Next time, I'll try and be more timely.

I enjoyed reading up on the thread. My character, Tresk has become the unofficial face of our group by virtue of having Presence 3, so I thought it'd be worth reading opinions on handling social checks. Fortunately, I've got a mature group, so I think we can all play appropriately if we get socially out-maneuvered. We kinda already did, one session.

ZOMBIE THREAD!

For social enctouners I do my best to not roll. For Charm I try and make the PC charming when I roleplay them. I complement and cajole and appeal to what I know the PCs goals are. Usually works When a NPC lies it is up to the player to call bull; when the do then they can roll. Even when the NPC is telling the truth -- if the PCs think he is lying I, I make them roll. For Deception checks I roll the difficulty in private. That way the PCs don't have any room to meta-game creating (at least in my opinion) a more immersive game. When it comes to Coercion and intimidation, I apply fear rules to PCs who fail. Sometimes I inflict strain if they try to act contrary to the result of the roll. Usually the threat of taking 50% or so of their strain keeps the PCs scared

12 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

The problem is that the dice are NOT equal.

reds are inferior to yellows - the yellow is +5/6 (=20/24), while the red is -3/4 (=-18/24).
Purples are likewise inferior to greens: green is +5/8(=15/24) while purple is -1/2 (=-12/24).
Letting the defender roll is a +1/12 to +1/8 success per die advantage.

Blue and Black are equally matched for success, but blue grants advantage about twice as often as black gives threat. Doesn't skew the success odds, but does screw with the threat/advantage axis hard.

I'll note that I've allowed the defender to roll the reds and purples when defending against another PC...

Table 2: Averages
Die	Success	Advantage		Triumph/Despair
Blue	+8/24	+16/24		0/24
Green	+15/24	+15/24		0/24
Yellow*	+20/24	+16/24		2/24
Black	-8/24	-8/24		0/24
Purple	-12/24	-18/24		0/24
Red*	-18/24	-16/24		2/24
* Note that Yellow success includes the success component of the Triumph, and the red success includes the fail component of the despair.

yes well aware of this. But it is still better to have the PC roll. As several posts after this one discuss. Things like player are more willing to except the results of rolls they roll. If they fail to resist. That is on them. And the fact that things are weighted towards the positive dice is a good thing. The players are the heroes. Shouldnt they have the edge?

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

yes well aware of this. But it is still better to have the PC roll. As several posts after this one discuss. Things like player are more willing to except the results of rolls they roll. If they fail to resist. That is on them. And the fact that things are weighted towards the positive dice is a good thing. The players are the heroes. Shouldnt they have the edge?

No. the acting character should. I don't consider script immunity a good thing; in fact, I find it counter to a fun game in almost all ways.

Okay, let me slightly more articulate with this notion of refusing to let free will be dictated by dice. That's nonsense. "I need to open this safe, but have no applicable safe-cracking skills. I reject your notion of imposing the will of the dice upon me!"

or

"That blaster bolt I just took to the chest is unfair! You're taking away my free will to Not Be Shot!"

The game is amazingly progressive in allowing the players to manipulate the universe and otherwise change the course of the story, but there has to be a balance between what the player wants to do and the random stuff of the universe. If one wants to get out from under the oppressive regime of the dice for this mechanic, then why are they willing to accept external control for other mechanics?

8 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

No. the acting character should. I don't consider script immunity a good thing; in fact, I find it counter to a fun game in almost all ways.

I disagree. If there is still a chance for failure with the dice then there is no "script immunity" to be had.

If the acting character is an NPC then they still don't have game agency; when in doubt you should always error on the side of the players. Also letting them roll to counter being charmed/negotiated/coerced gives the players more chances to roll which is always a good thing in my opinion and even roll for characteristics they may not normally test all that often, like Discipline, or Negotiate.

And is "counter to a fun game" for whom? This sounds an awful lot like an adversarial GM/DM mindset of old.

If you and your players enjoy that type of gaming then, that is great for you guys, but this is the type of mentality that almost turned me off to table topping when I was first getting started.

9 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

No. the acting character should. I don't consider script immunity a good thing; in fact, I find it counter to a fun game in almost all ways.

What is this "script immunity" thing you refer to? I might start out with a happy-path flow chart for how I think the session might go, but the players *always* mess this up. They are as much a part of building the story as I am. So I think it's in very poor taste to use a die roll to dictate to the player their character's actions.

There are two steps to avoiding this. First is to let the PC roll resistance rather than the NPC rolling their imposition. I think the differences in odds are too small to be relevant, though I might toss in a boost/setback to adjust if I thought it was really necessary (after all, as the GM I can always adjust NPC skills on the fly).

The second step is to let the NPC roll, and (as noted on page 1 of this thread) impose penalties if the NPC isn't getting the cooperation their successful roll deserves. I've only done this a few times, and more as a story punctuation moment to let the players know they have entered new territory and are facing a serious adversary.

In principle, I see the benefits of flipping the check to get player buy-in. In practice, however, doing that means you have to modify several talents, such as Nobody's Fool, that react to incoming social checks, and you end up having to rework half the Advocate tree just to keep it functional. Never sending social checks at the players is thus akin to neglecting to put setbacks on their rolls. You might think you're doing them a favor, but you're turning a bunch of talents into useless prerequisites at best.

1 hour ago, Kaigen said:

In principle, I see the benefits of flipping the check to get player buy-in. In practice, however, doing that means you have to modify several talents, such as Nobody's Fool, that react to incoming social checks, and you end up having to rework half the Advocate tree just to keep it functional. Never sending social checks at the players is thus akin to neglecting to put setbacks on their rolls. You might think you're doing them a favor, but you're turning a bunch of talents into useless prerequisites at best.

This is a fair point, but not that hard of one to work around or rework as you put it. If for example someone had Nobody's Fool talent and you are letting them roll to resist rather than the NPC rolling, you just upgrade the player's dice pool instead of the difficultly or downgrade the difficultly of the check. Again the player can always elect to let the NPC roll their check, if they prefer. I'd never force a player to do it in reverse, but if the NPC is successful, they better adhere to whatever check just passed.