The question is fairly straight forward: How do you handle social skill (Charm, Coercion, Deception, Leadership, Negotiation) checks that target players without robbing them of agency?

Deception and Negotiation are easier to work with (though still somewhat difficult, particularly in certain situations), but what about the others? Similar question, what about targets such as battle droids? Coercion and similar checks are usually opposed by the target's relevant skill, but in the case of something like battle droids, they have relevant characteristics of 1, making it very easy to do all of the above even when it wouldn't make a ton of sense. Often times, adding Setback wouldn't end up doing a lot. In the case of organics where they are criminals or members of other organizations that have some sort of hold over them, I sometimes use their superior's Leadership/Coercion stat instead of their discipline.

The first step to take, is to look at what social checks against player characters (or droid PCs and NPCs for that matter) can be crossed out. And to what limits they might comply if the check can be made and the result is stellar.

To your question about battledroids first... I had a player try to use Negotiation to disarm a battledroid by offering it a repair and maintainance checkup in return. A battle droid. Programmed never to part with its weapon, pick it up with its other arm if the first arm is disabled, and fight on with maximum possible efficiency, if it must. I deemed the check impossible. The droid proceeded to blast the character, and in the fight tried to confiscate the speeder the party had arrived in, in order to return to its base of operations and get its own repair and maintainance. Likewise, a battledroid is highly unlikely to be coerced into anything, if its programming is such, that self-preservation is on a lower level that that of protocol droids, for example. Leadership is an easy example of what might work perfectly... if the one making the check is pre-programmed to be in the droid's command structure. But how effective would a leadership check be from a Clone Lieutenant issueing an order (through Leadership skill) to a droideka? Likely, the droideka would open fire right then and there.

Player agency. Social skill checks against that. I believe Youtube is full of vids adressing just this, and many articles can be found on almost as many sites. In the end, I don't use social skill checks on player characters, unless... it is from an ally, and there is a specific benefit, like a Commander type character using Leadership to inspire, and the player characters getting a boost... or if an enemy is actively making a social check with a specific setback, like Scathing Tirade and such. Likewise, The Force (and other magic systems) can break the mould here, but they have specific rules and outcomes, often ways to resist

But never a check for the check's sake, forcing a player to have his character do things he wouldn't want to do. I have seen TPKs and broken friendships over stuff like the DM using (other game, but same application) Command-skill on the player character to force the character to leave a defensive trench and storm the likewise entrenced enemy. " But my NPC rolled higher than you, so your character feels compelled to follow the order as he is in a military hierarchy! " That sort of thing. Stuff that breaks fun, and friendships if you're not careful.

Generally speaking, while I wholeheartedly agree with keeping player agency a priority, there are times that I find NPC social checks against PCs to be narratively appropriate. In those cases, you could go with first instinct, and roll for the NPC, or you could reverse the check. That is, instead of rolling the NPC's Deception, have the player roll their Discipline with the NPC's Deception as the difficulty.

It's rare I've used NPC checks against PCs, but there are Talents that affect these checks, so obviously the intent of the rules is to allow it sometimes, and it's on the GM to make the Talent worth it rather than a pointless expenditure to get to something more useful.

There are two ways you could use it. Leveraging the Genesys rules you can have a "Strain-off", where the point of a series of social checks (by both parties) is to impose Strain to the point where one side capitulates to some specific demand. This makes a bit like combat, so easier to wrap your head around. (In these cases I don't make the loser fall unconscious, in fact once the social encounter is over I let the PCs clear down to half their Strain threshold, and make a Cool or Discipline check to clear more.)

I've also used it for situations where the NPCs objective is clear. Example from a game last week: PCs are cops, shaking down an uncooperative witness. The NPC rolls Deception against Cool or Discipline, and I roll openly. The fact that the NPC is trying not to reveal anything is obvious from the scenario and the players know this. The point of the roll is to see how much of the NPC's lies they can see through, or whether the NPC unwittingly reveals something. If the NPC succeeds with Threat, then "He's a cagey bastard, you can't tell if he was there, but those two Threat he rolled suggests you might want to follow up on the alibi." If the NPC fails with Advantage, then "You catch him in a lie, and he slumps forward, resigned. He was there. But with those two Advantages he recovers some Strain. 'I'll get killed if I tell you anything more. You either hide me, or I stay silent.'"

