Social Objectives

Social Objectives are a means of adding structure and clarity to roleplaying situations, especially situations involving humans. When players want to persuade a human character in a certain direction, the Host should privately determine how much Acquiescence the persuasion should require and if there is a limit to how many opportunities the players will have to accumulate that amount of Acquiescence. The Host will then decide if they will communicate any of those details to the players.

Key Components of Social Objectives

• How much  Acquiescence is needed?
• How many Opportunities are there to get the Acquiescence?
• Do the players get to know?

Example: You are helping a man try to escape the borders of a cruel dictatorship. He is next in line at the border, but he doesn't have the proper papers. They'll never let him through without papers but he is so desperate that he got in line anyway. The players decide on a plan to distract the two guards and encourage the man to slip by while their attention is not on the line. One player visually and audibly manifests to the guards as someone standing and saying something loudly while looking at them, and then walking behind the guardhouse. This does excite the guards and they hurriedly run to the other side of the guardhouse to see who this person is and what they are doing.

As soon as the guards turn their back and start to run, another player tries to inspire the man they are helping to quietly walk behind the family who were just passed through by the guards before they were distracted. The Host decides that the man was desperate to get into the line without the proper papers. It should be fairly easy to persuade him to take this opportunity. They relay to the players, "You think that should be fairly easy to accomplish."

The Host privately decides this will be a 2 Acquiescence Objective, but timing is crucial and the player will only have 1 chance to persuade the man before the opportunity is gone. If he waits any longer, it will be clear he is not with that family.

The second player decides they will try this by Exciting the man's courage to sneak along with the family. The Host decides to give the roll a Boon:1 due to the distraction provided by the first player. When the second player rolls, they will need to be able to stimulate 2 Acquiescence by ending up with two uncanceled 12s, or by having at least 3 Passes and at least one uncanceled 12, or they could also succeed by having 7 or more Passes (causing 3 Acquiescence). Any of these would cause enough Acquiescence within the man. The players are aware of this, but the Host did suggested to them it should not be terribly difficult.

The Host is encouraged to adjust as the situation plays out. For example, the Players' roleplaying or rolls may warrant more Opportunities, or saying the wrong thing may increase the Acquiescence a certain Objective requires.