So, Conditions. I think they are pretty OK hack for current social system that doesn't require much tinkering with how rest of the game is resolved; basically, this is a "codified way to use Social Skills". This is going to have 3 starting posts, and remember - these are drafts and concepts. Basic outline, not details and finalized product.

Condition

Condition is an effect inflicted upon character due to certain events taking place. Some of them are beneficial, some of them are harmful; and there are some that are mix of both.

Conditions can be aquired by samurai deciding to take certain actions; for example, Samurai proceeding with action that is considered highly dishonorable for his current Honor Rank might end up with a Guilt condition, reflecting how he feels about what he just did. Sometimes, Conditons are simply inflicted upon Samurai due to outside forces; being shamed in public also can, for example, invoke Guilt and Shame. Most reliable way to inflict Conditions upon someone is to use Social Skills - good use of Courtier [Rhetoric] might make someone feel Inspired, while Seduction can turn someone Greedy.

Conditions usually have at least two levels of magnitude - Minor Conditions can evolve into Major Conditions, and sometimes, powerful events or Courtiers can dive directly into Major Conditions.

Conditions bestow negative of positive effects, usually in form of TN or rolled dice modifications. They also usually encourage to roleplay character in certain way - this isn't a compulsion, but character "giving into" the condition can usually gain some kind of benefit; most commonly, regain one point of Void.

Of course, delving into negative condition won't have only positive effects - surrendering to the temptation often will lead into losses of Honor and Glory, while resisting it may reward the character with Honor, Glory, etc. In general, what is rewarded and what is penalized, depends on specific Condition and character's Honor / Glory, as per Condition's description.

Conditions can be resolved - resolving a condition equals to removing it from the character in question. In general, most of Minor Conditions can be resolved by either taking appropriate roleplaying action, making proper Skill Roll and spending a Void Point, or - preferably - both. Most common ways for Samurai to purge their souls are visiting the temple and undergoing ritual purification; meditating upon Bushido or some other important dogma; visiting Geishas; and socializing with friends in informal setting . In general, situations where character isn't forced to wear their face are best suited to removing Minor Conditions. Of course, these aren't the only possible options; in general, anything fitting the Condition and character in question is fair game. After all, while Akodo might recite Bushido 1000 times to forget about his love, Kakita may do the same by immersing himself in duels.

Conditions descriptions also often propose some specific way of resolving them.

Major Conditions are harder to get rid of. They usually take more time to resolve, and "generic roleplaying action" rarely will be sufficient to defeat them. Accompanying Skill Roll is also usually harder. In order to defeat Major Condition, you usually need to take some special action; again, anything major and making sense, accompanied with a successful roll and Void Point expenditure should suffice. Most of the time, characters will try to degrade Major Condition into it's lesser version, and then deal with it permanently; removing Major Conditions outright is quite hard.

Skill Rolls and Conditions

Skill Rolls are one of most reliable ways of inflicting Conditions. Usually, they are inflicted either after beating flat ATN of the target, or defeating them in a Contested Roll.

In case of Flat ATN, use following formula - 5+Trait x5 + Skill, and for Courtier characters, another +5.

I don't like how important Contested Rolls are in Social System, as they discourage Raises, and often slow the game down while producing lol huh results. I personally think that similarly to how character in combat has static ATN, social characters (or at least NPCs) should have Social ATN - simply to encourage Raises from attacking party and make resolution of "social offensive" quicker. This isn't necessary part of "Social Conditions Hack".

Note that conditions listed next to skills are random drafts and ideas, so they can change, are not only possibilities that can be done with these skills - they are the "basic starting point."

S

Specific Skills

Courtier - Courtier usually can be used to inflict Inspired, Moved, and Guilty conditions.

Courtier targets opponent's Intelligence and is resisted with Etiquette, Investigation, Battle or Commerce.

Etiquette - Etiquette can be used to inflict Calm, Friendly and Forgiving conditions.

Etiquette targets opponent's Awareness and is resisted with Intimidation, Courtier, Meditation or Sincerity.

