So, after 63 pages of discussions, I will summarise what I got so far for social mechanics (SM from here on out):
We can sort SM into the following categories, where people got different preferences:
- Player Skill vs Character abilities
- Narration POV
- Order of Play
- complexity of mechanics
- Meta-Knowledge
- ...
Player skill vs Character abilities
Here we have two extremes:
1. All social interaction is adjudicated only trough how well a player can portray his characters social interactions - aka how well he can formulate arguments, be persuasive or intimidating. The abilitites on the character sheet don't matter.
2. All social interaction is purley adjudicated trough game meachanics. No matter how or what the player does or says, it has now impact on the outcome of the social encounter. Only the mechanics (dice roll, character skill modifiers ...) have impact on the outcome.
Personally I think there is nobody who is on either end of the extreme, but both are usually used as strawmens to proof a point for the own point of view.
My standpoint on this is quite simple: Both should matter.
At my tables where I dm it work like this:
The player informs the DM about his intent and his approach, either trough playing his character (hello mr. guard, you look so handsome today) and using direct speech or via third person narration (my character tries to distract the guard by complimenting him, so that Jimmy can sneak more easily past him). Picking and describing the approach is the player skill part.
I as a DM now adjudicate this and set a DC based on the characteristics of the NPC, the approach taken.
Like, the base DC to distract any guard with flattery would be lets say 15 + the Giuards Wisdom-Modifier. Now this Guard is very avin (which the PCs could have found out beforehand), so I reduce the DC to 10 + Wisdom Modifier, so lets say 11. Now lets say the player characters found out that the Guard is really into Tabaxi, so the Tabaxi Monk is doing the flattery, so I reduce the DC further by 5, so now it would be 6.
I know the Tabaxi Monk has a decption modifier of +5 , so I don't even let him roll, he passes succesfully. Or it is a different Guard who doesn't like Tabaxi, now the DC goes up by 5 instead of down, and it is back to 16 and the PC has to roll for deception.
So it is a mixture of player skill (choosing the best approach, finding out stuff about the NPCs to use to their advantage, changing the circumstances ect.pp.) and mechanics (the character skills vs. the NPC characteristics on a base DC of usually 15).
Narrational POV
Does it matter if a Player speaks in Person or just descibes, what his Character is saying? That is the disccusion point here and there is again a spectrum from "should only speak in character" to it has 0 impact.
It is actually a sub-category of discussion of the Player Skill vs. Character ability point, but one that merits its own point.
Again, I'm somewhere in the middle of this. For me, how the player presents his characters approach matters - to a certain extent.
Usually a Player speaking in Character is giving more details on what his approach is.
So, a player saying "I'm distracting the guard by complimenting him" is less detailed of an approach than "I say to the guard 'Oh hello Mr. Guard, you are looking especially nice today. Do you work out? My, my ...', while touching his biceps."
So by being more detailed the Player can define his approach better and gives me more information for adjudicating it.
And how something is said is also part of the Information.
But, to be fair, theretically, a Player could also describe this in detail in a third person POV.
"My character is complimenting the guard, by telling him that he looks nice, that he looks athlethic, speaking in a sweet voice while getting touchy feely with him".
So for me a Player doesn't need to play in character - it is more about the level of detail the player is giving me which can help change the DC.
And from my experience, in general, Players speaking in Character are giving me more to work with than players who don't.
But this boni based on more details is smaller then other boni I give. So usually if I think the player played the approach out very well or he details it very well, I will adjust the DC up to another 3 points.
So using secrets can adjust the DC by up to 5.
Using the correct approach can adjust it by another 5. -- So these are the tactical and strategic player skills.
Playing it out well or giving me specific details so I can imagine better what the character is doing can adjust it by another 3 points. --- this is the more performative player skill.
Order of play
Basically, should there be a social initiative order of any kind?
Proponents of this say, that this helps shy players to not be outshined by more socially dominant players.
I'm firmly in the camp of no social initiative (unless ...). I think it destroys roleplay and the flow of the social part of the game.
It is the Job of the DM to make sure that no player is dominated by other players.
Combat is already super slow and I don't want my Social Encounters to also be in slow motion.
The exception to this for me would be, when the Ingame Reality forces an order into a social encounter, like a trial where it is very strict who is allowed to speak when.
Complexity of Mechanics
Here I would say in general that less is more, especially for the Player facing side.
But I would agree, that D&D 5e could us some more mechanics, like to leverage your background for example (as a noble having a bonus in high society, as a trader having a bonus on bartering) - so having more specialised advantages that are not connected to the Skill list or the Charisma score.
Also really leaning into the optional rule of using different abilitites with Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation. Like Intimidate with your strength, persuade the scholar with your intelligence and geek out together or use your constitution to goo on a drinking binge to befriend a dwarf are just some examples that come to my mind.
Additionally having better systems for DMs to keep track of more complex social situations would be great. Skill Challenges are fine and DMs who never played 4e Skill Challenges are basically reinventing them when they encounter more complex situation. I prefer dynamic goals (like Moral, Loyality points) to fixed goals (3 successes before 3 failures), but both can work, but ...
Metaknowledge
I wouldn't tell the players the amount of successes they need or the Loyalty Score of a retainer or the Moral Score of a Monster the same way I wouldn't tell them how much HP a monster has remaining.
As a general rule, I try to tell players only that, what their characters can perceive or know and only if there is no other option, I would impart Metaknowledge onto them.
I think that this general rule helps create an immersive game experience, where the players feel, that they are really part of a fantastic fantasy story.
I think think that splitting the Social Mechanics discussion in different catagories can improve the discussio, because when reading this thread it is obvious that this is all mixed up while even the proponontes of more social mechanics have very different views on the different categories of social mechanics.
