Best Social Combat

Social combat like physical combat is merely an impasse.

I want your things, you don't want to give them, impasse. Fight.
I sneak up on a guy, stab him in the kidney, dead. No impasse no fight.

I want them to tell me where the shops are, they don't want to. Impasse, pry.
I ask them to follow me, they don't mind, no impasse no talky.

We all know how combat in Troika works. Social impasses are like that, there is parity. Parity is important to reduce any sense of superiority in any one. Unless you want that.

Social combat, like physical combat, will be idiosyncratic. Troika does fighting in a very specific way so it stands to reason it should also do social combat in a very specific way.

Fighting in troika is about fickle fate and a loss of control.
Social conflict in troika is about manners and cultural bindings.

Social combat in troika is to trap people in the rules of social convention
If either party is not interested in engaging in the game of convention then they cannot "win", only appeal to raw intellect. Which is madness!

The Etiquette advanced skill can be seen as a coppiced system. A "fight" skill if you will.

Etiquette can be expanded to each distinct section of society. Per people, per court, per club. Miss Kinsey's Diner's Table Talk, for instance.

HOW DO I TALK?
Everyone involved draws initiative (call it a soiree if you like)
On their turn they can do whatever they would normally do, including engage in social manoeuvring
Roll vs the appropriate rhetoric they are utilising
The winner rolls on the appropriate table
Exhaustion by rhetoric enables the winner to gain an answer or extract a promise. An answer is always truthful, the gm will transfer the knowledge to avoid any chicanery. A promise, if broken and as determined by the gm, will cause the player to lose 2d6 Luck. An NPC will always perform the promise in a way befitting their nature. A promise forced out like this cannot last or cause a change more far reaching than a handful of days. Or d6 worth. Real, binding promises must be negotiated cleanly.
Yes you can use these during fisticuffs and vice versa

Knidotic Conundrums
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
 3
4
5
10 
 0


Miss Kinsey's Table Talk
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
 1
16 
32 


Bythotic Placation
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
 3


Vennish Formal Fatalism
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
2
10 
100 


Troikan Meiosis
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
 3
12 
12 


Manticoric Bdelygmiasm
 1
2
3
4
7+ 
 4
12 
16 
24 



Originally posted here but tables don't bloody work

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