Ok, thanks!
Just for my personal use I have built a collected 80+ pages of homebrew stuff that I like (made by me or by others, everyone is quoted).
One day or the other I'll put that thing somewhere online, as a fan-made pdf, but need time to refine it.
I think that some version of your idea will go there (and if it goes there, I'll definitively quote you as source of inspiration).

I've got the gist of it, and am considering just making a webpage with all my homebrew stuff. But that may wait until my stupidly over-ambitious redesign of social stuff is ready to go. :-)

Kinzen, if you do, please share it! I actually linked to a goodly amount of the homebrew stuff, and now that AEG dropped everything... I'm just glad that I'm not running anything at the moment.

I've got the gist of it, and am considering just making a webpage with all my homebrew stuff. But that may wait until my stupidly over-ambitious redesign of social stuff is ready to go. :-)

As one of the people who participated in that thread, if you wanted me to create a more formal write up of the adaption of Mass Battle to High Court system, drop me a line on the forums here and I'll hammer something together.

I for one would love to see it - it looked like a system with a lot of potential, and I was very sad to see the discussion terminated by the AEG forums going down.

The thing that most people tend to forget when playing a character is that you're playing a character, not yourself . It's hard to metagame in combat, because the rules are clearly defined. It's very easy to fall into metagaming in social situations, however, because the rules are much more loosely defined. And that's where the trouble starts.

Remember, your stats are important. You designed your character with certain strengths and weaknesses, and "roleplaying" means applying those strengths and weaknesses as you live out the story that the GM is guiding you through. If your character suffers a failure, it is your job to roleplay that failure, not complain to the GM that it wouldn't happen that way because of X, Y, or Z.

So if you build your character to be very hard to seduce, as a GM, I expect that to be reflected on your character sheet. If, however, your Willpower is a 2 and you have taken no advantages towards making yourself harder to seduce, then you absolutely should not expect, "But this is how my character would..." to fly, regardless of how you narrated your character history/identity.

If you spend 90% of your experience points on your combat skills and only put a tiny bit into your social skills, then don't be upset when courtiers continuously school you, manipulate you, deceive you, etc. This isn't "mind control" as it's typically labeled by players who are upset because the scene didn't play out in their favor - it's simply the cause and effect of how you build your character.

That said, most social situations shouldn't be resolved in a single roll. Most politicking takes continuous effort and multiple rolls.
However, just like combat, sometimes you "hit just right" and level your opponent in one blow. It's rare, but it happens. If beating a TN of 60 is good enough to "outwit a Fortune," then it should be good enough for just about anything else in a social contest as well.

(And remember, raises are a thing. Rolling a 100 on a contested roll against a 10 doesn't mean you destroyed your opponent unless you called a bunch of raises to "empower" your victory - Outwitting that Fortune from above required beating a "TN" of 60, not simply getting a 60 on your roll! )

As for PC vs PC, it's very common to hear that social skills/abilities should never be used against fellow players. Why? Should it also be impossible the make physical attacks against a fellow player as well?

Obviously PVP can get out of hand if not done with maturity, and it's up to everyone to make sure things stay "healthy" for the game, but just outright banning it makes zero sense to me.

So if you build your character to be very hard to seduce, as a GM, I expect that to be reflected on your character sheet. If, however, your Willpower is a 2 and you have taken no advantages towards making yourself harder to seduce, then you absolutely should not expect, "But this is how my character would..." to fly, regardless of how you narrated your character history/identity.

Not to put it bluntly, but: bull.

Let me illustrate by magnifying the point. "If, however, your Willpower is a 2 and you have taken no advantages toward making yourself harder to manipulate, then you absolutely should not expect 'But this is how my character would...' to fly, even if somebody is asking you to assassinate the Emperor."

