# Social Skills, starting to bug me.



## dagger (Jan 31, 2012)

I have noticed a trend in all my characters that I don't like to put any points into social skills even for classes that have them as class skills.

I would prefer to role play and let the DM decide how the NPC reacts rather than leave it up to the dice. Or when I try to bluff, sometimes I do it well, and other times I do it badly. I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll. 

When we play AD&D (I’m the DM) the social skills thing is not an issue, but we play PF at the moment. I have been on a slow trend of being negative towards social skill rolls for a while before even 4e came out though.

I realize that I am probably in the low minority on social skills in modern games, but that's just how I feel. I might be that I started with 1e and we played that a lot until August 2000 when 3e came out. We still play AD&D but not as much...

I might be coming up on a time when I will have to DM something other than AD&D and I cringe at the thought (I have DMed 3e a lot in the past). I fear I will have to take a hatchet to the rules to make them something I want to DM and players might not like it.


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## billd91 (Jan 31, 2012)

I like games to have them in the system, even if there are tables that decide not to use them. The way I use them, once the player role-plays out their intention, I give out circumstance bonuses based on how good their hook is, their argument, their getting-into-characteryness, and then have them roll. This way I get to reward both good role playing and validate a character's investment in good Charisma and social skills.


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## Hezrou (Jan 31, 2012)

I'm with you, I have been DMing since the days of 2nd edition as playing with the same people since then and even though we liked 3rd (and pathfinder which we now play) we never use any of the social skills and that's the way we like to play.

The game is already combat focused enough to be taking away from the roleplaying.


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## Morrus (Jan 31, 2012)

Having them allows you to cater both to verbose players who love to talk, and to quiet players who are not as comfortable and skilled at roleplaying, or who aren't as confident or gregarious as others at the table. Not having them caters to the former and punishes the latter. 

All in all, I think it's best to have them there as an option at least, even if the DM allows good roleplaying to strongly affect or even subsitute for the statistic.


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## dagger (Jan 31, 2012)

This might be the wrong way to put it, but I hate trying to make the playing field 'level' for everyone.

Thats just the way I am though and the way I learned to play. I feel that if you want to play a leader/bard/face guy then you should break out of your mold and play it. I guess I am mean.


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## billd91 (Jan 31, 2012)

dagger said:


> This might be the wrong way to put it, but I hate trying to make the playing field 'level' for everyone.
> 
> Thats just the way I am though and the way I learned to play. I feel that if you want to play a leader/bard/face guy then you should break out of your mold and play it. I guess I am mean.





Some classes already level the playing field. I don't have to be strong to play a fighter because the game mechanics handle that entirely for me, but I have to actually be eloquent to play a bard effectively?

You can get all defensive about it but there are a lot of people who don't value your play style, in part, because it effectively says "You must meet my arbitrary standards to play this character" and a lot of adults aren't particularly keen on that anymore.

I guess the added question about your play style would be: do you have a lower standard as a DM for players who aren't naturally very eloquent compared to ones who are when adjudicating social skills?


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## dagger (Jan 31, 2012)

billd91 said:


> I guess the added question about your play style would be: do you have a lower standard as a DM for players who aren't naturally very eloquent compared to ones who are when adjudicating social skills?




Quick answer: No I don't. (see below)

Longer:

I have DMed a lot of 3.0/3.5 in the past and have run games like you run yours. The other main DM does use the social skills in game quite a bit as well and I see your point about helping players who are not good at RP (and want to play Face).


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## Yora (Jan 31, 2012)

I always used what the developers for 5th Edition called "advantage". You can use a skill or not, but if you make a really good description of your action, the DM awards a significant bonus to any rolls that come up.


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## Janx (Jan 31, 2012)

ah geez, not this again.... 

there was a series of threads a month or two back on this, where we discussed things from the angle of the stats, and whether your forced to play them a certain way.

If you have a low CHA, are you supposed to play your PC as bad at talking to people?

This is related to your question.  If you don't use the skills, are you even using the stat?  How do you abjudicate me having a 6 CHA and being able to speak convincingly to an NPC (the GM).  Because in my group, I really am the guy most likely to convince somebody to do something.

How do you keep my personal ability in check, as compared to the stat on my PC because I used CHA as a dumpstat?

My personal interpretation of the situation was:
the player can say his PC acts however he wants (diplomatic or rude)
The skill check is what determines if the NPC is ammenable to the player's intent (not portrayal).

Do NOT give a roleplaying penalty/bonus to the check.  This will double-hurt/help the player who properly plays a low ability in a negative way, because you will naturally react to it AND then roll for it.

Instead, give out XP bonus for roleplaying as befits the character.

Be consistent with rolling social checks for NPC reactions, so that low stat PCs are not getting a free ride by coasting through social encounters (perhaps by avoiding saying anything).


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## Elf Witch (Jan 31, 2012)

dagger said:


> This might be the wrong way to put it, but I hate trying to make the playing field 'level' for everyone.
> 
> Thats just the way I am though and the way I learned to play. I feel that if you want to play a leader/bard/face guy then you should break out of your mold and play it. I guess I am mean.




Yes you are. 

I have players who have shyness has an issue who don't always want to play the quiet loner type or to stand in the corner while more outgoing people get to have all the fun.

Having social skill rolls allows them to play a bard or a leader. The thing is they all try and role play it out first but knowing that the dice is there to lend a helping hand makes it easier fo them to out themselves out there.


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## dagger (Jan 31, 2012)

Janx said:


> How do you keep my personal ability in check, as compared to the stat on my PC because I used CHA as a dumpstat?




You role play your character and keep yourself in check? NPCs and the world reacts to you? Or maybe you don't speak bad your are just horribly disfigured and have horrible hygiene? That's the way it has always worked in our games. Anyway this is not a concern for our games and never has been.




> the player can say his PC acts however he wants (diplomatic or rude)




Well the way they roleplay and speak with the NPCs will determine how they act. If the player says something rude to the king it will not matter what he rolls on his Diplomacy.

I would just rather rip out the social skills if I ever DM PF and let the chips fall where they may.


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## kinem (Jan 31, 2012)

To maximize roleplaying, don't roll dice for social skills. The DM should base NPC reactions primarily on what the player says, and the context, and then take the PC's skill bonus informally into account as a modifier to that. (Not the other way around).

This has three big advantages:

1. It avoids the regrettable situation where the player says something completely inappropriate for his 'diplomacy' check, but succeeds anyway because the dice say so.

2. It makes impossible the ridiculous situation where players complain that while an NPC has strong reasons to take some course of action or not to, he should somehow have been influenced otherwise by something the PCs said to him in a few minutes of conversation, because the PCs are "so diplomatic" or "so intimidating". (Often combined with #1.) The DM must have complete freedom to make that call by getting inside the NPC's head.

3. It encourages players to work on their real life diplomacy skills.

Yes, this means that those who are good speakers will have an unfair advantage. This is only a problem if they are allowed to usurp 'face' roles. So tell them not to.


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## S'mon (Jan 31, 2012)

I agree; IME social skills have the potential to suck a lot of the fun out of the game for me.  GMing 1e AD&D again, it's very noticeable how much better the roleplay is, and I think the Reaction % rules are part of that - your CHA helps determine the initial attitude of the NPC; everything after that is up to you, the player.

I noticed Monte Cook recently talking about the importance of having social skills in 5e so that socially inept players can play socially ept PCs.  Why in-game combat can challenge the players' tactical skill, but social encounters must never challenge the players' social skill, is an attitude I just can't understand.

Edit: Even having high social skills can suck.  I had a maxed-out-social skills Savage Worlds PC designed to win over marauding brigands, gave a great short speech, and was not allowed to even roll because (it seemed) it would have messed with the railroad for me to have affected them.


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## Crothian (Jan 31, 2012)

I think role playing depends more on the group and DM then the game.  In our 1e game we don't role play a lot and that because there really are not that many NPCs and social interactions.  

I like social skills because sometimes I don't want to role play talking with the guard or the minion.  A die roll is quick and easy for situations that need that.


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## Crothian (Jan 31, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Edit: Even having high social skills can suck.  I had a maxed-out-social skills Savage Worlds PC designed to win over marauding brigands, gave a great short speech, and was not allowed to even roll because (it seemed) it would have messed with the railroad for me to have affected them.





That has nothing to do with social skills, that's a bad DM.


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## S'mon (Jan 31, 2012)

Crothian said:


> That has nothing to do with social skills, that's a bad DM.




I think he had a very difficult, very railroady campaign to run, and I had signed up knowing it was linear in design.  But what sucked was that I'd invested the resources and they were wasted.  If there were no social skills the GM could have ignored my nice speech in a judgement call and that would have been a lot more ok.


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## Zelda Themelin (Jan 31, 2012)

When we have similar playstyle we don't need to roll if some social skill works. Well, some "sense motivation" roll sometimes, because we aren't in that world, so we can't see their body language etc. Too random to try to spot something peculiar in dm:s acting.

But skill needs to be taken in account and character stat, otherwise is just us doing persuading to each other.

When group is unfamiliar or social playstyle different between people it's easier to roll the dice. Also, if social situation is something we consider totally boring, like haggling for prices (though some people enjoy that stuff, we just aren't those).

We kinda always had some sort of rolls for those thing even when we played AD&D. However we do expect people to state out what they say/how they say it/and what they want. Not always roleplay that, but to know what is purpose of interaction so you know what actually roll for if it's one of those quick ones.

One of my groups is very in-game talky, and another not so, and bad habit of disturbing the game with totally unrelated off-game topics. 

I used to play in this big group where socially better people had much more play-time. I am socially able that way too, but kinda like to side with more silent ones. Hey, they had many cool ideas, often very interesting characters too, they just were not in habit of yelling over the self-loving pratters. And that group was 12+ "real roleplayers", uh I wish they had talked less and rolled more. This is often problem if people's ability to be social doesn't include public speaker skills and some have them more. It's not fair, and it has nothing to do with characters. This is toally meta-game competition and dice rolling intruptions are also good way to spread the turns, not just combat turns but also social ones.

I can understand very well social skill rolling be disturbing if it changes usual play-style that worked for everyone.

Or if people tend to just roll with any futher explanation.
I mean situation like:

DM: guard stops you "halt, he says, what is your business."
player: 17
DM: what
Player: mmh diplomacy.... no bluff it's my better skill so bluff 19
DM: ?
player: did it succeed
DM: What are you telling him
Player: some bluff-stuff, what is the target number?

I do hope you have lsser problem.


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## Zelda Themelin (Jan 31, 2012)

dagger said:


> This might be the wrong way to put it, but I hate trying to make the playing field 'level' for everyone.
> 
> Thats just the way I am though and the way I learned to play. I feel that if you want to play a leader/bard/face guy then you should break out of your mold and play it. I guess I am mean.




I would have very big problem with this in my second group. The one with in-game silent types. Because I sometimes want to roleplay not socially smart quiet type. And if there weren't those rollls, people would just keep looking at me until I say something. Terrible annoying. I have enought of that in workplaces/school/other random social meets. Sometimes I get lucky with someone really socially dominant. It's not about charisma it's about social 'alignment' I think. 

Isn't purpose of roleplaying to pretend to be somebody else.
Rather than straitjacket us to our personas/skillsets. I've played in groups where real-life medical lore/investigation procedure lore/military lore/weapon lore is expected of players (rather than characters). I am against this, unless everyone in gruop is interested. We have to study enough pointless boring crap in RL, I think I want to keep my hobbies to things that intrest me.
I am actually interesting about everything, I have short attention span and 8 different professions (yep not that good at anything). It's just that that group had lot of "know-it-alls" who thought they were so awasome.  Nope.

Lovely if it works for your group. But maybe if they are too happy about rolling for skills, there has been some silent disstatisfaction how it has been handled before. But maybe it's just system confusion, mathematic, clear patteric gaming systems can be very hypnotic. Talk to your group how you feel about current method, and ask if they had some problems with old, and if not houserule.


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## Greg K (Jan 31, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I noticed Monte Cook recently talking about the importance of having social skills in 5e so that socially inept players can play socially ept PCs.  Why in-game combat can challenge the players' tactical skill, but social encounters must never challenge the players' social skill, is an attitude I just can't understand.




I don't stand theabove attitude. As a DM, I am not interested in challenging the characters social skills or puzzles.  Nor, am I interested the in the player's tactical skill.

Everything is about the character.

And, while I use skills,  there is no "I want to intimidate the character  Player Roll die)".  The player's are still expected to roleplay it.  I'll give a circumstance bonus or penalty, but I don't want to reward someone just, because they are a good talker, BSer, or figured out howto  game the GM just as I don't want to penalize someone at my table that does not have the social skills at the level of their character.



> Edit: Even having high social skills can suck.  I had a maxed-out-social skills Savage Worlds PC designed to win over marauding brigands, gave a great short speech, and was not allowed to even roll because (it seemed) it would have messed with the railroad for me to have affected them.




That has nothing to do with social skills. That is a bad DM railroading unless there was something going on that you don't now (brigands being under magical compulsion)


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## billd91 (Jan 31, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I noticed Monte Cook recently talking about the importance of having social skills in 5e so that socially inept players can play socially ept PCs.  Why in-game combat can challenge the players' tactical skill, but social encounters must never challenge the players' social skill, is an attitude I just can't understand.




Some do challenge the player's skill. Take a look at bluff. The content of the bluff gives you net benefits or penalties when opposing a sense motive check. Honestly, even if you don't give out bonuses or penalties for content of the social skill check, it's not that different from running a D&D game without a tactical grid or focus for combat. It's more a matter of play style than anything else.


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## zepherusbane (Jan 31, 2012)

I must admit that I liked the social skill additions as it gave people who were not naturally persuasive to play a character that is.  

The reality is that it all comes down to your DM and your fellow players more than whether you are allowing roles for social skills or not.  --You can have an excellent game using each persons "actual" skills at role playing, or you can supplement with rolling some dice.  Either way, the person running the character still needs to come up with an action they want to do even if they aren't eloquent in stating it.  

I have played in games where someone used all their skill points in things that always require roles and then depended on their own personality to still be very persuasive with NPC's.  Do you let the player get the advantage of the skills without spending the skill points?  That doesn't really seem very fair either.  

Honestly though, as long as the rest of the group are all on the same page either method can work just fine.  I just prefer to use the skills to make the decision of whether my (hopefully well thought out and persuasive!) role playing actually worked.


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## Balesir (Jan 31, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I noticed Monte Cook recently talking about the importance of having social skills in 5e so that socially inept players can play socially ept PCs.  Why in-game combat can challenge the players' tactical skill, but social encounters must never challenge the players' social skill, is an attitude I just can't understand.



I'm not sure that's an appropriate comparison; requiring the player to actually make "the speech" is more like requiring that they actually make "the sword thrust" or other combat move. The appropriate comparison to combat tactical skill would be more like requiring details of the social "tactics" and levers being used, and I'm by no means convinced that would not be a good thing in D&D.

Megatraveller and some of its derivatives have some interesting/neat stuff from this respect. Things like a range of tactics to be used in the core "social functions" of "improve relations", "ask for information", "ask for help/action" and "command help/action". Approaches include establishing a "Superior" or "Inferior" social position; some tactics only work from one or another position - begging, for example, only works from an inferior position. Things like the use of Intimidation in combat could be viewed this way - the fact of an opponent being bloodied while you are not might open up an opportunity to gain a "Superior" position; this could then be leveraged with a skill to make a command to surrender/flee/etc.

Basically, I see two "layers" in all of combat, social and explorational encounters. I would quite like to see a game that gives players *tactical* and *intent* control of their characters in all of these, but not "executive responsibility" in the sense of having to actually perform the in-game act. The only use I really see for the latter is in games with an overriding emphasis on immersion, and I think D&D is a very poor fit for that (I would choose RQ, CoC, HârnMaster or Traveller for that).


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## amerigoV (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> This might be the wrong way to put it, but I hate trying to make the playing field 'level' for everyone.




That's fine so long as you do the same thing for combat


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

The DM's roll in the open and we roll for stats.


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## SpiderMonkey (Feb 1, 2012)

I've recently given up on the idea of skills (as consistent and level-dependent character-specific bits) entirely in class-based games. While that's a topic for another time, I believe it's doubly so for social skills.

There was an analogy that Monte used in the transcripts about social skills that sounds kinda like common-sense at first, but I think falls apart upon closer scrutiny. It was something along the lines of "we don't expect players to come to the table knowing how to use a sword, so why do expect that of social skills?"

I think this kind of analogy is possible because we conflate charisma with roleplaying generally, and with talking in character among other things.

Take my friend Casey. IRL he's a smart guy, but he's introverted. He also hates talking in character. Let's take a typical fast talk scenario. He's playing a character who needs to bluff his way past some guards. Now IRL, Casey couldn't probably do this very easily. 

Rather, a more jocular person like my buddy Brandon could: he's quick on his feet, he's good with proxemics, body language, eye contact, identifying his target audience and adjusting his lexical register to maximize their comfort. He doesn't do this purposefully; it just comes naturally. He's the kind of guy who makes you feel at ease and open. No plan--just natural charisma.

So, Casey doesn't want to talk in character. It makes him uncomfortable. instead of talking in character, he tells the DM he wants to bluff his way past the guards. He tells him, "I'll do all that stuff that chatty people do, and as I chat them up, I'll weave in a story about how [whatever the outline of the bluff is]."

Casey doesn't have to be charismatic to play the bluffer any more than he needs to know how to wield a sword. He just has to have a plan. A straight reaction roll and/or a good outline of the plan should suffice.

The problem with social skills as level-dependent character-specific bits is that they keep going up, right? So what your first level bluffer was capable of doing is insignificant compared to what your 15th level bluffer is capable of. It quickly can get beyond reason: "I, uh, tell the entire constabulary that this is not the Duke's head I'm holding, but is instead a movie prop. Uh, 'I am not the droid you're looking for'." At some point, given what he's accomplished in the past, he *has* to be able to do it because his numbers are higher.

This might be a bit hyperbolic, but it's indicative of a system of constant improvement.

We had a PC in a game who through synergizing various skills wound up with a ludicrous Diplomacy score. It got so laughable that we began quoting a line from Kung Pow when he used it: "I implore you to reconsider." "Okay!"


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## Hezrou (Feb 1, 2012)

Honestly if someone is that socially inept they can't even roleplay a simple conversation with a guard or whomever then they really should find a new hobby. RPGS are face to face social experiences to being with.

Hell you don't have to give the worlds most perfect lie to bluff the guard, just TRY. Effort is rewarded. If you show up for a game with no intention of ever roleplaying then you should have stayed home on the computer.


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## BryonD (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> I guess I am mean.



Do you expect people you are mean to to game with you?

And beyond that, bring "mean" to people who don't excel at social isn't as big an issue as letting talkers do things their character has no business pulling off.  Now maybe you take that into account.  But if you do then you may as well use the skills.

And, IMO, the joy of RPGs comes from being someone who *isn't* you.  If every character I ever played always had my wit, no more no less, I'd be bored.


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## KiloGex (Feb 1, 2012)

So if you don't want to use them, why not just talk to you GM about not having them, and instead play it how you've described?  Nothing says that you have to use them just because they're on the sheet.


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## Wiseblood (Feb 1, 2012)

Talk to your players. The outcome of social skills might be the problem. Another problem is investment, when a player uses allotted resources to shape future encounters, they should be able to shape future encounters. You could just give the players a charm person or suggestion spell once a day or something then they would look pretty darn suave. Plus then they wouldn't be bogging the game down with infinite rolls. They just uncork their fairly reliable Intimidate Ray and settle it. The cost for a skill like that could be 1 skill point per level just to stay sharp. (IE a Relevant DC) I don't know I'm just spitballing.


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## SpiderMonkey (Feb 1, 2012)

Just in case I need to clarify my previous statement, I want to make sure I'm not coming across as ignoring social skill rolls or mechanics in games that have them. Far from it. The rules constitute a contract between the PCs and the DM; if the PC makes a character by the rules and invests in that character's social stuff at the expense of other stuff, the DM (barring previous explanations of pertinent house rules) ought to honor that.

My point is that I'm not sure class-based games like D&D need social skill systems, especially when there's a charisma score and something along the lines of a reaction roll chart.

One of the interesting things about say, Classic D&D is that there are only two charts for social/Charisma rolls: the monster reaction chart and the hireling chart. Both use the same basic mechanic: 2d6 modded by Cha. Snake eyes is really bad, the next three up is sorta bad, the middle three are uncertain (leading to a reroll possibly modded by what was said or what happened), the next three up are good, and boxcars are great.

Though not explicit, it implies a system where the mechanic is the same, but the outcomes vary depending on what you want to accomplish: in one instance, its about getting the monster to chill, in another, about getting someone to come along with you on an insanely dangerous vacation. What I like about it is that your chances remain relatively stable over the course of your adventuring career. That said, there's enough flexibility for a bonus given for those who like to reward in-character talking or a good plan. The smaller range (2d6 rather than 1d20 modded by skill score) makes such a bonus more meaningful than in a skill-driven game.

Again, YMMV, but for my preferences this works out better than assuming the skill rolls will let it all come out in the wash.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

> Why in-game combat can challenge the players' tactical skill, but social encounters must never challenge the players' social skill, is an attitude I just can't understand.




A player with a PC in combat may suck at tactics, but he can ALWAYS fall back on the roll of the die & the combat rules to help bail him out*.  A player in a RPG without a system for simulating social skills has no such safety net.

I mean, I know jack all about the practice of martial arts beyond what media (movies, documentaries, books, comics, etc.) and a single day in a karate class have taught me, but I can still play a really cool martial artist in most game systems.  Were combat handled the way some treat social skills, I'd be limited to playing brainy wallflowers with artistic talent.







*  unless there's some RPG out there that bases combat results entirely upon what players actually know about combat.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 1, 2012)

Hezrou said:


> Honestly if someone is that socially inept they can't even roleplay a simple conversation with a guard or whomever then they really should find a new hobby. RPGS are face to face social experiences to being with.
> 
> Hell you don't have to give the worlds most perfect lie to bluff the guard, just TRY. Effort is rewarded. If you show up for a game with no intention of ever roleplaying then you should have stayed home on the computer.




It is not about being socially inept at all but thank you for deciding some people should not be able to play in the game because they don't come up to your standards. 

Some shy people get all tongue tied when trying to role play out an encounter and then they say the wrong thing and the encounter goes bad because of it. 

For me I have a form of aphasia from a traumatic brain injury there are times I can't remember the right word or I have trouble spitting out just what I am trying to say. I am grateful for the chance to play a charismatic character and not have to depend on my faulty brain all the time.


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Do you expect people you are mean to to game with you?





We have never lacked for players whether I am the DM or the other guy, and that's why I DM AD&D so I don't have to worry about the skills.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

> Honestly if someone is that socially inept they can't even roleplay a simple conversation with a guard or whomever then they really should find a new hobby.




As Elf Witch pointed out, it's not necessarily ineptitude that would be the stumbling block.

It could be physical- a stutter, Tourettes, EW's aphasia, Steven Hawking's affliction, etc.  It could be genre unfamiliarity.  It could be a number of things.

And as I implied...how are your HTH combat skills?  I'm not talking about your understanding of tactics, I'm talking about your ability to wear period armor and swing a period weapon with skill & accuracy.

For that matter, how are you on your heraldry?  Or your etiquette skills?  What is the proper form of address for meeting a Duke?  A Bishop? A Shogun?  What is the course that follows fish?

Have you ever participated in a mediation between international parties?


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## BryonD (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> We have never lacked for players whether I am the DM or the other guy, and that's why I DM AD&D so I don't have to worry about the skills.



Are you suggesting that no one is excluded?  Or are you simply stating you don't miss those that you are excluding?


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

I am simply stating we have never lacked for players but we try to keep it 6-8 max. You are trolling me now right? lol


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## Mark CMG (Feb 1, 2012)

As long as I've DMed, I've always prescribed to giving bonuses for good RPing but allowing any character built toward a goal to potentially succeed.  If a character has a high intelligence, then he has a chance to succeed at something where that would help.  So, too, for a character with high charisma.  Even a quiet player's character is going to do well without RPing to the hilt though they will be encouraged to do their best.  Likewise, good RPing will enhance their chances and possibly gain a bonus.  It's a roleplaying game and if someone brings the goods I'm not going to negate that or level the field against them.  However, playing the character sometimes means curbing an innate or acquired ability to roleplay, and someone who uses charisma for a dump stat but tries to play the smooth operator is just as likely going to get a penalty from me as DM for bad RPing.  It's a double edged sword.


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## BryonD (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> I am simply stating we have never lacked for players but we try to keep it 6-8 max. You are trolling me now right? lol




Nope, just trying to understand.  By all means, play what you like!!!

But as I described before, I think hosing a select group is just the tip of the iceberg of why I'd be underwhelmed by playing as you describe.  Letting players get away with stuff despite the character they should be playing seems even worse to me.  And not getting to play a character that exceeds me nor have the challenge of playing a character that is inferior to me both sound like major loses to me.

But that's just me.


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

Don't worry, I am not going to raise anything to the other players at the game table, but mostly because I can direct my ire at game mechanics to the fellow DM since we are long time friends. 

Something Saturday night set me off involving a Sense Motive check, but the sad part is I can't even remember what the situation was. 

I am just one player (and sometime DM) and if everyone else is fine with things then its cool. I guess my therapy is playing 1e and fantasizing how I would cut (or 'fix') PF. 

I get annoyed at the way certain things are done across all the editions and they build up and I need to vent. 

Some of the folks at the table obsesses about some new video game or a new TV show, I obsess about pen and paper rpgs.


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

BryonD said:


> But as I described before, I think hosing a select group is just the tip of the iceberg of why I'd be underwhelmed by playing as you describe.  Letting players get away with stuff despite the character they should be playing seems even worse to me.  And not getting to play a character that exceeds me nor have the challenge of playing a character that is inferior to me both sound like major loses to me.
> .




But we don't really let anyone get away with any thing and we don't play like that. Actually you don't need social skills to do any of that...trust me we have been since 1e.


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

Something else I just though about. I police myself and my own characters when it comes to playing. I don't need skills to do that but it is what it is.


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## DonTadow (Feb 1, 2012)

Morrus said:


> Having them allows you to cater both to verbose players who love to talk, and to quiet players who are not as comfortable and skilled at roleplaying, or who aren't as confident or gregarious as others at the table. Not having them caters to the former and punishes the latter.
> 
> All in all, I think it's best to have them there as an option at least, even if the DM allows good roleplaying to strongly affect or even subsitute for the statistic.




AGreed. Because we can also put swords on the table and see who swings it the best and let that person do the most damage.

Remember, that the game is based on simulation. The diplomacy  roll is not a what you say roll it's how you say it.  How you come off to people. How your mannerisms are.  I don't give rpg bonuses, that's an inate part of the game.


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## Hussar (Feb 1, 2012)

I recently dipped into this pool on another forum, so, I'll cross post my thoughts from there.  If you are not using a social mechanic, you are effectively free forming social interaction.  

Honestly, I have two major issues with freeforming, one from the player side and one from the DM's side.

On the player side, freeforming competes with the actual mechanical resolution systems. Because it's freeforming however, I, as a player, cannot rationally judge my odds of success at a given action.

Take the cliche example of needing to get past the guard. Ok, I've got three (well more, but, let's stick to three) options - I can sneak past, I can gank the guard, or I can talk my way past. Now, the first two options, I can gauge my chances of success - I have a rough idea how hard it's going to be to sneak past, what things I can do to mitigate the risk and how effective those things are, or, I have a rough idea how tough the guard is, and how quickly we can take him out. But, with the freeform resolution of social challenges, it becomes very difficult to judge my chances of success.

And, IME, because it's difficult to make that assessment, players don't. They will take the devil they know over the one they don't. So, they either sneak or gank the guard and only talk as an absolute last resort. The lack of mechanics actually pushes the players away from choosing these options towards choosing mechanically determined options.

On the DM's side of things, I don't like the freeform system since it makes me too visible as the DM. The players want to bluff the guard. Ok, fine. But, I, as DM, KNOW that they're lying. So, do I let them pass or not? Well, I judge their performance, but, I don't want to make it too easy do I? But, too difficult and now I'm just stonewalling. Finding that line between the gimme and the stone wall is very difficult for me. So, I'd much rather let the mechanics determine success.

Making the mechanics determine success allows me to remain as referee and facilitator which are the roles I prefer as a GM/DM.


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## Wiseblood (Feb 1, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A player with a PC in combat may suck at tactics, but he can ALWAYS fall back on the roll of the die & the combat rules to help bail him out*.  A player in a RPG without a system for simulating social skills has no such safety net.
> 
> I mean, I know jack all about the practice of martial arts beyond what media (movies, documentaries, books, comics, etc.) and a single day in a karate class have taught me, but I can still play a really cool martial artist in most game systems.  Were combat handled the way some treat social skills, I'd be limited to playing brainy wallflowers with artistic talent.
> 
> ...





The outcome of combat is fairly concrete. The outcome of social skills is much less so. It's a rule set that tells a partial outcome. It is fine when you come to an obstruction that is not easily resolved by rp. I don't have a huge problem with them. I just think that they could be implemented better. I would feel the same way about playing Monopoly and someone landing on my property but not having a set price that they owe.

For example: I have just intimidated someone do they run away? Do they surrender allowing me to dictate their actions for a period of time? Do they seek to run away? If the outcome were a little more fixed and anything outside of the basic set of outcomes resolved by role playing or fiat I would be happier with the rules.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

> The outcome of social skills is much less so.




How so?

You talk to the GM about the use of the skill in a situation.  Depending on the exact social skill system used, typically, it goes like this:

1)  You tell the GM what kinds of things you'd like to do, and he tells you how difficult they are, then you choose one and roll.  Succeed at the DC of the task, you succeed.

2) You roll the dice, and based on the results, the GM tells you how many successes you have/how well you succeeded.  Based on that, the GM then tells you what kind of results you can get with those successes.

Etc.


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## Hussar (Feb 1, 2012)

> For example: I have just intimidated someone do they run away? Do they surrender allowing me to dictate their actions for a period of time? Do they seek to run away? If the outcome were a little more fixed and anything outside of the basic set of outcomes resolved by role playing or fiat I would be happier with the rules.




Did you want them to run away?  Then they would.  After all, Intimidate has pretty concrete rules - the person who is successfully intimidated treats the intimidator as friendly with respect to whatever the intimidator wants while the intimidator is present and for some minutes afterwards.

So, if you want someone to run away, and you use intimidate successfully, then they run away.  Otherwise, they don't.


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## The Shaman (Feb 1, 2012)

"Ahead of you, on a curve in the stream, is a stone bridge. A carriage is overturned at the far end of the bridge, creating a barricade blocking passage to the road beyond. Behind the carriage you see the tips of a dozen pikes above an equal number of gleaming morions. To the right, across the stream, just inside the tree line, is a hastily-built stone revetment, and behind it the light through the trees glints off the barrels of a half-dozen arquebuses. Because of the curve in the stream, the revetment is at right angles to the bridge, giving the arquebusiers a clear field of fire across the open ground approaching the span."

"Uh . . . I roll for Tactics."

 

"The king's minister, Enfou, pulls you aside as dancers swirl to the musicians huddled in one corner of the ballroom. 'The king is desperate,' he says. 'The baron de Bauchery can raise enough mercenaries to defend the frontier, but he refuses to do so unless he the king promises him Princess Pinkflower's hand in marriage. Meanwhile the conte di Grognardo is the best commander we have, but he refuses to serve under de Bauchery, and he wants the princess' hand for his son.'"

"Uh . . . I roll for Diplomacy."



Your skills are used to resolve your attempts to accomplish a task. They don't do your thinking for you.