Thanks for the suggestions!

So, to a certain extent, what I'm gathering is that in many cases of a social check (usually when attempting to compel an NPC to action) I should set a difficulty rather than just rolling an opposed check.

As for the Strain-Off (which I believe was also in the Desperate Allies sourcebook), it generally wouldn't work for my uses as I don't do social skill heavy campaigns, it's more just the occasional check.

On a note regarding battle droids, I had a player (GCW era) board a derelict Recusant and when they activated the power, they accidentally activated all the battle droids who were plugged in. He then convinced a droid that he was their new admiral. The conversation went sort of like this: "Identify yourself." "Don't you recognize me? I'm your admiral!" "What? No you aren't, we've got a different admiral." "You had an admiral, and now you've got a new one." "We received no such orders." "You've been deactivated for 20 years." "20! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I can't count that high. What are your orders sir?"

52 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Thanks for the suggestions!

So, to a certain extent, what I'm gathering is that in many cases of a social check (usually when attempting to compel an NPC to action) I should set a difficulty rather than just rolling an opposed check.

I’d absolutely make it opposed, personally, because the difficulty isn’t environmental or situational, but rooted in the opposing character’s pertinent skill.

Anybody who thinks Battle Droids aren't very susceptible to social combat hould keep the words "Roger roger." in mind.

As for PCs being susceptible to social combat... I'm of two minds about it. I'm generally in favour of it, because it's just daft to have an entire mechanism to defeat your opponents that player characters are immune to, but are free to exploit themselves. On the other hand, while that is fine for systems likes Exalted 3 or Infinity, the Star Wars FFG social rules are kinda bare bones and on the primitive side.

Social checks should work on PCs just as much as they work on NPCs. It's not about player agency, it's about game balance. There is also the fact that PCs and NPCs all have skills specifically designed to counter difference Social checks. If Social skills didn't work on the PC why have skills to counter them, and why put points in said skills?

On 11/9/2019 at 10:15 AM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

So, to a certain extent, what I'm gathering is that in many cases of a social check (usually when attempting to compel an NPC to action) I should set a difficulty rather than just rolling an opposed check.

I would make it an opposed check. But I also tailor my NPCs so they might respond differently to different kinds of social checks. So I might start with the NPC's basic dice pool, but if, say, the PC attempts Coercion and I figure this is the kind of NPC that resents being told what to do, I'll increase and/or upgrade the difficulty. This is where advantages can come in handy, eg: "She sneers at your tough talk, but you sense something vulnerable in her demeanour ... perhaps a kind word or flattery would work better..."

On 11/9/2019 at 3:03 PM, micheldebruyn said:

Anybody who thinks Battle Droids aren't very susceptible to social combat hould keep the words "Roger roger." in mind.

Agreed, plus there are countless examples in the TCW episodes of battle droids being fooled, eg:

"Oh thank you for rescuing me master Jedi, we better get out of here right away!"

BD1: "Jedi? How did a Jedi get in there? Should we check it out?"

BD2: "I don't want to..."

BD1: "We have to follow orders."

BD2: "Roger roger..."

...aaaannnndddd, the PC escapes...

On 11/8/2019 at 8:56 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

The question is fairly straight forward: How do you handle social skill (Charm, Coercion, Deception, Leadership, Negotiation) checks that target players without robbing them of agency?

Deception and Negotiation are easier to work with (though still somewhat difficult, particularly in certain situations), but what about the others? Similar question, what about targets such as battle droids? Coercion and similar checks are usually opposed by the target's relevant skill, but in the case of something like battle droids, they have relevant characteristics of 1, making it very easy to do all of the above even when it wouldn't make a ton of sense. Often times, adding Setback wouldn't end up doing a lot. In the case of organics where they are criminals or members of other organizations that have some sort of hold over them, I sometimes use their superior's Leadership/Coercion stat instead of their discipline.

My first step here would be to absolutely know your players and what they will tolerate. Some folks are down for things to happen as long as it's good stories, other people will rebel if you ding their ego or sense of Winning. If they are game for this they don't lose any agency because in the end they give their assent or better drive the effect with role-playing.

Secondly I take an OSR approach to this game and try to make it so that Skill values are not 100% of the equation. I'm primarily looking for the approach that the player is using to make their argument or to execute their idea. Fiction is great when you can see something in the story happening and it's enjoyable. This means ideas and description have to be there. So I factor the Skill in but it's not going to outweigh a terrible idea or worse, no idea.