Do I need to buy an Advantage that says "harder to talk into assassinating the Emperor"? No, because that is self-evidently a thing that would be REALLY HARD to persuade somebody to do. So unless you really think that request and "please loan me a calligraphy brush" should be represented by the exact same unmodified roll, you've already agreed that circumstances matter. How you want to represent those things mattering is up to you and your GM; it might be that the calligraphy-brush request is a single unmodified roll, but the Emperor-assassination request is at a huge penalty, or the target gets a big bonus to resist, or the persuader has to call a crap-ton of Raises, or it can't be done with a single roll. All of those are possible. But all of them involve some kind of mechanical modification, separate from what's on your sheet. Extrapolating from that, basic logic says that not all Courtier attempts are created equal . . . and so either you toss logic out the window, or you modify rolls as appropriate.

(Especially since Advantages are a blunt instrument at best. Irreproachable is the most specific, and it still helps you resist *all* Temptation. How do I represent a character who is happily married to somebody gorgeous, but in desperate need of money and willing to take the first bribe that wanders by? Or wealthy and longing for company?)

Now, if somebody's playing a Willpower 2 character with no social skills and they claim their character can't be manipulated into *anything*, I'm going to have a chat with them about this whole "roleplaying" thing and the need to pay attention to the dice. But it isn't a binary, where either I let them get away with that or nobody ever gets a circumstantial modifier ever no matter what: you just have to find a balance point between those two extremes, one that works for your campaign.

As for PC vs PC, it's very common to hear that social skills/abilities should never be used against fellow players. Why? Should it also be impossible the make physical attacks against a fellow player as well?

Obviously PVP can get out of hand if not done with maturity, and it's up to everyone to make sure things stay "healthy" for the game, but just outright banning it makes zero sense to me.

<shrug> I don't ban it. My players mostly only roll against one another when they're lying or concealing their reactions to things, to counteract the fact that they're all sitting right there in the room together and so the players know what's really going on. Without the dice, they'd have no real guideline by which to judge what their PCs pick up on or don't. The rest of the time, they generally rely on RP. But if they're okay with rolling it out, I let them.

Let me illustrate by magnifying the point. "If, however, your Willpower is a 2 and you have taken no advantages toward making yourself harder to manipulate, then you absolutely should not expect 'But this is how my character would...' to fly, even if somebody is asking you to assassinate the Emperor."

Let me respond to your illustration with a "is:to" word problem:

"I want to seduce Person X" is to "I want to attack Person X," as "I want to make Person Y Assassinate the Emperor" is to "I want to attack and kill the Lying Darkness with one blow."

Scope is important, and is the realm of the GM to manage.

So unless you really think that request and "please loan me a calligraphy brush" should be represented by the exact same unmodified roll, you've already agreed that circumstances matter. How you want to represent those things mattering is up to you and your GM; it might be that the calligraphy-brush request is a single unmodified roll, but the Emperor-assassination request is at a huge penalty, or the target gets a big bonus to resist, or the persuader has to call a crap-ton of Raises, or it can't be done with a single roll. All of those are possible. But all of them involve some kind of mechanical modification, separate from what's on your sheet. Extrapolating from that, basic logic says that not all Courtier attempts are created equal . . . and so either you toss logic out the window, or you modify rolls as appropriate.

Ah, but I never said it would be the same unmodified roll. I simply said that how you build your character goes a long way towards defining their strengths and weaknesses.

And all too often I see characters exhibiting strengths they never paid for, while ignoring weaknesses they never paid to negate. It's all too common in the gaming world.

Current NWoD uses a system called Social Manuevering, which is based on opening Doors. Doors are abstract "points to be scored in order to progress your goal". When trying to achieve stuff that GM decides is outside of scope of a single social roll (or that this activity deserves more narrative focus than one roll), you enter Social Manuvering.

Number of Doors you need to open is calculated following specific formula - let's just say that starting number of doors is determined by lower of Social and Mental resistance attributes, and extra doors are added (or removed) depending on situation on hand - is it conflicting with character's beliefs, is it against her interests, does it rub her Vice, is it pain in the ass to do, etc etc. It's worth nothing that these factors are described and mechanically quantified, so even when you need to make up your own, you at least have pretty good preexisting basis to extrapolate from.

