[Burrytar]

Suppose you've got a game that supports deep niches, so that you might end up with one character totally specialized in interpersonal manipulation, another character totally specialized in combat, another one in mass politicking, another in crafting, etc., etc., etc.

Actually, let's go way beyond that. Let's say -whatever- the player can dream up as their flavor, that can be their niche, and they are the King of that niche. Anyone fighting them within their own niche is bound to lose. And this goes for everyone.

Any competitiveness thus becomes not about who is the best fighter or who is the best carouser or whatever. Rather, it becomes about what mode the competition will take place in. So why would a player ever choose to fight a duel if they know that is another player's niche and not their own? People start to roleplay with implied contracts that neither will employ their niches.

This may sound like hyperbole, but I think most of us have seen it happen somewhere or another: physical PCs cry foul when they are socially dominated; social PCs cry foul when they are hack-and-slashed.

One way to deal with this is to allow -less- specialization. An entire game might be focused on physical combat (and, oh, they might have social-flavored powers, but such powers are externalized as effects on physical combat). Another game might have both physical combat and social combat elements, but (usually implicitly rather than explicitly) designate a given scene as one or the other.

Those are both valid approaches, appealing to different player demographics. But here is what I'm asking for in this thread: has anyone yet found a good approach for true niche vs. niche action? How do you pit the 100%-specialized King of Crafting against the 100%-specialized King of Politicking (or social vs. combat, or holiday carousing vs. athletic sportsmanship, etc.) and make them both come out feeling like they've had a fun, engaging, mechanically fair scene?

If there are no good answers, that's fair enough. But I'm just kind of wondering if anyone's had a revolutionary idea in this regard in the last several years.