Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

[quantum lurker]

Here's some examples of feats you should be able to accomplish at a given number of dots. These are all 'single use' examples, at the limits of what's achievable; for sustained use, drop down one level.

(That is to say: Using psionics at this level costs willpower, which a mature psionic tends to have a lot of.)

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The last line here wasn't there last time, and is a bit of a bummer - WP is horrendously expensive to increase outside of plot :/

if you want to use it offensively against most relevant targets you'd have to pass a contested roll.

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Makes sense, especially the 'relevant' part - was wondering if we could have just dealt with Hikawa immediately in the last quest if we have Thermokinesis 3 back then lol

In Persona terms, most (non-elemental) psionic effects are typed as Dark/Curse; this includes the 'Heart beam'.

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Oh, that's good, I thought Psionics is mainly Physical, Mind Crush aside; this means we aren't totally screwed when Physical Resist starts coming in.
Generally speaking, is it possible to emulate Elemental Types using physics exploits made through Psionics (TK 4, Thermokinesis 3 and Lore 2/3 for a extremely slow Magarudyne 'spell' called a hurricane, to give an example)?

 

[Quine]

Amu becoming some shadow director of JP's or usurping Hotsuin or starting her own psionic Black Knights is exactly the sort of thing I don't want to see her using Socialize for.

No Amu Lamperouge please.

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Not this again...

This whole Lelouch thing is entirely in your head. No one else's. You have constructed a strawman idea in your head of what other people want, and you're doggedly arguing against this idea, regardless of all attempts to show you that it doesn't match reality.

Amu is going to need to talk to adults, many of whom are going to try to manipulate or use her. If her social chops aren't up to snuff, they're likely to succeed. That's what I mean by her possibly needing to beat adults at their own game.

No one is trying to turn Amu into Lelouch. Please stop talking about Lelouch.

 

[quantum lurker]

No one is trying to turn Amu into Lelouch. Please stop talking about Lelouch.

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Amu is fundamentally unsuited to be Lelouch, so anyone actually trying to optimise by trying to turn her into one will quickly find they are wasting their effort - it's better to lean into Amu's strength and temper her weaknesses using Socialise?

 

[PistachioCookies]

Integrity is what is used to defend against social manipulation, not Socialize.

This idea of Socialize being a defensive stat needed to prevent Amu getting taken advantage of is simply not the case. Or at least, until the QM comes out with a fiat statement saying that Socialize is necessary for defense, I will not be convinced of it.

And even if it was, you wouldn't need it higher than what other people have, if all you wanted was to be on par with them for defensive purposes.

You only need it higher if you're trying to, as was put, "beat them", in which case we are talking about offensive use. The chessmaster kind.

 

[quantum lurker]

Integrity is what is used to defend against social manipulation, not Socialize.

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Social manipulation has many forms: Integrity covers trying others trying to manipulate Amu's opinions directly, but it doesn't cover adults using culture, presentation and peer pressure/authority as a weapon against Amu?

2 dots corresponds to an adult in a related profession, so it is in fact equal levels for the hypothetical opponent that Quine is worried about.

Having said that, I do not currently support getting 2 dots of Socialise - we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I'd rather invest in Psionics first and then worry about it when it actually is a problem?

(Pistachio, on a side note, would it be accurate to say that you don't want Amu to become Naomi? Use that as an example and elaborate if so, it's a more understandable one than using Lelouch comparisons)

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(The realization that people think of you as a child and will act accordingly, as well as the knowledge of how to circumvent that safely falls under Socialise too - Integrity won't help one iota with that.
Unless you think of Charisma/Presence as a safe way, which ok I suppose?)

 

[PistachioCookies]

Social manipulation has many forms: Integrity covers trying others trying to manipulate Amu's opinions directly, but it doesn't cover adults using culture, presentation and peer pressure/authority as a weapon against Amu?

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By "using culture and presentation" or "peer-pressure", I assume you mean running a smear, rumor or fear-mongering campaign. The sort of thing one does with Socialize 3+. If Amu can't stop the broadcast, the damage will be done irrespective of how many dots in any stat she has.

I get the impression @Quine would probably advocate using Socialize 3+ to run our own counter-smear or PR campaign as a form of "defense" against it.

That is not a defensive use of it, this an offensive use. A second-strike, so to speak. Amu is now using Socialize to smear the other guy or to artificially enhance her own public image. The fact that it is being done as a "counter-attack" doesn't stop it from also being an attack. At that point, you're one step away from also using it when not under attack, in order to simply promote Amu's popularity and get her voted in as Japan's next prime ministerial candidate (yes, that's an exaggeration, but I hope you get my point). I would be very unimpressed at seeing "all hail Amu" happening.

Meanwhile, someone using authority as a weapon against her doesn't really result in a social attack, it would probably be wielded in the form of sending men to arrest her. If the law got involved, it wouldn't be the court of public opinion we'd be fighting it out in. It would be an actual courtroom and the stat for that would be Bureaucracy instead of Socialize.

Unless your method of defense was to blackmail or seduce the jurors or something.