Then, you can attempt to Open Doors - there are quite few ways of doing so. Basic one is to win a roll during interaction with that character; one Door per scene. Some Doors can be opened by taking specific actions (want help of that gang boss? bring him cache of weapons; want to impress that boy? save grandmas in front of his store from cars; want your professor to have time to talk with you about that totally not vampire artifact? do some research for him), some can be opened using hard and soft leverage (with penalties to future interactions), and some Social-Oriented abilities, perks and powers are abstracted to "Open x Doors"; this is actually important, because it's a nice way of giving social characters way to be more efficient at their job than non-social specialists, without physically overpowering them in potential short term contested rolls.
Then you have less important stuff like "what is minimum time interval between opening doors based on Impression Level", "how to eyeball the Impression Level", and "special situations for Social Manuvering, for example "situations that may make opening doors impossible for this game session" ".

So basically, I like this system because it gives pretty nice and easy to adjust way of tiering-up social challenges (and note that due to open-ended nature of how to open doors, you can use all of your characters strong points to "win the challenge", which allows every one to participate in game of social life, even if their strong point is being fast and punching hard) - you can make Impressing that Guy 3+1 Doors, Cracking that Witness 2+4 Doors (because they feel their life is in danger if they spill it up), and Plz Assasinate Emperor 2+8 Doors (and if your player looks at you like a kicked puppy, you have a handy dandy way to say "sorry, +1 door for that, +2 for that, and +4 for that", which helps avoid the "my GM is specifically cockblocking my amazing abilities and railroading the game!!!!" kneejerk reaction. Again, people react much better to "TN is 10+ 5 (here's why) + 10 (here's why) + 5 (here's why)" than to "TN is 30"; feels less arbitrary.

EDIT

And again, there is a safety measure built in the system - after you open all Doors, character in question has two options - to agree with what you wanted to achieve, or to offer up alternative that satisfies you and Game Master. Second option has a mechanical consequence where winning character get's to put a mechanical effect on loser character - so while you don't necessarily make someone assasinate the emperor, your attempts may force that character to face reality and erode their loyalty to corrupt leader, making them rebel against the authority next time it would save your ass.

Basically, if you *still* disagree that character wouldn't do it, you need to offer up satisfying enough alternative. Maybe you didn't bed the Daimyo and get blackmail on him for betraying his wife, but in order to deal with his weird-feeling, he will do some irrational choices that will benefit your character; like trusting her despite evidence to the contrary.

Geez... We're back at "Hey, could you please kill the Emperor?" thingy? I'll be honest, if I ever hear this, most of my characters would take his katana and simply kill him for threatening the Emperor before he can even think to perform a single Social Roll. Why? Because that's just wrong. Are we really that bad? I mean, come on guys, we already went around all this "Kill the Emperor!" Social Roll thingy and in the end, we've all agree that it's just not possible unless on a long run, but this cannot be done in a single roll...

I can probably force anyone in my games to perform a task against their will without a single Social Roll. Yes, you can convice people to do something with a Social Roll but is that really the point? Nope. In fact, it's easier to kill someone with a Social Roll than forcing him to kill someone with a Social Roll. Why? Because of all the work on deception. Create a story that will place the target in a defavorable position, if your story is plausible, then yes, the target may have to defend himself and may have to face consequences. But forcing someone to perform a task as big as "Killing the Emperor", I'm afraid that you'll force them to kill you if it's just done through a Social Roll.

Like I've said, I could probably force people to do tasks against their will without any Social Roll, but this would require preparations, such has kidnapping people very dear to them, stealing very precious family item, etc. And then, simply ask them to do something if they want them back... Do that require a Social Roll or any new mechanics? Nope. Not at all... Just preparations.

