In the RFI Universe, the ability to navigate social dynamics is crucial to survival, whether on the frontier of Freelance space or within the structured confines of the League or Terran systems. Freelancers, in particular, rely on social acumen to form alliances, negotiate contracts, and outmaneuver rivals. The ability to read and influence others is a fundamental skill in this harsh and competitive environment.
Social conflict is the collective term for tasks and challenges resolved through deception, diplomacy, bargaining, intimidation, and a range of other social skills. Not all personal interactions are social conflict, but all social conflict is driven by interactions, especially those where each side has different goals or may not wish to yield to the desires of another.
At the heart of social conflict is a desire or goal, which takes the form of a request: one side wants something, and the other side is either able to grant that request, or they are standing in the way of that goal. It comes down to one character asking another a question.
There are a few different responses to that question, and the character being asked may respond in one of two ways:
Regardless of any other consequences, if a character resists a request in a social conflict, then that request cannot be made again without being changed, or without some other change of context.
As persuasion is driven by context, what is impossible in one situation may be feasible in another. It may be useful to break up a goal into smaller, more reasonable requests, each resolved separately, pursuing a greater objective piece by piece.
This is also where social tools come in. Social tools allow a character to alter the context or circumstances of persuasion, normally in the form of applying traits or other factors, and they can be used individually or collectively to shape a social conflict.
During a social conflict, each side may have different goals, meaning that each side engages in their own actions to further those goals. Even in something as seemingly one-directional as an interrogation, the interrogator will be trying to get information, while the interrogated party may have a goal of their own, such as trying to prove their own innocence.
If a character resists when faced with a request, this becomes an opposed task. The asking character first rolls an appropriate combination of attribute + skill to set the Difficulty. The Difficulty can be altered by factors such as traits like deception, evidence, intimidation, or negotiation.
The resisting character rolls in response, using whichever combination of attribute + skill makes the most sense given the circumstances.
Social conflict is meant to be a mixture of roleplayed discussion and game mechanics—you describe or act out your character’s parts of the conversation, and the gamemaster replies as an NPC and uses that exchange to adjudicate the rules (the Difficulty of tasks, what attributes and skills are appropriate, what social tools are in play).
Specific combinations of attribute and skill don’t exist for any of the options in this section, and that’s deliberate. These things should be determined by you and the gamemaster depending entirely on the scene and its circumstances, and your roleplay.
Creative gamemasters may use the rules for challenges, or extended tasks, to expand the scope of a social conflict. A challenge made up of several Persuasion tasks can easily represent different stages of a negotiation or a trial, culminating in a larger outcome. Using extended tasks for part of a social conflict could be valuable when trying to defuse a crisis or other high-stakes situation, where time is of the essence, or the wrong word could spell disaster.
And, as noted later in this chapter, there’s nothing to prevent you from making use of social conflict rules in the middle of combat.
In addition, a player character and NPC can go back and forth implementing social tools against each other until one side successfully ‘defeats’ their opponent.
Example: Admiral McKenzie interrogates a Terran Intelligence Officer that was captured trying to plant a bomb in Prometheus Station. Over the course of the interrogation, McKenzie uses deception and intimidation to break down the Terran’s willpower, finally managing to fill the Terran's stress track and convince him to explain the operation.
Social tools are the methods by which you can alter the context and circumstances of a social conflict, moving things in your favor. Each social tool is an action, and they can be used individually or collectively to shape a social conflict.
Falsehoods and deceit can be valuable tools and honorable if the ends are honorable too—but lies are dangerous. Deception can be used by itself to make a request seem more reasonable or palatable, or it can be used in conjunction with other tools to create a more significant impact. However, effective deception requires skill, cunning, and an understanding of who is being lied to.
Deception is always an opposed task. The character creating the deception first rolls to set the Difficulty. They gather a dice pool, rolling against their own target number as if they were making a task roll. However, they are not rolling against any specific Difficulty; just count how many successes they score.