(Pistachio, on a side note, would it be accurate to say that you don't want Amu to become Naomi? Use that as an example and elaborate if so, it's a more understandable one than using Lelouch comparisons)

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We've seen Naomi for all of 1 scene, we have no idea what most of her personality is like or even whether she is better at Socializing than Amu currently is.

For all we know she has 0 dots in it too.

 

[Yu Narukaze]

By "using culture and presentation" or "peer-pressure", I assume you mean running a smear, rumor or fear-mongering campaign. The sort of thing one does with Socialize 3+. If Amu can't stop the broadcast, the damage will be done irrespective of how many dots in any stat she has.

I get the impression @Quine would probably advocate using Socialize 3+ to run our own counter-smear or PR campaign as a form of "defense" against it.

That is not a defensive use of it, this an offensive use. A second-strike, so to speak. Amu is now using Socialize to smear the other guy or to artificially enhance her own public image. The fact that it is being done as a "counter-attack" doesn't stop it from also being an attack. At that point, you're one step away from also using it when not under attack, in order to simply promote Amu's popularity and get her voted in as Japan's next prime ministerial candidate (yes, that's an exaggeration, but I hope you get my point). I would be very unimpressed at seeing "all hail Amu" happening.

Meanwhile, someone using authority as a weapon against her doesn't really result in a social attack, it would probably be wielded in the form of sending men to arrest her. If the law got involved, it wouldn't be the court of public opinion we'd be fighting it out in. It would be an actual courtroom and the stat for that would be Bureaucracy instead of Socialize.

Unless your method of defense was to blackmail or seduce the jurors or something.

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... No, I'm 99% sure that's not what he meant. Peer pressure means pressuring someone to change themselves in order to fit in with the group. Using culture/presentation is more of the same, shaming someone by showing them how they don't fit in. Using authority means trying to force someone to obey by making use of a (presumed or real) higher rank.

I can see what others mean about you strawmanning. You assume that any use of the Socialize ability automatically means that we're trying to screw with other people's heads. Newsflash, that's not how it works. @Baughn has directly stated that most adults have one dot of Socialize, because it's literally social skills, and you need those in modern-day society.

People argue with each other. This is a fact of life. I'm not sure why you assume that Amu ever arguing with anyone at all, for any reason, is a bad thing. (And yes, that is in fact what you're arguing when you rail against Amu engaging in social combat, because social combat is precisely how Exalted models arguments.)

 

[quantum lurker]

we have no idea what most of her personality is like or even whether she is better at Socializing than Amu currently is.

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Naomi didn't strike Amu as particularly nice. Not... bad? She wasn't sure. But there was just something about the girl that was unsettling, the way she felt when she looked at Kana and Aoi and Yui. Less like they were friends or siblings than possessions. Or tools. Like something precious but expendable, and maybe Amu didn't like Naomi either-

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Mechanical aside, I was assuming this sort of thing is what you have problems with narratively?

If Amu can't stop the broadcast, the damage will be done irrespective of how many dots in any stat she has.

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Well, we can avoid giving free ammunition for any such hypothetical parties using knowledge of culture & social norms, and I don't see Amu thinking of any of this without Socialise 1?

(I disagree that running a counter-smear campaign in advance is inherently problematic, but it does depend on the details. The one I see most likely to happen is the equivalent of Poisoning The Well or guarding against it, which should be fine?

I agree it is not within our scope of responsibility to handle a PR campaign, but the thing is depending on how things shake out in the future we may not have a choice, especially if we give free ammunition to interested parties?)

On a more peer level, if Amu wants to connect with her classmates, she's gonna need to understand the nature of their grievances and why they exist so she can behave to ameliorate them through her behaviour, and I don't see it happening without Socialise even with Empathy or Mind Control? (If she uses Mind Control this issue is going to repeat ad nauseam unless she uses a more invasive form of it, and Empathy-the-Psionic Skill doesn't cover Motives or Interests, only Feelings)

you're one step away from also using it when not under attack

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Yes, we need to know this step exists and be careful, but it is a hilariously large step - I think it is a safe assumption that Politican Amu is not on the bingo card of anyone here?

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... No, I'm 99% sure that's not what he meant.

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(Actually, that is what I meant, because I was talking about those in the context of adults/authority figures and Amu.
However, what you mention absolutely is relevant when Amu interacts with actual peers, she needs to learn how to navigate these things safely too.
And she can't learn to handle these if she doesn't know it exists, and I don't think she can learn it exists w/o being burned the hard way without a Socialise dot?)

(And yes, that is in fact what you're arguing when you rail against Amu engaging in social combat, because social combat is precisely how Exalted models arguments.)

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(Pistachio is more talking about manipulation than anything, and while technically any form of talking or even interaction with another is manipulation, this is not a useful definition of things for a discussion so)

 

[Yu Narukaze]

(Pistachio is more talking about manipulation than anything, and while technically any form of talking or even interaction with another is manipulation, this is not a useful definition of things for a discussion so)

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The thing is, it feels like that's exactly what he's arguing. That any attempt by Amu to try and persuade others of her point of view, in any way, makes her a manipulative bitch. Or at least he assumes that engaging in social combat implies that you're manipulating others.