Isn't all of the above discussion simply covered by TN's and honor rolls? If you fail the contested persuasion roll, and it is making you do something against what you think your character "should or shouldn't" do, then you get to reroll, with your honor rank replacing your stat.

A courtier has spent his entire life into being persuasive and manipulative. Manipulating an awareness 2 bushi to do something they don't want to, is as easy to them, as it would be for the bushi to beat them in a sword fight.

The "My character wouldn't do that" argument is just meta gaming, and generally pretty destructive in rpgs.

Isn't all of the above discussion simply covered by TN's and honor rolls? If you fail the contested persuasion roll, and it is making you do something against what you think your character "should or shouldn't" do, then you get to reroll, with your honor rank replacing your stat.

Speaking of Honor rolls, I would love to see something that actually fits the setting better, as every Edition (4th included) has failed here.

Convincing a Scorpion to break Loyalty is just as hard as convincing a Lion to go against Bushido, but there is nothing to represent the Scorpion's "honor."

Isn't all of the above discussion simply covered by TN's and honor rolls? If you fail the contested persuasion roll, and it is making you do something against what you think your character "should or shouldn't" do, then you get to reroll, with your honor rank replacing your stat.

Speaking of Honor rolls, I would love to see something that actually fits the setting better, as every Edition (4th included) has failed here.

Convincing a Scorpion to break Loyalty is just as hard as convincing a Lion to go against Bushido, but there is nothing to represent the Scorpion's "honor."

Not sure which edition it was, but Scorpion did have two different honor stats to represent that iirc

I'd personally suggest being a Junshin like Yojiro!

Isn't all of the above discussion simply covered by TN's and honor rolls? If you fail the contested persuasion roll, and it is making you do something against what you think your character "should or shouldn't" do, then you get to reroll, with your honor rank replacing your stat.

Speaking of Honor rolls, I would love to see something that actually fits the setting better, as every Edition (4th included) has failed here.

Convincing a Scorpion to break Loyalty is just as hard as convincing a Lion to go against Bushido, but there is nothing to represent the Scorpion's "honor."

Not sure which edition it was, but Scorpion did have two different honor stats to represent that iirc

I'd personally suggest being a Junshin like Yojiro!

John Wick currently believes that each clan should have its own concept of honor and that the honor stat represents that. I believe that his new samurai game incorperates something like that.

Geez... We're back at "Hey, could you please kill the Emperor?" thingy? I'll be honest, if I ever hear this, most of my characters would take his katana and simply kill him for threatening the Emperor before he can even think to perform a single Social Roll. Why? Because that's just wrong.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Player: "NPC, kill yourself." <roll>

GM: <roll> "Oops. Okay, Honor roll." <rolls again> "Crap. Well . . . okay then. He takes out his wakizashi and kills himself."

What? The NPC is just an Awareness 2 bushi; manipulating him like that ought to be as easy as the NPC killing the PC in a sword fight!

It is not metagaming to say that some things are easy to talk people into doing (small favors, little mistakes) and some things are hard (huge favors, lethal mistakes). Some people are easy to talk into those things (slightly reluctant friends) and others are hard (mortal enemies who don't want to do anything you say). I could single-roll a suicidally depressed character into taking that final step, but not a happy samurai whose life is going great.

Either you flatten all that nuance out of social interactions, making everything a single unmodified roll, or you agree that some things are harder and more complicated than others, and adjustment is needed, even on contested rolls. (Adjustment = penalties or bonus dice or Raises or multiple rolls or whatever. A flat Honor roll is insufficient.) And if you agree to the latter, then all we're arguing about is which things deserve adjustment and which don't, which is a matter of personal flavor and up to each group to decide. But blanket declarations that it's metagaming to argue for this kind of thing tars the entire spectrum with the same brush.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Player: "NPC, kill yourself." <roll>

Here's what I've read of your message and I've stop there because that's not how Social Roll works.

