I was wondering: are there any RPG systems focused on social interaction? I wanted to organize kind of a dating game, and I was curious if there was anything available dealing with those themes.
>inb4 FATAL
Thank you in advance.
>>48243309
I don't know of any systems focused on socializing from a mechanical standpoint, but WoD and GURPS are both systems that reward RP, and discourage combat in my experience. I'm tempted to say to just avoid d20 systems now, but I doubt that's correct.
Honestly the social aspect of a session is always reliant on your players, and your own, ability to RP rather than any mechanics for such. Otherwise it becomes "I roll to 'x'"
>>48243309
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290243-High-School-Harem-Comedy-(Game-System-PEACH)
You know you want to.
>>48243309
Check out Buffy the vampire slayer rpg, social connections between the characters are the driving force there. Repurpose as you see fut.
>>48243393
But the same argument could be put against combat mechanics. I honestly thought like that for a while, but now I think that the only reason why it is not done, is because nobody did it yet.
Combat isn't "I roll to 'x'" either. Combat mechanics serve to keep track of what's going on in a statistical way, so ambiguity can be fought. The player will still describe their sword swings, and how they cast their spell, and so on. It's not that I don't like free form roleplay (it is my go to form of roleplay, to be honest), but I think it would be interesting to see a social interaction system as fleshed out as most combat systems, focusing on personality and interactions.
>>48243414
Too shallow for my purposes; I was looking for something a bit more serious as well.
>>48243452
I'd imagine it would still be fairly grounded in combat, though, no?
>>48243309
I like the idea of that elf girl drinking the rest of that potion that turns out to be poison and choking on her own vomit like that scene in Breaking Bad where the girl suffocates in her sleep on her own puke. That scene gave me a hard-on but I was watching it with my sister so I had to pretend it was because of something else.
Anyway, to answer your question OP, GURPS has decent socialization rules and Savage Worlds has a social conflict system. Honestly you could look into Maid or even FATE.... but it would depend what you mean by "dating game"
Monster Hearts, if that's your kinda thing
Song of Ice and Fire RPG has a somewhat put-together social system. It's not amazing, but it's a little more in-depth than "I roll to diplomaticize the king into giving us more money".
I always wonder what the purpose of these systems is. I mean, the point of a fighting system is obviously to both simulate something you can't do at the table AND to have a arcady gameplay mechanic that's there to be fun to play.
Now, with social interactions, you can play out most things no problem and for the remaining stuff, a few simple rolls, convince vs resist, bluff vs sense motives and so on often suffices.
So, are there any games where the social system aims to generate fun the same as fighting? And even if so, aren't they often too clunky and time consuming for how often the system would have to come up, with essentially turning every discussion or disagreement into an outdrawn mechanical conflict?
>>48245660
> the point of a fighting system is obviously to both simulate something you can't do at the table AND to have a arcady gameplay mechanic that's there to be fun to play.
As I said, I think the main purpose of a combat system is to help with organization, and to combat ambiguity, you can perfectly roleplay combat at the table, as much as you can anything else. Other than that, I also think these systems are meant to generate fun, by giving us a system that can be used with dice, to generate surprising (while at the same time somewhat controllable), outcomes and results.
>Now, with social interactions, you can play out most things no problem and for the remaining stuff, a few simple rolls, convince vs resist, bluff vs sense motives and so on often suffices.
Same could be said for combat. You can play out combat just fine, and for the remaining stuff, a few simple rolls to hit and so on often suffices, and yet, people come up with systems just focused on fighting, so I don't see why there shouldn't be one for social interactions (which is of course, a kind of conflict, in a way.)
>And even if so, aren't they often too clunky and time consuming for how often the system would have to come up, with essentially turning every discussion or disagreement into an outdrawn mechanical conflict?
Think of it as a dungeon crawler, only instead of always fighting, you're always socializing. I honestly don't see how that's different, other than the fact that the latter has clearly had more thought put into it over the years.
>>48245321
Shh, don't sexualize things on /tg/, or the christians will throw a fit.
>>48245660
I think it's for people who aren't in it for the roleplaying and play tabletop games because they offer a chance to fiddle with different rules. You don't need rules for social interaction because it's easy to resolve without rules, but if rules are the whole point of why you play then I guess it can be refreshing to have them represent something different for a change.
>>48246198
>You don't need rules for social interaction because it's easy to resolve without rules,
How is social interaction easier to solve than combat?