Sincerity - Sincerity can be used to inflict Trusting, Shamed and Forgiving Conditions.

Honesty targets opponent's Willpower, while Deceit targets Perception. Both are resisted with Investigation, Commerce, Battle and Courtier.

Temptation - Temptation can be used to inflict Greedy, Swooning and Inspired Conditions.

Temptation targets lower of targets Willpower and Perception. All are resisted with Investigation, Meditation, Etiquette and Honor.

Intimidation - Intimidation can be used to inflict Shaken, Anxious, and Subservient Conditions.

Intimidation targets lower of targets Willpower and Intelligence. Both are resisted with Etiquette, Battle, Courtier and Honor.

Specific Conditions will go here.

I don't know how fast you're posting, but as I'm typing this, your third post still says "Specific Conditions will go here." So that's what I'm responding to.

I quite like this idea! As I've said elsewhere, I don't want a full-blown social combat system, but borrowing the idea of conditions (equivalent to Dazed/Prone/etc) has real potential. I would suggest, though, that instead of Minor Conditions and Major Conditions, the latter is just handled via the temporary (or lasting) infliction of Disadvantages. Or Advantages, for that matter -- the effects of social influence don't always have to be negative! A number of the late-edition courtier paths were built off suggestions I made to the Design Team, and working with the social and mental Advantages/Disadvantages was one of the major avenues of approach I looked at; I would have really pushed to do more with that from the start in 5e. If you started your courtier and social design with an eye toward that idea, you could build the Ads/Disads in a way that leaves room for the smaller-scale Conditions, and then build courtier techniques around creating or removing those things.

When it comes to encouraging players to "give in," I still give it the side-eye. Where's the incentive to "give in" to your character being Dazed or Blinded? There isn't one: you are Dazed, you are Blinded, suck it up and deal. If there's a mechanical Condition inflicted on you socially, then you should do the same thing. The incentives you describe sound like they're a separate thing, though: if an NPC uses Temptation against you, does that inflict a Condition (which you don't get a choice about), does it create a carrot-and-stick RP situation where you get Void if you give in or Honor if you resist (and how does that choice not make the roll meaningless?), or is it supposed to be some combination of both? I'd love to see a hypothetical scenario describing how you see this working out. The actual numbers and specifics attached can be ::handwave:: -- it's the interaction between these approaches that I'm not clear on.

I'm done with this for tonight; basically, this started as a short idea at start of the day, then it was left half written in the reply space to the Social Thread, and then I figured that if I'm going to bed soon, I should save it somewhere or just post the early draft .

I personally don't care much about ~giving in benefits~, but I saw lots of people actually buy into it - and I can understand mechanism behind it, especially in case of newer players who feel bad about I dunno, being manipulated in plain sight.

In L5R specifically I think that there is a great potential fun in Conditions interacting with your Honor somewhat - not necessarily by reducing it or buffing it, but having potentially different effects based on "High" and "Low" Honor.

Anyway, having ability to not give in doesn't make roll and condition meaningless - perfectly, Condition would stick some negative effect on you (like, +5 TN when going against wishes of person who Intimidated you) and whiel you *can* still go against that person, doing so will have real, measurable effect on how your character operate (by making your rolls slightly harder). I guess "You may go against will of this person, but you need to call Raise to do so" is more effective than just inflating TN - because it emphasizes player choice and makes it "interactive".

For example...dunno...maybe some kind of addiction? Let's say your character is addicted to gambling. Whenever there is possibility to go gambling, you grow irritated and distracted; let's again assume that activities that keep you away f rom your beloved gambling will require extra Raise. If your character gives into the addiction and gambles their heart away, they won't feel this need for some period of time, and maybe even will restore a Void Point (I like idea of restoring Void Points by doing "fun roleplaying stuff that technically isn't beneficial to the plot but helps out flesh out the character"). Still, this might result in infamy, loss of honor, and debts..or new friends, fortune and local fame.

