Social Fights and Consequences

[Hyena]

The social fighting is an interesting mechanic and it certainly brings the pawns to life, drawing attention to interpersonal problems, etc. But it could go a little further. I've got a few simple-to-implement (I think) suggestions to make it more interesting;

1) When someone loses a social fight, they should learn a grudging respect for the person that beat them up. A pawn who loses a social fight should gain a long-lasting (maybe permanent) lowered chance to slight or insult the person who beat them. Other pawns should also get a shorter-term lowered chance to insult or slight the victor of the fight. After all; although one can never condone violence, beating the crap out of someone sure does go a long way toward shutting their mouth for a while!

The loser should also be reluctant to actually start fights in the future. This can lead to a couple of scenarios; an ugly person gets insulted a lot and finally snaps, beating the crap out of their antagonist. Henceforth people are less likely to insult him and generally speaking it actually allows relations to improve. The alternative is that an ugly person gets insulted a lot, starts a fight, gets pounded, and from then on is reluctant to stand up to their antagonists, but they are just as likely to get insulted as before. In either case, less fighting will happen longterm, but the consequences of fights are more interesting and have a broader impact on the colony.

You could take it a little further and tie in bloodlust/brawler and psychotic, by making people with bloodlust/brawler earn a positive relationship bonus with the victor of the fight (even if it was the bloodlusting pawn who got beaten up). The old 'you fight gud' respect that brings two feuding people together. Meanwhile psychotic people might be immune to the lowered chance of insulting/slighting the victor - basically, they don't give a crap and will go on being an asshole regardless.

2) People should be able to intervene in the fight. Pawns with the Warden job will try to talk the fighters down. Obviously this would be a social check, with a difficulty of success relating to how much the two fighting pawns dislike each other. They would get a chance ever couple of seconds to end the fight before someone gets laid out. (Perhaps bloodlusting/brawler pawns will get a small relationship hit with the warden for stopping the fight, and if they are the one fighting, it may be much harder to talk to them down). Perhaps a little peace-symbol would appear in the speech bubble when they try to stop the fight.

3) I'd also recommend adding in a trait called 'Sympathetic' that makes the character unlikely to insult or slight others, and gives small relationship bonuses with people who they have have witnessed get slighted or insulted, and a small relationship deduction with people who they have witnessed slighting/insulting someone else. (This doesn't apply to being insulted/slighted themselves, so it doesn't stack with the usual penalty). Sympathetic people may also start fights with people they dislike in the name of someone else that was insulted but didn't choose to fight themselves. Basically the 'pick on someone your own size' response. The result of the fight (in relation to the first suggestion above) would be the same as if the victim fought for themselves, except that the victim always gets a strong positive relation boost with the Sympathetic pawn.

Just some thoughts.