Social combat is debate. If he's arguing that Amu shouldn't improve her abilities in social combat because that makes her manipulative, then he's saying that any attempt to convince others of anything at all is manipulative, because that's what social combat is.

Edit: I'll give an example. Let's say that the honorable Dawn caste Solar, Bearded Griffin, meets with General Hatchet (I'm bad with names) because he needs Hatchet's support on a military campaign to get rid of a local Raksha noble. Griffin gives a rousing speech, extolling the bravery and skill of Hatchet and his men, and declaring that this damnable fairy must be destroyed, lest they eat even more of the town's children, and that he cannot do this without Hatchet's support! The general, touched by the demigod's words (and knowing that a lot of children have mysteriously disappeared lately), pledges his full support to the Dawn's cause, and calls his troops to ready themselves for the campaign.

In mechanical terms, Griffin made a successful Charisma + Presence social attack on Hatchet. Griffin did not attempt to manipulate Hatchet: he needed military support, and talked the General into providing it, by appealing to his pride in his soldiers and his interest in not having children get eaten. (And to be clear, while Griffin didn't have evidence on hand, the raksha is abducting and eating children in this scenario.)

Yet in mechanical terms, this is social combat. Because social combat covers all forms of debate and persuasion.

 

[quantum lurker]

That any attempt by Amu to try and persuade others of her point of view, in any way, makes her a manipulative bitch.

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To be fair to him, the QM (and common sense) says that a well-reasoned argument from the other party's point of view does not require a roll.

However, it is also noted by the QM that given the nature of a Quest we won't always have enough fine control to feed such arguments in - Amu may need to come up with them herself. I maintain that Socialise can be useful for this in many ways, even without a roll being involved: Concealing your instant reactions well enough to listen properly to the other party's point of view, because you are aware displaying them will either cause the other party to clam up or somewhat alienate them; or simply figuring out what your actions look like to an average observer (based off cultural knowledge)?


It is also true that any debate (like what's going on right now), good faith or bad faith is social combat mechanically speaking,
but also that better Socialise (2+ dots) means you are far more effective at applying bad faith argumentation if you want to, and I think we all agree that bad faith argumentation even in the pursuit of potential benefits is not something Amu should aspire to?

I believe they would say in reply (to the debate point) that it's not our place to attempt to convince them to alter their decisions (whether we have Socialise dots or we don't), and have clarified earlier that their lines for manipulation being permissible is about where UMI might be acceptable (hypothetical Makoto going after Demons out of vengeance), which is reasonable if a bit on the right side of the bell curve?

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I think it is safe to say that Socialise (1 dot) has plenty of (potential) narrative benefits or mitigation of future narrative harm, and taken together with the low impact on our training time and Amu's own counterfactual preferences it is good to get?

Obviously, it can also carry plenty of harm if misused as Pistachio has extensively expounded on, and the reasoning for getting Socialise OOC and relevant hypothetical case scenarios might sometimes be fairly ...questionable. (I do not currently see the need for 2 dots of Socialise, 1 dot is enough to be somewhat aware of potential problems narratively)
But... you can always remind the thread of such harm afterwards during relevant votes, and not strain your thread credibility too much right now by what *looks* like excessive hostility so that your words will be given more weight later on?

 

[PistachioCookies]

I can see what others mean about you strawmanning. You assume that any use of the Socialize ability automatically means that we're trying to screw with other people's heads. Newsflash, that's not how it works. @Baughn has directly stated that most adults have one dot of Socialize, because it's literally social skills, and you need those in modern-day society.

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I like to think I have the decency not to throw accusations with buzzwords like "strawmanning" at other people. I would appreciate if you had the decency to do the same.

If you had been paying attention to last few pages, you will note that I do recognize there are non-manipulative uses of Socialize, like simply being used to make friends.

Other people like to stress that it can be used to gather information too on people's motivations, which can be used for benign purposes, but so can skills like Investigate and Lore. Gathering information is not exclusive to Socialize.

Social combat is debate. If he's arguing that Amu shouldn't improve her abilities in social combat because that makes her manipulative, then he's saying that any attempt to convince others of anything at all is manipulative, because that's what social combat is.

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If only.

Just because the QM has folded "friendly debate" into the list of things that Socialize covers in this quest does not suddenly make all the use cases listed in the rulebook disappear. Social Combat covers many things other than simply friendly debate, you can look at the rulebook to see for yourself.

And furthermore - a "debate" that is not simply intended to share a perspective, but primarily used to get someone to support your stance and accede to your insisted course of action? Isn't friendly.

Well, we can avoid giving free ammunition for any such hypothetical parties using knowledge of culture & social norms, and I don't see Amu thinking of any of this without Socialise 1?

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Sure, this would be a "defensive" use of it. It still wouldn't actually prevent someone from running a smear campaign anyway. Less ammunition doesn't mean none. Like using a laptop as a bulletproof shield (better than nothing, but no substitute for actual armor).

Her being known to be able to crush demon skulls by snapping her fingers is enough ammunition at this point for anyone to start firing away.

Yet in mechanical terms, this is social combat. Because social combat covers all forms of debate and persuasion.

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That's not a debate, that's rabble-rousing (although it is persuasion). Hatchet and his men were not given any opportunity to say their piece.

