sentry might call for intimidation; using intimidation to get a better deal from a shopkeeper might just cause him to call the police or have him throw you out of his store!

Ultimately, social combat shouldn’t be a complete replacement for roleplaying, but we feel that there should be some system to allow characters with the proper skills to attempt to modify the behavior of others that is a bit more engaging than making a simple skill check to see if you have successfully cowed/convinced/bamboozled your verbal sparring partner.

Stakes

Social combat ought to be somewhat limited in scope. You might try to get a better deal from a horse trader, but you should not be able to convince him to sell you his entire stable at cost. You might intimidate an opponent into fleeing from combat, but you should not be able to use the social combat system to convince him to switch sides and fight for you, and then commit suicide after the battle out of abject terror no matter how many bumps you get. In much the same way that you would not be able to sink an ironclad steamship with a shot from your Peacemaker, or literally knock a fella two counties over regardless of how hard you punch him, there should be a sort of limitation in place. In this sense, social combat will require some discretion on the part of the Judge, and some “literary cooperation” on the part of the players.

Toward this end, when a character engages in social combat, “stakes” should be declared. Simply put, this is the end goal the player is hoping to achieve should they best the target in a round of social combat. It might also conspire that a target may simply not be willing or able to engage in social combat; trying to wheedle for a better deal might not work if the salesperson isn’t allowed to change the price! Declaring stakes lets the Judge know what you are trying to accomplish and whether it is even possible. In physical combat, these distinctions generally don’t need to be made. If you punch or shoot at someone, it’s pretty clear what you’re trying to accomplish and how it plays out, and it is easily understood what an acceptable target is. This is not always the case with social combat. Even a character who is highly skilled at all manner of social combat skills shouldn’t be able to schmooze, cajole and threaten everyone all the time to get everything they want. This would probably make gameplay a bit tedious and mechanical, and maybe throw a story off the rails just as much as if the players opted to fight their way through every conversation! Players should use some discretion in what they would like to accomplish with social combat and how often they attempt it, and Judges should also prepare for such encounters just as they prepare the occasional (or frequent!) action scene. For some example encounters, a player might attempt to bully their way past a guard (intimidation), sweet-talk a clerk into slipping them a useful tidbit of information (persuasion), use facts and evidence to convince a jury to acquit (argument), or simply engage a lookout in simple conversation long enough to allow their pals to sneak past unnoticed (fast talk). In each of these examples, a player would tell the judge their intention to engage in social combat and lay out the stakes. For example, a player might say, “I suspect the clerk would have details about the Rail Baron’s itinerary, which would enable us to lay an ambush for him. I would like to engage in social combat to see if I can learn something from her.” The judge thinks this is reasonable, and allows the player to proceed. If the character was skilled in intimidation, argument or fast talk, they might also use those approaches to achieve the same goal, but they might have different consequences when everything is said and done, so choose carefully!

In this case, the stakes are that if the character is successful, he may convince her to tell him something that is useful to him. Using a different example from above—the one using Fast Talk to distract a lookout—the stakes might be “I would like to use Fast Talk to distract the lookout and allow the rest of the group to sneak past.” Stakes can be modified at the discretion of the Judge. In this case, the Judge may decide that letting the others sneak past guaranteed if the fast-talker is successful is inappropriate given the circumstances (maybe the street is deserted and any traffic would be considered unusual, or perhaps the lookout is guarding the villain’s headquarters and the judge doesn’t want the players to breeze in quite so easily). The Judge might modify the stakes to allow the others a chance to sneak past with a bonus to their skill check, for example. If modifying the stakes, the Judge should probably let the player know in advance to avoid accusations of bait-and-switch.

Similarly, the Judge may impose a set of stakes as well, depending on the situation. This is appropriate if the target will engage in a counter-effort against the player. If a player wants to bully their way past a guard, the judge may lay out stakes, a goal the NPC is attempting to achieve. The player might say, “I want to use my intimidation to attempt to get past the guard,” which the Judge sees as being reasonable. However, the guard isn’t just going to sit there like a lump; the Judge might declare stakes: “Okay, but if the guard wins, he has convinced you that you’re not getting past him and you skedaddle with your tail ‘twixt your legs.”

Remember: When you choose to engage in social combat, you are taking a risk. For story purposes, you should be willing to accept the consequences of failure. If your character gets into a fist fight, you can’t just say “I refuse to be knocked unconscious” and continue to fight when your character has taken too much damage. The same goes for social combat. There is a point at which your character is defeated, and you will have to deal with the aftermath. The primary difference here is that in SC, your character will be alive/conscious, and you may have to roleplay (or at least rationalize) your defeat. As a participant in the Social Combat, the player has a choice when to disengage, depending on how many stress wounds he is willing to suffer in pursuit of his goal.