The person attempting to see through the deception gathers their dice pool and rolls against their target number. If they score more successes, they are not deceived.
Successfully deceiving someone convinces them of something that is not true and creates a trait that represents the lie they now believe, shaping their future actions accordingly.
Deception can be used to establish lies in preparation for future Persuasion tasks. Empty threats can intimidate a foe with a peril they believe is real, and history is full of scams, cons, and tricks where people bargained with things they didn’t own. The problem with Deception is that it’s all a lie. If the target discovers they were deceived, they will hesitate to trust your character in the future and may even seek retribution. In effect, you lose the trait you created and suffer a complication in its place. Further, any complications suffered while establishing a lie may reveal flaws in your deception, making the target suspicious.
Further, any complications suffered while establishing a lie may reveal flaws in your deception, making the target suspicious.
Successful Deception also adds 1 Difficulty per successful lie to the severity after a Persuade opposed task is rolled. However, it also increases the deceiver’s complication range by 1 for each lie as well, as lies can become entangled and complicated.
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The counterpoint to deception is Evidence—offering something that provides certainty and proof of your claims. In many cases, providing evidence may be a straightforward affair, automatically successful, but convincing someone the evidence is legitimate may be difficult, particularly if that person expects deception, which may set a Difficulty for a task.
Each piece of evidence is a trait, either allowing you to attempt a Persuasion task or decreasing the Difficulty by 1.
Evidence can be used in conjunction with any of the other social tools, and their use is often the driving force of those tools. Providing proof of your ability to carry out a threat can be vital when intimidating someone, or giving evidence of your ability to pay during negotiations can smooth things along, and even deception can benefit from the right forged documentation if it helps make the lie more believable.
Each relevant piece of evidence the target is willing to accept also adds 1 to the severity after a Persuade opposed task.
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A direct and crude method of coercion is to inspire fear, doubt, and uncertainty in your opponent. Intimidation uses threats to compel someone into action by convincing others that their non-compliance will be met with force.
Intimidating someone is an opposed task, with the Difficulty of each task based on the relative perceived strengths of each side—it is easier to intimidate, and to resist intimidation, from a position of strength. Intimidating someone requires they believe there is a real threat.
Successfully intimidating someone imposes a trait upon them, representing their fear of whatever the threat was. Failing to intimidate someone makes further attempts to intimidate them in that scene more difficult, often requiring even greater threats to compensate.
The drawback of Intimidation is it is inherently hostile, which can cause problems of its own. Employing Intimidation creates an antagonistic tension between the two sides—represented by traits—which can worsen other forms of interactions, cause lingering resentment, or even provoke a target to aggression.
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Negotiation is a fine art, requiring a keen mind and strong willpower. Negotiation involves compensation in exchange for granting a request, and this compensation can take many forms, with different people and different circumstances susceptible to different offers. Savy Merchants are continually adjusting their offers until they reach the best deal for themselves. Diplomats mediate disputes, arranging the terms of trade agreements and territorial disputes by securing concessions from each side until everyone is happy (or at least willing to comply).
When you negotiate with someone you create a trait that represents what you're willing to offer, and a complication that represents the cost of that offer. Each new offer is considered a new change of circumstances for the Persuasion task. Negotiation doesn’t require a task by itself—it is more a process of trial and error.
Negotiations may involve a lot of position shifting from both sides, as they make and retract offers, or discover the other party doesn’t have what they want. In some situations, numerous sessions of negotiation may be needed to obtain what one party wants from someone else to progress.
The drawback to Negotiation is the cost of success. You may find yourself offering more than you wanted to give up, or you may find that what you obtained was worth less than the price you paid for it. Failing to provide what was offered can also produce serious problems, which can be significant if the negotiations were based on a lie.
In some ways, Negotiation is the antithesis of Intimidation—achieving a goal through offering something productive, rather than threatening something destructive. Few beings will be amenable to trade and negotiate with those they've been threatened by, and such trades may have a steeper cost because of previous hostilities.