In the first example, you need to decide how the adventurers are going to get past the soldiers holding the bridge, and in the second you need to figure out how you're going to resolve the conflict between the courtiers in time to get the soldiers to the front. Your skills resolve how well you accomplish what you set out to do.

Moreover, social skills are not _charm_ spells. A Helpful non-player character may be willing to take considerable risks on behalf of your highly diplomatic character, but that doesn't make the npc a thrall. The npc will still look after his interests and pursue his agenda while offering assistance to the adventurers.

I've used rolls for social interactions in every game I've ever played, from the Charisma-adjusted reaction rolls and loyalty scores for henchmen and hirelings in _AD&D_ to the Contact rules in _Top Secret_ to the social skills of d20, and in my experience they neither inhibit roleplaying nor do they result in the players substituting skill rolls for actually having to figure out how to best use those skills to get what they want.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

SpiderMonkey said:


> There was an analogy that Monte used in the transcripts about social skills that sounds kinda like common-sense at first, but I think falls apart upon closer scrutiny. It was something along the lines of "we don't expect players to come to the table knowing how to use a sword, so why do expect that of social skills?"




Unless the player has a severe disability, surely they are capable of talking to people?


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Hezrou said:


> Hell you don't have to give the worlds most perfect lie to bluff the guard, just TRY. Effort is rewarded.




That's my approach - I run a success-oriented game, and a high CHA PC and/or one with good social skills can often get away with a lot. I do expect you to actually engage with the game environment though.

Eg running 4e 'Heathen' recently, the PCs entered the Hand of Naarash HQ and tried to bluff the cultists - there were some logical problems with their story of being emissaries from the bandit king of Llorkh while wearing cultist robes, but the Bard's good Bluff skill combined with a superficially plausible story made it work long enough to get them in.   I would never have let the Bard just say "I Bluff" (roll d20) as if she were casting a spell, though.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A player with a PC in combat may suck at tactics, but he can ALWAYS fall back on the roll of the die & the combat rules to help bail him out*.  A player in a RPG without a system for simulating social skills has no such safety net.




They could fall back on magic spells, or on a high CHA stat that makes NPCs favourably inclined to them to begin with.

I have never ever seen a shy or withdrawn player have any trouble with roleplaying in-character if the DM gives them space to do so (a DM can be a dick in social encounters, but he can in combat encounters too). Players who refuse to roleplay in character, or who refuse to treat the NPCs as anything other than card-board cut-outs have other issues.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> and someone who uses charisma for a dump stat but tries to play the smooth operator is just as likely going to get a penalty from me as DM for bad RPing.




I actually have more of a problem with the CHA 7 PC, who to my mind might be a bit reserved and withdrawn, being played as an obnoxious jerk who annoys every NPC he meets.  At least in a socially oriented campaign such as a city-based one, I'd prefer it if players didn't intentionally disadvantage themselves beyond the requirements of the dice.

When it comes to very low CHA, I recall a CHA 3 half-orc assassin PC who disguised as a beggar and was played so repulsively, people he met would ostentatiously ignore him, letting him shank them in the back. I thought that was brilliant Gamist use of a low stat.  This was possible in 1e as Disguise skill wasn't dependent on CHA. I've had a lot of trouble with 3e's link between stats and skills - low WIS Rogues who can't spot things as well as the Cleric, low CHA Rogues who can't disguise themselves, etc.  I find 1e's discrete sub-systems allow for a lot more flexibility in the type of characters played.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Hussar said:


> On the DM's side of things, I don't like the freeform system since it makes me too visible as the DM. The players want to bluff the guard. Ok, fine. But, I, as DM, KNOW that they're lying. So, do I let them pass or not? Well, I judge their performance, but, I don't want to make it too easy do I? But, too difficult and now I'm just stonewalling. Finding that line between the gimme and the stone wall is very difficult for me. So, I'd much rather let the mechanics determine success.




I don't have any trouble getting in-character as the guard - actor stance rather than pawn stance - but I think maybe some GMs do. If I'm the guard, I know what I the guard know, not what the GM knows.  I know what my motivations are, I'm not going to stonewall for metagame reasons.


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## The Shaman (Feb 1, 2012)

S'mon said:


> If I'm the guard, I know what I the guard know, not what the GM knows.  I know what my motivations are, I'm not going to stonewall for metagame reasons.



This, to me, is one of the fundamental skills a rpg referee must have, the ability to separate each npc from the hive-mind of character and campaign knowledge vying for neurons in the referee's head.

And could someone please xp [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] for me?


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

The Shaman said:


> I've used rolls for social interactions in every game I've ever played, from the Charisma-adjusted reaction rolls and loyalty scores for henchmen and hirelings in _AD&D_ to the Contact rules in _Top Secret_ to the social skills of d20, and in my experience they neither inhibit roleplaying nor do they result in the players substituting skill rolls for actually having to figure out how to best use those skills to get what they want.




It's possible for them to work ok, if the game is well designed.  Most skill-based systems (BRP say) work ok, in the manner you describe. I run 4e social skills similarly and have not had major problems.  3e, OTOH, is terrible.  Skill siloing such that the Fighter PC can never be socially effective and never dare say anything to anyone.  A Diplomacy skill that BtB is trivially easy for Face PCs and acts like virtual mind control. Design that encourages players to treat social skills as abstract resources "I Diplomatise him". And it's all supposed to be 'balanced', a low-Dip PC is supposed to be advantaged in other areas, a high-Dip PC class supposedly pays for that, so any restriction on social skill use and the GM can be accused of cheating the Bard.

With 4e's equalising of combat power for everyone, a GM can be a lot more flexible in his approach to social interaction without being accused of nerfing a PC class.


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## Celtavian (Feb 1, 2012)

*re*

The game handles skill allocation and social skills poorly anyhow. They make a great many assumptions such as a fighter won't be very socially capable even if he is a general working for a king. They assume a fighter won't be trained well for stealth or infiltration. They assume this even if you are a fighter trained at fighting school or by a professional military.

They automically assume every thief is highly skilled and well-trained even if raised as a beggar on the streets with no one much to school him or much chance to hone social skills.

Every sorcerer or oracle by virtue of their main statistic will be socially capable and amongst the best speakers, most beautiful people, and most attractive of people even if they spend only moderately on their social skills.

Every cleric is not very skilled whether raised in a village hamlet or in the greatest church in the biggest city in the entire realm with the most rigorous academic requirements. Even though this isn't particularly true given most priests had some of the best access to education in human history.

Let's just say D&D and _Pathfinder_ do a very poor job of allocating skills and do the best we can with it. The skill system was a move in the right direction. But they can still do better such as eliminating skill points by class and giving each person quite a few skills points and letting them spend them as they wish according to how they want to fashion their characters. If someone wants to make a stealthy fighter or a very learned priest, it should not in any way imbalance the game.

So to get back to the point, the social skill system is the least of my concerns as far as skills go. It  does allow players that may not be the most charismatic roleplayers to try a different type of character and still be effective. I'm ok with it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

> They could fall back on magic spells, or on a high CHA stat that makes NPCs favourably inclined to them to begin with.




Using magic as a fallback is a cop-out, and furthermore, is not always available.  The PC may not posess "social magic"; magic may be suppressed or nullified; it may also not be permitted in certain areas without express permission- spellcasting in the presence of the king may be every bit as punishable by death via poisoned crossbow bolt as would be drawing a weapon.

As for having a high Cha stat, once you've gone there, you're halfway to using social skill mechanics anyway.



> I have never ever seen a shy or withdrawn player have any trouble with roleplaying in-character if the DM gives them space to do so (a DM can be a dick in social encounters, but he can in combat encounters too).




I have, and more than once.  One of the guys I gamed with in college was extremely withdrawn, and his speaking voice was almost a whisper* and often quite slow & deliberate.  Having him RP a social situation would have required more than the short sentences he would utter quickly in combat, like "I shoot him" and thus would have been extremely drawn out.  Were it not for that game's social skills, the GM would have been exhausted by session's end.  And despite all this, he always was pleasant to game with and had cool PCs who did what you'd expect those PCs to do.  IOW, he grasped the process and contributed to the game for all.

Without those systemic social skills, though....






* having heard him yell in frustration and joy, I know it was not a physical limitation.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

The Shaman said:


> This, to me, is one of the fundamental skills a rpg referee must have, the ability to separate each npc from the hive-mind of character and campaign knowledge vying for neurons in the referee's head.
> 
> And could someone please xp [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] for me?




Cheers  

It helps if the GM enjoys getting into the mindset of the goblin gate guard, the Banite priest or whatever.  My players seem to love it when I roleplay the NPCs*, and doing that is one of the great joys of GMing for me, so it all works out great for me.

*Certainly in my 4e tabletop games, where roleplayed conversation is a welcome change from lengthy combat. Some of my online text-chat Yggsburgh city campaign players would probably be ok with a bit less in-character interaction, but I haven't seen any real complaints.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 1, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I don't have any trouble getting in-character as the guard - actor stance rather than pawn stance - but I think maybe some GMs do. If I'm the guard, I know what I the guard know, not what the GM knows.  I know what my motivations are, I'm not going to stonewall for metagame reasons.







The Shaman said:


> This, to me, is one of the fundamental skills a rpg referee must have, the ability to separate each npc from the hive-mind of character and campaign knowledge vying for neurons in the referee's head.





Is this something ("actor stance" and getting in character, with NPCs) that newer rulesets, perhaps in an effort to increase the player pool and sales, tend to downplay as part of the necessary DM/GM toolkit for running roleplaying games?


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Celtavian said:


> Let's just say D&D and _Pathfinder_ do a very poor job of allocating skills and do the best we can with it. The skill system was a move in the right direction. But they can still do better such as eliminating skill points by class and giving each person quite a few skills points and letting them spend them as they wish according to how they want to fashion their characters. If someone wants to make a stealthy fighter or a very learned priest, it should not in any way imbalance the game.




I agree strongly with this.  The siloing-by-class of skills in 3e+ works very poorly indeed. Every PC should have similar freedom with skill allocation, then some special non-combat abilities by class, eg only wizards can actively manipulate magical energies, Rogues get big bonuses to their class specialty skills; or if you want to keep the 1e flavour then only Rogues can hide in shadows, climb sheer surfaces, move with complete silence et al.  

But the main thing is to move away from "You get 2 skill points per level in these crappy skills" to every PC getting the same number of skills (maybe affected by INT) and a free choice which skills to specialise in.  Diplomatic Fighters, educated Clerics, et al.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Is this something ("actor stance" and getting in character, with NPCs) that newer rulesets, perhaps in an effort to increase the player pool and sales, tend to downplay as part of the necessary DM/GM toolkit for running roleplaying games?




Maybe. That might be why the 4e Skill Challenge mechanics looked so weird to me, not to mention "An Encounter with guards at the city gate isn't Fun". 

Is it really a rare ability though?  Surely the ability to play a role is more common than the ability to master very crunchy, complicated RPG rules systems?

Sometimes I start to think that modern games designers, at least D&D games designers, are a strange bunch. They seem to think that reading and mastering 400 page rulebooks with 60-page combat chapters is easier than just pretending to be an Elf, or a guard.  I'm sure that is true for some people, Hussar maybe, but it seems like a pretty narrow target market.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I have, and more than once.  One of the guys I gamed with in college was extremely withdrawn, and his speaking voice was almost a whisper* and often quite slow & deliberate.  Having him RP a social situation would have required more than the short sentences he would utter quickly in combat, like "I shoot him" and thus would have been extremely drawn out.  Were it not for that game's social skills, the GM would have been exhausted by session's end.  And despite all this, he always was pleasant to game with and had cool PCs who did what you'd expect those PCs to do.  IOW, he grasped the process and contributed to the game for all.
> 
> Without those systemic social skills, though....




How did this work out in play?  Did he play supposedly loquacious PCs?  Did he paraphrase what his PC was saying, and then rolled a skill check?  

IME, If the player gives enough information in the paraphrase that the GM can understand what the PC is saying, this can be workable, though I don't find it much fun. 

My normal preference though would be that if a player doesn't want to talk, they play a laconic PC.  Conversely, in [MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]'s case of her getting tongue-tied sometimes, I can't see that being a problem in my games; stuff could come out a bit wrong but exact words are really not nearly as important as a lot of other factors in getting a good reaction - things like attitude & demeanour matter far more.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

> Did he paraphrase what his PC was saying, and then rolled a skill check?




Yeah, pretty much this, except it would be more like "I convince him to leave" or "I seduce her for info" then roll.  Then the GM would fill in the blank by narrating the consequences of the roll.

He rarely actually spoke in character.


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## BryonD (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> But we don't really let anyone get away with any thing and we don't play like that. Actually you don't need social skills to do any of that...trust me we have been since 1e.





You said:


> I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll.



And you said some times you do it well and some times you do it poorly.
And the title of this thread is not about "rolls" it is about "skills".

The only reasonable interpretation of what you said is that if you role play a bluff really well, the DM should let the bluff work.  If you are playing a clever bluff based character then cool.  If you are playing a dumb ox then you have just let the character get away with something.

Maybe what you SAID and what you actually DO are not the same.  But I'm limited to responding to what you said.

If you do what you said then you let characters get away with things.
If you don't then you use social skills, whether you write them on the sheet or not.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yeah, pretty much this, except it would be more like "I convince him to leave" or "I seduce her for info" then roll.  Then the GM would fill in the blank by narrating the consequences of the roll.




Did the GM (you?) enjoy doing that?  I'd hate it.  I feed off player energy, this would suck me dry very fast.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 1, 2012)

So, which is better for a roleplaying game, while knowing there is some middle ground but speaking to the extremes so as to pick a side on which to err: not leveling the playing field and finding ways to get those not so good with roleplaying to become better roleplayers or designing a roleplaying system that levels the playing field so roleplaying is restricted in favor of making sure those who don't roleplay well never need to get better at the game they are playing?  (Trick Question Trap, DC 15, posting your answer in-character gains a +2 bonus on the check even if your answer isn't perfect.  )


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## Elf Witch (Feb 1, 2012)

I think what bothers me the most is the idea that the person who is not glib of tongue and wants a to roll social skills is not a good role player. 

My one player who was shy and easily tongue tied was an excellent role player. He never said I swing my sword he described what he was doing in combat when he played a cleric he actually called on his god for the power to heal he didn't just say I heal and roll.

The problem with diplomacy and bluff though was he would often stumble and stutter doing that type of role playing. Having the ability to also roll made him more successful he didn't just say I roll he described what he was trying to do. When using diplomacy with the king to get him to help the outlying villages he explained that he would tell the king the value of those people and would appeal to the king's honor and duty. Then he rolled to see how well he did and if he was able to get through to the king. 

The problem with saying just try and that is all that matters is just not true not unless as the DM you have decided that it will always be a success. Even trained diplomats have been known to put their foot in their mouth at times or misunderstand the culture and make a mistake or just read the person wrong and say the wrong thing. 

If the person is stumbling and stuttering and says the wrong thing do just go okay it works which imo makes it meaningless since it was an auto success so why bother with the role playing at all. 

Or do you penalize the person because he lacks the skill to really use diplomacy or bluff. 

Skill roles gives you a way to handle this in game other then just DM fiat if a person role plays it out brilliantly you can either have them not make a roll or give them a lot of modification to the roll.  If a person gives you an idea of what he wants to say then rolls then he has a chance of playing a diplomatic character.

There is a big difference between just saying I roll my diplomacy or bluff and saying nothing else and a person at least describing what he is trying to accomplish and then rolling.

And if you are going to say you must role play everything out and no rolls do you also make your cleric role play out getting his spells from his deity and  make sure he says the proper thing to heal? Do you make your fighters describe exactly how they swing their sword and wizards describe the hand movements and say the spell out loud?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 1, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Did the GM (you?) enjoy doing that?  I'd hate it.  I feed off player energy, this would suck me dry very fast.




I was a fellow player.

And while it may sound rough, it was actually kind of cool- it was kind of like hanging with someone with an extremely dry sense of humor.  "I seduce her for info"_ *diceroll*_ actually got chuckles the first time...it was almost like a world-weary Bond was in action.


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## Balesir (Feb 1, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Did the GM (you?) enjoy doing that?  I'd hate it.  I feed off player energy, this would suck me dry very fast.



Interesting. I get energy from player ideas, but not (particularly) from player performances. Maybe there is a whole new "energy source categorisation model" lurking to be explored, here?


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## Mark CMG (Feb 1, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> I think what bothers me the most is the idea that the person who is not glib of tongue and wants a to roll social skills is not a good role player.
> 
> My one player who was shy and easily tongue tied was an excellent role player. He never said I swing my sword he described what he was doing in combat when he played a cleric he actually called on his god for the power to heal he didn't just say I heal and roll.
> 
> ...





That's where the combination of "roleplaying" and "game" come in.  It isn't about just trying to roleplay and thus automatically being awarded a success.  It's about trying to roleplay as best you can and also having some dice rolls (the "game" part) augmented by the actual roleplaying.  However, using the example of someone who has a disability as your example might be feathering the nest a bit in terms of discussing what a roleplaying game should take into consideration by design.  You put them up as an exception that needs consideration, but I would counter that it would need to be an exception taken into consideration by the table/GM rather than in the design of the actual game, lest we fall into the trap of designing the game in such a way that the person at the other end of the roleplaying-ability-spectrum be restricted in their fun by rules that make roleplaying less important in the roleplaying game.

Most people who play a particular type of game do so to experience that type of game and with the understanding that they will progress as that type of game player, and I don't think they expect the game to be designed against type just because they might not be good at that type of game right from the start.  So, the question becomes, can a game of any type be of its best design by taking the standard that it be designed for players who are not good at that type of game playing?  OR, is a game of a certain type best designed when it is designed toward its type with the hopes of attracting players who want to play that type of game even if they aren't very good at it from the start but hope to improve at that type of gaming the more they play?  (With the understanding that, for any type of game, there will be some players of that game who enjoy playing it even if they never manage to play it above a certain level of play, and also the understanidng that there will be some people who excel at that type of game innately.)


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## Elf Witch (Feb 1, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> That's where the combination of "roleplaying" and "game" come in.  It isn't about just trying to roleplay and thus automatically being awarded a success.  It's about trying to roleplay as best you can and also having some dice rolls (the "game" part) augmented by the actual roleplaying.  However, using the example of someone who has a disability as your example might be feathering the nest a bit in terms of discussing what a roleplaying game should take into consideration by design.  You put them up as an exception that needs consideration, but I would counter that it would need to be an exception taken into consideration by the table/GM rather than in the design of the actual game, lest we fall into the trap of designing the game in such a way that the person at the other end of the roleplaying-ability-spectrum be restricted in their fun by rules that make roleplaying less important in the roleplaying game.
> 
> Most people who play a particular type of game do so to experience that type of game and with the understanding that they will progress as that type of game player, and I don't think they expect the game to be designed against type just because they might not be good at that type of game right from the start.  So, the question becomes, can a game of any type be of its best design by taking the standard that it be designed for players who are not good at that type of game playing?  OR, is a game of a certain type best designed when it is designed toward its type with the hopes of attracting players who want to play that type of game even if they aren't very good at it from the start but hope to improve at that type of gaming the more they play?  (With the understanding that, for any type of game, there will be some players of that game who enjoy playing it even if they never manage to play it above a certain level of play, and also the understanidng that there will be some people who excel at that type of game innately.)




Having social skills in the game allows you to attract both types of players if you really think about it. A group with a lot of charismatic people at the table can choose to house rule social skills out and just go with role playing all those type encounters. 

A group who has players with issues or who just don't want to mess with role playing have a rule that adjudicates how to handle it.

Some people have the natural ability to sell ice to Eskimos but most of us don't. A person with a high charisma represents that type of person  I have only really seen one person at a gaming table who in real life represents that level of charisma. 

I have a friend who is in a wheelchair from being born with spinal bifida in real life he could not swing a sword in combat or be an agile tumbling rogue yet the game allows him to play out his fantasy and no one ever has an issue with that but a shy person having the fantasy of being a fast talking bard or swashbuckler seems to cause some people to have issues. 

A game that tries to be inclusive for different type of players and play styles is going to be more successful than one that excludes people.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 1, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> Having social skills in the game allows you to attract both types of players if you really think about it. A group with a lot of charismatic people at the table can choose to house rule social skills out and just go with role playing all those type encounters.
> 
> A group who has players with issues or who just don't want to mess with role playing have a rule that adjudicates how to handle it.
> 
> ...





You're very right that the designers of a game, any game, can choose to cater to more and more people by designing that game to include people who aren't as skilled at the type of game it is.  It can do this in a number of manners.  Most notably it can be designed to be the best game of its type and have optional rules that can be added to make it more receptive to additional players who might not be as skilled at that type of game or it can be designed to include all levels of players and allow skilled players to exclude parts of the design that are not necessary for a game of its type.  The question becomes, which is its best design for a game of its type?  Is the goal to be best designed as its type of game or to attract as many players as possible?  Are the roleplaying aspects of a roleplaying game the fundamental concern of the game design to which the greater considerations are afforded, and optional rules included for those who aren't as skilled or interested in roleplaying included to attract a wider audience, or is the fundamental concern in attracting the wider audience with options on how to exclude aspects of the game for those who are skilled roleplayers?  Is there a best way to design a roleplaying game regardless of who, or in what number, the roleplaying game will attract?

Remember, we're not talking about a game designed as a sword-swinging game or a tumbling game, it is being designed as a roleplaying game.  Are the best designed rules of fencing designed so that someone who cannot fence well can fence with another skilled fencer?  Are the best designed rules of gymnastics designed so that someone who cannot tumble can do well at gymnastics alongside a skilled gymnast?  I think it's fair to say that each activity is designed to be the best of its type and if someone who cannot do it well wishes to take it up, then some additional modifications are made to accomodate the less skilled individual.

And lest this point get lost in the shuffle, a roleplaying game is best designed, IMO, when it includes aspects of both roleplaying and gaming, which is to say rolling dice and roleplaying playing a character.  There are plenty of games where roleplaying is not a part of the game but we don't call them roleplaying games.  This is also with the understanding that some mechanics are included in the roleplaying game for social skills.  But to limit the roleplaying aspects, or make the roleplaying a non-factor in successfully playing the game, is simply taking the roleplaying out of the roleplaying game at a fundamental level.

By extension, I can include roleplaying aspects in many types of non-roleplaying games but if they are a non-factor in successfully playing those games then they are not roleplaying games.  For instance, if I am playing a minatures wargame as acting commander of an army in pitched battle against another player's army and when I move the figure representing my general toward some portion of my troops to boost their morale factor I choose to shout, "Hold, soldiers!  Do not falter!" it does not thereby become a roleplaying game because my roleplaying has no influence on the actual outcome of the game.

So, too, if I am playing chess and move my bishop to threaten the position of the opponent's queen and I opt to say, "Heed my bishop's warning and withdraw," in my most diplomatic tone, it has no meaningful bearing on the choice made by my opponent to withdraw, take my bishop with his queen, or move another piece and allow me the choice to take his queen, and therefore I have not turned chess into a roleplaying game by merely roleplaying in conjunction with my game turn.

If the roleplaying in a game has no bearing on the actual game then I would posit that the game I am playing is not a well designed roleplaying game but rather another type of game with roleplaying merely added on without the best roleplaying game design considerations in the fore.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 1, 2012)

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, since I only read the first 2 pages, but...

If an individual doesn't want to use social skills and wants the DM to rely on his in-game roleplaying, but other players do because they aren't comfortable with that level of RP or are shyer than normal, it creates a mechanical disparity as well.

The RPer can simply dump charisma (unless it's a class requirement) and put no skill points to Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate and instead put them elsewhere.   Doing this will mean that in addition to being able to be socially superior due to the player's ability, the character will also be superior because he trained other skills instead.

It's like getting free training in Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate, as well as skill points along the way.

The less socially apt players are going to be miffed by that proposition.

If you want to roleplay those skills out, you'd still have to put training or points to them to keep the game balance honest.


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## S'mon (Feb 1, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> If the person is stumbling and stuttering and says the wrong thing do just go okay it works which imo makes it meaningless since it was an auto success so why bother with the role playing at all.
> 
> Or do you penalize the person because he lacks the skill to really use diplomacy or bluff.




I just can't see stumbling & stuttering being a big issue.  The kind of things that can lead to social failures IMCs:

Being a pompous jerk.
Completely failing to read the NPC and his/her motivations
Being inappropriately aggressive
Being caught in an obvious lie
Not understanding the situation, proceeding from false premises

& generally annoying the NPCs, eg a PC IMC had a big social failure vs the Sheriff of Yggsburgh when he demanded that the Sheriff's bailiffs arrest the respected and aged haberdasher Albert Rasch, despite lacking any firm  evidence, then accusing the Sheriff of incompetence and/or complicity in the kidnappings.

A PC IMC had a success when she persuaded the Bane cultists the PCs were emissaries from the Bandit King of Llorkh; precise delivery of the Bluff was far less important than that she was neither too aggressive than too supplicatory, since the assumed role required a degree of arrogance.

Edit: I can see that having social skills as a crutch for shyer players to fall back on can be a good thing, if it encourages them to roleplay with less fear of failure.


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## dagger (Feb 1, 2012)

BryonD said:


> You said:
> 
> And you said some times you do it well and some times you do it poorly.
> And the title of this thread is not about "rolls" it is about "skills".
> ...




What I said is correct.

"I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll. "

A dice ROLL based off a SKILL.

Its still making a ruling based off of roleplaying and is irrelevant whether people play the characters or themselves. If a player is playing himself rather than the character then that's a separate issue. 

Its funny how it works in games with no skills, and I am sure it will work in PF as well.


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## BryonD (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> What I said is correct.
> 
> "I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll. "
> 
> ...



But that very different than what you said.

You said based on how well YOU roleplayed it.  Now you are saying that it comes down to being the character.  Being the character means that some character have skills and some characters don't and it is up to the player to reflect that.

Which comes back to you DO use skills, you just don't write them on the paper.

I'd be more than happy to throw the ROLLS out of the equation.  Just look at the skill of each character and add a modifier based on quality of roleplaying.  I buy that.  

I *prefer* the rolls also because just as a skilled swordsman can still miss, a quick talker can be off his game.  You seem to see it as REPLACING roleplay.  I see you approach as forcing me to choose one when I can have both.  But, I could still have a lot of fun with your limitations.  I just find both even more fun.

But, in the end, it is clear you ARE looking at different characters as having different levels of skill.  Thus you use "skills".  You just said it poorly in the OP.  I've got no argument with what you are actually doing.  Thanks for the clarification.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 1, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I just can't see stumbling & stuttering being a big issue.  The kind of things that can lead to social failures IMCs:
> 
> Being a pompous jerk.
> Completely failing to read the NPC and his/her motivations
> ...




Have you ever played with someone who really has issues with this? It is not just taking forever to say something they often end up getting rattled and saying the wrong thing guaranteed to piss of the NPC or gets lost and wanders off topic. And some players can't pull off what you described as a mix of arrogance and respect that takes major social skills. 

For example I can't do it. There have been some major communications snafu at the table because I don't phrase things in the way most people expect. One time our group found the mythical Sword of Kings in our Kalamar game. I knew that only a paladin or a follower of the Knight of the Valiant could actually hold it and not take damage. When the wizard went to grab it I said "touch that sword and you will die" I was calling out a warning but the DM and the rest of the players except my roommate who was playing took it as a threat. 

I tried to play a diplomatic type in an old 2E game and it was a disaster I was continually saying the wrong thing and then trying to explain what I meant  and the DM accused me off just saying that because things had gone wrong. I quit the game after awhile because I was not having fun and there were times I was close to tears over it. 

Skill checks for social encounters is one of the biggest improvements they made in the game as far as I am concerned.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 1, 2012)

dagger said:


> Its funny how it works in games with no skills, and I am sure it will work in PF as well.




 I guess for you it works in games with no skills my experience has been way different. I have found that without the skills people like me may try to play a smooth talking character, but we won't succeed so we stop trying and just stick to playing the same type character over and over, or quit and go to a system that has mechanical support for it.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> For example I can't do it. There have been some major communications snafu at the table because I don't phrase things in the way most people expect. One time our group found the mythical Sword of Kings in our Kalamar game. I knew that only a paladin or a follower of the Knight of the Valiant could actually hold it and not take damage. When the wizard went to grab it I said "touch that sword and you will die" I was calling out a warning but the DM and the rest of the players except my roommate who was playing took it as a threat.






Elf Witch said:


> I guess for you it works in games with no skills my experience has been way different. I have found that without the skills people like me may try to play a smooth talking character, but we won't succeed so we stop trying and just stick to playing the same type character over and over, or quit and go to a system that has mechanical support for it.





Hmmm.  This is seeming like one of the basic misconceptions about roleplaying, and I think Howandwhy99 sometimes falls prey to this when he looks back on the genesis of the term and how it has evolved.  Roleplaying is about first person narrative OR dialogue but need not require dialogue or directly speaking in character.  Someone could be in the same situation as you describe and explain merely that, "I make sure to warn the rest of the players that the sword is dangerous to touch and will kill them."

In a similar situation as described earlier in this thread (or another) where someone was asked to roleplay during a Diplomacy or Charisma check at a royal court, they don't have to speak in character and give the exact words their character uses, they just have to explain what the character is saying and, if in doing so, they happen to key on a few possible triggers like making sure to mention, for instance, "And I be sure to ask about the King's daughter's health, to show concern, before asking for additional patronage funds for my next voyage" it is as good as having said in character, "And, Sire, I hope your daughter has recovered from her illness?  Yes?  Good.  Now that the important matters are handled, allow me to ask for some additional funds for my next voyage in your illustrious name to your greater glory!"  If the daughter's health concern were a trigger toward gaining a bonus on the check for more funds, doing it either way is the same.  It's just sometimes more fun for one type of player to do it in character and for another, who might be skittish about tripping over exact wording, to roleplay as first person narrative.

Those are two roleplaying playstyles that are both commonly used, one every bit as good as the other.  What isn't a roleplaying style of play is to say, "We're at court?  I make a Diplomacy Check.  (rolls) Fifteen.  Do I get any more funding or anything?"  That's not roleplaying.  Nor is it roleplaying to say, "I go to town and Gather Information.  (rolls) Eighteen.  What to I find out?"  That's avoiding roleplaying, substituting die rolling for roleplaying.  While that is a playstyle, it is not a roleplaying playstyle.

Is this one of the stumbling blocks you and I have been having in our conversation?  Because I feel like we might be talking past one another over this fundamental issue while discussing best roleplaying design practices and priorities.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 2, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Hmmm.  This is seeming like one of the basic misconceptions about roleplaying, and I think Howandwhy99 sometimes falls prey to this when he looks back on the genesis of the term and how it has evolved.  Roleplaying is about first person narrative OR dialogue but need not require dialogue or directly speaking in character.  Someone could be in the same situation as you describe and explain merely that, "I make sure to warn the rest of the players that the sword is dangerous to touch and will kill them."
> 
> In a similar situation as described earlier in this thread (or another) where someone was asked to roleplay during a Diplomacy or Charisma check at a royal court, they don't have to speak in character and give the exact words their character uses, they just have to explain what the character is saying and, if in doing so, they happen to key on a few possible triggers like making sure to mention, for instance, "And I be sure to ask about the King's daughter's health, to show concern, before asking for additional patronage funds for my next voyage" it is as good as having said in character, "And, Sire, I hope your daughter has recovered from her illness?  Yes?  Good.  Now that the important matters are handled, allow me to ask for some additional funds for my next voyage in your illustrious name to your greater glory!"  If the daughter's health concern were a trigger toward gaining a bonus on the check for more funds, doing it either way is the same.  It's just sometimes more fun for one type of player to do it in character and for another, who might be skittish about tripping over exact wording, to roleplay as first person narrative.
> 
> ...