Scope

With the limitations set in place by the Stakes system above, there is one more limitation to consider which differentiates physical combat from social combat. In a physical altercation, the combatants can always carry on until they run out of blood, or some other external event makes combat impossible. In social combat, if the interaction is allowed to drag on too long, or the “aggressor” doesn’t make a decisive point quickly enough, then the target will become inured to their attempts. A character cannot socially combat their way through the countryside with reasonable requests and rely on the fact that they can eventually wear down any target and get the better of them. People who are unskilled at social combat techniques will generally have a limited arsenal to affect the will of others. Those who are more skilled have developed the ability to prolong these interactions, and thereby forestall the inevitable point of argument immunity or Godwin’s Law. To reflect this, characters who are more skilled in SC skills will be able to take more actions before an SC is forcibly concluded.

A PC engaging in SC will have a minimum of one action for each SC attack type. When SC is started, shuffle the action card deck and deal out four cards face down. These represent the player’s Intimidate, Argument, Persuasion and Fast talk actions. If the character has levels in any of these skills, they can deal additional cards to that stack. Levels 1-2 gain +1 card, 3-4 gain +2 cards and level 5 gains +3 cards. This will allow the savviest character in the history of interpersonal relations to have up to 16 possible actions to conclude an SC encounter, but most will probably have much less than that. This should ensure that SC encounters are resolved fairly quickly without disrupting the flow of gameplay.

Triggers

Not every SC encounter will require you to completely break the will of your target, and depending on the choices you make in SC, you may not have the opportunity. Based on the stakes you have set and the nature of the target, the Judge may set one or more trigger points for them. This is a number of Stress wounds you must inflict before the target gives in. At the Judges’ discretion, there may also be other triggers that will cause the target to take other actions that seem appropriate which will effectively end the SC encounter. For example, in certain circumstances, if you use an intimidation attack (on purpose or accident), the target may become physically hostile (beginning a physical combat encounter) run away or attempt to summon help or the authorities. Just as the Hero can break off SC at any time, NPCs may have reasons to do so, as well. Lastly, if the player is performing poorly during the encounter, or the target is performing well, the Judge may choose to disregard his previously established trigger, and see things through to the end if the player is on the ropes, so be careful! To maintain suspense, the Judge can keep any triggers secret.

A Matter of Perception

Some experts tout that up to 90% of one’s message is delivered to others not by what one says but how one says it. In the real world, these are known as paraverbals, and they are crucial to messaging in real-world conversation. They include such elements as vocal rate, tone, inflection, volume and physical body language. This sort of detail is difficult to simulate, but the end result is that ultimately, it can be quite easy for one’s intended message or delivery to be misconstrued by one’s audience. You may be making a logical argument, but your target might perceive it as a personal attack or a threat. You may be attempting to gently persuade someone, but they might interpret your slick words as an attempt to pull a fast one. You may huff and bluster trying to scare someone, but they might think you’re making a joke.

When you make an SC attack, you use one of your available SC actions. If there is no card available for the desired action, you must lead with a different action or disengage from SC. When the action card is turned, check the hit location element. This will determine how the target perceives your attack, and which one of their defenses is used to determine the TN of the attack: • Chest: Intimidate
• Belly: Argument
• Arms: Persuasion
• Legs: Fast talk

If the perception is different from the attempt you led with, you can burn a card from that attack stack and “switch gears,” or you can use available bumps to attempt to shift the hit location to a more favorable position. Switching gears uses up your available actions faster, but having your actions misconstrued may have reduced effectiveness and unintended consequences. Having your attack misconstrued without switching gears will also increase the target’s resistance to the type of attack you led with.

If the hit location is the head or vitals, the attack is spot-on, and also earns extra bumps (2/1) for added penetration or effect if the attack is successful (meets or exceeds the TN).

Using Your Words

When making an SC attack, you will choose one of the four attack types: Intimidation, Argument, Persuasion or Fast Talk. Each of these has two traits associated with it. Each time you make an attack, one of the two traits will be used for the Cause and the other for the Effect; one trait is used to determine if your attack is successful and the other is used to determine damage. Make your choice based upon your talents, your target, or what strategy you would like to employ. You may need to use a higher trait to ensure a successful attack, or if the target is an easy mark, you might want a higher trait for a more powerful attack. You can change which traits you use for cause or effect from one attack to the next. Make sure to specify before the action card is drawn; if the attacker does not specify, use cause/effect in the order listed in Attack Types, above.

