Just sayin...

It's such an easy mechanic that I think could be better matched up with the word on the actions and the mechanic known as "influence."

I broke them down into 3 ways to be used with the social mechanic: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/87221-struggling-with-combat-system/

Greatly done.

I think the Shame mechanic could be translated into another name and systematic depending the type of encounter. I agree completely it's such an easy mechanic it should grow to have other uses and implications. When I first read the rules, what crossed my mind was the easiness in which the Shame treshold could be turned in the creation of a Reason treshold (or whatever), being Intelligence plus ranks in Education (or whatever) and to be used in a duel of arguments.

You could even permit some cards to be used based on Int if occasion should allow it. A flexible use (and the actual need to use them appearing in game sessions) could make social cards seem more tempting.

Excellent point. Really it would be that way for any opposed check outcome. A common one that comes up is if the PC is chasing an enemy that is attempting to hide/get away. Each of several rounds can be roleplayed and outcomes pretty easily determined without having a huge external chart to reference or worrying about things like distance between you and your opponent and other such inane accounting details.

The tracker could then be set to such numbers:

Exactly! At first, I was annoyed that they created yet another threshold for which the character sheet had no space. Then came the idea that thresholds needn't necessary be numbers which you had to track all times (like Wounds Threshold). They could be simply a number (of successes, of tests, of influences, of arguments, of..) given to cross the threshold between failure and success. And you could come up to this numbers using the calculation they gave for Shame: a Characteristic plus something else that is relevant (a social rank, rank in a skill... what else could it be?).

I would think just as Noble rank matters to "Shame", other traits could apply to other thresholds. Perhaps these are suggestions of ones with bonuses per rank, just like the noble:

temptation resisted by Judgement

ignorance resisted by Academic

"technicalities" and trials resisted by Bureaucrat

Any charm w resisted by Social

urban survival/track resisted by Urban (and rural by rural)

I dunno. These are just more ideas that players should probably be aware of Perhaps tie them up with specific skill resistances. When your GM say's, ok, you need to make arguments at trial, the Bureaucrat should get a higher threshold per rank of that (for example).

It's trivial probably, but again, it gives the player another reason to say, "Hey, I'm an expert at this so give me a bit of slack Mr. GM."

jh

hahaha, good point