We are talking past each other. 

I don't consider it role playing to just say we are in the kings court and I roll my diplomacy either. As a matter of fact in the games I run if someone says that I go okay tell me what you are going to say what points are you going to bring up. 

I often wonder when people are bugged by this if what they are complaining about is the example of I am in the court I roll to see if the king gives me more funding. If that is it I can understand it. But I don't believe that social skills is what causes this it is DMs allowing it to be enough. 

In the 2E game I described the DM was not satisfied with me saying I tell the king this and I bring up this point. I had to actually role play it out and at this point in time I was only out of rehab a few years and still trying to get back to anywhere near my pre brain injury communication skills. It was a disaster and a very unfun unhappy game for me.  I didn't try and play a character who ever spoke up again for another seven years.

I don't think the DM was being a jerk I think he felt he could not fairly adjudicate how I did if I didn't play it out.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> We are talking past each other.
> 
> I don't consider it role playing to just say we are in the kings court and I roll my diplomacy either. As a matter of fact in the games I run if someone says that I go okay tell me what you are going to say what points are you going to bring up.
> 
> ...





I see.  I had thought in the past we were fairly likeminded in our opinions on this subject and I see that we actually are on virtually the same page.  I'm glad we kept at this to be sure.  Thanks.  Since you brought it up, mind if I ask if RPGing assisted in your recovery?  (And I'm not just asking after your health for the bonus on my posting check!)


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## Mercurius (Feb 2, 2012)

Without having read anything but the OP, I basically agree. I've never liked social skill rolls actually trumping roleplaying.

I can't remember (or am to lazy to look up) the blog that had this, but there was this house rule called the "Virtual Roll" in which social situations were roleplayed and, rather than the player rolling a d20 for a social skill use, the DM rewarded a number from 1-20 based upon how well they roleplayed the situation (thus "virtual"). This effectively bypasses the randomness of rolling social skills and puts it firmly in the responsibility of the players to roleplay. On the other hand, it still allows some recognition for the fact that some players are bad at roleplaying, even if their characters are supposed to be good at it. In other words, you could have an introverted player playing a bard with high social skills, which will still modify whatever Virtual Roll the DM rewards.

Anyhow, think about it. Or google "Virtual Roll" and "D&D" and you should fine the blog. Good stuff, that.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 2, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> I see.  I had thought in the past we were fairly likeminded in our opinions on this subject and I see that we actually are on virtually the same page.  I'm glad we kept at this to be sure.  Thanks.  Since you brought it up, mind if I ask if RPGing assisted in your recovery?  (And I'm not just asking after your health for the bonus on my posting check!)




Yes it did in so many ways. 

My self confidence was in the toilet I was so helpless for a long time and unable to do my other hobbies like barrel racing , trail riding, working SF conventions. So starting gaming again allowed me to have social interactions that I needed. 

Using the math involved in role playing helped get some of that skill back not a lot I can't do anything over multiplication without aide of a calculator. Before I could barely add having to figure THACO helped me reclaim my subtraction skills and it was far more fun than doing flash cards.

Role playing did help my verbal skills and my written skills. I could barely write today my grammar and spelling suck mainly because that area of my brain took the most damage. And relearning has been hard because I have an issue now retaining things unless I put a huge effort into it. 

But wanting to be able to talk to others about gaming and to write character journals forced me to start using the part of my brain and I have seen improvement. 

Role playing helps you solve complex issues and that is a good practice for brain injury victims. Playing computer and video games can be good if you don;t have my issue of hand eye coordination I get to frustrated with it. Though my rehab therapist tried to encourage me to do more because they have found that it helps. 

DMing helps me overcome my fear of talking in front of people yes I get frustrated sometimes and the wrong words come out my players are great and understanding and that gives me the confidence to not be embarrassed as much as I used to be when my brain farts in public. So now if I ask for a large diet coke and a small giraffe at the theater I can laugh it off. Before it would have made me cry.


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## Gilladian (Feb 2, 2012)

I guess (after having read about half the posts on this thread) I have a  very different way of playing out social situations.

FIRST, I describe the situation to the PCs; for example - the king is holding court, you know his daughter has been ill but you've heard she's getting better, and you're here with your buddies to ask for funds for your next mission. And more details as appropriate (or not, if they already know all this). 

SECOND, the PC describes roughly what points he'll be covering in his speech with the King (ie, he ignores the whole daughter issue as irrelevant vs spends several sentences defining how congratulatory he is). I decide what sort of "hitting all the bases" bonus or penalty the PC has earned. He rolls his dice, I roll mine, I explain how the King is reacting to the PC's conversation. The PC has a chance (if he wants to take it) to add or alter his strategy. Other PCs can chime in (if present  and story-appropriate, of course) to strengthen the PC's story (ie roll to see if they can add a bonus). A second roll may be allowed if the alterations are important enough. I tell the PCs whether the discussion succeeded or failed, and by how much.  They then proceed to spend the next 2-30 minutes roleplaying out the conversation, poking fun at each other, and having a grand time deciding exactly HOW the barbarian managed to get himself exiled from the king's presence AGAIN. Or whatever...


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## Mark CMG (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> Yes it did in so many ways.
> 
> My self confidence was in the toilet I was so helpless for a long time and unable to do my other hobbies like barrel racing , trail riding, working SF conventions. So starting gaming again allowed me to have social interactions that I needed.
> 
> ...





Thanks.  It's good to hear that things have reached a tipping point in the positive direction.  This is the kind of "I am/was a roleplay gamer" stories we need on the market rather than the ones that focus on the nerdiness.  (Damn!  Out of XP this 24 hour period . . .)


*edit* I wonder why I am feeling guilty that so many are feeling compelled to mention they aren't/haven't read many of the posts in this thread?


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 2, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A player with a PC in combat may suck at tactics, but he can ALWAYS fall back on the roll of the die & the combat rules to help bail him out*. A player in a RPG without a system for simulating social skills has no such safety net.
> 
> I mean, I know jack all about the practice of martial arts beyond what media (movies, documentaries, books, comics, etc.) and a single day in a karate class have taught me, but I can still play a really cool martial artist in most game systems. Were combat handled the way some treat social skills, I'd be limited to playing brainy wallflowers with artistic talent.
> 
> ...




There is a misunderstanding perhaps that those who prefer to play out RP encounters rather than use skill rolls all expect thier players to be experts at bluff/diplomacy, etc. 

At least as far as I'm concerned this isn't the case. It is instead a question of avoiding " I diplomacy him" moments that suck the fun out of the game. The heart and soul of play is descibing what you do and saying what you want to say, getting a reaction/feedback and doing more of the same. Reducing this to a number defeats the point of play. 

A character's charisma score can do a lot more work than it is given credit for. If a shy player is playing an 18 Cha character and making an effort then whatever is said is going to have a greater impact than the same ramblings from a 9 Cha character. 

Likewise Joe smooth silver tongue who decided to put a 5 in Cha will find that his clever quips are not as well received as he thought they would be. 

Ability scores ( and NOT just the bonuses) can count for so much more than recent iterations of the game have alloted them. More importantly they can do this while not denying a player a chance to meaningfully participate in gameplay beyond tossing dice.


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> Have you ever played with someone who really has issues with this? It is not just taking forever to say something they often end up getting rattled and saying the wrong thing guaranteed to piss of the NPC or gets lost and wanders off topic. And some players can't pull off what you described as a mix of arrogance and respect that takes major social skills.




I accept that some people are bad at it.  It's ok to accommodate them if that's what you want to do. That probably would not be my preferred approach - if your group are really as bad as you say, I might not enjoy playing with them.  But I've played with a good number of very shy players - and I'm not exactly an extrovert myself, I rated 90% introverted on some online test - and nearly all of them have enjoyed my style, enjoyed having the chance to shine, and done well. IME the kind of issues you talk about are pretty rare.  The exception was a guy who was rather creepy as well as shy, he was heavily into the occult and a practicing real-life chaos sorceror*.  He chose to play a dashing charismatic swordsman, I gave him opportunities to step on up and wow people, awing the NPCs with his prowess, instead he reliably curled up and folded (12th level PC vs 1st level NPC guards) in a way that was cringingly embarrassing for everyone present.  That was not fun - better if he'd played a creepy (low CHA) Necromancer or some such that fitted his actual personality.  

*The time he claimed to have summoned the demon-spirit of Groucho Marx and (accidentally) brought it into my house was no fun.  The session was a disaster, no one could focus, then the back door slammed and shattered the glass panel, nearly injuring one of the other players who was standing nearby.


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> I guess for you it works in games with no skills my experience has been way different. I have found that without the skills people like me may try to play a smooth talking character, but we won't succeed so we stop trying and just stick to playing the same type character over and over, or quit and go to a system that has mechanical support for it.




Actually this reminds me of a female player in a sci-fi PBEM I ran, it was a strategic wargame with a roleplay element, each PC commanded a system's interstellar forces.  This player, a friend of mine ([MENTION=6679831]AlphaSheWolf[/MENTION]), had the fantasy of playing a PC who was a good military commander, but had no interest in or ability to make actual military decisions. The game as designed by me required that ability, so she did not do well.

I don't think her desire was illegitimate, there was just a clash between her desire and my desire & intent as the game designer.  Likewise if you have a fantasy of playing a PC who is a good communicator, but no interest in trying to be a good communicator yourself, that is a perfectly legitimate preference, it's just not one I share.

As to how D&D should be designed & run - I prefer my preference, you prefer yours. Neither of us are wrong.  Luckily for you, Monte and the other 5e designers seem to share your preference.


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> I don't think the DM was being a jerk I think he felt he could not fairly adjudicate how I did if I didn't play it out.




Yeah, I can certainly accept Mark's point that you can roleplay without speaking in character, but as DM I would normally want the players to speak in-character and respond likewise.  Occasional exception if eg the players just can't accept me as an ingenue elf princess flirting with the dashing knight PC, if they're going to laugh at me I'll paraphrase her words if really necessary.

In general the getting-in-character and talking-in-character is something I really enjoy as GM and player, it's a major part of the game's pleasure for me. I suspect that even with good friends, if they didn't want to do that I wouldn't enjoy playing an RPG with them.  But that's just me, your group should do what suits you.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 2, 2012)

> At least as far as I'm concerned this isn't the case. It is instead a question of avoiding " I diplomacy him" moments that suck the fun out of the game. The heart and soul of play is descibing what you do and saying what you want to say, getting a reaction/feedback and doing more of the same. Reducing this to a number defeats the point of play.




Not for players who suck at RPing social situations but who _nonetheless want to play socially skilled PCs._

Without some sort of social skill system, you're just telling those players to take a hike.  You're making the game harder for that subset to playthefull panoply of PCs available.


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Not for players who suck at RPing social situations but who _nonetheless want to play socially skilled PCs._
> 
> Without some sort of social skill system, you're just telling those players to take a hike.  You're making the game harder for that subset to playthefull panoply of PCs available.




They suck so much that they can't even describe OOC what they want to achieve IC?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 2, 2012)

S'mon said:


> They suck so much that they can't even describe OOC what they want to achieve IC?




Like the guy I mentioned upthread?  Yeah.  Its not that he _couldn't_ describe stuff OOC, its that his doing so would be a pain for the rest of the people at the table.

Besides, once you're talking OOC, you're halfway to using a skill system anyway.

In a way, its the conflict between:



> P:  "I want to seduce her for info."
> 
> GM: "Regarding?"
> 
> ...




And:



> P:  "I want to seduce her for info."
> 
> GM: "Regarding?"
> 
> ...



Now, on occasion, its a blast watching a player stumble over a social interaction, but if this is going to be that player's norm, and his PC is frequently in social in-game situations, it gets painful and annoying.  And personally, I'd rather be able to sit next to a guy who is able to play the PC of his choice- even if its so against his personality that it is difficult for him to do- and have the game move along than have that player either told not to play PCs of that kind or start self-censoring his PC concepts so he won't get in that situation because its no longer fun due to this rules void.


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## Janx (Feb 2, 2012)

S'mon said:


> They suck so much that they can't even describe OOC what they want to achieve IC?




Are the levels of player interaction at:


player actually speaks eloquently as his PC

player attempts to speak eloquently as his PC but makes some mistakes, but people get the gist of his intended representation rather than his actual

player is totally unable to speak as his character would

player can describe in detail what his intent and approach is for his Diplomacy check without actually saying the words his PC says. (Ex. as I am dressed like a messenger, I explain to the guard that I am here to deliver a message to Lord Voldemort's person, using my Disguise and Bluff skills to convince him).

player can kind of describe his intent but little else (ex. I try to convince the guard to let me through with Diplomacy)

play can't even articulate a strategy statement for his skill check (ex. I bluff the guard to let me in)

Scenarioes 1, 2 and 4 are acceptable to me.

I like roleplay, I'd like your PC to say the right stuff.  If you're a bit inept, that's OK.  I expect every player to be able to do #4, because it is no less a requirement for combat, magic, and every other thing the PCs do.

I expect #5 from a newbie.

If there's a player who can't do #3 and fallsback to #6, that seems like a big problem for a game that involves talking and describing what your going to do.

It's also of note, while folks consider the Social Skills as some sort of verbally-challenged equalizer tool, I do not.  The rules are to standardize the resolution of social situations.  I don't expect them to be some the Martin Luther King of game rules.

I also find the situation of truly non-social people being drawn to play social PCs as very probable.  Possible, yes.  It's very possible that undiplomatic jerks who think they are diplomatic will be drawn the class, due to another phenomenon.

But people who KNOW they are socially challenged, I suspect that would be the last class they pick.  Just like public speaking is something they avoid.  If they happen to help somebody, great.  But I would think encouraging somebody to actually speak in chracter in front of a small group of his friends would be far more helpful than some rules to let him avoid facing the problem.

That makes me sound like a big meany or something, but my point is, consider the rules from a matter of getting consistent and fair arbitration of social encounters from your GM, regardless of whether he is in actor or narrator head-space.  GMs do get biased, and players can't read their minds to know what was fair.  Systemetizing the process was an attempt to clean that up.


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## Janx (Feb 2, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Now, on occasion, its a blast watching a player stumble over a social interaction, but if this is going to be that player's norm, and his PC is frequently in social in-game situations, it gets painful and annoying.  And personally, I'd rather be able to sit next to a guy who is able to play the PC of his choice- even if its so against his personality that it is difficult for him to do- and have the game move along than have that player either told not to play PCs of that kind or start self-censoring his PC concepts so he won't get in that situation because its no longer fun due to this rules void.





here's an alternative script , what I categorized #4:



> P: "I want to get the info about the guy who hired her, so I'm going to approach her, make small talk, and steer the conversation toward her employer.  I'll keep it all friendly and flirty, maybe even a seduction if it'll work"
> 
> GM: "That's difficult, you'll need a 17 on a D20- roll the dice."
> 
> ...




Note, my example, the player gives a lot more info about his approach and style, yet avoiding the socially awkward bits.

If a player can't speak in character, why should be not be capable of what I demonstrated?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 2, 2012)

Janx said:


> Note, my example, the player gives a lot more info about his approach and style, yet avoiding the socially awkward bits.
> 
> If a player can't speak in character, why should be not be capable of what I demonstrated?




I don't know the _why,_ but the guy I described to S'mon upthread (post #56) would have taken forever to utter that script you described.  Really, it would have been pure pain after the 3rd such interaction.

Instead, with the rules in place, he had fun, we had fun, and the game moved along.


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## Janx (Feb 2, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don't know the _why,_ but the guy I described to S'mon upthread (post #56) would have taken forever to utter that script you described.  Really, it would have been pure pain after the 3rd such interaction.
> 
> Instead, with the rules in place, he had fun, we had fun, and the game moved along.




Can't argue with that then.

Would it be fair to say, of the 6 kinds of social interaction styles I listed, that we should be willing to accept the "best" that a player can deliver.  Which might be lower than we prefer.

You're guy might be a #5 or 6 is all he can do, so don't bug him about doing 1-4.

But I can do #1 or #4, so I should generally execute in those 2 modes.  Me slopping down to #6 is just lazy on my part.


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## Mallus (Feb 2, 2012)

The simplest solution to the Social Skills Conundrum is this:

1) Allow your more tongue-tied players to roll for success in social encounters, using skill checks or straight CHA rolls, if you're not using a skill system. 

2) Allow your more verbally-talented players to just talk it out.

3) When someone complains about "dump-statting", give them the mother of all dirty looks and tell them to pipe down.

4) Profit!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 2, 2012)

I do think it's fair to ask players to RP things they can RP, no question.  I also think its fair to have mechanical supports for those who have problems in that area.

And as I write this, I realized that this can be highly variable, not just from player to player, but also from session to session for any single player.  Let's face it: RW concerns- jobs, family, illness, fatigue, stress- can harm your performance in any other part of your life, including gaming.  A person who is normally King of all Roleplaying may show up to game one day and be gaming on autopilots due to, well, whatever, and if he's the party's "Face" that could have lasting consequences if you force him to RP when he's not up to it.  In game and interpersonally.

The social skills may be a crutch...but crutches exist for a reason.


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## Janx (Feb 2, 2012)

Mallus said:


> The simplest solution to the Social Skills Conundrum is this:
> 
> 1) Allow your more tongue-tied players to roll for success in social encounters, using skill checks or straight CHA rolls, if you're not using a skill system.
> 
> ...




Dump statting is a concern for players.  One guy spread his stats out, so he could justify his PC not sucking at social scenes.  Another guy dumpstats his CHA and talks his way to success.  That's not fair.

I think my implementation (as refined by the long thread about forcing PCs with low stats) solves the problem:

1) listen to what the player's intent is.  Whether roleplayed, tactically described, or lamely so.

2) roll the applicable check (attribute or skill).  Apply a bonus ONLY for tactical consideration, not roleplay (did the guy dress like the person he claims to be, etc).

3) describe the outcome as befits the result

4) give bonus XP for actual roleplaying the scene.

step 1 allows for Danny's friend or for me to run at the same table.  The GM takes our intent, not our actual description.

step 2 protects from dump-statters trying to RP a freebie

step 4 gives a reward outside of the encounter for actually roleplaying.  This also covers the PC who roleplays a low stat as a unpleasant person.  They aren't double-penalized for their portrayal and the GM's initial reaction plus a modified skill check for a terrifying performance.  The player gets XP for roleplaying in the scene.


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## SnowleopardVK (Feb 2, 2012)

My group basically does a reverse to the "say something, roll for it, then see if it works" method.

Basically what happens is the player rolls first, and then roleplays their dialogue either well or poorly depending on the result of the roll. It works quite well, bonuses for good roleplay still happen (and from time to time will push a roll just over the threshold of success), and I imagine a player uncomfortable with RP could just cut the middle step, simply rolling and then seeing if they succeeded.

It also prevents Cha-dumped PCs from simply talking their way to victory, since the small bonus from good roleplay very rarely pushes someone's score high enough to turn failure into success, and would do so even less for a PC getting massive Charisma penalties.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 3, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Yeah, I can certainly accept Mark's point that you can roleplay without speaking in character, but as DM I would normally want the players to speak in-character and respond likewise.  Occasional exception if eg the players just can't accept me as an ingenue elf princess flirting with the dashing knight PC, if they're going to laugh at me I'll paraphrase her words if really necessary.
> 
> In general the getting-in-character and talking-in-character is something I really enjoy as GM and player, it's a major part of the game's pleasure for me. I suspect that even with good friends, if they didn't want to do that I wouldn't enjoy playing an RPG with them.  But that's just me, your group should do what suits you.




I think one of the big misunderstandings going on here is that people who like social rolls are not getting into character and not talking in character, 

I play with a bunch of role players they base all their actions on role playing on what their character would really do, I watched us almost get a TPK because we all played our characters without knowledge on how to destroy a troll though everyone at the table knew what to do.

We have conversations in character for planning. And we are almost always in character during the game. One of our rules if it comes out of your mouth the character said it unless you say right up front that you are stepping out of character for a moment. 

I do try and role play out a bluff or diplomacy but if I am having a bad day and sometimes my brain acts up and once it starts I get more frustrated so on those days I would rather have the choice to tell what I am doing and hope my roll is good enough to accomplish the task.

As I said before my shyer players sometimes will try and role player it out and they are more willing to try knowing that there is a roll to back them up and that the success does not just hinge on their ability to talk.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 3, 2012)

Janx said:


> It's also of note, while folks consider the Social Skills as some sort of verbally-challenged equalizer tool, I do not.  The rules are to standardize the resolution of social situations.  I don't expect them to be some the Martin Luther King of game rules.
> 
> I also find the situation of truly non-social people being drawn to play social PCs as very probable.  Possible, yes.  It's very possible that undiplomatic jerks who think they are diplomatic will be drawn the class, due to another phenomenon.
> 
> ...




You would be wrong in thinking that socially challenged people never have a desire to try and play a more socially out going character. Part of the fun of role playing is playing against type.  

You brought up a point that I agree with, social skill rolls takes it out of the hands of the DM and while I am a big believer in DM control and trusting your DM having a roll can be the fairest way to adjudicate it. I have seen issues in older versions of the game where someone gave a great speech and the DM said no it didn't work and players feel picked on and railroaded.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 3, 2012)

If someone is unable to even describe in third person, what thier actions for the character will be then honestly it might be time to rethink the whole roleplaying thing.


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## Hussar (Feb 3, 2012)

Out of curiousity, outside of very new players, has anyone ever actually seen, "I diplomatize him" from a player?

Honestly, I've never seen it.  I've seen lots of statements of intent "I want to X" and then rolls, but, afaik, never just a bare, "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"

And, just as a point about my earlier point (which is now buried in the depths of this thread), having difficulty separating the line between stonewalling and freebies isn't the same as saying I'm incapable of doing so.  I just find that line somewhat arbitrary sometimes - without social mechanics, it's me deciding whether or not the player succeeds.  Nowhere else in an RPG does the DM do this.  And, I'm not 100% comfortable with doing it in social interactions.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 3, 2012)

> "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"




Seen it.

Hell- DONE it on some of my off-days.  Or the _DM's_ off-days.*









* IME, GM's think the situation is a LOT more interesting than it actually is and/or are looking for a key phrase/question to be asked- like a TTRPG version of pixel bitching.  Sometimes, GM's, _we're just not that into your scene._


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> And, just as a point about my earlier point (which is now buried in the depths of this thread), having difficulty separating the line between stonewalling and freebies isn't the same as saying I'm incapable of doing so. I just find that line somewhat arbitrary sometimes - without social mechanics, it's me deciding whether or not the player succeeds. Nowhere else in an RPG does the DM do this. And, I'm not 100% comfortable with doing it in social interactions.




That comfort comes from running games and making judgement calls, and it isn't completely without social mechanics.  

Think of all the things a player could do to get a big fat bonus, take a look at the CHA of the PC. Sometimes a high CHA is more than enough, sometimes extra effort is required depending on the disposition of the npc. Did an associate of the player just insult the guy? That will have to be overcome. 

Good interaction between people at the table is unmatched by any resolution system. Its that kind of interaction that helped skyrocket the game in popularity.


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## LostSoul (Feb 3, 2012)

This thread is interesting.

If anyone's interested, here's a table that converts the 2d6 Reaction Roll from B/X to work with WotC-D&D stat modifiers.


```
3d6 Roll 
+ Charisma Modifier	Reaction				
4 or less		Extremely hostile, no dialogue possible
5-8			Hostile, possible attack	
9-12			Uncertain, cautious, and wary
13-16			Interested in dialogue
17+			Looking to make friends
```

I think I changed the reaction descriptions a bit.  Oh well.


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## SnowleopardVK (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"




I've seen "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"

_"What were you rolling to do?"_

"Is a 17 plus my diplomacy enough to get me past?"

_"No."_

"How about 17 plus my bluff?"

_"It probably would be depending on his sense motive."_

"Then I was rolling to bluff my way past."

_"You're supposed to specify that before you roll..."_

"But I rolled a 17!"


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## S'mon (Feb 3, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> I think one of the big misunderstandings going on here is that people who like social rolls are not getting into character and not talking in character,
> 
> I play with a bunch of role players they base all their actions on role playing on what their character would really do, I watched us almost get a TPK because we all played our characters without knowledge on how to destroy a troll though everyone at the table knew what to do.
> 
> ...




I think I might enjoy playing with your group after all, then.


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## S'mon (Feb 3, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> . I have seen issues in older versions of the game where someone gave a great speech and the DM said no it didn't work and players feel picked on and railroaded.




I felt a lot more resentful & railroaded in the Savage Worlds game I mentioned, where I gave a good speech AND had maxed-out persuasion skills and the GM wouldn't let it have an impact because of the adventure.  Even worse was that I had to leave the game early due to the massive riots in London that night, and after I left the GM let a PC WITHOUT massive persuasion skills, but the player very forceful IRL, do what I had been trying to accomplish! 

At least if there are no social skills, the GM's bias is all behind the curtain!


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## S'mon (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I just find that line somewhat arbitrary sometimes - without social mechanics, it's me deciding whether or not the player succeeds.  Nowhere else in an RPG does the DM do this.




No, you do it all the time.  99% of PC in-game activities succeed without a roll, because you the GM decide that the PCs can eg walk down the street without falling over. If you find adjudication of social situations harder then mechanical support may be useful for you, but you are constantly adjudicating the rest of the environment without rolling dice.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Out of curiousity, outside of very new players, has anyone ever actually seen, "I diplomatize him" from a player?
> 
> Honestly, I've never seen it.  I've seen lots of statements of intent "I want to X" and then rolls, but, afaik, never just a bare, "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"
> 
> And, just as a point about my earlier point (which is now buried in the depths of this thread), having difficulty separating the line between stonewalling and freebies isn't the same as saying I'm incapable of doing so.  I just find that line somewhat arbitrary sometimes - without social mechanics, it's me deciding whether or not the player succeeds.  Nowhere else in an RPG does the DM do this.  And, I'm not 100% comfortable with doing it in social interactions.




 Maybe once or twice when the game was running late and people are getting really tired. We are spotlight hogs and we like being the center of attention to do this.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 3, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I think I might enjoy playing with your group after all, then.




I think you would from everything I have read I think we are closer in play styles than we are different.


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## Elf Witch (Feb 3, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I felt a lot more resentful & railroaded in the Savage Worlds game I mentioned, where I gave a good speech AND had maxed-out persuasion skills and the GM wouldn't let it have an impact because of the adventure.  Even worse was that I had to leave the game early due to the massive riots in London that night, and after I left the GM let a PC WITHOUT massive persuasion skills, but the player very forceful IRL, do what I had been trying to accomplish!
> 
> At least if there are no social skills, the GM's bias is all behind the curtain!




I think we have all had our share of DM who we have wanted to strangle at times.


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## Hussar (Feb 3, 2012)

S'mon said:


> No, you do it all the time.  99% of PC in-game activities succeed without a roll, because you the GM decide that the PCs can eg walk down the street without falling over. If you find adjudication of social situations harder then mechanical support may be useful for you, but you are constantly adjudicating the rest of the environment without rolling dice.




But, walking down the street isn't resolved in any fashion.  You automatically do it.  No mechanics are needed because there is no consequence of failure (well, other than maybe embarrassment).  I guess I didn't quite specify well enough.  Nowhere else in RPG's is pure DM judgement used as the sole arbiter of success of a PC action where failure carries consequences.  ((Well, presuming you're not free-forming in the first place, that's a different kettle of fish))

There's another element here that I think should be examined as well.  I think many players are far more willing to accept failure when it comes from an objective source, rather than the subjective DM.  Not that it always causes problems.  I'm not saying that at all.  But, we've seen this on the boards lots of times, what one person considers perfectly reasonable, another can consider impossible.

And that can sometimes lead to tension between the players and the DM.  The player believes that his idea is reasonable and should work, and the only reason it doesn't is because the DM decides so.  All the "trust your DM" advice in the world isn't going to sweep that under the carpet every single time.  A number of quite acrimonious arguments can occur at the table over this kind of thing.

Adding in mechanics acts as a buffer between the player's judgement and the DM's judgement.  The player didn't fail because he didn't convince the DM, he failed because the dice gods decreed that he failed.  And, in some cases, this goes a lot more smoothly at the table.


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## chaochou (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Out of curiousity, outside of very new players, has anyone ever actually seen, "I diplomatize him" from a player?
> 
> Honestly, I've never seen it.  I've seen lots of statements of intent "I want to X" and then rolls, but, afaik, never just a bare, "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"




I don't ever remember seeing this kind of play, but it may have happened many years ago.



SnowleopardVK said:


> I've seen "I rolled a 17, does the guard let me pass?"
> _"What were you rolling to do?"_
> "Is a 17 plus my diplomacy enough to get me past?"
> _"No."_
> ...




Sure, I find that kind of play unsatisfactory. But I think it's worth noting that it has nothing to do with social skills - ie I would find this equally frustrating...

"I rolled a 12. Do I kill the guard?"
_"What were you rolling to do?"
_"Sneak up behind and stab him."
_"No."_
"Push him over the parapet?"
_"With your strength, probably not."_
"Okay I just hit him."

The problem both examples describe is one of rolling dice before everyone present has agreed what the roll represents, what's at stake and how it is creating a new situation in the fiction. I find that problematic at any time in a game, irrespective of the system.


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## Janx (Feb 3, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> You would be wrong in thinking that socially challenged people never have a desire to try and play a more socially out going character. Part of the fun of role playing is playing against type.





Note, I didn't say never.

It's always possible that somebody who is painfully shy and avoids drawing attention to themselves is going to try playing a bard.

It's just not probable.

I'm pretty certain that Painfully Shy Guy (PSG) is not thinking "hey, I can be a bard, there's new rules for social situations so I don't actually have to be a loud and social and have everybody looking at me!"

People tend to play concepts they enjoy or are like themselves (at least as a default).  The bard is the opposite of PSG.  It's going to take some serious gumption for him to want to try a bard.  Especially if the rest of the player do HAM IT UP.  That sets the bar of expectation that the Bard is a social creature, something he dreads.

There are people who are enabled by these rules.  Danny's friend for instance.  But that's incidental.

The primary beneficiary of the social rules is regular gamers getting a standardized resolution to social encounters.  It's not about the PSG's.


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## Mallus (Feb 3, 2012)

Janx said:


> Apply a bonus ONLY for tactical consideration, not roleplay (did the guy dress like the person he claims to be, etc).



So you grant a bonus for one kind of player skill ("tactical considerations").

But not another ("roleplay"/social intelligence/me talk pretty sometime).

Does the PC of the player using "tactics" need a minimum INT score, ie so as not to dump-stat INT?

XP bonuses are nice, but I've found the thing that's most important to players is the feeling of accomplishment they get from solving the immediate challenge. They want to know they did something that helped the team "win". Allowing for this --at a table with people with different abilities/levels of social savvy-- is more important to me than combating dump-statting.


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## Janx (Feb 3, 2012)

Mallus said:


> So you grant a bonus for one kind of player skill ("tactical considerations").
> 
> But not another ("roleplay"/social intelligence/me talk pretty sometime).
> 
> ...




Speaking in character (#1) is a style preference.  #4 is equally as valid, in being descriptive and still roleplaying, just not speaking in character.

The problem with judging on speaking with character is that the evaluation is subjective, and prone to double-modifying the situation.

If you have a low CHA and you play it as the silent quiet type, you may get through more situations than somebody who truly hams it up and acts all creepy and dislikable.

Without even rolling, the GM is going to react negatively to the latter kind of PC, even though they both have the same stat.

This in turn gets amplified when it comes to actually doing any kind of social skill check.  The GM will inherently bias against the performance.

My recommendation is to isolate that.  The performance is great, give them XP for it if it is "in character"  But strictly follow what the numbers say, not the performance.  The perfomance shows intent.  That's it.

