#“hey zita what's your ideal game of hillfolk?”

[zitasaurusrex]

I would not call it "really in-depth" because it's basically a system of determining who's willing to invest a limited resource (tokens) in an outcome, but I still think the way Hillfolk (and thus DramaSystem) handles "drama scenes" is really interesting.

Hillfolk calls itself a "game of iron age drama" and it centers interpersonal drama. During character creation, one of the most important things you establish is 1) what emotional need is driving each character that they are consistently struggling to fill. (love, forgiveness, vengeance, approval, etc) 2) Dramatic Poles: the central conflict your character is facing internally. (Do I forgive or do I avenge? Follow ambition or hold my loyalty? Preserve tradition vs adapt new ideas?) and, most importantly, 3) two other player characters where you need something emotionally from them that the other character is reluctant to grant. Each of those connects to one of your two dramatic poles. (My emotional need is approval. I seek it from my father, who wants me to carry on our oldest traditions, and from my best friend, who rages against their unfairness. Obviously, neither of them trusts that I'm committed.)

You end up with a web of people wanting things from one another that drives tension. The system for "dramatic scenes" (defined as a moment where one character is petitioning another for something they want that the other character is reluctant to give) has the players roleplay the request and the response. This is storygamer "everyone roleplay it and think about the answer" kind of fare, but it does specifically tell you that the argument is played out and stops here if characters start repeating their points or the other players start to seem bored and restless.

Then, turn to the petitioner and ask them if their character feels like they got a significant concession here even if it wasn't 100% of what they wanted. (The game even suggests trying for petitions with bold asks that will take more longterm effort for another character to come around to, because even partial concessions that you might be persuading them can be important.) (Also if the petitioner player is really out of sync with the rest of the group about if there was a concession at all, they can be outvoted for the mechanics even if their character is still unsatisfied.)

If the petition is granted, the petitioner gives the granter a token. If the petition was denied, vice versa. The petitioner can force the granter to take the next step and soften a denial into a concession by paying them two tokens, and the granter can double down by paying the petitioner three tokens instead, if they have them. (Only one of these token exchanges happens, not both at once.) Other characters in the scene can support either side by lending tokens. Then, once this dramatic scene is settled, the issue shouldn't be revisited or have an attempt at reversal until time has passed and the situation has changed.

It's not mechanically super deep, it's not "I roll my argument dice vs your persuasion dice to see who wins" type gaming, but I think it's interesting and I see how it approaches the goal of breaking down one of the oldest problems in pure roleplay: How do you get forward motion when two players are dead committed to their character's side of an argument and refuse to budge because it would be "out of character" for anything to change?

Are there any good examples you know of systems with really in-depth rules for dialogue/arguments?

A couple come to mind!

First of all there's Burning Wheel, which I think is basically the idea of a social argument mechanic taken to an extreme. Its social system, called Duel of Wits, literally has players set up volleys of arguments and counterarguments that are then played against each other. It's extremely deep and crunchy.

Another type of design I've seen a lot is basically to, instead of making a combat system, create a generic conflict system and then just have social and physical conflicts use different sets of skills and target values. Fate does this, as does the Vampire: the Masquerade fifth edition to my knowledge. It's less inspired than Burning Wheel's approach, but it does add a bit of crunch to the proceedings.

Not a system for settling arguments or debate as such, but Monsterhearts has a fantastic system for handling interpersonal conflict which involves the exchange of Strings, which represents leverage and emotional purchase over another person. The game is very much about high school drama so you won't find a system for actually arguing a rational case here, but for explosive monster teenage drama it's perfect.