The TN of the attack is based upon the target’s perception of the attack, so you will have to check the hit location first. If the attack is successful (meets or exceeds the TN), check to see if the attack penetrates the target’s resistance (Armor Value, or AV). The penetration value (PV) of each attack is determined by the difference between the skill check and the TN, plus or minus the modifier from the action card used. If the TN is 3 and your skill check was 5, the PV would be 2. If the attack penetrates the target’s resistance (PV is 2 or more greater than AV), the attack causes wounds to the target’s stress. Use the chosen trait to determine the effect column used, and the skill of the attack to determine the row (zero skill uses row 1). If the PV is equal to or only 1 greater than the AV, the attack causes RD and reduces the resistance of the target for that attack type. If the PV is less than the AV, the attack causes no damage and does not affect the target’s resistance. If the attack causes damage, each level of training above 1 for the trait used adds +1 to effect, so if Presence was being used to determine effect and the attacker had 3d10 in presence, you would use row 3 of the d10 column and add 2 (3-1) to find the effect.

If the attack misses the mark, use the lesser of the two associated traits for the perceived attack to determine the effect column, and the associated skill level to determine the column. If you burn an action and switch gears, you can use the trait of your choice to determine effect.

The Defense Rests

As an SC encounter continues, the target will tend to become more resistant to SC attacks. Also, based on what types of SC attacks you use and whether they succeed or fail will have an effect on the target’s defenses. At the end of each round of SC, the target is allowed to add one point to a resistance of their choice (unless otherwise prohibited). The target’s resistances will also be modified based on what attack was used and whether the attack succeeded or failed. A failed attempt is one that does not meet or exceed the TN. If it does, but does not penetrate, it is still considered a success, it will just do reduced damage or none at all.

Intimidate

• Increases the target’s resistance to persuasion by 1 (Success or failure)
• Failed attempts increase the target’s resistance to intimidation by 1
• Successful attempts reduce the target’s resistance to intimidation by 1

Argument

• Success reduces the target’s resistance to argument by 1
• Failure increases the target’s resistance to argument by 1
• Success reduces the target’s resistance to fast talk by 1

Persuasion

• Success prevents the target from increasing any resistances this round
• Failure increases resistance to persuasion by 1
• Success increases the target’s resistance to intimidation by 1

Fast talk

• Failure allows the target to increase 2 resistances instead of 1

Additionally, if the target’s perception of the attack differs from the attack chosen, the target increases the resistance to the chosen attack by one unless the attacker burns an action card to switch gears. As you can see, if an SC encounter wears on with no initial success from the attacker, the target will rapidly become resistant to attacks.

Other Effects

Each SC attack has one or more special effects:
• Intimidate: Can be used in Physical combat (Normal speed action, can be combined with other actions) to try and rattle an opponent. Number of uses in each combat encounter is limited to the number of action cards allowed in SC. If used in physical combat, do not check the hit location; at this point the attacker’s intent is pretty clear. If the attack causes stress wounds, these cause negative modifiers to the opponent. If the target suffers 5+ stress wounds, they will either flee or surrender.
• Argument: A successful attempt may be used to recover stress wounds instead of causing damage.
• Persuasion: Successful attempt reduces the TN of next SC attack by 1
• Fast talk: Failed attempt causes the target to recover stress, while a success earns an automatic bump that can be used for added PV or added effect.

Words Can Hurt

If a SC attack fails (the skill check does not meet or exceed the TN), then the attacker’s words are turned around on them. The target causes stress damage from the attacker’s action card using their counterskill level to determine the die type (0-1=d4, 2=d6, 3=d8, 4=d10 and 5=d12) and their current level of resistance to determine the row*. If the hit location was head or vitals, the target can add 2/1 levels of effect. The attacker does not get the benefit of checking PV; a failed attack always causes effect damage to the attacker. If the skill check results in a CF, the attacker suffers the damage that they would have caused (using their own trait/skill level to determine effect) plus one level of added effect, unless the target would have caused more effect using their own effect result. If the hit location was head/vitals, these levels of added effect also stack.

*If the Judge wishes to assign traits and skills to the NPC or if they are already known values, he can use the traits and skills for the attack being used instead of counterskill/resistance to determine effect for failed attacks.

Sizing up the Opposition

On any round, the attacker may burn one of their action cards to use the Judge Character skill with a TN of 5. If the check succeeds, the Judge reveals the value of the target’s stack with the highest total of resistance and counterskill for the remainder of the SC encounter. If one or more stacks have the same value, the Judge should select one at random. For each bump, the Judge reveals the totals of the next highest stack, and so on. If the attacker knows the value of one of the target’s stacks, he can use later Judge Character checks to attempt to reduce their counterskill or resistance at a TN of 5. Success allows the attacker to reduce one of the values by 1, with an additional 1 for each bump. Failed attempts to Judge Character do not alter the target’s stacks, but a CF result will grant the target an additional point of resistance to a stack of their choice.