Geez... We're back at "Hey, could you please kill the Emperor?" thingy? I'll be honest, if I ever hear this, most of my characters would take his katana and simply kill him for threatening the Emperor before he can even think to perform a single Social Roll. Why? Because that's just wrong.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Who says? As a GM it can be your descretion that they not only beat the contested roll, but beat it by X .

There needs to be some common sense among the GM and players.

The meta gaming is a person OUT OF CHARACTER saying their character wouldn't do such a thing because of X real life context/thought process.

To give you some examples of how I would do it.

Convincing someone to go beat up some bandits should just be contested roll.

Convincing someone to go beat up a guy from another clan would be contested + 5 (if there is reason) +10(If it's a lie) +15(if theres no real reason)

Convincing someone to conspire against a high ranking person, depending on their position, would be sequential contested rolls of +10-20 over a period of time.

each +5 is obviously a raise, which you need a void rank to do.

The way you are presenting your argument is that social rolls that are purely contested can just convince someone of everything. There needs to be some measure of common sense in there and the SAME rule applies to attacks with katana.

I want to hit a guy - Roll vs tn

I want to hit his arm - roll +5

I want to cut off his head - roll +15

I want to hit the first guy, cut through him do a spinning jump cut the second guy and strike a pose after I hit him - roll +10-20 with a few sequential rolls.

Social rolls really are not much different to combat rolls, just the require more natural intuition from the GM and players because they are not as clearly defined in the rule book (too many scenarios to cover). If you are just doing straight contested rolls to convince people to do outrageous things, I'm afraid you are going about things the wrong way!

edit: Re-read your post

Geez... We're back at "Hey, could you please kill the Emperor?" thingy? I'll be honest, if I ever hear this, most of my characters would take his katana and simply kill him for threatening the Emperor before he can even think to perform a single Social Roll. Why? Because that's just wrong.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Player: "NPC, kill yourself." <roll>

GM: <roll> "Oops. Okay, Honor roll." <rolls again> "Crap. Well . . . okay then. He takes out his wakizashi and kills himself."

What? The NPC is just an Awareness 2 bushi; manipulating him like that ought to be as easy as the NPC killing the PC in a sword fight!

It is not metagaming to say that some things are easy to talk people into doing (small favors, little mistakes) and some things are hard (huge favors, lethal mistakes). Some people are easy to talk into those things (slightly reluctant friends) and others are hard (mortal enemies who don't want to do anything you say). I could single-roll a suicidally depressed character into taking that final step, but not a happy samurai whose life is going great.

Either you flatten all that nuance out of social interactions, making everything a single unmodified roll, or you agree that some things are harder and more complicated than others, and adjustment is needed, even on contested rolls. (Adjustment = penalties or bonus dice or Raises or multiple rolls or whatever. A flat Honor roll is insufficient.) And if you agree to the latter, then all we're arguing about is which things deserve adjustment and which don't, which is a matter of personal flavor and up to each group to decide. But blanket declarations that it's metagaming to argue for this kind of thing tars the entire spectrum with the same brush.

I sometimes get the impression that some players are coming in with the mechanics are the starting point, and so I guess it makes a sort of sense in that mindset, for the sake of "balance", that it's equally as easy to kill the same character with a sword, a conversation, or a spell...

I'll do it for the sake of having a discussion that will go somewhere:

High Skills:

• Acting: Used to act a role. Pretty clear in the skill description on what you can do. May be used with disguise.
• Artisan: Origami, Painting, Poetry, etc. Mostly in art creation.
• Courtier: The "offensive" skill that I'll quote: "[...] often with Manipulation or Rhetoric Emphases, to outmaneuver their opponents, influence their views and opinions, steer conversations in a desired direction, win argument, or deliver cunning put-downs.[...]". Can also be used for gossips to start rumors
• Etiquette: The "defensive" skill that will focus on the code of etiquette, the knowledge on how to behave which provides some "shielding" against manipulations.
• Games: Some are more social, like the Letters but it's more related for Social Games in the setting.
• Perform: It's basically performances through monologue or songs.
• Sincerity: The way to speak genuinely in a way to appear to say the truth or avoid saying insults. *Deceit is a low skill that focus on lying.