Though funnily enough, I consider that less manipulative than using Socialize, because at least the men were not lead by the nose to believe that their own opinions were being considered in any manner during that speech.

 

[Yu Narukaze]

To be fair to him, the QM (and common sense) says that a well-reasoned argument from the other party's point of view does not require a roll.

However, it is also noted by the QM that given the nature of a Quest we won't always have enough fine control to feed such arguments in - Amu may need to come up with them herself. I maintain that Socialise can be useful for this in many ways, even without a roll being involved: Concealing your instant reactions well enough to listen properly to the other party's point of view, because you are aware displaying them will either cause the other party to clam up or somewhat alienate them; or simply figuring out what your actions look like to an average observer (based off cultural knowledge)?


It is also true that any debate (like what's going on right now), good faith or bad faith is social combat mechanically speaking,
but also that better Socialise (2+ dots) means you are far more effective at applying bad faith argumentation if you want to, and I think we all agree that bad faith argumentation even in the pursuit of potential benefits is not something Amu should aspire to?

I believe they would say in reply (to the debate point) that it's not our place to attempt to convince them to alter their decisions (whether we have Socialise dots or we don't), and have clarified earlier that their lines for manipulation being permissible is about where UMI might be acceptable (hypothetical Makoto going after Demons out of vengeance), which is reasonable if a bit on the right side of the bell curve?

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I think it is safe to say that Socialise (1 dot) has plenty of (potential) narrative benefits or mitigation of future narrative harm, and taken together with the low impact on our training time and Amu's own counterfactual preferences it is good to get?

Obviously, it can also carry plenty of harm if misused as Pistachio has extensively expounded on, and the reasoning for getting Socialise OOC and relevant hypothetical case scenarios might sometimes be fairly ...questionable. (I do not currently see the need for 2 dots of Socialise, 1 dot is enough to be somewhat aware of potential problems narratively)
But... you can always remind the thread of such harm afterwards during relevant votes, and not strain your thread credibility too much right now by what *looks* like excessive hostility so that your words will be given more weight later on?

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Okay, you're right, I'm getting a little heated. I just... really dislike it when someone gets a wrong idea into their head and refuses any attempt at clarification. (Especially when they maintain said position for multiple separate arguments.) That's what this felt like, but I'll freely admit I might be misinterpreting things. (And in case you wonder how I deal with arguing with anyone at all, given that pet peeve... remember that comment earlier about 0 Socialize dots?)

like to think I have the decency not to throw accusations with buzzwords like "strawmanning" at other people. I would appreciate if you had the decency to do the same.

If you had been paying attention to last few pages, you will note that I do recognize there are non-manipulative uses of Socialize, like simply being used to make friends.

Other people like to stress that it can be used to gather information too on people's motivations, which can be used for benign purposes, but so can skills like Investigate and Lore. Gathering information is not exclusive to Socialize.

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Fair enough, I did go a little far there with the strawmanning comment. But uh, one thing I feel like I need to dispute:

And furthermore - a "debate" that is not simply intended to share a perspective, but primarily used to get someone to support your stance and accede to your insisted course of action? Isn't friendly.

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Trying to "get someone to support your stance" is practically the definition of debating. Saying that doing so is wrong is... well, I think it's wrong in itself.

I've never watched Shugo Chara, but I'd be shocked if Amu had never had an argument with one of her friends where she tried to persuade them of something. That isn't intrisincally evil. That's part of human communication.

This idea, that Amu should be an entirely passive observer, and never attempt to persuade someone to agree with her under any circumstances - I don't like it, and, frankly, from what I've gathered of SC canon, it's not how she acts either.

 

[quantum lurker]

but so can skills like Investigate and Lore. Gathering information is not exclusive to Socialize.

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Yes, but gathering information (and putting them in the proper context) in a social interaction is best done with Socialize - using Investigation implies Amu treats every social interaction as a puzzle to work through, which is likely to be far more straining than the equivalent result using Socialize. (And Lore is irrelevant here within this context - I doubt you meant having Psychology knowledge come up and be applied through Lore?)

Just because the QM has folded "friendly debate" into the list of things that Socialize covers in this quest does not suddenly make all the use cases listed in the rulebook disappear.

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Yes. It doesn't, so advocate against voting for using it in those manners, instead of attacking Socialise in general? (Because we need to do a ton of small letter socialising in the quest as things go forwards, we can't always keep spilling spaghetti Amu style for everything when we don't have control over her directly)

And furthermore - a "debate" that is not simply intended to share a perspective, but primarily used to get someone to support your stance and accede to your insisted course of action? Isn't friendly.

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I will partially concede this point, but do look at the example Yu gave above in their edit?
If that is an issue to you, then vote differently: [O] Attempt to bring up the points that (Points) and discuss with (Character) about (Issue), and leave them to it while taking (Action/Nothing) if they insist?

It still wouldn't actually prevent someone from running a smear campaign anyway. Less ammunition doesn't mean none. Like using a laptop as a bulletproof shield (better than nothing, but no substitute for actual armor).

Her being known to be able to crush demon skulls by snapping her fingers is enough ammunition at this point for anyone to start firing away.