As for your comment about giving a bonus for tactical (perhaps I should have said situational) factors also being a player skill, I don't have a problem with that.

I already accept that not all players are created equal.  A tactical genius will do smarter things with his fighter than the village idiot, despite both of them having the same stats.

Somebody who is trying to bluff the guard while wearing the wrong clothes, covered in blood, stating blatant lies is an idiot, and is going to suffer a situational penalty.  But not for roleplaying.  For being a tactical idiot.  The same way the player gets hit with AoOs and rushes into fights that get him killed.

Remember, I do not see the rules as some sort of Great Equalizer for stupid people and smart people, shy people or social people.

My approach levels out the abjudication of speaking in character, by excising it from the resolution mechanic.  It's not for the shy guy's benefit or detriment.

Note: I don't see a reason why the Shy Guy would be prone to screwing up handling a Bluff check by declaring how he approaches the situation.  It's more probable that Undiplomatic Guy will screw it up by being a jerk, when he should have been deferrential.  That's a situational modifier, not by his speaking in character, but by the very intent that is evident in his approach.


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## S'mon (Feb 3, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, walking down the street isn't resolved in any fashion.  You automatically do it.  No mechanics are needed because there is no consequence of failure (well, other than maybe embarrassment).  I guess I didn't quite specify well enough.  Nowhere else in RPG's is pure DM judgement used as the sole arbiter of success of a PC action where failure carries consequences.  ((Well, presuming you're not free-forming in the first place, that's a different kettle of fish))
> 
> There's another element here that I think should be examined as well.  I think many players are far more willing to accept failure when it comes from an objective source, rather than the subjective DM.  Not that it always causes problems.  I'm not saying that at all.  But, we've seen this on the boards lots of times, what one person considers perfectly reasonable, another can consider impossible.
> 
> And that can sometimes lead to tension between the players and the DM.  The player believes that his idea is reasonable and should work, and the only reason it doesn't is because the DM decides so.  All the "trust your DM" advice in the world isn't going to sweep that under the carpet every single time.  A number of quite acrimonious arguments can occur at the table over this kind of thing.




I have actually experienced this in my online 1e AD&D game.  Twice recently I felt that some of the players weren't very accepting of the notion that they could fail in a social encounter, fail to achieve their desired goals, through GM adjudication of the impact of their words and actions.  In each case there were several good reasons why the NPCs reacted as they did, not all of which were obvious to the PCs. In the second case I ended up explaining stuff - "She's a Thief!  She has Hear Noise!  She knows you're right outside!" - which would not have been obvious to the PC, and I wasn't very happy about that.  OTOH the same players would have likely accepted me killing all their PCs in a combat encounter, because with combat there are rules.


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## NewJeffCT (Feb 3, 2012)

Janx said:


> Note, I didn't say never.
> 
> It's always possible that somebody who is painfully shy and avoids drawing attention to themselves is going to try playing a bard.
> 
> ...




I've found just the opposite in my games - my last campaign was 3.5E D&D and the guy in my group who is gruff and rather offputting socially IRL was the one who played the charismatic sorcerer with an 18 CHA in game.  Most of the time his role playing was limited to a sarcastic out of game comment.  (As DM, I would often interject something about his "powerful presence" or "air of command" or similar)

In my current 4E game, the guy in my group that is by far the most loquacious out of game is playing the strong silent type in game this time around.  His previous PC in the campaign just died, and he had modeled the role playing after the guy from House (dour, sarcastic, grinchy)  (the guy who played a sorcerer last time out is now a human fighter with a 10 CHA)


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## Mark CMG (Feb 3, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I have actually experienced this in my online 1e AD&D game.  Twice recently I felt that some of the players weren't very accepting of the notion that they could fail in a social encounter, fail to achieve their desired goals, through GM adjudication of the impact of their words and actions.  In each case there were several good reasons why the NPCs reacted as they did, not all of which were obvious to the PCs. In the second case I ended up explaining stuff - "She's a Thief!  She has Hear Noise!  She knows you're right outside!" - which would not have been obvious to the PC, and I wasn't very happy about that.  OTOH the same players would have likely accepted me killing all their PCs in a combat encounter, because with combat there are rules.





Yup, this is a huge problem with the way in which many games are adjuducated, whereby the players feel that everything in the game is transparent so that if they cannot figure out what has happened then the result of what happened must be wrong.

This also speaks to the need for fewer dice rolls to be in the hands of the players, particularly in cases where the results of a failure give away as much information as the results of a success.  There should be a chance for a king, for instance, to see the hapless attempt to charm him (for the die roll to be a one with no chance of success due to the dimplomacy) but for the king to decide he is going to go with the same result but for other reasons.  Perhaps the king wishes the failed attempt to seem as if it worked so that his brother the duke will go after the diplomat and his party.  But if the player is the die roller and rolls the one, much of the motivation of that situation is laid bare.  Of course, there are countless near miss and slight success scenarios that can speak to this same problem but I describe an extreme for the sake of emphasis.

The sense of success or failure in situations like a diplomacy check (or Charisma check or the like) should be in what the player wishes to assume from the resultant roleplaying, not from being able to look at how well the player rolled the die and comparing that to the roleplaying that takes place.  The player might also have a sense from how much time the PC has invested in becoming a diplomatic character but situationally looking to the die roll feels like avoiding the actual roleplaying from my own point of view.


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## BryonD (Feb 3, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> This also speaks to the need for fewer dice rolls to be in the hands of the players, particularly in cases where the results of a failure give away as much information as the results of a success.



Good point


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## Elf Witch (Feb 4, 2012)

Janx said:


> Note, I didn't say never.
> 
> It's always possible that somebody who is painfully shy and avoids drawing attention to themselves is going to try playing a bard.
> 
> ...




I agree that the rolls are there to standardize social encounters.

But I am saying that they also allow more options of character types for players. 

I am not just talking about shy people. My one friend who loves playing bards and swashbucklers is not shy he just is not good at thinking on his feet and he is not glib.  There is no way in real life he could ever be a smooth talking type of guy. But those are his favorite type characters he loves the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Musketeers, Zorro, in modern fiction he is a huge fan of con men like Neil on White Collar or some of the characters on Leverage. 

RPGs give him the chance to play these type of characters and the ability to made rolls with the role playings makes him successful at it.   

I am shy in real life less now then when I was younger but around strangers I am often tongue tied. My disability makes this a little worse. In High School the thought of talking up in class or talking to a boy made me nauseous and triggered panic attacks. Yet I always fantasized about being the  charismatic type. Being able to play these type of characters in games makes the games more fun for me. 

I play games to escape to be someone I am not in real life I would not want to play me in a game because that would be boring. 

I had a player in my game tell me she wanted to play a bard but was worried that she wouldn't be able to pull off the social stuff because she is shy and she stutters a little more when she was under pressure. I told her not to worry about it that she could just tell me what she was doing and then roll and I would base it on her roll. She has realy improved at the table her confidence as grown and she often choose to role play out encounters. 

Just like things like strategy and tactics often improve over time as you play role playing out social encounters and succeeding at them often give more shy players the ability to feel more comfortable which gives them the skills to improve.


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## Loonook (Feb 5, 2012)

I think that the Social Skills are useful in a lot of ways.  They help to really give you an edge that is tolerable.  Yes, some of the great moments in various literature and the visual arts are when the unexpected occurs... But it is nice to have a baseline.  Diplomacy doesn't necessarily make someone bend head-over-heels for your every whim... But it helps.  You know how to soften the blows, word things in just the right way, weasel in there... And get things to happen.  Any kind of deception skills help because they enable you to lie and then detect said lie... It's nice.  

I take it almost in the way Speech skills are handled in a video-game sort of way.  You get bonuses for how you verbally massage the person, ingratiate yourself to them, etc. and perhaps some will be able to speak eloquently... But this guy just rubs me the wrong way.  Which is to be expected as the normal interactions are going to be with a three-day-stinky bloodmired man in spiky plate mail with a sword that catches flame telling you things like yes, we are totally trustworthy and no, I have no eyes towards your daughter .

Slainte,

-Loonook.


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Yup, this is a huge problem with the way in which many games are adjuducated, whereby the players feel that everything in the game is transparent so that if they cannot figure out what has happened then the result of what happened must be wrong.
> 
> This also speaks to the need for fewer dice rolls to be in the hands of the players, particularly in cases where the results of a failure give away as much information as the results of a success.  There should be a chance for a king, for instance, to see the hapless attempt to charm him (for the die roll to be a one with no chance of success due to the dimplomacy) but for the king to decide he is going to go with the same result but for other reasons.  Perhaps the king wishes the failed attempt to seem as if it worked so that his brother the duke will go after the diplomat and his party.  But if the player is the die roller and rolls the one, much of the motivation of that situation is laid bare.  Of course, there are countless near miss and slight success scenarios that can speak to this same problem but I describe an extreme for the sake of emphasis.
> 
> The sense of success or failure in situations like a diplomacy check (or Charisma check or the like) should be in what the player wishes to assume from the resultant roleplaying, not from being able to look at how well the player rolled the die and comparing that to the roleplaying that takes place.  The player might also have a sense from how much time the PC has invested in becoming a diplomatic character but situationally looking to the die roll feels like avoiding the actual roleplaying from my own point of view.




The presumption here though is that a player (as opposed to the DM/GM) cannot act in anything other than first person.  That if the player has any knowledge that his character shouldn't have, the player will automatically abuse that knowledge or it will ruin his fun.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that to be honest.  I think that players can be perfectly capable of being objective if given the opportunity.  The player knows that his attempt failed, (or at least he thinks that it has), but the reactions of the NPC don't match that.  For me, I'd be even more interested in the game because now I want to know what's going on.  I know that I failed, so, why is he playing along?

If the dice are out of my hands, I can only act from a very limited viewpoint- whatever information the DM passes along.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 5, 2012)

Hussar said:


> The presumption here though is that a player (as opposed to the DM/GM) cannot act in anything other than first person.  That if the player has any knowledge that his character shouldn't have, the player will automatically abuse that knowledge or it will ruin his fun.
> 
> I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that to be honest.  I think that players can be perfectly capable of being objective if given the opportunity.  The player knows that his attempt failed, (or at least he thinks that it has), but the reactions of the NPC don't match that.  For me, I'd be even more interested in the game because now I want to know what's going on.  I know that I failed, so, why is he playing along?





No, that's not the presumption.  It's merely a fact that if the player has certain information then playing the character as if the character doesn't have that information doesn't allow for the player, as the character, to truly discover it.  Then the only way of the character seeming to make the discovery is by the player pretending that the character discovered it rather than discovering it while playing the character.  And that breaks the immersion of the game on a fundamental level.  It's not about trusting the players to be objective, it's about giving the players a level of cover while they play their characters with a sense of actual wonder.  Folks often ask where the sense of wonder has gone and this is one of the places where it has been stripped.




Hussar said:


> If the dice are out of my hands, I can only act from a very limited viewpoint- whatever information the DM passes along.





Yes, and that which the player, through the character, manages to uncover.  That's the point.  It removes metagame knowledge as much as can be done.  Of course one cannot remove the knowledge the player brings to the table but adding to it by letting the player see the scaffolding is unnecessary and worth avoiding whenver possible.


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## Hussar (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> No, that's not the presumption.  It's merely a fact that if the player has certain information then playing the character as if the character doesn't have that information doesn't allow for the player, as the character, to truly discover it.  Then the only way of the character seeming to make the discovery is by the player pretending that the character discovered it rather than discovering it while playing the character.  And that breaks the immersion of the game on a fundamental level.  It's not about trusting the players to be objective, it's about giving the players a level of cover while they play their characters with a sense of actual wonder.  Folks often ask where the sense of wonder has gone and this is one of the places where it has been stripped.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




See, I think there's a very, very fine line between sense of wonder and sense of frustration.  

Imagine a situation where there are no rolls (or the rolls are kept secret from the player, makes no difference in this situation).  Player makes his pitch to the DM to convince the NPC of whatever.  Now, without any input from actual rolls, he's entirely dependent on the DM's portrayal of the reaction.  DM decides that the pitch fails - either he rolled badly, or simply used a judgement call.

Now, the player is stuck.  He doesn't really know why he failed, only that he did.  And, actually, he might not even know that he did fail if the DM has the NPC play along anyway.  He has no real way forward except to kind of blindly feel his way along.  Did the guard rebuff his offer of a bribe because the guard is unbribable or did he just not offer enough money or did his performance lack something that the DM was looking for?

From the player's perspective, it's very hard to tell.  And, it can be (not necessarily will be) but can be frustrating.  Add to that the idea that sometimes DM's will just stonewall players because they didn't like the performance and it can drag the game down very quickly.

For players that insist on always maintaining immersion, where immersion is the most important goal all the time, sure, that's fine.  They don't want to know why they failed.  They WANT to grope around.

For the rest of us though, those of us who would much, much rather just get on with the game, groping around is about as much fun as watching paint dry.

It's totally a style issue.  I get that.  There's nothing wrong with wanting total immersion all the time.  I don't.  I've played that way and I just find it too frustrating repeatedly banging my head on the wall.  To me, it smacks too much of pixelbitching.  I realize that my style is not everyone's style though.  For those who want that level of immersion, then hiding the rolls would likely be a good idea.  For me, it would not be fun, on either side of the screen.  Like I said earlier, as a DM, it makes me too visible with too much time talking to me the DM rather than interacting with what's going on in the game.  As a player, it's too frustrating and any gains in immersion I might get would be lost very quickly.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> See, I think there's a very, very fine line between sense of wonder and sense of frustration.
> 
> Imagine a situation where there are no rolls (. . .)





Naw, using an extreme to prove your point doesn't actually prove your point since a roleplaying game has aspects of both roleplaying and gaming.  However, what you are suggesting is removing some of the roleplaying aspects in favor of the player gaining knowledge directly from the way in which the dice fall.  You feel that a GM is, by design, simply not up to the task of conveying the information the player will need in any situation and that the player should have the metaknowledge of the dice results to guide the in-game decisions of the character.  Odd, though, that you want to trust players to act as if they don't have knowledge that they clearly will have while not tursting a GM to simply do the job of a GM and convey information that he clearly wants the players to have for the game to move forward.  If a player doesn't feel he has enough information, he (through his character) investigates further and finds out more.  As to knowing or not knowing why or even IF someone has failed at a task, it's the purview of the GM to make sure the player knows as much as the character should know, and not any more than that if possible which is the whole point you are actually arguing against.


But let's explore this "style issue" claim and the "get on with the game" attitude you sometimes put forth in conjunction with it.  Try to help me wrap my head around your frustration with one of the traditional aspects of roleplaying games and your desire to jettison it, as well as helping me understand what constitutes roleplaying in your eyes and what roleplaying you wish to include to replace what you wish to eject.  Because, honestly, I'm seeing a number of folks speaking in similar terms over the years but they tend to conflate their terms.  They also tend to want to replace roleplaying aspects with other game aspects (like rolling dice), which is all well and good for the sake of gaming (though not for roleplay gaming) and having fun, but at some point when you've removed much, most, or all of the roleplaying, isn't it just a good idea to not call it a roleplaying game anymore?  Don't get me wrong, I have fun with many styles of gameplay, I just tend to use rules that focus prmarily on the style of gameplay I am interested in exploring at that time.  So, tell me more about this frustration you feel with having a GM be your conduit to an RPG setting versus getting on with it and preferring that the dice be what gives you your information on how to make your next move in the game you're calling a roleplaying game.


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## darkwing (Feb 6, 2012)

I am not the most eloquent speaker in the world but I still hate social skills. I may not be able to slay a group of orcs in real life using a longsword but I can form complete sentences. Dice are a good way to abstract the former but not the later.


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## Hussar (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Naw, using an extreme to prove your point doesn't actually prove your point since a roleplaying game has aspects of both roleplaying and gaming.  However, what you are suggesting is removing some of the roleplaying aspects in favor of the player gaining knowledge directly from the way in which the dice fall.  You feel that a GM is, by design, simply not up to the task of conveying the information the player will need in any situation and that the player should have the metaknowledge of the dice results to guide the in-game decisions of the character.  Odd, though, that you want to trust players to act as if they don't have knowledge that they clearly will have while not tursting a GM to simply do the job of a GM and convey information that he clearly wants the players to have for the game to move forward.  If a player doesn't feel he has enough information, he (through his character) investigates further and finds out more.  As to knowing or not knowing why or even IF someone has failed at a task, it's the purview of the GM to make sure the player knows as much as the character should know, and not any more than that if possible which is the whole point you are actually arguing against.




You missed a word there.  And it makes a difference.  I feel that sometimes a DM is not up to the task of conveying the information the player will need in any situation.  Not every time.  Of course not.  But, it does happen often enough that it becomes problematic.  At least for me.  Either I haven't explained what's going on well enough, or the DM hasn't.  I've seen far too many table arguments from both sides of the DM's screen to think that this is entirely me.

See, you are saying it's up to the GM to make sure the players knows as much as the character should know.  Ok.  Fine.  But, who determines that level?  The GM of course.  What if he's wrong?  What if the GM thinks that the player has all the pieces when he really doesn't?  We've seen more than a few Agony Aunt type columns either on message boards or in Dragon to think that this is an isolated corner case that rarely comes up.  DMing advice after Dming advice says to give more information to the players and err on the side of too much rather than not enough.



> But let's explore this "style issue" claim and the "get on with the game" attitude you sometimes put forth in conjunction with it.  Try to help me wrap my head around your frustration with one of the traditional aspects of roleplaying games and your desire to jettison it, as well as helping me understand what constitutes roleplaying in your eyes and what roleplaying you wish to include to replace what you wish to eject.  Because, honestly, I'm seeing a number of folks speaking in similar terms over the years but they tend to conflate their terms.  They also tend to want to replace roleplaying aspects with other game aspects (like rolling dice), which is all well and good for the sake of gaming (though not for roleplay gaming) and having fun, but at some point when you've removed much, most, or all of the roleplaying, isn't it just a good idea to not call it a roleplaying game anymore?  Don't get me wrong, I have fun with many styles of gameplay, I just tend to use rules that focus prmarily on the style of gameplay I am interested in exploring at that time.  So, tell me more about this frustration you feel with having a GM be your conduit to an RPG setting versus getting on with it and preferring that the dice be what gives you your information on how to make your next move in the game you're calling a roleplaying game.




I would point out that this is a traditional aspect of the game for you.  And that's great.  It's not for me.  I don't like pixel bitching.  Trying to read the DM's mind is an exercise in futility and bogs down the game.  

Although, I have to admit, the one true wayism here is rather a breath of fresh air.  If I don't play the way you play, I'm not even role playing anymore.  Nice.  If I want a stronger mechanical framework for social interaction, I'm no longer roleplaying.  Even better.  I'm sure people playing things like Dogs in the Vineyard or various other games with strong social mechanics are perfectly happy not playing roleplaying games if  the criteria for being a roleplaying game is freeforming social interactions.

Look, I get that you don't want mechanical frameworks for social interactions.  I understand, I really do.  I've certainly played that way more than a few times.  However, what I'm looking for here is the recognition that this is simply one way of playing.  Not the only way.  Just one way.  There are other ways to do it.  

Loads of games have mechanical frameworks for social resolution.  D20's is ... a bit meh to be honest.  Too binary and far too easy to abuse.  Spirit of the Century, Dogs in the Vineyard, Sufficiently Advanced, all systems I've used in the past few years, all have strong social mechanics that work rather well and that I find actually promote a great deal of roleplay.

At least for me.  For others?  Maybe not so much.  But, then again, what do I know?  I'm not even a roleplayer anymore apparently.  Wow, can't play D&D because I play the wrong edition.  Can't DM because I need training wheels.  Now I can't even roleplay.  This has been a good week for people to be more inclusive of other playstyles.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> You missed a word there.  And it makes a difference.  I feel that sometimes a DM is not up to the task of conveying the information the player will need in any situation.  Not every time.  Of course not.  But, it does happen often enough that it becomes problematic.  At least for me.  Either I haven't explained what's going on well enough, or the DM hasn't.  I've seen far too many table arguments from both sides of the DM's screen to think that this is entirely me.
> 
> See, you are saying it's up to the GM to make sure the players knows as much as the character should know.  Ok.  Fine.  But, who determines that level?  The GM of course.  What if he's wrong?  What if the GM thinks that the player has all the pieces when he really doesn't?  We've seen more than a few Agony Aunt type columns either on message boards or in Dragon to think that this is an isolated corner case that rarely comes up.  DMing advice after Dming advice says to give more information to the players and err on the side of too much rather than not enough.





So, you want to solve a "sometimes" GMing problem not with allowing the GM to get better at their job but rather by removing some roleplaying from the game by design?




Hussar said:


> I would point out that this is a traditional aspect of the game for you.  And that's great.  It's not for me.  I don't like pixel bitching.  Trying to read the DM's mind is an exercise in futility and bogs down the game.
> 
> Although, I have to admit, the one true wayism here is rather a breath of fresh air.  If I don't play the way you play, I'm not even role playing anymore.  Nice.  If I want a stronger mechanical framework for social interaction, I'm no longer roleplaying.  Even better.  I'm sure people playing things like Dogs in the Vineyard or various other games with strong social mechanics are perfectly happy not playing roleplaying games if  the criteria for being a roleplaying game is freeforming social interactions.
> 
> ...





You can dress up replacing actual roleplaying with die rolling but it doesn't change what it is.  I think it is important to note how you use the terms "playstyle" and "gaming style" when talking about "roleplaying styles" that are either devoid of roleplaying or in the process of having the roleplaying elements stripped away.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 6, 2012)

> So, you want to solve a "sometimes" GMing problem not with allowing the GM to get better at their job but rather by removing some roleplaying from the game by design?




I look at it as having a mechanism within the rules to solve a problem that may occur that a player, GM, or both may not be up to handling from time to time.

If it helps, think of it as having a small spare tire- its not a substitute for a normal tire, but when you need one, you really need one that you know will work.


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## Hussar (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> So, you want to solve a "sometimes" GMing problem not with allowing the GM to get better at their job but rather by removing some roleplaying from the game by design?




Yuppers.  Give me training wheels every day.  I'll leave the "expert GMing" to those who want to believe they have achieved that level.



> You can dress up replacing actual roleplaying with die rolling but it doesn't change what it is.  I think it is important to note how you use the terms "playstyle" and "gaming style" when talking about "roleplaying styles" that are either devoid of roleplaying or in the process of having the roleplaying elements stripped away.




Thank you.  It's good to know where you're coming from on this.  So, basically, just so I'm not accused yet again of putting words in anyone's mouth, you're saying that unless you free form social interactions, a person's gaming is " devoid of roleplaying or in the process of having the roleplaying elements stripped away"?  That adding mechanics to social situations constitutes removing roleplaying elements?

Would that be a correct assessment of your point of view?


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Yuppers.  Give me training wheels every day.  I'll leave the "expert GMing" to those who want to believe they have achieved that level.





Removing the roleplaying doesn't make you a better GM, it just makes you a GM of a game with less or no roleplaying.




Hussar said:


> Thank you.  It's good to know where you're coming from on this.  So, basically, just so I'm not accused yet again of putting words in anyone's mouth, you're saying that unless you free form social interactions, a person's gaming is " devoid of roleplaying or in the process of having the roleplaying elements stripped away"?  That adding mechanics to social situations constitutes removing roleplaying elements?
> 
> Would that be a correct assessment of your point of view?





No.  There are two components to the term roleplaying game.  However, mechanics can exist without dice being in front of the eyes of the players.  The interface with the GM, no matter whether there are dice randomizing things behind the scenes or not, are what constitute the roleplaying.  When you substitute dice rolling for that interaction, you strip away some of the roleplaying.  When you completely replace the interaction with dice rolling and no more interface than mere exposition, then the game becomes devoid of roleplaying.


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## molepunch (Feb 6, 2012)

Good points from both camps. I'm torn! I think RP matters and that dice rolling should never suffice for social encounters, but I also think people should be allowed to play a sassy, savvy smooth-talker in the game even if they are not.

It's clear the two camps can't really reconcile, so it's best to set some ground rules for social encounters before you start a campaign, I guess.


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## S'mon (Feb 6, 2012)

On the viewing of dice rolls, I'm actually on Hussar's side here(!)  - I very much like players to see all the dice rolls.  I take it that the dice roll represents how well the PC did at something, and IRL you are aware how well your words came out, how well you swung that sword, etc.  When the in-world results don't appear to match up with the number on the die - you rolled a 1 on diplomacy, yet the king seems persuaded - the player and the PC can rightly be suspicious.

This approach relies on no fudging and playing it straight down the line.  It takes the dice roll as a simulation of what is happening in-world, and this then lets the player Gamistly step-on-up and use that in-world knowledge to their advantage.

To me, that is the perfect interaction of game world, game mechanics, and player skill.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I take it that the dice roll represents how well the PC did at something, and IRL you are aware how well your words came out, how well you swung that sword, etc.





If that were true dating would be a breeze and people would rarely wait expectantly for the results from academic exams and job interviews.


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## S'mon (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> If that were true dating would be a breeze and people would rarely wait expectantly for the results from academic exams and job interviews.




Knowing how well you peformed is not the same as knowing the task DC and everything else about the situation. But personally I've always had a pretty good idea how well I've *performed* in all those situations (albeit my dating experience is rather limited, I've never had the 'I fancy her, did she like me?' experience); if I've been surprised by the *result* it was extraneous factors I didn't know about.  

Eg I recall a history exam, I did worse than expected, but so did everybody else in the class - it seemed that the examiner was not marking us fairly. 

Eg I recall a job interview, I performed well, but did not get the job. The interviewer kindly told me by phone that they had received a poor reference for me.  I think it was an ex-boss who had it in for me - he had been telling me he was giving me a good reference, but secretly stabbing me in the back.  I changed my referees, presumably got decent references, and got the next job I applied for.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Knowing how well you peformed is not the same as knowing the task DC and everything else about the situation. But personally I've always had a pretty good idea how well I've *performed* in all those situations (albeit my dating experience is rather limited, I've never had the 'I fancy her, did she like me?' experience); if I've been surprised by the *result* it was extraneous factors I didn't know about.
> 
> Eg I recall a history exam, I did worse than expected, but so did everybody else in the class - it seemed that the examiner was not marking us fairly.
> 
> Eg I recall a job interview, I performed well, but did not get the job. The interviewer kindly told me by phone that they had received a poor reference for me.  I think it was an ex-boss who had it in for me - he had been telling me he was giving me a good reference, but secretly stabbing me in the back.  I changed my referees, presumably got decent references, and got the next job I applied for.





But do you know that every time you were uncertain about the results it was due to mitigating circumstances and that you were accurately assessing your own abilities with the same precision a player gets from knowing die results?  How would you really know?  (Perhaps you only believe you are as accurate in self-assessment as you think.)  Are all characters guaranteed the same level of certainty no matter their Ability Scores?  A character with a high Wisdom being equally self-aware as one with a low Wisdom?  A character with a low Intelligence being equally able to assess a situation as well as one with a high Intelligence?  These are things a GM can factor into the description of a very successful, moderately successful, precisely successful, moderately failing, or extremely failing die roll that are also off the table when the player knows the die results in social interactions.  I don't believe that there should be as much certainty as knowing the die results brings to the table and further believe that being aware of the die results creates just one more barrier to the immersion that roleplaying games are meant to foster.


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## Li Shenron (Feb 6, 2012)

dagger said:


> I have noticed a trend in all my characters that I don't like to put any points into social skills even for classes that have them as class skills.
> 
> I would prefer to role play and let the DM decide how the NPC reacts rather than leave it up to the dice. Or when I try to bluff, sometimes I do it well, and other times I do it badly. I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll.
> 
> When we play AD&D (I’m the DM) the social skills thing is not an issue, but we play PF at the moment. I have been on a slow trend of being negative towards social skill rolls for a while before even 4e came out though.




The key is in balancing the importance of RP against the importance of the die rolls, depending on the gaming group's preferences.

But if it bothers you even just the existence of social skills, think of this...

There are people who are good at writing songs, and others who are good at singing them. The majority of songs recorded and performed are written by a different person than the singer.

So when you have a social situation in a game, try to see the player as the songwriter (it's him who chooses what to say -> RP) and the character as the singer (it's him who manages how to say it -> die rolls). Best results are achieved when both of them are good at their own job.

Pretending that the player's own charisma should take over the character's charisma (thus also relying on RP instead of die rolls for the "singing" part) is a possible setup if the gaming group agrees on it, but so would be the opposite case where you allow a player to pretend that his character should also know what to say when the player is out of ideas...


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## Balesir (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Try to help me wrap my head around your frustration with one of the traditional aspects of roleplaying games and your desire to jettison it, as well as helping me understand what constitutes roleplaying in your eyes and what roleplaying you wish to include to replace what you wish to eject.  Because, honestly, I'm seeing a number of folks speaking in similar terms over the years but they tend to conflate their terms.  They also tend to want to replace roleplaying aspects with other game aspects (like rolling dice), which is all well and good for the sake of gaming (though not for roleplay gaming) and having fun, but at some point when you've removed much, most, or all of the roleplaying, isn't it just a good idea to not call it a roleplaying game anymore?  Don't get me wrong, I have fun with many styles of gameplay, I just tend to use rules that focus prmarily on the style of gameplay I am interested in exploring at that time.  So, tell me more about this frustration you feel with having a GM be your conduit to an RPG setting versus getting on with it and preferring that the dice be what gives you your information on how to make your next move in the game you're calling a roleplaying game.



I share your frustration with the diffuse notion of what, exactly, "roleplaying" is, but I don't think you have offered any clear definition of it from your point of view, to be honest. This is a very common stumbling block; I have started a new thread here to discuss it. If we can keep it civil, I think it might be useful


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## S'mon (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> But do you know that every time you were uncertain about the results it was due to mitigating circumstances and that you were accurately assessing your own abilities with the same precision a player gets from knowing die results?.




Near enough, yeah.  A player who rolls 48% on a d100 knows they did average-ish or just below, in regard to their typical performance, that's close enough.  They don't necessarily know whether they needed a 45 or a 50 to succeed.


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## Hussar (Feb 6, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> Removing the roleplaying doesn't make you a better GM, it just makes you a GM of a game with less or no roleplaying.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I was thinking about this thread on my break at work and I was going through, in my head, all the games I've played over the past three decades.  I'm not a huge gaming whore, but, I've hopped a few systems.

And, funnily enough, other than AD&D, not a single system that I can think of doesn't have social resolution mechanics.  I played the 007 RPG back in the very early 80's and it had rules for seduction and other interactions based on skills.  GURPS has always had social mechanics.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangenesses (another system we played quite a lot of) has things like Fast Talk skill and whatnot.  Even rules light systems like Star Frontiers had social resolution mechanics.

As far as I can think, only AD&D doesn't.

But, apparently, every single system out there that isn't AD&D is bereft of role play or heading in that direction.  Really?  You want to argue that Vampire The Masquerade is less of a roleplaying focused game than AD&D because VtM has social resolution mechanics?  That's the argument you want to make?

Look, I get that you like freeforming.  I totally respect that.  It's not for me, but, hey, whatever floats your boat.  But, if the metric of a roleplaying game is whether or not it free forms "role play", count me out.  I have zero interest in free forming anymore.  I find it frustrating and boring.  I WANT social interaction mechanics.  I want social interaction mechanics that are as robust and detailed as the combat mechanics.

I want to take the idea that you are only roleplaying if you are freeforming and drop it into a deep dark hole.

But, then again, if I actually did that, I'd be just as guilty as onetruewayism as MarkCMG, so, I guess I can live with people freeforming.  Not to my taste, but, hey, that's groovy.

