Conversation is a Lost Art

Question: What happens when you make a mundane social roll and beat the enemy's resistance roll? How is that different from Benefit of the Doubt and God's Honest?

It's different because it doesn't actually do anything. And it's generally not something a player ever gets to declare, so it's usually not a viable alternative to actually doing things.

Obviously, you can't just wander around saying, "I roll Charisma + Presence against that guy. Now he likes me," because if that were the case, powers like Charmer wouldn't exist and the whole system of social knacks would make no sense (not to mention encouraging poor roleplaying). That's not to say that static social powers don't do anything, but rather that they're much more limited in their effects and controlled by the Storyteller, who determines how they influence NPCs based on what's happening in the story.

Basically, you'll roll your mundane socials when the Storyteller tells you it's appropriate; for example, maybe you give a speech at the mayor's fundraising ball and the Storyteller has you roll Charisma + Presence to see how well the room received it, or maybe you passionately explain your suspicions about who a murderer is to a police inspector and the Storyteller has you roll Manipulation + Presence to see how convincing she finds you. In both cases, the roll is there to determine whether or not your normal social acumen is getting the job done, in the first case whether you're a good public speaker with an arresting presence and the second whether you're any good at trying to make others see your point of view. You'll give your speech, or tell the Storyteller what you're doing, and that's when they'll say, "Cool, roll X," and you'll comply. This is normal, everyday stuff, the things that we all do in our regular lives without noticing it. It only comes up with you're doing something that tries to impact others and the Storyteller deems it's appropriate.

However, that doesn't mean that every time you talk to someone, you'll trigger a social roll. Sometimes one isn't necessary because you're not doing or saying anything that changes the other person's outlook; if the Storyteller doesn't think you said anything that would be meaningful to the NPC in question, or you're generally talking about nothing or without a specific goal, there's no reason to make the roll. If Leona goes to a dinner party and has a polite conversation with her tablemates about current hat fashions, she probably isn't going to actually roll any social stats, because she's not doing or saying anything particularly relevant. If she tries to talk about hat fashions with a milliner she's sitting next to as part of a campaign to get him to like her, then she might get to roll some Charisma + Politics or Empathy or whatever else is appropriate, so the Storyteller can gauge how successful she is at the general art of chattery. If she tries to convince him that he simply must drop everything else he's doing and make her new hat designs, that'll be a Manipulation + Empathy roll to see if he thinks that would be a good idea. If she just talks about how she likes the current trend of fruit on hats, however, no one is going to care enough for rolls to happen.

You may notice that I'm not mentioning anything about the NPC's resistance roll, and that's because, for non-power situations, they don't really have one so the question is moot. Or rather, the Storyteller determines an appropriate resistance based on what's happening - what the subject at hand is, how strongly this person feels about it, whether or not the Scion is pushing them in a direction they're strongly opposed to, how spiritually fortitudinous they normally are and so on. It's more like rolling against a static difficulty, the way you would for most other challenges, than rolling against a Willpower + Integrity + Legend roll. Why? Because you're not using any powers, so they're not resisting any powers, and because as noted at the beginning of this post that would make the whole system not make sense.

You may also notice that in the above example, Leona is not at any point saying, "Okay, I roll my Charisma + Presence to try to get him to like me." Instead, she'll tell the Storyteller what she's doing and what she hopes to achieve, and he'll take it from there. If she's doing fine on her own through roleplaying, no rolls may be needed at all. If the Storyteller isn't quite sure of the NPC's reaction one way or the other, he might ask her to roll to illustrate how well she's doing, particularly if she's light on the roleplay or the scene needs speeding up.

But she'll never walk in and say, "I want to roll my Manipulation + Empathy against him to get him to do this thing." Manipulation + Empathy is not a power she has; it's just a roll that illustrates an attempt to do something, just like she might roll Dexterity + Athletics when completing an obstacle course or Wits + Politics when trying to find her way around an unfamiliar city. Just like it's the ST's job to say, "Okay, roll Strength + Athletics to not get swept away in this flood," it's also his job to say, "Okay, roll Manipulation + Politics to navigate this conversation with the ambassador without putting your foot in your mouth."

Now, if Leona does all this normal conversating and hanging out and whatever rolls the Storyteller calls for just aren't great and the things she wants to happen aren't happening for whatever reason - the guy secretly loathes her because she ran over his dog, he wouldn't mind doing what she wants but isn't willing to fork over the money it would cost, or he just really hates fruit-hats - that's when she has to use a power if she wants to push the issue. That's the moment to use Charmer to force him to like her and want to please her, Rumor Mill to have the whole town buzzing about how fruit is totally in now, or Instant Hypnosis to plant the idea of going home and making an awesome hat covered in grapes. That's the whole point of social powers - they make things happen when normal, mundane conversation or requests don't.

Of course, there are exceptions, as there are to every rule. If you're Legend 8 and have 7 Epic Charisma and are talking to a mortal - or even someone of Legend 2 or 3 - you probably don't have to roll anything against them, and they just do whatever it was you wanted. This is mostly to speed the game up - technically you would roll, but if their difficulty is only going to be 10 and you're rolling in with 22 autos, there's no reason to bog the game down with a bunch of rolls that you're almost guaranteed to automatically succeed at. At other times, there might be behind-the-scenes powers in play that you don't know about that do necessitate resistance rolls on the part of your conversation partner, or that make your rolls fail no matter what you do; you won't know when this is happening, so you have to trust that your Storyteller is doing that because some other magical thing already happened, not just because he's stonewalling you. (One hopes you always trust that your Storyteller is being responsible about rolls, no matter whether they're social, physical or mental.)

It goes without saying that the "difficulty" of convincing someone with just normal conversation goes up as creatures go up in Legend; it's always harder to convince a rakshasa to do something for you than to convince a human, and harder still to convince a young god than it was to convince the rakshasa. This is normal; after all, you also benefit from that, as a Scion who doesn't have to automatically hop to whenever anyone of Epic Manipulation 3 or higher talks even though you might be five Legend higher than they are. Again, there are no powers in play so there are also no resistance rolls in play, and everything depends on the Storyteller's determined difficulties for the scene and the characters in it.

I talked about all of that because I think it was the main point of your question, but I also want to point out that your examples, Benefit of the Doubt and God's Honest, actually don't quite work the same way most social knacks do. Normally, lying to someone is a Manipulation + Empathy roll against their Perception + Empathy to see through it; that'll be what you're doing whenever you lie to someone without using a power to do so. The main benefit of the lying knacks is that they allow you to roll against your target's W+I+L resistance roll instead of their Perception + Empathy, so it's your go-to power if you need to fib to someone who would normally be way too perceptive to fall for your hijinks but is maybe a little less good at resisting magical trickery. If you're lying to some normal schmuck and you have great Manipulation, you may want to stick with your normal roll; if you're lying to someone with buckets of Perception or you're terrible at Manipulation and need a power that lets you use Charisma instead, that's when you want to go for the knacks.