On the other hand, your character might try to calm and control themselves by practicing religious mantras given to them by a friendly monk; this might include scene of roleplaying and passing a [insert some formula here I haven't calculated yet] Meditation/Willpower check and spending a Void Point; this should make them "free" from negative effects of condition.

And in order to resolve it permanently, well, a good period of abstinence and talks with the monk...or maybe really brutal awakening after being beaten to almost-death by thugs and having your daisho stolen away.

Basically, Conditions should

1. Be intuitive; name of condition should tell you what it is about

2. In order to be playable, there should be easy to understand and replicate way to put them into play; if your players understand that using social skills can inflict conditions, and Raising on these rolls may allow them to tinker with these conditions (this i main reason for Minor/Major Split - giving Courtiers some power by making them good at inflicting Major Conditions, though yeah, it isn't really required - "Swooning" vs "Madly in Love" is clearly different ); this encourages players to actively take advantage of them and work them into their plans; "play" with them.

3. Conditions should involve both Role Playing and mechanical components. Again, it should give you a hint, direction, idea of how your character or NPC may act due to these new circumstances; and in order to matter, they also should include some real deal mechanical impact. Why? Because, again, this adds strategical layer to social interaction, and makes "social planning" inherent part of the system which naturally interacts with other parts of the game. If your "Swooning" condition makes rolls against target of your affection harder, then your friendly Courtier may decide that in order to help you, it's time to help you...by doing some "Seduction by Proxy" for you. Some of things like this may occur "spontaneously", but giving them a mechanical foundation (and making them materially useful in measurable way) will encourage people to think "how can I utilize my stuff, what resources we can use to make our situation better?"

4. "But I don't wanna" clauses are mostly for PC's (though also for NPCs, when it's fitting), so their players have some safe way out of situations they don't want or don't feel comfortable roleplaying. Again, because condition has some kind of mechanical quirk attached to it, "going against" doesn't make Condition meaningless; after all, there are still consequences

5. Conditions should, in general, be a useful tool for Social Characters allowing to have "real, potentially strategic/tactical impact upon the game world", and interesting way to provoke fun roleplaying and character plots when it comes to player characters.

6. Good thing about conditions is that, after you present 10 or 20 or whatever examples, it's easy to "get" them and their pattern; which, in turn, leads to teaching players and game masters how to cook up their own conditions after they are done with "mastering" the basic ones.

I'm done with this for tonight; basically, this started as a short idea at start of the day, then it was left half written in the reply space to the Social Thread, and then I figured that if I'm going to bed soon, I should save it somewhere or just post the early draft .

Heh. Entirely understood; my questions were intended more in the vein of "I find your ideas interesting and would like to know more," rather than "YOU MUST ANSWER THIS FOR ME NOW THIS SECOND DANCE MONKEY DANCE." :-D

I personally don't care much about ~giving in benefits~, but I saw lots of people actually buy into it - and I can understand mechanism behind it, especially in case of newer players who feel bad about I dunno, being manipulated in plain sight.

Honestly, I tend to play with the sort of people who see the drama/comedy/etc of giving in as its own reward, and will voluntarily not even roll to resist if it seems appropriate that they should fail. I mean, it isn't a good story if your character is always self-composed and never gets affected by anything around him, right? If a particular effect would really be a bad story, of the "that just doesn't make any sense" kind, then I would either weigh it down with a lot of difficulty ("this NPC is going to try to seduce you, but since you just got married to a woman you've been promised to your whole life and are madly in love with, their odds of success are really low") or just not bother rolling at all.

Certain kinds of game issues are, in my opinion, better solved by working on the game culture -- convincing newer players that going along with manipulation can be fun -- than by litigating it with rules. Though I do understand that some kinds of players respond much better to rules than to my approach.

Anyway, having ability to not give in doesn't make roll and condition meaningless - perfectly, Condition would stick some negative effect on you (like, +5 TN when going against wishes of person who Intimidated you) and whiel you *can* still go against that person, doing so will have real, measurable effect on how your character operate (by making your rolls slightly harder). I guess "You may go against will of this person, but you need to call Raise to do so" is more effective than just inflating TN - because it emphasizes player choice and makes it "interactive".