I have long thought it was utterly mind boggling that a game would have longer rules for determining who goes first in combat than it does social interaction mechanics.  To me, that's ass backward.  If you want the game to be about something, the mechanics should reflect what the game is about.  If your game has no social resolution mechanics, it's not about social interaction.

I can free form role play in Monopoly, but that doesn't make Monopoly a good RPG.  For a game to be able to claim to be about something, it actually has to have some set of rules governing that something.

Otherwise, how do you like the mechanics for starship combat in AD&D?  I think they're freaking fantastic.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, apparently, every single system out there that isn't AD&D is bereft of role play or heading in that direction.  Really?





Many games have less roleplaying than other games?  And a game with no roleplaying at all is not really a roleplaying game?  What did you want me to say that you can next paraphrase incorrectly?  I'm unsure how to post to most suitably allow you to misinterpret me.  Look, if you want the dice to dictate the results of your gaming actions and have more limited facilitator control over the consequences, more power to you.  But the less first person interaction you have, and the more metagame awareness you have of the setting and the consequences of your player character actions, the less you will be roleplaying to explore the virtual environment.  If it gets to the point that you are not interfacing with the game in anything but a third person manner, and all of the actions and consequences are dictated by dice rolls, you might as well be boardgaming or wargaming as there isn't really roleplaying any longer.


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## chaochou (Feb 6, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I was thinking about this thread on my break at work and I was going through, in my head, all the games I've played over the past three decades.  I'm not a huge gaming whore, but, I've hopped a few systems.
> 
> <snip> lot of other stuff...




I've read the posts by [MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION], and to be fair I think there's an element of miscommunication here.

I can't speak for him (and don't play in anything like his style, with hidden dice rolls and all that) but in my reading his point is simply that for something to be roleplaying you have to engage the fiction before the mechanics.

"I roll diplomacy against the Cardinal" doesn't establish anything in the fiction, so I (as GM or another player) have no idea what it means or what's happening in the scene - it could be a grand speech, a lunch invitation, an offer to rid the area of heretics, a compliment on his fetching crimson slippers.... we don't know what I'm doing or what I want.

I don't think it's being suggested that Dogs in the Vineyard, Burning Wheel or V:tM aren't roleplaying games by virtue of their systems. I think it's being argued that 'roleplaying' requires direct input into the fiction in order to activate the mechanics, whatever the system.

I love games with really strong social mechanics, btw, like Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World. But I can see an argument that if I just say "I roll diplomacy against the Cardinal" I'm not (at that moment) roleplaying - irrespective of the system - because I'm trying to engage the mechanics without engaging the gameworld.


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## Janx (Feb 6, 2012)

[MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION]'s singer/songwriter metaphor seems apt.

I'm a bit lost on where Mark and Hussar are going with this though.

Generally, I've always assumed the GM has the right to secretly roll for things where the outcome may not be fully realized by the PC.  Searches, Stealth checks and social skills usually fall into this bucket.

As such, I'm not sure where Hussar thinks the player would get to know if he failed his Diplomacy check by any measure than how the GM portrays his reaction.

On the other side of the street, Mark's definition of roleplaying might be restricted to speaking in character.  Or the quoted dialogue if roleplaying were a book.

I don't think that's quite broad enough.  I'm pretty sure, even in a  novel, there's just as much characterization in the non-quoted stuff.  It may be roleplaying to say:
I snarl back at the king that he won't ever see his daughter again.

No quoted text. Not speaking in character.  Describing one's actions, tone and intent does not require actually saying the words your PC says.


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## Janx (Feb 6, 2012)

[MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION]'s singer/songwriter metaphor seems apt.

I'm a bit lost on where Mark and Hussar are going with this though.

Generally, I've always assumed the GM has the right to secretly roll for things where the outcome may not be fully realized by the PC.  Searches, Stealth checks and social skills usually fall into this bucket.

As such, I'm not sure where Hussar thinks the player would get to know if he failed his Diplomacy check by any measure than how the GM portrays his reaction.

On the other side of the street, Mark's definition of roleplaying might be restricted to speaking in character.  Or the quoted dialogue if roleplaying were a book.

I don't think that's quite broad enough.  I'm pretty sure, even in a  novel, there's just as much characterization in the non-quoted stuff.  It may be roleplaying to say:
I snarl back at the king that he won't ever see his daughter again.

No quoted text. Not speaking in character.  Describing one's actions, tone and intent does not require actually saying the words your PC says.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 6, 2012)

Janx said:


> On the other side of the street, Mark's definition of roleplaying might be restricted to speaking in character.  Or the quoted dialogue if roleplaying were a book.
> 
> I don't think that's quite broad enough.  I'm pretty sure, even in a  novel, there's just as much characterization in the non-quoted stuff.  It may be roleplaying to say:
> I snarl back at the king that he won't ever see his daughter again.
> ...




No definition I've ever given of roleplaying is restricted to dialogue.  Here's one from another thread.  _"From my perspective, roleplaying in tabletop roleplaying games, is the *first person* interaction by one or more players (through their characters), with a virtual setting, its inhabitants, and one another, by means of a facilitator who acts as the sensory conduit for the player characters.  The players detail the actions of their characters with first person narrative and/or dialogue, the facilitator describes the consequences (perhaps introducing additional exposition and elements of conflict), and the process continues in like fashion."_  As I have also said above, third person narrative doesn't rise to the level of roleplaying.  Here's a quick summary of third-person view that explains why this is not an in-character perspective.  As it states -



> In third-person narrative, it is necessary that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character of any kind within the story being told.




While that is a literary definition, it plays well with the concept of roleplaying as it pertains to tabletop roleplaying games.  The two examples you give in the other thread are both first person, one dialogue and the other narrative, and both are examples of roleplaying in a tabletop roleplaying game.


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## Hussar (Feb 6, 2012)

chaochou said:
			
		

> "I roll diplomacy against the Cardinal" doesn't establish anything in the fiction, so I (as GM or another player) have no idea what it means or what's happening in the scene - it could be a grand speech, a lunch invitation, an offer to rid the area of heretics, a compliment on his fetching crimson slippers.... we don't know what I'm doing or what I want.




But, no one, least of all me, is advocating that.  We all agree that that is bad play.  Heck, go back a couple of pages and you'll see me questioning if that actually has come up in play for people or if it's more a hypothetical.  I've certainly never seen it although, I will entertain the notion that others have.

The way I play, the player makes the pitch, the dice get rolled and the resolution determined.  I prefer a mechanical framework for that.  From what MarkCMG has been saying, he prefers a free form method.  That's fine.  I'm not the one claiming that his way isn't really role playing.

However, he has, repeatedly, stated that a mechanical method for resolving social interactions isn't role playing.  That I completely disagree with.  Even in this quote:



> In third-person narrative, it is necessary that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story, but not a character of any kind within the story being told.




basically says that any time you give authorial control to the players, you're no longer role playing.  It's certainly one point of view of roleplaying.  Just not one I ascribe to.  The idea that players must always be in first person to be role playing is something I will not agree with.


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## Eric Tolle (Feb 6, 2012)

So for the people who are advocating systemless roleplaying of social skills, why can't I do the same with other skills? I've been through scouting- why can't I just describe my survival , and tracking instead of getting a social skill? I've learned how to pick locks, so why can't I just describe the process of picking a lock? If I have the skill, why should my character have it?

I just see social skills being subjected to a strange double standard that doesn't apply to other skills, and I think a good part of the reason is the belief that social skills don't really exist.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 6, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Knowing how well you peformed is not the same as knowing the task DC and everything else about the situation. But personally I've always had a pretty good idea how well I've *performed* in all those situations (albeit my dating experience is rather limited, I've never had the 'I fancy her, did she like me?' experience); if I've been surprised by the *result* it was extraneous factors I didn't know about.



I can kind of see where you are coming from, but there are a lot of other examples where rolling behind the screen are more apropos.  

For example a Listen check at a door.  How can you know how well you "performed" if in fact the lurker was totally silent or they had a silence spell?  Do you think, "I did a fine job listening there!", so obviously there's nothing there?  Checks like Listen sorta have to be done hidden.  

Now are you saying that you think ALL rolls should be out front?  For example opposed checks like Bluff vs Sense Motive where the Sense Motive roll was hidden?  I think I missed it if you had an opinion about this situation.


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

Eric Tolle said:


> So for the people who are advocating systemless roleplaying of social skills, why can't I do the same with other skills?



It's simple, really. Social encounters --ie, talking-- is the thing you need to simulate _least_. 

Role-playing games are played by talking.



> I've been through scouting- why can't I just describe my survival , and tracking instead of getting a social skill? I've learned how to pick locks, so why can't I just describe the process of picking a lock?



Isn't OD&D played more-or-less exactly like this? 



> I just see social skills being subjected to a strange double standard that doesn't apply to other skills...



It's not a double standard. It's a question of whether the in-game act requires simulating or not. 

Things like sword-fighting and spell casting _require_ simulating. 

Things like disarming complex mechanical traps/puzzles doesn't outright require simulating; the trap can be described using words and maybe visualization aids, as can the solution process . This is a bit cumbersome using speech, but it can, and has, been done (often). The biggest problem with this is the need for a steady supply of new brain-teasing puzzles to spring on the players. The biggest advantage of this method is the feeling of accomplishment the players get for solving the problem themselves. 

Things like speech, negotiations with NPCs are a special case. They don't _require_ simulating at all. Everyone can just _talk_. And again, if it's the players own words that "win" the social encounter, they greater the feeling of accomplishment. 

This may favor players who are better at talking. Then again, if you handle social encounters/negotiations with some sort of abstract system, then you favor players better with abstract systems/mechanics.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 6, 2012)

I think the reason for the double standard for social skills is that people seem to think that _anyone_ should be able to do it.  And as I've said, I've seen first hand that there are those who can't, either on occasion or as their personal norm.

Lets get away from the baseline social stuff like bluffing guards, seduction of barmaids, or info-gathering on the streets and look at the higher end stuff like diplomacy, etiquette, and courtly behavior.  I'm not exactly uncouth youth, but I occasionally make a faux pas in situations involving societal levels above the station of my birth.  I was born a poor black child (a real one, not like Navin Johnson) and an army brat, but I currently rub elbows with the 1%ers...some of whom game.  What you or I think of as adequately RPing high society level social events, they would consider butchery.

So it's good that, when I game with them, I have that mechanical crutch to use when my knight is before his betters.

So, while I agree that RPing social situations is the preferred method, I firmly believe that social skills are a vital inclusion to a good RPG system, and excluding them would be a *bad idea.*


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think the reason for the double standard for social skills is that people seem to think that anyone should be able to do it.



Don't more gearheaded/systems-oriented people make a similar assumption w/r/t "fixing" social encounters? 

"We'll make the game more fair by replacing in-game conversation with abstract mechanics!"

What if you're a gamer who's not so good with mechanics? (we've all seen, known, and/or been them, right?). What if you _are_ good with words?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 6, 2012)

> "We'll make the game more fair be replacing conversation with an abstract, mechanical system!"




Nobody on this thread has so far advocated *replacing* conversation with an abstract mechanical system, just that the abstract mechanical systems are a good idea to include, so they're available for use if/when they are _needed._


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Nobody on this thread has so far advocated *replacing* conversation with an abstract mechanical system, just that the abstract mechanical systems are a good idea to include, so they're available for use if/when they are _needed._



You're right -- I was exaggerating a wee bit for effect, and I agree that abstract systems for handling social encounters are good to have. I use them myself (when the players ask to roll... my default is usually pure talking). 

But my point remains: abstract social systems aren't inherently more fair, they just privilege different aptitudes. If it's wrong to assume everyone can talk, it's equally wrong to assume everyone can leverage the [mechanics you're using instead of talking] to their advantage.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 6, 2012)

> abstract social systems aren't inherently more fair




...except when they enable persons to do things- in this context, play a charismatic, socially adept character- that are beyond their normal capabilities.



> If it's wrong to assume everyone can talk



It isn't, but it IS wrong to assume that everyone can talk well enough to play Sir  Rakehell the Glib convincingly.

And I firmly believe that a modern RPG should not discourage anyone from playing Sir Rakehell the Glib merely because their personal social abilities are somehow lacking.  A roleplaying game should not be so focused on the acting side that it forgets that the _real_ challenges should be to the PC's abilities, not the players.  The PC is the player's waldo to the campaign world.


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## Janx (Feb 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> ...except when they enable persons to do things- in this context, play a charismatic, socially adept character- that are beyond their normal capabilities.




By Danny's example, I may know how to speak politely and convincingly.  I may even have watched a couple episodes of The Tudors.

But do I REALLY know the proper forms of speech when addressing the king?

Does the GM know if I screwed up and said "Your Majesty" instead of the standard "Your Grace"?

For immersion purposes, it may be sufficient that I spoke eloquently.  But if you want to nitpick, I said it wrong as a player, because I do not actually know the actual social rules that you use when addressing true royalty.

Thats where the skill check transforms my intent into intepretation in the game world.  I roll high, the GM says I said it right and did not offend the king.  I roll low, the GM says that my low-birth and poor upbringing was offensive in my address and that the king will not help us.

Basically, the idea of "if you say it, your PC says it" is incorrect because your PC cannot really be saying it.  He's speaking an alien language and following alien social customs.  We can translate a real world attempt to what happened in the game world, but it's not literal.

Since it's not literal, there is clear justification for resolving it mechanically.


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## Eric Tolle (Feb 6, 2012)

Mallus said:


> It's simple, really. Social encounters --ie, talking-- is the thing you need to simulate _least_.




That's a rather circular assumption- and one in which I haven't seen much direct evidence for.



> Role-playing games are played by talking.



There's an assumption there that all speech is the same, and therefore no skill is involved. The members of Toastmasters would beg to differ.



> Isn't OD&D played more-or-less exactly like this?



The version before or after thieves? And in the latter, would you allow a fighter to be better at opening locks than a thief, our a mage to be better at bending bars based on his ability to describe the action?




> It's not a double standard. It's a question of whether the in-game act requires simulating or not.
> 
> Things like sword-fighting and spell casting _require_ simulating.




Nonsense! I've been to any number of live-action events where sword-fighting has been done. Likewise magic has been performed by people accruing it out. Perhaps you lack martial ability, but that's no excuse-simply play a non-combatant.



> Things like disarming complex mechanical traps/puzzles doesn't outright require simulating; the trap can be described using words and maybe visualization aids, as can the solution process.



So are you saying there should be no skills for such? Or are you proofing that people who spend skill points on those skills can be trumped by people who simply talk a better game?



> Things like speech, negotiations with NPCs are a special case. They don't _require_ simulating at all. Everyone can just _talk_.



So you don't believe things such as oratory, debate, negotiation or social skills are trainable abilities. That explains a lot.



> This may favor players who are better at talking. Then again, if you handle social encounters/negotiations with some sort of abstract system, then you favor players better with abstract systems/mechanics.




If the game has a unified skill system, that player would probably be having problems with the system as a whole. In which case the player can probably ask for help from the referee or other players without disrupting the flow of the game. Do you allow such in a "just talking"?

Which brings up a different problem; just taking is completely left to the whim of the referee as to whether the attempt works. I prefer rules-based backing on social tasks to hoping that the referee liked the pizza I fed him before my attempt.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 6, 2012)

A series of tangentially related thoughts...

I think I come near the middle ground on this issue, but probably favor the "talk it out" crowd more.  

I vastly prefer OD&D's & B/X D&D's one-size-fit-all reaction roll chart to discreet skills.  Trying to intimidate?  Roll on the chart and modify by charisma.  Trying to bluff?  Roll on the chart and modify by charisma.  Etc.   

However, I do require at least a minimum of explanation of what the player wants to have happen.  I'm not looking for one whole heck of a lot of detail beyond "I hit him with my sword" or "I cast whatever spell."

I don't understand why DMs can't separate the content of what a player says from how he says it.  If the player states the wrong content, how is that any different from choosing a less effective spell or combat maneuver?  

If the player is trying to convince the bandits to join the party's side of a battle, shouldn't the DM be able to ask the player what reasons the bandits would do such a thing?  Shouldn't the player at least be able to give a reason or two?  Even if it's, "'Cus if you do we'll give you gold instead of kill you."

I've also never understood why speaking in third person is any different/better/worse than speaking in first.  Personally, I find myself going back and forth throughout a session without much thought.  The important thing is that the information is conveyed.

Going into long dialogues in funny voices and requiring me to do the same is probably the single easiest way to get me to leave the table.

I think the single biggest issue with regard to this subject is that the players first and then the game abandoned Charisma's original function, which was the acquisition and maintenance of allies, with social skills being an unsatisfactory replacement.  In OD&D, Charisma received more ink that any of the other attribute scores.  It quite easily had the most concrete effect on game play.  Heck, STR, INT, and WIS solely gave xp bonuses to certain classes and had no other stated in-game effect.  By the time 2e came out, the relative importance of attributes had been completely inverted and CHA was considered a "dump stat."


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## Janx (Feb 6, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> A series of tangentially related thoughts...




Well said, but can't give you XP at this time

speaking in character and stuff is worth XP in my game.

But the actual resolution of the attempt, I prefer cold hard mechanics.


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

Eric Tolle said:


> That's a rather circular assumption- and one in which I haven't seen much direct evidence for.



Here's some direct evidence...

It is necessary to simulate in-game magic because out-of-game magic _does not exist_. 

It is necessary to simulate in-game melee combat because staging lethal sword fights in your living room is impractical. Also, illegal in most non-failed states.

It is necessary to simulate things like horse riding, iron portcullis-lifting, and armor-crafting, et cetera because D&D is usually played in homes, apartments, and clubs, not in fields, actual dungeons, and forges. 

However, it is not absolutely necessary to simulate speech acts. Those can be performed --safely and at negligible cost-- in the common places D&D is played. 

You should note I was simply being literal in the bit you quoted. 



> There's an assumption there that all speech is the same, and therefore no skill is involved.



That's your assumption, not mine. That's nowhere near what I wrote. 

I certainly never said there is no skill involved in speech -- that's pretty much the opposite of my position. I think speech/in-character negotiations represents as strategic and intellectual a challenge as anything in the game, which is why I'm hesitant to handle it too abstractly. 



> The version before or after thieves?



I was thinking 'before', but either would do. 



> And in the latter, would you allow a fighter to be better at opening locks than a thief...



Locks and traps are an odd case in old-school D&D. They're often presented both as puzzles the _players_ are meant to solve and as more abstract obstacles a specific PC class is meant to solve. 

So my answer is: in certain cases, yes. 



> ... our a mage to be better at bending bars based on his ability to describe the action?



Again it depends. Feat of raw physical strength aren't analogous to puzzles. There's nothing for the players to 'solve'. There's no game there. So no, describing a pure feat of strength is meaningless.

However, any player is free to come up with some smart way of bending the bars, a la McGyver. 



> Nonsense! I've been to any number of live-action events where sword-fighting has been done. Likewise magic has been performed by people accruing it out.



Are you really suggesting LARPers aren't also _simulating_ combat and magic use. If so, tell me where these people meet. I gotta check this out! 



> So are you saying there should be no skills for such?



No. I was merely saying there is no absolute requirement to simulate things like trap-finding/disarming mechanics. This is not the equivalent of saying they shouldn't exist. 



> Or are you proofing that people who spend skill points on those skills can be trumped by people who simply talk a better game?



Note how dismissive 'talk a better game' is. As if players who enjoy solving in-game challenges more directly are kinda like BS artists. Oy...



> So you don't believe things such as oratory, debate, negotiation or social skills are trainable abilities. That explains a lot.



Less reading into, more reading out of, please. 

Yes, communication skills can be learned. I didn't suggest otherwise. 



> If the game has a unified skill system, that player would probably be having problems with the system as a whole.



A reasonable assumption that does nothing to contradict what I wrote. Some people are good with mechanics, some are good a talking pretty, some sly devils are good both! 



> Do you allow such in a "just talking"?



Yes. 



> Which brings up a different problem; just taking is completely left to the whim of the referee as to whether the attempt works.



Yes. Just talking relies on DM adjudication. 



> I prefer rules-based backing on social tasks...



The DM still needs to translate the skill check results into the appropriate NPC behavior, ie, the King won't give the PCs his entire army just because someone rolled a 32 for Diplomacy. 

Which means a great deal of the social encounter is _still_ being decided by the DM. 



> ... to hoping that the referee liked the pizza I fed him before my attempt.



My group likes, trusts, and respects one another. We don't need to rely on bribes (though I wouldn't turn down the occasional bottle of bourbon, if any of my players are reading this...).


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It isn't, but it IS wrong to assume that everyone can talk well enough to play Sir  Rakehell the Glib convincingly.



I wasn't making that assumption. I'd let a tongue-tied player simulate Sir Rakehall interpersonal's skills. 

However, I'd also, hypothetically-speaking, judge my friend Mike on his own formidable verbal skills in the same campaign, and ask Sir Rakehill's player not to get his codpiece in a twist over Mike's PCs CHA score. 



> And I firmly believe that a modern RPG should not discourage anyone from playing Sir Rakehell the Glib merely because their personal social abilities are somehow lacking.



I'm a firm believer in the same thing, Danny. 

But the question remains: how much does in-game success depends on character ability, and how much comes from player ability?

(this is complicated further by the way complex systems make 'character ability' just another kind of player ability ie, skill at chargen)

For social encounters in D&D, I like a mix of both, but I'll use either/or when appropriate.


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## BryonD (Feb 6, 2012)

Mallus said:


> I'd let a tongue-tied player simulate Sir Rakehall interpersonal skills.



So Sir Rakehill DOES have skills and those skills persist whether Sir Rakehill is played by a slick player or a tongue-tied player?


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## Mallus (Feb 6, 2012)

BryonD said:


> So Sir Rakehill DOES have skills and those skills persist whether Sir Rakehill is played by a slick player or a tongue-tied player?



Please rephrase. I don't understand what you're asking.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

catsclaw227 said:


> Now are you saying that you think ALL rolls should be out front?  For example opposed checks like Bluff vs Sense Motive where the Sense Motive roll was hidden?  I think I missed it if you had an opinion about this situation.




I've always done all rolls in the open, yes. I'd normally have PC roll vs a static DC, though.


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## BryonD (Feb 7, 2012)

Mallus said:


> Please rephrase. I don't understand what you're asking.



You said "Sir Rakehall interpersonal skills".  
Thus you were stating that these were skills which were tied to the character and not tied to the player.

You further reinforced this idea by pointedly stating that the character's skills would be preserved even if played by a "tongue-tied" player.


My question is:  Did I understand this correctly?


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## Hussar (Feb 7, 2012)

Mallus said:


> It's simple, really. Social encounters --ie, talking-- is the thing you need to simulate _least_.
> 
> Role-playing games are played by talking.




I disagree with the idea that talking is the thing you need to simulate least.  But move on.



> Isn't OD&D played more-or-less exactly like this?




Yup, and, believe it or not, we've learned a couple of things in the 40 years of game development since.



> It's not a double standard. It's a question of whether the in-game act requires simulating or not.
> 
> Things like sword-fighting and spell casting _require_ simulating.
> 
> Things like disarming complex mechanical traps/puzzles doesn't outright require simulating; the trap can be described using words and maybe visualization aids, as can the solution process . This is a bit cumbersome using speech, but it can, and has, been done (often). The biggest problem with this is the need for a steady supply of new brain-teasing puzzles to spring on the players. The biggest advantage of this method is the feeling of accomplishment the players get for solving the problem themselves.




And, you tangentially hit on the need for social mechanics here.  One, it's cumbersome to try to just "talk it out" every single time.  Two, it becomes a problem to constantly keep it fresh.  And, the big one for me, the advantage here varies very largely from group to group.  While one group enjoys puzzles, the next group finds it intensely boring and watching the game grind to a halt while we pixel bitch our way through the trap du jour is not why we sit at the table.

The same thing can (not necessarily does, but can) apply to social encounters as well.  While talking it out can be great fun, it can also drag and be incredibly boring, particularly if it takes significant time and only engages one player.  Watching someone role play talking it out with the gate guard for half an hour when the session is only three hours long isn't my idea of fun.  And, BEING that guy who talks to the guard for half an hour because I can't find the right phrase to convince the DM to let me pass is also not my idea of fun.



> Things like speech, negotiations with NPCs are a special case. They don't _require_ simulating at all. Everyone can just _talk_. And again, if it's the players own words that "win" the social encounter, they greater the feeling of accomplishment.




Yup.  I will agree with that.  When it works, it's fine.  But, again, that line between a feeling of accomplishment and that feeling of frustration is very, very narrow.



> This may favor players who are better at talking. Then again, if you handle social encounters/negotiations with some sort of abstract system, then you favor players better with abstract systems/mechanics.




We're talking about D&D players.  This is a game with THOUSANDS of pages of rules.  Presuming that a D&D player has a basic grasp of math isn't exactly a stretch.  In fact, I'd say its a safer assumption to think that a D&D gamer has some grasp on mechanical systems.  It's not like social mechanics are all that complicated.  

Heck, again, as I mentioned before, when the rules for initiative are more complicated than the rules for diplomacy, I'm thinking that the advantage isn't all that great.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 7, 2012)

> how much does in-game success depends on character ability, and how much comes from player ability?




I think most should come from the PC.  He is, after all, the one with the stats, powers, skills and so forth; he is the one in the campaign world.  As pointed out, it's probably 99% of his successes based on those powers and physical skills, for obvious reasons.

And while PCs have mental stats, it's OK for a player to sometimes overstep their boundaries because, as we all know, those are far more abstract, subjective, and variable...even in the RW.  My IQ measures just over the qualifying mark for "Genius", but under pressure, _I've forgotten my own name_ and Latin phrases I've known for decades.  I'm a pretty unassuming guy, and only 5'7"' but I stopped a fistfight between two drunks at an open-air rock festival with a dirty look...and some people in an Irish pub thought I was a "legbreaker" hired to help someone collect on a debt.

So while there can variability, and the mental stats are more of an "average" in regards to the PC's reality, the PC stats-NOT the player's actual intelligence, wisdom or charisma- should (like the physical stats) be responsible for the bulk of PCs successes based on those stats.

To do otherwise, IMHO, is to start down the path of making those stats irrelevant.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A roleplaying game should not be so focused on the acting side that it forgets that the _real_ challenges should be to the PC's abilities, not the players.




There is NOTHING WRONG with challenging the players' abilities.  That's what GAMES are about.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Eric Tolle said:


> . I prefer rules-based backing on social tasks to hoping that the referee liked the pizza I fed him before my attempt.




If the DM is influenced by out-of-game events, he's DMing badly.  But that is equally true for whether his monsters target your PC in combat as whether or not your PC succeeds in social interaction.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> In OD&D, Charisma received more ink that any of the other attribute scores.  It quite easily had the most concrete effect on game play.  Heck, STR, INT, and WIS solely gave xp bonuses to certain classes and had no other stated in-game effect.  By the time 2e came out, the relative importance of attributes had been completely inverted and CHA was considered a "dump stat."




In my 1e AD&D Yggsburgh campaign a couple PCs dump-statted Charisma and have really lived to regret it IMO. I'm not sure exactly what they were thinking, given that any city-centred campaign likely involves a lot of PC-NPC interaction, but maybe they were trained by prior GMs ignoring CHA. The Ranger admittedly had a tough road to hoe given all the minimum stat prereqs he had to meet, but for the Cleric to put his 6 in CHA (-10% Reaction adjustment!) I thought was a strange choice.
The rest of the players all put 12s and 13s in CHA, making their PCs reasonably charismatic, and in the case of the 13s getting +5% reaction adjustment. Two of those PCs have had considerable social success.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My IQ measures just over the qualifying mark for "Genius"...




And your modesty knows no bounds!


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## Mark CMG (Feb 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> My IQ measures just over the qualifying mark for "Genius"





Dude, get to a hospital.  That's a thermometer.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> There is NOTHING WRONG with challenging the players' abilities.  That's what GAMES are about.




The interesting thing about challenging te player rather than the character is it can really put the player in his pcs shoes. I find it much more immersive to adress the duke directly and question him abut his brother's murder than simply making a roll for it (even if you rp the results of that roll). Personally i am not opposed to social skills. I use them in my own games. But i find, for me, they usually dampen rp and immersion a bit unless used prudently. 

It is personal preference of course. Try playing an edition without social skills for a few sessions and see how it goes. I dont think everyone will be swayed, but i am sure some folks will be surprised how differently the game runs and feels (in some positive ways). 

In my own campaigns, i have struck a bit of a compromise. Social skill rolls are made when the player isnt roleplaying his character effectively (his character has 18 chr and ranks in diplomacy but the player struggles to speak with npcs), when the player overperforms (he has chr 3 but is acting like bill clinton), etc. So if a player walks up to an npc and ass uf he knows where the duke's brother went last night in 1st person dialogue, i dont usually roll for that. I decide how the npc responds based on what the playerr actualky said and the npcs motives.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> The interesting thing about challenging te player rather than the character is it can really put the player in his pcs shoes. I find it much more immersive to adress the duke directly and question him abut his brother's murder than simply making a roll for it...




Yes, I agree strongly.  It's a big failure in (eg) GNS theory, they completely fail to understand that challenging the player supports immersion (actually they don't seem to value immersion at all AFAICT).  I really don't like games like Heroquest where I'm setting meta-stakes and rolling dice to see how social interaction resolves, and some approaches to D&D Diplomacy etc aren't much better.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> There is NOTHING WRONG with challenging the players' abilities.  That's what GAMES are about.




Given that a PC has no actual intelligence, wisdom or charisma, when you have an in-game challenge to one of those stats (or a skill based on one of them), you are perforce challenging the players abilities.

If the group's polymath is playing a moron who occasionally spouts a bit of knowledge, that's cool.  Everyone I know has some bit of info you'd think they have no business knowing.

However, if that same PC _routinely_ solves the puzzles, the player is not playing within the strictures he set himself when he made Int his PC's dump stat.  He's having his cake and eating it too.

The flip side is equally true- if you have a superintelligent Wizard being played by the dullest knife in the cutlery drawer, he should not have his attempts to use knowledge skills gimped by the fact of his Blutarsky-esque GPA.

So, I reiterate: it should be the PC's (not player) abilities that are the primary (not sole) source of the PC's successes.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> And your modesty knows no bounds!




Tellin' the truth ain't braggin!

I've said it before in RL: had I not had a good night's sleep, I'd have scored much lower.  A few different problems, and I'd have scored lower. Just because of higher stress levels.  Instead, I was well-rested, and they gave me problems I was able to answer with little difficulty.

(And I went to a high school where I wasn't even in my class' top 50% GPA...but was one of the higher SAT scores in which 75% of us were National Merit finalists.)

Lack of sleep cost me a perfect score on my LSATS: they mail you the results with the correct answers and what yours were- the 3 multiple choice answers I missed, I had the correct answers marked as my second choices in the test booklet.   OTOH, I stressed out taking the Texas Bar exam, and had to retake it...more than once.*

I was trying to get into a certain graduate program.  To do so, I had to take a particular test.  They _called_ me to notify me of my admission- they had never seen scores that high.

But in the end, standardized  tests like that are just a snapshot, and I don't put much credence in their overall accuracy.  (They did, however, ensure I haven't had to pay 1/10th of the cost of my education.)












* none of my stress outs were as bad as some of the ones I witnessed, though.  One guy passed out at a table near me, and another started laughing hysterically and turned in his test after 5 minutes.  Which still doesn't compare to some of the stories out of California...


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So, I reiterate: it should be the PC's (not player) abilities that are the primary (not sole) source of the PC's successes.




Therevis nothing wrong with this approach but s'mon's style is also perfectly viable. It sounds like character simiulation is important to you. So i can see why social skills would matter. But S'mon seems to be emphasizing immersion. He wants to feel like he is in the character's shoes. To him it is going to be a better option for the player rather than the characte to be challenged.