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Yes. Not being able to completely mitigate damage is not a reason not to try, right?
The effectiveness of a smear campaign can vary effectively depending on the individual it is targetted at: The less actual bullet points we give them, the easier it is to point out claims without substance, or point to alternate readings of real bullet points, or point to positive actions taken for ask for benefit of the doubt?
I doubt Amu cares much about the faceless masses as long as she doesn't get cancelled, she cares about how it affects those around her, but to address the potential doubts of those around her she needs to know what they are, and the easiest way to find out is to immerse herself in the culture around her?

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remember that comment earlier about 0 Socialize dots?

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Yeah, my mediation attempts only succeed once in a blue moon - even now I'm not sure whether I'm being fair, or accidentally shifting my goalposts, or misinterpreting things, or running headfirst into the fallacy of the middle ground :/

 

[PistachioCookies]

Trying to "get someone to support your stance" is practically the definition of debating. Saying that doing so is wrong is... well, I think it's wrong in itself.

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I said "friendly".

That kind of debate is a "hostile" one and the words "hostile" and "offense" go hand in hand.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm not a fan of trying to engage in "hostile" debate and would prefer if Amu avoided it too. Whether she has enough dots in Socialize to win it is beside the point.

I don't find it a nice thing to subject someone to.

Peer pressure means pressuring someone to change themselves in order to fit in with the group. Using culture/presentation is more of the same, shaming someone by showing them how they don't fit in. Using authority means trying to force someone to obey by making use of a (presumed or real) higher rank.

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I'd presume in these cases, where it is being applied directly face-to-face, it would run into Amu's Integrity.

And Lore is irrelevant here within this context - I doubt you meant having Psychology knowledge come up and be applied through Lore

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Psychology knowledge is one thing, but I meant more being able to look up someone's public information to get an idea on them. This would also fall under Investigation, but if the information is public, I'd assume that would enable it to also fall under Lore. It might not let Amu know who Mitsuru Kirijo is as a person, but would let her know how to contact her and arrange a meeting through her secretary.

If Mitsuru was funding certain charity initiatives, that would let Amu have some idea of the kinds of things she supports too.

 

[quantum lurker]

Trying to "get someone to support your stance" is practically the definition of debating.

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Where is the stop line? I suspect that's where your opinion and Pistachio's diverge.
"I want to gather support for this thing, and will debate with you so that you will come to see it my way if possible. If you don't in the end, I will carry on anyway and leave you to your views." is valid debate in your view, and likely invalid in Pistachio's?

Socialise in this context would then be how well you tailor your arguments in good faith (to succeed or to fail), or how carefully you make them (so that on failure or on success you don't offend the other party), and I don't see the problem with that?

That kind of debate is a "hostile" one and the words "hostile" and "offense" go hand in hand.

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In other words, have either of you heard of agreeing to disagree as a concept?

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I meant more being able to look up someone's public information to get an idea on them. This would also fall under Investigation, but if the information is public, I'd assume that would enable it to also fall under Lore. It might not let Amu know who Mitsuru Kirijo is as a person, but would let her know how to contact her and arrange a meeting through her secretary.

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Fair enough, though I would say what you describe is more Trivia than Lore, or at least is only accessible in Lore 3 and above due to the sheer amount of 'junk' around if approached via Lore?
Though knowing how (character) is like as a (person), or how (generic person A) is likely to react to (action) given (general culture) is kind of important if you want to make social interactions easier or avoid stepping on minefields (eg: Nadehiko)?
Besides, in the context of peer interactions Amu won't be able to find much useful information that way either, because they are unlikely to have internet presences so..
And the information on people like Hotsuin or Hikawa is going to be black-boxed into oblivion, which would make truly relevant information impossible to get at Investigation 1.

Something understated is that Investigation or Lore usage as described takes time to maintain, and doesn't work on surprise interactions which will likely be most of them without Investigation 2 or 3. Socialise 1 does not have this flaw, if having insufficient depth relative to Investigation 2/3.
(By the way, @PistachioCookies you should confirm with the QM whether this sort of skill substitution is viable, it'd make your argument more solid since we are now talking about whether Socialise is actually necessary for the outcomes we want to achieve unless I dropped the conversation ball?)

 

[Yu Narukaze]

said "friendly".

That kind of debate is a "hostile" one and the words "hostile" and "offense" go hand in hand.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm not a fan of trying to engage in "hostile" debate and would prefer if Amu avoided it too. Whether she has enough dots in Socialize to win it is beside the point.

I don't find it a nice thing to subject someone to.

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... I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble comprehending how it's even possible to have a debate where you're not trying to convince someone of something. Like I said, that's kinda the definition of the word. The degree of seriousness may vary, but the fundamental nature of what you're doing doesn't.

That's not a debate, that's rabble-rousing (although it is persuasion). Hatchet and his men were not given any opportunity to say their piece.

Though funnily enough, I consider that less manipulative than using Socialize, because at least the men were not lead by the nose to believe that their own opinions were being considered in any manner during that speech.

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I was trying to keep it simple, because I had enough trouble coming up with a reasonable-sounding scenario for use of social combat. In case it's unclear, I'm not a great writer.