Okay, so if we look at it in that light, it isn't carrot-or-stick; it's stick alone. Go with the Intimidation and do what the NPC wants, or take a TN penalty. That's kind of what I was thinking of in the case of Intimidation, but I was approaching it as a skill-specific thing (Intimidation inflicts a penalty) rather than a broader system of Conditions (Intimidation inflicts a Condition, but so can other skills, techs, etc).

(This is tangential to the concept itself, but I'm not a fan of "you have to call a Raise to do this basic thing" as a mechanic. Unless the number of Raises required is 3+ or some other effect is blocking you from calling Raises at all, this is 100% interchangeable with a +5 TN, and blurs the meaning of what a Raise is . I prefer to save those for cases where a character is voluntarily choosing to attempt a more difficult but more rewarding version of a task, with concomitant increased risk of failure.)

For example...dunno...maybe some kind of addiction? Let's say your character is addicted to gambling. Whenever there is possibility to go gambling, you grow irritated and distracted; let's again assume that activities that keep you away f rom your beloved gambling will require extra Raise. If your character gives into the addiction and gambles their heart away, they won't feel this need for some period of time, and maybe even will restore a Void Point (I like idea of restoring Void Points by doing "fun roleplaying stuff that technically isn't beneficial to the plot but helps out flesh out the character"). Still, this might result in infamy, loss of honor, and debts..or new friends, fortune and local fame.

On the other hand, your character might try to calm and control themselves by practicing religious mantras given to them by a friendly monk; this might include scene of roleplaying and passing a [insert some formula here I haven't calculated yet] Meditation/Willpower check and spending a Void Point; this should make them "free" from negative effects of condition.

And in order to resolve it permanently, well, a good period of abstinence and talks with the monk...or maybe really brutal awakening after being beaten to almost-death by thugs and having your daisho stolen away.

Hmmm. I don't think that's the best example of your concept, because that isn't about one character manipulating another: you're just describing a more complicated version of the Compulsion Disadvantage (which covers things like addiction).

Basically, Conditions should

1. Be intuitive; name of condition should tell you what it is about

Agreed. :-)

2. In order to be playable, there should be easy to understand and replicate way to put them into play; if your players understand that using social skills can inflict conditions, and Raising on these rolls may allow them to tinker with these conditions (this i main reason for Minor/Major Split - giving Courtiers some power by making them good at inflicting Major Conditions, though yeah, it isn't really required - "Swooning" vs "Madly in Love" is clearly different ); this encourages players to actively take advantage of them and work them into their plans; "play" with them.

I recommend Ads/Disads rather than Major Conditions because we already have "Madly in Love" -- it's called either True Love or Lost Love, depending on circumstances. The major version of "angry" would be Brash; the major version of "deceived' would be Gullible, etc.

3. Conditions should involve both Role Playing and mechanical components. Again, it should give you a hint, direction, idea of how your character or NPC may act due to these new circumstances; and in order to matter, they also should include some real deal mechanical impact. Why? Because, again, this adds strategical layer to social interaction, and makes "social planning" inherent part of the system which naturally interacts with other parts of the game. If your "Swooning" condition makes rolls against target of your affection harder, then your friendly Courtier may decide that in order to help you, it's time to help you...by doing some "Seduction by Proxy" for you. Some of things like this may occur "spontaneously", but giving them a mechanical foundation (and making them materially useful in measurable way) will encourage people to think "how can I utilize my stuff, what resources we can use to make our situation better?"

