D&D 4E Social interactions in 4E

[RFisher]

Yeah! And those stupid combat rules! When I play, I just think about the character, then the monster, and then figure out by myself how likely it is for the character to succeed in his attack. He then rolls a percentile die, and if his percentage succeeds the percentile chance I came up with, he hits.

I never buy roleplaying rulebooks, and I think everyone who does is an amateur. If I can do complicated calculations in my head and quantify the virtues of fictional entities, why would anyone need books telling them how combat worked?

So true, so true. As Gary once said...

The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.

It is quite liberating when you go free-form & realize that you really don't need all those rules. Free-form combat--which at its best tends to be more like Fudge story-element combat--can be a particularly refreshing change from the typical round-by-round resolution.

Yeah. I always wonder why people so often begrudge people playing characters with mental abilities greater than their own.

If that's what I saw happen, I wouldn't. All too often "mental" skills (or nigh any skills outside of combat) have made the PCs seem less competent than they should be rather than more competent than the players. I'm hoping that 4e treating such skills more like combat will help me correct that.

 

[drquestion]

Burning Wheel and Shadow of Yesterday are exactly the two games I was thinking about.

Man, it'd be great to have 4e have social combat along the lines of Burning Wheel.

For those who are skeptics, have you ever used a system that includes good social combat rules? I was a bit hesitant myself at first, until I played a social character using the Duel of Wits rules in Burning Wheel. It was great! I loved having to pick a "maneuver" that I wanted to use tactically, and then thinking of something plausible to say that would fit with it. It made for some great, rollicking, back-and-forth arguments.

As others have said, if the system has some kind of stakes-setting, then it helps avoid "losing by winning" scenarios, where I've got a good skill in Diplomacy, or whatever, make a good speech, and make a good roll, but still don't get what I want because there are no clear rules for exactly what happens. On the other hand, it may mean that there's more of a downside for me if the NPC wins.

Another potential positive is that it makes the social part of the game more engaging for tactically-oriented players, although I suppose the flip side is that the player who isn't really interested in the rules and mostly just wants to act a character could get frustrated.

 

[Victim]

Some kind of stake setting or bribery mechanic for social interaction would be preferable to the persuade hammer approach.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If that's what I saw happen, I wouldn't. All too often "mental" skills (or nigh any skills outside of combat) have made the PCs seem less competent than they should be rather than more competent than the players.

I usually crush stuff like that mercilessly: if you play a character with int and cha 6, but try to play big smart diplomat, you'll find that the scores on the sheets are as much part of the music as the song you're singing. The "please" you used will be perceived as mocking, the characer's tone will be a lot gruffer than the player's, and so on.


Anyway, I've seen many focussed casters whose ing went beyond 20. That means something like super genius with a platinum tongue. Few people can call themselves that, but many like to play characters like that.

 

[DonTadow]

Some kind of stake setting or bribery mechanic for social interaction would be preferable to the persuade hammer approach.

What do you mean by stake setting?

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

When I read the OP the first thing I thought of were Exalted social combat rules. Be interesting to see for all that I'm not sure how much use I'd make of it. Specially since I never got around to doing a HR'ed d20 port of it myself.

 

[buzz]

What do you mean by stake setting?

It means that each side in the conflict agrees to what is being resolved, and generally what the consequences of success or failure are, before any dice are rolled.

E.g., "If I win the conflict, the duke agrees not to assault the keep with his armies. If you win, the duke will start laying siege at dawn."

You could then have compromise results, depending on the resolution system. E.g., you convince the duke to at least wait 24 hours before marching his troops.

 

[DonTadow]

Man, it'd be great to have 4e have social combat along the lines of Burning Wheel.

For those who are skeptics, have you ever used a system that includes good social combat rules? I was a bit hesitant myself at first, until I played a social character using the Duel of Wits rules in Burning Wheel. It was great! I loved having to pick a "maneuver" that I wanted to use tactically, and then thinking of something plausible to say that would fit with it. It made for some great, rollicking, back-and-forth arguments.

As others have said, if the system has some kind of stakes-setting, then it helps avoid "losing by winning" scenarios, where I've got a good skill in Diplomacy, or whatever, make a good speech, and make a good roll, but still don't get what I want because there are no clear rules for exactly what happens. On the other hand, it may mean that there's more of a downside for me if the NPC wins.

Another potential positive is that it makes the social part of the game more engaging for tactically-oriented players, although I suppose the flip side is that the player who isn't really interested in the rules and mostly just wants to act a character could get frustrated.

For those looking for a similiar system for their 3.5 campaign, there's a great social system add on called dynasties and demoagogues. Social maneuvers are awesome and done well, integrate into the game. For instance my pcs were in a debate and there were about a half dozen maneuvers they had prepared mud-slinging, fact corrections. They role played them out, and made rolls. It was a heck of a lot of fun and added another layer to rp'n.

 

[Stalker0]

I think social combat rules are good as long as their clean and simple. Since social stuff tends to involve a lot of talking, you don't want to get caught up asking rules questions.

But having seen a few good social combat systems, I think it can be done.

Further, regardless of what is done, I hope they place lots of examples in the book. This is what is missing so often in my opinion. A few well crafted examples is worth 1000 pages of rules explanations, and in the vague world of social mechanics, that can be worth quite a lot.

 

[Glyfair]

David Noonan's blog has some comments about playtesting the social interaction rules.

3) The system we were testing involves skill checks (big surprise, huh?). One of the things I found fascinating was that some players preferred to deliver their dialogue, then roll the skill check and report the result. Others preferred to roll the skill check first, then deliver dialogue that matched their result (good or bad). The system works either way, so I might just make it explicit that you can "roll, then talk" or "talk, then roll."

4) There is a totally valid D&D playstyle that haaaaates the idea of social interactions being resolved with a die roll. This system should work for that playstyle, too, once you flip a few switches. That just isn't the playstyle we were testing last night.

The upshot? We had about 20 minutes of great dialogue at the table, then the lich was sufficiently convinced that the dragon was dangerously insane that he cautiously aided the PCs in attacking the dragon. Of course the lich turned on the PCs as the dragon fight was winding down. But the social challenge mattered, because the PCs were able to fight the dragon (with a little help), then fight the lich. That sure beats fighting dragon + lich.