The Set Up

Each target uses their own skills to determine their TNs and resistances to each type of attack. Their resistances are determined by their own SC skills. Additionally, each SC skill has a counterskill that makes it more difficult to land a successful SC attack. Resistances and counterskills can be recorded with unused action cards, but can also be tracked with regular playing cards, coins, poker chips, or tallied on paper, and should be kept hidden from the player. As the SC encounter develops, the target’s resistances will shift, but their counterskills will usually remain the same.

The total number of counters in each of the target’s stacks determines the TN for that type of attack, while only the numbers in the resistance stack are used to determine AV.

When an attack is made, unlike in physical combat, check the hit location first to determine which stack to use for determining TN. If the skill check versus this TN results in bumps that are used to shift the hit location (attack perception), the AV of the new attack is used to determine penetration. If the hit location is not shifted, the AV of the perceived attack is used.

This Conversation is Over

As an SC encounter carries on, the attacker will begin to exhaust their openings (use up their available action cards) for each attack type. If the attacker does not have an action card available for a particular attack type, they cannot attempt an attack of that type. They may attempt another attack type if they wish to continue. The attacker can attempt to shift the perceived attack type to an attack they no longer have action cards for (if for example, they are particularly strong with a certain skill or have a high associated trait but have run out of action cards for that attack type), but this prevents them from gaining the benefits of switching gears (as they would need an action card of that attack type to do so.

If the attacker runs out of action cards, they must disengage from SC; they have basically run out of things to say, and nothing else they might say or do will have any further effect on the target. If counter-stakes were established and the attacker did not achieve victory, the established counter-stakes kick in.

Additionally, the attacker may choose to disengage from SC after their current attack has resolved. If the attack in question was a failure and caused Stress wounds, the attacker can ignore this damage of this final attack by accepting defeat and disengaging from SC. Likewise, if the target reaches a trigger point, they can ignore the Stress wound that caused it (and suffer only the penalties of their current Stress wounds) before engaging the predetermined actions the Judge decided upon (such as initiating physical combat, running away or calling for help).

Social Combat Order of Operations:

• Announce the intent to engage in SC.
• Establish stakes. Tell the Judge what you are trying to accomplish.
• The Judge will determine if this goal can be achieved, or if there are any adjustments to the desired stakes. The Judge may establish counter-stakes. If this set of possible outcomes is acceptable to the player, SC continues.
• Shuffle action card deck.
• The player deals 4 stacks of action cards. (one for each SC skill)
• The number of cards in each stack is determined by their skill level: Unskilled=1; 1-2=2; 3-4=3; 5=4. The maximum number of cards a player can have is 16.
• The defender also lays out 4 stacks as above. This represents their Resistance to that kind of attack. (These can be action cards or some other form of counter)
• The defender also adds a second stack of cards in front of each stack for every level they have in each counterskill: Bravery adds to intimidate; argument to argument; Leadership to persuade; investigation to fast talk. (These can also be action cards or some other form of counter)
• The totals of the defender’s stacks should be kept hidden from the attacker.
• The player chooses an attack type, and determines which of the 2 associated traits will be used for cause and effect. The attacker may also choose to use the Judge Character skill in place of an attack. Turn over a card from their stack for that attack type. (Or a stack of the attacker’s choice if using Judge Character)
• If using Judge Character, TN is 5. Success reveals the target’s largest stack (if one or more stacks are equal, the Judge chooses randomly). Each bump reveals the next highest stack. Subsequent uses of Judge Character can be used to reduce the resistance/counterskill of a revealed stack by 1 at a TN of 5, with each bump allowing for an additional reduction of 1.
• Check the hit location to determine how the target perceives the attack.
• Use the target’s combined stat total for the perceived attack to determine TN.
• If the attack meets or exceeds the target TN, determine PV (Cause result – TN)
• Bumps may be used to shift location, add to PV or add effect.
• If the perceived attack is different from the original attack, the attacker may sacrifice an action card from the corresponding stack to switch gears.
• Check for penetration. If PV is 2 or more higher than AV, the attack penetrates and causes full effect. If equal to or one greater, the attack ablates, causes RD and reduces resistance by one. If PV is less than AV, the attack deflects and causes no damage and does not affect resistance.
• If the attack fails (cause result is less than TN for the perceived attack), the attacker suffers stress damage.
• The Judge determines if trigger conditions for the target have been met. Attacker/Target may disengage from SC.
• Apply Stress wounds.
• Apply changes to resistances based on attack type and whether the attack succeeded/failed.
• The target adds one to a resistance stack of their choice (unless prohibited).
• Begin new round.