That's a good break-down. I like it!

My general rule is to go for a conflict only if both sides have a real justification for dealing meaningful, lasting social/mental harm to each other, which in my experience is relatively rare.

So, I disagree with that.  Because this is my go-to example of a social conflict in Fate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmiVlyAfTnw

But I think it fits my heuristic well.  The threat in this case is "I'll make a big scene and make people think you're a jerk."

Wow, I've never seen that before. That's something else.

+Robert Hanz , what about that situation justifies the potential for lasting consequences, especially on the bouncer, which comes with treating the scene as a conflict?

You're making an assumption that I'm not, which is that for it to be a conflict, there has to be a potential for lasting consequences.

I view it as a particular way of resolving a story question.

So, do the participants in those conflicts not get to mitigate stress with consequences?

What I am saying is that mechanically, conflicts in fate have the potential to do lasting consequences to the participants, and thus are best used in situations where such consequences are logical in the narrative.

Other than consequences, there isn't much difference between conflicts and contests. Stress and falls are both pacing mechanics, and one is as good as the other.

Why not?  He's attacking her self image.

Minor:  _Loss of Self-Confidence_
Major: Oh God I'm Old
Severe: I'm Ugly and Nobody Likes Me
Extreme: Washed Up Hot Girl

Of course, she's not likely to take most of those, instead being Taken Out (meaning no club for her and she stomps away) or Conceding (meaning no club and maybe she retains a little dignity), because the stakes don't really warrant most of those.

.

📌

See I would take the fact that the stakes are low enough that she likely won't take consequences as one queue to make it a contest, but the real issue, in my view, is the lack of reciprocity.  She really has no justification to damage the bouncer.  I suppose if he's a nameless npc, we can treat getting as stressing him out, but if he's a named character with consequence slots, I just don't see her doing any lasting damage of the kind that's modeled by consequences, that's why I wouldn't model a scene like that as a conflict.

So, what happens if you have both a carrot and a stick, both a promise and a threat?  "If you let me marry your daughter, I'll give you this pile of gold.  If you refuse, my army will crush you."

Sure she does.  He's in a job where he has to judge people, and yet he is basically in a nowhere job.  Her justification to damage the bouncer is pretty much all of her dialog in the scene.

My choice of contest/conflict/etc. isn't usually based on the stakes, but rather the type of opposition.  In this case, you have two parties that are basically trying to yell at each other and insult each other and assassinate each others' characters until one breaks down.  And that's what happens at the end - she breaks down and walks away.

I don't necessarily think that modeling this as a Contest is wrong, but I do think it's a very good example of a social Conflict.  It's also fairly similar to the DFRPG example, IIRC.

+Tom Miskey:  As I said, there's grey areas :)  Depending on the situation, my first instinct is probably to model it as a Conflict - if the carrot were sufficient, the threat wouldn't be necessary.

I've always thought of the difference in what the 2 words imply... a contest is between rivals or friends, people competing to win or succeed at a goal but not at any cost.  A conflict is war, it's trying to hurt the other person and tear them down.  In physical terms, it's the difference between a sporting match and a battle to the death.  There are implications (legal, personal, etc) for escalating something to a conflict... if the person wasn't your enemy before, they probably will be after.  It crosses a line, like going from punches in a boxing match to biting someone's ear off.

Here's my view:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117231873544673522940/s/pacing%20mechanisms

As an example of a non-friendly Contest - let's say that we have two groups in physically separate areas, both running towards a button.  The button in each area will completely destroy the other area, killing all participants.  Why, yes, this is a contrived situation, why do you ask?

This is not friendly.  It is lethal.  However, I'd argue that a Contest is the right pacing mechanism to use, and that a Conflict would make little sense in this situation.

The way I separate it, if you're trying to convince them of something without actually breaking them (seduction, recruitment, negotiate alliance, etc) that's a contest. If you want to break their spirit that's a conflict.

Though I also split social and mental. With mental being your personal mental/emotional health and social being your reputation.

So being convicted of murder could be the end result of a social conflict. While being convinced you're responsible for a murder might be the result of a mental conflict.

By comparison to contests. If you manage to purchase a piece of land out from under a rival business man, that's a victorious social contest. If you convince milady to walk out under the moon with you that's a mental contest.

Riddles would be a mental challenge. Building hype for a class booth at the fair would be a social challenge.

Hmm. I should address this in Demon Next Door before I wrap it up.

I had a fun Social Conflict in my RetroRockets game.  The eccentric Scientist (PC) was Badgering a group of aliens that were rumored to have Mental Powers (something very rare)  he was provoking them into some doing something that he could observe (thus Science!).  I decided the stakes for the Aliens were that they wanted to know how much he knew of them.

  It went back and forth a few rounds with the PC scientist running out of stress but unwilling to concede just yet.  He called over His daughter (PC- Swashbuckling Socialite )  and casually Mentions " Oh. did I mention that My daughter is a fully functional telepath?"  Bluffing of course.

 As this floored the table  I had the Aliens concede on the spot,  Shuffling off nervously.  The PC found out that they use a lot of non verbal cues and body language to communicate with each other. no evidence of any strong mental powers but they like to take advantage of they Mysterious reputation.

 Needless to say the Aliens kidnapped  the Daughter the next session :)

This could have been a contest of will  but I liked the slower, more detailed pace of the conflict in this case.

Something that occurs to me is that the Dueling rules (http://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/swashbuckling-duels) could be a good model for social conflict. You can't affect the other person unless you get the upper hand. When you have the upper hand and 'attack', you cause Consequences if successful. Minor: irritated, embarrassed, etc.; Moderate: angry, shamed, etc.; Major: infuriated, humiliated, etc.

Hmmm. That might work for the things I define as social, too (trials, gossip mongering, smear campaigns etc).