However, sometimes you don't have weeks of time to spend on flattery, false friendship, and persuasion. Sometimes you need an NPC to give you what you want right fucking now. And when you find yourself in those high-stress, high-risk scenarios, you end up using the second half of the social maneuvering rules... or, as the game calls it, forcing doors.
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Dark Social Maneuvering
To recap for folks who didn't go back to review the last post, when you want to socially maneuver a target to get what you want, this creates a number of Doors that you have to go through that are based on that NPC's resistance, using the lower of their Resolve of Composure. More Doors are added based on whether the thing you want the character to do goes against deeply held principles, if it would put them in danger, etc.
Now normally when you use the social maneuvering rolls you're trying to persuade someone, or to get on their good side so they want to help you. You might even be bribing them. However, there may be times where those kinds of actions would simply take too long, or you simply don't have the social skills it would take to go that route. If that's the case you have the option to force doors open... but while this might get you what you want, there will likely be repercussions.
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| It's just you and me here... sooner you talk, the sooner I can get you out of this chair. |
Forcing Doors happens when you take actions to terrify or obligate someone into doing what you want, and it's an all-or-nothing situation. When forcing Doors open you make a single roll, but the number of unopened Doors acts as a penalty to your roll. So, say you wanted to threaten someone into giving up blackmail material they've been hiding, or to hand over the name of a contact. The player character might leverage their force of personality with a Presence + Intimidation roll, using their specialty in Explicit Threats. However, the person they're threatening has 3 Doors that need to come down, giving the PC a -3 penalty on the roll.
Now, if a player really wants to swing for the fences, they can also include Hard Leverage. This is basically the dark version of a bribe, in that it's physical violence, kidnapping, blackmail, or something else that will add weight to their side of things, and make forcing those Doors open that much easier. And if that Hard Leverage would cause the player character to suffer a breaking point, then it can remove Doors entirely, making the penalty that much smaller. If the action is egregious enough to give the player character a -2 on their breaking point roll, it removes 1 door. If it's -3 or higher, that removes 2 Doors.
So what does all of this look like?
Dane needs the name of a criminal contact. He knows a street pusher who could give it to him, and he doesn't have time to mess around. So he kicks in the pusher's door, pulls a gun, and cocks back the hammer. Dane might be a crook, but he's not generally a violent guy. Perhaps he and Slick are actually friends, in a way, and this is really breaking Dane's idea of who he is, and what he's capable of. That threat with a deadly weapon would likely be enough to automatically remove 1 Door. And if he went further? If he put a bullet in Slick's leg, or pistol-whipped him to make it clear he was serious? That level of line-crossing might be enough to remove 2 Doors.
Given that average Resolve and Composure are 2 dots, it's entirely possible that by not leaving this up to chance and going full-tilt, Dane could force Slick to comply and give him the information with ease. However, while he'll get what he came for, there are costs to this approach. There's the breaking point roll, which might end up costing Dane some Integrity. There's also the matter of burning the bridge he had with Slick (assuming Dane doesn't disguise himself in some way), as well as painting a target on his back if Slick chooses to send violent reprisals his way in the future.
Like it says on the tin; high risk, high reward.
With that said, though, the fact that the social maneuvering rules are robust and flexible enough to account for various different approaches, molding them to the intention of the players, makes this one of the greatest advantages for the Chronicles of Darkness... and this is especially true for adding tension and challenge to the influence game which is so often part of any chronicle!
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