Bugei Skills :

• None

Merchant Skills:

• Animal Handling: How to handle an animal.
• Craft: May be used as a Social Skill when the result is made as an art creation.

Low Skills:

• Intimidation: The only real Social Skills that may control someone to shape another's behaviour, through Control emphasis but i'll quote it: "[...] Control, on the other hand, indicates a longer-term attempt to shape another's behavior to your will [...]", otherwise it's torture and bullying to perform a specific act.
• Temptation: Seduction and bribery made to gain something in return of one desires. The system clearly states that it's to know certain kinds of Disadvantage.

So, this is all the social skills in the corebook and the only skill that may result some in some "Mind Control" as some people like to say, is through the Intimidation Skills, a Low Skills. But the strong mind controling effect is clearly written to be on a long term attempt. As for the "perform a specific act", while it could be more detailed, when you read the skill, you know that it's small stuffs, like giving money or stuffs like that, just like in real life. Therefore, not a skill that will be used like you want, unless it's used in an honorable fashion, but with the examples people are saying, it goes in honor loss or worst for them.

In the end, it's possible, yes, but a double-edged blade since if you're getting caught, chances are that you're in trouble for such things. Chances are that if you're going for Intimidation, you'll hit a wall and meet your doom really fast.

the only skill that may result some in some "Mind Control" as some people like to say, is through the Intimidation Skills, a Low Skills.

That is not quiet correct. Seduction as well as Courtier also can be seen as skills whcih do mindcontrol. Cause the Seduction can be used to force people to lay with you and the Courtier skill can be used to talk people into agreeing with your opinion and manipulating them into comiting actions according to your argumentation and words. A good courtier can just talk you into siding with him in spuressing the Crane tansport of rice despite your clan having an allaince with the Crane or even you being a Crane (with enough raises).

Also Sincerity is the skill which makes lieing socialy acceptable therefore here is also a good part of manipulations and draging people on your side possible.

In general the MInd control argument is fielded everytime a player looses a rsocial roll but don´t want to bear the consequences casue what the courtier said was nothing he wanted to follow for example.

the only skill that may result some in some "Mind Control" as some people like to say, is through the Intimidation Skills, a Low Skills.

That is not quiet correct. Seduction as well as Courtier also can be seen as skills whcih do mindcontrol. Cause the Seduction can be used to force people to lay with you and the Courtier skill can be used to talk people into agreeing with your opinion and manipulating them into comiting actions according to your argumentation and words. A good courtier can just talk you into siding with him in spuressing the Crane tansport of rice despite your clan having an allaince with the Crane or even you being a Crane (with enough raises).

Also Sincerity is the skill which makes lieing socialy acceptable therefore here is also a good part of manipulations and draging people on your side possible.

In general the MInd control argument is fielded everytime a player looses a rsocial roll but don´t want to bear the consequences casue what the courtier said was nothing he wanted to follow for example.

Interestingly enough, there are situations when lying is completely legitimate and acceptable, even if everyone knows what you are saying is a lie. One such example is if you are doing it to save face for someone else, it is kind of a courtesy thing.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Player: "NPC, kill yourself." <roll>

Here's what I've read of your message and I've stop there because that's not how Social Roll works.

. . . thank you for making my point for me? I am trying to illustrate that yep, that is not how they work, ergo adjustment is necessary.

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Who says? As a GM it can be your descretion that they not only beat the contested roll, but beat it by X .

There needs to be some common sense among the GM and players.

And again, you're making my point for me. "You have to beat it by X" is not in the rules; it's an adjustment made to reflect the logical difficulty of the task at hand. That's exactly what I'm advocating for. Doesn't matter to me whether you do it with dice bonuses or penalties, flat numerical bonuses or penalties (which is what your "beat by X" would translate into), required Raises, or any other route. The point is, you're still tweaking things.