I run and play investigative adventures all the time. In those instances unraveling tye mystery by finding leads, chatting with npcs and putting the pieces together is the fun. I would much rather deal with these elements through my characters eyes than make a bunch of rolls.

Also, there are other ways to handle this aside from rolls.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I was trying to get into a certain graduate program.  To do so, I had to take a particular test.  They _called_ me to notify me of my admission- they had never seen scores that high.




Given the AA goals in most US institutions of higher learning, yes I'd think they were quite keen to have you.  
This is horribly OT, but I'm in higher ed and fascinated by this stuff: am I right your experiences in Texas higher education predated the era when they went from Affirmative Action admission to 'top 10% of graduates from every high school' admission for State Universities? The latter seems a lot fairer to me. Maybe PM me if you'd like to discuss it.


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## Thanee (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> There is NOTHING WRONG with challenging the players' abilities.  That's what GAMES are about.




Certainly.

But a player who roleplays a Cha 8 character with zero social skills or other abilities like a silver-tongued smooth-talker is - in my view - not really roleplaying the character, but operating on a metagame level.

While not the same, it is similar in a way to reading the adventure (as a player) and solving all the puzzles because you know how to.


Obviously, there is a disparity here (especially with social abilties) between the portrayal of characters and solving challenges.

Bye
Thanee


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Given the AA goals in most US institutions of higher learning, yes I'd think they were quite keen to have you.
> This is horribly OT, but I'm in higher ed and fascinated by this stuff: am I right your experiences in Texas higher education predated the era when they went from Affirmative Action admission to 'top 10% of graduates from every high school' admission for State Universities? The latter seems a lot fairer to me. Maybe PM me if you'd like to discuss it.




PM sent!


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## Mallus (Feb 7, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I disagree with the idea that talking is the thing you need to simulate least.



You need to simulate speech less than the examples I listed (actual combat to the death, real live magic spell casting, working iron)!



> Yup, and, believe it or not, we've learned a couple of things in the 40 years of game development since.



I'm not going to knock all the clever design work that's been done over last four decades. But newer designs offer new alternatives, not objectively better ones. RPG development isn't analogous to something like, say, computing.   

OD&D/AD&D-style "players solve the puzzles/speak the words themselves" approach works as well today as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, the reliance on a good DM is a drawback. But any approach will have its drawbacks. 



> And, you tangentially hit on the need for social mechanics here.



For the record, I should reiterate I'm all for _having_ social mechanics. I just turn them off when not needed. 



> One, it's cumbersome to try to just "talk it out" every single time.



No it's not. Preferring to "talk things out" does not imply bogging the game down with a lot of inconsequential, boring conversions. You're conflating free-form social encounters with pacing problems. For some reason... 



> While talking it out can be great fun, it can also drag and be incredibly boring, particularly if it takes significant time and only engages one player.



So it's important for a DM to know their group, have a handle on pacing, and, most importantly, have non-boring friends capable of amusing speech. 



> Watching someone role play talking it out with the gate guard for half an hour when the session is only three hours long isn't my idea of fun.



It's not my idea of fun, either. Why do you keep confusing a preference for light-to-no social encounter mechanics with gross pacing issues...



> ....because I can't find the right phrase to convince the DM to let me pass is also not my idea of fun.



... and terrible encounter design? 



> We're talking about D&D players.  This is a game with THOUSANDS of pages of rules.  Presuming that a D&D player has a basic grasp of math isn't exactly a stretch.



Hus, you've never seen a D&D player who's been bad with the rules/mechanics? I've seen quite a few. They aren't exactly unicorn-rare.



> In fact, I'd say its a safer assumption to think that a D&D gamer has some grasp on mechanical systems.



And this neatly sums up the bias that runs through every thread on social mechanics. "Gamers have more logical-mathematical intelligence than linguistic/interpersonal intelligence. We're more Aspie than suave!". 

Despite playing a highly social game that literally cannot be played without some form of (constant) conversation. I could just as easily say --like I already have-- D&D is very social game, played in groups, in a state of constant communication, therefore, D&D players should be pretty good at talking. 



> It's not like social mechanics are all that complicated.



The resolution mechanics themselves aren't complicated. But in games like 3e/Pathfinder, the real challenge/game is in scouring the rules for ways to boost your social skills. This can be somewhat... involved.



S'mon said:


> It's a big failure in (eg) GNS theory, they completely fail to understand that challenging the player supports immersion (actually they don't seem to value immersion at all AFAICT).



Excellent point. Nothing gives me the sense of "being" a PC like speaking their words, or do a lesser extent, solving some kind of puzzle by hand. 



Thanee said:


> But a player who roleplays a Cha 8 character with zero social skills or other abilities like a silver-tongued smooth-talker is - in my view - not really roleplaying the character, but operating on a metagame level.



In a game like AD&D, there's nothing preventing a CHA 8 PC from being a smooth talker. A CHA 8 of grants no reaction bonus or penalty (however the PC can't have many loyal henchmen). How the PC comes across depends entirely on what the player says in character. This is the very heart of soul of role-playing, as far as I'm concerned. Role-playing is what you do in character during live play.


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## S'mon (Feb 7, 2012)

Thanee said:


> But a player who roleplays a Cha 8 character with zero social skills or other abilities like a silver-tongued smooth-talker is - in my view - not really roleplaying the character.




Thinking about it, I completely disagree, I have no trouble with a silver-tongued smooth-talking CHA 8 PC, eg Swiss Tony: 
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtoyLPROLZI]Fast Show - Swiss Toni - YouTube[/ame]

Of course the world - the DM - will treat the CHA 8 PC appropriately, no matter how silver-tongued he might be.


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## Mark CMG (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Of course the world - the DM - will treat the CHA 8 PC appropriately, no matter how silver-tongued he might be.





That's how I run, just as I would have the world treat a tongue-tied player with an 18 Chr PC like platinum.


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## Jon_Dahl (Feb 7, 2012)

I'm ok with rolling social skills, but I feel that the rules of 3.x should give a bit more *plot protection* to important NPCs.

_"I will help you if you help me! I need you to slay this dragon... Hmm, what did you say?"_
(Successful diplomacy roll DC 30. Attitude changed from indifferent to helpful. Therefore the NPC is willing to take risks to help you.)
_"Hey, that's a great idea! You don't need to slay any dragon, I will help you guys! You're my friends after all!"_

The issue here is that I need to make all my NPCs unfriendly or hostile to give them ANY protection from that bard with high diplomacy modifier... Another tactic is that conversations are very brief, only few sentences.
What if you meet a king and roll a great diplomacy roll? The king is willing to take some risks to help you?

Rolling skill checks is ok but 3.x makes my life with social skills extremely hard!


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## Janx (Feb 7, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Thinking about it, I completely disagree, I have no trouble with a silver-tongued smooth-talking CHA 8 PC, eg Swiss Tony:
> Fast Show - Swiss Toni - YouTube
> 
> Of course the world - the DM - will treat the CHA 8 PC appropriately, no matter how silver-tongued he might be.




And that can be handled by consistently applying reaction and social skill checks where that 8 CHA applies.


As a player, this is where I prefer the GM to use the mechanics.  I don't want him making my PC totally suck, because he has an exagerated opinion of how skeevy my PC is when he sees an 8 CHA.

Whereas technically, I should only fail a little more frequently than an average CHA PC (9-10).


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## Janx (Feb 7, 2012)

Jon_Dahl said:


> I'm ok with rolling social skills, but I feel that the rules of 3.x should give a bit more *plot protection* to important NPCs.
> 
> _"I will help you if you help me! I need you to slay this dragon... Hmm, what did you say?"_
> (Successful diplomacy roll DC 30. Attitude changed from indifferent to helpful. Therefore the NPC is willing to take risks to help you.)
> ...




What if you fixed the social skill rules instead, so they weren't so goofy about what they could convince an NPC to do?

Rich Burlew had such an article on his site

Might be worth a gander.


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## Eric Tolle (Feb 8, 2012)

Mallus said:


> Here's some direct evidence...
> 
> It is necessary to simulate in-game magic because out-of-game magic _does not exist_.
> 
> ...


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## S'mon (Feb 8, 2012)

Jon_Dahl said:


> I'm ok with rolling social skills, but I feel that the rules of 3.x should give a bit more *plot protection* to important NPCs.
> 
> _"I will help you if you help me! I need you to slay this dragon... Hmm, what did you say?"_
> (Successful diplomacy roll DC 30. Attitude changed from indifferent to helpful. Therefore the NPC is willing to take risks to help you.)
> ...




That Diplomacy table in 3e is possibly the worst piece of game design I've ever seen (at least 1e's Psionics & Unarmed Combat Rules are so complex you can ignore them before understanding them). I've always ignored that table, and AFAIK 4e has nothing similar.


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## S'mon (Feb 8, 2012)

Janx said:


> And that can be handled by consistently applying reaction and social skill checks where that 8 CHA applies.
> 
> 
> As a player, this is where I prefer the GM to use the mechanics.  I don't want him making my PC totally suck, because he has an exagerated opinion of how skeevy my PC is when he sees an 8 CHA.
> ...




CHA 8 is as much below average as CHA 12 is above average. I treat that 4 point gap as a noticeable difference - in 3e terms the CHA 12 is 'twice as charismatic' - but yes it should not be exaggerated.


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## S'mon (Feb 8, 2012)

Eric Tolle said:


> However unless there are no skills at all, by placing personal interactions in a "no skill" zone you are de facto making speech an unskilled item, where metagaming the referee is more important than the actual attributes of the character.
> 
> More importantly, it relies far more on a metagame between the gm and the player, where the gm has all the power in the negotiation. It's no longer a matter of what the character says, but what the player says. Which I think is an unfair situation if there are abstract rules for other things the character can do.
> 
> ...




I've never been impressed by claims that rules mechanics protect the players from the big bad GM. Here's a secret for you: in a traditional RPG like D&D, the GM is* still* all-powerful, no matter how many mechanics are in play.  The GM sets the target DCs for skill resolution.  The GM decides what monsters are encountered, and what their stats are. A GM can set an unfairly high DC for a Diplomacy check just as easily as he can unfairly decide that your wonderful speech failed without rolling. If you don't trust your GM to arbitrate fairly then your game is going to suck, no matter how many or how few mechanical task resolution systems are in play.

_Rules are not a defense against bad GMing._


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## Mallus (Feb 8, 2012)

Eric Tolle said:


> If you're unable to perform ritual magic ala Bonewitz in the game, then obviously you shouldn't be playing a magic-user.



Isaac Bonewits? Holder of a BA in Magic from Berkeley? I own his gaming supplement!  



> However unless there are no skills at all, by placing personal interactions in a "no skill" zone you are de facto making speech an unskilled item, where metagaming the referee is more important than the actual attributes of the character.



I prefer to call this kind of metagaming with the referee "playing the game".



> More importantly, it relies far more on a metagame between the gm and the player, where the gm has all the power in the negotiation.



Two things:

One: the problem with the term "metagaming" is that it accurately describes what is actually happening when we play RPGs. The negotiation between GM and players *is* the core mechanic, the ur-mechanic, of every traditional RPG (regardless of how and to what extent said negotiations are arbitrated by the formal rule set). 

This kind of "metagaming" is as integral to RPGs as hitting a small ball with a racket is to tennis. 

Two: stating the GM has all the power in the negotiation is demonstrably false, or rather, it makes the erroneous assumption that the rules are the only way to address the power balance between players and GM.

This, obviously, ignores all the _informal_ ways this can be addressed, ie by players and GM building a relationship based on trust/respect, where the players _willingly consent_ to the GM rulings, and the GM, in turn, agrees to not be a prick. 

Even if the GM _does_ stray into prick-hood, the players aren't powerless. They can also call the GM a prick and leave, or, possibly even find other, less drastic ways of negotiating a compromise, like reasonable people. 



> It's no longer a matter of what the character says, but what the player says.



The character is fiction, the player is a real person playing a real game (which kinda resembles fiction, in places). 



> Which I think is an unfair situation if there are abstract rules for other things the character can do.



If it's all about the character, what does the player contribute to the game? If RPG play isn't, at some level, about the player overcoming/solving/beating challenges, then where is the _game_? 



> Unless that's what the stakes have been set up for ahead of time. I can see such a situation occurring on a high stakes negotiation in games such as FATE.



Or Burning Wheel. Or Dogs in the Vineyard. I know there are games with clever stake-setting mechanics. That's one way to handle things... I'm not disputing that. 



> However, that social encounter is being decided based on the capability of the character vs. the NPC moderated by the referee, not based on the capability of the player to directly please the referee.



Not all GM-based rulings in social encounter amounts to players trying to "please the referee". That's just (mildly) inflammatory hoo-ha. It's also a bit of an insult to every referee who puts time and effort into creating good NPC with personalities and motivations for the PCs to converse and negotiate with, who run free-form social encounters that are more than just the PCs dancing, trained monkey-like, for the DMs entertainment. 



> Friendship and trust is irrelevant in this case.



If you think trust is irrelevant in a gaming group, I can see why you have problems with what I've been posting. 



> The example is bringing up the point that systemless social resolution is actually a metagame negotiation between a supplicant player and a all-powerful referee. Such systems are inherently more prone to corruption than rules-based systems.



"Supplicant players"? "All-powerful referee"? "Corruption?" 

Oy vey. Can't you see how using language like this is i) unhelpful, ii) inaccurate, iii) excludes the ample evidence that non-mechanical social encounters work for some people (and have for the duration of the hobby). We can meaningfully discuss pros and cons, but when you start using words like "corruption", you come across like a writer of agitprop (and as for corruption... my friends are I must posses hobbit-grade abilities to resist the corrosive effects of power, because we've born the One Ring of DM Authority for _decades_ without succumbing to it's effect). 

Again, why do you think system is the only, or even the preferred, way, to address power negotiations at the table?


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## billd91 (Feb 8, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> > how much does in-game success depends on character ability, and how much comes from player ability?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think this depends on what counts as in-game success. If you're looking at what you do when the DM adjudicates the attempt, the instant of decision should take the PC's stats into account. Could be a die roll with the stat's mods, could be a fiat decision based on the stat.

But no matter how good a stat is, if the player can't figure out how to use it right, their ability to succeed will be hampered. So while in the micro-level, the stat needs to be important, at the macro level I think the player's ability has (and should have) a huge impact on the PC's in-game success rate.


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## Janx (Feb 8, 2012)

billd91 said:


> But no matter how good a stat is, if the player can't figure out how to use it right, their ability to succeed will be hampered. So while in the micro-level, the stat needs to be important, at the macro level I think the player's ability has (and should have) a huge impact on the PC's in-game success rate.




true.

The player chooses to move 5' to flank his enemy, to rush foolishly through threatened squares and suffer AoOs, to refuse to kneel in the throne room because "his 1st level PC bows to no man", to tell a blatantly obvious lie while trying to bluff the gate guard and so on.

The mechanics still apply to implement the consequences of player choices, be it taking more damage, or having worse DCs to overcome for a skill check.

If a player can make stupid choices at hurt the attempt, the player can also make smart choices that aid it.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 8, 2012)

Thanee said:


> Certainly.
> 
> But a player who roleplays *a Cha 8 character with zero social skills* or other abilities like a silver-tongued smooth-talker is - in my view - not really roleplaying the character, but operating on a metagame level.
> 
> ...




Slight tangent here:

One thing I've noticed in cross-edition discussion is a radically different idea of what a "low" attribute score is and what its significance is.

In older editions, an 8 in an attribute score is slightly below average.  So, in charisma terms, that's not someone with "no social skills."  That's someone who might be a bit awkward from time to time, but generally makes his way through life without too many social disasters.

Sorry.  End tangent.


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## The Shaman (Feb 8, 2012)

Mallus said:


> In a game like AD&D, there's nothing preventing a CHA 8 PC from being a smooth talker. A CHA 8 of grants no reaction bonus or penalty (however the PC can't have many loyal henchmen). How the PC comes across depends entirely on what the player says in character. This is the very heart of soul of role-playing, as far as I'm concerned. Role-playing is what you do in character during live play.





S'mon said:


> I've never been impressed by claims that rules mechanics protect the players from the big bad GM. Here's a secret for you: in a traditional RPG like D&D, the GM is* still* all-powerful, no matter how many mechanics are in play.  The GM sets the target DCs for skill resolution.  The GM decides what monsters are encountered, and what their stats are. A GM can set an unfairly high DC for a Diplomacy check just as easily as he can unfairly decide that your wonderful speech failed without rolling. If you don't trust your GM to arbitrate fairly then your game is going to suck, no matter how many or how few mechanical task resolution systems are in play.
> 
> _Rules are not a defense against bad GMing._





Mallus said:


> Not all GM-based rulings in social encounter amounts to players trying to "please the referee". That's just (mildly) inflammatory hoo-ha. It's also a bit of an insult to every referee who puts time and effort into creating good NPC with personalities and motivations for the PCs to converse and negotiate with, who run free-form social encounters that are more than just the PCs dancing, trained monkey-like, for the DMs entertainment.





Mallus said:


> "Supplicant players"? "All-powerful referee"? "Corruption?"
> 
> Oy vey. Can't you see how using language like this is i) unhelpful, ii) inaccurate, iii) excludes the ample evidence that non-mechanical social encounters work for some people (and have for the duration of the hobby). We can meaningfully discuss pros and cons, but when you start using words like "corruption", you come across like a writer of agitprop (and as for corruption... my friends are I must posses hobbit-grade abilities to resist the corrosive effects of power, because we've born the One Ring of DM Authority for _decades_ without succumbing to it's effect).





billd91 said:


> But no matter how good a stat is, if the player can't figure out how to use it right, their ability to succeed will be hampered. So while in the micro-level, the stat needs to be important, at the macro level I think the player's ability has (and should have) a huge impact on the PC's in-game success rate.



Since I can't improve on any of these, I'll just add, "Worth repeating."


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## pemerton (Feb 8, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I've never been impressed by claims that rules mechanics protect the players from the big bad GM. Here's a secret for you: in a traditional RPG like D&D, the GM is* still* all-powerful, no matter how many mechanics are in play.  The GM sets the target DCs for skill resolution.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> _Rules are not a defense against bad GMing._



However, different systems can give better or worse advice to the GM on how to set those difficulty targets, relative to a particular desired play experience. So while systems can't protect from bad GMing, I think they can help produce better GMing.

The worst sort of system I'm familiar with is something like AD&D 2nd ed, which promises a play experience of heroic fantasy, but provides action resolution mechanics and advice that were designed for Gygaxian "skilled play", and then encourages the GM to fiat/override those mechanics in the interests of "story". So far from protecting from bad GMing, or producing good GMing, this is a recipe for encouraging crap GMing. I also suspect that it is bad experiences with precisely these sorts of systems that makes some RPGers prefer what they perceive as the "safe harbour" of social resolution mechanics.



Mallus said:


> "Supplicant players"? "All-powerful referee"? "Corruption?"
> 
> Oy vey. Can't you see how using language like this is i) unhelpful, ii) inaccurate, iii) excludes the ample evidence that non-mechanical social encounters work for some people (and have for the duration of the hobby).
> 
> ...



If one may comment from the sidelines . . .

In the spinoff "what is roleplaying" thread, a poster gave an example of a recent gaming experience in which (among other things) perception was resolved not by dice rolls, but by the player describing where his/her PC looks, and how intently.

As I said in that thread, this strikes me as obviously being a resolution system, with three steps: (1) the player describes where his/her PC is looking (prefereably in 1st person), and (2) describe how intently his/her PC is looking, then (3) the GM, based on his/her conception of the relevant fictional situation, tells the player what his/her PC sees.

Step (3) means that the GM has a lot of power in this resolution mechanic. The GM is not _all-powerful_, but clearly the GM has more power than a mechanic whereby (for example) a player is able to make a die roll, or play a Fate token, or whatever, and thereby be entitled to be told by the GM what hidden things become visible. Both systems presuppose the GM's authority over backstory, but the "player describes, GM decides" approach also gives the GM significant authority over plot.

If there are power issues at the table, I don't think that system is a particularly good way to resolve them - I'm from the "social contract trumps system" school - but it is possible for a group which does not have trouble with power issues to nevertheless prefer a resolution system which reduces the GM's authority over plot.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 8, 2012)

The pcs find a room with a bed in it.  Under the bed is a gold goblet worth 500 gp that is not visible to the party upon entering the room.

How do I as GM determine whether the pcs find the gold goblet?

Method 1:  One of the players says, "My pc looks under the bed."

Method 2:  One of the players says, "I'm rolling a perception check, do I find anything?" and then rolls a number on a d20 adjusted by whatever applicable bonus.

Why is one method better than the other?  Are they even mutually exclusive?  If you generally use method 2, are you going to tell the player who says his pc looks under the bed that he doesn't find anything without rolling the dice?


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## pemerton (Feb 9, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> The pcs find a room with a bed in it.  Under the bed is a gold goblet worth 500 gp that is not visible to the party upon entering the room.
> 
> How do I as GM determine whether the pcs find the gold goblet?
> 
> ...



Your example has helped me clarify some thoughts I've been having about my own game.

In method 2, what is rolling the perception check _really_ about? - not in the fiction, but in the actual play of the game at the table.

It's the player using a player resource to, in effect, skip over the situation - instead of having to engage the fiction, the player is saying to the GM "I want you to frame a new situation - one in which my PC sees whatever interesting stuff there is to see in this room."

Now I'm not 100% sure whether it is good or bad to have that sort of mechanic in the game - I personally prefer a game in which the GM has strong authority over framing situations, and the player side of things is about engaging them rather than just skipping over them - but my preferences aren't really relevant here.

Rather, I think we (as a D&D-playing community) still have quite a bit of work to do in thinking about what is actually going on in the various techniques of play that we use.


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## Hussar (Feb 9, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> The pcs find a room with a bed in it.  Under the bed is a gold goblet worth 500 gp that is not visible to the party upon entering the room.
> 
> How do I as GM determine whether the pcs find the gold goblet?
> 
> ...




And, in such a simple situation, there really isn't much of a difference.  How about a counter example:

* Three Darkmantles lurk on the ceiling of the room above the door.  If the players do not specifically state that they are looking up, they will not see the Darkmantles and the creatures will gain surprise on the party if they attack.

Now, in a game where you have some sort of "Spot" skill, is this fair or not?  What if the players just say, "We look around"?  

Or, to take your example RogueA, what if I state that Sir Billingsley searches the room.  Do I find the goblet or not?

I've seen people, on this board, seriously state that a three foot long silver rod stuck in a torch holder is hidden from the PC's and wouldn't be found unless the players specifically mentioned looking at the torch bracket.  ((Example is from The Moathouse in Village of Hommlet))  

See, this is why I have such a hard time with free forming.  What one person thinks is perfectly reasonable (I search the room - you find the goblet!) is unreasonble to the next person.  It's not about good or bad DMing, it's about what the DM thinks is reasonable.

So, if I'm playing with a DM where I know that the stuff under the bed will only be found if I state, "I look under the bed", then my playstyle will reflect that.  I'm going to piss about, spending all sorts of time, pixel bitching the room because I know that unless I say the right thing that the DM finds reasonable, I won't find whatever's hidden there.

And the same goes for free form RP'ing.  I don't want to LARP thank you very much.  I've done that, and it's fun, but, not what I'm interested in when I sit down to play D&D.  And that's what happens, IME, when you free form social interactions - you're larping.  Massive amounts of time gets spent in every interaction, simply because the player can never really know if he's exhausted all the options with a given NPC.  So, the player tries, and tries, and tries again.  With a mechanical resolution system, you KNOW if you succeeded or failed and can act appropriately.  It gets the information into the player's hands as quickly and efficiently as possible.  

Can mechanics hamper role play?  Oh sure.  The 3e Diplomacy table has been mentioned and I'd totally agree with that.  The problem with D20 is that it lumps all non-combat into the same system, which doesn't really make a lot of sense.  Climbing a wall is inherently different than talking to someone.  They should use different systems.  But, offloading everything onto the DM and saying, "oh, well, just talk it out" is not better, IMO.  It's lazy game design and winds up causing far more friction at the table than it ever solves.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 9, 2012)

pemerton said:


> However, different systems can give better or worse advice to the GM on how to set those difficulty targets, relative to a particular desired play experience. So while systems can't protect from bad GMing, I think they can help produce better GMing.
> 
> The worst sort of system I'm familiar with is something like AD&D 2nd ed, which promises a play experience of heroic fantasy, but provides action resolution mechanics and advice that were designed for Gygaxian "skilled play", and then encourages the GM to fiat/override those mechanics in the interests of "story". So far from protecting from bad GMing, or producing good GMing, this is a recipe for encouraging crap GMing. I also suspect that it is bad experiences with precisely these sorts of systems that makes some RPGers prefer what they perceive as the "safe harbour" of social resolution mechanics.




I agree that 2E had some bad advice in terms of railroading, but i actually think it is the best version of D&D so far, and found NWPs just inobtrusive enough to satisfy my style of play. Also the setting material was excellent and the modules (if yiu cut away some of the railroading) are great. 

I am the least railroady GM there is but really loved 2E. Though it is famous for bad advice regarding story (and i feel this criticism is 100% accurate), if you look past that one aspect the line actually had a good deal of solid gm advice. The blue boo line alone is a great gming resource. Like material from any perid, they were written with fads and trends as assumptions. Initially the story thing wasnt very apparent, it grew over time as vampire gained popularity. I just ran a 2E campaign and you can see how TSR tries more and more to emulate vampire as the 90s wear on. But the sin here is mostly just bad GM advice. Same thing with vampire. Every game i played of vampire was character driven and free from railroading. Since i didnt gm it myself and only used the book to make characters, i was pretty much unaware of the storytelling angle of the gm advice until years later 

Personally i have not encountered many bad GMs as you descriptive here, and when I have it hasn't bothered me that much. So maybe that is why i never fled for "safe harbor" as you put it I do like the GM to have the traditional powers assigned to him, and i really hate it in games where pcs can take narrative control through mechanics.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 9, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> The pcs find a room with a bed in it.  Under the bed is a gold goblet worth 500 gp that is not visible to the party upon entering the room.
> 
> How do I as GM determine whether the pcs find the gold goblet?
> 
> ...




This captures one of the core issues I run into with many skill checks. It is not that skill checks are bad and free forming them is good. But both have advantages and disadvantages. This exampe you raise actualoy came up in one of my recent campaigns. In the end i decided the pc specifically saying he looks under the bed is more important than what he rolls.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 9, 2012)

> both have advantages and disadvantages.




Exactly- and having both in your arsenal means you're well armed; you can use each when appropriate.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 9, 2012)

Double Post.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 9, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Exactly- and having both in your arsenal means you're well armed; you can use each when appropriate.




I think that is a valid approach but not objectively better than doing one or the other. I generally use social skills, but only very rarely. So i tend to agree they can be handy to have. However i've played games without them and while there is a tradeoff, this can be a fun way to run or play a game.


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## chaochou (Feb 9, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> The pcs find a room with a bed in it.




"Er, I look under the bed"
"It's a mimic, you're dead, try again!"
"I ..."
"You're dead, try again!"
"Check for traps!"
Ding!    



pemerton said:


> It's the player using a player resource to, in effect, skip over the situation - instead of having to engage the fiction, the player is saying to the GM "I want you to frame a new situation - one in which my PC sees whatever interesting stuff there is to see in this room."




Yes! (my xp well is dry, sorry.)

But this got me thinking. There's this kind of context-free situation (You're in a room with a bed in it) and you're asked "What do you do?"

Do I?
* check for traps
* set the bed on fire
* look under the bed
* cut the mattress open
* go to sleep
* close the door and go somewhere else
* make a rope out of the sheets
* search for clues about the occupant
* ask for a perception check

I don't really think any are more or less valid choices for a player, but the answer will offer a glimpse of genre expectations and playstyle.


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## Mallus (Feb 9, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> One thing I've noticed in cross-edition discussion is a radically different idea of what a "low" attribute score is and what its significance is.
> 
> In older editions, an 8 in an attribute score is slightly below average.  So, in charisma terms, that's not someone with "no social skills."  That's someone who might be a bit awkward from time to time, but generally makes his way through life without too many social disasters.



Right. I've come to really appreciate the way AD&D handles this. An 8 in CHA means no modifier, at all, to social reaction rolls, however it also means that PC will only have a small number of loyal hangers-on. That PC is at no disadvantage in the short-term --they can be persuasive, charming, etc.-- but over the long run, the mechanics clearly state they're not really a people-person. 

This strikes me as elegant. It puts the focus where I like it --on what is said at the table, _right now_-- but still makes CHA meaningful (of course, that "meaningfulness" sorta requires henchmen to play an important part of the campaign -- which can be a drawback if they don't).




pemerton said:


> The worst sort of system I'm familiar with is something like AD&D 2nd ed, which promises a play experience of heroic fantasy, but provides action resolution mechanics and advice that were designed for Gygaxian "skilled play", and then encourages the GM to fiat/override those mechanics in the interests of "story".



Slight tangent: there are other ways to make 2e, and even 1e work better in high heroic, epic fantasy mode, without resorting to rampart fudging or railroading, ie high stats, some of the UA options like weapon specialization, an abundance of the right magic items/spells. 

I'd say the bulk of my initial experiences with AD&D & 2e were played like this. I didn't really encounter "purer", High Gygaxian D&D until I started discussing gaming on the Internet! 



> As I said in that thread, this strikes me as obviously being a resolution system, with three steps: (1) the player describes where his/her PC is looking (prefereably in 1st person), and (2) describe how intently his/her PC is looking, then (3) the GM, based on his/her conception of the relevant fictional situation, tells the player what his/her PC sees.



It sure *is* a resolution system. I'd call it an informal system, as opposed to a formal one. 



> Step (3) means that the GM has a lot of power in this resolution mechanic. The GM is not _all-powerful_, but clearly the GM has more power than a mechanic whereby (for example) a player is able to make a die roll, or play a Fate token, or whatever, and thereby be entitled to be told by the GM what hidden things become visible.



Re: spotting in older D&D - there are more steps and a bit more structure, which addresses your issue. Admittedly this wasn't clear to me back in my formative gaming years in the mid-80s. 

Players spend _time_ to search. That's the currency. 

For each unit of time spent to search an area (or part), there's a chance for a monster to wander by and (usually) attempt to eat their PCs. That's the cost. 

All PCs have a low base chance to spot hidden things while searching. Some have passive search skills which reveal (certain) hidden things, like doors, which don't cost time to use.

Players are free to search specific sites in an area, which should speed the process up, reducing the cost in time. DMs are also free to screw up this rather neat mechanic, by forcing players to "pixel bitch" large areas, instead of simply "charging" them time and rolling for a random encounter.

Now I didn't like this much back in the day, mainly because "wandering monsters" offended by then-simulationist sensibilities ("where do they wandering in _from_?!"). However, from a game design perspective, it works quite well, and I've warmed to it in my middle age. 

Of course, the farther you move away from the dungeon crawl paradigm, then less well it works. For investigation scenarios, I'd use another kind of plot-based "timer", or just shift the challenge from finding clues to doing something with them (I _believe_ this is sorta how the GUMSHOE system works).  



> Both systems presuppose the GM's authority over backstory, but the "player describes, GM decides" approach also gives the GM significant authority over plot.



I'd say it's scenario/setting design which gives the GM the most meaningful control over plot. Everything else is just gravy (and hyperbole!). That said, as much as I like "player describes, GM decides" --even in 3e & 4e!-- I'm also uncomfortable with too much GM overdetermination. I freely admit I usually don't know what the most logical, consistent, dramatic, or interesting result of the PCs course of action is. So when I'm in doubt, I make up some percentages on the spot and roll the dice. 

