More musings on social mechanics

Okay, this is (more or less) a recent exchange on a podcast I listen to… (The Durham 3, #42, I believe)

I'm really intrigued by this, and at the same time horrified. A and B were both PCs.

I've heard arguments in favor of this… "When an argument starts in a roleplaying game without social mechanics, there's nothing to force a resolution. Two people will argue for hours without either giving in."

Well… yeah, because that's how people are in real life a lot of the time. But in a game, a lot of the factors, emotional or social, that lead to ending an argument aren't present. Your character only becomes embarrassed, hurt, or scared when you want them to. Or when the game mechanics say they are?

When you and I fight with swords, there has to be an end… eventually, one of us is going to give up, flee, or be rendered incapable of fighting. In a verbal conflict, the "rendered incapable" basically doesn't happen. Tired of a conflict in which neither party will give in, some people storm out of the house, some flip on the TV and ignore the other. Unfortunately, some turn to physical violence… for much the same reason many gamers do. They can't win an argument mechanically, so they lean on the combat mechanics to prove their point.

So the problem here is that, while a real life married couple might fight for three hours straight before one of them storms out of the house, watching players argue for three hours is a waste of time. The advocates of social mechanics think that, just like physical combat, we need a way to quickly resolve the duel of wits or contest of wills and keep the story moving.

While I agree with the intent… we need to keep the story moving… I'm not sure I can buy into the means. Especially when it comes to extremes like one player dictating the emotional world of another player's character.

But here's why I'm so conflicted over that above scene. It's cool. If the exchange goes, "You love me." "No, I don't." "Yes, you do." "No, I don't." "Yes, you do." "No, I don't." "Yes, you do." "No, I don't." … that's boring. I suppose one character can eventually storm out, but that leaves the core conflict unresolved. A is convinced that B really loves him, B is convinced that she hates him, and at the end of the scene… neither has convinced the other. Leaving that tension unresolved until a later scene can be okay… but in this stand-off, it's never going to be resolved.

But you've seen this in the movies… B hates A, but eventually realizes that she really loves A. Or once in awhile, A finally realizes that B really hates him and he moves on. But more often than not, ("Romancing the Stone" comes to mind), the former is how this conflict turns out.

So how do we reach a resolution? The players and/or GM could just reach an agreement. But that feels kind of like "giving in" doesn't it? Kind of like when the GM says, "You beat the villain to a bloody pulp!" when you didn't get to roll a single die… while there was conflict in the story, the conflict didn't manifest itself in the dice and mechanics. It wasn't a conflict outside of the story.

Now, I don't think a roleplaying game is a competition between player and GM. But I do think that conflict has to manifest itself at the mechanical level… it's why I gave up on freeform play, because it just wasn't satisfying. But "freeform" is exactly how I handle social conflict… and I find myself wondering, would mechanical social conflict make social conflicts more interesting for me, in the way combat mechanics make combat far more interesting?

Frightening. I'm starting to be swayed by the dark side of story-games. Will I defeat this evil menace… or become his apprentice?