Ok, these are helpful so let’s continue with them.

A while ago, I wrote an article about why there is a fundamental difference between fighting (combat mechanics) and talking (social mechanics). In that article I did mention that there’s a reason why people try to mix the two, trying to transplant combat mechanics into the social aspect of RPGs.

But as I worked on re-designing my conversation mechanics, I noticed something that I didn’t do entirely consciously but in hindsight is strongly related to that topic. And that’s the dense usage of social skills.

Let’s play around with something. Follow my process on revising something I’ve been considering as a minor game mechanic from the start, but never felt I got as much out of as I thought I could.

What I’m referring to are assumption. Those are the little icons that show up before various choices in the game. They inform the player on what the character is thinking about the consequences of the various actions listed — an insight into the future based, among other things, on the character’s skills.

Recently two video games got my attention. One of them is Griftlands, the other is Signs of the Sojourner. While both being (virtual) card games, these are very different games in how they play. But they have something in common apart from the usage of smol rectangles as a gameplay abstraction. They both deal with the issue of gamifying social interactions.

But I’m not here to talk about those games directly, compare their mechanics or pass some judgement over them. Even though if you are familiar with them and read on, you might catch on that I find SotS more successful with the whole social thing. I’m here just to talk about one thing, and that’s why social interactions and combat are not the same thing, and as such, rarely can be represented with the same systemic abstractions.