I encourage players to come up with an idea and to help each other come up with ideas so that they can try to accomplish something. Risk and Reward are at play because I try to encourage risky plans that have a chance of working but are audacious.

Upgrades/Downgrades Setback and Boost are given based on the approach. A high skill is important but it's not everything in my opinion.

I would allow Battle Droids to be affected because to me it's not science fiction and droids occasionally seem to act with some emotion/perception errors, but it's a dicey situation because you don't want to get too crazy with that. If players are using meta-knowledge to facilitate constantly trying to do these things to NPCs I am going to shut that down on principle and because repetition like that is often lazy and boring.

Social checks targeting player characters are fine... in theory The key is how you handle / implement them. Good roleplaying requires a well of trust between the players and game master. If that isn't there, along with clear and open communication, all is lost. The problems a lot of players have with social checks harkens back to the bad old days of "save or die" mechanics and experiences with the occassional sadistic game master who got off on psychologically abusing their players and doing horrible things to their characters.

That resulted in "cultural paranoia" on the part of some gamers who also became reflexively hypervigilant about player agency. This reaction is not always unjustified, but it can force the table into a cold-war style stalemate that straight-jackets good sessions. One good outcome of all this has been a progressive softening of what I term "catastrophic failure" mechanics that hinge on a single role and a general raising of consciousness about player agency and good conduct at the table. However, I do feel there has been something of an overcorrection and that a healthy middle ground needs to be found.

How? Talk. Talk. Talk. Build that trust. Include the player in the interpretive process.

My first rule for social checks targeting player characters is that they should not:

• Result in automatic catastrophe for the character
• Result in "out of character" behaviors
• Result in players feeling humiliated
• Result in a loss of player agency

My second rule is that they should:

• Result in interesting complications that push the story and give a chance for more role-playing
• Lead to subsequent decision points that may reverse or magnify an initial failure result
• Occasionally be crafted so that failure has a silver lining.

My third rule is that players should play along and have their character make reasonable and believable decisions based on how the dice land. Its not only up to the game-master to craft an interesting story and interpret the rolls. Its also up to the players. Admittedly, this require maturity and an ability to out-meta your inherent meta-gaming instincts to create memorable scenes and stories. In my experience, players are more likely to make the effort if the consequences of failure aren't unduly severe ...death, maiming, torture, imprisonment, ****, humiliation, etc? That tends to put a damper on it.

The biggest problem I see is that many gamers treat the social check as a form of mind control. Like they can roll high enough and the NPC has to absolutely react the way they want them to. But when the tables are turned, those rolls become suggestions or you hear about how their agency is being stolen from them.

If social rolls are treated the same both ways it's not a problem. Coerce the NPC, great he's shaken (and lost some strain) but didn't just drop his weapon and run. Charm the prince(ss), fine s/he flirts with you, but doesn't drop his/her clothes and jump on top of you. Deceive the guard, no he doesn't believe that you were locked up by mistake and are actually the Moff in disguise, but he does radio into base/HQ to check on the situation giving you an opening. Etc.

imo - exceptions to rules really help define the rule. So ... here's a couple exceptions where I've seen it work well...

Bartering/trading - if the effect is obvious, immediate, and not super punishing. Shave a few credits (not get it for free), yeah - I'd totally roll to have a toydarian screw over a PC like that. lol

Deception - in a d&d 5e game, the set-up was the players were in a junji-ito-horror house where they were all hallucinating that the house was decadent and wonderful (where it was actually comedic body horror like sleeping in a rib-cage hammock). The party had to individually roll checks to see through the illusion. /// Applying it to SW: you could have a super duplicitous liar that convinces everyone he's a good guy. Or you could have a Sith messing with the heroes' perception. /// ... major problem is that this requires players who know how to role-play according to information their CHARACTER has as opposed to meta gaming what they themselves know.

Creating Disadvantages - Basically, imagine an NPC using Distracting Maneuver on the PCs. If that opposed check is successful, the PCs suffer disadvantage on subsequent checks targeting the NPC.

TL;DR = the key components boil down to "are you fair about it" and "are your players willing to play to character instead of meta game". If the answer's yes to both: do it.