It's fast, it results in me being as surprised by the outcome as the players, and it keeps the focus on live play, as opposed to the way formal systems like 3e's tend to shift the focus to bonus-stacking and/or character building outside of the session. 

edit: another thing, my experience with various kinds of free-form resolution is it frequently defaults to (simple) mechanics; roll under an ability score on a d20, etc.  



> If there are power issues at the table, I don't think that system is a particularly good way to resolve them - I'm from the "social contract trumps system" school - but it is possible for a group which does not have trouble with power issues to nevertheless prefer a resolution system which reduces the GM's authority over plot.



Yes. I agree -- if for no other reason than pure psychology. It's easier to be told "no" by a die roll/abstract rule system than it is to hear the same from another human being.  



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Exactly- and having both in your arsenal means you're well armed; you can use each when appropriate.



I've said that all along, Danny.


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## rogueattorney (Feb 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> And, in such a simple situation, there really isn't much of a difference.  How about a counter example:
> 
> * Three Darkmantles lurk on the ceiling of the room above the door.  If the players do not specifically state that they are looking up, they will not see the Darkmantles and the creatures will gain surprise on the party if they attack.
> 
> ...




I can only speak for how I'd run a game, but if I'm running by B/X or 1e game, I'd roll for surprise on the darkmantles.  I think that's a pretty clear place where the surprise rules apply.  Maybe the monsters would get a bonus.  Regardless, there'd be at least a chance that the pcs spot them even if they don't mention the ceiling.  

But that goes back to what I was saying in my previous post...  There's space in the game for both approaches and certainly situations where one method might be more appropriate than the other or serve the group's game better.

As for the torch bracket...  If they specifically say they're looking at the bracket, they find the silver rod.  If they just generally say they're searching the room for secret doors, traps, or whatever, they have their character's normal chance of finding stuff.  I'll often default to a 1-2 in 6 if nothing's specified in the rules.  If they don't search the room they're not going to find it.

I don't think it's bad to allow DMs to set what they think is reasonable.  But then, I've generally played with reasonable people and don't know why anyone would bother to do otherwise.

I don't think "There's a bed" followed by "I look under the bed" is pixelbitching.  To me, pixelbitching is "Do I find anything under the 5th cobblestone over in the third row of cobblestones?  Ok, do I find anything under the 6th cobblestone over..." etc.  Maybe that's a fine line to others, but the distinction seems pretty clear to me.  

If there's a non-hidden element to the campaign world, I think the players should engage with it -- the bed in my example, the idol with gemstone eyes, the dungeon door, etc.  If there's a hidden element in the campaign world, that's when I go to search/spot/perception checks -- secret doors, traps, the darkmantles in your example.  That's just not anything that's ever seemed particularly complicated to me or that ever needed to be spelled out in any rule book.  

Moving back to social encounters...  I absolutely agree with you about rp'ing every single thing that happens in an rpg.  It drives me batty and I wouldn't want to do it.  I refuse to roleplay buying equipment or flirting with the barwench for example.  

But for more substantive encounters, it comes down to me to what the players want out of an encounter and whether I as a DM think they can get it.  Tell me what you're trying to get the npc to do and what you say to him to get him to do it.  Keep it simple and direct.  No big, flowery speeches or any of that dreck.  That's more likely to annoy me than help you.  

If what you're saying isn't obviously reasonable or unreasonable, I'll roll on the reaction chart, adjust for charisma and whatever other circumstances might exist, and tell you what happens.  If you want to continue to engage the npc from there, we repeat the process.  I don't see why it requires 3e's bluff, sense motive, intimidate, diplomacy, etc. hierarchy of skills to do it reasonably.


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## Mallus (Feb 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> What one person thinks is perfectly reasonable (I search the room - you find the goblet!) is unreasonble to the next person.  It's not about good or bad DMing, it's about what the DM thinks is reasonable.



System doesn't really address this, though. You end up swapping accusations over pixel-bitching for accusations the DM set the Search DC too high, ie swapping one implementation of unreasonableness for another. 



> I don't want to LARP thank you very much.



Me neither! First off, I'd have to sew a costume... 



> And that's what happens, IME, when you free form social interactions - you're larping.



Or you're playing D&D the way people have played it decades. LARPing has a specific meaning. Let's keep it that way, eh? 



> Massive amounts of time gets spent in every interaction, simply because the player can never really know if he's exhausted all the options with a given NPC. So, the player tries, and tries, and tries again.



There is no reason this has to happen. This is a worst-case scenario. 



> With a mechanical resolution system, you KNOW if you succeeded or failed and can act appropriately.  It gets the information into the player's hands as quickly and efficiently as possible.



This, however, is a fair point. Resolving social encounters mechanically can be faster, and it can deliver interesting results. I don't think anyone is debating that.

But what if you're interested in more than the results? What if you're after entertaining in-character conversation? The highlights of many of my gaming sessions are the batsh*t clever things the players say. 

What if you also want the feeling of accomplishment that comes from having the exact words you chose decide the encounter's success?

These are things social resolution mechanics cannot provide, by design, even. Which is why free-form compliments a formal system nicely. 



> It's lazy game design and winds up causing far more friction at the table than it ever solves.



It's not lazy design. It's design with a slightly different goal.


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## Hussar (Feb 10, 2012)

Mallus said:
			
		

> What if you also want the feeling of accomplishment that comes from having the exact words you chose decide the encounter's success?
> 
> These are things social resolution mechanics cannot provide, by design, even. Which is why free-form compliments a formal system nicely.




Why wouldn't you get the same thing from a formal system?  You say exactly the right thing, DM gives you a whacking great bonus to your check, you win.  That sort of thing is built into a good social mechanic.

No one is arguing that a social mechanic should replace all in-character talking.  That would be a bad system and we all agree with that.  And, sure, a free-form system can certainly work.  I just think that a formal system works better.  That just leaving it up to the table has too many negative consequences.

Obviously that's a taste thing though.  Which, again, I think we agree on.


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## pemerton (Feb 10, 2012)

rogueattorney said:


> As for the torch bracket...  If they specifically say they're looking at the bracket, they find the silver rod.  If they just generally say they're searching the room for secret doors, traps, or whatever, they have their character's normal chance of finding stuff.  I'll often default to a 1-2 in 6 if nothing's specified in the rules.  If they don't search the room they're not going to find it.



A 3' long silver rod in a torch bracket (generally placed at or around eye-level, if period movies are to be believed) strikes me as pretty visible. If I walked into a room containing such a thing, I think I would notice it on a better than 1-in-3 chance following ten minutes of hunting around.

Now maybe I'm overestimating it's visbility - and perhaps it's a very tarnished silver rod - but I think part of [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point is that different game participants can have different views as to what is hidden/concealed and what evident.

I don't think it's bad to allow DMs to set what they think is reasonable.  But then, I've generally played with reasonable people and don't know why anyone would bother to do otherwise.



rogueattorney said:


> I don't think "There's a bed" followed by "I look under the bed" is pixelbitching.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If there's a non-hidden element to the campaign world, I think the players should engage with it -- the bed in my example, the idol with gemstone eyes, the dungeon door, etc.



This takes me back to chaochou's post above - what does "engaging with the bed" mean?



chaochou said:


> There's this kind of context-free situation (You're in a room with a bed in it) and you're asked "What do you do?"
> 
> Do I?
> * check for traps
> ...



For any sort of resolution system to work, it may be that the players and the GM have to be on the same page to a signficant extent. Maybe resolution by free-roleplaying puts particular pressure on this aspect of RPGing, but I'm not sure.



rogueattorney said:


> If what you're saying isn't obviously reasonable or unreasonable, I'll roll on the reaction chart, adjust for charisma and whatever other circumstances might exist, and tell you what happens.  If you want to continue to engage the npc from there, we repeat the process.  I don't see why it requires 3e's bluff, sense motive, intimidate, diplomacy, etc. hierarchy of skills to do it reasonably.



Well, there's no deep difference - is there? - between AD&D's social mechanics (with the reaction chart and CHA bonuses) and 3E's social mechanics, except that 3E divides CHA into a number of sub-abilities that have different flavours (Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy).

I quite like a game with those different flavours, because it let's the player express something about the personality and worldview of his/her PC through the flavour(s) that s/he chooses, but I think they're obviously not essential. So on this I think we agree.



Mallus said:


> What if you also want the feeling of accomplishment that comes from having the exact words you chose decide the encounter's success?



I agree with Hussar that a good social resolution system will ensure that this is the case, but not for the same reason. I'm not the biggest fan of "good speech earns big bonus" - I tend to confine it to very modest bonuses. But it will matter in another way. In a good social resolution system, _the exact words you choose_ will shape the consequences of resolution - be they victory one way, or the other, or a compromise of some sort.

(And so as not to be too coy, the sorts of resolution systems I have in mind here are skill challenges and their (rough) analogues in other games eg BW's duels of wits.)


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## billd91 (Feb 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why wouldn't you get the same thing from a formal system?  You say exactly the right thing, DM gives you a whacking great bonus to your check, you win.  That sort of thing is built into a good social mechanic.




That's what I do in 3.5/PF. Of course, if the player did say something particularly awesome, that bonus is "whatever that PC needs to make sure he succeeds on the die roll even if he rolls a 1".


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## Mallus (Feb 12, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why wouldn't you get the same thing from a formal system?  You say exactly the right thing, DM gives you a whacking great bonus to your check, you win.  That sort of thing is built into a good social mechanic.



Oh sure, you could get the same result from a formal system -- but if, during a session, I'm about to hand out a "whacking great bonus" (nice phrase, BTW), I'd probably just forgo the roll. A that point, I don't need the system to determine the result. I've already (mostly) decided (by virtue of assigning the big bonus).

To me, it's like presenting the players with a riddle, listening to them solving the riddle, _then_ making them roll to solve the riddle they've already solved, but with a bonus to the roll (for actually solving the riddle). 

If they've solved it, the question's been answered, move on.



> No one is arguing that a social mechanic should replace all in-character talking.



I know. And I'm not arguing for the removal of social mechanics -- I just prefer to use them selectively, mainly to allow less chatty/extroverted players the chance to play a Casanova (or a Kissinger!)



> Obviously that's a taste thing though.  Which, again, I think we agree on.



Absolutely. 



pemerton said:


> Well, there's no deep difference - is there? - between AD&D's social mechanics (with the reaction chart and CHA bonuses) and 3E's social mechanics, except that 3E divides CHA into a number of sub-abilities that have different flavours (Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy).



AD&D's reaction rolls happen right at the start of an encounter (I think). They set the initial attitude of the NPCs, before the players do anything. So you could say they set the base difficulty.

3e social skill checks occur in response to player speech/action. So they provide explicit pass/fail branching during the encounter. In AD&D, there's no mechanic to decide the believability of a specific statement. 

The other big difference is 3e requires players to sink resources in socially-adept PCs as they level. A CHA 15 AD&D fighter is _always_ charismatic. A CHA 15 3e fighter is _kinda-sorta_ charismatic, but requires careful grooming as they level in order to be capable as both face and fighter (and 3e makes this specific type needlessly difficult to create).  



> I'm not the biggest fan of "good speech earns big bonus" - I tend to confine it to very modest bonuses.



Out of curiosity - why? Doesn't this place more emphasis on a player's character building skills and die rolls than their live play around the table? 



> But it will matter in another way. In a good social resolution system, _the exact words you choose_ will shape the consequences of resolution - be they victory one way, or the other, or a compromise of some sort.



Oh sure... I'm not questioning whether words+(good) system can produce interesting and satisfying results. It's just that I'm after a particular kind of satisfaction; "winning" on the strength of what I (or my players) actually say. 

Sometimes it doesn't matter if their are interesting consequences for solving/not-solving the riddle. What matters, where the fun is, is the act of solving the riddle. 



> (And so as not to be too coy, the sorts of resolution systems I have in mind here are skill challenges and their (rough) analogues in other games eg BW's duels of wits.)



I've *yet* to play Burning Wheel... perhaps this year. The Duel of Wits sounds fascinating, I'd love to see what it produces with my gaming group. Does BW handle satire well?


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## Hussar (Feb 12, 2012)

Oh, hey, Mallus, you don't need to argue very hard to convince me that d20's social mechanics are lacking.  I'd totally agree with that.  The fact that the social mechanics are the same as all the other skill mechanics is a poor fit IMO.  The idea that we should use the same resolution (pass/fail) mechanics for climbing a wall as bluffing the guard is a mistake.

I'd much, much rather see social mechanics get about 30% of the loving that the combat mechanics get.    Parity would be too much.  We don't really need that level of mechanics in social interaction.  But, the current level isn't enough, again IMO.  I want a solid mechanical framework to work with.


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## pemerton (Feb 13, 2012)

Mallus said:


> 3e requires players to sink resources in socially-adept PCs as they level. A CHA 15 AD&D fighter is _always_ charismatic. A CHA 15 3e fighter is _kinda-sorta_ charismatic, but requires careful grooming as they level in order to be capable as both face and fighter (and 3e makes this specific type needlessly difficult to create).



I was thinking of action resolution rather than PC build. I agree that it is hard to recreate the high CHA fighter in 3E (likewise, though to a lesser extent, in 4e - though arguably that's a deliberate design feature, to open up space for the warlord).



Mallus said:


> AD&D's reaction rolls happen right at the start of an encounter (I think). They set the initial attitude of the NPCs, before the players do anything. So you could say they set the base difficulty.
> 
> 3e social skill checks occur in response to player speech/action. So they provide explicit pass/fail branching during the encounter.



It's a while since I've run or played AD&D, but what you say sounds right. Although I think I may have expected the PCs to at least talk for a bit before the reaction result was cemented - how else is the CHA meant to come into play? And other factors that play into reaction/loyalty/morale, like the reasonableness of any offer? (I used to use a version of the system that was published in a mid-80s Dragon - maybe #99 or thereabouts? - that combined the modifiers scattered throught the DMG into one handy set of charts based on a d20 rather than a d%.)



Mallus said:


> Out of curiosity - why? Doesn't this place more emphasis on a player's character building skills and die rolls than their live play around the table?



For the same reason as you give in your reply to Hussar:



Mallus said:


> if, during a session, I'm about to hand out a "whacking great bonus" (nice phrase, BTW), I'd probably just forgo the roll. A that point, I don't need the system to determine the result. I've already (mostly) decided (by virtue of assigning the big bonus).



Agreed. If the play at the table settles the matter, there is no need to roll (say yes or roll the dice).

Conversely, however, if the dice are to be rolled, then the dice should matter, in which case I prefer to keep bonuses modest.

Does this place more emphasis on PC-build? Yes and no. If you build your PC as a Bluff and Intimidate machine, I prefer that such a PC _should_ play differently from a PC who is build as a Diplomat. Such a PC _should_ come acrross as manipulative, insincere and (perhaps) shallow.

The player of such a PC has an incentive, then, to try to affect situations so that (for example) lying, rather than honest conciliation, will be the better strategy (or at least a viable one). Much like the player of an archer has an incentive to try to affect combat situations such that ranged combat is viable.

In both cases, the build shapes the parameters for the exercise of player skill in play. The interesting thing about social builds, however, compared to combat builds, is that they are more likely to lead to the players trying to shape siutuations in different directions, which I think can add to the tension at the table.



Mallus said:


> I'm not questioning whether words+(good) system can produce interesting and satisfying results. It's just that I'm after a particular kind of satisfaction; "winning" on the strength of what I (or my players) actually say.
> 
> Sometimes it doesn't matter if their are interesting consequences for solving/not-solving the riddle. What matters, where the fun is, is the act of solving the riddle.



I'm not quite sure what you see as the analogue, in social encounters, of "solving the riddle" (I assume that we're not, here, talking about "what's the password?" or "what's the polite form of greeting in Nyrond?" encounters).

I use two sorts of die-based action resolution in my 4e game. I use simple checks when a PC says something hoping to trick, or threaten, or calm, or befriend someone, and it is not obvious what the result of that attempt should be (eg will the cultist spill the beans, or is s/he so fanatical that s/he'll take her/his secrets to the grave?). A check against the appropriate DC gives the answer. If, due to some factor such as (i) knowing the personality of the NPC, and/or (ii) the words actually spoken for the PC by the player, the result is obvious, then no die roll is needed. (For this second sort of assessment I will have regard to the PC's skill bonuses - for example, even if a player delivers some words somewhat haltingly, if they're intended as a threat and the PC is trained in Intimidate I will assume that in the gameworld the words have been uttered in a menacing fashion.)

The second sort of resolution system is the skill challenge. The function of skill checks, in this system (at least as I use it) is to trigger the introduction of complications until the challenge comes to an end. If a check succeeds, the complication builds on things going the player's way. If a check fails, the complication builds on things going against the player (perhaps failure of task, but more likely failure of intent - eg you persuade the baron of your sincerity, but he responds in a different way from that which you hoped/expected).

In this sort of system, the words uttered are crucial - they set the context for ensuing complications - and the actual checks work more at the metagame level, pushing the scene one way or another until it reaches its resolution.

I find that using this sort of approach has at least three payoffs for my game. One, it helps make social conflicts fill "space" at the table, in something like the way that combat tends to by default. Two, it produces unexpected outcomes and compromises. Because of the system of structured introduction of complications, the players _have_ to have their PCs keep saying things - and new things - which means that strategies and goals evolve over the course of the resolution (this is a function, in part, of the creation of "space"). Third, it means I don't have any problem of only the party "face-man" speaking. If the complications in a situation mean that (for instance) the dwarven warpriest is going to look like an idiot unless he says something, then he _will_ speak, even if the die roll is likely to fail (and hence produce a players-adverse rather than player-favouring consequence). This third consequence also relates to what I said above, about the players having an incentive to shape situations to suit their builds - suddenly the whole table becomes involved in trying to set up a situation in which the dwarven warpriest can avoid looking like an idiot, and yet not be having to make checks that will fail and drag the whole party down. (A somewhat analogouse dynamic to that of keeping the MU safe in combat.) And when this is taking place, what is said will matter (there's a big difference, for example, between (i) saying that Lord Derrik the warpriest of Moradin is to hoarse too speak, or (ii) saying that Lord Derrik does not deign to speak to his lessers, or (iii) setting up a physical situation in which Derrik only has to speak a couple of lines, and those lines can be fed to him by his handlers).

Obviously, as you and Hussar already noted, this is largely if not completely a matter of taste, but I find I'm getting much better - and, more importantly, better "whole of table" - social dynamics using this sort of system, then I have got in the past out of more free-form style. (There seems to be at least a 3rd style out there, of using die rolls in place of actually engaging the fiction. I have never used such a system, and in my view it is not about action resolution at all - it is about "scene framing" - in effect, the player who, when told that his/her PC meets a stranger, says "I roll Diplomacy" is saying to the GM "I want to reframe this scene from a meeting with a neutral or hostile stranger to a meeting with a friendly or devoted stranger".)



Mallus said:


> I've *yet* to play Burning Wheel... perhaps this year. The Duel of Wits sounds fascinating, I'd love to see what it produces with my gaming group. Does BW handle satire well?



I haven't played Burning Wheel, but hope to in the future. I use the books to guide my 4e GMing - I think both the core BW rulebooks, and the Adventure Burner, are better guides for the 4e GM than most of what WotC has produced. There are at least 4 key ideas that I use: Say yes or roll the dice (although admittedly BW cribs this from Dogs in the Vineyard); Let it Ride; favouring Intent over Task when adjudicating failed checks; and focusing on stakes and compromise when adjudicating social skill challenges.

As to whether BW handles satire, I'm not sure but would say "perhaps, with some drifting". It is written to be played fairly seriously. For a satirical game in which social confilct resolution is at the core, I would check out The Dying Earth.


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## Tymophil (Feb 13, 2012)

Personnaly, I want the character sheet to matter and the gameplay of the player to matter too. Therefore, I came to this solution...

The player plays whatever he wants to play for his character. His actions are not impeded by the numbers on the sheet. If he comes up with a good idea, or a good speech, then this should matter and his character should succeed.

So the player states his action, does his thing. I then ask for a roll, linked to the closest skill/Stat linked to the action/interaction described. It alters slightly the result of this action. If the roll is a fail, then the action still succeeds, but not in a brilliant way. My speech is dry, dull, but the action is still a success. If the the roll is a success then the action succeeds brilliantly, and the group gets a big advantage in terms of the story.

*The intented action is what matters not the roll.* The roll should only tell what kind of success the action gets if the intented action is the right thing to do. If the action is clearly a bad idea then the roll will alter the kind of failure it intails.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 13, 2012)

> The intented action is what matters not the roll.




It looks like skills don't matter in your system.  Forget thinking about point allocation- that only seems to affect your degree of success, not whether you succeed or not.

And what about the flipside?  What happens if the PC is extremely skilled on paper, but says the wrong thing?  It would seem that the reciprocal of your method would mean that his skill doesn't matter except in determining how bad the failure was.

No thank you- I'd rather a system that uses rolls lets the rolls be fully meaningful.  IOW, if I, the player, gaffe my action in a social situation, then the high roll that describes what happens to the character Sir Rakehell the Glib- who is a lifetime courtier with maxed out social skills- should at leas have a chance of it meaning *HE* succeeded where _*I*_ failed.


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## Mostlyjoe (Feb 13, 2012)

One of my biggest gripes is many social mechanics totally divorce themselves from the character themselves. I would dearly enjoy specific bonuses to social situations based on class and background.

Wizards may get a bonus to diplomacy when showing off their knowledgeor Intimidate when displaying hostile magic. Or perhaps a Paladin gets a bonus to making people trust his/her word and in leadership of small/large groups.

A lot of social mechanics seem...overly generic.


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## S'mon (Feb 13, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No thank you- I'd rather a system that uses rolls lets the rolls be fully meaningful.  IOW, if I, the player, gaffe my action in a social situation, then the high roll that describes what happens to the character Sir Rakehell the Glib- who is a lifetime courtier with maxed out social skills- should at leas have a chance of it meaning *HE* succeeded where _*I*_ failed.




Naw.  IRL a high-CHA, high-Diplomacy person can gaffe horribly - and everyone around him still nods and smiles. That's what 'charm' is about.  So, IMC you the player can gaffe badly, and that means your PC gaffed too, which raises the DC, but on a good high Diplomacy roll the NPCs will react accordingly: "Oh that Danny-PC!  The things he says!  Tee hee! What a card!"  

On my approach, it is quite hard to fail, but still possible.  The usual way the player of Sir Rakehell the Glib manages to fail IMCs is by refusing to 'engage the fiction' at all, in which case he doesn't get a Diplomacy check, in which case he fails.

Example #1:
Sir Rakehell to Countess: "Your mother smells foul..."
PC rolls Diplomacy vs DC 25, gets a net 37.
Countess: ""Oh Sir Rakehell!  The things you say!  Tee hee! What a card!" 

Example #2:
Sir Rakehell to Countess: ".... er..."  
Player OOC: "I roll Diplomacy."
GM OOC: "No you don't."
Countess: "What? Out with it, man!"


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## Tymophil (Feb 13, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It looks like skills don't matter in your system.  Forget thinking about point allocation- that only seems to affect your degree of success, not whether you succeed or not.



That's right. I hate to tell someone that his action was very clever and to the point, but failed because of a bad roll...

If the action has little chance of being a right thing to do, then the dice gives me a hint of the outcome of the action. If it succeeds, it does what the player intented his action to do. If it fails, then something happens that is a hint for the player, pointing towards the best action to perform, in my mind, given the situation.

A Dungeon Master is the senses and the intuition of the characters. I give them hints when they fail, rather than when they succeed. When they succeed, the information they recieve is much more than hints. Mots of the time something new HAPPENS.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> And what about the flipside?  What happens if the PC is extremely skilled on paper, but says the wrong thing?  It would seem that the reciprocal of your method would mean that his skill doesn't matter except in determining how bad the failure was.



Let's imagine that the intented action has no chance in succeeding. If the roll is a success, I give the character hints related to the situation, the best that the intented action could give. If it fails, I give hints that are of the very same kind, but with a dull tone...

I am not playing against the players. I want them to play. In order to play, they need information. I beleive that if the players don't come up with good methods/actions, it's mostly MY fault. So, rather than blame them or their dice, I feed them them with enough hints for them to perform better actions for the next turn...



Dannyalcatraz said:


> No thank you- I'd rather a system that uses rolls lets the rolls be fully meaningful.  IOW, if I, the player, gaffe my action in a social situation, then the high roll that describes what happens to the character Sir Rakehell the Glib- who is a lifetime courtier with maxed out social skills- should at leas have a chance of it meaning *HE* succeeded where _*I*_ failed.



What do you mean by _*gaffing *_the action of your character ?

Let's imagine that Sir Rakehell the Glib tries to charm the Queen with a nice speech. I would first ask you what kind of speech Sir Rakehell would do, with a smile. Then, I would ask for a Diplomacy check. If the test is a success, then the Queen is very pleased with Sir Rakehell, and something good happens : he gets what he wanted, and maybe some more. If the roll is a failure (unlikely if social skill score is high), then the Queen is merely amused, and something simply useful happens : he gets what he wanted, and that's all.

Now, let's assume that you play in a very strange way, and state that Sir Rakehell tries to intimidate the Queen. Then, it is quite unlikely that the action will be met with success. If the tests is a success, then the Queen is offended, but one of the member of the court is impressed, and though Sir Rakehell will not be ableto talk to the Queen for a while, the nobleman introduces the rude Sir Rakehell to the etiquette, and gives several hints on how to talk in the proper manner to her Highness (getting some useful information in the process). If he fails, then he gets the irritation of the Queen in full force, and some nobleman taeches in a harsh way the rules of the etiquette (giving many hints on how the court works).

Now if you _gaff_ several times by making inadequate/illogical actions, then maybe my table may not be for you...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 13, 2012)

> Naw. IRL a high-CHA, high-Diplomacy person can gaffe horribly - and everyone around him still nods and smiles. That's what 'charm' is about. So, IMC you the player can gaffe badly, and that means your PC gaffed too, which raises the DC, but on a good high Diplomacy roll the NPCs will react accordingly: "Oh that Danny-PC! The things he says! Tee hee! What a card!"




I realize that even the best at something can fail in that task.  I'd be an idiot if I didn't.

What I'm saying is that in reference to the model that I was responding to, I'd prefer to have the rolls determine succes or failure rather than merely the degree thereof.

Here's the difference:

In his system, if the player's words for Sir Rakehell's attempt at Diplomacy are wrong, his high skill levels and some hot-handed rolling can only determine how badly he fails.  If the player Has the curse of a knotted tongue, Sir Rakehell will be forever failing at his task as the face of the party, and the epithet of "the Glib" will be an ironic jab.  In short, the PC will not function in play the way it is designed.

In contrast, in a system where the PC's skills & roll matters more than the player's words, even if the player gaffes, the PC may still succeed.  Perhaps he realizes as he speaks that his words are being ill-recieved, and with a slight change in tone, posture and words, turns a grave insult into something that is taken as a bit of humor(or some such).  This way, even a player whose tongue has a Gordon knot it it can still play Sir Rakehell as being truly Glib.



> I hate to tell someone that his action was very clever and to the point, but failed because of a bad roll...




And yet that kind of thing happens all the time IRL.  Talented comedians bomb.  Great actors deliver a wooden performance or forget their lines.  Incredible musicians hit sour notes or forget parts of songs _they_ wrote.  Veteran Diplomats say _just_ the wrong thing.  Hall of Fame athletes make game-losing plays.

What doesn't happen is that those individuals make a habit of it.



> Let's imagine that the intented action has no chance in succeeding. If the roll is a success, I give the character hints related to the situation, the best that the intented action could give. If it fails, I give hints that are of the very same kind, but with a dull tone...




This goes back to what I was saying about "pixel bitching."

Some players are simply not going to get the subtle hints- I'm playing with a guy like that right now- so all of your nudging will avail him naught.  Were he to play a charismatic PC, it would always come off as an ass under your system.

In contrast, when the PC's actual attributes & skills matter more than the Player's words, his insulting words instead get passed off as a bit of humor, a historical reference...maybe a preface to something greater.


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## Tymophil (Feb 13, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I realize that even the best at something can fail in that task.  I'd be an idiot if I didn't.



What I am saying is a little different. If the player states the best action for his character, why should he fail on a dice roll ? There are not even fumble in the D&D4 system ! Why bother people with such a Damocles sword ?

I prepared a scene, the character does what is the most logical, the most clever, the wisest. Why should he fail ? Sure, I want his skill bonus to matter and it does. But, utimately, what is a point of failing what should fail, just because a dice roll must be a fail/succeed tool ? It slows the action, makes things more mechanical, impedes the unfolding of the plot. What is the benefit of such an approach ?



Dannyalcatraz said:


> What I'm saying is that in reference to the model that I was responding to, I'd prefer to have the rolls determine succes or failure rather than merely the degree thereof.
> 
> Here's the difference:
> 
> In his system, if the player's words for Sir Rakehell's attempt at Diplomacy are wrong, his high skill levels and some hot-handed rolling can only determine how badly he fails.  If the player Has the curse of a knotted tongue, Sir Rakehell will be forever failing at his task as the face of the party, and the epithet of "the Glib" will be an ironic jab.  In short, the PC will not function in play the way it is designed.



You did not read my message. The player doesn't have to _*perform*_ to succeed. All he has to do is state what his character will do. If he wants to perform, I'm fine with that (as long as he doesn't steal the spotlight for the other players). But all the player has to do is clearly state his character's action, nothing more, nothing less. If the player cannot simply say : "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the Queen." then he may be cursed beyond help...



Dannyalcatraz said:


> In contrast, in a system where the PC's skills & roll matters more than the player's words, even if the player gaffes, the PC may still succeed.  Perhaps he realizes as he speaks that his words are being ill-recieved, and with a slight change in tone, posture and words, turns a grave insult into something that is taken as a bit of humor(or some such).  This way, even a player whose tongue has a Gordon knot it it can still play Sir Rakehell as being truly Glib.



What is the point of such system ? If the player wants to play his character in a certain way, it should play in a certain way. If the player wants his PC to insult, his character should insult. If he wants to palay it as a diplomat, then a diplomat it should be at that moment. 

As a player I would feel insulted if the intent of the actions of my character would be modified by the GM, because of a roll. I would also feel ashamed to play a character in such a way that it would embarass the GM and other players.

If I say : "_Sir Rakehell tries to bluff the Queen into believing that he's an ambassador for Gundia._" I am fully aware that my bluff may be called for. Then a roll is something that is mandatory. Its result is something that can tell success/failure.

If I say : "Sir Rakehell presents his best poem to the Queen.", I would be sad to roll a dice and being replied. The Queen doen't like poems (because you rolled poorly) and you get thrown in jail for your impudence.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> And yet that kind of thing happens all the time IRL.  Talented comedians bomb.  Great actors deliver a wooden performance or forget their lines.  Incredible musicians hit sour notes or forget parts of songs _they_ wrote.  Veteran Diplomats say _just_ the wrong thing.  Hall of Fame athletes make game-losing plays.
> 
> What doesn't happen is that those individuals make a habit of it.



I play a fantasy roleplaying game, such reference don't make sense in such a fiction.

If my character says the right thing, there should be no way in the world that it becomes a bad thing because of a dice...



Dannyalcatraz said:


> This goes back to what I was saying about "pixel bitching."



???



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Some players are simply not going to get the subtle hints- I'm playing with a guy like that right now- so all of your nudging will avail him naught.  Were he to play a charismatic PC, it would always come off as an ass under your system.



Players are what you make them for most part. Once again, the DM is the eyes, the ears, the skin, the taste, the nose, the intuition, the knowledge, the culture of the PC. If the player is not getting subtle hints, then resort to not subtle ones. I want everyone to play around the table, but I surely don't want the system to play on its own...