And one thing to keep in mind about Socialize: from what the QM said before, practically everyone has at least 1 dot in it. (The way they phrased it, I think it has something to do with personas, putting on a mask that appeals to those around you. Everyone does that without thinking about it, hell I've noticed myself doing it IRL. But I digress.) I think at least getting that one dot would help Amu out a lot in the long run.

Where is the stop line? I suspect that's where your opinion and Pistachio's diverge.
"I want to gather support for this thing, and will debate with you so that you will come to see it my way if possible. If you don't in the end, I will carry on anyway and leave you to your views." is valid debate in your view, and likely invalid in Pistachio's?

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Yeah, I think that's the crux of the issue. To me, any attempt to persuade someone of something they don't already believe is a debate, even if it's as harmless as arguing about which kind of ice cream someone should buy.

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Anyway, it's like 1 am here and I need to sleep. Goodnight.

 

[PistachioCookies]

Besides, in the context of peer interactions Amu won't be able to find much useful information that way either, because they are unlikely to have internet presences soooooooo

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Only because the year is 2009. If it were today, odds are decent there would be a big digital footprint for them, even at the tender age of 13.

"I want to gather support for this thing, and will debate with you so that you will come to see it my way if possible. If you don't in the end, I will carry on anyway and leave you to your views." is valid debate in your view, and likely invalid in Pistachio's?

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In other words, have either of you heard of agreeing to disagree as a concept?

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The operative phrase is "leave you to your views". Would be fine if this was possible, but think for a moment about how the mechanics of this quest works.

When we initiate an action for a debate with someone in order to persuade them, the success case is the persuasion working (we convert their opinion to ours). The failure case is that it doesn't. Leaving them to their views would constitute a failure.

So if we were truly prepared agreed to disagree... we wouldn't be rolling at all.

If we were executing an action to debate with someone and rolling Socialize to do it, it would be with the express aim to convert their opinion. Leaving them to their views would inherently not be an outcome being targeted, as that would mean you were fine with failure.

In real life that can be perfectly fine, since might be that all you're trying to do is express your views, maybe kill some time by chatting.

But in context of this quest, if you were fine with failing to persuade, you generally just wouldn't be bothering to roll at all.

... I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble comprehending how it's even possible to have a debate where you're not trying to convince someone of something. Like I said, that's kinda the definition of the word. The degree of seriousness may vary, but the fundamental nature of what you're doing doesn't.

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To me, a "friendly" debate is just a discussion to share viewpoints and perspectives. One party convincing the other is tangential to the main purpose of putting all the information and arguments on the table. People can be left to their own to decide which arguments have the most merit.

A "hostile" one to me is when you get parties in it who are only satisfied with letting everyone make up their own mind, when those minds become aligned with their own.

 

[quantum lurker]

Only because the year is 2009. If it were today, odds are decent there would be a big digital footprint for them, even at the tender age of 13.

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Well, it is 2009 in-universe as you mentioned so I think I have reasonably proven that Investigation is not a feasible substitute for Socialise in the contexts that we want to use it in?
(Besides, there are people that don't like using or exposing their social media even now - you'd need Investigation 1.5/2+ to find it if such exists, while Socialise 1/1.5 suffices while in-person)

When we initiate an action for a debate with someone in order to persuade them, the success case is the persuasion working (we convert their opinion to ours). The failure case is that it doesn't. Leaving them to their views would constitute a failure.

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Yeah, that's the core of the issue in this subtopic of the greater debate (Thread Madness for this thread really is just Ethics Debates & beating a horse into glue huh).

What you are saying makes a lot of sense, though the easiest solution is just to open a new vote (or follow existing subvotes) as to "what do now" - I believe we changed our mind after Midori confronted us, which is the definition of "leaving them to their views"?

Alternatively, we could always go ahead anyway and eat the consequences sometimes, which would also satisfy your definition of a friendly debate but which is nevertheless something we'd like to avoid by raising Socialise (or changing our mind when confronted)?

My understanding is that there also exist alternate interpretations of failure:
Botch without Socialise could also correspond to "putting your foot in your mouth because you weren't aware of the other party's perspectives/motives or how your actions would be taken", and that sort of failure is something I really want to avoid.

(Example: Miki's idea would not have been automatically shut down if she didn't frame it as dying on behalf of the person that actually matters, and I think anyone with Socialise 1 will notice even in poor mental state just how bad putting it this way looks?)

Wording things differently: Manipulate + Socialise rolls can also be interpreted as phrasing/framing, and I think you can understand why we'd like to get better at that if so; and how this sort of thing isn't always the harmful/hostile kind of manipulation?
Specifically, framing and deception are not always the same thing, although you can definitely stretch the former to effectively be the latter if you are sufficiently skilled.

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Thinking about this further I get the feeling your arrows should be aimed at Charisma + Presence rolls instead though, that sort of thing is intended to render the opinions of other people entirely irrelevant (and with enough dots, maintain this even in hindsight)?

 

[PistachioCookies]

Thinking about this further I get the feeling your arrows should be aimed at Charisma + Presence rolls instead though, that sort of thing is intended to render the opinions of other people entirely irrelevant (and with enough dots, maintain this even in hindsight)?

