The "best" way to run a social skill challenge: you must be this good...
Given the problems with social skill challenges discussed earlier this is the "best" solution I've seen.
It's basically like the sign at amusement park rides that says "You must be this high..."
The DM only lets people roll if their argument is reasonably compelling. Their argument must be "this good" or better before you can roll. ("This good" being a completely arbitrary measure where the DM thinks "is this a reasonable argument, or not?")
It allows people put forth their arguments in advance, and feel as if it's meant something.
It doesn't really reward a great argument but it does weed out the
In fact, for some groups, this will probably work fine. So long as everyone is into arguing and roleplaying it could actually be a fun way to play. People feel like their effort matters, and everyone people who puts forward some sort of effort will be able get a roll.
The arguments that are accepted will all be convincing. And NPCs not accepting a given argument can be chalked up to some sort of personality disagreement.
Problem solved?
The problem, from a game design standpoint, is that this punishes people who aren't into arguing and debating.
When I was younger I'd think that was fine. Those people who didn't like arguing, etc. in character "weren't serious" anyway.
Now I recognize that that's just a style of play. My preferred style has a lot of detail oriented arguing and roleplaying.
But other people are there to roll some dice and have fun. It's not a badwrong thing. It's just a style thing.
From that player's standpoint their character isn't even necessarily saying "Because I said so". The player doesn't act out every sword blow, why should they have to say everything their character says?
A system that punishes somebody's style of gameplay isn't a good one. Some people don't want to argue in character for 45 minutes. And they'd be unfairly penalized for playing in a game using this system.
It's basically like the sign at amusement park rides that says "You must be this high..."
The DM only lets people roll if their argument is reasonably compelling. Their argument must be "this good" or better before you can roll. ("This good" being a completely arbitrary measure where the DM thinks "is this a reasonable argument, or not?")
It allows people put forth their arguments in advance, and feel as if it's meant something.
It doesn't really reward a great argument but it does weed out the
King: Why should I help you?type scenario.
Player: Because I said so!
rolls die.... 20!
King: OK. Sure. That makes sense.
In fact, for some groups, this will probably work fine. So long as everyone is into arguing and roleplaying it could actually be a fun way to play. People feel like their effort matters, and everyone people who puts forward some sort of effort will be able get a roll.
The arguments that are accepted will all be convincing. And NPCs not accepting a given argument can be chalked up to some sort of personality disagreement.
Problem solved?
The problem, from a game design standpoint, is that this punishes people who aren't into arguing and debating.
When I was younger I'd think that was fine. Those people who didn't like arguing, etc. in character "weren't serious" anyway.
Now I recognize that that's just a style of play. My preferred style has a lot of detail oriented arguing and roleplaying.
But other people are there to roll some dice and have fun. It's not a badwrong thing. It's just a style thing.
From that player's standpoint their character isn't even necessarily saying "Because I said so". The player doesn't act out every sword blow, why should they have to say everything their character says?
A system that punishes somebody's style of gameplay isn't a good one. Some people don't want to argue in character for 45 minutes. And they'd be unfairly penalized for playing in a game using this system.
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Comments
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Have you considered the possibilities of an either/or system? Meaning, the player decides whether to roll the dice, or role-play to the hilt and have the DM decide on a subjective basis whether the PC would have earned a success or a failure. This does skew the success of social skill challenges more in favor of players who are very persuasive in real life, but to limit the effectiveness of this (and to ensure that less persuasive players aren't completely sidelined), you could set a limit on the number of successes that can be earned in this manner. Anywhere from one-quarter to half of the successes needed to beat the challenge might work.Posted 8th July 2008 at 09:59 AM by FireLance
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I hadn't considered it.
I see your point. I'm having trouble thinking about whether it'd correct the situation per se.
I guess I have trouble getting past the idea that granting "automatic successes for RPing" would just change the math.
So instead of being 4 successes vs 2 failures you only need 2 successes vs 2 failures. It makes it easier, but you're still grappling with the same system.Posted 9th July 2008 at 04:19 AM by Graf - On firelance's suggestion, good idea. Real world skills always give an advantage over just rolling dice
persuasive-boy has advantage over rude-boy in social situations. Tactical-boy always has an advantage over combat-is-hard-boy. Why? Because the person with the skills will employ them, even in a game.
Rude-boy could argue that "it's not fair that social boy always wins arguements", but that's as logical as a why tactical-boy always does better in D&D combat. He's not really swinging a sword, but neither is chess, yet some people are better at it.
Now on a slightly different angle, tangent to graf's original problem. In our game, to avoid the random result of the "worst skilled guy rolled high and beat everyone else" effect for listen checks and such, we roll once, and each player uses the same result, adding their modifier. This means the lowest score guy is the last to hear a noise.
Once again, it's a different resolution system, dependant on the situation and skill involved.Posted 9th July 2008 at 03:27 PM by Janx - I've often been enamored of the idea of rolling once for perception.
With 5 people rolling it's likely you'll see a 15 or better (IIRC, don't have my probability tables in front of me).
It's not really supported in any games I'm familiar with though... certainly not any iteration of DnD.
This is also the problem with the "stealth infiltration". Have enough guards around and somebody will roll at 20. The PC has to completely dominate to have a reasonable chance of actually doing Thief (the computer game) style activities.Posted 15th July 2008 at 08:45 AM by Graf - perhaps a way to consider a group of guards on patrol is to assume they are all assisting the best skilled guard.
Thus, 5 guards isn't 5 rolls, it's 1 roll with 4 helpers giving bonuses.Posted 15th July 2008 at 03:13 PM by Janx - ---Posted 15th July 2008 at 03:42 PM by Janx
Updated 15th July 2008 at 03:46 PM by Janx (double-post from network glitch) - That's a good idea.
A very good idea even.Posted 16th July 2008 at 08:42 AM by Graf -
skill assisting is mechanically necessary in 4e to win hard challenges. But I feel that a good way to solve this problem is to let the player roll, and roleplay the way he prefers. Then, you assign a +2 (or more) bonus or penalty to his roll based on his "performance". If a player gives a stunning speech he deservers a +2 to his diplomacy roll.Even if a character has +20 ranks i don't mind to give a -4 to the roll if he just says "i said so"Posted 11th September 2008 at 05:38 PM by Atanatotatos
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