The way you are presenting your argument is that social rolls that are purely contested can just convince someone of everything. There needs to be some measure of common sense in there and the SAME rule applies to attacks with katana.

Not sure if your "edit" means this confusion has already been cleared up, but as you at least temporarily read the exact opposite of what I'm saying (and other people may have done the same), let me try to clarify.

I was responding to the idea that "but my character would never do X" is always and forever metagaming b.s. "Never" maybe a strong word, but I wholeheartedly believe that some things (as per your examples) would be harder to make happen, and therefore the rolls should reflect this in some fashion. I'm not sure what you mean by this:

The meta gaming is a person OUT OF CHARACTER saying their character wouldn't do such a thing because of X real life context/thought process.

Do you mean that the PC must always vocalize their thoughts in IC dialogue before they're valid? Because I can see cases where my character would think "there's no way I'm going to conspire against my lord" (to choose one of your own examples) but wouldn't say it out loud; if I say that OOC, it's because I'm expressing to my GM the way I see my character and the IC situation. I'm not going to rely on my GM to intuit everything. I do agree that *some* players will resort to metagaming nonsense where what they're really thinking is "*I* would never do that" -- but that isn't always (or with the people I play with, usually) what they mean when they say "my character wouldn't do that."

All right, let me take the Emperor out of it, and address Subodei's suggested fix (TN adjustments don't apply to contested rolls).

Player: "NPC, kill yourself." <roll>

See, now this is a much more interesting situation, because "kill yourself" (while not using that phrase) is actually a plausible situation!

With the right leverage, convincing someone it would be in their best interest to commit seppuku is totally a realistic possibility in Rokugan, and while it may take multiple rolls and significant time in order to gather the right leverage, the end result can absolutely be done with a single roll.

I'm of a firm belief that how many rolls it takes to accomplish something depends on both your skill at said activity and your weapon of choice when acting.

In combat, you can kill a person with a tessen, but it's going to take a pretty significant amount of time and rolls to accomplish, even more so if you're less skilled in War Fans.

Politics works the exact same way, albeit the "weapon" you use is the leverage you gather to make your case with. If you go in trying to convince someone to commit seppuku with nothing to hold over them, it's just like hitting your opponent with that tessen - not very effective. If, however, you have the right information to manipulate the situation, that "tessen" quickly becomes a "katana" and the amount of effort you need spend on rolls becomes drastically reduced.

See, now this is a much more interesting situation, because "kill yourself" (while not using that phrase) is actually a plausible situation!

With the right leverage, convincing someone it would be in their best interest to commit seppuku is totally a realistic possibility in Rokugan, and while it may take multiple rolls and significant time in order to gather the right leverage, the end result can absolutely be done with a single roll.

. . . so it's multiple rolls, but also a single roll?

There's always going to be one final roll, sure. But if it takes multiple rolls and significant time to make that roll possible, then ipso facto, you are not actually achieving your goal with a single roll. And if you try to do it with a single roll and no suitable prep (the leverage and so forth) . . . then there ought to be something to represent the fact that you're attempting the hailiest of all hail marys.

See, now this is a much more interesting situation, because "kill yourself" (while not using that phrase) is actually a plausible situation!

With the right leverage, convincing someone it would be in their best interest to commit seppuku is totally a realistic possibility in Rokugan, and while it may take multiple rolls and significant time in order to gather the right leverage, the end result can absolutely be done with a single roll.

. . . so it's multiple rolls, but also a single roll?

There's always going to be one final roll, sure. But if it takes multiple rolls and significant time to make that roll possible, then ipso facto, you are not actually achieving your goal with a single roll. And if you try to do it with a single roll and no suitable prep (the leverage and so forth) . . . then there ought to be something to represent the fact that you're attempting the hailiest of all hail marys.

