Social "Combat" Mechanics - The Debate System

I have decided to finally add the Debate Mechanics to the publicly available material.

Goals

This mechanic aims to make the GMs job easier. I'm not an experienced GM and I struggle with being confrontational. That's where it has helped me a lot to have a framework for social encounters with clear opposing sides. Just set up the stakes and watch the players expand upon the world on their turns.

Basics

• The desired outcome of both sides must be established
• Depending on circumstance, you start with a set number of Viability Points (basically debate HP)
• You take turns like in combat, speaking instead of attacking
• Gain Boosts by thinking about what you can say. This counts as a Prep action
• Use those Boosts to increase the Quality of the arguments you're using. Without Boosts you can only choose poor arguments like insults or threats, while more Boosts unlock more powerful arguments like anecdotes and complex questions.

You do have to state the exact argument your character is making either before or after rolling. By making a specific statement for example, you can add to the fiction by coming up with events that happened previously.

Examples

In one of the playtest sessions, we were playing out a witch trial. The PCs collected evidence (and got permanent Boosts to speak) and failed to influence the judge (which meant the opposing side started out with more viability). At some point in the debate the accuser, a priest, tried to discredit the PCs and end the debate, which was rebuked by reminding everyone of their deeds. 

"Ending this trial here would be like stopping to eat after the first serving!" said one of the PCs, rolling a success on his analogy argument.
But the priest had a double success on his rebuke: "Indeed, it's getting close to lunch time, we should get on with this." The crowd of onlookers was suddenly feeling a bit hungry.

Feedback

This subsystem is much further from traditional RPG design than the rest of the game. That is why I need feedback to make sure it is sufficiently explained in the rules document.