>I maintain that this is strictly a question of play style. We can act
>out the social situation to a reasonable degree of fidelity, so there
>is less need for abstraction and mechanics. Freely acting out the
>social conflicts is one of THE things we want out of the game.
Well that does sound like a playstyle difference. But there's two things going on here. On the one hand, you have the question of control, and on the other hand, you have the question of "role-playing" (meaning first person portrayal).
As to the second part, I've found in play that allowing social conflicts to occur in no way detracts from the role-playing. In fact, playing this way seems to increase it, in my experience. Yes, in games where the system is pretty simple, sometimes you do get substitution of rolling instead of doing narration. But in HQ, I find players making careful narration so as to get in augments and such.
(I could also argue that, in fact, many social situations are really not at all fun to play out, such as buying stuff, for instance, but that's another point entirely.)
To describe, we RP back and forth, until it becomes obvious that neither party in the dialog seems to want to give in. At which point we roll, and then narrate the resolution. This is good, because otherwise you can get into these interminable bouts with players who don't want to succumb. If it's the GM, then doubly bad if he doesn't want to allow the player to try to convince an NPC...
If you're talking about character control, OTOH,well, as I've said, I only allow contests where the player is potentially interested in failing. Which, once you get going with it, with the understanding that the player has control, turns out to be a lot of the time, it seems to me. So, I agree, if a player doesn't want to get conned into something, then we can just continue to talk it out, and let the player win the conflict. Example:
GM Playing the Count of Funlandia: "I cannot sign this treaty with you, it's not in my best interest."
Player playing Diplomat: "Let me remind you yet again of the loveliness of the princess who you will marry."
GM: "You've made your arguments, and I'm not sure they're compelling. Let's roll to see if you convince him."
Player: "OK. I rolled a crit!"
GM: "Wow, I rolled a crit fail. OK..."
GM as Count again: The count says "Wait, you don't mean the younger princess do you? I thought you meant her old ugly sister! If it's the younger princess, then you have your self a deal sir! And I'd like to honor you with a place at the table at the wedding as well!"
Resolution in RPGs serves essentially to resolve conflicts not between characters, when it gets down to it, but between players. Who gets to say who comes out on top and how. If you have two players who cannot even agree to disagree on something, neither is willing to lose, then how are you going to resolve that chat, and move on? If you at least threaten to bring out the dice, then they at least have to come up with a solution to the issue that they can both live with, or have to do as the dice say.
No different than if two folks are hacking away at each other. The situation has to be resolved. Or play cannot move forward. Use the resolution mechanics when you need to figure something like this out. If you can "roleplay" the solution, then the players are in agreement, and you don't need the dice.
Note that I don't treat combat any differently at all. That is, if two players are having their characters hack away at each other, and one doesn't mind losing, and indicates so, then we usually just have that character lose in the negotiated manner. Why would we roll, and potentially mess up the result that everyone wants to see occur?
In one case I can think of, this resulted in the agreed to death of a PC, in fact.
Mike
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