Social Kombat

[Carthrat]

It's pretty weird as to how it works, so I figured I'll put down my general thoughts on it, half my own edification and half so you can see my process on it, and what you actually get out of building intimacies and the like. Most of this is NPC logic, not PC logic, so don't feel obligated to follow any standards set here.

But first, for the most important question!

What NPC's Spend Willpower to Avoid (and how to get around this.)

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1) Building an intimacy that directly contradicts their motivation or an existing intimacy. Erode those intimacies first.

2) Eroding an intimacy that is linked to one of their strong virtues. Create conflict by building a seemingly innocous intimacy first, then use the conflict between them to break down the second intimacy.

3) Doing anything that would contradict their motivation.

4) Doing anything that would contradict a strong intimacy that ties to a strong virtue. Erode that intimacy or build a different one that supports another strong virtue.

5) Doing anything that appears to directly harm them in some way.

6) Someone else is around and being a real prick by building an intimacy in them.

For the most part, these are fearsome reminders that are generally obvious. But when you really need to convince someone of something and you're sure they've got intimacies or virtues that would be against it, now you know how to get around them. Thus, when you build intimacies in someone, you want to build them in such a fashion that it seems to play off their strong virtues.

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People with Compassion can develop strong bonds of friendship or love for people and places. They're the best type to try building intimacies to yourself on.

People with Conviction are more likely to develop bonds to particular causes and actions that need to be taken in the name of those causes.

People with Temperence, though, are best suited to ideals to uphold, like a code of honor or vows of chastity and the like.

People with Valor are full of themselves. They most likely have intimacies towards their own abilities or particular actions, like fighting or rock-climbing.

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The value of investigation and socialize becomes apparent when you realise how big a role intimacies are going to play in whether NPCs will do as you say or not. Some facts to consider, however.

1) Repeatedly trying (and failing) to build the same intimacy in a particular scene can actually have the opposite effect, as the person you're talking too more firmly convinces themselves that they should *not* agree with what you're saying.

2) To build a complete intimacy, you need to hit them with successful attacks a number of times equal to their conviction. You can land up to *two* attacks per scene without some awesome stunt, so you'll usually need to speak to characters more often in later scenes to properly get them in your pocket.

3) People can go away and talk to other people and those people could erode their intimacies (or build contradictory ones) in the meantime. Take care.

4) Ultimately, you'll have to judge for yourself if someone has actually been affected or not, 'cos I won't tell you- unless you make investigation or socialize checks to figure out if they really have got the intimacies you want.

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I hope this clears things up a little. It certainly did for me. Obviously, when you throw charms into the mix, it all gets rather complicated and these rules don't apply the same way- but at least now, I think you can see what intimacies and social charms actually do to people. >.>
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