[Diaspora] Social Combat

[Mark Delsing]

On Jan 28, 2010, at 9:53 PM, David Dunham wrote:

> Any thoughts as to how we could have better handled this?

We had a similar conflict with a "data" pawn used in a  computer  
hacking conflict. I decided that since the data pawn was not a pseudo- 
character (and thus, no stats), it could not be affected by move  
another; it was basically just an object to be acquired. The players  
needed to traverse the zone map, get the data pawn, and bring it to  
the "win" zone. Add in some pass values and Aspects on the zones, and  
it was really fun.

Another possibility is to ignore the ship in terms of the zone map  
since it is not a character; it's the object of the conflict, but not  
a participant. Then you could focus on the PCs and NPCs, and set up  
the zone map so that the players are trying to maneuver the various  
parties of interest into zones compatible with their objectives before  
time runs out. Zones could be the various agendas: "We get salvage  
rights," "Insurance pay-out," and "We don't cover that." The shadowy  
group's agenda is just to mess with the outcome.

Really, the negotiation is about to what the players can convince the  
various NPCs to agree (and vice versa). Since all participants have  
stats, the various opposed actions (composure attack, move another)  
will be much more fun, as will unopposed actions like using obstruct  
and maneuver.