A charismatic PC should be able to play any way the player wants... That the player should rely on the Charisma of the PC is obvious, and my system (as you call it) doesn't make it impossible, nor even difficult, it's even desirable. The *action* the player intends for his PC is what matters, then the skill kicks in. If the action is the right/best/coolest/brightest/etc. thing to do, then it would a shame to _cut his wings_ but having a dice telling him that his action is a failure.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> In contrast, when the PC's actual attributes & skills matter more than the Player's words, his insulting words instead get passed off as a bit of humor, a historical reference...maybe a preface to something greater.



Once again, if the player meant that his PC insulted, I would consider a shame to have the DM telling him that his character's words are considered funny because he _succeeded_ his skill test ! A successful skill roll should mean that the insult was pretty... insulting !


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 13, 2012)

> If the player states the best action for his character, why should he fail on a dice roll ?



Because even the best in the world sometimes fail at what they are best in the world at.


> There are not even fumble in the D&D4 system ! Why bother people with such a Damocles sword ?




IMHO, that is a flaw with 4Ed.



> You did not read my message. The player doesn't have to perform to succeed. All he has to do is state what his character will do.



Ah, but I DID read your npmessage, and said nothing of performance.

One of my gaming buddies is coarse and brash.  This is his nature, and we like him for it.  Whenever he says something in character, his nature will shine through.  This is why he is a computer programmer and not an actor.

Thus, no matter what he says to the Queen, regardless of the relevant skill, he will say what he says in his own abrasive wording.

It would seem that in your system, this would consistently work against him.



> If I say : "Sir Rakehell presents his best poem to the Queen.", I would be sad to roll a dice and being replied. The Queen doen't like poems (because you rolled poorly) and you get thrown in jail for your impudence.




Sometimes, your best is simply not good enough.  Sometimes, it's your words, other times, it's your delivery.  Sometimes, neither your words nor delivery are up to the task. (You failed your roll outright.)

Sometimes, unbeknownst to you, someone else has simply been better...or poisoned your audience against you.  Maybe the Queen simply doesn't care for "your kind." (There were negative modifiers to your roll you had no knowledge of.)



> I play a fantasy roleplaying game, such reference don't make sense in such a fiction.



Why not?

Are all the jugglers & actors in your world perfect?


> Once again, if the player meant that his PC insulted, I would consider a shame to have the DM telling him that his character's words are considered funny because he succeeded his skill test ! A successful skill roll should mean that the insult was pretty... insulting !




Even the worst insult can be turned into a positive by someone socially skilled and charismatic.  That is the very _essence_ of a Friar's Club Roast, for instance, or why my buddies can call me the N-word (under certain circumstances).


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## Janx (Feb 13, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Even the worst insult can be turned into a positive by someone socially skilled and charismatic.  That is the very _essence_ of a Friar's Club Roast, for instance, or why my buddies can call me the N-word (under certain circumstances).




Exactly.  The GM should always be monitoring for the player's INTENT when determining what happens next.  Because INTENT gives CONTEXT to the actions of his PC.

If Danny's abrasive Nerd friend (I assume that was the N word he meant) is trying to be nice and diplomatic to the queen, hopefully I can detect that intent, despite his coarse statements.

That intent gives context to what he said.  If I realize that he was TRYING to be diplomatic, I can interpret what he said differently than if I thought he was deliberately trying to be rude.  If I don't even attempt to discern his intent and take him literally at what he says, the player may never be able to succeed, unless he takes some serious communication classes for himself.


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## Hussar (Feb 14, 2012)

Tymorphil said:
			
		

> You did not read my message. The player doesn't have to perform to succeed. All he has to do is state what his character will do. If he wants to perform, I'm fine with that (as long as he doesn't steal the spotlight for the other players). But all the player has to do is clearly state his character's action, nothing more, nothing less. If the player cannot simply say : "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the Queen." then he may be cursed beyond help...




How is "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the queen" significantly different from saying, "I use Diplomacy on the Queen"?  After all, it means exactly the same thing, just stated from a slightly different perspective.



> There are not even fumble in the D&D4 system ! Why bother people with such a Damocles sword ?





			
				DannyA said:
			
		

> IMHO, that is a flaw with 4Ed.




I would point out that there have never been fumbles for skills in any version of D&D.  This isn't new to 4e.


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## S'mon (Feb 14, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> One of my gaming buddies is coarse and brash.  This is his nature, and we like him for it.  Whenever he says something in character, his nature will shine through.  This is why he is a computer programmer and not an actor.
> 
> Thus, no matter what he says to the Queen, regardless of the relevant skill, he will say what he says in his own abrasive wording.
> 
> It would seem that in your system, this would consistently work against him.




It certainly would in mine.  He wants to be coarse and brash, he can play a Viking, or a Dwarf.  I had a Norwegian player once, very brash, he made a great Viking. Or if he's apergery he can play an aspergery wizard.

If you want to be a charming courtier, try stretching yourself a smidgin and actually play a charming courtier.  You don't actually have to get it right, a made-for-TV facsimile is fine. But if you stick with your RL-abrasive-computer-programmer persona I am going to very rapidly get sick of pretending you're actually being charming and diplomatic.


----------



## pemerton (Feb 14, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And yet that kind of thing happens all the time IRL.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Some players are simply not going to get the subtle hints- I'm playing with a guy like that right now- so all of your nudging will avail him naught.  Were he to play a charismatic PC, it would always come off as an ass under your system.



Are you giving advice on how others should play, or just pointing out your own preferences?

All sorts of things happen in real life that I'm not interested in replicating in an RPG. That doesn't mean that I resolve social interactions the same way that Tympophil does - I've already explained my methods upthread - but I don't consider the mere fact that "that kind of thing happens all the time IRL" to be an especially important consideration in shaping an action resolution system.



Tymophil said:


> What I am saying is a little different. If the player states the best action for his character, why should he fail on a dice roll ?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I tend to agree with this. That is why I tend to see the die roll as also having a metagame dimension, for regulating the introduction of complications. If your PC says the right thing but fails the die roll, then some unforeseen complication, adverse to your PC, comes into play - eg just as you are reciting your poem to the Queen, a pigeon flies overhead and craps on her shoulder.



Tymophil said:


> If the player wants to play his character in a certain way, it should play in a certain way.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Because D&D has never drawn a very clear distinction between task performed, and intended consequences of that task, it can lead to trouble in this sort of adjudication. If a player has his/her PC deliver an insult, and succeeds on the die roll, then I would assume that the insult has had whatever the intended consequence was - riling a person, intimidating them, amusing the rest of the audience, or whatver else may have been intended. Both Diplomacy and Intimidate (and perhaps also Bluff) could therefore be used to deliver insults, depending on what the intended consequence is.


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## Tymophil (Feb 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How is "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the queen" significantly different from saying, "I use Diplomacy on the Queen"?  After all, it means exactly the same thing, just stated from a slightly different perspective.



The difference is huge : the first is in character somehow (very dry, I must say). The second is not allowed at my table... This is nor roleplay for me, it kills immersion.

The player must state an *action*, then we decide what *skill* is used.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 14, 2012)

> Are you giving advice on how others should play, or just pointing out your own preferences?




My personal preference is that failure should always be an option.  The possibility of failure- even catastrophic failure- makes for a more interesting game.



> I would point out that there have never been fumbles for skills in any version of D&D. This isn't new to 4e.




In the strictest sense, this is 100% correct.  It is, however, something that many of my DMs have somewhat HRed- when it comes to results, a truly bad skill roll _can_- but does not necessarily- have extremely bad results.  A 1 is just as bad in Diplomacy or Climbing as it is in initiative or attacks.


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## Tymophil (Feb 14, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> One of my gaming buddies is coarse and brash.  This is his nature, and we like him for it.  Whenever he says something in character, his nature will shine through.  This is why he is a computer programmer and not an actor.
> 
> Thus, no matter what he says to the Queen, regardless of the relevant skill, he will say what he says in his own abrasive wording.
> 
> It would seem that in your system, this would consistently work against him.



I don't get it. Are you saying thet your gaming pal is unable to simply state : "_Sir Rakehell tries to charm the Queen with a speech._"

What would this player actually say in the circumstance ?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 14, 2012)

> "Sir Rakehell tries to charm the Queen with a speech."




That may be how he starts, but that won't be where he ends.  Actual verbiage may or may not be Grandma Approved.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 14, 2012)

> But if you stick with your RL-abrasive-computer-programmer persona I am going to very rapidly get sick of pretending you're actually being charming and diplomatic.




I hear what you're saying.

This guy has probably had several DMs like that over the years- I've only seen him play a "Face" once in the past 14 years and it was only his rolling that made the situation anything but laughable.

But I'd still rather play a game and sit at a table that let him play a "Face", regardless of his RW personality, as opposed to one where he was effectively bard (get it? . I _slay_ me!) from doing so because he's generally an ass (though a good natured one).*













* if he ever gets a White House invite- improbable though that is- I expect him to do something like John Riggins did...


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## Tymophil (Feb 14, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That may be how he starts, but that won't be where he ends.  Actual verbiage may or may not be Grandma Approved.



I have to say that I would not play with such guy for long... Basing a rolepay system on such players is not a course that I would follow.


----------



## Barroll (Feb 14, 2012)

Now I have to decide If I wish to hybrid these in my group or, completely disregard them... Hrmmm.


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## S'mon (Feb 14, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I hear what you're saying.
> 
> This guy has probably had several DMs like that over the years- I've only seen him play a "Face" once in the past 14 years and it was only his rolling that made the situation anything but laughable.
> 
> But I'd still rather play a game and sit at a table that let him play a "Face", regardless of his RW personality, as opposed to one where he was effectively bard (get it? . I _slay_ me!) from doing so because he's generally an ass (though a good natured one).*




If it's not a problem for you or anyone at your table, completely fine of course.  I guess those other DMs felt more like me.


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## Janx (Feb 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How is "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the queen" significantly different from saying, "I use Diplomacy on the Queen"?  After all, it means exactly the same thing, just stated from a slightly different perspective.




I see a difference.  It's the key words of "to be sweet" which shows his intent and approach.

"I use Diplomacy" barely tells me anything.

Bear in mind, I'm shifting to Rich Burlew's version, wherein Diplomacy is really a Persuasion check.  At which point, the PC trying to persuade the queen to like him.

I see a couple telling things from Danny's example.  His friend is socially uncouth.  Either GMs discouraged him from playing Social PCs or he naturally selected to NOT play a social PC.  Somebody who is socially uncouth tends to not value social skills.  Therefore they would be inclined to think a social PC sucks.  The actuallity probably lies in the middle.

As to fumbles and failures for skills, I don't think they have to be critical or catastrophic.  Highly skilled people have simple failures too.  They just happen much less frequently.  And considering the soft skills like Diplomacy, it can be for a simple reason of "the queen does not like you for some reason"  It doesn't have to be some extreme failure.


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## Hussar (Feb 14, 2012)

Tymophil said:


> The difference is huge : the first is in character somehow (very dry, I must say). The second is not allowed at my table... This is nor roleplay for me, it kills immersion.
> 
> The player must state an *action*, then we decide what *skill* is used.




But, what if Diplomacy actually _is_ is best ability?

I guess I just don't worry overmuch about this level of hair splitting.  Granted, when we play, usually checks come out after some role play has been going on, so, it's not something I've ever seen that the player will start with "I diplomatize the queen".  

But, I'm honestly not drawing a whole lot of distinction here.  Whether his actions are couched in game language or not, it's pretty clear what the intent is, so, I roll with that.


----------



## billd91 (Feb 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How is "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be sweet to the queen" significantly different from saying, "I use Diplomacy on the Queen"?  After all, it means exactly the same thing, just stated from a slightly different perspective.




Perspective and attitude make a *huge* difference for the atmosphere at the table. It's like the difference between your teenage daughter saying "Sure thing, Dad" and "Yeah, whatever" when you tell her to get off the computer and empty the dishwasher. They're both in the affirmative, but you come away with a very different impression.


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## Tymophil (Feb 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, what if Diplomacy actually _is_ is best ability?



I prefer the player to state what *action* his character does, then we decide what *skill* is used. I don't care what are his best abilities. I cannot build a story, nor can the player, around a skill bonus on a character sheet. We both need _actions_ to have the ball rolled, so do the other players around the table. Around my table anyway...



Hussar said:


> I guess I just don't worry overmuch about this level of hair splitting.  Granted, when we play, usually checks come out after some role play has been going on, so, it's not something I've ever seen that the player will start with "I diplomatize the queen".



So we agree, the skill test is the result of an action, or a series of actions. It is not even always required. I tend to use it quite often, in order for the player to get the feeling that his character sheet matters. It may seems contradictory with my other posts, but it isn't in my mind.

But, anyway, if the players chose the best course of action, there is no way that this will result in a disaster, even a failure, whatever the roll says.

If he chose an obviously inadequate action, the roll will help me decide what kind of information I have to give him to make a clearer picture of the situation (it also buys me precious time to think). I no longer waste my time with players that don't give a damn. So I assume that if the player chose a strange course of action, it's because he could not draw an accurate picture of the scene. Therefore, it is my fault, and my task is to make the picture clearer.

My tone is quite important. When the roll is a failure, I may even give more information than when it's a success, but a use a less cheery tone, and mots of the time, the information points at the less brillant part of the intervention.
When the roll is a success, my tone is more intertaining.


----------



## Janx (Feb 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> But, what if Diplomacy actually _is_ is best ability?
> 
> I guess I just don't worry overmuch about this level of hair splitting.  Granted, when we play, usually checks come out after some role play has been going on, so, it's not something I've ever seen that the player will start with "I diplomatize the queen".
> 
> But, I'm honestly not drawing a whole lot of distinction here.  Whether his actions are couched in game language or not, it's pretty clear what the intent is, so, I roll with that.




I think none of us want to hear "I diplomatize the queen" or similar non-specific usage of skills.  "I bluff the guard" is also lack-luster and non-specific.

I think the cue is, the statement is non-specific.  "I Climb the Wall" uses the name of the skill, but it addresses the target of the skill and it's generally accepted what it means, including using handholds, the nearby trellis, etc.  There is no nuance to it needed.

"I bluff the guard" or "I diplomatize the queen" tells me very little.  I can guess that you intend to lie to the guard, but I have no idea of your approach or even objective.  As a GM, what exactly am I supposed to tell you is the outcome, if I don't know what the intent was?

I think it is pretty fair that a player action regarding a skill needs to include the approach and goal/intent.  "I bluff the guard to let me through by telling him I'm a messenger with an important letter from the Duke for the Duchess"

Whether your group requires speaking in character instead, they all should probably hold to that minimal standard.  Or as GM, you should prompt for such info if hit with a "I bluff the guard" command.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 14, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Or if he's apergery he can play an aspergery wizard.



I know you didn't mean anything offensive about this, but it did come across as a little callous, or someone who doesn't know Aspergers.   It's an autism spectrum disorder, and if you have a child or family member with it, it can be a challenge.  We are concerned my daughter has it...

How do you think an "aspergery wizard" should act?


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## S'mon (Feb 14, 2012)

catsclaw227 said:


> I know you didn't mean anything offensive about this, but it did come across as a little callous, or someone who doesn't know Aspergers.   It's an autism spectrum disorder, and if you have a child or family member with it, it can be a challenge.  We are concerned my daughter has it...
> 
> How do you think an "aspergery wizard" should act?




I better not say!

Edit: I've known a lot of smart techie and academic types who seem a bit (or more than a bit) aspergery, hence my associating it with the Wizard archetype. I don't think I have it, though I do seem to put my foot in my mouth pretty often!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 15, 2012)

> I don't think I have it, though I do seem to put my foot in my mouth pretty often!




So...what is your favorite flavor shoe insert?


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## Rogue Agent (Feb 16, 2012)

Janx said:


> I think the cue is, the statement is non-specific.  "I Climb the Wall" uses the name of the skill, but it addresses the target of the skill and it's generally accepted what it means, including using handholds, the nearby trellis, etc.  There is no nuance to it needed.




And even then, it only works because there's an accepted default method of "climbing bare-handed" and an assumed goal of "get to the top". If you want to do something other than that default (use a rope or pitons, for example), then you're going to have to go into more detail with the Climb skill, too.

Bluff, Diplomacy, and similar skills, OTOH, don't have defaults like that. As you say, you can _almost_ guess what "bluff the guard" means, but not really.



Hussar said:


> How is "Sir Rakehell uses his best abilities to be  sweet to the queen" significantly different from saying, "I use  Diplomacy on the Queen"?  After all, it means exactly the same thing,  just stated from a slightly different perspective.




Actually, no. It doesn't mean the same thing. There are lots of ways in which you can diplomatically achieve a particular outcome; "being sweet", while still being fairly general, is still relatively specific about the approach being used.

Now, I do think there is a degree of personal preference in terms of _how specific_ you have to be about your desired goal and the method you're using to achieve it. For some people, Tymophil's example may still be too non-specific. (And I'm assuming here that it's being accompanied by some specific goal.)


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## Hussar (Feb 16, 2012)

Well, I would presume that any player using a skill in D&D to be familiar with what a skill actually does.  Diplomacy, for example, only changes how someone views you - it changes the target's attitude, nothing more.  So, to me, "I be sweet to someone" and "I use Diplomacy on someone" is pretty much synonymous.  In both cases, you want someone to like you better.  

I dunno.  It's so situational as well.  I'm not going to ask someone to tell me exactly how they climb a wall, nor do they have to detail the steps needed to craft a sword.  So, why am I bothering, if it really doesn't affect the outcome, forcing the player to detail the steps in making someone like his PC better?

Then again, I think this is a huge, glaring deficiency in the D20 skill mechanic.  I've been saying all the way along that I don't like the fact that Diplomacy and Climb use exactly the same mechanics, because, as you say Rogue Agent, they really are two different things.


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## billd91 (Feb 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Well, I would presume that any player using a skill in D&D to be familiar with what a skill actually does.  Diplomacy, for example, only changes how someone views you - it changes the target's attitude, nothing more.  So, to me, "I be sweet to someone" and "I use Diplomacy on someone" is pretty much synonymous.  In both cases, you want someone to like you better.




Definitely not synonymous. Sometimes diplomacy would work better with a boisterous approach. Sometimes humble and polite. Sometimes charming and affable. Sometimes direct and stern. And sometimes, but not always, sweet.



Hussar said:


> I dunno.  It's so situational as well.  I'm not going to ask someone to tell me exactly how they climb a wall, nor do they have to detail the steps needed to craft a sword.  So, why am I bothering, if it really doesn't affect the outcome, forcing the player to detail the steps in making someone like his PC better?




But it does affect the outcome. And, like I've said, it also affects the atmosphere at the table.


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## Hussar (Feb 16, 2012)

I would point out that synonymous does not have to be 100% the same all of the time.  Being diplomatic is synonymous with being sweet.  That being diplomatic is also synonymous with other approaches doesn't change that.

Since we're being all pedantic and all.

As far as atmosphere at the table goes, meh.  If the player is so disengaged that the sum total is, "I make nice with the lady", then I'm not seeing a huge difference here.  The outcome is identical - roll the dice and find the end attitude.  Move on.

Now, for those who want to go deeper, then why on earth would you want to use the D20 social mechanics?  They're just so poor.  Either do it right, or you might as well free form it.  Otherwise, "I say nice things to the lady, Diplomacy 24" is good enough.  It keeps the game moving, and we can get back to the stuff that obviously does interest the player, because this interaction obviously doesn't.

I've never, ever been a big fan of trying to "force" people to role play.


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## Tymophil (Feb 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> As far as atmosphere at the table goes, meh.  If the player is so disengaged that the sum total is, "I make nice with the lady", then I'm not seeing a huge difference here.  The outcome is identical - roll the dice and find the end attitude.  Move on.



The roll doesn't have to be _Diplomacy_ 100% of the time. It can be _Bluff_, if the PC hates the Queen. If the PC describes a more complex action, it can even be an _Insight_ roll.

If the GM works from an action, he can link the used skill to roleplay, background, etc. If the player is so dry that he only states the skill used, all this aspect is killed.

The *action* is what that matters, and this can give a larger choice of *skills*.


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## Voadam (Feb 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why wouldn't you get the same thing from a formal system?  You say exactly the right thing, DM gives you a whacking great bonus to your check, you win.  That sort of thing is built into a good social mechanic.




Isn't this exactly what many people argue is a bad thing? Having a low charisma character with no character build resources spent on social abilities succeeding at social goals because the player says the right things? They want the no social build character to generally fail at social things and not succeed just because the player is persuasive. Isn't that the reason for rolling and having limited bonuses like a +2 or +4 circumstance bonus that can pale next to the level bonus of a high level social build character.


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## Voadam (Feb 16, 2012)

To address the OP 







dagger said:


> I would prefer to role play and let the DM decide how the NPC reacts rather than leave it up to the dice. Or when I try to bluff, sometimes I do it well, and other times I do it badly. I would just rather the DM play off of how I actually do it in character than rely on my dice roll.
> 
> When we play AD&D (I’m the DM) the social skills thing is not an issue, but we play PF at the moment. I have been on a slow trend of being negative towards social skill rolls for a while before even 4e came out though.




Social mechanics cover a wide array of gaming styles and can be tailored fairly easily to a preferred style.

The different preferences for styles of social mechanics and resolution methods are mostly a taste issue and what will be best for individuals will vary.

Your preference for AD&D style direct roleplaying and DM ad hoc adjudication is a reasonable preference and easily accommodated in Pathfinder.

Use the social skills for their mechanical effects and ditch the social interaction aspects of them.

Bluff is good for feinting.

Sense motive is good for avoiding feints and sensing enchantments.

Intimidate is good for the in combat demoralize ability.

Diplomacy is good for gather information or can be dropped.

There you go.

If you take up pathfinder DMing these are easy to implement house rules. Just explain to the players ahead of time how you will handle social interactions and social mechanics and everybody can allocate their build resources like skill points as they deem appropriate for the game rules you will be using as DM.


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## dagger (Feb 16, 2012)

They are used to AD&D anyway so it will not be a problem, and besides its not like they will DM anything.


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## Rogue Agent (Feb 17, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I would point out that synonymous does not have to be 100% the same all of the time.  Being diplomatic is synonymous with being sweet.  That being diplomatic is also synonymous with other approaches doesn't change that.




As you typically do, Hussar, you are moving the goalposts.

You now appear to be arguing that any technique which should be resolved using the Diplomacy skill can be resolved with the Diplomacy skill. To which the answer is: No , Sherlock. Your circular reasoning is very, very circular.

And, of course, completely besides the point.

There is a functional difference between "I'm sweet on the Queen", "I flirt with the Queen", "I compliment the Queen's shoes", "I bribe the Queen", "I blackmail her chief advisor to say nice things about me", and dozens of other possibilities. Those are all character actions.

Saying "I use my Diplomacy skill on the Queen", on the other hand, isn't a character action. It's a mechanical invocation with nothing to actually resolve.

There are skills and abilities where can get away with that (the Climb skill or an attack roll, for example) because there's an assumed default of what the game world action is. But in the case of Bluff or Survival or Forgery, that's not the case.

And even in the case of the default action, there's usually a need for some specificity. When faced with a dead-end you can't just say, "I use my Climb skill on the corridor." You have to explain what you're attempting to climb in order to overcome the dead-end.



> Diplomacy, for example, only changes how someone views you - it changes the target's attitude, nothing more.



Also: This is (yet another) factual inaccuracy on your part. It's not true in 3E and it's not true in 4E.

EDIT: Also not true in Pathfinder. I checked.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> /snip
> 
> Also: This is (yet another) factual inaccuracy on your part. It's not true in 3E and it's not true in 4E.
> 
> EDIT: Also not true in Pathfinder. I checked.






			
				3.5 SRD said:
			
		

> Check
> 
> You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing NPC Attitudes sidebar, below, for basic DCs. In negotiations, participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve situations when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a third party.




Umm, how am I factually inaccurate?  I don't know Pathfinder, so I cannot comment on that.  But, for 3.5 I'm dead on.  



> There is a functional difference between "I'm sweet on the Queen", "I flirt with the Queen", "I compliment the Queen's shoes", "I bribe the Queen", "I blackmail her chief advisor to say nice things about me", and dozens of other possibilities. Those are all character actions.




Well, the first two are exactly the same - simple diplomacy checks to try to change attitutde, "I bribe the queen" isn't actually resolved by any skill checks directly, although I could see it using Diplomacy as you are still trying to change attitude, and the final example is not covered by any skills in d20 - you'd have to do a lot more steps.

Sure, they're all character actions.  And, to be fair, I'd prefer them to "I use diplomacy on the queen".  Then again, no one is arguing in favor of that.  My point is, "I compliment the queen's shoes" or "I'm nice to the queen" and "I want the queen to like me better, Diplomacy 23" isn't really all that different at the table.

This is a level of hair splitting that I don't think resolves anything.


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## BryonD (Feb 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Umm, how am I factually inaccurate?  I don't know Pathfinder, so I cannot comment on that.  But, for 3.5 I'm dead on.



So if I say you can cut circles with a pair of scissors that means you can't do anything else?

I find the claim that such a narrow and restrictive reading of RAW so blantantly in conflict with RAI to be counter-productive.


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## LostSoul (Feb 19, 2012)

BryonD said:


> So if I say you can cut circles with a pair of scissors that means you can't do anything else?
> 
> I find the claim that such a narrow and restrictive reading of RAW so blantantly in conflict with RAI to be counter-productive.




Wasn't there a section in the DMG that said you could use skills for tasks not specifically detailed in their entries?  I recall reading that, but I can't find it.  Maybe it was in the 3.0 DMG.


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## Rogue Agent (Feb 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Umm, how am I factually inaccurate?  I don't know Pathfinder, so I cannot comment on that.  But, for 3.5 I'm dead on.




What you said: "Diplomacy, for example, only changes how someone views you - it changes the target's attitude, nothing more."

What you just quoted from the 3.5 SRD: "You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a  successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing NPC Attitudes sidebar,  below, for basic DCs. In negotiations, participants roll opposed  Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains the advantage. Opposed checks  also resolve situations when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite  cases in a hearing before a third party."

I'm not really clear on how you can personally quote the 3.5 SRD listing three different things you can do with Diplomacy and then claim with a perfectly straight face that it says you can ONLY do the first thing on the list and NOTHING MORE.



> My point is, "I compliment the queen's shoes" or "I'm nice to the  queen" and "I want the queen to like me better, Diplomacy 23" isn't  really all that different at the table.




Well, okay. I guess that works for you. 

But a lot of us recognize that human interaction is complex enough that there are more ways to improve someone's attitude towards you than just "acting nice to them in a very vague and non-specific way that has no consequences whatsoever".


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## Water Bob (Feb 19, 2012)

dagger said:


> I would prefer to role play and let the DM decide how the NPC reacts rather than leave it up to the dice.




I use a hybrid style, because I, too, like the AD&D style of game.  But, it is neat for a character to excell in a skill he has put a lot of points into.

Let's take a typical bargaining situation with a merchant.  In AD&D, I'd just play the encounter as my whims take me.  Keeping the session interesting is the name of the game.

With 3E, what I do is roll behind my screen on the PC's skill, not letting the PC see the roll.  I use the outcome of that roll to influence how I role play the situation (making the merchant likeable, or stingy, or easy/hard for the player to get what he wants).  Then, I just role play it out as I would in AD&D.  The only difference being that the dice helped me determine the attitude of the merchant rather than making it up on the spot.

The players never see these rolls, but they know that their Skill Points help them in the long run.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2012)

Tymophil said:


> The difference is huge : the first is in character somehow (very dry, I must say). The second is not allowed at my table... This is nor roleplay for me, it kills immersion.
> 
> The player must state an *action*, then we decide what *skill* is used.





Janx said:


> I think none of us want to hear "I diplomatize the queen" or similar non-specific usage of skills.  "I bluff the guard" is also lack-luster and non-specific.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think it is pretty fair that a player action regarding a skill needs to include the approach and goal/intent.  "I bluff the guard to let me through by telling him I'm a messenger with an important letter from the Duke for the Duchess"



I agree. To borrow terminology from Burning Wheel, _intent_ plus _task_ makes for a skill check. Sometimes elements of these will be implicit from the context ("I greet the Queen with as much charm as I can muster - my Diplomacy roll is 23, including +2 for my successful History check to recall appropriate forms and titles.") Sometimes they will not be, and the player needs to provide them (perhaps with help from the other players and/or the GM, depending on the practice at a particular table).



Hussar said:


> I guess I just don't worry overmuch about this level of hair splitting.





Hussar said:


> So, why am I bothering, if it really doesn't affect the outcome, forcing the player to detail the steps in making someone like his PC better?



But it does affect the outcome. It changes the fiction. If it really doesn't matter _how_ the PC is bringing it about that the Queen is well-disposed (polite greetings, complimenting her shoes, mentioning that he played a minor role in the coup that brought her to power), then why are we bothering with a roll at all? It sounds like nothing is at stake.



Hussar said:


> It keeps the game moving, and we can get back to the stuff that obviously does interest the player, because this interaction obviously doesn't.
> 
> I've never, ever been a big fan of trying to "force" people to role play.



This seems to me to relate to a slightly different but important point. It seems that a lot of D&D players use skill checks not as action resolution mechanics, but as scene framing mechanics - the Perception check is used to oblige the GM to reframe the scene as one in which my PC sees the interesting stuff, and the Diplomacy check is used to oblige the GM to reframe the scene as one in which an obstreborous NPC is no longer an obstacle to the PC's goals. Who will use Perception checks this way? Someone who doesn't like "find the hidden silver bar in the torch sconce" play. Who will use Diplomacy checks this way? Someone who doesn't like "role playing" encounters.

I don't have a strong view on the merits of these sorts of mechanics, although my gut feel is that the GM should be framing scenes the players are interested in in the first place. Mabye the mechanics are important in a play environment in which GMs are using a lot of pre-packaged, untweaked scenarios. Anyway, I agree with you that if Diplomacy is being used in this sort of "reframing" way, then requiring "roleplay" is pointless and self-defeating.

But anyway, I think it would improve these sorts of mechanics if the ruleboosk spoke more frankly about what they are for, and didn't try to pretend that they are about action resolution.



Hussar said:


> Now, for those who want to go deeper, then why on earth would you want to use the D20 social mechanics?  They're just so poor.



My interpretation of your "going deeper" is that it is about wanting to use social skills as a genuine action resolution mechanic, rather than as the sort of "reframing device" that I was talking about just above.



Hussar said:


> Then again, I think this is a huge, glaring deficiency in the D20 skill mechanic.



I think this may be fair of 3E. I don't think it is fair of 4e, which (i) notes that Diplomacy is normally part of a skill challenge, and (ii) in the skill challenge rules requires that the GM frame the situation in fictional terms, and that the player's mechanical engagement with the situation also be framed in fictional terms (with the GM having final veto rights). Page 42, and the "skill variants" mentioned in the Rules Compendium, also pretty clearly require fictional framing in order to invoke a skill.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> My personal preference is that failure should always be an option.  The possibility of failure- even catastrophic failure- makes for a more interesting game.



I've played a game with the possibility of catastrophic failure on every skill check - namely, Rolemaster. I don't dispute that it can produce an interesting game. I don't think that it always does let alone that it tends to produce a _more_ interesting game - sometimes it produces a less interesting, because, frustrating game.

I tend to prefer the possibility of catastrophic failure resulting from poor choices - preferably, poor choices deliberately taken because for some reason the player wouldn't choose otehrwise -  rather than poor rolls. This is another reason why framing skill checks by reference to the fiction matters, I think.


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