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Oh, they're not mutually exclusive. You won't see me enthusiastically advocating to pump XP into Presence either.

Charisma + Presence rolls are the sort of thing you use to start a cult. Or as I've suggested before, intimidate and threaten people. Less manipulative still doesn't mean "good" by any means. I'm fine with threatening enemies with it. But I'd would be heavily against any attempt to use it to form a cult, or to recruit any devotees that aren't demons.

What you are saying makes a lot of sense, though the easiest solution is just to open a new vote (or follow existing subvotes) as to "what do now" - I believe we changed our mind after Midori confronted us, which is the definition of "leaving them to their views"?

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It gets real messy when we start needing to have subvotes for "what if X makes this argument" and "if X says this, we will consider it a legitimate argument" and then list a whole bunch of possible counter-arguments and how acceptable they would be and whether to back down from the persuasion attempt.

I don't believe that level of cascading vote would fly with the QM either.

What's deemed "acceptable to back down from" would likely need to be left up to Amu's judgment most of the time, if we tried to put that caveat in. She has the judgment of a 13 year old. Sometimes that judgment will be sound. Other times it won't be, but with high Socialize, her silver tongue will push it through anyway.

For it to be "more controllable", it would, as you mentioned, need to be structured so that we could start the attempt, get given a mini-update and then another opportunity to vote to back down if necessary. This comes with its own drawbacks of dragging out the scene as a whole and give us mini-updates and need us to take more votes.

....I leave it to you to consider whether those sound like great ideas.

 

[quantum lurker]

Sometimes that judgment will be sound. Other times it won't be

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For most cases that will be our job though, unless there is something IC that doesn't get conveyed OOC?
Also, getting Socialise is part of making better judgement calls, because of the component of it that handles the cultural issues of living in a society, which necessarily requires compromise at times?

(We can always use WP as a litmus test - if the other party is burning WP to resist, something is likely wrong, and I'm sure this burning WP is obvious enough between Perception, Empathy and Socialise)

As for what you mentioned about extra updates, well, that's up to the QM/Amu, and has already happened to reasonable effect in the Midori parts of Chapter 2? (As always, this sort of thing depends on the implementation details)
If you are worried about time, it should be feasible to have a brief preview of expected outcomes and a run-off vote conducted if particularly necessary sometimes while the main update is being written (eg: the Illusion disguise problem)

 

[PistachioCookies]

unless there is something IC that doesn't get conveyed OOC?
Also, getting Socialise is part of making better judgement calls, because of the component of it that handles the cultural issues of living in a society, which necessarily requires compromise at times?

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If you want an example of how this can go wrong, I can immediately quote you one that you just brought up yourself: Miki.

Say she had 3 dots of Socialize when she made her sales pitch. She would have avoided any mention of taking hits for Amu, as that she would know that would be unpersuasive. Now consider what would happen if due to her skills, she'd actually succeeded in her persuasion attempt and gone along with Amu.... and there HAD turned out to be gunmen.

The first anybody would have realized how suicidal Miki really was would be the moment she jumped in front of Amu to act as a Miki-sized not-so-bulletproof shield.

Wouldn't that have been wonderful? (I mean, we'd probably have been given a chance to save her but still)

Knowing social norms doesn't equate to good judgment or having Intimacies that align with them.

 

[quantum lurker]

Knowing social norms doesn't equate to good judgment or having Intimacies that align with them.

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Absolutely. It's at least a possible step in the right direction though, especially considering why Amu would want to do so IC, and the impending Psionics debate IC and OOC lmao

Very technically, this sort of argument applies to spending any amount of XP on anything*, because it expands Amu's list of options without shifting it towards directions that are likely to end well at the same time?

Paring this strawman down, in the domain of resisting being convinced or convincing others of things,

I would argue that Socialise (1 dot, not more) at least has the possibility of moderating things towards better outcomes because you need to care about what others think to gain this starting dot? (At higher dots you learn mechanisms/fine details, but the first dot is to gain awareness).

Looking at the other options towards these ends:
1) Integrity/WP literally makes you more stubborn**
2) Manipulation/Charisma/Performance/Presence is exactly what it sounds like, I don't think I need to elaborate here
3) Lore is literally textbook knowledge/education, situations where textbook knowledge can be directly applied without adaptation (other Skills) are not common
4) Investigation for this purpose ironically promotes learning more about a person so you can essentially entirely ignore them, or at least not have to interact with them on a deeper level than absolutely necessary - this is not a good foundational attitude to instill?
(You can also investigate someone to avoid stepping on their landmines, to be fair; but that's not the use case I am proposing.

Socialise + Investigate is perfectly fine, to be clear, it's solo Investigate that seems problematic to me)
5) Precog/Clairvoyance has already been converted as ending in being seen as a "creepy child who knows things they shouldn't" so that's unfeasible
6) Empathy/Mind Control would work, but that falls back into the previous Psionic Ethics and over-reliance discussion so...


* I can't see Amu as she is misusing Biokinesis, or Driving, or Dodge, or..., but this is intentionally an over-exaggeration, a more reasonable argument is in the next paragraph.
** Being able to stick to your positions better is not inherently a bad thing, to be clear, but we are talking about how enhanced capabilities can be bad when they are used for bad things in this post.