I think the major hurdle with social Conditions is figuring out what they affect. In combat, Conditions can affect attack rolls, ATN, movement, stances, and what kinds of actions they can take. (There are also a couple of Conditions, i.e. Fasting and Fatigued, which aren't combat-specific and have broader effects.) Since social matters don't have an equivalent set of mechanics for Conditions to interact with, most things are going to boil down to a change in either your TN or your dice pool for a particular kind of activity. That works for something like Intimidation: if they beat your roll to resist, then you're scared, and less effective at doing things which aren't in compliance with their demands (e.g. attacking them, lying, etc). But how does it work for something like "this courtier is trying to tug on my heartstrings with a sad story that will get my sympathy for what he's doing"? I can be appropriately moved, or I will suffer a penalty when I try to . . . do what?

In my head, it works best when the effects are chained, rather than one-off. The NPC rolls Perform: Storytelling / Awareness to tell his sob story. I fail my Etiquette / Willpower roll to harden my heart and shrug off the sad tale of his aged mother and the seven orphaned children she's trying to take care of. The Deeply Moved condition kicks in. Now that I have been softened up, he rolls Courtier (Manipulation) / Awareness against my Etiquette / Willpower roll to get me to suspend taxes on his village for this year, and I'm at a penalty because I'm Deeply Moved. But I'm not sure how to make that work if it's just a matter of him rolling Courtier to ask for me for the tax relief, and if he succeeds then I have a choice between giving him what he wants or suffering some kind of penalty on . . . something.

Hmmm. Must ponder more.

4. "But I don't wanna" clauses are mostly for PC's (though also for NPCs, when it's fitting), so their players have some safe way out of situations they don't want or don't feel comfortable roleplaying. Again, because condition has some kind of mechanical quirk attached to it, "going against" doesn't make Condition meaningless; after all, there are still consequences

If it's actually a matter of the player not feeling comfortable with the scene, then screw mechanics: that scene is not happening. Their "safe way out" is to say to me "this is not fun; I'd prefer if we don't do it."

If it's simply a matter of "I don't wanna" . . . I'm still not convinced the rules need to cater to that. I don't want my PC to get grappled in a fight and be unable to contribute usefully because she's spending every round trying to get loose. Too bad: I don't get an alternative option. I can't trade Honor to avoid taking Wounds, or give up Glory to erase a terrain penalty. If somebody lies to me with Sincerity (Deceit), it doesn't matter whether I-the-player know the truth; I have to proceed as if my PC got successfully snowed.

To my way of thinking, the issue at hand is less "how can I let a player choose their consequences," and more a matter of "how can we be more clear about what the consequences are?" A successful Intimidation or Courtier or Temptation roll doesn't mean you become a sock puppet for the person influencing you. To me, the appeal of Conditions is that they give a way to describe what their success has done -- maybe. See the above section for me chewing on how exactly that would work for certain kinds of manipulation.

5. Conditions should, in general, be a useful tool for Social Characters allowing to have "real, potentially strategic/tactical impact upon the game world", and interesting way to provoke fun roleplaying and character plots when it comes to player characters.

Agreed.

6. Good thing about conditions is that, after you present 10 or 20 or whatever examples, it's easy to "get" them and their pattern; which, in turn, leads to teaching players and game masters how to cook up their own conditions after they are done with "mastering" the basic ones.

I think this is something that is kind of true in the 4e books, but because it's so spread out and not discussed in a concentrated fashion, it's easy for people to miss. If a technique says "a Doji Courtier can find a perfect gift by rolling X at TN Y," that gives me a guideline for what to do when a PC who isn't a Doji Courtier wants to pick out a good gift. Etc. But it wasn't approached in any organized way, so unless you're paying close attention to all the bits and pieces and thinking about what they imply for general principles, it looks like there's no real guidance at all.

But I think that 10 or 20 examples would be waaaaaaaaaay too many -- at that point the distinction between them would be exceedingly tiny. Maybe half a dozen or so: Angry, Confused, Tempted, Pleased, Scared, Sad; those are the first ones that come to mind. Drilling down to the point where Pleased is separate from Flattered is separate from Happy . . . I think the utility fades very fast.