I agree, and it's where L5R (and to be fair, most TTRPGs) fail - they just don't include a mechanical system to represent anything other than physical combat. But then, when you mention the idea of actually including "mechanics" for what most people consider "roleplaying territory" you get a gnashing of teeth. There's just no winning.

I had a snippier response to recent developments on this thread last night, but my laptop battery died and took the post with it. (Probably for the best. Should not read repetitive forum arguments while also in the midst of grading essays; in terms of mental states, the one only compounds upon the other...) Still, there's a couple of points I started to make, besides what Kinzen has already covered, that seem worth retyping, so:

"I want to seduce Person X" is to "I want to attack Person X," as "I want to make Person Y Assassinate the Emperor" is to "I want to attack and kill the Lying Darkness with one blow."

Two issues here. The first is small but essential: this analogy's off in an important way. "I want to attack Person X":"I want to try to seduce Person X" OR "I want to successfully defeat Person X":"I want to seduce Person X"--but you can't compare an attempt at one thing to a success at another thing. (That seems obvious, but still appears to fall through the cracks at some points in this discussion.)

Second: Let's set aside for a minute the fact that--as this very thread has discussed in interesting and productive detail, with some good suggestions that any RPG developer could probably profit from reading--the RAW doesn't provide concrete means for representing social interactions with nearly as much dimension, detail, and variety as it does combat. Even accounting for all that, when I'm GMing and the player of Person Y says "I want to attack Person X," I immediately and quite naturally consider a long list of things that aren't on either party's sheet: How far apart are X and Y? Is each of them standing or sitting? What were they doing up to this moment? Is it possible for X to catch Y by surprise? Are they currently carrying weapons, and if so, does either of them have their weapon drawn? Is either one wearing armor, and if so, what kind? What martial assistance, if any, can Y expect to call on? Is it dark, or are there any other environmental conditions in effect? What's the terrain like, and does either party have a terrain advantage like cover, higher ground, or better knowledge of the space? What are Y's lines of retreat, if any? Etc. etc. etc. Some of this has formal mechanics associated with it (because combat is more thoroughly mechanized than other parts of the game), but lots of it doesn't, and even the mechanized bits are nearly all at the GM's discretion.

Why then is it so contentious to say that a similar host of character-stat-extrinsic factors can be taken into account in social interactions? If we say that "you're offering him a bribe, but he's already well off so he probably won't be interested," or "you're trying to seduce her romantically, but she's already happily married to a man who saved her life," or "you're asking him to believe that someone he's trusted deeply since childhood is a traitor" are roughly equivalent to "you're trying to attack her from a side with heavy cover," or "he remembered to put on his armor this morning, so your flesh cutter arrows won't be very effective," or "you've started this fight by attacking from lower ground with difficult footing," would that help get the point across?

Not that we're saying all of this stuff needs concrete mechanics. After all, there's nothing on your character sheet that says you'll start a particular fight in cover, or that your character with PTSD and trust issues always carries an extra dagger, either--that stuff all also emerges out of RP. And yes, that means it too is subject to abuse from the occasional player who lets their hatred of being bested take precedence over everyone else's suspension of disbelief, and needs to be talked to out of character or asked to leave; who among us hasn't known that guy who demands that you believe he had his tetsubo and heavy armor in the bathtub with him all along? But the existence of That One Guy doesn't mean we insist that unless you take the home-brewed advantages Never Ever Ever Unarmed, Dark Paragon of Finding The High Ground, Gaijin Gear: Portable Fake Bush For Cover, or whatever, then there's no case where those conditions could possibly apply in any way that affects the dice-rolling. That's all!

Edit: Well, and also it would be nice if core rulebooks (particularly but not only L5R) put as much effort into explaining and hand-holding w/r/t all that stuff for social interactions as they do for combat ones. Again, that's not cumbersome new rules systems, it's just helping players and GMs get their thoughts organized for a better play experience.