TLDR: Socialise is the best tool for the job comparatively, and so we work with the tools that we have?

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Besides. At the end of the day, adults are expected to have 1 dot of Socialise.
Obviously, Amu is not bound by this expectation yet as she is not a adult. However, as things start going down the weight placed on her is going to be far, far worse than that on your average adult?

(Our preview was some of her other clasmates's parents being envious at Amu being alive - not an easy situation to navigate outside of dodging, and given the Publicity Bane I'm not sure how long we can do that for)

 

[PistachioCookies]

I would argue that Socialise (1 dot, not more) at least has the possibility of moderating things towards better outcomes because you need to care about what others think to gain this starting dot? (At higher dots you learn mechanisms/fine details, but the first dot is to gain awareness).

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Agreed, which is why if we took up Midori's offer, I'd want to throw Ami and Miki into those lessons at the same time.

It's not actually Amu who carries the most risk of leaking ammunition to a reporter or some malicious individual hoping to start a smear campaign-- it's Ami and Miki. And classmates we don't have control over too, but they don't live with her and aren't intimately familiar with Amu like Ami and Miki are. If anybody leaks details about Amu, it will be them.

Amu, we have direct control over. We can manually moderate, to at least some extent, her responses to everything including social situations, because we can just directly vote for her to (try to) act/not act in some way, and we are following her PoV basically all the time. We can make her stonewall with Integrity if we think it's needed.

Ami and Miki, we don't have direct control over unless they are in our immediate party and we don't see what they get up to outside of Amu's presence. They need the training more than Amu. Ami's Integrity is also worse than Amu's, her class seems to be promoting some questionable behaviors and she is also currently somewhat mentally unstable with her split personality.

4) Investigation for this purpose ironically promotes learning more about a person so you can essentially entirely ignore them, or at least not have to interact with them on a deeper level than absolutely necessary - this is not a good foundational attitude to instill?

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According to the rulebook, Investigation is about ferreting out secrets and acquiring knowledge that would otherwise not be easy to acquire. Library Research is actually a specialization for Investigation, as is Conducting Interviews.

The purpose and what to do with the knowledge is left up to the judgment of the actor. As such, I don't believe it promotes ignoring a person or dissuades from interacting further with others. I'd say it has as much of a chance of making somebody care about another person, as it would if they used Socialize to acquire the same knowledge and information. Key phrase being "same knowledge". Socialize might give you a bit more or different knowledge, specifically knowledge on the social context surrouding a person's secrets.

It still won't turn an uncaring psychopath into a saint, the "darker" usage examples of Socialize seen the rulebook are the kind of thing you'd expect to see done by someone who lacks empathy.

(Our preview was some of her other clasmates's parents being envious at Amu being alive - not an easy situation to navigate outside of dodging, and given the Publicity Bane I'm not sure how long we can do that for)

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I would wager that, if Amu had dots in Socialize, she would know that the best thing to do would, in fact, be to dodge. Avoid them as much as possible and let them go through the grief cycle on their own.

Socialize would tell her that they are grief-stricken and also that someone who is emotionally-driven to that degree would not be a person with whom rational discussion is liable to produce results on.

Charisma would be the stat you need to combat that and even with 4 dots, the outcome would not be certain. An attempt to commiserate could have them simply redirect the target of their ire from Amu to Saaya or Tsukasa or someone else connected to the incident.

You could probably use UMI to get a more concrete result, but I don't think I need to point out the problems with that.

 

[quantum lurker]

Key phrase being "same knowledge"

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In the frame of someone wanting to Investigate why people behave the way they do that makes sense, I was looking at Investigation through the implausible-for-Amu frame of someone already predisposed to not want to interact with people for whatever reason.
Though Investigation seems more of an active and stressful ability than Socialise to me, in the sense that one's ability to pay active attention to gather and interpret information you don't innately understand is limited (and there is always random fastball specials)?

It still won't turn an uncaring psychopath into a saint, the "darker" usage examples of Socialize seen the rulebook are the kind of thing you'd expect to see done by someone who lacks empathy.

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Absolutely, although I'd say Investigation as a mindset is slightly easier to abuse at 1 dot than Socialise? (Both are bad if misused at higher dots, just in different ways) 🤷

 

[PistachioCookies]

Absolutely, although I'd say Investigation as a mindset is slightly easier to abuse at 1 dot than Socialise? (Both are bad if misused at higher dots, just in different ways) 🤷

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Hard to say, not entirely certain what 1 dot gives someone access to in terms of information.

Socialize 1 is used to brown-nose vain people, so we could infer it probably gives a user some idea of things other people are positively receptive to, or at least, things that those people are vain enough to advertise being receptive to.

But Investigation 1 is only stated as being what gets used to find small hidden objects. At a certain level, it could probably be used to pick up on muscle micromovements (twitches, "tells", etc.) but no idea what level that would be at.

If we assume reading body language requires higher level Investigation (or the Interview specialization), it might actually be less abusable at lower levels for the purposes of manipulating people than Socialize.

It could, of course, be abusable in a different way, like finding out where someone keeps their drugs like Midori did. And then taking them.