Sorry for a short reply, but in mid of something -

Yeah, basically, you can see them as Temporal -vantages. That's kinda how we played it before - Social Skills inflict closest disadvantage to the aimed effect, and taking some time to BE PREPARED (like, practicing before duel or investigating what kind of the person is the guy you are going to negotiate with) usually gave you Lucky that could be only spent on subject material (or Unlucky that could be inflicted upon enemies - if you spam Perception/Iaijutsu on your target while he duels challenging enemies, you may find out a weakness in his form and when your duel comes, you may exploit it and bestow Unlucky on your opponent; etc).

It's very similar to Conditions, really, but swapping in and out advantages and disadvantages was always feeling kinda weird, and lots of them are not really balanced (giving someone Compulsion doesn't really give you "concrete, plannable-around effect", while giving someone Phobia at even 1 or 2 ranks can be person-breaking); so I figured out that by streamlining these temporary -vantages, and providing a pattern to follow when creating new ones, one can kinda rebalance the -vantages too .

Again, these things don't have to be social only; you could give Lore Skills ability to bestow upon you something like "Well Informed", giving you ability to gain one-shot bonus at thing related to your Lore; Performs can Inspire, Meditation (or Kenjutsu, or Iaijutsu, or...) could allow you to achieve Tranquility, etc.

Note that you could fill up empty Mastery Ranks with "Make invoking Condition X easier" for skills like Lore, Perform, etc.

Finally, you can have stuff like "Really Awesome Kimono WoW WoW So Pretty" as Condition So one player can get his "+2" by wearing awesome kimono of awesome, and another can do the same by performing amazing kata in front of witnessess and gaining "Very Popular Much Kata Very Master" .

By providing "Minor stuff should give you usually from X to Z, and Major stuff should give you from Z to Y", you can also avoid trap of "this one thing is really superior to the others, so instead of picking whats appropriate and interesting, let's always intimidate them into 3 points phobia and see them fail all the rolls because of how phobia worsk" .

Sorry for a short reply, but in mid of something -

No need to apologize!

You've got me working through an excessively ambitious overhaul of the social skills, with an eye toward differentiating what purpose each of them serves. Very short form: Etiquette to affect someone's perception of you (including deliberately insulting them), Courtier to provoke a desired action, certain kinds of Perform to induce an emotional state (including telling a story in conversation, not just as ~performance~), Sincerity to be believed, and the Politics skill I thought up for the Court Battle thing to cover more macro-scale navigation of court, i.e. bureaucracy and such. I think that's a prerequisite for me to think through the Conditions concept, because otherwise the question of "what kinds of Conditions can this skill create?" becomes too muddy -- there's too much overlap, or a lack of boundaries at all. Conditions would mostly be created by Etiquette (make them Friendly if you ingratiate yourself well, Angry if you've insulted them), Courtier (Scared for intimidation uses or Tempted for temptation uses, maybe a couple of others), and Perform (Sad, Brave, etc, depending on the performance). Defining just what those Conditions mean is the next step . . . and of course I expect that trying to answer that question will cause me to circle around and change some of my current ideas, but at least it's a start.

Alongside this, I have the house-rule I already use, which allows for bonuses to skill rolls based on other skills. So, for example, anybody can add their Meditation skill rank to Etiquette when resisting manipulation or keeping their composure (since that's one of the things meditation is supposed to be for ). You can also add Calligraphy to social rolls in writing, and a specific Lore to conversations on that topic.

Then once I have those things, I can ponder what courtier techniques might do with them. Which is where the "excessively ambitious" part of this comes in, because if I'm doing stuff like eliminating Intimidation and Temptation as separate skills, offloading some of what Courtier currently does onto Etiquette, and dropping the Politics skill in as an addition consisting partly of Etiquette and partly of Courtier and partly of new stuff, the current courtier techs instantly become a flaming mess. :-P I will probably never finish this project. But it's an interesting exercise nonetheless.

@Kinzen-

Combine that with some of the old Winter Court systems we have discussed on the Old Forums, and you might be able to get a group together to create a web-supplement to overhaul the full Courtly Intrigue pillar of L5R RPG.