So, tomorrow half my group comes over for our first test of the conflict system in the Dresden Files RPG. It’s very similar to the Spirit of the Century system, but with a couple of tweaks to add a little detail (like weapons and armor) and scale up the grit a bit. It looks like DFRPG conflict is going to be a little nastier than SotC, more of a noire feel than a pulp one.
Both systems allow for different types of conflict. There’s the common physical conflict system (i.e. combat), of course. But they also allow conflict in the mental and social arenas. So yeah, your character can lose an argument by using the mechanics. Or get embarrassed in public. Stuff like that. There are rules for your confidence and your reputation taking a hit and affecting you throughout the game. Or longer. Man, I love the Aspect system in this game. That’s where this kind of flexibility comes from.
Anyway, these tests aren’t going to be a full-on game, just a stress test of the system. I’m coming up with one of each type of conflict, and we’re going to play through it, and see how it goes. Postmortem on the play, then maybe run them again to see if different choices in play make a big difference in the outcome or if the stats and skills on the character sheets determine winner. Depends on how much time we have.
All this means that, today, I’m trying to come up with one of each type of conflict to play through, based on the Magical Winnipeg setting and the characters we’ve created. The physical one is easy: I figure a bunch of Mad Cowz led by a hyena lycanthrope. I’m struggling a little with the mental and social conflicts, though. I’ve got a number of options, and I’m trying to work out which ones will work best for a group. Here’s what I’m toying with:
Mental
- Arguing a case before the Council of Ghosts in the Vaughn Street Jail.
- Out-thinking the Corn King spirit manipulating a corn maze on Hallowe’en and finding the way through to the centre.
- A riddle contest with trickster faeries.
- Persuading Operation Clean Sweep to hold back from a raid on a Manitoba Warriors club house until the Warriors take down a Mad Cowz shaman.
Social
- Negotiating a cease-fire between the Indian Posse and the Deuce.
- Persuading a group of Gimli Einharjar to stop trashing a bar and go home.
- Convincing the Spirit of Two Waters not to grant a boon to a necromancer.
- Revealing a White Court Pentecostal preacher to his congregation as the emotion-sucking vampire he is.
Now, all these things are doable with the system (and how great is that?), but some are going to be more interesting than others. I’ve got to put together encounters where everyone has a chance to contribute, and not everything hinges on a single roll, or a single skill. While things like that might work in a normal game, it doesn’t fairly test the system, which is the point of all this. So, I’m thinking.
I’ll let you know what I come up with, and how people handle it.
Why are some persuasive tasks social and some mental?
If it’s divided by skill, the divide doesn’t really exist until a player picks an approach.
For example this one:
Persuading Operation Clean Sweep to hold back from a raid on a Manitoba Warriors club house until the Warriors take down a Mad Cowz shaman.
If a player decides to try the “I can’t explain why, but trust me” it would seem social.
If a player tries to wrap them in red tape it’s probably mental based on law.
This one:
Convincing the Spirit of Two Waters not to grant a boon to a necromancer.
This seems like it could be mental, if it was based on explaining how the boon violated the neutrality they seek to preserve.
In a normal game, you’re right. I wouldn’t dictate the approach or the methods used to accomplish it. It would all depend on the approach the characters decided to take and the outcome they were trying to achieve.
However, in the interests of testing the three types of conflict system, I am setting some arbitrary restrictions on the types of approach. Basically, I’m setting the situations so that one approach is far more appropriate than the others.
In practice, I’ve found that the desired outcome determines the approach that is most appropriate. If you want someone to agree with you, the conflict tends to be mental. If you want someone to back down or lose face, the conflict tends to be social. If you want someone to bleed, the conflict tends to be physical.
Now, skills can be used in different areas to affect conflicts that seem outside of the purview of the skill. For example, trying to persuade Operation Clean Sweep to hold back a raid. Let’s say it’s a social one, trying to get the lead detective to back down or trust you. You could still use a mental skill, like Law, to impress him with your knowledge of the law enough to either give you the benefit of the doubt or become intimidated.
In a lot of cases, it can be a judgment call on the part of the GM as to what type of conflict is appropriate, though the player choices certainly influence that call to a large degree.
But, again, for the purposes of testing, I’m restricting the arena of conflict a little bit.
Anxiously awaiting your report for yesterday, Rich!
“Revealing a White Court Pentecostal preacher to his congregation as the emotion-sucking vampire he is.”
Hope you went with this one. This sounds the most interesting!