Greetings all, and no, fear not, it's not a rules debate thread.

So I've got an idea for part of a campaign I intend to run, in which the players are a rebel cell working towards making an Imperial border world more sympathetic to the Rebellion--getting the lay of the land and witnessing Imperial injustice, offering support and earning sympathy, striking back against the worst offences, and getting to the point where enough people will help hide them to set up a secret base to strike from in the system.

To that end, one of the stops in the road I've thought about is, once the rebels' activities are known on the planet and there's some talk of it, holding a public discourse on the subject of independence and secession from the Empire. This could be a spontaneous event conceived by the planet's people unrelated to player action, or instigated by the Empire or Rebellion in hopes of helping their cause. Whether it's hosted in a catered academic hall or taken underground to a bar's basement might depend on who does the instigating and what the mood toward such talk is. Professors and philosophers from the world's universities as well as common concerned citizens are invited to argue or give testimonies as evidence supporting one side or the other. The Imperial governor or Moff might even take part, since my planned villain is a native of the planet who genuinely believes in Imperial order. The Rebellion, naturally, has the players get involved, with Diplomat characters taking the lead in arguing for the Rebellion's side.

The players may or may not come up with their own ways of fighting unfairly, but the Empire certainly does--one or more of the spectators on the secessionist side is an Imperial plant with a blaster, and if the Rebel side seems to be gaining too much favor, he'll pull the blaster with a shout for freedom from tyranny and in come the Stormtroopers to break up the forum.

What I'm wondering is, expanding on what mechanics are present for social interaction in the books, how might you go about systemizing the debate itself as a larger contest between players and NPCs? Perhaps give a Reputation "health" pool to each side, and individual speakers have their own independent Reputations, which allows a speaker defeated on some point to step back and let someone fresh take up the discussion?

Beforehand, of course, I intend to let the Diplomat players prepare their points; give them access to information on the planet's economics and social statistics, some of which they've seen firsthand and others they might take on side quests to acquire beforehand. The GM needs to prepare points for the Imperial side as well.

Anyone ever done concepts like this before? And please, try implementing something like this in your home games, especially if you've got a Leia-esque Diplomat for the Rebellion you want to give the opportunity to do more with.

The way I have run similar scenarios is to run this a dice pool challenge.

Set a number of successes for the players to pull it off, and also the number that the Empire would win. For example 10 successes / 10 failures

Choose one player, who will do the final roll. Leave them to roll last, its their roll that will be that will need to hit the success target, using Boost Dice from what the other players do (see next)

Each player then contributes narratively how their characters are involved before hand (setting everything up), or during the debate.

For example:

1 player, a slicer, hacks in to the local systems to dig up dirt on the adversary, to use as ammo during the debate. He roll 3 successes, so add 3 boost dice to the final players roll. He also rolls and advantage which he passes on the the next player - perhaps he found extra info that helps that player

The next player, a Smuggler, goes to the local seedy establishments to get intel on the ground. He roll his Streetwise and gets 2 successes and a Triumph! 2 boost dice are added to the final roll, but the number of successes need now drops to 9 due to the Triumph. He found some juicy info.

Etc, etc for the other players.

It comes to the last play, the Agitator. He is the one doing the debating. Using all the Boost he has picked up from the other players, keeping in mind any drop in the number of successes needed, he rolls the mass of dice before him. I would also let him act out the debate before rolling and give additional boost dice for good role playing. Use the relevant debating skill of the opposition as the difficulty. Add in relevant threat and difficulty upgrades as needed.

This makes it quite exciting, and in my past games, all the players end up standing around the table in excitement to see how the massive dice pool rolls out.

If there is not enough for either side to win, then continue the debate with a Social challenge, letting other players assist as suits the scene.

Genesys has some excellent rules on Social Combat.

The FaD splatbook for Consulars (Disciples of Harmony) has a section devoted to diplomacy/negotiation, etc.

I think social combat is the way to go in the way that you intend to do it, but I would say to add some time period to each round or some other condition that can close the round prematurely.

I also like how the characters will all be helping one another even if separate.

It seems to me that you can have several ways of winning each round or the whole thing. If the party chooses to be sneaky and does anything illegal or outwardly dishonest that should hurt their case. Have some NPC witness it if they get enough threat or despair and have the witness talk to the other side.

What I really like about the approach I outlined above it that it runs like a montage scene during the game. A montage of what the other PCs are doing leading up to the big scene, which in this case is the debate.

You can then use the Social Combat rules for the debate.

Its a good way to get all PCs involved in the lead up to a key scene where perhaps only 1 PC may shine. Other times I have used it include:

• Stealing a large airspeeder - the players all used skills to make it easier to steal, with the final roll being the break in
• Building a starship - the other players haggled for parts, stole parts, gathered info, etc all leading to the final Engineering roll to build it

Its one of the reasons I love the system. You can ask the players how they want to get involved and then work it into a scene narratively.

How do you set the opposition?

I like the concept and could see it applying to other arenas, but it seems like adding boost dice in massive numbers - if the difficulty range stays "standard" - would mean that the players' success is virtually assured. It may take more than one roll (worst case scenario), but if you're rolling something like a dozen "good" dice vs 2-4 " bad" dice, there's no real contest. Just curious how you deal with that.

6 hours ago, gwek said:

How do you set the opposition?

I like the concept and could see it applying to other arenas, but it seems like adding boost dice in massive numbers - if the difficulty range stays "standard" - would mean that the players' success is virtually assured. It may take more than one roll (worst case scenario), but if you're rolling something like a dozen "good" dice vs 2-4 " bad" dice, there's no real contest. Just curious how you deal with that.

Well, that's where you as a GM have to make it challenging.

In this example perhaps break the debate down to 3 rolls: setting up the argument, rebuttal, close.

That way the player will have to split the boost dice to each stage, and allows you at use destiny to make it harder if you want to.

Ah, I get it. I didn't get that it was multiple rolls and you pick where you're adding the Bonus dice.

Even so, though... You're probably adding 2-3 Bonus dice to each roll, on average. Even spending a destiny point on each roll, it seems like the proficiency would outdistance the difficulty very quickly.

How many characters in your group? And what's their success rate like with scenarios like this?

On 9/4/2018 at 9:34 AM, Andreievitch said:

Set a number of successes for the players to pull it off, and also the number that the Empire would win. For example 10 successes / 10 failures

This balances it out. You set the target number of successes needed for the rolls. The player can then split the boost dice for the 3 rolls, knowing that they need x successes.

I would also ensure they explain narratively how the previous players boost dice help their action.