PvP social challenges in RPGs

I ran a one-shot Call of Cthulhu adventure recently, and a problem came up during game. It was a very character-driven scenario, with pre-made characters with backstories that practically guaranteed player conflict and general paranoia. At one point, A killed B, who had been blackmailing A. Their commanding officer C had A locked up while C, D, E and F were dealing with other issues. Btw, A and C had been best friends since they were kids. When C later checked in on A, A attempted to use Persuade skill on C to get him to unlock the cell. A had a high Persuade skill, so I knew there was a strong chance that A would make the roll, even though it seemed implausible that C would actually let him out.

My gut reaction was that the players involved should be role-playing this critical moment, not rolling dice. I knew C was a good roleplayer and A seemed decent, too. But A had a high level in Persuade skill and reasonably wanted to use it. And C gave me an exasperated look indicating that he didn't think this was a situation that called for a die roll. On the spot, I ruled that A could make a contested Persuade roll, with C rolling his POW x5 (Power is a trait in Call of Cthulhu that represents both willpower and potentially magical aptitude, and also determines starting Sanity points. A won the contested roll, so I hoped that C might run with that and least make some kind of conciliatory gesture. But C wouldn't back away from his position, and it seemed wrong to let the die roll override his roleplaying of his character. As a result, A remained in the cell.

During this whole exchange, I was also thinking about The Dying Earth, a role-playing game by Robin Laws that is set in a distant future where our sun has become a red giant. The setting is based on the Dying Earth books written by Jack Vance, who inspired the way magic works in every edition of D&D. The protagonists of the Dying Earth stories tend to be either powerful wizards or social rogues, so the game system allows for player versus player social challenges. Players trying to influence each other make a series of contested die rolls until one of them yields or runs out of relevant points to resist the challenge. This system stands in sharp contrast to most other role-playing games, where social skills can only be rolled against NPCs, not against other player characters.

Afterwards, I contacted the players from that session and asked them for feedback about the social challenge and how I handled it. The players of A and C haven't responded yet, but two other players have weighed in. Both thought that I handled it okay and agreed that it would be better to roleplay those kinds of situations instead of rolling them out. One had an interesting suggestion that maybe C should have rolled for Sanity loss and maybe lost a point for receiving a guilt trip from his imprisoned friend.

As either a player or a gamemaster, which would approach would you prefer to player versus player social challenges? Strictly role-playing the interaction? Or allowing dice rolls to temporarily override the way a player plays a character?

Clarification: the characters of A and C were best friends. The players of A and C had never met until that game session. I've known A for 20 years and consider him a good friend. I met C just two months ago, but we have mutual friends. Both A and C are good at role-playing, and did a decent job of playing their pre-made characters in that session.

As the GM, you should have made the call, after asking the players for their input, as to how it was going to be resolved, either RPing or via a skill check of whatever type.

After having made the decision to roll the dice, that should have been the result and good RPers would have had to mold that result into the game.

The boring and wispy-washy answer, but also the correct one, is that it depends on the (possibly unspoken) social contract in the group.

Social skills have always been a little weird in RPGs. If a PC is good at fencing, we don’t care if the player is not personally good at fencing. We don’t punish a fictional character’s combat skills because the actor is a klutz. But if a PC is good at persuading others, suddenly there’s a bunch of hand-wringing about it. On one hand, this is understandable, because “talking entertainingly about stuff” is the core competency of playing an RPG in a way that makes people want to invite you back. OTOH, a fairly large point of the hobby is to pretend to be someone you aren’t. Maybe you aren’t a silver-tongued devil, but why should that restrict your character?

So my answer is to look to the system, and then make sure everyone is on board. If the system lets characters be good at persuading then so be it — it applies to all other characters in the setting, PC and NPC alike. Narrating the attempt is a bonus (like narrating a fencing bout entertainingly) but not fundamentally necessary. I suspect this is an easier sell in CoC than many other games, since presumably CoC players have made their piece with uncontrollable things happening to their PCs.

The hardest sell for me, historically, has been enforcing this with glib players. I had one player who was an excellent fast-talker and would happily lie to any NPC in the setting. I started calling for Fast Talk rolls and she was pretty nonplussed.

For alternative approaches:

- You mention Dying Earth. That is one of the most explicit about PCs getting convinced of things against the wishes of their players. Totally valid but due to historical reasons a lot of players have issues with this.

- The opposite approach is that no one can tell a PC what he thinks other than his player. Also valid but in my experience, this is the worst option as it produces games where there is no mechanical recourse to recalcitrance other than the threat of death, which will get old after a while. This is arguably a social problem rather than a system one. But having the system say “convincing PCs is okay” goes a long way towards signaling to otherwise uncertain players.

- The Burning Wheel games have a middle ground. The Duel of Wits subsystem can produce outcomes where you completely lose an argument, and everyone knows it, but you are not bound to bend to the other person’s will. You can always fight, at the risk of being the guy who was shown to be completely full of shit, and rather than admit being wrong, decided to draw steel.

We had a discussion about the PvP social challenges during the game session today, and reached a consensus that is like what Dysjunct described. There is a contested roll of social skill vs the willpower (POW x 5% in the Call of Cthulhu rules), but the outcome is a non-binding recommendation for the loser. If applicable, the loser might still take their preferred course of action but lose some sanity due to pangs of guilt for not doing the right thing. It really depends on the situation, but if the emotional stakes are high, the sanity loss seems reasonable.