CoD Social Maneuvers

1: Declare a Goal

• Declaration of your character's goals, your target to get those goals accomplished, and the method they are going to use to get them accomplished.
• Storyteller determines the feasibility of that goal, target and method.

Types of Goals

• Improve Impressions: You may choose to improve your target's Impressions toward you by one step as a Goal.
• Inflict Conditions: You may choose to inflict a Condition on the target, such as Competitive, Cowed, Humbled, Leveraged, Shaken, or Swooning.
• Gain Conditions: You may gain a Condition relative to the target on yourself, such as Connected, Day Job, Informed, or discover the details of a target's Embarrassing Secret (if they do not have one, you discover this lack with a successful Maneuver).
• Getting to Know: You may choose to try and learn about the target's Virtue, Vice, Aspirations, or Breaking Points. If successful, you learn one of those facts about the target (success to learn Aspirations or Breaking Points learns one such trait).
• Agree to an Action: You may choose to get your target to agree to an action you suggest to them.
  • Subtle Suggestions: If you are subtly trying to manipulate them into the choice instead of stating it outright, you must use Manipulation throughout the Maneuver, and the target gains +2 Doors.

Changing Goals

• A character may change his Goal partway through a Maneuver, retaining all open Doors, but the new Goal has to be reevaluated for adding Doors from breaking points, Aspirations and Virtue comparisons.

2: Determine Doors

• Reflects the difficulty of accomplishing a given goal.
• This is tallied by a system of "Doors". Each door is a point of resistance towards the accomplishment of that goal, overcome through the use of specific actions.
• Base number of Doors: Lower of Resolve or Composure.
  • If goal is a breaking point: +2 Doors
  • If goal would prevent the accomplishment of an Aspiration: +1 Door
  • If goal is opposite to a Virtue: +1 Door
• Each Door requires a successful roll to open.
  • Exceptional successes open two Doors.

Influencing Groups

• Influencing a group requires a least an Excellent impression or forcing Doors, unless the group meets regularly.
• Doors are determined using the highest Resolve + Composure of the group.
• Must also determine a Virtue, a Vice and relative Integrity score for the group.

3: Determine Impressions

• Impression determines the Interval between Social Maneuvering rolls.
  • This is based on previous interactions, how well the characters like and know one another, the circumstances of their meeting, the nature of the favor being asked and other relevant factors.
• Most Impressions start at Average.
• Vice: If actor is playing to the target's Vice, improve the Impression by one step.
  • Soft Leverage: If the offer of a gift or service in exchange for the Goal is tempting, improve the Impression by one step.

Impression Ranks

• Hostile: The target actively dislikes the actor. Interval: Cannot roll.
  • Comes from tense first impressions or threatening pitches. Require that the Impression be manipulated or that Doors be forced.
• Average: The target is relatively neutral toward the actor. Interval: 1 Week per roll
• Good: The target thinks somewhat well of the actor. Interval: 1 Day per roll
• Excellent: The target thinks quite well of the actor, or knows the actor well. Interval: 1 Hour per roll
• Perfect: The target not only thinks well of the actor, but the two know one another well. Interval: 1 Turn per roll

4: Opening Doors

• Actor may make a roll at each Interval.
• Each roll might be different, based on situation and tactics. Some rolls might not even be Social.
• Types of Rolls: These rolls might be resisted or contested.
  • Resisted: Subtract Resolve or Composure, usually, but others might apply. For example, Wits for someone "seeing through the act".
  • Contested: May use just about any dice pool appropriate to situation.
• Failed Rolls: Each failed roll inflicts a cumulative -1 penalty on other rolls in the same Maneuver.
  • The Storyteller may also choose to worsen the Impression by one level on a failed roll. The actor takes a Beat.
• Aspirations: Discovering someone's Aspirations and using them can open Doors.
  • Convincing someone that they can accomplish an Aspiration by helping you, or that you'll do something to help them accomplish it can open a Door automatically.
  • If the opportunity to follow through on that offer presents itself, and the actor does not do so, close two Doors.

Forcing Doors

• When a character doesn't have the luxury of time to work on the issue, but has to force the conclusion immediately, he may choose to force a target's Doors.
• The dice pool is based on the approach, and has a penalty to the dice roll equal to the Doors yet to be opened.
• This may be done from the beginning, or may interrupt a normal Maneuver at any point.
• Hard Leverage: Threats, drugging, intimidation, blackmail.
  • Hard leverage that forces a breaking point automatically forces a single Door (if the breaking point penalty is less than -2) or a two Doors (if a -3 or worse).

5: Resolution

• Failed Maneuver: The Maneuver itself can fail utterly under the following situations:
  • The player rolls a dramatic failure when attempting to open a Door. (Actor takes a Beat as usual)
  • The target realizes he is being lied to or manipulated. This does not apply if he realizes the actor is trying to talk him into something, only if he is being betrayed or conned.
  • The impression level reaches Hostile and remains so for a week of game time.
  • Subsequent Maneuvers: Further Maneuvers against the target of a failed Maneuver grants the target two additional Doors.
• Successful Maneuver: Once the actor opens the final Door, the Maneuver succeeds.
  • Storyteller characters abide by the intended goal and follow through as stated.
  • Go With the Flow: Player characters may choose to Go With the Flow, following through as Storyteller characters. The target's player gains a Beat for doing so.
  • Offer An Alternative: Player character may also choose to instead Offer An Alternative, negotiating a beneficial alternate (which does not occur in-game, but between players). The initiator may also impose a Condition on that character as well, which must make sense within the context of the Maneuver.
  • Subsequent Maneuvers: Further Maneuvers against the target of a successful Maneuver reduces the target's Doors by one.