It doesn't make sense to get better at combats (leveling) by doing non-combat things. Veterans are better at combat than green recruits because they've been in combat. Irl, I rp encounters with my wife every day and I'm no better in combat (but maybe that's because I always lose and she's actually level 20 now from the exp). So that makes sense for melee, but what about wizards you reply. Casting under combat stress is no different - the confidence and the way it ingrains the skill. So you have to force the other two pillars through good design, like acquiring magic items through dungeon delving or to rp to gain powerful allies that would be necessary to defeat the enemy. You also need to avoid killing firebeetles and giant rats in the newbie area like an mmo, but again, that needs to be through good design.
Have we failed to discourage min-maxing?
Storyteller Hero
Adventurer
There are plenty of examples of non-combat things making people better at combat. For example, taking care of animals resulting in the mimicking of animal movements in martial arts.
You don't absolutely need actual combat experience to best a veteran (although it certainly helps) if the quality (or innovation) of your training can compensate in some way.
There is also the "magical" aspects of downtime that need to be considered: drinking the blood of an ancient war god passed down through generations, communing with the spirits of your ancestors, inventing a new training device that forcibly expands your magical circuits, etc.
Jabborwacky
First Post
The best way to understand how to introduce more social play into D&D may be to understand its roots. At its heart, it is the 5th generation in a legacy birthed by Gary Gygax and the Chainmail miniatures war game. In a game system focused on investigation or social play, there is usually only one skill for social checks. D&D has three due to previously existing combat maneuvers associated with each one. Deception was used for feints, intimidate was used for crowd control, and persuasion was used to bypass combat entirely (or, vaguely, "make it easier"). Adding more encounters where these skills could be useful seems the most obvious choice, but the other issue is that a single roll of the dice isn't the best way to resolve social challenges.
Combat is specifically designed to be very predictable in its outcome, with many small die rolls accumulating over multiple rounds, not to mention the strategies players can employ. By relying on a single d20 die roll, social checks are very unreliable by comparison. We can fix this by giving creative players a chance to recoup with additional persuasion/deception/intimidate dice by providing multiple points in the conversation where they can succeed. Another fix is to follow Monte Cooke's advice on what should happen when rolling a natural one. With both those fixes in place, it makes social skill checks more practical.
The only other thing I could suggest would be to politely ask WoTC to consider the possibility of viewing combat and social options as different ways to remove an obstacle from play. Ultimately, the enemy in an exchange of words isn't the creature being conversed with, but its animosity towards the player. The traditional magic spells used to assist with these kinds of situations have been designed in 5th edition to have a rebound effect, which greatly limits the players' options.
Short Version:
My suggestions for adding more social interaction in game are:
1. Give the players multiple chances to succeed during a conversation to make success more likely and social skill checks more reliable.
2. Monte Cooke's advice on natural one being a "GM intrusion" kind of deal. Maybe treat it as a 20, but with a drawback. It may not always be possible, but it could help in some places.
3. Make sure the players' know your intent ahead of time and drop in-game hints when it becomes an option. They won't choose an option if they don't know it exists.
Combat is specifically designed to be very predictable in its outcome, with many small die rolls accumulating over multiple rounds, not to mention the strategies players can employ. By relying on a single d20 die roll, social checks are very unreliable by comparison. We can fix this by giving creative players a chance to recoup with additional persuasion/deception/intimidate dice by providing multiple points in the conversation where they can succeed. Another fix is to follow Monte Cooke's advice on what should happen when rolling a natural one. With both those fixes in place, it makes social skill checks more practical.
The only other thing I could suggest would be to politely ask WoTC to consider the possibility of viewing combat and social options as different ways to remove an obstacle from play. Ultimately, the enemy in an exchange of words isn't the creature being conversed with, but its animosity towards the player. The traditional magic spells used to assist with these kinds of situations have been designed in 5th edition to have a rebound effect, which greatly limits the players' options.
Short Version:
My suggestions for adding more social interaction in game are:
1. Give the players multiple chances to succeed during a conversation to make success more likely and social skill checks more reliable.
2. Monte Cooke's advice on natural one being a "GM intrusion" kind of deal. Maybe treat it as a 20, but with a drawback. It may not always be possible, but it could help in some places.
3. Make sure the players' know your intent ahead of time and drop in-game hints when it becomes an option. They won't choose an option if they don't know it exists.
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This is the fallacy, I think. Leveling is not (just) about about combat. You're also better at exploring and social interaction as you level.
Part of the challenge, I think, though is that the vast majority of game mechanics are based on combat, that it feels ostensibly about combat.
It's a deeply rooted belief, concept, trope, or whatever that all around competence goes up with combat experience. Han vs Luke at the beginning, Aragorn in general, the way the hobbits got better from their exp in Moria. Combat experience does something special to people that you don't get otherwise. So you say what about parallel leveling systems- one for each of the pillars. Or, maybe a system where you have to get exp in each pillar to level. So that's where it gets too complex, so in order to utilize the other pillars needs good design.
Regarding downtime activities. Certainly training is necessary. Irl is boot camp. But it's the application of that training in combat that is necessary, else no one would do combat. Irl, no one wants to be in a combat because no matter how experienced you are, it is always dangerous. So, irl, everyone will try social or other skills to accomplish the task rather than engage in combats. So in game, we have the essential contradiction that the main reward is level up through combat. In past editions, they used gp as exp to push non-combat solutions. The de-emphasis on magical items is also a problem. Christmas tree characters were a problem, but now the problem is there's no reward for non-combat. Also no lure to dungeon delve. Smart characters would level up on random wilderness encounters to a point where the dungeon with +1 items has super easy encounters for them, then just plow through that for the items for overcoming resistances, then never dungeon dive again.
Anyway. I don't know the fix, but I do know that getting better at combat from not combat goes against some basic, deeply rooted instincts that all the best fantasy and adventure literature is based on.
Regarding downtime activities. Certainly training is necessary. Irl is boot camp. But it's the application of that training in combat that is necessary, else no one would do combat. Irl, no one wants to be in a combat because no matter how experienced you are, it is always dangerous. So, irl, everyone will try social or other skills to accomplish the task rather than engage in combats. So in game, we have the essential contradiction that the main reward is level up through combat. In past editions, they used gp as exp to push non-combat solutions. The de-emphasis on magical items is also a problem. Christmas tree characters were a problem, but now the problem is there's no reward for non-combat. Also no lure to dungeon delve. Smart characters would level up on random wilderness encounters to a point where the dungeon with +1 items has super easy encounters for them, then just plow through that for the items for overcoming resistances, then never dungeon dive again.
Anyway. I don't know the fix, but I do know that getting better at combat from not combat goes against some basic, deeply rooted instincts that all the best fantasy and adventure literature is based on.
mflayermonk
First Post
Your post reminds me of a Living Greyhawk module which featured a "Profession: Sailor" or die roll.
Anthraxus
Explorer
One of my favorite Living Greyhawk moments in the Shield Lands was in a module with a Keep, surrounded by farmland.
"Ooo.. I have Profession: Farmer, can I learn anything more?" And the DM had this surprised look on his face, reading the mod. "Yes, you can roll Profession: Farmer!"
We all remember the line about nearly all problems being nails then the solution used tends to be a hammer. Well if nearly all the mechanics are combat based and combat/non combat elements such as feats and spells utilize the same limited resource then of course often non combat will take a back seat. If character generation and growth mandated more rounded characters you would find more approaches being used by players.
?!?
This is completely out of left field, and it super weird, since # of XP points and # of milestones are the same thing on different scales, like fahrenheit and celcius.
